The soldier faded out of the room. Ian led me to the old man.
“El Conde,” he said, still in Spanish, “may I introduce Captain Corunna El Man. Captain, you have the honor of meeting El Conde de Nahar, Macias Francisco Ram6n Manuel Valentin y Compostela y Abente.”
“You are welcome, Captain El Man,” said the Con-
de. He spoke a more correct, if more archaic, Spanish than that of the other Naharese I had so far met; and his voice was the thin remnant of what once must have been a remarkable bass. “We will sit down now, if you please. If my age produces a weakness, it is that it is wearisome to stand for any length of time.”
We settled ourselves in heavy, overstuffed chairs with massively padded arms—more like thrones than chairs.
“Captain El Man,” said Ian, “happened to be on leave, back on the Dorsai. He volunteered to bring Amanda Morgan here to discuss the present situation with the Governors. She’s talking to them now.”
“I have not met. . .” the Conde hesitated over her name, “Amanda Morgan.”
“She is one of our experts of the sort that the present situation calls for.”
“I would like to meet her.”
“She’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“Possibly this evening? I would have liked to have had all of you to dinner, but you know, I suppose, that most of my servants have gone.”
“I just learned that,” said Ian.
“They may go,” said the Conde. “They will not be allowed to return. Nor will the regiments who have deserted their duty be allowed to return to my armed forces.”
“With the Conde’s indulgence,” said Ian, “we don’t yet know all the reasons for their leaving. It may be that some leniency is justified.”
“I can think of none.” The Conde’s voice was thin with age, but his back was as erect as a flagstaff and his dark eyes did not waver. “But, if you think there is
some reason for it, I can reserve judgment momentarily-“
“We’d appreciate that,” Ian said.
“You are very lenient.” The Conde looked at me. His voice took on an unexpected timbre. “Captain, has the Commander here told you? Those deserters out there—“ he flicked a finger toward the window and the plains beyond, “under the instigation of people calling themselves revolutionaries, have threatened to take over Gebel Nahar. If they dare to come here, I and what few loyal servants remain will resist. To the death!”
“The Governors—“ Ian began.
“The Governors have nothing to say in the matter! “ the Conde turned fiercely on him. “Once, they—their fathers and grandfathers, rather—chose my father to be El Conde. I inherited that title and neither they, nor anyone else in the universe has the authority to take it from me. While I live, I will be El Conde; and the only way I will cease to be El Conde will be when death takes me. I will remain, I will fight—alone if need be —as long as I am able. But I will retreat, never! I will compromise, never!”
He continued to talk, for some minutes; but although his words changed, the message of them remained the same. He would not give an inch to anyone who wished to change the governmental system in Nahar. If he had been obviously uninformed or ignorant of the implications of what he was saying, it would have been easy to let his words blow by unheeded. But this was obviously not the case. His frailty was all in the thin old body. His mind was not only clear but fully aware of the situation. What he an-
nounced was simply an unshakable determination never to yield in spite of reason or the overwhelming odds against him.
After a while he ran down. He apologized graciously for his emotion, but not for his attitude; and, after a few minutes more of meaninglessly polite conversation on the history of Gebel Nahar itself, let us leave.
“So you see part of our problem,” said Ian to me when we were alone again, walking back to his offices.
We went a little distance together in silence.
“Part of that problem,” I said, “seems to lie in the difference between our idea of honor, and theirs, here.”
“And William’s complete lack of it,” said Ian. “You’re right. With us, honor’s a matter of the individual’s obligation to himself and his community —which can end up being to the human race in general. To the Naharese, honor’s an obligation only to their own soul.”
I laughed, involuntarily.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as he looked at me. “But you hit it almost too closely. Did you ever read Calderon’s poem about the Mayor of Zalamea?”
“I don’t think so. Calderon?”
“Pedro Calderon de la Barca, seventeenth century Spanish poet. He wrote a poem called El Alcalde de alamea.”
I gave him the lines he had reminded me of. Al Rey la hacienda y la vida Se ha de dar; pen el honor Es patnmonio del alma T el alma solo es de Dws.
“ ‘—Fortune and life we owe to the King,’ “ murmured
Ian, “ ‘but honor is patrimony of the soul and the soul belongs to God alone.’ I see what you mean.”
I started to say something, then decided it was too much effort. I was aware of Ian glancing sideways at me as we went.
“When did you eat last?” he asked.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “But I don’t particularly need food right now.”
“You need sleep, then,” said Ian, “I’m not surprised, after the way you made it here from the Dorsai. When we get back to the office, I’ll call one of Michael’s men to show you your quarters, and you’d better sleep in. I can make your excuses to the Conde if he still wants us all to get together tonight.”
“Yes. Good,” I said. “I’d appreciate that.”
Now that I had admitted to tiredness, it was an effort even to think. For those who have never navigated between the stars, it is easy to forget the implications in the fact that the danger increases rapidly with the distance moved in a single shift—beyond a certain safe amount of light-years. We had exceeded safe limits as far as I had dared push them on each of the six shifts that had brought Amanda and myself to Ceta.
It’s not just that danger—the danger of finding yourself with so large an error in destination that you cannot recognize any familiar star patterns from which to navigate. It is the fact that even when you emerge in known space, a large error factor requires infinitely more recalculation to locate your position. It is vital to locate yourself to a fine enough point so that your error on the next shift will not be compounded and you will find yourself lost beyond repair.
For three days I had had no more than catnaps be-
tween periods of calculation. I was numb with a fatigue I had held at bay until this moment with the body adrenalin that can be evoked to meet an emergency situation.
When the bandsman supplied by Ian had shown me at last to a suite of rooms, I found I wanted nothing more than to collapse on the enormous bed in the bedroom. But years of instinct made me prowl the quarters first and check them out. My suite consisted of three rooms and bathroom; and it had the inevitable plains-facing window wall—with one difference. This one had a door in it to let me out onto a small balcony that ran the length of this particular level. It was divided into a semi-private outdoor area for each suite by tall plants in pots which acted as screens at each division point.
I checked the balcony area and the suite, locked the doors to the hall and to the balcony, and slept.
It was sometime after dark when I awoke, suddenly. I was awake and sitting up on the edge of the bed in one reflex movement before it registered that what had roused me had been the sound of the call chime at the front door of my suite.
I reached over and keyed on the annunciator circuit.
“Yes?” I said. “Who is it?”
“Michael de Sandoval,” said Michael’s voice, “can I come in?”
I touched the stud that unlocked the door. It swung open, letting a knife-blade sharp swath of light from the corridor into the darkness of my sitting room, as seen through the entrance from my bedroom. I was up on my feet now, and moving to meet him in the sitting room. He entered and the door closed behind him.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The ventilating system is out on this level,” he said; and I realized that the air in the suite was now perfectly motionless—motionless and beginning to be a little warm and stuffy. Evidently Gebel Nahar had been designed to be sealed against outside atmosphere.