“Good-by, Ev,” he said. She took another, stiff-legged step back from him, then another, and then she turned and fled. He turned about to see the shocked faces of those nearby upon him.
His glance went among them like a scythe, and (hey fell away before it. He walked forward through them and out of the hall as if he had been alone in the room.
He was pacing back and forth in the bare isolation of the marshal’s office, walking off the charge of adrenalin that had surged through him on the heels of his emotion, when the door opened. He turned like a wolf; but it was only Lee. “You need me?” asked Lee. The three words broke the spell. The tension in him snapped suddenly; and he burst out laughing. He laughed so long and loud that the Cobyman’s eyes became shadowed first with puzzlement, and then with a sort of fear.
“No … no … it’s all right,” he gasped at last. He had a fastidiousness about casually touching people; but now he clapped Lee on the shoulder to reassure him, so unhappy did the lean man look. “See if you can find me a drink—some Dorsai whisky.”
Lee turned and left the room. He was back in seconds with a tulip-shaped glass holding perhaps a deciliter of the bronze whisky. Donal drank it down, grateful for the burn in his throat.
“Learn anything about William?” He handed the glass back to Lee.
Lee shook his head.
“Not surprised,” murmured Donal. He frowned. “Have you seen ArDell Montor around—that Newtonian that came with William?”
Lee nodded.
“Can you show me where I can find him?”
Lee nodded again. He led Donal out onto the ter- race, down a short distance, and in through an open wall to the library. There, in one of the little separate reading cubicles, he found ArDell alone with a bottle and some books.
“Thanks, Lee,” said DonaJ. Lee vanished. Donal came forward and sat down at the small table in the cubicle opposite ArDell and his bottle.
“Greetings,” said ArDell, looking up. He was not more than slightly drunk by his own standards. “Hoping to talk to you.”
“Why didn’t you come up to my room?” asked Donal.
“Not done,” ArDell refilled his glass, glanced about the table for another and saw only a vase with some small native variform lilies in it. He dumped these on the floor, filled the vase and passed it politely to Donal.
“No thanks,” said Donal.
“Hold it anyway,” ArDell said. “Makes me uncomfortable, drinking with a man who won’t drink. No, besides, better to just bump into each other.” He looked at Donal suddenly with one of his unexpected flashes of soberness and shrewdness. “He’s at it again.”
“William?”
“Who else?” ArDell drank. “But what would he be going with Project Blaine?” ArDell shook his head. “There’s a man. And a scientist. Make two of any of the rest of us. Can’t see him leading Blaine around by the nose—but still .. .”
“Unfortunately,” said Donal, “we are all tied to the business end of our existence by the red tape in our contracts. And it’s in business William shines.”
“But he doesn’t make sense!” ArDell twisted the glass in his hands. “Take me. Why would he want to ruin me? But he does.” He chuckled suddenly. “I’ve got him scared now.”
“You have?” asked Donal. “How?”
ArDell tapped the bottle with one forefinger.
“This. He’s afraid I may kill myself. Evidently he doesn’t want that.”
“Will you?” asked Donal, bluntly.
ArDell shook his head.
“I don’t know. Could I come out of it, now? It’s been five years. I started it deliberately to spite him—didn’t even like the stuff, like you. Now, I wonder. I’ll tell you”—he leaned forward over the table—”they can cure me, of course. But would I be any good now, if they did? Math—it’s a beautiful thing. Beautiful like art. That’s the way I remember it; but I’m not sure. Not sure at all any more.” He shook his head again. “When the time comes to dump this,” he pointed again at the bottle, “you need something that means more to you. I don’t know if work does, any more.”
“How about William?” asked Donal.
“Yes,” said ArDell slowly, “there is him. That would do it. One of these days I’m going to find out why he did this to me. Then—”
“What does he seem to be after?” asked Donal. “I mean, in general?”
“Who knows?” ArDell threw up his hands. “Business. More business. Contracts—more contracts.
Agreements with every government, a finger in every honey-pot. That’s our William.”
“Yes,” said Donal. He pushed back his float and stood up.
“Sit down,” said ArDell. “Stop and talk. You never sit still for more than a second or two. For the love of peace, you’re the only man between the stars I can talk to, and you won’t sit still.”
“I’m sorry,” Donal said. “But there’re things I have to do. A day’ll come, maybe, when we can sit down and talk.”
“I doubt it,” muttered ArDell. “I doubt it very much.”
Donal left him there, staring at his bottle.
He went in search of the marshal; but it was Anea he encountered first, standing upon a small balcony, deserted except for herself; and gazing out over the hall, directly below, with an expression at the same time so tired and so longing that he was suddenly and deeply moved by the sight of it.
He approached her, and she turned at the sound of his footsteps. At the sight of him, her expression changed.
“You again,” she said, in no particularly welcome tone.
“Yes,” said Donal, brusquely. “I meant to search you out later, but this is too good a chance to pass up.”
‘Too good.”
“I mean you’re alone … I mean I can talk to you privately,” said Donal, impatiently.
She shook her head.
“We’ve got nothing to talk about,” she said.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Donal. “Of course we have—unless you’ve given over your campaign against William.”
“Well!” The word leaped from her lips and her eyes flashed their green fire at him. “Who do you think you are!” she cried furiously. “Who ever gave you the right to have any say about what I do?”
“I’m part Maran through both my grandmothers,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I feel a sense of responsibility to you.”
“I don’t believe it!” she snapped. “About you being part Maran, that is. You couldn’t be part Maran, someone like you, a—” she checked, fumbling for words.
“Well?” He smiled a little grimly at her. “A what?”
“A … mercenary*” she cried triumphantly, finding at last the word that would hurt him the most, in her misinterpretation of it.
He was hurt, and angered; but he managed to conceal it. This girl had the ability to get through his defenses on the most childish level, where a man like William could not.
“Never mind that,” he said. “My question was about you and William. I told you not to try intriguing against him the last time I saw you. Have you followed that advice?”
“Well, I certainly don’t have to answer that question,” she blazed directly at him. “And I won’t.”
“Then,” he said, finding suddenly an insight into her mat was possibly a natural compensation for her unusual perceptiveness where he was concerned. “You have. I’m glad to know that.” He turned to go. “I’ll leave you now.”
“Wait a minute,” she cried. He turned back to her. “I didn’t do it because of you!”
“Didn’t you?”
Surprisingly, her eyes wavered and fell.
“All right!” she said. “It just happened your ideas coincided with mine.”
“Or, that what I said was common sense,” he retorted, “and being the person you are, you couldn’t help seeing it.”
She looked fiercely up at him again.
“So he just goes on … and I’m chained to him for another ten years with options—”
“Leave that part to me,” said Donal.
Her mouth opened.
“You!” she said; and her astonishment was so great that the word came out in a tone of honest weakness.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“You!” she cried. And the word was entirely different this time. “You put yourself in opposition to a man like William—” she broke off suddenly, turning away. “Oh!” she said angrily, “I don’t know why I keep listening to you as if you were actually telling the truth—when I know what kind of person you are.”
“You don’t know anything at all about what kind . of a person I am!” he snapped, nettled again. “I’ve done a few things since you first saw me.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, “you’ve had a man shot, and pretended to bomb a planet.”
“Good-by,” he said, wearily, turning away. He went out through the little balcony entrance, abruptly leaving her standing there; and unaware that he had left her, not filled with the glow of righteous indignation and triumph she had expected, but oddly disconcerted and dismayed.