Even then, Eileen did not ask me for help. It was I who thought of asking for Dave as my assistant during the campaign and went ahead with it, merely writing to let her know what I was doing. Now that I had begun the deal, I was not at all sure why, my-seJf, and even a little uncomfortable about it, as when Dave tried to thank me, after we finally got rid of our guide and headed in toward Molon, the nearest large city behind the lines.
“Save it!” I snapped at him. “All I’ve done for you so far’s been the easy part. You’re going to have to go into those lines with me as a noncombatant, carrying no weapons. And to do that, you’ve got to have a pass signed by both sides. That isn’t going to be easy, for someone who was laying the sights of his spring-rifle on Friendly soldiers less than eight hours ago!”
He shut up at that. He was abashed. He was plainly hurt by the fact that I wouldn’t let him thank me. But it stopped him talking and that was all I cared about.
We got orders cut by his Battle Headquarters, assigning him permanently to me; and then finished our ride by platform into Molon, where I left him in a hotel room with my gear, explaining that I’d be back for him in the morning.
“I’m to stay in the room?” he asked, as I was leaving.
“Do what you want, damn it!” I said. “I’m not your Groupman. Just be here by nine in the morning, local time, when I get back.”
I went out. It was only after I closed the door behind me that I realized both what was driving him and eating me. He thought we might spend a few hours getting to know each other as brothers-in-law, and something in me set my teeth on edge at the prospect. I’d save his life for him for Eileen’s sake, but that was no reason why I had to associate with him.
New Earth and Freiland, as everyone knows, are brother planets under the sun of Sirius. That makes them close-not so close as Venus-Earth-Mars clumping, naturally-but close enough so that from orbit New Earth you can make orbit Freiland in a single shift jump with a good but not excellent statistical chance of reaching your goal with minimum error. For those, then, who aren’t afraid of a little risk in travel between the worlds, you can go from one planet to the other in about an hour-half an hour up to orbit station, no time at all for the jump, and half an hour down to surface at the end of the trip.
That was the way I went, and two hours after leaving my brother-in-law, I was showing my hard-wangled invitation to the doorman at the entrance of the establishment of Hendrik Gait, First Marshal of Freiland’s battle forces.
The invitation was to a party being held for a man not so well known then as he has since become, a Dorsai (as Gait of course was a Dorsai) Space Sub-Patrol Chief named Donal Graeme. This was Graeme’s first emergence into the public eye. He had just completed an utterly foolhardy attack on the planetary defenses of Newton, with something like four or five ships-an attack that had been lucky enough to relieve Newtonian pressure on Oriente, an uninhabited sister world of Freiland and New Earth, and get Gait’s planetary forces out of a bad tactical hole.
He was, I judged at the time, a wild-eyed military gambler of some sort-his kind usually were. But my business, happily, was not with him, anyway. It was with some of the influential people who should be at this party of his.
In particular, I wanted the co-signature of the Freiland News Services Department Chief on Dave’s papers-not that this would imply any actual protection extended to my brother-in-law by the News Services. That type of protection was extended only to Guild members and, with reservations, to apprentices on trial like myself. But to the uninitiate, like a soldier in the field, it might well look as if News Service protection was implied. Then, in addition, I wanted the signature of someone ranking among the Friendly mercenaries, for Dave’s protection, in case he and I should fall in with some of their soldiers on the battlefield during the campaign.
I found the News Services Department Chief, a reasonable pleasant Earthman named Nuy Snelling, without difficulty. He gave me no trouble about noting on Dave’s pass that the News Services agreed to Dave’s assisting me and signing the message.
“Of course you know,” he said, “this isn’t worth a hoot.” He eyed me curiously, as he handed the pass back. “This Dave Hall some friend of yours?”
“Brother-in-law,” I answered.
“Hmm,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Well, good luck.” And he turned away to talk to an Exotic in blue robes-who, with a sudden shock, I recognized as Padma.
The shock was severe enough so that I committed an imprudence I had not been guilty of for several years, at least, that of speaking without thinking.
“Padma-OutBond!” I said, the words jolted from me. “What are you doing here?”
Snelling, stepping back so as to have both of us in view at once, raised his eyebrows again. But Padma answered before my superior in the Services could take me to task for a pretty obvious rudeness. Padma was under no compulsion to account to me for his whereabouts. But he did not seem to take offense.
“I could ask you the same thing, Tarn,” he said, smiling.
I had my wits back by that time.
“I go where the news is,” I answered. It was the stock News Services answer. But Padma chose to take it literally.
“And, in a sense, so do I,” he said. “Remember I spoke to you once about a pattern, Tarn? This place and moment is a locus.”
I did not know what he was talking about; but having begun the conversation, I could not let go of it easily.
“Is that so?” I said smiling. “Nothing to do with me, I hope?”
“Yes,” he said. And ail at once I was aware once more of his hazel eyes, looking at and deep into me. “But more with Donal Graeme.”
“That’s only fair, I suppose,” I said, “since the party’s in his honor.” And I laughed, while trying to think of some excuse to escape. Padma’s presence was making the skin crawl at the back of my neck. It was as if he had some occult effect on me, so that I could not think clearly when he was present. “By the way, whatever happened to that girl who brought me to Mark Torre’s office that day? Lisa… Kant, I think her name was.”
“Yes, Lisa,” said Padma, his eyes steady on me. “She’s here with me. She’s my personal secretary now. I imagine you’ll bump into her shortly. She’s concerned about saving you.”
“Saving him?” put in Snelling, lightly, but interestedly enough. It was his job, as it was the job of all full Guild members, to observe the Apprentices for anything that might affect their acceptability into the Guild.
“From himself,” said Padma, his hazel eyes still watching me, as smoky and yellow as the eyes of a god or a demon.
“Then, I’d better see if I can’t look her up myself and let her get on with it,” I said lightly in my turn, grasping at the opportunity to get away. “I’ll see you both later perhaps.”
“Perhaps,” said Snelling. And I went off.
As soon as I had lost myself in the crowd, I ducked toward one of the entrances to the stairways leading up to the small balconies that looked down around the walls of the room, like opera boxes in a theater. It was no plan of mine to be trapped by that strange girl, Lisa Kant, whom I remembered with too much vividness anyway. Five years before, after the occasion at the Final Encyclopedia, I had been bothered, time and again, by the desire to go back to the Enclave and look her up. And, time and again, something like a fear had stopped me.
I knew what the fear was. Deep in me was the irrational feeling that the perception and ability I had been evolving for handling people, as I had first handled my sister in the library with Jamethon Black, and as I had later handled all who got in my path right up to Commandant Frane, earlier that same day and a world away-deep in me, I say, was the fear that something would rob me of this power in the face of any attempt of mine to handle Lisa Kant.
Therefore, I found a stairway and ran up it, onto a little, deserted balcony with a few chairs around a circular table. From here I should be able to spot Eldest Bright, Chief Elder of the Joint Church Council that ruled both Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association. Bright was a Militant-one of the ruling Friendly churchmen who believed most strongly in war as a means to any end-and he had been paying a brief visit to New Earth to see how the Friendly mercenaries were working out for their New Earth employers. A scribble from him on Dave’s pass would be better protection for my brother-in-law from the Friendly troops than five Commands of Cassidan armor.