I headed back to the spacefield and took the first shuttle to orbit and shift back to New Earth. But on the way, I had a chance to cool down. I faced the fact that it was still worthwhile getting Dave’s pass signed. I might have to send him off for some reason of his own. An accident might even separate us on the battlefield. Any one of a number of things could occur to put him in trouble where I would not be around to save him.
With Eldest Bright a lost cause, I was left with the only option of heading to military headquarters of the Friendly troops in North Partition, to seek the signature for Dave’s pass there. Accordingly, as soon as I hit orbit New Earth, I changed my ticket for Contrevale, the North Partition city right behind the lines of the Friendly mercenaries.
All this took some little time. It was after midnight by the time I had gotten from Contrevale to Battle Headquarters of the North Partition Forces. My Newsman’s pass got me admission to the Headquarters’ area, which seemed strangely deserted even for this time of night. But, when I pulled in at last before the Command building, I was surprised at the number of floaters parked there in the Officers* area.
Once again, my pass got me past a silent-faced, black-clothed guard with spring-rifle at the ready. I stepped into the reception room, with its long counter clipping it in half before me and the tall wall transparencies showing the full parking area under its night lights behind me. Only one man was behind the counter at one of the desks there, a Groupman hardly older than myself, but with his iace already hardened into the lines of grim and merciless self-discipline to be observed on some of these people.
He got up from his desk and came to the other side of the counter as I approached the near side.
“I’m a Newsman of the Interstellar News Service,” I began. “I’m looking for-”
“Thy papers!”
The interruption was harsh and nasal. The black eyes in the bony face stared into mine; and the archaic choice of the pronoun was all but flung in my face. Grim contempt, amounting nearly to a hatred on sight, leaped like a spark from him to me, as he held out his hand for the papers he had requested- and like a lion roused from slumber by the roar of an enemy, my own hatred leaped back at him, instinctively, before I could leash it with cooler reflection and wisdom.
I had heard of his breed of Friendly, but never until this moment had I come face to face with one. This was one of those from Harmony or Association who used the canting version of their private speech not just privately among themselves, but indifferently toward all men and women. He was one of those who avoided all personal joy in life, as he avoided any softness of bed or fullness of belly. His life was a trial-at-arms, antechamber only for the life to come, that life to come that was possible only to those who had kept the true faith-and to only those who, in keeping the true faith, had in addition been Chosen of die Lord.
It did not matter to this man that he was no more than a noncommissioned officer, a lesser functionary among thousands such, from a poor and stony planet, and I was one of only a few hundred on sixteen inhabited worlds intensively educated, trained and privileged to wear the Newsman’s cloak. It made no difference to nun that I was a member or Apprentice of the Guild, that I could talk with the rulers of planets. It did not even matter that I knew him to be half a madman and he knew me to be a product of education and training many times his own. None of this mattered, for he was one of God’s Elect, and I was without the shadow of his church; and so he looked on me as an emperor might look at a dog to be kicked from his path.
And I looked back at him. There is a counter for every human emotional blow, deliberately given. Who knew this better than I? And I knew well the counter to anyone who tries to look down his nose at you. That counter is laughter. There never was a throne yet built so high that it could not be rocked by laughter from below. But I looked at this Group-man now, and I could not laugh.
I could not laugh for a very simple reason. For half-mad as he was, narrow-minded, limited as he was, yet he would have calmly let himself be burned at the stake rather than give up the lightest tenet of his beliefs. While / could not have held one finger in a match flame one minute to uphold the greatest of my own.
And he knew I knew that was true of him. And he knew I knew he knew what was true of me. Our mutual knowledge was plain as the counter between us. And so I could not laugh at him, and win my self-respect back. And I hated him for it.
I gave him my papers. He looked them over. Then he handed them back to me.
“Thy papers are in order,” he said, high in his nose. “What brings thee here?”
“A pass,” I said, putting my own papers away and digging out Dave’s. “For my assistant. You see, we move back and forth on bom sides of the battle line and-”
“Behind our lines and across them, no pass is necessary. Thy Newsman’s papers are sufficient.” He turned as if to go back to his desk.
“But this assistant of mine”-I kept my voice level-“doesn’t have Newsman’s papers. I just took him on earlier today and I haven’t had time to make arrangements for him. What I’d like would be a temporary pass, signed by one of your Headquarters’ officers here-”
He had turned back to the counter.
“Thy assistant is no Newsman?”
“Not officially. No. But-”
“Then he hath no leave or freedom to move across our battle lines. No pass can be issued.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said carefully. “I was going to get one from your Eldest Bright, at a party on Freiland, just a few hours back, but he left before I had a chance to get it from him.” I stopped, for the Groupman was grimly shaking his head.
“Brother Bright,” he said, and in his choice of title I saw at last that he would be immovable. Only the purest of the fanatics among the Friendlies scorned the necessities of rank amongst themselves. Eldest Bright might order my Groupman to charge an enemy gun emplacement bare-handed and my Groupman would not hesitate to obey. But that did not mean that my Groupman considered Bright, or Brother Blight’s opinion of the rightness of things, to be better than his own.
The reason was a very simple one. Bright’s rank and title were of this present life, and therefore, in my Groupman’s eyes, no more than toys and dross and tinkling cymbals. They did not weigh with the fact that as Brothers of the Elect, he and the Groupman were equal in the sight of the Lord.
“Broker Bright,” he said, “could not have issued a pass to one not qualified to go and come among our numbers and perhaps be a spy upon us to the favor of our enemies.”
There was one last card to play, and it was, I knew, a losing card; but I might as well play it anyway.
“If you don’t mind,” I said. “I’d like to get an answer on this from one of your superior officers. Please call one-the Officer of the Day, if no one else’s available.”
But he turned and went back to sit down at his desk.
“The Officer of the Day,” he said, with finality, returning to some papers he had been working on, “can give thee no other answer. Neither will I summon him from his duties to repeat what I have already told thee.”
It was like the crashing down of an iron portcullis upon my plans to get that pass signed. But there was nothing to be gained by arguing further with this man. I turned about and left the building.
CHAPTER 8
As the door shut behind me, I paused on the top of the three steps leading up it, to try to think what I could do next. What I would do next. I had gone over, under, or around what seemed to be immovable barriers of human decision too many times to give up so easily. Somewhere, there must be a back entrance to what I wanted, a trapdoor, a crack in the wall. I glanced again at the officers’ parking area, jammed with floaters.