The great mass of the interstellar ship settled like a cautious mountain to the concrete two hundred yards off. It protruded a landing stair near its base like a metal leg, and the passengers began to disembark. The two policemen spotted their man immediately in the crowd.
“He’s big,” said Breagan, with the judicious ap-
praisal of someone safely on the sidelines, as the two of them moved forward.
“They’re all big, these professional military men off the Dorsai world,” answered Tyburn, a little irritably, shrugging his shoulders against the cold, under his cloak. “They breed themselves that way.”
“I know they’re big,” said Breagan. “This one’s bigger.”
The first wave of passengers was rolling toward them now, their quarry among the mass. Tyburn and Breagan moved forward to meet him. When they got close they could see, even through the hissing sleet, every line of his dark, unchanging face looming above the lesser heights of the people around him, his military erectness molding the civilian clothes he wore until they might as well have been a uniform. Tyburn found himself staring fixedly at the tall figure as it came toward him. He had met such professional soldiers from the Dorsai before, and the stamp of their breeding had always been plain on them. But this man was somehow more so, even than the others Tyburn had seen. In some way he seemed to be the spirit of the Dorsai, incarnate.
He was one of twin brothers, Tyburn remembered now from the dossier back at his office. Ian and Kensie were their names, of the Graeme family at Foralie, on the Dorsai. And the report was that Kensie had two men’s likability, while his brother Ian, now approaching Tyburn, had a double portion of grim shadow and solitary darkness.
Staring at the man coming toward him, Tyburn could believe the dossier now. For a moment, even, with the sleet and the cold taking possession of him, he found himself believing in the old saying that, if the born soldiers of the Dorsai ever cared to pull back to
their own small, rocky world, and challenge the rest of humanity, not all the thirteen other inhabited planets could stand against them. Once, Tyburn had laughed at that idea. Now, watching Ian approach, he could not laugh. A man like this would live for different reasons from those of ordinary men—and die for different reasons.
Tyburn shook off the wild notion. The figure coming toward him, he reminded himself sharply, was a professional military man—nothing more.
Ian was almost to them now. The two policemen moved in through the crowd and intercepted him.
“Commandant Ian Graeme?” said Breagan. “I’m Kaj Breagan of the spaceport police. This is Lieutenant Walter Tyburn of the Manhattan Complex Force. I wonder if you could give us a few minutes of your time?”
Ian Graeme nodded, almost indifferently. He turned and paced along with them, his longer stride making more leisurely work of their brisk walking, as they led him away from the route of the disembarking passengers and in through a blank metal door at one end of the Terminal, marked Unauthorized Entry Prohibited. Inside, they took an elevator tube up to the offices on the Terminal’s top floor, and ended up in chairs around a desk in one of the offices.
All the way in, Ian had said nothing. He sat in his chair now with the same indifferent patience, gazing at Tyburn, behind the desk, and at Breagan, seated back against the wall at the desk’s right side. Tyburn found himself staring back in fascination. Not at the granite face, but at the massive, powerful hands of the man, hanging idly between the chair-arms that supported his forearms. Tyburn, with an effort, wrenched his gaze from those hands.
“Well, Commandant,” he said, forcing himself at last to look up into the dark, unchanging features, “you’re here on Earth for a visit, we understand.”
“To see the next-of-kin of an officer of mine.” Ian’s voice, when he spoke at last, was almost mild compared to the rest of his appearance. It was a deep, calm voice, but lightless—like a voice that had long forgotten the need to be angry or threatening. Only . . . there was something sad about it, Tyburn thought.
“A James Kenebuck?” said Tyburn.
“That’s right,” answered the deep voice of Ian. “His younger brother, Brian Kenebuck, was on my staff in the recent campaign on Freiland. He died three months back.”
“Do you,” said Tyburn, “always visit your deceased officers’ next of kin?”
“When possible. Usually, of course, they die in the line of duty.”
“I see,” said Tyburn. The office chair in which he sat seemed hard and uncomfortable underneath him. He shifted slightly. “You don’t happen to be armed, do you, Commandant?”
Ian did not even smile.
“No,” he said.
“Of course, of course,” said Tyburn, uncomfortable. “Not that it makes any difference.” He was looking again, in spite of himself, at the two massive, relaxed hands opposite him. “Your . . . extremities by themselves are lethal weapons. We register professional karate and boxing experts here, you know—or did you know?”
Ian nodded.
“Yes,” said Tyburn. He wet his lips, and then was furious with himself for doing so. Damn my orders, he thought suddenly and whitely, I don’t have to sit here
making a fool of myself in front of this man, no matter how many connections and millions Kenebuck owns.
“All right, look here, Commandant,” he said, harshly, leaning forward. “We’ve had a communication from the Freiland-North Police about you. They suggest that you hold Kenebuck—James Kenebuck— responsible for his brother Brian’s death.”
Ian sat looking back at him without answering.
“Well,” demanded Tyburn, raggedly after a long moment, “do you?”
“Force-leader Brian Kenebuck,” said Ian calmly, “led his Force, consisting of thirty-six men at the time, against orders, farther than was wise into enemy perimeter. His Force was surrounded and badly shot up. Only he and four men returned to the lines. He was brought to trial in the field under the Mercenaries Code for deliberate mishandling of his troops under combat conditions. The four men who had returned with him testified against him. He was found guilty and I ordered him shot.”
Ian stopped speaking. His voice had been perfectly even, but there was so much finality about the way he spoke that after he finished there was a pause in the room while Tyburn and Breagan stared at him as if they had both been tranced. Then the silence, echoing in Tyburn’s ears, jolted him back to life.
“I don’t see what all this has to do with James Kenebuck, then,” said Tyburn. “Brian committed some . . . military crime, and was executed for it. You say you gave the order. If anyone’s responsible for Brian Kenebuck’s death then, it seems to me it’d be you. Why connect it with someone who wasn’t even there at the time, someone who was here on Earth all the while, James Kenebuck?”
“Brian,” said Ian, “was his brother.”
The emotionless statement was calm and coldly reasonable in the silent, brightly-lit office. Tyburn found his open hands had shrunk themselves into fists on the desk top. He took a deep breath and began to speak in a flat, official tone.
“Commandant,” he said, “I don’t pretend to understand you. You’re a man of the Dorsai, a product of one of the splinter cultures out among the stars. I’m just an old-fashioned Earthborn—but I’m a policeman in the Manhattan Complex and James Kenebuck is . . . well, he’s a taxpayer in the Manhattan Complex.”
He found he was talking without meeting Ian’s eyes. He forced himself to look at them—they were dark un-moving eyes.
“It’s my duty to inform you,” Tyburn went on, “that we’ve had intimations to the effect that you’re to bring some retribution to James Kenebuck, because of Brian Kenebuck’s death. These are only intimations, and as long as you don’t break any laws here on Earth, you’re free to go where you want and see whom you like. But this is Earth, Commandant.”
He paused, hoping that Ian would make some sound, some movement. But Ian only sat there, waiting.
“We don’t have any Mercenaries Code here, Commandant,” Tyburn went on harshly. “We haven’t any feud-right, no droit-de-mmn. But we do have laws. Those laws say that, though a man may be the worst murderer alive, until he’s brought to book in our courts, under our process of laws, no one is allowed to harm a hair of his head. Now, I’m not here to argue whether this is the best way or not; just to tell you that that’s the way things are.” Tyburn stared fixedly into the dark eyes. “Now,” he said, bluntly, “I know that
if you’re determined to try to kill Kenebuck without counting the cost, I can’t prevent it.”
He paused and waited again. But Ian still said nothing.