He turned back and began work on the First Officer, who was still laxly unconscious. After a while the First Officer began to breathe deeply and more steadily; and his eyes opened. But it was apparent from his gaze that he did not see the rest of them, or know where he was. He stared at the control panel with blank eyes like a man in a heavily drugged condition.
“How’re you feeling?” Donal asked Bannerman. The Freiland captain grunted, and made an effort to raise himself up on one elbow. Donal helped, and between the two of them they got him, first sitting up, then to his knees, and finally—with the help of the back of a chair to pull him up—to his feet.
Bannerman’s eyes had gone directly to the control panel, from the first moment they had opened. Now, without a word, he pulled himself painfully back into his chair and began clumsily to finger studs.
“All ship sections,” he croaked into the grille before him. “Report.”
There was no answer.
“Report!” he said. His forefinger came down on a button and an alarm bell rang metallically loud through the ship. It ceased and a faint voice came from the speaker overhead.
“Fourth Gun Section reporting as ordered, sir—”
The battle of Newton was over.
HERO
Sirius himself had just set; and the small bright disk of that white dwarf companion that the Freilanders and the New Earthmen had a number of uncomplimentary names for was just beginning to show strongly through the wall of Donal’s bedroom, Donal sat, bathed in the in-between light, dressed in only a pair of sport trunks, sorting through some of the interesting messages that had come his way, recently— since the matter of the raid on Newton.
So engrossed was he that he paid no attention until Lee tapped him on one brown-tanned shoulder.
“Time to dress for the party,” said the Cobyman. He had a gray dress uniform of jacket and trousers, cut in the long-line Freiland style, over one arm. It was fashionably free of any insignia of rank. “I’ve got a couple of pieces of news for you. First, she was here again.”
Donal frowned, getting into the uniform. Elvine had conceived the idea of nursing him after his return from the short hospital stay that had followed the Newton affair. It was her convenient conclusion that he was still suffering from the psychological damage of the overdose of phase-shifting they had all gone through. Medical opinion and Donal’s to the contrary, she had insisted on attaching herself to him with a constancy which lately had led him to wonder if perhaps he would not have preferred the phase shifting itself. The frown now vanished, however.
“I think I see an end to that,” he said. “What else?”
“This William of Ceta you’re so interested in,” answered Lee. “He’s here for the party.”
Donal turned his head to look sharply at the man. But Lee was merely delivering a report. The bony face was empty of even those small signs of expression which Donal had come to be able to read, in these past weeks of association.
“Who told you I was interested in William?” he demanded.
“You listen when people talk about him,” said Lee. “Shouldn’t I mention him?”
“No, that’s all right,” Donal said. “I want you to tell me whenever you find out anything about him you think I might not know. I just didn’t know you observed that closely.”
Lee shrugged. He held the jacket for Donal to slide his arms into.
“Where’d he come from?” asked Donal.
“Venus,” said Lee. “He’s got a Newton man with him—big young drunk named Montor. And a girl— one of those special people from the Exotics.”
“The Select of Kultis?”
“That’s right”
“What’re they doing here?”
“He’s top-level,” said Lee. “Who is on Freiland and not here for your party?”
Donal frowned again. He had almost managed to forget that it was in his honor these several hundred well-known people would be gathered here tonight. Oh—not that he would be expected to place himself on show. The social rules of the day and this particular world made lionizing impolite. Direct lionizing, mat is. You honored a man by accepting his hospitality, that was the theory. And since Donal had little in the way of means to provide hospitality for the offering, the marshal had stepped into the breach. Nevertheless, this was the sort of occasion that went against Donal’s instinctive grain.
He put that matter aside and returned to that of William. If the man happened to be visiting Freiland it would be unthinkable that he should not be invited, and hardly thinkable that he should decline to come. It could be just that. Perhaps, thought Donal with a weariness beyond his years, I’m starting at shadows. But even as his mind framed the thought, he knew it was not true. It was that oddness in him, now more pronounced than ever since the psychic shaking-up of the Newtonian battle, with its multiple phase shifts. Things seen only dimly before were now be- ginning to take on shape and substance for him. A pattern was beginning to form, with William as its center, and Donal did not like what he saw of the pattern.
“Let me know what you can find out about William,” he said.
“Right,” replied Lee. “And the Newton man?” “And the girl from the Exotics.” Donal finished dressing and took a back slipway down to the marshal’s office. El vine was there, and with her and the marshal, as guests, were William and Anea.
“Come in, Donal!” called Gait, as Donal hesitated in the entrance. “You remember William and Anea, here!”
“I’d be unlikely to forget.” Donal came in and shook hands. William’s smile was warm, his handclasp firm; but the hand of Anea was cool and quickly withdrawn from Donal’s grasp, and her smile perfunctory. Donal caught Elvine watching them closely; and a faint finger of warning stirred the surface of Donal’s mind.
“I’ve looked forward to seeing you again,” said William. “I owe you an apology, Donal. Indeed I do. I’ve underestimated your genius considerably.”
“Not genius,” said Donal.
“Genius,” insisted William. “Modesty’s for little men.” He smiled frankly. “Surely you realize this affair with Newton’s made you the newest nova on our military horizon?”
“I’ll have to watch out your flattery doesn’t go to my head. Prince.” Donal could deal in double mean- ing, too. William’s first remark had put him almost at his ease. It was not the wolves among people who embarrassed and confused him; but the sheep dogs gone wrong. Those, in fact, who were equipped by nature and instinct to be one thing and through chance and wrongheadedness found themselves acting contrary to their own natures. Possibly, he had thought, that was the reason he found men so much easier to deal with than women—they were less prone to self-deception. Now, however, a small intake of breath drew his attention to Anea.
“You’re modest,” she said; but two touches of color high on the cheek-bones of her otherwise slightly pale face, and her unfriendly eyes, did not agree with her.
“Maybe,” he said, as lightly as he could, “that’s because I don’t really believe I’ve got anything to be modest about. Anyone could have done what I did above Newton—and, in fact, several hundred other men did. Those that were there with me.”
“Oh, but it was your idea,” put in Elvine.
Donal laughed.
“All right,” he said. “For the idea, I’ll take credit.”
“Please do,” said Anea.
“Well,” put in Gait, seeing that things were getting out of hand. “We were just about to go in and join the party, Donal. Will you come along?”
“I’m looking forward to it,” answered Donal, smoothly.
They proceeded, a small knot of people, out through the big doors of the office and into the main hall of the mansion. It was already full of guests in- terspersed with drifting floats laden with food and drinks. Into this larger body of people, their small group melted like one drop of coloring matter into a glass of water. Their individual members were recognized, captured and dispersed by other guests; and in a few seconds they were all separated—all but Donal and Elvine, who had taken his arm possessively, as they had come out of the office.
She pulled him into the privacy of a small alcove.
“So that’s what you’ve been mooning over!” she said fiercely. “It’s her!”
“Her?” he pulled his arm loose. “What’s wrong with you, Ev?”
“You know who I mean!” she snapped. “That Select girl. It’s her you’re after—though why, I don’t know. She’s certainly nothing special to look at. And she’s hardly even grown up yet.”
He chilled suddenly. And she—abruptly realizing that this time she had gone too far, took a sudden, frightened step back from him. He fought to control himself; but this was the authentic article, one of the real Dorsai rages that was his by inheritance. His limbs were cold, he saw everything with an unwonted clarity, and his mind ticked away like some detached machine in the far depths of his being. There was murder in him at the moment. He hung balanced on the knife edge of it.