They landed at the field. The ship, a space-and-atmosphere courier N4J, was lying waiting for them, its ground lights gleaming dimly on steady-ready. The forward lock on the great shadowy cylinder swung open as they approached; and a scar-faced senior captain stepped out.
“Sir,” he said, saluting Donal, and standing aside to let them enter. They went in and the lock closed behind them.
“Coby, captain,” said Donal.
“Yes, sir.” The captain stepped to a grille in the wall. “Control room. Coby,” he said. He turned from the grille. “Can I show you to the lounge, commander?”
“For the time being,” said Donal. “And get us some coffee.”
They went on into the courier’s lounge, which was fixed up like the main room on a private yacht. And presently coffee was forthcoming on a small autocart from the galley, which scooted in the door by itself and parked itself in the midst of their floats.
“Sit down with us, Cor,” said Donal. “Lee, this is Captain Coruna El Man, Cor, my uncle lan Graeme.”
“Dorsai!” said lan, shaking hands.
“Dorsal!” responded El Man. They smiled slightly at each other, two grimly-carved professional warriors.
“We have met,” lan said.
“Right,” said Donal. “Now that introductions are over—how long will it take us to make it to Coby?”
“We can make our first jump immediately we get outside atmosphere,” answered El Man, in his rather harsh, grating voice. “We’ve been running a steady calculation on a standby basis. After the first jump, it’ll take a minimum of four hours to calculate the next. We’ll be within a light-year of Coby then, and each phase shift will take progressively less calculation as we zero in. Still—five more calculation periods at an average of two hours a period. Ten hours, plus the original four makes fourteen, straight drive and landing in on Coby another three to four hours. Call it eighteen hours—minimum.”
“All right,” said Donal. “I’ll want ten of your men for an assault party. And a good officer.”
“Myself,” said El Man.
“Captain, I … very well,” said Donal. “You and ten men. Now.” He produced an architectural plan from inside his jacket. “If you’ll all look here; this is the job we have to do.”
The plan was that of an underground residence on Coby, that planet which had grown into a community from a collection of mines and never been properly terraformed. Indeed, there was a question whether, even with modern methods, it could be. Coby was just too far out from hospitable Procyon, and formed of the wrong materials.
The plan itself showed a residence of the middle size, comprising possibly eighteen rooms, surrounded by gardens and courtyards. The differences, which only began to appear as Donal proceeded to point them out, from an above-ground residence of the ordinary type on other planets, lay in the fakery involved. As far as appearances went, someone in the house, or in one of the gardens, would imagine he was surface-dwelling on at least a terraformed world. But eight-tenths of that impression would be sheer illusion. Actually, the person in question would have ultimate rock in all directions—rock ten meters overhead at the furthest, rock underfoot, and rock surrounding.
For the assault party, this situation effected certain drawbacks, but also certain definite advantages. A drawback was, that after securing their objective— who was a man Donal did not trouble himself to identify—withdrawal would not be managed as easily as it might on the surface, where it was simply a matter of bundling everyone into the nearby ship and jumping off. A great advantage, however, which all but offset the drawback mentioned, was the fact that in this type of residence, the rock walls surrounding were honeycombed with equipment rooms and tunnels which maintained the above-ground illusion—a situation allowing easy ingress and surprise.
As soon as the four with him had been briefed, Donal turned the plans over to El Man, who went off to inform his assault party, and suggested to Lee and lan that they join him in getting what sleep they could. He took himself to his own cabin, undressed and fell into the bunk there. For a few minutes his mind, tight-tuned by exhaustion, threatened to wander off into speculations about what would be taking place on the various worlds while he slept. Unfortunately, no one had yet solved the problems involved in receiving a news broadcast in deep space. Which was why, of course, all interstellar messages were taped and sent by ship. It was the swiftest and, when you came right down to it, the only practical way to get them there.
However, twenty years of rigid training slowly gained control of Donal’s nerves. He slept.
He woke some twelve hours later, feeling more rested than he had in over a year. After eating, he went down to the ship’s gym; which, cramped and tiny as it was, was still a luxurious accessory on a deep-space vessel. He found lan methodically working out in the Dorsai fashion—a procedure the large dark man went through every morning when conditions did not prohibit it, as conscientiously and as nearly without thought as most men shave and brush their teeth. For several minutes Donal watched lan on the single bar, doing arm twists and stands; and when his uncle dropped to the mat, his wide torso gleaming with perspiration and the reek of it strong in Donal’s nostrils, Donal took him on at grips-and-holds.
The results were a little shocking to lan. That lan was stronger than he was only to be expected. His uncle was the bigger man. But Donal should have had a clear edge in speed, both because of age and because of his own natural reflexes, which were unusually good. The past year’s strain and physical idleness, however, had taken their toll. He broke three holds of his uncle’s with barely a fraction of a second to spare; and when he did, at last, throw the older man, it was by the use of a feint he would have scorned to use his senior year at school back on the Dorsal, a feint that took sneaking advantage of a slight stiffness he knew to be the result of an old wound in his uncle’s deep-scarred left arm. lan could hardly have failed to recognize the situation and the reason behind the slightly unfair maneuver that had downed him. But nothing seemed to matter to him these days. He said nothing, but showered and dressed with Donal; and they went in to the lounge.
Shortly after they sat down there, there was the medication warning, and—a few minutes later—the shock of a phase shift. On the heels of it, El Man came walking into the lounge.
“We’re in range, commander,” he said. “If you want the news—**
“Please,” said Donal.
El Man touched one of the walls and it thinned
DORSAI1B into transparency through which they could see the three-dimensional image of a Cobyman seated at a desk.
‘ “… Has been spreading,” came the voice of the man at the desk, “following quickly upon the charges brought by the Commission for the Common Market System against Commander in Chief Graeme of the United Planetary Forces. Hie Com Chief himself has disappeared and most of his deep-space units appear presently to be out of communication and their whereabouts are presently unknown. This development has apparently sparked outbreaks of violence on most of the civilized worlds, in some cases amounting to open revolt against the established governments. The warring factions seem split by a fear of the open markets on (he part of the general populaces, and a belief that the charges against Graeme are an attempt to remove what safeguards on the rights of the individual still remain in effect
“As far as this office has been informed, righting is going on on the present worlds—Venus, Mars, Cassida, New Earth, Freiland, Association, Harmony, and St. Marie; and the governments of the following worlds are known to be deposed, or in hiding— Cassida, New Earth, and FreUand. No outbreaks are reported on Old Earth, Dunnin’s World, Mara, Kultis, or Ceta. And there is no present violence here on Coby at all. Prince William has offered the use of his leased troops as a police force to end the disturbances; and levies of Cetan troops are either on, or en route to, all trouble spots at the present time. William has announced that his troops will be used to put down trouble wherever they find it, without respect to what faction this leaves in power. ‘Our job is not to take sides,* he is reported as stating, ‘but to bring some kind of order out of the present chaos and put out the flames of self-destruction.’
“A late signal received from Old Earth reports that a number of the insurgent factions are agitating for the appointment of William as World’s Regent, with universal authority and strong-man powers to deal with the present emergency. A somewhat similar movement puts forward the name of Graeme, the missing Com Chief, for a similar position.”