Thoughtfully, Donal fingered the contract. Anea had clearly had no conception at all of what she was requesting when she so blithely required him to destroy it. The single sheet he held, and even the words and signatures upon it, were all integral parts of a single giant molecule which in itself was well-nigh indestructible and could not be in any way altered or tampered with short of outright destruction. As for destruction itself—Donal was quite sure that there was nothing aboard this ship that could in any way burn, shred, dissolve, or in any other fashion obliterate it. And the mere possession of it by anyone but William, its rightful owner, was as good as an order of sentence.
A soft chime quivered on the air of his cabin, announcing the serving of a meal in the main lounge. It chimed twice more to indicate that this was the third of the four meals interspersed throughout the ship “day.” Contract in hand, Donal half-turned toward the little orifice of the disposal slot that led down to the central incinerator. The incinerator, of course, was not capable of disposing of the contract—but it might be that it could lie unnoticed there until the ship had reached its destination and its passengers had dispersed. Later, it would be difficult for William to discover how it had reached the incinerator in the first place.
Then he shook his head, and replaced the contract in his pocket. His motives for doing so were not entirely clear to himself. It was that oddness of his at work again, he thought. Also, he told himself that it seemed a sloppy way of handling the situation this girl had got him into. Quite typically, he had already forgotten that his participation in the matter was all of his own contriving.
He straightened his half-jacket and went out of his cabin and down the long corridor through various sections to the main lounge. A slight crowding of likewise dinner-bound passengers in the narrow en- trance to the lounge delayed him momentarily; and, in that moment, looking over the heads of those before him, he caught sight of the long captain’s table at the far end of the lounge and of the girl, Anea Marlivana, amongst those seated at it.
The others seated with her appeared to consist of a strikingly handsome young officer of field rank—a Freilander, by the look of him—a rather untidy, large young man almost as big as the Freilander, but possessing just the opposite of the other’s military bearing; in fact, he appeared to half-slouch in his seat as if he were drunk. And a spare, pleasant-looking man in early middle age with iron-gray hair. The fifth person at the table was quite obviously a Dorsai—a massive, older man in the uniform of a Freiland marshal. The sight of this last individual moved Donal to sudden action. He pushed abruptly through the little knot of people barring the entrance and strode openly across the room to the high table. He extended his fist across it to the Dorsai marshal.
“How do you do, sir,” he said. “I was supposed to look you up before the ship lifted; but I didn’t have time. I’ve got a letter for you from my father, Eachan Khan Graeme. I’m his second son, Donal.”
Blue Dorsai eyes as cold as river water lifted under thick gray brows to consider him. For pan of a second the situation trembled on the balance-point of Dorsai pride with the older man’s curiosity weighed against the bare-faced impudence of Donal’s claim to acquaintance. Then the marshal took Donal’s fist in a hard grip.
“So he remembered Hendrik Gait, did he?” the marshal smiled. “I haven’t heard from Eachan for years.”
Donal felt a slight, cold shiver of excitement course down his spine. Of all people, he had chosen one of the ranking Dorsai soldiers of his day to bluff acquaintance with. Hendrik Gait, First Marshal of Freiiand.
“He sends you his regards, sir,” said Donal, “and … but perhaps I can bring you the letter after dinner and you can read it for yourself.”
‘To be sure,” said the marshal. “I’m in Stateroom Nineteen.”
Donal was still standing. The occasion could hardly be prolonged further. But rescue came—as something in Donal had more than half-expected it would—from farther down the table.
“Perhaps,” said the gray-haired man in a soft and pleasant voice, “your young friend would enjoy eating with us before you take him back to your stateroom, Hendrik?”
“I’d be honored,” said Donal, with glib promptness. He pulled out the empty float before him and sat down upon it, nodding courteously to the rest of the company at the table as he did so. The eyes of the girl met him from the table’s far end. They were as hard and still as emeralds caught in the rock.
MERCENARY II
“Anea Marlivana,” said Hendrik Gait, introducing Donal around the table. “And the gentleman who was pleased to invite you—William of Ceta, Prince and Chairman of the Board.”
“Greatly honored,” murmured Donal, inclining his bead toward them.
“… The Unit Commandant, here, my adjutant… Hugh Killien—”
Donal and the Commandant Freilander nodded to each other.
“… And ArDell Montor, of Newton.” The loose-Limbed young man slumping in his float, lifted a careless, half-drunken hand in a slight wave of acknowledgment. His eyes—so dark as to appear almost black under the light eyebrows that matched his rather heavy, blond hair, cleared for a disconcerting fraction of a second to stare sharply at Donal, then faded back to indifference. “ArDell,” said Gait, humorlessly, “set a new high score for the competitive exams on Newton. His field was social dynamics.”
“Indeed,” muttered the Newtonian, with something between a snort and a laugh. “Indeed, was. Was, indeed.” He lifted a heavy tumbler from the table before him and buried his nose in its light golden contents.
“ArDell—” said the gray-haired William, gently reproving. ArDell lifted his drink-pale face and stared at the older man, snorted again, on laughter, and lifted the tumbler again to his lips.
“Are you enlisted somewhere at the moment, Graeme?” asked the Freilander, turning to Donal.
“I’ve a tentative contract for the Friendlies,” said Donal. “I thought I’d pick between the Sects when I got there and had a chance to look over the opportunities for action.”
“Very Dorsai of you,” said William, smiling, from the far end of the table, next to Anea. “Always the urge to battle.”
“You over-compliment me, sir,” said Donal. “It merely happens that promotion comes more quickly on a battlefield than in a garrison, under ordinary conditions.
“You’re too modest,” said William.
“Yes, indeed,” put in Anea, suddenly. “Far too modest.”
William turned about to gaze quizzically at the girl.
“Now, Anea,” he said. “You mustn’t let your Exotic contempt for violence breed a wholly unjustified contempt for this fine young man. I’m sure both Hendrik and Hugh agree with him.”
“Oh, they would—of course,” said Anea, flashing a look at the other two men. “Of course, they would!”
“Well,” said William, laughing, “we must make allowances for a Select, of course. As for myself, I must admit to being male enough, and unreconstructed enough, to like the thought of action, myself. I … ah, here comes the food.”
Brimming soup plates were rising above the surface of the table in front of everybody but Donal.
“You’d better get your order in now,” said William. And, while Donal pressed the communicator key before him and attended to this necessary duty, the rest of them lifted their spoons and began their meal.
“… Donal’s father was a classmate of yours, was he, Hendrik?” inquired William, as the fish course was being served.
“Merely a close friend,” said the marshal, dryly.
“Ah,” said William, delicately lifting a portion of the white, delicate flesh on a fork. “I envy you Dorsai for things like that. Your professions allow you to keep friendship and emotional connections unrelated to your work. In the Commercial area”—he gestured with a slim, tanned hand—”a convention of general friendliness obscures the deeper feelings.”
“Maybe it’s what the man is to begin with,” answered the marshal. “Not all Dorsal are soldiers, Prince, and not all Cetans are entrepreneurs.”
“I recognize that,” said William. His eyes strayed to Donal. “What would you say, Donal? Are you a simple mercenary soldier, only, or do you find yourself complicated by other desires?”
The question was as blunt as it was obliquely put. Donal concluded that ingenuousness overlaid with a touch of venality was perhaps the most proper response.
“Naturally, I’d like to be famous,” he said—and laughed a trifle self-consciously, “and rich.”
He caught the hint of a darkening cloud on the brow of Gait. But he could not be concerned with that now. He had other fish to fry. There would, he hoped, be a chance to clear up the marshal’s contempt for him at some later time. For the present he must seem self-seeking enough to arouse William’s interest.