“Very interesting,” said William, pleasantly. “How do you plan to go about becoming these pleasant things?”
“I was hoping,” said Donal, “maybe to learn something of the worlds by being out among them— something I might be able to use to my own advantage, as well as others.”
“Good Lord, is that all?” said the Freilander, and (aughed in a way that invited the rest of the table to join in with him.
William, however, did not laugh—although Anea joined her own clear amusement to that of the commandant, and ArDell’s snorted chuckle.
“No need to be unkind, Hugh,” he said. “I like Donal’s attitude. I had the same sort of notion myself once—when I was younger.” He smiled in a kindly fashion on Donal. “You must come talk to me, too,” he said, “after you’ve had your chat with Hendrik. I like young men with ambition.”
ArDell snorted with laughter again. William turned to look sadly at him.
“You should try to eat, ArDell,” he said. “We’ll be making a phase shift in four hours or so; and if you don’t have something solid on your stomach—”
“My stomach?” said the young man, drunkenly. “And what if my stomach should reach universal dimensions, out of phase? What if / should reach universal dimensions; and be everywhere and never come back to point position again?” He grinned at Williams. “What a waste of good food.”
Anea had paled to a sickly color.
“If you’ll excuse me—” she murmured, rising hastily.
“I don’t blame you a bit!” said William sharply. “ArDell, that was in inexcusable bad taste. Hugh, help Anea to her stateroom.”
“I don’t want him!” flared Anea. “He’s just like all the rest of you—”
But the Freilander was already on his feet, looking almost like a recruiting poster in his trim uniform and coming around the table to take her arm. She jerked away from him, turned, and went unsteadily out of the lounge. Hugh following closely behind her.
They passed through the doorway into the corridor, but as they turned to move out of sight, Donal saw her turn to the tall soldier and lean into the protection of his arm, just before they disappeared.
William was continuing to speak calm and acid words of disapprobation to ArDell, who made no retort, but gazed drunkenly and steadily back at him out of his black, unmoving eyes. During the rest of the meal the talk turned to military affairs, in particular field strategy, in which triologue—ArDell pointedly excluded—Donal was able to win back some of the personal credit which his earlier remark about fame and riches had cost him—in the marshal’s eyes.
“… Remember,” William said, as they parted in the corridor outside the lounge, after the meal. “Come in and see me after you’ve finished with Hendrik, Donal. I’ll be glad to help you if I can.” And with a smile, and a nod, he turned away.
Donal and Gait went off down the narrow corridor .that forced them to walk one behind the other. Following the thick shoulders of the older man, Donal was surprised to hear him ask: “Well, what do you think of them?”
“Sir?” said Donal. Hesitating, he chose what he took to be the safest subject. “I’m a little surprised about the girl.”
“Anea?” said Gaft, stopping before a door marked with the number nineteen.
“I thought a Select of Kultis would be—” Donal stopped, honestly at a loss, “more … more in control of herself.”
“She’s very healthy, very normal, very intelligent— but those are only potentialities,” retorted the marshal, almost gruffly. “What did you expect?”
He threw open the door, ushered them both in, and closed the door firmly behind them. When he turned around, there was a harder, more formal note to his voice.
“All right now,” he said, sharply, “what’s ail this about a letter?”
Donal took a deep breath. He had tried hard to read Gait’s character during the course of the dinner—and he staked everything now in the honesty of his answer, on what he thought he had seen there.
“No letter, sir,” he said. ‘To the best of my knowledge, my father never met you in his life.”
“Thought as much,” said Gait. “All right—what’s it all about, then?” He crossed to a desk on the other side of the room, took something from a drawer, and when he turned about Donal was astonished to find him filling an antique pipe _ with tobacco.
“That Anea, sir,” he said. “I never met such a foot in my life.” And he told, fully and completely, the story of the episode in the corridor. Gait half-sat on the edge of the desk, the pipe in his mouth now, and alight, puffing little clouds of white smoke which the ventilating system whisked away the second they were formed.
“I see,” he said, when Donal had finished. “I’m inclined to agree with you. She is a fool. And just what sort of insane idiot do you consider yourself?”
“I, sir?” Donal was honestly astonished.
“I mean you, boy,” said Gait, taking the pipe out of his mouth. “Here you are, still damp from school, and sticking your nose into a situation a full planetary government’d hesitate at.” He stared in frank amazement at Donal. “Just what did you think— what did you figure … hell, boy, what did you plan to get out of it?”
“Why, nothing,” said Donal. “I was only interested in seeing a ridiculous and possibly dangerous situation smoothed out as neatly as possible. I admit I hadn’t any notion of the part William played in the matter—he’s apparently an absolute devil.”
The pipe rattled in Gait’s suddenly unclenched jaws and he had to grab it quickly with one thick hand to keep it from falling. He took it from his lips and stared in amazement at Donal.
“Who told you that?” he demanded.
“No one,” said Donal. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Gait laid his pipe down on the table and stood up.
“Not to ninety-nine per cent of the civilized worlds, it isn’t,” he retorted. “What made it so obvious to you?”
“Certainly,” said Donal, “any man can be judged by the character and actions of the people with which, he surrounds himself. And this William has an entourage of thwarted and ruined people.”
The marshal stiffened.
“You mean me?” he demanded.
“Naturally not,” said Donal. “After all—you’re a Dorsai.” The stiffness went out of Gait. He grinned a little sourly and, reaching back for his pipe, retrieved and relit it.
“Your faith in our common origin is … quite re- freshing,” he said. “Go on. On this piece of evidence you read William’s character, do you?”
“Oh, not just that,” said Donal. “Stop and think of the fact that a Select of Kultis finds herself at odds with him. And the good instincts of a Select are inbred. Also, he seems to be an almost frighteningly brilliant sort of man, in that he can dominate personalities like Anea, and this fellow Montor, from Newton—who must be a rather high-level mind himself to have rated as he did on his tests.”
“And someone that brilliant must be a devil?” queried Gait, dryly.
“Not at all,” explained Donal, patiently. “But having such intellectual capabilities, a man must show proportionately greater inclinations toward either good or evil than lesser people. If he tends toward evil, he may mask it in himself—he may even mask its effect on the people with which he surrounds himself. But he has no way of producing the reflections of good which would ordinarily be reflected from his lieutenants and initiates—and which, if he was truly good—he would have no reason to try and hide. And by that lack, you can read him.”
Gait took the pipe from his mouth and gave a long, slow whistle. He stared at Donal.
“You weren’t brought up on one of the Exotics, by any chance, were you?” he asked.
“No, sir,” said Donal. “My father’s mother was a Maran, though. And my mother’s mother was Ma-ran.”
“This,” Gait paused and tamped thoughtfully in the bowl of his pipe—it had gone out—with one thick forefinger, “business of reading character—did you get this from your mother, or your grandmother—or is it your own idea?”
“Why, I imagine I must have heard it somewhere,” replied Donal. “But surely it stands to reason— anyone would arrive at it as a conclusion, with a few minutes’ thought.”
“Possibly the majority of us don’t think,” said Gait, with the same dryness. “Sit down, Donal. And I’ll join you.”
They took a couple of armchair floats facing each other. Gait put his pipe away.
“Now, listen to me,” he said, in a low and sober voice. “You’re one of the oddest young fish I can remember meeting. I don’t know quite what to do with you. If you were my son, I’d pack you up in quarantine and ship you home for ten more years seasoning before I let you out among the stars—all right—” he interrupted himself abruptly, raising a silencing hand as Donal’s mouth opened. “I know you’re a man now and couldn’t be shipped anywhere against your will. But the way you strike me now is that you’ve got perhaps one chance in a thousand of becoming something remarkable, and about nine hundred and ninety-nine chances of being quietly put out of the way before the year’s out. Look, boy, what do you know about the worlds, outside the Dorsai?”