“Well,” said Donal. “There are fourteen planetary governments not counting the anarchic setups on Dunnin’s World and Coby—”
“Governments, my rear echelon!” interrupted Gait, rudely. “Forget your civics lessons! Governments in this twenty-fourth century are mere machinery. It’s the men who control them who count. Project Blaine, on Venus; Sven Holman, on Earth; Eldest Bright on Harmony, the very planet we’re headed for—and Sayona the Bond on Kultis, for the Exotics.”
“General Kamal—” began Donal.
“Is nothing!” said Gait, sharply. “How can the Elector of the Dorsai be anything when every little canton hangs to its independence with tooth and nail? No, I’m talking about the men who pull the strings between the stars. The ones I mentioned, and others.” He took a deep breath. “Now, how do you suppose our Merchant Prince and Chairman of the Board on Ceta ranks with those I mentioned?”
“You’d say he’s their equal?
“At least,” said Gait. “At least. Don’t be led astray by the fact that you see him traveling like this, on a commercial ship, with only the girl and Montor with him. Chances are he owns the ship, the crew and officers—and half the passengers.”
“And you and the commandant?” asked Donal, perhaps more bluntly than was necessary. Gait’s features started to harden; and then he relaxed.
“A fair question,” he rumbled. “I’m trying to get you to question most of the things you’ve taken for granted. I suppose it’s natural you’d include myself. No—to answer your question—I am First Marshal of Freiland, still a Dorsai, and with my professional services for hire, and nothing more. We’ve just hired out five light divisions to the First Dissident Church, on Harmony, and I’m coming along to observe that they operate as contracted for. It’s a complicated deal—like they are all—involving a batch of contract credits belonging to Ceta. Therefore William.”
“And the commandant?” persisted Donal.
“What about him?” replied Gait. “He’s a Freilander, a professional, and a good one. He’ll take over one of the three-Force commands for a short test period when we get to Harmony, for demonstration purposes.”
“Have you had him with you long?”
“Oh, about two standard years,” said Gait.
“And he’s good, professionally?”
“He’s damn good,” said Gait. “Why do you think he’s my adjutant? What’re you driving at, anyway?”
“A doubt,” said Donal, “and a suspicion.” He hesitated for a second. “Neither of which I’m ready to voice yet.”
Gait laughed.
“Save that Maran character-sniffing of yours for civilians,” he said. “You’ll be seeing a snake under every bush. Take my word for it, Hugh’s a good, honest soldier—a bit flashy, perhaps—but that’s all.”
“I’m hardly in a position to argue with you,” murmured Donal, stepping aside gracefully. “You were about to say something about William, when I interrupted you?”
“Oh yes,” said Gait. He frowned. “It adds up to this—and I’ll make it short and clear. The girl’s none of your business; and William’s deadly medicine. Leave them both alone. And if I can help you to the kind of post you’re after—”
“Thank you very much,” said Donal. “But I believe William will be offering me something.”
Gait blinked and stared.
“Hell’s breeches, boy!” he exploded after half a second. “What gives you that idea?”
Donal smiled a little sadly.
“Another one of my suspicions,” he said. “Based on what you call that Maran character-sniff ing of mine, no doubt.” He stood up. “I appreciate your trying to warn me, sir.” He extended his fist. “If I could talk to you again, sometime?”
Gait stood up himself, taking the proffered fist, mechanically.
“Any time,” he said. “Damned if I understand you.”
Donal peered at him, .suddenly struck by a thought.
“Tell me, sir,” he asked. “Would you say I was— odd?”
“Odd!” Gait almost exploded on the word. “Odd as—” his imagination failed him. “What makes you ask that?”
“I just wondered,” said Donal. “I’ve been called that so often. Maybe they were right.”
He withdrew his fist from the marshal’s grasp. And on that note, he took his leave.
MERCENARY III
Returning again up the corridor toward the bow of the ship, Donal allowed himself to wonder, a little wistfully, about this succubus of his own strange difference from other people. He had thought to leave it behind with his cadet uniform. Instead, it seemed, it continued to ride with him, still perched on his shoulders. Always it had been this way. What seemed so plain, and simple and straightforward to himself, had always struck others as veiled, torturous, and involved. Always he had been like a stranger passing through a town, the ways of whose people were different, and who looked on him with a lack of understanding amounting to suspicion. Their language failed on the doorstep of his motives and could not enter the lonely mansion of his mind. They said “enemy” and “friend”; they said “strong” and “weak”—
“them” and “us”. They set up a thousand arbitrary classifications and distinctions which he could not comprehend, convinced as he was that all people were only people—and there was very little to choose between them. Only, you dealt with them as individuals, one by one; and always remembering to be patient. And if you did this successfully, then the larger, group things all came out right.
Turning again into the entrance of the lounge, he discovered—as he had half-expected to—the young Newtonian ArDell Montor, slumped in a float by one end of the bar that had made its appearance as soon as the dinner tables had been taken up into the walls. A couple of other small, drinking groups sparsely completed the inhabitants of the lounge—but none of these were having anything to do with Montor. Donal walked directly to him; and Montor, without moving, lifted the gaze of his dark eyes to watch Donal approach.
“Join you?” said Donai.
“Honored,” replied the other—not so much thickly as slowly, from the drink inside him. “Thought I might like to talk to you.” His fingers crept out over the buttons on the bar-pad next to him. “Drink?”
“Dorsai whiskey,” said Donal. Montor pressed. A second later a small transparent goblet, full, rose to the bartop. Donal took it and sipped cautiously. The drinking the night he had attained his majority had acquainted him with the manner in which alcohol affected him; and he had made a private determination never to find himself drunk again. It is a typical matter of record with him, that he never did. Raising his eyes from the glass, he found the Newtonian staring steadily at him with his eyes unnaturally clear, lost, and penetrating.
“You’re younger than I,” said ArDell. “Even if I don’t look it. How old do you think I am?”
Donal looked him over curiously. Montor’s face, for all its lines of weariness and dissipation, was the scarcely mature visage of a late adolescent—a situation to which his shock of uncombed hair and the loose-limbed way he sprawled in his float, contributed.
“A quarter of a standard century,” said Donal.
‘Thirty-three years absolute,” said ArDell. “I was a school-child, a monk, until I was twenty-nine. Do you think I drink too much?”
“I think there’s no doubt about it,” answered Donal.
“I agree with you,” said ArDell, with one of his sudden snorts of laughter. “I agree with you. There’s no doubt about it—one of the few things in this God-abandoned universe about which there is no doubt. But that’s not what I was hoping to talk to you about.”
“What was that?” Donal tasted his glass of whiskey again.
“Courage,” said ArDell, looking at him with an empty, penetrating glance. “Have you got courage?”
“It’s a necessary item for a soldier,” said Donal. “Why do you ask?”
“And no doubts? No doubts?” ArDell swirled the golden drink in his tall tumbler and took a swallow from it. “No secret fears that when the moment comes your legs will weaken, your heart will pound, you’ll turn and run?”
“I will not, of course, turn and run,” said Donal. “After all, I’m a Dorsai. As for how 1*11 feel—all I can say is, I’ve never felt the way you describe. And even if I did—”
Above their heads a single mellow chime sounded, interrupting.
“Phase shift in one standard hour and twenty minutes,” announced a voice. “Phase shift in one standard hour and twenty minutes. Passengers are advised to take their medication now and accomplish the shift while asleep, for their greatest convenience.”
“Have you swallowed a pill yet?” asked- ArDeli.
“Not yet,” said Donal.
“But you will?”
“Of course.” Donal examined him with interest. “Why not?”
“Doesn’t taking medication to avoid the discomfort, of a phase shift strike you as a form of cowardice?” asked ArDell. “Doesn’t it?”
“That’s foolish,” said Donal. “Like saying it’s cowardly to wear clothes to keep you warm and comfortable, or to eat, to keep from starving. One is a matter of convenience; the other is a matter of—he thought for a second—”duty.”