“Officially,” said Stavros, “I don’t. Duncan, I will try to reason with you. Matters are not as simple as you would wish. Hulagh himself suffered in that action: he lost his ship, his younglings, his total wealth and his prestige and the prestige of his doch. A regul doch may fall, one important to mankind. Do you comprehend what I’m telling you? Hulagh’s doch is the peace party. If it falls, it will be dangerous for all of us, and not only for those of us on Kesrith. We’re talking about the peace, do you understand that?”
They were back on old ground. Arguments began from here, leading to known positions. Duncan opened his mouth to speak, persistently to restate what Stavros knew, what he had told his interrogators times beyond counting. Stavros cut him off with an impatient gesture, saving him the effort that he knew already was futile. Duncan found himself tired, exhausted of hope and belief in the powers that ruled Kesrith, most of all in this man that he had once served.
“Listen,” said Stavros sharply. “Human men died, too at Haven.”
“I was there,” Duncan returned, bitter in the memory. He did not add what was also true, that Stavros had not been. Many a SurTac had left his unburied corpse on Elag/Haven, and ten other worlds of that zone, while the diplomats were safe behind the lines.
“Human men died,” Stavros continued, intent on making his point, “there and here, at the hands of mri. Humans would have died in-the future will die, if the peace should collapse, if somewhere the regul that want war find political power and more such mercenaries as the mri. Or does that fail to matter in your reckoning?”
“It matters.”
Stavros was silent a time. He moved his sled to reach for a cup of soi abandoned on the edge of a table. He drank, and stared at Duncan over the rim of the cup, set it down again. “I know it matters,” he said at last. “Duncan, I regretted having to replace you.”
It was the first time Stavros had said so. “Yes, sir,” Duncan said. “I know it was necessary.”
“There were several reasons,” Stavros said. “First, because you offended bai Hulagh to his face, and you know you’re lucky to have come off alive from that. Second, you were put into sickbay with an indefinite prognosis, and I need help ” He gestured at his own body, encased in metal. “You’re no medic. You didn’t sign on for this. Evans is useful in that regard. Your skills are valuable elsewhere.”
Duncan listened, painfully aware that he was being played, prepared for something. One did not maneuver George Stavros; Stavros maneuvered others. Stavros was a professional at it; and the mind in that fettered shell had very few human dependencies, an aged man who had dealt with crises involving worlds for more years than SurTacs tended to live, who had thrown aside family and a comfortable retirement to seize a governorship on a frontier like Kesrith. For a brief time Duncan had felt there had been some attachment between himself and Stavros; he had given Stavros unstintingly of effort and loyalty had even believed in him enough to offer him truth. But to manage others with subtlety, even with ruthlessness, that was the skill for which Stavros had won his appointment; Duncan determined neither to believe him nor to be angry that he had been used and he knew that even so, Stavros had the skill to lie to him again.
“I have excused your actions,” Stavros said, “and covered them as far as I can; but you have lost your usefulness to me hi the capacity in which you signed on. Hulagh can be persuaded to tolerate your presence; but the suspicion that you have moved back into some position of direct influence would be more than he could bear, and it might endanger your life. I don’t want that kind of trouble, Duncan, or the complications your murder might create. Regul are simply not prepared to believe the killing of a youngling is of equal seriousness with the killing of an elder.”
“I don’t want to be sent offworld.”