That little was enough.
“What caveheads you were,” the sergeant said at last.
A twitch of anger: “We should sit clay-soft for Terrans to mold, fire, and use however they see fit?”
“Well,” Astaff replied, “I would’ve planned my strike better, and drilled longer beforetime.”
He took Ivar by the elbow. “You’re spent like a cartridge,” he said. “Go to my quarters. You remember where I bunk, no? Thank Lord, my wife’s off visitin’ our daughter’s family. Grab shower, food, sleep. I’ve sentry-go till oh-five-hundred. Can’t call substitute without drawin’ questions; but nobody’ll snuff at you.”
Ivar blinked. “What do you mean? My own rooms—”
“Yah!” Astaff snorted. “Go on. Rouse your mother, your kid sister. Get ’em involved. Sure. They’ll be interrogated, you know, soon’s Impies’ve found you were in that broil. They’ll be narcoquizzed, or even ‘probed, if any reason develops to think they got clue to your whereabouts. That what you want? Okay. Go bid ’em fond farewell.”
Ivar took a backward step, lifted bis hands in appeal. “No. I, I, I never thought—”
“Right.”
“Of course I’ll— What do you have in mind?” Ivar asked humbly.
“Get you off before Impies arrive. Good thing your dad’s been whole while in Nova Roma; clear-cut innocent, and got influence to protect family if Terrans find no sign you were ever here after fight. Hey? You’ll leave soon. Wear servant’s livery I’ll filch for you, snoutmask like you’re sneezewort allergic, weapon under cloak. Walk like you got hurry-up errand. This is big household; nobody ought to notice you especially. I’ll’ve found some yeoman who’ll take you in, Sam Hedin, Frank Vance, whoever, loyal and livin’ offside. You go there.”
“And then?”
Astaff, shrugged. “Who knows? When zoosny’s died down, I’ll slip your folks word you’re alive and loose. Maybe later your dad can wangle pardon for you. But if Terrans catch you while their dead are fresh—son, they’ll make example. I know Empire. Traveled through it more than once with Admiral McCormac.” As he spoke the name, he saluted. The average Imperial agent who saw would have arrested him on the spot.
Ivar swallowed and stammered, “I… I can’t thank—”
“You’re next Firstman of Ilion,” the sergeant snapped. “Maybe last hope we got, this side of Elders returnin’. Now, before somebody comes, haul your butt out of here—and don’t forget the rest of you!”
III
Chunderban Desai’s previous assignment had been to the delegation which negotiated an end of the Jihannath crisis. That wasn’t the change of pace in his career which it seemed. His Majesty’s administrators must forever be dickering, compromising, feeling their way, balancing conflicts of individuals, organizations, societies, races, sentient species. The need for skill—quickly to grasp facts, comprehend a situation, brazen out a bluff when in spite of everything the unknown erupted into one’s calculations—was greatest at the intermediate level of bureaucracy which he had reached. A resident might deal with a single culture, and have no more to do than keep an eye on affairs. A sector governor oversaw such vastness that to him it became a set of abstractions. But the various ranks of commissioner were expected to handle personally large and difficult territories.
Desai had worked in regions that faced Betelgeuse and, across an unclaimed and ill-explored buffer zone, the Roidhunate of Merseia. Thus he was a natural choice for the special diplomatic team. In his quiet style, he backstopped the head of it, Lord Advisor Chardon, so well that afterward he received a raise in grade, and was appointed High Commissioner of the Virgilian System, at the opposite end of the Empire.
But this was due to an equally natural association of ideas. The mutiny in Sector Alpha Crucis had been possible because most of the Navy was tied up around Jihannath, where full-scale war looked far too likely. After Terra nevertheless, brilliantly, put the rebels down, Merseia announced that its wish all along had been to avoid a major clash and it was prepared to bargain.
When presently the Policy Board looked about for able people to reconstruct Sector Alpha Crucis, Lord Chardon recommended Desai with an enthusiasm that got him put in charge of Virgil, whose human-colonized planet Aeneas had been the spearhead of the revolt.