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 entrance 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 Galt, 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 Galt, First Marshal of Freiland.
“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 Galt, 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 Galt, 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 Dorsai 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 Galt. 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.
“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 laughed 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 I 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 Galt 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 Galt, 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 all this about a letter?”
Donal took a deep breath. He had tried hard to read Galt’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 Galt. “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 fool in my life.” And he told, fully and completely, the story of the episode in the corridor. Galt 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 Galt, 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 Galt’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?”
Galt 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 Galt. He grinned a little sourly and, reaching back for his pipe, retrieved and relit it.
“Your faith in our common origin is ... quite refreshing,” 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 Galt, 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.”
Galt 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 Maran.”
“This,” Galt 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 Galt, with the same dryness. “Sit down, Donal. And I’ll join you.”
They took a couple of armchair floats facing each other. Galt 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 ha
nd 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?”
“Well,” said Donal. “There are fourteen planetary governments not counting the anarchic setups on Dunnin’s World and Coby—”
“Governments, my rear echelon!” interrupted Galt, 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 Galt, 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 Galt. “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. Galt’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.”