Dorsai! (6 page)

“It so happened,” said Donal, “that I came into possession of something belonging to you.”

William extended his hand, without a word. After a second's hesitation, Donal extracted Anea's contract from his pocket and passed it over. William took it, unfolded it, and glanced over it. He laid it carelessly down on a little table beside him.

“She wanted me to get rid of it for her,” said Donal. “She wanted to hire me to dispose of it for her. Evidently she didn't know how hard it is to destroy a sheet of the material contracts are made on.”

“But you took the job,” said William.

“I made no promises,” said Donal, painfully.

“But from the start, you intended to bring it straight to me.”

“I believe,” said Donal, ‘‘it's your property.”

‘‘Oh, of course,” said William. He smiled at Donal for a long moment. “You realize, of course,” he said, finally, “that I needn't believe a word of what you've said. I only need to assume that you stole it yourself and later got cold feet about disposing of it—and dreamed up this cock-and-bull story in an attempt to sell it back to me. The captain of this ship would be glad to put you under arrest at my word and hold you for trial as soon as we reach Harmony.”

A slight, cold, galvanic shiver ran down Donal's spine.

“A Select of Kultis won't lie under oath,” he said. “She—”

“I see no reason to involve Anea in this,” said William. “It could all be handled very conveniently without her. My statement against yours.” Donal said nothing. William smiled again.

“You see,” said William, “the point I'm laboring to bring home to you. You happen not only to be venal, but a fool.”

“
Sir!
” the word shot from Donal's lips. William waved a disinterested hand.

“Save your Dorsai rages for someone who'll be impressed by them. I know as well as you do, you've no intention of attacking me. Possibly, if you were a different sort of Dorsai— but you're not. You are as I say, both venal and a fool. Accept these statements for the obvious facts they are; and we can get down to business.”

He looked at Donal. Donal said nothing.

“Very well, then,” went on William. “You came to me, hoping I could find you of some use. As it happens, I can. Anea is, of course, just a foolish young girl—but for her benefit, as well as my own, being her employer, we'll have to see she doesn't get into serious trouble. Now, she has confided in you once. She may again. If she does so—by no means discourage her. And to keep you available for such confidences,” William smiled again, quite good humoredly, this time, “I believe I can find you a commission as Force-Leader, under Commandant Hugh Killien, when we touch down on Harmony. There is no reason why a military career shouldn't go hand in hand with whatever other uses I can find for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Donal.

“Not at all—” A chime sounded from some hidden wall speaker. “Ab—phase shift in five minutes.” William picked up a small silver box from a table near his feet, and sprung it open. “Have you taken your medication, yet? Help yourself.”

He extended to Donal.

“Thank you, sir,” said Donal carefully. “I have.”

“Then,” said William, helping himself to a white tablet, and replacing the box. “I believe that is all.”

“I believe so, sir,” said Donal.

Donal inclined his head and went out. Stopping outside the stateroom door only long enough to take one of his own phase shift sedatives, he headed back toward his own stateroom. On the way, he stopped by the ship's library to check out an information spool on the First Dissident Church, of Harmony; and this delayed him sufficiently so that he was passing down one of the long sectional corridors when the phase shift occurred.

He had been prudently asleep during those previous shifts he had gone through while outbound from Dorsai; and, of course, he had learned years ago what to expect. In addition, he was fully medicated; and the shift itself was over before it was really begun. In fact, it took place in no time, in no conceivable interval at all. Yet it
had
happened; and some inextinguishable recognizing part of him
knew
and remembered that he had been born apart, down to the most fractional elements of his being, and spread to the wide universe and caught and collected and reassembled some arbitrary point light-years from his destruction. And it was this memory, not the shift itself, that made him falter, for one short step, before he took up again his steady march back to his stateroom. And the memory would stay with him.

He continued on down the corridor; but he was far from having run his gauntlet for the day. As he reached the end of one section, Anea stepped out from the cross-bar corridor there that was the exact duplicate of the one, several sections down, where he had first met her. Her green eyes were afire.

“You've been seeing him!'' she snapped, barring his way.

“Seeing . . . oh, William,” he said.

“Don't deny it.”

“Why should I?” Donal looked at her almost with wonder. “Surely, it's nothing to make a secret about?”

She stared at him.

“Oh!” she cried. “You just don't care for anything, do you? What did you do . . . about what I gave you?”

“I gave it back to its owner, of course,” said Donal. “There was no other sensible thing I could do.”

She turned suddenly so white that he almost reached out to catch her, certain she was about to faint. But she did no such womanish thing. Her eyes, as she stared at him, were shocked to enormity.

“Oh!” she breathed. “You . . . you traitor. You
cheat!
” and before he could make a move or say a word to stop her, she had whirled about and was running off down the corridor back in the direction from which he had come.

With a certain wry unhappiness— for, in spite of his rather low opinion of her common sense, he had really expected her to listen to his explanation—he took up his solitary walk to his stateroom. He traveled the rest of the way without meeting anyone. The corridors, in the aftermath of the phase-shift were deserted by prudent passengers.

Only, passing a certain stateroom, he heard sounds of sickness from within; and, looking up, recognized the number on its door as one he had looked up just now on his recent trip to the library.

It was the stateroom of ArDell Montor; and that would be the man himself inside it now, unmedicated and racked by the passing of the phase shift, fighting his own lone battle with the universe.

“All right, gentlemen,” said Hugh Killien.

He stood, confident and impressive in his chameleon battle-dress, with the fingertips of his right hand resting on the gently domed surface of the mapviewer before him.

“If you'll gather around the viewer, here—” he said. The five Force-Leaders moved in until all six men stood thickly clustered around the meter-square area of the viewer. The illumination from the blackout shell enclosing them beat down and met the internal upward illumination of the viewer, so that Donal, glancing around at his fellow-officers, was irresistibly reminded of men caught between wrath and wrath, in some small package section of that hell their First Dissident Church Liaison-Elder had been so eloquent about, only a few hours since at the before-battle service.

“. . . Our position is here,” Hugh was saying. “As your commandant I make you the customary assurance that it is a perfectly tenable position and that the contemplated advance in no way violates the Mercenaries Code. Now—” he went on more briskly, “as you can see, we occupy an area five kilometers in front and three kilometers in depth, between these two ridges. Second Command of Battle Unit 176 to our right, Fourth Command of Battles to our left.

“The contemplated action calls for the Second and Fourth Commands to hold fast in full strength on both our flanks, while we move forward at sixty per cent of strength and capture a small town called Faith Will Succour, which is
here
—”

His index finger stabbed down and rested upon the domed image of the map.

“. . . At approximately four kilometers of distance from our present position. We will use three of our five Forces, Skuak's White's and Graeme's; and each Force will make its separate way to the objective. You will each have your individual maps. There are woods for the first twelve hundred meters. After that, you will have to cross the river, which is about forty meters in width, but which Intelligence assures us is fordable at the present time with a maximum depth of a hundred and twenty centimeters. On the other side it will be woods again, thinning out gradually right up to the edge of the town. We leave in twenty minutes. It'll be dawn in an hour and I want all three Forces across that river before full daylight. Any questions?”

“What about enemy activity in the area?” asked Skuak. He was a short, stocky Cassidan, who looked Mongoloid, but was actually Eskimo in ancestry. “What kind of opposition can we expect?”

“Intelligence says nothing but patrols. Possibly a small Force holding the town, itself. Nothing more.” Hugh looked around the circle of faces. “This should be bread and butter. Any more questions?”

“Yes,” said Donal. He had been studying the map. ‘‘What sort of military incompetent decided to send us out at only sixty per cent of strength?”

The atmosphere in the shell froze suddenly and sharply. Donal looked up to find Hugh Killien's eyes on his across the viewer.

“As it happened,” said the commandant, a slight edge to his words, “it was
my
suggestion to Staff, Graeme. Perhaps you've forgotten—I'm sure none of the other Force-Leaders have—but this is a demonstration campaign to show the First Dissident Church we're worthy of out hire.”

“That hardly includes gambling the lives of four hundred and fifty men,” retorted Donal, unmoved.

“Graeme,” said Hugh, “you're junior officer here; and I'm commandant. You ought to know I don't have to explain tactics to you. But just to set your mind at rest, Intelligence has given a clear green on enemy activity in the area.”

“Still,” persisted Donal, “why take unnecessary chances?”

Hugh sighed in exasperation.

“I certainly shouldn't have to give you lessons in strategy,” he said bitingly. “I think you abuse the right the Code gives you to question Staff decisions. But to put an end to this—there's a good reason why we'll be using the minimum number of men. Our main thrust at the enemy is to come through this area. If we moved forward in strength, the United Orthodox forces would immediately begin to strengthen defenses. But doing it this way, it should appear we're merely moving to take up a natural vacuum along the front. Once we have the town tied down, the Second and Fourth Commands can filter in to reinforce us and we are in position to mount a full-scale attack at the plains below. Does that answer you?”

“Only partially,” said Donal. “I—”

“Give me patience!” snapped the Freilander. “I have five campaigns to my credit, Force-Leader. I'd hardly stick my own neck in a noose. But I'll be taking over White's Force and leaving him in command back here in the Area. You, I and Skuak will make the assay.
Now
, are you satisfied?”

There was, of course, no reply to be made to that. Donal bowed his head in submission and the meeting broke up. Walking back to his Force area, however, alongside Skuak, Donal remained unreconstructed enough to put an extra question to the Cassidan.

“Do
you
think I'm starting at shadows?” asked Donal.

“Huh!” grunted Skuak. “It's his responsibility. He ought to know what he's doing.” And, on that note, they parted; each to marshal his own men.

Back in his own Force area, Donal found that his Groupmen had already assembled his command. They stood under arms, drawn up in three lines of fifty men each, with a senior and junior Groupman at the head of each line. The ranking senior Groupman, a tall, thin Cetan veteran named Morphy, accompanied him as he made his rounds of the ranks, inspecting the men.

They were a good unit, Donal thought, as he paced down between the rows. Well-trained men, battle- seasoned, although in no sense elite troops, since they had been picked at random by the Elders of the First Dissident Church—William having stipulated only his choice of officers for the demonstration Battle Unit. Each man carried a handgun and knife in addition to his regular armament; but they were infantry, spring- rifle men. Weapon for weapon, any thug in the back alley of a large city had more, and more modern firepower; but the trick with modern warfare was not to outgun the enemy, but carry weapons he could not gimmick. Chemical and radiation armament was too easily put out of action from a distance. Therefore, the spring-rifle with its five thousand- sliver magazine and its tiny, compact, non-metallic mechanism which could put a sliver in a man-sized target at a thousand meters time after time with unvarying accuracy.

Yet, thought Donal, pacing between the silent men in the faint darkness of pre-dawn, even the spring-rifle would be gimmickable one of these days. Eventually, the infantryman would be back to the knife and short sword. And the emphasis would weigh yet again more heavily on the skill of the individual soldier. For sooner or later, no matter what fantastic long-range weapons you mounted, the ground itself had to be taken —and for that there had never been anything but the man in the ranks.

Donal finished his inspection and went back to stand in front of them.

“Rest, men,” he said. “But hold your ranks. All Groupmen over here with me.”

He walked off out of earshot of the men in ranks and the Groupmen followed him. They squatted in a circle and he passed on to them the orders of the Staff he had just received from Hugh, handing out maps to each of them.

“Any questions?” he asked, as Hugh had asked his Force-Leaders.