The Spirit of Dorsai Read online

  "Sir—" The Force-Leader said to Charley, "the Outbond and the Mayor will only be with the Commander another few minutes—"

  Charley brushed past him, and the Force-leader spun around to punch at his desk phone. Heels clicking on the polished stone floor, Charley led us toward a further door and opened it, stepping into the office beyond. We followed him there—into a large, square room with windows overlooking the city and our own broad-shouldered Mayor, Moro Spence, standing there with a white-haired, calm-faced, hazel-eyed man in a blue robe both facing a desk at which sat the mirror image of Kensie that was his twin brother, Ian Graeme.

  Ian spoke to his desk as we came in.

  "It's all right," he said. He punched a button and looked up at Charley, who went forward with Chu beside him, to the very edge of the desk, and then both saluted.

  "What is it?" asked Ian.

  "Kensie," said Charley. His voice became formal. "Field Commander Kensie Graeme has just been killed, sir, as we were on our way into the city."

  For perhaps a second—no longer—Ian sat without speaking. But his face—so like Kensie's and yet so different—did not change expression.

  "How?" he asked, then.

  "By assassins we couldn't see," Charley answered. "Civilians we think They got away."

  Moro Spence swore.

  "The Blue Front!" he said. "Ian… Ian, listen…"

  No one paid any attention to him. Charley was briefly recounting what had happened from the time the message about the invitation had reached the encampment—

  "But there wasn't any celebration like that planned!" protested Moro Spence, to the deaf ears around him. Ian sat quietly, his harsh, powerful face half in shadow from the sunlight coming in the high window behind him, listening as he might have listened to a thousand other reports. There was still no change visible in him; except perhaps that he, who had always been remote from everyone else, seemed even more remote now. His heavy forearms lay on the desktop, and the massive hands that were trained to be deadly weapons in their own right lay open and still on the papers beneath them. Almost, he seemed to be more legendary character than ordinary man; and that impression was not mine alone, because behind me I heard Pel hiss on a breath of sick fury indrawn between his teeth; and I remembered how he had talked of Ian being only ice and water, Kensie only blood.

  The white-haired man in the blue robe, who was the Exotic, Padma, Outbond to St. Marie for the period of the Expedition, was also watching Ian steadily. When Charley was through with his account, Padma spoke.

  "Ian," he said; and his calm, light baritone seemed to linger and reecho strangely on the ear, "I think this is something best handled by the local authorities."

  Ian glanced at him.

  "No," he answered. He looked at Charley. "Who's Duty Officer?"

  "NgTsok," said Charley.

  Ian punched the phone button on his desk

  "Get me Colonel Waru Ng'kok, Encampment HQ," he said to the desk

  " 'No ?' " echoed Moro. "I don't understand Commander. We can handle it. It's the Blue Front, you see. They're an outlawed political—"

  I came up behind him and put my hand on his shoulder. He broke off, turning around.

  "Oh, Tom!" he said, on a note of relief "I didn't see you before. I'm glad you're here—"

  I put my finger to my lips. He was politician enough to recognize that there are times to shut up. He shut up now, and we both looked back at Ian.

  "… Waru? This is Base Commander Ian Graeme," Ian was saying to his phone. "Activate our four best Hunter Teams; and take three Forces from your on-duty troops to surround Blauvain. Seal all entrances to the city. No one allowed in or out without our authority. Tell the involved troops briefing on these actions will be forthcoming."

  As professional, free-lance soldiers, under the pattern of the Dorsai contract—which the Exotic employers honored for all their military employees—the mercenaries were entitled to know the aim and purpose of any general orders for military action they were given. By a ninety-six per cent vote among the enlisted men concerned, they could refuse to obey the order. In fact, by a hundred per cent vote, they could force their officers to use them in an action they themselves demanded. But a hundred per cent vote was almost unheard of. The phone grid in lan's desk top said something I could not catch.

  "No," replied Ian, "that's all."

  He clicked off the phone and reached down to open a drawer in his desk He took out a gunbelt—a working, earth-colored gunbelt unlike the dress one Kensie had put on earlier—with sidearm already in its holster; and, standing up, began to strap it on. On his feet, he dominated the room, towering over us all.

  "Tom," he said, looking at me, "put your police to work, finding out what they can. Tell them all to be prepared to obey orders by any one of our soldiers, no matter what his rank."

  "I don't know if I've got the authority to tell them that," I said.

  "I've just given you the authority," he answered calmly. "As of this moment, Blauvain is under martial law."

  Moro cleared his throat; but I jerked a hand at him to keep him quiet. There was no one in this room with the power to deal with lan's authority now, except the gentle-faced man in the blue robe. I looked appealingly at Padma, and he turned from me to Ian.

  "Naturally, Ian, measures will have to be taken, for the satisfaction of the soldiers who knew Kensie," Padma said softly, "but perhaps finding the guilty men would be better done by the civilian police without military assistance?"

  "I'm afraid we can't leave it to them," said Ian briefly. He turned to the other two Dorsai officers.. "Chu, take command of the Forces I've just ordered to cordon the city. Charley, you'll take over as Acting Field Commander. Have all the officers and men in the encampment held there, and gather back any who are off post. You can use the office next to this one. We'll brief the troops in the encampment, this afternoon. Chu can brief his forces as he posts them around the city."

  The two turned and headed toward the door.

  "Just a minute, gentlemen!"

  Padma's voice was raised only slightly. But the pair of officers paused and turned for a moment.

  "Colonel ap Morgan, Commandant Moy," said Padma, "as the official representative of the Exotic Government, which is your employer, I relieve you from the requirement of following any further orders of Commander Ian Graeme."

  Charley and Chu looked past the Exotic, to Ian.

  "Go ahead," said Ian. They went. Ian turned back to Padma. "Our contracts provide that officers and men are not subject to civilian authority while on active duty, engaged with an enemy."

  "But the war—the war with the Friendly invaders—is over," said Moro.

  "One of our soldiers has just been killed," said Ian. "Until the identity of the killers is established, I'm going to assume we're still engaged with an enemy."

  He looked again at me.

  "Tom," he said. "You can contact your Police Headquarters from this desk As soon as you've done that, report to me in the office next door, where I sent Charley."

  He came around the desk and went out. Padma followed him. I went to the desk and put in a phone call to my own office.

  "For God's sake, Tom!" said Moro to me, as I punched phone buttons for the number of my office, and started to get the police machinery rolling. "What's going on, here?"

  I was too busy to answer him. Someone else was not.

  "He's going to make them pay for killing his brother," said Pel savagely, from across the room. "That's what's going on!"

  I had nearly forgotten Pel. Moro must have forgotten him absolutely, because he turned around to him now as if Pel had suddenly appeared on the scene in a cloud of fire and brimstone-odorous smoke.

  "Pel?" he said. "Oh, Pel—get your militia together and under arms, right away. This is an emergency—"

  "Go to hell!" Pel answered him. "I'm not going to lift a finger to keep Ian from hunting down those assassins. And no one else in the militia who knew Kensie Graeme is going
to lift a finger, either."

  "But this could bring down the government!"

  Moro was close to the idea of tears, if not to the actual article. "This could throw St. Marie back into anarchy, and the Blue Front will take over by default!"

  "That's what the planet deserves," said Pel, "when it lets men like Kensie be shot down like dogs —men who came here to risk their lives to save our government!"

  "You're crazier than these mercenaries are!" said Moro, staring at him. Then a touch of hope lifted Moro's drawn features. "Actually, Ian seems calm enough. Maybe he won't—"

  "He'll take this city apart if he has to," said Pel, savagely. "Don't blind yourself"

  I had finished my phoning. I punched off, and straightened up, looking at Pel.

  "I thought you told me there was nothing but ice and water to Ian?" I said.

  "There isn't," Pel answered. "But Kensie's his twin brother. That's the one thing he can't sit back from and shuffle off. You'll see."

  "I hope and pray I don't," I said; and I left the office for the one next door where Ian was waiting for me. Pel and Moro followed; but when we came to the doorway of the" other office, there was a soldier there who would let only me through.

  "… We'll want a guard on that hospital room, and a Force guarding the hospital itself," Ian was saying slowly and deliberately to Charley ap Morgan as I came in. He was standing over Charley, who was seated at a desk Back against a wall stood the silent figure in a blue robe that was Padma. Ian turned to face me.

  "The troops at the encampment are being paraded in one hour," he said. "Charley will be going out to brief them on what's happened. I'd like you to go with him and be on the stand with him during the briefing."

  I looked back at him, up at him. I had not gone along with Pel's ice-and-water assessement of the man. But now for the first time I began to doubt myself and begin to believe Pel. If ever there had been two brothers who had seemed to be opposite halves of a single egg, Kensie and Ian had been those two. But here was Ian with Kensie dead—perhaps the only living person on the eleven human-inhabited worlds among the stars who had loved or understood him— and Ian had so far shown no more emotion at his brother's death than he might have on discovering an incorrect Order of the Day.

  It occurred to me then that perhaps he was in emotional shock—and this was the cause of his unnatural calmness. But the man I looked at now had none of the signs of a person in shock. I found myself wondering if any man's love for his brother could be hidden so deep that not even that brother's violent death could cause a crack in the frozen surface of the one who went on living.

  If Ian was repressing emotion that was due to explode sometime soon, then we were all in trouble. My Blauvain police and the planetary militia together were toy soldiers compared to these professionals. Without the Exotic control to govern them, the whole planet was at their mercy. But there was no point in admitting that—even to ourselves—while even the shadow of independence was left to us.

  "Commander," I said. "General Pel Sinjin's planetary militia were closely involved with your brother's forces. He would like to be at any such brief-ing. Also, Moro Spence, Blauvain's Mayor and pro-tem President of the St. Marie Planetary Government, would want to be there. Both these men, Commander, have as deep a stake in this situation as your troops."

  Ian looked at me.

  "General Sinjin," he said, after a moment. "Of course. But we don't need mayors."

  "St. Marie needs them," I said. "That's all our St. Marie World Council is, actually—a collection of mayors from our largest cities. Show that Moro and the rest mean nothing, and what little authority they have will be gone in ten minutes. Does St. Marie deserve that from you?"

  He could have answered that St. Marie had been the death of his brother—and it deserved anything he wished to give it. But he did not. I would have felt safer with him if he had. Instead, he looked at me as if from a long, long distance for several seconds, then over at Padma.

  "You'd favor that?" he asked.

  "Yes," said Padma. Ian looked back at me.

  "Both Moro and General Sinjin can go with you, then," he said. "Charley will be leaving from here by air in about forty minutes. I'll let you get back to your own responsibilities until then. You'd better appoint someone as liaison from your police, to stand by here in this office."

  "Thanks," I said. "I will."

  I turned and went out. As I left, I heard Ian behind me, dictating.

  "… All travel by the inhabitants of the City of Blauvain will be restricted to that which is absolutely essential. Military passes must be obtained for such travel. Inhabitants are to stay off the streets. Anyone involved in any gathering will be subject to investigation and arrest. The City of Blauvain is to recognize the fact that it is now under martial, not civil, law…"

  The door closed behind me. I saw Pel and Moro waiting in the corridor.

  "It's all right," I told them, "you haven't been shut out of things—yet."

  We took off from the top of that building, forty minutes later, Charley and myself up in the control seats of a military eight-man liaison craft with Pel and Moro sitting back among the passenger seats.

  "Charley," I asked him, in the privacy of our isolation together up front in the craft, once we were airborne. "What's going to happen?"

  He was looking ahead through the forward vision screen and he did not answer for a moment. When he did, it was without turning his head.

  "Kensie and I," he said softly, almost absently, "grew up together. Most of our lives we've been in the same place, working for the same employers."

  I had thought I knew Charley ap Morgan. In his cheerfulness, he had seemed more human, less of a half-god of Avar than other Dorsai like Kensie or Ian— or even lesser Dorsai officers like Chu. But now he had moved off with the rest. His words took him out of my reach, into some cold, high, distant country where only Dorsai lived. It was a land I could not enter, the rules of which I would never understand. But I tried again, anyway.

  "Charley," I said, after a moment of silence, "that doesn't answer what I asked you."

  He looked at me then, briefly.

  "I don't know what's going to happen," he said.

  He turned his attention back to the controls. We flew the rest of the way to the encampment without talking.

  When we landed, we found the entire Expedition drawn up in formation. They were grouped by Forces into Battalion and Arm Groups; and their dun-colored battle dress showed glints of light in the late afternoon sunlight. It was not until we mounted the stand facing them that I recognized the glitter for what it was. They had come to the formation under arms, all of them—although that had not been in lan's orders. Word of Kensie had preceded us. I looked at Charlie; but he was paying no attention to the weapons.

  The sun struck at us from the southwest at a lowered angle. The troops were in formation, with their backs to the old factory, and when Charley spoke, the amplifiers caught up his voice and carried it out over their heads.

  "Troops of the Exotic Expeditionary Force in relief of Saint Marie," he said. "By order of Commander Ian Graeme, this briefing is ordered for the hundred and eighty-seventh day of the Expedition on St. Marie soil."

  The brick walls slapped his words back with a flat echo over the still men in uniform. I stood a little behind him, in the shadow of his shoulders, listening. Pel and Moro were behind me.

  "I regret to inform you," Charley said, "that sniper activity within the City of Blauvain, this day, about thirteen hundred hours, cost us the life of Commander Kensie Graeme."

  There was no sound from the men.

  "The snipers have not yet been captured or killed. Since they remain unidentified, Commander Ian Graeme has ordered that the condition of hostilities, which was earlier assumed to have ended, is still in effect. Blauvain has been placed under martial law, sufficient force has been sent to seal the city against any exit or ingress, and all persons under Exotic contract to the Expedition have been
recalled to this encampment…"

  I felt the heat of a breath on my ear and Pel's voice whispered to me.

  "Look at them!" he said. "They're ready to march on Blauvain right now. Do you think they'll let Kensie be killed on some stinking little world like this of ours, and not see that somebody pays for it?"

  "Shut up, Pel," I murmured out of the corner of my mouth at him. But he went on.

  "Look at them!" he said. "It's the order to march they're waiting for—the order to march on Blauvain. And if Charley doesn't end up giving it, there'll be hell to pay. You see how they've all come armed?"

  "That's right, Pel, Blauvain's not your city!" It was a bitter whisper from Moro. "If it was Castelmane they were itching to march on, would you feel the same way about it?"

  "Yes!" hissed Pel, fiercely. "If men come here to risk their lives for us, and we can't do any better than let them be gunned down in the streets, what do we deserve? What does anyone deserve?"

  "Stop making a court case out of it!" whispered Moro harshly. "It's Kensie you're thinking of—that's all. Just like it's only Kensie they're thinking of, out there…"

  I tried again to quiet them, then realized that actually it did not make any difference. For all practical purposes, the three of us were invisible there behind Charley. The attention of the armed men ranked before us was all on Charley, and only on him. As Pel had said, they were waiting for one certain order; and only that order mattered to them.

  It was like standing facing some great, dun-colored, wounded beast which must charge at any second now, if only because in action would there be relief from the pain it was suffering. Charley's expressionless voice went on, each word coming back like a slapping of dry boards together, in the echo from the factory wall. He was issuing a long list of commands having to do with the order of the camp, and its transition back to a condition of battle-alert.

  I could feel the tension rising as he approached the end of his list of orders without one which might indicate action by the Expedition against the city in which Kensie had died. Then, suddenly, the list was at an end.