Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 05 (19 page)

"None of them," I said. "All right. Why do you want to know who's running the Blue Front, now?"

"I thought I'd make an appeal to them, to give up the assassins of Kensie Graeme—to save the Blauvain people. Tom—" he stared directly at me. "Just an hour ago the enlisted men of the mercenaries took a vote on whether to demand their officers lead them on the city. They voted over ninety-four per cent, in favor. And Pel… Pel's finally mobilized his militia; but I don't think he means to help us. He's been trying to get in to talk to Ian all day."

"All day?" I glanced at the time on my wrist unit. "4:25—it's not 4:25 pm,
now
?"

"Yes," said Moro, staring at me. "I thought you knew."

"I didn't mean to sleep like this!" I came out of the chair, moving toward the door. "Pel's trying to see Ian? The sooner we get down and see him ourselves, the better."

So we went. But we were too late. By the time we got to Expedition Headquarters and past the junior officers to the door of the office where Ian was, Pel was already with Ian. I brushed aside the Force Leader barring our way and walked in, followed by Moro.

Pel was standing facing Ian, who sat at a desk surrounded by stacks of filmprints. He got to his feet as Moro and I appeared.

"That'll be all right, Force-leader," he said to the officer behind us. "Tom, I'm glad you're here. Mr.

Mayor, though, if you don't mind waiting outside, I’ll see you in a few minutes."

Moro had little choice but to go out again. The door shut behind him, Ian waved me to a chair beside Pel, and sat down again himself.

"Go ahead, General," he said to Pel. "Repeat what you'd started to tell me, for the benefit of Tom, here."

Pel glanced savagely at me for a second out of the edge of his eyes before answering.

"This doesn't have anything to do with the Police Commissioner of Blauvain," he said, "or anyone else of St. Marie."

"Repeat," said Ian again. He did not raise his voice. The word was simply an iron door dropped in Pel's way, forcing him to turn back Pel glanced once more, grimly at me.

"I was just saying," he said, "if Commander Graeme would go to the encampment and speak to the enlisted men there, he could probably get them to vote unanimously."

"Vote unanimously for what?" I asked.

"For a house-to-house search of the Blauvain area," Ian answered.

"The city's been cordoned," Pel said quickly. "A search like that would turn up the assassins in a matter of hours, with the whole expeditionary force searching."

"Sure," I said, "and with the actual assassins, there'd be a few hundred suspected assassins, or people who fought or ran for the wrong reason, killed or wounded by the searchers. Even if the Blue Front didn't take advantage of the opportunity—which they certainly would—to start gunfights with the soldiers in the city streets."

"What of it?" said Pel, talking to Ian rather than to me. "Your troops can handle any Blue Front people.

And you'd be doing St. Marie a favor to wipe them out."

"If the whole thing didn't develop into a wiping-out of the whole civilian population of the city," I said.

"You're implying, Tom," said Pel, "that the Exotic troops can't be controlled by—"

Ian cut him short.

"Your suggestion, General," he said, "is the same one I've been getting from other quarters. Someone else is here with it right now. I'll let you listen to the answer I give him."

He turned toward his desk annunciator.

"Send in Groupman Whallo," he said.

He straightened up and turned back to us as the door to his office opened and in came the mercenary noncom I had brushed past out there. In the light, I saw it was the immigrant Dorsai of the Hunter Team I had encountered—the man who had been a Dorsai fourteen years.

"Sir!" he said, stopping a few steps before Ian and saluting. Uncovered himself, Ian did not return the salute.

"You've got a message for me?" Ian said. "Go ahead. I want these gentlemen to hear it, and my answer."

"Yes sir," said Whallo. I could see him glance at and recognize me out of the corner of his eyes. "As representative of the enlisted men of the Expedition, I have been sent to convey to you the results of our latest vote on orders. By unanimous vote, the enlisted men of this command have concurred in the need for a single operation."

"Which is?"

"That a house-to-house search of the Blauvain city area be made for the assassins of Reid Commander Graeme," said Whallo. He nodded at lan's desk and for the first time I saw solidigraphs there-artists'

impressions, undoubtedly, but looking remarkably lifelike of three men in civilian clothes. "There's no danger we won't recognize them when we find them."

Whallo's formal and artificial delivery was at odds with the way I had heard him speak when I had run into him at the Hunter Team site. There was, it occurred to me suddenly, probably a military protocol even to matters like this—even to the matter of a man's death and the possible death of a city. It came as a little shock to realize it and for the first time I began to feel something of what Padma had meant in saying that the momentum of forces involved here was massive. For a second it was almost as if I could feel those forces like great winds, blowing on the present moment. —But Ian was already answering him.

"Any house-to-house search involves possible military errors and danger to the civilian population," he was saying. "The military record of my brother is not to be marred after his death by any intemperate order from me."

"Yes sir," said Whallo. "I'm sorry sir; but the en-listed men of the expedition had hoped that the action would be ordered by you. Their decision calls for six hours in which you may consider the matter before our Enlisted Men's Council takes the responsibility for the action upon itself. Meanwhile, the Hunter Teams will be withdrawn—this is part of the voted decision."

"That, too?" said Ian.

"I'm sorry, sir. But you know," said Whallo, "they've been at a dead end for some hours now. The trail was lost in traffic; and the men might be anywhere in the central part of the city."

"Yes," said Ian. "Well, thank you for your message, Groupman."

"Sir!" said Whallo. He saluted again and went out.

As the door closed behind him, lan's head turned back to face Pel and myself

"You heard, gentlemen," he said. "Now, I've got work to do."

Pel and I left. In the corridor outside, Whallo was already gone and the young Force-Leader was absent.

Only Moro stood waiting for us. Pel turned on me, furiously.

"Who asked you to show up here?" he demanded.

"Moro," I answered. "And a good thing, too. Pel, what's got into you? You act as if you had some personal axe to grind in seeing the Exotic mercenaries level Blauvain—"

He spun away from me.

"Excuse me!" he snapped. "I've got things to do. I've got to phone my Headquarters."

Puzzled, I watched him take a couple of long strides away from me and out of the outer office.

Sud-denly, it was as if the winds of those massive forces I had felt for a moment just past in lan's office had blown my head strangely clean, clear and empty, so that the slightest sound echoed with importance.

All at once, I was hearing the echo of Pel saying those identical words as Kensie was preparing to leave the mercenary encampment for the non-existent victory dinner; and a half-recognized but long-held suspicion in me flared into a raging certainty.

I took three long strides after him and caught him. I whirled him around and rammed him up against a wall.

"It was you!" I said. "You called from the Encampment to the city just before we drove in. It was you who told the assassins we were on the way and to move into position to snipe at our car. You're Blue Front, Pel; and you set Kensie up to be murdered!"

My hands were on his throat and he could not have answered if he had wanted to. But he did not need to. Then I heard the click of bootheels on the floor of the polished stone corridor flagging outside the office, and let go of him, slipping my hand under my uniform jacket to my beltgun.

"Say a word," I whispered to him, "or try anything… and I'll kill you before you can get the first syllable out. You're coming along with us!"

The Force-leader entered. He glanced at the three of us curiously.

"Something I can do for you gentlemen?" he asked.

"No," I said, "No, we're just leaving."

With one arm through Pel's and the hand of my other arm under my jacket on the butt of my beltgun, we went out as close as the old friends
we
had always been, Moro bringing up the rear. Out in the corridor, with the office door behind us, Moro caught up with me on the opposite side from Pel.

"What are we going to do?" Moro whispered. Pel had still said nothing; but his eyes were like the black shadows of meteor craters on the gray face of an airless moon.

"Take him downstairs and out to a locked room in the nearest police post," I said. "He's a walking stick of high explosive if any of the mercenaries find out what he did. Someone of his rank involved in Kensie's killing is all the excuse they need to run our streets red in the gutters."

We got Pel to a private back room in Post Ninety-six, a local police center less than three minutes drive from the building where Ian had his office.

"But how can you be sure, he—" Moro hesitated at putting it into words, once
we
were safe in the room.

He stood staring at Pel, who sat huddled in a chair, still without speaking.

"I'm sure," I said. "The Exotic, Padma-" I cut myself off as much as Moro had done. "Never mind. The main thing is he's Blue Front, he's involved—and what do we do about it?"

Pel stirred and spoke for the first time since I had almost strangled him. He looked up at Moro and myself out of his grey-dead face.

"I did it for St. Marie!" he said, hoarsely. "But I didn't know they were going to kill him! I didn't know that. They said it was just to be shooting around the car—for an incident—"

"You hear?" I jerked my head at Moro. "Do you want more proof than that?"

"What'll we do?" Moro was staring in fascinated horror at Pel.

"That was my question," I reminded him. He stood there looking hardly in better case than Pel. "But it doesn't look like you're going to be much help in answering it." I laughed, but not happily. "Padma said the choice was up to me."

"Who? What're you talking about? What choice?" asked Moro.

"Pel here—" I nodded at him, "knows where the assassins are hiding."

"No," said Pel.

"Well, you know enough so that we can find them," I said. "It makes no difference. And outside of this room, there's only two people on St. Marie we can trust with that information."

"You think I'd tell you anything?" Pel said. His face was still grey, but it had firmed up now. "Do you think even if I knew anything I'd tell you? St. Marie needs a strong government to survive and only the Blue Front can give it to her. I was ready to give my life for that, yesterday. I'm still willing. I won't tell you anything—and you can't make me. Not in six hours."

"What two people?" Moro asked me.

"Padma," I said, "and Ian."

"Ian!" said Pel. "You think he'll help you? He doesn't give a damn for St. Marie, either way. Did you believe that talk of his about his brother's military record? He's got no feelings. It's his own military record he's concerned with; and he doesn't care if the mercenaries tear Blauvain up by the roots, as long as it's done over his own objection. He's just as happy as any of the other mercenaries with that vote. He's just going to sit out his six hours and let things happen."

"And I suppose Padma doesn't care either?" Moro was beginning to sound a little ugly himself. "It was the Exotics sent us help against the Friendlies in the first place!"

"Who knows what Exotics want?" Pel retorted. "They pretend to go about doing nothing but helping other people, and never dirtying their hands with violence and so on; and somehow with all that they keep on getting richer and more powerful all the time. Sure, trust Padma, why don't you? Trust Padma and see what happens!"

Moro looked at me uncomfortably.

"What if he's right?" Moro said.

"What if he's right?" I snarled at him. "Moro, can't you see this is what St. Marie's trouble has always been? Here's the troublemaker we always have around—someone like Pel—whispering that the devil's in the chimney and you—like the rest of our people always do—starting to shake at the knees and wanting to sell him the house at any price! Stay here both of you; and don't try to leave the room."

I went out, locking the door behind me. They were in one of a number of rooms set up behind the duty officer's desk and I went up to the night sergeant on duty. He was a man I'd known back when I had been in detective training on the Blauvain force, an old-line policeman named Jaker Reales.

"Jaker," I said, "I've got a couple of valuable items locked up in that back room. J hope to be back in an hour or so to collect them; but if I don't, make sure they don't get out and nobody gets in to them, or knows they're mere. I don't care what kind of noises may seem to come out of there, it's all in the imagination of anyone who thinks he hears them, for twenty-four hours at least, if I don't come back"

"Got you, Tom," said Jaker. "Leave it up to me, sir."

"Thanks, Jaker," I said.

I went out and back to Expedition Headquarters. It had not occurred to me to wonder what Ian would do now that his Hunter Teams had been taken from him. I found Expedition Headquarters now quietly aswarm with officers—officers who clearly were most of them Dorsai. No enlisted men were to be seen.

I was braced to argue my way into seeing Ian; but the men on duty surprised me. I had to wait only four or five minutes outside the door of lan's private office before six Senior Commandants, Charley ap Morgan among them, filed out.

"Good," said Charley, nodding as he saw me; and then went on without any further explanation of what he meant. I had no time even to look after him. Ian was waiting.

I went in. Ian sat massively behind his desk, waiting for me, and waved me to a chair facing him as I came in. I sat down. He was only a few feet from me, but again I had the feeling of a vast distance separating us. Even here and now, under the soft lights of this nighttime office, he conveyed, more strongly than any Dorsai I had ever seen, a sense of difference. Generations of men bred to war had made him; and I could not warm to him as Pel and others had warmed to Kensie. Far from kindling any affection in me, as he sat there, a cold wind like that off some icy and barren mountaintop seemed to blow from him to me, chilling me. I could believe Pel, that Ian was all ice and no blood; and there was no reason for me to do anything for him—except that as a man whose brother had been killed, he deserved