Гордон Диксон - Soldier, Ask Not

The invitation was to a party being held for a man not so well known then as he has since become, a Dorsai (as Galt of course was a Dorsai) Space Sub-Patrol Chief named Donal Graeme. This was Graeme’s first emergence into the public eye. He had just completed an utterly foolhardy attack on the planetary defenses of Newton, with something like four or five ships—an attack that had been lucky enough to relieve Newtonian pressure on Oriente, an uninhabited sister world of Freiland and New Earth, and get Galt’s planetary forces out of a bad tactical hole.

He was, I judged at the time, a wild-eyed military gambler of some sort—his kind usually were. But my business, happily, was not with him, anyway. It was with some of the influential people who should be at this party of his.

In particular, I wanted the co-signature of the Freiland News Services Department Chief on Dave’s papers—not that this would imply any actual protection extended to my brother-in-law by the News Services. That type of protection was extended only to Guild members and, with reservations, to apprentices on trial like myself. But to the uninitiate, like a soldier in the field, it might well look as if News Service protection was implied. Then, in addition, I wanted the signature of someone ranking among the Friendly mercenaries, for Dave’s protection, in case he and I should fall in with some of their soldiers on the battlefield during the campaign.

I found the News Services Department Chief, a reasonable pleasant Earthman named Nuy Snelling, without difficulty. He gave me no trouble about noting on Dave’s pass that the News Services agreed to Dave’s assisting me and signing the message.

“Of course you know,” he said, “this isn’t worth a hoot.” He eyed me curiously, as he handed the pass back. “This Dave Hall some friend of yours?”

“Brother-in-law,” I answered.

“Hmm,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Well, good luck.” And he turned away to talk to an Exotic in blue robes—who, with a sudden shock, I recognized as Padma.

The shock was severe enough so that I committed an imprudence I had not been guilty of for several years, at least, that of speaking without thinking.

“Padma—OutBond!” I said, the words jolted from me. “What are you doing here?”

Snelling, stepping back so as to have both of us in view at once, raised his eyebrows again. But Padma answered before my superior in the Services could take me to task for a pretty obvious rudeness. Padma was under no compulsion to account to me for his whereabouts. But he did not seem to take offense.

“I could ask you the same thing, Tam,” he said, smiling.

I had my wits back by that time.

“I go where the news is,” I answered. It was the stock News Services answer. But Padma chose to take it literally.

“And, in a sense, so do I,” he said. “Remember I spoke to you once about a pattern, Tam? This place and moment is a locus.”

I did not know what he was talking about; but having begun the conversation, I could not let go of it easily.

“Is that so?” I said smiling. “Nothing to do with me, I hope?”

“Yes,” he said. And all at once I was aware once more of his hazel eyes, looking at and deep into me. “But more with Donal Graeme.”

“That’s only fair, I suppose,” I said, “since the party’s in his honor.” And I laughed, while trying to think of some excuse to escape. Padma’s presence was making the skin crawl at the back of my neck. It was as if he had some occult effect on me, so that I could not think clearly when he was present. “By the way, whatever happened to that girl who brought me to Mark Torre’s office that day? Lisa … Kant, I think her name was.”

“Yes, Lisa,” said Padma, his eyes steady on me. “She’s here with me. She’s my personal secretary now. I imagine you’ll bump into her shortly. She’s concerned about saving you.”

“Saving him?” put in Snelling, lightly, but interestedly enough. It was his job, as it was the job of all full Guild members, to observe the Apprentices for anything that might affect their acceptability into the Guild.

“From himself,” said Padma, his hazel eyes still watching me, as smoky and yellow as the eyes of a god or a demon.

“Then, I’d better see if I can’t look her up myself and let her get on with it,” I said lightly in my turn, grasping at the opportunity to get away. “I’ll see you both later perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” said Snelling. And I went off.

As soon as I had lost myself in the crowd, I ducked toward one of the entrances to the stairways leading up to the small balconies that looked down around

the walls of the room, like opera boxes in a theater. It was no plan of mine to be trapped by that strange girl, Lisa Kant, whom I remembered with too much vividness anyway. Five years before, after the occasion at the Final Encyclopedia, I had been bothered, time and again, by the desire to go back to the Enclave and look her up. And, time and again, something like a fear had stopped me.

I knew what the fear was. Deep in me was the irrational feeling that the perception and ability I had been evolving for handling people, as I had first handled my sister in the library with Jamethon Black, and as I had later handled all who got in my path right up to Commandant Frane, earlier that same day and a world away-deep in me, I say, was the fear that something would rob me of this power in the face of any attempt of mine to handle Lisa Kant.

Therefore, I found a stairway and ran up it, onto a little, deserted balcony with a few chairs around a circular table. From here I should be able to spot Eldest Bright, Chief Elder of the Joint Church Council that ruled both Friendly worlds of Harmony and Association. Bright was a Militant—one of the ruling Friendly churchmen who believed most strongly in war as a means to any end—and he had been paying a brief visit to New Earth to see how the Friendly mercenaries were working out for their New Earth employers. A scribble from him on Dave’s pass would be better protection for my brother-in-law from the Friendly troops than five Commands of Cassidan armor.

I spotted him, after only a few minutes of searching the crowd milling about fifteen feet below me. He was clear across the large room, talking to a white-haired man—a Venusian or Newtonian by the look of him. I knew the appearance of Eldest Bright, as I knew the appearance of most interstellarly newsworthy people on the sixteen inhabited worlds. Just because I had made my way this far and fast by my own special talents, did not mean I had not also worked to learn my job. But, in spite of my knowledge, my first sight of Eldest Bright was still a shock.

I had not realized how strangely powerful for a churchman he would look in the flesh. Bigger than myself, with shoulders like a barn door and—though he was middle-aged—a waist like a sprinter. He stood, dressed all in black, with his back to me and his legs a little spread, the weight of him on the balls of his feet like a trained fighter. Altogether, there was something about the man, like a black flame of strength, that at the same time chilled me and made me eager to match wits with him.

One thing was certain, he would be no Commandant Frane to dance eagerly at the end of a string of words.

I turned to go down to him—and chance stopped me. If it was chance. I shall never know for sure. Perhaps it was a hypersensitivity planted in me by Padma’s remark that this place and moment was a locus in the human pattern of development to which he had responsibility. I had affected too many people myself by just such subtle but apposite suggestion, to doubt that it might have been done to me, in this case. But I suddenly caught sight of a little knot of people almost below me.