Гордон Диксон - Soldier, Ask Not

He was a man in his late forties or early fifties with close-cropped, pure gray hair. He was built as square as the lower half of a Dutch door and had a heavy, square jaw which had no trouble looking grim. It was looking grim now, for all he was trying to appear unconcerned—and I knew the cause of the worry that was making his expression a rebel against his intentions.

“I supposed you would have,” I said, grim enough in my own way. “So I’ll make one point clear by reminding you right from the start of the impartiality of the Interstellar News Services.”

He had sat back down.

“We know about that,” he said, “and I’m not suggesting any bias on your part against us, either, Newsman. We regret the death of your brother-in-law and your own wounding. But I’d like to point out that the News Services, in sending you, of all Guild members, to do a series of articles on our occupation of this New Earth territory—”

“Let me make myself perfectly clear!” I broke in on him. “I chose to do this assignment, Commander. I asked to be able to do it!”

By this time his face was grim as a bulldog’s, with little pretense remaining. I stared as bitterly straight across his desk into his eyes.

“I see you don’t understand, Commander.” I rapped the words out in as metallic a tone as I could; and—to my ear, at least—the tone was good. “My parents died when I was young. I was raised by an uncle and it was the goal of my life to be a Newsman. To me, the News Services are more important than any institution or human being on any of the sixteen civilized worlds. The Creed of the members of the Guild is carried in my heart, Commander. And the keystone article of that Creed is impartiality—the crushing down, the wiping out of any personal feeling where that might conflict with or influence to the slightest degree the work of a Newsman.”

He continued to look grim at me from across the desk; and, gradually it seemed to me, a hint of doubt crept into that iron visage of his.

“Mr. Olyn,” he said at last; and the more neutral title was a tentative lightening of the formal sword’s-point attitude with which we had begun our talk. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re here to do these articles as proof of your lack of bias toward us?”

“Toward you, or any people or things,” I said, “in accordance with the Newsman’s Creed. This series will be a public testimony to our Creed, and consequently to the benefit of all who wear the cloak.”

He did not believe me even then, I think. His good sense warred with what I was telling him; and the assumption of selflessness on my part must have had a boastful ring in the mouth of someone he knew to be a non-Friendly.

But, at the same time, I was talking his language. The harsh joy of self-sacrifice, the stoic amputation of my own personal feelings in the pursuit of my duty rang true to the beliefs he had lived with all his own life.

“I see,” he said at last. He got to his feet and extended his hand across the desk as I rose, too. “Well, Newsman, I cannot say that we are pleased to see you here, even now. But we will cooperate with you within reason as much as possible. Though any series reflecting the fact that we are here as unwelcome visitors upon a foreign planet is bound to do us harm in the eyes of the people of the sixteen worlds.”

“I don’t think so this time,” I said shortly as I shook hands. He let go of my hand and looked at me with a sudden renewal of suspicion.

“What I plan to do is an editorial series,” I explained. “It’ll be titled The Case for Occupation by the Friendly Troops on New Earth , and it’ll restrict itself completely to exploring the attitudes and positions of you and your men in the occupation force.”

He stared at me.

“Good afternoon,” I said.

I went out, hearing his half-mumbled “Good afternoon” behind me. I left him, I knew, completely uncertain as to whether he was sitting on a carton of high explosive or not.

But, as I knew he would, he began to come around, when the first of the articles in the series began to appear in the Interstellar News releases. There is a difference between an ordinary article of reportage and an editorial article. In an editorial article, you can present the case for the Devil; and as long as you dissociate yourself from it personally, you can preserve your reputation of a freedom from bias.

I presented the case for the Friendlies, in the Friendlies’ own terms and utterances. It was the first time in years that the Friendly soldiers had been written about in the Interstellar News without adverse criticism; and, of course, to the Friendlies, all adverse criticism implied a bias against them. For they knew of no half-measures in their own way of life and recognized none in outsiders. By the time I was halfway through the series, Field Commander Wassel and all his occupation forces had taken me as close to their grim hearts as a non-Friendly could be taken.

Of course, the series evoked a howl from the New Earthians that their side of the occupation also be written up. And a very good Newsman named Moha Skanosky was assigned by the Guild to do just that.

But I had had the first innings at bat in the public eye; and the articles had so strong an effect that they almost convinced me , their writer. There is a magic in words when they are handled, and when I had finished the series I was almost ready to find in myself some excuse and sympathy for these unyielding men of a Spartan faith.

But there was a claidheamh mör , unsharpened and unslaked, hanging on the stone walls of my soul, that would not bend to any such weakness.

Still, I was under the close observation of my peers in the Guild; and on my return to St. Louis on Earth, among my other mail was a note from Piers Leaf.

Dear Tam:

Your series was an admirable job. But, bearing in mind what we talked about the last time we met, I would think that straight reporting might build a better professional record for you than dealing in background material of this sort. With best wishes for your future—

It was a plain enough cautioning not to be observed involving myself personally in the situation I had told him I would investigate. It might have caused me to put off for a month or so the trip I had planned to St. Marie. But just then Donal Graeme, who had accepted the position of War Chief for the Friendlies, carried out his first subsurface extrication of a Friendly expeditionary force from Coby, the airless mining world in the same system as the Exotic worlds and St. Marie. As a result of that rescue, the Exotic mercenary command was severely shaken up, to be reorganized under the command of Geneve bar-Colmain.

Despite widespread admiration for Graeme’s skill, the public saw the situation as an unexpected pardon for Friendly forces who had been the aggressors on Coby. With the general liking for the Exotics on the other twelve worlds, what attention my series of articles had obtained was completely wiped out. In this I was well content. What I hoped to gain from their publication, I had already gained in the relaxation of enmity and suspicion of me personally by Field Commander Wassel and his occupation force.

I went to St. Marie, a small but fertile world which, with Coby and a few uninhabited bits of rock like Zombri, shared the Procyon system with the Exotic worlds, Mara and Kultis. My official purpose of visit was to see what effect the Coby military debacle had had on this suburban planet with its largely Roman Catholic, predominantly rural population.

While there were no official connections between them, except a mutual-aid pact, St. Marie was by necessity of spatial geography almost a ward of the larger, more powerful Exotic worlds. Like anyone with rich and powerful neighbors St. Marie, in her government and affairs, pretty much rose and fell with Exotic fortunes. It would be interesting to the reading public of the sixteen worlds to see how the Exotic reversal on Coby had caused the winds of opinion and politics to blow on St. Marie.