Dorsai!

Protector II

Arriving at Holmstead the capital city of Venus five days later, Donal went immediately to a conference with Galt in the latter’s suite of rooms at Government Hotel.

“There were things to take care of,” he said, shaking hands with the older man and sitting down, “or I’d have been here sooner.” He examined Galt. “You’re looking tired.”

The Marshal of Freiland had indeed lost weight. The skin of his face sagged a little on the massive bones, and his eyes were darkened with fatigue.

“Politics — politics—” answered Galt. “Not my line at all. It wears a man down. Drink?”

“No thanks,” said Donal.

“Don’t care for one myself,” Galt said. “I’ll just light my pipe… you don’t mind?”

“I never did before. And,” said Donal, “you never asked me before.”

“Heh… no,” Galt gave vent to something halfway between a cough and a chuckle; and, getting out his pipe, began to fill it with fingers that trembled a little. “Damned tired, that’s all. In fact I’m ready to retire — but how can a man quit just when all hell’s popping? You got my message — how many field units can you let me have?”

“A couple and some odds and ends. Say twenty thousand of first-line troops—” Galt’s head came up. “Don’t worry,” Donal smiled. “They will be moved in by small, clumsy stages to give the impression I’m letting you have five times that number, but the procedure’s a little fouled up in getting them actually transferred.”

Galt grunted.

“I might’ve known you’d think of something,” he said. “We can use that mind of yours here, at the main Conference. Officially, we’re gathered here just to agree on a common attitude to the new government on New Earth — but you know what’s really on the fire, don’t you?”

“I can guess,” said Donal. “The open market.”

“Right.” Galt got his pipe alight; and puffed on it gratefully. “The split’s right down the middle, now that New Earth’s in the Venus Group’s camp and we — Freiland, that is — are clear over on the nonmar-ket side by way of reaction. We’re in fair enough Strength counting heads as we sit around the table; but that’s not the problem. They’ve got William — and that white-haired devil Blaine.” He looked sharply over at Donal. “You know Project Blame, don’t you?”

“I’ve never met him. This is my first trip to Venus,” said Donal.

“There’s a shark,” said Galt with feeling. “I’d like to see him and William lock horns on something. Maybe they’d chew each other up and improve the universe. Well… about your status here—”

“Officially I’m sent by Sayona the Bond as an observer.”

“Well, that’s no problem then. We can easily get you invited to step from observer to delegate status. In fact, I’ve already passed the word. We were just waiting for you to arrive.” Galt blew a large cloud of smoke and squinted at Donal through it. “But how about it, Donal? I trust that insight of yours. What’s really in the wind here at the Conference?”

“I’m not sure,” answered Donal. “It’s my belief somebody made a mistake.”

“A mistake?”

“New Earth,” explained Donal. “It was a fool’s trick to overthrow the government there right now — and by force, at that. Which is why I believe we’ll be getting it back.”

Galt sat up sharply, taking his pipe from his mouth.

“Getting it back? You mean — the old government returned to power?” He stared at Donal. “Who’d give it back to us?”

“William for one, I’d imagine,” said Donal. “This isn’t his way of doing things — piecemeal. But you can bet as long as he’s about returning it, he’ll exact a price for it.”

Galt shook his head.

“I don’t follow you,” he said.

“William finds himself working with the Venus group right now,” Donal pointed out. “But he’s hardly out to do them a kindness. His own aims are what concerns him — and it’s those he’ll be after in the long run. In fact, if you look, I’ll bet you see two kinds of negotiations going on at this Conference. The short range, and the long range. The short range is likely to be this matter of an open market. The long range will be William’s game.”

Galt sucked on his pipe again.

“I don’t know,” he said, heavily. “I don’t hold any more of a brief for William than you do — but you seem to lay everything at his doorstep. Are you sure you aren’t a little overboard where the subject of him is concerned?”

“How can anyone be sure?” confessed Donal, wryly. “I mink what I mink about William, because—” he hesitated, “If I were in his shoes, I’d be doing these things I suspect him of.” He paused. “William’s weight on our side could swing the conference into putting enough pressure on New Earth to get the old government back in power, couldn’t it?”

“Why — of course.”

“Well, then.” Donal shrugged. “What could be better than William setting forth a compromise solution that at one and the same time puts him in the opposite camp and conceals as well as requires a development in the situation he desires?”

“Well — I can follow that,” said Galt, slowly. “But if that’s the case, what’s he after? What is it he’ll want?”

Donal shook his head.

“I’m not sure,” he said carefully. “I don’t know.”

On that rather inconclusive note, they ended their own private talk and Galt took Donal off to meet with some of the other delegates.

The meeting developed, as these things do, into a cocktail gathering in the lounges of the suite belonging to Project Blaine of Venus. Blaine himself, Donal was interested to discover, was a heavy, calm-looking white-haired man who showed no surface evidences of the character Galt had implied to him.

“Well, what do you think of him?” Galt murmured, as they left Blaine and his wife in the process of circulating around the other guests.

“Brilliant,” said Donal. “But I hardly think someone to be afraid of.” He met Galt’s raised eyebrows with a smile. “He seems too immersed in his own point of view. I’d consider him predictable.”

“As opposed to William?” asked Galt, in a low voice.

“As opposed to William,” agreed Donal. “Who is not — or, not so much.”

They had all this time been approaching William, who was seated facing them at one end of the lounge and talking to a tall slim woman whose back was to them. As Galt and Donal came up, William’s gaze went past her. “Well, Marshal!” he said, smiling. “Protector!”

The woman turned around; and Donal found himself face to face with Anea.

If six years had made a difference in the outward form of Donal, they had made much more in that of Anea. She was in her late twenties now, and past the last stages of that delayed adolescence of hers. She had begun now to reveal that rare beauty that would deepen with age and experience and never completely leave her, even in extreme old age. She was more developed now, than the last time Donal had seen her, more fully woman-formed and more poised. Her green eyes met Donal’s indeterminate ones across mere centimeters of distance.

“Honored to see you again,” said Donal, inclining his head.

“The honor is mine.” Her voice, like the rest of her, had matured. Donal looked past her to William. “Prince!” he said.

William stood up and shook hands, both with Donal and with Galt.

“Honored to have you with us, Protector,” he said cheerfully to Donal. “I understand the marshal’s proposing you for delegate. You can count on me.”

“That’s good of you,” answered Donal.

“It’s good for me,” said William. “I like open minds around the Conference table and young minds — no offense, Hendrik — are generally open minds.”

“I don’t pretend to be anything but a soldier,” growled Galt.

“And it’s precisely that that makes you dangerous in negotiations,” replied William. “Politicians and businessmen always feel more at home with someone who they know doesn’t mean what he says. Honest men always have been a curse laid upon the sharpshooter.”

“A pity,” put in Anea, “that there aren’t enough honest men, then, to curse them all.” She was looking at Donal. William laughed.

“The Select of Kultis could hardly be anything else but savage upon us underhanded characters, could you, Anea?” he said.

“You can ship me back to the Exotics, any time I wear too heavily on you,” she retorted.

“No, no.” William wagged his head, humorously. “Being the sort of man I am, I survive only by surrounding myself with good people like yourself. I’m enmeshed in the world of hard reality — it’s my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way — but for vacation, for a spiritual rest, I like to glance occasionally over the wall of a cloister to where the greatest tragedy is a blighted rose.”

“One should not underestimate roses,” said Donal. “Men have died over a difference in their color.”

“Come now,” said William turning on him. “The Wars of the Roses — ancient England? I can’t believe such a statement from you, Donal. That conflict, like everything else, was over practical and property disputes. Wars never get fought for abstract reasons.”

“On the contrary,” Donal said. “Wars invariably get fought for abstract reasons. Wars may be instigated by the middle aged and the elderly; but they’re fought by youth. And youth needs more than a practical motive for tempting the tragedy of all tragedies — the end of the universe — which is dying, when you’re young.”

“What a refreshing attitude from a professional soldier!” laughed William. “Which reminds me — I may have some business to discuss with you. I understand you emphasize the importance of field troops over everything else in a world’s armed forces — and I hear you’ve been achieving some remarkable things in the training of them. That’s information right down my alley, of course, since Ceta’s gone in for this leasing of troops. What’s your secret. Protector? Do you permit observers?”

“No secret,” said Donal. “And you’re welcome to send observers to our training program any time. Prince. The reason behind our successful training methods is the man in charge — my uncle, Field Commander Ian Graeme.”

“Ah — your uncle,” said William. “I hardly imagine I could buy him away from you if he’s a relative.”

“I’m afraid not,” answered Donal.

“Well, well — we’ll have to talk, anyway. By heaven — my glass seems to have got itself empty. Anyone else care for another?”

“No thank you,” said Anea.

“Nor I,” said Donal.

“Well, I will,” Galt said.

“Well, in that case, come along marshal,” William turned to Galt. “You and I’ll make our own way to the bar.” They went off together across the lounge. Donal and Anea were left facing each other.

“So,” said Donal, “you haven’t changed your mind about me.”

“No.”

“So much for the fair-mindedness of a Select of Kultis,” he said ironically.

“I’m not superhuman, you know!” she flashed, with a touch of her younger spirit. “No,” she said, more calmly, “there’s probably millions as bad as you — or worse — but you’ve got ability. And you’re a self-seeker. It’s that I can’t forgive you.”

“William’s corrupted your point of view,” he said.

“At least he makes no bones about being the kind of man he is!”

“Why should there be some sort of virtue always attributed to a frank admission of vice?” wondered Donal. “Besides, you’re mistaken. William” — he lowered his voice — “sets himself up as a common sort of devil to blind you to the fact that he is what he actually is. Those who have anything to do with him recognize the fact that he’s evil; and think that in recognizing this, they’ve plumbed the depths of the man.”

“Oh?” Her voice was scornful. “What are his depths, then?”

“Something more than personal aggrandizement. You, who are so close to him, miss what the general mass of people who see him from a distance recognize quite clearly. He lives like a monk — he gets no personal profit out of what he does and his long hours of work. And he does not care what’s thought of him.”

“Any more than you do.”

“Me?” Caught by an unexpected amount of truth in this charge, Donal could still protest. “I care for the opinion of the people whose opinion I care for.”

“Such as?” she said.

“Well, you,” he answered, “for one. Though I don’t know why.”

About to say something, and hardly waiting for him to finish so she could say it, she checked suddenly; and stared at him, her eyes widening.

“Oh,” she gasped, “don’t try to tell me that!”

“I hardly know why I try to tell you anything,” he said, suddenly very bitter; and went off, leaving her where she stood.

He went directly out from the cocktail gathering and back to his own suite, where he immersed himself in work that kept him at his desk until the small hours of the morning. Even then, when he at last got to bed, he did not sleep well — a condition he laid to a walking hangover from the drinks at the cocktail gathering.

His mind would have examined this excuse further — but he would not let it.