Dorsai!

Man

The men of the household of Eachan Khan Graeme sat around the long, shimmering slab of the dining board in the long and shadowy room, at their drinking after the women and children had retired. They were not all present, nor — short of a minor miracle — was it ever likely that they would be, in this life. Of sixteen adult males, nine were off at the wars among the stars, one was undergoing reconstructive surgery at the hospital in Omalu, and the eldest, Donal’s granduncle, Kamal, was quietly dying in his own room at the back of the household with an oxygen tube up his nose and the faint scent of the bay lilac to remind him of his Maran wife, now forty years dead. Sitting at the table were five — of which, since three o’clock this afternoon — Donal was one. Those others who were present to welcome him to his adulthood were Eachan, his father; Mor, his elder brother, who was home on leave from the Friendlies; and his twin uncles Ian and Kensie, who had been next in age above that James who had died at Donneswort. They sat grouped around the high end of the table, Eachan at its head, with his two sons on his right and his two younger twin brothers on his left.

“They had good officers when I was there,” Eachan was saying. He leaned over to till Donal’s glass, and Donal took it up automatically, listening with both ears.

“Freilanders all,” said Ian, the grimmer of the two dark twins. “They run to stiffness of organization without combat to shake them up. Kensie says Mara or Kultis, and I say why not?*’

“They have full companies of Dorsai there, I hear,” said Mor, at Donal’s right. The deep voice of Eachan answered from his left.

“They’re show guards. I know of those. Why make a cake of nothing but icing? The Bond of Kultis likes to think of having an unmatched bodyguard; but they’d be fanned out to the troops fast enough in case of real trouble between the stars.”

“And meanwhile,” put in Kensie, with a sudden smile that split his dark face, “no action. Peacetime soldiering goes sour. The outfits split up into little cliques, the cake-fighters move in and an actual man — a Dorsai — becomes an ornament.”

“Good,” said Eachan, nodding.

Donal swallowed absently from his glass and the unaccustomed whiskey burned fiercely at the back of his nose and throat. Little pricklings of sweat popped out on his forehead; but he ignored them, concentrating on what was being said. This talk was all for his benefit, he knew. He was a man now, and could no longer be told what to do. The choice was his, about where he would go to take service, and they were helping him with what knowledge they had, of the eight systems and their ways.

“…I was never great for garrison duty myself,” Eachan was continuing. “A mercenary’s job is to train, maintain and fight; but when all’s said and done, the fighting’s the thing. Not that everyone’s of my mind. There are Dorsal and Dorsal — and not all Dorsal are Graemes.”

“The Friendlies, now—” said Mor, and stopped with a glance at his father, afraid that he had interrupted.

“Go on,” said Eachan, nodding.

“I was just about to point out,” said Mor, “there’s plenty of action on Association — and Harmony, too, I hear. The sects will always be fighting against each other. And there’s bodyguard work—”

“Catch us being personal gunmen,” said Ian, who — being closer in age to Mor man Mor’s father — did not feel the need to be quite so polite, “That’s no job for a soldier.”

“I didn’t mean to suggest it,” said Mor, turning to his uncle. “But the psalm-singers rate it high among themselves, and that takes some of their best talent. It leaves the field posts open for mercenaries,”

‘True enough,” said Kensie, equably. “And if they had less fanatics and more officers, those two worlds would be putting strong forces out between the stars. But a priest-soldier is only troublesome when he’s more soldier than priest.”

“I’ll back that,” said Mor. “This last skirmish I was in on Association, an elder came down the line after we’d taken one little town and wanted five of my men for hangmen.”

“What did you do?” asked Kensie.

“Referred him to my Commandant — and then got to the old man first and told him that if he could find five men in my force who actually wanted such a job, he could transfer them out the next day.”

Ian nodded.

“Nothing spoils a man for battle like playing butcher,” he said.

“The old man got that,” said Mor. “They got their hangmen, I heard — but not from me.”

“The lusts are vampires,” said Eachan, heavily, from the head of the table. “Soldiering is a pure art. A man with a taste for blood, money or women was one I never trusted.”

“The women are fine on Mara and Kultis,” grinned Mor. “I hear.”

“I’ll not deny it,” said Kensie, merrily. “But you’ve got to come home, some day.”

“God grant that you all may,” said Eachan, somberly. “I am a Dorsai and a Graeme, but if this little world of ours had something else to trade for the contracts of out-world professionals besides the blood of our best fighting men, I’d be more pleased.”

“Would you have stayed home, Eachan,” said Mor, “when you were young and had two good legs?”

“No, Mor,” said Eachan, heavily. “But mere are other arts, beside the art of war — even for a Dorsai.” He looked at his eldest son. “When our forefathers settled this world less than a hundred and fifty years ago, it wasn’t with the intention of providing gun-fodder for me other eight systems. They only wanted a world where no man could bend the destinies of another man against that second man’s will.”

“And that we have,” said Ian, bleakly.

“And that we have,” echoed Eachan. “The Dorsai is a tree world where any man can do as he likes as long as he respects the rights of his neighbor. Not all the other eight systems combined would tike to try their luck with this one world. But the price — the price—” He shook his head and refilled his glass.

“Now those are heavy words for a son who’s just going out,” said Kensie. “There’s a lot of good in life just the way she is now. Beside, it’s economic pressures we’re under today, not military. Who’d want the Dorsai, anyway, besides us? We’re all nut here, and very little kernel. Take one of the rich new worlds — like Ceta under Tau Ceti — or one of the richer, older worlds like Freiland, or Newton — or even old Venus herself. They’ve got cause to worry. They’re the ones that are at each other’s throats for the best scientists, the best technicians, the top artists and doctors. And the more work for us and the better life for us, because of it.”

“Eachan’s right though, Kensie,” growled Ian. “They still dream of squeezing our free people up into one lump and then negotiating with that lump for the force to get the whip hand over all the other worlds.” He leaned forward across the table toward Eachan and in the muted light of the dining room Donal saw the sudden white flash of the seared scar that coiled up his forearm like a snake and was lost in the loose sleeve of his short, undress tunic. “That’s the danger we’ll never be free of.”

“As long as the cantons remain independent of the Council,” said Eachan, “and the families remain independent of the cantons, there’ll be no success for mem, Ian.” He nodded at all about the table. “That’s my end of the job here at home. You can-go out to the wars with easy consciences. I promise you your children will grow up free in this house — free of any man’s will — or the house will no longer stand.”

“I trust you,” said Ian. His eyes were gleaming pale as the scar in the dimness and he was very close to that Dorsai violence of emotion that was at once so cold and so deadly. “I have two boys now under this roof. But remember no men are perfect — even the Dorsai. There was Mahub Van Ghent only five years back, who dreamed about a little kingdom among the Dorsai in the Midland South — only five years ago, Eachan!”

“He was on the other side of the world,” said Eachan. “And he’s dead now, at the hand of one of the Benali, his closest neighbor. His home is burnt and no man acknowledges himself a Van Ghent any more. What more do you want?”

“He should have been stopped sooner.”

“Each man has a right to his own destiny,” said Eachan, softly. “Until he crosses the line into another man’s. His family has suffered enough.”

“Yes,” said Ian. He was calming down. He poured himself another drink. “That’s true — that’s true. They’re not to blame,”

“About the Exotics—” said Mor, gently.

“Oh, yes,” answered Kensie, as if the twin brother that was so much a part of himself had never gotten excited at all. “Mara and Kultis — interesting worlds. Don’t mistake them if you ever go there, Mor — or you either, Donal. They’re sharp enough, for all their art and robes and trappings. They won’t fight themselves, but they know how to hire good men. There’s things being done on Mara and Kultis — and not only in the arts. Meet one of their psychologists, one time.”

“They’re honest,” said Eachan.

“That, too,” said Kensie. “But what catches at me is the fact they’re going some place, in their own way. If I had to pick one of the other worlds to be born on—”

“I would always be a soldier,” said Mor.

“You think so now,” said Kensie, and drank. “You think so now. But it’s a wild civilization we have nowadays, with its personality split a dozen different ways by a dozen different cultures. Less than five hundred years ago the average man never dreamed of getting his feet off the ground. And the farther we go the faster. And the faster the farther.”

“It’s the Venus group forcing that, isn’t it?” asked Donal, his youthful reticence all burnt away in the hot fumes of the whiskey.

“Don’t you think it,” said Kensie. “Science is only one road to the future. Old Venus, Old Mars — Cassida, Newton — maybe they’ve had their day. Project Blaine’s a rich and powerful old man, but he doesn’t know all the new tricks they’re dreaming up on Mara and Kultis, or the Friendlies — or Ceta, for that matter. Make it a point to take two good looks at things when you get out among the stars, you two young ones, because nine times out of ten that first glance will leave you fooled.”

“Listen to him, boys,” said Eachan from the top of the table. “Your uncle Kensie’s a man and a half above the shoulders. I just wish I had as good advice to give you. Tell them, Kensie.”

“Nothing stands still,” said Kensie — and with those three words, the whiskey seemed to go to Donal’s head in a rush, the table and the dark harsh-boned faces before him seemed to swim in the dimness of the dining room, and Kensie’s voice came roaring at him as if from a great distance. “Everything changes, and that’s what you must bear in mind. What was true yesterday about something may not be true today. So remember that and take no man’s word about something without reservation, even mine. We have multiplied like the biblical locusts and spread out among the stars, splitting into different groups with different ways. Now, while we still seem to be rushing forward to where I have no idea, at a terrific rate, increasing all the time, I have this feeling — as if we are all poised, hanging on the brink of something, something great and different and maybe terrible. It’s a time to walk cautious, it is indeed.”

“I’ll be the greatest general that ever was!” cried Donal, and was startled as the rest to hear the words leap, stumbling and thick-tongued, but loud, from within him. “They’ll see — I’ll show them what a Dorsai can be!”

He was aware of them looking at him, though all their faces were blurred, except — by some trick of vision — that of Kensie, diagonally across the table from him. Kensie was considering him with somber, reading eyes. Donal was conscious of his father’s hand on his shoulder.

“Time to turn in,” said his father.

“You’ll see—” said Donal, thickly. But they were all rising, picking up their glasses and turning to his father, who held his own glass up.

“May we all meet again,” said his father. And they drank, standing. The remains of the whiskey in his glass flowed tasteless as water down Donal’s tongue and throat — and for a second everything cleared and be saw these tall men standing around him. Big, even for Dorsai, they were; even his brother Mor topping him by half a head, so that he stood like a half-grown boy among them. But at that same instant of vision he was suddenly wrung with a terrible tenderness and pity for them, as if he was the grown one, and they the children to be protected. He opened his mouth to say, for once in his life, how much he loved them, and how always he would be there to take care of them — and then the fog closed down again; and he was only aware of Mor leading him stumblingly to his room.

Later, he opened his eyes in the darkness to become aware of a dim figure drawing the curtains of his room against the bright new light of the double moon, just risen. It was his mother; and with a sudden, reflexive action he rolled off his bed and lurched to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“Mother—” he said.

She looked up at him with a pale face softened by the moonlight.

“Donal,” she said tenderly, putting her arms around him. “You’ll catch cold, Donal.”

“Mother—” he said, thickly. “If you ever need me… to take care of you—”

“Oh, my boy,” she said, holding his hard young body tightly to her, “take care of yourself; my boy… my boy—”