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around the city."
The two turned and headed toward the door.
"Just a minute, gentlemen!"
Padma's voice was raised only slightly. But the pair of officers paused and
turned for a moment.
"Colonel ap Morgan, Commandant Moy," said Padma, "as the official
representative of the Exotic Government, which is your employer, I relieve you
from the requirement of following any further orders of Commander Ian Graeme."
Charley andChu looked past the Exotic, to Ian.
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"Go ahead," said Ian. They went. Ian turned back to Padma. "Our contracts
provide that officers and men are not subject to civilian authority while on
active duty, engaged with an enemy."
"But the war the war with the Friendly invaders is over," said Moro.
"One of our soldiers has just been killed," said Ian. "Until the identity of
the killers is established, I'm going to assume we're still engaged with an
enemy."
He looked again at me.
"Tom," he said. "You can contact your Police Headquarters from this desk As
soon as you've done that, report to me in the office next door, where I sent
Charley."
He came around the desk and went out. Padma followed him. I went to the desk
and put in a phone call to my own office.
"For God's sake, Tom!" said Moro to me, as I punched phone buttons for the
number of my office, and started to get the police machinery rolling. "What's
going on, here?"
I was too busy to answer him. Someone else was not.
"He's going to make them pay for killing his brother," said Pel savagely,
from across the room. "That's what's going on!"
I had nearly forgotten Pel. Moro must have forgotten him absolutely, because
he turned around to him now as if Pel had suddenly appeared on the scene in a
cloud of fire and brimstone-odorous smoke.
"Pel?" he said. "Oh, Pel get your militia together and under arms, right
away. This is an emergency "
"Go to hell!" Pel answered him. "I'm not going to lift a finger to keep Ian
from hunting down those assassins. And no one else in the militia who knew
Kensie Graeme is going to lift a finger, either."
"But this could bring down the government!"
Moro was close to the idea of tears, if not to the actual article. "This
could throw St. Marie back into anarchy, and the Blue Front will take over by
default!"
"That's what the planet deserves," said Pel, "when it lets men like Kensie be
shot down like dogs  men who came here to risk their lives to save our
government!"
"You're crazier than these mercenaries are!" said Moro, staring at him. Then
a touch of hope lifted Moro's drawn features. "Actually, Ian seems calm
enough. Maybe he won't "
"He'll take this city apart if he has to," said Pel, savagely. "Don't blind
yourself"
I had finished my phoning. I punched off, and straightened up, looking at
Pel.
"I thought you told me there was nothing but ice and water to Ian?" I said.
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"There isn't," Pel answered. "But Kensie's his twin brother. That's the one
thing he can't sit back from and shuffle off. You'll see."
"I hope and pray I don't," I said; and I left the office for the one next
door where Ian was waiting for me. Pel and Moro followed; but when we came to
the doorway of the" other office, there was a soldier there who would let only
me through.
"& We'll want a guard on that hospital room, and a Force guarding the
hospital itself," Ian was saying slowly and deliberately to Charleyap Morgan
as I came in. He was standing over Charley, who was seated at a deskBack
against a wall stood the silent figure in a blue robe that was Padma. Ian
turned to face me.
"The troops at the encampment are being paraded in one hour," he said.
"Charley will be going out to brief them on what's happened. I'd like you to
go with him and be on the stand with him during the briefing."
I looked back at him, up at him. I had not gone along with Pel's
ice-and-water assessement of the man. But now for the first time I began to
doubt myself and begin to believe Pel. If ever there had been two brothers who
had seemed to be opposite halves of a single egg, Kensie and Ian had been
those two. But here was Ian with Kensie dead perhaps the only living person on
the eleven human-inhabited worlds among the stars who had loved or understood
him and Ian had so far shown no more emotion at his brother's death than he
might have on discovering an incorrect Order of the Day.
It occurred to me then that perhaps he was in emotional shock and this was
the cause of his unnatural calmness. But the man I looked at now had none of
the signs of a person in shock. I found myself wondering if any man's love for
his brother could be hidden so deep that not even that brother's violent death
could cause a crack in the frozen surface of the one who went on living.
If Ian was repressing emotion that was due to explode sometime soon,then we
were all in trouble. My Blauvain police and the planetary militia together
were toy soldiers compared to these professionals. Without the Exotic control
to govern them, the whole planet was at their mercy. But there was no point in
admitting that even to ourselves while even the shadow of independence was
left to us.
"Commander," I said. "General Pel Sinjin's planetarymilitia were closely
involved with your brother's forces. He would like to be at any such
brief-ing. Also, Moro Spence, Blauvain's Mayor and pro-tem President of the
St. Marie Planetary Government, would want to be there. Both these men,
Commander, have as deep a stake in this situation as your troops."
Ian looked at me.
"General Sinjin," he said, after a moment."Of course. But we don't need
mayors."
"St. Marie needs them," I said. "That's all our St. Marie World Council is,
actually a collection of mayors from our largest cities. Show that Moro and
the rest mean nothing, and what little authority they have will be gone in ten
minutes.Does St. Mariedeserve that from you?"
He could have answered that St. Marie had been the death of his brother and
it deserved anything he wished to give it. But he did not. I would have felt
safer with him if he had. Instead, he looked at me as if from a long, long
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distance for several seconds, then over at Padma.
"You'd favor that?" he asked.
"Yes," said Padma. Ian looked back at me.
"Both Moro and General Sinjin can go with you, then," he said. "Charley will
be leaving from here by air in about forty minutes. I'll let you get back to
your own responsibilities until then. You'd better appoint someone as liaison
from your police, to stand by here in this office."
"Thanks," I said. "I will."
I turned and went out. As I left, I heard Ian behind me, dictating. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]