“Not unless you want the additional Alliance-Coalition troops that have been put into Neuland to come boiling over the border into your colony, here,” said Cletus. “You don’t want that, do you?”
“No,” said Mondar. “We don’t want that. But what’s to be done about the Friendly mercenaries occupying the core-tap site?”
“Leave them there,” said Cletus.
Mondar gazed at him. “Cletus,” he said softly after a second, “you aren’t just trying to justify this situation you’ve created?”
“Do you trust my judgment?” countered Cletus.
“I’ve got a high regard for it,” Mondar answered slowly, “personally. But I’m afraid that most of the other Outbonds here and in the Maran colonies of our people don’t share that high regard at the moment.”
“But they still trust you to make the decisions about me, don’t they?” asked Cletus.
Mondar gazed at him, curiously. “What makes you so sure of that?” he asked.
“The fact that I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever asked the Exotics for, through you—up until now,” answered Cletus. “You’re the man who has to recommend me as a bad bet or a good one, still, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Mondar, with something of a sigh. “And that’s why I’m afraid you won’t find me as personally partial to you now as I might be, Cletus. I’ve got a responsibility to my fellow Exotics now that makes me take a harder view of the situation than I might take by myself. Also, I’ve got a responsibility to come to some kind of a decision between you and the Alliance-Coalition combination.”
“What’s the procedure if you decide for them—and against us?” asked Cletus.
“I’m afraid we’d have to come to the best possible terms with them that we could,” Mondar answered. “Undoubtedly they’d want us to do more than dismiss the troops we’ve now got in hire from you, and call in your loan. They’d want us to actively throw our support on their side, hire their troops and help them against you on the Dorsai.”
Cletus nodded. “Yes, that’s what they’d want,” he said. “All right, what do you need to decide to stick with the Dorsai?”
“Some indication that the Dorsai stands a chance of surviving the present situation,” said Mondar. “To begin with, I’ve told you we face a severe loss in the case of the Maran core-tap, and you said just now, even if you had the troops to spare, you’d suggest doing nothing about the Alliance-Coalition occupation of the site. You must have some reasoning to back that suggestion?”
“Certainly,” said Cletus. “If you stop and think for a moment, you’ll realize the core-tap project itself is perfectly safe. It’s a structure with both potential and actual value—to the Alliance and Coalition, as well as to anyone else. Maybe they’ve occupied the site, but you can be sure they aren’t going to damage the work done so far by the men or machines that can finish it.”
“But what good’s that do us, if it stays in their hands?”
“It won’t stay long,” said Cletus. “The occupying troops are Friendlies and their religious, cultural discipline makes them excellent occupying troops—but that’s all. They look down their noses at the very people who hire them, and the minute their pay stops coming they’ll pack up and go home. So wait a week. At the end of that time either Dow will have won, or I will. If he’s won, you can still make terms with him. If I’ve won, your Friendlies will pack up and leave at a word from me.”
Mondar looked at him narrowly. “Why do you say a week?” he asked.
“Because it won’t be longer that that,” Cletus answered. “Dow’s hiring of Friendly troops gives away the fact that he’s ready for a showdown.”
“It does?” Mondar’s eyes were still closely watching him. Cletus met them squarely with his own gaze.
“That’s right,” he said. “We know the number of the available field troops in the Alliance-Coalition force that Dow’s put together. It can be estimated from what we already knew of the number of troops the Alliance and the Coalition had out on the new worlds, separately. Dow had to use all of them to start enough brush wars to tie up all my Dorsais. He hadn’t any spare fighting men. But, by replacing his fighting troops with Friendlies, he can temporarily withdraw a force great enough, in theory, to destroy me. Therefore the appearance of Friendly troops under Dow’s command can only mean he’s forming such a showdown force.”
“You can’t be sure his hiring of Friendlies as mercenaries means just that, and not something else.”
“Of course I can,” said Cletus. “After all, I was the one who suggested the use of the Friendly troops in that way.”
“You suggested?” Mondar stared.
“In effect,” said Cletus. “I stopped off at Harmony myself some time back, to talk to James Arm-of-the-Lord and suggest he hire out members of his Militant Church as raw material to fill uniforms and swell the official numbers of my Dorsais. I offered him a low price for the men. It hardly took any imagination to foresee that once the idea’d been suggested to him, he’d turn around as soon as I’d left and try to get a higher price from Dow for the same men, used the same way.”
“And Dow, of course, with Alliance and Coalition money, could pay a higher price,” said Mondar, thoughtfully. “But if that’s true, why didn’t Dow hire them earlier?”
“Because exposing them to conflicts with my Dorsais would have quickly given away the fact that the Friendlies hadn’t any real military skills,” replied Cletus. “Dow’s best use of them could come only from putting them into uniform briefly, to replace the elite Alliance-Association troops he wanted to withdraw secretly, for a final battle to settle all matters.”
“You seem,” said Mondar slowly, “very sure of all this, Cletus.”
“That’s natural enough,” said Cletus. “It’s what I’ve been pointing toward ever since I sat down at the table with Dow and the rest of you on board the spaceship to Kultis.”
Mondar raised his eyebrows. “That much planning and executing?” he said. “Still, it doesn’t mean you can be absolutely sure Dow will do what you think he’ll do.”
“Nothing’s absolutely sure, of course,” said Cletus. “But for practical purposes I’m sure enough. Can you get your fellow Exotics to hold off action on the occupation of the Maran core-tap site for seven days?”
Mondar hesitated. “I think so,” he said. “For seven days, anyway. Meanwhile, what are you going to do?”
“Wait,” said Cletus.
“Here?” said Mondar. “With Dow, according to your estimate, gathering his best troops to strike? I’m surprised you left the Dorsai to come here in the first place.”
“No need to be surprised,” said Cletus. “You know I know that the Exotics somehow seem to get information of events on other worlds faster than the fastest spaceship can bring it. It merely seemed to me that information might reach me as fast here as it would any place. Would you say I was wrong?”
Mondar smiled slightly. “No,” he answered. “I’d have to say you weren’t wrong. Be my guest, then, while you wait.”
“Thank you,” said Cletus.
Mondar’s guest, then, he remained—for three days during which he inspected the Dorsai troops in Bakhalla, browsed in the local library that had been the scene of Bill Athyer’s discovery of a new occupation life and renewed his old acquaintance with Wefer Linet.
On the morning of the fourth day, as he and Mondar were having breakfast together, a young Exotic in a green robe brought in a paper, which he handed to Mondar without a word. Mondar glanced at it and passed it over to Cletus.
“Dow and fifteen shiploads of Coalition elite troops,” Mondar said, “landed on the Dorsai two days ago. They’ve occupied the planet.”
Cletus got to his feet.
“What now?” Mondar looked up at him from the table. “There’s nothing you can do now. Without the Dorsai, what have you got?”
“What did I have before I had the Dorsai?” retorted Cletus. “It’s not the Dorsai Dow wants, Mondar
, it’s me. And as long as I’m able to operate, he hasn’t won. I’ll be leaving for the Dorsai immediately.” Mondar got to his feet. “I’ll go with you,” he said.
26.
The shuttleboat, with the Exotic sunburst emblem inlaid on its metal side, was allowed to land without protest on the Dorsai at the Foralie shuttleboat pad. But on emerging with Mondar, Cletus was immediately disarmed of his sidearm by competent-looking and obviously veteran troops in Coalition uniforms, with the white band of the Alliance-Coalition Joint Force fastened about their right sleeves. The same soldiers escorted the three men through a Foralie town where none of the local people were to be seen—only the occupying soldiers—to a military atmosphere craft that flew them up to Grahame House.
Word of their arrival had obviously been sent ahead. They were escorted to the door of the main lounge of the house, ushered inside and the door closed firmly behind them. Within, seated with drinks in which they obviously had little interest, were Melissa and Eachan, in their stiffness and unnaturalness, like set pieces arranged to show off Dow deCastries, slim in the gray-white Coalition uniform, standing beside the bar at the far end of the room with a drink also in his hand.
Across the room, Swahili, also in Coalition uniform, stood holding a heavy energy handgun.
“Hello, Cletus,” Dow said. “I was expecting to find you here when I landed. I’m surprised you came on in when you saw my transports in orbit. Or didn’t you think we’d have occupied all of the Dorsai yet?”
“I knew you had,” said Cletus.
“But you came in anyway? I wouldn’t have,” said Dow. He raised his drink and sipped from it. “Or did you come down to trade yourself if I’d turn the Dorsai loose? If you did, that was foolish. I’m going to turn it loose anyway. All you’ve done is save me the trouble of hunting you down on some other world. I’ve got to take you back to Earth, you know.”
“To be sure,” said Cletus. “So I can have a trial—which will end in a death sentence. Which you can commute to life imprisonment—after which I’ll be imprisoned secretly somewhere, and eventually just disappear.”
“Exactly right,” said Dow.
Cletus looked at the watch on his wrist. “How long is it since your scanning screens picked up the approach of the spaceship I came in?” he asked.
“About six hours.” Dow put his drink down and straightened up. “Don’t tell me you came in here expecting to be rescued? Maybe the handful of officers you left here do have a screen that picked your ship up, and maybe they did know it was you aboard her. But Cletus, we’ve been chasing them twenty-four hours a day since I brought my troops in here. They’re too busy running to worry about you, even if they had enough men and guns to do something.”
He stared at Cletus for a second. “All the same,” he said, turning to Swahili, “we won’t take any chances. Go give the local commander my orders to set up a security cordon to the shuttleboat landing pad in Foralie. And order a shuttle down from one of the transports. We’ll get Grahame aboard as soon as possible.” He looked back at Cletus. “I’m not going to start underestimating you now.”
Swahili went out, handing his weapon to Dow and closing the door carefully behind him.
“You’ve never stopped underestimating me,” said Cletus. “That’s what brought you here.”
Dow smiled.
“No. What I’m saying is quite true,” said Cletus. “I needed a lever to change history and I picked you. From the time I sat down at your table on the ship to Kultis, I was busy working you into this situation.”
Dow leaned the elbow holding the heavy handgun on the bar beside him, keeping its muzzle pointed steadily at Cletus.
“Move a few feet away from him, Mondar,” Dow said to the Exotic, who had been standing beside and a little behind Cletus all this time. “I can’t imagine you sacrificing yourself to give him a chance to escape, but there’s no point in risking it.”
Mondar moved.
“Go on, Cletus,” said Dow. “We’ve got a few moments to wait anyway. I don’t believe what you’re saying at all, but if there’s even a slight chance you’ve been able to maneuver me, I want to know about it.”
“There’s not much to tell,” said Cletus. “I started out first by attracting your attention to myself. Then I showed you I had military genius. Then I began to make a name for myself on all the new worlds, knowing this would suggest an idea to you—the idea you could use what I was doing as an excuse to get what you wanted for yourself.”
“And what was that?” The gun in Dow’s hand was steady.
“Personal control of both the Alliance and the Coalition—and through them the new worlds,” answered Cletus. “You talked up my successes on the new worlds as a threat to both the Alliance and the Coalition, until they agreed to combine their outworld forces and put you in command of them. Once in command, you thought all you needed was to stretch the Dorsais out so thin you could defeat them. Then you’d capture me and use your popularity and military power to put military juntas in place of the political leaders at the head of both the Coalition and Alliance, back on Earth. Naturally, the generals you picked for the military juntas would be your men—and in time they’d be yielding up the government of all Earth to you.”
Swahili came back into the room. Dow handed him the handgun and, carefully covering Cletus all the while, Swahili crossed once more to his position on the other side of the room.
“How long?” Dow asked him.
“Twenty minutes,” Swahili answered. Dow looked thoughtfully back at Cletus.
“Maybe a trial would be too much of a risk after all—” He broke off.
There were shouts, and the sharp, chorused whistling of cone rifles outside the house, followed by the heavy sizzle of at least one energy weapon. Swahili ran toward the door of the room.
“No!” snapped Dow. Swahili checked and spun about. Dow pointed at Cletus. “Shoot him!”
Swahili brought the energy handgun up and there was a sound like the snapping of a small stick. Swahili checked abruptly, turning toward Eachan, who was still sitting in his chair, but now holding the same flat little handgun—minus the long sniper’s barrel—that he had used long ago from under the overturned command car in which he, with Melissa, Mondar and Cletus, had been trapped on the road to Bakhalla.
Swahili went suddenly, heavily, to his knees on the carpet. The energy pistol dropped from his grasp. He fell over on his side and lay there. Dow moved sharply toward the fallen weapon.
“Don’t!” said Eachan. Dow stopped abruptly. There were more sounds of voices shouting outside the house.
Eachan got to his feet and walked across to the fallen energy weapon, still holding his own pistol. He picked up the fallen gun and bent over Swahili, who was breathing raggedly.
“Sorry, Raoul,” Eachan said, gently.
Swahili looked up at him and almost smiled. The almost-smile continued and did not change. Eachan reached down in an old-fashioned gesture and softly closed the lids over the unmoving eyes. He straightened up as the door burst open and Arvid, a cone rifle in one large hand, strode into the room closely followed by Bill Athyer.
“All right, here?” said Arvid, looking at Cletus.
“All right, Arv,” Cletus answered. “How about outside?”
“We’ve got them all,” Arvid answered.
“You’d better start running in a hurry, then,” said Dow, dryly. “All these detachments of mine are in constant open-channel communication with each other. There’ll be other detachments moving in here within minutes. And where are you going to run to?”
“We’re not going to run at all.” Arvid looked at him. “All your troops on the Dorsai are now captured.”
Dow stared at him. Black eyes locked with pale blue.
“I don’t believe it,” Dow said, flatly. “There are nothing but women, children and old men left on this world.”
“What of it?” Cletus asked. Dow turned to look at him. Cletus went on: “Don’t you believe
I could defeat a few thousand Coalition elite troops with a worldful of women, old men and children to help me?”
Dow regarded him for a few seconds without speaking. “Yes,” he said at last. “You, Cletus—I’ll believe you could do it. But you weren’t here.” He lifted his right hand and pointed his index finger at Cletus. “The thing you forget—”
There was a small, momentary, soundless puff of white vapor from the sleeve of his jacket. What felt like a sledgehammer smashed into Cletus’s upper right chest. He stumbled backward and the edge of a table stopped him from falling.
Arvid took one long, swift pace toward Dow, his nearer hand flinging up and starting to descend, edge-on.
“Don’t kill him!” snapped Cletus, with what little breath was left in him.
Arvid’s hand changed direction in midair. It came down to close on Dow’s outstretched arm. He peeled back the sleeve, and they all saw a dead-man’s tube, a reflex single-dart thrower, strapped to Dow’s wrist. Arvid broke the strap fastening loose and tossed the tube into a corner of the room. He caught up Dow’s other arm and peeled the sleeve back, but the wrist was bare.
“Don’t move at all,” Arvid said to Dow, and stepped back from him. Melissa was already at Cletus’s side.
“You’ve got to lie down,” she said.
“No.” He shook his head, resisting the pull of her hands. He could not feel the extent of the damage from the shock-point of the dart, but his right upper body was numb and a weak dizzyness was threatening to overwhelm him. He fought it back with all the strength of physiological discipline he had. “There’s something I’ve got to tell him.”
He leaned gratefully back against the supporting edge of the table top behind him.
“Listen to me, Dow,” he said. “I’m going to send you back to Earth. We’re not going to kill you.”
Dow looked at him fearlessly and almost curiously.
“If that’s so, I’m sorry I shot you,” he said. “I thought I was on my way out and might as well take you with me. But why send me back to Earth? You know I’ll just raise another army and come back. And next time I’ll beat you.”