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antipersonnel guns and found it.
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Override on the spray guns, he announced into the mike before him. He
looked at the instruments, but he saw in his imagination the dark and tumbling
space suited bodies of the assault troops, and he thought of the several
million tiny slivers of carbon steel that would go sleeting among them at the
touch of his ringer. There was a slight pause before answering; and then the
voice of Ordovya came back.
Sir ... if you like, the gunmen say they re used to handling the weapons
Maintenanceman! snapped Donal. You heard the order. Override!
Override, sir.
Donal looked at his scope. The computer had his targets in the gunsights. He
pressed the button, and held it down.
Two hours later, the C4J, then in standby orbit, was ordered to return to
rendezvous and its captain to report to his Sub-Patrol chief. At the same time
came a signal for all Staff Liaisons to report to the flagship; and one for
Staff Liaison Donal Graeme to report personally to Blue Patrol Chief Lludrow.
Considering the three commands, Donal called Ordovya on the ship s phone and
directed him to take care of the first errand. He himself, he decided, could
take care of the other two, which might or might not be connected.
Arriving at the flagship, he explained his situation to the Reception
Officer, who made a signal both to the Staff Liaison people and to the Blue
Patrol chief.
You re to go directly to Lludrow, he informed Donal; and assigned him a
guide.
Donal found Lludrow in a private office on the flagship that was not much
bigger than Donal s stateroom in the C4J.
Good! said Lludrow, getting up behind a desk as Donal came in and coming
briskly around it. He waited until the guide had left, and then he put a dark
hand on Donal s arm.
How d your ship come through? he asked.
Navigating, said Donal. There was a direct hit on the control room though.
All officers casualties.
All officers? Lludrow peered sharply at him. And you?
I took command, of course. There was nothing left, though, but antipersonnel
mop-up.
Doesn t matter, said Lludrow. You were Acting Captain for part of the
action?
Yes.
Fine. That s better than I hoped for. Now, said Lludrow, tell me
something. Do you feel like sticking your neck out?
For any cause I can approve of, certainly, answered Donal. He considered
the smaller, rather ugly man; and found himself suddenly liking the Blue
Patrol chief. Directness like this had been a rare experience for him, since
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he had left the Dorsai.
All right. If you agree, we ll both stick our necks out. Lludrow looked at
the door of the office, but it was firmly closed. I m going to violate top
security and enlist you in an action contrary to Staff orders, if you don t
mind.
Top security? echoed Donal, feeling a sudden coolness at the back of his
neck.
Yes. We ve discovered what was behind this Newton-Cassida landing on Oriente
... you know Oriente?
I ve studied it, of course, said Donal. At school and recently when I
signed with Freiland. Temperatures up to seventy-eight degrees centigrade,
rock, desert, and a sort of native vine and cactus jungle. No large bodies of
water worth mentioning and too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Right. Well, said Lludrow, the important point is, it s big enough to hide
in. They re down there now and we can t root them out in a hurry and not at
all unless we go down there after them. We thought they were making the
landing as a live exercise and we could expect them to run the gauntlet back
out in a few days or weeks. We were wrong.
Wrong?
We ve discovered their reason for making the landing on Oriente. It wasn t
what we thought at all.
That s fast work, said Donal. What s it been ... four hours since the
landing?
They made fast work of it, said Lludrow. The news is being sat on; but
they are firing bursts of a new kind of radiation from projectors that fire
once, move, and fire again from some new hiding place a large number of
projectors. And the bursts they fire hit old Sirius himself. We re getting
increased sunspot activity. He paused and looked keenly at Donal, as if
waiting for comment. Donal took his time, considering the situation.
Weather difficulties? he said at last.
That s it! said Lludrow, energetically, as though Donal had been a star
pupil who had just shone again. Meteorological opinion says it can be
serious, the way they re going about it. And we ve already heard their price
for calling it off. It seems there s a trade commission of theirs on New Earth
right now. No official connection but the Commission s got the word across.
Donal nodded. He was not at all surprised to hear that trade negotiations
were going on in normal fashion between worlds who were at the same time
actively fighting each other. That was the normal course of existence between
the stars. The ebb and flow of trained personnel on a contractual basis was
the lifeblood of civilization. A world who tried to go it on its own would be
left behind within a matter of years, to wither on the vine or at last buy the
mere necessities of existence at ruinous cost to itself. Competition meant the
trading of skilled minds, and that meant contracts, and contracts meant
continuing negotiations.
They want a reciprocal brokerage agreement, Lludrow said.
Donal looked at him sharply. The open market trading of contracts had been
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abandoned between the worlds for nearly fifty years. It amounted to
speculating in human lives. It removed the last shreds of dignity and security
from the individual and treated him as so much livestock or hardware to be
traded for no other reason than the greatest possible gain. The Dorsai, along
with the Exotics, Mara and Kultis, had led the fight against it. There was
another angle as well. On tight worlds such as those of the Venus
Group which included Newton and Cassida and the Friendlies, the open market
became one more tool of the ruling group; while on loose worlds like
Freiland, it became a spot of vulnerability where foreign credits could take
advantage of local situations. I see, said Donal.
We ve got three choices, Lludrow said. Give in accept the agreement.
Suffer the weather effects over a period of months while we clean out Oriente
by orthodox military means. Or pay a prohibitive price in casualties by a
crash campaign to clean up Oriente in a hurry. We d lose as many lives to the
conditions down there as we would to the enemy in a crash campaign. So, it s
my notion that it s a time to gamble my notion, by the way, not Staff s. They
don t know anything about this; and wouldn t stand for it if they did. Care to
try your idea of throwing a scare intoNewton , after all?
With pleasure! said Donal, quickly, his eyes glowing.
Save your enthusiasm until you hear what you re going to have to do it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
