“I am not shirking any responsibility which comes properly within the scope of my duties, Lord Serrais,” he said, “but neither is it my duty to settle your disagreements with Aldaran. It seems to me that would be to infringe on the responsibility of the Comyn.”
Dyan opened his mouth again, but Hastur gestured him to silence. “You need not teach me my responsibilities, Mr. Ramsay. The Empire’s agreement with Darkover, and the status of the spaceport, was determined with the Comyn, not with Kermiac of Aldaran. One stipulation of that agreement was enforcement of the Compact; and we intended enforcement, not only in the Domains, but all over Darkover. I dislike using threats, sir, but if you insist upon your right to violate your own agreement, I would be within my authority in closing the spaceport until such time as the agreement is kept in every detail.”
The Legate said, “This, sir, is unreasonable. You have said yourself that the Compact is not a law but an ethical preference. I also dislike using threats, but if you take that course, I am certain that my next orders from the Administrative Center would be to negotiate a new agreement with Kermiac of Aldaran and move the Empire headquarters to Caer Donn Trade City, where we need not trouble Comyn scruples.”
Hastur said bitterly, “You say you are prohibited from taking sides in local political decisions. Do you realize that this would effectively throw all the force of the Terran Empire against the very existence of the Compact?”
“You leave me no choice, sir.”
“You know, don’t you, that such a move would mean war? War not of the Comyn’s making but, the Compact once abandoned, war would inevitably come. We have had no war here for many years. Small skirmishes, yes. But the enforcement of the Compact has kept such battles within reasonable limits. Do you want the responsibility for letting a different kind of war loose?”
“Of course not,” Ramsay said. He was a nontelepath and his emotions were muddy, but I could tell that he was distressed. This distress made me like him just a little more. “Who would?”
“Yet you would hide behind your laws and your orders and your superiors, and let our world be plunged into war again? We had our Ages of Chaos, Ramsay, and the Compact brought them to an end. Does that mean nothing to you?”
The Terran looked straight at Hastur. I had a curious mental picture, a flash picked up from someone in the room, that they were like two massive towers facing one another, as the Comyn Castle and the Terran headquarters faced one another across the valley, gigantic armored figures braced for single combat. The image thinned and vanished and they were just two old men, both powerful, both filled with stubborn integrity, each doing the best for his own side. Ramsay said, “It means a very great deal to me, Lord Hastur. I want to be honest with you. If there was a major war here, it would mean closing and sealing the Trade Cities to be certain of keeping to our law against interference. I don’t want to move the spaceport to Caer Donn. It was built there, a good many years ago. When the Comyn offered us this more convenient spot, down here in the plains at Thendara, we were altogether pleased to abandon the operation at Caer Donn, except for trade and certain transport. The Thendara location has been to our mutual advantage. If we are forced to move back to Caer Donn we would be forced to reschedule all our traffic, rebuild our headquarters back in the mountains where the climate is more difficult for Terrans to tolerate and, above all, rely on inadequate roads and inhospitable countryside. I don’t want to do that, and we will do anything within reason to avoid it.”
Dyan said, “Mr. Ramsay, are you not in command of all the Terrans on Darkover?”
“You have been misinformed, Lord Dyan. I’m a legate, not a dictator. My authority is mostly over spaceport personnel stationed here, and only in matters which for one reason or another supersede that of their individual departments of administration. My major business is to keep order in the Trade City. Furthermore, I have authority from Administration Central to deal with Darkovan citizens through their duly constituted and appointed rulers. I have no authority over any individual Darkovan except for a few civilian employees who choose to hire themselves to us, nor over any individual Empire citizen who comes here to do business, beyond determining that his business is a lawful one for a Class D world. Beyond that, if his business disturbs the peace between Darkover and the Empire, I may intervene. But unless someone appeals to me, I have no authority outside the Trade City,”
It sounded intolerably complicated. How did the Empire manage to get its business done at all? My father had, as yet, said nothing; now he raised his head and said bluntly, “Well we’re appealing to you. These Empire citizens selling blasters in the marketplace of Caer Donn are not doing lawful business for a Class D Closed World, and you know it as well as I do. It’s up to you to do something about it, and do it now. That does come within your responsibility.”
The Legate said, “If the offense were here in Thendara, Lord Alton, I would do so with the greatest pleasure. In Caer Donn I can do nothing unless Lord Kermiac of Aldaran should appeal to me.”
My father looked and sounded angry. He was angry, with a disrupting anger which could have struck the Legate unconscious if he had not been trying hard to control it. “Always the same old story on Terra, what’s your saying, pass the buck? You’re like children playing that game with hot chestnuts, tossing them from one to another and trying not to get burned! I spent eight years on Terra and I never found even one man who would look me in the eye and say, ‘This is my responsibility and I will accept it whatever the consequences.’ ”
Ramsay sounded harried. “Is it your contention that it is the Empire’s business, or mine, to police your ethical systems?”
“I always thought,” Callina said in her clear, still voice, “that ethical conduct was the responsibility of every honest man.”
Hastur said, “One of our fundamental laws, sir, however law is defined, is that the power to act confers the responsibility to do so. Is it otherwise with you?”
The Legate leaned his chin on his clasped hands. “I can admire that philosophy, my lord, but I must respectfully refuse to debate it with you. I am concerned at this moment with avoiding great inconvenience for both our societies. I will inquire into this matter and see what can legitimately be done without interfering in your political decisions. And if I may make a respectful suggestion, Lord Hastur, I suggest that you take this matter up directly with Kermiac of Aldaran. Perhaps you can persuade him of the rightness of your view, and he will take it upon himself to stop the traffic in weapons, in those areas where the final legal authority is his.”
The suggestion shocked me. Deal, negotiate, with that renegade Domain, exiled from Comyn generations ago? But no one seemed inordinately shocked at the idea. Hastur said, “We shall indeed discuss this matter with Lord Aldaran, sir. And it may be that since you refuse to take personal responsibility for enforcing the Empire’s agreement with all of Darkover, that I shall myself take the matter directly before the Supreme Tribunal of the Empire. If it is adjudged there that the agreement for Darkover does indeed require planet-wide enforcement of the Compact, Mr. Ramsay, have I then your assurance that you would enforce it?”
I wondered if the Legate was even conscious of the absolute contempt in Hastur’s voice for a man who required orders from a supreme authority to enforce ethical conduct. I felt almost ashamed of my Terran blood. But if Ramsay heard the contempt, he revealed nothing.
“If I receive orders to that effect, Lord Hastur, you may be assured that I will enforce them absolutely. And permit me to say, Lord Hastur, that it would in no way displease me to receive such orders.”
A few more words were exchanged, mostly formal courtesies. But the meeting was over, and I had to gather my scattered thoughts and reassemble the honor guard, conduct the Council members formally out of the headquarters building and the spaceport and through the streets of Thendara. I could sense my father’s thoughts, as I always could when we were in each other’s presence.