"So he's the one behind the revolution?"
"Yes."
It was plain enough to me that it was William's involvement here that had brought Padma to this back water section of the planet. The Exotic science of ontogenetics, which was essentially a study of how humans interacted, both as individuals and societies, was something they took very seriously; and William, as one of the movers and shakers of our time would always have his machinations closely watched by them.
"Well, it's nothing to do with us, at any rate," I said, "except as it affects the Graeme's contract."
"Not entirely," he said. "William, like most gifted individuals, knows the advantage of killing two, or even fifty, birds with one stone. He hires a good many mercenaries, directly and indirectly. It would benefit him if events here could lower the Dorsai reputation and the market value of its military individuals."
"I see - " I began; and broke off as the hull of the bus rang suddenly - as if to a sharp blow.
"Down!" I said, pulling Padma to the floor of the vehicle and away from the window beside which we had been sitting. One good thing about Exotics - they trust you to know your own line of work. He obeyed me instantly and without protest. We waited... but there was no repetition of the sound.
"What was it?" he asked, after a moment, but with out moving from where I had brought him.
"Solid projectile slug. Probably from a heavy hand weapon," I told him. "We've been shot at. Stay down, if you please, Outbond."
I got up myself, staying low and to the center of the bus, and went through the door into the control compartment. Amanda and Michael both looked around at me as I entered, their faces alert.
"Who's out to get us?" I asked Michael.
He shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "Here in Nahar, it could be anything or anybody. It could be the revolutionaries or simply someone who doesn't like the Dorsai; or some one who doesn't like Exotics - or even someone who doesn't like me. Finally, it could be someone drunk, drugged, or just in a macho mood."
" - who also has a military hand weapon."
"There's that," Michael said. "But everyone in Nahar is armed; and most of them, legitimately or not, own military weapons."
He nodded at the windscreen.
"Anyway, we're almost down," he said.
I looked out. The interlocked mass of buildings that was the government seat called" Gebel Nahar was sprawled halfway down from the top of the small mountain, just below us. In the tropical sunlight, it looked like a resort hotel, built on terraces that descended the steep slope. The only difference was that each terrace terminated in a wall, and the lowest of the walls were ramparts of solid fortifications, with heavy weapons emplaced along them. Gebel Nahar, properly garrisoned, should have been able to dominate the countryside against surface troops all the way out to the horizon, at least on this side of the mountain.
"What's the other side like?" I asked.
"Mountaineering cliff - there's heavy weapon emplacements cut out of the rock there, too, and reached by tunnels going clear through the mountain," Michael answered "The ranchers spared no expense when they built this place. Gallego thinking. They and their families might all have to hole up here, one day."
But a few moments later we were on the poured concrete surface of a vehicle pool. The three of us went back into the body of the bus to rejoin Padma; and Michael let us out of the vehicle. Outside, the parking area was abnormally silent.
"I don't know what's happened - " said Michael as we set foot outside. We three Dorsai had checked, instinctively, ready to retreat back into the bus and take off again if necessary.
A voice shouting from somewhere beyond the ranked flyers and surface vehicles, brought our heads around. There was the sound of running feet, and a moment later a soldier wearing an energy sidearm, but dressed in the green and red Naharese army uniform with band tabs, burst into sight and slid to a halt, panting before us.
"Sir - " he wheezed, in the local dialect of archaic Spanish. "Gone - "
We waited for him to get his breath; after a second, he tried again.
"They've deserted, sir!" he said to Michael, trying to pull himself to attention. "They've gone - all the regiments, everybody!"
"When?" asked Michael.
"Two hours past. It was all planned. Certainly, it was planned. In each group, at the same time, a man stood up. He said that now was the time to desert, to show the ncones where the army stood. They all marched out, with their flags, their guns, everything. Look!"
He turned and pointed. We looked. The vehicle pool was on the fifth or sixth level down from the top of the Gebel Nahar. It was possible to see, from this as from any of the other levels, straight out for miles over the plains. Looking now we saw, so far off no other sign was visible, the tiny, occasional twinkles of reflected sunlight, seemingly right on the horizon.
"They are camped out there; waiting for an army they say will come from all the other countries around, to reinforce them and accomplish the revolution."
"Everyone's gone?" Michael's words in Spanish brought the soldier's eyes back to him.
"All but us. The soldiers of your band, sir. We are the Conde's Elite Guard, now."
"Where are the two Dorsai Commanders?"
"In their offices, sir."
"I'll have to go to them-right away," said Michael to the rest of us. "Outbond, will you wait in your quarters, or will you come along with us?"
"I'll come," said Padma.
The five of us went across the parking area, between the crowded vehicles and into a maze of corridors. Through these at last we found our way finally to a large suite of offices, where the outward wall of each room was all window. Through the window of the one we were in, we looked out on the plain below, where the distant and all but invisible Naharese regiments were now camped. We found Kensie and Ian Graeme together in one of the inner offices, standing talking before a massive desk large enough to serve as a conference table for a half-dozen people.
They turned as we came in - and once again I was hit by the curious illusion that I usually experienced on meeting these two. It was striking enough whenever I approached one of them. But when the twins were together, as now, the effect was enhanced.
In my own mind I had always laid it to the fact that in spite of their size - and either one is nearly a head taller than I am - they are so evenly proportioned physically that their true dimensions do not register on you until you have something to measure them by. From a distance it is easy to take them for not much more than ordinary height. Then, having unconsciously underestimated them, you or someone else whose size you know approaches them; and it is that individual who seems to change in size as he, or she, or you get close. If it is you, you are very aware of the change. But if it is someone else, you can still seem to shrink somewhat, along with that other person. To feel your self become smaller in relationship to someone else is a strange sensation, if the phenomenon is entirely subjective.
In this case, the measuring element turned out to be Amanda, who ran to the two brothers the minute we entered the room. Her home, Fal Morgan, was the homestead closest to the Graeme home of Foralie and the three of them had grown up together. As I said, she was not a small woman, but by the time she had reached them and was hugging Kensie, she seemed to have become not only tiny, but fragile; and suddenly - again, as it always does - the room seemed to orient itself about the two Graemes.
I followed her and held out my hand to Ian.
"Corunna! " he said. He was one of the few who still called me by the first of my personal names. His large hand wrapped around mine. His face - so different, yet so like, to his twin brother's - looked down into mine. In truth, they were identical, and yet there was all the difference in the universe between them. Only it was not a physical difference, for all its powerful effect on the eye. Literally, it was that Ian was lightless, and all the bright element that might have been in him was instead in his brother, so that Kensie radiated double the human normal amount of sunny warmth. Dark and light. Night and day. Brother and brother.