I drank from my own glass.
"It sounds like William. If I know him," I said, "he'd even enjoy engineering whatever situation was needed to keep this country fifty years behind the times. But it sounded to me earlier as if you were saying that he was trying to get something out of the Dorsai at the same time. What good does it do him if you have to make a penalty payment for breaking this contract? It won't bankrupt you Graemes to pay it, will it? And even if you had to borrow from general Dorsai contingency funds, it wouldn't be more than a pinprick against those funds. Also, you still haven't explained this business of your being trapped here, not by the contract, but by the general honor of the Dorsai."
Ian nodded.
"William's taken care of both things," he said. "His plan was for the Naharese to hire Dorsai to make their army a working unit. Then his revolutionary agents would cause a revolt of that army. Then, with matters out of hand, he could step in with his own non-Dorsai officers to control the situation and bring order back to Nahar."
"I see," I said.
"He then would mediate the matter," Ian went on, "the revolutionary people would be handed some limited say in the government - under his outside control, of course - and the ranchers would give up their absolute local authority but little of anything else. They'd stay in charge of their ranches, as his man agers, with all his wealth and forces to back them against any real push for control by the real revolutionary faction; which would eventually be tamed and brought in line, also - the way he's tamed and brought in line all the rest of this world, and some good-sized chunks of other worlds."
"So," I said, thoughtfully, "what he's after is to show that his military people can do things Dorsai can't?"
"You follow me," said Ian. "We command the price we do now only because military like ourselves are in limited supply. If they want Dorsai results - military situations dealt with at either no cost or a minimum cost, in life and material - they have to hire Dorsai. That's as it stands now. But if it looks like others can do the same job as well or better, our price has to go down, and the Dorsai will begin to starve."
"It'd take some years for the Dorsai to starve. In that time we could live down the results of this, may be."
"But it goes farther than that. William isn't the first to dream of being able to hire all the Dorsai and use them as a personal force to dominate the worlds. We've never considered allowing all our working people to end up in one camp. But if William can depress our price below what we need to keep the Dorsai free and independent, then he can offer us wages better than the market - survival wages, available from him alone - and we'll have no choice but to accept."
"Then you've got no choice, yourself," I said. "You've got to break this contract, no matter what it costs."
"I'm afraid not," he answered. "The cost looks right now to be the one we can't afford to pay. As I said, we're damned if we do, damned if we don't - caught in the jaws of this nutcracker unless Amanda can find us a way out - "
The door to the office where we were sitting opened at that moment and Amanda herself looked in.
"It seems some local people calling themselves the Governors have just arrived - " Her tone was humorous, but every line of her body spoke of serious concern. "Evidently, I'm supposed to go and talk with them right away. Are you coming, Ian?"
"Kensie is all you'll need," Ian said. "We've trained them to realize that they don't necessarily get both of us on deck every time they whistle. You'll find it's just another step in the dance, anyway - there's nothing to be done with them."
''All right." She started to withdraw, stopped. "Can Padma come with us?"
"Check with Kensie. I'd say it's best not to ruffle the Governors' feathers by asking to let him sit in, right now."
"That's all right," she said. "Kensie already thought not, but he said I should ask you."
She went out.
"Sure you don't want to be there?" I asked him.
"No need." He got up. "There's something I want to show you. It's important you understand the situation here thoroughly. If Kensie and myself should both be knocked out, Amanda would only have you to help her handle things - and if you're certain about being able to stay?"
"As I said," I repeated, "I can stay."
"Fine. Come along, then. I wanted you to meet the Conde de Nahar. But I've been waiting to hear from Michael as to whether the Conde's receiving, right now. We won't wait any longer. Let's go see how the old gentleman is."
"Won't he - the Conde, I mean - be at this meeting with Amanda and the Governors?"
Ian led the way out of the room.
"Not if there's serious business to be talked about. On paper, the Conde controls everything but the Governors. They elect him. Of course, aside from the pa per, they're the ones who really control everything."
We left the suite of offices and began to travel the corridors of Gebel Nahar once more Twice we took lift tubes and once we rode a motorized strip down one long corridor, but at the end Ian pushed open a door and we stepped into what was obviously the orderly room fronting a barracks section
The soldier bandsman seated behind the desk there came to his feet immediately at the sight of us - or per haps it was just at the sight of Ian.
"Sirs'" he said, in Spanish
"I ordered Mr de Sandoval to find out for me if the Conde would receive Captain El Man here, and my self," Ian said in the same language "Do you know where the Bandmaster is now?"
"No, sir He has not come back. Sir - it is not always possible to contact the Conde quickly - "
"I'm aware of that," said Ian "Rest easy. Mr de Sandoval's due back here shortly, then?"
"Yes, sir Any minute now. Would the sirs care to wait in the Bandmaster's office?"
"Yes," said Ian
The orderly turned aside, lifting his hand in a decidedly non-military gesture to usher us past his desk through a farther entrance into a larger room, very orderly and with a clean desk, but crowded with filing cabinets and with its walls hung with musical instruments.
Most of these were ones I had never seen before, although they were all variants on string or wind music-makers. There was one that looked like an early Scottish bagpipe It had only a single drone, some seventy centimeters long, and a chanter about half that length Another was obviously a keyed bugle of some sort, but with most of its central body length wrapped with red cord ending in dependent tassels. I moved about the walls, examining each as I came to it, while Ian took a chair and watched me. I came back at length to the deprived bagpipe.
"Can you play this?" I asked Ian.
"I'm not a piper," said Ian. "I can blow a bit, of course - but I've never played anything but regular highland pipes. You'd better ask Michael if you want a demonstration. Apparently, he plays everything - and plays it well."
I turned away from the walls and took a seat myself.
"What do you think?" asked Ian. I was gazing around the office.
I looked back at him and saw his gaze curiously upon me.
"It's... strange," I said.
And the room was strange, for reasons that would probably never strike someone not a Dorsai. No two people keep an office the same way; but just as there are subtle characteristics by which one born to the Dorsai will recognize another, so there are small signals about the office of anyone on military duty and from that world. I could tell at a glance, as could Ian or any one of us, if the officer into whose room we had just stepped was Dorsai or not. The clues lie, not so much with what was in the room, as in the way the things there and the room itself was arranged. There is nothing particular to Dorsai-born individuals about such a recognition. Almost any veteran officer is able to tell you whether the owner of the office he has just stepped into is also a veteran officer, Dorsai or not. But in that case, as in this, it would be easier to give the answer than to list the reasons why the answer was what it was.