He hurled himself for the other side of the door and sealed and locked it, hands shaking. It was not rational, this fear. It was not rational. They used it. It was a weapon.
And they were where they wanted to be now: at a station orbiting Kesrith, and near the mri. He had done everything they wanted. He would do it again, because he needed them, needed the calming influence they might exert with the mri, who drew comfort from them, who relied on them. He began to suspect variables beyond his reckoning.
But he could not leave them. The thoughts wound him in upon himself, parric-fear and the gut-deep certainty of something wrong. He realized that he had been greeted by a man in the corridor some ten paces back, and absently turned and tried to amend the discourtesy, but it was too late; the man had walked on. Duncan enfolded himself in his private turmoil and kept walking, hands in his pockets, wadding into smaller and smaller balls the messages he had thrust there, Boaz' and Stavros'.
Confound you, Niun, he thought violently, and wondered if he were sane for the mere suspicion he entertained. The dusei, whatever they were, could not touch his conscious thoughts; it was at some lower level they operated, something elemental and sensual and sensory possible to reject if a man could master his fear of them and his need of them: that was surely the wedge they used for entry, fear and pleasure, either one or the other. It felt very good to please a dus; it was threatening to annoy one.
Yet the researchers had not picked it up. There was nothing of the kind reported in their observations of the beasts.
Perhaps the beasts had not spoken to them.
Duncan closed the door to his own small quarters, opposite the now-vacant compartments of the mri, and began packing, folding up the clothes that he had scarcely unpacked.
When he had done, he sat down in the chair by his desk and keyed in a call to Saber by way of Flower's communications.
Transfer of dusei possible and necessary, he sent to Saber's commander.
Stand by, the message came back to him. And a moment later: Report personally Saber Command soonest.
Chapter Six
THERE WAS nothing remarkable about a SurTac boarding a military ship; there should not have been, but the rumors were flying among the crew. Duncan surmised that by the looks that slid his way as he was escorted up to Command: escorted, not allowed'to range at will, to exchange words with crewmen. Even the intercom was silent, an unusual hush on a ship like Saber.
He was shown into the central staff offices, not a command station, and directly into the presence of the ranking commander over military operations in the Kesrithi zones, R.A. Koch. Duncan was uneasy in the meeting. SurTacs had paper rank enough to assure obedience from the run of regulars, and that circumstance was bitterly resented, the more so because the specials flaunted those privileges with utter disdain for the protocols and dignity of regular officers: the gallows bravado of their short-lived service. He did not expect courtesy; but Koch's frown seemed from thought, not hostility, the ordinary expression of his seamed face.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, SurTac Duncan." The accent was Havener, like most that had come to Kesrith, the fleet of lately threatened Elag/Haven.
"Sir," he said; he had not been invited to sit down.
"We're on short schedule," Koch said. "Regul have a ship incoming, Siggrav. Fortunately it seems to be a doch Alagn ship. Bai Hulagh's warning them to mind their manners; and we're probably going to have them docking here. They're skittish. Get yourself and your mri clear as quickly as possible. You're going to be given probe Fox. Probably your instructions are clearer than mine are at the moment." A prickle of distrust there, resentment of Stavros: Duncan caught it clearly. "Fox is transferring crew at the moment: some upset there. Siggrav is still some distance out. Your end of this operation is a matter of go when ready.”
"Sir," said Duncan. "I want the dusei. I can handle them; I'll see to transferring them to Fox. I also want the mri trade goods that are stocked on-station, whatever you can spare me help to load.”
Koch frowned, and this time it was not in thought. "All right," he said after a moment. "I'll put a detail on it now." He looked long at Duncan, while Duncan became again conscious that his face was marked with half a tan, that the admiral saw a stranger in more than one sense. Here was a power equal to that of Stavros, adjunct, not under Stavros' authority save where it regarded political decisions: and the decision that took Fox from Koch's command and overmanned Koch's own ship with discontent, lately transferred crew and scientists did not sit well with Koch. He did not look like a man who was accustomed to accept such interference.
"I'll be ready, sir," Duncan said softly, "when called.”
"Best you go over to Fox now and settle in," said Koch. "Getting her underway would relieve pressure here. You'll have your supplies; we'll provide what assistance we can with the dusei. All haste appreciated.”
"Thank you, sir," Duncan said. Dismissed, he took his leave, picked up his escort again at the door.
Koch had spent forty years on the mri, Duncan reckoned; he looked old enough to have seen the war from its beginning, and he doubtless had no love for the species. No Havener, who had seen his world overrun by regul and recovered by humanity at great cost, could be looked upon to entertain any charity toward the regul or toward the mri kel'ein who had carried out their orders.
The same could be said, perhaps, of Kiluwans like Stavros; but remote Kiluwa, on humanity's fringes, had produced a different breed, not fighters, but a stubborn people devoted to reason and science and analyzing a little, it had to be suspected, like the regul themselves. Overrun, they dispersed, and might never seek return. The Haveners were easier to understand. They simply hated. It would be long before they stopped hating.
And from the war there were also men like himself, thousands like himself, who did not know what they were, or from what world: war-born, war-oriented. War was all his life; it had made him move again and again in retreating from it, a succession of refugee creches, of tired overworked women; and then toward it, in schools that prepared him not for trade and commerce but for the front lines. His own accent was unidentifiable, a mingling of all places he had lived. He had no place. He had for allegiance now nothing but his humanity.
And himself.
And, with considerable reservations, the Hon. G. Stavros.
He exited Saber's ramp onto the broad dock, his escort left behind, paused to look about at the traffic of men and women busy about their own concerns.
Haveners.
Regulars.
In the command station of Fox, Duncan found himself among Fox's entire body of officers, unhappy-looking men and women, who exchanged courtesies with dutiful propriety.
"Sealed orders," the departing captain told him. "Crewless mission. That's as much as we know.”
"I'm sorry about this," Duncan offered, an awkward condolence.
The captain shrugged, far less, doubtless, than the unfortunate man was feeling, and offered his hand. "We're promised another probe, incoming. Fox is a good ship, in good maintenance a little chancy in atmosphere, but a good ship, all the same. We're attached to Saber, and Saber's due that replacement probe as soon as it's ferried in; so we'll get it, sure enough. So congratulations on your command, SurTac Duncan; or my condolences, whichever are more in order.”
Duncan accepted the handshake, in his mind already wondering what was contained in the sealed courier delivery that had come back by shuttle and resided now in the hands of the departing captain of Fox in his own possession, once the passing of authorities was complete. Duncan accepted the courtesies all about, the log was activated a last time to record the transfer of command; and then, which was usual on SurTac missions, the log files were stripped and given over into the hands of the departing captain. There would be none kept on his flight.
Another, last round of ceremonies: he watched the officers and their small crew depart the ship, until there was no one left but the ever-present security detail at the hatch four men, with live and deadly arms.
There was quiet. Duncan settled into the unfamiliar cushion and keyed in the command that played the once-only tape from Stavros: under security lock as it was, it was destroying itself as it played.