"Ah, I'm really just a captain," Tyl said, wondering whether Delcorio had misheard, was being flattering—or was incensed that Hammer had sent only a company commander in response to a summons from his employer. "Ah, I don't think . . . ."
"Eunice,"the President was saying in a voice like a slap,"this is scarcely the time to precipitate disaster by insulting the man who can stabilize the situation."
"The army can stabilize—" the woman snapped.
"It isn't the business of the army—" boomed the soldier in green.
The volume of his interruption shocked him as well as the others in the wrangle. All three paused.When the discussion resumed, it was held in voices low enough to be ignored if not unheard.
"Queen Eunice," said Thom Chastain, shaking his head. There was a mixture of affection and amusement in his voice, but Tyl had been in enough tight places to recognize the flash of fear in the young man's eyes. "She's really a terror, isn't she?"
"Ah," Tyl said while his mind searched for a topic that had nothing to do with Colonel Hammer's employers. "You gentlemen are in the army also, I gather?"
There were couches around most of the walls. Near one end was a marble conference table that matched the inlaid panels between the single-sheet vitril windows. Nobody was sitting down, and the groups of two or three talking always seemed to be glancing over their collective shoulders toward the door, waiting for the missing man.
"Oh, well, these," said the other Chastain brother, Richie—surely a twin. He flicked the collar of his blue and gold uniform, speaking with the diffidence Tyl had felt at being addressed as "Major."
"We're honorary colonels in the Guards, you know," said Thom. "But it's because of our grandfather. We're not very inter . . . ."
"Well, Grandfather Chastain was, you know," said Richie, taking up where his brother's voice trailed off. "He was president some years ago. Esteban Delcorio succeeded him, but Thom and I are something like colonels for life—"
"—and so we wear—"
They concluded, both together, "But we aren't soldiers the way you are, Major."
"Or Marshal Dowell,either,"Thom Chastain added later, nodding tothe man in green who had broken away from the Delcorios—leaving them to hiss at one another. "Now, what would you like to drink?"
Just about anything, thought Tyl.So long as it had enough kick to knock him on his ass . . . which, in a situation like this, would get him sacked if the colonel didn't decide he should instead be shot out of hand. Why in blazes hadn't somebody from the staff been couriered over on an "errand" that left him available to talk informally with the civil authorities?
"Nothing for me, thank you," Tyl said aloud. "Or, ah, water?"
Marshal Dowell had fallen in with a tall man whose clothes were civilian in cut, though they carried even more metallic brocade than trimmed the military uniforms. The temporary grouping broke apart abruptly when Dowell turned away and the tall man shouted at his back, "No, I don't think that's a practical solution, Marshal! Abdicating your responsibilities makes it impossible for me to carry out mine."
"Berne is the City Prefect," Thom whispered into Tyl's ear. The Chastain brothers were personable kids—but"kid"was certainly the word for them. They seemed even younger than their probable age—which was old enough to ride point in an assault force, in Tyl's terms of reference.
From the other side, Richie was saying, "There's been a lot of trouble in the streets recently,you know. Berne keeps saying that he doesn't have enough police to take care of it."
"It is not in the interests of God or the State," responded Marshal Dowell, his voice shrill and his face as red as a flag, "that we give up the Crusade on Two because of some rabble that the police would deal with if they were used with decision!"
Tyl saw a man in uniform staring morosely out over the city. The uniform was familiar; desire tricked the Slammers officer into thinking that he recognized the man as well.
"'Scuse me,"he muttered to the Chastains and strode across the circular room. "Ah, Lieutenant Desoix?"
Tyl's swift motion drew all eyes in the room to him—so he felt/knew that everyone recognized his embarrassment when the figure in silhouette at the window turned: a man in his mid-forties, jowls sagging, paunch sagging . . . Twenty years older than Charles Desoix and twenty kilos softer.
"Charles?" the older man barked as his eyes quested the room for the subject of Tyl's call.
"Where have you—"
Then he realized, from the way the Slammers officer's face went from enthusiastic to stricken, what had happened. He smiled, an expression that reminded Tyl of snow slumping away from a rocky hillside in the spring, and said,"You'd be Hammer's man? I'm Borodin,got the battery of the UDB here that keeps them all—" he nodded toward nothing in particular, pursing his lips to make the gesture encompass everyone in the room "—safe in their bed."
The scowl with which Major Borodin followed the statement made a number of the richly dressed Bamberg officials turn their interest to other parts of the room.
Tyl was too concerned with controlling his own face to worry about the reason for Borodin's anger—which was explained when the UDB officer continued, "I gather we're looking for the same man.And I must say,if you could get down from orbit in time to be here, I don't understand what Charles' problem can be."
"He—" said Tyl.Then he smiled brightly and replaced his intended statement with,"I'm sure Lieutenant Desoix will be here as soon as possible. It's very—difficult out there, getting around, it seems to me."
"Tell me about it, boy," Borodin grunted as he turned again to the window, not so much rude as abstracted.
They were looking out over the third-story porch which faced the front of the Palace of Government. In the courtyard below were the foreshortened honor guard and the flag, still drooping and unrecognizable. The river beyond was visible only by inference. Its water, choked between the massive levees, was covered with barges ten and twelve abreast, waiting to be passed through beneath the plaza.
On the other side of the river—
"That's the City Offices, then?" Tyl asked.
Where he and the men under his temporary charge were billeted. And where now police vehicles swarmed, disgorging patrolmen and comatose prisoners in amazing numbers.
"Claims to be," Borodin grunted. "Don't see much sign that anything's being run from there, do you?"
He glanced around. He was aware enough of his surroundings to make sure that nobody but the other mercenary officer would overhear the next comment. "Or from here, you could bloody well say."
The door opened. The scattered crowd in the Consistory Room turned toward the sound with the sudden unanimity of a school of fish changing front.
"Father Laughlin, representing the Church," called the greeter in a clear voice that left its message unmistakable.