"… Waru? This is Base Commander Ian Graeme," Ian was saying to his phone. "Activate our four best Hunter Teams; and take three Forces from your on-duty troops to surround Blauvain. Seal all entrances to the city. No one allowed in or out without our authority. Tell the involved troops briefing on these actions will be forthcoming."
As professional, free-lance soldiers, under the pattern of the Dorsai contract - which the Exotic employers honored for all their military employees - the mercenaries were entitled to know the aim and purpose of any general orders for military action they were given. By a ninety-six per cent vote among the enlisted men concerned, they could refuse to obey the order. In fact, by a hundred per cent vote, they could force their officers to use them in an action they themselves demanded. But a hundred per cent vote was almost unheard of. The phone grid in Ian's desk top said something I could not catch.
"No," replied Ian, "that's all."
He clicked off the phone and reached down to open a drawer in his desk He took out a gunbelt - a working, earth-colored gunbelt unlike the dress one Kensie had put on earlier - with sidearm already in its holster; and, standing up, began to strap it on. On his feet, he dominated the room, towering over us all.
"Tom," he said, looking at me, "put your police to work, finding out what they can. Tell them all to be prepared to obey orders by any one of our soldiers, no matter what his rank."
"I don't know if I've got the authority to tell them that," I said.
"I've just given you the authority," he answered calmly. "As of this moment, Blauvain is under martial law."
Moro cleared his throat; but I jerked a hand at him to keep him quiet. There was no one in this room with the power to deal with Ian's authority now, except the gentle-faced man in the blue robe. I looked appealingly at Padma, and he turned from me to Ian.
"Naturally, Ian, measures will have to be taken, for the satisfaction of the soldiers who knew Kensie," Padma said softly, "but perhaps finding the guilty men would be better done by the civilian police without military assistance?"
"I'm afraid we can't leave it to them," said Ian briefly. He turned to the other two Dorsai officers.. "Chu, take command of the Forces I've just ordered to cordon the city. Charley, you'll take over as Acting Field Commander. Have all the officers and men in the encampment held there, and gather back any who are off post. You can use the office next to this one. We'll brief the troops in the encampment, this afternoon. Chu can brief his forces as he posts them around the city."
The two turned and headed toward the door.
"Just a minute, gentlemen!"
Padma's voice was raised only slightly. But the pair of officers paused and turned for a moment.
"Colonel ap Morgan, Commandant Moy," said Padma, "as the official representative of the Exotic Government, which is your employer, I relieve you from the requirement of following any further orders of Commander Ian Graeme."
Charley and Chu looked past the Exotic, to Ian.
"Go ahead," said Ian. They went. Ian turned back to Padma. "Our contracts provide that officers and men are not subject to civilian authority while on active duty, engaged with an enemy."
"But the war - the war with the Friendly invaders - is over," said Moro.
"One of our soldiers has just been killed," said Ian. "Until the identity of the killers is established, I'm going to assume we're still engaged with an enemy."
He looked again at me.
"Tom," he said. "You can contact your Police Headquarters from this desk As soon as you've done that, report to me in the office next door, where I sent Charley."
He came around the desk and went out. Padma followed him. I went to the desk and put in a phone call to my own office.
"For God's sake, Tom!" said Moro to me, as I punched phone buttons for the number of my office, and started to get the police machinery rolling. "What's going on, here?"
I was too busy to answer him. Someone else was not.
"He's going to make them pay for killing his brother," said Pel savagely, from across the room. "That's what's going on!"
I had nearly forgotten Pel. Moro must have forgotten him absolutely, because he turned around to him now as if Pel had suddenly appeared on the scene in a cloud of fire and brimstone-odorous smoke.
"Pel?" he said. "Oh, Pel - get your militia together and under arms, right away. This is an emergency - "
"Go to hell!" Pel answered him. "I'm not going to lift a finger to keep Ian from hunting down those assassins. And no one else in the militia who knew Kensie Graeme is going to lift a finger, either."
"But this could bring down the government!"
Moro was close to the idea of tears, if not to the actual article. "This could throw St. Marie back into anarchy, and the Blue Front will take over by default!"
"That's what the planet deserves," said Pel, "when it lets men like Kensie be shot down like dogs - men who came here to risk their lives to save our government!"
"You're crazier than these mercenaries are!" said Moro, staring at him. Then a touch of hope lifted Moro's drawn features. "Actually, Ian seems calm enough. Maybe he won't - "
"He'll take this city apart if he has to," said Pel, savagely. "Don't blind yourself"
I had finished my phoning. I punched off, and straightened up, looking at Pel.
"I thought you told me there was nothing but ice and water to Ian?" I said.
"There isn't," Pel answered. "But Kensie's his twin brother. That's the one thing he can't sit back from and shuffle off. You'll see."
"I hope and pray I don't," I said; and I left the office for the one next door where Ian was waiting for me. Pel and Moro followed; but when we came to the doorway of the" other office, there was a soldier there who would let only me through.
"… We'll want a guard on that hospital room, and a Force guarding the hospital itself," Ian was saying slowly and deliberately to Charley ap Morgan as I came in. He was standing over Charley, who was seated at a desk Back against a wall stood the silent figure in a blue robe that was Padma. Ian turned to face me.
"The troops at the encampment are being paraded in one hour," he said. "Charley will be going out to brief them on what's happened. I'd like you to go with him and be on the stand with him during the briefing."
I looked back at him, up at him. I had not gone along with Pel's ice-and-water assessement of the man. But now for the first time I began to doubt myself and begin to believe Pel. If ever there had been two brothers who had seemed to be opposite halves of a single egg, Kensie and Ian had been those two. But here was Ian with Kensie dead - perhaps the only living person on the eleven human-inhabited worlds among the stars who had loved or understood him - and Ian had so far shown no more emotion at his brother's death than he might have on discovering an incorrect Order of the Day.
It occurred to me then that perhaps he was in emotional shock - and this was the cause of his unnatural calmness. But the man I looked at now had none of the signs of a person in shock. I found myself wondering if any man's love for his brother could be hidden so deep that not even that brother's violent death could cause a crack in the frozen surface of the one who went on living.
If Ian was repressing emotion that was due to explode sometime soon, then we were all in trouble. My Blauvain police and the planetary militia together were toy soldiers compared to these professionals. Without the Exotic control to govern them, the whole planet was at their mercy. But there was no point in admitting that - even to ourselves - while even the shadow of independence was left to us.
"Commander," I said. "General Pel Sinjin's planetary militia were closely involved with your brother's forces. He would like to be at any such briefing. Also, Moro Spence, Blauvain's Mayor and pro-tem President of the St. Marie Planetary Government, would want to be there. Both these men, Commander, have as deep a stake in this situation as your troops."