He continued his roll and came up, pivoting and instinctively side-stepping. A dark body flung past him — but that instinct spoken of before warned him that it was El Man, flinging himself clear across the room to aid the general confusion. Donal reversed his field and went back the way from which El Man had come. He came up against an opponent plunging forward with a knife held low, slipped the knife, chopped at the man’s neck with the calloused edge of his hand — but missed a clean killing stroke and only broke the man’s collar bone. Leaving that opponent however in the interests of keeping on the move, Donal spun off to the right, cornered another man against the wall and crushed this one’s windpipe with a stiff-fingered jab. Rebounding from the wall and spinning back into the center of the room, his ears told him that El Man was finishing off one opponent and Ian was engaged with the remaining two. Going to help him, Donal caught one of Ian’s men from be-hind and paralyzed him with a kidney punch. Ian, surprisingly enough, was still engaged with the remaining enemy. Donal went forward and found out why. Ian had caught himself another Dorsai.
Donal closed with both men and they went down in a two-on-one pin, the opponent in a stretcher that held him helpless between Donal and his uncle.
“Shai Dorsai!” gasped Donal. “Surrender!”
“Who to?” grunted the other.
“Donal and Ian Graeme,” said Ian. “Foralie.”
“Honored,” said the strange Dorsai. “Heard of you. Hord Vlaminck, Snelbrich Canton. All right then, let me up. My right arm’s broken, anyway.”
Donal and Ian let go and assisted Vlaminck to his feet. El Man had finished off what else remained, and now came up to them.
“Hord Vlaminck — Coruna El Man,” said Donal.
“Honored,” said El Man.
“Honor’s mine,” replied Vlaminck. “I’m your prisoner, gentlemen. Want my parole?”
“I’d appreciate it,” said Donal. “We’ve got work to do here yet. What kind of contract are you under?”
“Straight duty. No loyalty clause. Why?”
“Any reason why I can’t hire you on a prisoner’s basis?” asked Donal.
“Not from this job.” Vlaminck sounded disgusted. “I’ve been sold twice on the open market because of a typo in my last contract. Besides,” he added, “as I say, I’ve heard of you.”
“You’re hired, then. We’re looking for the man you’re guarding here. Can you tell us where we’ll find him?”
“Follow me,” said Vlaminck; and led the way back through the darkness; and opened a door. They stepped through into a short corridor that led them up a ramp and to another door.
“Locked,” said Vlaminck. “The alarm’s gone off.” He looked at them. Further than this he could not in honor go, even on a hired prisoner’s basis.
“Burn it down,” said Donal. He and Ian and El Man opened up on the door, which glowed stubbornly to a white heat, but finally melted. Ian threw a concussion bolt at it and knocked it open.
Within, a large man with a black hood over his head was crouched against the far wall of the room, a miner’s heavy-duty ion gun in his hand pointing a little unsteadily at them and shifting from one to the other.
“Don’t be a fool,” said Ian. “We are all Dorsai.”
The gun sagged in the hand of the hooded man. A choked, bitter exclamation came from behind the mask.
“Come on,” Donal gestured him out. He dropped the gun and came, shoulders bowed. They headed back through the house.
The fire fight in the hall was still going on as they retraced their footsteps; but died out as they reached the center hall. Two of the five men they had left behind there were able to navigate on their own power and another one could make it back to the ship with assistance. The other two were dead. They returned swiftly to the terrace, through the garden, and back into the tunnel, picking up the rest of their complement as they went. Fifteen minutes later, they were all aboard and the N4J was falling into deep space.
In the lounge, Donal was standing before the hooded man, who sat slumped on a float.
“Gentlemen,” said Donal, “take a look at William’s social technician.”
Ian and El Man, who were present, looked sharply over at Donal — not so much at the words as at the tone in which he had said them. He had spoken in a voice that was, for him, unexpectedly bitter.
“Here’s the man who sowed the whirlwind the civilized worlds are reaping at this moment,” went on Donal. He stretched out his hand to the black hood. The man shrank from him, but Donal caught the hood and jerked it off. A slow exhalation of breath slipped out between Donal’s lips.
“So you sold out,” he said.
The man before them was ArDell Montor.
Commander In Chief II
ArDell looked back at him out of a white face, but with eyes that did not bend before Donal’s bleak glance.
“I had to have work,” he said. “I was killing myself. I don’t apologize.”
“Was that all the reason?” asked Donal, ironically.
At that, ArDell’s face did turn aside.
“No—” he said. Donal said nothing. “It was her,” ArDell whispered. “He promised me her.”
“Her!” The note in Donal’s voice made the other two Dorsai take an instinctive step toward him. But Donal held himself without moving, under control. “Anea?”
“She might have taken pity on me—” ArDell whispered to the floor of the lounge. “You don’t understand… living close to her all those years… and I was so miserable, and she… I couldn’t help loving her—”
“No,” said Donal. Slowly, the sudden lightning of his tension leaked out of him. “You couldn’t help it.” He turned away. “You fool,” he said, with his back to ArDell. “Didn’t you know him well enough to know when he was lying to you? He had her in mind for himself.”
“William? Nor ArDell was suddenly on his feet. “Not him — with her! It can’t be… such a thing!”
“It won’t,” said Donal, wearily. “But not because it depends on people like you to stop him.” He turned back to face ArDell. “Lock him up, will you, captain.” El Man’s hard hand closed on ArDell’s shoulder and turned him toward the entrance to the lounge. “Oh… and captain—”
“Sir?” said El Man, turning to face him.
“We rendezvous with all units under Fleet Commander Lludrow as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir.” El Man half-pushed, half-carried ArDell Montor out of the room; and, as if symbolically, out of the main current of the history of mankind which he had attempted to influence with his science for William, Prince of Ceta.
The N4J set out to make contact with Lludrow. It was not a thing to be quickly or easily accomplished. Even when it is known where it should be, it is far from easy to track down and pinpoint as small a thing as a fleet of human ships in the inconceivable vast-nesses of interstellar space. For the very good reasons that there is always the chance of human error, that a safety margin must always be maintained — better to fall short of your target than to come out too close to it — and that there is, for practical purposes, no such thing as standing still in the universe. The N4J made a phase shift from where it calculated it was, to where it calculated the fleet to be, sent out a call signal and got no answer. It calculated again, signaled again — and so continued until it got first, a very faint signal in response, then a stronger one, and finally, one which permitted communication. Calculations were then matched between the flagship of the fleet and the N4J — and at last a meeting was effected.