"Vote unanimously for what?" I asked.
"For a house-to-house search of the Blauvain area," Ian answered.
"The city's been cordoned," Pel said quickly. "A search like that would turn up the assassins in a matter of hours, with the whole expeditionary force searching."
"Sure," I said, "and with the actual assassins, there'd be a few hundred suspected assassins, or people who fought or ran for the wrong reason, killed or wounded by the searchers. Even if the Blue Front didn't take advantage of the opportunity - which they certainly would - to start gunfights with the soldiers in the city streets."
"What of it?" said Pel, talking to Ian rather than to me. "Your troops can handle any Blue Front people. And you'd be doing St. Marie a favor to wipe them out."
"If the whole thing didn't develop into a wiping-out of the whole civilian population of the city," I said.
"You're implying, Tom," said Pel, "that the Exotic troops can't be controlled by - "
Ian cut him short.
"Your suggestion, General," he said, "is the same one I've been getting from other quarters. Someone else is here with it right now. I'll let you listen to the answer I give him."
He turned toward his desk annunciator.
"Send in Groupman Whallo," he said.
He straightened up and turned back to us as the door to his office opened and in came the mercenary noncom I had brushed past out there. In the light, I saw it was the immigrant Dorsai of the Hunter Team I had encountered - the man who had been a Dorsai fourteen years.
"Sir!" he said, stopping a few steps before Ian and saluting. Uncovered himself, Ian did not return the salute.
"You've got a message for me?" Ian said. "Go ahead. I want these gentlemen to hear it, and my answer."
"Yes sir," said Whallo. I could see him glance at and recognize me out of the corner of his eyes. "As representative of the enlisted men of the Expedition, I have been sent to convey to you the results of our latest vote on orders. By unanimous vote, the enlisted men of this command have concurred in the need for a single operation."
"Which is?"
"That a house-to-house search of the Blauvain city area be made for the assassins of Reid Commander Graeme," said Whallo. He nodded at Ian's desk and for the first time I saw solidigraphs there-artists' impressions, undoubtedly, but looking remarkably lifelike of three men in civilian clothes. "There's no danger we won't recognize them when we find them."
Whallo's formal and artificial delivery was at odds with the way I had heard him speak when I had run into him at the Hunter Team site. There was, it occurred to me suddenly, probably a military protocol even to matters like this - even to the matter of a man's death and the possible death of a city. It came as a little shock to realize it and for the first time I began to feel something of what Padma had meant in saying that the momentum of forces involved here was massive. For a second it was almost as if I could feel those forces like great winds, blowing on the present moment. - But Ian was already answering him.
"Any house-to-house search involves possible military errors and danger to the civilian population," he was saying. "The military record of my brother is not to be marred after his death by any intemperate order from me."
"Yes sir," said Whallo. "I'm sorry sir; but the en-listed men of the expedition had hoped that the action would be ordered by you. Their decision calls for six hours in which you may consider the matter before our Enlisted Men's Council takes the responsibility for the action upon itself. Meanwhile, the Hunter Teams will be withdrawn - this is part of the voted decision."
"That, too?" said Ian.
"I'm sorry, sir. But you know," said Whallo, "they've been at a dead end for some hours now. The trail was lost in traffic; and the men might be anywhere in the central part of the city."
"Yes," said Ian. "Well, thank you for your message, Groupman."
"Sir!" said Whallo. He saluted again and went out.
As the door closed behind him, Ian's head turned back to face Pel and myself
"You heard, gentlemen," he said. "Now, I've got work to do."
Pel and I left. In the corridor outside, Whallo was already gone and the young Force-Leader was absent. Only Moro stood waiting for us. Pel turned on me, furiously.
"Who asked you to show up here?" he demanded.
"Moro," I answered. "And a good thing, too. Pel, what's got into you? You act as if you had some personal axe to grind in seeing the Exotic mercenaries level Blauvain - "
He spun away from me.
"Excuse me!" he snapped. "I've got things to do. I've got to phone my Headquarters."
Puzzled, I watched him take a couple of long strides away from me and out of the outer office. Suddenly, it was as if the winds of those massive forces I had felt for a moment just past in Ian's office had blown my head strangely clean, clear and empty, so that the slightest sound echoed with importance. All at once, I was hearing the echo of Pel saying those identical words as Kensie was preparing to leave the mercenary encampment for the non-existent victory dinner; and a half-recognized but long-held suspicion in me flared into a raging certainty.
I took three long strides after him and caught him. I whirled him around and rammed him up against a wall.
"It was you!" I said. "You called from the Encampment to the city just before we drove in. It was you who told the assassins we were on the way and to move into position to snipe at our car. You're Blue Front, Pel; and you set Kensie up to be murdered!"
My hands were on his throat and he could not have answered if he had wanted to. But he did not need to. Then I heard the click of bootheels on the floor of the polished stone corridor flagging outside the office, and let go of him, slipping my hand under my uniform jacket to my beltgun.
"Say a word," I whispered to him, "or try anything… and I'll kill you before you can get the first syllable out. You're coming along with us!"
The Force-leader entered. He glanced at the three of us curiously.
"Something I can do for you gentlemen?" he asked.
"No," I said, "No, we're just leaving."
With one arm through Pel's and the hand of my other arm under my jacket on the butt of my beltgun, we went out as close as the old friends we had always been, Moro bringing up the rear. Out in the corridor, with the office door behind us, Moro caught up with me on the opposite side from Pel.
"What are we going to do?" Moro whispered. Pel had still said nothing; but his eyes were like the black shadows of meteor craters on the gray face of an airless moon.
"Take him downstairs and out to a locked room in the nearest police post," I said. "He's a walking stick of high explosive if any of the mercenaries find out what he did. Someone of his rank involved in Kensie's killing is all the excuse they need to run our streets red in the gutters."
We got Pel to a private back room in Post Ninety-six, a local police center less than three minutes drive from the building where Ian had his office.
"But how can you be sure, he - " Moro hesitated at putting it into words, once we were safe in the room. He stood staring at Pel, who sat huddled in a chair, still without speaking.
"I'm sure," I said. "The Exotic, Padma-" I cut myself off as much as Moro had done. "Never mind. The main thing is he's Blue Front, he's involved - and what do we do about it?"
Pel stirred and spoke for the first time since I had almost strangled him. He looked up at Moro and myself out of his grey-dead face.
"I did it for St. Marie!" he said, hoarsely. "But I didn't know they were going to kill him! I didn't know that. They said it was just to be shooting around the car - for an incident - "
"You hear?" I jerked my head at Moro. "Do you want more proof than that?"
"What'll we do?" Moro was staring in fascinated horror at Pel.
"That was my question," I reminded him. He stood there looking hardly in better case than Pel. "But it doesn't look like you're going to be much help in answering it." I laughed, but not happily. "Padma said the choice was up to me."