Childe Cycle - The Spirit of Dorsai Part 18

It was because there was something in the mood of the civilian crowd itself that forbade terrorism, here and now. Any Blue Front activists trying such a thing would have been smothered by the very civilians around them in whose name they were doing it.

Something of awe and pity, and almost of envy, seemed to be stirring the souls of the Blauvain people; those same people of mine who had huddled in their houses twenty hours before, in undiluted fear of the very men now lined up before them and moving slowly to the City Government building. Once more, as I stood on a balcony above the lobby holding the casket, I felt those winds of vast movement I had sensed first for a moment in lan's office, the winds of those forces of which Padma had spoken to me. The Blauvain people were different today and showed the difference. Kensie's death had changed them.

Then, something more happened. As the last of the soldiers pa.s.sed, Blauvain civilians began to fall in behind them, extending the line. By mid-afternoon, the last soldier had gone by and the first figure in civilian clothes pa.s.sed the casket, neither touching it nor speaking to it, but pausing to look with an unusual, almost shy curiosity upon the face of the body inside, in the name of which so much might have happened.

Already, behind that one man, the line of civilians was half again as long as the line of soldiers had been.

It was nearly midnight, long past the time when it had been planned to shut the gates of the lobby, when the last of the civilians had gone and the casket could be transferred to a room at Expeditionary Headquarters from which it would be s.h.i.+pped back to the Dorsai.

This business of s.h.i.+pping a body home happened seldom, even in the case of mercenaries of the highest rank; but there had never been any doubt that it would happen in the case of Kensie. The enlisted men and officers of his command had contributed the extra funds necessary for the s.h.i.+pment. -Ian, when his time came, would undoubtedly be buried in the earth of whatever world on which he fell. Only if he happened to be at home when the time came, would that earth be soil of the Dorsai. But Kensie had been-Kensie.

"Do you know what's been suggested to me?" asked Moro, as he, Pel and I, along with several of the Expedition's senior officers-Charley ap Morgan among them-stood watching Kensie's casket being brought into the room at Expedition HQ, "There's a proposal to get the city government to put up a statue of him, here in Blauvain. A statue of Kensie."

Neither Pel nor I answered. We stood watching the placing of the casket. For all its ma.s.sive appearance, four men handled it and the body within easily. The apparently thick metal of its sides were actually hollow to reduce s.h.i.+pping weight. The soldiers settled it, took off the transparent weather cover and carried it out. The body of Kensie lay alone, uncovered; the profile of his face, seen from where we stood, quiet and still against the light pink cloth of the casket's lining. The senior officers who were with us and who had not been in the line of soldiers filing through the lobby, now began to go into the room, one at a time to stand for a second at the casket before coming out again.

"It's what we never had on St. Marie," said Pel, after a long moment. He was a different man since Padma had talked to him. "A leader. Someone to love and follow. Now that our people have seen there is such a thing, they want something like it for themselves."

He looked up at Charley ap Morgan, who was just coming back out of the room.

"You Dorsai changed us," Pel said.

"Did we?" said Charley, stopping. "How do you feel about Ian now, Pel?"

"Ian?" Pel frowned. "We're talking about Kensie. lan's just-what he always was."

"What you all never understood," said Charley, looking from one to the other of us.

"lan's a good man," said Pel. "I don't argue with that. But there'll never be another Kensie."

"There'll never be another Ian," said Charley. "He and Kensie made up one person. That's what none of you ever understood. Now half of Ian is gone, into the grave."

Pel shook his head slowly.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't believe that. I can't believe Ian ever needed anyone-even Kensie. He's never risked anything, so how could he lose anything? After Kensie's death he did nothing but sit on his spine here insisting that he couldn't risk Kensie's reputation by doing anything-until events forced his hand. That's not the action of a man who's lost the better half of himself"

"I didn't say better half," said Charley, "I only said half-and just half is enough. Stop and try to feel for a moment what it would be like. Stop for a second and feel how it would be if you -were amputated down the middle-if the life that was closest to you was wrenched away, shot down in the street by a handful of self-deluded, crackpot revolutionaries from a world you'd come to rescue. Suppose it was like that for you, how would you feel?"

Pel had gone a little pale as Charley talked. When he answered his voice had a slight echo of the difference and youngness it had had after Padma had talked to him.

"I guess..." he said very slowly, and ran off into silence.

"Yes?" said Charley. "Now you're beginning to understand, to feel as Ian feels. Suppose you feel like this and just outside the city where the a.s.sa.s.sins of your brother are hiding there are six battalions of seasoned soldiers who can turn that same city-who can hardly be held back from turning that city-into another Rochmont, at one word from you. Tell me, is it easy, or is it hard, not to say that one word that will turn them loose?"

"It would be..." The words seemed dragged from Pel, "hard..."

"Yes," said Charley, grimly, "as it was hard for Ian."

"Then why did he do it?" demanded Pel.

"He told you why," said Charley. "He did it to protect his brother's military reputation, so that not even after his death should Kensie Graeme's name be an excuse for anything but the highest and best of military conduct."

"But Kensie was dead. He couldn't hurt his own reputation!"

"His troops could," said Charley. "His troops wanted someone to pay for Kensie's death.

They wanted to leave a monument to Kensie and their grief for him, as long-lasting a monument as Rochmont has been to Jacques Chretian. There was only one way to satisfy them, and that was if Ian himself acted for them-as their agent-in dealing with the a.s.sa.s.sins. Because n.o.body could deny that Kensie's brother had the greatest right of all to represent all those who had lost with Kensie's death."

"You're talking about the fact that Ian killed the men, personally," said Moro. "But there was no way he could know he'd come face to face-"

He stopped, halted by the thin, faint smile on Charley's face.

"Ian was our Battle Op, our strategist," said Charley. "Just as Kensie was Field Commander, our tactician. Do you think that a strategist of lan's ability couldn't lay a plan that would bring him face to face, alone, with the a.s.sa.s.sins once they were located?"

"What if they hadn't been located?" I asked. "What if I hadn't found out about Pel, and Pel hadn't told us what he knew?"

Charley shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "Somehow Ian must have known this way would work-or he would have done it differently. For some reason he counted on help from you, Tom."

"Me!" I said. "What makes you say that?"

"He told me so." Charley looked at me strangely. "You know, many people thought that because they didn't understand Ian, that Ian didn't understand them. Actually, he understands other people unusually well. I think he saw something in you, Tom, he could rely on. And he was right, wasn't he?"

Once more, the winds I had felt-of the forces of which Padma had spoken, blew through me, chilling and enlightening me. Ian had felt those winds as well as I had-and understood them better. I could see the inevitability of it now. There had been only one pull on the many threads entangled in the fabric of events here; and that pull had been through me to Ian.

"When he went to that suite where the a.s.sa.s.sins were holed up," said Charley, "he intended to go in to them alone, and unarmed. And when he killed them with his bare hands, he did what every man in the Expeditionary force wanted to do. So, when that was done, the anger of the troops was lightning-rodded. Through Ian, they all had their revenge; and then they were free. Free just to mourn for Kensie as they're doing today. So Blauvain escaped; and the Dorsai reputation has escaped stain, and the state of affairs between the inhabited worlds hasn't been upset by an incident here on St. Marie that could make enemies out of worlds, like the Exotic and the Dorsai, and St. Marie, who should all be friends."

He stopped talking. It had been a long speech for Charley; and none of us could think of anything to say. The last of the senior officers, all except Ian, had gone past us now, in and out of the room, and the casket was alone. Then Pel spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded sorry. "But even if what you say is all true, it only proves what I always said about Ian. Kensie had two mens' feelings, but Ian hasn't any.

He's ice and water with no blood in him. He couldn't bleed if he wanted to. Don't tell me any man torn apart emotionally by his twin brother's death could sit down and plan to handle a situation so cold-bloodedly and efficiently."

"People don't always bleed on the outside where you can see-" Charley broke off, turning his head.

We looked where he was looking, down the corridor behind us, and saw Ian coming, tall and alone. He strode up to us, nodded briefly at us, and went past into the room. We saw him walk to the side of the casket.

He did not speak to Kensie, or touch the casket gently as the soldiers pa.s.sing through the lobby had done. Instead he closed his big hands, those hands that had killed three armed men, almost casually on the edge of it, and looked down into the face of his dead brother.

Twin face gazed to twin face, the living and the dead. Under the lights of the room, with the motionless towering figure of Ian, it was as if both were living, or both were dead- so little difference there was to be seen between them. Only, Kensie's eyes were closed and lan's opened; Kensie' slept while Ian waked. And the oneness of the two of them was so solid and evident a thing, there in that room, that it stopped the breath in my chest.

For perhaps a minute or two Ian stood without moving. His face did not change. Then he lifted his gaze, let go of the casket and turned about. He came walking toward us, out of the room, his hands at his sides, the fingers curled into his palms.

"Gentlemen," he said, nodding to us as he pa.s.sed, and went down the corridor until a turn in it took him out of sight.

Charley left us and went softly back into the room. He stood a moment there, then turned and called to us.

"Pel," he said, "come here."

Pel came; and the rest of us after him.

"I told you," Charley said to Pel, "some people don't bleed on the outside where you can see it."

He moved away from the casket and we looked at it. On its edge were the two areas where Ian had laid hold of it with his hands while he stood looking down at his dead brother. There was no mistaking the places, for at both of them, the hollow metal side had been bent in on itself and crushed with the strength of a grip that was hard to imagine.

Below the crushed areas, the cloth lining of the casket was also crumpled and rent; and where each fingertip had pressed, the fabric was torn and marked with a dark stain of blood.

EPILOGUE.

"...So," said the third Amanda, at last, "you see how it really was."

Hal Mayne nodded. He lifted his head suddenly to see her staring penetratingly at him.

"Or," she said, "do you see something more than I see, even in this?"

He opened his mouth to deny that, and found he could not.

"Maybe," he said. Loneliness and a need to explain himself swept through him without warning, like a heavy tide. "You've got to understand I'm a poet. I... I handle things all the time I don't understand. I'm almost like someone in total darkness, feeling things, sensing things, but never seeing shapes I can describe to other people."

She breathed slowly, in and out.

"So," she said, "there was something more to this interest of yours in the ap Morgans and the Graemes, all along."

"Yes ... no!" he said, almost explosively. "You still don't understand. I can't prove anything, but I can feel... connections."

His hands moved, reached out almost as if by their own wills, to grasp at the empty air in front of him.

"Connections," he said, "between the past and the present. Between Cletus and Donal and many others, not related at all. Connections between you and the other two Amandas, and between the ap Morgans and the Graemes-and between all these things and the movement of the Splinter Culture cross-breeds-the New Kind, as they're calling themselves now-and the rest of the human race on all the worlds. I'm Jumbling in the dark, but I'm getting there... I can feel myself getting there!"

She had relaxed. She still watched him, but no longer accusingly.

"So that's why you have to head back now, to Earth and the Final Encyclopedia," she said.

"Yes." He looked at her starkly. "I had to leave to save my life. But now, I have to go back.

Everything on Coby, on Harmony, even everything here, keeps pointing me back there."

He reached for her hand. She let him take it, but without returning the pressure of his fingers.

"Amanda," he said urgently. "Come back with me. I don't mean just because I want you with me. I mean because that's where all things are finally coming together. That's where it all ends-or starts. You should be there-just as I have to be there. Amanda, come with me."

She sat still for a moment, then her eyes went past him. Gently, she withdrew her hand from his.

"If you're right, then I will come," she said. "But not now, Hal. Not now. In my own good time."