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equivalent of some months to study the situation, we d undoubtedly find not
only one, but several solutions that would abort the attack of the regiments
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in the time we ve got to work with. What you lack isn t time in which to act,
since that s merely something specified for the solution. What you lack is
time in which to discover the solution that will work in the time there is to
act.
 So you mean, I said,  that we re to sit here tomorrow with Michael s forty
or so bandsmen and face the attack of something like six thousand line troops,
even though they re only Naharese line troops, all the time knowing that there
is absolutely a way in which that attack doesn t have to happen, if only we
had the sense to find it?
 The sense and the time, said Padma.  But yes, you re right. It s a harsh
reality of life, but the sort of reality that history has turned on, since
history began.
 I see, I said.  Well, I find I don t accept it that easily.
 No. Padma s gaze was level and cooling upon me.  Neither does Amanda.
Neither does Ian or Kensie. Nor, I suspect, even Michael. But then, you re all
Dorsai.
I said nothing. It is a little embarrassing when some-one plays your own top
card against you.
 In any case, Padma went on,  none of you are being called on to merely
accept it. Amanda s still at work. So is Ian, so are all the rest of you.
Forgive me, I didn t mean to sneer at the reflexes of your culture. I envy
you a great many people envy you that in-ability to give in. My point is that
the fact that we know there s an answer makes no difference. You d all be
doing the same thing anyway, wouldn t you?
 True enough, I said and at that moment we were interrupted.
 Padma? It was the general office annunciator speaking from the walls around
us with Amanda s voice.  Could you give me some help, please?
Padma got to his feet.
 I ve got to go, he said.
He went out. I sat where I was, held by that odd little melancholy that had
caught me up and I think does the same with most Dorsai away from home at
moments all through my life. It is not a serious thing, just a touch of
loneliness and sadness and the facing of the fact that life is measured; and
there are only so
many things that can be accomplished in it, try how you may.
I was still in this mood when Ian s return to the office suite by the
corridor door woke me out of it.
I got up.
 Corunna! he said, and led the way into his private office.  How s the
training going?
 As you d expect, I said.  I left Michael alone with them, at his
suggestion. He thinks they might learn faster without my presence to distract
them.
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 Possible, said Ian.
He stepped to the window wall and looked out. My height was not enough to let
me look over the edge of the parapet on this terrace and see down to the first
where the bandsmen were drilling; but I guessed that his was.
 They don t seem to be doing badly, he said.
He was still on his feet, of course, and I was standing next to his desk. I
looked at it now, and found the cube holding the image Amanda had talked
about. The woman pictured there was obviously not Dorsai, but there was
something not unlike our people about her. She was strong-boned and
dark-haired, the hair sweeping down to her shoulders, longer than most Dorsais
out in the field would have worn it, but not long according to the styles of
Earth.
I looked back at Ian. He had turned away from the window and his
contemplation of the drill going on two levels below. But he had stopped, part
way in his backturn, and his face was turned toward the wall beyond which
Amanda would be working with Padma at this moment. I saw him in
three-quarter s face, with the light from the window wall striking that
quarter of
his features that was averted from me; and I noticed a tiredness about him.
Not that it showed anywhere spe-cifically in the lines of his face. He was, as
always, like a mountain of granite, untouchable. But something about the way
he stood spoke of a fatigue perhaps a fatigue of the spirit rather than of the
body.
 I just heard about Leah, here, I said, nodding at the image cube, speaking
to bring him back to the mo-ment.
He turned as if his thoughts had been a long way away.
 Leah? Oh, yes. His own eyes went absently to the cube and away again.  Yes,
she s Earth. I ll be going to get her after this is over. We ll be married in
two months.
 That soon? I said.  I hadn t even heard you d fallen in love.
 Love? he said. His eyes were still on me, but their attention had gone away
again. He spoke more as if to himself than to me.  No, it was years ago I fell
in love. . .
His attention focused, suddenly. He was back with me.
 Sit down, he said, dropping into the chair behind his desk. I sat.  Have
you talked to Kensie since break-fast?
 Just a little while ago, when I was asking around to find you, I said.
 He s got a couple of runs outside the walls he d like your hand with,
tonight after dark s well settled in.
 I know, I said.  He told me about them. A sweep of the slope in front of
this place to clear it before laying mines there, and a scout of the
regimental camp
for whatever we can learn about them before tomor-row.
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 That s right, Ian said.
 Do you have any solid figures on how many there are out there?
 Regimental rolls, said Ian,  give us a total of a little over five thousand
of all ranks. Fifty-two hundred and some. But something like this invariably
attracts a number of Naharese who scent personal glory, or at least the chance
for personal glory. Then there re per-haps seven or eight hundred honest
revolutionaries in Nahar, Padma estimates, individuals who ve been working to
loosen the grip of the rancher oligarchy for
some time. Plus a hundred or so agents provocateurs from outside.
 In something like this, those who aren t trained soldiers we can probably
discount, don t you think?
Ian nodded.
 How many of the actual soldiers ll have had any actual combat experience? I
asked.
 Combat experience in this part of Ceta, Ian said,  means having been
involved in a border clash or two with the armed forces of the surrounding
principal-ities. Maybe one in ten of the line soldiers has had that. On the
other hand, every male, particularly in Nahar, has dreamed of a dramatic
moment like this.
 So they ll all come on hard with the first attack, I said.
 That s as I see it, said Ian,  and Kensie agrees. I m glad to hear it s
your thought, too. Everyone out there will attack in that first charge, not
merely de-termined to do well, but dreaming of outdoing ev-eryone else around
him. If we can throw them back even once, some of them won t come again. And
that s the way it ought to go. They won t lose heart as a group. Just each
setback will take the heart out of some, and we ll work them down to the hard [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]