Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 09 - Lost Dorsai

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LOST DORSAI

1980 by Charter Communications, Inc.

the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely

coincidental.

An ACE Book

First Ace printing: August 1980 First Mass Market Printing: October 1981

246809753 Manufactured in the United States of America

LOST DORSAI

I am Corunna El Man.

I brought the little courier vessel down at last at the spaceport of Nahar City on Ceta, the large world

around Tau Ceti. I had made it from the Dorsai in six phase shifts to transport, to the stronghold of Gebel

Nahar, our Amanda Morgan—she whom they call the Second Amanda.

Normally I am far too senior in rank to act as a courier pilot. But I had been home on leave at the time.

The courier vessels owned by the Dorsai Cantons are too expensive to risk lightly, but the situation

re-quired a contracts expert at Nahar more swiftly than one could safety be gotten there. They had asked

me to take on the problem, and I had solved it by stretching the possibilities on each of the phase shifts,

coming here.

The risks I had taken had not seemed to bother Amanda. That was not surprising, since she was Dorsai.

But neither did she talk to me much on the trip; and that was a thing that had come to be, with me, a little

unusual.

For things had been different for me after Baunpore. In the massacre there following the siege, when the

North Freilanders finally overran the town, they cut up my face for the revenge of it; and they killed Else,

for no other reason than that she was my wife. There was nothing left of her then but incandescent gas,

dis-sipating throughout the universe; and since there could be no hope of a grave, nothing to come back

to,

nor any place where she could be remembered, I re-jected surgery then, and chose to wear my scars as

a memorial to her.

It was a decision I never regretted But it was true that with those scars came an alteration in the way

other people reacted to me. With some I found that I became almost invisible; and nearly all seemed to

re-lax their natural impulse to keep private their personal secrets and concerns.

It was almost as if they felt that somehow I was now beyond the point where I would stand in judgment

on their pains and sorrows. No, on second thought, it was something even stronger than that. It was as if

I was like a burnt-out candle in the dark room of their inner selves—a lightless, but safe, companion

whose pres-ence reassured them that their privacy was still un-breached. I doubt very much that

Amanda and those I was to meet on this trip to Gebel Nahar would have talked to me as freely as they

later did, if I had met them back in the days when I had had Else, alive.

We were lucky on our incoming. The Gebel Nahar is more a mountain fortress than a palace or

govern-ment center; and for military reasons Nahar City, near it, has a spaceport capable of handling

deep-space ships. We debarked, expecting to be met in the termi-nal the minute we entered it through its

field doors. But we were not.

The principality of Nahar Colony lies in tropical latitudes on Ceta, and the main lobby of the terminal

was small, but high-ceilinged and airy; its floor and ceiling tiled in bright colors, with plants growing in

planter areas all about; and bright, enormous, heavily-framed paintings on all the walls. We stood in the

middle of all this and foot traffic moved past and around us. No one looked directly at us, although

neither I with my scars, nor Amanda—who bore a re-markable resemblance to those pictures of the first

Amanda in our Dorsai history books—were easy to ig-nore.

I went over to check with the message desk and found nothing there for us. Coming back, I had to hunt

for Amanda, who had stepped away from where I had left her.

“El Man—“ her voice said without warning, behind me. “Look!”

Her tone had warned me, even as I turned. I caught sight of her and the painting she was looking at, all

in the same moment. It was high up on one of the walls; and she stood just below it, gazing up.

Sunlight through the transparent front wall of the terminal flooded her and the picture, alike. She was in

all the natural colors of life—as Else had been—tall, slim, in light blue cloth jacket and short

cream-colored skirt, with white-blond hair and that incredible youthfulness that her namesake ancestor

had also owned. In contrast, the painting was rich in garish pigments, gold leaf and alizarin crimson, the

human figures it depicted caught in exaggerated, melodramatic at-titudes

Leto de muerte, the large brass plate below it read. Hero’s Death-Couch, as the title would roughly

translate from the bastard, archaic Spanish spoken by the Naharese. It showed a great, golden bed set

out on an open plain in the aftermath of the battle. All about were corpses and bandaged officers standing

in gilt-encrusted uniforms. The living surrounded the bed

and its occupant, the dead Hero, who, powerfully muscled yet emaciated, hideously wounded and

stripped to the waist, lay upon a thick pile of velvet cloaks, jewelled weapons, marvellously-wrought

tapestries and golden utensils, all of which covered the bed.

The body lay on its back, chin pointing at the sky, face gaunt with the agony of death, still firmly holding

by one large hand to its naked chest, the hilt of an oversized and ornate sword, its massive blade

dark-ened with blood. The wounded officers standing about and gazing at the corpse were posed in

dramatic at-titudes. In the foreground, on the earth beside the bed, a single ordinary soldier in battle-torn

uniform, dying, stretched forth one arm in tribute to the dead man.

Amanda looked at me for a second as I moved up beside her. She did not say anything. It was not

neces-sary to say anything. In order to live, for two hundred years we on the Dorsai have exported the

only com-modity we owned—the lives of our generations—to be spent in wars for others’ causes. We

live with real war; and to those who do that, a painting like this one was close to obscenity.

“So that’s how they think here,” said Amanda.

I looked sideways and down at her. Along with the appearance of her ancestor, she had inherited the

First Amanda’s incredible youthfulness. Even I, who knew she was only a half-dozen years younger than

myself— and I was now in my mid-thirties—occasionally forgot that fact, and was jolted by the

realization that she thought like my generation rather than like the strip-ling she seemed to be.

“Every culture has its own fantasies,” I said. “And

this culture’s Hispanic, at least in heritage.”

“Less than ten percent of the Naharese population’s Hispanic nowadays, I understand,” she answered.

“Besides, this is a caricature of Hispanic attitudes.”

She was right. Nahar had originally been colonized by immigrants—Gallegos from the northwest of

Spain who had dreamed of large ranches in a large open Ter-ritory. Instead, Nahar, squeezed by its

more industrial and affluent neighbors, had become a crowded, small country which had retained a

bastard version of the Spanish language as its native tongue and a medley of half-remembered Spanish

attitudes and customs as its culture. After the first wave of immigrants, those who came to settle here

were of anything but Hispanic an-cestry, but still they had adopted the language and ways they found

here.

The original ranchers had become enormously rich —for though Ceta was a sparsely populated planet, it

was food-poor. The later arrivals swelled the cities of Nahar, and stayed poor—very poor.

“I hope the people I’m to talk to are going to have more than ten per cent of ordinary sense,” Amanda

said. “This picture makes me wonder if they don’t pre-fer fantasy. If that’s the way it is at Gebel Nahar. .

.”

She left the sentence unfinished, shook her head, and then—apparently pushing the picture from her

mind—smiled at me. The smile lit up her face, in something more than the usual sense of that phrase.

With her, it was something different, an inward light-ing deeper and greater than those words usually

in-dicate. I had only met her for the first time, three days earlier, and Else was all I had ever or would

ever want; but now I could see what people had meant on the

Dorsai, when they had said she inherited the first Amanda’s abilities to both command others and make

them love her.

“No message for us?” she said.

“No—“ I began. But then I turned, for out of the corner of my eye I had seen someone approaching us.

She also turned. Our attention had been caught be-cause the man striding toward us on long legs was a

Dorsai. He was big. Not the size of the Graeme twins, Ian and Kensie, who were in command at Gebel

Nahar on the Naharese contract; but close to that size and noticeably larger than I was. However, Dorsai

come in all shapes and sizes. What had identified him to us—and obviously, us to him—was not his size

but a multitude of small signals, too subtle to be catalogued. He wore a Naharese army bandmaster’s

uniform, with warrant officer tabs at the collar; and he was blond-haired, lean-faced, and no more than in

his early twenties. I recognized him.

He was the third son of a neighbor from my own canton of High Island, on the Dorsai. His name was

Michael de Sandoval, and little had been heard of him for six years.

“Sir—Ma’m,” he said, stopping in front of us. “Sorry to keep you waiting. There was a problem get-ting

transport.”

“Michael,” I said. “Have you met Amanda Morgan?”

“No, I haven’t.” He turned to her. “An honor to meet you, ma’m. I suppose you’re tired of having

ev-eryone say they recognize you from your great-grandmother’s pictures?”

“Never tire of it,” said Amanda cheerfully; and gave

him her hand. “But you already know Corunna El Man?”

“The El Man family are High Island neighbors,” said Michael. He smiled for a second, almost sadly, at

me “I remember the Captain from when I was only six years old and he was first home on leave. If you’ll

come along with me, please? I’ve already got your lug-gage in the bus.”

“Bus?” I said, as we followed him toward one of the window-wall exits from the terminal.

“The band bus for Third Regiment. It was all I could get.”

We emerged on to a small parking pad scattered with a number of atmosphere flyers and ground

vehi-cles Michael de Sandoval led us to a stubby-framed, powered lifting body, that looked as if it could

hold about thirty passengers. Inside, one person saved the vehicle from being completely empty It was an

Exotic in a dark blue robe, an Exotic with white hair and a strangely ageless face. He could have been

anywhere between thirty and eighty years of age and he was seated in the lounge area at the front of the

bus, just before the compartment wall that divided off the con-trol area in the vehicle’s nose He stood up

as we came in.

“Padma, Outbond to Ceta,” said Michael. “Sir, may I introduce Amanda Morgan, Contracts Ad-juster,

and Corunna El Man, Senior Ship Captain, both from the Dorsai? Captain El Man just brought the

Adjuster in by courier.”

“Of course, I know about their coming,” said Pad-ma

He did not offer a hand to either of us. Nor did he

rise. But, like many of the advanced Exotics I have known, he did not seem to need to. As with those

oth-ers, there was a warmth and peace about him that the rest of us were immediately caught up in, and

any be-havior on his part seemed natural and expected.

We sat down together. Michael ducked into the con-trol compartment, and a moment later, with a soft

vi-bration, the bus lifted from the parking pad.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Outbond,” said Aman-da. “But it’s even more of an honor to have you meet

us. What rates us that sort of attention?”

Padma smiled slightly.

“I’m afraid I didn’t come just to meet you,” he said to her. “Although Kensie Graeme’s been telling me

all about you; and—“ he looked over at me, “even I’ve heard of Corunna El Man.”

“Is there anything you Exotics don’t hear about?” I said.

“Many things,” he shook his head, gently but seri-ously.

“What was the other reason that brought you to the spaceport, then?” Amanda asked.

He looked at her thoughtfully.

“Something that has nothing to do with your com-ing,” he said. “It happens I had a call to make to

elsewhere on the planet, and the phones at Gebel Nahar are not as private as I liked. When I heard

Michael was coming to get you, I rode along to make my call from the terminal, here.”

“It wasn’t a call on behalf of the Conde of Nahar, then?” I asked.

“If it was—or if it was for anyone but myself—“ he smiled. “I wouldn’t want to betray a confidence by

admitting it. I take it you know about El Conde? The titular ruler of Nahar?”

“I’ve been briefing myself on the Colony and on Gebel Nahar ever since it turned out I needed to come

here,” Amanda answered.

I could see her signaling me to leave her alone with him. It showed in the way she sat and the angle at

which she held her head. Exotics were perceptive, but I doubted that Padma had picked up that subtle

private message.

“Excuse me,” I told them. “I think I’ll go have a word with Michael.”

I got up and went through the door into the control section, closing it behind me. Michael sat relaxed,

one hand on the control rod; and I sat down myself in the copilot’s seat.

“How are things at home, sir?” he asked, without turning his head from the sky ahead of us.

“I’ve only been back this once since you’d have left, yourself,” I said. “But it hasn’t changed much. My

father died last year.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Your father and mother are well—and I hear your brothers are all right, out among the stars,” I said.

“But, of course, you know that.”

“No,” he said, still watching the sky ahead. “I haven’t heard for quite a while.”

A silence threatened.

“How did you happen to end up here?” I asked. It was almost a ritual question between Dorsais away

from home.

“I heard about Nahar. I thought I’d take a look at it.”

“Did you know it was as fake Hispanic as it is?” “Not fake,” he said. “Something ... but not that.” He

was right, of course.

“Yes,” I said, “I guess I shouldn’t use the word fake Situations like the one here come out of natural

causes, like all others.”

He looked directly at me I had learned to read such looks since Else died. He was very close in that

mo-ment to telling me something more than he would probably have told anyone else. But the moment

passed and he looked back out the windshield.

“You know the situation here?” he said.

“No. That’s Amanda’s job,” I said. “I’m just a driver on this trip. Why don’t you fill me in?”

“You must know some of it already,” he said, “and Ian or Kensie Graeme will be telling you the rest. But

in any case the Conde’s a figurehead. Literally. His father was set up with that title by the first Naharese

immigrants, who’re all now rich ranchers. They had a dream of starting their own hereditary aristocracy

here, but that never really worked. Still, on paper, the Conde’s the hereditary sovereign of Nahar; and, in

theory, the army belongs to him as Commander-in-Chief. But the army’s always been drawn from the

poor of Nahar—the city poor and the campesinos, and they hate the rich first-immigrants. Now there’s a

revolution brewing and the army doesn’t know which way it’ll jump.”

“I see,” I said. “So a violent change of government is on the way, and our contract here’s with a

govern-ment which may be out of power tomorrow. Amanda’s got a problem.”

“It’s everyone’s problem,” Michael said. “The only

reason the army hasn’t declared itself for the revolu-tionaries is because its parts don’t work together

too well. Coming from the outside, the way you have, the ridiculousness of the locals’ attitudes may be

what catches your notice first. But actually those attitudes

are all the non-rich have, here, outside of a bare ex-istence—this business of the flags, the uniforms, the

music, the duels over one wrong glance and the idea of dying for your regiment—or being ready to go at

the throat of any other regiment at the drop of a hat.”

“But,” I said, “what you’re describing isn’t any practical, working sort of military force.”

“No. That’s why Kensie and Ian were contracted in here, to do something about turning the local army

into something like an actual defensive force. The oth-er principalities around Nahar all have their eyes on

the ranchlands, here. Given a normal situation, the Graemes’d already be making progress—you know

Ian’s reputation for training troops. But the way it’s turned out, the common soldiers here think of the

Graemes as tools of the ranchers, the revolutionaries preach that they ought to be thrown out, and the

regi-ments are non-cooperating with them. I don’t think they’ve got a hope of doing anything useful with

the army under present conditions; and the situation’s been getting more dangerous daily—for them, and

now for you and Amanda, as well. The truth is, I think Kensie and Ian’d be wise to take their loss on the

con-tract and get out.”

“If accepting loss and leaving was all there was to it, someone like Amanda wouldn’t be needed here,” I

said. “There has to be more than that to involve the Dorsai in general.”

He said nothing.

“How about you?” I said. “What’s your position here? You’re Dorsai too.”

“Am I?” he said to the windshield, in a low voice.

I had at last touched on what had been going un-

spoken between us. There was a name for individuals like Michael, back home. They were called “lost

Dorsai.” The name was not used for those who had chosen to do something other than a military

vocation. It was reserved for those of Dorsai heritage who seemed to have chosen their life work,

whatever it was, and then—suddenly and without explanation—aban-doned it. In Michael’s case, as I

knew, he had gradu-ated from the Academy with honors; but after gradu-ation he had abruptly

withdrawn his name from as-signment and left the planet, with no explanation, even to his family.

“I’m Bandmaster of the Third Naharese Regi-ment,” he said, now. “My regiment likes me. The lo-cal

people don’t class me with the rest of you, general-ly—“ he smiled a little sadly, again, “except that I

don’t get challenged to duels.”

“I see,” I said.

“Yes.” He looked over at me now. “So, while the army is still technically obedient to the Conde, as its

Commander-in-Chief, actually just about everything’s come to a halt. That’s why I had trouble getting

trans-portation from the vehicle pool to pick you up.”

“I see—“ I repeated. I had been about to ask him some more; but just then the door to the control

com-partment opened behind us and Amanda stepped in.

“Well, Corunna,” she said, “how about giving me a chance to talk with Michael?”

She smiled past me at him; and he smiled back. I did not think he had been strongly taken by her—

whatever was hidden in him was a barrier to anything like that. But her very presence, with all it implied

of home, was plainly warming to him.

“Go ahead,” I said, getting up. “I’ll go say a word or two to the Outbond.”

“He’s worth talking to,” Amanda spoke after me as I went.

I stepped out, closed the door behind me, and re-joined Padma in the lounge area. He was looking out

the window beside him and down at the plains area that lay between the town and the small mountain

from which Gebel Nahar took its name. The city we had just left was on a small rise west of that

mountain, with suburban and planted areas in between. Around and beyond that mountain—for the

fort-like residence that was Gebel Nahar faced east—the actual, open grazing land of the cattle plains

began. Our bus was one of those vehicles designed to fly ordinarily at about tree-top level, though of

course it could go right up to the limits of the atmosphere in a pinch, but right now we were about three

hundred meters up. As I stepped out of the control compartment, Padma took his atten-tion from the

window and looked back at me.

“Your Amanda’s amazing,” he said, as I sat down facing him, “for someone so young.”

“She said something like that about you,” I told him. “But in her case, she’s not quite as young as she

looks.”

“I know,” Padma smiled. “I was speaking from the viewpoint of my own age. To me, even you seem

young.”

I laughed. What I had had of youth had been far back, some years before Baunpore. But it was true that

in terms of years I was not even middle-aged.

“Michael’s been telling me that a revolution seems to be brewing here in Nahar,” I said to him.

“Yes.” He sobered.

“That wouldn’t be what brings someone like you to Gebel Nahar?”

His hazel eyes were suddenly amused.

“I thought Amanda was the one with the ques-tions,” he said.

“Are you surprised I ask?” I said. “This is an out of the way location for the Outbond to a full planet.”

“True.” He shook his head. “But the reasons that bring me here are Exotic ones. Which means, I’m

afraid, that I’m not free to discuss them.”

“But you know about the local movement toward a revolution?”

“Oh, yes.” He sat in perfectly relaxed stillness, his hands loosely together in the lap of his robe, light

brown against the dark blue. His face was calm and unreadable. “It’s part of the overall pattern of events

on this world.”

“Just this world?”

He smiled back at me.

“Of course,” he said gently, “our Exotic science of ontogenetics deals with the interaction of all known

human and natural forces, on all the inhabited worlds. But the situation here in Nahar, and specifically the

situation at Gebel Nahar, is primarily a result of local, Cetan forces.”

“International planetary politics.”

“Yes,” he said. “Nahar is surrounded by five other principalities, none of which have cattle-raising land

like this. They’d all like to have a part or all of this Colony in their control.”

“Which ones are backing the revolutionaries?”

He gazed out the window for a moment without

speaking. It was a presumptuous thought on my part to imagine that my strange geas, that made people

want to tell me private things, would work on an Ex-otic. But for a moment I had had the familiar feeling

that he was about to open up to me.

“My apologies,” he said at last. “It may be that in my old age I’m falling into the habit of treating

ev-eryone else like—children.”

“How old are you, then?”

He smiled.

“Old—and getting older.”

“In any case,” I said, “you don’t have to apologize to me. It’ll be an unusual situation when bordering

countries don’t take sides in a neighbor’s revolution.”

“Of course,” he said. “Actually, all of the five think they have a hand in it on the side of the

revolu-tionaries. Bad as Nahar is, now, it would be a shambles after a successful revolution, with

everybody fighting everybody else for different goals. The other principalities all look for a situation in

which they can move in and gain. But you’re quite right. International politics is always at work, and it’s

never simple.”

“What’s fueling this situation, then?”

“William,” Padma looked directly at me and for the first time I felt the remarkable effect of his hazel

eyes. His face held such a calmness that all his expression seemed to be concentrated in those eyes.

“William?” I asked.

“William of Ceta.”

“That’s right,” I said, remembering. “He owns this world, doesn’t he?”

“It’s not really correct to say he owns it,” Padma said. “He controls most of it—and a great many parts

of other worlds. Our present-day version of a merchant prince, in many ways. But he doesn’t control

every-thing, even here on Ceta. For example, the Naharese ranchers have always banded together tightly

to deal with him; and his best efforts to split them apart and gain a direct authority in Nahar, haven’t

worked. He controls after a fashion, but only by manipulating the outside conditions that the ranchers

have to deal with.”

“So he’s the one behind the revolution?”

“Yes.”

It was plain enough to me that it was William’s in-volvement here that had brought Padma to this

back-water section of the planet. The Exotic science of ontogenetics, which was essentially a study of

how hu-mans interacted, both as individuals and societies, was something they took very seriously; and

William, as one of the movers and shakers of our time would always have his machinations closely

watched by them.

“Well, it’s nothing to do with us, at any rate,” I said, “except as it affects the Graeme’s contract.”

“Not entirely,” he said. “William, like most gifted individuals, knows the advantage of killing two, or even

fifty, birds with one stone. He hires a good many mercenaries, directly and indirectly. It would benefit him

if events here could lower the Dorsai reputation and the market value of its military individuals.”

“I see—“ I began; and broke off as the hull of the bus rang suddenly—as if to a sharp blow.

“Down!” I said, pulling Padma to the floor of the vehicle and away from the window beside which we

had been sitting. One good thing about Exotics—they

trust you to know your own line of work. He obeyed me instantly and without protest. We waited . . .

but there was no repetition of the sound.

“What was it?” he asked, after a moment, but with-out moving from where I had brought him.

“Solid projectile slug. Probably from a heavy hand weapon,” I told him. “We’ve been shot at. Stay

down, if you please, Outbond.”

I got up myself, staying low and to the center of the bus, and went through the door into the control

com-partment. Amanda and Michael both looked around at me as I entered, their faces alert.

“Who’s out to get us?” I asked Michael.

He shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Here in Nahar, it could be anything or anybody. It could be the revolutionaries

or simply someone who doesn’t like the Dorsai; or some-one who doesn’t like Exotics—or even

someone who doesn’t like me. Finally, it could be someone drunk, drugged, or just in a macho mood.”

“—who also has a military hand weapon.”

“There’s that,” Michael said. “But everyone in Nahar is armed; and most of them, legitimately or not,

own military weapons.”

He nodded at the windscreen.

“Anyway, we’re almost down,” he said.

I looked out. The interlocked mass of buildings that was the government seat called” Gebel Nahar was

sprawled halfway down from the top of the small mountain, just below us. In the tropical sunlight, it

looked like a resort hotel, built on terraces that de-scended the steep slope. The only difference was that

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LOSTDORSAICopyright©1980byGordonR.DicksonAfterwordcopyright©1980bySandraMieselIllustrationscopyright©1980byFernandoFernandezAshorterversionofthisworkappearedinDestinies,Vol.II,no.1;February-March1980,copyright©1980byCharterCommunications,Inc.Thestory“Warrior”firstappearedinAnalog,copyright1965byCon...

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