“So this was what you meant when you told me to bring my opinion to today’s session,” she went on in the same low, hate-filled voice. “Did you think that this . . . this sort of double-dealing would change it?”

For a second pain shadowed Donal’s normally enigmatic eyes.

“I should have known better, I suppose,” he said, quietly. “I assumed you might look beyond the necessities of this present action to—”

“Thank you,” she broke in icily. “Ankle deep into the mud is far enough.” She turned on Galt. “I’ll see you another time, Hendrik.” And she stalked out of the room.

The two men watched her go in silence. Then Galt slowly turned back to look at the younger man.

“What’s between you two, boy?” he asked.

Donal shook his head.

“Half of heaven and all of hell, I do believe,” he said; and that was the most illuminating answer the marshal was able to get out of him.

COMMANDER IN CHIEF

Under the common market system, controlled by the United Planetary Forces under Commander in Chief Donal Graeme, the civilized worlds rested in a highly unusual state of almost perfect peace for two years, nine months, and three days absolute time. Early on the morning of the fourth day, however, Donal woke to find his shoulder being shaken.

“What?” he said, coming automatically awake.

“Sir—” it was the voice of Lee. “Special Courier here to see you. He says his message won’t wait.”

“Right.” Groggily, but decisively, Donal swung his legs over the edge of his sleeping float and reached for his trunks on the ordinary float beside him. He gathered them in, brushing something to the floor as he did so.

“Light,” he said to Lee. The light went on, revealing that what he had knocked down was his wrist appliance. He picked it up and stared at it with blurry eyes. “March ninth,” he murmured. “That right, Lee?” “That’s right,” responded the voice of Lee, from across the room. Donal chuckled, a little huskily.

“Not yet the ides of March,” he murmured. “But close. Close.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing. Where’s the courier, Lee?”

“The garden lounge.”

Donal pulled on the trunks and—on a second’s impulse—followed them with trousers, tunic and jacket, complete outerwear. He followed Lee through the pre-dawn darkness of his suite on Tomblecity, Cassida, and into the garden lounge. The courier, a slim, small, middle-aged man in civilian clothes, was waiting for him.

“Commander—” the courier squinted at him. “I’ve got a message for you. I don’t know what it means myself—”

“Never mind,” interrupted Donal. “What is it?”

“I was to say to you ‘the gray rat has come out of the black maze and pressed the white lever.’ “

“I see,” said Donal. “Thank you.” The courier lingered.

“Any message or orders, commander?”

“None, thank you. Good morning,” said Donal.