“May I come in, sir?” he said from the doorway.

“Of course, of course—” Galt looked up from his desk. “Lock the door behind you. I’ve had nothing but people drifting in, thinking this was an extra lounge. Why’d they think I had it set up without any comfortable floats or cushions in the first place?”

Donal locked the door behind him and came across the wide floor to the desk.

“What is it, boy?” asked the marshal. He raised his heavy head and regarded Donal intently. “Something up?”

“A number of things,” agreed Donal. He took the bare float beside the desk that Galt motioned him into. “May I ask if William came here tonight with the intention of transacting any business with you?”

“You may ask,” answered Galt, putting both his massive forearms on the desk, “but I don’t know why I should answer you.”

“Of course you needn’t,” said Donal. “Assuming he did, however, I’d like to say that in my opinion it would be exceedingly unwise to do any business with Ceta at this time—and particularly William of Ceta.”

“And what causes this to be your opinion?” asked Galt, with a noticeable trace of irony. Donal hesitated.

“Sir,” he said, after a second. “I’d like to remind you that I was right on Harmony, and right about Newton; and that I may be right here, as well.”

It was a large pill of impertinence for the marshal to swallow; since, in effect, it pointed out that if Donal had twice been right, Galt had been twice wrong—first about his assessment of Hugh Killien as a responsible officer, and second about his assessment of the reasons behind the Newtonian move on Oriente. But if he was Dorsai enough to be touchy about his pride, he was also Dorsai enough to be honest when he had to.

“All right,” he said. “William did come around with a proposition. He wants to take over a large number of our excess land forces, not for any specific campaign, but for re-leasing to other employers. They’d remain our troops. I was against it, on the grounds that we’d be competing against ourselves when it came to offering troops to outside markets, but he proved to me the guarantee he’s willing to pay would more than make up for any losses we might have. I also didn’t see how he intended to make his own profit out of it, but evidently he intends training the men to finer specializations than a single planet can afford to do, and maintain a balanced force. And God knows Ceta’s big enough to train all he wants, and that its slightly lower gravity doesn’t hurt either—for our troops, that is.”

He got his pipe out of a compartment in the desk and began to fill it.

“What’s your objection?” he asked.