"We are the men of the Agency—
We're steadfast, stout-hearted, and brave.
For a buck we will duck
Through the worst that may come,
And argue the price of a grave.
"Oh, we are the Agency's bravos—
We peddle the wealth of our skill.
We will rescue your world or destroy it,
Depending on who foots the bill."Anonymous
The tidy little orchestra finished the dance set and broke up, leaving behind the quartet nucleus, which began Schubert's "Fourteenth." The party guests dispersed through the room, talking in groups while the servants passed among them with refreshments.
Thaddeus Demaris brooded solemnly in a heavy chair near the fireplace, half-listening to the two well-kept men conversing nearby. One of them was Walker Holtz, the hunter. The other was Captain Romney Oxford, of Her Canadian Majesty's Legation in Detroit.
Walker Holtz fingered the stem of his boutonniere and took a sip of his liqueur. He leaned against the mantelpiece, let his eyes flick negligently over the crowd, and resumed his conversation.
"My dear Captain Oxford, I'll grant you artillery. Artillery and, in certain circumstances, infantry, But not aircraft. The British had the quality and the Americans the quantity."
"I don't see how you can say that," Oxford countered. He took a gulp of his drink and set it down firmly. "What about the Trans-Polar Campaign?"
Holtz raised his eyebrows. "I think it's generally accepted that Vitkovsky was able to commit his reserve fighter wings only because the Alaskan Air Command of the old United States Air Force was snowed in."
Oxford granted the point easily. "Quite so. And then Vitkovsky's transports would have suffered, say sixty percent interceptions over Quebec?"
"You're being generous, Captain," Holtz rejoindered. He inhaled gently over his glass before raising it to his lips. "I would have said fifty."
Oxford brushed the polite quibble aside with a graceful wave of his hand.
In his chair, Demaris smiled bitterly and scornfully. These men with their heads for the facts and figures of ancient military history—how many of them had ever heard a shot fired in anger?
"Well, then," Oxford was saying, scoring his point, "I should like to remind you, Colonel Holtz, that Vitkovsky's plan necessarily allowed for seventy percent interceptions. As it finally transpired, so many surplus troops landed in Illinois that an emergency quartermaster and clerical staff had to be flown in."
Holtz frowned, discomfitted.
Demaris stood up impatiently and snatched a liqueur from a passing servant's tray. The heavily flavored cordial bit at his tongue.
And for all the battles won in parlors and drawing rooms, where was Earth's frontier today?
His lip curled. He swung around and stabbed an extended forefinger at the startled Oxford. "I should like to point out," he bit off in the astonished man's face, "that what you have just cited was the USSR's suicidal policy of wasting men, not the superiority of its air arm, which was consistently hampered and eventually destroyed by a typical Russian insistence on trying to make a rapier do a bludgeon's work."
Holtz stepped between them, his temples throbbing and his nostrils white. "You are ungentle, sir."
Demaris looked at him coldly, a certain amount of anticipation tightening the curl of his fingers. "And you are a fool and an ass."
The muscles knotted at the corners of Holtz's thin jaw. He drew back his hand to slap. Demaris lifted his cheek a fraction of an inch, his head tilting to present a willing target. The buzz of conversation was dying in the room, smothering under a wave of rapt silence.
Oxford reached out hastily and pushed himself between Holtz and Demaris. "Eh . . . Colonel Holtz . . . I don't believe you've previously met Thaddeus Demaris. The introduction is my pleasure."
The pallid urgency in Oxford's eyes was mimicked by Holtz's sudden slackness of mouth. His arm lowered limply. "Ah? Uh . . . oh, no, Oxford, my pleasure, I'm sure—"
Demaris smashed the back of his hand across Holtz's face. The hunter stumbled back, one hand pressed to his nose. Oxford made a noise of protest. Demaris stood motionless, his face set.
Holtz regained his balance. "Really, Mr. Demaris," he mumbled, waving Oxford back, "my sincere apologies—"
Demaris looked at him with something much like disappointment. He spun on his heel and stalked off.
Even the night was dishonest. Laden with perfume, the artificially circulated air stirred a sham breeze across the balconade. A sickle of moon drifted among the gray-silver clouds. Behind him, Demaris could hear the last notes of "Death and the Maiden" fading politely away.
How far in the past was Oxford's and Holtz's war? Three hundred years. And after finishing that war, how far in the future did Man imagine his Empire of Earth lay, stretching out into the stars? One century? Two? With the interstellar drive and the Terrestrial Space Navy to ride it.
And where, now, was Earth's frontier, a full hundred years beyond that well-planned future?
Pluto. That's where it was. Just barely, Pluto.
All right. You could understand that. An empire only goes as far as its enemies will let it. A hundred years ago, the Vilks had drawn the line.
Demaris smashed his flat, horny palm down on the coping of the terrace. The slap of sound startled some of the strolling couples in the formal gardens, but it would have been ungentle for them to stare at him. He knew of their curiosity only by the fact that no face, among all those couples, turned toward him even at random.
His lips twitched back from the points of his teeth.
And with the Vilks fifty years gone in a pyrrhic war with Farla, you could expect the ships of Earth to be going out again. You could expect that.
You could die of the eating hunger in your stomach, expecting it. You could grow old, with strings for muscles and pudding for a brain, expecting it.
You could run up a string of successful, pointless duels. You could go to graceful, inbred gatherings in the elegant, bandbox mansions. You could listen to Schubert quartets and a lot of Delius. But there was damned little Beethoven, and no Stravinsky. There was yearning, and no fulfillment. Nor much of a desire for it. It was considered more gentle to simply yearn.
A servant touched his arm. "Your pardon, Messire—a Mr. Brown is on the vid."
Demaris fought to keep from spinning around violently. "Thank you," he said in a voice that, incredibly, was calm enough. He strolled back into the mansion. Brown! Thank God! He'd been going mad, waiting.
"We spill our all for the Agency—
(Our lives are excitingly gory.)
Pink or blue—any hue—
Save the red of our birth—
At the beck of crisp, green glory."