Elgo Valarton gazed out the broad window and unconsciously added a sixth or eighth stick of gum to the wad in his mouth. The building stood on a high rocky hill, giving a marvelous view across Basalt Strait, its water a perfect blue beneath a perfect sky, its whitecaps perfect white, the sails of its pleasure sloops bright and vivid. It seemed to Valarton that the view must be one of the loveliest on Maragor.
Appropriately, for The Archipelago was one of Maragor's wealthiest nations, and Azure Bay its richest and most sophisticated city.
The receptionist looked up from her typing. "Mr. Helmiss will see you now, Mr. Valarton."
Suddenly aware of the cud he chewed, Valarton dropped it into a wastebasket before he walked to the office door. The man who awaited him was standing behind his desk, and leaned across it to shake hands. They sat down then.
"What can I do for you?" the man asked.
"Mr. Helmiss, let me say first that the matter I've come to talk about is extremely confidential."
Klute Helmiss nodded slightly. "I treat every matter brought to me as confidential, unless otherwise instructed. What may I do for you?"
Valarton found himself reluctant to begin; there was a certain risk to his country in this mission. "You're aware, of course, of the Komarsi invasion of Smolen, and how it's turning out. And of the broader political and human aspects of that war."
"Of course."
"Krentorf would like to see Smolen survive. And to see the war cost Komars enough blood and money that she won't be encouraged to assault her other neighbors."
Helmiss nodded.
Valarton paused another long moment. "The Crown of Krentorf would like to assist Smolen, but that assistance needs to be securely confidential."
"What do you have in mind, Mr. Valarton? Or what does your government have in mind?"
"This would not be an act of government. In a constitutional monarchy like Krentorf, if this were done by the government, it would soon be public knowledge. I am here as the personal agent of the queen. She will finance the project out of her own, personal resources, if the cost is one she can reasonably meet."
The Movrik Transportation Company's station chief on Maragor leaned back in his chair, folded his hands over his modest paunch, and waited.
"Her Highness has considered various possibilities, and it seems to her that—that to provide a regiment of T'swa mercenaries could have considerable impact on the war, while being essentially impossible to trace to her. Is she correct in that?"
On several trade worlds, Movrik Transportation served as the agent for the warrior lodge of Kootosh-Lan, of the planet Tyss, known also as "Oven." It was a hat that Helmiss hadn't actually worn in his four years on Maragor, but he knew the procedures. "That is correct, Mr. Valarton."
"What might the services of such a regiment cost?"
Helmiss turned, took a letter-size sheet from a file cabinet, and handed it to Valarton, who skimmed it rapidly, then handed it back. "I'm afraid Her Majesty's personal resources will not stretch so far."
When Helmiss did not reach to take the sheet back, Valarton laid it on the desk. Watchfully, for it seemed to him that Helmiss might offer some sort of terms.
"If the T'swa are too expensive, I have an alternative to offer. A regiment, a short regiment actually, of Iryalan mercenaries."
"Iryalans?"
"Trained by the T'swa. It should be graduating about now, and because it's not well known, I suspect it's more affordable. My company is not an agent for it, but I'd act as go-between if their, um, lodge would give Movrik the transportation contract."
Valarton pursed his lips. "Her Majesty didn't authorize me to hire non-T'swa. And newly graduated? They're inexperienced then."
"On the contrary. If you were hiring black T'swa, there'd be a fair chance you'd get a virgin regiment, unblooded albeit highly effective. These Iryalans, on the other hand"—he paused for effect—"it is they who drove the out-sector invaders off Terfreya, and that as a green regiment with only a year of training. Since then they've trained five years more. And it was their T'swa trainers who named their regiment 'the White T'swa.' "
Valarton wondered how Helmiss came to be so informed. "But you don't know how much they'd cost," he said.
"I'll find out for you." He touched a key on his commset. "Aron, I'm sending Mr. Valarton back out to you. Offer him refreshment. I'll be looking into a matter for him." He turned to the Krentorfi then, stood and indicated the door to reception. "I'll be no longer than I must."
There was something about this that seemed odd to Valarton, but he got up and went to the door. When he reached it, he turned his head . . . and saw Helmiss going through a door behind his desk. He got only a glimpse, but the room Helmiss was entering seemed small, with shelves and cabinets—an office supply room obviously. Then Helmiss closed the door behind him, and Valarton went on into reception.
The room that Valarton had glimpsed was somewhat wider than deep. When Helmiss had closed the door, he set the lock, and went to an apparatus at one side. It was a low platform with a tubular frame that looked like a doorway leading nowhere. There was a small console; he tapped certain keys on it, gazed at the monitor, then tapped some more. Faintly he could feel a power field develop, the generator subaudible. A green light came on beside the "gate." Looking through it, he no longer saw the wall a few feet on the other side; instead he looked into another room, seen vaguely. Without hesitating he walked through and disappeared. The green light winked out and the field died.
Splenn was the most sophisticated of the trade worlds, and one of only two with its own spaceships. Movrik Transportation owned most of them. The Movrik family was wealthy beyond any other on Splenn, though they did not flaunt it. They had more important purposes. Their influence, though mostly not apparent, was becoming ubiquitous on Splenn, while offworld they were covertly connected to the highest levels of Confederation government.
So closely connected as to have a teleport on the family's home estate, and one at most of their offworld offices. Something not known to anyone outside the loosely organized, secret society whose members called it "the Movement," and themselves "the Alumni."
A teleport needed only a transmitter, not a receiver, and gates could target far more accurately than a few years earlier. Though a matric attractor was necessary for fine precision. Movrik's various offworld gates opened into the middle of a room, on the family estate referred to as "headquarters." The same room held the gate used in returning.
This was the room into which Klute Helmiss stepped from his supply room nine hyperspace days away, with a lapsed time of zero. Except for him, it was empty. Rather than hunt through the house or disturb the domestic staff, he went to a commset on a desk, and keyed the personal communicator of Pitter Movrik himself. A moment later, Pitter's face appeared on the screen.
"Klute! What brings you to Splenn?"
"I have a potential job for the White T'swa. I need authorization, terms, a contract. . . ."
"Okay. I'm in Carris. I'm going to disconnect and call the Confederation Ministry; the minister himself if he's in. I'll get back with you as quickly as possible. Can you wait there?"
"Can I have a prediction? I left a man in reception, back on Maragor, totally bewildered."
"Under fifteen minutes."
"I'll wait."
There were books in the room, the usual hard copies. Helmiss looked at their spines, and pulling one, began to browse. Within a few minutes the commset interrupted him.
"Klute, we're going to talk with Kristal on Iryala." He gave Helmiss a destination code to key into the gate controls. It would activate an algorithm to compute the constantly changing destination coordinates of the target. Klute followed his instructions, and stepped through the gate into a room on Iryala, in the office suite of Emry Wanslo, Lord Kristal. Within three minutes, the two Splennites were sitting at a table with Kristal himself, personal aide to Marcus XXVIII, King of Iryala and Administrator General of the Confederation of Worlds.
Elgo Valarton had waited less than thirty-five minutes when he was sent back to Helmiss's office. Helmiss had an authorization and a proposed contract. The cost was negotiable, though Helmiss didn't say so. Kristal wanted the regiment employed, and as described by Helmiss, the Smoleni cause appealed to him.
There was no dickering. Valarton had been selected for his discretion and reliability, not for any particular bargaining sense, and the price proposed was a bit less than he'd been authorized to meet. He was a bit spooked though by one of the signatures on the document: Emry Wanslo, Lord Kristal. There was also a delivery deadline. How had Helmiss gotten those? Surely he didn't have a stock of signed and dated contracts in his supply room!
The queen's emissary tried to avoid thinking about it. Somehow it gave him chills.