He had to admire Simmons. The colonel was willing to put his head in the lion’s mouth though it was very probable that it would be bitten off. L’audace, toujours l’audace.
Simmons was also willing to endanger the heads of other people. That could not be avoided. Would he, Caird, do the same with others if he had such an opportunity? Of course he would.
The head of the TV crew, a tall slender brunette, spoke to Simmons. During the intense exchange, the brunette looked both puzzled and upset. Finally, after some more words from Simmons, none of which Caird could hear, she nodded. She wheeled and walked away and spoke to her crew. They raised their eyebrows and some seemed to be protesting, but they followed Simmons and his group toward the center of the park. The tourists and the loungers drifted toward them, knowing something was up but not what. There were many children among them. Quite a few adults had cameras. These would be recording the event. The ganks, when they came, would try to confiscate all the citizens’ cameras, but they would probably not succeed unless they arrested everybody. In any event, they could not blank out the viewers’ memories. The ganks would try to keep them from talking about what they had seen. Some would be scared enough to be silent. Others would talk because they had been forbidden to do so.
The two groups halted when Simmons stopped in front of the body of Sin Tzu. The TV people, each holding a small square camera, spread out to catch the action from all sides. Three of them kept the increasing crowd from intruding upon the area around the monument. This was to be taboo ground, though they probably did not know why. The onlookers, well-conditioned to obey the orders of the media, stayed within the invisible bounds. They were both observing and taking part in a ritual. This one, however, was also a mystery. Thus, it was like a religious ceremony of which the viewer does not know the true meaning but which, for that very reason, is much more enthralling.
Sin Tzu, stoned for eternity or for long enough to pass for it, stood on a tall bronze pedestal. He was in the green robes, also stoned, of the Supreme World Councillor, a title no one had held since him. He faced outwards, his back to the city, his open eyes on the mountains across the lake. His features were “pure” Mongolian, seldom seen now because of the intensive hybridization encouraged by the government. But a grandfather had been Scots; a grandmother, Punjabi. His bare head and hands had been painted with lifelike colors to cover the gray of the stoned. His straight sleek hair was black; his eyes, black; his skin, light gold. One hand, extended, held on its palm a large globe representing Earth, its one side bearing raised letters: PAX. On all four sides of the pedestal were bronze plaques with only his name in English and Loglan letters and in Chinese characters.
Supersonic transmitters placed within the tops of the four corners of the pedestal kept pigeons from roosting on him.
Simmons looked up at Sin Tzu for a moment, then turned away. Perhaps he was thinking that he would some day rank with Sin Tzu, Simmons’s gorgonized body would be standing on a pedestal while tourists gawked and exclaimed around him and ate popcorn and eggrolls, and music, as now, was welling from a distant merry-go-round.
Caird, while also contemplating Sin Tzu, had been opening his shoulderbag, now placed on the paving near the base of the pedestal. The others of his group were doing the same. He pulled out what looked like a very long rope but was a chain of stoned metal covered with brown material to insulate against the coldness of the links. Attached to one end of the chain was a very thin belt of the same insulated metal. He placed the belt around his waist and tightened it until it hurt him. Then he pushed one end of the belt into a snap-lock and twirled the tiny dial over the lock.
Now, only one person who knew the combination could unlock the belt.
Working swiftly, he threw the free end of the chain up and over the top of the pedestal. Someone on the other side picked the chain up and cast it over the pedestal, and Caird threw the chain back and up. He also helped wrap the chains of others around the feet of Sin Tzu’s body. In two minutes, all the chains had been coiled around the ankles of Sin Tzu, and the free ends were thrust into snaplocks on belts and the dials over each secured end had been spun.
The entire group was chained to the corpse of the founder of the New Era.
The cameras of the TV crew and of the spectators had been recording every move.
Simmons had planted some of his people among the crowd. These would be filming with microcameras disguised as buttons or ornaments.
Now, Simmons, facing the tower, shouted, “Attention, citizens! Attention, citizens! I am Colonel Kieth Alan Simmons of Tuesday’s Organic Department of Los Angeles State, North American Ministering Organ! This woman”—he pointed at Snick—“is the fugitive and alleged criminal, Panthea Pao Snick! This man”—he pointed at Caird—“is also a fugitive and alleged criminal! You have seen his face and biodata on the screen many times! He is Jefferson Cervantes Caird!”
He paused briefly. From far away came the wailings of sirens. They were on organic surface-vehicles speeding this way, closer than the sound level indicated because the wind was blowing inland from the lake. Airboats, orange lights flashing, were swooping down from the tower. A dozen others were coming in from the precinct stations of the city proper.
Simmons bellowed, “You know how the government, the World Councillors and all their henchpeople, has been lying to you! Manipulating you, the citizens, for the benefit of themselves! You have seen Caird’s messages exposing the plot to keep from you the age-slowing elixir but to use it for the high officials so that they could live seven times longer than you, the abused citizens of the misnamed Commonwealth of Earth!”
The first airboat to arrive was settling down on the edge of the paved area around the body of Sin Tzu. It held six ganks whose bulb-nosed guns were in their hands.
Caird felt very excited but very cold. Was his skin as pale as all of the group, except for red-faced Simmons?
Now, another airboat was close to touching the ground on the opposite side of the circle.
Some spectators were walking away. The others seemed unable to rip themselves loose from what they knew was quickly going to be a troubled place. Those who had cameras were still recording.
“We have chained ourselves to Sin Tzu and will remain here until our demands and our cause, your cause, are vindicated!” Simmons shouted. “We do it as a protest against the fraud, corruption, and heinously illegal activities of the government! We do it even though we know we will be arrested! We want this event to be public, and we demand that our trial be public, that the whole world gets an opportunity to see it! We petition that the public closely monitor the trial and protest if the government ignores our rights! We ask that…”
An organic general, splendid in bright green uniform, gold braid, epaulets, and a plumed helmet, strode up to Caird. His long narrow face was set in anger, and his skin was as pale as that of the chained. The progun in his hand pointed at Simmons. He shouted, “Colonel Simmons, I arrest you in the name of the Commonwealth and the World Council! You will desist from and cease your subversive speech! You others”—he waved his free hand—“are also under arrest under the same charges: conspiracy to subvert the government, daybreaking, flight to avoid arrest, resisting arrest, sabotage, dissemination of illegal and subversive pseudodata, inciting to riot, inflammatory and false statements against the constituted authority, illegal use of databanks, insertion of false data in the banks, and…”
He paused to catch his breath and also to emphasize the final charge.
“…murder!”
Caird thought, He didn’t even mention the blackouts of L.A. But he or others will get to it.
Two more airboats had touched ground. At least twenty organic vehicles were present, and more were coming. The ganks were already demanding that those citizens who had cameras surrender them.
Simmons paid no attention to the general. He kept on repeating his message. By then, however, the loud voices of the ganks and the citizens being rousted tended to drown him
out. One brave photographer in the front row around the circle was still busy taking pictures. No gank had gotten to him yet. Then he stopped, removed the tape, a small sphere, from the camera, and put it in his pocket. He dropped the camera, turned, and walked into the swirling and noisy mob.
The organic general, scarlet-faced, boomed, “You will cease talking!”
Simmons broke off his speech to say, just as loudly, “You have not read me my rights!”
“Organics don’t have their rights read to them!” the general yelled. “They know them!”
“We’re not ganks!” Caird said. “You haven’t read us our rights!”
“Silence! I demand silence!” the general shouted.
He pressed on the button of his proton gun. The bulb at its top shot a very pale violet light against Simmons’s chin. He staggered backward and struck the base of the pedestal, then slumped unconscious, half-upright, against it.
“Organic brutality!” Caird yelled. “Citizens, I testify that all that Colonel Simmons has told you is true! Furthermore, I can add to the data he’s presented! I will tell you of many things that the government has unlawfully done, all adverse to your rights and welfare!”
The general pointed the gun at Caird and squeezed the trigger.
24
Caird awoke with a head- and jaw-ache and a dull pain in all of his muscles. The pain was not continuous; it pulsed, a square wave. He was lying on his back on an unpadded table, his head on a thin pillow. A scanning mechanism, its round blank end looking like the eye of God—a rather moronic God—moved back and forth on tracks above him. Ganks stood around the table, watching him and the doctor in her white-and-red uniform. One of them was the general who had stunned him. The only other civilian was a short broad man, about sixty subyears old, with the biggest nose Caird had ever seen.
The doctor said, “You have a headache.” It was a statement, not a question. She pressed a syringe against his bare upper right arm. Within a few seconds, the pains receded like a tide waning.
He lifted his arms, then felt around his waist. The belt and the chains were gone. They could not be cut with a maser or proton beam, which meant that they had used a frequency-scanner to determine the combination of the locks.
The wallscreens, of course, were recording everything in the room, and three ganks were using cameras.
The man with the big nose pushed his way through the others to the table. He took Caird’s hand in big cool hands and said, “I’m your attorney, Citizen Caird. Nels Lupescu Bearss, of the firm Shin, Nguma, and Bearss, and I come high. But I’ve volunteered to represent you, and I’m not charging you one credit. The World Council has accepted me as your representative, as they damn well better do.”
His voice was deep, resonant, and flowing.
“Thanks,” Caird said. “What about the others?”
“Each has his own lawyer.”
“Are they all good ones?”
Bearss let loose of Caird’s hand. He smiled wryly, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “Well…”
The doctor had been looking at the panel-insert on a wallscreen. This was displaying the probings of the machine moving above Caird. She said, “He can be taken to the cell now.”
“Aren’t you even going to bother to ask me how I feel?” Caird said.
The doctor looked surprised. She pointed at the screen and said, “Why?”
Bearss raised his nose and looked along it at her. “Why, indeed? We need no personal interest here, no compassion or tenderness, heh? Let the machine speak! Lo, having spoke, let it be the divine word! Does God have any loose connections, any malfunctions? Does God care? Does God thunder down from Mount Sinai via display?”
The doctor’s face became red. She said, “It’s been double-checked.”
“That’s enough of this nonsense!” the general said loudly. “Take him to his cell!”
“I have a right to confer with my attorney,” Caird said.
“All your rights will be scrupulously respected!”
Two ganks took hold of Caird’s shoulders and raised him to a sitting position. When he got to his feet, he found that, though the pain was gone, he was weak. Nevertheless, he said, “I can walk without help.” He laughed softly. “And I’m in no condition to run away. Again.”
Bearss walked closely behind Caird as the group walked down the hall past many closed doors. Caird knew that the wallscreens were monitoring everything in the hall. He would not be out of sight of the cameras for a second except in the bathroom. And he was not sure that he would not be observed in it. There would be many other means for making sure that he did not escape, but it did not matter. He had not come here to try to break free later.
He called back over his shoulder. “Citizen Bearss, you’re my lawyer for today? Do you know who’s my lawyer tomorrow?”
“I am. I’ve been given a temporal pass because of the gravity of your alleged crimes. So have the lawyers for your colleagues.”
“It’ll be a new experience for you,” Caird said. “Living every day.”
“I look forward to it.”
Near the end of the hall, the group halted. A captain went ahead of the group and spoke a codeword to the door. Caird could not hear the word. The door slid to the right into a recess in the wall. Feeling very tired, Caird walked into a large room. Partitions in a corner, open at the top, formed the bathroom walls. There was the usual prison cell sparse furniture, including exercise equipment, but there was no stoner-cylinder. The general spoke of this for the benefit of the public TV viewers, noting that the practice of stoning a prisoner except for certain intervals was not being used here. The prisoner would be given the privilege of consulting with his attorney whenever he felt like doing so, night or day. The general also pointed out all seventy channels, including the news channels available to the prisoner. The law required that the prisoner see these if he wished. While this was going on, Caird sat down in a chair. Then the general spoke directly to the prisoner.
“Citizen Jefferson Cervantes Caird, Prisoner ID Number ISB-NN-9462-X, have you any complaint to make regarding your arrest and incarceration treatment so far?”
“Yes,” Caird said. “It was both unnecessary’ and brutal to knock me out with a proton beam.”
“It was deemed necessary under WCIC-6 to render you unconscious,” the general said. “You may register your complaints with your attorney, and these will be considered in the appropriate court at the appropriate time.”
He strode out, and all but Bearss followed him. The door slid shut. The lawyer took hold of his huge nose with one hand and squeezed it several times. Perhaps, thought Caird, he was trying to pump courage and confidence from it through a conduit to his brain.
“We don’t have much time. Your trial starts tomorrow, obtomorrow, at noon. It could be over by five that evening. It would be if this were an ordinary criminal case. The authorities may want to string it out to cover all seven days. Of course, they may just intend to have it over with quickly and show the tapes of the trial on the channels for the remaining days. But I think the bigshots want to get an idea of the public reaction first before they convict you. You’ve stirred up a storm, my friend.”
He chuckled and said, “Never saw anything like it in modern history.”
“You talk as if the verdict is a printout already.”
“Oh, you’ll be found guilty, no doubt of that. I’ll fight against that the best I can, and I’m good, very good. But the evidence…”
He frowned, and he squeezed his nose again. Was he hoping that he would find it smaller than the previous time? Or was he unconsciously trying to compress it? Or did he like to call attention to it; was he, Cyrano de Bergerac-like, proud of it?
He hitched himself forward, pulling the chair with him.
“The prosecuting attorney has informed me of certain matters which she’s legally obliged to reveal. She says that the government is rigidly determined that the trial will not be made into a public forum. The defe
ndants will not have an opportunity to make speeches of any kind. You won’t be able to accuse the government of fraud, corruption, or conspiracy against the people.
“You’ll be allowed only to plead guilty or innocent to a few specific charges. You and your colleagues are undoubtedly guilty in these cases and will be found guilty. You and Snick, for instance, will be charged with false insertion of data and daybreaking. You will also be charged with the attacks against the power centers of L.A. and the thermionic centers and of causing great inconvenience and distress and suffering for the citizens of Los Angeles and South California. Your reasons for committing these crimes will not be raised during the trial.”
“You can’t do anything about their gagging us?” Caird said.
“Oh, I’ll object, and I’ll appeal! But I won’t get anywhere. I’ll be informed by the judges that the reasons for your crimes are irrelevant during legal process. The reasons are properly relevant only to the therapy the psychicists in the rehabilitation institution will give you.”
“Then the sentence is predetermined?”
“In that you won’t be sentenced to immediate gorgonization, yes. Whether or not the psychicists will find you unrehabilitable… I was not told. Theoretically, of course, the results of the therapy won’t be known until you’ve had it. It may well be that the government doesn’t consider it necessary to stone you and leave you to the future to deal with you. That is, if therapeutic techniques are invented which could heal you, then…”
“I know that,” Caird said. “But what about the TV messages I sent accusing the government of lying to the people, the frauds it committed? If these aren’t brought up, the public will wonder why they weren’t.”
Bearss pumped his nose and looked thoughtful. Whatever was going on in his head, he evidently found it painful.
“The messages won’t be in the indictments. But the government intends to clear up that matter. You didn’t have a chance to know about it, of course, but a statement has already been released on the news channels. You can see them on replays if you ask for them. The government claims that it has just uncovered the truth about World Councillor Ananda, born as Gilbert Ching Immerman. The whole sordid and vicious story, sordid and vicious are its words, has been revealed. Your connections and activities as a member of the immers has also been revealed. But you won’t be charged with any of these. Thus, any testimony you might have that might be damaging to the government will not be put on public record.”