“Well, that’s not important,” he said easily. “What really matters is…”
“It is important. It is of paramount importance that Metep be kept apprised of all developments, especially where enemies of the state are concerned. I should have been awakened immediately. Precious time has already been wasted.”
“I’m sorry, Jek. It won’t happen again.” What’s he been sniffing now? Haworth wondered. Acts like he thinks he’s really running things! “I’m going to get the interrogation procedures started as soon as I’ve had some breakfast. After we’ve learned all we can from him, we’ll have a quiet little trial and have done with him.”
“We can’t wait that long!” Metep said, his vocal pitch rising, his lips twitching. “He must be tried and convicted today! And in public. I’ve already made arrangements for proceedings in Freedom Hall this afternoon.”
The same odd sensation that Haworth had experienced last night upon learning that the prisoner had freely admitted to being Robin Hood, and again when told of the deferential treatment given him by the Guard, came over him again. He could almost hear the crash, feel the vibrations as giant tumblers within some huge, unseen cosmic lock fell into place one by one.
“No! That’s the worst thing you could do. This man has already become some sort of folk hero. Don’t give him the extra exposure.”
Metep sneered. “Ridiculous. He’s a common criminal and his own notoriety will be used against him.” His face suddenly softened and he was the old Jek Milian again. “Don’t you see, Daro? He’s my last chance to save my reputation! We have evidence aplenty that he’s Robin Hood; we just have to manufacture a little more to link him to Earth and blame him for this runaway inflation that’s ruining everything. He’ll get us all off the hook.”
“I’m calling a meeting of the council,” Haworth said. “I can’t let you do this.”
“I thought you’d say that!” Hard lines formed in Metep’s features once more. “So I did that myself. If you think you can get enough votes to override me, you’re wrong!” His face faded away.
BROOHNIN AWOKE COLD AND STIFF with the light. After an instant of disorientation, he remembered his circumstances. He had been running on stims the past few days, and had left the city with none on him. The crash had come before dawn, and now the sun glowered hazily from its mid-morning perch in the sky.
Pulling himself erect, he immediately reached for the trigger. Wouldn’t be long now. Everything had gone wrong and got pushed off the track. But now everything was going to be set right. A brief inspection in the light of day showed the safety mechanism to be of rudimentary construction, geared more toward the prevention of accidental firing than determined tampering. Easy to circumvent it. He’d just have to–
The trigger disappeared from his hands in a blur of motion. Broohnin whirled around as best he could from a sitting position, pulling his blaster out as he moved. That too was torn from his grasp as soon as it cleared his belt. When he saw who was behind him, all his sphincters let go in an uncontrolled rush.
Kanya dropped the trigger device and blaster at her feet and struck him across the face, sending him reeling into the dirt. As he tried to scramble to his feet and run away, she tripped him and knocked him sprawling again. Each time Broohnin caught a glimpse of her face it was the same: expressionless, emotionless, with neither anger nor mercy in her eyes, only cold, intense concentration. And silent. She uttered no sound as she hovered over him like an avenging angel of death.
With each attempt to rise, she would knock him flat again, bruising a new area of his body with unerring accuracy. He pleaded with her at first, but she might as well have been deaf. He gave that up soon. And when he gave up trying to escape her, she began to lift him up and hurl him against the ground or a boulder or a tree trunk. Always hurting him, always damaging him, always increasing the agony a little more each time. Yet never enough to cause him to lose consciousness. He became a broken-stringed marionette in the hands of a mad puppeteer, hurled limply from stage right to stage left.
Soon his eyes were swollen shut, and even if he had wanted to look at Kanya, he would have been unable to. And still the systematic beating continued. When he had seen her drop the blaster before she hit him the first time, Broohnin had been afraid Kanya intended to beat him to death. Now he was afraid she wouldn’t.
XXI
A leader…is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals and a people reverts to a mob.
Stilgar
ONE LOOK AT THE EXPRESSIONS on the faces around the table and Haworth knew he was wasting his time. The members of the council were disposed toward Jek in the first place, not only because he was the current Metep, but because they considered him one of their own. Haworth had always been an outsider. They were as frightened and confused as Jek, and he had their ear. So the Council of Five – sans Daro Haworth – was squarely behind Metep VII. He considered turning at the doorway and leaving them to approve Metep’s proposal blindly, but forced himself to enter. He had to try. He had spent too many years clawing his way up to his present position to let everything go without a fight.
“Now that we’re all here,” Metep said as soon as Haworth had crossed the threshold, “the question will be brought to a vote.” He wasn’t even going to wait until Haworth was seated.
“Isn’t there going to be any discussion?”
“We have discussed it,” Metep said, “and we’ve decided, all of us, that a speedy public trial is the only sensible course. Documents are at this moment being prepared to show incontrovertible proof of Robin Hood’s link with Earth. We’ll show that Earth hired him and financed him, and even show that it was his theft of millions upon millions of Imperial marks that sparked the whole inflation spiral. And to demonstrate to the people that I am still their leader – a strong leader – I will personally conduct the trial.”
Haworth sat down before answering. “Did it ever occur to any of you that this may be exactly what he wants you to do?”
Over rumbling comments of “Ridiculous!” and “Absurd!” Metep said, “No
man in his right mind would turn himself over to us for trial. And I think
you’ll have to admit that this Robin Hood fellow – LaNague, isn’t it? – is
hardly insane. Nor is he stupid.”
“Nor is he Robin Hood.” The chatter stopped. Haworth had their attention now.
“He admits to it!”
Haworth smiled. “Very well: I’ll admit to it, too, but that doesn’t mean I’m Robin Hood. And one of Robin Hood’s so-called Merry Men could have volunteered to stand in for him. Remember, we don’t have a single physical characteristic by which to identify Robin Hood. I’m willing to bet this man Peter LaNague is a fraud. I’m willing to bet he’s been planted here just to make fools of us, to make us convict him and sentence him in public; and then he’ll come up with evidence to prove that he wasn’t even on Throne when the raids occurred. Keep in mind that there’s no verifiable identity for the prisoner. We can’t even prove he’s someone called Peter LaNague, let alone Robin Hood!”
He watched their faces as they considered his words. He had been speaking calmly, softly, hiding his inner tension. He didn’t believe a word of what he had just said, but he knew he had to stop the public trial and was throwing out every suspicious thought that popped into his head, anything that would muddy the water and keep the council members confused. He personally believed the man who called himself LaNague to be Robin Hood, and for that reason wanted him kept out of the public eye.
“But we need him to be Robin Hood!” Metep said into the ensuing silence. “He must be Robin Hood! It’s the only way we can salvage anything!” His tone became plaintive. “The trial will draw attention from us to him. Discontent will focus on him and Earth. That will give us time–”
“No trial,” Haworth said firmly. “Interrogate him quietly, execute him secretly, then announce that he has been
released due to conflicting evidence and that the search for the real Robin Hood continues. No public trial is going to give us breathing room of any consequence.”
“But that leaves us where we are now,” Metep said through quivering lips. “Don’t you understand? They’re out there getting ready to recall me! And when they kick me out, you’ll all go with me!”
“You can declare martial law due to the economic crisis,” Haworth said into Metep’s growing hysteria. “They can’t recall you then.”
“But I don’t want to be known as the only Metep who had to call out the Guard to stay in office! If I have to, I will, certainly. But the trial–”
“The trial is a trap!” Haworth was on his feet, shouting. It was a release of the pressure that had been building within him since Metep had awakened him this morning. It was also a last resort. “Can’t you get it through those neutronium skulls of yours that we’re dealing with a genius here? I know for certain in my mind that Robin Hood – whoever he is – is responsible for everything bad that has happened to us. I don’t know how he did it, I don’t know why, I don’t know what his next move is, but I am certain a public trial is just what he expects of us. Don’t do it! Let me interrogate him for a few days. The right combination of drugs will start him talking and then we’ll know everything – perhaps even the identity of the real Robin Hood.”
He paused for breath, watching their impassive faces. “Look… I’ll compromise: when I’m done with him you can have your little show if you still want it. But let me break him first.”
“It must be now. Today.” From Metep’s tone, Haworth knew he was beyond persuasion. “All in favor?” Metep said, raising his right hand and not bothering to look around the table. The other four members of the council raised their hands.
Haworth wheeled and stalked toward the door. “Then it’s on your heads! I’ll have no part of it!”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Metep asked in a flat, cold voice.
“Off this planet before you send it up in smoke!”
“Earth, perhaps?” Krager said, his lined face beaming gleefully in the wake of Haworth’s defeat.
“You are under house arrest,” Metep said. “You will be confined to your Complex quarters until the trial, at which time you will be escorted to Freedom Hall with the rest of us. I knew you’d try to run out on us and cannot allow it. It is crucial that we keep up appearances of unity.”
“You can’t do that!”
Metep smiled wanly as he pressed a stud on the table top. “Can’t I?” The outer door cycled open and two guardsmen entered. “Take him.”
BY THE TIME THE GUARD STOPPED in front of the cell, LaNague had the lump in his right axilla trapped between his thumb and forefinger, ready to squeeze.
“Well,” the guard said – this one was as portly as Steen had been lean, “the fecaliths on top must want to get you out of the way real bad, Mr. Robin Hood.”
LaNague’s fingers tightened on the lump. “What makes you say that?”
“They scheduled your trial for this afternoon…in Freedom Hall. It’s all over the vid.”
“Is that so?” LaNague released the lump, actually a pea-sized wad of jelly encased in an impermeable membrane, and relaxed. It was all he could do to keep from laughing aloud and doing a jig around the cell. He had dreaded the thought of squeezing that little packet, and now it looked as if he wouldn’t have to. It contained a neuroleptic substance that would leak out into the surrounding subcutaneous fat when the membrane was ruptured. From there via the bloodstream it would eventually find the way to its only active site in the body, the Broca area in the left hemisphere of his brain, where it would cause a membrane dysfunction in the neurons there, effectively paralyzing his language function for two weeks. He would be incapable of verbalizing any of his thoughts; any questions asked verbally would be perceived as incoherent sound; written questions would be seen as a meaningless jumble of marks, beyond comprehension; anything he tried to write would come out the same way. The condition was known as total receptive and expressive aphasia. LaNague would be rendered incapable of giving his interrogators truth or fiction, no matter what drugs they pumped into him.
“I swear by the Core, it’s the truth!” the guard said. “Never seen anybody brought to trial so fast. They’re really going to make an example of you, I’m sorry to say.”
“You don’t think they should?”
The guard shook his head. “You had the right idea all along, from what I can tell. But how’d you know all this was going to happen?”
“History,” LaNague said, refraining with an effort from quoting Santayana. “This has all happened before on Earth. Most of the time it ended in ruin and temporary stagnation. Occasionally it gave rise to monstrous evil. I was hoping we’d avoid both those roads this time.”
“Looks like you’re not going to be around to have much say either way,” the guard said resignedly.
“What’s your name?”
“Boucher. Why?”
“You could help me.”
Boucher shook his head. “Don’t ask me to get you out, because I couldn’t, even if I decided to risk it. It’s just not possible.” He smiled. “You know, I could lose this job just for talking to you about it. Not that it would matter much. The money I get doesn’t buy enough food for me to feed my kids. If it wasn’t for the stuff I sneak out of the kitchen a couple of times a week, we’d starve. Imagine that – I’m getting paid a thousand marks an hour and I’m losing weight! And they missed paying us yesterday. If that happens again, we’re going to start demanding twice-a-day pay periods or we’ll walk. Then there’ll be trouble! But no, I can’t get you out. Even if I gave you my blaster, they’d stop you. They’d let you kill me before they’d let you out.”
“I don’t want that kind of help. I just want you to see that I get to the trial alive.”
Boucher laughed. “No one’s going to kill you, at least not until they give you the death sentence!” He sobered abruptly. “Look, I’m sorry I said that. I didn’t mean–”
“I know you didn’t. But I’m quite serious about that. Someone may try to see that I don’t get to trial… ever.”
“That’s–”
“Just do this one favor for me. Get some of the other guards you know and trust, and keep careful watch. After all, I’m not asking anything more than what the Imperium pays you to do: guard a prisoner.”
Boucher’s eyes narrowed. “All right. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll see to it.” He walked away, glancing back over his shoulder every few paces and shaking his head as if he thought the infamous Robin Hood might be crazy after all.
LaNague wandered the perimeter of his cell. Adrenaline was pounding through his system, causing his heart to race, his underarms and palms to drip perspiration. Why? Everything was going according to plan. Why this feeling of impending doom? Why this shapeless fear that something was going to go terribly wrong? That he was going to die?
He stopped and breathed slowly and deeply, telling himself that everything was all right, that it was a stress reaction due to the swift approach of the trial. Everything would come to a head at the trial once Sayers played the designated tape sometime today, beaming Robin Hood’s pre-recorded message out to the people. LaNague would then know if he had wasted the last five years. If he had, the Imperium would see to it that he had no further years left to waste.
TWELVE OUGHT TO BE ENOUGH, Mora thought. Even if the building down there were loaded with armed guards on full alert, twelve Flinters would be more than enough. As it was, according to Sayers, only a few unarmed and unsuspecting security personnel would be scattered throughout the three floors of the broadcasting station. No problem taking over.
That wasn’t what filled her with dread. It was her own part in the little escapade about to be launched. Could she measure up? Maybe she shouldn’t have destroyed Peter’s spools. Maybe she had been overly critical of them. After all, Peter had been so right all along, why s
houldn’t he be right now? Mora clenched her teeth and closed her eyes in silent determination. Don’t think like that! She had to follow through with this. She had burned her bridges, and the only way left was straight ahead. Peter had been wrong about those tapes and only she had had the courage to do something about them.
She glanced around at the impassive faces of the six robed figures crowded into the tiny flitter cabin with her. Six more hovered in the flitter behind. All were in full ceremonial battle dress, fully aware that their appearance alone was a most effective weapon.
The tension was making her ill. She wasn’t used to this. Why did everyone else look so calm? Come to think of it, she looked calm, too. All her turmoil was sealed under her skin. She wondered if the Flinters beside her were equally knotted up inside. Probably not. No one could feel like this and be a Flinter.
It was time. The two craft swooped down to the roof of the broadcast station and the Flinters poured out of their flitters and through the upper entrance Sayers had arranged to leave open. They all had their assignments and would make certain that Mora had a clear path to her destination.
Sayers himself was in his studio on the second floor doing a well-publicized news special on Robin Hood. He had given her specific directions on how to reach his studio. The Flinters had cleared the way and no one questioned her presence in the building. She swung out of a drop-chute, turned left. There was a Flinter at the door to the studio, motioning her forward. This was it. Sayers was inside waiting to put her before millions of Throners. Her mind was suddenly blank. What was she going to say? Peter’s very life depended on what she would be doing in the next few minutes.
I’m doing this for you, Peter, she thought as she crossed the threshold. Neither of us is the same person we were when this began, but right or wrong, this is my way of saying I still believe in you.