The Silicon Dagger

by Jack Williamson

  A big man stood swaying in the doorway, Oxman behind him. The stranger was shirtless and streaked with grime. A purple patch had spread around one eye. Blood had run down his chin. Under the thick black hair on his chest, a tattooed mermaid struggled against the coils of a lecherous octopus.

  “Blazing bastards! Nailing me to the cross for things I never done!”

  “Goodnight!” Oxman shoved him in and slammed the door behind him. “Sleep it off.”

  He staggered to the other bunk and sprawled back against the wall, blinking at me with the undamaged eye.

  “Well, sir. Who the hell are you?”

  I gave him my name.

  “Barstow?” The eye widened. “The Fed snoop that run amuck?” He laughed at my hesitation. “No skin off my tail. I don’t give a damn if you’ve robbed Fort Knox. Just count me in for a cut of my own.”

  He struggled out of his high-topped cowboy boots, collapsed on the berth, and began a raucous snore. He was on his feet when I woke again, pissing into the toilet and then gulping water out of a paper cup. The damaged eye had swollen shut. He squinted at me with the other.

  “Forgive me, sir.” He grinned in amiable apology. “I forget your name.”

  I told him again.

  “Call me Rip.” He gave me a scarred but muscular hand. “Rip Ralston.” He cleared his throat, but his voice was still a raspy croak. “What got you here?”

  “I could say bad luck.”

  He grunted sympathetically, scratched a naked armpit, and sat down on the other bunk.

  “Luck’s what you make it. Or maybe you let the other guy hex the dice?”

  He sat regarding me, waiting for more. I thought he seemed unduly inquisitive, yet I felt hungry for any kind of human contact and curious to know his own story.

  “I’m a stranger here in McAdam.” I tried to tell a harmless bit of the truth without revealing too much. “I came on a research job for a writer who was doing a book.”

  “Yeah?” He bent forward, interested. “What sort of book?”

  “About politics.” I didn’t want to link myself with Alden and Terror in America, certainly not till I knew him better. “A study of what to expect in the future.”

  “Yeah?” He grinned at my hesitation. “I’m no scholar, but I read. I think. I wonder what’s ahead. Does your friend have a forecast?”

  “Trouble,” I said. “He was afraid of things to come and looking for signs of hope. He came here expecting McAdam County to be a peaceful bit of the rural past. It was nothing peaceful that got me here.”

  “The whole world’s rotten to the heart.” He nodded as if the observation pleased him. “Overrun with hordes of new barbarians tearing down everything we used to trust. Watch your back if you hope to stay alive.”

  He stopped to listen to voices down the corridor. “When’s breakfast?”

  “They took my watch. I don’t know.”

  He glanced at his hairy wrist. Oxman had somehow let him keep his own heavy gold-cased timepiece, which had computer buttons and a tiny infonet screen.

  “A rough night,” he muttered. “I need my java.” He shrugged and leaned back on the bunk. “But I’ve kept alive and learned to cook my luck. I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

  “My luck,” I said, “has gone dry.”

  He scanned me thoughtfully. “You don’t look quite fit for the hard game we’ve all got to play. I had to learn young. A scrawny kid with no nerve and no friends. Dad taught computer science at schools on the rough side of Louisville. I was a teach’s son.”

  He made a doleful face.

  “Kids picked on me till I learned computers and found the infonet and made friends there. Those I admired were soldiers of fortune, or claimed to be. I was happy they couldn’t see what a pimply runt I was. I learned from them and invented myself a new identity.”

  He paused, the good eye narrowed to observe my response.

  “A dozen years ago,” I told him, “that lonely nerd might have been me.”

  “So you get me?” He grinned. “I made myself a better image. An unbeatable fighter, afraid of nobody, then found I had to make it real. I changed myself to fit the picture. Built muscle. Learned to take a fall and fight again. Bought weapons and learned to use them. Joined the Army when I was old enough. Trained for Special Forces. Got out to lend a hand wherever killing skills were wanted.

  And learned to live by the new philosophy I’d learned on the infonet. In a world where dog eats dog, the top dog wins.”

  He paused to finger the swollen eye.

  “You’ve heard about CyberSoft and the Me Adam brothers?” “Rob Roy and Stuart?” I listened more intently.

  “Not that they behave like loving brothers. I knew Stuart first. Invited here to join his rebellion, I found quite a circus!”

  Elation lit his battered face.

  “The thrill of my life watching the fireworks that stopped Zeider’s assault. Another thrill when I met Rob Roy. I was in a captured tank, out at the Lexington roadblock. He’d come out to watch his silicon shell at work, knocking aircraft out of the sky.

  “We got to talking. A cordial cuss when I got to know him. Happy with the success of his wonder weapon, but afraid somebody could take it away. He looked me over, inquired about my line of work, and hired me to guard his CyberSoft plant. That’s how I got the shiner.”

  With a wry shrug, he touched the injured eye.

  “I was caught in his showdown with Stuart.”

  “Showdown?” I asked. “I’ve been out of the world.”

  “A brotherly quarrel.” His grin was ironic. “Rob Roy and this Haven Council were trying to turn the county into a playground of perpetual peace. Stuart doesn’t care for peace. He wants to share the shell with all his militia friends and turn them loose to conquer the country.

  “Rob Roy balked. Stuart had his militia round up the council. I think they’re all here in the jug with us. I got the shiner at CyberSoft when the Rifles came for the shell. They came twenty to one and caught us asleep.”

  “So Stuart seized the shell?”

  “They didn’t say, but he won’t quit without it.”

  Mrs. Oxman came with grits and salt pork for breakfast. Ralston sniffed and waved it away.

  “Go talk to your husband,” he told her. “He tells me this cozy little apartment can be reserved for special guests like my friend Hamilton Quigg. I’ve arranged for special meals.”

  She scowled at that. Oxman was still asleep. He didn’t like to be disturbed. Grumbling that we could eat grits or leave ’em, she carried the tray away and came back an hour later, looking no happier but with a generous platter of sausage and eggs, toast and jam, and a steaming pot of excellent coffee. Ralston said nothing to explain his arrangement, but he let me join the feast.

  “That was the happy half of my story,” he said after Mrs. Oxman had returned for the empty pot and platter. “The rest is not so pretty.”

  He had relaxed on the bunk, leaning back against the graffiti on the wall, but anger now edged his voice.

  “There’s no reason to lock up the captured guards. The Rifle medics patched me up after we surrendered. I was drinking beer with them in the club at the armory when the cops came to pick me up. I had an ugly couple of hours with Hunn and a man from the FBI before they brought me here.”

  “The FBI?”

  “A nasty surprise.” He made a face “They’re the enemy now, or ought to be, and kicked out of the county, but Saul Hunn, our good city-county attorney, has managed to keep a few agents here, pals he was working with before the rebellion.” He made a sneering face. “They’re trying to tie me to the Frankfort bombing. You know about that?”

  I nodded, but didn’t want to talk about it. Certainly not to Ralston.

  “Frankfort’s still a thorn in their ass,” he went on. “A replay of Oklahoma City. Their state headquarters. They’d tried to protect it. Traffic controls and concrete barriers to keep car bombs away.”

  He grinned and
scratched a hairy armpit.

  “The bombers outsmarted them. Bought a paint shop across the alley behind the building. Stocked it with paint buckets filled with smuggled explosives. Built their bomb in the back room of the shop behind a wall of sandbags and concrete blocks curved to focus the blast. It killed nineteen agents, there for a conference. Garlesh herself could have been there.”

  He shrugged as if with regret.

  “A toothache had sent her to the dentist.”

  I wondered how he knew so much.

  “Here’s the case they tried to make against me.”

  He cocked his head to listen and dropped his voice.

  “Marijuana has always been a cash crop here, bigger since the sky-high tobacco tax. The dealers branched out into harder stuff and fought the Bureau off. Their leader is a slippery figure they call Shadow Hand from a code name he’s used on the infonet. A few months ago, as I get the picture, the Bureau set up an undercover operation meant to put them out of business. It was code-named Acorn—”

  He stopped, the good eye squinting, as if he had seen my astonishment.

  “Acorn?” I tried to cover myself. “Shadow Hand? That sounds like something out of a comic book.”

  “Not very comic for the Bureau. Somebody sold them out. Acorn was to be a secret cell. Clever planning, maybe, but Shadow Hand’s no dummy.”

  He shook his head, the good eye still fixed on my face. Recalling Bella Garlesh and Botman and “Acorn Three,” I stared back as blankly as I could and waited for more.

  “His gang seems to have got a mole into the Acorn cell with orders to cover any trail to the Frankfort bombers. Hunn and his friends in the Bureau want to pin the blame on me.”

  He shrugged, the one-eyed scowl even sharper.

  “That bomb’s one big fish the Bureau wants to fry. Several bodies, or fragments of bodies, were found in what was left of the paint shop. The bombers, caught in their own blast. They suspect me of being the sole survivor left to talk about it.

  “As if I would—” He shrugged with an air of easy unconcern.

  “One more angle they badgered me about. That’s the letterbomb

  that knocked off a nosy reporter that came here for dirt and dug up more than was good for him. He seems to have been an Acorn agent, maybe fingered by Shadow Hand’s mole.”

  He stopped with that, belched, and stood up to stretch and listen at the corridor. I heard voices and cell doors clashing.

  “Looks like a busy day for Oxman.” He turned back, grinning. “McAdam rounding up his enemies.” He sat back on the bunk. “You’ve heard my story. Now let’s hear yours.”

  “Nothing like yours.” I shook my head. “Just a run of very bad luck.”

  “Evidently.”

  He grinned and waited.

  “You’ve heard about my research job.” I picked the words with care. “I enrolled as a history student at McAdam College, meaning no harm to anybody. A long story, but my inquiries got me involved with the wrong people. I’m accused of killing Lydia Starker and suspected of shooting Colin McAdam in the back—”

  “The General’s father?” He made a quizzical face. “That could hang you.” He studied me shrewdly. “Something else I’m wondering about. Hunn and his Bureau friends kept badgering me for anything I knew about another man who came here as an undercover informer for the FBI.” The good eye squinted. “Would that be you?”

  Never a good liar, I had to catch my breath.

  “Not that I care.” He shrugged. “But I thought you’d like to be warned.”

  He went to listen at the corridor.

  “I know the General,” he said. “I’ll be out when he knows I’m here.” He shook his head at me. “I’m afraid you aren’t so lucky.” “I do have a lawyer. A man named Katz.”

  “Katz?” He scowled. “Don’t count on Katz.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  HARD-HEELED BOOTS CAME thudding down the corridor. Ralston shook my hand and stood waiting at the door till Oxman swung it open, beckoned him out, and slammed it behind him.

  Alone again, I tried the infotel. It was dead. I paced the floor and hoped for Katz, who never appeared. I called after Mrs. Oxman when she pushed her cart past me with dinner for the new prisoners in the tank. She shuffled on, ignoring me, but an hour later she came back with steak, asparagus, and a baked potato.

  “A gift from Mr. Ralston,” she muttered sourly. “He said you deserved it, the fix you’re in.”

  That feast marked the end of Ralston’s generosity. My breakfast next morning was a cold boiled potato and a scrap of cold meat that may have been mutton.

  The infotel came to life with a sudden blare of military music. I saw the Kentucky Rifle fife-and-drum corps marching down Main Street past the old courthouse and the Freeman office.

  “Ramona Del Rio on station FREE.” The silver streak shone in her hair, but her pert vivacity looked dulled from fatigue or perhaps a night on the town. “We bring you President Stuart Me Adam reviewing his troops. He is preparing to address the world on his plans for the future of the Free State of America. His remarks will be recorded for rebroadcast whenever channels open.”

  A captured tank rumbled after the band, flying the flag of the new nation, a single blue star on a crimson field. The Rifles marched behind it, followed by a string of pickups flying the star.

  Stuart received their salutes from a raw pine stand on the armory lawn. Uniformed now in crimson and blue, a bright sun-glint on the wave in his tawny hair, he made an image of dashing arrogance. When the marchers had passed, he turned to the camera.

  “Friends and fellow citizen of the Free State, I thank you for your loyal support and congratulate you on your new-won freedom. The blue star in our flag is for the unity of our new nation, the red field for the patriot blood that is the price of freedom.

  “I am proud to be your leader and happy to inform you that the future of our newborn nation is now secure. The so-called Haven Council is now no more. The fanatics who formed it are now safely jailed, and the last opposition is being eliminated.

  “You will be happy, I know, to welcome law and order back. I promise you now—” He placed his right hand on his heart. “On my sacred honor, I promise you a fair and honest government. Delegates will be called to a constitutional convention. Democratic elections will be held.

  “In the meantime—” He paused. His voice fell, and I saw ice in his eyes. “In the meantime, our new-won liberty must be defended. In the absence of any civil law, our first decree will place the entire population under military law.”

  Applause rattled from the speakers, though the camera had shown no listeners. In no mood for Stuart, I killed the infotel and stumbled around the cell in a blind confusion of helpless desperation and illogical relief. Desperation, because I felt the trap finally closing on me. Relief because I thought the torment of helpless waiting must now be over. Something had to change.

  Waiting for it, I heard distant voices and the thud of boots. Sometimes the screech of an unoiled hinge and clang of a door. Silence again. Nothing with any meaning for me till late afternoon when Mrs. Oxman unlocked the door for Katz.

  He was rumpled and careworn, a gray stubble on his jowls and sagging pouches under his eyes. With a feeble effort at cordial fellowship, he shook my hand, asked how they were treating me, and tried to excuse himself for not coming in before.

  “In a world without law, you didn’t need a lawyer.” His hollow cheer sharpened into bitter complaint. “I’m afraid you do need help, now that the General’s going to give us his own brand of law. Bad law, and too much of it.”

  He sat down heavily on the opposite bunk.

  “I’ve been his attorney for years. I thought we were friends. I’ve saved his scalp more than once, defending him against trumped-up charges and pulling political strings to get him out of prison. But now—”

  Red-faced with anger, he gritted his teeth and shook his fist at the wall.

  “He’s gone crazy!” The tic
twisted his face into a malevolent one-sided mask. “He’s obsessed with the notion that he can rewrite history and remake the world.”

  “I heard his broadcast about martial law.” I searched his face for clues. “What does it mean for me?”

  “I hate to tell you.” Dismally, he shook his head. “Believe me, Barstow, I’ve done all any man could do. I’ve talked to the general’s friends. I tried to talk to him, but he had no time for me.” He spoke through a snarling grimace. “He’s too busy planning to conquer the world.”

  Next morning a Rifle detachment took over the jail. The Oxmans were gone. I saw new prisoners hustled past my cell, several of them bandaged or limping. My breakfast was late, a cold boiled potato and a scanty bowl of boiled cabbage, brought by a new recruit just off a horse farm and wearing a red-and-blue armband for a uniform.

  Katz was back before noon, looking no happier. "I’ve done my damnedest.” Muttering half to himself, he sank down on the opposite bunk. “Got nowhere.”

  His bleary eyes narrowed when I asked him to try again. “Stuart and I.” He shook his head. “We used to get on. I was one of his first recruits for the Rifles. He wanted me to manage the money and steer him clear of the FBI. I was his supply sergeant, dealing for guns and uniforms, till he accused me of embezzling Rifle funds.

  “But not in the civil courts.” An angry toss of his uncombed head. “He was afraid of all I might say about him and the Rifles. Instead he set up his own kangaroo court to give me what he called a military trial. They gave me a dishonorable discharge and fined me a hundred thousand dollars. That’s what he claimed I’d stolen.” Wondering if he had, I asked if he had paid the fine.

  “Had to.” He shrugged, helpless anguish on his face. “His militia thugs would have beaten me to jelly.”

  “Now?” I asked. “What now?”

  “The same dirty game all over again. Stuart has his Free State under martial law, with a special spot of honor for you.” A sardonic grimace. “Our first court-martial.”

  What I’d half expected, yet it felt like a punch in the gut. “You will be charged with the murder of Lydia Starker.” Grimly methodical, he counted the charges on pudgy fingers with broken, black-rimmed nails. “Arson, resulting in the murder of Dr. Stuben Ryke, when you drove the firebomb pickup into his clinic. The attempted murder of the General’s father, when you shot him in the back. Conspiracy and espionage against the Free State. Flight to escape justice. Even grand larceny, when you made off with the pickup.