“Hey, hold on, there!” bawled from the table. Niolente laid a hand on the case. Guthrie did not feel the gesture, as limited as he was when unconnected, but saw it and strangled his oaths.
—fortunately, evasive action foiled the attack. In light of this outrage, the latest of countless that the Avantists had committed over the years against Fireball and freedom and common decency—
“Consejeros and consortes, haven’t we taken enough? Never mind revenge, or simple justice against the persons who commissioned and carried out these violations. We can bring suit before the World Federation and maybe get a judgment for the Peace Authority to enforce, but to what purpose? The Avantist government of the North American Union will continue. It will breed more such persons, who’ll use its machinery to carry out more such antics, while it squats on the North American people and their liberties. It is the menace to world peace, world survival, of the same breed as those that went before it, Holy League, Renewal, Communism, fascism, nationalism, every kind of absolutism, back as far as history goes. Here’s our cause to be done with Avantism.”
The face formed a bleak smile. “Not being a politician, I can’t proclaim a grand crusade for thousands of people to get killed in while I sit safe at home and enjoy my perks. However, in the course of my misadventures on Earth, I learned more than I knew before about a resistance movement in North America. The Avantists call those folk Chaotics, but that’s a swear word, propaganda. What they are is men and women who want to be free again; and they’re well organized and responsible, too. Avantism is rotted and crumbling. The revolutionaries want to clear it away, quickly and cleanly, before it can do more harm.
“I can’t tell them how they should go about this. But if they choose to rise against the Avantists, now while the grievances of Fireball are fresh—I’ll call on Fireball to give them every help in its power. Repeat, this is not a question of getting even. It is that I’ve always loved freedom, and so has our Fireball.”
When after a while (a short while, because he had never been one for oratory) the cylinder blanked, Guthrie rested quiet half a minute before he said, “That was cleverly done. How much did you have prepared beforehand?”
“Rather little, for we could not foresee whether we would have occasion for it nor what form the occasion might take,” Niolente admitted.
“Computer editing and revising, with reference to analyses of every recording of every talk I ever made, and my biography, and the derived psychoprofile— Pretty slick job. The machines will soon be better at being us than we are ourselves, no?”
She moved to stand in front of him. “The changes are minor,” she said, a trace of amusement in her tone.
“Yeah, small, like changing ‘help’ to ‘hell.’“
“You would in truth like to bring down the Avantists.”
He had no head to shake, but his voice did. “No. Not that way, anyhow. Inciting a rebellion— Haven’t you stopped to think what the risks are? You hope to touch off something that’ll be uncontrollable, the consequences unforeseeable. Why?”
“Precisely for that reason.”
“Wreckage for its own sake? You can’t be that Q-jumpy. Can you?”
“In a sense, conceivably, yes. A quantum leap out of a black hole.”
“Ah, screw the fancy excuses. What do you plan to do next?”
“Abide, and observe what comes to pass.”
“Which’ll be interesting, if nothing else. You’ve poked a stick into the anthill. . . . But without me to direct it, Fireball won’t long keep up any effort. They’ll start wondering why I haven’t shown, physically. You can’t maintain your fake. If you tried to simulate me sending orders from here, it’d soon turn preposterous.”
“True.” Niolente smiled. “Dread not, my lord. We shall presently release you, with due precautions. The instant of time for that must await the course of events and our judgment thereof; but it lies in the near future.”
“After all Satan’s dogs are off the leash. Listen—there was nothing about it in your doctored ‘cast—my people don’t know my other self is loose in a torchcraft. Do you understand what a danger that is? I do.”
“Thus,” she said blithely, “when you go at large, you may have no option but to lead Fireball in war.”
“And afterward?”
“Afterward, yes, you could turn on us, but we believe you will find it unwise.”
Guthrie lay still for a span. The vague colors and uncertain darknesses flickered slowly around him. Niolente stood amidst them like a candle not yet lighted.
“I’ve a ghastly feeling you’re right,” he said. “But that’s supposing we’ll have that kind of a tomorrow. We could lose, you know. Or everybody could lose, everything crash down in flinders.”
“Would that be worse than what now binds us?” she answered.
* * * *
36
T
he Sepo in L-5 could control transmissions from it but scarcely what came to it. At least, that seemed a needless provocation. Kyra Davis heard Guthrie’s broadcast from Luna with the family who were giving her refuge.
“Then we’ll fight!” she cried, a fist aloft where she had leaped erect as she listened. Rage: “And I—do I have to huddle here waiting?”
Wang Zu frowned. “This is strange,” he said heavily. “I would never have expected the jefe to call for war. More than once I have heard him declare he has seen enough violence to supply him until the last star burns out.”
“He did not truly call for it, did he?” ventured his wife. “He only promised help if a revolution does begin.”
Wang shook his head. “Why should he do that unless it is what he hopes for? What he even seeks to detonate.”
Kyra glared at them. “Don’t youwant those matones off your backs?” She gulped. “I’m sorry. Por favor, excuse me. After all your kindness—”
Lin Mei-ling patted her hand. “We know. This is very difficult for you,” she said with a smile. “Perhaps we are too timid. But it would take so little to destroy this nation.”
Kyra stooped down to hug her. “And y-you have children,” she stammered.
“Let us believe the jefe knows what he is about,” Wang said. Doubt lingered in his tone. “Those Selenarchs may have told him or promised him something. None of us can do anything yet but wait.”
“And carry on with our work,” said his wife.
Yes, Kyra thought, they had their work. She had her schooling in patience to abide while events spun themselves out, her relaxation techniques, her mantras and memories. They would be harder to use in this modestly furnished home than ever in space.
Being alone most of the time made it easier. The Wang boy and girl were at astro camp for a week, drilling in the skills required for emergencies and everyday life. It was one reason why Eiko had placed Kyra here.
Thirty hours passed.
The news erupted from Earth: Sepo headquarters in San Francisco Bay Integrate destroyed by an explosion. The picture was of wreckage still smoking, while rescue vehicles and machines scurried like ants and in the foreground a spokesman related grimly that the dead and hurt were many and that he felt certain the murderers were terrorists. Had not the North American government warned, striven, pleaded for cooperation? As for those fantastic allegations from Luna, the enemies of civilization could perpetrate a hoax as readily as could the Avantists whom they accused, and it was much more plausible that they would.
Three hours later: The same atrocity in Denver. Meanwhile, police had established that the instrument of the first had been a small, stripped-down sports flyer on autopilot, loaded with gigantite, power-diving straight down from the high stratosphere. Probably the second strike had used the same technique. There would be no third. National forces were on full alert and the President was about to declare martial law.
“How much difference will that make?” Kyra jeered. “Flash! The Paris office of Global News Associates has received a communication from persons who claim to be the
leaders of a revolutionary underground in North America. On condition that their whereabouts not be traced, Global was given a statement—”
A lean man in a plain gray tunic which had on its breast a stylized comet, speaking more softly than one would have expected: “—Jack Bannon, on behalf of the Liberation Army. They call us Chaotics, and we admit with regret that some crazies and criminals may take this opportunity to run wild, but they are not of us. We are the organized core of resistance to the Avantist tyranny. Our single purpose is to overthrow it and restore constitutional government, freedom under a law that is humane, to our country. We have bided our time in secret less because we lack strength than because fighting could too easily get out of hand. Weapons available to both sides—explosives, pyrotics, toxins, radioactives, biologicals, electronic and computer sabotage of vital services—those weapons can take too many innocent lives.”
That wasn’t strictly true, Kyra decided. If Bannon’s outfit was as efficient as he claimed, and her own experience suggested it might be, then they must run it just about as tautly as psychodynamics and ruthless discipline made possible. Otherwise it would long since have been infiltrated and, if not totally suppressed, reduced to a scattered, hunted few. (No doubt a number of Sepo agents, trying to worm their way in, had found anonymous graves. Their superiors wouldn’t publicize the losses.) To be that well controlled, it must needs be small. Therefore it could not by itself take the field against its enemies.
The idea must have been to wait, nurtured in part by clandestine remittances from abroad, probably with some facilities secretly on foreign soil, readying itself and propagandizing the public as best it was able, until circumstances took the government off balance. Then the Liberation Army would hit, several strategic blows, and trust that this would set off a widespread uprising—which, when it was well begun in its formless fashion, the junta could seize control of. That was how revolutions usually went in history. Often the prospect of powerful help from outside was what impelled such rebels to cross their Rubicons. Guthrie’s speech—
Oh, Bannon knew. “We have the mighty Fireball Enterprises for our ally, if we prove ourselves worthy,” he was saying. “Surely, too, the free nations of the world will be with us in spirit, and come to our aid as our cause advances.”
No, they would not, except so late in the game that it wouldn’t matter, Kyra thought. Not at all if the Avantists put down the insurrection fast enough that it didn’t appear the conflict would endanger anybody else. Or if—a chill went through her—the Federation determined that Fireball’s intervention was a precedent that the Peace Authority must take arms against.
“People of North America, do not be reckless. For the most part, go about your daily business while you still can. Refrain from violence. Simply, peacefully, refuse assistance to the Avantist authorities. Hear what your leaders have to say, the heads of your societies, lodges, churches, the organizations that have your loyalty. Do as they bid. But when the hour comes, then assemble with them to wage battle for freedom!”
“He calls on the subcultures,” Wang breathed. “They begin with civil disobedience. But it goes on quickly to strikes, sabotage, riots, and killing.”
“You know it,” Kyra answered. “And the killing will mostly be done by the militia and police, unless Fireball can stop it before matters get to that. Oh, God, here I sit!”
Bannon: “—In conclusion, what better message can I give you than was written long ago on this continent when first its people claimed their freedom?” And the noble words: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal—”
His image disappeared. The announcer chattered in French. Kyra half listened to the multi’s English translation. The predictable, excited comments; then: “In Hiroshima, World Federation President Mukerji has announced that the special full meeting of the High Council and Assembly which she called will open today. Many delegates have arrived in person, the rest are on the net. Meanwhile President Mukerji has demanded that Anson Guthrie repudiate the statement attributed to him, promising aid in a purely political dispute. She states that if this repudiation is not forthcoming promptly, she will ask for a resolution declaring sanctions against Fireball Enterprises.”
Wang rose from his chair. “I am going to the office,” he said.
“But it is almost mid-nightwatch,” his wife protested.
“I may learn, there, what our ships and people are actually doing,” he told them, and departed.
The women stared at one another. “Zu is right,” Mei-ling whispered. “The more I think about this, the less I can believe it is truly happening.”
“Why?” asked Kyra, and fought against the admission that she probably foreknew the answer.
“That Mr. Guthrie would make such a pledge.” Mei-ling looked down at her lap, where her hands writhed together. “He has reason to be angry, yes. But he could seek satisfaction in Federation court, or he could stop our trade with the Union until it gives him what he wants. He already had it suffering, you know. Here are we, down there are hundreds of our consortes, hostages to the Avantists or in danger from fighting. Why would he provoke it? Is this troth?”
Kyra bit her lip. “He is with the Lunarians, or was till lately. He . . . never trusted them much. I went after their help as a, a backup, in case Tamura failed him, and—” Beautiful in her mind, Rinndalir smiled. He reached out a hand, which had been so knowing. “And they were less than straightforward with me,” she flung forth. “But we can’t judge anything yet! We don’t have the information!” It caught in her throat. “All we can do is wait.”
Sometimes they talked a bit. Sometimes they dozed a bit. Sometimes they tuned in the news, the same scenes shown, the same things said, inanely around the globe. Toward mornwatch they heard of crowds forming in several megalopolitan regions. Armored militia rolled forth and armed flitters buzzed overhead, though as yet there was no attempt to disperse the gatherings. Twice the ‘casts were briefly pre-empted by a recording of Felix Holden, L-5’s new garrison chief. In oddly quiet fashion, like Jack Bannon, he required the populace to stay orderly and announced that his patrols had gotten reinforcements of colony constabulary, volunteers, for turmoil could kill everybody.
Wang returned, haggard and hoarse. “In space, confusion,” he said. “The Sepo do not hinder us, but we receive just a few calls and intercept just a few more. And how shall we respond? I think, from what I have collected, I think they shout through space to each other, ships and stations, and ask dismayed what this means and what they should do.”
“I suppose I would myself,” Kyra confessed.
What could they, in fact? Unmanned solar sailers, months or years on a cruise. Machines to explore, prospect, mine, refine, load, unload, maintain, and the thin-strewn men and women who oversaw their labor. Shuttlecraft built for specific worlds and their immediate neighborhoods, never for going beyond. Some colonies, bubbles of environment, their inhabitants and industries. The liners that served them, big, comfortable, but safe only within narrow limits of stress. Torchcraft like hers, capable of crossing the breadth of the Solar System in days; but then, unless they could refuel somewhere, their delta v would be expended and they drift helpless. Which of their small number were close enough at this moment to arrive in time and capable of action?
What action? Spaceships were unarmed.
She had her thoughts about that. She did not care to voice them.
“I suspect— I am not sure by any means, but I suspect,” Wang sighed, “that unless the jefe appears among his consejeros materially, in person, and gives them a definite program— Fireball will end by doing little or nothing.”
Because its captains and crews had always taken responsibility on themselves, Kyra thought. This was too radical a measure, too ill-explained. They would wait to learn more.
And meanwhile the Kayos would rise, full of hope, and, unaided, would undergo slaughter.
If the Avantists were smart, they’d do their best to pr
otect Fireball personnel in the Union and L-5. Of course, they might not be very smart in the heat of battle, or they might try and fail. No telling, once chaos ran free.
“He may show at any moment,” Kyra ventured.
“I don’t know.” Wang stumbled off to bed. His wife followed him. After a while Kyra went to the room lent her, undressed, and lay down. Sleep came astonishingly fast.
She was high in the Tree, the all-mothering Tree, she was the Tree, with a root in death and a root in desolation and a root in the worlds of life, her trunk upholding creation and her boughs bearing green that soughed and shivered as the wind blew around her, the loud and bitter wind mounting into storm, waken, waken, the green tore loose, limbs groaned, bole trembled, waken, waken!
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