Nora pressed her lips tightly together. “If you’ll finish it quickly,” she said, “we can continue. Otherwise...”
Emma looked at her levelly. “Wasn’t this conversation your idea? And wasn’t I already eating this when it started?”
I will not let this get to me.
Except that it already has.
“I want,” Nora said, “a greater share of my husband’s attention than I’ve been getting. A share you seem to get without having to work for it. I just want to know what’s going on that’s made Bart so distant lately.”
Emma frowned, set down her custard cup, and folded her hands on the table before her.
“I guess, in your position, I’d want the same things. And I agree he’s become distant lately. But not just from you. Frankly, I don’t know what’s on his mind. We work together, but he doesn’t confide in me the way he used to.”
She surprised Nora by reaching across the table and taking her hand.
“I can tell you this, though,” Emma said. “He worships you. It would kill him to know he’d made you unhappy. How long have you two been married now?”
“Twenty-three years, two months, and seventeen days,” Nora said.
Emma’s eyes went wide. “Wow. I had no idea it was that long. Maybe it’s the perpetual youth business. No one can tell anyone else’s age any more.” Her expression grew somber. “I was looking forward to getting married soon myself, but I guess not.”
A pang of sympathy went through Nora Morelon. She squeezed Emma’s hand briefly.
“You learned what you needed to know just in time to head off a bad marriage and a lot of sorrow. Don’t regret it.” A naughty thought rose to mind, and she grinned. “If you really want to feel better about it, put yourself in Victor’s place. He thought he was going to marry the eventual head of Clan Morelon. Instant wealth and higher-than-high status. Eat at our table, carefree, for the rest of his life.” She grinned. “With Miss Tits Like Cantaloupes for a side dish.”
Emma burst into a fit of giggles. Nora joined her.
When they’d regained command of themselves, Nora said “You’re right about the rest of it. May I ask a favor?”
“Anything, Aunt Nora.”
“Come with me? I mean, to talk to him? He thinks the world of you, you know.”
“Oh, sure.” Emma looked at her half-eaten cup of custard with longing, and Nora chuckled.
“Go ahead, finish it.”
Emma giggled again. “Want some?”
“Maybe after dinner.”
* * *
Barton frowned. “You can’t seriously be worried about our finances. We’re rolling in money! We can’t spend it as fast as it’s pouring in. What on Hope is there to be worried about?”
Patrice cringed and dropped her gaze. Douglas winced as well.
They’re not here about that.
Barton closed the file he’d been reading, came out from behind his desk, and squatted before his visitors.
“I’ve known the two of you all my life,” he said. “You’ve never been bashful or indirect with me before—”
“Most of your life,” Douglas muttered, “you weren’t the patriarch of Clan Morelon—”
“And you’ve never been this hard to get in to see before,” Patrice continued.
“So,” Douglas finished, “we’re not here because there’s anything much on our minds. We’re here to find out what’s been on your mind.”
“Us, too.”
Barton jerked his head up to find Emma and Nora standing in his office doorway.
Emma giggled. “We’ve really got you outnumbered now, Uncle Bart. Will you go quietly, or are you gonna put up a fight?”
All the resolve Barton could muster could not prevent a broad grin from blossoming on his face.
“Spooner’s beard,” he growled. “That giggle. It’s like a nuclear bomb. The only way to resist it is not to be around when it happens.” He waved his visitors toward the love seats and dragged a guest chair toward them for himself. “All right, get on in here and get situated.”
When all had seated themselves, Barton hunched forward, elbows on knees, and said “Have I really been that remote lately?”
“You tell us,” Nora replied. “When was the last time you took a meal with your family?”
“Oh, that,” Barton said. “Octember 34. Breakfast.”
Nora stared at him disbelievingly. “You’re aware?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why?”
“Because,” Barton said, drawing the word out as if singing it, “I’ve had something big and ugly on my mind. Why? What’s for dinner tonight, Pat?”
“No changing the subject, Bart,” Nora said. “Your kin want to know what’s going on.” She tossed her head at Emma. “Your scion wants to know what’s going on. Your wife wants to know what’s going on. And you’re going to tell us if we have to hang you by your heels and beat it out of you.”
“You should take your wife seriously, most high and beloved patriarch,” Emma said. “She’s got friends.”
Barton took a deep breath.
“Are you really sure you want to know? Suppose I tell you, and it turns out to be something you wish I’d kept to myself? Think you’ll be able to un-hear it?”
The mood of the gathering became somber.
“Is it that bad, Uncle Bart?” Emma said.
“Bad enough,” Nora said, “that you can’t confide it in your father?”
“Or your wife?” Douglas muttered.
“Only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Barton said.
Barton’s visitors exchanged a series of uneasy glances.
“Lay it on us,” Patrice said. “Not because we expect it to be about cookies and stuffed animals and big fluffy clouds. Because patriarch or not, no one should have to carry a burden that big all alone.”
Douglas took her hand.
Nora and Emma nodded.
“All right,” Barton said at last. “But you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a small opaque jar carefully sealed with red wax, and gently set it on the surface.
“That,” he said, “contains a very special nanite. A terror weapon, or so I’m told. It slowly and painfully eats the skin of an infected person. Slowly, so he can hope for a cure as he suffers. Painfully, so his rationality will be clouded and he’ll start doing random things out of panic. Maybe infect a few of his kin. If there’s a counter-agent, I’m not aware of it.”
“Rothbard, Rand, and Ringer,” Nora breathed. “You didn’t have that made, did you?”
Barton cocked an eyebrow at her. “Why would I want such a thing?”
“Then where...why do you have it?” Patrice said.
“It was brought here. By the person who was supposed to use it on me.”
Douglas’s eyes filled with white-hot fury. “By whom?”
Barton waved them out of their seats and toward the door.
“Time for a little walk.”
* * *
They approached the lesser barracks in silence.
“I thought this was for overflow from the big barracks,” Emma said at the door. “Isn’t there still room in there?”
Barton nodded. “Fortunately.” He pulled open the front door and gestured them inside.
The building had been constructed in the pattern of transients’ accommodations everywhere on Hope. The main entrance opened onto a large common area equipped with couches, small tables, and a fireplace beside which stood an ample pile of cordwood. At either side of the common room were hallways that led deeper into the building, first of the features intended to assure a new arrival that some thought had gone to the preservation of his modesty and privacy.
Barton led his kindred into the left-hand hall. It was perforated with the doors to individual rooms, each furnished with a bed, a dresser, and a small desk. Each room shared a bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower with its opposite num
ber from the other hallway. At the back of the building were situated cooking and dining facilities and a common laundry. Everything was perfectly orderly and clean. No one was visible.
The doors to all the bedrooms but one stood open. A thin sound of musical notes played on an unidentifiable instrument, counterpointed by the rapid clicking of keys on a typist’s keyboard, issued from within. Barton bade his relatives to wait and knocked sharply at the single closed door.
It opened partway, revealing a slender young man of medium height and build with a pleasant face beneath a mop of curly brown hair. He glanced at the party behind Barton and his expression became wary.
“May we come in, Darren?” Barton said.
The young man hesitated, then nodded and pulled the door open wide.
A koto lay on the neatly made bed. At the desk sat a petite woman typing furiously on a laptop computer. At the sound of their entrance she saved her work, swiveled about to face them, rose and curtsied.
“Hello, kinsmen,” Charisse Morelon said.
* * *
“You really don’t know where the nanite came from?” Nora said.
Charisse shook her head. “Alex didn’t say. I can only do what you’ve already done: conjecture.”
“I think we’re all on the same frequency there,” Barton drawled.
“All the same,” Nora said, “without definite proof—”
“Do you plan to hire an advocate and petition a circuit judge, Nora?” Charisse purred.
“Charisse,” Barton said, “not to put too fine a point on it, I would think it was in your best interests to be absolutely polite.”
Charisse’s face fell. She nodded and was silent.
Darren Berglund said “I don’t pretend to know anything about what’s been going on here—”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t presume to talk about it,” Nora grated.
“Nora,” Barton said, straining to suppress the edge that crept into his words, “this gentleman came here out of a sense of moral obligation.” He turned a stony glare on his wife. “It would be as wise for us to show him our best courtesies as it would be for Charisse to be on her best behavior while she’s our guest.”
Nora’s eyes went wide. She clamped her lips firmly shut.
“Would you care to finish your thought, Darren?” Barton said.
“If I’m treading on anyone’s sensitivities...” The young man fell silent.
Barton smiled. “You’re not. A few of us are just a bit on edge from the earlier news. It’s not every day you learn that you’ve been targeted for consumption by a flesh-eating microbe. What were you about to say?”
Berglund looked pained. “Well, it was just that given what...Charisse has told me about the events of a year ago, it looks like round two of the earlier contest.”
“The thing is,” Douglas said, “HalberCorp wasn’t involved in the previous unpleasantness.”
Berglund nodded. “I know. But things change. Alliances mutate over time. Has anything happened since then that might have caused their decision makers to view the attacking parties more favorably than Clan Morelon? Something that would pertain to their clans’ fortunes in the foreseeable future?”
Expressions of shock and realizations unwisely resisted bloomed on the others.
“Whoa,” Barton murmured.
“Death and taxes,” Patrice breathed.
“Rothbard, Rand, and Ringer,” Douglas muttered.
“Gag me with a spoon,” Emma ventured.
The others turned to stare at her.
“What on Hope was that?” Barton said.
Emma grinned. “I read it in an old book.”
==
November 11, 1326 A.H.
The crowd gathered before the Jacksonville Spacehawk battery was unusually restive. There was ample reason. Never before had the patriarch of Clan Morelon decreed the necessity of a community gathering. He had personally contacted the heads of all the clans in the region to request that they attend in person.
Coming from any other Jacksonville personage, such a request might have been declined on grounds of an overfull schedule or a prior commitment. None of Jacksonville’s patriarchs felt it wise when the summoner was Barton Kramnik Morelon. Others of less stature who learned of the summons resolved all but uniformly to attend. By eighteen hundred, the turnout had reached a thousand persons, with more trickling in.
At three minutes past eighteen, no one from Morelon House had yet arrived. A few attendees muttered dourly about Morelon arrogance. The rest held their tongues.
A minute later, the crowd parted to allow Barton, Emma, and Charisse to make their way to the dais. The women’s expressions were somber. The patriarch’s demeanor could only be described as grim.
Barton mounted the dais alone. He searched the crowd for the faces of those he had personally summoned, nodded at each in turn, and folded his arms across his chest.
“Are we anarchists?” he said.
A ragged chorus of assent arose at once. Barton held up a hand, and the crowd returned to silence.
“What does that mean?”
He raked the crowd with his gaze as if hoping for an answer, found none, and shrugged.
“I thought as much. Some of you think you know, but you’re reluctant to discuss it in front of your neighbors. Some of you aren’t sure any longer. And the rest have never thought about it for five seconds at a time.
“I have a kinsman who’s studied the history of social systems. He and I have talked about it at some length. And his opinion is that right down at the bottom, in the depths of the soul where people make their moral choices, all societies are anarchist. Because men have never condoned an individual’s crimes on the strength of his claim that he was acting on the orders of the State. When it comes to right and wrong, justice and injustice, the State is nowhere to be seen—and when good people assess a deed’s moral standing, they see the doer, the context, and nothing else.”
He paused for a deep breath.
“I called this gathering out of need. Don’t get me wrong, you’re my neighbors and friends, and I love those of you I know well enough to love. But I wouldn’t have asked you to abandon your own pursuits and pleasures just so I could have the pleasure of seeing you all together.”
A voice from the bosom of the crowd said, “We sort of figured that,” and a laugh rippled through the gathering.
Barton grinned. “Glad to hear it. Anyway, my need impelled me to ask for your attendance...and your judgment. Because there are unprecedented things happening among us. Bad things. Things you should know about. Things that have to be opposed. And Clan Morelon can’t cope with them all by itself.”
A low murmur arose within the crowd. Uneasy glances and whispered conjectures passed among knots of attendees.
It’s time.
He beckoned Charisse to join him on the dais. As she mounted and took up a stance beside him, the murmuring crescendoed. The faces of Alex Dunbarton and Arthur Hallanson, who stood together near the front of the crowd, immediately creased with worry.
“Most of you know my predecessor Charisse. She’s been away for a while, in a kind of voluntary exile from the clan and the community. Some of you are aware of her role in the attack on Morelon House, about a year ago. That was only a part of why she left the area.
“Charisse returned to us a few days ago. She brought a terrifying tale with her. If you approve, I’d like for her to tell it to you herself.”
Barton scanned the throng again, saw nothing to indicate dissent, and nodded to Charisse.
“Kinswoman,” he said clearly and formally, “name those you would accuse and state your charges against them, that our neighbors might form their own opinions.”
He stepped back as Charisse cleared her throat and began.
* * *
When Charisse had concluded, Barton stepped forward again, nodded to her, and slowly reviewed the crowd. Presently he nodded, reached into his pocket, and drew forth the jar of att
ack nanite.
“Here is the weapon Charisse was told to use against me.”
The faces of his neighbors ranged from disbelieving to outraged. There was angry muttering throughout the throng.
“I can see that you’re not happy,” he said. “In your position I wouldn’t be either, whether I believed the accusations or not. We dislike to think that persons we’ve trusted with so much might use their stations for low purposes. We dislike to think we might have been gulled. But what we like or dislike has little bearing on reality.
“You’re free to disbelieve what Charisse has told you. You’re free to think whatever you like about me for having called you together to hear her. I have to admit that her story is tough to accept. I doubt that I could have accepted it, if if weren’t for other factors I’m not free to talk about.
“And of course there’s this: none of the threats Charisse described, apart from Alex Dunbarton’s attempt to coerce her, has actually happened to her, to me, or to Clan Morelon. We punish for crimes committed, not for crimes attempted. We don’t have a tradition by which to deal with the man who almost kills, or almost steals. That’s probably for the best, even though some of those who fail once will try again. I didn’t call this meeting in the hope that you’d descend in a fury on the heads of Clan Dunbarton and HalberCorp.”
“Then why did you call it?” came from the rear of the crowd.
Barton inclined his head. “For exactly what’s already happened: to have Charisse tell her story to you, with the accused parties present to answer if they choose. A couple of other things, too.” He glanced directly at Patrick Wolzman, who’d remained still and silent throughout the meeting. “Patriarch Wolzman, would you kindly join me up here for a moment?”
Wolzman nodded and moved forward through the throng. His expression as he mounted the dais was one of profound unease. Barton gestured to Wolzman to stand beside him. The two patriarchs faced one another, tension singing between them.
“Patrick,” Barton said, “you were part of the alliance that attacked Morelon House about a year ago.”
“I was,” Wolzman said.
Freedom's Fury (Spooner Federation Saga Book 3) Page 26
