“To your posts!” the commander barked. “Start packing up the evidence immediately!”
After the duty assignments were given, the officer turned the task of overseeing the warehouse end of the operation to a subordinate while he took personal command of a squad of Guard to lead LaNague back to the Imperium Complex.
In a state of self-induced emotional anesthesia, LaNague allowed himself to be led away. Fighting off a sudden awful feeling that he would never return, he cast a final backward glance and saw that every guardsman in the building had stopped what he was doing to watch Robin Hood's exit.
FINALLY! FINALLY SOMETHING had gone right!
“And there's proof?” Haworth said. “Incontestable proof?”
Tinmer beamed as he spoke. “Ten times more than any jury could want.”
“He'll never see a jury. But how do we know he's the Robin Hood, not just one of his lackeys? I'm sure he gave you a good story as to why he happened to be there.”
“Not at all. He admitted it. Said straight out he was Robin Hood.”
The elated tingle of victory that had been coursing along every nerve fiber in Haworth's body suddenly slowed, faltered.
“Freely?”
“Yes! Said his name was Peter LaNague and that he had authored the flyers and planned the raids. According to the census computer, though, he doesn't exist. None of his identity factors match with anyone on Throne.”
“Which means he's from one of the other out-worlds.”
“Or Earth.”
Haworth doubted that, especially now that he remembered a certain weapon used to save Metep VII's life almost five years ago, about the same time The Robin Hood Reader began to appear. A weapon made on Flint. Things were fitting together at last.
“Check with the other planets-the ones still speaking to us. And with Earth.” Haworth knew the replies would all be negative, but decided to keep Tinmer busy.
“You going to interrogate him now?”
Haworth hesitated here. The prisoner probably expected to be hustled into the Complex and immediately filled with drugs to make him talk. Let him wait instead, Haworth thought. Let him spend the night in one of those claustrophobic cells wondering when the interrogation would begin. He'd lie awake wondering while Haworth caught up on some much needed rest.
“Throw him in maximum security and tell your men not to be too rough on him. I want him able to talk in the morning.”
“That won't be a problem.” Tinmer's expression was grim and dour. “They've been treating him like a visiting dignitary, like a V.I.P., like…like an officer!”
Haworth again felt a twinge of anxiety, a chill, as if someone had briefly opened and closed a door to the night air. It wasn't right for the Guard to give the man who had outrun and outfoxed them all these years such treatment. They should hate him, they should want to get even. Apparently they didn't. Inappropriate behavior, to be sure. But why did it bother him so? He broke the connection and slowly turned away from the set.
Haworth didn't bother attempting to rouse Metep to tell him the news. Tomorrow he'd be in much better shape to deal with it. He was tired. It had been a long, harrowing day and fatigue was beginning to get the best of him. There was no chance for Robin Hood…no…stop calling him that. He was Peter LaNague now. He had a name just like everybody else; time to start de-mythifying this character. There was no chance for Peter LaNague to escape from the max-sec area. What Haworth needed now was sleep. A dose of one of the stims would keep him going, but beyond cosmetics he didn't approve of artificial means to anything where his body was concerned. The closest he got to a drug was the alpha cap he wore at night. It guaranteed him whatever length of restful slumber he desired, taking him up and down through the various levels of sleep during the set period, allowing him to awaken on schedule, ready to function at his peak.
Despite his fatigue, Daro Haworth's step was light as he strode toward his temporary quarters in the Imperium Complex. Members of the Council of Five and other higher-ups had been moved into the Complex last month, ostensibly to devote all their efforts to curing the ills that afflicted the Imperium, but in reality to escape the marauding bands wandering the countryside, laying siege to the luxury homes and estates occupied by the Imperium's top-level bureaucrats. He would not mind the cramped quarters at all tonight. For tomorrow evening, after six hours under the cap, he'd be fresh and ready to face Ro-No! Peter LaNague.
AFTER AN HOUR IN THE CELL, LaNague had to admit that it really wasn't so bad. Perhaps his quaking terror at the thought of prison had been an overreaction. Everything had been routine: the trip to the Imperium Complex and the walk to the maximum security section had been uneventful; the recording of his fingerprints, retinal patterns, and the taking of skin and blood samples for genotyping had all gone smoothly. Only his entry into the max-sec cell block had held a surprise.
The prison grapevine was obviously better informed than even the established news media. The public was as yet completely unaware of his capture, but as soon as he set foot on the central walkway between the three tiers of cells, a loud, prolonged, raucous cheer arose from the inmates. They thrust their arms through the bars on their cages, stretching to the limit to touch him, to grab his hand, to slap him on the back. Most could not reach him, but the meaning was clear: even in the maximum security section of the Imperium Complex, the area on Throne most isolated from the daily events of the world outside, Robin Hood was known…and loved.
Not exactly the segment of Throne society I've been aiming at, LaNague thought as he took his place in a bottom tier solo cell, watching the bars rise from the floor and ooze down from the ceiling, mechanical stalagmites and stalactites in a manmade cave. They met and locked together in front of him at chest level.
After his escort departed, LaNague was bombarded with questions from all directions. He answered a few, evaded most, remaining completely unambiguous only about identifying himself as Robin Hood, which he freely admitted to anyone who asked. Feigning fatigue, he retired to the rear of his cell and lay in the wall recess with his eyes closed.
Silence soon returned to the max-sec block as the celebrity's arrival was quickly accepted and digested. Conversation was not an easy thing here. Max-sec was reserved for psychopaths, killers, rapists, and habitually violent criminals…and now for enemies of the state. These breeds of criminal had to be isolated, separated from the rest of the prisoners as well as the rest of society. Each was given a solitary cell, a synthestone box with five unbroken surfaces, open only at the front where bars closed from above and below like a gaptooth grin, separating them from the central walkway and from each other.
There was no chance of escape, no hope of rescue. LaNague had known that when he called in the tip that led to his arrest. The walls were too thick to be blown without killing those inside. There was only one exit from the section and it was protected by a close mesh of extremely tight ultrasonic beams. No human going through one bank of those beams could maintain consciousness long enough to take two steps. And there were five banks. Should there be any general disturbance in the max-sec block, another system would bathe the entire area with inaudible, consciousness-robbing sound, forcing a half-hour nap on everyone.
LaNague didn't want to get out just yet anyway. He had to sit and hope that Metep and the Council of Five would play into his hands…and hope that Sayers would be able to play one of those recordings on the air…and hope that the populace would respond. So many variables. Too many, perhaps. He had shredded the out-worlders’ confidence in the Imperium, now he had to mend it, but in a different weave, a different cut, a radical style. Could he do it?
Somewhere inside of him was a cold knot of fear and doubt that said no one could do it.
LaNague had almost dozed off-he had a talent for that, no matter what the circumstances-when he heard footsteps on the walkway. They stopped outside his cell and he peered cautiously out of his recess toward the bars. One of the prison guards stood there, a flat, square containe
r balanced on his upturned palm. LaNague gently eased his left hand into his right axilla, probing until he found the tiny lump under the skin. He desperately hoped he would not have to squeeze it now.
“You hungry?” the guard said as he caught sight of LaNague's face in the darkness of the recess.
Sliding to the floor and warily approaching the front of the cell, LaNague said, “A little.”
“Good.” The guard tapped a code into the box attached to his waist, a code LaNague knew was changed three times a day. The central bar at the front of his cell suddenly snapped in two at its middle, the top half rising, the bottom sinking until about twenty centimeters separated the ends. After passing the container through the opening, the guard tapped his box again and the two bars approximated and merged again.
It was a food tray. LaNague activated the heating element and set it aside. “I would have thought the kitchen was closed.”
“It is.” The guard smiled. He was tall, lean, his uniform ill-fitting. “But not for you.”
“Why's that?” LaNague was immediately suspicious. “Orders from on high?”
The guard grunted. “Not likely! No, we were all sitting around thinking what a dirty thing it was to put someone like you in with these guys-I mean, most of them have killed at least one person; and if not, it wasn't for not trying. They'd kill again, too, given the chance. We can't even let them near each other, let alone decent people. A guy like you just doesn't belong here. I mean, you didn't kill anybody-or even hurt anybody-all these years. All you did was make the big boys look stupid and spread the money around afterwards so everybody could have a good time. We don't think you belong here, Mr. Robin Hood, and although we can't do much about getting you out of max-sec, we'll make sure nobody gives you any trouble while you're in here.”
“Thank you,” LaNague said, touched. “Do you always second-guess your superiors this way?”
After a moment of thought: “No, come to think of it. You're the first prisoner I ever gave a second thought to. I always figured you-you know, Robin Hood-were crazy. I mean, dropping that money and all. I never got any. My sister did once, but I work the night shift so l never had a chance. Did read that flyer of yours though…that really seemed crazy at the time, but from what I've seen lately, I know you're not crazy. Never were. It's everybody else that's crazy.”
He seemed surprised and somewhat abashed at what he had just said. He gestured to the tray, which had started to steam. “Better eat that while it's hot.” As LaNague turned away, the guard moved closer to the bars and spoke again. “One more thing…I'm not supposed to do this, but-” He thrust his open right hand between the bars.
LaNague grasped it and shook it firmly. “What's your name?”
“Steen. Chars Steen.”
“Glad to know you, Steen.”
“Not as glad as I am to know you!” He turned and quickly strode toward the exit at the end of the walkway.
LaNague stood and looked at the tray for a while, moved by the small but significant gesture of solidarity from the guards. Perhaps he had touched people more deeply than he realized. Sitting down before the tray, he lifted the lid. He really wasn't hungry, but made himself eat. After all, it was a gift.
He managed to swallow a few bites, but had to stop when Mora drifted through his mind. Since his arrest he had been doing his best to fend off the thought of her, but lost the battle now. She would be learning of his capture soon, hopefully not from the vid. Telling her beforehand would have been impossible. Mora would have done everything in her power to stop him; failing that, she would have tried to be arrested along with him, despite the way he had been treating her.
A short spool had been left explaining everything…a rotten way to do it, but the only way. With his appetite gone, he scraped the remaining contents of the tray into the commode and watched them swirl away, then crawled back into the recess and forced himself to sleep. It was better than thinking about what Mora was going through.
“HOW COULD YOU let him do it?” Mora's voice was shrill, her gestures frantic as she twisted in her seat trying to find a comfortable position. There was none. Her mind had been reeling from the news about Josef-now this!
“How could I stop him?” Radmon Sayers said defensively as he stood before her in the LaNague apartment. He had waited until the pilot and his wife had fallen asleep in the other room, then had put on the spool and let LaNague explain it himself.
“Someone else could have gone! One of his loyal”-she hated herself for the way she snarled the word-“followers could have taken his place! No one in the Imperium knows what Robin Hood looks like!”
“He didn't feel he could allow anyone else to be placed in custody as the most wanted man in the out-worlds. And frankly, I respect that decision.”
Mora sank back in her chair and nodded reluctantly. It was unfair of her to castigate Sayers, or to call into question the courage of any of the Merry Men. She knew Peter-although with the way he had been behaving since her arrival on Throne, perhaps not as well as she had thought. But he had never been good at asking favors of anyone, even a simple favor that was due him. He preferred to take care of it himself and get it out of the way rather than impose on anyone. So the idea of asking someone else to risk his life posing as Robin Hood would have been completely beyond him.
“I'm sorry,” she mumbled through a sigh. “It's just that I had the distinct impression he had someone else in mind as the public's Robin Hood.”
“That may have been a calculated effect for your benefit.”
“Maybe. What are we supposed to do now?”
Sayers fished in his pocket and came up with three vid spools. “We wait for an opportunity to play one of these over the air.”
“What's on them?” Mora asked, rising from her seat.
“Your husband…making an appeal to the people of Throne to choose between Metep and Robin Hood.”
“Are they any good? Will they convince anyone?” She didn't like the expression on Sayers’ face.
“I can't say.” He kept his eyes on the spools in his hand. “A lot of the public's acceptance will depend on the fact that he's been identified as Robin Hood. The news bulletins should be breaking just about now, although hardly anybody's watching. But all of Throne will know by breakfast.”
“Play one for me.”
“There's three, one for each of the contingencies he thought possible.”
“Play them all.”
Sayers plugged them into the apartment holovid set, one after another. Mora watched with growing dismay, an invisible hand making a fist with her heart in the middle, gripping it tighter and tighter until she was sure it must stop beating. Peter's messages to the people of Throne were beautifully precise and well reasoned. They pointed out the velvet-gloved tyranny of the Imperium, and the inevitable consequences. No one living in the economic holocaust engulfing Throne could deny the truth of what he said. He appealed on the grounds of principle and pragmatism. But there was some vital element missing.
“He's doomed,” Mora said in a voice that sounded as hollow as she felt. The third spool had just finished throwing out its holographic image of Peter LaNague, alias Robin Hood, sitting at a desk and calmly telling whoever might be listening to rise up and put an end to the Outworld Imperium once and for all.
Sayers puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly. “That's what I told him when we recorded these. But he wouldn't listen.”
“No…of course he wouldn't. He expects everyone in the galaxy to respond to pure reason, now that he's finally got their attention.” She gestured toward the vid set. “A Tolivian or a Flinter would understand and respond fiercely to any one of those spools. But the people of Throne?”
She went to the window. Pierrot sat on the sill, drooping heavily over the edge of his pot in the morose kengai configuration. She had watered the tree, spoken to it, but nothing she did brought it upright again. She looked beyond to the dark empty streets awaiting dawn, and thought about Peter. He h
ad become a different man since leaving Tolive-cold, distant, preoccupied, even ruthless. But those spools…they were the work of a fool!
“Why didn't he listen to you, or check with me, or take somebody's advice? Those spools are dry, pedantic, didactic, and emotionally flat. They may get a good number of people nodding their heads and agreeing in the safety of their homes, but they won't get them out in the street, running and shaking their fists in the air and screaming at the tops of their lungs for an end to Metep and his rotten Imperium.” She whirled and faced Sayers. “They won't work!”
“They're all we've got.”
Mora saw the three spools sitting in a row beside the vid set. With one swift motion she snatched them up, hurled them into the dissociator in the corner, and activated it.
Sayers leaped forward, but too late. “No!” He stared at her in disbelief. “Do you realize what you've done? Those were the only copies!”
“Good. Now we'll have to think of something else.” She paused. It had been necessary to destroy the spools. As long as they remained intact, Sayers would have felt duty-bound to find a way to broadcast them. But with them now gone beyond any hope of retrieval, he was free to act on his own-and to listen to her. Mora had already concocted a variation on Peter's basic plan. But she would need help-Flinter help. With Josef dead and Kanya gone she knew not where, Mora would have to turn to other Flinters. They were available, filtering down in a steady stream over the past few weeks, setting up isolated enclaves, waiting for the time when their services would be needed. Mora knew where to find them.
HE WAS ALMOST THERE. Gasping for breath, Broohnin stopped on a rise and looked back at the dim glow that was Primus City. Last year it would have lit up half the sky at this distance, but with gloglobes fast becoming an endangered species on its streets, the city was a faint ghost of its former self. He sat down for a moment and scanned the terrain behind him, watching for any sign of movement as his lungs caught up to his body.
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