“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. Adrenalin 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 shouldn'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.
IT WAS MIDDAY WHEN BOUCHER RETURNED, hurrying down the walkway, carrying something in his hand.
“You married?” he shouted from half the length of the corridor.
Filled with an unstable mixture of curiosity and dread, LaNague hesitated. “Yes,” he finally managed to say. “Why?”
“Because somebody who says she's your wife is on the vid!” Boucher said, urging his bulky frame into a trot. “And is she going to be in trouble!” He puffed up to LaNague's cell and held out a hand-sized vid set. It was a flat screen model and Mora's face filled the viewplate.
LaNague watched with growing dismay as Mora sent out a plea for all those who had come to believe in Robin Hood to come to his aid. She was saying essentially what LaNague himself had said on the second pre-recorded spool-the one to be played for the trial contingency-but not the way he had said it. Her appeal was rambling, unfocused, obviously unrehearsed. She was ruining everything.
Or was she?
As LaNague listened, he realized that although Mora was speaking emotionally, the emotion was clearly genuine. She was afraid for her man and was making an appeal to any of his friends who might be listening to help him now when he needed them. Her eyes shone as she spoke, blazing with conviction. She was reaching for the heart as well as the mind, and risking her life to do it. Her message was for all Throners; but most of all, for her husband.
As she paused briefly before beginning her appeal again, Boucher glanced at LaNague, his voice thick. “That's some woman you've got there.”
LaNague nodded, unable to speak. Turning his face away, he walked to the far corner of his cell and stood there, remembering how he had so bitterly resented Mora's very presence on Throne, his cold rejection of the warmth, love, and support she had offered. Through the thousand tiny insults and affronts he had heaped on her during the past few months, she had remained true to him, and truer than he to the cause they shared. He remained in the corner until he could breathe evenly again, until the muscles in his throat were relaxed enough to permit coherent speech, until the moisture welling in his eyes had receded to a normal level. Then he returned to the bars to watch and listen to the rest of Mora's appeal.
THEY MAY HAVE confined him to quarters, but at least he wasn't incommunicado. He had turned to the vid to see what Sayers would be saying to the public on his Robin Hood news special; but instead of the vidcaster's familiar face in the holofield, there was a strange woman calling herself Robin Hood's wife, pleading for revolution. He immediately tried to contact the studio, but no calls were being taken through the central circuits at the building. Checking a special directory, he found a security code to make the computer patch him through to the control booth in Sayers’ studio.
A technician took the call. He did not look well. Although he recognized Daro Haworth immediately, it seemed to have little effect on him.
“What is going on over there? I want that transmission cut immediately! Immediately! Do you hear?”
“I can't do that, sir.”
“Unless you want this to be the last free day of your life,” Haworth screamed, “you will cut that transmission!”
“Sir…” The technician adjusted the angle on his visual pickup to maximum width, revealing a number of black-cloaked figures with red circles painted on their foreheads and weapons belts across their chests arrayed behind him. “Do you see my predicament?”
Flinters! Was Robin Hood a Flinter? “How did they get in?”
The technician shrugged. “All of a sudden they were here with the woman. Radmon seemed to be expecting them.”
Sayers! Of course he'd be involved!
“What about security? Didn't anyone try to stop them?”
The technician glanced over his shoulder, then back to Haworth. “Would you? We got an alarm off immediately but no one's showed up yet.”
At that point, one of the Flinters leaned over and broke the connection. Shaken, but still functioning, Haworth immediately sta
bbed in the code to Commander Tinmer over at the Imperial Guard garrison. The commander answered the chime himself, and his expression was far from encouraging.
“Don't say it!” he said as soon as he recognized Haworth. “I've been personally trying to muster a force big enough to retake the broadcast station ever since we received the alarm.”
“You've had plenty of time!”
“We're having some minor discipline problems here. The men are letting us know how unhappy they are with the way their pay has been handled recently. There's been a delay here and there in the currency shipments due to breakdowns in machinery over at Treasury, and the men seem to think that if the pay can be late, they can be late.” His sudden smile was totally devoid of humor. “Don't worry. The problem's really not that serious. Just some flip talk and sloganeering. You know…‘No pay, no fight’…that sort of thing.”
“What are they doing instead of obeying orders?”
Tinmer's smile died. “Instead of scrambling to their transports as ordered, most of them are still in their barracks watching that whore on the vid. But don't worry. We'll straighten everything out. Just need a little more time, is all. I-”
Haworth slammed his fist viciously against the power plate, severing the connection. He now saw the whole plan. The final pieces had just angled into place. But there was no attendant rush of triumph, only crushing depression. For he could see no way of salvaging the Imperium and his place within it. No way at all, except…
He pushed that thought away. It wasn't for him.
Gloom settled heavily. Haworth had devoted his life to the Imperium, or rather to increasing its power and making that power his own. And now it was all slipping away from him. By the end of the day he would be a political nonentity, a nobody, all his efforts of the past two decades negated by that man down in max-sec, that man who called himself Robin Hood.
It no longer mattered whether or not he was actually Robin Hood. The Imperium itself had identified him as such and that was good enough for the public. They were ready to follow him-Haworth could sense it. No matter if he were the true mastermind behind the colossal conspiracy that had brought the Imperium to its present state, or just a standin, the public knew his face and he would live in the battered and angry minds of all out-worlders as Robin Hood.
Or die…
The previously rejected thought crept back into focus. Yes, that was a possible way out. If the proclaimed messiah were dead, the rabble would have no one to follow, no rallying point, no alternative to Metep and the Imperium. They would be enraged at his death, true, but they would be leaderless…and once again malleable.
It just might work. It had to work. But who to do it? Haworth could think of no one he could trust who could get close enough, and no one close enough he could trust to do it. Which left Haworth himself. The thought was repugnant-not the idea of killing, per se, but actually doing it himself. He was used to giving orders, to having others take care of unpleasant details. Trouble was, he had run out of others.
He went to a locked compartment in the wall and tapped in a code to open it. After the briefest hesitation, he withdrew a small blaster, palm-sized with a wrist clamp. He had bought it when civil disorder had threatened, when street gangs had moved out to the more affluent neighborhoods, oblivious to the prestige and position of their victims. He never dreamed it would be used for something like this.
Hefting the lightweight weapon in his hand, Haworth almost returned it to the compartment. He'd never get away with it. Still…with an abrupt motion, he slammed the door shut and clamped the blaster to his right wrist.
As far as he could see, there was no choice. Robin Hood had to die if Haworth's life was to retain any meaning, and an opportunity to kill without being seen might come along. The tiny blaster could be angled in such a way that he could appear to be scratching the side of his face while sighting in on the target. With caution, and a great deal of luck, he could get away with it.
If he didn't get away with it-if he killed LaNague but was identified as the assassin, he would no doubt be torn to pieces on the spot. Haworth shrugged to no one but himself. It was worth the risk. If Robin Hood lived, the goals Haworth had pursued throughout his life would be placed far beyond his reach; if he killed him and was discovered, Haworth's very life would be taken from him. He could not decide which was worse.
Allowed to run its conclusion, the Robin Hood plan would mean the end of everything Haworth had worked for. He would lose the power to shape the future of out-world civilization as he saw fit. He would be reduced from a maker of history to a footnote in history. Without ever standing for election, he had become a major guiding power within the Imperium…and perhaps should take some blame for guiding it into its current state. But he could fix everything-he was sure of it! All he needed was a little more time, a little more control, and a lot less Robin Hood.
THERE WERE FULLY a dozen guards escorting LANAGUE to Freedom Hall. He noticed Boucher in the lead and Steen among them, even though it wasn't his shift. The prisoners on max-sec all shouted encouragement as he was led away. So did the remaining guards.
“Boucher told me what you said about someone trying to kill you,” Steen whispered as they marched through the tunnel that passed under the Complex and surfaced at the private entrance to Freedom Hall. “I think you're crazy but decided to come along anyway. Lots of crazy people around these days.”
LaNague could only nod. The eerie feeling that he would never leave Freedom Hall alive was stealing over him again. Attributing it to last-minute panic didn't work. Nothing shook it loose, not even his fervent disbelief in premonitions of any sort.
His escort stopped in a small antechamber that opened onto the dais at the end of the immense hall. The traditional elevated throne for Metep, a diadem-like structure with a central pedestal six meters high, had been set up center stage with five seats in a semicircle around it at floor level. To the right of it, closer to LaNague, a makeshift dock had been constructed, looking like a gallows.
All for me, he thought.
Although he could catch only meager glimpses of it between the heads of his escort, it was the crowd that caught and held LaNague's attention. There were people out there. Lots of them. More people than he ever thought could possibly squeeze into Freedom Hall. A sea of humanity lapping at the dais. And from what he could gather, there were thousands more outside the building, trying to push their way in. All were chanting steadily, the various pitches and timbres and accents merging into a nondescript roar, repeating over and over:
“…FREE ROBIN!..FREE ROBIN!..FREE ROBIN!..”
When the Council of Five finally made its appearance, its members looked distinctly uneasy as they glanced at the unruly crowd surging against the bulkhead of Imperial Guard, three men deep at all points and fully armed, that separated them from their loyal subjects. Haworth came in last, and LaNague had the impression that he was under some sort of guard himself. Had the chief adviser been threatened, or had he decided to skip the public trial and been overruled? Interesting.
The noise from the crowd doubled at sight of the council, the two words of the chant ricocheting off the walls, permeating the air. And it trebled when Metep VII, dressed in his ceremonial finest for the vid cameras sending his image to the millions of Throners who could not be here, was led in and rode his throne up the pedestal to the top of the diadem.
All six of the Imperium's leaders appeared disturbed by the chant, but in different ways. The council members were overtly fearful and looked as if nothing would please them more than to be somewhere else, the farther away the better. Metep VII, however, looked annoyed, angry, suitably imperious. He was taking the chant as a personal affront. Which, of course, it was.
When his seat had reached the top of the diadem's central pedestal, Metep spoke. Directional microphones focused automatically on him and boomed his amplified voice over the immense crowd within, and out to the throngs surrounding Freedom Hall and choking the streets leading
to it.
“There will be silence during these proceedings,” he said in a voice that carried such confidence and authority that the crowd quieted to hear what he had to say. “Any observers who cannot conduct themselves in a manner suitable to the gravity of the matter at hand will be ejected.” He looked to his left. “Bring out the prisoner.”
As LaNague was led to the dock, the crowd rustled and rippled and surged like the waters of a bay raised to a chop by a sudden blast of wind. People were pushing forward, craning their necks, climbing on each other's shoulders for a look at the man who had made it rain money. The Imperial Guardsmen assigned to crowd control had their hands full, but even they managed a peek over their shoulders at the dock.
There were a few cheers, a few short-lived, disorganized chants of “Free Robin!” but mostly a hushed awe. LaNague looked out on the sea of faces and felt a horrific ecstasy jolt through him. They were for him-he could feel it. But they were so strong, so labile…they could wreak terrible damage if they got out of control. Much would depend on pure luck from here on in.
“The prisoner's name is Peter LaNague, and he has freely admitted to being the criminal known as Robin Hood. He is to be tried today for armed robbery, sedition, and other grievous crimes against the state.”
The crowd's reaction was spontaneous: multiple cries of “No!” merged smoothly and quickly into a single, prolonged, deafening, “NOOOOO!”
Metep was overtly taken aback by the response, but with a contemptuous toss of his head he pressed on, fumbling only on the first word when he spoke again.
“Due to the extraordinary nature of the crimes involved, the trial will be held before a tribunal consisting of Metep and the Council of Five, rather than the traditional jury. This is in accordance with the special emergency powers available to the Imperium during times of crisis such as these.”
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