"Nkuma."
An electric tingle slithered up my back as I fought down the rage monster. "No."
"He was between runs into the desert. Dom and Fodder were with him. Dom took the case."
"No." I slumped back in my chair. Alna, Jontine, now Nkuma. After all that he had survived, after all that he had done for us, to die because some straightmeat put on a panic over a damned gun. I picked at a loose splinter on the table's edge. "Give me the story." I whispered.
"The perp's name is Ton Bakong," said Cap. "He loaded his jury down with his Kvasiri buddies, then he went for self defense. Nkuma didn't even have a piece with him. The jury voted him not guilty. Afterward, Dom and three of the witnesses came to Stays and told him the facts. Nkuma had asked Bakong for the rifle, and Bakong refused. Nkuma told the perp it would mean a trial for keeping what wasn't his, and that the payback could wipe his rations. Bakong still refused and Nkuma turned to get an RC to handle it when Bakong shot him in the back. Dom called ragtime, the jury said not guilty, and according to Rule 25, the Second Bad Call Rule, false jurors draw the max under consideration. And that's where it's hung up."
"Hung up?"
"That's right. I guess it isn't any more complicated than neither Stays nor any of the other RCs are comfortable about performing thirteen executions."
"There's that 'comfortable' word again. Where's the jury?"
"They're all hiding out with Paxati's gang."
What do you know, I thought as I drummed my fingertips on the table top. The Razai Cops are waiting for Bando Nicos to come home and scoop the poop. Prophet's ghost and I knew that I wasn't going to be around to clean up the dogshit by myself much longer. It was high time for the rest of the RCs to get their pretty little fingers dirty. Tying up the loose ends left over from the Nkuma v. Bakong case might be just the ticket.
"Cap, you were going to say why Paxati made his camp so close."
"Yes. For once the money threads are on our side—"
"No," I interrupted. "Every now and then a cockroach might agree with a human, like about where to live, sleep, or eat, but they're never on our side. Cockroaches are only on the side of the cockroaches."
"Bando, you know you've got a bit of an attitude?"
"Everybody's where they're supposed to be, as Big Dave used to say."
"Maybe this might change your mind just a shade. The cockroaches that went with Paxati cried foul about Bakong getting off. They think there should be a new trial, so they got Paxati to arrange it. Right now he's holding Ton Bakong and the jury prisoner."
"They can't hold prisoners."
"Sure they can. They're not Razai, and the prisoners aren't exactly asking us for help."
I scratched at my beard and nodded as I thought that this was exactly the opportunity I needed to groom the RCs for life beyond Bando. I looked up at Cap. "What's the deal?"
"Paxati and his legal types want to meet on neutral ground to discuss it."
I pushed my chair back and stood up. "And Kegel?"
"I'll begin putting together a force. As soon as you deal with the Bakong matter, we'll take care of Deke Kegel and Anna Tane."
I looked at Ondo and Deadeye and said, "Let Stays know what's up then get all the RCs together."
"All?" asked Deadeye.
"All of 'em. If they've got something in the fire, tell 'em to either wrap it up, stick it, or put a deputy on it. I want 'em all together in the same place before sunrise." I looked down at Cap.
"Get your strike force together. We're going to leave for the south right after sunup. The Bakong hash'll be settled by then." I looked at the one called Shava Ido. "Man, who are you?"
"I'm Yani Comini's number two."
There was something about the guy that bothered me. I shrugged it off. Everything bothered me right then. I made a mental note to lend an eye in Shava's direction, though.
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Graduation
Waiting alone with your ghosts makes for a long night. I couldn't glance at the twin night stars without thinking of Alna and how she looked when she said that whenever I would see them, she would be watching them, too. I couldn't hold that image in my mind's eye. No sooner would I see her than the picture would be driven from me by the memory of her naked body strung by her guts from the sticks. That image would be followed by Anna Tane's face as she watched me going down for Kegel, followed by a strange mental thing. I would be on my back on the Split Plain Trail, Bando Nicos straddling my chest as he lifted a huge rock over his head and brought it down on my face.
"In time, Prophet," I would mutter. "In time." The present moment was the only one in which I could find some peace and get some work done. There was a lot of work to do, so I prayed and fought to stay in the now.
There were the RCs to assemble, a couple of trials in absentia to conduct, and a vote to put before the Razai. Shava Ido took charge of gathering the votes from Comini's former Hand jobs. There were too many of us to gather and vote town meeting style. This time we had to send out the proposed laws for the vote. Before that could be done, each unit of each guard and of the walking column had to elect a referee to moderate the discussions and take the vote. The purpose of the vote was to put in the hostage rules as laws, and the purpose of the hostage rules was to stop a nightmare before it started.
The First Hostage Rule, Rule 63, said that if you took a hostage, that is took a prisoner and held it for ransom, the penalty would be the max. The only way you could ease that is if your victim was still alive at the trial and issued some slack. The Second Hostage Rule, Rule 64, said that if your boss, or government, or the members of your gang took a hostage and you didn't do anything about it, it would be the max, the same chances for slack applied.
There wasn't enough time to put on a campaign and argue the hostage rules before each unit in the Razai. All we had time for was to send the proposal out, let the individual units thrash out the arguments, and get back the vote. I wasn't worried, though. Most of the straightmeats had left the Razai, which meant that the remainder had that crowbar eye. They didn't know much, but they knew the score regarding hostages. Many of the sharks had even taken hostages in their civilian lives, and during attempted prison breaks. By instinct they knew better than any straightmeat how the hostage takers needed to be approached.
Outside the headquarters sled, Marietta, Stays, and I sat on the ground and did our own little discussion by the light of a few fire cubes. Stays summed it up pretty good. He said, "It's simply an extension of the No Prisoners Law. Instead of just forbidding us to take prisoners, however, the hostage laws provide the max for anyone who tries to take the Razai prisoner. That's what the hostage taker tries to do. Using human lives for leverage, the hostage taker threatens torture and death to force others into doing what he wants."
"Slavery," commented Magic Mountain Marietta.
Stays nodded. "That is exactly right. That's what Kegel and Anna Tane are trying to do with the entire Razai. They're trying to make prisoners out of all of us." He looked down for a moment. It was pretty easy to tell that he was pawing over the times he and his political nut buddies had taken and used hostages as a way of achieving their ends.
"Hostages are useless to terrorists unless they can make getting the hostages out alive the opposition's highest priority. The vids used to give us that help for free. Man, did the camera jocks love the hostage message, weeping relative, yellow ribbon, flag at half mast, day twenty-seven countdown thing. In hours they could change a nation's first priority from the country's preservation to bringing home Bunky's dad by Christmas. And as soon as the viddies made the deaths of the hostages politically unacceptable, we had them. We could hold an entire nation prisoner." He glanced at me and smiled. "Bando, you remember that pol I tried to kidnap?"
"The one that wasted your bunch of nutballs and dropped you in the crowbars? Sure, I remember."
"During the trial we found ou
t that the pol had given standing orders for her bodyguards, in case of a kidnapping, to disregard her life and kill the kidnappers. I hated her guts for a lot of reasons, but the main reason was that she had beaten me. She beat me by knowing me and understanding what I was attempting to do, and by knowing that her life wasn't her number one priority."
"I saw her at a news conference," said Marietta. "I heard her say you don't negotiate with kidnappers. You kill 'em. The vids thought she was some kind of right wing whack."
"So did the black rag on my case," said Stays. "That's why I got the Crotch instead of lethal rays."
Marietta shook her massive head. "What about Nance, though? What about Mercy Jane?"
I looked into her huge brown eyes. "Before I left Kegel's camp Mercy Jane talked to me. Nance and her already consider themselves dead. She told me that my job—our job—is to get back there and waste those monsters."
We cast our votes, and in our little bunch, it was unanimous. After all, we knew life wasn't sacred. There's nothing cheaper than individual human life. If the sixty or seventy thousand who starved to death on Earth every day couldn't teach us that, the crowbars and the Forever Sand could. It's no trick to get power over someone's life. Any chup with an ice pick and an attitude can do that. Whenever you found someone who had his or someone else's life as his number one priority, you just locked up that someone. Sharks hate locks. Locks are someone else in control. Locks make prisoners—slaves. Now it was up to the rest of the Razai. They wouldn't vote for the locks.
The strike force that would do Kegel's camp needed to be organized and outfitted. Each rider would be an experienced fighter, armed with a converted rifle, and loaded with as many ammo clips as he could carry. There would be two mounts for each rider, because we had to travel fast. We weren't under any illusions about Anna Tane being stupid enough to sit and wait for us. We did expect to surprise her some, though, by showing up early.
There were some other details to tidy up, as well. Number one was straightening out the Nkuma v. Bakong fiasco in such a way that the proper messages would arrive in the proper places and burn there for eternity. Stays, Marietta, Fodder, Deadeye, me, and a few others were waiting for the rest of the RCs to report in when a messenger brought word that Bloody Sarah had arrived at the point guard with Kegel's second supply train. The message contained a couple of surprises. First, Kegel's guards on the train had offered no resistance and were now members of the Razai. This added thousands of armed soldiers to the Razai and enough stuff to arm and feed thousands more. On top of that was lots and lots of ammunition. We could really afford to let those auto nuts bark. The second surprise was that Jak Edge had been with the supply train.
I was in the process of telling the messenger to have Bloody Sarah drag Jak's bleeding carcass down to me when Jak Edge in the flesh came riding his critter out of the night. He was armed, his chest crossed with ammo belts. That was the first time I'd ever seen him carrying a piece. As I felt my chow coming up in my throat, I clenched my jaws, kept my eyes on Jak, and said to Stays, "Watson, keep the party going. Jak and me want to be alone for a bit."
I turned and walked off in the grass. When I got far enough away from the others I stopped, struck a fire cube, stuck the cube to a greenstick, and thrust the other end of the stick into the ground. I turned and Jak was sitting on his critter watching me. I dropped my weapon and began taking off my ammo belts and sheet.
"Do you really want to do it this way, Bando?" he asked.
"Chup, I'm going to compost your ass. Get down off that critter so I can break you into a million pieces and then pee on the parts."
He slid down from his lugh and placed his piece across the critter's back. He lifted an ammo belt over his head and as he placed it on top of his rifle he said, "I agreed to steer you until you made contact with Kegel."
"Back when we made the No Prisoners Rule, you were told what would happen if you fought against the Razai."
"I didn't fight against the Razai." He studied me for a second then continued taking off his things. "You aren't interested in words right now."
I tossed my parka on the ground. "You got that right, you Kegel lovin' motherfucker you."
He dropped his sheet to the ground. The look in his eyes was murderous. "I guess I could use a little piece of you, too."
He ran at me and I swung for his face. As my fist grazed his jaw, Jak's fist drove into my belly and I doubled over in pain only to have my face meet a knee going in the opposite direction. My head exploded with lights, sounds, and the grand sire of all headaches. As I landed on my back I lifted my legs and kicked my heels into his stomach. Jak sat on the ground with a thump. I tried to push myself up so I could jump up and down on his face, but the pains in my head even made it impossible to stand. We sat there looking at each other.
"You said you didn't fight the Razai," I said.
"That's right."
"Why'd you leave us? Why'd you dump us right before the fight?"
Jak wrapped his arms around his belly, leaned forward, and shook his head. "I couldn't kill my own people. My own boy was old enough to be one of 'em."
"Was?"
He nodded and was silent for a long time. His voice was different when he resumed speaking. "My boy's dead. My wife, too. When I reached the supply train some o' my old riders were with it. They told me. Kegel's got a new thing goin'. He calls it gut stringin'."
"Yeah. I know." My head hurt so much I wanted to puke.
"He gut strung my wife and two sons." He pulled the toy pistol out from beneath his jacket and looked at it. "My boy, Rass, lasted over four days."
"You get the riders on the supply train to come over?"
Jak reached to his hip pocket and pulled out some papers. "This did. The law. They want it down south. Nobody wants to live in terror all the time, goin' from day to day hopin' the boss's whim of the moment won't land on you or on someone you love. The Razai's got somethin' real special with the law, Bando, and me and the men I brought in want a piece. A lot of us want a piece o' Kegel an' that bitch, too."
His eyes were glistening. I nodded and placed my hands on the ground as I tried to push myself up far enough to get my legs beneath me. "Help me up."
He got to his feet and pulled me up. I held onto him as the planet spun crazily beneath my feet. "I'm sorry about your wife and boys. We're putting together a little expedition to collect some payback from Anna Tane and Deke Kegel. Want to come along?"
"I think I'd like that." He bent over, picked up my parka and began helping me into it. "There's somethin' you need to know about me, Bando."
"Like?"
"I'm tellin' you because the law's important to me. It's important and there's somethin' I did." Jak bent over, picked up my sheet, and handed it to me. His eyes hid nothing as he looked me in the face.
"I'm the one who shot Nance Damas."
I dropped my sheet. "No. It wasn't you. I mean, I've never even seen you with a piece, except for that toy pistol."
"I borrowed a rifle from one of the Greenville sharks, Mik Karrell." Jak rubbed the back of his neck as he raised his eyebrows and nodded his head. "That bird could sleep through an earthquake. He didn't know anything about it."
I stared at him in shock. There wasn't any point in asking him why. If he could slow us down, disrupt things, he could make his way back south to the Sea of Stars and to his family. As it turned out, however, his enemy wasn't Nance and the Razai. It was Gutty Kegel and Anna Tane. And there Jak was, fresh from bringing us a supply train and thousands of new mounted soldiers. There he was declaring his love for the law and his willingness to take his medicine, which would probably be the max. Nance had been real clear about that.
The headache just wouldn't go away, and what to do seemed to be too bewildering to even guess at. My ghosts were getting restless, as well. The committee in my head staggered this way and that, each member bellowing its thoughts making it impossible to decide anything. Jak had shared his big secret to someone who had a
secret or two of his own.
I held onto his shoulder with one hand and tried to keep my head from exploding with the other. "Jesus, Jak, you really screwed up." I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. "What about me? Did you shoot me?"
"No." He didn't say anything else. He just stood there, looking at me. I pointed at my feet and he bent down and gathered up the rest of my things. As he handed them to me, I said, "Just keep your mouth shut about this, okay?"
"Don't make a joke out of the law for me, Bando."
"I won't. Not for you, not for me, not for anybody." I looped my ammo belts over my shoulders and took my piece. "But the payback is still Nance's, as long as she's alive. Nance asked me special to make sure that she could deliver her payback to the shooter in person. As long as she's still alive, we'll wait for her."
"I want her to make it, Bando. I hope you believe me."
"I believe you." I pointed back to where the RCs were gathering. "There are a few things that need to be settled before we go get Gutty and his bit. Join in. When we hit the camp tomorrow, I want you to be there."
"I want to be there, too."
I leaned on him the whole way back, my headache lumping and exploding at odd intervals. Since I was in no shape to arm wrestle an earthworm, trying to duke it out with Jak had not been my sharp move. By the time we made it back, three quarters of the RCs were there, including Dom. He had just brought in four new loads of sharks. They were getting their copies of the law, their share of weapons and training officers. Stays had already sent some RCs over to the protos to fill them in on the situation and help them elect referees.
Marantha Silver was there, too, and when I'd finally found a bundle of grass to sit on, she detached herself from the others and squatted down next to me. "How are you doing, Chief?"
"Fine."
"That bad, huh?" I looked at her and she had a skeptical smile on her face.
"What is it?"
Her look changed from concern to the expression a fox must have just before it nails a particularly elusive rabbit. She pulled a wad of papers from beneath her sheet. "We've got some possible ballistics matches on the slug that Mercy Jane dug out of Nance."
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