Oath of Fealty

by Larry Niven

  The workmen had the tunnel open. Deputies squeezed through and when they were out of the way Donovan and Matson followed.

  "No doubt about it," Matson. said. "A new subway tunnel - well, we won't need bloodhounds to follow this trail."

  Donovan laughed, but he thought they might as well get out the bloodhounds. Nothing else was going to catch Sanders. Not just Sanders. He looked at the smooth-sided tunnel walls. "Just like magic," he said.

  "Which?"

  "We're looking for a magician. In this case a court magician."

  It was highly irritating to Donovan that Oliver Matson hadn't seen the documentary. Donovan hated to explain jokes.

  The meeting was in an apartment that showed on no maps of Todos Santos. It would have taken twenty people with excellent measuring instruments the better part of a day merely to prove there was an apartment there; finding the entrance and getting it open would take a lot longer.

  Most of the Todos Santos brass was there, and Tony Rand basked in their approbation. Everything had gone well (and he could forget just how scared he'd been).

  "What about the other guy?" Bonner asked. "Pres's cell-mate. Maybe you should have done him a favor."

  "Whooo-ee," Sanders said. He bellowed laughter. "Jesus, no, Art. Harris is only in there on weekends! He'd have screamed bloody murder, to find out the cops are after him and-" He stopped laughing, and the general mood of euphoria faded. "So what happens now?"

  "Several choices," Bonner said. "All of them reasonable. How would you like my job?"

  "That's silly-"

  "Not here," Bonner said. "And not an arcology. But Romulus has a lot of operations, and the top slot's open in one of them. How do you feel about going to Africa?"

  Sanders lifted one eyebrow. "Seems a long way to run-"

  Bonner spread his hands. "We'll talk about it in the morning. As I said, it's your choice. You wouldn't have to go too far - don't forget, at the moment the police have no proof that you escaped. You may be the victim of a kidnapping."

  The grin, or part of it, returned to Sanders. "Do you really think we can pin it on the Fromates?"

  Frank Mead snorted. "Wouldn't want to, would we? We saved one of our own, and I'd like it if everybody in the LA Basin knows it. As long as they can't prove it." He looked thoughtful. "We didn't actually put our autograph on anything, unless Tony --"

  "Would Picasso refrain from signing his masterpiece?"

  "Sign it or not, they'll guess," Art Bonner said. He giggled suddenly. "Speaking of signing your work-"

  "What?" Barbara asked.

  "The muggers. What should we do with the muggers?"

  "Kill the sons of bitches," Frank Mead said.

  "Hey, no," Sanders yelled. "Hey -"

  "Don't worry, we won't," Bonner said. "Frank didn't mean that anyway."

  Mead shrugged and massaged his fist. He had bruises under his large ring and on two knuckles, but there was a pensively happy smile on his face. "So what do we do with the meat heads? Where are they, anyway?"

  "In a dark room off Medical," Bonner said. "I believe the technical term is 'under heavy sedation.' Of course we'll have to let them go, eventually."

  "They were bad dudes," Mead said.

  "Hard on Los Angeles," Delores said.

  "Nothing Los Angeles doesn't deserve. But I had an idea-"

  "Should we be making decisions now?" Barbara asked. "We're all pretty soused."

  "Good point, sweetheart," Bonner said. He went to her and took her hand. "Let's go home. Oh. Tony-"

  "Yeah?"

  "The LA cops will want you for questioning. I'd as soon they didn't find you."

  Delores came up and put her arm through Tony's. "That answers one question," she said.

  Tony frowned the question at her.

  "My place or yours? We can't go to yours," she said. "Mine will be safe enough. For a while." She marched him out of the room.

  XIX. RETRIBUTION

  They cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed nor excommunicated, for they have no souls.

  -Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of England

  Sutton's Hospital Case. 10 Report 32, 1628

  Her position was odd, and she was cold. The sheets and blankets were twisted all to hell. Delores untangled them enough to pull them over her head.

  Feeling nice ... feeling sleepy. Would she be able to get back to sleep? They hadn't slept much last night.

  Where was Tony?

  She heard the ting of room service delivery, and smelled coffee. Coffee and unidentifiable breakfast smells. Suddenly her hunger was like teeth gnashing in her belly.

  Shorted on sleep, they'd burned considerable energy last night. The court magician had never before shown any such tendency toward satyriasis. Being a hero must make a man horny, Delores thought.

  She sat up and called, "What have we got?"

  "All kinds of things." Tony sounded cheerful, and well he might. "Melon. Blinis. Eggs Benedict. Coffee and hot milk. Vodka right out of a freezer."

  She came to see. So little time, so much to do-She tore into a thick wedge of honey-dew melon, and for a time there was silence. Tony seemed as hungry as she was. Even so-"Hombre, we'll never eat all this! Which are blinis? The pancakes?"

  "Right. Beluga caviar, sour cream and a splash of hot butter between two buckwheat pancakes. The iced vodka goes with the blinis, if you've a mind. Who's gonna question my expense account on a day like today?"

  Her spoon stopped moving. Your last day. She looked up. Had he guessed?

  He had. "Lunan gave me too much publicity. The Angelino cops are sure to guess who did it. Where do you think they'll send me?"

  She cut into a blini while she considered. Art might send Tony out with Pres Sanders. They got along. Or ... it hit her as she raised the fork to her mouth. The appointment with Sir George Reedy. Art would try to sell him Tony's contract. Canada!

  Then she tasted the magic of a blini. "Tony, it's wonderfuL"

  "Yeah. You'd have to own Todos Santos to eat like this every day. I'm glad the Soviets are finally cleaning up their rivers. Hey, Delores, I don't really care where they send me-"

  She couldn't tell him. Art wouldn't like her jumping the gun.

  "-I just want to know you're coming with me."

  In that moment she knew the answer. Guarding her boss's secrets from her lover, automatically, reflexively, told her where her loyalty lay. She said, "I'm not."

  Tony said nothing, but the life went out of his face. He swallowed, with difficulty. He started to say something, stopped.

  She couldn't let him beg. In haste she said, "Tony, I've got power and respect here. I'm the General Manager's secretary. It's an important job-"

  "I'd probably be moving to another arcology. Or building one."

  "And I'd be the court magician's old lady. Tony, I didn't even settle for General Manager's mistress! That's an interchangeable slot -- no pun intended-"

  Tony's laugh was more of a bark, and Delores didn't smile. "I want something permanent. I've got it here."

  Now he looked up. "You know, the whole city wondered why you and Art broke it up."

  "No privacy in this place."

  He poured a thimbleful of vodka into a chilled liqueur glass. "You gave me one classic hero's welcome," he said. "I won't ever forget."

  "Pour me one too."

  "You've gone insane," John Shapiro said. "Absolutely bonkers."

  Lieutenant Donovan nodded to himself. Right enough by me, he thought. They've all gone nuts.

  They stood at the main surface entrance to Todos Santos. An enormous banner fluttered overhead: THINK OF IT AS EVOLUTION IN ACTION.

  They were surrounded by police and lawyers. Donovan could see: uniformed Todos Santos guards to the rank of major; three FBI men; federal marshals; scads of Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies, some in uniform and others in plain clothes; his own three LAPD cops; two United States Attorneys; and four Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys, one of whom had just
served a paper on the Todos Santos General Manager.

  Plus five Todos Santos attorneys including John Shapiro, who had insisted on reading the warrant, aloud, from beginning to end. Eventually he finished.

  "You can't search an entire city," Shapiro said. "Even if that were possible, you can't do it with a single warrant! If you want to look somewhere, you have to get a warrant for that particular place-"

  "Impossible!" the Deputy D.A. said. "There are too many places-"

  "About a hundred thousand private apartments," Shapiro agreed. "And each one a separate dwelling.' ... and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.' Sixth Amendment."

  "I know that."

  "I wondered," Shapiro said. "Because it doesn't look as if you've read it lately. You've got some of the second part. Persons to be seized, Preston Sanders and Anthony Rand - although I challenge your proper cause for wanting to arrest Mr. Rand. But the rest of this document is ridiculous. How ever did you get a judge to sign it?"

  "It's signed," a sheriff's deputy said. "Now let us in."

  "And another thing. You name MILLIE as a 'place to be searched.' Just how do you propose to search a computer?"

  They were interrupted by a burst of laughter from the Todos Santos manager. "He looks like he's got canary feathers in his whiskers," Donovan muttered to his assistant.

  "These papers are in order," the D.A.'s spokesman said. "Now are you going to let us in or do we have to break in?"

  Shapiro shrugged and looked to the General Manager. "Mr. Bonner?"

  "Admit them under protest. Get their names and badge numbers. We'll want to sue." Bonner turned and stamped away.

  Shapiro stood aside, and Donovan followed the horde of police through the entryway and into the broad corridor.

  "Where the hell do we start?" Sergeant Ortiz asked.

  Donovan shrugged. "Thank God I'm not in charge of this farce. Cops sure can be stupid sometimes. I don't know what those guys will do, but what we do is nothing. We're not going to find anything, and we all know it. Why go through the motions?" He paused in thought. "For that matter, I'm not so sure I want to find this Rand character. Next time they might take away the whole damned jail."

  "Or City Hall."

  "In there," Guard Lieutenant Blake said. He indicated a low door. "I'll be here in the service tunnel, and Security is watching all the corridors. If the Angelino cops get close, we'll hold them up."

  "Right," Tony Rand said. "Thanks."

  The access door from the service corridor was low, and Tony had to duck to get through into Art Bonner's temporary office. It nearly matched the real thing. The desk and viewscreens were almost identical, though the shelves were empty of the sailing memorabilia and other clutter that Bonner kept.

  The door outside claimed the suite was an apartment occupied by a retired Marine colonel. Inside were Bonner, Barbara Churchward, and Sir George Reedy.

  "Come in, Tony," Bonner said. "We're just putting the finishing touches on our agreement-"

  Sir George didn't look very happy. Tony regarded the Canadian's expression and asked, "How much are you getting for my contract?"

  "Oh, we're being quite reasonable," Barbara said cheerfully.

  "It's too much," Reedy protested. "He's a wanted man. They'll extradite him and we'll have nothing for all that money."

  "No, you can give him political asylum," Bonner said. "If it comes to that, which I doubt. I doubt they'll even try on a federal level. If they do, Shapiro can keep the State Department tied in knots for years. It isn't as if they had any real evidence that Tony was involved in their jailbreak. Our problem is that they can keep him in courtrooms forever."

  "Do I get a say in this?" Tony asked.

  "Sure, Tony," Bonner said. "It's this way. You have a contract with Romulus Corporation. Romulus is negotiating consultation fees for helping the Canadians build their new arcology. They want a lot of engineering help. If you like, you'll be in charge of the engineering team. That's one of your alternatives-I would have thought the most attractive one."

  "What are the others?"

  "You can go to Zimbabwe with Pres-"

  Tony Rand frowned. "Zimbabwe? Where the devil is that?"

  "It used to be called 'Rhodesia,'" Barbara said.

  "Why would Pres want to go to Rhodesia?" Tony demanded.

  Sir George's eyebrows lifted.

  Barbara laughed. "He really doesn't know, Sir George. He never pays attention to anything outside Todos Santos. Tony, Zimbabwe was a colony run by whites until a few years ago. Now it has a black government. A fairly good one, as such things go in Africa. Romulus has had its eye on Pres as honcho of corporate operations there for a long time; now's a very good chance. We put the idea to Pres, and he likes it."

  Tony nodded. Pres would like it. A good promotion, with a chance to run his own show. Would he resent getting this promotion because he was black? Or find that amusing? Have to ask him...

  "So you could go with him," Bonner was saying. "You work well with Sanders, and Romulus has some extensive civil engineering operations in Zimbabwe. It would be a good place to stash you until we need you on the orbital construction shack-"

  Rand looked from Bonner to Reedy. "Umh huh. That last part sounds pretty good," he said.

  Reedy chuckled. "You needn't bring out the sandbags." He looked thoughtful. "But there's the general strike that Councilman Planchet has called against Todos Santos. I'm not certain I want economic reprisals taken against me-and there would be for hiring Mr. Rand."

  "Well, they might try it, but what can they really do to you?" Bonner asked. "They're too far away."

  They're too far from Canada, Tony Rand thought. But not too far from us! A general strike! That's got to have Art worried out of his mind. He doesn't show it, but it's got to be hurting us- "Perhaps you're right," Sir George said. He stared pensively at the ceiling for a moment, then said, "I'd want it clearly understood that we have you two on call. I'll want you by hologram for at least ten hours a month, and two weeks a year actually in residence."

  "Both of us?" Barbara asked.

  "Certainly," Reedy said.

  Bonner looked thoughtful. So did Churchward and Reedy. Now they're doing it again, Tony thought. Consulting. From the look on Sir George's face, they've cut him out-now they've let him overhear something-damn, what must that be like? I've got to find out. And maybe- Tony cleared his throat. "I've never been to Africa," he said. "It sounds good."

  Nobody paid any attention to him for a moment. Then Barbara smiled, slightly. "Oh, come on, Tony."

  "We can at least consider it."

  Bonner shook his head. His look was decisive. All right, Tony thought. I'll shut up. But just for now. You've not heard the last of this!

  There was more silence. Then all three, Bonner, Churchward, and Reedy, were smiling. "Eight hours a month and ten days a year," Art Bonner said. "Excellent."

  "Agreed," Sir George said. He extended his hand, then withdrew it slightly. "Mind you, I'll not aid in helping either of them escape."

  "No need," Bonner said. "You'll take care of sending Sanders on to Salisbury. We'll get them both to Canada."

  "Quite. Very well." He extended his hand again. Bonner took it, and after a moment Barbara put hers atop the other two.

  Leaving me out, Tony thought. Taking me for granted. We'll show them, we will-

  Bonner stood. "A moment." He stood silently for a moment. Sir George joined him in the pose. They waited nearly a minute, then Bonner opened the outer office door. A uniformed Todos Santos guard stood outside.

  "Sir George will be leaving this afternoon," Bonner said. "I expect he'd like to pack now."

  "Right," the guard said. He led Reedy away.

  Bonner came back and closed the door.

  "OK, sweets, what does Tony think he's doing?"

  "0 come on, Art, It's obvious what he wan
ts."

  "Tee hee. You'll see it in a second. I'm surprised at you."

  THE POLICE HAVE REQUESTED ALL FILES UNDER DIRECTORY TITLE RAND.

  "Dump it for them at 300 baud."

  "Art! Are you sure?"

  "We cleaned Rand's directory first thing. Took out everything not routine, then we added a few files. Old engineering catalogues. Maintenance schedules. Ratings of TV shows. Makes a pretty big file-" MILLIE, what is the total stored in Rand's directory?