I thought to myself that I’d been right. He was equating his own good with the good of society, and if he succeeded, no one else’s rights or wishes would count, but only those of “society,” read to mean Castaneda. Or rather, I didn’t think at all, I just stood up. Kit anticipated me, though.
My darling has a turn for the dramatic. I thought he looked pretty dramatic the very first time I saw him, coming into the airlock of the Cathouse, burner in hand. Now he stood, with a fluid movement, removing the disguising garment, saying “You lie.”
And Doc Bartolomeu stood also, from where he’d sat. It wasn’t nearly as impressive, because he’d never been a tall man, and age had shrunk him further, but he stood up anyway, and his voice carried and crackled with indignation as he said, “You lie.”
What is a girl to do when handed that sort of entrance line? I stood up, cast off the cloak with hood that I was wearing and said, ringingly and in what was for Eden a truly weird accent, “You lie.”
For a moment there was complete silence, and then the crowd went wild.
Far, far wilder than I’d expected. As everyone got up, talking, arguing, I saw the burner ray cut through the crowd. I screamed “Kit!” and threw myself in his direction, which tells you how worried I was, because there was no possible way I could reach him, not when he was on the other side of the amphitheater. There had to be a couple hundred people between us.
But I saw Kit duck out of the way, and then a few of our Cat friends, including Fritz, closed ranks around him. The seemingly random movement of the crowd wielded a few Cats and Navs who seemed to be directed by Kathy and who closed ranks around me, as well.
I presumed Doc had his own honor guard. The rest of the room boiled in pandemonium, and Fritz, who had been one of our more frequent visitors, had jumped the shooter and was holding him on the ground and seemed to be tying him up. Kathy Wormsley seemed to be helping, but it was hard to see through the crowd.
Kit spoke as though the room were in perfect calm, his voice so loud it carried above the babble. “I,” he said, “Cat Christopher Bartolomeu Ingemar Denovo Klaavil Sinistra, accuse you, Fergus Castaneda, as well as unknown accomplices and abettors, of trying to kill me three times, and my companions, Doctor Bartolomeu Dias, Athena Hera Sinistra, and Zenobia Diana Sienna, twice. And I will be deposed on the matter, under hypnotics if you so choose.”
The noise increased. Some people tried to leave the hall, and I gathered our friends detained them, but it was hard to see. I didn’t know if the frog was boiling, but the auditorium was. There were three or four fights, full-blown fistfights, just in my immediate vicinity, and burners fired and people screamed, and you couldn’t tell what was happening through the press of people and the movement. Were people dying? Or wounded? I couldn’t tell. For a while, I couldn’t even see Kit’s family or Kit.
And yet, Kit and Doc Bartolomeu and I got pushed up front and towards the stage. The doctor who had administered the hypnotics to Tania insisted on doing it to Kit, probably because he was afraid that Doc would cheat. Or perhaps because he wanted to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
Doc, of course, had to intervene twice because he wanted to make sure that Kit survived it, despite his allergy. Kit didn’t show any reluctance, except for grabbing my hand and squeezing hard.
And then, he was sitting and the auditorium suddenly went quiet, and Doc was asking questions. Of course, we had no proof that Castaneda had done anything. But there was inference that could be made, and Eden was very good at inference. Guided by Doc, questions were asked about whom the scarcity of powerpods could possibly benefit and Kit answered with his best guess.
More devastating was his describing the attempts against his life, the shooting, and the bacteria that ate the Hopper, and finally the attempt to make us stay in space and die there. Meanwhile the shooters were presumably being questioned, and our people moved through the crowd, staking positions for the real fight to come. There was a sob from the audience at this, and I wondered if it was the reaction of a family member of one of the people who had disappeared en route…if they now suspected their relative had died locked out of Eden.
Fritz, who, at the best of times looked like an impudent rogue, grinned at me, winked, and blew me a kiss as he took a position at the foot of the stage, presumably defending us. I winked back.
Yeah, this was probably dangerous as he was one of the Cats who had been widowed in the traps set by Earth. On the other hand, Kit had never shown any jealousy of him, and Kit was very good at detecting true predatory intentions. I assumed Fritz was one of those people who enjoyed flirting with everyone, married or not, and whether he was interested or not. People like that, unless you take it too seriously, can brighten your day by making you feel wildly seductive, even when you know you’re not.
“You have no proof that I was behind any of this,” Castaneda said, as Doc signaled that Kit had had all he could have, and the other doctor administered the antidote to the hypnotics. “This is nothing but more calumny and slander orchestrated by the Denovos. So, their son is alive, but how do we know who attempted against him? It’s not the first time someone tried to kill Cat Kla—Sinistra. His personality lends itself to making people wish to kill him. And spreading lies about me, while I try to do what is best for Eden, is just another facet of his antisocial—”
“I can prove it,” Doc Bartolomeu said, “and so can Nav Sinistra. We can prove there was only one person with the kind of access to the Hopper that would allow them to have infected the hull. I traced the progression of the infection while Nav—”
I saw the burner ray, aimed straight at Doc, but it was too late for me to react and do anything. But a Cat could. Fritz seemed to dematerialize at the foot of the stage and reappear at the top, in front of Doc, just as the burner ray pierced Fritz’s chest.
Fritz looked very surprised, but he was still moving fast, even if no longer Cat speed, and he managed to get his burner out of his holster and shoot at his assassin, an elder man with Cat eyes, in the crowd. They fell at the same time.
As Fritz folded to the stage, he muttered something that could be interpreted as “damn tyrants.” Not eloquent perhaps, but I’ll say it’s as good a set of last words as anyone could hope for.
And then a dark-haired Nav, John Ringo, stood up, drawing a burner from somewhere beneath his red kilt, and shouted, “Live free or die,” before shooting another man aiming a burner at Kit. Ringo lived for maybe three seconds, afterwards, as one of Castaneda’s associates burned him in the middle of the chest.
Kathy Wormsley avenged him immediately, shooting the man who had shot Ringo before Ringo had fallen to the ground. And then someone shot her. While this happened, the crowd seemed to have frozen. But eventually the sense that this was no longer a normal enquiry started to penetrate.
And then all hell broke loose, and burner rays shot everywhere. Kit was the only person not involved, still strapped to the interrogation seat, shaking himself back to his senses.
I guess someone viewed him a sitting duck, and perhaps a sitting duck that still knew too much. He had, after all, told them there was a new seedling to powertrees, but not where, and that could still be averted.
I jumped to block the laser, but Doc got there before me and brought the seat and Kit down onto the floor of the stage with him. Then he pulled out a burner, shot the man who’d shot at Kit, and loudly started naming names and the reasons he had to associate them with the plot. I knew how he had got the names. He’d spent the month tracing people who were doing favors for and covering for Castaneda. He’d also taken some names from Kath who had traced them the other way, from the people she was sure, from circumstantial evidence, had been the ones to attempt against Kit’s life.
As the named were caught in various stages of attempting against us, or of trying to escape, the confusion in the hall resolved itself. Edenites finally realized what had almost happened to their vaunted liberty, and reacted—at last—as we hoped they would.
When calm was restored, Kit had stopped shaking and no longer looked sick.
And Castaneda was gone.
PAYING THE PIPER
Tracing Castaneda wasn’t hard. Finding someone in Eden was never that hard. There were plenty of people who knew of several places he could be, and from there, there were enough of his associates who had been along for the ride, in either the full assumption of his innocence, or because they’d thought he’d win and wanted to be on the side of the winners.
Now that it looked as though public opinion had turned against him, and everyone loyal to him could end up at the wrong end of a set of challenges, a lot of people had suddenly become positively chatty.
How on Earth Sam and Zed, Jan and Damon, Kit and I and Doc, ended up in a loose group, outside Castaneda’s office, I can’t explain. It seemed like people went off in different groups, in flyers, to find him, and we hit the jackpot.
Of course, at the time we didn’t know that it was the jackpot, just that it was one of the possible locations where he might be.
We stood around the door, which was, in Eden fashion, on the ground. Kit had the battle light in his eyes, and stomped hard on the door twice, calling out, “Come out, Castaneda. Now. Come out or we break in.”
Doc, who knew Kit and his temper, cleared his throat. “Christopher,” he said. “He’s likely to have rigged the whole thing to go up in flames if we break in.”
“Fine, so we go up in flames, too, but it takes him with us,” Kit said, because when he’s like that, there’s no reasoning with him.
Doc knew there was no arguing with Kit in that mood, so he gave him a patient look and a slightly less patient sigh, then moved to the side of the door, where there was the button you could press with your foot, which would allow him to talk to those inside. If there was anyone inside, though our source had sworn there would be.
Pushing the button, Doc spoke in his best diction and his calmest manner. “Mr. Castaneda,” he said, “for attempts against my life and the life of my friends Christopher Sinistra and—”
I realized what Doc was doing. He was challenging Castaneda to a duel. If Castaneda did not accept, then we’d have the option of striking him down anywhere, because public opinion would be against him. But I thought that Doc was not the person to do it. Yes, Doc was a Mule and almost as fast as Kit, certainly as fast or faster than I was. But Castaneda, whether he knew that or not, could claim not to know it. He could claim to be attempting to spare a doddering old man and that was why he’d refused the duel. It might not turn public opinion completely in his favor, but there would always be those who thought that he was less guilty than claimed. There would be a seed of future problems.
Kit couldn’t challenge him, either. Castaneda wasn’t a Cat, and Cats were forbidden from challenging non-Cats.
I edged Doc aside, gently. “Fergus Castaneda,” I said, “for attempts against me, against my family, against the integrity of Eden, I challenge you to a duel to the death.”
“Thena!” Kit said, and I didn’t know if he was afraid or upset at my conditions.
And for a moment there was no reply, but then the com crackled. “I accept.”
After some time the door opened. We stepped back away from the door, onto a patch of ground in front of it—a recently dug patch planted with rose bushes, one of which was poking me intrusively on the behind. I didn’t like that it had taken this long for the door to open. I could hear my friends ranging themselves behind me. Three of Castaneda’s five friends—or perhaps relatives, as they all looked like him—walked behind him.
Castaneda looked dour. He looked at me from under lowered eyebrows. When he spoke, his voice sounded like each word had been rehearsed in advance. “I accepted under protest. I have reason to think that you have been bioengineered for higher speed. Not as high, perhaps, as a Cat’s, but significantly above that of normal humans. I’m registering my protest and the right for my family to collect blood geld, should you kill me.” He thinned his lips and glared at me.
Doc Bartolomeu counted off.
“This is absurd,” I said. “This is utterly insane. You have used your assassins to kill anyone who opposed you while you manipulated the Energy Board to ration power and thus give power to only the favored few. You have tried to obtain power over the lives of everyone in Eden. You’ve constituted yourself a tyrant over the free citizens of—”
“Careful there, Nav Sinistra. None of these charges are proven.” Castaneda looked at his finger, as though something about it held his attention as he spoke. Some people had time-telling devices embedded into the index fingertip, but what could he be looking at the time for? “I would demand you substantiate your charges or pay for damage to my reputation.”
I frowned at him. If I killed him, and I was fairly sure I could kill him with minimal effort, would Kit and I have increased our debt to the point we would be indentured for life? Could anything ever be proven about Castaneda’s actions?
Kit had accused him under hypnotics. We’d proven he’d lied about our deserting, but did that prove his intentions towards Eden? Sure, the crowd had reacted emotionally to the revelation of his lie, but what could be proven, calmly and in discussion? Could we prove he’d killed or tried to kill anyone? Could we make any of his crimes stick? Could we make it in any way obvious he’d been behind disappearances and deaths and pseudoaccidental losses of power and failures to let darkships back into Eden? There was no positive material proof of any of this. Deaths had been dismissed as self-defense. Even Kit’s accusations were just Kit’s belief.
Standing there, blood rushing past my ears, I realized that even with the fight in the Judicial Center, unless one or more of his minions confessed and implicated him, Castaneda could rebuild his reputation.
This meant that I had to kill him in duel. But Kit and I might very well end up economically enslaved for the rest of our lives.
He was still looking at his finger. “Well,” he said again, urbanely. “Nav Sinistra?”
His finger must be fascinating. I felt angry, but realized all too well he wanted me angry. He wanted me to lash out without thinking. Clearly my husband was thinking also, because he said in my mind, Don’t do anything rash.
I cleared my throat. “Given that I have a certain superiority of speed, but not to the level of a Cat, how about we equalize the odds by having me face any three of you.”
Thena, Kit said. They might have enhancements, too. You’re not as fast as I am.
I heard flyers land on the road behind us, but I didn’t turn, because I was afraid of taking my eyes off Castaneda for any time. Instead, I snapped at Kit, mentally: I’m fast enough.
As the doors of flyers slammed shut, and I wondered for whom the reinforcements had come, us or Castaneda, whose expression gave nothing away, a familiar voice shouted, “Thena, move! Move, all of you!” I relaxed because it was Waldron, then tensed as I wondered what he meant.
Castaneda and his friends turned and ran away from us. I started to run. Someone hit me and pushed me, mid-body, stopping me from following, then shoved Kit into me, shouting, “Get her out of here. All of you run.” Someone—Waldron?—a Cat, moving very fast, was picking up our friends and shoving them backwards, towards the parked flyers—throwing the smaller people out of the area.
Kit grabbed me under one arm, and Waldron put his arm around me from the other side, and they jumped. We hit the ground next to the flyers and—with Waldron shoving us and screaming “Don’t stand up”—Kit and I crawled forward to the side of the flyers. I had no idea why, but I got the idea we should get behind them—or in them?—but before we could, there was a roar.
And then we were pummeled with hot…fragments. Hard. It felt like fist-sized lumps of something hot and hard, and Waldron took a leap, and landed half on top of me, and Kit tried to protect me from the other side.
“What—What—” I said, as the bombardment stopped.
“They had it set to explode. The chamber beneath the
place just in front of you. They kept you talking, because they figured when they ran, on time, you would chase and then—Oh, shit.”
The “oh, shit” was because Castaneda and his friends had come back. Perhaps they’d figured they couldn’t run. Or perhaps they hoped we were disoriented enough. I saw one of his friends shoot at Jan, who fired back. I tried to sit up but I felt bruised, and Kit was patting himself down and seemed to have lost his burner.
Waldron bent to pull his burner from the holster, but he must have been winded because he never hit Cat speed. He just had his hand on his burner’s hilt, when the ray hit him through the heart.
I thought no. Never. Not Waldron. Even as I saw him fall. I heard the same disbelief in Kit’s thoughts. I felt as if I’d gone frozen. Waldron was the oldest of the grandchildren in Kit’s family, and both a source of pride and amusement to everyone older. He was recently married. He—
My hand was not frozen. As Waldron fell, I grabbed the burner from his suddenly lax hand, and shot in the direction from which the killing ray had come.
I didn’t know if I’d hit anyone, until the ray came that told me I hadn’t. I felt the ray hit my shoulder before I could sidestep. It didn’t hurt. It just felt cold.
I must have gone into my speeded-up mode, because everyone and everything around me went very slow.
Suddenly I was aware of everyone else around me being engaged in firefights. There were more than five of Castaneda’s people shooting at us. Either Castaneda had sent his allies out earlier, or he’d also got reinforcements. But I felt like I was in a dream, and I couldn’t focus on anything but Castaneda standing in the middle of the group, aiming at Kit, who was trying to get Waldron’s other burner from its sheath.
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