Hooded Swan - The Paradise Game Part 7

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"You were in such a hurry," he said.

"Did I make a mistake?" I asked, my self-satisfaction fading fast.

"You didn't," he said, "but we left them the body!"

"They can hardly deny that there was a murder," I said.

"That's not the point," he said. "They'll carve that body into thin slices. Whatever there is to be learned from it they'll have before we get a chance. They might beat us to the answers yet."

"Come down right now," I advised him. "It's all getting too complicated. Beat them to the punch. That battleship up there is all the excuse we'll need in public."

He shook his head. "We need your selective agent. We need to know what stopped change on this world. We need evidence of something inimical."

I wondered if the other rounds in the Paradise Game were as difficult to win as this one.

10.

The maiden's lights picked up the human chain that was blocking the road, and we slammed on the anchors. Johnny had braced himself, of course, but the rest of us lurched forward. Varly hit his head on the windshield, and complained volubly.

n.o.body got out. We waited for them to explain. A man came forward and peered into the maiden. It was David Holcomb. He seemed surprised to see so many people crammed into such a small s.p.a.ce.

"You'd better back up a hundred yards," said Holcomb, as Johnny wound down both sets of windows.

Everything in the maiden was airlocked-it wasn't designed to be a pleasure cruiser.

"Why?" asked Johnny.

"Just back up," repeated the Aegis man.

I began to wrestle with the door, and finally contrived to get it open. I stepped out, and let Charlot out.

Eve and Nick followed in turn.

"We don't want any trouble," said Holcomb, redirecting his attention to t.i.tus Charlot.

"Why won't you let us pa.s.s?" asked Charlot.

Holcomb glanced sideways, as though he were uneasily conscious of Keith Just's presence in the maiden.

"Because in a couple of minutes, it isn't going to be safe to walk around that field. You've got to back up- maybe not more than twenty yards. We don't want anybody getting hurt."

"What have you done?" demanded Charlot.

"You needn't worry about your ship. We checked- it's sealed tight. There's nothing so close to it that it'll be in any danger. It's built to withstand a lot more than the stuff we planted."

"What stuff?" Charlot was livid.

"You forced us to this, Mr. Charlot. We couldn't get a hearing. n.o.body was taking a blind bit of notice of us. This is the only way. Now will you please back up, because everything on that field is going to go bang in just thirty seconds."

Holcomb was looking at his watch ostentatiously, to emphasise his point.

"Johnny," said Nick quietly. "Back up fifty yards or so."

"OK, Captain," he said, slipping the maiden into gear and easing her back as he answered. "Aren't you coming?"

Nick took Charlot's arm. "You'd better start walking back, sir. We can argue it out at a safe distance."

Without another word, Charlot turned and began walking back behind the maiden. Fifty yards back, we all stopped. Holcomb and his men had come back with us. Every pair of eyes turned back to face the field. We could see the tall form of the Hooded Swan off to one side, and the vast shadows of the Caradoc ships towering over her.

"Get down," said Holcomb. He took his own advice, and dropped face forward onto the gra.s.s beside the road. We all followed suit, though Charlot only condescended to crouch in the shadow of the maiden.

I lifted my head so that I could see what was happening.

The lightning beat the thunder by some inestimable fragment of a second. The flash wasn't bright-I blinked, but I wasn't blinded. I felt the shockwave in the ground, but there was only a brief wind in the air- just a hot, dry breath that dried up the few beads of sweat on my forehead.

The initial impression was disappointing. The three big black shadows didn't come tumbling down. It took a lot more than a few capsules of pocket blast to shake a star-ship. But I knew that bombs had been attached to the skin of each of those ships, just as bombs had been tied to every bulldozer and digger on the field. Aegis had a point to make, and they were putting full stops to their statements in no uncertain terms.

"If you've cracked the sh.e.l.l around one of those pile-drivers," I said, "you'll have hot flux all over the field. It'll leave a scar this world won't obliterate in five hundred years. Just what the h.e.l.l are you trying to prove?"

But Holcomb wasn't taking any notice of me. He was still looking at Charlot.

"We had to make our presence felt," he was saying. "We couldn't let you ignore us. We have something important to say and we intend to be heard. People have got to know what happens here, or our case will be lost no matter what happens to Caradoc. It has to be clear, you understand? The principles we stand for have to be planted in people's minds. We couldn't let you hush it all up. We must make an example out of what is happening here."

"You could have killed a dozen people," Charlot's voice was flat and emotionless.

"We killed n.o.body," said Holcomb. "We made certain there was no one aboard your ship. We searched for Caradoc personnel. We even tried to make certain there were no natives in the area surrounding the port. n.o.body got hurt."

"There was no point," said Charlot, still unable to understand. "It's just a petty gesture. It doesn't mean anything. It's not going to make you any more popular. It's not going to do a thing for you off this world, and it certainly won't do anything for you on it. It's senseless."

"It'll show Caradoc we mean business. Not just here but on every other world where they intend to mount vast scale operations. We can't stop them, but we can make them pay. We can cost them, and that means a lot to them. The one way you can get at a mob like Caradoc is to destroy its property. Their collective pocket is the only place where any of them can feel pain. We can put a bomb in every bit of equipment that Caradoc wants to use to rape worlds. Anywhere and everywhere. Whether you listen to us or not, whether New Rome listens to us or not, we can still stop them."

Charlot shook his head. "You can start riots," he said. "You can precipitate epidemics of murder. But you can't even make a dent in Caradoc's pocket or Caradoc's plans. Not like this. It just isn't possible."

We went forward to inspect the damage. We fanned out as we went. Johnny nudged the iron maiden into forward motion again, and he trailed us back on to the field. Holcomb was in the vanguard-after all, it was his handiwork that he wanted to survey.

Fires were still burning, and there was a terrible stench of charred plastic and burned machine oil. Where the Caradoc bulldozers had been parked in a neat line there was now a black ridge of debris, with the hulks of the metal corpses sticking out of the mess like camels' humps. Soil had been flung everywhere by the blasts, and everything was filthy. All the paintwork was seared.

The diggers had mostly been left where they were engaged in the job of making holes, and they made individual heaps. Few of them were recognisable-the shovels had all been wrenched free and hurled away, the characteristic lines of their bodies had all been twisted out of shape.

Little apparent damage had been done to the ships- they were all made of sterner stuff. But holes had been blasted in their skins, and the engines in the belly had been pretty thoroughly beaten up. Flux was leaking out of one of the hulls-dripping steadily into a crater, with a slushy tap-tap-tap.

I stood alone in the middle of it all, looking around at the carnage. Nick had rushed to the Hooded Swan, but I knew she'd be all right. There'd been nothing within a hundred yards of her, and the Aegis people wouldn't have touched her. She could take the blast waves.

Eve came over to stand beside me, and Johnny rolled the maiden to a stop close by one of the Caradoc ships. He got out on the side that was toward me, while Keith Just got out the other side, and held the door while he beckoned to Varly. I was looking at them, and my gaze took in almost incidentally the fact that that particular ship's engines were undamaged.

The possibility dawned almost without reference to consciousness.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Come away from-"

I was interrupted by the explosion. I spun around and dropped reflexively. Eve screamed.

The moment the silence returned, we were all running toward the spot. We shouldn't have been, because where there's one charge which hadn't gone off there might be more, and we ought to have been worrying about our own necks.

Johnny was OK, because the maiden had screened him, and the maiden herself was OK. But Keith Just had been thrown over her front end, and he was laid on the floor like a rag doll. A circle collected around him in no time at all, and a lot of breath was held tight until Charlot slapped the lawman's face and we all heard him moan out a vicious curse.

Within half a minute, he was able to sit up again, and a careful inspection of various bits of his body enabled Charlot to announce that he was only bruised. The charge had been placed right up inside the backblast unit, and most of the shock had travelled downward into the innocent earth.

Holcomb was busy trying to apologise. But his tone suggested that it was only because it was expected of him. I saw Trisha Melly standing near me in the group of anxious onlookers. I caught her eye with mine, and I said: "How do you feel?"

She turned her back on me.

Thanks for the fast action, I said to the wind.

-Wasn't necessary, he said modestly.

Thanks anyway, I said. I wanted to press the point because there'd been times in the past when I'd been extremely resentful of his intervention in such situations. Since those times I'd grown to be a little more appreciative of still being alive, and a little less choosy about how my survival came about.

Nick and Holcomb between them got Just to his feet, and everything looked to be distinctly all right.

Until Just collected himself together, looked around expectantly, and said: "Where's Varly?"

11.

The next morning seemed to be an awful long way away from the one before.

There had been no more murder, despite the provocation offered by Holcomb and his guerrilla tactics.

A riot had been averted-but only just. The Hooded Swan had been converted into a jail despite the fact that the original bird had flown. Instead of Varly we had the whole Aegis contingent in "protective custody." The Caradoc police had rounded them up for Just, but once he had them under his wing he decided to have nothing more to do with Caradoc, and he had deputised Johnny. Personally, I felt that this was not the wisest of moves, bearing in mind that Johnny was an inherently aggressive creature without a great deal of discretion. But there was no doubt that Just could do with some help, and there was no one else available except me. Quite apart from the fact that I had other things to occupy my mind, it wasn't an appointment I would have welcomed.

The problem of what to do about Varly was a particularly th.o.r.n.y one. Capella was all ready to devote his full manpower to a big search, and no one could object to his doing so. But Just felt that he could hardly lend official sanction to such a project. Nor could he mount his own search, having no spare manpower and too much to do anyhow. The only thing he could do was post a "wanted" notice and allow things to take their own course.

To add to the inherent difficulties of the situation yet further, Charlot seemed to be distinctly unwell. We had a conference after breakfast and it was obvious right from the start that he was in no condition to spend the day sifting data out at Caradoc's alien studies section. He sent Eve and Nick out with instructions to seize as much of Caradoc's records as was humanly possible. We both knew this would be an empty gesture, because if the Caradoc people did know anything, they would most certainly hide it, and we had good reason to believe that they didn't.

As soon as they had gone, he said: "What about this ship that Caradoc has in s.p.a.ce?"

I shrugged. "I told you virtually everything last night. It wasn't a very revealing conversation. I inferred-but I could be wrong-that it's a battleship, standing by for orders from Capella. It looks to me as if Caradoc is prepared to defend this world against all comers if it can find a good enough excuse.

Caradoc's problem is our problem. They badly need something that can stand up in a political brawl.

They need a reason for defying the New Rome edict and bringing the ship down. Beyond that, they need some evidence to back up their treaty in court and some excuse for discrediting us. That can always be cooked up, but before they cook it up they want to know exactly what risk they're taking. They want to know exactly how much they stand to gain from this operation. It'll have to be a lot, because it could be very costly for them to begin thumbing their nose at New Rome and New Alexandria both. Personally, I agree with Capella- it's far too big a decision for him. But he's the man with the can to carry home, and he's sweating blood right now. I wouldn't like to guess which way he'll jump."

Charlot looked pensive. "We can't let them have it. We need our play quickly. We have to make it first.

I'd lift the Swan today and be on New Rome in three days if I thought we had a chance of making a good move. But whatever we tell them, it has to be right."

"Why?"

"Because this is only one round. There'll be other worlds, other inquiries. It probably won't be me that has to sort them out, but it will be someone like me, and I have to leave him at least an even chance. We dare not be wrong."

"Look," I said, "you know that the political angles aren't in my line. I've just never had occasion to walk in the corridors of power where this friendly game of marbles is being played. I don't know where the ultimate authority rests, or how it moves. But it seems to me that if Caradoc wants to start a campaign to rule the galaxy, but is scared in case it gets stamped on, there are much better places to start a fight than here. They're coming from behind -it doesn't affect their position if they wait another year, or another decade. There are always more chances. Surely, the line of least resistance here is for them to back down. Capella's not a moron. He must know that. You must be able to reach him-to talk him into seeing reason. You and he don't need to be on opposite sides. You could sit down together and work out your excuses. n.o.body in his situation can afford not to sell out.''

Charlot stared at me sombrely. He was leaning way back in his chair, as if his limbs were too weak even to pull him upright.

"Is expediency all you know about?" he asked me.

"No," I said. "I appreciate that there are matters of principle involved. But I can afford to indulge a principle now and again, because the only thing that hangs on my decisions is me. You've got a world dangling at the end of your ap.r.o.n strings. Can you afford principles?"

"Yes," he said.

"After Rhapsody?" I said. "What about the Anacaona? I didn't notice your principles in evidence then.

And what about that little matter of paying off my fine, so that you could send me into the Halcyon Drift on a wild-goose chase? Doesn't the word blackmail occur to you? Is expediency all you know about?"

He closed his eyes. "Do we really have to discuss all this now?" He said. "There are more important things. You know full well that I believe in what I do. The Anacaona are part of something much larger.

You may not approve of my experiments but you cannot accuse me of being unprincipled. As to the matter on Rhapsody, I did everything I could to prevent trouble. It was your loyalties that were misplaced. And no one forced you to take a job with me. Your resentment of what I did is understandable, but you cannot object on the grounds of principle. But, please, don't argue with me now.

This difference of opinion is immaterial, and we don't have the time. I am not going to try to bribe Capella. I want to see Capella crucified. This drive to run the whole galaxy as a simple commercial enterprise must be stopped. We must have a measure of sanity or there will be war -a war that will kill billions and destroy worlds. Caradoc and its cousins must not be subverted. They must not be tolerated.

They must be opposed. If we make that opposition powerful enough, we can save a great deal of killing.

I'm not asking you to understand, and I know you won't simply believe me, but you must see that we're on the same side, and while you're fighting for me you'll fight my way. Is that clear?"

I shouldn't have provoked him. I didn't know whether he was right or whether he was wrong. I don't try to decide what's right and what's wrong. I only know what I like and what I don't like. I didn't like Charlot much. I liked Capella less. If I was allied with Charlot, it made sense to commit myself to the same approach. That way we had twice the chance instead of two half-chances.

"OK," I said. "What are we going to do? We haven't time to go through all the garbage Eve and Nick will bring back, and you know it will probably be a waste of time."

There was a pause while his mind changed tracks, and he brought himself back to the problem of finding out what was what in the Pharos life-system.