Prisoners of Tomorrow (98 page)

“Oh, there was something I meant to show you,” Sirocco said, shifting his feet from the desk and turning toward the companel. “It come in earlier this evening. Want a laugh?”

“What?” Colman asked him.

Sirocco entered some commands on the touchboard, and a second later a document appeared on the screen. Colman got up and came across to study it while Sirocco sat back out of the way. It was a communication from Leighton Merrick, the Assistant Deputy Director of Engineering in the
Mayflower II,
routed for comment via Headquarters and Brigade. It advised that, due to an unexpectedly high rate of promotions among junior technicians, Engineering was now able to give “due reconsideration” to the request for transfer filed by Staff Sergeant Colman. Would the Military please notify his current disposition? “Looks like they’re running out of Indians,” Sirocco remarked. “What do you want me to say?”

“What do you think?” Colman answered, and went back to his chair. Sirocco casually entered negative, and cut the display.

“So what will you do?” Sirocco inquired, propping his feet back on the desk. “Figured it out yet?”

“Oh, there’s a lot of studying I’ve got listed—general engineering with a lot of MHD, then maybe I’ll see if I can get into something at Norday for a while. Later on I might move out to the new place they’re talking about.”

“Will Kath fix it up for you?”

Colman nodded. “To start with, anyhow. Then, I guess, it’s a case of how well you make out. You know how things operate here.” After a pause he asked, “How about you?”

Sirocco tweaked his moustache pensively. “It’s a problem knowing where to start. You know the kind of thing I’d like—to get out and see the whole planet. The Barrier Range is as big as the Himalayas, there’s Glace . . . a Grander Canyon out in Oriena . . . there’s so much of it. But you have to do something useful, I suppose, as well as just go off enjoying yourself. But I think there’s a lot of survey work waiting to be done yet. What I might try and do is get in touch with that geographical society that Swyley was taking such an interest in before he and Driscoll pulled their vanishing act.” Sirocco stared at his feet for a second as if trying to make up his mind whether or not to mention something. “And then of course there’s Shirley,” he added nonchalantly.

“Shirley? . . . You mean Ci’s mother?”

“Yes.”

“What about her?”

Sirocco raised his eyebrows in what was obviously feigned surprise. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? She wants me to move in. It’s surprising how a lot of these Chironian women have a thing about Terrans to . . .” he frowned and scratched his nose while he searched for the right words “. . . assist with their future contribution to procreation.” He looked up. “She wants my kids. How about that, Steve? Come on, I bet it’s the same with Kath.” Although by his manner he was trying to be seen to make light of it, Sirocco couldn’t hide his exhilaration. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before, and he had to tell somebody, Colman saw; but Colman played along.

“You sly bastard!” he exclaimed. “How long has this been going on?” Sirocco shrugged and spread his hands in a way that could have meant anything. Then Colman grinned. “Well, what do you know? Anyhow—good luck.”

Sirocco resumed twiddling his moustache. “Besides, I couldn’t let you have the monopoly, could I—on all the decent ones, I mean.” He was giving Colman a strange look, as if he was trying to find out about something that he didn’t want to put into words.

“What are you getting at?” Colman asked him.

Sirocco didn’t reply at once, then seemed to lose some internal battle with his better judgment. “Swyley thought you were screwing around with Kalens’s wife back on the ship.”

Colman kept a poker face. “What made him think that?”

Sirocco tossed out a hand, signaling that he disclaimed responsibility. “Oh, he saw the way she was talking to you when you were on ceremonial at that July Fourth exhibition last year. That was one thing. Do you remember that?”

Colman went through the motions of having to think back. “Yes . . . I think so. But I don’t remember Swyley being around.”

“Well, he must have been there somewhere, mustn’t he?”

“I guess so. So what was the rest of it?”

Sirocco shrugged. “Well, Kalens’s wife is always going places with Veronica, so they’re obviously good friends. Swyley noticed something funny between you and Veronica at that party we went to at Shirley’s, and that was the connection he figured out.” Sirocco shrugged again. “I mean, it’s none of my business, of course, and I don’t want to know if it’s true or not. . . .” He paused and looked at Colman hopefully for a second. “Is it?”

“Would you expect me to say so if it was?” Colman asked.

“I suppose not.” Sirocco conceded, deflating with a disappointed sigh. After a second he looked up sharply again. “I’ll do a deal with you though. Tell me after this is all over, okay?”

Colman grinned. “Okay, chief. I will.” A short silence fell while they both thought about the same thing. “How long do you think it’ll be?” Colman asked at last.

“Who can say?” Sirocco answered, picking up the more serious tone. “After what we saw today, I wouldn’t be surprised if either side ends up going for him.”

“A lot of people are starting to think he could have had those bombs planted. What do you think?”

Sirocco frowned and rubbed his nose. “I’m not convinced. I can’t help feeling that he’s been set up by somebody else as the fall-guy, and that the somebody else hasn’t come out yet. I think the Chironians believe that too.”

Colman nodded thoughtfully to himself and conceded the point. “Any ideas?”

Sirocco shrugged. “I’m pretty sure it can’t be Wellesley. He’s tried to play it straight, it’s all sweeping him way out of his depth. Anyhow, what would he have to gain? All he wants to do is to be put out to pasture; he’s only got a few days left. Ramisson obviously wouldn’t be involved in something like that, and the same goes for Lechat. But as for the rest, if you ask me, they’re all crazy. It could be any of them or all of them. But that’s who the Chironians are really after.”

“So it could take a while,” Colman said.

“Maybe. Who knows? Let’s just hope there aren’t too many of them in the Army.”

At that moment the emergency tone sounded shrilly from the companel. Sirocco jerked his legs off the desk, cut the alarm, and flipped on the screen. It was Hanlon, looking tense.

“It’s happened,” Hanlon told him. “Kalens is dead. We found him inside the house, shot six times. Whoever did it knew what they were doing.”

“What about the sentries?” Sirocco asked curtly.

“Emmerson and Crealey were at the back. We found them unconscious in a ditch. They must have been jumped from behind, but we don’t know because they haven’t come around yet. They look as if they’ll be okay though. The others didn’t know a thing about it.”

Colman was listening grimly. “What about his wife?” he muttered to Sirocco.

“How is Kalens’s wife?” Sirocco asked Hanlon.

“She isn’t here. We’ve checked with transportation, and she was booked onto a shuttle up to the ship earlier this evening. She must have left before it happened.” Beside Sirocco, Colman breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s something, anyway,” Sirocco said. “Stay there, Bret, and don’t let anyone touch anything. I’ll get onto Brigade right away. We’ll have some more people over there in a few minutes.” He returned to Colman. “Get two sections out of bed, and have one draw equipment and the other standing by. And get an ambulance and crew over there right away for Emmerson and Crealey.” Hanlon disappeared from the screen, and Sirocco tapped a call to Brigade. “It looks as if the fall-guy has gone down, Steve,” he murmured while Colman called the ambulance dispatcher on another panel. “Let’s see who steps out from the wings now.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

The strain that had been increasing since planetfall and the shock of the most recent news were showing on Wellesley’s face when he rose to address a stunned meeting of the
Mayflower II
’s Congress later that morning. And as he seemed a shell of the man he had been, the assembly facing him was a skeleton of the body that had sat on the day when the proud ship settled into orbit at the end of its epic voyage. Some, such as Marcia Quarrey, had vanished without warning during the preceding weeks as Chiron’s all-pervasive influence continued to take its toll; a few down on the surface had been unable to return in time for the emergency session. Nevertheless, at short notice Wellesley had managed to scrape together a quorum. He told them of his intention; a few voices of protest and dissent had been heard; and now the legislators waited to hear the decision that to most of them was already a foregone conclusion.

“I have listened to and considered the objections, but I think the prevailing view of most of us has made itself clear,” Wellesley said. “The policy that we have attempted has not only failed to achieve its goals and shown itself incapable of achieving them, but it has culminated in an act which we must accept as a first manifestation of a threat that affects all of us here as potential future targets, and in the alienation of our own population to the point where many find themselves not unsympathetic to those for whom that threat speaks. Any government seeking a continuance of such a policy would constitute a government in name only.

“We are facing a crisis that jeopardizes the continued integrity of the entire Mission, and it has become evident to me that our difficulties stand only to be exacerbated by a continued division of authority. Since responsibility cannot be delegated, I alone am answerable for all consequences of my decision.” He paused to look around the room, and then took a long breath. “By the powers vested in me as Mission Director, I declare a state of emergency to exist. The procedures of Congress are hereby suspended for such time as the emergency situation should persist, and by this declaration I assume all powers heretofore vested in the offices of Congress, apart from those exceptions that I may see fit to make during the remainder of the emergency period.” After a short pause he added in a less formal tone, “And I ask the cooperation of all of you in making that period as short as possible.”

Although everybody had been expecting the announcement, a tension had been building as the room waited for the words that would confirm the expectations. Now that the words had been said, the tension released itself in a ripple of murmurs accompanied by the rustle of papers, and the creaks of chairs as bodies unfolded into easier postures.

Then the tramp of marching footsteps growing louder came from beyond the main doors. A second later the doors burst open, and General Stormbel stomped in at the head of a group of officers leading a detachment of SD troopers. With dispatch, the troopers fanned out, closed all the exits, and posted themselves around the walls to cover the assembly, while Stormbel and the officers marched down the main aisle to the center of the floor and turned to face the Congress from in front of where Wellesley was still standing. Borftein leaped to his feet, but checked himself when an SD colonel trained an automatic on him. He sank into his seat, a dazed expression on his face.

Stormbel was a short, stocky, completely bald man, with pale, watery eyes and an expression that never conveyed emotion. A thin moustache pencil-lined his upper lip. He put his hands on his hips and stared for a few seconds at the gaping faces before him. “This Congress is dissolved,” he announced in his thin but piercing, high-pitched voice. “The Mission is now under the direct command of the Military.” He turned his head to Borftein. “You are relieved of command of both the regular and Special Duty forces. Those functions are now transferred to me.”

“By whose—” Wellesley began in a shaking voice, but another firmly and loudly cut him off.

“By
my
authority.” Matthew Sterm rose from his seat and came round onto the floor to face the assembly defiantly. “This prattling has continued for too long. I have no eloquent speeches to make. Enough time has been wasted on such futilities already. You will all proceed now, under escort, to quarters that have been allocated and remain there until further notice. We have business to attend to.” He nodded at Stormbel, who motioned at the guards. “I would like Admiral Slessor to remain behind to discuss matters concerning the continued well-being of the ship.”

As the guards started forward and the members continued to sit in paralyzed silence, Ramisson rose and walked haltingly to the center of the main aisle to face Sterm. “I will not submit to such intimidation,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Remove your men from that door.” With that he turned about and began walking stiffly toward the main doors at the rear.

Stormbel drew his automatic and leveled it at Ramisson’s back. “You have one warning,” he called out. Ramisson kept walking. Stormbel fired. Ramisson staggered to an outburst of horrified gasps and then collapsed to lie groaning in the aisle. Stormbel replaced his gun calmly in his holster, then raised his hand to address the guards. “Remove that man, and see to it that he receives medical attention.” Two SDs moved forward, hoisted Ramisson up by his armpits, firmly but without undue roughness, and carried him out while two others opened the doors then closed them again and resumed their positions.

“Are there any more objectors?” Sterm inquired. Behind him Wellesley, white faced and haggard, slumped into his chair.

“Stop this now,” Borftein advised grimly. “How much of the Army do you think will follow you?”

Stormbel gave him a contemptuous look. “How much of
your
Army is left?” he asked. “Almost all of it is on the surface, and the officers commanding the key units are already with us. Besides,
we
control the ship, which is the most important thing.”

“For now,” Sterm added. “The rest comes later.”

Borftein licked his lips and thought frantically. As Stormbel was about to repeat the order to clear the room, Borftein looked at Sterm, closed his eyes for a moment, and then raised a hand and shook his head. Sterm looked at him questioningly. “I . . . I’m not sure I even know what’s happened,” Borftein said. “It’s been too sudden. Just what do you think you’re going to do?” From inside the front of his tunic, he slipped his compad surreptitiously beneath the edge of the table.