Sten (30 page)

The Counselor licked his lips. The Mig grabbed him by the hair and lifted the Counselor out of his chair. "You ain't answered my question."

"It—there was—just a misunderstanding of my attempt to communicate."

"Communicate. 'Sat it? She was ten."

Sten got up. But the Mig holding the Counselor was keeping himself back. He looked over at the other cell leaders. "I don't need any clottin' more. Vote guilty."

And the chorus answered in agreement.

"Unanimous," Alvor put in. "What's the sentence?"

Sten kicked the screen over. "Give him to his friends.

Outside."

The Counselor's eyes flared open. Who? And then he was screaming and clawing as the cell leaders had him. They jerked the double doors open and pushed. The Counselor half fell, half staggered into the arms of the workers waiting outside.

Alvor pulled the door to. But the sound of the mob outside was very clear.

That was the first.

"Just like pushin' dominoes," Sten said. He and Alex were headed back for the ship. "Three more cycles and we can stop hidin' behind bushes, start the revolution, and get the Guard in motion."

"Dinna be countin' your eggs afore they're chickened."

"What the clot does that mean?"

"Ah no ken. But ma gran used it t'mean things gang aft aglay."

"Would you speak Imperial, for clot's sakes?"

"Ah'm spikit proper, it's just your ears need recalibratin', lad."

"Bet me. But look. We're all set. A, we get a resistance set up.

B, we start rightin' wrongs and killin' every Exec we can get and every Tech that can count above ten with his boots on."

"Aye. There's naught wrong so far."

"C, we build weapons and train the Migs how to use 'em. D, we set up our own alternate government, just like the conditioner taught us. Then, E, we're gonna snap our fingers in three cycles and the revolution has started."

Alex unslung his rule—their sector was secure enough for most of the Migs to go openly armed now—and stopped.

"You no ken one thing, Sten," he said. "Man or woman, once they get their hands on th' guns, there's no callin' what'll happen next. Ah gie ye example. Mah brother, he was Mantis. Went in to some nice barbarian-class world our fearless Emp'rer decided needed a new gov'mint.

"Ye trackin' me yit? Aye, so they raises the populace, an'

teaches 'em how to stand an' fight. Makes 'em proud to be what they is, ‘stead of crawlin' worms."

"I am not trackin'," Sten said.

"So they runs up the blawdy red flag a' revolution, an' it starts.

People slaughter a' th' nobility in th'r beds. My braw trots up wi'

the gov'ment they've set up to replace the old baddies. An' the people're so in love wi' blood an' slaughter, they turns the
new
gov'ment inta cattle fodder like they done the first. My braw gets offworld wi'out an arm, an' the pro' don't take. So he's back tendin' sheep on Edinburgh, an' I goes out to keep the clan name fresh. Now, I'm takin' the long road aroun'—but best ye rec'lect.

When ye're giein' bairns the fire, ye no can tell wha'll be burnt."

He reslung his willygun, and he and Sten walked in silence to the airlock into the ship.

To be welcomed by Ida screaming, in a dull roar, "Clot! Clot!

Clot!" A computer terminal sailed across the room to slam into a painting.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing at all. But look at what your clotting Migs did!" She waved at the screens around the room. Sten noticed the other members of the team and Bet were silently staring.

"These are all the security channels. Look at those fools!"

"Dammit, Ida, tell me what happened!"

"As far as we can estimate," Doc said, "the Sociopatrol was transferring several unregenerate Migs South, to Exotic Section.

One of the Migs in the shipment must've had some friends."

Sten glanced at the screens then walked to the alk container and poured himself a shot.

"So they decided to rescue him," Ida continued. "Naturally, the patrol reinforced, and so did the guy's friends. Which sucked in most of our cells in South Vulcan. Look." Sten stared at the sweeping screens. Every now and then he recognized a face from the resistance.

"'pears," Jorgensen said, "like they dug all the weapons out and went huntin' for bear."

Ida sneered at Sten, then started cutting in sound from the various screens. Fascinated, Sten sat down to watch. He saw screaming Migs charge a formation of patrolmen sheltered behind upended gravsleds. Riot guns sprayed and the Migs went down.

On another monitor a Mig woman, waving the severed head of a patrolman, lead a vee-formation of resistance fighters into a wedge of patrolmen. The camera flared and went out, but it looked like there were more patrolmen down than Migs.

A third screen showed a static scene at the entrance to Exotic Section. The lock was barricaded, and patrolmen had blockades set around it. Migs sniped at them from corridor and vent openings.

Sten turned away and poured the drink down. "Clot. Clot.

Clot."

"I already said that," Ida noted. Sten turned to Jorgensen.

"Miyitkina." Jorgensen's eyes glazed. He went into his trance.

"Observe occurrence. Prog."

"Impossible to compute exact percentages. But, overall, unfavorable."

"Details."

"If a revolution, particularly an orchestrated one such as this, is allowed to begin before the proper moment, the following problems will occur: The most highly motivated and skilled resistance men will very likely become casualties, since they will be attacking spontaneously rather than from a given plan; underground collaborators will be blown since it becomes a matter of survival for them to come into the open; since the combat effort cannot be mounted with full effectiveness, the likelihood of the existing regime being able to defeat the revolution, militarily, is almost certain. Examples of the above are—"

"Suspend program," Sten said. "If it's blown, how long does it take to put things back together again?"

"Phraseology uncertain," Jorgensen intoned. "But understood.

Repression will be intensified after such a revolution is defeated; reestablishment of revolutionary activity will take an extended period of time. A conservative estimate would be ten to twenty years."

Sten didn't even bother to swear. Just poured himself a drink.

"Sten!" Bet suddenly shouted. "Look. At that screen." Sten turned. And gaped. The screen she was pointing at was the one fixed on the entrance to the Exotic Section.

"But," he heard Doc say, "those are none of our personnel."

They weren't. "They" were a solid wall of Migs. Unarmed or carrying clubs or improvised stakes. They were charging directly into the concentrated fire of the patrolmen grouped around the entrance. And they died, wave after wave of them.

But they kept coming, crawling over the bodies of their own dead, and, finally, rolling over the defenders. There was no sound, but Sten could well imagine. He saw a boy—no more than ten—come to his feet. He was waving…Sten swallowed. Hard.

There were still threads of a Sociopatrol uniform clinging to it.

More Migs ran forward, teams with steel benches ripped from work areas. They slammed at the doors to the Exotic Section, and the doors went down.

Jorgensen, still in his battle-computer trance, droned on.

"…there are, however, examples of spontaneous success. As, for example, the racially deprived citizenry of the city of Johannesburg."

"Two Miyitkina," Sten snapped.

"Ah hae a wee suggestion," Alex said. "Ah suggest we be joinin' our troopies, or yon revolution may be giein' on wi'out us."

Sten stepped through the smashed windows of the rec dome's control capsule and looked down at the faces staring up at him in their thousands. Sweaty, bloody, dirty, and growling.

It made no sense. Militarily. One rocket could take out not only the assembled Mantis team, but all the resistance workers they'd so laboriously trained and recruited over the months.

Clot sense
, Sten thought, and nipped the hailer on.

"MEN AND WOMEN OF VULCAN," his voice boomed and echoed around the dome. He assumed that there were still functional security pickups, and he was being seen. He wondered if Thoresen would be able to ID him.

"Free men and women of Vulcan," he corrected himself. He waited for the roar to die. "We came to Vulcan to help you fight for your freedom. But you didn't need our help. You charged the Company's guns with your bare hands. And you won.

"But the Company still lives. Lives in The Eye. And until we can celebrate that victory—in The Eye—we have won nothing.

"Now is the time…Now is the time for us to help you. Help you make Vulcan free!" Sten chopped the hailer switch and walked back into the capsule.

Alex nodded approvingly. "Ah, ye can no dance to it, but Ah gie yer speech a' fair. Now, if we through muckin' aboot, ye ken we'll shoot away our signal, an' gie on wi' our real business?"

MYOR YJHH MMUI OERT MMCV CCVX AWLO…

Mahoney moved aside and let the Emperor read the decoded message:

STEP ONE COMPLETE. VULCAN NOW IN COMPLETE

INTERNAL TURMOIL. BEGINNING STEP TWO.

The Emperor breathed deeply.

"Deploy Guard's First and Second Assault according to Operation Bravo, colonel."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

THE BARON STARED at the figure on his screen. Frowned. It was familiar. He tapped keys, and the camera moved in on Sten.

Thoresen froze a frame. Studied Sten's face. No. He didn't know him. Thoresen punched the keys ordering the computer to search its memory for a possible ID. With a little luck, it would just be some Mig with a loud mouth and tiny brain. Somehow, Thoresen didn't think it would work out that way.

Ida's model of the Bravo Project lab looked like a gray skinny balloon, half full of water at one end. There wasn't much to study; Ida had still been unable to penetrate security.

The team members and Bet eyed the model morosely. Sten, Alex, and Jorgensen wore, for the first time since they'd been on Vulcan, the Mantis Section phototropic camouflage uniforms.

Ida and Bet were fitted into the coveralls of a Tech/1st and /3rd Class.

There wasn't much to say. Nobody was interested in inspirational speeches. They shouldered their packs, silently got into the gravsled, and Sten lifted it off, into the corridors of a Vulcan gone insane.

* * *

Vulcan was quickly collapsing as the Migs took to the streets.

Images of pitched battles, looting, and Sociopatrol defeats floated up on the Baron's vidscreen.

The Baron turned the vid off. It was hopeless. There was nothing more he could do to put down the revolt. He would just have to let it burn itself out, then try to put his empire back together again.

A light blinked for attention. Thoresen almost ignored it. Just one more report from a hysterical guard. No, he had to answer.

He flicked his computer on.

His heart turned to ice. The computer had identified the Mig leader. Sten. But he was—How?—And then the Baron knew that his world was about to end.

There was only one possibility: Sten; the Guard; Bravo Project. The Emperor knew and the Emperor was responsible for the Mig revolt. Sten was part of a Mantis Section team.

Desperately, Thoresen searched for a way out. What would happen next? How was he supposed to react? That was it—The Emperor was looking for an excuse to land troops. Thoresen was expected to call for help. He would be arrested, Bravo Project uncovered and then…

And then Thoresen had it. He would go to the lab. Get the most important files. Destroy the rest and flee. The Baron would still have the Emperor where he wanted him as long as he had the secret to AM .

2

He rose and started for the door. Paused. Something else.

Something else. The Emperor would have ordered the lab destroyed. Sten and his team could be on the way now. He hurried to his comvid.

The frightened face of his chief security man came into view.

"Sir!"

"I want as many men as you can spare. Here. Now," Thoresen snapped. The security chief started to gobble. "Get yourself together, man."