[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
clean, white halls where festivities might yet be underway), he wondered. And
when he saw the clean-up crews through the wire-barred window of the lorry
into which he and fifty others were packed like tripe, he wondered more. And
when the men were shackled and grouped in tens and shunted into holding-
bins, he was not sure that he would see the sun, or Cluny
Pope, or Shebat Kerrion, ever again. And then he won-
dered why he had not disentangled himself, while yet he could, from Kerrions
and his Orrefors kin. But it was too late for any of that, and the only bright
spot in his darkened cell was the fact that not one of those with whom he
shared it was an Orrefors, but only simple townsfolk, roused to folly, who had
never expected to win, just fought to save their steadings, their children, a
way of life slipping away through their gnarled fingers which Orrefors
enchanters had promised to reinstate.
Somewhere in that endless night, he wept for all that he had learned and all
that he had seen, for the death of valor and ignorance, for the end of days
when manhood could turn even the most capricious of tides.
When at last the arbiters summoned him, blinking, he found that he had nothing
Page 76
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
to say.
When they brought Cluny Pope to see him, he re-
gained his tongue, but the truth they wanted was not the truth he had. Cluny's
face was fat with bruises; in an empty chamber where they were allowed to meet
with an arbiter standing by, their extent was underscored by
white, echoing emptiness about. "What happened to you?"
"Me and Bitsy had a fight."
"Over me?"
Cluny shrugged.
"I tried to warn Shebat. I have told them it was none of my doing."
'"I knew it!" Cluny blazed. Then his fire was doused.
"But they will not believe me. I told Shebat! They say you held a gun on the
proconsul, that the Orrefors called you 'commander.' Sir, everyone from our .
. . group . . .
'* has come here, to plead for mercy. Bitsy says they will make an example of
you." He bit his lip. "My father is
120 JANET MORRIS
here, too, sir. No one. . , ." The boy's voice was too thick for speech. "I "
He moved closer; the arbiter shifted his feet, simply widening his stance,
watching something he held in his hand, then the boy, then Jesse's face. "Sir,
I ..." Cluny lunged, grabbed Thorne, hugged him close. With the youth's head
pressed to his breast, Jesse could feel his chest heaving, Cluny's shivering,
a scandal6us tear. "I can't let you die. Tell them . . . some-
thing, anything . . . what they want to know.. Please, please! They'll. ..."
"Head up, scout. This is no time for doubts." Thome pushed back, taking the
boy by both shoulders. He shook him. "Look at me. Am I alive? Am I?"
"Y-y-yes."
"Then treat me like the living. Save your tears, man.
They'll not excute me they're far too civilized!" he sneered. "Do you want me
to think I have failed with you? Is this what I've groomed, a sniveling child?
Cry this way before your father, and I'll show you just how alive I am!"
Thome looked over at the arbiter, asking for an end to it with his eyes. But
the unspeaking man, whose face was regularly Kerrion blue-eyed, evenfeatured,
pleasant but unrecognizable in any crowd had neither pity nor hu-
manity; only his hand-held device, singing softly, was worthy of his gaze.
Cluny's voice had lost its battle with his heart, coming out a whine: ". . .
can't . . . make it without you, none of us can. Please, Jesse, tell them what
they want to know."
If he could find no way to stop it he could not hold himself in check much
longer. He returned the boy's sec-
ond embrace until the arbiter put an end to it, then
sought the closest wall. Against that white tile he leaned, unspeaking,
looking only at his feet, until at last they left'
him, murmuring arbiter and stricken youth. He did his best to forget that
encounter, but it haunted him the rest of his days, along with the sight of
Gahan Tempest calmly stepping in front of his Kerrion charge to his death.
In New Chaeronea, scant hours after the last multi-
121
EARTH DREAMS
drive bore Kerrion hosts and Consortium guests up into the starry night and
the security of Acheron, all the lights went out. The power outage was
complete; the Kerrion cousin left in charge considered sabotage, emphemerally,
but chaos abounded in the pitch-dark city. And, had he penetrated the plot and
deduced its ramifications imme-
diately, he could not have foiled it: he had an entire, panicked city on his
hands; controlling it was more than he could do.
Page 77
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
He thanked his thoughtful architects that he could exit his own chambers: one
fail-safe had not failed: every door in New Chaeronea opened as the power
died. Run-
ning through his own, flashlight in hand, he collided with his assistant, pale
in nightclothes, and together they went to roust the sleeping engineers. The
emergency genera-
tors should have cut in automatically. In the darkened halls, screams from
folk trapped in a lift distracted them further. Cursing, the Kemon-in-charge
delegated au-
thority. If his instructions were cursory and his per-
spicacity wanting, he had good reason: one of those voices wailing in the
open-doored shaft was his wife.
In the consulate's basement, Hooker hurried from his cell, borne along in the
company of Kerrion-liveried co-
horts whose part in his escape had so long ago been de-
termined that no one needed to speak a word. "If this happens, then here's
what we'll do. . . ." It had been a contingency so well and completely planned
for that its execution was more like a dejavu than an escape. Only one
deviation from the scenario was instituted, and that at Hooker's command:
"Thome!" he hissed, as they fol-
lowed the bobbing pools of light their flashlights cast through the inky
corridors.
No one argued; Hooker had chosen his co-conspirators well. Every man among
them had been here before
Chaeron Kerrion came to roost in Acheron; some had engaged in the struggle to
wrest Earth from Orrefors do-
minion a few had fought on the Orrefors side. All had one thing in common:
Earth was their home, the only home left to them since Chaeron had jettisoned
the
Stump and made every man jack of them into tenant-
*' minions whose tasks were impossible of accomplishment and whose inherited
loyalties and painstakingly de-
122
JANET MORRIS
veloped methodologies were then opened to Kerrion re-
view, Kerrion derision, Kerrion revision.
Hooker, whose father was of the Orrefors bond and whose mother was
undistinguished among Kerrions, had played Marada Kerrion for a fool. It was
not difficult to do. The consul general of Kerrion space had enjoined him to
do what he most cherishingly dreamed of doing.
He had expected, eventually, to be thrown to the Ker-
rions' arbitrational wolves, unmasked and cast away when the time was right.
He was not hurt, he was not angry. But he would not be neutered and sent
unresisting to space-end. He was an enchanter, among folk who did not
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]