"Hilary, don't you know me?" he said. "Howard Beloved Immanuelson? Remember when Jason Rowe brought me around and you took us to join Rukh Tamani's Command?"
Hillary's eyes cleared to recognition. He held out his hand.
"Sorry," he said, "you've changed a bit. Who are you now?"
Hal gripped hands with him.
"My papers say I'm a Maran named Emer—commercially accredited to trade on Harmony by the Exotic Ambassadorial Office here."
"You could have fooled me," said Hilary, dryly, as their hands released. "Particularly wearing those ordinary clothes."
"You know Exotics don't always wear robes," said Hal. "Any more than Friendlies always dress in black. But, for your information only, you'd better have my real name. It's Hal Mayne. I'm of Earth."
"Old Earth?"
"Yes," said Hal. "Old Earth—and now, of the Final Encyclopedia, as well. I'm up to my ears in something larger than fighting the Militia, nowadays."
He looked closely at Hilary to read the other man's reaction.
"It isn't just here, or on Association, any longer," he went on, when Hilary said nothing. "Now, the battle against the Others is on all the worlds."
Hilary nodded. The wraith of a sigh seemed to tremble in him.
"I know," he said. "The old times are ending. I saw it coming a long time back. What can I do for you?"
"Just tell me where I can find Rukh," said Hal. "Some people were looking for me, but they haven't had any luck. For the sake of all the worlds, I've got to talk to her as soon as I can. There's a job only she can do for us."
Hilary's face became grim.
"I'm not sure I'd tell you unless you had someone to vouch for you. A year can move some people from one side to another. But in this case, it makes no difference. Whatever you've got in mind, you'd better find someone else to take it on," he said. "Rukh Tamani's dead—or if she isn't, I'd be sorry to hear it. The Militia have her. They caught up with her three weeks ago."
Hal stared at the older man.
"Three weeks ago… where?"
"Ahruma."
"Ahruma? You mean she's been there ever since she blew the Core Tap?"
"They had it almost repaired. She was reconnoitering to see if the repair work could be sabotaged. There's a limb of Satan named Colonel Barbage—Amyth Barbage—who's been devoting his full time to running her down. He got word she was in the city, made a sweep, and two of the people he picked up knew where she could be found—"
Hilary paused, shrugged.
"They talked, of course, after he got them back to the Militia Center. And he caught her."
Hal stared at him.
"I'm going to have to get her out as soon as possible," he said.
"Get her out?" Hilary stared at him for a long moment. "You're actually serious, aren't you? Don't you think if prisoners could be got out of Militia Centers, we'd have been doing it before this?"
"And you haven't, I take it," said Hal, hearing his own voice echoing harshly off the curved walls and roof that were one and the same.
Hilary did not even bother to answer.
"I'm sorry," said Hal. "But there's too much at stake. I'll have to get her out, and as soon as possible."
"Man," said Hilary softly. "Don't you understand? Odds are a hundred to one she's been dead for at least a couple of weeks!"
"I've got to assume she isn't," said Hal. "We'll go in after her. Who do I see in Ahruma to get help? Are there any of her old Command around here?"
Hilary did not move.
"Help," he said, almost wonderingly. Moving as if by their own volition, his hands picked up a tan square of saturated cleansing cloth from the mainframe below the windshield of the vehicle he had been working on and started to wipe themselves. "Listen to me, Hal—if that's really your name—we can't just pick up a phone and call Ahruma. All long distance calls are monitored. It'd take three days to find a courier, a week to pass him or her on through friends who can make transportation available between here and Ahruma, another week to get people there together to talk about trying a rescue—and then they'd all go home an hour later after they heard what you had in mind, because they all know, like me, that any such thing's impossible. You were in a Command. What do you think a handful of people with needle guns and cone rifles can do against a barracks-ful of police inside a fortress?"
"There are ways to deal even with fortresses," said Hal, "and as far as a phone message to Ahruma goes, I can probably make use of Exotic diplomatic communications, if the message can be coded safely. Why a week to get a courier there, anyway, when air transportation makes it in two hours?"
"God has afflicted your wits," said Hilary, calmly. "Even if we had someone locally who could show airport checkpoints an acceptable reason to make such a trip, it'd cost a fortune we don't have. Remember your Command, I say. Remember how you had to make do with equipment and weapons that were falling apart?"
"Credit's a problem?" Hal reached into his jacket and came out with a folder. He opened it to show the vouchers of balances in interstellar credit within it to Hilary. "I'm carrying more in interworld credit than you'd need for even a small army—given the exchange rate to Harmony currency. This is mine, and the Final Encyclopedia's. But if necessary, I'm pretty sure I could get more yet through Exotic diplomatic channels."
Hilary stared at the vouchers. His face became thoughtful. After a second, he walked around the vehicle across which he had been talking to Hal all this time.
"Coffee?" he said
"Thanks," answered Hal.
Hilary led the way to a desk some twenty feet away, with a small cooker holding a coffee pot and a stack of disposable cups. They sat down and the older man poured a couple of cups. He drank slowly and appreciatively from his own, while Hal put his cup to his own lips, then set it down again. He had almost forgotten what Harmony coffee tasted like.
"I'm going to trust you," said Hilary, putting his own cup back down among the cluttered paperwork on the worn surface of the desk. "It's impossible, just as I say, but with that kind of credit we can at least daydream about it."
"Why is it still impossible? What makes it impossible?" Hal asked.
Hilary stared at him without answering.
"You say you're from Old Earth," he said. "Not from Dorsai?"
"Old Earth."
"If you say so." Hilary nodded slowly. "All right, then, to answer your questions, weren't you held in the Center here for a day or so before you and Jason came to see me? So do I need to tell you what they're like inside?"
"I didn't see much of it," said Hal. "Besides, you said Rukh's in the Center at Ahruma, not the one here at Citadel."
"They're all built the same," said Hilary. "It'd need an army to force its way into one, let alone bring someone out, let alone the Militia'd probably kill any prisoner they suspected we were about to try and rescue."
"If it needs an army, we'll get an army," said Hal. "This is something that concerns all the fourteen worlds. But maybe that much won't be necessary. Draw me a plan of a Center, if they're all alike as you say. Who'd I talk to in Ahruma to help me organize this?"
"Athalia McNaughton—I'd heard you'd met her," Hilary said briefly. He pushed the paperwork on the desk aside, drew a stylus and a blank sheet from the drawer below the desk's surface. He pushed both things across to Hal. "I can't draw worth a hoot. I'll tell you, and you draw. There's three main sections inside each Center, the Clerking section, the Militia Barracks, and the Cells section…"
"Just a minute," said Hal. "What about finding a courier? We can't spare three days for that—"
"You won't need a courier. I'll go with you," said Hilary. "You can try and convince Athalia; and while you're doing that I'll see who I can round up in the local territory to help you, just in case. Now, draw this the way I tell you. The three sections of the Center are always in a single brick building on the end of a city block, as long as the block is wide, and about half that, in its width. The building in Ahruma is go
ing to be less than six stories high, but with at least three levels underground. The Cells section, as you might expect, takes up the bottom levels…"
Together, they caught a late afternoon flight to Ahruma, three hours later; and Hal found himself sitting in the combination outer office-living room of Athalia McNaughton on the outskirts of Ahruma as the summer twilight outside gave way to night. Hilary was in Athalia's small working office, off to the right of this larger room, phoning people from Athalia's records of local resistance members, calling them to a conference. Athalia had remembered Hal but he found her even less ready to entertain the idea of rescuing Rukh than Hilary had been.
"… Those funds you've got are all very well," the tall, brown-haired woman told him, after he had made his initial argument. They were sitting in overstuffed chairs in one corner of the room, facing each other almost like enemies. "But you're asking me to put the lives of a number of good and necessary local people in danger for a wild goose chase. Hilary told you the straight of it. She's undoubtedly dead by now. The only reason she wouldn't be, would be if someone there had some special use for her."
"She wouldn't talk easily," said Hal.
"Don't you think I know that?" Athalia flared. "No Commander of a Command talks easily—and I've known her since she was a baby. But she'd either talk, and they'd kill her when they thought she had no more to tell them; or they'd have killed her by this time trying to make her talk. They aren't set up for keeping prisoners more than a few days—they just don't do it."
"All right," said Hal. "Then let's find out if she's still alive. Don't tell me you don't have some line of contact going inside that Center?"
"Into the Center, yes. Into the Barracks, yes. But into the Cells…" Athalia's words slowed as his eyes remained steady on hers. Her voice became almost gruff. "All we've ever been able to do as far as the Cells go is sometimes smuggle suicide materials to one of our people who's been caught."
Hal sat watching her. With Rukh's life or death possibly hanging in the balance, he found himself very quiet within, and certain. As he had when he had come at last to the moment of having to win over the Grey Captains of the Dorsai, he was conscious of tapping skills until now locked away from him. One of these was a sort of intuitive logic that made him very sure of the answers that had come to him. He felt now something like an inner strength that had for a time slumbered, but was now awaking to take hold of him. Athalia, unchanged since he had seen her last, sat as one who has every confidence in her ability to win the argument. Her large-boned, thin-lipped face, strikingly attractive under the dark hair, in spite of her age, waited for him to do the impossible job of convincing her; and watching her, he considered with the recently reawakened part of his mind what would reach her, what would touch her, what would prove what he had to say beyond the possibility of any further disagreement—as he had facing the Grey Captains.
"I know Rukh's alive," he said.
Only a slight widening of Athalia's eyes signalled that he might have found the right thing to say.
"How?" she demanded.
"Simply take it that I know," he said, meeting her eyes. And it was true, the feeling was a sureness in him. Although even if he had not felt it, he would have spoken the same words to Athalia, anyway. "But certainly we ought to be able to find out, if you want outside proof. I can't believe you don't have some way to check on that, at least."
"I suppose…" said Athalia slowly, "yes, I think we could check that much."
"Then there's no point in wasting time, is there?" said Hal. "While you're doing that, everything else can be going forward on the assumption that we're going to hear that she's alive; then we'll be ready to move as soon as possible when we do hear she's alive. Suppose I make an agreement with you?"
He went on before she could have a chance to speak.
"As you know, I've been with a Command. I wouldn't think of trying to buy you, or anyone else. But will you do this much for me? Organize and push forward the preparations for a rescue, including using anyone who'd be involved with that, and if it turns out Rukh isn't still alive I'll reimburse everyone concerned for any time or expense lost they've been put to—if you want to, I'll also donate five hundred credits of interstellar units to the use of your local people—and you know what that works out to in terms of local exchange."
He paused to take a breath and she began to speak, coldly.
"I don't think—"
"But," he said, overriding her, "if Rukh is alive, we'll forget about any reimbursement or donations—except for the matter of any expenses your people couldn't afford. Otherwise I'll assume that what this might cost them is no more than what they'd undertake for Rukh's sake, in any case."
He stopped then and waited for her to speak. But she only looked at him, almost as an enemy might look, for a long second.
"All right," she said. "Within reason and within the bounds of what I think is safe for those I'm responsible for, all right."
"Good," he said, swiftly, "then, since I'm willing to pay for it if I'm wrong, there's some things I'd like put in motion right away. I'll need to know a great deal about that Militia Center, everything you can find out for me, including how many Militiamen and officers they've got there at the moment—I know you won't be able to give me an exact count, but I need to know the approximate number on hand at the time we go in after Rukh. Also, I want to know about deliveries and traffic, in and out of the building. Also, when they unlock the public areas, who those are who don't belong there but are occasionally allowed to go in and out anyway, such as when the building gets its garbage picked up; and what the arrangements are for repair calls by outside workmen, in case they need services of any kind. I need to know the hours of the various shifts on duty, the personalities of the officers in command and the kinds of communication going into the building."
He stopped.
"You don't want much," she said. She smiled slightly, grimly.
"There ought to be local people you can ask to find out these things," he answered. "Naturally, we also need to know about armament, and locks and security measures. But there's one thing I'd like you to start right now—and it won't commit you or your people to anything. That's to spread the word around the city that Rukh might—just might—still be alive: Then, when we find out she is, that rumor will have the general public ready to accept the information and maybe mount some shielding demonstrations for us."
Athalia hesitated, then nodded.
"All right," she said, "that much can be done."
"And as soon as we get definite word Rukh's still alive," he said, "I want to meet with everyone and explain to them how we can get her out."
"If you can," said Athalia.
"We'll see," he answered.
"All right," she got to her feet. "I'll go right now and set the machinery working to find out—if I can get Hilary off that phone for five minutes."
"How soon do you think we might hear?" he called after her as she headed toward the small office.
"I don't know. Forty-eight hours at least, I'd say," she answered over her shoulder.
But it was not forty-eight hours. Before noon the next day Athalia heard from the fish dealer who supplied the Barracks section kitchen in the Center and was on easy speaking terms with the mess cook and his staff. Rukh, he had been told, was in an isolation cell; but, as of the previous day, she had been alive.
Eight hours later, as soon as darkness had cloaked the streets for an hour, sixteen people gathered in Athalia's warehouse, around a table of boards set up on trestles for the occasion.
Chapter Fifty-three
Hal sat at one end of the table looking down its length at Athalia and at all those between them. Again, as when he had talked to her the evening before, he was strongly reminded of the moment in which he had faced the Grey Captains in the dining room at Foralie. Outside of Athalia herself and Hilary, those at the table were all faces he did not know, with the exception of two from Rukh's Command, the perky, aggressiv
e features of Tallah, and the long face of Morelly Walden. Morelly had evidently healed from his wound, but he had lost weight and now his body was as thin as his limbs. He had supported himself with a stick as he had walked into the warehouse, and he looked twenty years older than the man Hal had known.
If any of the other twelve people Athalia had invited were also members or former members of Commands, they showed no sign of it. It seemed to Hal that with the exception of Tallah and Morelly, he looked at all city faces; hard faces, in some instances, but city ones nonetheless; and his instincts told him that he could expect no help from either of his former comrades, or from Hilary—if Hilary had indeed come to the point of wanting to help—in convincing these others.
Athalia began matters by briefly rehearsing Hal's credentials as a former member of Rukh's group and stating what he wanted.
"… and as you all know," she wound up, "we did hear earlier today that Rukh was still alive in the Cells at Center—in an isolation cell, but alive. He's made certain offers to us you know about. Now, I'll let Hal have his chance to tell you what he's got in mind."
"Thanks," said Hal.
He looked at the men and women he did not know; and their expressions were not encouraging.
"I take it for granted," he said, "that there's no one here who'd hesitate at anything I've got to propose, if he or she thought there was a real possibility of getting Rukh free from the Militia. But I'm going to have to ask one uncomfortable question before I start talking to you—is there anyone here who seriously feels that it's a waste of time even listening to me? I'm asking each one of you to examine your own conscience."
The eyes around the table stared back at him. No one stirred or spoke.
"I ask that," said Hal, "because I know many of you feel that simply because no prisoner has ever been recovered from a Center, no prisoner ever could be; and I'm here to tell you not only that that's a belief that's mistaken, but that bringing Rukh safely out of the hands of the Militia is the sort of thing that people like us have done down through history. It's not only possible, it's practical. However, there's not one of you here I can convince of that, if you've already made up your mind there's no point in listening to me. So, I'll ask you again, for Rukh's sake, are there any of you here who've got a completely closed mind on this subject?"
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