by David Weber
Self-determination! Ha! He enjoyed sour thoughts, for a few seconds, of how that principle might be applied by the notoriously cantankerous and particularistic highlanders of his youth. Every hill a kingdom, every hollow a realm!
Sheer nonsense. The crown welds the nation, and that’s that. Otherwise—chaos.
But he left off the rumination. Cathy had risen from her chair and was advancing toward the podium in her characteristically jerky and high-stepping gait. She reminded Anton of a young racing horse approaching the starting gate.
He braced himself. Oh, well, he thought, it’ll all be for the best, once I hear her prattling nonsense. Let this idiot infatuation be dispelled.
His military training recognized the subtle but ferocious security which protected the Countess of the Tor. Anton spotted Isaac immediately, standing at the foot of the speaker’s platform. Cathy’s “butler”—who was actually her chief bodyguard—had his back turned toward her. His attention was entirely given to the crowd packed near the podium. Within seconds, Anton spotted several other people maintaining a similar stance. He recognized none of them, but he knew that they were all either members of the Audubon Ballroom or other organizations of Mesan ex-slaves in alliance with the Ballroom.
The sight made him relax a bit. The genetic slaves who escaped from Manpower’s grip and made their way to the Loop were the lowest of the low, by the standards of Solarian society. For all the League’s official egalitarianism, there was a taint which was attached to those genetically manipulated people. Subhumans, they were often called in private.
The Old Quarter’s other immigrants—who constituted, of course, a vastly larger body of people than the ex-Mesans—were by no means immune to that bigotry. Indeed, some of them would express it more openly and crudely than any member of the genteel upper crust. But if those immigrants shared the general attitude that the ex-slaves were the lowest of the low, they also understood—from close and sometimes bitter experience—that there was a corollary.
The hardest of the hard.Not all of the blows which Jeremy X and his comrades struck fell on the rich and powerful. A time had been, once, and not so many years ago, when a Mesan ex-slave had to fear pogroms and lynchings in the Old Quarter. The Audubon Ballroom had put a stop to that, as savagely as they felt it necessary.
Cathy reached the podium and began to speak. Her words, amplified by the electronic devices built within the speaker’s stand, brought instant silence to the entire amphitheater.
Anton was impressed. The immigrants who lived in the Loop were drawn from dozens of the Solarian League’s so-called “protectorate worlds.” Most of them subscribed to a general principle of solidarity among the downtrodden, but that unity was riven—fractured, often enough—by a multitude of political differences and cultural animosities. No one had tried to shout down the previous speakers, representing one or another of the various groups which had agreed to sponsor this rally. But neither had they felt constrained to listen quietly. Cathy was the first speaker who was getting the huge crowd’s undivided attention.
In truth, Anton was not simply impressed—he was a bit shocked. He had known, abstractly, that Cathy had the authority to call for such a rally on a moment’s notice. Or so, at least, Jeremy X had claimed when he laid out his plans for Helen’s rescue in the coffeehouse. But seeing that authority manifested in the concrete was an altogether different experience.
How does she do it? he wondered. She’s not even from the League, much less one of its protectorates. For God’s sake, the woman’s a foreign aristocrat!
Cathy began to speak, and Anton began to understand. Slowly and grudgingly, of course—except for that part of him which realized, with deepening shock, that his ridiculous infatuation was not about to go away.
Part of it, he decided, was precisely because she was a Manticoran aristocrat. If the Star Kingdom had a certain reputation for arrogance and snobbery among the huge population of the Solarian League, it also had a reputation for—to a degree, at least—living up to its own standards. Quite unlike, in that respect, the officially egalitarian standards of the League itself. The Sollie upper crust and the comfortable middle classes on the Core Worlds could prattle all they wanted about democracy and equality, and sneer at the “reactionary semi-feudalism” of the Star Kingdom. The immigrants packed into that amphitheater knew the truth.
In the far-off and distant protectorate worlds from which they had come—fled, rather—the iron fist within the Sollie velvet glove was bare and naked. The protectorate worlds were ruled by the League’s massive bureaucracy, whose institutional indifference was married to the avarice of the League’s giant commercial interests. If none of those protectorate worlds was precisely a hell-hole, a modern equivalent of the King Leopold’s Congo of ancient legend, they did bear a close resemblance to what had once been called “banana republics” and “company towns.” Neocolonialism, many of the previous speakers had called it, and even Anton did not disagree with that characterization.
There was nothing of that nature within the Star Kingdom. Anton himself, as a Gryphon highlander, could attest to that. The conflict between Gryphon’s yeomanry and its aristocracy was the closest the Star Kingdom had ever come to that kind of open class war. And that conflict paled in comparison to anything which these immigrants had experienced.
But most of it, he realized as Cathy’s speech unfolded, was due to the woman herself. Anton had been expecting another histrionic speech, like the ones which had preceded Cathy’s, wherein the speakers bellowed hackneyed slogans and shrieked phrases which, for all their incendiary terminology, were as platitudinous and devoid of content as any politician’s. What he heard instead was a calm, thoughtful presentation of the logic of genetic slavery and the manner in which it undermined any and all possibility for human freedom. Speaking in her husky, penetrating contralto—without, he noted with some amusement, any of the profanity which peppered her casual conversations—Cathy took up the arguments advanced by the Mesans and their apologists and began carefully dissecting them.
For all that her own motivation was clearly one of simple morality, Cathy did not appeal to that. Rather, as cold-bloodedly as any Machiavellian politician devoted to Realpolitik, she examined the logic of slavery—especially slavery which was connected to genetic differentiation. Her speech was filled with a multitude of examples drawn from human history, many of them dating back to the ancient era when the planet on which she now stood was the sole habitat of the human species. Time and again, she cited the words of such fabled sages as Douglass and Lincoln, showing how the logic of genetic slavery was nothing new in the universe.
Two things, in particular, struck Anton most about her speech. The first was that the woman had obviously, like many exiles before her, taken full advantage of her long years of isolation to devote herself to serious and exhaustive study. Anton had been aware, vaguely, that even professional scholars considered the Countess of the Tor one of the galaxy’s authorities on the subject of “genetic indentured servitude.” Now he saw the proof of that before his own eyes, and reacted to it with the traditional respect which Gryphon highlanders gave to any genuine expert. The Liberal and Progressive Manticoran aristocrats whom Anton had encountered in the past had repelled him, as much as anything, by their light-minded and casual knowledge of the subjects they so freely pontificated about. Lazy dabblers, was his opinion of them. His former wife Helen’s opinion had been even harsher, for all that she considered herself a Progressive of sorts. There was nothing of that dilettantism in the woman standing at the podium.
The second thing was the target of her speech. Although Cathy was focusing on the plight of the Mesan slaves, her words were not addressed to them but to the big majority of the audience in the amphitheater—who were not Mesans. The point of her remarks—the pivot of them, in fact—was her attempt to demonstrate that any waffling on the issue of genetic slavery by any political movement which demanded justice for its own constituents would surely undermine it
s own cause.
Before she was more than ten minutes into the speech, Anton found himself leaning forward and listening attentively. A part of his mind, of course, paid no attention to her words. In one sense, the entire rally and Cathy’s speech itself was a gigantic diversion designed to cover the effort to rescue his daughter. But that part was quiescent, for the moment, simply waiting with the stoic patience of Gryphon’s great mountains. The rest of his mind, almost despite his own volition, found himself enjoying the quick humor and slowly unfolding logic of the woman he was listening to.
So it was almost—not quite—with regret, that he broke away when he felt the nudge on his elbow.
He turned his head. One of Jeremy’s comrades was leaning over his shoulder. He recognized the young woman, although he did not know her name.
“It’s time,” she said.
Anton and Robert Tye immediately rose and began following her out of the amphitheater. Dressed as they were in the typical clothing worn by many immigrants in the Old Quarter, nobody took note of their departure.
“How far?” asked Anton, the moment they had exited from the amphitheater itself and could no longer be overheard.
The woman smiled, almost ruefully. “Would you believe it? Not more than a mile. They’re somewhere in the Artinstute.”
Tye’s eyes widened. “I thought that was a fable,” he protested.
“Nope. It exists, sure enough. But talk about your buried—!” She broke off, shaking her head. “Never been there myself. Don’t know anyone who has, actually.”
Anton frowned. “But you’re sure Helen’s there?”
They were moving quickly now, almost running down a long and sloping ramp. Over her head, the woman said: “Guess so. Jeremy didn’t seem the least unsure about it.”
Anton was not entirely mollified. From what he had seen of Jeremy X, he suspected the man was never “unsure about it” with regard to anything. He could only hope the assurance was justified.
And now they were running, and Anton drove everything out of his mind except his own implacable purpose.
Helen
When Helen awoke, the first thing she saw was a blue glint. It came from somewhere high on the wall opposite the pallet where she was resting. The “wall” was more in the nature of collapsed rubble, which seemed to have forced its way into some kind of opening. As if one wall—she could still see remnants of what must be an ancient structure—had been filled by the centuries-long disintegration of walls which came after. The glint seemed to come from a piece of that most ancient wall, a jagged and broken shard.
Blue. As if it were shining by its own light. Helen stared at it, puzzled.
When she finally realized the truth, she sat upright, almost bolting. That was sunlight! Shining through something!
Next to her, Berry stirred. The girl had apparently already been awake. Seeing the direction of Helen’s stare, Berry followed her eyes. Then, smiled.
“It’s so special, this place,” she whispered. “There’s light down here—all the way down here!—coming from someplace above. Must be little crevices or something, all the way up to the surface.”
The two girls stared at the blue glint. “It’s the Windows,” Berry whispered. “I know it is. The Shkawl Windows everybody always talks about but nobody knows where they are. I found it—me and Lars.”
Helen had never heard of the “Shkawl Windows.” She was about to ask Berry what they were, when another thought occurred to her. She looked around. Then, seeing that the cavernous area she was in was too poorly lit by the feeble light to see more than a few feet, listened.
“How long have I been asleep?” she asked, her voice tinged by worry. “And where’s Lars?”
“You’ve been sleeping forever, seems like. You must have been real tired.”
Berry nestled closer. “Lars said he was going back to make sure we didn’t leave any tracks. He took a lantern with him.” She frowned and raised her head. “But he’s been gone a long time, now that I think about it. I wonder—”
Helen rummaged under the blanket, searching for the other lantern. When she found it, she rose and headed for the stairs. “Stay here,” she commanded. “I’ll find him.”
But Lars found her, instead. And brought the terror back.
“People are coming,” he hissed. “With guns.”
Startled, Helen lifted her eyes. She had been looking at the floor, picking her way through the debris which filled what seemed to have once been a wide hallway. From a corner twenty feet ahead and to her left, Lars flicked his lantern on and off, showing her where he was hidden.
She extinguished her own lantern and moved toward him, as quickly as she could in the darkness.
“Who are they?” she whispered.
“Most of ’em are Scrags,” came the answer. “Must be a dozen of ’em. Maybe more. But there’s some other people leading them. I don’t know who they are, but they’re real scary-looking. One of them has some kind of gadget.”
Helen was at his side, her hand resting on the boy’s shoulder. She could feel the tremor shaking those slender bones.
“I think they’re tracking us with it, Helen,” he added. His voice was full of fear. “Our smell, maybe. Something.”
Helen felt a shiver of fear herself. She knew that there were such devices, because her father had mentioned them to her. But the devices were very expensive.
Which meant—
Helen didn’t want to think about what it meant. Whatever it was, it was bad news.
“How close are they?” she whispered.
“Not too far any more. I spotted ’em a while ago. After that I stayed ahead of them, hoping they were going somewhere else. It was easy ’cause they’ve got a lot of lanterns and they’re not afraid to use them.”
The fear in his voice was stronger. For a waif like Lars, anyone who would move through the dark caverns of the lower Loop without worrying who might spot them was an automatic danger. The arrogance of power.
“Stay here,” she whispered. A moment later, after adjusting the lantern to its lowest power setting, Helen began moving ahead into the darkness. The soft glow emitted by the lantern was enough to illuminate her immediate footsteps, no more. She was searching for the oncoming enemy—and that they were her enemies, she didn’t doubt at all—using her ears and her nose.
She found them two minutes later. And felt the worst despair of her life. There would be no escaping these.
The Scrags, maybe. But not the five people in front.
From her vantage point, peeking around another corner in the endless hallways which seemed to make up this place, Helen studied the oncoming searchers. She gave no more than a momentary scrutiny to the Scrags bringing up the rear, strutting and swaggering exactly the way she remembered them. It was the five people in front that she spent her time examining.
They were dressed in civilian clothing, but Helen knew at once that they were trained professionals. She had spent her whole life as a military brat. Everything about those four men and one woman shrieked: soldiers. It was obvious in the way they maintained their positions, the way they held their weapons, everything—
Peeps! The thought flooded her, unbidden. It made no sense that a Peep military detachment would be down here, but Helen never questioned the logic. Peeps were her enemies. Peeps had killed her mother. Who else—what other soldiers?—would be looking for her? She was much too politically unsophisticated to understand the illogicality of an alliance between Scrags and Peeps. Enemies were enemies, and there’s an end to it. Such is the root of highland political logic, as it has been throughout human existence. Helen had been born in a military hospital in the great orbiting shipyard called Hephaestus, and had only occasionally visited Gryphon. No matter. She was her father’s girl. From the highlands.
She focused her eyes on the two Peeps in the very forefront. The leaders, obviously. The one on the left had all the earmarks of a veteran. He was studying a device held in his hand, his hatchet fa
ce bent forward and tight with concentration.
Her eyes moved to the man standing next to him. The officer in charge, she realized. She wasn’t certain—it was hard to be, with prolong—but she thought he was as young in actual fact as his face would indicate.
She took no comfort in that youthfulness. She saw the veteran’s head nod, like a hatchet striking wood, and his lips move. The young officer’s face came up and he was staring directly at her, from a distance of not more than twenty yards.
He could not see Helen in the darkness, but she could see him clearly. There was nothing soft and childlike in that lean face; nothing boyish in the wiry body. She saw his jaw tighten, and the dark gleam which seemed to come into his eyes. That was the face of a young fanatic, she knew, who had just come to an irrevocable decision. Pitiless and merciless in the way that only youth can be. Helen realized, in that instant, his true purpose.
That was the face of a killer, not a captor.
And so, in the end, Helen belonged to her mother also. Helen Zilwicki came back to life, reborn in the daughter named after her. As she continued her examination, Helen gave no thought at all to her own certain death. That her enemies would catch Helen herself, and kill her, she did not doubt for an instant. But perhaps, if she did her job and led them astray before they trapped her, the monsters would be satisfied with her alone. And not seek further in the darkness, for her own new-found children.
Victor
“Almost there,” said Citizen Sergeant Fallon. “She can’t be more than a hundred yards away. And whoever’s with her. Youngsters, I think, the way these readings keep coming up. One boy and one girl, would be my guess. Her age or younger.”
Victor raised his head and stared at the wide opening which loomed before them. The room they were in, for all its size, was like a half-collapsed ancient vault. It was well-illuminated by their lanterns, but the ancient corridor ahead was still buried in darkness.