“If we pass this bill, we will finally be able to do the work we were elected for—the work of defining and preserving humankind’s future in space.” Despite its quaver, his voice took on a trenchant edge. “As matters stand, all we really do is argue about decisions someone else has already made. Right now, today, it is Holt Fasner who sets human policy. And his subordinates carry out that policy. Occasionally he allows us to ratify some small part of his designs. The rest of the time we might as well as be asleep.
“I want to change that. We can. We can; We have the power. As humankind’s elected representatives to the Governing Council for Earth and Space, we have the power. All we need to do,” he finished, “is make up our minds to pass this bill.”
Finally his head dropped. He supported himself on his arms with his head bowed as if he were waiting for someone to pray over him.
In front of Hashi, Koina sat with her hands at her sides like a woman restraining an impulse to applaud.
If she’d started clapping, he would have been tempted to join her himself.
How many Members, he wondered, felt the same way? Sigurd Carsin appeared nonplussed, dismayed by involuntary admiration for her Senior Member, whom she’d always despised. Abrim Len fussed with his mace: he seemed to think his dignity depended on the proper placement of his ceremonial rod. Vest Martingale looked back and forth between Cleatus Fane and Captain Vertigus as if she wanted to flee, but didn’t know where safety lay. Punjat Silat beamed like a benevolent idol. Despite her reputation for serving on the Council only because it supplied her with opportunities for sexual conquest, Blaine Manse studied Sixten with a new glow of purpose on her face.
Hashi would have looked farther, but his attention was attracted by movement among the guards opposite him. The man who had stood at the door earlier changed positions again, moving another three or four meters away from his original post. Then he stopped once more. His face was partially in shadow: Hashi couldn’t see his features clearly.
Now what, Hashi asked himself, do you suppose that man has in his mind?
“Captain Vertigus,” the Dragon’s First Executive Assistant asked solicitously, “do you feel well?”
Sixten didn’t turn his head. “Read my bill, Mr. Fane. It will tell you how I feel.”
Cleatus Fane shifted his weight in a way which caused him to appear larger. “Then I’m forced to say—with all deference to your years and reputation—that this is preposterous.”
His tone had a cloying, medicinal quality, as if he kept it sweet to make its underlying bitterness palatable.
“In the name of the United Mining Companies, as well as for the benefit of this Council, I must mention several points which you have apparently chosen to overlook.”
He didn’t ask permission to speak. He didn’t need it; he spoke for Holt Fasner, and President Len made no attempt to stop him.
“First, your assertion that the charter of the UMCP can be transferred to this body without disruption—without ‘missing a moment’—is pragmatically absurd. Such things may be imagined in the abstract. In practice they do not occur. Structural change has structural consequences. At a time when humankind’s survival depends on the Police as never before, you ask this body to ignore the inevitable upheavals—and their inevitable cost.”
Leaning his elbows on the table in order to face Sixten more directly, Fane seemed to expand again. His voice grew sharper; mordant behind its sweetness.
“In addition, Captain Vertigus, you ignore the irrefutable fact that as a branch of the United Mining Companies the Police are more effective than they can ever be as an arm of the GCES. Under the present arrangement, the UMCP and the UMC share resources and information, personnel and research; listening posts and other tools. They must because those are Holt Fasner’s instructions. However diverse their actions may be, their authority comes from a single source.
“At present the UMCP are better informed, more mobile, and more powerful than they could hope to be under any other arrangement. Not, I hasten to say, because the UMC would ever withhold cooperation, information, or support from a separate Police, but because the GCES and the UMC are inherently discrete entities—unlike the UMC and the UMCP.”
Cleatus Fane looked around the chamber, inviting the Members to agree with him—or to disagree, if they had the nerve.
However, Hashi no longer watched the First Executive Assistant’s performance. In a sense he’d stopped listening. The guard who’d left the doors was moving again. When he stopped, he was almost directly behind the section of the table where Vest Martingale sat. Another shift of the same distance would put him behind Sixten Vertigus: two more after that, behind Cleatus Fane.
Hashi studied the guard, trying to get a clear look at his face.
When none of the Members offered an opinion, Fane continued.
“Finally, Captain Vertigus, I feel compelled to observe that your insistence on accountability is misleading. With all respect to this body, it is plain that accountability to any group of men and women can not be as clear and absolute as accountability to a single authority. At present the UMCP must answer to Holt Fasner for everything they do. His personal commitment to the integrity and effectiveness of the UMCP protects against any corruption.”
He paused to give this assertion force. He might have been asking, “Is there anyone here who dares to say publicly that Holt Fasner is not honorable?”
No one did.
Fane smiled. He could afford to be magnanimous.
“Matters may appear dubious at the moment,” he conceded, “but I can assure you from long and direct experience that the UMC CEO’s investigation will root out malfeasance and punish treason better than any Council. The diligence and dedication of the Council’s Members can’t compete with Holt Fasner’s more intimate knowledge of the UMCP’s people and operations.
“If you insist on disrupting the Police when so many crises are upon us, you will lay all human space open to kazes—and worse. Yes, worse,” he insisted. “In fact, I fear that any sign of confusion in the UMCP now would give all our enemies the occasion they need to attack.”
Now at last the features of the guard Hashi scrutinized caught the light squarely.
Quoting shamelessly in surprise, the DA director whispered, “Now there’s a face that flits upon my memory.”
Nathan Alt. At one time Captain Nathan Alt, commander, UMCP cruiser Vehemence, Until Min Donner had court-martialed him for what she chose to call “dereliction of duty.”
Hashi didn’t doubt for an instant that he was right. He trusted his vast memory. But what in Heisenberg’s name was Nathan Alt doing here? In the uniform of a GCES Security guard?
At once the DA director turned in his seat and gripped the arm of the boy Forrest Ing had assigned to him, Ensign Crender.
“Come with me.”
Without waiting for a response, Hashi rose and began working his way up the crowded tiers to the back of the hall.
Sixten Vertigus was a frail old man who might as well have been beaten. He made no effort to look up or turn his head. Nevertheless he was the only one in the chamber who answered the First Executive Assistant.
Wearily he retorted, “That’s all beside the point, Mr. Fane.” Despite his fatigue, however, his words were distinct. “It changes nothing. You would say exactly the same things with exactly the same conviction if your Holt Fasner had sold his soul to the Amnion.”
A gasp of shock hissed around the hall. Abrim Len turned toward Sixten with a jerk, gaped aghast at the UWB Senior Member. No one had ever said anything like that aloud in front of the GCES.
Hashi admired Sixten’s reply, but he didn’t pause. When he reached the last tier and the wall, he turned to Ensign Crender again, pulled the boy toward him.
“Stay close,” he demanded softly, so that the nearby guards wouldn’t hear him. “Be ready.”
Shuffling in his untied shoes as if he felt no need for haste, Hashi began to walk around the back of the hall, hop
ing to intercept the object of his interest in time to learn whether he was making a fool of himself.
Ensign Crender followed doggedly.
Below and across from them, Cleatus Fane dug his beard into the air. “I will ignore your insult for the moment,” he snapped. “What is the point, Captain Vertigus?”
Sixten sighed. He may have been exhausted, but once again he mustered enough force for a retort.
“You keep talking about the practical application of power. ‘Diligence and dedication can’t compete.’ Of course they can’t. But that’s not the subject of this bill. It has to do with ethics, Mr. Fane—ethics and responsibility.
“We are humankind’s elected representatives. Holt Fasner is not. The responsibility for guiding and controlling the actions of humankind’s Police belongs to us, not to him.”
Bravo, Captain, Hashi thought. Still he kept moving. As he walked, he concentrated on projecting the impression that he was engaged in some trivial activity—perhaps that he’d lost his way to the san. Above all he didn’t want the guards to begin watching him rather than the Members and their aides.
Cleatus Fane snorted through his stiff whiskers. If Sixten’s answers—or determination—took him aback, he didn’t show it. And he certainly didn’t lack for answers himself.
“I think you’ll find,” he drawled sardonically, “that the Police themselves aren’t so sanguine. And they may also have something to say about your absurd claim that Holt Fasner can’t be trusted to keep them honest. In fact, I don’t hesitate to predict that Warden Dios himself will denounce this bill, for the same reasons I’ve already given you. I’ve heard him discuss ‘ethics and responsibility’ many times, and I’m sure of what he’ll say.”
Abruptly he turned toward Koina.
“Director Hannish?” Like his beard, his bulk aimed itself at her like a demand. “I know you haven’t had an opportunity to consult Director Dios on this, but perhaps you can comment on the UMCP’s position.”
Hashi had reached a point on the curve of the hall which allowed him to see Koina’s face. Her mask was immaculate, untroubled: she wore her beauty like a shield. But to his eyes the pressure of her hands as she gripped the edge of the table betrayed her tension. Cleatus Fane had just demanded that she proclaim the UMCP’s allegiance to the UMC—her own as well as Warden Dios’. In the circles where Holt Fasner wielded his might, no subordinate could refuse such a demand.
A tension of his own clutched at Hashi’s heart. He’d urged Koina to let Warden know about Captain Vertigus’ bill; but she’d declined to tell him how Warden had reacted to the information. Just for a moment he halted to hear her response.
She didn’t stand. She didn’t need to: every eye in the chamber was on her; she had the Council’s complete attention.
“On the contrary, Mr. Fane,” she replied, “we’ve discussed this bill many times.” A low throb of emotion in her voice showed that she grasped what was at stake. “Not this specific bill, of course. How could we? I mean that my fellow directors and I have often considered the idea of a Bill of Severance. We have debated its merits and formed our opinions. I don’t need to consult my director now in order to inform you of our position.”
“Please, Director Hannish,” President Len put in, making at least that one small attempt to regain control of the proceedings. “Go ahead.”
The First Executive Assistant nodded as if to say, I’m waiting. An intake of breath caused his body to swell ominously.
Sixten didn’t raise his eyes to Koina. His posture suggested that he was resigned to abandonment.
“Thank you, President Len.” Her apparent calm seemed to emphasize the background intensity of her tone. “Mr. Fane, Captain Vertigus, Members of this Council”—she regarded the chamber with a firm gaze—“our position is one of absolute neutrality.”
Startled, Fane opened his mouth to protest; but Koina didn’t let him interrupt her.
“In the most necessary sense,” she explained, “we disavow responsibility for it. That responsibility is yours and yours alone. Our function, our responsibility, is to serve humankind according to the terms and conditions of our charter. If we seek to determine the nature of those terms and conditions, we will inevitably become a force of tyranny, no matter how benign our motives may be. That responsibility must rest with you. When our organization began, you chartered it as a branch of the UMC because you saw fit to do so. If you now see fit to alter our charter, we will abide by it without question.
“As individuals we all have personal opinions and beliefs. But as the United Mining Companies Police Director of Protocol, I am forced to contradict Mr. Fane. I say—and Director Dios will say with me—that this decision rests on you. What you decide, we will accept. If we do otherwise, we have betrayed your trust, and humankind would be better off without us.”
Bowing her head, Koina concluded, “Thank you for allowing me to speak.”
The Council had suffered too many surprises in one session. The Members and their people peered at her as if they were stunned. Cleatus Fane’s resemblance to Santa Claus had become an illusion: the glare in his eyes was murderous and dark. Wonder shone on Sigurd Carsin’s face. Len strove to close his mouth, but his lower jaw had become too heavy for him. Maxim Igensard seemed to bounce in his seat as if he were frantic to address the gathering. Slowly Captain Vertigus raised his head to look at Koina: he may have had tears in his eyes.
Hashi was more than pleased: he was profoundly relieved. To this extent, at least, he hadn’t been wrong in his assessment of his director. What you decide, we will accept. Warden’s strange game—whatever it might be—was being played against Holt Fasner.
As a result the complex question of Hashi’s own loyalties was simplified.
To confirm that Ensign Crender was still with him, he glanced aside at his companion.
The guard looked impossibly pale, drained of blood, as if he were about to faint. In a blink of intuition, Hashi realized that the youth understood the struggle taking place in the hall. He was merely young, not stupid.
The DA director had no time for delay, however. A movement caught the edge of his vision: Nathan Alt was coming closer. Now the man Hashi hunted had reached a position against the wall above and behind Captain Vertigus.
“My point remains the same,” Fane growled harshly; but he may have been blustering. “If this Council does anything to disrupt the Police—if they’re weakened in any way at a time like this—I think we’re all going to regret it.”
Praying God or Heisenberg that the ensign was intelligent enough to react quickly, but not so intelligent that he paralyzed himself, Hashi started forward again, quickening his pace to narrow the gap before Alt noticed him.
President Len had begun to speak, hesitantly calling the GCES back to order, but Hashi paid no heed. Alt was too near Captain Vertigus. Worse, he was closing the distance between himself and Cleatus Fane. Concentrating exclusively on the former UMCPED captain, Hashi hastened around the wall.
Three meters from Nathan Alt, he stopped. At last he was close enough to read the id patch on the man’s uniform, the clearance badge clipped to his breast pocket.
Both identified Alt categorically as “GCES Security Sergeant Clay Imposs.”
Hashi was taken aback. Caught in the uncertain swirl of subatomic possibilities, he studied the man.
Alt didn’t so much as glance at the DA director. His disfocused stare was fixed, opaque; aimed at nothing. Unequal dilation distorted his pupils. Pallid and waxy, the skin of his face hung slack on his cheekbones.
Hashi knew the signs. He’d worked with such things often enough to be sure of them.
Nathan Alt was in a state of drug-induced hypnosis.
Woodenly he continued his incremental progress in Cleatus Fane’s direction.
Too late, it was already too late, Hashi had delayed too long, letting uncertainty carry him when he should have been sure. Only Alt’s chemical stupor saved him.
Wheeling on Cr
ender, he barked, “Arrest that man! Get him out of here!”
The boy froze. Youth and inexperience betrayed him. Instead of springing forward, he blinked openmouthed at Hashi’s demand as if he found it incomprehensible.
“He is a hazel” Hashi shouted; almost screamed. “Get him out of here!”
Then he leaped at Alt himself.
Ignoring the instant pandemonium around him, the cries of the aides and secretaries, the surging of the guards, he clawed the clearance badge from Alt’s uniform, ripped open the front of Alt’s uniform in order to snatch at the id tag around his neck.
An instant later Crender burst past him, slammed Nathan Alt away. Yelling in fright, the ensign half drove, half threw Alt back toward the doors.
Almost immediately Forrest Ing roared orders. Two more guards rushed to help the boy. Together they manhandled Alt along the wall as fast as they could. On the far side of the hall, Ing shouted at his communications tech, warning Chief Mandich and the guards outside.
Drugged and oblivious, Alt put up no resistance. Perhaps he wasn’t aware that anything was happening to him.
Nevertheless he might explode at any moment. The fact that he was hypnotized, volitionless, only meant that the bomb inside him was controlled by other means: an internal timer; an external radio signal.
Taking the only precaution he could think of, Hashi flung himself headlong down the tiers into the terrified frenzy of bodies and seats.
In his fists he clutched Imposs/Alt’s clearance badge and id tag as if they were precious enough to ransom his entire species.
More guards rushed into the confusion. At last their training took hold: half a dozen of them forced an aisle through the wailing tumult; others threw open the doors; still others helped move Imposs along. Abrim Len shrieked at the Members to clear the hall. If they’d been able to obey, the crush would have made it impossible to remove Imposs. But reinforcements arrived in time to block the Members and their staffs out of the way.
At a run, Ensign Crender and the other guards impelled Imposs or Alt from the hall. Immediately Chief Mandich ordered the doors closed again. Men and women who didn’t know what they were doing kicked Hashi from side to side. In self-defense, he picked himself off the floor just as the high portal slammed shut.
Chaos and Order: The Gap Into Madness Page 60