Oath of Fealty

by Larry Niven

  "Sure-"

  "Trade you," Lunan said. "I'll give you a line on the whole scam. Exclusive. Two commissioners on the take. It'll take a lot of leg work, but you can get it all.

  "For what?"

  "For everything you know, source and all, about the Thompson kid and the raid on Todos Santos."

  Lowry thought it over. "Yeah, that's fair," he said. "You can do more with the Todos Santos story than me." He spoke grudgingly. "That was a good article you did on the two cultures."

  Better than you think, Lunan thought. Better than you think. The Trib's publisher also owned a TV station, and he'd liked Lunan's articles so much he'd assigned a camera crew and a director to work with Lunan on a TV documentary, and that was going to make Lunan's career. "So who's your source?"

  "You can't use her, Tom," Lowry said. "It's Councilman Planchet's aide. Ginny Bernard. Lonely chick. Not a very good lay, either. And so damned hung up that it took me six weeks to get in her pants, and another month to get any information out of her. But that's my source. Now what about the Long Beach scam?"

  "In a minute. Okay, it'll take awhile to use your source. But you can at least tell me what she told you. Who put the kids up to the raid?"

  "Professor Arnold Renn of UCLA. He's Fromate, and Ginny thinks he's got ties to the American Ecology Army too. Now what about our bargain?"

  "You'll get it." Lunan took out a notebook and began writing names for Lowry, but his mind was somewhere else. Fromates! And Councilman Planchet knew it. That ought to be worth a lot to Art Bonner. Maybe enough to get some exclusive interviews! Lunan turned a page and jotted a note, rapidly, in neat square printed letters.

  "Dear Mr. Bonner:

  I've found out something that I think you would be very interested in knowing. I would appreciate an appointment at your earliest convenience."

  That ought to get him, Lunan thought. Now how do I send it?

  Tony Rand brought his drink into the board room. Art Bonner and Barbara Churchward were already there with John Shapiro.

  "How are we doing?" Bonner asked.

  Shapiro shrugged. "If this was a quiet little hearing out in some hick town with no political implications, we'd have it won," he said. "As it is, I'm pretty sure we can win on appeal."

  "But you won't get a justifiable homicide judgment in this trial?" Barbara Churchward asked.

  Shapiro shook his head. "I doubt it. Judge Norton only has to rule that the state has enough of a case to go to trial. She can say that most of it hinges on facts, and that's for a jury to decide. We can appeal that-"

  "Will Pres be out on bail during the appeal?" Bonner asked.

  "Unlikely. The D.A. will fight it. Of course when they deny bail we can appeal. I'd be doing that now only you said get it over-"

  "I did indeed," Bonner said. "Tony, please sit down. I don't like people hovering over me. Thanks. Look, Johnny, what's so complicated about it?"

  "It just is," Shapiro said. "Look, we've got some tricky points of law here, and Penny Norton doesn't want to rule for us. It'd cost her like crazy. She says she wants on the state supreme court, but I'm betting she'd like to run for state Attorney General in a couple years-" He shrugged again. "But I got the grounds for appeal into the transcript today."

  "What, that the kids actually committed suicide?" Barbara Churchward asked.

  Shapiro looked thoughtful. "Not a bad argument." He frowned. "But it's no good here."

  "Why not?" Tony asked. "That door was marked plainly enough. It practically said that you'd commit suicide if you went through it."

  "Good argument for a jury," Shapiro said. "But it won't affect Penny a damn bit. No, I've got another plan."

  "Tell us," Churchward said.

  "Well, our defense is that there wasn't any crime. In my final argument I'll show that Sanders had good reason to suppose a felony arson was about to be committed-"

  "That's why all that about fires this afternoon," Rand said.

  Shapiro grinned. "Yep. Blackman hated that. He could see where I was headed. See, one of the key cases in homicide defense came up when an IRS agent shot a man resisting arrest. The courts held that it was justified-"

  "But Pres is not a policeman," Tony said.

  "Right, and Blackman will try to make a lot out of that. But it doesn't matter," Shapiro said, "because in U.S. against Rice the judge went on to say that the law requires private citizens to prevent felonies from being committed in their presence. Requires it." He chuckled. "And then the judge said that when any person is performing a public duty required of him by the law, he's under the law's protection. And there's another case that says you're not justified in using deadly force to prevent just any felony, but you can to prevent atrocious crimes - such as first-degree arson, that's setting fire to an inhabited building. And we've shown that Sanders had every reason to believe they were trying to commit an atrocious crime."

  "Well, I should think so," Churchward said.

  "So why aren't we going to win?" Bonner asked.

  "Well, there are other cases," Shapiro said. "Mainly ones that say that a peace officer takes his chances when he kills a suspect. It's okay if the suspect was committing a felony, or resists arrest -- by the way, I'm going to try to show that those gas masks were a way of resisting arrest -- anyway, it's all right if the suspect is running away from an atrocious felony, but not if it's a misdemeanor. And Blackman will show that the kids weren't committing a felony, only misdemeanor trespass."

  "But it looked like arson," Churchward said. "They were trying their best to make it look that way."

  "And it hasn't always been just trespassing," Rand said. "There've been real bombs. There'll probably be more."

  "Now you're trying to use common sense on the law," Art Bonner said. "And I don't think that works. All right. We lose. What then?"

  "Appeal. Or let it go to trial and argue it before a jury. We might win with a jury. And if we don't, we can appeal again."

  "Meanwhile Pres is in jail."

  "Well, until the trial's over," Shapiro said. "I'd bet the worst we'd get would be manslaughter. Then we could get Pres out on bail."

  "But you're talking weeks. Months, maybe," Bonner said.

  "Sure-"

  "That's not justice. Sanders didn't do a damn thing wrong, but he gets locked up anyway." Bonner's lips tightened. "Damn it, I don't like this. I don't like it at all."

  "Johnny's doing the best he can. Don't discourage him." The voice was MILLIE's, but it had the subtle differences indicating the words were Barbara's. The computer/medical experts who'd inserted the implant in Bonner's head had explained how it worked, that MILLIE was programmed to transmit non-verbal impulses which implant wearers learned to interpret as tones and emotional subtleties, but that didn't make it less miraculous.

  "You're right, as usual," Art thought. Then he said, aloud, "Keep trying, Johnny." He put his hand on Shapiro's shoulder. "We'll all keep plugging away at it. One thing more. This just came. An offer from a newsman, guy named Lunan, to trade information for our cooperation in his documentary. I think we ought to discuss it."

  "Can't hurt," Churchward said. "We could use some sympathetic news coverage. Let's talk to him."

  There was mist over San Pedro. It couldn't quite be called a fog. You could see through it, out across the yacht basin and into the Los Angeles harbor, but the sun couldn't penetrate it. Early Morning Low Clouds and Fog, the weather reports said. A better term would be "gloomy before noon."

  Alice Strahler walked along the Los Angeles fishing pier to Ports o' Call's gaily painted shops. There were restaurants and ice cream bars and artists' displays, antique shops and confectionary stores, all painted to look more like Cape Cod than Pueblo de Los Angeles. There were not many tourists around; they would come when the fog burned away.

  She strolled through the shopping area, pausing now and again to look back the way she came, going through the shops, in one door and out another, until she was certain that no one was interested in he
r movements. Finally she went through a parking lot and under a highway viaduct.

  It was like coming to another world. Instead of chintz and new paint and new rental cars, this was a region of run-down buildings and battered old trucks, marine engine repair shops, warehouses, and cheap cafes. The road led along the waterfront to a drab building on a pier. It had once been painted, but years of salt-laden wind had faded it until no one knew what color it had been. Large saltwater tanks of crabs and Pacific lobster stood against the building. There was no one else on the pier. Inside, there was a fat man in a stained apron behind the counter. At first Alice thought he was alone. Then she saw the solitary customer, a thin bearded man watching her from a corner booth where he sat breaking crackers into a bowl of soup. The customer winked at her, and she went over to his table.

  He grinned widely. "Good to see you again." He swept his hand to indicate the seat across the carved and marked booth table. "Coffee? And the clam chowder's the best in the city."

  "Okay."

  He got up and went to the counter to order for her. She sat in silence, biting her lip, wanting to get this over with. After what seemed like ages, he came back with her food and coffee. The coffee mug was old and chipped, and so was the shallow chowder bowl, but the chowder smelled delicious. She automatically ate a spoonful, then another.

  "Gets to you, doesn't it?" he asked with a grin. Then his face became serious. "We haven't a lot of time. What's this all about?"

  "What I told Phil," she said. "Ron, I can't take it any longer. I quit."

  He shrugged. "Okay. So you quit."

  She looked at him without saying anything, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. "Damn it, you could say something-"

  "Sure. What do you want me to say?" he asked. "That the work's important and we need you? Hell, you know that already. If I could think of anything to say that would keep you with us, I'd say it, but you told Phil your mind's made up. I'm not sure why you wanted to see me."

  "Maybe you shouldn't have bothered."

  "Come off it. We owed you that much, and more. So I'm here." He shrugged. "Tell me what to say."

  "You might ask why-"

  "I presume you've lost faith in the Movement."

  "I don't know," Alice said. "I -- Ron, why can't I work openly? It's this sneaking around-they trust me, and I'm betraying that trust-"

  "I know it's hard, but we need the information-"

  "Not from me. We killed Diana and Jimmy, and for nothing-"

  "It wasn't for nothing." His eyes narrowed and his voice hardened. He spoke so intensely that it came across like shouting, although he never raised his voice at all. "Never say it was for nothing! Because of them, we're closer, much closer, to shutting down that termite hill. People are asking questions, wondering about Todos Santos and all of the arcologies, wondering why they have to defend themselves with war gas, and who they'll kill next. We're showing the world that humanity can't live like that. So you can have all the second thoughts you want, but don't try to take anything away from Diana and Jimmy!"

  "But it's my fault they're dead-"

  "Bull shit," he said. "Because you didn't know about nerve gas? That was the hive's best-kept secret, and you didn't find out, so now it's your fault?"

  "They wouldn't even have got in without me," she said.

  He nodded. "That's true enough."

  "So it was my fault."

  "And now you've got the guilts?" he asked. "You want to atone. Turn us all in-"

  "No! I'd never do that-"

  "Why not?" he asked. "We're nothing better than murderers."

  "But we are-"

  "Why? How are we better than some petty crook?"

  "Because the Movement is important, it's right. Because Todos Santos is the beginning of a horrible future, and it has to be stopped now."

  "I believe that," he said. "But you don't-"

  "I do, too."

  "Then why are you quitting?"

  "Because-"

  "Because it's hard?" he asked. His voice was full of contempt. "You've got it hard? You don't have to look over your shoulder all the time. You've got a bed to sleep in and plenty to eat. You're not mucking around with explosives, and you don't have to jump every time you see a cop, but you think you've got it hard."

  "It isn't that!" she insisted.

  "Then what is it?"

  "Oh I don't know, you get me all confused-"

  "I'm sorry," he said. "It just seems so simple to me. We've got to work for humanity because there's nothing else worth doing. What else is there? Their bourgeois God with his thunderings and mumblings and petty jealousies? Alle Menschen mussen sterben. We'll all die. All of us. Poof. Gone, out like a light. Well, it has to mean something. There has to be a reason for living, and keeping mankind human is a damned good one!"

  "I don't know-sometimes, watching them in Todos Santos -- Ron, they're happy. They like it."

  His voice dropped low, and became more intense. "Happy? Of course they're happy. Aristocrats usually are happy. But how many of those places can the Earth support? And there'll be more hives, hives everywhere-you're the one who told us about that Canadian. Hives in Canada, hives in Mexico, hives all over the United States ... they've got to be stopped, now, before they spread. And you know it."

  Do I? she wondered. I guess I do.

  "Alice, if you quit now, then you really did something evil. If we don't succeed, then Jimmy and Diana were killed for nothing, nothing at all, and you helped kill them."

  He reached across the table and took her hand. "I know. It is hard, being inside there, never seeing your friends, having to be on guard all the time. But hang on. It won't be long now. Get us their new defense setup. This time we'll shut that place down. For good."

  XI. CONSPIRACIES

  It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.

  -B. B. White

  Tony Rand's Videobeam television screen covered most of a wall. It was big enough to watch reruns of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was true of damned few TV sets. He never used it to watch war movies or rock shows. They seemed just too intimidating on that huge screen.

  Tony was on his bed, with the headboard panel pulled out to support his back. The huge face looming above him had a lean and hungry look, like Cassius.

  "What I found," it said, "is a feudal society. Now, when I speak of feudalism, I don't mean plate armor and crossbows. Todos Santos isn't just modern, it's at the forefront of technology. The carbon fibers in those compote walls were precipitated in an orbital laboratory, and couldn't have been made except in free fall. The very concept of an arcology is only a few decades old. When Paolo Soleri first began to write about arcologies it seemed like science fiction, even though Soleri was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright."

  Tony Rand nodded agreement. When Paolo Soleri began construction of Arcosanti, his new model city in the Arizona desert, the news writers had been intrigued-but they hadn't taken him seriously. Even after it was obvious that Soleri was building his city, that it was growing year by year, most writers thought Soleri a pleasant eccentric, brilliant but dotty. Certainly Genevieve thought so! Tony's decision to spend an unpaid summer working with Soleri ("He can't last much longer, he's been working out there twenty years, Djinn, this is my last chance …") had finished their marriage.

  "Certainly Todos Santos is modern," Lunan continued. "The Romulus Corporation which built the Box has for years been towing icebergs from Antarctica to supply Los Angeles with water." The scene flicked from Lunan to the Los Angeles harbor, panning across to the iceberg, zooming in for a close-up of skiers, then zooming right past and on to Catalina Island, close-up of the Isthmus Harbor with sandy beaches and palm trees.

  "Perhaps beyond modern," Lunan said. "Hundreds of Todos Santos residents work in Los Angeles - two work as far away as Houston, Texas, and one works machinery on the Moon! - without ever leaving their homes."

 
The scene shifted again, to a smiling, burly, black-haired man. Rand recognized him, but couldn't remember the name. Lunan's voice continued, "Mr. Armand Drinkwater is a master milling machine operator -"

  "Experimental mechanic," Drinkwater corrected. His voice boomed.

  "- for the Konigsberg Medical Instrument Company. The instruments he works on didn't exist five years ago. Armand, I'm told you generally work stark naked."

  "Right. Maybe I'm overreacting. But I used to have to wear white coats and a cap to work in the clean rooms, and I got damned sick of it. Got sick of freeways, too."