Oath of Fealty

by Larry Niven

  "And now?"

  "I smile a lot. Oh, you mean working days? My contract says I have to be at work at nine. Fine. I get up at ten of nine. That gives me time for coffee. Harriet generally makes me a bacon and egg sandwich around half past, and I eat it while I'm working. When I take a lunch hour, I get the whole hour. Do a little sun bathing out on the balcony. I knock off at five, and I'm home at five. I can have a drink if I want, and it won't be to wind down from fighting traffic."

  The scene faded into a shot of Drinkwater at a combination desk and work table. A bank of TV screens curved in a horseshoe shape along one edge. In the center was a pair of thick gloves suspended from universal-jointed trusses something like an old fashioned dentist's drill. Cables led from the gloves to plugs on the desk.

  "In deference to our video audience, Armand dressed for work this morning," Lunan's voice said over the scene. Drinkwater, wearing a black bathing suit that blended invisibly with his thick pelt, put on the gloves. His hands made precise motions. A complex shape took form on one of the TV screens in front of him.

  "I mostly make one-of-a-kind items," Drinkwater said. "But this happens to be the prototype for a production run. Everything I do is recorded, and when I get it right, the computers will take over and make a hundred just like this by doing what I did. I get a royalty." He lifted a micrometer and applied it to nothing; a similar instrument appeared on the TV screen, and another screen lit up with measurements. Drinkwater nodded in satisfaction.

  "What are you making?" Lunan asked.

  "Pump for a heart-lung machine," Drinkwater said. "I think this lot's for export to Africa." The gloves moved slightly and the shape on the TV screen rotated. "Pretty tricky work. I doubt if I could do it if I'd had to drive all day just to get to work." He grinned. "I know I wouldn't enjoy it as much."

  The scene moved back to real time, Lunan interviewing Drinkwater. "I take it you like it here," Lunan said.

  "Nope. I love it."

  Tony Rand smiled.

  The scene shifted. "Meet Rachael Lief," Lunan said. "Ms. Lief is a bulldozer driver." Lunan paused for effect. "As you see, Rachael doesn't look like your typical tractor driver."

  She certainly didn't. Tony remembered meeting her once: a short woman, not particularly pretty, but very delicately built, with small features and piercing dark brown eyes, and a voice so raucously loud that you expected to hear glass shattering when she spoke.

  "But then," Lunan said, "not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon." The cameras followed the trim woman into another room, where there was a replica of a large tractor. It was surrounded by TV screens. One screen showed an astronaut seated in the driver's seat, staring impatiently into the screen. A bleak, nearly colorless pit showed over his left shoulder.

  "About time you got here," the astronaut said.

  "We were busy." Rachael sat down in the driver's seat and took hold of the controls. "I relieve you."

  There was a pause. "Busy hell - all right, I stand relieved. Thank you."

  The bulldozer moved through the lunar strip mine. Lunan alternated views: inside Todos Santos watching Lief move the controls; the scene that she saw in her control screen; and a composite from over her shoulder looking into her monitor. "As you can see," Lunan's disembodied voice said, "this is no easy job. When Rachael gives a command, it takes over a second for the signal to get to the Moon, and another second for the information to get back to her. It takes a lot of computer power to work this trick, but it's worth it. Meet Colonel Robert Boyd, commander of Moon Base.

  "Colonel Boyd, does it help to have Earth-based machine operators?"

  "Sure. It costs a lot to keep people on the Moon. Now it's like I have four or five times as many people up here, and I don't have to feed them or find air for them."

  "High technology applications," Lunan said. "You see a lot of them in Todos Santos." The TV scene changed to show other Todos Santos people: electronic assemblers, an elaborate chemistry laboratory, a man making intricate drawings using a computerized drafting table, more waldo operators. Then it changed again to show children in the jungle tree, people playing on the roof, swimming in rooftop pools.

  "There's more than work," Lunan said. "They play hard too. Industrial feudalism can be fun, as we've seen. But why are Todos Santos residents so exuberant? It isn't just freedom from freeways-"

  The TV came back to Lunan standing in front of a bank of TV screens. They showed a bewildering variety: people sprawled on balconies, people working, people walking in corridors. Uniformed police watched the screens, some lolling back in comfort, others peering intently at the TV monitors.

  "Security technology in Todos Santos is modem, too," Lunan said.

  Tony Rand cursed. Whatever Lunan's information was, it couldn't have been worth this!

  "Who the hell let him in.-" He looked closer at the screen. "Son of a bitch. It's a fake. Damned good one, though. Wonder who described the security room for him?" They'd even got the chart showing the leaper results.

  "The only place Todos Santos residents are not under full surveillance is in their apartments. The security guards have the equipment to look even there, although they're not supposed to do it except when asked to, or if there's good reason to suspect a resident is in danger," Lunan said. The scene cut back to Drinkwater.

  "Do you ever worry that the police might be watching you when they're not supposed to?" Lunan asked.

  "Should I?" Drinkwater shrugged. "Maybe I do think about it sometimes. We've got jokes about what the guards know, what they've seen us doing. Thing is, though, they're our guards. Our friends."

  "You love it here," Lunan said. "Doesn't all the constant surveillance ever bother you?"

  "Bothers hell out of me if it fails," Drinkwater said. "Goddam FROMATES got LSD into our food once. Put four residents into the giggle ward. If it hadn't been we had a bartender who'd been through that stuff to talk them down, we'd have lost some stockholders."

  "You said FROMATES. Are you sure of that?" Lunan asked.

  "Who else would it be? Bleeping bleep keep trying, too."

  The scene shifted to the Mall, with a guard post conspicuous in the foreground. Lunan's voice asked, "Did you always feel that way about police?"

  "Nope." Drinkwater laughed. "When I was a kid, my folks gave me that 'the policeman is your best friend' jazz, but it didn't take long to find out what a crock that was. You may get friendly with cops, but that's mostly to talk them out of giving you a ticket, right? You don't like them. Look, suppose you're a solid citizen. Never been in trouble. You go out with your buddies and you have one too many, and you're trying to get home. No accidents, but maybe you weave just a little, and the cops see you. What happens?"

  "You get a ticket-"

  "You talk fast. And you still get busted," Drinkwater said. "Not here. In here the police work for us. I get drunk on top level and get lost, the guards bring me to my apartment."

  A pretty girl came onto the screen from the right. She went up to the guard station.

  "We recorded this yesterday," Lunan said. "Meet Cheryl Drinkwater, Armand's daughter. Unlike Armand, Cheryl grew up in Todos Santos."

  She smiled pleasantly at the guard. "I had an appointment with my father, but I'm going to be late," Cheryl told him. "I'm not sure where he is." She held out her Todos Santos identity badge. The guard returned her smile and nodded in understanding while he put the badge into a slot in his console.

  "Mr. Drinkwater is in the 40th Level Hideaway," he said. "Do you want to telephone?"

  "No." Cheryl's grin widened. "Just let him know I'll be an hour or so late-"

  "Sure thing. Have a nice day."

  The camera zoomed back, a long way back, to show Thomas Lunan standing on a balcony overlooking the kaleidoscopic Mall. Cheryl Drinkwater and the guard booth were almost invisible dots far below. The scene dissolved to a street in Los Angeles: a dozen police cars deployed around a house, police with rifles, pistols, and shotguns draped over the cruisers wh
ile an officer with a bullhorn shouted instructions. The guns erupted in a blaze of fire. The scene dissolved again to a hijacked airliner, to the Zapruder films of John F. Kennedy in the Dealy Plaza. It changed to Reagan leaving the Washington Hilton, ending with a federal agent holding a submachine gun. Then to a montage of scenes showing confrontations between police and citizens; thence to another series showing burglarized houses, muggings, armed robberies. Finally the camera zoomed into Todos Santos, through the wall, and back to Thomas Lunan overlooking the Mall.

  "Of course we've been unfair," Lunan said. "Not all police encounters outside Todos Santos are unpleasant, and there have been murders in the Box. Last year a man used a kitchen knife on his wife and two children."

  Sure, Tony Rand thought. But Marlene Higgins had lived long enough to push the panic button, and the TS guards got there in time to save the third kid who'd been hiding in a closet.

  But those kids with the boxes of sand … how could I have saved those kids? Tony wondered. And Pres. Judge Norton had given her decision very quickly after the evidence was presented, sooner than anyone had expected; Preston Sanders would stand trial for murder. Damn, Tony thought. Double damn.

  Tony got up and went to the icebox for a beer. When he came back, Lunan was lecturing.

  "Feudal societies are always complex: everyone in such a society enjoys rights, but few have the same rights. There is not even a pretense of equality -- of rights, nor of duties and responsibilities.

  "There is, however, loyalty, and it runs both ways. The Todos Santos resident is expected and required to be loyal, but in return, Todos Santos gives protection. Todos Santos accountants negotiate income taxes for the Box. Committees test consumer products-"

  Sure do, Tony Rand thought. I still get burned up about those damned paper towels, good quality, but they put the perforations so far apart you used up two when you only needed one, and I could never remember which brand it was until the evaluation committee gave them the "Ripoff" rating sticker.

  "Loyalties in Todos Santos tend to be personal," Lunan said. The scene faded in to show Art Bonner's office. Lunan spoke feelingly about the luxuries Todos Santos provided for its General Manager. Then back to Armand Drinkwater.

  "Armand, are you jealous of Mr. Bonner's position?" Lunan asked.

  "Great Ghu no! I only have one boss. Mr. Bonner works for everybody."

  "Loyalty and protection," Lunan said. "The ties of the Oath of Fealty run in both directions. The trend in the United States has been to cut all ties, so that individuals are alone. The citizen against the bureaucracy, against 'them,' only nobody is really in control and you can't say who 'they' are. In Todos Santos, 'they' is Art Bonner, and if you don't like what he's doing you have a chance to tell him so."

  The scene shifted to Commons. There were a dozen residents clustered around Art Bonner, but Tony was looking at the low ceilings, which looked even lower on television. They ought to be higher, dammit- The telephone rang. Tony's phone turned down the TV's sound as he picked up the phone. "Rand-"

  "Art Bonner. Has Sir George Reedy called you lately?"

  "No. I wish he would, I need to talk to him."

  "I've set it up for him to tour Security and the power plants. Tony, if he asks you to show him around those areas, beg off, will you?"

  "Sure. Why?"

  "Hell, Tony, how much do we want an outsider to know about our defenses?"

  Sir George Reedy, a Fromate spy? That was laughable. Still paranoids have enemies too. "Okay, Art. Is that all?"

  "No. Did-" Bonner interrupted himself; stopped to consider. That was odd. Art never did that. Then, "You know about the court decision today."

  "Sure."

  "Have you been watching Lunan's documentary?"

  "Yeah-"

  "He got me to thinking," Bonner said. "I never thought of this place as a feudal society, but maybe he's right. Tony, we haven't delivered what we promised. Not to Sanders."

  Tony didn't say anything.

  "So it's time we did," Bonner said. "Tony, I don't think our legal people can get Pres off. Johnny Shapiro told me today the best legal tactic would be to plead guilty to a lesser charge-"

  "Pres won't do that," Rand said.

  "I know. Even if he would, I couldn't let him. And even if we can get a not guilty verdict, Pres will have paid too high a price. It's not justice."

  "No, it's not," Tony said. "But it is the law."

  "Also it's bad advertising," Bonner said. "I don't mean for profits. I mean the message it gives to anyone else out there who's thinking of trying a repeat with real bombs. We need to let the world know we take care of our own. So. I want you to think of a way to break Pres out of jail."

  "Huh?"

  "You heard me. Plan us a jailbreak. I don't want anybody to get hurt, and I don't want LAPD to be able to prove we did it. But I don't at all mind them knowing it was us.”

  "Art, you have lost your mind?

  "Could be," Bonner said. "But it won't hurt you to look at the problem." The phone went dead. Bonner sometimes forgot to let people know when he was through talking.

  Ye gods, Tony thought. He went out to the kitchen for another beer, thought better of it, and dialed for a Scotch. When he looked back at the screen he saw his own face. Lunan was saying something about the "court magician."

  Court magician. Tony wasn't sure he liked that. His drink came, and he tossed it off. He decided not to order a second. Jailbreak. Was Bonner serious? He had to be. Art knew how much work Rand had to do. A whole new security system to install. The new wing under construction, and the expansion unit designs to finalize and- Lunan was going on about feudalism again. Now he was talking about the siege mentality, and the fortress appearance of the Box. Interesting stuff, and Tony wished he had time to think about it more. Ideas buzzed in his head. Jailbreaks. Feudalism. If Lunan was right, how much did the design have to do with it? Corporations were feudal; hell, they were invented in feudal times. The Lord Mayor and Corporation of London - And Todos Santos certainly did resemble a fort. An arcology always would. True, Paolo's Arcosanti had a light and airy look to it, but that had been the first stage, the tiny little centerpiece that Soled could afford. The full model of Arcosanti included an immense thirty-level ring city surrounding what actually got built, and despite Soleri's use of glass and open beams and flying buttresses and balconies, if the whole thing had ever been built it would have looked like a fortress.

  Of course Soled hadn't built it all. He hadn't wanted to, because he wanted the design to evolve, and it hadn't, not far enough to construct. He never did do a final design. But Tony Rand, with degrees in architecture and engineering and experience working with Soled, and considerable fame from building the new Imperial County government-university complex, didn't have the luxury of waiting for evolution. Tony had to build Todos Santos, and get it open for occupancy, and do it with real materials and a strict budget that didn't allow for a lot of the frills.

  Maybe, just maybe, he thought, I could have got away from those vertical walls? But how? We wanted as much park area as possible. And there was always the budget. And it had to be built, with available labor and- Did Angelinos really read rejection into those high walls, as Lunan claimed? Give them a different shape, and maybe two innocents wouldn't have died.

  And maybe we couldn't have defended the place at all? The FROMATES didn't much care for Soleri, either.

  Commercial time. Tony shook his head. "Be a nice girl," he said aloud.

  "READY," MILLIE's contralto answered. "YOU HAVE A MESSAGE FROM SIR GEORGE REEDY."

  "Later. Tell me about conspiracy."

  "CONTEXT?"

  "Law."

  "CONSPIRACY. CRIMINAL LAW. A COMBINATION OR CONFEDERACY BETWEEN TWO OR MORE PERSONS FORMED FOR THE PURPOSE OF COMMITTING, BY THEIR JOINT EFFORTS, SOME UNLAWFUL OR CRIMINAL ACT, OR SOME ACT WHICH IS INNOCENT IN ITSELF, BUT BECOMES UNLAWFUL WHEN DONE BY THE CONCERTED ACTION OF THE CONSPIRATORS, OR FOR THE PURPOSE OF USING CRIMINAL OR UNLAWFUL ME
ANS TO THE COMMISSION OF AN ACT NOT IN ITSELF UNLAWFUL.

  "THE ESSENCE OF A CONSPIRACY IS AN AGREEMENT, TOGETHER WITH AT LEAST ONE OVERT ACT, TO DO AN UNLAWFUL ACT-"

  "Enough. Thank you."

  "ANYTIME."

  Well, we haven't conspired yet, Tony thought. Not yet. But- Damn, I need to talk this over with someone. Security problem there-it would have to be someone who'd be told Bonner wanted him to plan a jailbreak. Who? The trouble with being a loner is you're alone- He thought for another moment, then lifted the phone. The TV considerately muted its sound. He tapped in half a number and hung up, thought about it, punched again. The phone rang six times and he was about to hang up again- "Hello?"

  "Delores? Tony Rand."

  "Hi, Tony." There was a question in her voice. What the devil did Rand want?