Oath of Fealty

by Larry Niven

  "You'll also be in a position to blackmail us."

  "I'm in it now," Lunan said. "One phone call and you won't get Sanders out. Not easily, anyway. But I'm not blackmailing you. I told you all about Renn, didn't I? And I didn't even take any precautions, because I'm not going to blackmail you. Not now, and not later. I just want the story."

  "And when the police ask you-"

  "California has a very tough newsman's shield law, Mister Bonner. It's protected me before."

  "Maybe that's not quite enough," Bonner said. "Maybe we'd want you to help out. Do something yourself-"

  Lunan gulped. Shit fire, of course he'd think of that. "All right."

  "Good. We'll let you know. Just stay available, because you won't get much notice."

  "I don't need much notice." Lunan lifted his drink in salute. He wanted to jump up and sing heroic arias. This would make his career! And it was the only way to deal with these people. Level with them. "Uh-you have thought about immunity," Lunan said.

  Bonner nodded. "The D.A. can certainly give you immunity from prosecution by the State of California."

  "But not from you," Lunan said.

  Bonner's smile widened slightly. "I knew you were an intelligent man, Mr. Lunan. Cheers."

  Tony Rand stepped out of the elevator, and leaped back as shapes ran past him. He heard "Sorry!" and saw two teenage boys and a laughing matron, crouched low, moving toward the swings at a dead run. They wore dark coveralls, and their faces were striped dark as well.

  The doors tried to close; Tony blocked them and stepped out onto the roof, shaking his head. He was still a little wobbly from the afternoon. Even so, he knew he should be feeling much worse. B-1 and water and a sauna ... and never forget it, he told himself.

  The restaurant was a fair walk from the elevators. Tony passed gardens, a pocket-sized chaparral forest, a football field. He might have been strolling through any park; there were no visual cues to tell him that he was a fifth of a mile in the air.

  The lights along the walk had been dimmed to twilight level. Tony noticed other human shapes running or crouching in shadows. They too wore dark coveralls and face paint, and there was a faint glimmer of gemstones on their breasts. Tony kept his hands half-raised as he passed them. Noncombatant.

  He was nearly at the restaurant when there was a ruby flash from behind him. The light-beam probed into the bushes ahead and to his right. A young man, no more than fifteen, stood, as his dark coveralls flashed with bright light. He cursed horribly, then sat heavily in the pathway and stared moodily ahead. Tony nodded sympathy as he passed.

  Schramm's was a glass bubble set at one corner of the Todos Santos roof. Shallow steps led down from the entrance; Los Angeles glowed through the unseen wall, far below. It was no place for someone with acrophobia. The headwaiter had seen Lunan's broadcast, of course. "Welcome, 0 court magician!" he chortled as he escorted Rand to the table where Sir George Reedy waited.

  "I'd like to push a Volkswagen into Thomas Lunan's big mouth," Rand confided.

  Sir George ignored that crypticism. "I had a scare coming here. It was as if a street gang had taken over the roof!"

  "Nothing to worry about. It's a role-playing game. MAN FROM UNCLE hunt club. Low-powered laser pistols, and suits that light up when you're hit. Fashion designer named Therri organizes them - it's considered an honor to be invited." Aha, Tony thought. He still doesn't catch on. "Of course MILLIE and the Security force are monitoring it."

  "But-I would have thought you'd call it off during the emergency."

  "Hmmm. I doubt anyone even considered that. It's been scheduled for months. Sir George, the stockholders don't like letting outsiders run our lives." Tony noticed a waiter at his elbow, and ordered a fruit daiquiri. Sir George's Pimm's Cup was empty; he ordered another.

  "Have you been keeping busy, this past week?"

  "Oh, certainly." Reedy's smile faded slightly. "Well, I'll admit time hangs a bit heavy while I wait out your war. The combatants haven't much time for a visiting tourist. When your Miss Churchward missed an appointment this afternoon, I thought I would lose my aplomb. I needed that drink."

  Tony nodded, feeling awkward.

  "And yet it hasn't all been wasted time. What did cause the war, Mr. Rand? More to the point, if I build an arcology in Canada, how do I prevent conflicts with the outside?"

  "Do you have Fromate groups in Canada?"

  "They're not a large influence. They might become one, if we built something like Todos Santos."

  "I wish I'd paid more attention to the bad feeling," Rand said "I'm no good at politics. Danm it, should I have built this place to look less like a fort?"

  "I see other possibilities."

  "Good! Enlighten me."

  Sir George smiled. "Actually I came to be enlightened. Still should I put my giant building inside the borders of an already existing city? You weren't offered a choice there. I have one."

  Tony's drink had arrived, and he sipped at it, cautiously. He'd blown his head off once today, and once was enough. "Yeah. You should be outside. You'll look less like competition. What else?"

  "I've managed to see a good deal of Todos Santos. Your power system, food and water storage, Security-all tend to make you independent of outside supplies and outside forces. Are you aiming for economic independence too?"

  "Sure. MILLIE would have told you that."

  "Quite right. Is that wise? You'll end as a bubble of foreign matter inside the body of the city. Angelinos might well resent such a thing, and Los Angeles politicians would resent it most."

  Tony looked at him. Practice for building a starship, he thought. Is that where I went wrong? But-"Wait a minute. Isolation isn't just a whim with us. It's what we're selling. People come to Todos Santos because they can get free of what's outside."

  "The crime rate?"

  "Not just that. Sir George, suppose you just didn't want to bother learning how to make out an income tax form? And deciding what's deductible every time you spend ten bucks, knowing some supercilious son of a bitch is being underpaid to second guess you? And keeping little pieces of paper to prove it? It's a fun game, but why does everyone have to play? Sometimes it feels like the government wants to turn everyone on Earth into accountants." Sir George seemed about to interrupt, but Rand went on. "Accountants and lawyers. Half the government is lawyers, and when they make laws they don't write them in English. Nobody but a lawyer can tell legal from illegal, and the lawyers can't tell right from wrong anymore."

  Sir George looked stunned. "I never felt that way at all.',

  "Plenty of our people do-at least that's what I hear in Commons. Independence is a lot of what we're selling."

  Sir George nodded thoughtfully.

  "Maybe you're right, though," Tony said. "Maybe we really shouldn't be inside anyone's borders. Build your arcology outside city limits ... but get your subway built fast, because you'll need to be trading with the host city. Have you decided where to put the project?"

  "I have half a dozen sites to choose from." Reedy smiled fleetingly. "I'll have to reject some. Toronto, for instance. Toronto has a superb underground shopping complex. Something like Todos Santos would be competing with that."

  Menus arrived. Tony ordered without paying too much attention; he wanted to get back to the conversation. He noticed that Reedy, too, had barely glanced at his menu.

  Reedy asked, "How would you build a Canadian arcology? Would you change the design?"

  "Sure. I learned a lot, living here for all these years. Anyway, Todos Santos is the wrong shape for a cold country. You'll need more insulation, fewer balconies ... more storage for food in the winter … "

  Sir George had a sleepy look, as if he weren't quite paying attention. It was wasted on Tony Rand, who stared out at Los Angeles with unfocused eyes. "It doesn't have to be less open, and it doesn't have to look like a fort. Get yourself a mountain slope facing south. A quarter-sphere, hollow. In winter the low sun shines right into it. You can line i
t with apartments. Soleri designed it a long time ago, for Siberia, but it ought to work even better in your latitudes."

  Reedy lifted an eyebrow and seemed thoughtful. "Thank you. But there are other decisions I must make. For example, am I selling independence, like you? And do I need such an elaborate security system?"

  "I don't know," Tony said. "I'm an engineer, not a manager-" Ye gods. Is he trying to hire me? He sure sounds like it. Naw, he couldn't be. But-"Uh--would you give the top brass computer implants?"

  Reedy frowned. "I hadn't thought of it. Implants are expensive."

  "What's it like to have an implant? To know anything you want, just by thinking it? An arcology is terribly complex; it makes a Saturn-type moonship look like a tinker toy."

  "I believe I see what you mean." Sir George smiled slowly. It wasn't his usual vague smile at all; it looked somehow predatory.

  There was a new door in the east wall of Art Bonner's apartment. Bonner went through and found nobody home.

  MILLIE. Time?

  12:02:20.

  Location Barbara Churchward.

  MILLIE told him, and he relaxed. She was just coming out of the elevator, on her way. Moments later she opened the door and found him.

  "Hello."

  "Hi. How was Sir George?"

  She shrugged. "As you predicted. Annoyed and pretending not to be. He really is grateful to us. With what he's learned he'll be able to get his Canadian arcology going in half the time it took us."

  "Glad he wasn't too upset." He waved expansively. "It looks like you've lived here for years. How'd you find the time?"

  "I had Services move me. I'll be weeks finding out where everything is. And how was your day?"

  "Lunan's back."

  "And?"

  "He knows we're planning a jailbreak."

  "Ye gods. How?"

  "He's got a contact here. Cheryl Drinkwater. You saw her on the documentary. I think she told him more than she knew."

  Barbara subvocalized. MILLIE. Data, Chery' Drinkwater.

  Bonner broke in. MILLIE, phone link with Barbara Churchward. "Love, I've started a file on Tom Lunan too."

  Okay. MILLIE, data, Tom Lunon.

  Information whispered into her mastoid bone. Updates-"He knows?"

  "He's guessing. Cheryl can't possibly know, but she must have told him how the stockholders feel. The subway adjunct is common knowledge; he may have worked that in. Hell, maybe he's telepathic. Useful trait in an investigative reporter."

  "How will you handle it?"

  "Take him along. Make him an accomplice. I told him he'd be in at the kill ... Dammit, sometimes we really do need some protection from our friends. This'll do it." He stretched. "Tired."

  She nodded. "How's Tony?"

  "Delores sobered him up and put him to work. I don't know whether he needs a keeper or not, but she's a good one, If she can stand it." MILLIE, file ILLICIT.

  Barbara's jaw went slack as she listened to MILLIE's characterless voice describing Rand's updated plans. She backed into a chair and sat down. She began laughing.

  Art grinned down at her. "I do admire subtlety."

  "I'd have thought Tony would go for something more complicated. Delores must be keeping him honest. Hey, let's go to bed."

  Art looked back at the new door in what had been a blank wall. They'd even remounted the pictures. "It all happened so fast - Yeah. Let's."

  "Too fast?"

  He was stripping off clothing and tossing it through the open door into his own apartment. They made a tight pattern on and around a reading chair. "I'm adaptable. Are there any special daydreams you'd like fulfilled?"

  "I've been through that. Hell, I didn't mean to say that."

  They moved into each other's arms. Eye to eye. Barbara wondered. "How do you feel?"

  "Half-excited, half-apprehensive. It's been a long time."

  "Why?"

  "Complications. I get enough complications in real life ... for years now ... "

  "This? Should we have waited?"

  "Should have started earlier. Before those kids got killed. Better late than never. What daydreams?"

  "Rape. Once with a vampire. Costume number, masquerade at a con ... science fiction convention ... we kept the costumes on. I was in a white shroud. Tried not to move a muscle but ... why am I telling you this?"

  "It must be hard to lie subvocally:"

  "What do you daydream, Art?"

  "Fast. Sudden seduction. No complications."

  "Fast, right!" She swung out of his arms and yanked him toward the bed by one wrist. He found himself on his back, laughing, still bouncing, and she was sitting on his hips. "Fast

  enough?"

  "And up against a wall. But I'm gettin' old, and it's been a long day-"

  "We'll try it some morning."

  She wriggled, and they were locked. Barbara bent toward him, and he thought, "No, stay upright. You'll pull loose."

  "Thy servant." She swayed upright, and even leaned back, hands gripping and tickling the back of his knees.

  He gasped. He thought, "Lovely. You shine by your own light."

  He held up his hands, and she took them, glowing at the compliment. His face altered as she moved up and down, slowly. The messages passing through MILLIE became incoherent.

  And finally, breathing as if he'd run a marathon, Art sent, "I wonder what MILL1E thinks of all this."

  Lunan found the tiny bar dead empty. He hoisted himself onto a stool and said, "Keep it simple. Um ... Calvados. Soda on the side."

  "Be right with you." The bartender finished pouring something pink and frothy out of a shaker, put that glass and a brandy snifter in the wells of a drink tray and set it in the dumbwaiter. He was grinning like a thief. He asked, "Insomnia?"

  Lunan said, "Yah. Pure nerves." He took the snifter before Levoy could set it down; sniffed, sipped. "What's got you smiling like that at two in the morning?"

  "I can't tell you," the bartender said happily.

  "I just told thirty million people that there aren't any secrets in Todos Santos."

  "Well ... no offense, because you did a fine documentary on us, Mr. Lunan. But you're not a stockholder."

  Lunan nodded. "I never asked you what you think about the Preston Sanders case."

  The bartender's smile vanished. "I'm minded to brush up on my explosives. It's been years since I swore I was gonna be a law-and-order citizen, you know? But Sanders is a hero, and he's not being treated like one, and that's wrong."

  Lunan nodded. No surprises. All the saints must feel that way. "Better make this a double."

  "It's wrong. We can't let-" Levoy shook himself. He poured another generous ounce of Calvados into Lunan's snifter. "Okay, tell me what's got you so jumpy at two in the morning."

  "That, too, is a secret. And if I knew all of it I wouldn't be so jumpy. Or maybe I would. Maybe I would."

  "The Jacuzzi," Barbara thought suddenly. "We wouldn't have to be young. Better than a wall, love. There's no weight."

  "No privacy either."

  "Lunan says privacy's obsolete here. Art, there's the northeast-side Jacuzzi, on the roof. Reserved for adults. Lots of couples play games there. Regularly."

  "Not really privacy."

  "No. Security knows. Some of them use it too."

  "You?"

  "No. I've been invited. Twice." She spoke part of a name, and stopped. "I don't like this."

  Art said, "We can cut MILLIE out of the circuit."

  "Sure. I'm giving away too many secrets. But, Art, shouldn't we get to know each other?"

  "Good question. Ancient question. I don't feel duty-bound, do you? We opted for some privacy in living arrangements. If the link is too uncomfortable-"

  She nodded. "Asshole. Duty-bound I Are we still linked? Eekl Sorry, Art."

  He chuckled "Price of telepathy."

  "With telepathy we could give each other pictures. Sensations. Memories."

  "A great sunset? A Japanese bath?"

 
"The night four of us lucked into a Beef Wellington at Mon Greflier, It wasn't on the menu. It was for a private party and the chef made more than he needed. It was the best I've ever tasted, but part of it was just knowing we'd lucked into something."

  "How would a machine transmit that? It's hardly a sensation at all. I wonder if we'll ever have real telepathy? Tony would know."