Escape Velocity

by Christopher Stasheff

  As they were crowding off the shuttle at Newark Interplanetary, Dar overheard some girl-talk between Sam and Lona.

  “Married? Never,” Lona said firmly. “Never even seen with a lady ‘friend' very often. That's brought the usual run of snide comments, of course.”

  “About his masculinity?”

  “And his sexuality, period! He reinforces that one, too—claims to be asexual. Says there's no point in sex unless you're in love.”

  “What a medieval romantic,” Sam murmured dreamily.

  Somehow, Dar didn't think they were talking about Whitey.

  They strode down the concourse toward the main terminal, laughing and chattering. Dar felt heady, almost drunk. He was on Terra! The Terra of his history books, of Cicero and Caeser and the Plantagenets and Lincoln! The Terra of fable and wonder! He walked on a thick red carpet, surrounded by wall-screens flashing displays of arrival and departure times between spates of advertising—just the way he'd pictured it from his books!

  Suddenly the wall-screens cleared. A giant chime sounded, reverberating throughout the entire building. All around them, conversation slackened and died; all faces turned to the wall-screens.

  “Citizens,” a resonant voice intoned, “the Honorable Kasi Pohyola, Chairman of the LORDS, and Majority Leader in the Assembly of Electors of the Interstellar Dominions.”

  A stern but gentle face appeared, surmounted by wavy, snow-white hair, gazing directly at Dar. He almost jumped out of his skin.

  “Citizens,” the face intoned in a deep, resonant voice, “a huge calamity has befallen us. An insidious danger stalks toward us across the stars—nay, has stalked us, has arrived, is even now in our midst! It may be the person beside you, or behind you—or even inside your head! For know, citizens, that there is no real guarding against this evil monstrosity, no wall that will seal it away, no shield that will stand against it—for it is a telepath! Even now, he may be probing your mind, wrapping his thoughts about your heart, cozening your innermost secrets!

  “But worse, citizens—he is not alone! Our agents have shadowed him from the outermost colony planets, in to Terra herself—always treading upon his shadow, but never able to pounce on the creature—for always, just as they were about to close their trap, he has disappeared, spirited away by his friends and sympathizers on a thousand planets!”

  “Only ninety-three,” Whitey muttered, “as of last year's census report.”

  “Who could have assisted such a one?” Pohyola rumbled. “Who would give aid and solace to a being who could probe their innermost thoughts—save another telepath? That, citizens, is why we are sure there are many telepaths, spread throughout the Terran Sphere, on each and every one of its member planets—and including Terra herself!”

  A horrified murmur and buzzing of oaths and curses spread through the concourse. It fairly made the hairs stand on Dar's head. He glanced at his companions—they were all watching with set, pale faces, lips drawn tight.

  Except Whitey. He just looked sad.

  Pohyola stared into the camera, not speaking, just holding the viewers' gazes with his own—apparently he'd been planning on the reaction. Just as it was quieting, he began to speak again. “Our vaunted I.D.E. Security Force has been impotent to stop them—these millions of highly trained warriors for whom we pay trillions of therms every year! Are they inept? No! Are they lazy or cowardly? No! They are brave, capable heroes, every one of them! Then, why have they not been able to seize this horror? Because, while he has been slipping into hiding, they have had to find a magistrate and present proof of need for a search warrant! Because they have had to waste time securing proof of his guilt in order to obtain that warrant—though they have known, all along, what he is! Because the courts will not allow these fine officers to monitor the communications between this monster and his minions!”

  He glared down out of the screen in righteous wrath. “They are impeded at every turn, they are balked at every approach! And, while the courts dither and obstruct them, the telepath moves unimpeded onto our fair mother planet!” He shook his head slowly. “Citizens, this has gone too far! This obsession with legal pettifoggery has now imperiled your lives and mine, nay, even the fabric of our whole society! Who now can feel free to nurture secret hopes or longings, to dream of his beloved or reflect on his sins—knowing that, every moment, another's mind may have wormed its way into his, cozening up to his dearest, most cherished secrets!

  “Nay! The time has come to put a stop to the nonsense! To purge the technicalities and loopholes that let the criminal escape while the law-abiding citizen shuffles in chains! To exorcize the demons of law! Make no mistake, citizens—a vast conspiracy of telepaths has wrapped its coils around us, and is even now beginning to squeeze the life from our democracy!

  “Will they triumph? Nay!” he thundered. “We will tear their coils apart, we will rip them asunder! The law will cease obstructing the champions of justice!”

  Then, suddenly, his eyes were locked onto Dar's again, burning. “But this cannot be done while Executive Secretary Louhi Kulervo dithers and vacillates! A man of decision must take the helm, a man of true strength, who does not waste expanses of time mewling about ‘sacred trusts' and ‘constitutionality'!”

  He took a deep breath, very obviously fighting down wrath, struggling for composure, then said more calmly:

  “It is for these reasons, citizens, that I will, today, demand a vote of confidence in the Assembly, and a general election. We must succeed in forcing this referendum, my fellow citizens—or we will waken one morning to find ourselves enmeshed in chains of thought! Contact your Elector, now, this minute, and tell him to demand an election. We must have it, citizens—we must have a man of decision and action to lead us—or the light of democracy will flicker out, and die!”

  The image on the screen flickered out, and died.

  A roar of conversation burst out all around them.

  Whitey glanced back at his adrenalized crew, looking a little nervous himself. “Ah . . . I think we should just start drifting toward the main terminal . . . and try to look surprised, folks.”

  That wasn't hard. Dar felt as though he'd just been knocked spinning by a shockwave. It wasn't just that one fleeing little ship had been turned into a conspiracy—or that the coup was leaping out into the open. It was the idea that they might even be able to do it legally!

  A very good chance, from what he was overhearing as they “drifted”:

  “I thought they only had a couple of telepaths in the whole sphere!” an obese commercial-type was saying.

  “So did I,” a slenderized companion answered, “but I guess those were just the ones they knew about—you know, legal ones.”

  “They can really find out your most secret memories?” This from an old harridan who obviously had one hell of a past, but didn't necessarily want it known.

  “But . . . they could learn all my accounts, all the latest information I've gleaned about which stocks are due to rise!” The beefy, florid-faced individual in the conservatively expensive coverall glared in righteous indignation. “That's a completely immoral competitive advantage!”

  “Have to be stopped,” his companion agreed. “Have to be.”

  “They could take over!” a sweet young thing shrilled, “and they might clamp down on the vice laws!”

  “Telepaths certainly wouldn't want people running around with their heads full of smut.” Her companion had the look of a questionable publisher. “I mean, what about civil rights?”

  “But what about civil rights?” Snow-white hair, face full of authority, oozing confidence—maybe a judge?

  “They'd be gone.” His companion was younger, but cut from the same cloth. “Make Pohyola Exec Sec'y, give him full emergency powers—and the first thing he'll do is suspend the constitution. We'll have a full-scale dictatorship in a year.”

  “Are you two going to natter about technicalities at a time like this?” a slender, intense-type bawled, turning on them
. “Do you realize what our chances of getting approval for a price-hike would be if telepaths were running the Department of the Economy?”

  They finally broke free of the mob, into a clear space in front of a drop-tube. Whitey hit the button; time stretched out as they waited, chafing, unable to do anything. Then the doors valved open and more citizens streamed out, chattering,

  “. . . threat to everything we believe in . . .”

  “. . . probably sacrifice babies at those secret meetings they have . . .”

  “. . . got to vote Pohyola in!”

  “Inside, folks,” Whitey growled, and they sprang. The doors valved shut behind them, and Whitey hit the street-level button.

  “I'm scared, Grandpa,” Lona said softly.

  “Comes of having brains,” Whitey growled. “Me, I'm just terrified.”

  Sam's eyes were huge in a pale, drawn face.

  Dar's voice was very low. “These people are so scared, they're actually going to be willing to give up all their rights!”

  “Willing?” Whitey snorted. “They're going to rush to it!”

  “Whitey . . . my mission . . .”

  “Still important,” Whitey snapped. “If they lose the election, they'll still try their coup. In fact, they may not wait for due process.”

  The doors valved open. “Walk calmly,” Whitey growled. “Don't do anything out of the ordinary. Just follow Papa.”

  The crowd was much thinner here where people were coming into the terminal or leaving it, but there were still a lot of huddles of frantic citizens. Whitey strolled through them with his crew, retrieved his luggage, and sauntered out the ground-transport door.

  A uniform stepped up to them with a man inside it. “Mr. Tambourin?”

  Dar's heart jammed into his throat. Then he realized it didn't have any brass or badge; it couldn't be Security.

  Whitey turned his head slowly, glowering. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Bocello's compliments, sir. Would you accept his hospitality for the next few days?”

  “Horatio always did have a great sense of timing,” Whitey sighed, pressing back into the limousine's seat. It responded, adjusting itself to his contours.

  “What's in the cupboard?” Dar nodded at a sliding panel set into the wall in front of him.

  “Why not ask the driver?” Whitey nodded toward a speaker-grill. “He's just on the other side of the wall.”

  “Why not?” Dar pressed the panel glowing beneath the grill. “Uh, can you tell me what this little cupboard in the forward wall is?”

  “A complete bar, sir,” the chauffeur replied. “Please feel free to drain it. I hope we have your brands stocked.”

  “Oh, anything expensive is fine, thanks.” Dar slid open the hatch, grinned at the gleaming panel in front of him, checked the codes listed above it, and punched up a Deneb Dimmer. “Next order?”

  “Sirian Scrambler,” said Lona.

  “Canopus Concentrate,” said Sam.

  “Chateau LaMorgue '46,” said Whitey.

  Dar squinted at the index. “Sorry, Whitey, all they've got is a '48.”

  “Well, that wasn't a bad year,” Whitey sighed. “It'll do.”

  Dar pressed in the code and glanced at Father Marco.

  “Nothing, thanks.” The priest raised a palm. “I only drink in the early morning.”

  Dar shrugged, took his tumbler out of the slot, and settled back with a contented sigh. “I'm beginning to see advantages to decadence.” He beamed down on the city passing beneath them. Then he frowned. “What's that?”

  Below them, a mob filled several streets, waving signs and throwing bricks.

  “What?” Whitey leaned over to the window, looking down. “Hey, not bad! Let's see if we can hear them.” He turned a knob and punched a button beneath the speaker grille. It filtered faint words to them:

  “Espers are Ethical!”

  “Don't Sell the Psis!”

  “Terra for Telepaths!”

  Whitey nodded with satisfaction. “A political demonstration. Nice to hear the voice of dissent.”

  “The bricks are bouncing back at them,” Dar called. “Bouncing off of thin air, in fact. What is it, a force-field?”

  “Give the man a point!” Lona said brightly. “You've got it, sophisticate—it's a force-field. Makes sure the demonstrators don't hurt anybody.”

  “There're a few Security men outside the force-field . . .”

  “Well, you wouldn't expect them to be inside, would you?”

  “But why do they need them, with the force-field?”

  “Who do you think set it up?”

  “Also, they're the official sign that the government is hearing the citizens' grievances,” said Sam, with full sarcasm.

  “The government approves?”

  “The government embraces it, almost to the point of lewdness. They've even written it into law—for every hundred thousand persons demonstrating for eight hours, they get one vote on the issue in the Assembly.”

  Dar turned to her, frowning. “Sounds a little dangerous. A fad could get voted into law that way.”

  “Not when you remember that the Assembly represents ninety-three human-inhabited planets with a total population of eighty billion. You have to have forty-eight votes just to get the issue onto the agenda! Not that it hasn't happened, mind you—but rarely, very rarely.”

  “Two of the programs based on such issues have been enacted into law,” Father Marco reminded her.

  “Two laws in five centuries? Not exactly a great track record, Father!”

  “Well, no. It does require that the majority approve the issue.”

  “Yeah.” Sam slid over next to Dar and stared out the window gloomily. “But some chance is better than none, I suppose. At least it gives the counterculture the illusion that they can accomplish something.”

  They passed over three more demonstrations on the way to Bocello's; each was huge, making the pro-telepath mob look like a handful—and all screaming for the telepaths' blood.

  “What're we getting upset about?” Dar wondered. “We're not telepaths!”

  “Try and prove that to Pohyola,” Sam growled.

  What with one thing and another, their nerves were in a fine state of disarray by the time the limo landed.

  They stepped out into the midst of a tournament.

  The knights had apparently unhorsed each other; the beasts in question were standing back, watching their masters with jaundiced eyes. The knights were hewing at each other with broadswords that went CLICK! CLUNK! whenever they met. The Green Knight wore full plate armor; his opponent wore a haubergion. Behind and above them stood a scoreboard with two outline-drawings of a human form; whenever one of the knights managed to “wound” his opponent, the “wound” would show up on the scoreboard as a red light, and a chime would ring the knight's number of points.

  Around them stood and sat a hundred or so people dressed in the latest fashion of the fourteenth century. Or the twelfth. Or the tenth. Or maybe the ninth. They nibbled at pasties and swigged ale, laughing and cheering, while peddlers circulated among them with food and drink, and troubadours and gleemen strolled about singing and chanting. An occasional monk stood near, inveighing against the evils of tournaments and enjoining the faithful to repent.

  Lona turned to the chauffeur. “Sure you didn't take us to the wrong address? Say, maybe a mental hospital?”

  “Not at all,” the chauffeur assured her. “This is Mr. Bocello's house.” And there it was, rising high behind the medieval crowd in full Gothic splendor, looking more like a public monument than a dwelling.

  “A man's castle is his home,” Dar murmured.

  “Mr. Bocello is entertaining,” the chauffeur explained. “Just a few friends from his club.”

  Dar eyed the crowd. “Not what I think of as the usual plutocrat-orgy set.”

  “Very few of them are wealthy, sir. But all share Mr. Bocello's fondness for the medieval. He has gathered them to celebrate the return to Te
rra of, ah, in his words, ‘the greatest gleeman of our age.’ ”

  A slow grin spread over Whitey's face. “Now, that's what I call honoring me according to my own taste and style! I am more of a gleeman than a poet, anyway! Come on, folks—if the man does me honor, let's honor his doing!”

  A very tall, skinny man in full ducal robes shouldered his way through the crowd with a peasant lass on his arm. “Tambourin!”

  “Cello, you filthy old wastrel!” Whitey reached up high to slap the duke's shoulder. “How'd you get this crowd together on only a day's notice?”

  “Oh, I had a few words with their employers, and they were more than happy to oblige. You didn't think you could set foot on old Terra again without causing a festival, did you?”

  “Well, I did have some naive notion about slipping in unnoticed,” Whitey admitted.

  Bocello raised an eyebrow. “What is it this time—a vengeful husband, or an irate sheriff?”

  “It's more like a list, really. . . .”

  “Oh, is it indeed!” Horatio turned the peasant wench around and sent her off with a pat on the backside. “Off with you, child—I have a feeling we're about to be saying things that you truly want to be able to claim you didn't hear. Come now, no pouting—I saw the way you were eyeing that acrobat; deny it if you can . . .” He turned back to Whitey as the girl swept off with a blush and a giggle. “Now, then! It's been a while; perhaps you and your entourage would like a quick tour of my gardens?”

  “We would indeed! Preferably out in the middle of a wide expanse of lawn, free from prying mechanical eyes and ears. . . .”

  “Ah, but one can never be totally certain of that anymore.” Horatio took Whitey by the arm and led him away. “They're doing such wonderful things with miniaturization these days. Still, my gardeners do, ah, ‘sweep' the lawns every morning, so we've a reasonably good chance . . . By the way, what did you think of Greval's latest epic?” And they were off, happily ripping apart other artists' work in the time-honored tradition of amateur critics, as they wove and dodged their way through the crowd. The gang had to scramble to keep up with them, and by the time they came out onto the open grass, Dar was winded.