A murmur rose from the crowd, and then suddenly, as if by prearranged signal, the unlighted torches of the Klansmen burst into flame. For a moment Terry was thrown off balance by the memory of torches on Maclairn . . . torches by the river, on the terraces at Corwin’s memorial, at his own Ritual . . . this travesty of those things sickened him, and he was jarred back to reality only by the voice of the nearest Klansman. The white robe and mask hid his identity but the voice was unforgettable. It was Quaid.
“This is not the Captain of Estel,” the man shouted. “Do not listen to his lies! This is a fool I once knew, a braggart and a swindler, who was sentenced long ago to life in prison on Ciencia. He claimed even then to own a ship named Estel, though there was no such ship. There were no starships at all there. He was, and is, a megalomaniac.”
“Do you deny, Quaid, that you wish to destroy all traces of belief in the human mind and spirit, wiping out everything that does not serve your own distorted view of reality?” Terry demanded. “Do you deny that while ridiculing the whole idea of symbolism, you have duped your Klan followers into letting themselves be roused by symbols of hatred to do things they would never do without those symbols?”
Confused, Quaid was at a loss for words, and Terry, hoping that the news cameras were on him, went on, “Do you deny that you have gained your own power by agreeing to place the Klan at the disposal of Commissioner Hiller and that he has been backing you in secret ever since you arrived on Earth? Do you deny that you once plotted the destruction of a world at his behest and that he or his friends paid you a large sum for your role in that failed attempt, which you hid from the other evildoers involved?”
“Don’t listen to this fraud!” cried Quaid. “He has fantastic delusions about supernatural powers, with which he seeks to divert honest citizens from the real issues in the coming election and to defame a candidate he knows will take strong action to stamp out such nonsense! He is now attempting to set up a base from which to spread his absurdities even on Earth! This nest of pernicious notions must be wiped out—Klansmen, now is the time to destroy it!”
The robed figures, shouting, rushed forward to surround the windowless building, tossing their torches onto its roof. As many as could reach the doors surged inside, setting fire to any combustibles they saw and quickly retreating before the flames. Terry anticipating the crush, had moved to one side; his eyes were on a cluster of men aiming to grab him, who were being held back by the guards. He’d lost sight of Quaid—and then suddenly he turned and Quaid was only a few feet away, with a gun pointed straight at him.
Instantly Terry drew his own gun, but it had been years since he’d practiced and he was not quite fast enough; before he could pull the trigger he felt himself shoved aside. He heard the shot, assuming it had gone wild. But it hadn’t. New horror struck him like a blow as he realized that Jon had seen Quaid before he did and had moved to shield him—and had now slumped to the pavement between them.
He didn’t give himself time to absorb the sight. Quaid raised his gun to fire again; without hesitation Terry aimed and shot him through the heart.
~ 51 ~
From then on it was all a blur. Terry was aware that the building was ablaze and that the crowd had moved out of the cordoned area, as had he himself, flanked by Zach and the security guards. He was conscious of cops rounding up the Klansmen, whose blatantly public acts of arson and murder they could not ignore. He smelled the acrid smoke and felt, even from a safe distance, the heat of the flames.
And he knew when the Fleet officers clamped handcuffs on him, having won an argument with the local police about who should have custody. He too was charged with murder, of course, although those who’d been watching declared that he’d killed Quaid in self-defense. But since he was already a fugitive, Fleet claimed priority.
None of this mattered to Terry. The only thing that penetrated his numbness was the knowledge that Jon had taken a bullet for him, and Jon was dead.
Later, in the Fleet lockup to which he was transported, he revived enough to worry about Alison and Gwen. Had the shootings been shown live on the news? If not, who would tell them what happened? When Fleet took over the ship, where would they go? Zach had promised to take care of them; he would explain why the building had been burned and would see that their immediate needs were met. But who would help them deal with the shock and grief?
He knew that Fleet would confiscate Bright Hope and would no doubt discover that it was the same ship they had seized as Estel. From his admission to be its captain they had booked him under his most recent true name despite the fact that his ID identified him as Tom Ryan. Mainly for the legal record, they had taken a DNA sample and would compare it with his Stelo Haveno arrest record. He was not sure whether they could find concrete proof that he had been carrying passengers without transit permits, though it was public knowledge that the Captain of Estel did so. Proof was unlikely to make much difference; there were plenty of charges against him without that.
It was the next day before he could bring himself to watch replays of the newscast. The reporters had got it all, his speech and Quaid’s as well as the action. Commentators were taking them seriously and League spokesmen had promised a full investigation. The open killing of Jon had created outrage that secret violence had never aroused. There were already calls for action against the Klan, and, at the moment leaderless, it was offering no organized response. Hiller’s campaign manager had no comment. Hiller himself could not be reached.
The satisfaction he would otherwise have felt over these developments roused no emotion in Terry. He could think of nothing beyond his grief for Jon and the prospect of what lay ahead of him.
He had never expected that lives would be lost through his manipulation—not even Quaid’s. And there wouldn’t have been, from the fire alone. Should he have predicted that Quaid would have a gun when the Klan didn’t ordinarily carry them? As an interrogator in the Ciencian prison Quaid always had one, so perhaps he should have realized that such a man would be used to relying on it. So was Jon’s death his fault?
He couldn’t stop dwelling on that question. Even if the answer was no, he could never feel reconciled to the turn events had taken. No matter that Jon’s martyrdom had mobilized the public against the Klan. It should have been him! He had always been willing to die for Maclairn. But not to have Jon die for him.
The following day a lawyer sent by Zach came to see him. “We can get the murder charge dismissed,” he said. “It was clearly self-defense and there are witnesses to testify to that. But you are also charged with inciting a riot.”
Since he had in fact incited it, Terry intended to plead guilty; still, he hesitated. If he pleaded guilty there would be no trial, which would be fine if Hiller was defeated—but if he won, a trial would be the only opportunity for speaking out against him. “I’ll let you know how I want to plead after the election,” he told the lawyer. “I set up that riot and if it served to reveal Hiller’s connection with the Klan, it accomplished its purpose. If not, I need to go public with more details.”
He was allowed to attend Jon’s funeral under guard. Zach had arranged it on behalf of Gwen, and apart from her and Alison, only he and López were present; but though held at the transit station in Moon orbit, it was telecast to Earth and a simultaneous memorial in Los Angeles was attended by hundreds of irate mourners. As Jon’s ashes were committed to space, Terry exchanged anguished glances with Alison and Gwen, his heart aching for them, but they were permitted no private time together. Afterward he was taken to the brig at Fleet Headquarters on the Moon.
There, he was more thoroughly searched than in the temporary lockup and was given prison clothing; the small flame pin that meant so much was for the second time taken from him—to be returned with his other belongings, he was told, upon his release. He did not expect that would be soon.
When election day arrived Terry watched the news with trepidation. If Hiller lost, he could accept Jon’s death as the price of savin
g Maclairn, plus a great many other people on Earth and elsewhere. But if he won, if the incident had no permanent effect, Jon had died for nothing, and the Klan’s terrorist acts would continue—and Maclairn would be doomed.
The balloting from the colony worlds, transmitted by ansible, had already been tabulated; as expected, Hiller’s opponent won there by a landslide. But Earth leaned the other way, not as heavily as in the polls, but the early returns showed that it was going to be close. Throughout the day Terry remained glued to the read-only Net monitor in his cell, unable to eat the food brought to him or to focus on the mind skills that ordinarily relaxed his body. All over the world, people desperate for better living conditions had believed Hiller’s claim that he could improve them and his hypocritical promise to suppress the Klan. The opponent, with whose record Terry wasn’t familiar but who was known for honesty, had made no unrealistic promises and was therefore at a disadvantage. He had neither charisma nor secret backing from shady politicians, and the outcome would thus depend not on support for him, but on desire to defeat Hiller. Followers of Estel would vote against Hiller—but would enough others?
In the end, the California vote decided it. The burning building in Los Angeles with the sea of white-robed Klansmen in the foreground had been widely shown on the local news, and like the killing of Jon, it had made its mark. Quaid had not denied receiving backing from Hiller, he had sidestepped with invective against Terry and had made an obvious attempt to silence him permanently. The public hadn’t been blind.
Terry, overcome with released emotion, at last gave way to tears—tears of relief at Maclairn’s salvation that turned, once his icy calm was broken, into anguished weeping for Jon, for his separation from Alison, and finally for the loss of Estel. It took him a long time to regain his balance.
After that, life in the brig settled into a routine. He was given a cellmate, a Fleet officer accused of accepting bribes with whom he had nothing in common. He ate in the mess hall with other prisoners and worked out daily in the gym. Alison was allowed to visit once a week, but there was no privacy and their conversation was therefore restricted to mundane matters. She and Gwen were sharing an apartment at Moonbase, for which Zach was paying. Gwen thought she might get work as an engineer there; if not, they would go to Earth together as soon as he was sentenced; Alison would go in any case, since there was no demand for psychotherapists or neurofeedback technicians on the Moon. She would try to get a job at a Bramfield Club. They avoided telepathic communication, unwilling to express feelings too deep for words out of fear that their composure would crack.
It took many days of red tape and several court appearances before Terry’s shooting of Quaid was ruled self-defense and his plea of guilty with respect to the riot was duly recorded. There remained the original charges against him—instigating a revolution on Ciencia, fraudulently claiming to having supernatural powers, hacking, operating a starship under a false name, ID tampering, and escape from custody—plus many counts of unauthorized transportation of passengers, of which they had managed to find hard evidence, and the so-called kidnapping of Becka, whose father identified him from a police vid.
Some of these Terry was determined to fight. There had been no revolution on Ciencia, and his lawyer was able to obtain affidavits from several officials there stating that the Estelan party had won a legitimate election. He produced expert witnesses willing to state that psi was not supernatural and that Terry had never said that he could heal, as distinguished from providing pain relief. As to the rest, there was nothing to be said and Terry pleaded no contest. Six weeks after his final flight from Estel, he stood in a League court on the Moon and received a sentence of twenty years at hard labor in the penal colony on Sigma Draconis Two.
He had known it was coming, and had hardened himself to the blow; but it was nevertheless painful. Twice in his life he had lost everything—his loved ones, his work, the home he cared about—and twice he had been sentenced to prison. He did not expect fate to restore his freedom this time.
His one solace was what he read on the Net. The incumbent administration was still in power, as the new one would not be inaugurated for some time; but Commissioner Hiller was keeping a low profile and the Klan was no longer immune from police surveillance. Officially-sanctioned persecution of people with psi had stopped, as the premier-elect had called it unacceptable. That much, at least, Terry had achieved. And because of his ill-fated personal appearance, comments about Estel were increasing. He had succeeded in starting something lasting with that symbol—people who wrote about it did have hope for the future. There was even talk of forming a real Estelan Party on Earth.
The Captain of Estel, Terry read, was considered a hero. No one knew exactly what had become of him—Fleet, hoping to quash a movement they considered threatening, had allowed no news coverage of his case. There were rumors that he had gone back to anonymity, that he had escaped from the law, even that he had died in the fire. But his invisibility only added to the admiration accorded him. Everything he’d said was being taken seriously, enhanced by an air of mystery.
Two days before he was to board a transport for the penal colony, Terry was informed that Alison was there to see him. To his surprise, he was led to a private visiting room—he hadn’t expected they’d be permitted an unguarded farewell. He resolved to close his mind to telepathic contact, knowing that otherwise they couldn’t get through it without tears.
Alison, to his amazement, was animated and smiling. “It’s all set,” she said. “They’re letting me go with you.”
“Go with me to Sigma Draconis? That can’t be,” he said, bewildered. “There’s nothing on the planet except the penal colony.”
“But families are permitted in penal colonies. Many prisoners have them.”
“Oh, God, Alison. You can’t go there—it’s a terrible place! I won’t let you do it.” He couldn’t bear the thought; it would be as if she herself were imprisoned. “Anyway,” he pointed out, “we’re not legally a family. They only accept marriage partners.”
“I know. That’s why we’re going to be married here and now.”
“Married? Alison, I—” Terry broke off. She would be hurt if he said he didn’t want to marry her. And it would be a lie, of course. They had not married sooner because they’d seen no need; they had never been on the surface of a planet long enough for it to matter. Marriage meant a home and children, and they’d known they could never have that if he kept Estel. But now. . . .
Now it would mean committing herself to twenty years under miserable living conditions, where she would undoubtedly be required to work at some job far beneath her level of competence, where though not a convict, she’d be treated little better than if she were one. Much as he longed to have her with him, he couldn’t let her make such a sacrifice.
“No,” he said gently. “It would be bigamy; I’m still married to Kathryn.”
“That’s not true. You were declared dead, and even if you hadn’t been, divorce is automatic after six years of separation.”
He was silent. He’d known she wouldn’t believe the excuse, but he’d hoped she would pretend to and spare him the ordeal of flatly refusing.
“Please, Terry,” Alison begged, “don’t leave me behind. I can’t bear not to go with you. Don’t you see what it would do to me to be here alone, thinking of you in that place? If you care about me, about what we’ve had together, you can’t want that.”
She meant it—despite himself, he allowed their thoughts to merge and sensed the desperation underlying her words. Her desire was as intense as his own, and he knew that to insist on protecting her would be no protection at all.
The marriage formalities had already been arranged, he found. They went together to the brig office and signed the papers, and in the presence of two guards the warden pronounced them husband and wife.
But after they kissed, Terry was taken back to his cell. They would not live as husband and wife until they reached Sigma Draconis.
<
br /> Part Six: Wayfaring
52 - 53 - 54 - 55 - 56 - 57
~ 52 ~
The first half-year was the hardest. From the moment the shuttle settled onto the sterile surface of Sigma Draconis Two, it was apparent to Terry and Alison that the term “penal colony” was a mere euphemism. This was not a colony in any normal sense of the word. It was a prison, and a high-security one at that, since there was no conceivable means of escape from it. The convicts were confined not by bars but by the poisonous atmosphere that surrounded its domes—not to mention the fact that there were no ships to get away in. Twenty years, Terry thought in despair. Twenty years grounded on the dreariest planet he had ever seen, never even permitted to go outdoors. . . .
The latter assumption proved mistaken; convicts were taken out daily to work in the salt mines. On first hearing this, he assumed it was merely a figurative expression, labor in salt mines having been a form of punishment used on ancient Earth. To his surprise and dismay he found it was literally true. Earth had run out of accessible minerals long ago and its salt was recovered from seawater. But colony worlds also needed salt to sustain life, and some of them did not have any—it existed only on planets where there had once been significant amounts of water. Draconis had been wet in the distant past and salt was plentiful underground, though by now the surface supply had been exhausted. Since the world had no other resources of value, Fleet had taken it over for the dual purpose of housing prisoners and providing salt for export aboard its merchant ships.
Terry wasn’t used to manual labor, and the days in the mines were long and hard. While most of the heavy work was done by robotic machines, men were nevertheless needed underground to control them. Moreover, they frequently broke down, so that workers had to take over some functions to avoid bottlenecks. Considering Terry’s knowledge of AI, which had been his secondary field of expertise as a Fleet officer, fixing some of the problems would have been faster and less frustrating than waiting for the arrival of technicians; but of course his experience was not on record and in any case prisoners were not permitted to usurp the technicians’ privileges. Moreover, he was encumbered by a pressure suit and helmet not designed for doing skilled work.
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