An Enemy of the State

CHAPTER TEN

The first time had been a frantic headlong dive to ease a mutual hunger of desperate dimensions, begun and ended so quickly that it had already become a dim memory. The second was more exploratory, a fruitful search for familiar responses, familiar patterns of give and take. And the third was a loving, leisurely welcome home that left them both drained and content.

“Been too long, Peter,” Mora said.

“Much.”

They huddled in deep-breathing silence for a while, then Peter spoke. “You haven't asked me about the trip.”

“I know. I thought it could wait.”

“Afraid we'd fight again?”

Peter could feel her head nodding in the dark next to him. “I was sure of it. With the new year beginning, I wanted us to enter it in arms instead of at arms.”

He smiled and held his wife closer. “Well, it's here and so are we. And this is the only way to start a new year.”

“You were gone when the Year of the Tortoise began. That was a lonely time. And you won't be here for the Year of the Malak either.”

“But I'm here now and we can discuss the rest in the morning. No talk now.”

Mora fell asleep first, her head on his shoulder. Peter, despite his fatigue, lay awake awhile longer, listening to the rumble of the storm-whipped surf outside. It was so good to be home. So comfortable. So safe. He knew he could not bring himself to leave again. Let someone else take care of things on Throne from now on. He'd had enough. Next Year Day and every other day in between would find him here in his little house on the dunes. Then the dream would stop.

That decision made, he drifted off to sleep.

The first one was a woman. She slipped through the open bedroom door and slinked across the room toward the bed, a large cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms. After peering carefully at his face to be sure that it was him, her eyes lit with maniacal rage and she dumped the contents of her bundle over him. Thousands of orange and white Imperial mark notes fell like a poisonous snow. She turned and called soundlessly over her shoulder, and soon a steady stream of strangers trailed through the door, all with hate-filled eyes, all with bundles and bushels of mark notes that they emptied over him. He could only move his head back and forth. Mora was gone. He had been left alone to face this silent, murderous crowd. And still they came, and the pile of mark notes covered his face, and he could no longer breathe, and he was dying, dying, suffocated by Imperial marks…

Peter awoke in a sitting position, drenched with sweat. It had happened again. The dream had pursued him across half of Occupied Space. That did it. He was through.

“COME on, DADDY! Hurry, please!”

Children, he thought, trudging up the celadon dune in the wake of his seven-year-old daughter. You go away for a year and a half and you don't recognize them when you come back, they've grown so. And they're a little shy with you at first. But by the next day, they treat you like you were never away.

“I'm coming, Laina.” She stood at the top of the dune, slim and sleek and straight and fair, staring seaward, her blond hair streaming in the stiff onshore breeze. Something began to squeeze his larynx and knot the muscles of his jaw as he watched her. She's growing up without me. He continued up the dune, not daring to stop.

The wind slapped at him when he reached the top. The weather did nothing to lighten his mood…one of those gray days with a slippery slate sky dissolving into a molten lead sea, small white clouds like steam obscuring the junction. Another two steps and he could see the beach: Laina hadn't been exaggerating.

“Daddy, it's really a malak, isn't it?”

“So it is!” Peter muttered, staring at the huge blunt-headed mass of fish flesh, inert and lifeless on the sand near the high water mark. “Last time this happened was when I was about your age. Must be at least thirty meters long! Let's go down for a closer look.”

As Laina leaped to run down the dune, Peter scooped her up and swung her to her shoulders, her bare legs straddling the back of his neck. She liked to ride up there-at least she had before he left-and he liked the contact. Needed it.

Sea wind buffeted their ears and salt mist stung their eyes as they approached the decaying form.

“A sieve malak, leviathan class,” he told her, then sniffed the air. “And starting to stink already. Before they were all killed off, there used to be creatures like this on Earth called baleen whales. But whales weren't fish. Our malaks are true fish.”

Laina was almost speechless with awe at the immensity of the creature. “It's so big! What killed it?”

“Could've died of old age out at sea and drifted in, but I don't see much evidence of the scavengers having been at it. Probably got confused by the storm last night and wound up beached. I read somewhere that all the insides get crushed when a malak is beached…killed by its own weight.”

“Must eat a whole lotta other fish to make it grow so big.”

“Actually it doesn't eat other fish at all.” He walked her closer to the huge mouth that split the head, their approach stirring up a flight of scale-winged keendars from their feast on the remains. “See those big plates of hairy bone along the upper jaw…looks like a comb? That's the sieve. As they swim along, these malaks strain sea water through their sieve and eat all the tiny animals they trap in the hairs. Mostly it's stuff called plankton.”

He let Laina down on the sand so she could run up for a closer look. She wasn't long-the stench from the cavernous maw was too strong to allow a leisurely inspection.

“What's plankton?” she asked as she returned to his side. “I never heard of that before.”

“Let's go back up on the dune where the smell isn't so bad and I'll tell you all about it.”

Hand in hand they plodded through the damp, yielding blue granules to a point overlooking the waterline, yet beyond the carcass's fulsome stench, and watched the screaming, circling keendars for a quiet moment.

“Still interested in plankton?” Receiving a nod, Peter spoke in a slow, almost reminiscent manner, gearing his explanation to a child's mind, yet keeping it up at a level where Laina would have to reach a bit.

“Plankton is the basic food of the sea. It's billions of tiny little creatures, some plants, some animals, but all very, very tiny. They gather in huge batches out at sea, some just drifting others wiggling a little whip-like arm called a flagellum to push them here and there.

“All they really do is live and die and provide food for most of the ocean. They probably think they know just where they're going, never realizing that all the time the entire plankton patch is being pushed about at the whim of wind and current. They get gobbled up by huge sieve malaks that can't see what they're eating, and the plankton don't even know they've been eaten till it's over and done with.”

“Poor plankton!” Laina said, concern showing in her face.

“Oh, they're happy in their own way, I suppose. And while the malaks are cutting huge swaths out of their ranks, they just go on whipping the old flagella about and having a grand time. Even if you tried to tell them of the malaks and other sea creatures that constantly feed off them, they wouldn't believe you.”

“How come you know so much about plankton?”

“I've studied it up close,” Peter said, thoughts of Earth flashing through his mind.

Laina eyed the long baleen combs on the malak's jaw. “Glad I'm not a plankton.”

“If I have my way,” Peter said, putting his arm protectively around his daughter, “you never will be.” He stood up and gave the inert leviathan one last look. “But it's nice to know that malaks die, too. Let's go. Your mother'll have the morning soup ready and we don't want cold soup.”

Backs to the ocean, they walked along the blue dune toward the house, wind spasms allowing a murmur or two of small talk to drift back to the beach where keendars were crying the sound that had given them their name and pecking morsels from the malak's landward eye, glazed and forever sightless.

“YOU'RE GOING BACK, aren't you,” Mora said as they sat in the Ancestor Grove under Peter's great-grandfather tree. He hadn't told her of his pre-dawn resolution to stay, and was glad. The light of day quickly revealed the many flaws in plans that had seemed so simple and forthright in the darkness. He had to go back. There was no other way.

“I must.” Leaning against the tree, a much larger version of Pierrot, gave him the strength to say it. On the day of his great-grandfather's death, a hole had been dug into the root ball of this tree and the coffinless remains interred there. Throughout the remainder of the following year, the tree had absorbed nutrients from the decomposing body, incorporating them into itself, growing taller on the unique organic fertilizer. The seeds that formed on the tree's branches the following spring were saved until the birth of the next LaNague child. And on that day, the day of Peter LaNague's birth, two of those seeds were planted-one in the Ancestor Grove, and one in an earthenware pot that would remain cribside as the child grew.

The Tolivian mimosa, it had been learned, possessed a unique ability to imprint on a human being. A seedling-called a misho-in constant exposure to a growing child will become attuned to that particular child, sensitive to and reflective of his or her moods. The art of branch and root pruning, necessary to limit the tree's size, is carefully taught as the child grows. Raising a child with a personal misho was a common practice on Tolive, but hardly universal. Mora's family considered it a silly custom and so she was never given her own tree, and now could never have one since codevelopment was necessary for imprinting. She could never understand the indefinable bond between her husband and Pierrot, nor the growing bond between Laina and her own misho, but she could see that it seemed to add an extra dimension to each of them and felt poorer for never having experienced it herself.

Peter looked at his wife in the midday light. She hadn't changed, not in the least. The deep, shining, earthy brown of her hair caught the gold of the Tolivian sun and flung it back. The simple shift she wore did little to hide the mature curves enclosed within. She appeared at ease as she reclined against him, but he knew that was a façade.

“The gloves ready?” he asked, making small talk.

“A hundred pairs. They've been ready for a long time.” She looked away as she spoke.

“And the coins?”

“Being minted as fast as possible. But you know that.”

Peter nodded silently. He knew. He had seen the reports around the house.

Mora was a supervisor at the mint. The star-in-the-ohm design was hers, in fact.

“You could still get out of it,” she said abruptly, twisting toward him. “I could. But would you want to live with me if I did?”

“Yes!”

“I don't think I'd be good company.”

“I don't care. You know how I feel. This revolution is all a huge mistake. We should just sit back and let them all rot. We've no obligation to them. They built the fire-let them burn!” Mora was not alone in her opinion; quite a few Tolivians were uncomfortable with the idea of fomenting a revolution.

“But we'll burn, too, Mora. And you know that. We've been over this a thousand times, at least. When the Imperium economy crumbles-and it's already started to-they'll go looking for ways to bolster the mark. The only way for a bankrupt economy to do that is to find a huge new market, or to confiscate a hoard of gold and silver and use it to make its currency good again. Tolive is known to be the largest hoarder of precious metals in Occupied Space. They'll come to us and they won't be asking, they'll be demanding-with the full force of the Imperial Guard ready to back up any threat they care to make.”

“With Flint on our side we could hold them off.” Mora said eagerly. “And then the Imperium will fall apart on its own. All we have to do is hold them off long enough!”

“And then what? With the Imperium gone, Earth will step in and take over the out-worlds without a single energy bolt being fired. With everything in chaos, Earth will act as if it's doing everyone a favor. But this time they'll make sure none of the out-worlds gets free again. This time they'll not allow maverick planets like Tolive and Flint to remain aloof. And with our own resources already drained by a drawn-out battle with the Imperium, we'll have no chance at all against the forces Earth will array against us. There must be a revolution now if there's to be a free Tolive for Laina.”

“You don't know that Earth'll take us over!” Mora said, warming to their habitual argument. “You want to cut all the out-worlds free of the Imperium so they can go their own ways. But do you have the right to do that? Do you have the right to cut people free like that? A lot of them won't want it, you know. A lot of people are scared to death of freedom. They want somebody hanging over them all the time, wiping their noses when they're sad, paddling their rumps when they diverge from the norm.”

“They can have it, if they wish! They can set up their own little authoritarian enclaves and live that way if it pleases them. I don't care. Just don't include me, my family, my planet, or anybody else who thinks that's no way to live! We have a right to try to preserve a place for the safety and growth of the people, ideas, and things we value!”

Despite her anguish, Mora could not bring herself to disagree with him then, for she believed what he believed, and valued what he valued. Tears came to her eyes as she pounded her small fists futilely against the ground at the base of the tree.

“But it doesn't have to be you! Somebody else can go! It doesn't have to be you!”

Wrapping his arms around her, Peter held her close, his lips to her ear, aching to tell her what she wanted to hear, but unable to. “It has to be me. The Charter, the Sedition Trust, they've all been LaNague family projects for generations. And it so happens that the destruction of the Imperium, which we all knew would someday be necessary, has fallen to me.”

He rose and pulled her gently to her feet, keeping his arm around her. “I'll walk you home. Then I've got to go see the Trustees.”

Mora was quiet for a while as they walked through the sun-dappled tranquillity of the Ancestor Grove. Then: “You should stop by the Ama Cooperative on your way to the Trustees. Adrynna's been sick.”

Sudden fear jolted him. “She's dying?”

“No. She recovered. But still, she's old and who knows…? She may not be here when you get back.”

“I'll stop in first thing this afternoon.”

PETER WAS CONSISTENTLY struck by the smallness of the Ama Cooperative whenever he visited it, probably because all his impressions of the asymmetrical collection of squat buildings where the teachers of Kyfho dwelt were gathered during his childhood. He was announced via intercom from the courtyard and granted immediate entry. Everyone knew who he was and knew his time on the planet was short. He found his ama, his lifelong intellectual guide and philosophical mentor, in her room, gazing out the window from her low chair.

“Good day, Ama Adrynna,” he said from the doorway.

She swiveled at the sound of his voice, squinting in his direction. “Come into the light where I can have a good look at you.” Peter obliged, moving toward the window, where he squatted on his haunches next to her. She smiled, cocking her head left, then right. “So it's you after all. You've come to say good-by to your old ama.”

“No. Just hello. I'm on my way to the Trustees and thought I'd stop in and see you. Heard you've been sick or something like that.”

She nodded. “Something like that.” She had aged considerably but had changed little. Her hair, completely white now, was still parted in the middle and pulled down each side of her face in two severe lines. The face was tightly wrinkled, the mouth a mobile gash, the body painfully lean. Yet her eyes were still the beacons of reason and unshakable integrity that had inspired him throughout his youth and continued to fuel him to this day.

He had seen little of her in the past decade. As a member of the amae, Adrynna spent her days teaching and defining the Kyfho philosophy, and he had progressed beyond the stage where he relied on her counsel. He had taken what she had taught him and put it to use. Yet a large part of whatever he was and whatever he would be derived from the years he had spent at her knee. Tolive, the out-worlds, humanity, and Peter LaNague would be so much poorer when she was gone.

“The Trustees, eh?” Adrynna continued, her eyes narrowing. “The Sedition Trust is now your plaything, Peter. Whatever the Trustees think or say or do means nothing now that the revolution mechanism has been set in motion. Only the man in charge on Throne has the final say. And that man is you, Peter. For many generations, countless Tolivians have denied their heirs a single ag by willing all their possessions to the Sedition Trust upon their deaths. Their beliefs, their fortunes, the products of their lives ride to Throne with you, Peter LaNague.”

“I know.” No one had to tell him. The burden of that knowledge weighed on him every day. “I won't fail them, Adrynna.”

“What you mean by failure and what I mean by failure may be two different things. You know the quote by that old Earthie writer, Conrad, about bringing ships to port? Then you know that he was not talking about Tolive. This world cares about the storms through which you'll have to pass. Our concern for your mission is not limited to its success. We will want to know how you succeeded. We will want to know what moral corners you had to cut, and will want ‘None’ for an answer.”

“You taught me well. You must know that.”

“I only know one thing,” the old woman said in a voice ringing with her fierce conviction, “and that is that the revolution must be conducted in accordance with the principles of Kyfho if it is to have any real meaning. There must be no bloodshed, no violence unless it is defensive, no coercion! We must do it our way and our way alone! To do otherwise is to betray centuries of hardship and struggle. Above all else: Kyfho. Forget Kyfho in your pursuit of victory over the enemy, and you will become the enemy…worse than the enemy, for he doesn't know he is capable of anything better.”

“I know, Adrynna. I know all too well.”

“And beware the Flinters. They may be Kyfhons, but they follow a degraded version of the philosophy. They have embraced violence too tightly and may overreact. Watch them, as we will watch you.”

He nodded, rose, and kissed her forehead. It was hardly a comforting thought to know that his actions would be under such close scrutiny. But it was hardly a new thought, either-it had come with the territory.

The Trustees were his next stop: three people who, like many before them, had been elected guardians of the fund begun by the LaNague family in the early days of the colony. There being no government to speak of on Tolive, the matter of undermining a totalitarian state had been left to the efforts of individuals, and would be backed by that fund: the Sedition Trust. No one had envisioned an Outworld Imperium then-it had always been assumed that Earth would be the target of the Trust. And until recently, the job of Trustee-decided by votes from all contributors-had been a simple bookkeeping task. Now it was different. Now they held the purse strings on the revolution.

Yet Adrynna, in her offhanded manner that cut as quick and true as a vibe-knife, had pointed out something Peter had overlooked. The revolution as it was set up was really a one-man operation. Peter LaNague would make the moment-to-moment decisions and adjust its course as he went along. With the Trustees light years away, Peter LaNague was the revolution.

Adrynna must have had the most say in his being chosen as the agent provocateur-an ama knew her student better than a parent knew a child. Of course, out of deference to the founding family of the Sedition Trust, the same family that had spent generations honing a charter for a new organization which would rise from the ashes of the revolution, a LaNague would always have first consideration for the task if he or she were willing…and capable…and of the necessary fiber. The task was rife with possibilities for abuse-from simple malfeasance to outright betrayal of the cause-and could not be entrusted to someone merely because of lineage.

Peter LaNague had apparently met all the criteria. And when offered the job, had accepted. He had been working as a landscaper, a task that kept his hands busy but had allowed his mind long periods in which to roam free. He had known the call was coming and had developed myriad ideas on how to assault the Imperium's weak points. Circumstances, the Neeka incident, and Boedekker's subsequent proposal to the Flinters had narrowed him down to a devious strategy that would strike at the heart of the Imperium. It had all been so clean and simple then, so exciting in the planning stage. Now, in the midst of the sordid details of actually bringing the plan to fruition, he found he had lost all of his former enthusiasm. He wanted it over and done with.

All three Trustees were waiting for him when he arrived at the two-story structure that sat alone on the great northwestern plain of Tolive's second-largest continent, the building people called “Sedition Central.” It was to these men and this building that the Flinters had come with news of what Eric Boedekker had offered them in exchange for the Imperium's demise. Peter LaNague's life had been radically altered by that information.

After greetings and drink-pouring, Peter and the Trustees seated themselves in an open square. Waters, senior Trustee, brought the talk around to business.

“We've all heard your report and agree that the killing of the assassin was justified and unavoidable.”

“If there had been another way, I would have tried it,” Peter said. “But if we hadn't moved immediately, he would have murdered Metep. It was a life for a life.”

“And the agreement with Boedekker? He's actually staking his fortune on you?”

Peter nodded. “He's risking little. The necessary conversions merely change the nature of his assets. They never leave his control.”

“But if you're successful, he'll be ruined,” said Connors, the most erudite of the Trustees. “He must know that! He certainly didn't reach his present position by taking this kind of risk!”

“He doesn't care about his present position. He wanted to build a monolithic financial empire and center it around his family. But he's lost his family, and the Earth government won't let him start another. My plan gives him the opportunity to use his own empire to destroy another empire, the one that destroyed the last hope of his dream becoming reality. He agreed.”

“Then that's it,” Waters said. “It's all set.”

“Yes…yes, I think so.”

“What about this Broohnin you mention?” It was Silvera, youngest of the three and an eminent architect before she became a Trustee. “He worries me.”

“Worries me, too,” Peter said. “But I think-I hope-I've dazzled him enough to keep him off balance for a while.”

“He does sound dangerous,” Connors added. “Violent, too.”

“He's a wild card-as dangerous as they come and as unpredictable. But I can't bring the revolution through in the necessary time period without his contacts. I don't like him, I don't trust him, but without his cooperation there can be no revolution.”

The three Trustees considered this in silence. Only Connors had further comment.

“Is your five-year limit that strict? Can't we afford a year or two extra to slip our own people into sensitive positions?”

“Absolutely not!” Peter replied, shaking his head vigorously. “The economic situation is going to deteriorate rapidly on its own. If we allow seven, or even six years before we bring the house down, there may be nothing left to salvage. We figure that twenty years from now the Imperium, even if left alone, will be in such disarray that Earth could move in unchallenged. What we need is quick collapse and quick reconstruction before Earth is able to make its move. We can do it on a five-year schedule. On a seven-year schedule, I doubt we could move fast enough to keep the Earthies out.” He held up the fingers of his right hand. “Five years. No more. And only four are left.”

Connors persisted: “Couldn't we use Broohnin's organization without him?”

“Possibly. But that could be risky. We might be suspected of collusion with the Imperium. If that happened, we'd get no cooperation at all. Broohnin has valuable contacts in most of the trade guilds, in the Imperial communications centers, in the Treasury itself. Plus, there's a minor vid personality and a professor at the University of the Outworlds who might prove useful. They're peripherally associated with Broohnin's group, not necessarily out of approval of his methods, but because he's the only resistance they've got. I need Broohnin to reach them.”

“I see then we have no choice,” Connors said resignedly. “But it feels wrong, and that bothers me.”

“You're not alone.”

DESPITE HER BEST EFFORTS to stanch them, tears were brimming and spilling over Mora's lower eyelids. She faced away from the smooth, flat expanse of the spaceport grid and the orbital shuttle patiently waiting on it.

“I don't want you to go,” she said against her husband's chest. “Something's going to happen, I know it.”

“The Imperium's going to come crashing down,” Peter said with all the confidence he could muster. “That's what's going to happen.”

“No. To you. Something bad. I can feel it. Let somebody else go.”

“I can't.”

“You can!” She lifted her head and looked at him. “You've done your share-more! All the groundwork is laid. It's just a matter of time from now on. Let somebody else finish it!”

Peter shook his head sadly. There was nothing in Occupied Space he wanted more than to stay right where he was. But that couldn't be.

“It has to be me, Mora. It's my plan. I've got to handle it, I've got to be there myself.”

“There must be some other person you can trust!” Mora's tears were drying in the heat of growing anger. “Surely you don't think you're the only one capable of overseeing the revolution. You can't tell me that!”

“I must know! I can't sit light years away and entrust this to someone else. It's too delicate. The future of everything we've worked for is at stake. I can't walk away. I want to-but I cannot.”

“But you can walk away from me-and from Laina. Is that so much easier?”

“Mora, please-that's not fair.”

“Of course it's not fair! And it's not fair that your daughter won't see you for years now. Maybe never again! She was so upset about your leaving again that she wouldn't even come down to the spaceport! And as for my having a husband-” She pulled free of his arms.

“Mora!”

“Maybe Laina had the right idea!” She was backing away from him as she spoke. “Maybe we both should have stayed home and let you come here all by yourself. We're both second place in your life now anyway.” She swung around and began walking away.

“Mora!” Peter heard his voice break as he called after his wife. He started to follow her but stopped after two steps. She was beyond gentle reasoning now. They were two stubborn people who shared a life as fierce in its discord as in its lovemaking. He knew from long experience that it would be hours before the two of them could carry on a civil conversation…and there were no hours left to him on Tolive. There were complex interstellar travel connections to be made and he had to leave now. If he tarried too long, his arrival on Throne could be delayed as long as a standard month.

He watched her until she rounded a bend in the corridor, hoping she would look back, just once. She never did.

Peter LaNague entered the boarding tube that would drop him at the waiting shuttle. Dealing with Den Broohnin, keeping the Flinters in line, masterminding a revolution that still hinged on too many variables, that if successful would significantly alter the course of human history…none of these disturbed his wah as much as an argument with that stubborn, hot-tempered, and occasionally obnoxious creature called Mora, who could make his life so miserable at times, and yet make it all so worthwhile. He would never understand it.

It helped somewhat when he glimpsed her standing on the observation tower, gripping the railing with what he knew must be painful intensity, watching the shuttle, waiting for lift-off. It helped, but it failed to loosen the knot that had tightened to the fraying point in the center of his chest, nor did it lighten the lead cast that sat where his stomach had been.

He could not allow himself to dwell on Mora, nor on Laina. They were a part of his life that had to be completely walled off if he were to function effectively on Throne. As the shuttle rose toward the stars, he cast Mora as Fortunato, played Montresor himself, and began the brickwork.

It hurt.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was just another warehouse on the outskirts of Primus City, no different from the dozens of others surrounding it. The name across the front wall, Angus Black Imports, told the passerby nothing about the company or what lay within. It could house crates of vid sets, racks of open-seamed clothing ready for autofitting, or seafood delicacies from planets like Friendly or Gelk. Just another warehouse. LaNague wanted it that way.

Tonight was the first step in the active phase, the first blow against the empire, the first physical act of sedition. The principals were all present, along with a few extraneous characters who were there to see them off and wish them well. Faces that had been new three months ago could be seen here and there across the wide, empty interior of the warehouse…LaNague had come to know them all intimately since his return from Tolive, gaining their confidence, and they gaining his. Singly, then in pairs, then in a group, they approached him as he entered the warehouse carrying a box under his arm.

Zachariah Brophy, professor of economics at the University of the Outworlds, was the first. Very tall, bony, knobby, and sixtyish, he raised a knotted fist toward LaNague's face.

“Either you let me go along or I flatten you right here and now!”

LaNague laughed. “Sorry, Doc, but we don't have a holosuit to fit you, and I'm afraid some of your former students would recognize you even if we did.”

“Aahh!” he sighed with exaggerated despondency, unfolding his fist and laying the open hand on the younger man's thin shoulder. “You've been telling me no all along. I guess now I'll have to believe you.”

LaNague had developed a genuine affection for the older man, loved his wit, his intelligence, his integrity. And Doc Zack, as his students had called him for years, reciprocated warmly. Apparently he saw many things he liked in LaNague, the same things he had sought and found lacking in Broohnin. He made no secret of his relief at the fact that LaNague had superseded him.

“Why don't you try your hand at one of the flyers,” LaNague suggested. “We've fallen behind schedule because of all the calling cards we've been duplicating for tonight. You can draft up the next Robin Hood Reader while we're out playing the part.”

“Fair enough. At least I'll get to be one of the Merry Men one way or another.” He squeezed LaNague's shoulder where his hand rested. “Good luck tonight.” He turned and made his way toward the bank of duplicators against the rear wall.

Radmon Sayers was next, stopping briefly on his way out. He was portrait handsome with the perfect features and meticulous grooming that befitted a vid personality. His sleek black hair reflected the ceiling lights as it lay plastered against his scalp in the latest fashion. His eyes were less calculating and more genuinely lively tonight.

“It's really going to happen, isn't it!” he said, rubbing gloved hands together in barely suppressed glee.

“Did you think all these preparations were for some elaborate hoax?” LaNague replied evenly, trying to keep annoyance out of his voice. He had found Sayers aloof and hard to like. He gave news reports on one of the smaller independent vid systems on Throne. He was good-able to project sincerity, objectivity, and concern as well as anybody else in the business, but was condemned to relative obscurity by the fact that most of Throne's population watched the Imperial Vid System, which had long ago commandeered the best wavelengths and transmitted with the strongest signal. His obscurity, however, was destined to be short-lived if LaNague had his way.

“No, of course not,” Sayers said. “But still, it's hard to believe that tonight I've been involved in making some news instead of just reading it. That'll be nice for a change. Very nice.”

“You've got your diversion set?”

Sayers nodded. “We'll monitor the official channels, as usual. When we hear them talking about the hijack, I'll delay the remote crew until it starts to rain.”

“Good. Just watch the time.”

There were further words of encouragement to say to the tense men who were gathered around the large, enclosed flitter lorry sitting in the middle of the warehouse floor. Computer experts, communication technicians, Flinters, street toughs, all gravitated toward the one who would make them into wanted men tonight. Only Broohnin hung back, conspicuous by his lack of enthusiasm.

“All right,” LaNague said after a while. “It's full dark outside by now and time to go. But first, I want you all to wear these.”

He opened the box he had been carrying under his arm and began handing out pairs of transparent, gossamer-light gloves.

“What're these?” someone asked.

“They serve two purposes. First of all, they protect all of you from any chance of leaving epidermic clues behind. All the Imperial investigators have to do is find one of your skin cells when they go over the hijacked ships tomorrow-and believe me, they'll go over them as they've never been gone over before-and they'll have your genotype, which they'll try to match against every type on record. Some of you had to have a genotype recording made when you applied for the sensitive jobs you're in. If one of your cells is identified, you're as good as caught.

“The second reason for wearing these gloves has to do with the fine little pattern of whorls you'll notice on the palmar surface. The gloves are made of a micropore material that will let sweat and skin oils through…enough to leave good fingerprints.”

A sudden murmur of protest arose from the group, but LaNague quelled it by raising his hand.

“Don't worry. They won't be your fingerprints. They'll be my great-grandfather's. He knew the revolution would come someday, and knew he wouldn't be around to see it. So his dying request was that someone wear gloves like these at some time during the revolution, just so he could say he had a hand in the downfall of the Imperium.”

The ensuing laughter lightened the mood as the men, fifteen of them, filed quickly and spiritedly into the flitter. LaNague felt no lightness, however. His palms were moist and he had a pain crawling up the back of his head from his neck-this was the first overt move and everything had to be just right. But he hid his fears well, pretending to have everything under control, exuding confidence and competence he did not feel.

Josef acted as pilot on the way out; another would return the ship after the Merry Men were dropped off. The wide warehouse doors opened and allowed the flitter to slide out into the night. It flew low and slow until past the Primus City limits, then rose to thirty meters where it could pick up speed and be safe from interfering treetops.

“Everyone have their projectors secured?” LaNague asked once they had reached cruising speed. There was a murmured assent from the group crowded into the cargo area. “All right. Let's try them.”

The holosuit was a whimsical concoction, designed for imaginative types who found stimulation in role-playing. The most popular models were sexual in nature, but those to be employed tonight had been specially modified. They were the standard six-piece models consisting of two wrist bands, two ankle bands, a belt, and a skull cap. When activated, they formed a holographic sheath around the wearer, a costume of light that could make him appear to be anything he chose-a male, a female, a demon, a lover. Anything, depending on what had been programmed into the unit.

The suits flickered to life one by one, causing their wearers to fade from view, replaced by lean and wolfish outlaws garbed in leather and Lincoln green, topped by jaunty, feathered caps. To any of their contemporaries, the men in the command flitter would be as alien in appearance as creatures from another galaxy. A few adjustments had to be made, especially on one man's skull cap which failed to activate, leaving his own head and shoulders exposed. This was quickly remedied, bringing his appearance into line with his companions’.

“This is stupid!”

It was Broohnin. He had already doused his holosuit and leaned sullenly against the wall opposite LaNague, scowling through his beard.

“I expected that from you,” LaNague replied without missing a beat. “Care to give us grounds for your opinion? We've got time to listen.”

Broohnin swaggered into the middle of the group. It was obvious that he still considered himself the unacknowledged leader, despite the fact that LaNague was giving the orders. He was keeping to his role of the tough, hard-hitting, no-quarter revolutionary. It had worked before, and there was no reason why it shouldn't work now.

“We're just playing games with these funnysuits! This is no masquerade ball-this is the real thing! We're not going to get prizes for how good we look; we're just going to get stunned and maybe even blasted into a couple of pieces by the fecaliths guarding this shipment. We have to hit them hard! Make them remember us. Let them know we mean business. Make them leave the lights on at night when they go to sleep. Never let them forget we're out here, ready to strike at any time, without warning!”

“Then you think we should forget disguise and mount a frontal assault?” LaNague said, unmoved by the oratory.

“Absolutely!”

“What about the multiple cameras in each of the ships we're going after tonight? Our images will be transmitted to the Imperial Guard the instant we board the first currency ship. We'll all be marked men after that!”

“Don't board!” Broohnin snarled. “Blow them to bits! Then let the cameras try to take our pictures!”

“There are men on board each of those ships. They'll be killed.”

“They're Imperial lackies-they take the pay, they take the chances. This time they lose.”

And what of your own man on board the second ship. You intend to blow him up, too?”

“Of course not! We'll get him off first, then blow the rest.”

The momentum of the argument was swinging toward Broohnin. He offered easy solutions, hard and fast victory. But he had left an opening for LaNague.

“You realize, don't you, that as the only survivor, your man will become an instant fugitive. Every Imperial Guardsman on Throne will be hunting him as an accomplice in the slaughter of their comrades. Do you wish that on him?”

Broohnin paused for an instant, and in that instant he lost his audience. LaNague had shown that he had considered the problem from more sides than his burlier counterpart; and while it might be said that he seemed to be overly concerned for the well-being of the men guarding the targeted currency shipment, it was also obvious that he was equally concerned about the men who would be at his side during tonight's raid.

But LaNague would not let it go at that. He had to win these men firmly to his side. So firmly, that if it came to a choice between Peter LaNague and Den Broohnin, the men would choose LaNague.

“There's more to these holosuits than a mere masquerade ball, I assure you,” he said, ostensibly speaking to Broohnin, but letting his gaze rest in turn on each and every man in the flitter. “We need to protect our identities-that's our primary requirement for success. If we can't move about freely on Throne, we've lost our usefulness. Another thing: there's always a chance that one or even all of us might someday be captured; how we're treated then will depend a lot on how we treat the crews of the transports tonight, and how we treat all Imperial Guardsmen in the future. Remember that. So-if we intend to leave live witnesses behind, we need disguises. And if we intend to use disguises, why not make a point with them!”

He paused to let this sink in. He was marking a trail of logic and he wanted no one to lose his way. All eyes were on him. Even Broohnin's.

“The Robin Hood motif was not chosen capriciously. As most of you remember, he was a mythical do-gooder on Old Earth who supposedly robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. But that's the sanitized, government-approved version of the legend. Anyone reading between the lines will see that Robin Hood was the archetypical tax rebel. He robbed from the rich, yes-but those rich happened to be King John's tax collectors. And he gave to the poor-but his beneficiaries were those who had been looted by the tax collectors. He merely returned their own property.

“So what we're going to do tonight,” he said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial undertone, “is replay history. Metep is King John, we're Robin Hood and his Merry Men, and tonight we rob from the very rich-the Imperial Treasury. By the end of tonight, the poor-the public, that is-will be the recipients of our good deed.” He smiled. “I doubt the message will be lost on them.”

LaNague's smile was returned by the faces around him. He debated whether or not to delve into the other reason for his resurrection of Robin Hood. This was probably not the time or place for it…

Josef's voice cut through his thoughts and made the decision for him: “We're over the drop-off spot. Going down.”

IT WAS TAX TIME on Throne. For two months, the good citizens would be required to figure out how much they owed the Imperium for the preceding year, subtract from that what they had already given over in withholding taxes, and remit the difference. The Imperium called it “a voluntary tax system.” Those who refused to pay, however, were fined or jailed.

Throne's population was clustered on a single large land mass, with Primus City occupying the central plateau, four thousand kilometers from each coast. Inhabitants of the central regions sent their taxes directly to Primus City. Regional Revenue Centers collected the extorted marks on the coasts and shipped them inland to the Treasury Bureau for culling and replacement of old currency. From there it disappeared into the insatiable maw of the Imperium bureaucracy.

A three-ship convoy was on its way now from the west coast Regional Revenue Center, laden with currency as it flew over the barren hinterlands between the coast and the central plateau. The transports were well armed and manned with members of the Imperial Guard. This was purely routine, however, since no one had ever even attempted to hijack a currency transport since the runs began.

ERV SINGH WAITED for the lurch. If he had timed everything right, the circuits would be overloading just about now. He waited, and it came. A gentle tug, imperceptible to someone who wasn't looking for it. But it was there, and it meant that Mother Gravity was firming up her grip on the ship. He watched the altimeter start to slip, gave the anti-grav generator a little more juice to no avail. The warning light flashed red. They were sinking. Right on schedule.

“Ship Two to Leader,” he said into the communicator panel. “We're getting heavy here. No a-g response. I think we've got an overload.”

“Hit the auxiliary, Ship Two,” came the calm reply.

“Will do.” He phased in the backup a-g generator, but there was no boost in altitude. After a sufficient trial: “Sorry, Leader, but we're still getting heavier. Up to zero-point-four-five normal mass now and sinking. I think we'd better turn back.”

“You'll never make it, Two. Not at the rate you're putting on mass. Better look for a place to put down and see what's wrong.”

“Right. Shouldn't be too hard to find.” Erv Singh knew it wouldn't be too hard at all. He had the place all picked out. He just hoped everybody below was insulated by now. “Looks like a good clearing half a kilometer ahead. How does she scan?”

The reply was delayed for a few prolonged heartbeats. “Nothing but big rocks and bush. No movement, no major heat sources, not even any minor lifeforms. Looks safe. You go down and we'll keep cover overhead”

“What's up?” One of the guards had come up from the rear. “Why we going down?”

“No life. We're almost to normal mass,” Erv told him.

“Hey, Singh-you mean you can't even fly from the back burgs to Primus without a breakdown? Some pilot!”

Erv looked suitably annoyed. “You want to take over? I'd take baby-sitting all that money any day to trying to fly this piece of junk!”

“Don't get excited, Erv,” the guard said. “There's nothing to look at back there anyway. It's all crated and it's all very dull.”

“Then get back there before it runs away.”

Singh overrode the guidance sytem and took manual control of Ship Two, settling it gently into a clearing ringed by the deciduous, red-leafed brush indigenous to Throne's hinterlands. The two companion ships in the convoy circled warily overhead. After releasing the safety locks on the a-g generator inspection ports from his command center, Singh opened the hatch and strolled out for a look. After shining a hand lamp into two of the ports, he turned and hurried back inside.

“I'm down to stay, Leader,” Erv said, returning to his communicator.

“That bad?”

“Everything's burned up.”

“Look like sabotage?”

“I wouldn't know sabotage if I saw it. All I know is I can't fix it.” There was silence at the other end. Erv allowed sufficient time for thought, then made his own suggestion, a pre-planned red herring. “Why don't you guys stay up there and keep watch while we wait for another ship from the center. I can transfer my cargo over and then you can all be on your way.”

“No,” came the reply after a brief pause. “Take too long.” Erv knew what was going through the convoy leader's head: it was to have been a quick and simple run tonight: leave early, get to the Primus Treasury, unload, and spend a night on the town. If they wasted half the night waiting for a replacement ship, there'd be no fun and games in Primus City. “We're coming down.”

“You think that's wise?”

“Let me worry about that. The area scans clean. We'll offload your consignment and divide it up between Ships One and Three. Then we'll head for the Treasury while you wait for a lift.”

“Thanks a lot, Leader.” Erv refrained from showing the relief he felt, knowing that his every move was being recorded. The bait had been taken.

“Sorry, Ship Two, but somebody's got to stay with her.”

Erv waited at the hatch until the other two cargo flitters were down. In strict compliance with regulations, he ordered one of the three guards in the cargo bay to man the external weapons control panel, then opened the rear of the ship, letting the loading ramp slide toward the ground. The same procedure began on the other ships and soon the men were transferring the cargo from Ship Two to the other two, pushing float-dollies down the ramps, across the dirt and grass, and into the waiting holds.

The men moved warily at first, on guard against any would-be hijackers. But as the work progressed and the scanners picked up no suspicious activity in the surrounding area, they relaxed and talked and joked among themselves. The talk concerned the near-superhuman feats they would perform tonight once they were let loose in Primus; the jokes were mostly at the expense of Erv and his crew, teasing them about what they were going to miss.

Ship Two was soon emptied of her cargo of currency, every last crate of it squeezed into the companion ships. As his own crew sat inside the barren hold, grousing about being left behind, Erv stood at his boarding hatch, watching, listening. He saw the other crews begin to board their own ships, and heard a shout from the man at the weapons console behind him:

“We've got activity outside, Erv! Lifeforms! A whole bunch of them coming out of nowhere! Almost on top of us!”

“Close up quick!” Erv yelled in reply. “But whatever you do, don't fire-you'll hit the other ships.” The boarding hatch started to slide closed, but not before a running figure darted by and threw something. There were metallic pings as a number of tiny silver balls danced along the ship's deck and bounced off the walls. Erv knew what was next. His hands went involuntarily to his ears, but no matter how tightly he pressed against them, he could not shut out the sound that started as a dull whine and grew in pitch until he could no longer hear it. But he could feel it growing, expanding, pressing against the inside of his skull until he was sure his head would explode. And then it did.

THE HEAT INSIDE THE THERMOREFLECTIVE DOME had quickly reached a stifling level. Its rough, irregular outer surface would scan cold and inert-no heat, no movement, no life. Inside was another matter. The respiratory heat of fifteen bodies had nowhere to go. The men sat still and silent in the dark while LaNague watched the clearing through a peep lens in the wall. He saw the first ship, Ship Two, the one with their man aboard, land jarringly a few meters away, saw the pilot step outside and go through the motions of peering into the inspection ports, saw him return to the cabin of his ship.

The remaining two ships soon joined their companion on the ground and the unloading process began. It had been decided to let the employees of the Imperium do the heavy work; that would allow the Merry Men more time before reinforcements arrived from Primus. When Ship Two was empty, LaNague split a handful of pea-sized metallic globes between Kanya and Josef.

“Whatever you do,” he whispered, “don't drop them.”

The warning was superfluous. LaNague and the two Flinters had practiced short sprints for the past week in preparation for this moment, and all three were aware that the sonibombs in their hands were impact-activated-one good bump and they went off.

“Holosuits on,” he said to the others. “Check the man on your right, making sure his gloves are on and his holosuit is fully functional.”

A vague glow lit the interior of the dome as the holosuits came on. When everyone was checked out, LaNague split a seam and the “rock” opened. The next few moments were a blur of tense, feverish activity. He and the Flinters ran full tilt into the center of the triangle formed by the three ships. Surprise was on their side, as was the fact that the ships were so situated that each was in the other's line of fire. They were all set to defend against attacks from the air and from the ground, but not from within their own perimeter. Each runner reached his assigned ship and hurled a handful of sonibombs through the hatchway before it could be closed off, then dove for the ground. All before a shot could be fired.

The transports were shielded from any external ultrasonic barrage. But a single thirty-second sonibomb going off within the small confines of the ship was enough to render anyone on board unconscious. Handfuls of the little weapons were used to reduce the chance of a miss-throw, and all went off on impact with the deck or rear wall. The Merry Men outside remained unaffected because the bombs weren't focused and the sound waves dissipated rapidly in the open air. None of the crewmen managed to escape his ship, but in case one did, a few of the Merry Men stood ready with stun rifles.

As soon as it was evident that there would be no resistance, the Merry Men divided up into prearranged work groups. Some began hauling the unconscious crewmen out of Ships One and Three, dragging them to Ship Two and stretching them out on the deck there. Others carried sacks of small leaflets from the “rock” to the cargo holds of the two operable ships. Still others went to the control areas and began blasting the monitoring equipment. LaNague had assigned Broohnin to the last group, realizing that the man must be allowed to destroy something or else he would go berserk. One of the Merry Men passed, carrying a blaster rifle. LaNague recognized Broohnin's gait and followed him into Ship Three.

Broohnin went to the main communications console and waved into the receiver. Then he lifted his blaster and melted the panel with a tight proton beam. The last thing seen by the communications hand on the other end of that monitor was an oddly dressed man raising a blaster toward his face. The alarm would go out immediately and flitterfuls of Imperial Guardsmen would be mobilized and sent careening in their direction. Although no expression could be read through the holomask, LaNague could see that Broohnin was thoroughly enjoying himself as he stalked the length of the ship destroying the monitor eyes. LaNague was content to let him vent his fury as he wished until one of the crewmen rolled over at Broohnin's feet and started to rise to his hands and knees.

“Don't!” LaNague shouted as he saw Broohnin lower the blaster muzzle toward the man's head. He leaped over and pushed his arm aside.

No words passed between the two men as they stood locked in position over the wavering form of the crewman. Broohnin could not see the face of the man who had interfered with him, but there could be no doubt in his mind as to who it was. Further conflict was made moot by the crewman's abrupt collapse into unconsciousness again. LaNague did not release Broohnin's wrist until the inert form had been dragged from the ship.

“If I ever see anything like that again,” he said, “you'll spend the rest of the revolution locked in a back room of the warehouse. I will not tolerate murder!”

Broohnin's voice trembled with rage as he replied in kind. “If you ever touch me again, I'll kill you!”

Peter LaNague did what he then considered the bravest act of his life. He turned his back on Broohnin and walked away.

After all the unconscious crewmen had been stretched out in Ship Two, the hatches were closed and locked, but not before a steel-tipped longbow arrow, with “Greetings from Robin Hood” emblazoned on the shaft, had been driven into the cushion on the pilot's seat. The Merry Men then hurriedly boarded the two functional transports and took to the air. After entering a preprogrammed flight code into the control console, the new pilot of each ship sat back and watched the instruments.

The two Treasury Transports took separate courses, one to the northeast, another to the southeast. The flight routes, which had been carefully programmed meter by meter the previous week, would keep the ships moving as low and as fast as possible, each taking a divergent path to Primus. They could be traced and located, but not with any great ease or accuracy. And no one would be expecting them to head for Primus, the very seat of the planet's major police and militia garrisons.

“All right,” LaNague said, now that Ship One was underway, “let's get to work.”

Most of the men had turned their holosuits off by now; all leaped to the task of tearing open the crates of orange currency slips and dumping the contents onto the floor of the cargo hold. The flattened, empty crates were passed to a man at the boarding hatch who threw them out toward the darkened grasslands not far below. To the north on Ship Three, Broohnin, Kanya, and Josef were directing a similar task.

When all the currency had been dumped into a huge pile in the center of the hold, the men stood back and surveyed the mass of wealth.

“How much do you think?” someone said in an awed voice to anyone who was listening.

“About thirty million marks,” LaNague replied. “And about the same amount in the other ship.” He bent and lifted one of the sacks that had been loaded earlier. “Time to add the calling cards.”

The men each grabbed a sack and emptied the thousands of tiny white slips of paper within onto the pile of marks, creating a mound of orange cake with white icing. Then they began kicking at the mount and throwing handfuls of it into the air until currency and calling cards were evenly mixed.

LaNague looked at the time. “Sayers ought to have his remote crew just about ready to move out now.” The first dump was designated for the neighborhood outside the vid studio. He hoped Sayers had been able to stall long enough.

Eternities passed before the ship began to rise and the control panel buzzed warning that the flight was coming to its end. They were at Primus City limits, and the pilot took manual control.

“Open the loading hatch,” LaNague said.

Slowly, the rear wall of the cargo bay began to rise. When the opening was a meter high, LaNague called a stop and it held that aperture. A cool wind began to whirl through the hold as the men awaited word from the pilot.

Then it came:

“First target below!”

Reluctantly at first, and then with mounting enthusiasm, they began kicking piles of mark notes mixed with their own private calling cards out the opening.

It began to rain orange and white.

HIS FIRST THOUGHT was that he had finally cracked…the boredom had finally worn away his sanity until he was now beginning to hallucinate.

Well, why not? Vincen Stafford thought uneasily. After all, here I am in the dead of night, standing in the middle of my vegetable patch.

The little garden had become an important part of Stafford's life lately. He had been getting fewer and fewer assignments on the grain runs, and had actually been bumped off the last one. Two small orders had been consolidated into one and he had been left hanging due to lack of seniority. The runs seemed to be coming fewer and farther between…hard to believe, but that was the way it was.

At least he had the house. After navigating six consecutive runs, he had applied to a bank for a mortgage and had been approved. The single-level cottage on a synthestone slab behind him was the result. Not much, but it was a place to start, and it was home.

Then the runs had slowed up. Good thing his wife had that part-time night job, or things really would have been tight. He hadn't wanted Salli to take it at first, but she'd said she needed something to do while he was shuttling between the stars. She didn't want to sit home alone. But look who was staying home alone now! Very alone, since he had yet to make any fast friends in the neighborhood. That was why the garden had become so important. The loneliness and the boredom of waiting for an assignment had driven him to try his hand at growing a few vegetables, especially with produce prices being what they were. He had planted a few legumes and tubers last week and they had just started to sprout.

So here he was, out in the dark, standing over his newborn vegetable plants like an overprotective parent. But the garden gave him peace, eased that empty gnawing feeling that followed him around like a shadow. It sounded crazy, so he kept it to himself. Just as he would have to keep this hallucination to himself…he could swear it was raining mark notes.

He turned around. By the light pouring from the rear windows of his house he could see that there was money all over the back yard. He bent over to see if it just might be real…if it could be touched. It could. It was real-old bills, new bills, ones, fives, ten-mark notes were spilling from the sky. And something else.

He reached down and picked up one of the small white slips of paper that fell with the currency.

YOUR TAX REFUND-

AS PROMISED.

ROBIN HOOD AND HIS MERRY MEN

Stafford looked up and saw nothing. The rain of money had stopped. He had never heard of Robin Hood…or had he? Wasn't there an old story about someone with that name? He'd have to ask Salli when she got home.

As he walked about the yard, picking up what later totaled one hundred and fifty-six marks, he idly wondered if it might be stolen money. They weren't in any dire financial trouble, but the extra cash would certainly come in handy, especially with a new house to care for.

Even if he never spent it, Stafford thanked Robin Hood, whoever he might be, for brightening up a dull evening.

CHAPTER TWELVE

How many times are they going to show that sequence?” Metep VII catapulted himself out of his seat as he spoke and stalked about the small, darkened room, irritation evident in every move.

Daro Haworth's reply was languid, distracted. “As long as they can get an audience for it.” His eyes were intent on the large, sharply focused vid globe in the center of the room. “Don't forget, they have an exclusive on this: they were the only ones on the street with a remote crew when the rains came.”

“Which is just a little too pat, don't you think?”

“We had security look into it. There's a logical explanation. They monitor the official frequencies just like the other two vid services, and heard the hijack alarm along with everybody else. But they've got a small budget with no remote crew on stand-by, so they were way behind their competition in getting to the scene. It so happened they were just about to take to the air when the money started to fall. A good example of how inefficiency can pay off once in a while.”

Radmon Sayers’ familiar face filled the vid globe. Orange mark notes fluttered all around him, interspersed occasionally with flashes of white, all so real and seemingly solid that a viewer with a large holo set would be tempted to reach out and grab a handful. Sayers’ expression was a mixture of ecstatic delight and barely suppressed jubilation.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said from within the globe, “if someone had told me about this, I'd have called him a liar. But here I am in the street outside our studio, and it's raining money! No, this is not a stunt and it's not a joke. There's money falling from the sky!”

The camera panned up the side of a building to the dark sky yielding orange and white slips of paper out of its otherwise featureless blackness, then jumped to a wider angle on Sayers. He was holding one of the white slips. Behind and around him, people could be seen scurrying about, snatching up money from the street.

“Do you remember those crazy little flyers we've been seeing around town for the past half-year or so? The Robin Hood Reader? One of the early ones promised a tax refund-‘Look to the skies,’ it said, if I remember correctly. Well…I think I may be standing in the middle of that tax refund right now.”

He held up the white piece of paper and the camera angle closed in on it, virtually thrusting his magnified hand into the room. The printing on the slip was clear: Your tax rebate as promised. Robin Hood and his Merry Men. For those who could not read or whose reception might be poor, Sayers read the inscription.

“So it looks like this Robin Hood fellow kept his promise,” he said as the rain of paper tapered off to nothing. “There was an unconfirmed report of one of the Imperial Treasury convoys being hijacked this evening. If that's true, and this is the stolen money, then I fear Mr. Hood and his Merry Men are in big trouble.”

The camera angle widened to a full-length shot of Sayers and the street. People could be seen standing here and there around him, faces upward, expectantly watching the sky, wads of bills clutched tightly in their hands. He went over to a middle-aged woman and put his arm around her shoulder. She obviously recognized him and smiled at the camera.

“Let's ask this woman what she thinks of this whole affair.”

“Oh, I think it's just wonderful!” she cooed. “I don't know who this Robin Hood fellow is, but he's welcome in my neighborhood any time!”

“But the money may be stolen.”

Her smile faltered. “From who?”

“From the government, perhaps.”

“Oh, that would be too bad. Too bad.”

“What if the government confirmed that it was the same money that was hijacked from the Imperial Treasury ships and asked that all good citizens turn in the money they had picked up tonight…would you comply?”

“You mean would I give it back?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I would!” Her expression was utterly deadpan as she spoke; then she smiled; then she began to giggle.

“Of course.” Sayers, too, allowed a smile to play about his lips. He stepped away from the woman and faced the camera. “Well, it looks as if the monetary monsoon is over. This is Radmon Sayers saying good night from a scene that neither these people around me nor the Imperial Treasury officials are likely to forget for a long time. By the way, it might not be a bad idea to take a look outside your own window. Perhaps Robin Hood is delivering your tax refund right now.”

The globe faded to gray and then the head of another vidcaster appeared. Haworth touched a groove in the arm of his chair and the globe went dark.

“We all look like fools!” Metep said, still wandering the room. “We'll have to make a real example of these do-gooders when we catch them!”

“That won't be too easy, I'm afraid.”

“And why not?”

“Because they didn't leave a single clue to their identities behind.”

A SWEEP OF THOSE SHIPS turned up countless sets of fingerprints-all identical, all unregistered, all obviously phony-but not a single epidermis cell other than the crews’. And of course their use of holosuits during the entire affair precludes visual identification.”

“Identifying them shouldn't be the problem!” Metep shouted. “We should have them in custody!”

“Well, we don't, and there's no use ranting and raving about it. They pulled some very tricky maneuvers last night, the trickiest being the finale when they had everyone pursuing empty transports halfway back to the west coast.”

“Idiots! We all look like idiots!”

“Yes, I'm afraid we do,” Haworth said, rising to his feet and rubbing both hands up over his eyes and through the stark white of his hair. “But not as idiotic as we're going to look when the results of Krager's programs for voluntary return of the money are in. A ‘patriotic gesture,’ he called it! The old fool.”

“Why? I think it's a good idea. We may even get a few million back.”

“We'll get nothing back except a few token marks, and then we'll really look like idiots!”

“I think you're wrong.”

“Really? What would you do if you just found a tax-free bonus lying in your back yard, and knew it was stolen from the same people who had recently taken a sizable piece of your income in taxes? How would you respond when those people asked for their money back, and they didn't know exactly who had it? What would you do?”

Metep considered this. “I see what you mean. What'll we do?”

“Lie. What else? We'll announce that more than 90 per cent of the money had been returned and that only a greedy, disloyal few have failed to return the money that rightfully belongs to their fellow citizens.”

“Sounds good. A little guilt is always good for the common man.”

Haworth's smile was sardonic. “Assuming they'll feel guilty.” The smile faded. “But there's a lot about this Robin Hood character-if he's actually an individual at all-that bothers me. What's he up to? He doesn't call for your death or violent overthrow of the Imperium. He just talks about money. There's no heated rhetoric, no obvious ideology. Just money.”

“That bothers you? Not me! I prefer what he's doing to threatening my life. After all, he could have robbed a military base and been dropping neutrons on us.”

“It bothers me because I don't know where he's heading. And I sense there's method to his madness. He's got a goal in mind and I can't see what it is. Perhaps he'll let us know in his newsletter.”

“Which we've already outlawed, naturally. Anyone caught in possession of a Robin Hood Reader from now on will be arrested and interrogated.”

“And that's another thing that bothers me. We lend Robin Hood a certain mystique by officially declaring him and his silly little flyers illegal.”

“But we have no choice. He's committed armed robbery. We can't ignore that!”

Haworth didn't appear to be listening. He had walked to the wall and turned it to maximum transparency. The northern half of Primus City lay spread out before him.

“How many people do you think got a handful or two of money last night?” he asked Metep.

“Well, with two ships and sixty million marks…has to be thousands. Many thousands.”

“And only a tiny fraction of those giving the money back.” He turned to Metep VII. “Do you know what that means, Jek? Do you know what he's done?”

Metep could only shrug. “He's robbed us.”

“Robbed us?” Haworth's expression could not disguise his contempt for his superior's obtuseness. “He's turned thousands of those people out there into accomplices.”

“MY COMPLIMENTS TO YOU, SIR!” Doc Zack said, raising a glass of iced grain alcohol toward LaNague as they sat alone in one of the small offices that lined the rear of the Angus Black warehouse. “You have not only thumbed your nose at the Imperium, you've also succeeded in extracting joyful complicity from the public. A master stroke. Long live Robin Hood!”

LaNague raised his own glass in response. “I'll drink to that!” But he only sipped lightly, finding the native Throne liquors harsh and bitter. He preferred Tolive's dry white wines, but importing them in quantity would be a foolish extravagance. He didn't need any ethanol now anyway. He was already high. He had done it! He had actually done it! The first overt act of sedition had come off flawlessly, without a single casualty on either side. Everyone was intact and free.

There had been a few tense moments, especially after they had made the money drops over the various sectors of Primus City and the Imperial Guard cruisers were closing in. Dropping down to street level, the pilots had run a zigzag course toward the city limits. At a pre-determined point, the transports were halted in the dolee section of the city, all the crew poised at the cargo and boarding hatches. With touch-down, everyone jumped out and scattered. The pilots were the last to leave, having been assigned the duty of plugging in a final flight cassette designed to take the pursuing cruisers on a merry chase. LaNague's pilot must have been delayed inside, because Ship One was a full three meters off the ground before he appeared at the boarding hatch. But without a second's hesitation, he leaped into the air and hit the street running. Everyone melted away-into alleys, into doorways, into waiting ground cars. Within the space of a few heartbeats, the hijacked transports had arrived, discharged their human cargo, and departed, leaving the streets as they had been before, with no trace of their passing.

And now all were safe. Yes, he had done it. It was an exhilarating feeling. And an immense relief.

“But what happens to Broohnin now that Robin Hood has arrived?”

“He remains a part of the revolution,” LaNague replied. “I promised him that.”

“You always keep your promises?”

“Always. I promised Broohnin a front row seat at the Imperium's demise if he would turn over his Throne contacts to me, and if he didn't interfere in my plans. I intend to keep that promise.”

“Den is a sick man, I'm afraid.”

“Then why were you a member of his group?”

Doc Zack laughed. “A member of his group? Please, sir, you insult me! He contacted me after a few of my critical remarks about the Imperium's shortsighted policies reached the public. We met a few times and had a few disjointed conversations. It was refreshing to talk to someone who was as anti-Imperium as myself-the halls of academe on Throne are filled with yea-sayers who fear for their positions, and who thus follow the safest course by mouthing the proper attitudes and platitudes. But I could see that violence was just a hair's breadth away from Broohnin's surface and so I kept my distance.”

“And Radmon Sayers? How did he and Broohnin make contact?”

“That I don't know, but I get the impression they knew each other in their younger days, before Broohnin became obsessed with overthrowing the Imperium and Sayers became a public face. But enough of Broohnin and Sayers and myself. Tell me, my friend,” Zack said, leaning back in his chair and luxuriating in the mellow mood induced by his third glass of spirits. “Isn't there a lot more to this Robin Hood pose than meets the eye? I mean, I can see drawing on archetypes and so on, but this goes beyond that.”

“Just what do you mean? Specifically.” LaNague was quite willing to tell the professor, but wanted to see if the man could draw an accurate conclusion on his own.

“As I see it, the Robin Hood gambit provides the average out-worlder with a flesh and blood human being as a focus, a conduit for his discontent. Through the persona of Robin Hood he can conceptualize his aggressions and vicariously act them out. Isn't that what you have in mind?”

LaNague laughed. “Maybe. I don't think in those terms, Doc. My initial idea was to provide something concrete for the out-worlder to respond to. He lives a tough life and doesn't have much room left in the hours of his day for abstractions. He won't respond to an idea. Robin Hood will hopefully provide him with that man.”

“But what of the final act? You're going to have to set things up so the out-worlder-at least the ones here on Throne-will have to make a choice between Metep and Robin Hood. How are you going to arrange that?”

“I'm not sure yet,” LaNague said slowly. “I'll have to see how things develop. Any definite plans I make now will undoubtedly have to be altered later on…so I'm not making any.”

“And me-when do I get to play my part?”

“Not for a while yet. We first have to build Radmon Sayers’ reputation up a little, to make sure you get the kind of coverage your part will deserve.” He glanced at the glowing figures on the wall clock. “His ratings will begin a long and steady climb as of tonight.”

“You going to feed him some exclusives, or what?”

“No…he's going to find a very loyal friend in the central ratings computer.”

Doc Zack nodded with gleeful insight. “Ah, yes! So you're putting Seph to work tonight.”

“He should be at it right now.”

HE HAD A CLEARANCE for the building, but without an official work requisition, he'd have a tough time explaining his presence in this particular section. Viewer preferences were tabulated here, and adjustments made accordingly. Every vid set manufactured on Throne contained a tiny monitoring device that informed the rating computer when the set was on and to which program it was tuned. The presence of the device was no secret, and it was quite legal to have it removed after purchase of the set. But few people bothered. The Imperium said it was there to better tune programming to the current tastes of the public, so why not leave it in the set and forego the trouble and expense of having it removed?

Everyone knew the value of the vid as a propaganda weapon; that was self-evident, and so any attempts at overt propaganda would be routinely ignored. Since it licensed every transmitter, it would be a simple matter for the Imperium to impose its will directly and forcefully on the vid companies. But this was not necessary. The Imperium had many friends in all the media, seen and unseen, who liked to be considered part of the inner circle, who liked to help in any way they could in molding and mobilizing public opinion. Certain themes would begin to recur in dramas, or even comedies; certain catchwords and catch phrases would be mouthed by popular newsreaders and personalities. Soon public opinion would begin to shift; imperceptibly at first, then by slow degrees, then in a giant leap, after which it would never occur to anyone that he had ever thought any differently. Vid addicts were totally unaware of the process; only those who ignored the pervasive entertainment machine could see what was happening, but their cries of warning went unheeded. No one liked to admit that he or she could be so easily manipulated.

Seph Wolverton locked himself in with the central ratings computer and began removing a plate over an inspection port. Here was the starting point for all public influence operations. This particular section of the central computer tallied the number of sets tuned to a given program at a given time. A crucially important operation, since the best way to reach people through the vid was to reach them via the programs they liked best.

Seph laid a small black box in the palm of his hand. It popped open at a touch and revealed two compartments. One was empty; the other held a tiny sphere, onyx black. He had spent weeks programming that little sphere. Now it was time to put it to work.

He attached a light plate to his forehead and turned it on. A world of tiny geometric shapes, arranged in seemingly incomprehensible patterns and matrices, opened up before his eyes as he thrust the upper half of his body into the inspection port. Using an insulated, socket-tipped tool in his right hand, he removed a black sphere from the matrix of spheres and replaced it with the one he had brought with him. The old one was placed in the box for safekeeping and the inspection port closed. Soon he was back in the corridor and on his way to a section of the building in which he belonged.

The new chip would soon be at work, subtly altering the delicate magnetic fields the computer used to store new information and retrieve old. Seph had formed a crossover in the matrix that would funnel a percentage of the impulses from Sugar! Sugar! — a popular late-night comedy about a praline-crazed dwarf and his misadventures on and between the out-worlds-over to the Radmon Sayers news report. Sayers would be experiencing an expected boost in ratings now anyway, due to his coverage of “the money monsoon.” That would be short-lived, however, since no news program could normally hold out against Sugar! Sugar! for long. What Seph Wolverton had done tonight would convince the people who monitored such things that perhaps Radmon Sayers was on his way to becoming the new fair-haired boy of the newsreaders, and that perhaps it might be wise if one of the larger networks offered him a spot in a better time slot, one that would take full advantage of the man's obvious drawing powers.

Seph glanced at the row of vids in the monitoring station as he passed. Yes, there was Sayers now, halfway through his show.

“…and on the business scene: The Solar Stock Exchange experienced a mild selling panic today when it was learned that Eric Boedekker, the wealthy asteroid mining magnate, has dumped every single share of stock, common and preferred, in every one of his many portfolios. He has been doing it gradually for the past few months through numerous brokers, and he has been selling the stocks for cash. This amounts to billions of Solar credits! No one knows if he's reinvesting it elsewhere. But fearing that the notoriously shrewd and ruthless Boedekker might know something they do not, a large number of smaller investors sold their own holdings today, causing a precipitous dip in many stock prices. The situation seems to have stabilized at this time, however, after numerous assurances from many investment counselers and brokerage houses that investor concern is unwarranted, that Earth's economy is sounder than it has ever been. Eric Boedekker has remained steadfastly unavailable for comment throughout the entire affair.

“On the home front: Throne…authorities have yet to track down any of the culprits in last night's daring hijack of an Imperial Treasury currency shipment, and the subsequent dumping of that shipment into the air over Primus City. Police say they have some good leads as to the identity of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, as the hijackers call themselves, but are not commenting yet on the nature of those leads.

“Last night, this reporter was an eyewitness to the now infamous ‘money monsoon,’ and for those of you who may have missed that particular vidcast, and its various replays during the course of today's programming, here it is again…”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

LaNague sat silent and unmoving, listening to dissension brewing…and so soon. But the deaths of four good men could do that. “Retaliate!” Broohnin said, standing in the center of the office. “We've got to retaliate!”

For once, LaNague found himself ready to agree. Perhaps it was what he had seen a few hours ago, perhaps it was the long day and the sleepless night that lay behind him. Whatever the cause, something dark within him was demanding revenge and he was listening.

No…he couldn't allow himself the luxury of giving in to that seductive siren call. But four lives! Gone! And so early on. They were only three quarters through the Year of the Tiller and already four lives lost. All his fault, too.

Everything had been going according to plan during the three months since the first hijack. Robin Hood had been keeping a low profile, with only the Reader to keep him in the public consciousness. Distribution of the Reader had been going well, too, experiencing a dramatic increase in interest and circulation since being outlawed after the “money monsoon.” Metep and the Council of Five were making all the expected moves as the economy picked up speed in its downward spiral, right on schedule. The time finally arrived when the Imperium needed another jolt to its complacency. Another raid by Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Another “money monsoon.”

It wasn't going to be quite so easy this time, of course. Currency shipments to and from the Central Treasury were now escorted by heavily armed cruisers. There would be no simple way to relieve the Imperium of its flat money en route. So the obvious conclusion was to hit the currency transports before they linked up to their escorts and became an armed convoy. Hit them before they ever left the ground.

The East Coast Regional Revenue Center was chosen as target this time. It was located in the port city of Paramer, and handled smaller volumes of currency due to the fact that most of the population and industry on Throne were concentrated around and to the west of Primus City. But the amounts funneled through it were more than adequate for the purposes of Robin Hood and his Merry Men.

The tax depot was hit with precise timing-the strike had to occur immediately after the transports were loaded and before the escort cruisers arrived. Sonic weapons were again used, then the two loaded transports were manned with four Merry Men each and programmed with flight routes that would take one ship over Paramer itself, and the other north to the smaller Echoville. LaNague would have preferred to make another run over Primus City, but it was too far away…they never could have flown the transports from Paramer to the center of the continent without being intercepted. It was probably just as well; it wouldn't do to have the east coast towns feel slighted.

While the transports made their deliveries into the air over the two target towns, LaNague, Broohnin, and the Flinters manned four speedy little sport flitters, ready to act as interceptors if the escort cruisers happened to appear ahead of schedule. They had been scheduled to arrive from the Imperial garrison to the south, but unknown to LaNague and the rest, an unexpected change had been made in the plans: they had been routed to a repair station in Paramer itself. They would depart from the repair station directly to the tax depot.

And so it was with growing concern that LaNague and his lieutenants awaited the arrival of the cruisers, ready to fly into their faces and lead them away from the transports. It would be dangerous, but their smaller craft had speed and maneuverability on their side and could outrun anything in the sky. They didn't know that while they were waiting, the escort happened upon the transport assigned to Paramer just as it was making its final pass over the center of the town. The chase was short, the battle brief, the transport a ball of flaming wreckage by the time it slammed into the sea.

“They were only doing their duty, Den,” Radmon Sayers said, watching Broohnin carefully.

“And it's our duty to even the score! If we don't they'll know they can kill as many of us as they want whenever they get the chance. We owe it to ourselves and to those four dead men!”

“We all knew what we were risking when we started out last night,” LaNague said, fatigue putting an edge on his voice. “We all knew there was a chance some of us might not come back one of these times. This happened to be the night. It was just bad luck-rotten, stinking, lousy luck that the tight routine the escort cruisers have followed for months was altered last night.”

“Luck?” Broohnin sneered. “Tell those dead men about luck.” He turned to Doc Zack and Sayers. “I say we retaliate. I want a vote on it right now!”

“Forget it, Den,” Doc said in a low voice. “That's not what we're about here.”

“Then what are we about?” Broohnin asked, piercing them with his fierce gaze. “Where's all this leading us? What have we done so far besides play a few games and lose a few lives? Are we any closer to ending the Imperium? If we are, show me how and where and I'll shut up!”

“That was not your original demand,” Doc Zack said softly, maintaining his professional cool. “You want us to turn killer. We decline. I'd like to be sure you understand that before we go on to other topics.”

Broohnin's beard hid most of his expression, but what could be seen of his mouth was a thin, tight line. “And I just want you to understand,” he said, stabbing his fingers at Sayers and Doc, “that I'm not going to die for him.” The finger went toward LaNague on the last word. After a final glare at all present, he wheeled and strode from the room.

“He's right,” LaNague said after he was gone. “I am responsible for those deaths. Those men were following my orders when they died. If I had checked just a little more carefully last night, they'd be out on the warehouse floor celebrating now.” He rose from his seat and walked over to where Pierrot sat on a shelf, its drooping leaves reflecting his master's mood. “If I hadn't come here and started this whole thing, they'd still be alive. Maybe I should have stayed on Tolive.”

He was speaking more to himself than to anyone else. The other two occupants of the cubicle realized this and allowed him a few moments of silence.

“Den did have a point at the last there,” Zack said finally. “Where is all this leading? It's all very dramatic and great copy for guys like Radmon, but where is it taking us?”

“To the end of the Imperium.”

“But how? I'd like to know. I'd like to go to bed at night and know that something I've done that day has pushed us closer to getting this very weighty piece of government off our backs. But that's not happening. I mean, I seem to be doing a lot, and it's all antigovernment, but I don't see any dents in the Imperium. I see no cracks in the foundation, no place to drive a wedge in. We're winning psychological victories, but every morning I wake up and find we're still at square one.”

“Fair question,” Sayers said. “We're big boys, and we can be trusted. I think we deserve to know where you're leading us.”

LaNague turned and faced them. He wanted to tell them, wanted to unburden himself to someone. He desperately wished Mora were at his side at that very moment. He had a pounding in both his temples and a pain at the back of his head that felt like a muscular hand had arisen from his neck and clamped the back of his skull in a death grip. Tension headaches were no strangers, but this one was one of the worst he could remember. He almost felt he could chase it away if he could tell these two good men what he had in mind for their world. But he couldn't risk it. Not yet. Not even Josef and Kanya knew.

“You're right, both of you,” he said. “But you'll have to trust me. I know that's a lot to ask,” he said quickly, sensing the objections forming on their lips, “it's the way I have to work it. The fewer people who know exactly where all this is heading, the less chance of someone telling all when and if one of us is captured. And don't kid yourselves-a simple intravenous injection and any one of us, no matter how strong-willed he thinks he is, will answer any question without the slightest hesitation.”

“But there's no sign of progress,” Zack said. “Not the slightest indication that we're getting anywhere!”

“That's because the real work is going on behind the scenes. You don't see any progress because that's the way I want it. I don't want anyone getting tipped off too soon. Everything's going to happen at once. And when it does, believe me, you'll know it. Trust me.”

There was silence again, and again Zack broke it. “If you weren't a Tolivian, and if I didn't know what I know about the Kyfho philosophy's code of honor, I'd say you were asking too much. But frankly, my friend, you're all we've got at the moment. We have to trust you.”

“Well, I don't know all that much about the Kyfho philosophy,” Sayers said, “but I agree you're all we've got.” He looked past LaNague to Pierrot. “You've always got that tree around. Does that have something to do with Kyfho?”

LaNague shook his head. “No. Just an old friend.”

“Well, it looks like he needs water.” Sayers didn't understand why LaNague seemed to think this was funny, and so he continued speaking over the Tolivian's laughter. “What does Kyfho mean, anyway? It's not a word with any meaning in Interstellar.”

“It's not a word, really,” LaNague said, marveling inwardly at how much a little laughter could lighten his mood. “It's an acronym from one of the Anglo tongues on Old Earth. The philosophy was first synthesized on preunification Earth by a group of people in the Western Alliance. It could only have been formed in the Western Alliance, but as it experienced slow and limited growth, it was picked up and modified by people in the Eastern Alliance. Modern Kyfho is now a mixture of both variants. The acronym was derived from the title of the first book-a pamphlet, really-in which Kyfho was expounded, a supposedly scatological phase that meant ‘Don't Touch.’ Does either of you understand Anglo?”

Sayers shook his head. “Not a word.”

“I used to know a little when I was in the university,” Doc said, “but I remember almost nothing. Try me anyway.”

“All right. The title was Keep Your Fucking Hands Off. Mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing.”

“Nor to me. But it supposedly summed up the philosophy pretty well at the time.”

“The important thing,” Zack said, “is that we trust you. The next question is, when do I get to do my bit?”

“Very soon. Especially now that our public personality here,” he indicated Sayers, “has been moved into the limelight. I forgot to congratulate you, by the way, Radmon.”

“Nothing more than I deserve,” Sayers said, beaming. His numbers had risen steadily thanks to the ratings fix and to the follow-the-leader phenomenon that causes people who hear that lots of other people are watching a certain program to start watching it too, thus inducing still more people to start watching it, and so on in a geometric progression. The result was an offer of a spot on the early evening news show of one of the larger vid services, thereby assuring him a huge audience. The ratings program would now have to be returned to its untampered state.

“I'm all set to go,” Zack said. “Have been for months on end now. Just give me the word.”

“Take the first step.”

“You mean change the course name?”

“Right. But don't show them your lesson plans until they're good and mad. Hit them with those when they're in the wrong mood and the regents will be sure to cancel your course.”

“And then will they be sorry!”

“I don't care if the regents are sorry or not. I want Metep to be sorry.”

Sayers stood up and walked toward the door of the cubicle. “And I'll be sorry if I don't get home and get some sleep. Tonight's my first appearance on the new show and I need my beauty rest. Good luck to us all.”

“…AND THE BIG NEWS of the day remains the story from Paramer concerning an aborted attempt to repeat the famous Robin Hood caper of three months ago. The end result this time, however, was death, with an Imperial cruiser intercepting and shooting down the hijacked Treasury transport in the air over the port city. But not before the Merry Men had completed their mission-an estimated twenty-five million marks hurled into the sky over Paramer, with the same Robin Hood calling cards as the last time. Four bodies were found in the transport wreckage, burned beyond recognition. The Imperial Guard, it appears, takes its work seriously. Let all would-be tax rebels take a lesson from that.

“More news from Earth tonight on the strange behavior of Eric Boedekker, the wealthy asteroid mining magnate. It seems he has just sold the mineral rights to half of his asteroid holdings to his largest competitor, Merritt Metals, for a sum that probably exceeds the gross planetary products of some of our brother out-worlds. The mineral rights to the rest of the Boedekker asteroids are reportedly up for sale, too. Anyone interested in buying a flying mountain.?”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The confrontation had been considerably delayed by a computer programmer who either meant well or didn't pay too much attention to what she was doing. Any aware and upright programmer, conscious of job security, would have immediately reported Dr. Zachariah Brophy's change in the title of his first-year economics course from Economics: The Basics to Economics: Our Enemy, the State.

And so it was not until the printed course booklet was issued to all the students at the University of the Outworlds that Doc Zack's little act of provocation came to light. Reaction was mixed. The course was immediately booked solid, but that only meant that fifty students were interested; it hardly reflected the view of the campus at large. The university was state-supported-grounds, buildings, materials, and a full 75 per cent of tuition was paid for by the Imperium. Even room and board at the university dorms was state-funded. This could have resulted in a free, open forum for ideas, where no point of view was proscribed. Could have, but did not.

There was a long waiting list for seats in the University of the Outworlds; students who made the slightest ripple, such as objecting too loudly to course content and narrow viewpoints among the faculty, soon found it most difficult to obtain passing grades in key courses. And without those passing grades, their educational support was withdrawn. They had to drop out and join the great unwashed, monitoring the courses and taking examinations via the vid. It always happened within the first months of a term to the few free spirits who had managed to slip in with the new class. And it only took the academic demise of a couple of those to enlighten the survivors to the facts of life at the University of the Outworlds: co-operate and graduate.

Doc Zack's move was something else. This was not a questioning voice speaking out of order; this was no mere breach of academic etiquette. This was a red handkerchief fluttering in the faces of the regents and those to whom they had to answer. And what was worse, the offending course title was now in the hands of every student at the university. The semester was about to begin. Something had to be done, and quickly.

They canceled the course. A message was sent to each student who had possessed the temerity to enroll in a course entitled Economics: Our Enemy, the State informing him or her that a new course would have to be chosen to fill that time spot. The names on the class list were placed in a special file of students who would bear watching.

But Doc Zack had his own lists and he sent word to the students who had signed up for his class, and to favored students from past years, that he would be giving the first lecture as scheduled in the course catalogue. Anyone who was interested was welcome to come and listen. Radmon Sayers was also informed of the time and location of the lecture, but by a more circuitous route. He would see to it that Dr. Zachariah Brophy's first and last lecture of the new semester would have a much larger audience than the regents or anyone else anticipated.

“I'M NOT EXACTLY overwhelmed by the turnout this morning,” Doc Zack said, strolling back and forth across the front of the classroom in his usual speaking manner, looking as cadaverous as ever. “But I guess it would be hoping too much to see a standing-room-only crowd before me. I know that the prices of everything are keeping two jumps ahead of salary increases, and that many of you here are risking your places in this glorious institution just by being here. For that I thank you, and commend your courage.”

He craned his neck and looked around the room. “I see some familiar faces here and some new ones, too. That's good.” One of the new faces sat in the last row. He was young enough to pass for a student, but the square black vid recorder plate he held in the air, its flat surface following Zack wherever he went, gave him away as something more. This would be Sayers’ man, recording the lecture. Zack took a deep breath…time to take the plunge.

“What we're going to discuss here today may not seem like economics at first. It will concern the government-our government, the Imperium. It's a monster story in the truest, Frankensteinian sense, of a manmade creature running amuck across the countryside, blindly destroying everything it touches. But this is not some hideous creature of sewn-together cadavers; this creature is handsome and graceful and professes only to have our best interests at heart, desiring only to help us.

“Where most of its power lies is in the economy of our land. It creates the money, controls its supply, controls the interest rates that can be charged for borrowing it, controls, in fact, the very value of that money. And the hand that controls the economy controls you-each and every one of you. For your everyday lives depend on the economy: your job, the salary you receive for working that job, the price of your home, the clothes on your back, the food you eat. You can no more divorce a functioning human being from his or her ambient economy than from his or her ambient air. It's an integral part of life. Control a being's economic environment and, friend, you control that being.

“Here on the out-worlds, we live in a carefully controlled economy. That's bad enough. But what's worse is that the controlling hand belongs to an idiot.”

He paused a moment to let that sink in, glancing at the recorder plate held aloft at the rear of the room, noting that it was aimed in such a way that if it happened to include any of the students in its frame, only backs of heads would be visible.

“Let's take a look at this handsome, ostensibly well-meaning meaning, idiotic monster we've created and see what it's doing to us. I think you'll soon see why I've subtitled this course. Our Enemy, the State. Let's see what it does to help those of us who can't seem to make ends meet. I won't start in on the Imperial Dole Program-you all know what a horrendous mess that is. Everybody has something bad to say about the dole. No…I think I'll start with the program that's been most praised by the people within the government and press: the Food Voucher Program.

“As it stands now, a man with a family of four earning 12,000 marks a year is eligible for 1,000 marks’ worth of food vouchers to supplement his income and help feed his family. That's okay, you say? You don't mind some of your taxes going to help some poor working stiff make ends meet? That's lucky for you, because nobody asked you anyway. Whether you like it or not, approve of it or not, he's going to get the 1,000 marks.

“But putting that aside, did you realize that the Imperium taxes this man 2,200 marks a year? That's right. It takes 2,200 marks out of his pocket in little bits and pieces via withholding taxes during each pay period. And the withholding tax is a very important concept as far as the government is concerned. It is thereby allowed to extract the income tax almost painlessly, and to force the employer to do all the accounting for the withholding tax free of charge, despite the fact that slavery has never been allowed in the out-worlds. It needs the withholding tax, because if the Imperium tried to extract all the year's income taxes at once it would have the entire citizenry out in the streets with armfuls of rocks…it wouldn't last a standard year.

“But back to our food voucher recipient: his 2,200 marks are collected each year, sent to the Regional Revenue Center, and from there shipped to the Central Treasury in Primus City-if Robin Hood doesn't get it first.” This brought a laugh and a smattering of applause from the class. “Now don't forget that everybody who handles it along the way gets paid something for his time-from the lowliest programmer to the Minister of the Treasury, everyone takes a chunk. Then the money has to be appropriated by the legislature into the Bureau of Food Subsidization, and the case workers have to decide who's eligible, and how much the eligibles should get, and somebody has to print up the vouchers, and somebody has to run the maintenance machinery to keep the floors of the Bureau of Food Subsidization clean and so on, ad nauseam. Everybody along the line gets paid something for his or her efforts.

“In the end, our lowly citizen gets his thousand marks’ worth of food vouchers, but in the process, not only has his 2,200 marks in taxes been consumed by the bureaucracy, but an additional 830 marks of your taxes as well. A total of 3,030 marks! That's right: it costs 3.03 marks in taxes for our enemy, the Imperium, to give a single mark's worth of benefits. And has anyone along the line suggested that we just cut this poor citizen's taxes by a thousand marks? Of course not! That would save us all a net of 2,000 marks, but it would also mean cutting appropriations, and fewer do-nothings in the Revenue Service and the Bureau of Food Subsidization, and who knows

where else. The men who run these bureaus and run these out-worlds don't want that. And they have the say and we don't. And that's why the Imperium is our enemy, because it is filled with these men.”

Zack paused briefly here for breath and to allow himself to cool. He always got worked up talking about the excesses and idiocy of the Imperium, and had to be careful not to say more than he meant to.

“And so you can see why you have to understand the working of a large and powerful government if you are to understand modern economics. The Food Voucher System is only a very obvious example. There are economic machinations going on within the Imperium which are far more subtle and far more sinister than the buffoonery of the Bureau of Food Subsidization, and we shall delve into those at a later date. But first we must teach you all some of the rudiments of free market economics, a realm of economic theory that has been the victim of de facto censorship in teaching centers from here to Earth for centuries. We'll begin with von Mises, then-”

Noticing alarmed expressions on the faces of some of the students, and sensing that the focus of their attention had suddenly shifted to a point somewhere behind him, Zack turned around. Two university security men stood in the doorway.

“We have a report of an unauthorized class being conducted here,” the burly one on the right said. “Are you a member of the faculty, sir?”

“Of course I am!”

“And what course is this?”

“Economics 10037: Our Enemy, the State.”

The guard on the left, taller but equally well muscled, frowned disapproval and scanned the readout on his pocket directory. “Didn't think so,” he said, glancing at his partner. “There's no such course.”

“What's your name?” said the burly one.

“Zachariah Brophy, Ph.D.”

Again the pocket directory was scanned. Again a negative readout. “No one on the faculty by that name.”

“Now wait just a minute! I've been teaching here for twenty years! I'll have you know-”

“Save it, pal,” the burly one said, taking Zack's elbow. “We're going to escort you to the gate and you can find yourself somewhere else to play school.”

Zack pulled his arm away. “You'll do no such thing! I demand that you call the regents’ office and check that.”

“This is a direct link to the regents’ computer,” the taller guard said, holding up his pocket directory. “The information out of here is up to the minute-and it says you don't belong here. So make it easy for all of us and come quietly.”

“No! I won't go anywhere quietly! This is supposed to be a university, where all points of view can be heard, where inquiring minds can pick and choose among a variety of ideas. I won't be stifled!” He turned to the class. “Now, as I was saying-”

The two guards behind him could be seen glancing at each other and shrugging. Each stepped forward and, grabbing an elbow and an armpit, dragged Doc Zack backward from the classroom.

“Let me go!” Zack shouted. He dug his heels into the floor, struggled to free his arm but to no avail. As a last desperate hope, he turned to the class. “Some of you help me, please! Please! Don't let them take me away like this!”

But as they dragged him out through the door and around the corner and down the hall, no one moved, and that was what hurt most of all.

“…NOW I THINK you all know that it's not my policy to editorialize. I merely report the news the way it happens. But I believe that what we've just seen is so extraordinary that I must comment upon it. The exclusive eyewitness recording of the expulsion of Professor Zachariah Brophy from the campus of the University of the Outworlds that was just replayed was obtained because I had heard that this renegade professor was determined to give his treasonous course despite the fact that his superiors had canceled it. I sent a recorder technician to the classroom to see just how the regents would handle such an incident, and you have seen the results yourselves tonight.

“I must say that I, as a citizen of the Imperium, am proud of what I have just seen. Enormous amounts of our tax marks are spent yearly to keep the University of the Outworlds one of the top institutions of learning in Occupied Space. We cannot allow a few malcontents to decide that they are wiser than the board of regents and to teach whatever they see fit, regardless of academic merit. We especially cannot allow someone like Professor Zachariah Brophy, impressive as his credentials might be, to denigrate the Imperium, which supports the university, and therefore denigrate the university itself by his unfounded and inflammatory criticism.

“I support freedom of speech to the fullest, but when it's being done on my time and being supported by my tax dollars, then I want some control over what's being said. Otherwise, let Professor Brophy take his podium to Imperium Park and give his message to whoever wishes to gather and listen. And to anyone else who tries to waste the taxpayers’ money by trying to besmirch the Imperium at their expense, let this be a warning.”

The final segment of the recording, wherein Doc Zack was dragged kicking and pleading from the classroom, was rerun, and then Radmon Sayers’ face filled the screen again.

“And now, new word from Earth on the mysterious behavior of Eric Boedekker, the wealthy asteroid mining magnate, who has just sold the remainder of his asteroid mineral rights to a consortium of prospectors for an undisclosed but undoubtedly enormous sum. Still no hint as to what he's doing or plans to do with all that credit.

“And on Neeka-”

Metep VII touched a stud on the armrest of his chair and the holovid globe went dark. “That Sayers is a good man,” he told Haworth, who sat an arm's length away to his left.

“Think so?”

“Sure. Look how he defended the regents. That could have been a very embarrassing recording. It would take nothing to exploit it into an example of repression of academic freedom, freedom of speech, creeping fascism, or whatever other nonsense you want. But Sayers turned it into a testimonial to the way the regents and the Imperium are ever on guard against misuse and abuse of educational taxes. He turned it into a plus for us and kept Brophy a miscreant instead of elevating him to a martyr.”

“You think he's on our side, then?”

“Definitely. Don't you?”

“I don't know.” Haworth was pensive. “I really don't know. If he were really on our side, I don't think he would have shown that recording at all.”

“Come now-he's a newsman! He couldn't pass up a story like that.”

“Yes, that's very obvious. But it all seems too pat. I mean, how did he happen to know that Brophy would be giving that lecture against the orders of the regents?”

“Probably one of the students told him.”

“Possible. But do you realize that even if the regents had left Brophy to his own devices and let him give his course as originally scheduled with no interference, only a few thousand would have heard him over the closed-circuit vid? And if it weren't for Sayers, only twenty or thirty would have heard him today. But now, after showing that recording on the prime time news, Professor Brophy's message has reached millions. Millions!”

“Yes, but it was a silly message. There are a dozen stories like that going around every month about waste in government. Nobody pays them too much mind.”

“But the contempt in his voice,” Haworth said, frowning. “The utter contempt…it came across so strongly.”

“But it doesn't matter, Daro. Sayers negated any points that old bird managed to score by painting him as a tax waster and a disloyal employee.”

“Did he? I hope so. Maybe he made Brophy look silly to you and me, but what about all those sentimental slobs out there? How did Brophy look to them? Are they going to remember what Radmon Sayers said about him, or is the one thing that sticks in their minds going to be the image of a skinny old man being forcibly dragged from view by a couple of young, husky, uniformed guards?”

“AND WHAT WAS all that supposed to prove?” Broohnin asked as Radmon Sayers’ face faded from the globe.

“It proves nothing,” LaNague replied. “Its purpose was merely to plant a seed in the backlot of the public mind to let it know what kind of power the Imperium has.”

“I'm not impressed. Not a bit. We could have had a full-scale riot on the campus if we had planned it right. The Imperial Guard would have been called out and then Sayers would have really had something to show on his news show.”

“But the effect wouldn't have been the same, Den,” Zack said from his seat in the corner. “There's big competition for on-campus placement at U. of O., and people seeing the students out on the grounds rioting would only resent the sight of rare opportunity being wasted. They'd want the Imperial Guard to step in; they'd cheer them on. And people would get hurt, which is what we're trying to avoid.”

“We could see to it that a lot of the Guard got hurt!” Broohnin said with a grin. “And if a few students got banged up, all the better. I mean, after all, you wanted to show the oppressive powers of the Imperium. What better evidence than a few battered skulls?”

Zack shook his head in exasperated dismay and looked at LaNague. “I give up. You try.”

LaNague didn't relish the task. He was beginning to think of Broohnin more and more as a lost cause. “Look at it this way: the Imperium is not an overtly oppressive regime. It controls the populace in a more devious manner by controlling the economy. And it controls life within its boundaries as effectively via the economy as with a club. The indirection of the Imperium's controls makes us forget that it still has the club and is holding it in reserve. The only reason we don't see the club is because the Imperium has found ways to get what it wants without it. But as soon as necessity dictates, out it will come. And it will be used without hesitation. We didn't want the club brought out today, because that would mean bloodshed. We just wanted the public to get a peek into the sack where it's kept…just a reminder that it's there.”

“And it was relatively painless,” Zack said, rubbing his axillae. “The worst I got out of it was a couple of sore armpits.”

“But what the public saw,” LaNague continued, “was an elderly man-”

“Not so elderly!”

“-who is a renowned professor, being pulled from the classroom by force. He wasn't destroying the campus or disrupting the educational process. All he was doing was standing and talking-teaching! — a group of students. And for that he was dragged away by two uniformed men. And believe me, there's something in the sight of uniformed henchmen laying their hands on a peaceful civilian that raises the hackles of out-worlders.”

“But what did they do? There've been no protests, no cries of outrage, no taking to the streets? Nothing!”

“Right,” LaNague said. “And there won't be, because it was a minor incident. Doc Zack wasn't arrested and he wasn't beaten to a pulp. But he was silenced and he was dragged away by force. And I think people will remember that.”

“And so what if they do?” Broohnin said, as belligerent as ever. “The Imperium isn't weakened one erg.”

“But its image is. And that's enough for now.”

“Well, it's not enough for me!” Broohnin rose and wandered aimlessly around the room, pulling something from his pocket as he moved. LaNague watched him pop whatever it was under his tongue-he guessed it to be a mood elevator-and stand and wait for it to take effect. Yes, Broohnin was definitely on the brink. He would have to be watched closely.

“Hear about the meeting?” Zack said into the tension-filled silence.

“What meeting?” LaNague said.

“Metep and the Council of Five. Word's come down that they've called a special hush-hush super-secret enclave next week. Even Krager's cutting his vacation short and coming back for it.”

“Sounds important. Anybody know what it's about?”

Zack shrugged. “Ask Den…One of his people picked it up.”

Broohnin turned and faced them. The anger lines in his face had smoothed slightly. His voice was calm, even. “Nobody's sure exactly what it's about, but Haworth's behind it. He wants the meeting and he wants it soon.”

That troubled LaNague. “Haworth, eh?”

“Something wrong with that?” Zack asked.

“It's probably nothing of any real importance, but there's always the chance that Haworth has come up with some sort of brainstorm to temporarily pull them out of the current crunch…”

“I thought you had all exits covered,” Broohnin said, barely hiding a sneer. “Afraid Haworth'll slip something past you?”

“With a man like Haworth around, it doesn't pay to get overconfident. He's shrewd, he's sly, he's smart, and he's ruthless. I'll be anxious to see what comes out of this meeting.”

“I'd worry along with you if I could,” Zack said. “But since you're the only one who knows where all this is taking us, I'm afraid you're going to have to sleep with those worries alone.” He paused, watching LaNague closely. “I do have a few ideas about your plan, however, gathered from what I've seen and heard during the past year.”

“Keep them to yourself, please.”

“I will. But do you actually think there's any way Haworth or anybody else can turn this whole thing around?”

LaNague shook his head. “No. The Imperium has started its descent and only magic can save it.”

“Well, let's just hope Haworth doesn't know any magic,” Zack said.

“He might. But just in case they run dry of things to say at the meeting, I think Robin Hood should be able to find a way to keep the conversation going.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It's no good, Vin. He's not coming.”

“Yes, he is. He's got to come.” As persistent and patient and straight as a tree rooted in the soil, Vincen Stafford stood with his arm around his wife's shoulders and waited in the back yard of what had once been their house. It stood locked, barred, and empty behind him as he watched the sky. Better to stare into the empty blackness above them than to stare into the empty bleakness of the structure behind. The house had become the symbol of all his failures and of all the things that had failed him. He couldn't bear to look at it.

The drop-off in grain runs to Sol System had started it all, causing him to be bumped from one scheduled flight after another due to his lack of seniority. Finally, he had been laid off. The imperial Grain Export Authority had let him down-promising him full-time employment when he signed on, and then leaving him grounded. That was bad, but he knew he could make it through on his unemployment benefits from the Spacers Guild. Salli had a part-time job and they had a little money in the bank. It would be tight, but they could squeak through until something broke loose for him.

But the only things that broke loose were prices. Everything except grain seemed to cost more-food, clothing, transportation, everything. Only his mortgage payment had remained fixed. The bank had tried to get him to refinance at a higher interest rate but he had resisted, despite the advice of the Robin Hood Reader to borrow all he could and invest it in gold and silver. That, he now realized, had been his biggest blunder. As daily living expenses went up, he and Salli had found it harder and harder to scrape together the mortgage payments each month. Their savings were soon gone and the bank was soon penalizing them for late payments.

Then catastrophe: the Spacers Guild cut his benefits in half due to the drain put on its finances by heavy layoffs. Then the benefits stopped altogether; the Spacers Guild had arbitrarily cut him off in order to concentrate benefits on the senior members. Even his union had let him down.

Vin and Salli had immediately tried to refinance the house, but the bank was no longer interested. Mortgage money had dried up and there was none to spare for an out-of-work interstellar navigator. They put the house on the market, but with so little mortgage money around, nobody was buying at the current inflated prices. They missed payments; the bank foreclosed. They were locked out of their own home.

Vincen Stafford was now at the lowest point of his entire life. He and Salli lived in a shabby one-room apartment in the dolee section of town…and why not? He was on the dole.

When they weren't screaming at each other, they sat in stony silence across the room from each other. Only tonight had brought them together. Robin Hood was coming.

“He's not going to show, Vin,” Salli said. “Now let's go home.”

“Home? We have no home. It was taken from us. And he is coming. Just wait a little longer. You'll see.”

Robin Hood was just about the only thing on this world or any other that Vincen Stafford had left to hold onto. When the first “money monsoon” had come, he had turned in the money he had collected. At that time it seemed like the right thing to do…after all, the money belonged to the Imperium. And when he analyzed it to any depth, he admitted that he had hoped his name would show up somewhere on a list of exemplary citizens and he would have a crack at the next grain run out, seniority or no. But that hadn't happened. He hadn't made a single run since. His friends had laughed at his naïveté then, and he cursed himself for it now. What he wouldn't give to have those mark notes in his hand right now. A year and a half could make a lot of changes in a man.

If only he'd listened to that newsletter and followed its advice. He knew a couple of men his age who had done just that-refinanced their homes, borrowed to the limit of their credit, and invested it all in gold and silver and other precious metals. One had used the profits from the soaring prices of the commodities to supplement his income and keep him in the black and in his home. Another had let the bank repossess his home and had moved into an apartment. He was now sitting on a pile of gold coins that was growing more and more valuable every day while the bank was stuck with a house it couldn't sell.

Vincen Stafford wasn't going to get caught looking the other way this time. Robin Hood and his Merry Men had robbed a currency shipment this morning; if they held true to form, there'd be money raining down soon.

“This is ridiculous,” Salli said. “I'm going back to the apartment. You heard what they said on the vid. He's not coming.”

Stafford nodded in the darkness. “I heard what they said. But I don't believe it.” Police authorities had been on the air all day telling the public that Robin Hood and his Merry Men were now robbing tax collections and keeping the money for personal uses, showing themselves for the common thieves and renegades they really were. Anyone waiting for another “money monsoon” would be bitterly disappointed. But Stafford didn't believe it. Couldn't-wouldn't believe it.

One of the stars winked out overhead, then another to its left. Then the original star came on again.

“Wait!” he told Salli, reaching for her arm. “Something's up there!”

“Where? I don't see anything.”

“That's the whole idea.”

When the first mark notes began slipping down into sight, a great cheer was heard all over the neighborhood…Stafford and his wife were not alone in their nocturnal vigil.

“Look, Vin!” Salli said excitedly. “It's really happening. I can't believe it! It's money!” She began scrambling around the yard, picking up the mark notes, disregarding the white calling cards. “Come on, Vin! Help!”

Vincen Stafford found himself unable to move just yet. He merely stood with his face tilted upward, tears streaming down his cheeks, silent sobs wracking his chest.

At least there was still somebody left you could count on.

“…AND IT APPEARS that Robin Hood and his Merry Men have lowered their sights, physically and figuratively. After more than seven months of inaction since the costly east coast caper, with only the caustic, omnipresent Robin Hood Reader as evidence of his continued presence among us, Robin Hood has struck again. A ground effect vehicle, carrying a large shipment of fresh currency from the Central Treasury to the North Sector branch of the First Outworld Bank of Primus, was waylaid on the streets of the city early this morning.

“The death of four of his Merry Men last year should have made Robin Hood more cautious, but he appears to be as daring as ever. The vehicle was stopped and its guards overpowered in the bright light of morning before a crowd of onlookers. The shipment of currency was quickly transferred to two sport flitters which took off in different directions. No one was hurt, no witnesses could identify any of the perpetrators due to the holosuits they wore, and no evidence was left behind other than the customary arrow with the inscribed shaft.

As news of the robbery spread, people rushed out into their streets and yards, anticipating a rain of mark notes. But none came; the authorities began to suspect that either Robin Hood was now stealing taxpayer money for personal gain, or that the caper was the work of clever imitators.

“People steadfastly waited all day. So did the imperial Guard. But alas! No Robin. The majority of hopefuls went home, but a large number of the faithful hung on into the dark. However, it began to look like the police were right. There would be no money monsoon tonight.

“And then it happened. After a year-and-a-half-long drought, the skies of Primus City opened up at 17.5 tonight and began to pour marks down on the parched populace. The fall was much lighter than on the previous occasion-sixty million had been hurled into the air then; tonight's precipitation amounted to approximately one fourth of that. But from the cheers and shouts of joy that arose from every quarter of the city, it is evident that anything was welcomed by the citizens of Primus City.

“If this reporter might be permitted a comment or two: I find it reprehensible that so many of our fellow citizens demean themselves by standing and waiting to receive stolen money from this Robin Hood charlatan. There are no solutions to be found in thievery and cheap showmanship. The real solutions lie with the Imperium's leaders. We should seek solutions there, not in the dark skies of night.

“And now to other news:

“Word from Earth shows that Eric Boedekker, the wealthy asteroid mining magnate, is still at it. Having disposed of his extraterrestrial holdings, he has now sold all of his Earthside property-millions of square meters’ worth of land on all of the planet's five continents. And if you think land is getting expensive here on the out-worlds, you should look into the prices on Earth! Eric Boedekker has now amassed a liquid fortune that must be unparalleled in the financial history of the human race. No indication as yet as to just what he's doing with it. Is he reinvesting it or just keeping it in a huge account? The entire interstellar financial community is buzzing with curiosity.

“And speaking of buzzing, insiders here on Throne are doing a little of their own as they speculate on the sudden premature return of Treasury Minister Krager from his Southland vacation. Is something afoot in the inner circles of the Imperium? We'll see…”

“GENTLEMEN,” HAWORTH SAID, standing behind his chair to the right of Metep VII, “we are in trouble. Big trouble.”

There were no groans of protest or resignation. The Council of Five knew the Imperium was in trouble, and each member knew that he didn't have a single idea as to how to remedy the situation. All they could come up with as a group were the same things they had been doing all along, only more so. All looked to Haworth now for some glimmer of hope.

“You've all read the report I sent to each of you by special courier last night-at least I hope you have. You all know now why our grain imports have been falling off. My sources on Earth are reliable. If they say the Earthies have developed photosynthetic cattle, then, believe me, it's true.”

“All right,” said Cumberland of the Bureau of Agrarian Resources. “I read the report and I'll grant that it's possible. And I can see how it affects my department and all the farmers under me. But I don't see why it's such bad news for everybody else.”

“Domino effect,” Haworth replied. “If we export less and less grain, which is just about all the out-worlds have that Sol System wants, then we cut a significant chunk out of total out-world productivity. Which means less income for us to tax. The result is that the Imperium has less money to work with.

“But it doesn't stop there. The drop in profits to the agrarian worlds means that they're going to start cutting their work forces. That means an increase in unemployment, which inevitably leads to an increase in the number of former workers going on the dole where they become tax consumers instead of taxpayers.

“Which means that the Imperium's expenses are going up while its income is going down. Naturally, we just increase the money supply to meet our needs. But our needs have been such that the money supply has increased too rapidly and we're caught in a period of steep inflation. This increases the viciousness of the circle: inflation wipes out savings, so people don't save. That leaves the banks with no money to lend, and that means no construction, no growth. Which leads to more unemployment and more people on the dole. Which means we have to spend more money. Inflation is also allowing more and more people to meet criteria for participation in other programs such as Food Vouchers.” He shook his head. “The Food Voucher Program is chewing up marks as fast as we can turn them out. Which adds to the inflation which adds to…well, you get the idea.”

Cumberland nodded. “I see. Then we'll just have to control the rate of inflation.”

Haworth smiled and Krager laughed aloud from the far end of the table. “That would be nice. We just hit a 21 per cent annual rate, although publicly of course, we're only admitting to 15. To slow inflation, the Imperium has to stop spending more than it takes in in taxes. We either have to increase taxes, which is out of the question, or we have to start cutting the Imperial budget.” He turned his smirking visage toward Cumberland. “Shall we start with the farm subsidies?”

“Impossible!” Cumberland blustered and blanched simultaneously. “Those subsidies are depended on by many small farmers!”

“Well? Where shall we start cutting? The dole? Food Vouchers? With more people than ever on public assistance, we'd be risking wide-scale food riots. And it's because I fear there may be some civil disorder in the near future that I don't advise cutting defense budgets.”

“I suggest we freeze the money supply for the next half year,” Krager said. “There'll be some fallout, naturally, but we've got to do it sometime, and it might as well be now.”

“Oh no, you don't!” It was Metep VII speaking. He had bolted upright in his chair at Krager's suggestion. “A freeze would swing us into a depression!” He looked to Haworth for confirmation.

The younger man nodded his white-haired head. “A deep one, and a long one. Longer and deeper than any of us would care to contemplate.”

“There! You see?” Metep said. “A depression. And during my term of office. Well, let me tell you, gentlemen, that as much as I desire a prominent place in the annals of human history, I do not wish to be known as the Metep whose administration ushered in the first great out-world depression. No, thank you. There'll be no freeze on the money supply and no depression as long as I sit in this chair. There has to be another way and we have to find it.”

“I don't think another way exists,” Krager said. “As a matter of fact, we're now getting to the point over at Treasury where we're seriously talking about changing the ratio of small bills to large bills. Maybe even dropping the one-mark note altogether. We may even get to the point of issuing ‘New Marks,’ trading them one to ten for ‘old marks.’ That would at least cut duplicating expenses, which gives you a pretty good idea of how fast the money supply is expanding.”

“There's no way out if we persist in limiting ourselves to simple and obvious solutions,” Haworth said into the ensuing verbal commotion. “If we freeze, or even significantly slow, the growth of the money supply, we face mass bankruptcy filings and soaring unemployment. If we keep going at this pace, something's bound to give somewhere along the line.”

Metep VII slumped in his chair. “That means I'm to be ‘the Depression Metep’ for the rest of history, I guess. Either way, I lose.”

“Maybe not.” Haworth's voice was not raised when he said it, but it cut cleanly through the undertone of conversational pairs around the table and brought all talk to an abrupt halt.

“You've got an idea? A way out?”

“Only a chance, Jek. No guarantees, and it will take lots of guts on all our parts. But with some luck, we may get a reprieve.” He began strolling around the conference table as he spoke. “The first thing we do is start to inform the public about Earth's new protein source, playing it up not as a great biological advance, but as a sinister move to try and ruin the out-world economy. We'll create a siege mentality, ask everyone to sacrifice to fight the inflation that Earth is causing. As a stopgap, we'll impose wage-price controls and enforce them rigidly. Anyone trying to circumvent them will be portrayed as an Earthie-lover. If legal penalties don't scare them into compliance, social pressure will. And we'll play the unions off against the businessmen as usual.”

“That's not a reprieve!” Krager said, turning in his seat as Haworth passed behind him. “That's not even a new trial-it's just a stay of execution, and a short one at that! It's all been tried before and it's never solved anything.”

“Kindly let me finish, won't you?” Haworth said as calmly as he could. The latent hostility between the Chief Adviser and the Minister of the Treasury was surfacing again. “What I'm proposing has never been attempted before. If we succeed, we will be heroes not only in the out-world history spools, but in the recorded history of humanity. I'm calling it Project Perseus.”

He scanned the table. All eyes were on him, watching him with unwavering attention. He continued strolling and speaking.

“We've been monitoring multiple radio sources concentrated in the neighboring arm of this galaxy. We've been at it ever since our ancestors settled out here. There's no doubt that their origin is intelligent and technologically sophisticated. We've sent a few probe ships into the region but they were lost. It's cold, black, and lonely out there and a single probe ship hunting for life is like loosing a single member of a hymenoptera species into the atmosphere of a planet which supports a single flower on its surface, and waiting to see if the bug can find the flower. But if a whole hiveful of the insects is freed into the air at carefully calculated locations, chances of success are immeasurably better. So that's what we're going to do: build a fleet or probe ships and contact whoever or whatever is out there.”

They all must have thought he was crazy by the looks on their faces. But Daro Haworth had expected that. He waited for the first question, knowing ahead of time what it would be and knowing that either Cumberland or Bede would ask it.

It was Cumberland. “Are you crazy? How's that going to get us out of this?”

“Through trade,” Haworth replied. “By opening new markets to us out there. The latest calculations show that there's another interstellar race in the Perseus arm, outward from here. It lives a damnable number of light years away, but if we try, we can reach it. And then we'll have billions of new customers!”

“Customers for what?” Metep said. “The only thing we've got to trade in any quantity is grain. What if they don't eat grain? Or even if they do-and that's unlikely, I'm sure-what makes you think they'll want to buy ours?”

“Well, we've got plenty of grain at the moment,” Cumberland said. “Let me tell you-”

“Forget about grain!” Haworth shouted, his face livid. “Who am I talking to-the most powerful men in the out-worlds or a group of children? Where is your vision? Think of it-an entire interstellar race. There has to be a million things we can exchange-from art to hardware, from Leason crystals to chispen filets! And if we don't have it, we can ship it out from Earth. We could arrange trade agreements and be sole agents for whatever alien technology is found to have industrial uses. We could corner any number of markets. The out-worlds could enter a golden age of prosperity! And”-he smiled here-“I don't think I have to remind you gentlemen what that could mean to each of us in the areas of political clout and personal finances, do I?”

The undertone began again as each man muttered cautiously at first to his neighbor, then with growing enthusiasm. Only Krager had a sour note to sing.

“How are we going to pay for all this? To build and equip a fleet of probe ships will take an enormous sum of money. Billions and billions of marks. Where are we supposed to get them?”

“The same place we get all the other billions of marks we spend but don't have-the duplicators.”

Krager began to sputter. “But that will send inflation into warp. It'll go totally out of control! The mark is already weakened beyond repair. Why it's still holding up in the Interstellar Currency Exchange, I can't fathom. Maybe the speculators haven't figured out how bad off we are yet. But this probe ship idea will completely ruin us!”

“That's why we've got to act now,” Haworth said. “While the mark still has some credibility on the Exchange. If we wait too long, we'll never be able to get enough credit to purchase the drive tubes and warp units necessary for the probe fleet. The mark has been holding up better than any of us ever expected. That indicates to me that the people active in the Interstellar Currency Exchange have faith in us and think we can pull ourselves out of this.”

“Then they're dumber than I thought they were,” Krager muttered.

“Not funny,” Haworth said. “And not fair. You forget that Project Perseus will also create jobs and temporarily stabilize the tax base in the interim.” He walked back to his place at Metep's side. “Look: it's a gamble. I told you that before I broached the subject. It's probably the biggest gamble in human history. The future of the entire Imperium and all our political careers is riding on it. If I thought there was another way out, believe me, I'd try it. Personally, I don't give a damn about getting in touch with the aliens in the Perseus arm. But right now, it's our only hope. If we succeed, then all the extra inflation caused by Project Perseus will be worth while and eventually compensated by the new avenues of trade we'll establish.”

“Suppose we fail?” Metep said. “Suppose there's something out there that gobbles up probe ships. Suppose they find nothing but the ruins of a dead civilization.”

Daro Haworth shrugged with elaborate nonchalance. “If we fail, every out-worlder will spit when he hears our names five years from now. And in perhaps a dozen years, Earth will reinstate her claim to the out-worlds.”

“And if we do nothing?” Metep asked, afraid of the answer.

“The same, only the spitting stage won't be reached for perhaps ten years, and the return of Earthie control won't occur for twenty. Face it, gentlemen: this is our only chance. It may not work, but I see no other alternative. We're all to blame; we've all-”

“I won't take the blame for this mess!” Krager shouted. “I've warned you all along, all of you, that someday-”

“And you went right along, too, old man.” Haworth's lips twisted into a sneer. “You okayed all the increases in the money supply. You made noises, but you went along. If your objections had had any real conviction behind them, you would have resigned years ago. You flew with us, and if we go down, you'll crash with us.” He turned to the others. “Shall we vote, gentlemen?”

IT WAS THE FIRST TIME LaNague could remember being happy to see Broohnin. He and Doc Zack and Radmon Sayers had waited in the warehouse office into the hours toward dawn. The money drop earlier in the evening had gone off as smoothly as the heist that morning. Things were looking up all over, at least as far as his plans for the revolution were concerned. Everything was going according to schedule, and going smoothly. Too smoothly. He kept waiting for a kink to develop somewhere along the line, waiting and hoping that when it appeared he would be able to handle it. The meeting tonight between Metep and his Council of Five could possibly produce a kink, but that was unlikely. There was no way out for the Imperium now. No matter what they did, no matter what they tried, they were unaware of the purpose of Boedekker's activities on Earth. The Imperium was going to crumble, that was for certain. The Boedekker aspect of the plan would enable LaNague to control the exact moment of its fall, its rate of descent, and its force of impact. The Boedekker aspect would ensure an impact of such force that no trace of the cadaver would remain.

“What's the word from the meeting?” LaNague asked as Broohnin entered the office.

“Nothing,” Broohnin said, scowling through his beard. “A complete waste of time. You wouldn't believe what they wound up deciding to do after hours in hush-hush conference.”

“Spend more money, of course,” Zack said.

Sayers nodded. “Of course. But on what?”

“Probe ships?” Broohnin looked around at the uncomprehending faces.

“That's right-probe ships. I told you you wouldn't believe it.”

“What in the name of the Core for?” Sayers asked.

“To find aliens. Haworth wants to jump over to the next arm of the galaxy and sell stuff to aliens. He says they're over there and they can save the Imperium.”

As Zack and Sayers began to laugh, Broohnin joined in. The three of them whooped and roared and pounded the arms of their chairs until they noticed that LaNague was not even smiling. Instead, he was frowning with concern.

“What's the matter, Peter?” Sayers said, gasping for breath. “Have you ever heard of a more ridiculous idea?”

LaNague shook his head. “No. Never. But it may ruin everything.”

“But how could-”

LaNague turned away from the vidcaster toward Broohnin. “When does construction start?”

“Immediately, from what I can gather.”

“Is it going to be a military or civil project?”

“Civil. They're going to run it through the Grain Export Authority.”

“And monitoring?”

Broohnin looked at him questioningly. LaNague's intensity was alarming. “I don't-”

“Communications! The probes have to have a place to report back to, a nerve center of some sort that'll coordinate their movements.”

“That'll be the GEA comm center, I guess. That's where all the grain pods reported to as they assembled for a run. It's got all the necessary equipment.”

LaNague was up and pacing the room. “Have you got any contacts in there?” Seeing Broohnin nod, he went on. “How many?”

“One.”

“Get more! Slip our people onto the duty roster in the communications area. We need people on our side in there.”

“That's not going to be easy. With the grain runs falling off, they've cut the comm staff. Not enough work to go around.”

“If we have to, we'll bribe our way onto the staff. Beg, plead, threaten…I don't care what you do, but get us enough people in that comm center to keep it covered at all times.”

“But why?” Sayers asked.

“Because I want to be the first to know what those probe ships find. And if I don't like what they find, I'm going to see to it that the information takes an awful long time getting to the Council of Five.”

Doc Zack spoke from his seat. “You don't really think finding aliens to trade with could open up a large enough market to offset what the Imperium's already done to the economy, and what the cost of this probe ship program will do on top of that, do you? Let me say as an authority on economics that there isn't the slightest chance of success.”

“I realize that,” LaNague said from the middle of the room.

“Then why the sudden panic? Why tell us that it could ruin everything when you know it can't.”

“I'm not worried about them trading with whatever aliens are out there. I'm worried about them stumbling into something else-the one thing that might turn everything we've worked for around; the one thing that's always helped the Meteps and the Imperiums of history out of slumps. And you of all people, Doc, should know what I'm talking about.”

Doc Zack's brow furrowed momentarily, then his eyes widened and his face blanched.

“Oh, my!”