The Final Encyclopedia

Chapter Fifty-three

Hal sat at one end of the table looking down its length at Athalia and at all those between them. Again, as when he had talked to her the evening before, he was strongly reminded of the moment in which he had faced the Grey Captains in the dining room at Foralie. Outside of Athalia herself and Hilary, those at the table were all faces he did not know, with the exception of two from Rukh's Command, the perky, aggressive features of Tallah, and the long face of Morelly Walden. Morelly had evidently healed from his wound, but he had lost weight and now his body was as thin as his limbs. He had supported himself with a stick as he had walked into the warehouse, and he looked twenty years older than the man Hal had known.

If any of the other twelve people Athalia had invited were also members or former members of Commands, they showed no sign of it. It seemed to Hal that with the exception of Tallah and Morelly, he looked at all city faces; hard faces, in some instances, but city ones nonetheless; and his instincts told him that he could expect no help from either of his former comrades, or from Hilary - if Hilary had indeed come to the point of wanting to help - in convincing these others.

Athalia began matters by briefly rehearsing Hal's credentials as a former member of Rukh's group and stating what he wanted.

"… and as you all know," she wound up, "we did hear earlier today that Rukh was still alive in the Cells at Center - in an isolation cell, but alive. He's made certain offers to us you know about. Now, I'll let Hal have his chance to tell you what he's got in mind."

"Thanks," said Hal.

He looked at the men and women he did not know; and their expressions were not encouraging.

"I take it for granted," he said, "that there's no one here who'd hesitate at anything I've got to propose, if he or she thought there was a real possibility of getting Rukh free from the Militia. But I'm going to have to ask one uncomfortable question before I start talking to you - is there anyone here who seriously feels that it's a waste of time even listening to me? I'm asking each one of you to examine your own conscience."

The eyes around the table stared back at him. No one stirred or spoke.

"I ask that," said Hal, "because I know many of you feel that simply because no prisoner has ever been recovered from a Center, no prisoner ever could be; and I'm here to tell you not only that that's a belief that's mistaken, but that bringing Rukh safely out of the hands of the Militia is the sort of thing that people like us have done down through history. It's not only possible, it's practical. However, there's not one of you here I can convince of that, if you've already made up your mind there's no point in listening to me. So, I'll ask you again, for Rukh's sake, are there any of you here who've got a completely closed mind on this subject?"

There was a moment of silence and stillness. Then the people about the table looked at each other, and after several seconds there was a screech of metal on concrete, as a tall man in a dark leather jacket, near the far end of the table, pushed back the barrel-like metal container that had been serving him as a seat. He stood up; and at the sight of his rising, a shorter man in a business suit, at the table's very end also stood up.

"Wait," said Hal.

They paused.

"I honor your honesty," he went on, "but please - don't leave. How about sitting in, with the rest of us, after all? Not to join in the discussion, but just to listen?"

The two standing men looked at him. The one who had been the first to rise was the first to sit down. The other followed.

"Thanks," said Hal. He paused to look around the table before going on. "Now, let me make one other point first. I've told Athalia, and I believe she's relayed what I said to the rest of you, that the main reason an effort has to be made to free Rukh is there's a job to be done by her no one else on any of the worlds can do."

"She belongs to Harmony," broke in a heavy man in a dark green, knitted jacket, seated next to Tallan.

"Right now," said Hal, "I could answer that statement by saying the only thing she belongs to is the Militia. But I know what you're talking about - that she's a Harmonyite, one of the Chosen, and that she's got work here. That's true, she does have work here; but she also has it everywhere, now, as well. I'll ask you again, all of you, to keep listening to me with open minds for the moment."

He paused. Their faces still waited, without expression.

"Stay with me, first," he said, "while I go through something you already know, but something that's going to be important in this case. I can't emphasize too much that the Others are only a handful, proportionally speaking, compared to the rest of us, on all the settled worlds. By themselves, no matter what their abilities and powers, they couldn't be a real threat to the whole human race. What makes them a threat is that they're able to use other people, people like your closest neighbors, as a lever to multiply their original strength many times and make it possible to control the rest of us."

He paused again, waiting for anyone who might want to argue this point, but none of them said anything. He went on.

"They can use others as levers, because they're able to make these people into followers, into believers in them," he said. "Everyone knows there are many the Others can't do anything with - people like yourselves who're strong in faith, and the Dorsai, and the Exotics. What's not known so well is that there are also a lot of people the Others can't use among the people of Old Earth - "

"I've heard that," said the man in the knitted jacket. "It's hard to believe."

"The reason you find it hard to believe," Hal said, "is because, if true, it sounds like it makes a mockery of your own hard-won strengths, to say nothing of the strengths of those who can also resist on the Dorsai and the Exotics."

He looked around the table at them all.

"But really," he went on, "it doesn't do that at all. It's not even strange. Let me ask you a question. Your forebearers, the ones who emigrated from Earth, and made the first settlements here on Harmony and Association, would you say that they had less faith than you here, and those of your generations of these two worlds, nowadays?"

There was an instant hum of negation around the table.

"More!" came the strong voice of a heavy, middle-aged woman with bright, dark eyes on Hal's left and about five faces down the table.

"Well… possibly," said Hal. "We tend to remember the best about our ancestors and forget what in any way diminishes them. Let me ask you another question, then. Do you all believe that every person capable of the special faith that you consider makes a Friendly left Earth and came here? Couldn't there have been some who, for personal reasons of anything from finances to a simple preference for Old Earth, stayed there, married and had children of their own there?"

Silence held the table, although he gave them time to speak.

"So," he said, gently at last, "is it so unreasonable to think that everyone from Old Earth who might have made a Dorsai went to that world? Or that everyone who could have made an Exotic went to Mara or Kultis? One more question; and then we'll leave this side matter and get back to the main business. Before any of those emigrants came to any of these worlds, were they any less than they showed themselves to be once they got there?"

Again he waited. Still they were silent.

"Then it's reasonable to assume, isn't it," he said, "that there were men and women of faith before Harmony or Association were dreamed of, that there were people of courage and self-reliance before the Dorsai was imagined to exist; and that both men and women dreamed of an ethical ideal and a philosophy for all people from that ethical ideal, when the worlds of Mara and Kultis were not even suspected?"

He paused - only a fraction of a second this time.

"In short, that there were Friendlies before there were Friendly Worlds, Dorsai before the Dorsai was found, and Exotics before the Exotic planets were settled; and that all these others were originally on Old Earth - and that there are people like that there still, part of that original gene pool that's the true reservoir of our race?"

"Granted," said Athalia sharply from the end of the table. "As you say, let's get on with the main business that's brought everybody here."

"All right," said Hal. "What all this leads to, is the important point, about Rukh's value to all the worlds. The reason she's needed is because she represents the best of what your culture's been able to produce. People here should be proud of that, rather than jealous of it. But to get to what Athalia's just reminded me is the main business of this meeting…"

He looked around the faces at the table once more and saw some of them, at least, had backed off from their initial hard expressionlessness to looks varying from thoughtfulness to puzzlement. At least, he thought, he was reaching these few among his audience.

"As to how we get her out," he said - and those words wiped away once more all facial expressions but listening ones - "the idea that it's impossible to get a prisoner back out of a Center is actually our largest asset. Because that means that the Militia undoubtedly believe it, too; and so they won't be expecting a rescue attempt. That's of the greatest possible help, because to make the rescue we've got to set the stage for it ahead of time; and the Militia's belief in the Center's impregnability is going to work for us to keep them from getting suspicious. Without that, we could still do it, but it'd be a lot more difficult."

"You still haven't told us anything that makes it possible," said the man in the knitted jacket.

"It's possible because it's the sort of thing that's been done before," said Hal, "as I told you. Simply, it's a matter of creating situations to reduce the opposition we'll run into, once we're inside the Center; reduce it to the point where the rescue party we send in can handle it."

A thin, fiftyish man across the table and three faces down, with the lines of habitual anger on his face, gave a snort of disgust.

"That's right! All we need are miracles!" the thin man said.

"No," said Hal, without varying the tone he had used so far, "all we need is planning."

He looked at Athalia, at the end of the table.

"I've learned that the number of Militia barracked in your Center here isn't more than four companies of roughly two hundred men each, plus a couple of hundred office and related personnel. In short, the maximum number we can find ourselves up against isn't more than eleven hundred individuals at the outside."

"And that's a lot," said the middle-aged woman who had spoken up to deny that the first settlers on the Friendly Worlds had owned less faith than its present generations.

"I know it sounds like a lot," said Hal. "But actually, a city on any other world except Association, the Dorsai, or the Exotics would have up to three times that number of police normally, for a city this size. One of the factors working for us are the patterns of your culture which reduce the need for police."

"That's nice," said the woman. "It's a compliment, perhaps; but it doesn't help us in getting Rukh out."

"Yes, it does," said Hal. "Because what it means is that in their duties as police, the Militia here are actually very understaffed to handle a city as big as Ahruma. That was something that didn't matter as long as the Others weren't around and the local populace were cooperative. But now the local people - at least from what I saw the day Rukh spoke in the square, following up the sabotaging of the Core Tap - are anything but cooperative."

"I still don't see how that helps," said the man in the knitted jacket.

"Hush, Jabez," said the woman. "I think I see. You mean to use the people in the city to help us, don't you, Hal Mayne?"

Hal nodded.

"That's right. I want to use them to draw off the available manpower of the Militia from the Center until it's down to a skeleton crew, before we try going in to get Rukh out."

"How?" It was Athalia's voice from the head of the table.

"Yes," said the man in the knitted jacket. "How? Aside from anything else, if we get people in general involved in this, how are we going to keep the rescue secret? The Militia's got its spies and connections in the city, just like we've got some in the Militia."

"The people don't have to know - until we want to tell them," said Hal.

"If they don't know…?" the man looked puzzled. "How can they help? How did you plan to have them help?"

"I want them to start fires, riots, street fights - you name it - " said Hal. "I want fifty different incidents scattered out all over the city so that the Militia has to keep sending men out to keep order until they're scraping bottom for people to dispatch."

"But there's no way to get people - I mean ordinary people who aren't Children of Wrath, or otherwise committed to fighting the Belial-spawn - to do all that for you without explaining why you want it done," half-shouted the thin man with the anger lines on his face. "And what about the Militia themselves? What's to keep them from getting suspicious when suddenly there're fires and riots erupting all over? They'll smell something rotten and end up by doubling security on the Center!"

Hal looked at him for a moment without speaking.

"When I was here on Harmony before, as Howard Beloved Immanuelson," he said, finally, "I was a member of the Revealed Church Reborn. What is thy church, brother?"

The man stared back at him; and the thin face hardened.

"I am of the Eighth Covenant," he said, harshly. "Why?"

"The Eighth Covenant…" Hal sat back thoughtfully, laying his hands on the table before him and knitting his fingers together. "Isn't that the Church that was founded by one Forgotten of God? One so steeped in sin and other filthiness that the church to which he was originally born cast him from its doors, forbidding him ever to return, so that he ended by founding his own church, which all know is therefore so steeped in evil and pernicious - "

There was a crash as the barrel that the angry man had been sitting on went over backward loudly onto the concrete floor; and the man himself was on his feet even as his neighbors grabbed and held him from plunging down alongside the table toward Hal.

"Peace! Forgive me! Forgive me, please!" said Hal, holding up his hand, palm out. "I just wanted to demonstrate what we all know - that arguments between people belonging to different churches can always break out, particularly in a city this size; and if those arguments lead to open fighting, then the Militia is going to have to send out squads to restore order wherever there's trouble, aren't they? So that if the spirit of disputation spreads, we can foresee a lot of Militia squads being sent out from the Center into the city to restore order."

"I don't understand," said the man in the knitted jacket; as the angry man slowly and stiffly reseated himself, glaring at Hal.

"I do, Jabez," said the middle-aged woman with the piercingly dark eyes. "By starting street fights, we can gradually drain off the interior strength of the Center. All right, Hal Mayne, but the Militia officers'll have figured out ahead of time how many men they can safely spare and not send any more out than that."

"They'll try not to, of course," said Hal. "But our plan would be to give them a gradually escalating situation to deal with, over about a fifty to seventy-five hour period; both to lead them gradually to overstretch themselves and to wear out both them and the men they send out into the streets with lack of sleep. Wear them out until the judgment and reflexes of all of them are less than the best. In fact, what we'll try to do is bring everyone in the Center to the ragged edge of exhaustion. For that, forty-eight to seventy-two hours is about the limit. More than that, and they'll have a chance to adjust. Also, of course, time's critical in getting Rukh out. We know she's alive now, but not what kind of condition she's in; and how much longer she can endure in there."

Hal paused and took a second to check the expressions on the faces around the table. If nothing else, he had their full attention now, although fury still showed in the expression of the thin man he had provoked earlier.

"It might work," said the man in the knitted jacket - not to Hal but to the table in general. He turned to Hal. "Assuming it would, at least to the extent of draining off most of the fighting personnel of the Center, and exhausting them, where do we go from there?"

"When the time's ripe, we send a team into the Center through a service entrance, securing a route as we go through whatever service ways are used to deliver meals to the Cells section or take out anything - from laundry to dead prisoners. This team liberates Rukh and brings her back out the way it went in."

"And everybody left in the Center is waiting for them when they try to go back out!" said the thin man, harshly.

"Not necessarily," said Hal. "Remember, the Militia are going to be thinking primarily in terms of the outside disorders, which by then are going to have escalated to where they begin to look like a potential city-wide riot. Their first thought, when the alarm reaches them that they've been invaded through the service area, will be that this is simply another uncoordinated outbreak of the rioting, a group aiming at damaging the Center, or stealing as much as possible, and then getting away again. There'll be no evidence available to make them suspect that all the rioting is an excuse to get one prisoner - one prisoner only - out of their Cells."

There was silence in the warehouse.

"A pretty large gamble - that they won't suspect," said Athalia.

"It shouldn't be," said Hal. "For one thing the odds are going to be pared by the fact that just before the team goes in after Rukh, we'll mount a diversionary attack on the front door of the Center. It should look - only look, of course - as if the attackers in front are trying to fight their way in; and that ought not only to draw off what Militia strength is left in the building to that front area, but explain any reports that a smaller party has broken in through the service area."

"You're still gambling on the way the Militia's going to think," said Athalia.

"We can help the way they think, considerably," said Hal. "For one thing, simply by properly dressing up our team going into the Cells and having its members act to give the impression that they're simply a bunch of looters taking advantage of the fact there's an attack going on out front to slip in and grab what they can while the grabbing's good - what's a Militia cone rifle and ammunition worth, sold under the table, nowadays?"

Athalia nodded grudgingly.

"A lot," she said.

"So," said Hal, "I think we can be pretty confident the Militia officers are going to send only a small part of their available strength to deal with what they think must be a lightly armed, untrained bunch off the street, that will run at the first sight of a uniform. Meanwhile, if we move with proper speed, we can have reached Rukh, got her out and be on our way back. We ought to be able to shoot our way through the first opposition they send from the front of the building against us; and be outside the Center by the time reinforcements reach the area where we were. Remember, at least according to the information I've been given, all the important parts of the Center are up front - the Record sections, the Armory, and so forth. The first instinct of Colonel Barbage and his men is going to be to protect that area first, and get around to mopping up the incursion through the service area when they've got more time."

He stopped talking. His own first instinct had been merely to give them a moment to let them think over what he had just said. But a fine-tuned perception in him now told him that he had, in fact, achieved more than he had hoped for, at this stage.

"Excuse me a minute," he said. "I'll be right back."

He turned and walked out through the door that connected the warehouse proper with Athalia's living quarters. Even as he passed through and shut it behind him, he could hear their voices break out in sudden discussion which came, blurred but unmistakable, through the wooden panel of the door behind him.

Let them discuss it among themselves, he thought. Let them talk. He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. Give them five minutes and then he would go back in…

He wandered about the main room of Athalia's home, killing time. His thoughts drifted, and he thought of Rukh in the Militia Center. The image of her as he had first seen her came back to him, the whole scene of it caught between the tree-shadow of the conifers by the little stream, and the sunlight; with the green moss and the brown, dead needles underfoot - and overhead the wind-torn clouds, black and white, against the startling blue of the open sky - and Rukh and he and all the rest standing looking at each other, in that moment.

He remembered how he had thought then that she had looked, tall, slim and erect, in her bush-jacket, woods trousers and gunbelt - like the dark blade of a sword in the sunlight. He thought of her again now, as he had seen her in that moment, and that image was followed by another, one of her in the hands of the Militia; and it was as if something broke in him, without warning, like a small, hard explosion high in his chest near his throat, that spread its effect outward through all his body and limbs, chilling him.

He stood, chilling…

A door opened noisily behind him, and he whirled about like a tiger. Athalia stood framed in the opening to the warehouse.

"What's keeping you?" she said. "We're all waiting."

"Waiting?" he echoed. He glanced at his chronometer, but he could not remember what it had said when he had looked at it just a short while before.

"It's been more than ten minutes," said Athalia, and jerked her head toward the warehouse interior behind her. "Come along. We've got a lot of questions for you."