governmental level, toward the Military Suite.
The door opened at her command, closed behind her.
She walked across the foyer, through the main lounge, through the library and into the master bedroom.
“So far?” she asked.
Dr. Tokel Danfrey looked up, nodded, and turned back to the corpse on the bed. “Were you seen?”
“For the past two hours,” she affirmed.
“I've fed the news to Hegler, and I saw him deliver it correctly. Now it's up to you, Merka, to keep the riff- raff out of here.”
“Will do,” she said.
She looked once at the bed, saw the gaping wound in the dead General's neck, the blood spilled all over the white bedclothes.
She had washed her hands thoroughly, three hours ago, just after she had murdered him. Still, she looked at her pale fingers, at the transparent nails, as if they held some crimson taint that would betray her.
The main door to the suite reported the presence of several governmental officials.
“Don't let them in here!” Dr. Danfrey said. He was busy with his surgical tools, cutting the body into disposable sections.
She nodded, left the bedroom, closed the door.
“Let them in,” she told the suite monitor when she had reached the main lounge.
It obeyed, sliding the door wide.
Four men entered, one fully as tall as the General, the other three all somewhat shorter than Merka Shanly herself. The tallest was Ober Iswan, Chairman of the Committee on Leadership. He was a stern man, not only pious in his devotion to Lady Nature, but fanatically zealous. He observed feast days and fasts as few other enclave Pures did. She supposed he was to be admired for that.
Ober Iswan said, “ I want to see our General' s body.” He did not speak out of suspicion, but out of deep emotional attachment to the dead man. They had been friends, of a sort.
“The doctor's with him — with it,” she said. “He's performing an immediate autopsy.”
Iswan looked surprised. “Here — not in the medical labs?”
“He thinks there was something distinctly odd about the General's demise, perhaps some bacterial infection. If the enclave has been contaminated by one of the Ruiner's microorganisms, it is best that we find out as soon as possible. Performing dissection here also eliminates the need to move the corpse through other, perhaps uncontaminated, sections of the fortress.”
“Of course,” Iswan said. “You took it on yourself to give the doctor permission for the operation?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Very fine,” Iswan said. “You show a certain levelheadedness, a quickness of response that is admirable.”
Merka sighed inwardly. Ober Iswan was the only one of these four men who had not pledged themselves to her, the last member of the Committee on Leadership who had any integrity. Now that he was pacified and, to some small degree, in her corner, her chances of ascendancy to the vacated seat of power were vastly increased.
The plague scare had been the best part of the plan. Only ten years had passed since five hundred had died from some never-diagnosed outbreak of disease. Ober Iswan had lost a son in that disaster.
The other three crowded forward, asking prearranged questions to which she supplied prearranged answers. Now and again, Ober Iswan leaned forward from his seat, bony hands folded before him, dark eyes intense, to ask a question of his own. These were never difficult to answer and, indeed, were the questions they had expected of him. For weeks now his associates had been subtly informing him of Merka Shanly's capabilities, intelligence and commitment to Lady Nature's ideals. It was hoped that all of these bits of carefully constructed praise for her, along with the set questions the other men were now putting to her, would give Ober Iswan the idea of proposing her name for the post of General.
Though a majority vote by the seven-member committee was necessary to elevate a normal citizen to the post of General, Ober Iswan was the only committee member who could propose names for possible election. He must be made to propose hers.
If he did not, he must be eliminated.
Now there could be no halfway measures.
In an hour Dr. Tokel Danfrey came into the main lounge and looked at them somberly for a moment. Then, in his deep and authoritative voice, he said, “I have dissected the General's corpse and, on my own initiative, have consigned it to the incinerator by way of the master-bedroom chute. I have subjected myself to sonic cleansing in the General's bathroom and have given myself a massive dose of antibiotics. His room will be sealed for a period of thirty days and conscientiously sterilized.”
“You've found something!” Ober Iswan gasped, rising up, his thin hands fisted at his sides.
“I found nothing,'' the doctor said. “It appears to be a simple case of heart failure, for natural causes. But whenever a man who appeared to be in the best of health one day dies the next, I like to take precautions. I remember the plague of a decade ago.”
“So do we all,” Iswan said. He had relaxed slightly, but was still tense.
Merka said, “I'll make arrangements for new quarters immediately and place a requisition for a wardrobe. My old clothes, of course, must not be taken from that room. And I wish to make a suggestion that may not be within my province.”
She addressed this remark to Ober Iswan who said, “Yes?”
“A new General should be elected posthaste. If anything should come of this plague threat, the existence of Preakness Bay may well depend on having a decisive leader.”
“I agree,” Iswan said. “I'll convene the committee immediately.”
The name of Plino Grimwaldowine was first proposed as a replacement for the fallen leader.
The Committee on Leadership rejected him, soundly, over the course of seven ballots.
Ober Iswan next expressed faith in Castigone Pei, who had once led a successful campaign against the tainted in the days when the enclave had maintained Nature Cleansers and who now was known for his poetry and gentleness. Such a man, containing violence and peace, must be special.
The committee disagreed.
Third: Cooper Hine.
He was turned down.
Merka Shanly was proposed as the fourth name.
She won rapid acceptance.
While the Military Suite was quarantined, suitable temporary quarters were established for the new General, Preakness Bay's first female leader in eighty-six years. Since the fortress had been designed to provide comfortable lodging for fifty thousand people, but now housed fewer than five thousand, no problem was encountered in clearing and appointing a lavish suite for the new General.
By nightfall Merka Shanly sat alone in her bedroom, triumphant, having dispatched a dozen orders to her confidants who must now be rewarded for their loyalty.
In the three months since she had become the late General's mistress conditions in the enclave had gone unchanged. Prewar supplies were wasted, while no provisions were made for survival once they had been used up. On a recent tour of the three hundred storage vaults beneath the fortress she had seen that they could last only another ten years at their present rate of thoughtless consumption. She had worked hard to establish sympathizers and had successfully performed the bold murder of her master. She had earned the right to set a new course for the people she ruled.
But she worried, now, that she would not last long enough to effect these changes. Only three days ago she had begun to develop a rudimentary telepathic talent.
27
