He nodded. All the symbols but one were gone from the screen again; as he watched, the time lag closed and the last one faded. The general meeting had begun.
“… should already have put our fusion craft in pursuit.” Wadie rested his neck against the seatback, as Lije MacWong's final argument drew to a close on the screen. “We've done all we can to follow the wishes of the Demarchy. Too many things are still unclear to us, too, because we only know what you do. I'm a civil servant, no more, no less. If the people want to remove me for working in the people's interest, that's your privilege. But I don't feel that I've done anything to betray your trust.” A band of color showed at the bottom of the screen, slowly turning violet from blue; voter participation was eighty per cent and rising.
Wadie watched the manicured brown hands fold on the gargoyled desk top, the pale compelling eyes that had challenged the Demarchy before and won. They disappeared suddenly; the seconds passed, REBUTTAL: ESROM TIRIKI flashed on the screen. He felt his mouth tighten as Tiriki's serene, golden face appeared, eyes gleaming like metal. “The fact remains that the government …”
The captain leaned back in her seat, fingers tapping soundlessly on the chair arms. “He's one of the trolls, Pappy. Handsome, isn't he?” She looked up. “And out for our blood. How does it go again? ‘I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead—’” She broke off, took a deep breath. “Screw Jack and the Beanstalk …. What was that about fusion ships, Abdhiamal? I thought you said the Demarchy depended on fission power and fission-powered electric rockets?”
He nodded. “We have three small fusion craft left from before the war; they're our navy, if you want to call it that. But you've got a big lead on them. They couldn't catch you before you got to Discus.”
“But it could give us less time to maneuver once we're there.”
“… the government agent Abdhiamal threatened us and kidnapped the Outsiders who had come to us to negotiate. Two hundred kilosecs have passed without any further word from him. Their knowledge would have benefited the entire Demarchy, it could have saved Heaven—but because of this ‘government man’ we've lost the crew and the starship forever. Consider that, when you make your final decision.” The band of light below showed an ever-deepening violet.
Wadie's hands tightened over nothing, final REBUTTAL: LIJE MACWONG showed on the screen.
“I regret to say that, in honesty, I can't deny Demarch Tiriki's final accusation. Wadie Abdhiamal, a negotiator from my agency, has overstepped his authority to a degree I consider criminal. He has in the past been suspect of questionable loyalty, of known Ringer sympathies, and I frankly consider it possible that he intends to aid them in usin' that ship against us. I can only repeat that he was acting without my consent, or the consent of any other person in the government. This agency isn't, and never was, a party to these actions. He alone committed a crime, and like any other criminal, he should be found guilty …”
Wadie straightened, felt something grate in his neck.
“… of treason against the Demarchy …”
“Lije!” he whispered, incredulous, willing the mahogany face to turn and the pale eyes to meet his own.
“… and so, fellow demarchs, I want you to reconsider the basic issue before you make your decision. This should not be a simple vote of no confidence against a government that's served you well; this is a judgment on the fate of the one man who has betrayed the hopes of us all. I ask instead for a bill of attainder against Wadie Abdhiamal, government negotiator, for treason …”
“… let him never set foot on any territory of the Demarchy on pain of death. He has betrayed us all …”
“Let me talk.” He reached toward the instrument panel.
The captain caught his arm. “No.”
“… I further urge again that all fusion-powered vessels be impressed into the pursuit of the alien ship; we must prevent it from reachin' our enemies. We must have that ship for ourselves!”
PROPOSITION flashed on the screen, BILL OF ATTAINDER AGAINST WADIE ABDHIAMAL, NEGOTIATOR. CHARGES: TREASON. PENALTY: DEATH, NEGATING PREVIOUS CHARGE: GOVERNMENT NEGLIGENCE.
He stepped back from the panel, his fingers twitching uselessly; his hand dropped. He went to his seat, sat down heavily, watching the ballots begin to register, APPROVE, OBJECT, numbers tallying with the passing seconds. Below them the percentage-of-voters band moved through red into orange into yellow. Five hundred seconds until it would reach full violet … five hundred seconds for the last votes to record from the outermost rocks of the trojans. An insignificant time lag, by the standards of the prewar Belt, as one hundred and forty million kilometers was an insignificant distance. Their closeness had meant survival for the trojans after the war; it meant death for him, now, letting men vote without hesitation, without reflection. He waited. The others waited with him, saying nothing. The ship's drive filled the silence with vibration, almost sound, almost intruding, the only constant in the sudden chaos of the universe.
PROPOSITION APPROVED. They found him guilty, twenty to one, and sentenced him to die. He watched the death order repeat and merge, like a thing already forgotten, into a new cycle of debate over the use of the fusion ships. He raised his leaden hands, let them drop again, smiled, looking back at the others. “Now I finally know how MacWong's kept his job for so long.”
The captain cut off the debate, filling the screen with the void of his future.
“I guess I see the distinction between ‘demarchy’ and plain ‘democracy.’” Welkin said quietly.
“Welkin, you don't have the right to make any moral judgments about Heaven Belt.”
“He's got the right,” Shadow Jack said. He sat up, pulling his feet forward. “The crew of this ship, they were …” He fumbled for words. “They were all married, they were a family; all of them together. And they all died in the Rings, except …” He glanced at Welkin and Betha Torgussen, back at Wadie, and down, twisting his fingers. “They all died.”
Wadie watched the captain, her arm resting on the old man's shoulder. “I'm not married,” he said, his voice flat. “And now I never will be.” She looked back at him, not understanding, useless apology in her eyes, and a surprising sorrow. He got up, resenting the intrusion of her unexpected, and undesired, sympathy. “Well, Captain, you've ruined your final opportunity for a constructive agreement with the Demarchy. For my sake, I hope you have better luck with the Ringers than you did the last time.” He went out of the room and down the spiraling stairs. No one followed.
Ranger (in transit, Demarchy to Discus)
+2.40 megaseconds
Betha sat alone at the control panel in the soothing semidarkness, gazing at the endless bright stream of Demarchy television traffic, soundless by her own choice, that still trailed after them, two hundred million kilometers out. Caught in a spell of hypnotic revulsion, she marveled at the perpetual motion of the Demarchy media machine, wondered how any citizen—demarch?—ever made a sane decision under the constant dinning of a hundred different distortions of the truth. And remembering the mediamen on the field at Mecca, she should have known enough to believe Wadie Abdhiamal and let him speak ….
She cut off the broadcasts abruptly and put the crescent of Discus on the screen. She saw the
But now, tracing the violet mist of the
She cursed the Demarchy, the obsessive veneer of sophistication, the artificial gaiety, the pointless waste of their media broadcasts. Fools, reveling in their fanatical independence when they should all be working together;
