really did doze off during the summing up, I still did not feel that good, and only paid any attention when we were both dragged to our feet. Zennor was speaking.
'… evidence given against you. It is therefore the judgment of this court that you be taken from here to a place of detention and there be held until oh-eight hundred hours tomorrow from whence you will be taken to a place of execution where you will be shot. Take them away.'
'Some justice!' I shouted. 'I haven't been allowed to say a word during this farce of a trial. I wish to make a statement now.'
'Silence the prisoner.'
A hairy hand was pressed over my mouth, then replaced by a cloth gag. Morton was treated the same way although he seemed barely conscious of what was happening. Zennor waved over the translator with the microphone.
'Tell them to listen to a very important announcement,' he said. The amplified translation boomed over the crowd, which listened in silence.
'I have brought you people here since there has been willful disobedience on the part of too many of you. This will change. You have watched Nevenkebla justice taking place. These two prisoners have been found guilty of a number of criminal charges. The penalty for being found guilty of these charges is death. They will die at eight tomorrow morning. Do you understand this?' A murmur went through the listening crowd and Stirner stood up. The guards reached for him but Zennor stopped them.
'I am sure I speak for all here,' Stirner said, 'when I ask for some explanation. This is all very confusing. And the most confusing part of all is how do these men know about their deaths tomorrow? They do not look ill. Nor do we understand your knowledge of the precise hour of their demise. '
Zennor looked at him with disbelief - then lost his temper.
'Are you people that stupid? Was this backward planet settled by hereditary morons? These two men are going to die tomorrow because we are going to shoot them with guns. This is a gun!' he screamed, pulling his pistol and firing it into the wooden stand before him. 'It fires bullets and they make holes in people and tomorrow guns will kill these two criminals! You people aren't vegetarians. You butcher animals for food. Tomorrow we butcher these two men in the same way. Now is that clear enough for you?' Stirner, white-faced, dropped back into his chair. Zennor grabbed the microphone and his amplified voice rolled over everyone.
'They will die and you will watch them die! Then you will understand and you will do as we order and do what we tell you to do. If you disobey you will be as guilty as these two men and you will be shot like these two men. We will shoot you and kill you and keep on shooting and killing you until the survivors understand us and obey us and do exactly as they are told…'
His words trickled down and died as he lost his audience. The men on the platform stood up, turned their backs on him and walked away. As did everyone else in the street. They did not push or use violence. When the soldiers grabbed them they simply struggled to get free without striking out. Meanwhile the others who were not held pushed by and walked away. The street was a struggling shambles. Zennor must have realized this, seen the impossibility of accomplishing anything without violence at the moment. He was vicious and deadly - but not stupid.
'You may all leave now,' he announced, 'Let them go. You will all leave and remember what I have said and tomorrow morning you will come back here and watch these prisoners die. After that your new orders will be issued. And you will obey them.'
He signaled to our guards and Morton and I were pulled to our feet and dragged back to our cell. Since no further orders about us had been issued we were thrown into our prison room, still chained and gagged.
We looked at each other in muffled silence as the key was turned in the door.
If my eyes looked like Morton's eyes, then I was looking very, very frightened.
Chapter 18
We lay like this for an uncomfortable number of hours. Until the door was unlocked and a burly MP came in with our dinner trays. His brow farrowed as he looked down at us. I could almost see the feeble thoughts trickling through his sluggish synapses. Got food. Feed prisoners. Prisoners gagged. No can eat… Just about the time his thought processes reached this stage he turned and called over his shoulder.
'Sergeant. Got kind of a problem here.'
'You got a problem if you are bothering me for no reason,' the sergeant said as he stamped in.
'Look, sarge. I got this food to feed the prisoners. But they're gagged and can't eat…'
'All right, all right - I can figure that one out for myself.' He dug out his keys, unlocked my chains, and turned to Morton. I emitted a muffled groan through my gag and stretched my sore fingers and struggled to sit up. The sergeant gave me a kick and I groaned harder. He was smiling as he left. I pulled off the gag and threw it at the closing door. Then pulled over the tray because, despite everything, I was feeling hungry. Until I looked at it and pushed it away.
'Hotpups,' Morton said, spitting out bits of cloth. 'I could smell it when they brought the trays in.' He sipped some water from his cup and I joined him in that. 'A toast,' I said, clanking his cup with mine. 'To military justice.'
'I wish I could be as tough as you, Jim.'
'Not tough. Just whistling in the dark. Because I just don't see any way out of this one. If I still had my lockpick we might have a slim chance.'
'That's the message the general gave me?'
'That's it. We can't do much now except sit and wait for morning.'
I said this aloud not to depress Morton any more, surely an impossibility, but for the ears of anyone listening to planted bugs. There might be optic bugs as well, so I wandered about the cell and looked carefully but did not see any. So I had to risk it. I ate some of my hotpup, washing down the loathsome mouthfuls with glugs of water, while at the same time picking up the discarded chains as silently as I could, balling them around my fist. The dim MP would be back for the trays and he might be off guard.
I was flat against the wall, armored fist ready, the next time the key rattled in the lock. The door opened a fingers width and the MP sergeant called out.
'You, behind the door. Drop those chains now or you ain't going to live to be shot in the morning.' I muttered a curse and buried them across the room and went and sat by the back wall. It was a well-concealed optic bug.
'What time is it, sergeant?' Morton asked.
'Sixteen-hundred hours.' He held his gun ready while the other MPs removed the trays and chains, 'I got to go to the toilet.'
'Not until twenty-hundred. General's orders.'
'Tell the general that I am already potty trained,' I shouted at the closing door. To think that I actually had had his neck in my hands. If they hadn't hit me - would I have gone the full three seconds and killed him? I just didn't know. But if I hadn't been ready then - I felt that I was surely ready for it now.
They took us down the hall later, one at a time and heavily guarded, then locked us in for the night. With the lights on. I don't know if Morton slept, but with the general bashing about I had had even the thin mattress felt good. I crashed and didn't open my eyes again until the familiar rattle at the door roused me.
'Oh-six hundred and here is your last meal,' the sergeant said with great pleasure.
'Hotpups again?'
'How did you ever guess!'
'Take them away. I'll die cursing you. Your name will be the last thing on my lips.'
If he was impressed by my threat he didn't show it. He dropped the trays onto the floor and stamped out.
'Two hours to go,' Morton said, and a tear glistened in his eye. 'My family doesn't know where I am. They'll never know what happened to me. I was running away when I was caught.'
What could I say? What could I do? For the first time in my short and fairly happy life I felt a sensation of absolute despair. Two hours to go. And no way out.
What was that smell? I sniffed and coughed. It was very pungent - and strong enough to cut through my
