your mother’s name, was added after I had promoted you over more capable officers because I was cloddy enough to think you capable of gratitude.”
Pater Riggin looked at him wanly and murmured beneath his breath, “Dreamer.”
Mark Fielder said, “Enough. Let’s go.” He made a sour mouth. “You first, Your
Both the Marshal and John Matheison did the same.
The Marshal motioned with his toward the door.
Number One, still enraged beyond the point of being conscious of physical danger, stood stiff, as though refusing to budge.
Up until this point, Pater Riggin had sat quietly by the fire, the customary ancient book in his lap, one finger holding his place. When he sighed and set it aside, not an eye followed his movement. He did not have the color to draw interest in this heated conflict between strong men.
He slipped a pale hand into a pocket of his robe and flicked, rather than threw, a small pellet between the triumvirate and his lifelong companion.
It burst into a very fireworks of smoke, bright flame and—they were soon to find—nausea gas.
He came erect, surprisingly nimble for such a sedentary type. There was a handkerchief at his nostrils. He bustled forward, grasping the deposed dictator by the arm.
“Quickly now, Jim. This way.”
A beam from Fielder’s gun burned a ray across the room, striking nothing but a tapestry on a far wall.
The Marshal was shouting incoherently.
Mark Fielder spun around and was pounding upon the door he had entered through ten minutes before. “Guards! Guards!”
Jon Matheison had slipped to the floor and was holding his throat and sobbing in terror.
The Temple Monk’s grasp was surprisingly firm. “This way. Jim. Holy Ultimate, move!”
Number One’s eyes were streaming and already his stomach and lungs seemed to churn. He stumbled along, his mind reeling at the developments of the quarter hour.
He was led through a room, back through a passage. He knew his own quarters, of course, but the confusion was upon him to the point that he really did not know which way he went.
Suddenly the air was clear and he was in an alleyway. Vaguely he recognized it, though circumstance had not taken him this way for so many years he could not remember. It was sort of servant entrance.
Pater Riggin, a slight tremor in his voice, said ruefully, “We may now pray to the Holy Ultimate that our good Deputy of Surety did not go to the bother of completely surrounding the Presidor’s palace. Remain here for a moment, Jim. Please don’t stray. I am an old man and cannot handle too many variables. Besides”—there was a wry humor—“I am not too practiced in rescuing deposed chiefs of state.”
He was gone.
Number One, the gas relieving him of all dignity, leaned against the stone of the alleyway and vomited desperately. His eyes burned so that he could hardly see, his stomach churned.
The voice of Pater Riggin was back.
“Here. In here, Jim. Quickly. They’ll burn their way through those doors in moments.”
The former dictator was hustled into a small two-seater hover-car. He did not know why, nor where they were bound. And he cared less.
Ross Westley had come awake possibly an hour earlier, but had not brought attention to himself. There were half a dozen others in the long barracks-like room, but none that he recognized. Three or four of them were bandaged—obviously wounded; he suspected the others there were too. They were remaining in their bunks, similar to his own situation.
He considered his position. Certainly, his need was escape.
But how, and to where? He could think of no place to go. Once again, he had been a long-term fool. He was enough of the historian to know that in the past, high ranking officials of totalitarian regimes made a practice of establishing-funds in a secure foreign land, or more than one. Given collapse of government or personal misadventure, one could then live out one’s life in luxurious retirement.
But not he! What a flat! What a common yoke, not to have feathered his nest when resources were unlimited.
But this wasn’t the time for self-recrimination. He had to act. Now. Immediately. He was in the hands of the enemy.
But at that he had to smile his self-deprecation. Who wasn’t the enemy? He had no friends.
It occurred to him that it had been a long time since Ross Westley had had friends. What top government deputy of a totalitarian regime has friends? Drinking companions, had he wanted them, in large number, in spite of the anti-alcohol stricture of the United Temple, yes. Blondes, brunettes, redheads, or any combination of the three, yes. Mopsies galore to anticipate his any variation of vice, were he so inclined, yes. Those to fawn, those to agree with his silliest statement, those to encourage him on to any secret desire, yes. But a friend?
He thought of Tilly Trice.
Yes, Till. She had milked him of information when he was infatuated with her, and now, at the end of the road, had given the final humiliation of kidnapping him.
And at that point, Tilly herself entered the bunker, immediately followed by Centurion Combs and a dozen others of the youthful appearing guerrillas that were her command.
Combs, his face whitish, had his right arm in a sling. Two of the others seemed to bear minor wounds. Tilly herself was filthy dirty, as though she had rolled on the ground. She had lost her Robin Hood cap and her hair, short-cut, was a mess.
She did manage, however, to come up with a characteristically pert grin when she saw he was awake.
“Hi, lover-mine,” she said, coming over. “Those Surety men of yours are beginning to look a little more stute. They’re catching on to even the better of our little fun and games bits. They’re evidently now in the silly position of arresting all boy scouts and such uniformed teen-age groups.”
He shook his head. “It’s just a matter of time, Till. They’ll get you.”
She twisted her small mouth. “Perhaps. But there are others. Besides, it’s not just us, anymore. Your own people are beginning to take to the field. This country is becoming one fouled up confusion, Rossie.”
She sat down on a stool next to his bed. “How are you feeling?”
He said in a burst of candor, “I’m fine. I’ve just been figuring out a plan of escape.”
“Escape,” Combs said curtly, over a cup of coffee he’d just drawn for himself one handed, from a huge urn on a mess table. “Did you labor under the illusion we’d stop you?”
“That’ll be all, Centurion,” Tilly Trice said.
Ross scowled at her. “You mean I’m free to go?”
“Why not? Have you someplace better to be?”
Then it came back to him—the circumstances under which he had been seized by the Betastani irregulars. He flushed.
“I suppose I should be thanking you.”
“Oh, don’t bother.” One of the other seeming-youngsters grinned. “It was no trouble at all, getting you away from those Surety goons.”
“Shut up, Altshuler,” Tilly said. She looked back to Ross. “What’re your plans, Rossie?”
“I have none,” he said bitterly. “Fielder, Croft-Gordon and the rest are overthrowing Number One. I don’t know why I didn’t string along. I suppose it was because of my old man. He wasn’t really very smart about politics, but he was, well, loyal. He thought Number One was the only answer to combat the Karlists. I couldn’t betray his memory, I suppose.”
Combs looked at him and then at Tilly, his expression surly. At what, Ross didn’t know. Combs didn’t seem to think much of Ross Westley.
Tilly turned to another of the guerrillas who stood to one side, ultra-weary, a cup of coffee in one hand. He had been watching, unspeaking.
She said, “Manuel, you’d better get that on the air. Either Number One is overthrown, or, if not, our broadcasting it will precipitate the crisis. In fact, it’d help if Alphaland first heard of his mutinied deputies from a Betastan source.”
