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"Admit to being a killer. But not just a killer. Never said this would be
easy." Corso laughed once, the same annoying bark that was not a laugh.
"You're as much to blame as I am."
"Me! I didn't unleash Lucifer. I didn't kill ten thousand innocents! You did!
Not me!
You!"
Corso sighed, and his shoulders dropped. "You really don't understand, do
you?"
Rodire wanted to scream. Instead, he frowned. What was there to understand?
"Farscreen shows energy concentrations," interrupted the cool voice that had
chilled
Rodire before. "Standard heavy search pattern."
"Interrogative time before reaching detection range."
"Estimate fifteen standard minutes, plus or minus five."
"Stet. Commence checklist. Hold at prelift. Hold at prelift for voice command
for liftoff."
"Understand checklist to prelift. Commencing immediately."
"Commence checklist at full-power status."
"Full-power status. Commencing checklist."
"Stet."
Rodire felt as though the Shaik was living in a different universe, and
squinted, trying to let the younger man's words penetrate, trying to
understand why Corso would say that he, Rodire, didn't understand.
"Hamline. Not enough time to explain. I'll dump what I can. Fast. Hope you can
understand.
Then I'm throwing you out."
As he talked, Corso had approached the bunk and touched something Rodire could
not see.
The harness released and retracted away from the attorney.
"Don't move. You're going to be dizzy if you move your head quickly, and you
can't afford to pass out. Now. Where to start? All right." Corso's words were
quick, more clipped than usual, and burst out in short groups. "You live on a
repressive planet. Law controlled by a few firms.
Food by a few family enterprises. Bureaucracy by a few others. People don't
have much freedom to change. Personal freedom adequate, until Carlina started
linking with DomSec. Declining now.
Probably get worse, possible police state.
"Not enough education for most people to resist. Change has to come from the
top, to begin with. People like you.
"Thought you might help. Thought a new business, built on new lines might
start people thinking. It did, except Carlina, her type, decided CE was
another route into the standard oligarchy. You let her do it, when you could
have stopped her. Could have sent a message to me.
"Could have set up another administrator strong enough to stop her. Maybe I
expected too much of you. You're a product of your culture. Unable to see
beyond the patterns."
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"But . . . my family . . . ," protested Rodire. Didn't the man understand?
Carlina had no
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"The future of your family was lost the moment you put their immediate comfort
above your ideals, Hamline. So were you. I didn't know. Should have. My fault.
Precedent here is terrible."
"Precedent? Is that all you think about?"
"Precedent is everything in your culture. Carlina's precedent means that
everything new, everything that offers hope, can be turned into another
instrument of repression. How could anyone ignore that? But you did. We'll
both pay."
"ETA ten minutes, plus or minus four," added the cool voice from the control
room.
"Get up. Slowly," commanded the hawk-eyed man. "You have to survive. For your
remaining children. If not for them, for the people you betrayed once
already."
"Betrayed? Who betrayed whom?"
"Hamline, would you please use your brains?" Corso's hard voice seemed tired.
"You betrayed them when you refused to stand up to Carlina. You betrayed them
again when you failed to notify me. You betrayed them a third time when you
let her join forces with the secret police. You put your immediate family and
comfort above the needs and rights of all the people. Don't talk about
betrayal to me.
"So what did I do? I destroyed crudely, but time was short both the top of
DomSec and CE, Limited. Shows that the system can be brought down. That might
makes right doesn't always triumph, or at least, that there is a greater might
to fear. Gives you an opening. That's all. The rest is up to you. Now get
moving."
"Where?" Rodire slid to his shaky feet.
"Home. As soon as you get out of the scout, head for the far bay. Remember?
Tunnel there.
Comes out about a hundred meters from your estate. Take it and move. DomSec
will blast anything in the air and around here, you included. Turn this into
rubble."
Rodire stumbled as he entered the lock. "But what do I do?"
"What you should have done in the first place. You run the damned company. You
treat the people like people. Not serfs. If you don't, you and your
descendants will suffer. I mean suffer!
Now get down the ramp. I'm lifting. If you're around when I power out, you'll
be fried. Wasted too much time talking."
Rodire fell on the hard pavement as the ramp retracted. He staggered to his
feet as he heard the lock door clank shut, and lurched toward the far bay and
the tunnel.
Wheeeeeeee.
The whine spurred his lurch into a shambling trot.
When he finally reached the oval portal, he rested against it momentarily
before hauling himself upright to survey the mechanism.
No access plates. No levers, and only a small wheel. He tried it. It spun
easily clockwise, and the portal began to open. He peered inside, where the
lighting was dim, but adequate.
Whhheeeeeeeeeee!
Staggering inside, he took a step before turning back and spinning the other
wheel, the one on the tunnel wall. The portal closed smoothly, cutting off the
sound.
As he remembered what Corso had said about the security forces, he trotted
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raggedly down the tunnel, gasping with each step.
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After fifty meters he slowed to a walk, his legs cramping with the
aftereffects of the stun jolts his body had taken, but he kept putting one
foot in front of the other, one in front of the other. Underfoot, the flooring
began to vibrate, first lightly, then enough to make his steps feel unsteady.
As quickly as it had come, the vibration halted.
Rodire kept walking, but looking back over his shoulder. He could no longer
see the tunnel port where he had started. In front of him, the smooth-walled
tunnel began to slope upward, and a dark splotch appeared ahead in the faint
ring of light that the walls reflected into the distance before him.
Even though he was walking slowly, he was still panting.
Crump. Crump.
The muffled concussion shook the tunnel, hard enough to make him stagger, but
he continued to move forward toward the exit portal.
Crump.
Reaching out with his right hand and touching the smooth p!asteel of the wall,
he steadied himself, then plodded upward.
Whhhirrr. Crump!
The tunnel no longer seemed to stretch forever, but only a few yards toward a
round black doorway of some sort.
He stopped and took two deep breaths.
Crump!
The floor beneath vibrated, and he lurched forward.
Finally his right hand touched cold metal, and he halted, trying to catch his
breath, hoping that the wrenching cramps in his calves would ease.
He waited, wondering if the explosions would continue.
Crump!
He began to spin the wheel, watching carefully through the ever widening slit,
and listening.
Stepping into a moldy cellar, he frowned as he looked up to discover that just
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