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best of the arbites, in a culture that's wholly arbite-arbite alone."
"The best of the arbites?" Giles looked at him keenly. "Since
when were you concerned only with the best among the arbites?"
Paul's aristocratic face became even a shade paler.
"Don't chop words with me, Giles," he said. "Obviously
some group has to remain in control while the middle culture is
maturing."
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"What group? And what do you mean by cutting loose at any
price? You can't just line up all the Adelbom and work arbites and
shoot them down!"
Paul's face did not change. It was like the ice-cold visage of
some ancient Roman's marble bust in a winter-frozen garden. The
silence that was his answer stretched out in the room.
"By Godi" said Giles at last, on an indrawn breath. "You
actually are planning it! You're planning to kill millions of people
-millions-to make this change of yours take placeF
"It's something that has to be done, Giles," said Paul. "That's
why we couldn't let you find me. It'll take another six months to
set up a world-wide, spontaneous purge of Adelbom and manual
arbites alike-"
"Hey," said Hem. His unnaturally old, hoarse voice broke in
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on Paul's words. "You aren't going to hurt Jase? You aren't going
to do that?"
Giles hardly heard Hem's words. He was staring wolfishly at
Paul.
"Who's 'we,' Paul?" he asked.
"Listen, Biset," Hem was saying, looking at the Police-
woman, "listen, you don't have to send me back to Earth. Just
don't hurt Jase."
Biset laughed.
"You didn't think it was for your sake you were going back to
Earth, did you, bumper?" she said. "No, it's for our sake--
because you can be useful that way."
"That way?" echoed Hem, bewilderedly.
"This way," said Biset.
Calmly, she pointed the laser pistol in her hand and pressed
the firing button. The pale sighting beam that guided the laser
thrust seemed barely to touch Hem's broad chest, but his knees
sagged. Slowly, he fell and Biset shot him again in -the chest as he
was going down.
He had fallen forward. He rolled painfully onto his side to
look up at Biset.
"It hurts," he said. "Why-"
There were no more words in him. His eyelids fluttered for a
second, then closed, and he lay without moving.
"Why?" Biset told his corpse. "To make sure anybody com-
ing after your high and mighty Adelbom friend here runs up
against a dead end."
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She turned to face Giles with the laser still in her hand.
Suddenly realizing she was about to shoot him also, Giles half
crouched to spring. But before he could leap at her, a shocking
coldness lanced through his left shoulder and his knees went weak
without warning. He caught at the back of a chair and kept himself
from falling. Through blurred vision he saw Mara wrenching the
weapon from Biset's grasp. Then his vision cleared and he saw
Mara clearly, holding the laser, half-pointed at Biset.
"You idiot!" she was raging at the Policewoman. "Didn't I
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say I had to be the one to shoot him? The wound needed to be
placed just right anatomically if he's to live until he's safely away
from here. Now you've complicated thingsl"
Biset's teeth drew back from her lips. She almost snarled like
an animal.
"Don't give me orders! You and your handful of Black
Thursday fanatics aren't running things. It's the Association that's
been preparing for this day for two hundred years-and it's only
the Association that's got the size and power to take over, when
the change comes. I don't do what you say, you bumper's-get; you
do what I say!"
Giles still held to the back of the chair, although he was
already beginning to throw off the effects of the shot. Lasers could
be lethal when one of their beams hit a vulnerable spot in the
human body, but in a non-vulnerable area they made a particularly
clean, self-cauterizing wound that-except for the heat shock
when the beam first struck flesh-did less overall damage to the
body than many earlier weapons had done. It was a little like being
run clear through by a very thin sword blade at forge heat. Biset's
shot-as far as Giles could guess-had struck high on his shoulder
and gone mainly through flesh and muscle without touching a bone
or an important blood vessel. He had been lucky. But it might pay
not to act as recovered as he was, just at the moment.
"Association?" Giles said. gazing from his chair at Biset.
"What Association?"
Biset laughed at him.
"Fooll" she said. "Overeducated fool! Do you think world-
wide revolutions are made by a few philosophers like yourself and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]