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Another woman took hold of his right arm. She insisted his name was Walter Clark. She wanted to take him away from the blonde morsel.
The females released him and assaulted one another. They fought over his name. He kept trying to tell them they were both wrong, that he was really Credence Pardee. Or was it Hamon Clausson? Wasn't he Hamon Clausson that time on Shakedowns? He forgot the women while he tried to locate his ID badge. It had fallen off his tunic.
There it was, beneath the edge of the carpet. He yanked it out. A kid with a somber, serious face stared off the card. The kid said, "Gundaker Niven," and gri
He screamed.
There were men all around him. Some were a little shorter or a little taller, a little heavier or lighter, but each one had stolen his face. They pummeled one another mercilessly. Whenever one broke free and charged him, the others piled on from behind.
He jumped, closed his hands around the nearest throat. "I'll kill them," he gurgled. "I'll kill them all. Then they'll leave me alone."
He fought till he had no strength left. Weary, he fell to the floor. Darkness descended.
He wakened in a dank cellar on The Broken Wings. Three people watched with the cold, hungry eyes of vultures perched over a dying thing.
He glanced at his watch. He had been out ten hours. What? They had not jumped him? They were still here? He staggered to his feet, took a step, fell as vertigo hit him.
He shook his head hard. The cobwebs broke up. They drifted away. He looked around again.
Mouse quietly proffered the stu
Their eyes met. McCle
Thomas said nothing either. Nothing needed saying. He retied his friend and sat down to wait.
The hours groaned on,
He had not expected it to take so long. How long could the Old Man hold out? Why was he being so stubborn? Giving in would not cost him much. Confederation did not control the starfish herds anyway.
He supposed Beckhart was trying to save a political coup that would help overshadow the Homeworld abomination.
McCle
Von Drachau returned from Homeworld. McCle
That old traitor time had turned its coat again.
He was not surprised when his hand comm crackled and Beckhart came on. "Thomas, are you listening? This is Admiral Beckhart. Thomas, are you listening?"
"I'm here. Talk." That was all he said, for fear they would triangulate his position.
"Thomas, you've got what you want. Personally guaranteed by the Chief of Staff Navy." He paused for McClermon's reply. Thomas did not speak. "Thomas, are you there?"
"I'm listening, I said."
"You've got what you want. What're you going to do about it?"
He had not thought beyond forcing their acquiescence. How could he get it nailed down, on paper, publicly, without them dragging him into some back room and ru
"I'll call back."
He glanced at his prisoners. He had learned that he could not serve two masters and remain loved by the bondsmen of either. Amy's hatred tortured him mercilessly. And Mouse's anger... But Mouse was helping, if only by not doing anything when he had the chance. He had allowed friendship to obscure duty, had let it make him give the benefit of the doubt.
McCle
But Amy... . She refused to see what he was trying to do. She called him Judas.
Marya's sullen displeasure he could bear. He had had plenty of practice. Her sultry Sangaree face became a mild, passive, resigned reflection of everything he saw in his wife.
With Mouse he had no long-run worry. Mouse would get over his anger. He would forgive the treason. They were friends.
So, he thought. Time to face the Old Man. His wolves will be at the door the second I tell him where...
"Admiral? McCle
"Thomas, I don't have much time. You're getting what you want. Can we speed things up?"
"I want someone from the Judge Advocate's there."
"What? You're not being arrested. You're not even being charged. I went to bat for you, son. Just give me the word. Where the hell are you?"
"I want him to witness, not to represent me."
"Christ. Thomas, you've got my word. That's all I can give you. It would take a week to get one of those space lawyers here. Now, pretty please, will you get organized?"
Okay, okay. Maybe Beckhart was right. He was wasting time. And the man was giving his word...
He told Beckhart where to pick him up.
Twenty: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Four Angel City police officers came to the door, to escort McCle
He had butterflies the size of owls. They were mating on the wing.
The streets were barren. Angel City had become half a ghost town. "Where is everybody?" he asked. He had heard nothing on monitor that would explain this emptiness.
"Drafted," one of the cops grumbled.
"What?"
"Almost everybody old enough was in the Reserves. It was a good way to pick up a few extra marks. They got called up."
"This war thing must be getting grim."
"Must be," the policeman admitted. "They called up everybody in the Transverse. Navy, Marines, Planetary Defense, whatever. Not only that, they took all the equipment that wasn't nailed down."
The officers were walking their charges to Beckhart's headquarters. McCle
"The heavies? Still there. Let's hope they hold those Sangaree. You and your buddy here, and your Admiral and his crew, are the only military people left here."
"Guess we do have to take it serious," Mouse said. "The Old Man plays games, but they're not this expensive."
McCle
His thoughts strayed to his homeworld. Had Old Earth been stripped of men and equipment too? If so, he had to be glad he was in the Outworlds.
That madhouse planet would descend into an age of barbarism if the policing divisions vanished. Confederation did not interfere much, but did keep the violence level depressed,
A blowup had occurred during the Ulantonid War, and to a lesser degree several other times, when the Confederate presence was weak. After settling with Ulant, Luna Command had had to reconquer Earth.
When the mailed fist vanished, the cults and movements beat swords from plowshares, eager to settle old scores.
"Mouse," he said, "it's a strange world I call home."
Storm read him at a glance. "It won't be as bad this time, Tommy. I've seen some of the standing Mobe plans. They'll do some creative drafting. Something like the ancient press gangs. They'll grab anybody loose and ship them out all over Confederation. They'll scatter them so they don't cause much trouble."
"Sounds good. Break the whole mess up if they take enough of them."
"It would tap a big manpower pool. Old Earth didn't contribute a thing during the war with Ulant."
Amy, Marya, and the policemen all watched curiously.
Even Mouse did not understand Old Earth.
Earth was the land of the timid tailor, the world cramped with a people from whom all adventure had been bred. The pioneer genes had departed long ago. The stay-at-homes were, in the opinion of the rest of humanity, the culls of the species. Even McCle