Patriots

"If I wanted to know what the whole citizenry of Greenwood wished," Lucius said, each syllable snapping out like a trap shutting, "I suppose I'd hold a referendum. I ca

Mark stiffened to attention. "Father-" he said.

"As for the investors who may ethically be considered my clients, Mark," Lucius continued with the same cold passion, "I assure you that if it becomes impossible for me to meet both my personal and my professional obligations, I will resign the latter without a qualm. I was a man before I became a lawyer. Now-" His tone softened minutely. "-will you please answer the original question?"

"Yes, sir," Mark said. "Sir, I stand with Greenwood. With the planet, I mean. I hope with the people too, but I can't say about that."

He coughed and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His skin smelled of the harsh soap with which he'd scrubbed off The Goo.

"Dad," Mark went en, "if the Zeniths win-and that's wi

Lucius' grin had a cruel edge. "Do you think Elector Daniels heads a syndicate of altruists, then?" he asked.

"No," said Mark. "No, they're the same sort of people as the Zeniths, I know that. But Biber and Finch own the Zenith government."

He slapped the wall of the Spiker. "The Greenwood Assembly's going to meet right here in ten days' time," he said. "That's everybody on the planet who wants to come. They're going to pass a minimum requirement of owning two thousand square miles for anybody who stays on the planet for more than thirty days!"

"Clever," Lucius said. "Did you come up with the idea?"

Mark gri

Lucius nodded. "So far as the Alliance is concerned, Greenwood remains under Zenith administration," he said. "But you know that."

He chuckled. "And we can let the evil of the day be sufficient unto it," he added. "Well, Elector Daniels will be pleased, and I'm rather pleased to be able to continue taking his money in good conscience. That's all the business I had to transact here."

"Ah, Dad?" Mark said. "I guess you'll be here a few days."

Lucius nodded.

"Let me introduce you to some people, then," Mark said. "Even the ones you've met are a lot different here than when you saw them on Zenith."

"Except," Lucius said, "for Yerby Ba

He linked his arm with Mark's. They walked through the tavern to the celebration on the other side.

24. Local Political Differences

The giant ribbonfish was at least a quarter of a mile long. It glittered beneath the slow billows like a bracelet made of millions of tiny jewels, each a separate living organism. Amy had been careful to keep the dirigible to the east of the creature so that their shadow wouldn't spook it. One of the high clouds moved across the afternoon sun. The whole huge assemblage dived slowly, following the microorganisms that were its food.

"I'm so glad we got to see that, Lucius," Amy said. "I hope it made the last day of your stay memorable."

Mark straightened; he'd been leaning over the deck railing. "You bring good luck, Dad," he said. "I hadn't seen a ribbonfish myself. Yerby'd mentioned them, is all."

"The luck was the sharp eyes of our hostess, I'd say," Lucius remarked. "Amy, I'm much obliged to you. Greenwood is indeed a lovely planet, and I couldn't have had a better pair of guides to it."

The men went into the cabin to join Amy at the controls. They'd followed the giant ribbonfish for nearly an hour, entranced by the shifting patterns of its structure, so it was probably time they headed home anyway. The Ba

"There's a village down there," Amy said, nodding to the right as she turned the rudder and four engine nacelles to full lock. The dirigible was the safest vehicle Mark could imagine for a planet as sparsely inhabited as Greenwood, but it was glacially slow to execute any change. "Where are we, Mark?"

Mark brought up a map display on his viewer. Lucius watched over his shoulder, hunching slightly to be able to see the air-formed holograms.

"I think…" he said. "OK, it must be Blind Cove. About ten houses?"

He peered out the side window. The community was several miles away, but its size seemed several times the figure in the atlas. The Spiker's database was out of date.

Several flyers were lifting from the houses. The sky was mostly su

"Blind Cove sounds familiar," Amy said. The slight breeze was still enough to make the dirigible handle like a barge in a millrace. As the bow came around, the whole vessel drifted downwind at better than a walking pace.

"A magistrate in Blind Cove issued the summonses in the ejectment suit," Lucius said. "Mark, are there any weapons aboard?"

Mark didn't know. He began to bang open the doors of the deck-level cabinets around the cabin. There were ropes and quite a lot of obvious trash, but nothing useful. The black patch on the royal blue fabric made the Ba

Lucius checked the toolbox on the back of the cabin. "Some wrenches and screwdrivers," he a

He not only sounded calm, he sounded as if this were the sort of thing that happened to him every day.

Mark walked out on the open deck. There were four flyers. They moved sluggishly, indicating they were heavily loaded even though each had only one man aboard. Amy was gaining altitude as quickly as she could without emergency measures. No matter what she did, the flyers could still outclimb the clumsy dirigible in ten or fifteen minutes, so there was no point in dumping ballast.

The dirigible wallowed, losing a noticeable amount of height and power. They'd entered the shadow of a cloud. The engines picked up again as the batteries came online, boosting the output of the solar cells on the top of the envelope. The Blind Cove flyers were of off-world manufacture and had working battery packs, though they had to keep beyond the shadow to climb.

"Amy," Lucius said. He stepped to her side. "Give me the controls, please." As he spoke, he put his hands on the helm without waiting for the woman to reply.

"Dad?" Mark said in amazement.

Amy backed away from the controls. Blank calm replaced her initial look of consternation. She didn't know what Lucius pla

Mark watched the flyers. When Amy joined him on the open deck he said, "I suppose they think we're Yerby."

"I suppose," Amy agreed in a flat voice.

Lucius had dropped the dirigible to twenty feet above the shadowed forest by the time the flyers from Blind Cove reached them. Three flyers mounted high while the last circled close to the gondola. The pilot was a bearded man whose face was red with drink and anger.

"Where d'ye think you're going, Ba

He hurled a bottle one-handed at Mark. It didn't come within twenty feet of the dirigible. Several more empty bottles plunged past the vessel, warbling as the air streamed past their mouths. A clank and a shower of broken glass indicated that one of the flyer pilots above had found the range.