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Corporal Fox was slightly punch-drunk.
He had not deserted his post. Things were confused enough. He stuck to his training as something he knew to be solid. And when he saw a crew resting against a wall eating peanuts, he saluted and said, "Sir."
Matt looked up to see a police officer standing stiff as a board, holding the short barrel of a mercy-bullet pistol slantwise across his forehead.
Effectively he disappeared. Corporal Fox continued down the hall, stepping wide around the vivarium door. At the end of the corridor he stopped, half turned, and fell.
Matt got unsteadily to his feet. The sight of the guard had damn near stopped his heart.
Laney came around fast. She saw Matt, dodged back, poked the gun around--
"Stop! It's me!"
"Oh, Matt. I thought I'd lost you."
He moved toward her. "I saw someone come after you. Did you get him?"
"Yah." She looked down at Corporal Fox. "They're badly trained. That's something."
"Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"
"Never you mind. Come on." She moved back toward the vivarium.
"Hold it. Where do I find Polly?"
"I really don't know. We've never known where they administer the coffin cure." She reached for the door handle. Matt caught her wrist. "Come now, Matt," she said. "You had fair warning."
"The door's Booby-trapped."
"Oh?"
"I saw the way that guy walked around it."
She frowned at the handle. Then, with effort, she tore a strip from the bottom of Matt's jacket. She tied it to the handle, moved back as far as it would reach.
Matt backed away. He said, "Before you do something irrevocable, won't you please tell me where to find Polly?"
"Honestly, Matt, I don't know." She wasn't trying to hide the fact that he was an u
"Okay, where's Castro's office?"
"You're out of your mind."
"I'm a fanatic. Like you."
That got a grin. "You're crazy, but okay. You go back the way I came, turn the only way you can, and go up another flight. Follow the hall until you see signs. The signs will take you the rest of the way. The office is up against the hull of the Planck. But if you stick with me, we may find an easier way."
"Pull then."
Laney pulled.
The handle came down and clicked. Immediately something fired from the ceiling: a conical burst of mercy-bullets spattering the area where anyone would have stood to pull the handle. And a siren blared in the corridor, loud and raucous and familiar.
Laney jumped straight back in surprise, fetched up against the wall. The door swung open a couple of inches. "In," she cried, and dove through, followed by Matt.
The puffs of mercy-bullets were lost in the sound of the siren. But Matt saw four men in the room, crouched in target-shooting position in a line opposite the door. They were still firing as Laney fell.
"Doomed? Really?" Even to himself Harry sounded inane. But he'd expected no such easy capitulation.
"How many Sons of Earth are there?"
"I can't tell you that."
"I can tell you," said Millard Parlette. "Less than four hundred. On all of Mount Lookitthat there are less than seven hundred active rebels. For three hundred years you and your kind have been trying to build a rebellion. You've made no progress at all."
"Precious little."
"You enlist your rebels from the colonists, naturally. Your trouble is that most colonists don't really want the crew to lose control of the Plateau. They're happy the way they are. Yours is an unpopular cause. I tried to explain why before; let me try again." With obvious effort he moved his arms enough to fold his hands in his lap. Random muscles in his shoulders twitched from time to time.
"It's not that they don't think they could do better than the crew if it came to the point. Everybody always thinks that. They're afraid of Implementation, yes, and they won't risk their good blood and bone to make the change, not when Implementation has all the weapons on the Plateau and controls all the electrical power too.
"But that isn't the point. The point is that they don't really think that the crew rule is wrong.
"It all depends on the organ banks. On the one hand, the organ banks are a terrible threat, not only a death penalty, but an ignominious way to die. On the other hand, the banks are a promise. A man who deserves it and can pay for it, even a colonist, can get medical treatment at the Hospital. But without the organ banks there'd be no treatment. He'd die.
"Do you know what your rebels would do if they could beat the crew to their knees? Some would insist that the organ banks be abolished. They'd be killed or ostracized by their own members. The majority would keep the banks just as they are, but use the crew to feed them!"
His neck was stronger now, and he looked up to see patient stares. A good audience. And he had them hooked, finally.
"Up to now," he went on, "you couldn't start a rebellion because you couldn't convince enough fighting men that your cause was just. Now you can. Now you can convince the colonists of Mount Lookitthat that the organ banks are and should be obsolete. Then wait a little. When Implementation doesn't disband, you move."
Harry Kane said, "That's exactly what I was thinking, only you seem to be way ahead of me. Why did you call me silly?"
"You made a silly assumption. You thought I was trying to keep the ramrobot package a secret. Quite the contrary. Just this afternoon I--"
"I've finally got it," said Hood. "You've decided to join the wi
"You fool. You bad-mouthed colonist fool."
Jay Hood flushed. He stood perfectly straight with his arms at his sides and his fists clenched. He was no angrier than Parlette. The old man was trying to shift his weight, and every muscle in his body was jumping as a result. He said, "Do you think so little of me, to think I'd follow such motives?"
"Relax, Jay. Parlette, if you have something to say, say it. If we jump to the wrong conclusions, please assume that you're expressing yourself badly, and don't try to shift the blame."
"Why don't you all count to infinity?" Lydia Hancock suggested.
Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world."
"You can't do it," said Harry Kane. "It's coming.
"Kane, ca
"Obviously."
"I made a speech today. In fact, I seem to be spending the whole damn day and night making speeches. This afternoon I called an emergency session--rammed it through the Council. You know what that means?"
"Yah. You were talking to every crew on the Plateau, then."
"I told them what was in ramrobot package one-forty-three. I showed them. I told them about the organ-bank problem and about the relationship between ethics and technology. I told them that if the secret of the ramrobot ever reached the colonists, the colonists would revolt en masse. I did my damndest, Kane, to scare the pants off them.
"I've known from the begi