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"You've got a way out, don't you?" Laney shook her head. She was listening to unheard voices through the hearing aid.
"But you must have a way out. Don't worry, I don't want to know about it. I'm in no danger." Laney looked startled, and he said, "Sure, I noticed the hearing aids-But it's none of my business."
"Yes it is, Matt. You were invited here so we could get a look at you. All of us bring outsiders occasionally. Some get invited to join."
"0h."
"I told the truth. There's no way out. Implementation has ways of finding tu
"Good."
"We can't reach it. Implementation is already in the house. They've filled it with sleepy gas. It should be seeping around the doors any minute."
"The windows?"
"They'll be waiting for us."
"We can try"
"Okay." She was on her feet and getting into her dress. Nothing else. Matt wasted not even that much time. He swung a great marble ashtray against a window and followed it through, thanking the Mist Demons that Mount Lookitthat couldn't make unbreakable glass.
Two pairs of hands closed on his arms before his feet cleared the window. Matt kicked out and heard somebody' say Whuff! In the corner of his eye Laney cleared the window and was ru
The light passed. Matt made one last frantic attempt to jerk loose, and felt one arm come free. He swung it full around. The elbow smacked solidly into yielding meat and bone: an unmistakable, unforgettable sensation. And he was free, ru
Just once in his life he had hit someone like that. From the feel of it he must have smashed the man's nose all over his face. If Implementation caught him now .... !
Wet, slippery, treacherous grass underfoot. Once he stepped on a smooth wet rock and went skidding across the grass on cheek and shoulder. Twice a spotlight found him, and each time he hit the grass and lay where he was, looking back to see where the light went. When it pointed elsewhere, he ran again. The rain must have bluffed the lights and the eyes behind him; the rain and the luck of Matt Keller. Lightning flickered about him, but whether it helped or hurt him he couldn't say. Even when he was sure he was free, he continued to run.
CHAPTER 3
THE CAR
--FINISHED.
Millard Parlette pushed his chair back and viewed the typewriter with satisfaction. His speech lay on his desk, last page on top, back-to-front. He picked up the stack of paper with long, knobby fingers and quickly shuffled it into correct order.
--Record it now?
--No. Tomorrow morning. Sleep on it tonight, see if I've left anything out. I don't have to deliver it until day after tomorrow. Plenty of time to record the speech in his own voice, then play it over and over until he'd learned it by heart.
But it had to go over. The crew had to be made to understand the issues. For too long they had lived the lives of a divinely ordained ruling class. If they couldn't adapt--
Even his own, descendants ... they didn't talk politics often, and when they did, Millard Parlette noticed that they talked in terms not of power but of rights. And the Parlettes were not typical. By now Millard Parlette could claim a veritable army of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so forth; yet he made every effort to see them all as often as possible. Those who had succumbed to the prevalent crewish tastes--eldritch styles of dress, elegantly worded slander, and all the other games the crew used to cloak their humdrum reality--had done so in spite of Millard Parlette. The average crew was utterly dependent on the fact that he was a crew.
And if the power balance should shift?
They'd be lost. For a time they'd be living in a false universe, under wrong assumptions; and in that time they would be destroyed.
What chance ... What chance that they would listen to an old man from a dead generation?
No. He was just tired. Millard Parlette dropped the speech on his desk, stood up, and left the study; At least he would force them to listen. By order of the Council, at two o'clock Sunday every pure-blooded crew on the planet would be in front of his teedee set. If he could put it across ... he must.
They had to understand the mixed blessing of Ramrobot #143.
Rain filled the coral house with an incessant drumming. Only Implementation police moved within and without. The last unconscious colonist was on his way out the door on a stretcher as Major Jansen entered.
He found Jesus Pietro lounging in an easy chair in the living room. He put the handful of photos beside him.
"What's this supposed to be?"
"These are the ones we haven't caught yet, sir."
Jesus Pietro pulled himself erect, conscious once again of his soaked uniform. "How did they get past you?"
"I can't imagine, sir. Nobody escaped after he was spotted."
"No secret tu
The aide was silent. He knew the question was rhetorical. The Head was leaning back with his eyes on the ceiling.
--Where were they?
--There were no tu
--They hadn't run away. They would have been stopped, or if not stopped, seen. Unless there were traitors in Implementation. But there weren't. Period.
--Could they have reached the void edge? No, that was better guarded than the rest of the grounds. Rebels had a deplorable tendency to go off the edge when cornered.
--An aircar? Colonists wouldn't have an aircar, not legally, and none had been reported stolen recently. But Jesus Pietro had always been convinced that at least one crew was involved in the Sons of Earth. He had no proof, no suspect; but his studies of history showed that a revolution always moves down from the top of a society's structure. A crew might have supplied them with an escape car. They'd have been seen but not stopped. No Implementation officer would halt a car-"Jansen, find out if any cars were sighted during the raid. If there were, let me know when, how many, and descriptions." Major Jansen left without showing his surprise at the peculiar order. An officer had found the housecleaner nest, a niche in the south wall, near the floor. The man reached in and. carefully removed two unconscious adult housecleaners' and four pups, put them on the floor, reached in to remove the nest and the food dish. The niche would have to be searched. Jesus Pietro's clothes dried slowly, in wrinkles. He sat with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his belly. Presently he opened his eyes, sighed, and frowned slightly.
--Jesus Pietro, this is a very strange house.
--Yes. Almost garishly colonist. (Overtones of disgust.) Jesus Pietro looked at the pink coral walls, the flat-sanded floor which curved up at the edge of the rug to join the walls. Not a bad effect if a woman were living here. But Harry Kane was a bachelor.