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She inclined her head, then continued on her way.
"Could we talk with you?"
"I have office hours in the Library."
"We would prefer someplace more private."
She kept on walking. Quick steps sounded behind her and someone laid a hand on her arm. Wyn spun around, the arm holding her bookbag coming up in pathetic defense.
Two students strolled past. More emerged from the iron and brick gates that opened into the yard. Could she appeal to them?
The woman in the group had a hand in her breast pocket. Wyn wondered if she would produce sedatives or a weapon.
"Not here," she said. "And not in front of them." She gestured with her chin at her students.
They nodded, relaxing visibly that she was proving reasonable. That should be in her favor at a sanity hearing.
"This way," said the man in the lead. His voice held the deliberately soothing tones of a psychiatrist, though Wyn had never met a shrink who moved as if he did katas every morning. He took her arm-just a friendly meeting, wasn't this; and smile for the i
Past the Science Center. Past Mem Hall again. Past the dreadful ersatz Georgian of the Fire Station and onto the street. A white van, bare of logo, idled. Psicops indeed, Wyn thought. As well a
"I suppose," she said cautiously, "there is no point in talking you out of this?"
"Please get in."
No students were on the street. Wyn spun on her heel, preparing to run into the street, to shout; but the hand was on her arm again, urging her toward the car. And a lifetime of civility, of restraint blunted her willingness to make the scene that might have saved her. We are the weak.
The door whined shut. There was no release mechanism on her side of the vehicle. The car rose on its hoverpads and sped down Cambridge Street, out of the city, beyond Boston into the manicured exurbs where only the wealthiest Taxpayers lived. No one spoke to her.
"Damn!" the exclamation forced a grunt of surprise from the man who sat beside her as lights and sirens erupted behind them.
"Why dint y'stay i
"I did!" protested the driver.
"Keep on going."
"You keep going, Taxpayer," the driver snapped. "It's not your license they'll lift; and then what do I have? A quick trip to a Welfare District?" He pulled over.
A prowl car pulled up. "You have custody of Professor Winthrop Baker? This warrant authorizes us to demand her release."
A flood of warmth, of gratitude, washed over her. Bless her lawyer and his timing!
"That's not a good idea," replied the psychiatrist. "She needs medical intervention . . ." His voice, so assured when dealing with Wyn, trailed off as he saw the sonic shockers that the newcomers held. Now he was "the weak." She wondered what punishment he would face.
He took the papers, leafed through them, and exclaimed before he could control himself. "But we . . ."
"Apparently, someone had second thoughts about security."
The psychiatrist eyed Wyn. "For her?"
Both men shrugged. "Whatever else you can say, he's thorough."
The man from the prowl car gestured at Wyn. "Out." The door opened. Wyn slid out. Her bookbag lay on the seat. When she bent to retrieve it, someone waved a shocker at her.
"Let her have it." Wyn seized its strap before anyone could countermand that.
"Whatever she's got in there, she'll need it where she's going."
The prowl car pulled round. Now Wyn could see the panel on its door. Bureau of Relocation.
She had been outplotted and outfoxed. Her fingers rose to her throat, tightening convulsively on her poli code that would call out to a force of her own choosing.
"Cancelled. Get in." The absence of even a pretense of civility chilled her. Dispossessed and disenfranchised like her students. And now she would learn what they had endured. She heard an appalled whimper, flushed with fear and shame, and began desperately to run . . . .
A wave of sound rolled after her and struck her down.
Antiseptic and old pain were in the air. Wyn turned her head on what felt like a paper sheet on a too-worn mattress. I am not going to ask "where am I?" she vowed. She knew she was someplace medical: had to be, seeing that her last memory was of taking a sonic shock.
You have been to the wars, haven't you? she asked herself, astonished.
She determined to sit up and was astonished at how weak she felt. What felt like the grandmother of all migraines glittered and stabbed in her eyes.
"Coming around?" asked a man in a white coat so worn that even the red staff and crossed serpents of his profession were frayed. RYAN said the badge on the coat. His eyes were blue, and his hair was graying. His face bore the reddish patches of skin cancers, cost-effectively (if not aesthetically) removed. To her surprise, Wyn heard a South Boston accent. A contract physician? He was a long way from home. The tones were efficiently kind and blessedly familiar. She felt her eyes fill as he propped her up and handed her a disposable cup.
"As soon as you can think straight, I have to talk to you. There's not much time."
She gulped the bitter analgesic. The spikes sticking into her brain seemed to withdraw, and the light diminished to a bearable level. Light from warped overhead panels: no windows.
Damn all, had they taken her to a state institution? She'd never be found, much less sprung from those rat-holes!
"I don't have time to break this to you," the physician told her. "You took a hit from a sonic stu
If she started laughing, she knew she would never stop. Emigrants, forced or voluntary-wouldn't do for them to die in droves aboard a starship, now would it? And what was she doing here?
"May I make one call, please?" she asked. Her lawyer . . . her family . . . could she reach their Senator's staff? It would be a waste of breath, even if she could. They probably all knew and assented.
"What good do you think it would do?" Ryan asked her gently. "Records have you down as a political." His hand went up, blocking Wyn's sight of the scratched datascreen.
Wyn allowed herself to chuckle once, briefly. "So the son-of-a-bitch got to his Important Contacts, did he? Got named guardian of his crazy sister, the dangerous radical. No civil rights. And off she goes." She shook her head to clear it of the ghosts that threatened to storm her sanity: Hecuba wailing before the black ships; Andromache in a cart; Melos burning, the men dead and the weak led away into slavery.
"Nothing I can do?" She couldn't take that. She jumped to her feet, looking for the exit. She was taller than Ryan, stronger, probably, from years of all that good Taxpayer nutrition and exercise. She could push her way past . . . .
"For Christ's sake, don't try it, Ms. Baker!" The sincerity in that shout brought her around.
"This is kidnapping," she told him. "You know that." She paused to catch his eye, to underscore his awareness that they shared a hometown.
"In the name of God," she whispered, "could you make some calls for me?"
It was hopeless. Already, he was shaking his head. Wyn met his eyes, I'm not throwing my life away the way you did. Astonishment and fear that she had had chances he could barely dream of, yet had blown them all showed in his face. He was half afraid of her, half angry.
"Sure, you've been shafted." He spoke too fast, his face now turned away. "Ms. Baker, five more years, and I reach Taxpayer status, and my kids with me. We'll never have what you threw away, but we'll get by. You think I'm going to risk that? We're just little people. Look: I can make sure you're fit to ship out. But I'm not ruining my kids' lives for you."