Escape Velocity

10

The SASE San Martin drifted down toward its berth in the Mare Serenitatis. As it passed over Darkside, a mite dropped off its belly, falling toward the surface at no higher acceleration than lunar gravity could account for. No glint of light reflected from it to any watching eye in the shadows; and if anyone thought to glance at it on a sensor screen, they would surely think it nothing but another meteorite caught by the moon’s gravity, coming to add one more crater to the ancient, pockmarked satellite.

It fell almost to the surface, so low that it was beneath the sensor-nets, and barreled over the jagged landscape.

Inside the cabin, Lona asked. “Is this what you’d call a ‘stress situation’?”

“Not at all,” Fess assured her. “It is simply a matter of adjusting our trajectory with the attitude jets, according to the irregularities in the landscape indicated by the sensors. At this low a speed, I always have several milliseconds to react.”

“Piece of cake, huh? I think you’d better keep the con for this one.”

“As mademoiselle wishes,” Fess murmured.

He finally brought them to rest when the glittering lights of a spaceport appeared over the horizon. The burro-boat sank to the dust in the shadow of a huge crag, with the weary, thankful groan of engines idling down.

“I detected an airlock hatch in this outcrop,” Fess informed them. “There is an electronics kit in the cabinet below the console; can any of you bypass the telltale on the hatchway, so that Spaceport Security will not know the lock has been opened?”

“Duck soup,” Lona affirmed, “the instant kind. Where’ll you be while we’re gone?”

“In the shadow of a ring-wall, in a remote crater,” Fess answered. “I will move as the shadows move. Next to the electronics kit, you will find a small transmitter of convenient size for a pocket. Press the button on it, and it will send a coded pulse to me. When I receive it, I will determine your location from its vector and amplitude, and bring the boat to you.”

Lona opened the cabinet, pulled out the electronics kit, and flipped the recall unit to Whitey. He caught it and slipped it into a pocket inside his belt. “What’s its range?”

“A thousand kilometers,” Fess answered. “If you call from Serenitatis Spaceport, I will hear you.”

“How about if we have to call you from Terra?”

“You will have to feed the signal through a stronger transmitter.”

“We can’t ask for a complete guarantee.” Father Marco rose and turned toward the companion way. “I think I can remember where I left my pressure suit.”

“There are ten air bottles in the locker with them,” Fess noted.

“Well, thanks for all the help.” Lona shooed the rest of the crew aft. “If anyone knocks while we’re gone…”

“I will not let them in,” Fess assured her.

The airlock hatch had a panel with a button inset beside it. Lona pulled out a screwdriver, tightened in the appropriate blade, and set it into the screw. It whined twice, and she lifted the panel away, handing it to Dar. Dar watched her clip a couple of leads in.

Above them, a twelve-foot parabolic dish moaned as it rotated a few degrees, and stopped.

Lona leaped back as though she’d been stabbed. Dar didn’t blame her; it was all he could do to keep from dropping the plate. He wished he had; then he couldn’t have heard the antenna’s moan, since the sound conducted into his suit through the wires holding the plate.

Whitey leaned over, touching his helmet against Lona’s. After a minute, she nodded, then stepped grimly back to the airlock. She took the plate from Dar and replaced it. Then she pressed the button, and the hatch slowly swung open. She gestured to Dar, and he stepped in. The others followed, Lona last. Whitey pressed a plate in the wall, and the hatch swung shut. Dar waited, fidgeting. Finally, the inner hatch opened. He stepped through into darkness, cracked his helmet seal, and tilted it back. He turned as a glow-light lit in Whitey’s hand, saw Lona tilting her helmet back as Father Marco closed the airlock.

“What’re we gonna do about the bypass?” Dar asked.

“Leave it there.” Lona shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”

“Security patrols all the locks regularly,” supplied Sam the bureaucrat. “They’ll find it within a few days.”

“Not exactly what I’d call a cheery thought, but it lightens the conscience. What’d you do to make that microwave dish swing around, Lona?”

“Nothing,” Whitey answered. “That dish was beaming commercial 3DT programming down to the Terran satellites. When it gets done feeding its schedule to one satellite, it rotates to lock onto another one, and starts the whole feed all over again.”

“3DT?” Dar frowned. “Why do they feed it from the moon?”

“Because that’s where they make the programs, innocent!” Sam snorted.

Whitey nodded. “It takes a lot of room for enough 3DT sound stages to make new programming for a hundred twenty channels each, for twenty-six main cultures—and they have to make new stuff constantly. There just wasn’t enough room for it in the major cities. So, bit by bit, the production companies shifted up here to Luna, where real estate was very cheap. The whole entertainment industry for the entire I.D.E. is in the moon now.”

“Some say it belonged there all along, anyway,” Lona muttered.

“Oh.” Dar mulled it over. “So your publisher’s offices are up here, too?”

“No, the print industry stayed Earthbound.”

“Oh.” Dar looked around at the rough-hewn tunnel walls scored with the screw-tracks of a laser-borer. “Well, not much we can do here, is there? I suppose our next step is to hop a shuttle to Terra.”

“Wrong.” Whitey shook his head. “That asteroid miner has probably sung the Solar Patrol a whole opera by now. Every security guard on the moon will have memorized little sketches of us. We’ve got to establish some kind of cover identities first, not to mention something by way of disguises.”

Dar felt his stomach sink. “I should’ve known it couldn’t be something straightforward and simple.”

“Not on Terra,” Sam agreed, “and the moon’s just as bad.” She turned to Whitey. “What kind of cover did you have in mind?”

“I didn’t.” Whitey started climbing out of his gear. “I recommend we rack these suits and find some place to hole up while we think about it.”

Whitey had indeed emptied out his purse for the old miner—but he had another one hidden inside his belt. A brief stop at a department store turned up a coiffeured wig and translucent dress for Sam, some hair dye and baggy tunic-and-trousers for Lona, some more hair dye and business outfits for the men. A somewhat longer stop at a comfort station produced remarkable changes in their appearance.

Whitey lined them up in the hallway, looked them over, and nodded. “You’ll do. Just barely, maybe, but you’ll do. Now, the odds are that your prints are on file somewhere—oh, you’re sure of it, Dar? Well, the rest of you don’t take chances, either. Don’t put your thumbprint to anything. Don’t look into anything that might want to scan your retinas, either—no peekholes in amusement galleries, eyepiece 3DT viewers, or lens-fitting scopes. Understand? Good. Because you’re in the Big Sapphire’s computer net now, folks, and every step you take is liable to monitoring by a computer tied into Terra Central.”

“Is it really that bad?” Dar asked.

“Worse,” Sam confirmed.

Whitey nodded again. “Have no illusions, folks. Our chances of getting away free, back to the colony planets, are slightly worse than a dinosaur’s caught in a glacier. I can only hope the gamble’s worth the share-time. Okay—from now on, we’re a free-lance production crew, looking for work. Anything I say about you, just confirm it, and don’t look surprised. That includes your names; I’ll be thinking up new ones for you as we go along. Ready? March!”

The “march” took them to a twenty-foot-high façade sheared out of the lunar rock, decorated with the modest gleam that comes of vast wealth, and the words “Occidental Productions, Inc.” carved over the doorway and sheathed in platinum.

“This’s just the production house,” Whitey explained. “Manufactures most of the entertainment for one of the anglophone channels.”

As they passed through the door, Dar found himself somehow totally certain that each person’s height, weight, build, and coloring was registering in a computer somewhere deep inside the complex, which was trying to correlate it with the descriptions of all known criminals who might have a grudge against OCI. It was almost enough to make him turn right around and try to hijack the next outgoing spacer.

That didn’t quite do it, but the foyer nearly did. Oh, the carpet was thick and the decoration superb; that wasn’t the problem. It was the three uniformed guards, two androids, and five cameras, every one of which seemed to be looking directly at him. He stopped in his tracks, swallowing something that he hoped wasn’t his heart.

But Whitey strolled ahead, confident and nonchalant, looking totally like your ordinary, everyday plutocrat.

“Service, citizen?” the lead guard asked with perfect, impersonal politeness.

“Gratitude, citizen. Mr. Tambourin, to see Mr. Stroganoff.”

“Do you have an appoi …” the guard began, out of habit. But he closed his mouth, and gazed up at Whitey for a moment. Then he said, “Of course, Mr. Tambourin.” He turned to murmur into a shielded com unit, waited, then murmured again. A delighted yelp sounded faintly from the unit. The guard listened, nodded, and turned back to Whitey. “He will be up in a few minutes, Mr. Tambourin. I regret the delay, but …”

“Of course.” Whitey smiled indulgently. “He didn’t know I was coming—but then, neither did I. Old friends, you understand.”

“Perfectly.” The guard was a good liar, anyway. “If you’ll step into the lobby, Mr. Tambourin …?”

Whitey smiled with a gracious, affable nod, and turned back to the “team.”

“Come along, children.” He turned and ambled away toward the big interior doors.

Dar could fairly hear Sam bristling as they followed.

The androids swung the doors open, inclining in a slight bow as Whitey passed through. As Dar filed by, he definitely did not receive the expected impression of being scanned. What with one thing and another, it boosted his opinion of Whitey’s status till it almost soared.

They entered a world of sybaritic luxury—parqueted walls with huge, inscrutable paintings that fairly screamed, “ART!” surrounding chairs that seemed to mold themselves around the sitter’s body, a carpet so thick that it must have had a heartbeat, and a tastefully almost-dressed hostess who bent low to murmur, “Refreshment, citizen?”

A month ago, Dar would have grabbed her and enacted the wildest scene of animal lust ever recorded (which it no doubt would have been). But, with Lona in the same room, the woman just didn’t seem interesting. “Yes, something to drink, thanks. Nothing too stimulating.”

When she handed him the drink, he took a tiny sip—and euphoria/ecstasy/exaltation/Nirvana rose up behind his eyeballs and exploded in streamers that enveloped his brain. He sat rigid for a moment, then coughed delicately into his fist, and set the drink down. He’d had occasional experiences with the pipeweed of Wolmar, during prairie grass fires, and knew a depressant when one hit him. The lady had taken him at his word, and then some; he wondered if he’d unwittingly spoken a code phrase.

Then a medium-sized man with a giant of a personality swept into the lounge. “Tambourin! You infernal old scoundrel! Welcome back!”

Whitey stood up just in time to be almost knocked down by the dynamo’s enthusiasm. All that kept him up was the bear hug as Stroganoff’s rolling laughter boomed in their ears.

Then Stroganoff held Whitey back at arm’s length, grinning from ear to ear. “Let me look at you, ancient my wastrel! … Not a day! Ten years, and he hasn’t aged a wrinkle!”

“Well, I was old enough the last time I saw you.” Whitey slapped Stroganoff on the shoulder. “Solid meat still, eh? You’re not doing so badly yourself, David!”

“Not since they gave me that new stomach, no. But let me put on my manners a second. Glad to meet you, folks, I’m David Stroganoff. Who’re your friends, Whitey?”

“Oh, this is Fulva Vulpes.” Whitey stretched a hand out to Lona, whose eyes registered only the faintest of surprises. “She’s my assistant director and director of editing.”

Stroganoff’s eyebrows went up. “Unusual combination.” He pressed Lona’s hand. “You must be very good with computers.”

Now Lona did show surprise. She glanced at Whitey. Stroganoff chuckled. “And who’s this enchantress?”

Sam answered the compliment with a glare, which brought even more charm feeding back from Stroganoff. “Watching to make sure the compliment’s not more than its subject is worth, eh? Believe me, it’s sound as an erg. What is she, Tod—your unit manager?”

“If it comes in a bureaucratic package and is wrapped with red tape, I can cut it,” Sam said warily.

“Unit manager, it is! And you, citizen?”

“Cobum Helith, research and script development. Co’s the one who came up with the idea for tying my verses into a story, Dave.”

“Wh … Tod’n’ I’ve been talking for some time now.” Father Marco shook Stroganoff’s hand without batting an eyelid. “I work from fundamental mythic structures—which means I have trouble thinking commercially, of course.”

“Well, don’t let it worry you—the myth hasn’t been born that can’t be debased,” Stroganoff said with a perfectly straight face. He turned to Dar. “And the young one, Tod?”

“Perry Tetic—‘Pa’ to us juveniles. He’s the debaser you just mentioned.” Whitey was obviously making it up as he went along. “The commercializer. He’s very good at putting the most abstract ideas into words even the average dunce can understand.”

“Oh, really.” Stroganoff shook Dar’s hand with guarded interest. “Let’s hope we have time for a chat, Perry. I’m kind of interested in that kind of thing, myself.”

“Let’s make time.” Dar was sure of being able to hold up his end of that conversation; anyone who’d been through Cholly’s curriculum could. At least Whitey had given him a role he knew something about—and, looking back on it, he realized Whitey’d done the same for each of the others, too.

“… a little behind the state of the art,” he realized Lona was saying. “Could I have a look at your editing facilities?”

“Of course, of course! Tour of the whole place, in fact. Sound Stage Number Ten’s the first stop—I just ducked out of there, and I’ve got to quack back to make sure everything’s running smoothly. Come on, this way!”

He set off, Whitey beside him; the rest followed in their wake. They turned into a corridor that opened off the lounge, Whitey and Stroganoff talking double-speed.

“So you put together your own production unit, eh, Tod? Glad to see you were listening when I kept saying you ought to package up a tank-play—but I didn’t expect you to raft your own team!”

“Only way I’ll touch it, Dave.” Whitey shook his head, jaw set. “With me in control over the whole thing. You may notice we’re lacking a producer, though.”

“Yeah, I did kind of notice that.” Stroganoff grinned like a shark. “Is that an offer, Tod?”

“What do you want—thumbscrews?”

“Always the consummate diplomat. You know I can’t resist a chance on something this good—but you need backing, too. You can’t be crazy enough to try to finance something like this on your own.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have a reputation for thrift.” Whitey grinned. “But I’m not that far gone.”

“No thrift, my Aunt Asteroid,” Lona muttered. “He’s got enough in the Bank of Terra to buy a small planet—developed!”

It was a good chance to get close to her Dar sidled up and whispered, “They’re buddies. How come Stroganoff keeps calling him ‘Tod’?”

“ ‘Cause he doesn’t know about ‘Whitey,’ ” Lona muttered back. “Nobody does, outside the taverns.”

Well. That also explained the security problem that had been giving Dar heartburn. He’d thought Whitey was bringing sure disaster down on them by using his real name—but anyone on Falstaff who’d told Canis Destinus that Whitey the Wino was helping Dar Mandra wouldn’t have known him as Tod Tambourin. So his best alias was his real name.

“Right in here.” Stroganoff hauled open a door that looked like a huge airlock hatch. “Stage Ten.” As Sam filed past him, he added, “ ‘Fraid I didn’t catch your name, citizen.”

“She’s Ori Snipe,” Whitey called back over his shoulder, and Sam forced a quick smile and handshake as she left Stroganoff in her wake.

They walked into chaos. Dar’s first whirling impression was of a thousand people frantically everywhere, doing purposeless things and shouting at each other in an arcane jargon. But after a few minutes, he began to be able to make sense out of it. There weren’t really a thousand people—more like three dozen. And they weren’t really moving very quickly—it was just that there were so many of them moving in so many different directions that it seemed frantic. He locked his gaze onto one woman and watched her for a while. She was riding around on a lift, a slender telescoping column on top of a three-wheeled dolly, adjusting the lights that hung far above him. Her movements were methodical, almost plodding—nothing chaotic about them at all. He dropped his gaze to watch another person, then another.

“It may look confusing,” Stroganoff said beside him, “but everyone knows what he or she has to do, and does it.”

Dar glanced up at him, saw a frown. “Something wrong?”

Stroganoff shook his head. “No, it’s all going smoothly. A little ahead of schedule, in fact.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing, really.” Stroganoff forced a smile. “It’s just that sometimes the phoniness of it gets to me.”

Dar frowned. “But you’re making stories, here—and stories have to be made-up; they can’t be real.”

“Oh yes, they can.” Stroganoff pursed his lips. “There’re a lot of really great stories in the history books.”

The statement had a ring of familiarity to Dar; suddenly, he could almost believe he was back in Cholly’s Tavern. He cleared his throat to get rid of a sudden tightness. “That almost sounds like education.”

“Sh!” Stroganoff hissed, finger to his lips. He glanced around furtively, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank heaven! No one heard you!”

“Why?” Dar stared. “What’s wrong with education?”

“Be quiet, can’t you?” Stroganoff glanced around again. “Don’t you dare say that word in here!”

“Why? What’s the matter with ed … uh … hum … you know!”

“What’s the matter with it is that it pulls low ratings,” Stroganoff explained in a lowered voice. “That kind of program never attracts more than a handful of viewers.”

“Yeah, but that’s a handful of all the people in Terran space! A handful out of a trillion-and-a-half!”

“So that ‘handful’ is a billion or so people; yes, I know.” Stroganoff nodded. “But that never sinks in, to the people who run this company. All they know is that they can get a higher price for a more popular show.”

“So.” Dar frowned. “You don’t dare put in anything ed … uh … at all deep, or they’ll cancel the script.”

Stroganoff nodded. “That’s the basic idea, yah.”

“And you don’t like it that way?”

Stroganoff hesitated; then he shook his head.

“So you don’t like your job?”

“Oh, I like it well enough.” Stroganoff looked around him. “There is still a fragrance left, out of the old glamor I thought was here when I was a kid. And it is exciting, putting together a story, even if it’s purely trivial dross. It’s just that … well, sometimes it gets to me.”

“But why?”

“Because I wanted to educate.” Stroganoff turned back to Dar with a gentle, weary smile. “Not just a few interested students in a classroom—but the whole, huge mass of the audience, the billions of people who aren’t interested, who don’t want to learn all those ‘irrelevant facts’ about Socrates and Descartes, and Simon de Montfort and the Magna Carta.”

“I kinda thought knowing about the Magna Carta was necessary for all the citizens in a democracy,” Dar said uneasily. “At least, if that democracy is going to survive …”

“If,” Stroganoff said, with a sour smile. “Look around you.”

Dar swallowed. “I think you’ve got a point.”

“Oh, I know I do.” Stroganoff looked up at the lights on their grid of pipes, gazing at them but not seeing them. “And I knew 3DT was the perfect thing to teach with—give the people lectures, but make them so visually interesting that they’d watch it in spite of themselves. Don’t just tell them about Waterloo—show it to them, the actual place, the way it is today, and the way it was then. Then show them the battle, reenact it, cut to an overhead shot so they can see how Wellington and Napoleon were moving their troops …” He trailed off, a faraway look in his eyes.

“Wait a minute!” Dar stabbed a finger at the producer “I saw that battle! In an old 3DT program! The charge, and the horses galloping into the sunken road—then you saw from overhead, watched Napoleon’s army folding in, but while you were watching it, you heard Wellington describing his strategy …”

“Sure you didn’t read that in a book somewhere?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t make any sense until after I saw the program! Josephine’s Boudoir, that was it!”

“Yeah, it sure was.” Stroganoff’s mouth worked as though he’d tasted something bitter. “I’m surprised you’re old enough to have seen it.”

“I was way out on a, um, frontier planet. I remember it was mostly a pretty risqué version of Napoleon’s private life—but it did have the battle of Waterloo in it.”

“Yes. It did have that.” Stroganoff smiled out at the studio. “Not much education in it—but some. It’ll do.”

“Why didn’t you go into educational programming?” Dar asked softly.

Stroganoff shrugged, irritated. “I did, fresh out of college. But they insisted that everything be dull and dry. Claimed the students wouldn’t take it seriously if it was too entertaining—and they had research studies to back them up. Strange as it may seem, most people don’t believe it’s education if it isn’t dull—and that means it reaches a very few people, indeed.”

“Most of whom would learn by themselves, anyway?”

Stroganoff nodded. “The minority who read. Yes. They’re wonderful people, but they’re not the ones I was worried about, not the ones who endangered democracy.”

Dar nodded. “It’s the ones who don’t want to learn that you want to reach.”

“Right.” Stroganoff closed his eyes, nodding. “Not that it’s going to do any good, of course. Oh, if I’d started a hundred years ago, maybe …”

“It can’t be that bad!” Dar frowned. “I thought a democracy had to become decadent before it collapsed.”

“So?”

“But we’re not!” Dar spread his hands, hooked into claws. “Where’re the orgies? Where’s the preoccupation with sex? Where’re the decadent aristocrats?”

“At the I.D.E. enclave in New York.” Stroganoff gave him a wry smile. “Ever seen ‘em? Funny about that …”

“Well, okay. But the orgies …”

“Been looking for them pretty hard, haven’t you? Well, don’t worry—they don’t need to be there. How many orgies do you think the average Roman shopkeeper saw? Look for the decadence in the small things—the people who don’t bother to vote because the candidates’re ‘so much alike.’ The people who think it’s fine for the government to crack down, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their getting their supply of their favorite euphoric. The people who think talking politics is in poor taste. There’s the decadence that kills a democracy.”

“And it traces back to lack of knowledge,” Dar said softly.

“Not all of it.” Stroganoff frowned; then he nodded. “But a lot of it. Yah. A lot.”

“Ever hear of Charles T. Barman?” Dar said slowly.

“The rogue educator?” Stroganoff grinned. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Read his main book, even. Yes, I’ve followed his career with great interest. Great interest. Yes.” He turned to Dar, his eye gleaming. “They never caught him, you know.”

“No,” Dar said judiciously, “they never did.”

Dar took a sip and frowned up at Lona over the rim of his glass. “What’s he doing in there?”

“Creating,” Lona answered.

“For so long?”

“Long?” Lona smiled without mirth. “It’s only been six hours so far.”

“It takes that long to do up one of those—what’d Stroganoff call it …?”

“Series format,” Sam reminded him.

“Yeah, one of those.”

“He finished that three hours ago.” Lona took a sip. “Stroganoff needs the script for the first program, too.”

“But he’s just talking into a voice-writer! How can a one-hour script take more than an hour?”

“It’s thinking-time, not talking-time. And don’t forget, it’s got to be verse. That’s the only reason Stroganoff might be able to persuade OPI to do it—because it’s a 3DT series of Tod Tambourin’s poetry.”

“And poems take a great deal of work,” Father Marco said softly. “Actually, I don’t see how he can possibly have a full hour’s worth of verse by 10:00 hours tomorrow.”

“Oh, verse he can manage.” Lona glanced at the closed bedroom door that hid Whitey. “Poetry would take forever—but he isn’t worrying about quality. Verse he can grind out by the yard.”

“What if inspiration should strike?” Father Marco asked quietly.

“Then,” Lona said grimly, “we may be in here for a week.”

“Oh, well.” Dar got up and went over to the bar-o-mat for a refill. “At least he gave us a nice waiting room.” He looked around at the luxurious hotel-suite living room. “Come to think of it, I hope inspiration does strike…”

Dar had a vague memory of Father Marco shepherding them all to their bedrooms, muttering something about an early day tomorrow, but it was rather fuzzy; a tide of some nefarious mist reeking of Terran brew seemed to have rolled in as the light faded. He awoke with a foul taste in his mouth, a throbbing ache in his temples, and an acute sensitivity to noises. He dropped back against the pillow, but sleep refused to return. Finally he resigned himself to having to pocket the wages of sin—though the pocket in question was feeling rather queasy at the moment—and slowly, very carefully, swung his feet over the side of the bed. He clutched his head and waited for the room to stop rolling, gulping air furiously to quiet his stomach. Eventually, it sort of worked, and he staggered to his feet. Then he had to lean against the wall, gasping like a beached fish, to wait until things stabilized again. It was a longer wait, but it worked, and finally he was able to stagger out into the sitting room.

The light had been turned down to a dim glow from the ceiling, thank heaven—but there was a babble of voices. Strangely, they didn’t make his head hurt any worse—and, even more strangely, there was only one person in the room.

That person was Whitey, sprawled in a recliner with a strange glow in his eyes. He noticed Dar, cocked his head to the side, and held out a tumbler full of a thick, brownish liquid. Dar groped for it, seized it, and drank it off in one long gulp. Then his eyes bulged as his stomach gave a single, tumultuous heave. He swallowed it down and exhaled in a blast. “My lord! What is that stuff?”

“Uncle Whitey’s Homemade Hangover Helper,” Whitey answered. “Don’t ask what’s in it.”

“I won’t,” Dar said fervently. He groped his way to a recliner and collapsed into it. “How’d you know I was going to need it?”

“I looked in on you halfway through the ‘night.’ ” Whitey grinned. “You were a gas.”

Dar frowned. “A gas?”

“Thoroughly tanked,” Whitey explained.

A hazy memory of Whitney’s bleached face, peering down intently, floated through Dar’s mind. “Oh, yeah. I remember something about it.” He frowned, then forced a feeble chuckle. “Yeah, you … no, it must’ve been a dream.”

“It wasn’t. Why’d you think it was?”

“Because you asked … and I told …” Dar swallowed heavily. “No. Had to be a dream.”

“Asked what? Told me what?”

“Well—my mission. What I’m supposed to do on Terra.”

“No dream,” Whitey assured him. “And I timed it just right. In vino veritas.”

“ ‘In wine there is truth’?” Dar stared, aghast.

Whitey’s eyelids drooped. “You do know a little Latin! Amazing, in this day and age. Who managed to drum it through your head?”

“My old boss, a bartender named Cholly. But …”

“Hm. Must be an interesting man.” Whitey’s eyes were glowing again. “Like to meet him sometime.”

“You will, at the rate we’re going. You won’t have any choice in the matter.” Dar swallowed. “What’d I tell you?”

“What do you remember?”

“That I had a message from General Shacklar to the I.D.E. top brass—about a plan for a coup…”

Whitey nodded. “Perfect recall.”

Dar groaned and crumpled, covering his eyes.

Whitey leaned forward and patted his shoulder. “Don’t take it so hard, laddie—we all make mistakes the first time out. At least, if you had to spill the beans, you did it to a friend.”

“ ‘Friend’?” Dar glared up. “How can I be sure, now?”

“Because I’ve spent a lot of money, and put myself in quite a bit of danger, just to help you—and when I heard your story, I was glad I had. Not that I think we can succeed, mind you—but I can’t let democracy go down without a fight.”

Somehow, Dar believed him. He frowned up at Whitey, against his headache. “You must’ve had a hunch I was doing something you believed in, then—to put yourself and Lona at risk.”

“Well, yes.” Whitey settled back, picking up a glass. “I did have a notion the gamble was worth it. Lona’s another matter, though. I didn’t make her come. She could’ve stayed behind, with plenty of money, and she knew it.”

Dar’s brows pulled together. “She doesn’t strike me as the self-sacrificing sort.”

“She isn’t. That line she feeds out, about wanting to wallow in luxury with plenty of leisure time to slaughter, is true down to the word—but she knows there are more important things. Such as having one person nearby who really cares about her—me—and freedom, without which she wouldn’t have a chance at luxury.”

Dar looked around. “Where is she?”

Whitey jerked his head toward the closed door. “Proofing the script.”

“It’s done?” Dar’s gaze steadied on Whitey’s face. “Any good?”

Whitey shrugged irritably. “Does it matter? It’ll get you where you need to go; that’s the important thing.”

Suddenly, something seemed wrong. Dar lifted his head. “What happened …? Oh. The voices stopped.”

“Voices? The 3DT, you mean?”

“Is that where they were coming from?” Dar turned to the wall screen, and saw the word “EMERGENCY!” floating in a blue sea. A voice said, “Indulgence, citizens. We have to interrupt to bring you news of a conspiracy against the whole of the Interstellar Dominion Electorates.” The word dissolved into the head and shoulders of an earnest-looking, handsome older man. “Sehn Loffer here, with news directed from I.D.E. Internal Security. We are threatened, fellow citizens—threatened by an insidious evil, creeping up on us everywhere, to choke the life out of our democracy and suck the blood of its freedom.”

Whitey muttered, “Lousy prose!”

Dar stared at him, appalled. “But he’s the top newsface! They’re hearing him all over the Solar System—and FTL liners will take this recording-cube to all the colonies within the month!”

“Yeah. ‘Nothing succeeds like excess.’ ”

“The villain may be your neighbor, your friend, your co-worker,” Loffer went on. “No one can know where the evil ones lurk—because, citizens, they are telepaths!”

Whitey stared Dar goggled.

“Insidious telepaths, their tendrils of thought snaking out to enfold your brains! All through the I.D.E. they are. How do we know? Because, for a month now. Security has been chasing a notorious telepath all the way from the marches, the outermost colonies, here to Luna itself! Time and again, they have almost caught him, only to have him whisked away into hiding, by local assistance!”

The “local assistance” swore under his breath.

“Who would aid a rogue telepath?” Loffer declaimed. “Who but another telepath? Wherever this monster goes, he finds help—so there must be telepaths spread throughout the I.D.E., helping him, working secretly, to undermine the foundations of our freedom and destroy our government—to take power themselves!”

“Uh—don’t I detect a few flaws in his logic?” Dar asked.

“Logic? What’s that?” Whitey snorted. “It feels right, doesn’t it? So it’s got to be true—doesn’t it?”

“But take heart, citizens!” Suddenly, Loffer fairly oozed calm strength. “Our noble Solar Patrol is pursuing this monster, and will not rest until they destroy him!”

“What does ‘right to fair trial’ mean?” Whitey wondered.

Smiling confidently, Loffer dissolved into a sea of plain blue, filling the screen. A voice said, “We now return you to ‘Starship Captain’s Wife.’ ”

Whitey pressed the button in the arm of his recliner, and the picture faded into an assortment of fruits in a basket; the wall-screen became only a three-dimensional still picture again.

“Uh—I thought reporting was supposed to be objective, just telling you the facts they’re sure of,” Dar said tentatively.

Whitey gave him a peculiar look. “No, you haven’t been to Terra before, have you?”

“But … why?” Dar exploded. “Announcements like that are going to panic the public! Why get everybody into a state of terror about it?”

“I have a notion,” Whitey muttered, “but I hope I’m wrong.”

“It’s got to be because they want to make absolutely sure they catch me. But why? Am I that much of a threat to them? And how’d they get the idea I’m a telepath?”

“Maybe they didn’t. ‘Telepath’ is a nice scare word, conjuring up somebody poking into your most private affairs, somebody having a huge, unnatural advantage that makes everybody else feel inferior—and, therefore, all the more willing to go out and help hunt him down. Useful, if they want to make sure they catch you. And as to your being a threat, well—the answer is, you don’t have to be much of a threat. Conspirators tend to not want to take chances, no matter how small. The LORDS party in the I.D.E. Assembly want to restrict individual rights, and they’ve never been so strong. Their opposition has fractured into a dozen splinter groups. If there’s an opposition leader, it’s Tarn Urkavne, the chairman of the CPR—the Coalition for the Protection of Rights. At least he’s officially the Opposition speaker. But his ‘Coalition’ is pretty weak—its members spend their time arguing over policy, instead of trying to do something.”

“But the LORDS aren’t trying to overthrow the whole I.D.E. government, are they?”

Whitey shrugged. “If they are, they’re not saying—of course. That’s high treason, boy. No, you may be sure whoever’s behind the coup are keeping their lips well sealed, and want to make sure everybody else does, too.”

The bedroom door opened.

“Well, enough of politics.” Whitey craned around in his seat, looking back over his shoulder. “Hi, honey.”

Lona swayed out into the sitting room, and the sight of her made Dar decide to stay among the living. He decided Whitey’s hangover cure was working. But she had a kind of glassy look in her eyes, a sort of fevered brilliance. Was she ill?

“I told you, you shouldn’t have stayed up waiting for me to finish,” Whitey said, frowning. “You get to bed, honey; you can still catch about three hours sleep before we have to leave.”

“How can I, with this running through my head?” Lona shoved a sheaf of papers at him.

Whitey squared the sheets on his lap, smiling up at her, almost shyly. “Liked it, huh?”

Lona nodded, with a tight smile; she looked as though she were about to explode.

Whitey grinned and turned to Dar, holding out the sheaf. “First hard copy. See what you think.”

Dar took the script and began to scan it. His eyes locked in after the third line, tracking the print at speech-speed, words thundering in his head. “Whitey, this is …”

“… wonderful!” Father Marco breathed, looking up from the last page. Sam looked up from her copy with a numbed gaze and an awed nod.

“Rough,” Whitey grumbled, flushed with pleasure. “Needs polish. Lots of it.”

“It’s a masterpiece,” Sam whispered.

Whitey sat still a moment, then gave a brusque nod. “Good. Yes. Rough, but—it’s good. Thank you.”

Lona laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “9:30 hours, Grandpa.”

“Yeah.” Whitey heaved himself to his feet with a sigh. “Time to go meet Stroganoff, children—the Knight of the Shining Laser, who will do battle with the Dragon of Commerce for us. Ready?”

Dar paced the lounge furiously, hands locked behind his back. “What’s he doing in there—reading them the whole script?”

“Calm down, Da … uh. Perry.” Whitey leaned back in his chair like a cat by a fire, a tall drink in his hand. “It means it’s going well. If the execs didn’t like his presentation, he’d’ve been out half an hour ago.”

The door opened, and Stroganoff shuffled in, holding the script in front of him as though it were a tray, eyes glazed.

Dar pounced on him. “Well? What’s the word? They like it? They gonna buy it? What?”

Stroganoff’s head swiveled toward him, but his gaze went right through Dar. Father Marco pried Dar away with a soothing murmur, and Whitey echoed him: “Calm down, Perry. They won’t finish deciding for a while yet … How’d it go, David?”

Stroganoff’s head turned toward Whitey, but his eyes still didn’t quite focus. “Tod … why didn’t you warn me?”

“Warn?” Whitey frowned. “About what?”

“About this!” Stroganoff held the script out reverently. “I gave ‘em the overview, and the audience potential, the cost-minimalization, and the company-image enhancement, and they sat there looking bored, so I started reading them the first few lines, just to give ‘em the idea—and I couldn’t stop! I just kept going, right through the whole thing—and they didn’t cut me off! Not a word! They actually listened!”

Whitey grinned and sat back. “Well. Nice to be appreciated.”

“Appreciated! My lord, Tod, that’s topping the Prize!” Dar heaved a silent sigh. He might make it to Earth, after all.

They were laughing and chattering as they came back into their hotel, riding high on a triumph—until a grave-faced major domo stepped up to Whitey and intoned, “Mr. Tambourin, sir?”

The laughter cut off as though it had been sliced with a razor blade. Whitey turned to the man in livery, frowning. “Yes?”

“There’s a call waiting, from Mr. Horatio Bocello, sir. He’s been quite insistent in his demands that he speak with you.”

Whitey’s face cracked into a cream-whiskered grin. “Old Horatio!”

Sam was staring, shocked. Father Marco blinked. Even Lona looked impressed. Dar looked around. Then they all jumped to catch up with Whitey.

But the major domo was ahead of them. “Ah, Mr. Tambourin?”

Whitey looked back. “Yes?”

“He really has been quite insistent, sir. The staff would very much appreciate it if you would take the call as soon as you arrive in your suite.”

“Yeah. I know what Horatio’s like when he gets ‘insistent.’ ” Whitey’s grin was downright evil. “Don’t worry, my good man—I’ll hit the phone as soon as I’m upstairs. You can tell Terra the call’s going through.” His hand brushed the major domo’s as he turned away; the man glanced at his palm, and his eyebrows shot up. “Thank you, sir.”

“My pleasure. Come on, troops!” Whitey was striding away toward the lift tube.

His “crew” lurched into motion behind him. “Who’s Horatio Bocello?” Dar hissed.

“Only the richest man on Terra, gnappie!” Sam hissed back.

“Which means, in the whole system. Devout Catholic, too…” Father Marco said thoughtfully.

“Patron of the arts—especially Grandpa’s,” Lona added.

Dar swallowed heavily, and walked faster.

When Whitey careened through the door, the com screen was already alive with white noise, its beeper beeping. Whitey pressed the “answer” button and thumbed the toggle that uncapped his camera. The screen cleared, showing a thin, long-jawed, bony face with a receding iron-gray hairline, a blade of a nose, and burning eyes. The eyes focussed on Whitey, and the face grinned. “Tambourin, you old scalawag! Where’ve you been?”

“In a hundred bars on fifteen planets, Cello.” Whitey grinned back at him. “You want exact figures, you’ll have to tell me how long it’s been.”

“What—five years, this time? Why don’t you write, reprobate?”

“Buy it from your book-channel, windy. How’s your empire?”

Bocello shrugged, with a trace of annoyance. “You win some, you lose some, and it keeps growing, all by itself.”

Whitey nodded. “No change.”

“It was a lot more fun back in the Northeast Kingdom.”

“I know.” Whitey smiled fondly, gazing back down the years. “Running around in homemade armor, chopping at each other with rattan swords.”

“And for the parties, dressing up like a fourteenth-century duke. Except you, of course. You never could decide whether you wanted to be a knight or a troubadour.”

Dar nudged Lona, having a legitimate reason, and whispered, “What’re they talking about?”

“A bag of mixed nuts,” Lona whispered back. “Some group they both belonged to when they were young. Used to go out to a park on weekends and pretend they were still living in the middle ages.”

“Well, I finally did.” Whitey’s smile gentled. “I swung to the troubadour—and you finally accepted your birthright obligations, and turned into a baron.”

“Yes, without the title.” Bocello’s face clouded. “But it’s not as much fun, Tod.”

“You’ve got to lock into reality sometime, Cello. You keep tabs on the old Kingdom?”

Bocello nodded. “Still. I’m still a member. I sneak into the annual festival every now and then. You should, too.”

“I do, when I run into a Kingdom. But there aren’t too many of ‘em on the colony planets yet, Cello. Hold onto your sword, Your Grace—you may need it.”

Bocello was suddenly alert. “You see the signs, too, eh? But I don’t think there’ll be chaos, Tod.”

“No,” Whitey agreed, “just the reverse. It’s a dictator that’s coming, not a warlord. Can’t you do anything about it, Cello? You, with all your money!”

Bocello shook his head sadly. “I always sneered at politics, Tod—and now it’s too late.” He frowned, suddenly intent. “You’re not planning to try to stop it, are you? To throw yourself in the path of a runaway destrier?”

“Romanticism’s for the young, Cello,” Whitey said gently. “No, I just got a modern idea, that’s all.”

“Yes, I heard.” Bocello’s face split into a mischievous grin. “And I love it! Damn fine poem, Tod! Damn fine.”

Whitey scowled. “Got eyes and ears everywhere, don’t you?”

“Tod!” Bocello protested, wounded. “I own OPI—or fifty-one percent of it, anyway. They knew it was too hot to handle, so they bucked it on up to me fastest!”

“You’re going to decide whether or not my epic gets made?”

Dar held his breath.

Bocello shrugged impatiently. “What is there to decide? The way your last book sold, we couldn’t possibly lose money on Tod Tambourin’s first screenplay! All I want to know is, how quickly can you do it?”

Whitey grinned. “My crew’s ready to go tomorrow, Cello.”

“Wonderful. But you’ll need a little while to cast the actors and have the sets designed and built.”

“Yeah, but we can shoot the documentary sequences meanwhile. And, Cello …” Whitey’s voice lowered. “ …if we’re going to have the I.D.E. Assembly and the Executive Secretary in that one sequence, I think we’d better shoot them fast.”

“Yes, I know.” Bocello sobered. “The whole thing’s built around the I.D.E.” He leaned forward, suddenly intense, eyes burning. “Very fast, Tod—before the whole program’s just an historical document!”

Dar fastened his webbing and looked around at the luxurious cavern of the shuttle’s passenger cabin. “Little different from a burro-boat, isn’t it?”

“You could put two of them inside here,” Sam agreed. “Maybe three.”

Dar swiveled his head to look at her, puzzled. “You’ve been awfully moody these past couple of hours. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” Sam shook her head with total conviction. “Absolutely nothing is wrong.” But she still gazed off into space.

“It was that call from Horatio Bocello that did it, isn’t it? What was so bad about it—didn’t realize the I.D.E. was in this bad a shape?”

“That is saddening,” Sam agreed. “But I’m not saddened.”

“Then what are you?”

“Dazzled,” she said frankly.

Dar stared at her for a second. Then he smiled. “Never saw anybody that rich talking just like an ordinary person, huh? Yeah, it kind of got to me, too.”

“Not that,” she objected. “… Well, maybe a little. But what got me was his face!”

“Face?” Dar stared again.

She nodded. “That forehead! That blade of a nose! Those cheekbones! And … those eyes!”

Dar turned his head a little to the side, watching her. “Are you trying to tell me you thought he was handsome?”

“ ‘Handsome.’ That’s a good word for it. ‘Attractive’ is better. Maybe even … ‘compelling.’ ”

Dar began to have serious doubts. “I thought you were supposed to be an ascetic—an anti-materialist.”

She turned a gaze full of scorn on him. “You take beauty wherever you find it, gnappie, and you keep the memory of it alive in your heart. I’ll probably never even talk to this man and, when this whole escapade is over, never see him again, either. But I’ll never forget that I did, and the memory of it will make the rest of my life that much richer.”

As they were crowding off the shuttle at Newark Interplanetary, Dar overheard some girl-talk between Sam and Lona.

“Married? Never,” Lona said firmly. “Never even seen with a lady ‘friend’ very often. That’s brought the usual run of snide comments, of course.”

“About his masculinity?”

“And his sexuality, period! He reinforces that one, too—claims to be asexual. Says there’s no point in sex unless you’re in love.”

“What a medieval romantic,” Sam murmured dreamily.

Somehow, Dar didn’t think they were talking about Whitey.

They strode down the concourse toward the main terminal, laughing and chattering. Dar felt heady, almost drunk. He was on Terra! The Terra of his history books, of Cicero and Caeser and the Plantagenets and Lincoln! The Terra of fable and wonder! He walked on a thick red carpet, surrounded by wall-screens flashing displays of arrival and departure times between spates of advertising—just the way he’d pictured it from his books!

Suddenly the wall-screens cleared. A giant chime sounded, reverberating throughout the entire building. All around them, conversation slackened and died; all faces turned to the wall-screens.

“Citizens,” a resonant voice intoned, “the Honorable Kasi Pohyola, Chairman of the LORDS, and Majority Leader in the Assembly of Electors of the Interstellar Dominions.”

A stern but gentle face appeared, surmounted by wavy, snow-white hair, gazing directly at Dar. He almost jumped out of his skin.

“Citizens,” the face intoned in a deep, resonant voice, “a huge calamity has befallen us. An insidious danger stalks toward us across the stars—nay, has stalked us, has arrived, is even now in our midst! It may be the person beside you, or behind you—or even inside your head! For know, citizens, that there is no real guarding against this evil monstrosity, no wall that will seal it away, no shield that will stand against it—for it is a telepath! Even now, he may be probing your mind, wrapping his thoughts about your heart, cozening your innermost secrets!

“But worse, citizens—he is not alone! Our agents have shadowed him from the outermost colony planets, in to Terra herself—always treading upon his shadow, but never able to pounce on the creature—for always, just as they were about to close their trap, he has disappeared, spirited away by his friends and sympathizers on a thousand planets!”

“Only ninety-three,” Whitey muttered, “as of last year’s census report.”

“Who could have assisted such a one?” Pohyola rumbled. “Who would give aid and solace to a being who could probe their innermost thoughts—save another telepath? That, citizens, is why we are sure there are many telepaths, spread throughout the Terran Sphere, on each and every one of its member planets—and including Terra herself!”

A horrified murmur and buzzing of oaths and curses spread through the concourse. It fairly made the hairs stand on Dar’s head. He glanced at his companions—they were all watching with set, pale faces, lips drawn tight.

Except Whitey. He just looked sad.

Pohyola stared into the camera, not speaking, just holding the viewers’ gazes with his own—apparently he’d been planning on the reaction. Just as it was quieting, he began to speak again. “Our vaunted I.D.E. Security Force has been impotent to stop them—these millions of highly trained warriors for whom we pay trillions of therms every year! Are they inept? No! Are they lazy or cowardly? No! They are brave, capable heroes, every one of them! Then, why have they not been able to seize this horror? Because, while he has been slipping into hiding, they have had to find a magistrate and present proof of need for a search warrant! Because they have had to waste time securing proof of his guilt in order to obtain that warrant—though they have known, all along, what he is! Because the courts will not allow these fine officers to monitor the communications between this monster and his minions!”

He glared down out of the screen in righteous wrath. “They are impeded at every turn, they are balked at every approach! And, while the courts dither and obstruct them, the telepath moves unimpeded onto our fair mother planet!” He shook his head slowly. “Citizens, this has gone too far! This obsession with legal pettifoggery has now imperiled your lives and mine, nay, even the fabric of our whole society! Who now can feel free to nurture secret hopes or longings, to dream of his beloved or reflect on his sins—knowing that, every moment, another’s mind may have wormed its way into his, cozening up to his dearest, most cherished secrets!

“Nay! The time has come to put a stop to the nonsense! To purge the technicalities and loopholes that let the criminal escape while the law-abiding citizen shuffles in chains! To exorcize the demons of law! Make no mistake, citizens—a vast conspiracy of telepaths has wrapped its coils around us, and is even now beginning to squeeze the life from our democracy!

“Will they triumph? Nay!” he thundered. “We will tear their coils apart, we will rip them asunder! The law will cease obstructing the champions of justice!”

Then, suddenly, his eyes were locked onto Dar’s again, burning. “But this cannot be done while Executive Secretary Louhi Kulervo dithers and vacillates! A man of decision must take the helm, a man of true strength, who does not waste expanses of time mewling about ‘sacred trusts’ and ‘constitutionality’!”

He took a deep breath, very obviously fighting down wrath, struggling for composure, then said more calmly:

“It is for these reasons, citizens, that I will, today, demand a vote of confidence in the Assembly, and a general election. We must succeed in forcing this referendum, my fellow citizens—or we will waken one morning to find ourselves enmeshed in chains of thought! Contact your Elector, now, this minute, and tell him to demand an election. We must have it, citizens—we must have a man of decision and action to lead us—or the light of democracy will flicker out, and die!”

The image on the screen flickered out, and died.

A roar of conversation burst out all around them.

Whitey glanced back at his adrenalized crew, looking a little nervous himself. “Ah … I think we should just start drifting toward the main terminal … and try to look surprised, folks.”

That wasn’t hard. Dar felt as though he’d just been knocked spinning by a shockwave. It wasn’t just that one fleeing little ship had been turned into a conspiracy—or that the coup was leaping out into the open. It was the idea that they might even be able to do it legally!

A very good chance, from what he was overhearing as they “drifted”:

“I thought they only had a couple of telepaths in the whole sphere!” an obese commercial-type was saying.

“So did I,” a slenderized companion answered, “but I guess those were just the ones they knew about—you know, legal ones.”

“They can really find out your most secret memories?” This from an old harridan who obviously had one hell of a past, but didn’t necessarily want it known.

“But … they could learn all my accounts, all the latest information I’ve gleaned about which stocks are due to rise!” The beefy, florid-faced individual in the conservatively expensive coverall glared in righteous indignation. “That’s a completely immoral competitive advantage!”

“Have to be stopped,” his companion agreed. “Have to be.”

“They could take over!” a sweet young thing shrilled, “and they might clamp down on the vice laws!”

“Telepaths certainly wouldn’t want people running around with their heads full of smut.” Her companion had the look of a questionable publisher. “I mean, what about civil rights?”

“But what about civil rights?” Snow-white hair, face full of authority, oozing confidence—maybe a judge?

“They’d be gone.” His companion was younger, but cut from the same cloth. “Make Pohyola Exec Sec’y, give him full emergency powers—and the first thing he’ll do is suspend the constitution. We’ll have a full-scale dictatorship in a year.”

“Are you two going to natter about technicalities at a time like this?” a slender, intense-type bawled, turning on them. “Do you realize what our chances of getting approval for a price-hike would be if telepaths were running the Department of the Economy?”

They finally broke free of the mob, into a clear space in front of a drop-tube. Whitey hit the button; time stretched out as they waited, chafing, unable to do anything. Then the doors valved open and more citizens streamed out, chattering,

“… threat to everything we believe in …”

“… probably sacrifice babies at those secret meetings they have …”

“… got to vote Pohyola in!”

“Inside, folks,” Whitey growled, and they sprang. The doors valved shut behind them, and Whitey hit the street-level button.

“I’m scared, Grandpa,” Lona said softly.

“Comes of having brains,” Whitey growled. “Me, I’m just terrified.”

Sam’s eyes were huge in a pale, drawn face.

Dar’s voice was very low. “These people are so scared, they’re actually going to be willing to give up all their rights!”

“Willing?” Whitey snorted. “They’re going to rush to it!”

“Whitey … my mission …”

“Still important,” Whitey snapped. “If they lose the election, they’ll still try their coup. In fact, they may not wait for due process.”

The doors valved open. “Walk calmly,” Whitey growled. “Don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Just follow Papa.”

The crowd was much thinner here where people were coming into the terminal or leaving it, but there were still a lot of huddles of frantic citizens. Whitey strolled through them with his crew, retrieved his luggage, and sauntered out the ground-transport door.

A uniform stepped up to them with a man inside it. “Mr. Tambourin?”

Dar’s heart jammed into his throat. Then he realized it didn’t have any brass or badge; it couldn’t be Security.

Whitey turned his head slowly, glowering. “Yes?”

“Mr. Bocello’s compliments, sir. Would you accept his hospitality for the next few days?”

“Horatio always did have a great sense of timing,” Whitey sighed, pressing back into the limousine’s seat. It responded, adjusting itself to his contours.

“What’s in the cupboard?” Dar nodded at a sliding panel set into the wall in front of him.

“Why not ask the driver?” Whitey nodded toward a speaker-grill. “He’s just on the other side of the wall.”

“Why not?” Dar pressed the panel glowing beneath the grill. “Uh, can you tell me what this little cupboard in the forward wall is?”

“A complete bar, sir,” the chauffeur replied. “Please feel free to drain it. I hope we have your brands stocked.”

“Oh, anything expensive is fine, thanks.” Dar slid open the hatch, grinned at the gleaming panel in front of him, checked the codes listed above it, and punched up a Deneb Dimmer. “Next order?”

“Sirian Scrambler,” said Lona.

“Canopus Concentrate,” said Sam.

“Château LaMorgue ‘46,” said Whitey.

Dar squinted at the index. “Sorry, Whitey, all they’ve got is a ‘48.”

“Well, that wasn’t a bad year,” Whitey sighed. “It’ll do.”

Dar pressed in the code and glanced at Father Marco.

“Nothing, thanks.” The priest raised a palm. “I only drink in the early morning.”

Dar shrugged, took his tumbler out of the slot, and settled back with a contented sigh. “I’m beginning to see advantages to decadence.” He beamed down on the city passing beneath them. Then he frowned. “What’s that?”

Below them, a mob filled several streets, waving signs and throwing bricks.

“What?” Whitey leaned over to the window, looking down. “Hey, not bad! Let’s see if we can hear them.” He turned a knob and punched a button beneath the speaker grille. It filtered faint words to them:

“Espers are Ethical!”

“Don’t Sell the Psis!”

“Terra for Telepaths!”

Whitey nodded with satisfaction. “A political demonstration. Nice to hear the voice of dissent.”

“The bricks are bouncing back at them,” Dar called. “Bouncing off of thin air, in fact. What is it, a force-field?”

“Give the man a point!” Lona said brightly. “You’ve got it, sophisticate—it’s a force-field. Makes sure the demonstrators don’t hurt anybody.”

“There’re a few Security men outside the force-field …”

“Well, you wouldn’t expect them to be inside, would you?”

“But why do they need them, with the force-field?”

“Who do you think set it up?”

“Also, they’re the official sign that the government is hearing the citizens’ grievances,” said Sam, with full sarcasm.

“The government approves?”

“The government embraces it, almost to the point of lewdness. They’ve even written it into law—for every hundred thousand persons demonstrating for eight hours, they get one vote on the issue in the Assembly.”

Dar turned to her, frowning. “Sounds a little dangerous. A fad could get voted into law that way.”

“Not when you remember that the Assembly represents ninety-three human-inhabited planets with a total population of eighty billion. You have to have forty-eight votes just to get the issue onto the agenda! Not that it hasn’t happened, mind you—but rarely, very rarely.”

“Two of the programs based on such issues have been enacted into law,” Father Marco reminded her.

“Two laws in five centuries? Not exactly a great track record, Father!”

“Well, no. It does require that the majority approve the issue.”

“Yeah.” Sam slid over next to Dar and stared out the window gloomily. “But some chance is better than none, I suppose. At least it gives the counterculture the illusion that they can accomplish something.”

They passed over three more demonstrations on the way to Bocello’s; each was huge, making the pro-telepath mob look like a handful—and all screaming for the telepaths’ blood.

“What’re we getting upset about?” Dar wondered. “We’re not telepaths!”

“Try and prove that to Pohyola,” Sam growled.

What with one thing and another, their nerves were in a fine state of disarray by the time the limo landed.

They stepped out into the midst of a tournament.

The knights had apparently unhorsed each other; the beasts in question were standing back, watching their masters with jaundiced eyes. The knights were hewing at each other with broadswords that went CLICK! CLUNK! whenever they met. The Green Knight wore full plate armor; his opponent wore a haubergeon. Behind and above them stood a scoreboard with two outline-drawings of a human form; whenever one of the knights managed to “wound” his opponent, the “wound” would show up on the scoreboard as a red light, and a chime would ring the knight’s number of points.

Around them stood and sat a hundred or so people dressed in the latest fashion of the fourteenth century. Or the twelfth. Or the tenth. Or maybe the ninth. They nibbled at pasties and swigged ale, laughing and cheering, while peddlers circulated among them with food and drink, and troubadours and gleemen strolled about singing and chanting. An occasional monk stood near, inveighing against the evils of tournaments and enjoining the faithful to repent.

Lona turned to the chauffeur. “Sure you didn’t take us to the wrong address? Say, maybe a mental hospital?”

“Not at all,” the chauffeur assured her. “This is Mr. Bocello’s house.” And there it was, rising high behind the medieval crowd in full Gothic splendor, looking more like a public monument than a dwelling.

“A man’s castle is his home,” Dar murmured.

“Mr. Bocello is entertaining,” the chauffeur explained. “Just a few friends from his club.”

Dar eyed the crowd. “Not what I think of as the usual plutocrat-orgy set.”

“Very few of them are wealthy, sir. But all share Mr. Bocello’s fondness for the medieval. He has gathered them to celebrate the return to Terra of, ah, in his words, ‘the greatest gleeman of our age.’ ”

A slow grin spread over Whitey’s face. “Now, that’s what I call honoring me according to my own taste and style! I am more of a gleeman than a poet, anyway! Come on, folks—if the man does me honor, let’s honor his doing!”

A very tall, skinny man in full ducal robes shouldered his way through the crowd with a peasant lass on his arm. “Tambourin!”

“Cello, you filthy old wastrel!” Whitey reached up high to slap the duke’s shoulder. “How’d you get this crowd together on only a day’s notice?”

“Oh, I had a few words with their employers, and they were more than happy to oblige. You didn’t think you could set foot on old Terra again without causing a festival, did you?”

“Well, I did have some naïve notion about slipping in unnoticed,” Whitey admitted.

Bocello raised an eyebrow. “What is it this time—a vengeful husband, or an irate sheriff?”

“It’s more like a list, really…”

“Oh, is it indeed!” Horatio turned the peasant wench around and sent her off with a pat on the backside. “Off with you, child—I have a feeling we’re about to be saying things that you truly want to be able to claim you didn’t hear. Come now, no pouting—I saw the way you were eyeing that acrobat; deny it if you can …” He turned back to Whitey as the girl swept off with a blush and a giggle. “Now, then! It’s been a while; perhaps you and your entourage would like a quick tour of my gardens?”

“We would indeed! Preferably out in the middle of a wide expanse of lawn, free from prying mechanical eyes and ears…”

“Ah, but one can never be totally certain of that anymore.” Horatio took Whitey by the arm and led him away. “They’re doing such wonderful things with miniaturization these days. Still, my gardeners do, ah, ‘sweep’ the lawns every morning, so we’ve a reasonably good chance … By the way, what did you think of Greval’s latest epic?” And they were off, happily ripping apart other artists’ work in the time-honored tradition of amateur critics, as they wove and dodged their way through the crowd. The gang had to scramble to keep up with them, and by the time they came out onto the open grass, Dar was winded.

Sam was starry-eyed.

Dar glanced at her, glanced again, and scowled. What was she looking moonstruck about? He glanced around quickly, but didn’t see any gorgeous hunks of manhood nearby. As a last resort, he glanced back at Sam, and followed the direction of her gaze; it arrowed straight toward Horatio. Dar felt a sudden, biting jealousy, which surprised him.

“Now, then!” Horatio stopped in the middle of a wide, open field, chewed into mud at its center. “The lists are the most private place we’ll find, at least until the next joust. Let’s have your list. Who’s chasing you first?”

“The Solar Patrol, at the moment,” Whitey answered with a grin, “cheered on by a weasel named Canis Destinus.”

“Canis what?” Horatio frowned. “Why is he on your trail?”

“Because I’m helping a friend.” Whitey nodded toward Dar. “And this Canis guy is chasing him because he’s on a secret mission of some sort. It involves getting to the Executive Secretary for a few minutes.”

“I think he does have an opening on his calendar, next Thursday…” Horatio pursed his lips. “Still, it’s a difficult appointment to make.”

“Especially with Canis trying to cancel it,” Whitey agreed. “We can’t be sure, mind you, but we think he’s the one who’s been rousing the local police against us on every planet we’ve been to. There must be at least three warrants out for me, along my backtrail.”

“Well, that’s nothing new.” Horatio’s scowl deepened. “Still, I expect the honor’s being bestowed for the wrong reasons. What charge has he drummed up?”

“Now, we’re not sure, mind you,” Whitey said, frowning, “but we think he’s managed to convince the LORDS that we’re a bunch of telepaths, and that we’ve been aided and abetted by telepaths all along our route in from the marches.”

Horatio stared. “You’re the Interstellar Telepathic Conspiracy?”

“Well, that is kinda what we think they’ve got in their heads, yeah,” Whitey muttered.

Horatio glared down at him, his face slowly turning purple. Dar stood frozen, with his heart in his throat. If Whitey were just a little bit mistaken about his old buddy, they could all wind up in prison at the snap of a finger. He could fairly feel that restraining field pressing in on him from all sides already…

Then Horatio blew. “Foul!” he bellowed, fingers clawing into fists. “How foul, how fell! That the High Gleeman of scores of worlds should be hounded and harassed like a common felon! And all for the brain-sick nightmare of a diseased and petty mind! Nay, nay! I have stood and smiled, I have gnashed my teeth whiles I watched them play their petty games of plot and counterplot; I have schooled myself to patience while the reek of their corruption stank in my nostrils—but this I cannot bear! Nay, how can there be any gram of goodness biding in a sovereignty that’s so riddled with malice that it dreams up excuses to harry its bravest and best? Terra is become a stench-filled sty, a globe no longer fit for glee, a domain no longer fit for dwelling—nor can any planet be that falls within its sphere of influence!”

Whitey dug in his toes and braced himself against the gale. “Peace, now, peace, good fellow! Hope lives on yet! Even corruption has its day, and ceases, and the seeds of goodness sprout up from it, to flower again in virtue!”

“Aye, but in how many years?” Horatio glowered down at him. “Nay, centuries! I am not minded to hold my peace and bear myself in silence whiles I wait!”

Dar felt a surge of panic. Was this madman going to try a one-man rebellion, or something?

But Whitey suddenly became very casual. “Well then, if you truly feel so, flee! There be no dearth of G-type suns, nor of worlds like Terra. If you find all known worlds so swinishly unfit, go seek the unknown! Go sail into uncharted skies and find a world to make anew, after the fashion of your dreaming!”

Dar held his breath. What Whitey was saying was, in effect, put up or shut up.

But Horatio was staring at him as though he’d spoken an idea never thought of before. “Aye,” he breathed. “Aye, surely!”

He whirled away toward the house, crying, “Where are these hearts? Where are my comrades?”

The whole group stared at his retreating back.

“I, ah, think we might want to go along with him,” Whitey suggested. “He sometimes needs restraining when he gets into these moods.” He set off after Horatio.

The troupe followed, and caught up with him.

“What’s the matter with her?” Whitey muttered to Dar.

“Huh?” Dar glanced at Sam, who was moving a little more quickly than the rest of them, gaze fixed on Horatio, eyes shining. He turned back to Whitey. “Just spellbound. Money has that effect, sometimes.”

But Whitey shook his head. “Not so, or she’d have gone after me. Would you say Sam’s the impulsive sort?”

“Well … in a way.” Dar frowned at Sam, seeing her anew. “Controls it well, though.”

“And Horatio doesn’t have to.” Whitey nodded. “That explains a lot.”

Dar was glad it did, because he didn’t understand a bit of it. On the other hand, he hadn’t had much exposure to women who spoke his own language.

Horatio stormed up a flight of limestone steps and wheeled through French doors into his palace. By the time the crew caught up with him, he was leaning across a Louis XIV desk, glaring into a phone screen at an image of a bulky, black-haired man with a flowing beard. “Ship?” he was saying. “Of course you can buy a ship, Horatio! The Navy has surplus dreadnoughts it would love to be rid of—but why?”

“To issue from a sty of stenches!” Horatio snapped. “What do you mean, they have ships they’d love to be rid of?”

“Always more on hand than they have buyers for. After all, who’d want a retired battleship—without its cannon?”

“We would! To bear a crew of colonists to a brave new world, where we may purify ourselves of this crass materialism, and rise above the suspiciousness and greed of this technological monster of a world!”

“Horatio.” Blackbeard eyed him warily. “Do you speak of founding a society based on the Society?”

“Indeed I do, Markone!”

“I was afraid that this might come,” Markone sighed. “You must not confuse the pleasant fantasy of our Society tournaments and moots with the reality of the real world, Horatio. That way lies madness.”

“I do not confuse them—I wish to make the fantasy become real! Think of it, Markone—your barony become a reality, your vassals and serfs forever at your call!”

Markone’s eyes lost focus. “A pleasant dream, Horatio—yet nothing but a dream.”

“It need not be!” Horatio insisted. “Think, man! What need would we have for all our fortunes? Each could lay the half of them away for his heirs here, and take the other half to pool, to buy a ship and equip an expedition! What could it cost? Certainly no more than a hundred billion—and we must have a dozen barons in the Society who are worth more than half of that apiece!”

Markone gazed off into space. “It might be possible, at that … as though we were holding an extended festival abroad… And ‘twould be possible to return…”

“Meditate upon it,” Horatio urged. “Yet if ‘twere done, ‘twere well ‘twere done quickly, Markone. You know the uncertainty of the political situation.”

You could almost hear Markone’s eyes click back into focus. “Uncertainty? What’s doubtful about it, Bocello? Nothing but time—and that might be as short as a few days, before these petit-bourgeois politicians in the Assembly elect the Executive Secretary to the noble post of Dictator!”

“Oh, come now,” Horatio purred. “I scarcely think they’d be so blatant as to give him the title.”

“No, but they’ll give him the power! They’re primed and ready; all they need is a trigger, some threat to all of them, and they’ll cheerfully sell all their freedoms for security—and ours with theirs!”

“True, true—and we know how sensitive these lowborns are to anything that threatens their positions. When all’s said and done, money is secondary to them. But give them one sign that there may be someone more powerful than they, who might usurp their powers, and they panic!”

“They do indeed—which brings to mind the latest news, Horatio.” Markone glowered up at him out of the screen. “What think you of this Interstellar Telepathic Conspiracy?”

“Who could better recognize a fantasy than we? But there is a man of almost supernatural gifts there, as the grain of truth that rumor’s wrapped around, Markone.”

“Indeed?” Markone’s scowl deepened. “What manner of man is that?”

“One you’ve met—the greatest bard of the Terran Sphere, Tod Tambourin. Government officials have been chasing him in here from the marches—secretly at first, but now openly, claiming that he and his band are telepaths.”

“Chased Tod Tambourin?” Markone bawled. “This is too much, Bocello! They exceed excess in this!”

“They do indeed.” Horatio nodded slowly, eyes gleaming.

“If they will harry such a man out of pettiness and spite, what might they not attempt? By all the stars, Bocello—do you realize that they might come a-hunting us?”

“We are logical targets for envious men,” Horatio purred, “the more so since we have wealth to confiscate.”

“Does it begin again, then? Must we watch the bloody flag arise, and ride on tumbrels to the guillotine?”

That, Dar thought, was overdoing it a bit—though he had to agree that there did seem to be some danger in staying on Terra just now, for anyone with large amounts of money or a taste for eccentric hobbies.

“I, for one, do not intend to learn the answer,” Horatio informed his phone-screen, “at least, not from personal experience. I’ll buy a ship alone, if I have to, and recruit my party guests. What say you, Markone? Will you join me?”

“That I will, and see the Baronetcy of Ruddigore established in reality! Go buy your ship, Bocello—and don’t lift off without me!”

The screen blanked. Horatio turned to his guests with a wolfish grin. “So it begins, and they’ll fall into line quickly, I assure you; the twelve great barons of the Central Kingdom. Oh, we’ll have that ship bought and outfitted within a day, and be loading passengers in two!”

Whitey spread his hands. “It was just an idea.”

“You can’t find enough people that fast,” Dar stated flatly. “Oh, maybe you twelve rich men might be ready to jump at a moment—you know you can come back any time you choose. But it’s different for the ordinary people. They’ll need a long time to decide.”

“They will, eh?” Horatio seized a stylus and tablet from his desk and strode to the French doors. He came out onto the terrace, hands high, bellowing, “Now I cry HOLD!”

The shouting chaos of laughing and singing ceased in an instant.

“They’re loyal,” Horatio explained over his shoulder. Then, to the multitude: “The Baronet of Ruddigore and I have decided to take ship, and ride out to the stars, to discover a world never before seen by Terrans, there to found the Central Kingdom in reality, and live as men ought, by faith and sweat and steel. We shall need villeins and yeomen, gentlemen and knights! We shall leave in two days time; any who are not with us then, will never be! Who wishes to ride? Sign here!”

He threw the tablet down into the multitude. With a roar, they pounced on it, and the whole crowd instantly re-formed into a line, each one fairly panting in his eagerness to emigrate. Food-sellers and jugglers began to work up and down the queue.

Horatio turned back to Dar with a grin. “That is the mettle of my people!”

“They’ll change their minds by the time they get to the front of the line,” Dar predicted.

Horatio nodded. “Some of them, no doubt—but most will sign. They’ve wished for nothing half so much as to live in a world where folk are true, and the rulers worthy of trust. How say you, brave ones? Will you join us?”

“Instantly.” Sam beamed up at him.

Horatio looked down at her, surprised. Then, slowly, he began to smile, almost shyly.

“I admit I’m tempted,” Father Marco mused. “For a priest, the Middle Ages had definite advantages.”

“For gleemen, too.” Whitey grinned from ear to ear. “I think it’s a great idea, Horatio, and I’ll cheer you on every A.U. of the way—but I never was much of a joiner.”

“Nor I.” Lona shook her head firmly. “Stuck in a society that’s never even heard of electrons? Horrible!”

Dar opened his mouth to answer, and a burring sound came out. He swallowed and blinked, then realized that the sound had come from the phone. A footman in tights and tabard stepped out to announce, “There is a Mr. Stroganoff calling, sir, for Mr. Tambourin.”

Whitey looked up in surprise. “Already? There shouldn’t have been any progress yet.” He went back inside, with Dar trailing after.

Stroganoff was on the screen, dazed. “What’s the matter, David?” Whitey asked as he came into range.

“Oh, nothing, nothing at all! Everything’s just fine—in fact, too fine. That’s what’s the matter!”

“Glad to hear it—I hope. Want to tell me why it’s gotten so hot that it’s turned cold?”

“The Executive Secretary.” Stroganoff swallowed. “I sent a fax to his office, right after you left. I figured the way the government bureaucracy works, I’d better start right away if we were going to have any chance of shooting him within the year.”

“Wise.” Whitey was poised like a hawk about to stoop. “And?”

“And his office just called. He’s—he’s willing to do the piece. But only if we can do it tomorrow!”

Whitey and Dar both stared.

“The primary citizen never says ‘yes’ that quickly!” Stroganoff bawled. “And even after you’ve talked him into it, you have to make an appointment months away!”

“And have it canceled at the last minute, at least twice.” Whitey nodded, with a faraway look in his eyes. “On the other hand, I do have a certain reputation…”

“Well, you’re at least as famous as he is, if that’s what you mean. But …”

“But my fame is apt to last a bit longer,” Whitey mused, “and from the current political news, I’d guess the Exec isn’t too sure he’s going to still be Exec in a few months—or even next month, for that matter.”

“Next week,” Stroganoff growled.

Whitey nodded. “So he’s making his bid for immortality. Do the piece for us, and he’s guaranteed a featured place in Tod Tambourin’s one and only 3DT masterpiece. Even if history forgets him, literature won’t.”

Stroganoff nodded slowly. “Y’know, that almost makes sense, Tod.”

“Yeah, but the schedule doesn’t.” Whitey grimaced. “Oh, the crew can make it easily enough—all we have to do is hop into a cab, and charge it to your company.”

Stroganoff shuddered. “How about first class on a public shuttle?”

Whitey shrugged. “Whatever you like. But how about equipment?”

“May have it, or may not. There’s no point in dropping it down from Luna, of course; what we do is to rent it out from a dirt side company. I know a few. I’ll have to make some calls, and get back to you.”

Whitey grinned. “I always wanted to use a 3DT camera.”

“Uh, hold on, now. Whoa!” Stroganoff held up his palm. “No can do, Tod. Cameras come with a union crew, or they don’t come at all!”

“Why?” Whitey frowned. “I’ve got two electronics techs right here!”

“I know, but if the union finds out you’ve shot a sequence without them, they won’t give you any tech crew for the studio segments up here. Like it or not, we’ve got to use them.”

“Okay, I’ll try to like it,” Whitey sighed. “When do we meet them?”

“I’ll let you know, if I manage to get them. Where’ll you be?”

“Where should I be?”

Stroganoff grinned. “Thank you, Meistersinger. Be on your way to the Gamelon, will you? Call me back when you’re over Lake Champlain.”