"Sh!" said Miss Flavin, angrily. The group quieted.
"Wait here just a minute," Clay's voice said. "I'll have her brought in."
He left the room. Oliver glanced around nervously, one hand on the engraved metal stick he wore, the other fidgeting with the lace at his throat. He flung himself down on a divan, stared blankly at a picture on the wall -- one side of it was visible in the screen; it was Frans Hals' "Laughing Cavalier" -- then got up again and began pacing back and forth.
Beside Dick, Melker was breathing stridently. He glanced that way; Melker's eyes were bright, his parted lips moist. "His mother died when he was six," he whispered. "Watch him now: watch him!"
Oliver turned at some sound not audible in the screen. After a moment, there was movement: a person advanced slowly into the room.
Like the rest, Dick strained idiotically to see around the side of the TV screen. In a moment, she moved again: the girl took another hesitant step forward, and stood looking speechlessly at Oliver.
She was dressed in the puff-skirted formal costume that had been popular in Eagles twenty years ago; there was something about the arrangement of her pale blonde hair that was even older. She was slender and awkward, and her long, green eyes gazed at Oliver with a kind of numb astonishment. Her parted lips quivered as if they had forgotten there were such things as words.
Oliver went down slowly on his knees. His arms lifted helplessly. "Oh, Mama!" he said. "Mama Elaine!"
17
Dick awoke to a thunder of running footsteps in the corridor; screams, the crash of glass. He sat up, heart pounding. He blinked as lights flared on in the outer rooms. A door slammed.
"Who's that?" he called. "What is it?"
Alex came running into view, his thin face scared and paper-white. "Oh, misser, misser, they are killing people in the corridors!"
There was a distant explosion that jarred the floor. Then more screams, farther away. Dick got out of bed, thinking furiously. Turnover Day had been put off again and again, in spite of Melker's good intentions; the last Dick had heard, it was set for three days in the future.
Either they had started it prematurely, without warning him, or else there had been a slip-up and the turnover was betrayed.
The valet, shaking but still correct, was holding out his trousers. If only he knew more! "Tell me what you saw, Alex. No, not those -- the dress uniform."
"Misser, it was terrible. I was in the Long Corridor, on my way to the Gismo Room for the morning quota. I heard explosions, like it was gunshots. I turned around, all the people was staring, they couldn't believe their eyes. There was running a man, and then just by the little gold fountain, there was another gunshots, and he fell down. It was like a terrible, terrible dream. And the blood, you have no idea ... "
"Who shot him?"
"I didn't see. I ran. But in our corridor, Misser Jones, it came gunshots again, and then I saw a whole lot of men running, with guns in their hands. And behind them, the red ones, shooting."
"Household Guards?"
"Yes. Shooting, shooting, shooting -- I thought they would kill me. Two they did kill, they are lying there in the corridor. I saw also the black ones, Gismo Guards; but then I came in before they could shoot me. Misser Jones, what is going to happen?"
"Hell!" said Dick, jerking at the elbow-chain attached to his belt. It wouldn't give, and then it did. He pulled the chain through the sleeve, then did the same for the other side. Wherever he was going, he might need his arms free.
He knew one thing, at any rate: if the Guards were chasing conspirators, it was all up; one way or another, the attempt had failed. The only question was, how much did they know? If they had all the names, it was just a matter of time before they picked him up. The best thing he could do would be to try to get out of Eagles as fast as possible.
But if they didn't have his name, and he ran, it would be an admission of guilt; whereas if he brazened it out, he might have a chance.
In the corridor were two dead bodies, both huddled against the blood-spattered wall. Dick recognized one of them; it was Thor Swenson, with whom he had been drinking beer only the night before last. The funny thing was, he hadn't known Thor was in the conspiracy.
Up in the Long Corridor there were more bodies, both sexes, slobs as well as people.
An incongruous memory came into his mind, for no reason that he could see: the dead mongrel, back at Buckhill on his last day, with the little slob boy kneeling in tears over it.
He listened. There was no more firing, nothing to be heard except a faint, cadenced marching and a rumble of wheels that grew slowly louder. He heard a voice shouting orders. Out of a cross corridor suddenly appeared a squad of Household Guards with two field artillery pieces. Dick saw the officer in charge glance sharply in his direction, and felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead. It occurred to him for the first time that an Army uniform might be no protection at all; the Army had been deeply infiltrated, and it was ten to one that some of the conspirators had been in uniform when the fighting broke out.
He didn't hesitate. He strode toward the officer, bringing his heels down hard. The guards were wrestling the two field pieces around back to back, to sweep the corridor in both directions. The officer raised his pistol. "Halt. Identify yourself."
"Lieutenant," said Dick firmly but respectfully, "there's some mistake here. General Myer is about to set up an artillery post in that same spot -- he went off to see about requisitions not fifteen minutes ago. I'm his adjutant, Lieutenant Jones."
"I take my orders from Home Guard H.Q.," said the other, lowering his pistol. "Where's your sidearm?"
"We haven't been issued any yet. Look, Lieutenant, you haven't got enough men for this operation anyhow. You could be enfiladed from that cross corridor."
"We hold that, clear back to the Arcades," said the Guard officer, but his tone sounded a little less surly. "You Army puffs have got lead in your scuts, like always. Hell, it's all over -we're just here in case. You tell your General Myer -- "
He was interrupted by a stentorian voice that shouted, "Your attention! Your attention! There has been an attempt on the life and property of the Boss. All of the ringleaders have been killed or captured by the alertness of the Household Guard. However, some minor members of the gang are still at large. Stay in your present locations until a room to room search can be completed." By craning his neck, Dick could see the source of the voice, a public telescreen in the plaza just ahead. Even from this angle, the picture was clear though distorted. The camera was panning over the heaped bodies of men sprawled in the Armory Courtyard; the bronze Fountain of Commemoration was visible in the background. Dick saw Melker's gnomish face, with all the meaning gone out of it. Blood was matted in his forked beard.
The camera panned up, and he saw a group of people standing near the wall, with their hands tied behind them. One of them was Clay; he glanced at the camera without expression, and looked away.
The camera moved on. Twirling slowly in the air, trussed up by the legs like a fowl from the balcony railing, was another body. With difficulty, Dick recognized the upsidedown face.
It was Oliver.
The voice boomed out again: "One of the missing gang members is a woman, age about twenty, hair blonde, complexion fair, eyes gray-green. Any person found harboring this woman will be shot. Any person delivering this woman alive or furnishing information where she may be found, will be rewarded according to status, with quota advancement or high office. Any servant delivering this woman or providing such information, will be rewarded with, free status."