“Of course not!”
“Then let me go home.”
“I can't. You don't seem to understand that I-”
“All I understand,” Stafford said, rising to his feet and gesturing angrily, “is that I had it better under Metep VII. I could walk the streets. I could sleep in my home. I can't do that now!”
“You wouldn't be able to do it if Haworth found you, either,” LaNague replied. “Think of that.”
“The only thing I'm thinking is that I'm a prisoner and you're my jail keeper. Which makes you no better than anyone else in the Imperium. In fact, it makes you worse.”
The words struck LaNague like so many blows. He mentally fought the implications, but finally had to accept them: he had put aside everything he believed in, his entire heritage, in order to further the revolution.
Above all else: Kyfho… Adrynna's words came back to him …forget Kyfho in your pursuit of victory over the enemy, and you will become the enemy…worse than the enemy, for he doesn't know he is capable of anything better.
“The enemy…me,” he muttered, feeling weak and sick. Stafford looked at him questioningly. “You wouldn't understand,” he told him. He glanced at Kanya and Josef and saw sympathy there, but no help. It was his battle, one that could only be won alone.
So close…so close to victory that victory itself had become his cause. How had he let that happen? Was this what power did to you? It was horrifying. He had always felt himself immune to that sort of lure…above it. Instead, he had placed himself above all others, ready and willing to subject their personal desires to his ultimate vision-the very reason for which he so loathed the Imperium!
When had he begun to yield? He couldn't say. The onset had been so insidious he had never noticed the subtle changes in perspective. But he should have realized something was wrong that day by the mint when he had been willing to risk the lives of some of the guards inside rather than delay activating the Barsky box. Since when had a Robin Hood caper meant more than a human life? He should have known then. He was embracing the “can't make an omelet without breaking eggs” attitude that had brought the out-worlds to the brink of ruin. Ends had never justified means for him in the past. Why had he let them do so now?
If not for Mora that day, he might have killed someone. And life was what his whole revolution was about…letting life grow, allowing it to expand unhindered, keeping it free. The revolution he had originally envisioned was for everyone on all the out-worlds, not just a few. And if his revolution was to be everyone's, it had to be for the men in the Imperial Guard, too. They had to have their chance for a new future along with everybody else. But dead men weren't free; neither was a probe pilot locked up in a warehouse.
He wanted to run, to kick down the doors, and flee into the night. But not to Mora-anywhere but to Mora. He felt so ashamed of himself now, especially after the way he had been treating her, that he couldn't bear the thought of facing her…not until he had made things right.
“You can leave,” he said, his voice barely audible as he leaned back against the office doorframe.
Stafford took an uncertain step forward. “What? You mean that?”
LaNague nodded, not looking at him. “Go ahead. But be warned: Primus City is not as you left it. It's night out there now, and the streets belong to whoever feels strong enough or desperate enough to venture onto them. You won't like it.”
“I've got to get to my wife.”
LaNague nodded again, stepping away from the doorway. “Find her. Bring her back here if you wish, or take your chances out there. I leave the choice up to you. But remember two things: the Imperium is looking everywhere for you, and we offer you and your wife safety here.”
“Thank you,” Stafford said, glancing between LaNague and the two Flinters. Hesitantly at first, and then with growing confidence, he walked past LaNague, across the warehouse floor, and out the side door. He only looked back three times before he was out of sight.
LaNague was silent for a while, gathering his thoughts. The next steps would have to be moved up, the schedule accelerated. “Follow him,” he told Kanya and Josef. “Make sure he's left with a choice. If a few Imperial Guardsmen should get hold of him, let him go with them if that's what he wants. But if he decides he'd prefer to stay with us, then see to it that they don't get in his way.”
The Flinters nodded, glad for an opportunity to do something besides sit and wait. They adjusted their holosuits to the middle-aged male images, and started for the door.
“One thing,” LaNague said as they were leaving. “Don't bring him back here. Take him and his wife to my apartment. Under no circumstances bring him back here.”
LaNague could see no expression through the enveloping holograms, but knew the Flinters must have looked puzzled.
“Trust me,” he said. The words tasted stale on his tongue.
They were not gone long when Broohnin entered. “Where's the probe pilot?” he asked, his head swiveling back and forth in search of Stafford.
“Gone.” LaNague had taken over the seat Stafford had vacated.
“Where'd you hide him?”
“I let him go.”
It took a moment for the truth of that statement to register on Broohnin. At first he reacted as if to an obvious and rather silly attempt at humor, then he looked closely into LaNague's face.
“You what?”
“I don't believe in imprisoning a man completely innocent of any wrongdoing.”
The small amounts of facial skin visible above Broohnin's beard and below his hairline had turned crimson. “You fool! You idiot! Are you insane? What he knows could ruin everything-you said so yourself!”
“I realize that,” LaNague said. An icy calm had slipped over him. “I also realize that I cannot allow one unpleasant fact to overcome a lifetime's belief.”
“Belief?” Broohnin stormed across the office. “We're talking about revolution here, not belief!” He went to the desk and started rifling through the drawers.
“What do you believe in, Broohnin? Anything?”
Pulling a hand blaster from a drawer, Broohnin wheeled and pointed the lens directly at LaNague's face. “I believe in revolution,” he said, his breathing ragged. “And I believe in eliminating anyone who gets in the way of that belief!”
LaNague willed his exterior to complete serenity. “Without me, there is no revolution, only a new, stronger Imperium.”
After a breathless pause that seemed to go on forever, Broohnin finally lowered the blaster. Without a word, he stalked to the far exit and passed through to the street.
LaNague lifted his left hand and held it before his eyes. It was trembling. He could not remember being exposed to the raw edge of such violent fury before. He let the hand fall back to his lap and sighed. It would not be the last. Before this thing was over, he might well come closer to even greater physical danger. He might even die. But there was no other way.
He heaved himself out of the chair and toward the disheveled desk. Time to move.
“WHY DON'T YOU calm down?” Metep VII said from his formfitting lounger as he watched Daro Haworth pace the floor. There was an air of barely suppressed excitement about the younger man that had grown continually during the few moments he had been present in the room.
“I can't! We've just heard from the municipal police commissioner. They've had a tip on the whereabouts of Robin Hood.”
“We've been getting those ever since the first currency heist. They've all been phony. Usually someone with a grudge on somebody else, or a prankster.”
“The commissioner seems to think this is the real thing,” Haworth said. “The caller gave the location of a warehouse he says is the center of all the Robin Hood activities. Says we'll find Robin Hood himself there along with enough evidence to convince a dead man that he's the genuine article.” Haworth's hands rubbed together as if of their own will. “If only it's true! If only it's true!”