Now was as good a time as any to get rid of the damn pilot, so Broohnin squeezed the trigger as soon as his finger found it. But Stafford's reflexes were faster. He thrust Broohnin's arm upward and Salli screamed as the beam flashed upward, striking no one.
Josef was not so lucky. At the sound of the scream and the sight of a blaster held high and firing, the squad leader responded by pressing his own trigger. There was a brief glare between the guardsman and Josef, illuminating the features of the former, briefly washing away the holosuit effect of the latter. Josef fell without a sound, a few of the accouterments on his weapons belt detaching with the impact, seeming to pop right out of his body as they passed through the holosuit image and landed on the pavement.
Everyone dropped then, including Broohnin. Kanya was the exception. She dove into the midst of the squad of guardsmen and began to wreak incredible havoc-punching, kicking, swirling, dodging, making it impossible for them to fire at her for fear of blasting a fellow guardsman. Broohnin found himself in sole possession of his blaster again. Stafford had rolled on top of his wife and both had their hands clasped protectively and uselessly over their heads. He was about to put an end to the pilot's threat once and for all when something on the pavement caught his eye.
A white disc with a small red button at its center lay beside Josef's inert form. Broohnin could not tell how badly the Flinter was hurt, or even if he were still alive, because of the camouflaging effect of the holosuit. There was no pool of blood around him, but then there seldom was much bleeding from a blaster wound due to the cauterizing effect of the heat. Deciding to risk it, he crawled over to Josef on his belly, reached for the disc, then began to crawl away. A glance over his shoulder revealed that Kanya had just about disposed of the entire squad, so he rose to his feet and sprinted in the other direction, into the safety of the darkness down the street.
With the disc in his left hand and the blaster in his right, Broohnin ran as fast as his pumping legs would carry him, through back alleys, across vacant lots, changing streets, altering direction, but always heading away from the center of town, away from Imperium Park and the Imperium Complex that surrounded it. He no longer needed LaNague or the Flinters or anyone else. The destruction of the Imperium was clutched in his left hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY
In the constant sociability of our age people shudder at solitude to such a degree that they do not know of any other use to put it to but…as a punishment for criminals.
Søren Kierkegaard
“Josef dead?” LaNague wanted to scream. The quiet, pensive man who had been with him for nearly five years, who was walking death down to his finger tips and yet so gentle and peace loving at heart, was dead. It was easy to think of Flinters as nothing more than killing machines, living weapons with no personalities, no identities. Yet they were all individuals, philosophically sophisticated, profoundly moral in their own way, human, mortal…
“How?”
Calmly, briefly, Kanya explained it to him, her face on the vidscreen displaying no trace of emotion. Flinters were like that: emotions were not for public display; she would suffer her grief in private later.
“I tried to bring his body back to the warehouse for storage until it could be returned home,” she concluded, “but there was no access. They have the building surrounded-on the street level and in the air, with infra-red monitors every twenty meters. I could not approach without being detected.”
“Poor Josef,” LaNague said, his mind still rebelling at the news of his death. “I'm so sorry, Kanya.” He watched her on the screen. How do you comfort a Flinter? He wished he could put an arm around her, knew there would be no steel or stone beneath his hand, but soft, yielding flesh. He sensed her grief. He wanted to pull her head down to his shoulder and let her cry it out. But that would never happen, even if she were standing next to him. Absolute emotional control was an integral part of Flinter rearing. A being skilled in a hundred, a thousand, ways of killing could not allow emotions to rule, ever.
Kanya was demonstrating that control now as she spoke. “Didn't you hear me? You're trapped. We've got to get you out.”
LaNague shook his head. “I know what's going on outside. I've been watching. I'll wait for them here…no resistance. How's the pilot?”
“He and his wife are safe with Mora.”
“And Broohnin? Is he safe where he can cause no more trouble?”
Kanya's face darkened for an instant; lightning flashed in her eyes. “Not yet. But he will be soon.”
LaNague stiffened involuntarily. “What aren't you telling me, Kanya?”
“Josef is dead because of Broohnin,” she said flatly. “If he had not delayed us at the pilot's apartment, we would have been gone before the squad of Imperial Guard arrived. Even after we were halted in front of the building, if he had followed directions and stood quietly, there would have been no shooting. Josef would be alive and beside me now.”
“Let him go, Kanya. He can only harm himself now. You can settle with him later when your grief is not so fresh.”
“No.”
“Kanya, you pledged yourself to my service until the revolution was over.”
“He must be found immediately.”
LaNague had an uneasy feeling that Kanya was still not telling him everything. “Why? Why immediately?”
“We dishonored ourselves,” she said, her eyes no longer meeting his. “We circumvented your authority by planting a fail-safe device in Imperium Park.”
LaNague closed his eyes. He didn't need this. “What sort of device?” He had a sinking feeling that he already knew the answer.
“A Barsky box.”
Just what he had feared. “How big? What's the radius of the displacement field?”
“Three kilometers.”
“Oh no!” LaNague's eyes were open again, and he could see that Kanya's were once more ready to meet them. “Didn't you trust me?”
“There was always the chance that you might fail, that the Imperium would reassert control, or that Earth would move in faster than anyone anticipated. We had to have a means to ensure final destruction.”
“But a radius that size could possibly disrupt Throne's crust to the point where there'd be global cataclysm!”
“Either way, the Imperium or the Earthie conquerors who replaced it would no longer be a threat.”
“But at a cost of millions of lives! The whole purpose of this revolution is to save lives!”
“And we've cooperated! The device was only to be used in the event of your failure. A new Imperium or an Earth takeover would inevitably lead to an invasion of Flint as well as Tolive. I do not know about your planet, but no one on Flint will ever submit to outside rule. Every single one of us would die defending our planet. That would be a cost of millions of lives! Flinter lives! We prefer to see millions die on Throne. We will never allow anything to threaten our way of life. Never!”
LaNague held up his hands to stop her. “All right! We'll have this out later. What's it all got to do with Broohnin?”
“There were two triggers to the device. Broohnin now has one of them.”
LaNague sat for a long, silent moment. Then: “Find him.”
“I will.”
“But how? He could be anywhere.”
“All the triggers are equipped with tracers in the event they're lost. No matter where he goes, I'll be able to locate him.”
“He's crazy, Kanya. He'll set that thing off just for the fun of it. He's got to be stopped.” After another silence, shorter this time: “Why couldn't you have trusted me?”