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?”