“Of course.”
He fell onto the bed, his back to the window, not wishing to see her leave. Then it was all over. Ryzo was the only one who might have done something to help him. But Ryzo was dead, angered by her as she must have planned. Killed by her as she had carefully planned as well. No one else could organize any help in the short time left. He had friends, many of them, but they were helpless. And enemies as well, everyone who hated change and blamed him for everything. Probably the majority of people on this world. Well he had done what he could for them. Not very much. Though if the ships came now they would have the corn waiting. Not that the people here would avail themselves of the advantage. They would bow like the peasants they were and go back to the fields and servitude, and slave their lives away for no reward, no future. Nothing. He had had the brief time with Alzbeta; that was worth a lot to him. Better to have had something than nothing. And she would have their son, hopefully a son. Or better, a daughter. A son of his might have too many of his father’s characteristics. A daughter would be better. The meek did not inherit the earth here, but perhaps they lived a bit longer with a little more happiness. All of which would be academic if the ships never came. They might be able to get most of the people through to the north just one more time with the decaying equipment. Probably not even that, if he were not there to put things back together.
And he was not going to be there, because in a few short hours more he would be dead. He hung heavily from the bars of the tiny window and looked out at the perpetual gray of the sky. The garrote. No one here had ever heard of it. Revived by the rulers of Earth for the worst offenders. He had been forced to witness an execution of this kind once. The prisoner seated on the specially built chair with the high back. The hole behind his neck. The loop of thick cord passed around his neck with the ends through the hole. The handle attached to the cord that turned and tightened and shortened it until the prisoner was throttled, painfully, and dead. There had to be a sadist to tighten the cord. No shortage of them. Surely Scheer would volunteer for the job.
“Someone to see you,” the guard called in.
No visitors. I want to see no one else other than Alzbeta. Respect a man’s last wishes. And get me some food and beer. Plenty of beer.”
He drank, but he had no appetite for the food. Alzbeta came once again and they talked quietly, closely, as close as they could get. She was there when the Proctors came for him and they ordered her away.
“No surprise to see you, Scheer,” Jan said. “Are they going to be nice and let you turn the handle on the machine?”
Jan could tell by the man’s sudden pallor and silence that his guess had been right. “But maybe I’ll kill you first,” he said and raised his fist.
Scheer lurched back, scrambling for his gun, a coward. Jan did not smile at the spectacle. He was tired of them, tired of them all, tired of this stupid peasant world, almost ready to welcome oblivion.
Nineteen
It was the same platform that had been used for the trial; the same public address system still set up. Nothing was wasted; everything was carefully planned. But the chairs and tables placed there for the trial had been removed and a single item put in their place. The high-backed chair of the garrote. Carefully made, Jan noticed in a cold and distant way, not done in a day. All well prepared. He bad stopped, unconsciously, at the sight of it, his guard of Proctors stopping too.
This was a moment suspended in time, as though no one was sure just what to do next. The five judges, mute witnesses to their decision, stood on the platform. The crowd watched. Men, women, children, every inhabitant of the planet well enough to walk must have stood there, jammed in the Central Way. Silent as death itself, waiting for death. The perpetually overcast sky pressed down like a mourning blanket against the silence.
Broken suddenly by Chun Taekeng, never patient, always angry, immune to the emotions that gripped the others.
“Bring him over, don’t just stand there. Let us get on with this.”
The momentary spell ended. The Proctors pushed Jan forward suddenly so that he stumbled against the lowest step and almost fell. It angered him; he did not want to be thought a coward at this moment. He pushed back hard against them, shrugging their hands from his arms. Free for the instant, he started up the steps by himself so that they had to hurry after him. The crowd saw this and responded with a gentle murmur, almost a sigh.
“Come forward. Sit there,” Chun Taekeng ordered. “Don’t I get to speak any last words?”
“What? Of course not! It is not ordered that way. Sit!” Jan strode toward the chair of the garrote, arms
firmly gripped again by the Proctors. He saw only Chun Taekeng, The Hradil, the other judges, and an immense loathing welled up within him, forcing out the words.
“How I hate you all, with your stupid little criminal minds. How you destroy people’s lives, waste them, subjugate them. You should be dying, not me…”
“Kill him!” The Hradil ordered, raw hatred in her face for the first time. “Kill him now, I want to see him die.”
The Proctors pulled at Jan, forcing him toward the garrote, while he pulled back, trying to get to the judges, to somehow break free and wreak vengeance upon them. Every eye was upon this silent struggle.
No one noticed the man in the dark uniform who pushed through the crowd. They made way for him, closed ranks behind him, staring at the platform. He struggled through the jammed front ranks and climbed the steps, until he was standing on the platform itself.
“Release that man,” he said. “This affair is now concluded.”
He walked slowly across the platform and took the microphone from Chun Taekeng’s limp fingers and repeated the words so that everyone could hear them.
No one moved. There was absolute silence.
The man was a stranger. They had never seen him before.
The fact was an impossibility. On a planet where no one arrived, where no one left, every person was known by sight, if not by name. There could be no strangers. Yet this man was a stranger.
Whether he meant to fire or not, Proctor Captain Scheer started to raise his gun. The newcomer saw the motion and turned toward him, a small and sinister weapon ready in his hand.
“If you don’t drop that gun I will kill you instantly,” he said. There was cold resolve in his voice and Scheer’s fingers opened and the gun dropped. “You others as well. Put your weapons down.” They did as ordered. Only when the guns were safely out of their reach did he raise the microphone and speak into it again.
“You other Proctors out there. I want you to know that there are men on all sides aiming weapons at you. If you attempt to resist you will be killed at once. Turn and see.”
They did, everyone in the crowd, as well as the Proctors, noticing for the first time the armed men who silently appeared on the tops of the buildings along the Central Way. They held long and deadly weapons equipped with telescopic sights, aimed downward. There was no doubt that they would use them efficiently and quickly.
“Proctors, bring your weapons up here,” the echoing voice ordered.
Jan stepped forward and looked at the man, at the two other armed strangers who joined him on the platform, and felt an immense relief surge through him. Just for an instant. His execution might only have been postponed.
“You’re from the ships,” he said.
The stranger put the microphone down and turned toward him, a gray-haired man with dark skin and burning blue eyes.
“Yes, we’re from the ships. My name is Debhu. Release Kulozik at once,” he snapped at the Proctors who hurried to obey. “We landed out on the Road about twenty hours ago. I’m sorry we had to wait until now to show up but we wanted everyone in one place at the same time. You would have been killed if they knew we were coming. There could have been fighting, more deaths. I’m sorry you had to go through this, with the death sentence hanging over you.