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"Precious little."

"You enlist your rebels from the colonists, naturally. Your trouble is that most colonists don't really want the crew to lose control of the Plateau. They're happy the way they are. Yours is an unpopular cause. I tried to explain why before; let me try again." With obvious effort he moved his arms enough to fold his hands in his lap. Random muscles in his shoulders twitched from time to time.

"It's not that they don't think they could do better than the crew if it came to the point. Everybody always thinks that. They're afraid of Implementation, yes, and they won't risk their good blood and bone to make the change, not when Implementation has all the weapons on the Plateau and controls all the electrical power too.

"But that isn't the point. The point is that they don't really think that the crew rule is wrong.

"It all depends on the organ banks. On the one hand, the organ banks are a terrible threat, not only a death penalty, but an ignominious way to die. On the other hand, the banks are a promise. A man who deserves it and can pay for it, even a colonist, can get medical treatment at the Hospital. But without the organ banks there'd be no treatment. He'd die.

"Do you know what your rebels would do if they could beat the crew to their knees? Some would insist that the organ banks be abolished. They'd be killed or ostracized by their own members. The majority would keep the banks just as they are, but use the crew to feed them!"

His neck was stronger now, and he looked up to see patient stares. A good audience. And he had them hooked, finally.

"Up to now," he went on, "you couldn't start a rebellion because you couldn't convince enough fighting men that your cause was just. Now you can. Now you can convince the colonists of Mount Lookitthat that the organ banks are and should be obsolete. Then wait a little. When Implementation doesn't disband, you move."

Harry Kane said, "That's exactly what I was thinking, only you seem to be way ahead of me. Why did you call me silly?"

"You made a silly assumption. You thought I was trying to keep the ramrobot package a secret. Quite the contrary. Just this afternoon I--"

"I've finally got it," said Hood. "You've decided to join the winning side, have you Parlette?"

"You fool. You bad-mouthed colonist fool."

Jay Hood flushed. He stood perfectly straight with his arms at his sides and his fists clenched. He was no angrier than Parlette. The old man was trying to shift his weight, and every muscle in his body was jumping as a result. He said, "Do you think so little of me, to think I'd follow such motives?"

"Relax, Jay. Parlette, if you have something to say, say it. If we jump to the wrong conclusions, please assume that you're expressing yourself badly, and don't try to shift the blame."

"Why don't you all count to infinity?" Lydia Hancock suggested.

Parlette spoke slowly and evenly. "I am trying to prevent a bloodbath. Is that clear enough for you? I'm trying to prevent a civil war that could kill half the people in this world."

"You can't do it," said Harry Kane. "It's coming.

"Kane, cannot you and I and your associates work out a new... constitution for Mount Lookitthat? Obviously the Covenant of Planetfall will no longer work."

"Obviously."

"I made a speech today. In fact, I seem to be spending the whole damn day and night making speeches. This afternoon I called an emergency session--rammed it through the Council. You know what that means?"

"Yah. You were talking to every crew on the Plateau, then."

"I told them what was in ramrobot package one-forty-three. I showed them. I told them about the organ-bank problem and about the relationship between ethics and technology. I told them that if the secret of the ramrobot ever reached the colonists, the colonists would revolt en masse. I did my damndest, Kane, to scare the pants off them.

"I've known from the beginning that we couldn't keep the secret forever. Now that thirty thousand people know it, it'll be out even faster, even if we were all killed this instant. I did all this, Kane, in order to warn them. To scare them. When they realize that the secret is out, they may be scared enough to dicker. The smart ones will. "I've been planning this a long time, Kane. I didn't even know what it was that Earth would ship us. It might have been a regeneration serum, or designs for cheap alloplasty components, or even a new religion. Anything. But something was coming, and here it is, and, Kane, we've got to try to stop the bloodbath." Gone were Parlette's shortness of breath and his clumsy attempts to make his lips and tongue work against a sonic blast. His voice was smooth and lilting, rising and falling, a little hoarse but terribly earnest. "We've got to try. Maybe we can find something both the crew and the colonists can agree on."

He stopped, and three heads nodded, almost in reflex.

CHAPTER 11

INTERVIEW WITH THE HEAD

HE SAW the four men, and be saw Laney stagger. He tried to turn and run, and in that instant there was a godawful clang, a sound like being inside a church bell. He jumped to the side instead, knowing the hall must be full of sonics.

"Shut the damn door!" a voice yelled. One of the guards jumped to obey. Matt felt the, numbness of the sonics, and his knees went watery. He kept his eyes on his four enemies.

One bent over Laney. "All alone," he said. "Crazy. Wonder where she got the clothes?"

"Off a crew, maybe."

Another guard laughed brayingly.

"Shut up, Rick. Come on, lend a hand. Let's get her to a chair."

"A hunting gun. Wouldn't you hate to get shot with this?"

"She came a long way to get to the vivarium. Most of them we have to bring."

The braying laugh again.

"Gas bomb didn't go off." One of the guards kicked a metal canister. Immediately the canister began hissing. "Nose plugs, quick!"

They fumbled in their pockets, produced things that looked like large rubber false noses.

"Good. We should have done this before. If we keep the room filled with gas, anyone who comes charging in will drop right away."

Matt had gotten the message. He'd held his breath from the moment he heard the hiss. Now he walked up to the nearest guard and wrenched his false nose away. The man gasped in surprise, looked directly at Matt, and crumpled.

The false nose had a band to fit around the neck, and some kind of adhesive to form a skin-tight lock around the nose. Matt got it on and found himself breathing through it, with difficulty. It was not comfortable.

"Rick? Oh, that idiot. Where the Mist Demons is his nose plug?"

"I'll bet the jerk forgot to bring it."

"Get me Major Jansen, please." One of the guards was using his handphone. "Sir? A girl just tried to crash the vivarium. Yes, a girl, in crew clothing... That's right, just one... She's sleeping in one of the seats, sir. We figured as long as she'd gone to all that trouble getting here.

Matt still felt dizzy, though the door must be blocking the vibrations of the big sonics. Had he been hit by an unnoticed mercy-bullet?

He bent over Laney. She was out of it, for sure. Punctured by far too many anesthetic slivers, her lungs filled with gas, a rhythmic sleep-inducing current playing through her brain... ?

He found three wires leading to her headset. He pulled them. Now she was a time bomb. When everything else wore off, she'd wake up. More of a firecracker, actually, with four armed guards in the room.