He’d pressed 00, but the elevator had taken him to 03. The bastards could control the elevators independently. Of course. They had brought him here.
He looked down the hall. There were other sections of the ceiling that looked as if they could slide down. He was sure he hadn’t seen a ceiling like that at launch level or at the dorms. But he had seen them somewhere. Around Admin—when you went to Admin to get your pay chit stamped you saw ceilings with those sections in them, and you wondered what they were…
He backed away from the transparent wall, turned, and ran. He got forty feet. Ten feet ahead of him another section of wall slid down. He was boxed in.
He slowed, the run becoming a trot and then a walk. He walked up to the wall and pressed his forehead against it, looking down the stretch of empty corridor on the other side. He was breathing hard, clouding the transparent plastic. He slammed his fist against the wall—three times, almost fracturing the bones of his hand. He knew he couldn’t break the wall. He hit it to let them know how he felt. Because he knew they were watching him.
He looked at the metal corridor walls between the transparent barriers, wondering… what next? Poison gas maybe? Or maybe he’d be ejected into space. No. The liberal wimps in Admin—at least on the Rimpler side of the board—didn’t have the honesty to do it that way.
There was a door in one of the walls. It was opening.
Slowly, sliding back into the wall. It whirred faintly.
Molt thought, I’m expected to walk through there. Fuck that.
He moved to where he could look through the door without standing too near it. Through the doorway he saw an almost bare room. There was a rectangular panel in the wall that would be the cot, when it was pulled out. There was a toilet, a sink, a shower stall. Air-conditioning vents—not big enough to crawl through. That was all. A detention cell.
He sat down with his back to the wall across from the door. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him walk in here. Not right away.
He wondered, idly, why they’d done it this way. If they’d tracked him, why hadn’t they sent the bulls in to arrest him?
Because the sneaky bastards knew if they’d sent the bulls in, it would have been a political act. It would have martyred him. They had to do it so no one would see. This way they could spread rumors he’d deserted to the other side or gone into hiding. Make him look like a coward.
Wilson. That skeevy runt must have sold him out.
He looked around, wondering where the cameras were. He looked at the ceiling and nodded to himself. Somewhere in the ceiling, one of those panels is two-way.
He stood up and dropped his pants…
In the Admin conference room, they sat around a table shaped like a backward S and watched Molt on the screen. Molt dropped his pants, took hold of his dick, waved it at them, pointed at it with his other hand, and mouthed, clearly, Suck this, you motherfuckers.
Claire winced and looked away.
The curves of the S-table were softly contoured. Praeger sat inside the curve across and to the left from Claire. Her father sat in the form-fitting chair across from her. Ganzio, the Brazilian UNIC rep, sat to her immediate left, scowling. He’d been here for an inspection visit—and had been stranded when the Russians had blockaded the Colony. He wanted to go home.
Judith Van Kips, the Afrikaner rep, sat to Gaazio’s left. To Van Kips’ left sat Messer-Krellman, officially the union rep appointed by UNIC—puppeted by UNIC. Across from Messer Krellman was Scanlon, the Colony Security chief.
The room was lit with soft, shadowless indirection. On Claire’s far right, at one end of the cornerless, roughly rectangular room was the screen, and on the screen was Molt. On Claire’s left, opposite the screen, was a bronze sculpture of a flock of birds taking flight from a pond.
Claire glanced at Molt, saw he was doing something even more obscene now, and fastened her eyes on the sculpture—with almost equal distaste. The sculpture seemed as false, as abstract and convenient, as UNIC’s protestations of classless fairness. Everyone will have a chance here, Admin had been saying over InterColony channel. Everyone will have an opportunity to move into the Open when the time comes. When the blockade is lifted, we’ll discuss pay raises and greater recreational credits. But in the meantime…
In the meantime they discussed security measures.
“Isolating this man isn’t going to isolate the rebellion,” Claire said. “The rebellion is widely supported. And it’ll continue to be supported in the Colony—as long as we’re hypocritical. We complain of not having money to improve their housing, but we sink four million newbux into expanding the security system—well before the rebellion began. And two million more into Admin housing improvements—”
Scanlon said, “Looks like we improved security not a moment too soon. The riots…”
“The riots don’t have to be,” Claire said wearily. “There would be no riots if the technickis were given what they were promised in the Articles. The technickis are convinced we’ve betrayed their trust.”
“Are they really convinced?” Praeger asked. “I think not.” Praeger was half-bald, and his pinkish head always made Claire think of a pencil eraser rounded by use. His eyes were weak, and he had some kind of phobia of implantation eye operations, so he wore thick, rimless glasses. His lips were bloodless, the same color as the skin of his face. He was thick-bodied, an athletic man—something you wouldn’t think he’d be, looking at his head—and muscular under the gray three-piece suit. “They’re reacting to stimuli, according to their social programming. They could just as easily react another way—with other stimuli. And if we’re wise, we’ll provide that.”
“And let them know only what we want them to know,” Rimpler said suddenly, startling them with his humorous tone. “And if they find out about the rest—tell them it’s a communications problem.” The “communications problem” was a reference to Praeger’s failing to inform Rimpler of the emergency while he was on vacation. Praeger had claimed he’d given the order to a subordinate, who’d failed to implement it by simple oversight. In due course Praeger had produced a subordinate who claimed to be responsible for the error. The man had been put on pay suspension, and probably been well paid off. “Just a little commun-i-ca-shuns prob-lemmmm,” Rimpler said, dreamily singsong. Making Claire think of the dormouse at the mad tea party. And making her think, What’s happening to him?
Van Kips sighed. “I really think there’s no point in dragging that one over the coals again, Doctor.” Pursing her lips—the severest expression she allowed herself. Or, perhaps, that Praeger allowed her. Supposedly, she worshiped Praeger. She was an implausibly beautiful woman. Shaped to some artist’s conception. Metal-flake blue eyes; a model’s narrow, doe-elegant face. Her long, perfectly straight flaxen hair was parted in the middle, to fall over her shoulders with impossible artfulness. She wore a dove-gray suit and white silk blouse; the suit clung to her tall, willowy body when she moved. But now she sat rigidly upright, her hands folded in her lap. Moving only her eyes when she looked at someone.
“At this point,” Praeger said, “it’s meaningless to try to pin down the cause of the riots. First, we must quell the riots, the vandalism, the strikes. If we come out now and say, Yes, you’re right, we’ve been remiss—well, that would encourage them in the idea that violence is the way to get through to us. The violence must cease before we concede anything.”
“I sure have to agree with that, Bill,” Scanlon said, in his faint Southern accent. He was a big, boyish-looking man, with tired eyes and a lot of seams in his wide, friendly face. Friendly face, and he’ll have a jolly twinkle in his eye, Claire thought, when he gets around to ordering my arrest. “If we give in now we’ll have to give in every time they threaten us. Things’ll just get worse—for them and for us, too.” He shifted in his seat and waited for a response, smiling like an angel. Claire remembered having heard he was some kind of born-again Christian.