But the dark looks stayed ‘on’ the madmen’s faces, and Ciletha shuddered, suddenly realizing how unpredictable they might be. Quickly, she ran to Miles.
“Don’t follow us, now,” Dirk warned. “Miles, Ciletha, turn and go.”
Miles offered his arm as he turned around. Ciletha took it, heart pounding, and they walked slowly down the boulevard leading to the gate, with Dirk and Gar backing up behind them, rifles pointed a little above the heads of the silent, frozen band of madmen, standing there with the moonlight silvering their ludicrous finery.
CHAPTER 12
Gar and Dirk kept their word—they went on out through the doorless gateway and into the forest for more than a hundred yards. There, though, Gar held up a hand and stopped. The others did, too. They stood a moment, listening. Inside the city, they heard shouting.
The pause was enough to tear the shreds of composure Ciletha had left. She turned away from the men into the nearest pool of shadow and wept bitterly. But strong arms folded about her, and a hard-muscled chest moved to touch her cheek. She clung and sobbed, knowing it was Miles, knowing she could trust him not to think ill of her.
“Hush, now,” he soothed. “We’re safe—they won’t find us here. We’ve lost them.”
“And I’ve lost him forever!” she wailed. “Orgoru will never love me now!”
The arms and chest went very still, and Ciletha caught her breath, suddenly realizing that she didn’t want to lose Miles, too—but he loosened, and his hand began to caress her back again. Her whole body shuddered with a huge racking sob of relief, and she could let the tension out in weeping again.
“Think they’ll find some more of these portable cannon?” Dirk asked.
“Of course, or they won’t dare chase us,” Gar told him. The shouting wasn’t quite so far away now.
“Aristocrats!” Dirk sneered. “Sure they are, running in a mob just like the peasants they really are!”
“Be fair—I’ve seen aristocrats form their own mobs, too.” Gar looked up as Miles and Ciletha came back into the moonlight, his arm about her shoulders. “Functional again? Good, because we have an ambush to lay.”
“Ambush?” Ciletha stared. “Aren’t we trying to escape them?”
“Only for the moment,” Gar answered. “Right now, I want one of them alive and unhurt—preferably Orgoru.”
“Orgoru?” Fear for her friend seized her. “Why him?”
Gar must have heard the fright in her voice, for he said, “Don’t worry, maiden, we won’t hurt him just the opposite, in fact. Your friend has a sickness of the heart and mind, and I mean to cure him.”
The fear deepened, fear of having her own insight confirmed. “He’s not mad!”
“Orgoru is mentally ill,” Gar told her. “They all are. They all suffer from a malady called ‘delusions of grandeur.’ Here they can wallow in their delusions without anyone to hamper them, for the Guardian takes care of them and protects them. It’s kind in its way, but it would be kinder still to cure them and let them take up useful, productive lives in the real world again.”
“Sure of that, are you?” Dirk said sourly.
“Let them decide when they’ve had a chance,” Gar countered.
“But why do you care?” Miles asked, bewildered.
“Because I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to find an underground—a band of people organized in secret, with the purpose of overthrowing the Protector and his armies.”
“So that’s why you were talking so foolishly in that inn!”
“If you think that was foolish,” Dirk said, “You should have heard the things I’ve heard him say in other, uh, countries. He’s calmed down considerably.”
“How is it you’re still free?” Miles asked, round-eyed. “We’re quick,” Dirk explained.
“We made far fewer mistakes once you were there to explain local customs for us,” Gar told Miles. “I’ve finally admitted that there is no underground—but I still want to overthrow the iron rule of the Protector, and let the people choose their own form of government, one that will let them select their professions, travel when and where they will, and choose their own mates.”
Ciletha gasped with delight and fear, awed by the giant’s audacity.
“What has all that to do with this city of madmen?” Miles asked, bewildered.
“They could be my underground—if I cure their delusions first.”
“Be kinder to leave them mired in mania,” Dirk muttered. “Perhaps—but their country needs them. Think, my friends! In their efforts to become aristocrats, they’ve already learned the accent, the bearing, and the manners of the magistrates! And they know something of literature, science, and the arts—I led the conversation into many different areas at dinner, and the ones who had been here awhile knew the basics of all the main areas of human thought! They even know something, about their Protector’s laws and procedures, though they’ll have to learn a great deal more.”
“Their Guardian computer will probably be willing to give them teaching materials,” Dirk said, beginning to be fascinated in spite of his native caution.
“Exactly! Though we’ll have to teach them something about hand-to-hand combat, and strategy and tactics, too—these magistrates seem to have to be minor generals. But when they’ve learned, we can send each one out to replace a real magistrate who’s been reassigned.”
“Yes, and some of them might even work their way up through the bureaucracy!” Dirk’s eyes lit with enthusiasm. “But what of the genuine magistrates who were on their way to take up those posts?” Miles objected. The idea was too vast, too audacious for him.
“The real replacements can be easily waylaid and held captive in Voyagend,” Gar told him. “I have a notion I can persuade them that a more liberal government would be in their best interests—especially if they saw the chance to return to their favorite wives and stay with them, and visit their other children.”
“Can magistrates really care so much for wives and children?” Ciletha wondered.
“Once they’re allowed to stay with them? Sure!” Dirk said. “Don’t underestimate the paternal instinct.”
“But if these false magistrates of yours come to power, they’ll command the bailiffs and the watchmen!” Miles exclaimed. “If they become reeves, they’ll command armies!”
“Yes,” Gar said, “and once they have command, they can recruit and train agents who can talk the soldiers into believing in human rights!”
“What are ‘rights’?” Ciletha asked, caught between excitement and bewilderment.
“The idea that there are some things that are right for all people to do or try to do, simply because they’re born human,” Gar explained. “Everyone has a right to stay alive, or to try to; everyone has the right to be free to run his own life, unless he tries to take that right away from other people—tries to murder or rape them, or steal what they’ve spent a lifetime saving, or so on.”
“Even the right to choose her own mate?” Ciletha asked with sudden hope.
“Definitely that! In this country, that needs to be written down as a separate law!”
“Throttle your rockets, Space Ranger,” Dirk said, suddenly wary. “The Protector reassigns those magistrates on a five-year rotation schedule. Do you really want to spend the next sixty months of your life on this planet? Remember, before you answer, that there are people starving on other worlds while they’re waiting for you.”
“No one’s waiting for me,” Gar scoffed, then suddenly turned sad for an instant before he swept Dirk’s objections aside with a broad arm. “If these people can learn to become agents, they can learn how to run a whole network of cells! They can do the day-to-day administration on their own. We’ll come back in five years; to oversee the overthrow!”