The diadem throne was a huge, gaudy structure with considerable mass. But the crowd, too, was huge and considerably determined. At first the thone moved imperceptibly as the group on one side pushed while the other pulled, both quickly reversing their efforts. Soon the entire structure was swaying back and forth, with Metep VII, bereft of every shred of dignity, clutching desperately to his seat to the accompaniment of wild laughter from below. And when he finally decided to start his seat back down the pedestal, it was too late. He suddenly lost his grip and tumbled screaming to the waiting crowd below. The roar of human voices that arose then was deafening.
LaNague's immediate concern was that the crowd would beat Metep without mercy. Fortunately, that was not to be. Metep's scrambling efforts to maintain purchase on the rocking throne had been comedic enough to raise the general mood of his tormentors, averting a potentially ugly confrontation. He was hauled by his arms and his legs like so much baggage to the dock that had just been vacated by his former prisoner, while LaNague was carried shoulder-top to the now empty throne. The seat had reached floor level by this time and LaNague was thrust into it. Someone reversed the controls and it began to ascend the pedestal again, this time with a new occupant. As he rode toward the top of the diadem, a new chant arose from below:
“METEP EIGHT! METEP EIGHT! METEP EIGHT!..”
LaNague ignored it, expecting this kind of response. It was naïve, it was shortsighted, it was all too typical. It was why history repeated itself, over and over. What he had not expected was to be raised on this idiotic throne. He felt ridiculous and naked, like an oversized blaster target. For that feeling was back; the feeling that he was going to die.
He brushed it off again. It was just that he hadn't heard from Kanya, which meant that Broohnin could still be loose with the trigger to the big Barsky box. If activated, it would mean instant death for LaNague and everyone in sight.
He looked around at the undulating mass of upturned faces, all joyous, all filled with unhoped for hope, all sensing that they were midwives at the birth of something new. Just what it might be, they didn't know, but it had to be better than what they had been living through recently.
Not all faces were smiling, however. He spotted Haworth looking up at him, his right hand pressed against his forehead-injured, perhaps? — a look of utter concentration on his face, his left eye squinted closed. The crowd seemed to be ignoring him despite his outlandish appearance. Metep had held the title and was therefore the power in the Imperium as far as the public was concerned. Only a few knew Haworth as the real decision-maker.
LaNague looked away from the chief adviser, back toward the huge expanse of the crowd stretching to the far end of Freedom Hall and out into the growing darkness beyond. As his head moved, however, he caught a glint at Haworth's wrist out of the corner of his eye, and realized what the man was doing.
Pointing below, LaNague rose to his feet and shouted, “Daro Haworth!” The remote directional microphones, automatically trained on the seat's occupant, Metep or not, amplified it to a “DARO HAWORTH!” that shook the walls.
Silence descended on Freedom Hall like a muffling cloak as Haworth was immediately grabbed and his arms pinned to his sides by a familiar middle-aged male figure.
“Release him,” LaNague said, his voice still amplified, but not to such a degree now that he was speaking in a more subdued tone. “And give him room.”
The crowd either would not or could not move away from Haworth. They kept pawing at him, shoving him.
“Give him room, please,” LaNague said from almost directly above the scene. When the crowd around Haworth still did not move back, he nodded to the middle-aged man who then touched a hand to his belt. The holosuit flickered off and suddenly there was a Flinter female in full battle regalia beside Haworth. And just as suddenly there was a circle of empty space around Haworth as people backed away. Kanya had returned.
“Go ahead, Mr. Haworth,” LaNague said in a soft voice audible to the end of Freedom Hall. “Kill me. That's what you were about to do, wasn't it? Do it. But bring your blaster out into the open so everyone can watch. When this mock trial was over and I was found guilty-the verdict was never in doubt, was it? — I was to be executed. But you were going to let someone else do the actual deed. Now that won't be necessary. The pleasure is yours alone. Do it.”
LaNague felt dizzy standing there six meters in the air, watching a man with artificially darkened skin and artificially whitened hair pull a blaster from his sleeve and point it in his direction. But he had to stand fast, hoping Haworth would miss if he fired, that Kanya would be able to ruin his aim. Hoping above all that he would be able to face Haworth down. The scene was being played to every operating vid set on the planet, and being recorded for replay on all the other out-worlds. Metep, slumped useless and ruined in the prisoner's dock, had already been made to look like a fool. All that was left now was Haworth, who had to be faced and disgraced, otherwise he might become a rallying point for the few royalists who would remain active in the wake of the revolution.
Haworth looked as frightened as LaNague felt. And although the weapon was pointed upward, he was not sighting on his target. Instead, his head swiveled back and forth, oscillating between the flesh and blood Flinter beside him, to the silent, fearful, hostile ring of faces that enclosed him.
LaNague's voice became a booming whisper. “Now, Mr. Haworth. Now, or drop it.”
With an agonized groan or equal parts fear and frustration, Haworth swung the blaster away from LaNague and placed the lens at the end of the barrel against his forehead. Members of the crowd behind him winced and ducked, fully expecting the back of his head to explode over them. Haworth glanced quickly about and saw that only Kanya was standing within reach of him. She had the ability to snatch the weapon from his hand before he could fire, but she did not move.
Neither did Haworth. Even the perfunctory courtesy of forcible restraint from committing suicide was to be denied him. He was on his own, completely. No one was going to pull the trigger for him, no one was going to prevent him from pulling it himself. It was all up to him. As centerpiece in the grim tableau, with all Throne-and soon all of the out-worlds-watching, he stood naked, stripped of all pretense, split from throat to pubes with all his innards steaming and reeking in the air for everyone to see.
An utterly miserable and despairing sob broke from his lips as he let his arm slump to his side and the blaster fall unused to the floor. Kanya scooped it up immediately. As she led him away, the chant began again.
“METEP EIGHT! METEP EIGHT! METEP EIGHT!”
LaNague sat down heavily in the chair to take the weight off his suddenly wobbly knees. As he gathered his thoughts, gathered his strength, and hoped that he had been looking death in the eye for the last time that day, he heard the chant falter. Looking up, he saw the crowd dividing down the middle. Like a vibe-knife through a haunch of raw meat, a wedge of a dozen or so Flinters was cleaving a path toward the dais. Watching the group move closer, he saw that someone was shielded within that wedge: Mora.
As soon as he recognized her, LaNague started his seat into descent. By the time it reached the floor of the diadem, Mora was standing there, waiting for him. She leaped to his side in the chair, and as they embraced, the chair began to climb the pedestal again.