“Oh, very well,” she said in exasperation, her eyes darting constantly to the front door. “We had a big crowd at the rally. Bigger than anything we’d expected—”
“That’s marvel—”
“Don’t interrupt. There isn’t time. They listened to my words and—oh, Limbeck, it was so wonderful!” Despite her impatience and fear, Jarre’s eyes shone. “It was like setting a match to saltpeter. They flared up and exploded!”
“Exploded?” Limbeck began to get uneasy. “My dear, we don’t want them to explode—”
“You don’t!” she said scornfully. “But now it’s too late. The fire’s burning and it’s up to us to guide it, not try to put it out again.” Her fist clenched, her square chin jutted forward. “Tonight we attacked the Kicksey-Winsey!”
“No!” Limbeck stared, aghast. So shaken was he by this news that he sat down quite suddenly and unexpectedly.
“Yes, and I think we damaged it permanently.” Jarre shook her thick mane of short-cut curly brown hair. “The coppers and some of the clarks rushed us, but all of our people escaped. The coppers’ll be coming to the Union Headquarters in search of you, my dear, and so I came to take you away. Listen!” Sounds of blows could be heard hammering on the front door; hoarse voices were shouting to open up. “They’re here! Quickly! They probably don’t know about the back—”
“They’re here to take me into custody?” Limbeck said, pondering. Jarre, not liking the expression on his face, frowned and tugged at him, trying to pull him back up on his feet. “Yes, now come—”
“I’ll stand trial, won’t I?” he said slowly. “Most likely before the High Froman himself!”
“Limbeck, what are you thinking?” Jarre had no need to ask. She knew all too well. “Punishment for hurting the Kicksey-Winsey is death!” Limbeck brushed this aside as a minor consideration. The voices grew louder and more persistent. Someone called for a chopper-cutter.
“My dear,” said Limbeck, a look of almost holy radiance illuminating his face, “at last I’ll have the audience I’ve sought all my life! This is our golden opportunity! Just think, I’ll be able to present our cause to the High Froman and the Council of the Clans! There’ll be hundreds present. The newssingers and the squawky-talk—”
The blade of the chopper-cutter smashed through the wooden door. Jarre turned pale. “Oh, Limbeck! This is no time to play at being a martyr! Please come with me now!”
The chopper-cutter wrenched itself free, disappeared, then smashed through the wood again.
“No, you go ahead, my dear,” said Limbeck, kissing her on the forehead. “I’ll stay. I’ve made up my mind.”
“Then I’ll stay too!” Jarre said fiercely, entwining her hand around his. The chopper-cutter crashed into the door, and splinters flew across the room.
“No, no!” Limbeck shook his head. “You must carry on in my absence! When my words and my example inflame the worshipers, you must be there to lead the revolution!”
“Oh, Limbeck”—Jarre wavered—“are you sure?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“Then I’ll go! But we’ll spring you!” She hastened to the doorway, but could not forbear pausing for one final glance behind her. “Be careful,” she pleaded.
“I will, my dear. Now, go!” Limbeck made a playful shooing motion with his hand.
Blowing him a kiss, Jarre disappeared through the back door just as the coppers crashed through the splintered door in the front.
“We’re looking for one Limbeck Bolttightner,” said a copper, whose dignity was somewhat marred by the fact that he was plucking splinters of wood out of his beard.
“You have found him,” said Limbeck majestically. Thrusting out his hands, wrists together, he continued, “As a champion of my people, I will gladly suffer any torture or indignity in their names! Take me to your foul-smelling, blood-encrusted, rat-infested dungeon.”
“Foul-smelling?” The copper was highly incensed. “I’ll have you know we clean our jail regular. And as for rats, there ain’t been one seen there in twenty years, has there, Fred?” He appealed to a fellow copper, who was crashing through the broken door. “Ever since we brought in the cat. And we washed up the blood from last night when Durkin Wrenchwielder come in with a split lip on account of a fight with Mrs. Wrenchwielder. You’ve no call,” added the copper testily, “to go insultin’ my jail.”
“I ... I’m very sorry,” stammered Limbeck, taken aback. “I had no idea.”
“Now, come along with you,” said the copper. “What have you got your hands stuck in my face for?”
“Aren’t you going to shackle me? Bind me hand and foot?”
“And how would you walk? I suppose you’d expect us to carry you!” The copper sniffed. “A pretty sight we’d look, haulin’ you through the streets! And you’re no lightweight, neither. Put your hands down. The only pair of manacles we had busted some thirty years ago. We keep ’em for use when the young’uns get outta hand. Sometimes parents like to borrow ’em to throw a scare into the little urchins.”
Having been threatened with those manacles often in his own turbulent urchinhood, Limbeck was crushed.
“Another illusion of youth fled,” he said to himself sadly as he allowed himself to be led away to a prosaic, cat-patrolled prison.
Martyrdom was not starting out well.
9
Limbeck was looking forward to the flashraft ride across Drevlin to the capital city of Wombe. He had never ridden a flashraft before. Nobody in his scrift had, and there were more than a few mutterings among the crowd about common criminals getting privileges to which ordinary citizens weren’t entitled.
Somewhat hurt at being referred to as a common criminal, Limbeck climbed up the steps and entered what resembled a gleaming brass box fitted with windows and perched on numerous metal wheels that ran along a metal track. Taking his spectacles from his pocket, Limbeck hooked the frail wire stems over his ears and peered at the crowd. He easily located Jarre among the throng, though her head and face were hidden in the shadows of a voluminous cloak. It was too dangerous for any sort of sign to pass between them, but Limbeck did not think it would hurt if he brought his thick fingers to his lips and blew her a small kiss.
A couple standing alone at the far end of the platform caught his attention and he was astounded to recognize his parents. At first it touched him that they would come to see him off. However, a glimpse of his father’s smiling face, half-hidden by a gigantic muffler he had wound around his neck to ensure that no one knew him, made Limbeck understand that his parents had not come out of filial devotion but probably to make certain they were actually seeing the last of a son who had brought them nothing but turmoil and disgrace. Sighing, Limbeck settled back in the wooden seat.
The flashraft’s driver, commonly known as a flasher, glared back at his two passengers, Limbeck and the copper who accompanied him, in the only compartment on the vehicle. This unusual stop in the station of Het had put the flasher way behind schedule and he didn’t want to waste any more time. Seeing Limbeck start to stand up—the Geg thought he saw his old teacher in the crowd—the flasher threw both sections of his carefully parted beard over his shoulders, grasped two of the many tin hands before him, and pulled. Several metal hands sticking up from the compartment’s roof reached out and grabbed hold of a cable suspended above them. An arc of blue lightning flared, a whistle-toot shrilled loudly, and, amidst crackling zuzts of electricity, the flashraft jolted forward.
The brass box rocked and swayed back and forth, the hands above them that clung to the cable sparked alarmingly, but the flasher never seemed to notice. Grasping another tin hand, he pushed it clear to the wall and the vehicle picked up speed. Limbeck thought he had never in his life experienced anything so marvelous.