Frank glanced at his father. “Do we run for it?” he asked tensely. The young page stared at them with wide eyes.
Frank’s father scratched his chin. “No, I guess not. We’re better off here than down in that madhouse of a courtyard. Just don’t panic. Damn, I hope nobody sticks a bayonet through this,” he said, staring at the painting.
The hollow booms of two more explosions jarred Frank’s teeth. “This attack must be costing a fortune,” he said, awed.
The Duke had struck a match and set it to his pile of papers; most of them were yellowed with age, and they were consumed quickly, scorching the rug under them. When they had burned to fragile black curls he stamped them into powder. “What else, what else?” the distraught Duke moaned, wringing his hands.
Suddenly from beyond the throne room doors Frank heard a hoarse, triumphant yell, and then heavy-booted footsteps running up the hall toward the room they were in. The page ran to the doors and threw a more-or-less decorative-looking bolt into the locked position.
The Duke had heard it too and sprang to one of the bookcases. His pudgy hands snatched one of the books from the shelf, and then he stood holding it, staring wildly around the room. The attackers were pounding on the doors now. The Duke’s eyes lit on the painting and he ran to it with a glad cry. He stuffed the book—which, Frank noticed, was a leather-bound copy of Winnie the Pooh—behind the picture’s frame, so that it lay hidden between the canvas and the thick cross-bracing. This done, he ran back to his throne and sat down, exhausted. Frank and the old painter stared at him, even in this crisis puzzled by the Duke’s action.
Six bullets splintered downward through the doors, one snapping the bolt and two more tearing through the page’s chest, the impact throwing him to the floor. Frank’s numbed mind had time to be amazed at the quickness of it.
The doors were kicked open and a dozen men strode into the room. Eleven of them were soldiers who wore the gray Transport uniform and carried rifles, but it was the twelfth, the apparent leader, who held the attention of Rovzar, his son and the Duke.
“Costa!” exclaimed the astounded Duke. “Not you ...?”
Costa drew his sword with a sharp rasp of steel. “On guard, your Grace,” he whispered tightly, holding the blade forward and crouching a bit. Terrible form, thought Frank.
It was adequate against the Duke, though, whose only defensive action was to cover his face with his hands. Prince Costa hesitated, his face palely blotchy and his sword trembling, then cursed and drove the blade into Duke Topo’s chest. He wrenched it out, and the Duke sighed and bowed forward, leaning farther and farther, until he overbalanced and tumbled messily to the floor.
One of the Transport soldiers stepped to the still-open window and waved. “He’s dead!” he bellowed. “Topo is dead!” Cheers, wails and renewed shooting greeted this announcement. Frank could smell smoke, laced with the unfamiliar tang of gunpowder and high explosives.
The other soldiers seized Frank and his father. “Damn it,” old Rovzar snarled, “you apes had better—” One of the soldiers twisted the old man’s arm, and the painter kicked him expertly, leaving him rolling in pain on the floor. Another raised his rifle clubwise.
“Duck, Dad!” yelled Frank, earning himself a slap in the side of the head.
His father had leaped away from the descending gun butt and made a grab at Costa’s ruffle-bordered throat. One of the soldiers next to Frank stepped aside to have a clear field of fire. “No!” screamed Frank, twisting furiously in his captor’s grasp. The soldier fired his rifle from the hip, almost casually, and the bang was startlingly loud. The bullet caught old Rovzar in the temple and spun him away from the surprised-looking prince. Frank, painfully held by two soldiers now, stared unbelievingly at his father’s body stretched beside the bookcase.
“Take the kid along with the servants,” said Costa, and as the soldiers, one of them limping and cursing, filed out, carrying Frank like a piece of furniture, the only coherent thought in Frank’s stunned mind was that he was, if anything, somewhat older than Costa.
FRANK shifted now on his cot. The man who’d been having the nightmare seemed to have come to terms with his dreams, for the dark cells were silent except for the perpetual susurration of many people breathing, a sound like water quietly flowing through pipes underground. We’d all better come to terms with our dreams, Frank thought. They’ll be the best part of our lives, in the Orestes system.
No more painting, he thought, trying to make himself grasp the idea. No more friends, fencing, decent food and drink, girls—not ever again would he ride a horse through woods at dawn, not ever again swim in the surf, never again, in fact, feel the gravitational field of Octavio, the planet on which he’d been born. Did you get sufficient use out of ... everything ... while you still had it?
My God, he thought as the sudden sweat of comprehension misted his forehead and chilled his belly, isn’t there anyone who can get me out of this? What about Tom Strand, or his father? Couldn’t either of them do anything? Of course not, rasped the logical part of his mind. How could they reverse the decision of the Transport and the planetary government? The idea, he was forced to admit, was ridiculous.
Panic eventually gave way to a decision. I am not going to Orestes, he thought. I simply am not going. I will escape.
He got up from his cot and felt his way through the inky blackness to one of the sleeping men and shook him by the shoulder. The man started violently.
“Who is it?” he whispered in terror.
“I’m a fellow prisoner,” Frank hissed. “Listen, we’ve got to escape. Are you with me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, kid,” the man almost sobbed, “go back to sleep and leave me alone.”
“You want to go to Orestes?” Frank asked wonderingly.
“Kid—you can’t escape. Forget it. Your life won’t be real great now, but make an escape attempt and you’ll be surprised how sorry you’ll be, and for how long.”
Frank left the man to his sleep and returned to his cot, his confident mood deflated.
After another half hour of sitting on his mattress, Frank was again convinced of the necessity of escape. Wasn’t there a wide ventilation grille set in the center of the ceiling? He tried to remember. Let’s see, he thought, they marched us in here, showed us each a cot, and then turned off the lights. But it seems to me I did notice a slotted plate set in the ceiling. I could escape through the ventilation system!
He stood up again. It seemed to be in the center of the ceiling, he recalled. He made his way to a wall and counted the number of steps it took to walk its length; then did the same with the other wall. Twelve by eight, he thought. He then went back to the midpoint of the twelve-pace wall and took four paces out into the room, thanking Chance that no sleeping prisoners lay in his path.
By my calculations, he mused, I should now be directly beneath that ventilation grille. He crouched; when he leaped upward with a strong kick, his fingers crooked to catch the vent. Instead, they cracked against unyielding concrete.
He fell back to the floor, strangling a curse. His hands stung, and he could feel blood trickling down one finger. Bit of a miscalculation, Rovzar, he told himself.
He pulled himself to his feet and got ready to jump again, this time only intending to brush the ceiling with his fingers, to feel for the vent. This is what I should have done to begin with, he thought.