Hop brushed him aside, but Arran stopped and took a paper from his hand.
"Four and a half," said the boy.
"Wait a minute," said Arran, impatiently, using her can't–you–servants–ever–remember–your–place voice. "Look at this, Hop."
Hop looked. The item of interest was headlined: "Cabinet Minister Slain in Lover's Quarrel."
The subhead said, "Shimon Rapth jailed. Says he killed ‘for love of Arran Handully'."
The story went on to tell how Shimon Rapth had confessed to murdering Farl Baak because he had alienated the affections of Arran Handully, who was even now secluded in her huge apartments, refusing all visitors.
"That doesn't look like very accurate reporting, does it?" Hop said.
"Shimon Rapth is arrested," Arran said.
"You certainly have distilled the most interesting aspect, haven't you?" Hop said in his most congratulatory tone. "Now pay the boy for the paper."
"I don't have any money. Just a credit card."
"I take credit cards, ma'am," said the boy.
"Not hers, you don't," Hop said. "Nor mine, either. So here's your paper and good luck selling it to someone else."
The boy's curses followed them on their way to the Department of Colonization.
"If Shimon Rapth isn't the man who was behind the coup —"
"He has to be," Arran answered, disturbed. "The probe. Under the probe, Jazz Worthing said —"
"Jazz Worthing is a man of many gifts. Ignore what he said under the probe. If Shimon Rapth wasn't the man you were out to stop, then who is?"
"Does it matter?" Arran asked.
"A little bit. It might be a friend of ours. It especially matters because whoever it was, he won."
"We're here." They went into the reception room. They ignored the advertising and headed straight for the desk.
"Would you like to register for a colony?" asked the beaming receptionist.
"We would. An agricultural planet."
"A bit of the farming blood, eh?" she asked, cheerfully. "We have just the thing, a little planet called Humboldt."
"Put away Humboldt, lady, and show us something that didn't have to be terraformed."
A bit miffed, the receptionist pulled out another folder. "Before we go any further, sir and madam,
I will have to have your credit cards in order to get your aptitudes from the computer. You may not be suited to agricultural work at all."
They gave her their credit cards, which she slid into the terminal on her desk. Then they discussed the merits of Cecily, a new colony 112 lightyears away. They were still discussing it when a dozen of Mother's Little Boys came in from all the entrances to the reception area and put them under arrest.
"What for?" Hop demanded.
"Preventive detention," said the apparent leader of the faceless security men. Hop grimaced at Arran. "That means it's political. Confess to everything. It saves time."
She looked at him with frightened eyes. "Can they do this?"
"Can you stop them?" Hop asked, and then smiled at her, trying to give her confidence. As if he felt any himself. They were led away — but not out into the corridors. Instead they were taken into a door that said, "Employees Only," and Mother's Little Boys took them deeper into the Department of Colonization.
5
IT CONTINUES to amaze many people that the Doon Expeditions could have been set up and sent out in utter secrecy, right in the heart of Capitol. Those who understand Capitol society, however, find nothing surprising in this. Our present open society has almost nothing in common with the authoritarian, byzantine way of life in the corridors of Capitol. Doon, because he controlled the instruments of power — the Cabinet, the secret police ["Mother's Little Boys," as they were less than affectionately called], the Service, and above all, the Sleeproom — was able to construct, populate, and send a dozen colony ships, filled with the elite of the Empire, to destinations far beyond the pale of human settlement. It hardly needs repeating, of course, that the Doon Expeditions, conceived of by one man and sent in spite of an empire, have done more to influence the post–Empire history of humanity than any other single event.
Solomon Harding, Abner Doon: Worldmaker, 6690 p. 145.
Hop Noyock was sitting in a tree. His legs dangled from the branch. His hands were touching wood, and a slight breeze tousled his hair. Overhead, the imitation sun moved discernibly across the arch of an imitation blue sky.
Below him, the garden was populated with many dozens of men and women, who had been moving around aimlessly for the past several hours. Enough hours, in fact, that the sun had risen, set, and risen again in its hurried pattern. Hop had gathered very quickly that everyone in the overgrown park was one of the conspiracy. Each bit of news was eagerly seized on: this man dead, this woman yet uncaptured, this man probably a traitor, this woman seriously injured but accounted for. Hop knew none of the names, except in their more official roles. Here and there he recognized the name of an undersecretary of chamberpots or some other such meaningless title. But he personally knew no one, except Arran Handully, and he began to appreciate how important she had been in the conspiracy from the fact that practically everyone spoke to her and of her with respect.
But Hop gave up quickly on making any acquaintance. Many had already learned that Jazz Worthing was one of the chief manipulators of somec, and even though he had been mentally stripped under the probe, Hop Noyock was still his manager — worse, was not and never had been a part of the conspiracy — and worst of all, still felt that Jazz Worthing was a decent human being and made the mistake of saying so.
And now he sat on a branch of a tree. No one noticed him, because in the corridor society no one was used to looking up. He sat and thought, and grew more uncomfortable and miserable the more he thought.
He remembered Jason, and wondered what had happened to him.
He remembered that he was a prisoner (but of whom? And what was going to happen?).
Most of all, however, he thought of Arran. It was childish (and I am several centuries old, he reminded himself) but when suddenly Arran was embraced and wept over by so many friends, he felt left out (self–pity, dammit, I haven't let myself feel that in years), he felt used. He had been an escape route — but escape had proved impossible. He had thought himself a friend. Wrong again.
(I'm as bad as the other billions of gonad dominated oafs who ogle the holos and dream of Arran Handully. I wish Jazz had broken another rib. Damn childish attitude, of course.)
And then the milling groups fell still. The sun did not set — it darkened, and no stars came out. In a short time the entire room was pitch dark. Hop wondered idly if this was the first step to execution — the garden, then darkness, then a gas. But it seemed unlikely. Why plant trees when a sterile room was all that was needed?
The silence, almost palpable when the darkness first came, was gradually nudged aside by whispers. But in the darkness no one moved, and the conversations were soon exhausted.
Then, suddenly, a light. In the middle of the lake. A man standing on the surface of the water. Hop felt a sudden start, a quick memory of a story his mother had told him from the Bible; but he immediately recognized the brilliant colors of looped life, and relaxed again. Neither murder nor miracles today. Just a few doses of technology.
The man in the lake raised one hand, and silence fell again. Then came the voice, soft and gentle, but filling the entire garden. Hop had to admire the sound work — very well designed, giving an illusion of omnipresence without any obvious stereo effect.