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.
"My name is Abner Doon. Welcome to my garden. I hope you've found it comfortable."
Impatiently Hop moved on the branch. Skip the trash, buddy, and get on with the meat.
"You have all been arrested in the last forty–eight hours, ever since the unfortunate death of Farl Baak. May I assure you that Shimon Rapth did not kill his friend in deliberate betrayal — he was, himself, the victim of a rather elaborate illusion. However, that unfortunate incident did have a fortunate side effect. Every member of your sincere but amateurish plot exposed himself in one way or another. Hundreds reacted by immediately betraying their fellow–conspirators. No, don't look around at one another — all such have been held somewhere else. All of you are the ones who tried to hide, or who surrendered in order to shield someone else, and so forth. There were many others, of course, equally loyal as you were, who are not here. That is because I have selected from the group most loyal to the conspiracy, those with the most intellect, the most creativity, the most ingenuity, the most impressive record of achievement. The elite, if you will."
Well. What a clever bunch we are. Hop sneered inwardly. Congratulate us, and then what? And who the hell is Abner Doon?
"I think the rest of your questions will be answered if I tell you two more facts. First, there are exactly 333 of you here in my garden."
A pause, while that sank in. Three hundred thirty–three. The number of colonists in the standard colony ship: three passenger tubes, each with a mayor, ten aldermen, and ten more groups of ten citizens — 111 per tube, three tubes per ship, deliberately set up so that no one leader under the captain could possibly get a majority of colonists to rebel. Three hundred thirty–three. It meant that every man and woman in the group would lose somec privileges once the voyage was over. It meant that they would be irrevocably exiled from Capitol, from civilization, and be forced to rush through the rest of their lives in a mere handful of decades.
Hop smiled when he realized what the numbers meant. He and Arran had signed up for a colony, nearly — and had been interrupted. Now it looked as though they would go out into deep space after all. Like it or not. Hop didn't like it — but since he had already made up his mind to do it before, it came as less of a shock to him than it did to the others.
Only one thorn in his side: He had decided to go before in order to stay with Arran Handully, in a dramatic, chivalric gesture of love (I've seen too many tapes.) Now he would be just another man along for the trip. And worse — another man who had never belonged in the conspiracy, an outsider untrusted and unwanted.
Bon voyage, he wished himself.
"Second," said the man in the middle of the lake. "Second, I must tell you that because you have all been convicted of treason against our most perfect and majestic Empress, the Mother of all mankind, your last memory tapes have been removed from the Sleeproom and will accompany you on your colonizing voyage. You will make no new tapes. That is all. Try to get used to the idea quickly — we have little time to waste, and there's no point in awakening at your destination with bruises and broken arms and legs. In other words, for your own sakes, cooperate, my friends. Good night."
And now the murmurs turned into shouts; of dismay, of fear, of protest. The darkness didn't hear, and the man on the lake disappeared, leaving the night complete again. Some panicked and ran — a few splashes indicated that some of them had quickly run into the major obstacle in the garden. Hop didn't laugh when someone ran into the tree he was sitting on.
Convicted of treason meant that all laws and rights were suspended.
The use of a previous memory tape and the failure to make a new one meant that all memory of their latest waking would be utterly erased. Once somec had drained all but the most basic brain activity, everything would vanish. They would awaken on their new planet remembering only what had happened up to the time they last went under somec. They would know that something was missing — that would be enough to tell them that they had been convicted of treason. They would all assume that their conspiracy had been launched, that they had been defeated. But they wouldn't know how. They wouldn't know who had been cowardly or courageous, loyal or treasonous.