Eron ended his speech with an outburst. “Psychohistory lias served the interests of the Pscholars for too long! They lie to us in a self-serving way when they say that the gift of knowledge will drive us from paradise! Let the tools of psychohistory serve the needs of the galactic peoples! Let us negotiate our own future, not live out a future designed by men who hoard the tools of design claiming that they alone know what is best for us!”
Before Eron was even seated, the masked Hyperlord rose. He held a jade ovoid high in his hand. “I have here a Prime Radiant! It holds the secrets of psychohistory for us to tap. I have at the moment sixtyne copies of the Prime Radiant for sale! Eron Osa has promised us a demonstration!” He looked over toward another man who approached the podium in an iron mask and then spoke to Eron. “Here is the mathist I promised you, my boy.” The crowd waited in anticipation.
But Eron had been questioning his ghoul and was primed for an answer—there is no better state of general awareness than a zenoli pause—and what he saw from the comer of his eyes put him on instant danger alert. Under the iron mask and unkempt hair of Kikaju Jama’s mathist was Nejirt Kambu. Fams are good but it was Eron’s wetware which specialized in faces, jaw lines, gestures, gait, the first things a famless baby learns. How many hundreds of times had he and Kambu crossed? A workshop filled with ancient aero-ship design. Sneaking through the bat-infested caves of antiquity’s storehouse of radioactivity. Debating in a Lyceum seminar. Why was Konn’s right-hand man here? A quick fam check of the planted sensors detected a suspicious pattern of movements outside the caucus chamber. A police raid?
“I’ll have to set up a holo demo,” Eron said quickly. Then to Otaria: “Help me.” He took her into the holobeam booth behind the podium, closed the soundproof entrance, activated their shields, and detonated the “spare door” behind him with the device he had already planted there. With his peripheral vision he saw the police enter through all four portals. An usher raised a forbidden blaster. The police reacted.
At the sudden death of the usher, Kikaju Jama dropped his disguise as a fop and disappeared. All present, including the police, thought him true to form and assumed he was running. It was a tactical mistake by the raiders. An instant later the Hyperlord appeared on one of the tiny balconies and, in a flying leap, dropped on the policeman who had murdered his usher, yodeling the terrifying Hyperlord battle cry which hadn’t been heard in millennia. As the man collapsed under the falling impact, Kikaju’s mask radiated Kabuki anger, his left elbow locking around the man’s neck while his right lace-wristed hand grabbed the flying blaster. By the time they hit the floor, Jama was in command, issuing orders from behind the shield of his hostage. Chaos was his element. He was a Hyperlord in fact as well as in name.
The raid came to a standstill. Policemen are reluctant to attack one of their own.
But the mathist in the iron mask had no such scruples. With the reaction time of an experienced psychohistorian field agent he blasted both hostage and the Hyperlord behind him. Too much was at stake.
Under cover of the disturbance Eron and Otaria staggered their way through the imploded wall and were gone, following the optimal escape path that Eron’s fam was spawning with graphic overlays. They reached the doctored pod and were two kilometers along their way to freedom before a police dragnet grabbed them in a vice that killed their power. Eron made a quick assessment. “We surrender,” he said to Otaria. “No choice. But not right now. Don’t make a move till they settle down.”
Otaria saw the hidden men, blasters drawn. “They’ll kill your fam again. And mine, too.”
“That’s the optimistic scenario.” Eron tuned the pod’s frequency to the police band and spoke loudly and clearly. ‘Truce. We will consider surrender. We are armed and shield protected.” He wanted them to know about the shields. “We do not intend to use our weapons unless provoked.” While he was calming and cautioning the police, he relayed a quick briefing for Scogil, minus the apology he would give when he had the time.
Scogil replied by ordering Eron to order Petunia off planet immediately. No chance of that. She would stay until she knew her daddy’s ghoul was dead—or free. Her location readings on his fam must have already given her the cue that they wouldn’t be home for supper. At this moment she was probably fabricating wild media releases about the Orelian affair.
The pod’s speaker blared with a police response. “Truce confirmed. Weapons on safety. We have a negotiator on the way. The esteemed Third Rank Nejirt Kambu. Please maintain open communications. Over.”
“Who is Kambu?” Otaria whispered.
“Hahukum Konn’s man. That’s much better than being cornered by Hanis. Kambu was at the masquerade posing as the Hyperlord’s mathist. Actually, he’s an old friend, so we may get in some real negotiating.” He briefed Scogil.
The reply scrolled across Eron’s visual cortex in purple script— the trouble I have taken to escape interrogation by Konn. Death is preferable. I must tell you that I have a bomb in me and I will use it. I have no intention of being the first prisoner taken by my nemesis.
“Sorry,” said Eron aloud so that Otaria could hear, “Rigone has already nixed your bomb.” Abruptly he abandoned Scogil to his dungeon because...
Nejirt Kambu was arriving on the scene, well guarded. He and Eron spoke to each other from a respectful distance via their pod’s quantronics, Kambu first. “I have already noted that our famless psychohistorian is wearing the fam of the late agent Hiranimus Scogil. I have deduced the remarkable fact that you are in communication with the man’s ghost since your discussion this evening went beyond the scope of your original dissertation, rambling into recent galactic history—about which a Seventh Rank would know nothing. You possess certain facts which you could have obtained only from an enemy of the Second Empire.”
“I’m being accused of treason by an old friend?”
“No* You may be a traitor, but you’re being offered a deal by your old teacher—protection from Jars Hanis and a new top-of-the-pick fam in exchange for the one you are wearing.”
“Point one: How am I and my companion to be protected from Jars Hanis?”
“A natural sore point with you. Admiral Konn arrested Hanis about an hour ago in a general sweep-up. The situation is fluid. At the moment Konn is Rector of the Lyceum.”
“And king of the Galaxy?”
“If you say so.”
“Point two: My fam is wired with a suicide bomb over which I have no control.” Eron lied.
“Ah. You are his hostage?”
“No,” said Eron vehemently, “but he has veto power over my actions.”
“You offer stalemate? We both sit here until we starve?”
“No. I’m dealing. You want to interrogate Scogil. I can talk to him. We talk; I keep Scogil. We talk with Hahukum Konn present. That’s the deal. My Frightfulfriend comes with me and she stays with me. You get our weapons as a gesture of good faith.”
“A reasonable man. I’m glad our honorable friendship still stands. Thank you for the weapons. As a reciprocal gesture of good faith I will allow you to keep your shields. They are not a threat to us. You may be interested to know that our mad Admiral has obtained a copy of your dissertation. He still thinks it is full of crap but you have his attention.”