"Can't let a good move like that go to waste," Raschid had told Avri.
Pavy had been more than happy to supply some of her best mob muscle to the game.
Tyrenne Yelad attacked one hour before the polls closed. Three hundred handpicked goons raided Walsh's headquarters, under orders to break every head, wreck every office, and carry off every document they could find.
The small force outside the building put up a token fight. It was quickly overwhelmed and put to flight. The bonfire team got busy outside stoking up a blaze into which furniture, documents, and anything else flammable would be hurled. A squad hastily assembled a steel ram and smashed through the double doors. A moment later Yelad's goons poured inside.
Raschid laughed as the goons rushed up the stairs. Just before the first wave hit him, he gave the signal. His shock troops leapt out of their hiding places and counterattacked. There were five hundred of them, all just as big, mean, and willing to hurt as Yelad's forces.
Raschid caught the first goon by the club arm. There was a dry snap as he broke it; then he spun to the side and grabbed the next goon by the ear, which he used as a lever to hurl his attacker to the floor. The ear came away in his hand and the being's head gave a bounce on a jutting stair. Raschid hurled the torn-off ear into the startled face of a third brute. As he booted the goon in the crotch and reached for a fourth victim, he saw Yelad's forces buried under the wave of counterattackers.
This was going well. There was nothing Raschid liked better than hands-on electioneering.
Lieutenant Skinner reached the last Walsh polling spot a few minutes before the doors closed. Despite the lateness of the hour, she was in no hurry.
Election night was usually one of Skinner's favorite times. There was always plenty of pleasant hitting to do and heaps of spare mordida about.
This time, however, she was one unmotivated cop. All over, the juice had stopped. She was starting to feel poverty-stricken, and her captain whined that he was no better off. Well, clot him! She was sure he was just looking out for himself. In other wards, her colleagues were moaning over the same misfortune.
So she had hit the streets with no hopes and little oomph. It did not improve her mood any to learn that she was right. Not only was there no mordida, but every citizen was as likely to attack her as to spit in her eye.
Her main job was to greet Yelad's phony voters when they arrived at the polls. She and her six-being team were supposed to hustle them off the gravtrucks, make sure they voted fast and correctly, then load them back on the vehicle to be rushed to the next spot.
Almost no one showed. Skinner got on the horn right away. The first time the shrieking voice on the other side shouted that it was just a mess up, some kind of delay. Skinner said sure and got off. She was not calmed by the hysteria in that voice. The second time, same thing. But, from then on out, all lines were jammed. Skinner realized with a shock that all over Dusable the same thing was happening. Cops like her were making the same panic calls.
Oh, well. She would just duck her head, do her job, and go home and get drunk when the election was over.
During the whole night only a few gravtrucks arrived. But even that was no solace. Because there was a surprise awaiting them at each poll. Joygirls and joyboys were out in force, guarded by so many mob pimps Skinner would have had to have been afflicted with a death wish to interfere. The pleasure sellers would mince up to the mark, throw a little seduction into the air, and the deal would be made. Instead of Yelad, the phony vote would go to Walsh. The payoff, a few sweet minutes in a handy dark place.
There was nothing Skinner could do about it. She didn't have the muscle. After a while, she started getting horny herself. By the time she reached the last stop, she didn't know whether she was too pissed to be horny, or too horny to be pissed.
Her jaw dropped when she saw one of the joyboys working the line of voters. It was her own little lad! Ah, how she had missed him. When she saw his curly locks and soft mouth, all thoughts of anger disappeared.
Lieutenant Skinner fished out her voting card and joined the line. Clot it! Her vote was going to Walsh.
In the Cairenes-especially on Dusable-there was a puzzling mechanical law that struck every election period. No sooner were the polls closed than the main computer would jam up and crash. There it would sit for half the night while teams of expensive techs were rushed in to tinker at its works and shake their heads over bitter caff.
At the appropriate time, there would be huzzahs of victory from the techs, and the computer would kick in, counting the votes and spitting out the results.
There was never any suspense in this final act. Yelad always won.
The Tyrenne huddled in his yawning office with his top aides. Despite the nightmare that had stalked him all day and night, Yelad's mood was fairly light. It helped that he was drunk. It helped still more that the mechanical law of Dusable elections had cut in right on time. Saved by a crashing computer! He chortled, took a slug from the bottle, and growled for his chief registrar to get to it. The screen lit up on Yelad's desk. Now he would see what he would see.
The way it was supposed to work-clot, the way it always worked-was that now the real count would begin. The broken-down computer would hum into action. Its first task was to tally the enemy wards. That would let Yelad know his opponent's strength. Then he would have his own vote counted, and the margin of victory adjusted by the millions of grave votes he had at his command.
He had to be careful. If he cheated too blatantly, the shrill questioning could wreck the first year of his new term. This time, however, Yelad was throwing caution off the roof. Walsh's tactics had him aching for revenge. He would bury the little clot in a landslide of historic proportions.
Yelad jumped when he heard his registrar groan. What the clot?
Walsh's vote was coming in. "Flooding in" was a better description. In ward after ward he was sweeping to victory!
A half hour later Yelad was suddenly sober. He was in deep drakh. Walsh's margin was so great that Yelad would have to vote every dead being in his files. He steeled himself and chugged down half the bottle. Fine! He'd do what was necessary. Hang what happened next. He would still be Tyrenne.
Impatiently he ordered his registrar to start the tally of wards. He settled back for a long night of counting.
The night proved short. One hour later the awful truth began to sink in.
Yelad's vote was nearly nonexistent.
Later, he would figure it out. Somebody had mickied the computer. All across
Dusable, every time a committed voter hit the button, it would be recorded instead for Walsh. The official total gave him less than half-a-million votes.
Dusable's dead rested easy in their grave vaults that night.
Yelad had lost.
From that time forward he would be mocked as "Landslide Yelad."
Raschid did not attend Walsh and Kenna's victory party. Instead, he had a very private meeting with Solon Kenna in his offices. It was time to set his price.
The thought came to him as he was watching the election feed on the livie box. It was followed by an overwhelming feeling of urgency. He had to act. Fast.
As he rushed to his hastily arranged meeting with Kenna, the dense clouds that had boiled in his brain for all this time began to thin out, then lift away.
He had passed the Final Test.
Kenna was relieved when Raschid told him what he required: a fast ship, loaded with all the AM2 it could hold, ready for lift within six hours. Kenna thought that no price at all. He figured Raschid would beggar the mordida coffers. Not that it wasn't well worth it. In fact, from his viewpoint, Raschid's payment was so little that even Kenna's crooked soul stung a bit.