Fugitive From Asteron (30 page)

Chapter 25

Kristin’s father’s plane had quietly descended into the
infield and landed at the foul line behind where I had parked her red plane.
Because I had left the noisy fuel engine of her plane running, I had not heard
the nearly silent electric plane approaching. While I was reaching under the
seats to retrieve the sunbeam, I had not seen the two passengers get out and
walk in front of my plane to watch me.

As I stood speechless at this
sudden change of events, I noticed a small electronic object stuck to the red
fuselage.

“Did your spies shoot a sensor onto
Kristin’s plane while I was flying? Was that how they tailed me and how you
knew where to find me?”

Feran smiled smugly, saying in his
gentle Earthling voice, “It’s one of the things our security forces have here
on Earth that you don’t see on Asteron.”

“We do
not need to see things on Asteron. We have a ruler who sees for us.”

The smile
vanished. “Move slowly and don’t try anything. Bring that box to me here on the
field. Oh, Kristin, dear?”

“Yes,
Daddy?”

“Bring me
the flexite suit we took from his spacecraft, will you, honey? I need to make a
quick adjustment on the . . . object, so it’ll be quite
harmless. Then I’ll bring it to the Project Z area to disassemble and destroy once
and for all, with no renegade from Asteron stealing it this time.”

“Kristin,
as soon as Feran gets the sunbeam and the suit, he will either kill us, which I
am hoping for, or make us into robots, along with the rest of the people on
Earth.” I studied her face, its expression revealing nothing.

“Shut up
and move—now! This game is over,” Feran said to me.

“I’ll get
the suit, Daddy.” From where she stood with Feran in front of her red plane, she
walked back toward the electric plane behind it.

As I reached
the field, I looked at Kristin. What would she do? Would she make a catastrophic
mistake with far-reaching and irrevocable consequences for us all?

“Kristin!
You
must not
—” I began, but a beam
from Coquet’s mouth tore my sleeve, barely missing my skin and threatening to blow
off my arm the next time.

“Be
quiet, Alex!” she said sternly. “Just put that thing down in front of my father
and keep still.”

“Thank
you, darling,” said Daddy, gloating at me.

Kristin
could act, but I could only stare at Coquet. I would have to trust my
girlfriend. I followed Kristin’s instructions and dropped the sunbeam gently at
Feran’s feet.

There it
stood, a metal box, about two feet high,
two feet wide,
and one foot
deep,
resting on feet of the same metal. I now understood its assembly. All of the
metal sheets were lined with flexite. The top of the box had a circular piece
of metal, about six inches in diameter, which was sealed to the same metal surrounding
its rim. On the side near the top was a large ring-shaped steel pin. Over the
pin, protecting it, was a plastic covering. Inside the box was a miniature
particle accelerator and a sample of Zamean matter. Pulling the pin, I now
knew, would start the accelerator, producing the
harmful Zamean beam.
The metal circle would unseal and slide open, leaving a hole on top. Then the
powerful beam
would shoot out of this opening, travel
to the ionosphere, and from there propagate around the world like a rippling
ray.

“Let’s
see. I hope you weren’t foolish enough to tamper with something you knew
nothing about.” Keeping Coquet poised at me, Feran bent to inspect the sunbeam.
“Well, now, it looks just fine to me.” He smiled. The more pleased he looked,
the closer I was to death.

Kristin
reached into the electric plane for the purple flexite suit. “Here it is,
Daddy.”

Walking
toward Feran, she stopped as she passed her plane, its engine humming steadily.
With Feran’s eyes on me, and mine on her, Kristin did something that summoned me
to high alert: She blinked at me with one eye.

In a
flash, she raised her arms and shoved the flexite suit into the engine at the
rear of the fuselage. With a whoosh, the suit was sucked into the running
blades of her plane and chopped to bits. The engine made a piercing screech as
it expelled the last remains of the suit in a puff of purple vapor. In utter
astonishment, Feran turned to see what had happened. Instantly, I lunged at
him, snapping Coquet out of his hand. Then
I
was pointing the weapon at
Feran’s
head!

“Imbecile
female!” snapped Feran in his true voice of pure hatred. “And I was going to
spare your life so you could be my servant!”

The suit
had jammed the engine, leaving the three of us in dead silence. I winked back
at Kristin, who was now smiling broadly. Then I turned to Feran.

“Back
off,” I demanded. Feran moved a few feet away from the sunbeam. “Now which of
Coquet’s buttons did you use on me? I will activate that same one until I
figure out which of the others will kill you.”

Coquet,
now securely in my control, buzzed impatiently, drooling to attack him. This
was surely the first time anyone had ever held the upper hand over Feran, and I
wondered how brave he would be in meeting the fate he had so cruelly inflicted
on countless victims. I remembered how Reevah and others had met their end,
with their heads high, with the quality the Earthlings called
pride s
tamped indelibly on their faces to the end. How would Feran
meet his demise?

He fell
to his knees, trembling pathetically before me, unable to conceal the stark
terror that gripped him.

“Wait! Do
not shoot!” he squealed. “You cannot destroy me! If you kill me, you kill the
people of Asteron. The deed I came here to perform is for my people!”

“Even if
your deed saved Asteron from starvation, it would still be evil if it produced
just one Steve Caldwell—if it destroyed the mind of just one person.” I turned
Coquet’s little throat until the button I wanted sat directly under my finger.

“But
wait! Wait! You must listen to the truth!” On his knees, he locked his hands
together, pleading for his vile life. “It is unfair for one planet to have all
the food and wealth. The rich Earthlings must help the poor Asteronians.” He
pointed a finger to the sky as if issuing a proclamation, while still begging
on his knees. “I am a
liberator
, not
a killer!”

“Slavery
is liberation. Plunder is justice. The ugly is the beautiful. The bad is the
good,” I said. “Just as you hid your hideous face behind Dr. Merrett’s handsome
one, you hide your depraved soul behind a mask you call the greater good. But I
will pull it down before I end your foul life. You cannot be content to plant
your own garden and leave others to do the same, because then they would be
free of your intrusion and you would be of no importance. Your perverse
standing comes from trampling the gardens of others. But you will not crush the
most prized of all orchids, the human will!” Impatient to end the matter and
feeling no thrill at the prospect of torturing him, I reached for the button on
Coquet’s throat that I thought would kill swiftly. “Good-bye, Feran.” I aimed
the petulant mouth of Coquet at the head of her master. I pressed—

“Look
out, Alex!” Kristin screamed.

I did not
get to push the button, because at that moment someone shot the weapon out of
my hand, splattering the innards of the prized Coquet into a jumble of
circuitry at my feet!

Chapter 26

Kristin gasped in shock, but I showed no surprise, only a
greater understanding of the whole vile scheme, when I saw the man with the gun
in the stands behind first base: Chuck Whitman.

“Imbecile!” shouted Feran to the
person who had just saved his life. “You were supposed to shoot the man, not
the weapon. Not
my Coquet
!”

“I shot exactly what I aimed to
shoot. Why hit a guy who’ll make a great servant when the new order’s
established?” Chuck carried a large shoulder bag, opened at the top, with a
shiny purple material visible inside. “One of our men called to tell me
everything.” Chuck spoke with great self-importance, as if he were in charge of
the operation. “Then I got a signal from the sensor that he landed here,” he
said, looking at me contemptuously. “I landed my plane in the parking lot,
jumped a fence into the stadium, and went to check things out. I brought some
flexite suits with me too.”

“Bring them down here at once, and
we will proceed with our business!” barked Feran. He had shed Dr. Merrett’s
kind voice and now spoke in his real voice of anger and malice.

Waving his gun in my direction, Chuck
slowly walked down the steps to the field from about two dozen rows up in the stands.
Feran inched closer to the sunbeam.

“Chuck!” Kristin was aghast, her
voice barely audible. “You mean you’re on
his
side?” She pointed to
Feran.

“Whose side should I be on? On the
side of privilege when I don’t have any privileges? On the side of the
landlords who own all the land and demand rent from the rest of us poor slobs?
On the side of the companies that control all the jobs and fire anybody they please?
On the side of my father, who has lots of money but won’t shell it out to help
his own son? Or should I be on this guy’s side?” He pointed to me with the
barrel of his gun. “The new pilot my father brags about. A guy who comes here
from nowhere and gets a sweetheart job that’s gonna launch a whole new
business. My father picks
him
for the maiden voyage, which’ll get all
the publicity and make his career for him in six stupid months! And he gets the
girl everybody wants, a girl with great looks and a direct line to the top
boss. Should I be on
his
side, when he gets things handed to him that
others only dream about?”

“Alex didn’t just
dream
about being a pilot, and then sit around and do nothing,” said Kristin. “My
father didn’t just wish for a business, and then whine for somebody to give him
one. Your landlord didn’t just want land, and then wait for somebody to drop a
building in his lap. How do you think people get to be what you call
privileged
?”

“Spoken just like my father,”
replied Chuck, looking down at us on the field.

“Commander Whitman, why do you stop
to chat with these insurgents? We have the sunbeam, so we can eliminate them at
once. Shoot them and bring me the weapon and suit—now!” screamed Feran.

Anyone on Asteron would have instantly
complied with a command from Feran. But the supreme ruler’s directive to an
Earthling, even one who was a loyal supporter, carried nothing like the same
force. Chuck did not move swiftly as Feran commanded. His eyes flashed with a
strange excitation. He slowly took a step down, then another, and then paused, as
if he was savoring the moment like a rare wine, lingering on it, intoxicated
with it. The chatting pleased me too. It was the only tool we had for stalling
Feran. I decided to engage Chuck in further discussion.

“At least three years ago you knew
of Feran, perhaps through his spies or the groups who support him on Earth. You
were sympathetic to his ideas, to his wanting an inroad to Earth to establish
an order that he no doubt promised would provide you with everything you
dreamed about. You gave Feran that inroad. Angered by being fired from Space
Travel and knowing that MAS built new inventions and weapons, you spied on Dr.
Merrett from your new office in Housekeeping to see if you could get back at a
company where you had suffered a humiliating failure. You seem to like hurting
others. You kept Frank Brennan from getting a promotion he deserved, and you
provoked your staff, causing the best workers to quit. Would you not also want
to hurt your father, Dr. Merrett, and all of us whose success stirs resentment
in you?”

Far from looking ashamed, Chuck
grinned brazenly, as if I were presenting him with a medal.

“I was sore, all right, when my own
father canned me. And Uncle Charles wouldn’t override him, either. Yeah, I
looked around for some compassion, which I sure enough didn’t get from my own
kind. I found a group that sympathized with me, a group that wanted to right
the wrongs here, to knock down the high-and-mighty and put everybody on an equal
footing.”

I knew Feran trained spies. Now,
listening to Chuck, I knew where he sent them and why. “So you joined this
group, Chuck?”

“I went to a few meetings. When I
mentioned where I worked and my father’s job in top management, they took a
huge interest in me. They treated me like I was really somebody. They
approached me to do a job for them, a super-important job. For the first time,
I was sought out. I was needed. I was a kind
of . . . hero . . . to them. And I
discovered I was damn good at the assignment they gave me. It was easy to spy
on a fool—to look through a window, to plant a camera. Uncle Charles never
suspected anything. What a dupe!”

Kristin bristled.

“I got a real charge out of that.
You could say I found my calling—and, man, did I hit on a mother lode for
them.”

“Commander Whitman!”

“Hold on.” Chuck moved his wrist
and the gun now pointed at an outraged Feran.

“So it was
you
,” I said,
hoping to keep Chuck talking while I tried to figure out what to do next. “Before
Dr. Merrett installed the security windows, you read files off his computer
screen from your office across the way. You learned of Steve Caldwell’s
accident and its implications. You told Feran about the report Charles Merrett
was expecting on the cause of Steve’s injury. But when the report arrived, you
saw Dr. Merrett print a copy and leave the office with it, instead of reading
it on his screen. You knew the Merretts were going out that evening because
they had tickets with your parents for the ballet. You told Feran that a printed
copy of the report could be found in Dr. Merrett’s home office. That fancy
phone you bought, which I heard you tell your father was for contacting the
lunar cities about a job, probably makes calls to Asteron too.”

Chuck’s grin widened and he laughed
outright, raising his head arrogantly. Although he shifted his weapon back to
aim at me, Chuck was in no hurry to kill someone who was acknowledging his
perverted feats. Indeed he was eager to brag about the only job he had ever
excelled at. He slowly strutted down the steps as if the seats about him were
filled and the crowd was cheering. He looked as if he wanted to take a bow.

“So you did not care that your
action led to Mrs. Merrett’s murder?” I asked.

“She complained about her back
before. Why didn’t she see a doctor like she was supposed to? Why didn’t she
let go of Uncle Charles’s report instead of fighting for it? Nobody told her to
foil our plans. That was
her
choice, not mine!”

“You bastard!” Kristin’s face
reddened with contempt.

“Eliminate the enemy!” ordered
Feran. “Shoot them!”

“Cool your heels,” answered Chuck.
He again pointed his weapon toward Feran, and the supreme ruler was silenced.

“After Dr. Merrett installed the
security windows in his office, you altered Dustin’s programming so you could
plant a camera to snoop,” I said. “It was
you
who found out the nature
of Project Z.
You
were the only one outside the inner circle who knew
that Project Z was undertaken to build a weapon from the substance that harmed
Steve Caldwell’s brain.
You
provided the way for Feran to steal a
device he could not produce himself.”

Chuck beamed as if I were toasting
his prowess.

“You told Feran the delivery date
of the completed sunbeam. You arranged to meet him the Sunday before delivery
to help him as he impersonated Charles Merrett. You were to help him find his
way around MAS. You did not come in that Sunday to reorganize a supply closet,
as you told Frank Brennan you would. You came to meet Feran so you could steal
the sunbeam. It was Feran, posing as Charles Merrett, who let you into the
Project Z area.

“But you did not get the sunbeam in
one piece. You did not know it in advance, but Charles Merrett had just
disassembled the invention. So you had to take the pieces out in boxes, which
you said you were bringing to the compactor, but which you really managed to
take to Feran’s spacecraft for reassembly back on Asteron. By then you knew the
project had been canceled, so it was plausible to say you were destroying the
parts; that way no one would wonder what had become of them.

“Would the real Charles Merrett
have left a secured area with the pieces of a top-secret weapon, without a
security escort, to go to a compactor? And would the real Charles Merrett have
shared his intentions with a guard? Mike, the security guard, told me that such
behavior was unusual for Charles Merrett. Mike did not know that it was Feran
who brought those pieces out of the Project Z area with you. And it was Feran
who promoted you to special assistant to the president for new project development,
because Feran needed you close by to instruct him on how to impersonate Charles
Merrett. And besides, the time had come to collect more money for the services
you were performing on Feran’s behalf, so why not get a raise and have MAS pay for
your espionage?”

“You’re damn right. He owed me
plenty!” Chuck shot an angry look at Feran.

“But apparently you had not
collected enough money to support your habits. You still needed to borrow more
from your father.”

“He got maxed out too.” Chuck gestured
to Feran with his weapon. “Said I had to complete my assignment first, and then
I’d get more.”

“Enough!” Feran demanded.
“Commander Whitman, eliminate the traitor and come to me at once!” With Chuck’s
weapon oscillating between him and me as its target, Feran seemed hesitant to
jump him.

“Relax,” said Chuck. He was now on
the field and strolling toward us.

Then Feran tried a new tack, in a
calmer voice. “Now, you just bring me the suits, and stay clear of the traitor
as you walk.”

“Stay away from him, Chuck. You
will certainly be zapped too,” I warned, but Chuck did not listen.

“Chuck, what are you doing?!” cried
Kristin.

I turned to watch Chuck as he
walked toward Feran.

Once Chuck was near him, Feran made
his move. His eyes bulging, he scowled and stormed Chuck, pulling the bag from
his shoulder. He also grabbed for the weapon, but he backed away when Chuck aimed
it at him.

“You insisted that I make you
president of MAS, give you Charles Merrett’s home, and give you your father and
the traitor”—he pointed to me—“and Frank Brennan as your personal servants, and
you demanded an allowance that could run an entire Asteronian city, and you
tell me to
relax
? Do you think there is no price? If I am to provide you
with all the things you want, then
I
am the one who calls the plays! Now,
shoot the insurrectionist!”

While he was speaking, Feran had
removed one of the flexite suits from the bag. He had worked it over his feet
and legs when he paused to point to me, in case Chuck was uncertain who it was
he should shoot. I stood, my back now to the dugout, eying the sunbeam, a mere
few feet from Feran.

“Chuck! The suit—” I warned.

“Shut up!” Chuck replied. He turned
to Feran. “You didn’t say anything about
killing
people.” He
complained. “We were just supposed to zap them with the beam, so they get . . . agreeable,
that’s all.”

“Imbecile!” barked Feran. “You are
like all the other useful idiots before you who claimed to support my
ancestors. ‘We never meant to do
that
,’ they would stammer when one
troublesome group or another had to be eliminated,” he exclaimed. His hands and
arms were now inside the protective suit, with the hood hanging at the
shoulders. He reached for the garment’s zipper.

“Once that suit is sealed, you too
will be zapped!” I cried to Chuck.

“Hold it.” Chuck cocked his gun at
Feran. “Hold it right there.”

Feran dropped his hands to his
side.

“There are two worlds, Commander
Whitman. Choose—mine or theirs! Choose a world in which you are a supreme
commander, where you have subjects to do your bidding, where everything is
provided to you for free and you are protected, or choose a world in which you
have to stumble about alone and afraid, a world in which you are
nothing
.
If you choose
my
world—if
I
am the one who provides for your sorry
life—then you must do what I require. Choose!”

Chuck wavered, moving the gun
barrel back and forth from Feran to me. Finally, the weapon fixed on one
target: me.

“Wait, Chuck!” screamed Kristin.
“What’ll be left of
you
after you destroy MAS and the people who keep
it going?”

“The zapping won’t affect me—just
them. I’ll take their place and be what they were before.”

Kristin tried to reason with him. “But
don’t you realize that if you tear down the people who give you work and loan
you money, then
you’re
going down too?”

Feran tried to entice him. “Would
you like to rule all of Rising Tide? All of California? That can be arranged.”

Though Chuck aimed the gun at me, he
hesitated to pull the trigger. Unlike Asteronians, who saw executions as
routinely as day turned to night, Earthlings were unaccustomed to acts of open
violence. Would Chuck shoot? The fate of the entire human race now rested on a
man who could not pay his rent. I was through with the matter! I would have my
own say on that fate. I prepared to lunge at Chuck and take my chances seizing
his weapon—