Then someone wondered, “How did he know where to get an insu-suit?”
Dangerous question—one that had to be fielded exactly right. The supervisor pursed her lips, watching Todd intently. “Lutz? Can you hear me, Lutz? How did you know where to get that suit?”
There was no one in the room except Enclave guards, the supervisor, and three high-ranking Committee members. The question didn’t surprise any of them. It hadn’t surprised the medics that Todd, a non-Enclave person, was wearing a suit, but inquiries weren’t their job. Collusion again?
“Lutz?” the supervisor demanded, speaking sharply.
Todd jerked in the glide chair and moaned, not looking at her directly. He mumbled, “Read . . . read old tape ‘bout . . . ‘bout buildin’ the Enclave. Said . . . said there was special suits . . .“ He lapsed into more moaning to gather his thoughts. “Didn’ do nothin’ wrong. Gotta. right. Had to see her. On the Committee . . .”
“Not any more,” the senior Committeeman said angrily. “You have forfeited your position, the honor given to you, and all future rights to serve on Protectors of Earth’s esteemed branches.”
“Read about it, eh?” the supervisor repeated thoughtfully. “We’ll have to plug that hole. We can’t have such things lying around available in the antique tapes. Might give others ideas like this one. Shouldn’t be taught to read, most of them. Just complicates matters. Make a note, Vaca. We need a thorough library scouring to tidy up . . .”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Todd squinted at them, feigning bewilderment. “Had to see’er . . .”
The Committeeman shook a finger at him. “You deserve a public rebuke. At the very least, we will make sure your employers know you have lost your accreditation. You don’t understand even yet, do you, you fool! Your reckless fanaticism could have endangered the Iiiture revival of the very woman you’re so concerned about!”
“I . . . I saw her! Gola,” Todd said dazedly. He stared at a point ten centimeters above the Committeeman’s head and let a dreamy expression come over his darkened face. “I saw her. Elizabeth Gola. I c’n tell ‘em I did . . .”
“Who?”
The supervisor sneered. “His fellow fanatics, of course. You’re wasting your time, sir. Indeed, he
doesn’t
understand.”
“Should . . . should we let him talk?”
New alarms shot adrenaline through Todd’s veins. The pain in his leg flared until the supervisor replied with a shrug, “Why not? He’s at liberty to do so, under P.O.E. law. We’ll make no attempt to stop him from relating what he saw in the preservement chambers. I
do
trust the Committee will make plain how he took chances with Gola’s life, and with thousands of other lives.”
“Of course!”
No, they wouldn’t try to stop “Ed Lutz.” In fact, they might even subtly encourage such publicity. They didn’t want tour members going where they weren’t watched. But on the other hand, “Ed Lutz” seemed sure he had seen the real Elizabeth Gola, safe and sound in her cubicle. What better unsolicited testimonial to quiet the persistent rumors around the world and in orbit and prove that all was well with the confinees?
“Saw her,” Todd mumbled.
They weren’t even paying attention to him any more. They talked around him as if he were a piece of furniture. “At least this one didn’t do any real damage, not like that crazy two years ago who tried to smash the labs to destroy the ‘human clones.’ ” The guards snickered openly, and the supervisor didn’t stop them. “They do fall into these strange delusions. I must insist Lutz be kept under guard for the remainder of the Committee’s stay at the Enclave.”
The rest was remarkably easy. They scolded him. Told him again he was going to lose his Committee credentials. Todd had foreseen that, and Lutz said he no longer cared, if it helped find the truth. That it had. The business of the insu-suits remained thorny. The supervisor toyed with the thought of wiping Todd’s mind with hypno drugs, but the unrepentant “fanatic” raised such a howl about the prospect they decided it wasn’t worth the bother. He realized, from their attitude, they had already mapped their strategy for dealing with Ed Lutz’s revelations. When he left the Enclave, he could expect to be watched. How long, he didn’t know. They would let him ramble about seeing Elizabeth Gola close up. But they would make sure he was made to look like an idiot if he elaborated on how he had achieved that. No problem. It would be easy. A nobody from the United Ghetto States, a naive new mysticism convert . . . Todd knew, all too well, the power of manipulative media methods and undercut propaganda. By the time the Enclave agents in CNAU and the Committee members who were cooperating with them got through, Ed Lutz would be a forgotten person. The only thing anyone would remember about his revelations would be that he had seen the African heroine, safe, frozen, ready for the future. Very neat.
Ed Lutz was a pariah. They took him back to the infirmary and posted guards at the door, barring contact with other Committee members. Obviously, they didn’t want him contaminating the innocent, not until they had gotten their counter propaganda tightly organized.
Todd dozed but didn’t allow himself to sleep deeply. It seemed like a long time until the tour windup. They had set aside a barless prison for him on the shuttle flight back to Marambio—a separate seat, close to the V.I.P. section and well away from the other lower-echelon members. An Enclave attendant sat beside him throughout the flight, making sure he didn’t mingle or talk to anyone. At Marambio, they kept him aboard the shuttle until everyone else was on the commercial plane for the flight to Buenos Aires. Then they escorted him to another set-apart seat. There were no restraints, no obvious signs that he was under arrest. But it was very close to that. Other members watched him with wide eyes and whispered behind their hands about the rebel. The flight north to Argentina seemed to take days, not an hour and a half.
No one detained him at the Committee’s Arrivals lounge. But by now the rest of the Committee had gotten the message, even if they hadn’t been told exactly what it was “Ed Lutz” had done to incur the V.I.P.s’ wrath. No one spoke to him. People who had been sociable to Todd on the flight down avoided him, sunshine allies, treating him as if he had the plague.
He had to wait while everyone else completed a series of forms and vid recordings, attesting they had completed the tour and were satisfied with what they had seen. No one asked Ed Lutz to make such a recording. The P.O.E. staffers kept him in the lounge until everyone else had departed. Then they let him go.
Todd wasn’t alone. He spotted the men following him immediately. Enclave agents? Protectors of Earth? The smothered fury he had been nursing ever since he had discovered the truth at the pole sank, cold fear rushing in over it. They were tracking him still. He couldn’t let go of the act, not for a while. “Ed Lutz” trudged to the international terminal gate and boarded his shuttle for Orleans. So did the strangers who had followed him from the Human Rights Committee lounge. Nicely arranged. Tickets in hand well in advance. They had known his itinerary and were going to stay right with him all the way.
Curiously, their dogging him like this was a relief. Todd hadn’t been sure how far the conspiracy extended, or to what lengths it might go to crush leaks. On the long flight back from Antarctica, he had thought, far too often, about Gib Owens and the passengers on the Nairobi shuttle. Ostracism had been a picayune nuisance, in comparison with that.
But they
hadn’t
sabotaged the Enclave shuttle. And now, with these trackers accompanying him on the flight to Orleans, it looked very much as if the passengers around Todd—innocent people—were safe, too. It meant they had bought his story—the Enclave supervisor and the guards and the V.I.P. Committee seniors. Bought “Ed Lutz” and his mooning attempt to see Elizabeth Gola, just as the voters bought whatever Pat Saunder offered for sale with his voice and pale eyes and handsome presence.
But even if these clumsy watchers meant no harm—just wanted to monitor “Ed Lutz” and possibly keep him under control if he started spouting to the media—they were going to be a hell of a problem. How could he shake them? Ed Lutz had to vanish, because Todd Saunder had to reappear. Todd Saunder had important things to do, and he couldn’t do them while towing this embarrassing comet’s tail of snoops.
Nominal landing at Orleans. Still no sabotage. Todd wasn’t breathing normally yet, but he was almost amused to note the men trying to be unobtrusive as they continued to trail him through the vast terminal. Just one domestic flight to make, and the trek to Lutz’s apartment, and maybe along the way he would find a method of ditching them . . .
Todd rounded a corner and three burly men closed in on him, hemming him in toward a wall. “Ed Lutz? Protectors of Earth Enforcement,” the biggest one said, flashing an ident. Mask-faces again, as hard or harder than those of the Enclave guards.
“What do you . . . what is this?”
Over one of the brawny shoulders crowding him, Todd saw his other unasked-for problems come to a halt. The men who had tracked him from Buenos Aires drifted toward one another and conferred in hurried whispers, confused, staring at the sudden group of muscle surrounding their quarry.
Todd tried to twist aside, looking frantically for a way out of the wall. A heavy hand clutched his arm, pushing him hard. “Hey! What the hell . . . !“ They were shoving him, a door banging open on a dark passageway. Some kind of terminal access, for employees only. Todd’ struggled violently, punching and kneeing.
He was fighting robots. They dragged him abruptly sideways, through yet another door. Where the hell were they taking him? And why? He was beyond fear, going cold with stunned surprise. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He had made all the plans, how to get out of the Enclave, what to do if he uncovered what he suspected he would . . . the plane hidden on the roof near Lutz’s apartment . . .
These human elephants weren’t any part of the plan.
“Damn you! Let me—”
A solid arm clamped across his throat, cutting off his air and the words. Other hands pinned his, and someone snarled. “Shut up! We’ll explain later.” The third man was leaning against the closed door, ear to the plasticene as he listened for sounds from the other side.
Red and black lights danced behind Todd’s vision, a roaring in his head. The steely arm was mashing his carotid, sending him down into unconsciousness. Fear . . . anger . . . all of it fading, being engulfed in sorrow. He had failed, never had a chance to talk to Pat. And Dian, he would never . . .
“Let go of him, stupid. You’re strangling him.” Dizzy, blood suddenly rushing up his arteries and into his brain, Todd became aware he was free. The arms that had been pinning him, choking him, were now propping him up. Lights still danced at the edge of his vision, but he was able to see. He blinked at the three men. The biggest one was holding up a hand, cautioning Todd to be quiet. He said softly, “Sorry. We had to get you away from them in a hurry, before they could close in.”
Todd leaned against a pile of storage bins, gingerly shaking his head to steady out the ringing in his ears. The man posted by the door was still listening, but his attitude was more relaxed than before. Apparently whoever he was guarding against—the trackers who had followed Todd from the Southern Hemisphere?—had gone away. Todd was reminded of himself, hiding in the burned-out building in New Washington, listening to the assassin pilots searching the airspace outside his metal and glass cave.
He almost smiled. The effort hurt, activating abused skin and muscles all the way down to his collarbone. “Are you P.O.E. Enforcement?”
The biggest man smiled back at him. “Yes. A particular faction. Not all Protectors of Earth swallows Earth First’s party line. We’re Spacers, like Mrs. Fairchild. General Ames has kept in touch with some of your people . . . a Mikhail Feodor, a Putnam . . . and with some Goddard agents. We got here to back you up as soon as we could.”
Todd’s own words echoed in his mind! “
It pays off to delegate authority, if you pick the right people.
” Mikhail, Elaine, and a lot of
very
loyal people, people who cared about the future.
“You might say, Mr. Saunder, that we’re McKelvey’s ground troops. We know what’s been happening up there, what certain elements on Earth are trying to do to our base on the Moon. It’s criminal, and we’ve tolerated it long enough. We don’t live on the Moon or in a habitat, but we believe in what you and Mrs. Fairchild are saying,” the trio’s leader explained earnestly. “I apologize for the rough stuff. Speed was essential. We couldn’t let them catch you, or let you get any further as Ed Lutz. They located the plane you had hidden for your getaway. It’s been booby-trapped.”
Todd sucked in his breath. It hurt to do that, too. He glared at the muscular type who had headlocked him. The elephant had the grace to look sorry.
“Dr. Foix’s waiting for you, she and some of the others. We’ll take you there. Big things are starting to happen, sir. We’ve got to stop it.” The spokesman hesitated, then said bluntly, “A war. The cretins are pushing it, and it’s about to blow up in all our faces, worse than the Death Years, worse than the Chaos.”
Todd dared to let go of part of his held-in emotions for the first time in hours. Maybe the species was worth saving, if there were still people like these, like Fairchild and his ComLinkers, willing to risk service oaths, political careers, and their lives for humanity.
“We’d better go, sir . . .”
Todd massaged his neck, walking along with them through a maze of passageways. The men knew Orleans Terminal far better than he did, which was humbling. “That was a good stunt, if a trifle rough,” he said by way of forgiving them. “It ought to keep those Enclave types busy for a while, wondering where Ed Lutz disappeared to and who he’s talking to about what he saw at the pole. By the way, do you know who booby-trapped my flier?”
“Not precisely, but it was somebody working for Saunder Enterprises . . .”
He was sorry he had asked, but not surprised. Saddened, though. The surprise was in a shadowy alley a half-kilometer from the terminal. The men were using an old methanol-powered, internal-combustion-engined vehicle. Todd hadn’t seen one of those for twenty years. The antique blended in well with the construction slums lining the rubble-strewn highways leading east. Todd peered out the grimy window as they rode along, seeing the shacks, the burned-out warehouses. He thought of the syntha-food riots which had almost killed him and stopped Project Search before it was announced to the world. Those riots started here, in these miserable hovels. If they had stopped him, that would have changed a great many things that had happened in the weeks since. For better, or for worse? No turning back, then or now.
They followed bumpy, twisting roads into the city. The land north of Orleans had changed drastically after the New Madrid quake had sucked up so much of the river.
But the Gulf shore still got enough rain to keep vegetation jungle-wild. Tropical flora threatened to take over parts of the centuries-old buildings and parks. Again Todd felt like laughing. These three burly Third Millennium Spacers, and
he
was president of ComLink, head of the project which had spotted the incoming alien, hands across the light-years. And the Enclave, dream of the future, an awakening from cryogenic sleep. Transglobal and orbital flight, at speeds impossible forty years ago. And they were riding in a car left from the previous century, scraping along at forty kilometers per hour on quaint, air-inflated wheels!
They left the crooked thoroughfare and weaved down a dirt path toward some trees. Not until they were within ten meters of the trees did Todd realize the things weren’t there. Holo-mode, a good one. The driver behaved as if they were real, carefully detouring around the trees, then steering inside a cavernous structure. An abandoned food storehouse. Todd hoped all the rats had been exterminated before these Fairchild supporters moved in. The place was now a command post and a hangar. Military-equipped fighter and shuttle craft crowded the area. Com monitors were everywhere. The structure bustled with hundreds of people intent on very serious business—the business of saving
Homo sapiens
from itself.
Dian met Todd with a tight embrace as he emerged from the old car. For several minutes, he couldn’t speak, didn’t want to, relishing being alive and close to Dian once more. Finally, she pulled back. “I’m going to convert. I’ve been praying to Beth’s Spirit of Humanity, and you’re here, and okay! Oh, God! I’ve been so scared!”
Some of ComLink’s other key personnel were in the hangar, too. Their relief at Todd’s return from limbo was heartwarming. Mikhail Feodor, his broad Slavic face split in a grin, pumped Todd’s hand while others swarmed around them yelling greetings. These were the ones in on the secret, who had risked their lives to pull off Todd’s crazy invasion of the Enclave. Touched by their welcome, Todd mock-scolded them. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be up at Geosynch or keeping your heads down in the planetside offices.” Then he looked tenderly at Dian. “How’s Beth? And the others?”