War World X: Takeover (32 page)

“Don’t worry,” General Lassitre said, eyes twinkling. “You’ve left your mark on this place.”

Ibansk placed a hand on Cole’s shoulder, but said nothing.

They came to the square. Cutting diagonally from the middle of the north side to the middle of the west side, a long stage had been built. It stood three meters high. At its center, ten cross-beam gibbets had been erected, and an eleventh was even then being finished. A military band warmed up on a grandstand near the southwest side of the stage. Lights were hoisted and lashed to remaining above-ground buildings. Loudspeakers squawked as technicians adjusted them. Other calibrations caused other sounds of preparation.

“Reminds me of a political rally,” General Lassitre said.

Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson snorted and said, “What else is it, then?”

“I thought it was to be a public execution of the rebel leaders. The CoDominium Marine commander demands it, as do I. Examples must be set, and the deaths of our people must not go unanswered.”

Taxpayer Bronson merely chuckled, a sound as quiet and unpleasant as a slice through an abdomen.

When the APC’s safety was ensured by a phalanx of soldiers, the VIPs were allowed to get out of it. Cole and Ibansk let the general and the businessman/politician go ahead of them. As they came down the ramp, guards crushed in on them. “Crowd’s raucous,” one of the guards said. “Threw some rocks, that kind of thing.”

In the harsh glare of klieg lights and mantle-lanterns, Cole saw a sea of faces just beyond the ropes separating square from stage. All eyes seemed riveted to a spot just past the gallows and Cole tried to step up onto a crate to get a better look, but a guard knocked him down. “Don’t expose yourself like that, sir,” the soldier said, face sheepish but voice quite sincere. He seemed willing to knock his charge down as often as necessary, so Cole just nodded.

A clear plastiflex barrier had been built on the northeast side of the gallows; behind this the VIPs were herded. “As if they expect snipers,” General Lassitre said in contempt, and a soldier said, “SOP, sir, that’s all.”

Observing the niceties and doing everything by the book meant, as usual, that most of the off-the-books maneuvering was over. Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson sat heavily, then offered the General a single baleful look.

Now that they were on stage, Ibansk and Cole could see the prisoners, each suffering fate in his own way. One man, short and skinny, danced a hellish mockery of the pomp and circumstance surrounding them, and jabbed at guards in mock-boxing stance. He jumped around like a leprechaun and put up about as much squawk and derision as a banshee. He even wore mostly green, and he refused a hood as the hangman passed along the line of condemned prisoners. “That’s Fineal Naha,” Ibansk said, “Governor of Hell’s-a-Comin’.”

“And that,” said Cole, pointing to the tall, wild-haired figure in the torn, soiled robes, “is the Reverend Charles Castell. I’ll be damned.”

“So will he, apparently, at least by human standards,” Ibansk said.

He and Cole took seats behind the general and the politician. Neither thought of Anwar Sadat, but some of the security procedures currently making them so uncomfortable and bored owed much to that Earthside warrior’s demise as each layer of protection covered the others.

Finally the lights, their colored gels like swollen stars in the middle distance as viewed from the stage, mixed into brilliant white and illuminated only the stage. The crowd was left in silence usually said to be awe-struck by the lighting designer in his after-action reports.

A plastiflex podium was carried on stage by two armed Marine sergeants, who fell in to either side of it once it had been placed properly, and then General Lassitre rose. “Ladies and gentlemen of the fair planet of Haven, outpost of CoDominium’s grand design and eternal glory, welcome to this sad, this festive occasion. Sad because we must face the fact that some of your brethren, yes, even members of the gentle, peace-loving Harmony sect, have conspired and committed acts of rebellion against the greater order.

“Evidence has been gathered and presented to a tribunal, which returned a unanimous verdict. Such evidence shall become public soon. Also be it known that it wasn’t sheer luck that saved you. A formal request for military help in putting down the rebellion was made through channels, and it met with the response you have, in the past few hours, experienced. Professional, restrained force has been applied to the problem, despite the dastardly sabotage of a splashdown, and the problem is no more. And that’s why this is also a festive time.”

Here the General paused, as mixed applause, probably from claques, backfired through the crowd. He raised his hands as if to still a thunderous ovation, then said, “And to further our civilized ends, we have found it necessary to revoke the Harmony charter of settlement rights, which, upon examination, has been lawfully found to have been granted in error and undue haste. Public pressures must not be permitted to victimize an entire planet’s population, and certainly a single religious sect must not be allowed to hold sway over what promises to be a population of millions in the very near future.

“And let us remember those brave, unfortunate soldiers killed earlier by rebel terrorist activities on Havenhold Lake. Expecting an orderly implementation of legal orders, they found only watery graves. They shall be missed, but more, many more shall follow. Perhaps living well shall be, for the survivors, the best revenge.”

Here Ibansk leaned over to Cole and said, “On Haven?”

Cole nodded, staring past the stage at a group of robed figures just barely visible in reflected light to one side of the crowd. He was biting his lower lip and did not grin at Ibansk’s typically cynical jest.

“First,” General Lassitre said, drawing his ceremonial sword and flourishing it once more, perhaps to alarm the dozen representatives now seated around the VIPs, “we must have done with an unpleasant but necessary task.” He gestured toward the gallows, his sword catching a golden spotlight’s beam perfectly. “Having been duly found guilty by omission when not in deed of the deaths of eight-hundred and four of our benevolent CoDominium’s finest fighting troops, and further, having been sentenced by military tribunal to death for said rebellious, treacherous acts, the prisoners shall now, in full witness of Haven’s citizenry, be hanged by the neck until dead. Their graves shall be unmarked, while their nefarious deeds shall be long kept in mind.” He waved the sword again, and again caught, expertly, the light.

In thousands of eyes, a golden mote glinted for an instant, even as their attention turned toward the instruments of death.

A last few blows from a hammer sounded as the microphones flickered off; the eleventh gibbet now stood complete, ready. A generator somewhere received a kick, and found its rhythm again.

But this was just a tease, to add the drama of anticipation, which would sit like guilt on the shoulders of the crowd later, in their hovels. They’d berate themselves, having actually wanted the hangings to hurry up and happen, and that would make them prone to obedience, thinking themselves inwardly tainted. Or so read the manual on stage-managing public executions for conquered populaces.

The microphones came back to life, and General Lassitre said, “Your planet, having been accepted for full CoDominium membership, qualifies for consulate status, and a consul-general is even now being sent. In the interim, a colonial governor has been appointed by due process, and it is he who shall dispense with our unfinished business, for it is he who shall lead you those first few steps into a grand, profitable, and respectful future. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present a renowned businessman and politician from one of Earth’s most illustrious families, your interim governor, Taxpayer Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson.”

The claques must have passed around some pelf this time, for the applause was actually audible at the back of the stage. As Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson hefted his bulk to the podium in a slow gait, the condemned prisoners were taken up their final flight of stairs.

Nooses were snugged at the back and to one side of their necks, to ensure a clean snap, a quick and painless break. All the condemned except Naha and Castell wore black hoods of coarse cloth. All had their hands bound behind them, and their ankles, and their knees. As they stood accepting these indignities, Bronson gained the podium. “Justice be done,” he said, in a low growl, unceremoniously as ever. He did not look at the podium, but instead glanced back at Cole, to whom he smiled.

That’s when the guards knocked Ibansk over in their haste and grabbed Maxwell Cole, lifting him, pinioning his arms in grips strengthened by years of practice. The look on Cole’s face was one of fury, fear and finality. As he was dragged past the podium, he yelled, so that the microphones caught and passed it on, “See Haven, then die.”

The eleventh gibbet was Cole’s. He clambered up beside the Reverend Charles Castell, who gazed over at him and said, “Peace is ours to offer.”

As Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson made a short, sweet speech full of phrases guaranteed by researchers to affect the hearts and minds of the locals, Cole gasped as if he’d run a marathon, then felt his knees go weak. “I don’t want to die,” he said, almost crying.

The Reverend Castell said, “Seek Harmony,” and was kidney-punched by a guard who strutted up and down behind the condemned as if he were the master of ceremonies.

The hangman, in black military hood, stood by the pole tied to the mechanisms holding the trapdoors shut. When he pulled the pole free, the doors would drop open simultaneously.

“A CoDominium Naval Base,” Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson announced, to genuine cheers, and into those cheers he said, “and power sats, and food factories and all the earthly amenities by which a civilized world is known.”

As the cheers rose, Bronson lifted one arm. He glanced at the gallows. Everyone fell silent. “But first, we must make room for such things.”

His arm fell.

They’d been hearing the echoes from the loudspeakers and seeing the glow from the lights for some time, so Wilgar sent an irregular known for speed to see what was going on.

“Quickly,” the ragged girl said, struggling to get her breath as she returned. “They’re going to hang people.”

Wilgar and Kev and the others ran the three or four blocks from lake to square, where they spotted a group of Harmonies huddled to one side. Someone at the podium spoke in a low, sulky voice. Sure enough, there were gallows, and a man was being carried up to the last of them.

Kev said, “That’s Colin Maxwell, the spy from the miners.”

Wilgar shook his head. “His name’s Maxwell Cole, from CoDo Intelligence. Agent provocateur.”

They found a distraught Saral slumped on the ground at the middle of the Harmonies. Acolytes and Deacons kept her grief safe from prying eyes, even as Beads patrolled the crowd nearby as extra security of a more physical nature. “They took him from me,” she wailed, but as she saw Wilgar she reached up, joy and disbelief mingling in her feature.

Wilgar leaned down and hugged his mother, then extracted himself from her grip and backed off. “Be strong,” he told her.

“They took the Reverend,” a Deacon told Kev. “Said he was a rebel leader. What does it mean?”

Kev looked up. The sky, beyond the glare of the kliegs, was lightening. “It means we’re on our own now,” he said softly. With more urgency and an angry grimace, he added, “It should’ve been me.”

The crowd cheered about something the speaker said, and then came the phrase, “…room for such things,” and the speaker’s arm fell.

The entire square fell silent, and even as the clatter of the trapdoors letting go echoed, a glint of dawn flickered in the sky. The stars went away, to be replaced by a rosy glow.

The condemned men fell as if in slow motion, and each pulled up short. Kev made out the Reverend Castell, recognizing the robes. “He collected bits of rope the way old people sometimes hoard ends of soap or bits of twine,” he said, softly, apropos of nothing.

The ropes halted the falls, and necks cracked like distant gunfire, stirring the crowd to low murmurs. More dawn spilled over the planet’s ecliptic rim. More darkness fled, and the klieg lights became, in an unexpected instant, redundant, then superfluous.

As the Reverend Castell’s rope snapped taut, stopping his drop toward Haven’s center of gravity, a flare of light flickered to life from within. The crowd gasped, and even as those nearby cringed back in amazement or fright, as the Reverend Charles Castell burst into bright white flame.

The Harmonies around Saral dropped to their knees, except Wilgar, but even he stood gaping, nonplussed. The few cads in the crowd who’d cheered the hangings fell silent now, too.

“He refused to curse the darkness,” one of the Deacons muttered, crying openly and smiling through pain.

The Reverend Charles Castell’s flames caused consternation, if not panic, among the VIPs on the stage, and for a few seconds pandemonium ensued as Marines scurried to douse the flames. The fire burned itself out long before anyone got to extinguish Castell, and then he, too, swung on creaking new hemp ropes, the same as the others, except for the fine coating of ash.