Haworth was the first to speak, his tone conciliatory, concerned. “Look, Jek. This has us frightened as much as you. And we're as confused as you. We're doing our best to strengthen security and whip it into shape, but it takes time. And let's face it: we're simply not accustomed to this type of threat. It's never been a problem before.”
“Why is it a problem now? Why me? That's what I want to know!”
“I can't answer that. At least not yet. In the past, we've always been able to funnel off any discontent in the direction of Earth, always been able to point to Sol System and say, ‘There's the enemy.’ It used to work beautifully. Now, I'm not so sure.”
“It still works.” Metep VII had regained his composure now and was again leaning back in his chair.
“To a certain extent, of course it does. But apparently there's someone out there who isn't listening.” Haworth paused and glanced at the other members of the council. “Somebody out there thinks you're the enemy.”
III
Never initiate force against another. That should be the underlying principle of your life. But should someone do violence to you, retaliate without hesitation, without reservation, without quarter, until you are sure that he will never wish to harm – or never be capable of harming – you or yours again.
from THE SECOND BOOK OF KYFHO
(REVISED EASTERN SECT EDITION)
Nimble fingers ran through his hair, probed his clothes and shoes. Finding him void of further weaponry, they released him. “That's Josef to your right” – the male figure bowed almost imperceptibly at the waist – “and Kanya to your left” – another bow. “Kanya is personally responsible for the death of your assassin back there in Freedom Hall. I'm told her skill with the shuriken is without parallel.”
It's over was the only thought Broohnin's mind could hold at that moment. If Metep was able to hire protection of this caliber, then all hope of killing him was gone.
“How did he do it?” Broohnin said when he was finally able to speak. “What did he have to pay to get Flinters here to do his dirty work for him?”
The blond man laughed – Broohnin still could not make out any facial features – and there was genuine amusement in the sound.
“Poor Den Broohnin! Can't quite accept the fact that there are people other than himself who do not have a price!” The voice took on a sterner tone after a brief pause. “No, my petty revolutionary, we are not here at Metep's bidding. We are here to destroy him. And by ‘him’ I do not mean the man, but everything he represents.”
“Lies!” Broohnin said as loudly as he dared. “If that was true you wouldn't have interfered tonight!”
“How can a man who has built up such an efficient little terrorist group right under the noses of the Imperial Guard be so naïve about the Imperium itself? You're not dealing with a monarchy, my friend, despite all the showy trappings. The Out-world Imperium is a republic. There's no royal bloodline. Metep VII's term is for life, granted, but when he's gone his successor will be elected, just as he was. And should Metep VII be assassinated, a temporary successor will be in his place before the day is out.”
“No! The Imperium will collapse! The people–”
“The people will be terrified!” the stranger said in harsh, clipped tones. “Your ill-conceived terrorism only serves to frighten them into clamoring for sterner laws and harsher measures against dissent. You only end up strengthening the very structure you wish to pull down. And it must cease immediately!”
The stranger paused to allow his words to penetrate. Then: “The only reason you remain alive at this point is because I have some small use for certain members of your organization. I am therefore giving you a choice: you may fit yourself into my plan or you may return to Nolevatol. Should you choose the former, you will meet me in the rearmost booth of the White Hart Tavern on Rocklynne Boulevard tomorrow night; should you choose the latter, you will be on an orbital shuttle by that time. Choose to oppose me and you will not survive one standard day.”
He gave a short, quick bow and strolled back the way he had come. The Flinters disappeared into the darkness with a whisper of sound and Broohnin was suddenly alone once more under his tree. It was as if nothing had happened. As if the entire exchange had been a hallucination.
He had a sudden urge to move, to get where the lights were bright and there were lots of people around. Thoughts swirled through his consciousness in a confused scramble as his pace graduated from a walk to a loping run from the park. There were Flinters on Throne… they were here to bring down the Imperium… that should have been a cause for rejoicing, but it wasn't. Reinforcements had arrived but they might as well be aliens from another galaxy as Flinters.
No one knew anything for sure about Flinters beyond the fact that every member of their culture went about heavily armed and was skilled in the use of virtually every weapon devised by man throughout recorded history. They kept to themselves on their own little world and were rumored to hire out occasionally as mercenaries. But no one could ever document where or when. No traders were allowed to land on Flint – all commerce was conducted from orbit. The Flinters had no relations with Earth and did not recognize the Imperium as the legitimate government of anything. A sick society, by all accepted standards, but one that had proven viable and surprisingly unaggressive.
Broohnin slowed his pace as he reached the well-lit commercial district. Only a few people dawdled about. Even here in Primus, seat of the Imperium and capital of the most cosmopolitan of the out-worlds, people went to bed early. News of an attempted assassination on Metep had driven them off the streets even sooner. Dolees were an exception, of course. Excitement of any sort stimulated them, and since they had nothing ahead of them the next day, they could stay out to all hours if they wished. Sometimes that meant trouble. Violent trouble. An unfortunate outsider, or even one of their own, could be beaten, vibed, or blasted for a few marks or just to alleviate the bleakness of their everyday existence.
On any other night Broohnin would have felt uneasy to be weaponless as he passed through knots of bored young dolees. The possibility that a Flinter might be watching him from the shadows erased all other fears, however. The youths ignored him, anyway. He was on the dole himself, sheltered and warmed by rent and clothing allowances, fed via Food Vouchers. And he was scruffy enough to pass for one of them. When he finally reached his side-street, one-room flat, he sealed the door behind him and flopped on the thin pneumatic mattress in the corner. And began to shake.
He was no longer faceless. Playing the guerrilla, the unseen terrorist, striking from the shadows and running and striking again was exciting, exhilarating. He could remain a shadow, an anonymous symbol of revolt. He could go down to the public vid areas and mingle with the watchers as reports of his latest terrorist acts were replayed in all their holographic splendor.
But that was over now. Someone knew his name, where he came from, and all he had done. And what one man could learn, so could others.
Flinters! He couldn't get over it. Why was Flint involving itself in the overthrow of the Imperium? Its attitude toward interplanetary matters had always been strict non-involvement. Earth and the rest of Occupied Space could fall into the galactic core for all Flint cared. Why were Flinters here now?
And that other one…the blond man. He was no Flinter. His accent hovered on the brink of recognition, ready to fall into place. But not yet. That was not what was bothering Broohnin, however. The most deeply disturbing aspect of the scene back in Imperium Park was the realization that the blond man seemed to be in command of the Flinters. And nobody tells Flinters what to do. They have utter contempt for all would-be rulers and barely recognize the existence of the rest of humanity… with the possible exception of the residents of the planet Tolive–
Tolive! Broohnin rose to a sitting position. That was the blond man's accent – he was a Tolivian! And that was the connection between him and the Flinters. Out-world history lessons from his primary education trickled back
to him as the associations multiplied.
The key was Kyfho, a staunchly individualistic, anarchocapitalist philosophy born on Earth before the union of the Eastern and Western Alliances. Its adherents became outcasts on the crowded collectivist motherworld, forming tight, tiny enclaves in an attempt to wall out the rest of the world. An impossible task. The all-pervasive world government seeped through every chink in their defenses and brought the movement to near extinction.
The interstellar colonization program saved it. Any sufficiently large group of prospective colonists meeting the given requirements of average age and rudimentary skills was given free transportation one way to an Earth-class planet. It was understood that there would be no further contact with Earth and no rescue should the colony run into trouble. A sink-or-swim proposition. Earth had its hands full managing the awesome mass of its own population, the solar system colonies, and its own official star colonies. It could afford neither the talent nor the expense of playing guardian to a host of fledgling interstellar settlements.
The response was overwhelming. The followers of every utopian philosophy on Earth sent delegations to the stars to form the perfect society. Splinter colonies, as they came to be known, were sent off in every direction. Wherever an exploration team had discovered an Earth-class planet, a splinter group was landed. Tragically and predictably, many failed to survive a single turn around the primary. But a significant percentage hung on and kept on, making mankind an interstellar race in the truest sense.
The program served two purposes. It gave divergent philosophies a chance to test their mettle… if they thought they had the answers to humanity's social ills, why not form a colonial group, migrate to a splinter world, and prove it? The program's second purpose directly benefited the newly unified Earth state by unloading a host of dissidents on the stars, thereby giving it some time to consolidate its global reach. The plan worked beautifully. The troublemakers found the offer irresistible and Earth once more became a nice place for bureaucrats to live. It was such an easy and efficient solution… but one that Earth would pay for dearly in the future.
By the time the splinter colony program was getting started, the Kyfho adherents had mitosed into two distinct but cordial factions. Each applied separately for splinter colony status and each was approved. The first group, composed of rationalists and intellectual purists, was a quiet, introspective lot, and named its planet Tolive. The second group wound up on a harsh, rocky planet called Flint. Its members had been raised for the most part in the Eastern Alliance and had somehow blended Kyfho with remnants of old Asian cultures; each adherent had become an army unto him-or herself.
Like most splinter colonies, both groups had major problems and upheavals during their first century of existence, but both survived with their own form of the Kyfho philosophy intact. It had been that philosophy which kept both planets aloof when the rest of the splinter colonies joined Earth in the establishment of an out-world trade network, and subsequently spared them the necessity of joining in the revolution that broke Earth's resultant economic stranglehold on those very same out-worlds. Neither Tolive nor Flint had taken any part in the formation of the Out-world Imperium and had ignored it during its two centuries of existence.
But they were not ignoring it now, as Den Broohnin was well aware. Flint and Tolive were actively involved in bringing down the Imperium. Why? There would always be a philosophical link between the two cultures, a bond that the rest of the out-worlds could neither share nor understand. Perhaps it was something in that very philosophy which was bringing them into the fray. Broohnin knew nothing about Kyfho… did not even know what the word meant.
Or was it something else? The blond stranger seemed to have eyes everywhere. Perhaps he knew some secret plans of Metep and his Council of Five that would explain the sudden appearance of Flinters and Tolivians on Throne. Something big must be in the wind to make them reverse their centuries-old policy of noninvolvement.
Broohnin dimmed the light and lay back on the mattress. He was not going to leave Throne, that was certain. Not after all the effort he had invested in Metep's downfall. Nor was he going to risk being killed by some bizarre Flinter weapon.
No, he was going to be at the White Hart tomorrow night and he was going to be all ears. He was going to agree to any conditions the blond man wanted and was going to play along as long as it seemed to suit his own purposes. For if nothing else, Den Broohnin was a survivor.
IV
No state shall… make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts…
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
“What are these things?”
“Flyers. Nobody seems to know where they came from but they're all over the city. I thought they'd amuse you.” After Metep had the courtesy of first look, Haworth passed other copies of the flyer across the table to the rest of the Council of Five. The mood around the table had relaxed considerably since Metep's outburst. Expressions of deep concern for his safety had mollified the leader and it was decided to lower further his already low public profile.
“Robin Hood, eh?” Krager said, smiling sardonically as he glanced over the flyer. He looked to Haworth. “Wasn't he…?”
An old Earth myth, right,” Haworth replied with a nod. “He robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.”
“I wonder which of the rich he plans to rob?”
“Not me, I hope,” Bede, the slim Minister of Transportation, said with a laugh. “And what's this little insignia top and bottom?
Looks like an omega with a star in it. That supposed to mean something?”
Haworth shrugged. “Omega is the last letter in the Greek alphabet. If this is some revolutionary group, it might mean the Last Revolution or something equally dramatic. ‘The Last Revolution of the Star Colonies.’ How does that sound?”
“It doesn't sound good,” Metep said. “Especially when they appear on the night of an assassination attempt.”
“Oh, I doubt there's a link,” Haworth said slowly. “If there were, the flyers would have been printed up in advance proclaiming your death. This mentions nothing about death or disaster. Probably a bunch of Zem addicts, but I'm having security check it out anyway.”
Bede's brow was furrowed. “Isn't omega also the ohm, symbol for resistance? Electrical resistance?”
“I believe it is,” Krager said. “Perhaps this Robin Hood group – it may be one man for all we know – considers itself some sort of resistance or revolutionary group, but the message in this flyer is totally economic. And well informed, too. Look at that price index. Sad but true. It takes 150 current marks to buy now what 100 marks bought back in the 115th year. That's a lot of inflation in eighty years.”
“Not really,” Haworth said, looking up from the notes before him on the table.
“That's Earthie talk,” Krager said, an ill-concealed trace of annoyance in his tone. “The Earthies are used to inflation by now–”
“Earth has recently brought her economy under control and–”
“–but we out-worlders are still suspicious of it.” The older man had raised his voice to cut off Haworth's interjection and had perhaps put unnecessary emphasis on the word “we.” Haworth's Earth-gained education still raised hackles in certain quarters of the Imperium.
“Well, we'd all better get used to it,” Haworth said, oblivious to any implied slur, “because we're all going to be living with it for a long time to come.”
Amid the mutterings up and down the table, Metep VII's voice broke through. “I take it, then, the new economic projections are in and that they're not good.”
“Not good at all,” Haworth said. “This downtrend is not one of the cyclic episodes the out-world economy has experienced from time to time in the past half dozen decades. We are in a slow, steady decline in exports to Earth with no slackening of our import growth rate. I don't have to tell any of you how serious that is.”
They all knew. Knew too well.
“Any bright ideas on how we can turn it around – besides more inflation?” It was Krager speaking, and his tone had yet to return to neutral.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. But I'll get to that later. Those of you who have kept up-to-date know that we're caught in the middle of two ongoing trends. Earth's rigid population controls are paying off at last; their demand for grain and ore is decreasing, and at a faster rate than anyone expected. Out-world populations on the other hand, are expanding beyond our ability to keep up technologically. So our demand for Sol system hardware keeps growing.”
“The answer is pretty obvious, I think,” Metep VII said with bland assurance. “We've got to pump a lot more money into our own technical companies and make them more competitive with Earth's.”
“How about an outright subsidy?” someone suggested.
“Or an import tax on Earth goods?” from another.
Haworth held up his hands. “This has to be a backdoor affair, gentlemen. A subsidy will have other industries wailing for some of the same. And an import tax will upset the whole economy by sending technical hardware prices into orbit. Jek's right, however. We have to pump money into the right industries, but discreetly. Very discreetly.
Krager again: “And where do we get it?”
“There are ways.”
“Not by another tax, I hope. We're taking an average of one out of every three marks now – seven out of ten in the higher brackets. You saw what happened on Neeka when we announced that surcharge. Riots. And that dead girl. Not here on Throne, thank you!”
Haworth smiled condescendingly. “Taxes are useful, but crude. As you all know, I prefer adjustments in the money supply. The net result is the same – more revenue for us, less buying power for them – but the process is virtually undetectable.”