“What are we looking for if not your rich man?” Broohnin asked impatiently. The tension in the air was making it difficult to breathe.
LaNague did not look up from his locus indicator. “An ancient ancestor of mine – man named Gurney – used to live in this area in the pre-stellar days. He was a rebel of sorts, the earliest one on record in my family. A lipidlegger. He defied his government – and there were many governments then, not just one for all Earth as there is now – out of sheer stubbornness and belligerence.” He smiled at a private thought. “Quite a character.”
They walked a short distance further to the north. There seemed to be fewer people about, but no less tension. LaNague didn't seem to notice.
“Here we are,” he said, his smile turning to dismay as he looked around, faced with the same monotonous façades of people-choked apartments that had oppressed them since leaving the municipal garage.
“Good. You found it. Let's go,” Broohnin said, glancing about anxiously.
“This used to be a beautiful rural area,” LaNague was saying, “with trees and wildlife and mist and rain. Now look at it: solid synthestone. According to my co-ordinates, Gurney's general store used to be right here in the middle of the street. This whole area used to be the Delaware Water Gap. How–”
A sound stopped him. It was a human sound, made by human voices, but so garbled by the overlapping of so many voices that no words were distinguishable. Its source was untraceable… it came from everywhere, seamlessly enveloping them. But the emotion behind the sound came through with unmistakable clarity: rage.
All around them, people began to flee for their homes. Children were pulled off the street and into apartment complex doorways that slid shut behind them. LaNague dove for the door of a clothing store to their left but it zipped closed before he could reach it and would not open despite his insistent pounding. As Broohnin watched, the storefront disappeared, fading rapidly to a blank surface identical to the synthestone of the apartment walls around it. LaNague appeared to be trying to gain entry to a solid wall.
“What's going on?” Broohnin yelled as the din of human voices grew progressively louder. He could not localize the source to the north of them, approaching rapidly.
“Food riot,” LaNague said, returning to Broohnin's side. “Sounds like a big one. We've got to get out of here.” He pulled a reference tablet the size of a playing card from his vest pocket and tapped in a code. “The garage is too far, but there's a Kyfhon neighborhood near here, I believe.” The surface of the tablet lit with the information he had requested. “Yes! We can make it if we run.”
“Why there?”
“Because nobody else will be able to help us.”
They ran south, stopping at every intersection while LaNague checked his locus indicator. The bustling stores they had passed only moments before had disappeared, glazed over with holograms of blank synthestone walls to hide them from the approaching mob. Only a rioter intimately familiar with this particular neighborhood would be able to locate them now.
“They're gaining!” Broohnin said breathlessly as they stopped again for LaNague to check their co-ordinates. After nearly two decades of living on Throne, his muscles had become acclimated to a gravitational pull approximately 5 per cent less than Earth's. The difference had been inconsequential until now because his activity had been limited to sitting, dozing, and strolling. Now he had to run. And he felt it.
LaNague, who weighed about seven kilos less on Earth than he did on Tolive, found the going easy. “Not much further. We should be–”
The mob rounded the corner behind them then and rushed forward with a roar. An empty, hapless g-e vehicle parked at the side of the street slowed their momentum for a moment as a number of rioters paused to tear it to pieces. The strips of metal pulled from the vehicle were used to assault any store windows they could find behind their holographic camouflage. The windows were tough, rubbery, and shatterproof. They had to be pierced and torn before entry could be gained.
LaNague and Broohnin stood transfixed with fascination as they watched a clutch of rioters attack what seemed to be a synthestone wall, their makeshift battering rams and pikes disappearing into it as if no wall existed. And none did. With a sudden shout, those in the forefront pushed their way into the wall image and disappeared. They must have found the hologram projector controls immediately because the camouflage evaporated and the crowd cheered as the wall became a storefront again… a furniture outlet. Its contents were passed out to the street bucket-brigade style and smashed with roars of approval.
“That's not food!” Broohnin said. “I thought you called this a food riot.”
“Just a generic term. Nobody riots for food any more. They just riot. Theories have it that the crowding makes a certain type of person go temporarily berserk every so often.”
And then the crowds began to move again. Blind, voracious, swift, deadly.
Broohnin found his fear gone, replaced by a strange exhilaration. “Let's join them!” The carnage, the howling ferocity of the scene had excited him. He wanted a chance to break something, too. He always felt better when he did.
“They'll tear you to pieces!” LaNague said, shoving him into motion away from the mob.
“No, they won't! I'll be one of them!”
“You're an out-worlder, you fool! They'll see that immediately. And when they're through with you, nobody'll be able to put you back together again. Now run!”
They ran. The mob was not after them in particular, but it followed them. Nor was the riot confined to a single street. As they passed various intersections, LaNague and Broohnin could see extensions of the crowd to the right and left. Fires had been set and smoke began to thicken in the air.
“Faster!” LaNague shouted. “We could get ringed in! We're dead if that happens!”
It was unnecessary advice. Broohnin was running at maximum effort. His muscles screaming in protest as the smoke put an extra burden on his already laboring lungs. LaNague had slowed his pace to stay with him and yell encouragement. Broohnin resented the ease with which the skinny Tolivian loped beside him. If worse came to worse, he would throw LaNague to the mob which was now only a scant hundred meters behind them, and gaining.
“Not much further!” LaNague said. “Don't quit now!” He glanced down at the indicator in his palm. “That should be it straight ahead!”
Broohnin saw nothing different at first, then noticed that the street after the next intersection was a different color… yellow… and there were still people in the street – children – playing. There were men on the corners. Women, too. And they were all armed.
The Kyfhons stood in small placid groups, watching the two fleeing out-worlders with mild interest. Except for the long-range blasters slung across their shoulders and the hand blasters on their hips, they looked like all the other Earthies seen since landfall. It was only when it became obvious that LaNague and Broohnin were going to cross onto the yellow-colored pavement that they sprang to life.
A dozen blasters were suddenly pointed in their direction. Broohnin glanced at the children who had stopped playing – some of the older ones had small hand blasters drawn and ready, too. LaNague swung out his arm and slowed Broohnin to a walk, then trotted ahead of him. The Tolivian held his hands in front of him, out of Broohnin's sight. He seemed to be signaling to the group of Kyfhons on the right-hand corner. They glanced at each other and lowered their weapons. One stepped forward to have a quick conversation. There were brief nods, then LaNague turned to Broohnin.
“Hurry! They'll give us sanctuary.”
Broohnin quickly followed LaNague onto the yellow pavement. “Where do we hide?” His words were barely audible between gasping respirations.
“We don't. We just lean against the wall over here in the shade and catch our breath.”
“We're not getting off the street?”
LaNague shook his head. “That would mean entering someone's home. And that's asking too much.”
>
The mob surged forward, its momentum constant, irresistible, spilling out of the confines of the narrow street and into the intersection. The Kyfhons had reslung or reholstered their weapons and now stood in clusters, eying the onrushing wave of humanity in attitudes of quiet readiness.
Although LaNague seemed calm beside him, Broohnin was unable to relax. He leaned back with his palms flat against the wall, panting, ready to spring away when he had to. And he was sure he'd have to soon. That mob was rolling and it wasn't going to be stopped by a few adults and kids with blasters. It was going to tear through here, yellow pavement or no, and destroy everything in its path.
As it happened, Broohnin was only half right. The mob did not stop, but neither did it pour into the Kyfhon street. It split. After filling the intersection, half of the rioters turned to the right, half to the left. Not a single foot crossed onto the yellow pavement.
Den Broohnin could only stare.
“Told you we'd be safe,” LaNague said with a smug air.
“But why? There's not enough firepower in this street to even nick a mob like that, let alone stop it!”
LaNague looked up at the overhanging buildings. “Oh, I wouldn't say that.”
Broohnin followed his gaze. The roofs, and every window at every level, were lined with Kyfhons, and each of them was armed. Looking back to the mob that was still surging and dividing at the end of the street, he saw not the slightest hint of reluctance or hesitation in the rioters as they skirted the yellow pavement. It seemed to be taken for granted that this neighborhood was untouchable. But how –?
“Over the years, I imagine a lot of rioters died before people got the message,” LaNague said, answering the unspoken question. “It's called ‘a sense of community’ – something that's been long forgotten on Earth, and even on the out-worlds. We Kyfhons are set apart from others by our attitudes and values. We form a close-knit family… even to the point of having secret hand signals so we can recognize each other. I used one to gain sanctuary today.” He gestured toward the mob that was finally beginning to thin. “We're not interested in traffic with people who don't share our values, and so we're driven together into neighborhoods like this one, or to planets like Tolive and Flint. But it's a self-imposed exile. Our ghetto walls are built from the inside.”
“But does the Crime Authority allow–”
“The Crime Authority is not allowed in here! The motto of Eastern Sect Kyfhons is ‘A weapon in every hand, freedom on every side.’ They police their own streets, and have let it be known for centuries that they protect their own. Public temper tantrums like the one that almost ran us over are not tolerated on their streets. The word has long been out: Do what you will to your own community, but risk death if you harm ours.”
Broohnin had finally caught his breath and now pushed himself away from the wall. “In other words, they get away with murder.”
“It's called self-defense. But there are other reasons they're left alone. For instance: didn't you wonder why there were no Crime Authority patrols in the air trying to quell the riot? It's because life is still a surplus here. If a few rioters get killed, that's fewer mouths to feed. The same logic applies to any rioters foolish enough to invade neighborhoods like this.
“As for criminals who might belong to the Kyfhon communities, the justice meted out here against their own kind is swifter and often harsher than anything that goes on in the Crime Authority prisons. And finally, from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, you must remember that these people grow up learning how to fight with every part of their body and with every weapon known to man.” LaNague smiled grimly. “Would you want to walk in here and try to arrest someone?”
“They're like a bunch of Flinters,” Broohnin muttered, glancing around and feeling the same uneasiness he had experienced in Throne's Imperium Park steal over him again.
“They are!” LaNague said, laughing. “They just never moved to Flint. After all, Flinters are just Eastern Sect purists in ceremonial garb who have a planet all to themselves. Just as Tolivians are Western Sect Kyfhons with their own planet.”
“Where do these Western Sect types keep themselves on Earth?”
LaNague's smile faltered. “Most of them are gone. We – they never took to violence too well. They were gobbled up – destroyed. Tolive is just about the only place left where Western Sect Kyfho is practiced.” He turned away. “Let's go.”
After speaking briefly to a small knot of the adults on the corner, obviously thanking them, he moved toward the now deserted street, motioning Broohnin to follow.
“Come. Time to see the rich man.”
THEY WERE THREE KILOMETERS up in the cloud-cluttered sky, heading southeast at full throttle. The Bosyorkington megalopolis had been left behind, as had the coastal pile-dwelling communities and the houseboat fleets. Nothing below now but the green algae soup they still called the Atlantic Ocean.
“He live on a boat?”
LaNague shook his head.
“Then where're you taking us?” Broohnin demanded, his gaze flicking between the map projected on the flitter's vid screen and the rows of altocumulus clouds they were stringing like a needle through pearls. “There's nothing out here but water. And we'll never reach the other side.”
LaNague checked the controls. “Watch up ahead.”
Broohnin looked down toward the ocean.
“No,” LaNague told him. “Ahead. Straight ahead.”
There was nothing straight ahead but clouds. No. there was something – they speared into a patch of open air, and there it was, straight ahead as LaNague had said: a sprawling Tudor mansion with a perfect lawn and rows of English hedges cut two meters high and planted in devious, maze-like patterns. All floating three kilometers in the sky.
“Ah!” LaNague said softly at Broohnin's side. “The humble abode of Eric Boedekker.”
IX
Competition is a sin.
John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
Eric Boedekker's home sat in a shallow, oblong, six-acre dish rimmed with batteries of anti-aircraft weapons. The general public looked on the skisland estates as mere toys for the obscenely rich, totally devoid of any practical value. The general public was wrong, as usual.
“Looks like a fort,” Broohnin said as they glided toward it.
“It is.”
Members of the uppermost layers of Earth's upper-upper class had long ago become regular targets of organized criminal cartels, political terrorists, and ordinary people who were simply hungry. Open season was declared on the rich and they were kidnapped and held for ransom at an alarming rate. The electronic currency system, of course, eliminated the possibility of monetary ransom, and so loved ones were held captive and returned in exchange for commodities useful in the black market, such as gold, silver, beef.
Huge, low-floating skislands had long been in use as vacation resorts, guaranteeing the best weather at all times, always staying ahead of storms and winter's chill. Seeing the plight of the very rich, an enterprising company began constructing smaller skislands as new homes for them, offering unparalleled security. The skisland estates could be approached only by air, and were easily defensible against assault.
There were a few drawbacks, the major one being the restriction from populated areas, which meant any land mass on the planet. Huge gravity-negating fields were at work below the skislands and no one knew the effects of prolonged exposure to the fields on human physiology. No one was volunteering, either. And so the skislands were all to be found hovering over the open sea.
A holographic message was suddenly projected in front of LaNague's flitter. Solid-looking block letters told them to approach no further, or risk being shot from the sky. A vid communication frequency was given if the occupants wished to announce themselves. LaNague tapped in the frequency and spoke.
“This is Peter LaNague. I desire a personal meeting with Eric Boedekker on a matter of mutual interest.”
There was no visual reply, only a blank screen and a c
urt male voice. “One moment.” After a brief pause, the voice spoke again. “Audience denied.”
“Tell him I bring word from Flint,” LaNague said quickly before the connection could be broken, then turned to Broohnin with a sour expression. “‘Audience denied’! If it weren't so vital that I see him, I'd–”
A bright crimson light began blinking on and off from the roof of a squat square structure to the left of the main buildings. The male voice returned, this time with a screen image to go with it… a young man, slightly puzzled, if his expression was a true indicator.
“You may land by the red flasher. Remain in your flitter until the escort arrives to take you inside.”
THEY WALKED IDLY about the great hall of the reconstructed Tudor mansion, waiting for Boedekker to appear. After being carefully scanned for anything that might conceivably be used as a weapon, they had been deposited here to await the great man's pleasure.
“He doesn't appear to be in much of a hurry to see you,” Broohnin said, staring at the paintings framed in the gold leaf ceiling, the richly paneled walls, the fireplace that was functional but unused – nobody on Earth burned real wood any more.
LaNague appeared unconcerned. “Oh, he is. He's just trying hard not to show it.” He ambled around the hall, thin arms folded across his chest, studying the collection of paintings which seemed to favor examples of the satyr-and-nymph school of art.
“Boedekker's probably one of your heroes, isn't he?” Broohnin said, watching LaNague closely for a reaction. He saw one he least expected.
LaNague's head snapped around; his thin lips were drawn into an even thinner line by anger. “Why do you say that? Are you trying to insult me? If you are–”