Diplomat at Arms (6 page)

Jake followed Retief up the walk. The broad double doors were
locked.

“Let’s try the back.”

The narrow door set in the high blank wall opened as Retief
approached. A gun barrel poked out, followed by a small man with bushy red
hair. He looked Retief over.

“Who’s this party, Jake?” he barked.

“Sozier said show him the plant,” Jake said.

“What we need is more guys to pull duty, not tourists.
Anyway, I’m Chief Engineer here. Nobody comes in here ’less I like their
looks.”

Retief moved forward, stood looking down at the red-head. The
little man hesitated, then waved him past. “Lucky for you, I like your looks.”

Inside, Retief surveyed the long room, the giant converter
units, the massive bussbars. Armed men—some in uniform, some in work clothes,
others in loud sport shirts—stood here and there. Other men read meters,
adjusted controls, or inspected dials.

“You’ve got more guards than workers,” Retief said.
“Expecting trouble?”

The red-head bit the corner from a plug of spearmint. He
glanced around the plant. “Things is quiet now; but you never
know . . .”

“Rather old-fashioned equipment, isn’t it? When was it
installed?”

“Huh?
I dunno. What’s wrong with it?”

“What’s
your basic power source, a core sink? Lithospheric friction? Sub-crustal
hydraulics?”

“Beats
me, Mister. I’m the boss here, not a dern mechanic.”

A
grey-haired man carrying a clip-board walked past, studied a panel, made notes,
glanced up to catch Retief’s eye, moved on.

“Everything
seems to be running normally,” Retief remarked.

“Sure;
why not?”

“Records being kept up properly?”

“Sure; some of these guys, all they do is walk around looking
at dials and writing stuff on paper. If it was me, I’d put ’em to work.”

Retief strolled over to the grey-haired man, now scribbling
before a bank of meters. He glanced at the clip board.

Power off at sunset. Tell Corasol
was scrawled in block letters across the record sheet. Retief nodded, rejoined
his guard.

“All right, Jake. Let’s have a look at the communications
center.”

Back in the car, headed west, Retief studied the blank
windows of office buildings, the milling throngs in beer bars, shooting
galleries, tattoo parlors, billiards halls, pin-ball arcades, bordellos, and
half-credit casinos.

“Everybody seems to be having fun,” he remarked.

Jake stared out the window. “Yeah.”

“Too bad you’re on duty, Jake. You could be out there joining
in.”

“Soon
as the corporal gets things organized, I’m opening me up a place to show dirty
tri-di’s. I’ll get my share.”

“Meanwhile, let the rest of ’em have their fun, eh, Jake?”

“Look, Mister, I been thinking: Maybe you better gimme back
that kick-stick you taken outa my gun . . .”

“Sorry, Jake; no can do. Tell me, what was the real cause of
the revolution? Not enough to eat? Too much regimentation?”

“Naw, we always got plenty to eat. There wasn’t none of that
regimentation—up till I joined up in the corporal’s army.”

“Rigid class structure, maybe? Educational discrimination?”

Jake nodded. “Yeah, it was them schools done it. All the time
trying to make a feller go to some kind of class. Big shots. Know it all. Gonna
make us sit around and view tapes. Figgered they are better than us.”

“And Sozier’s idea was you’d take over, and you wouldn’t have
to be bothered.”

“Aw, it wasn’t Sozier’s idea. He ain’t the big leader.”

“Where does the big leader keep himself?”

“I dunno. I guess he’s pretty busy right now.” Jake
snickered. “Some of them guys call themselves colonels turned out not to know
nothing about how to shoot off the guns.”

“Shooting, eh? I thought it was a sort of peaceful revolution;
the managerial class were booted out, and that was that.”

“I don’t know nothing,” Jake snapped. “How come you keep
trying to get me to say stuff I ain’t supposed to talk about? You want to get
me in trouble?”

“Oh, you’re already in trouble, Jake. But if you stick with
me, I’ll try to get you out of it. Where exactly did the refugees head for? How
did they leave? Must have been a lot of them; I’d say in a city of this size
they’d run into the thousands.”

“I don’t know.”

“Of course, it depends on your definition of a big shot.
Who’s included in that category, Jake?”

“You know, the slick-talking ones; the fancy dressers; the
guys that walk around and tell other guys what to do. We do all the work and
they get all the big pay.”

“I suppose that would cover scientists, professional men,
executives, technicians of all sorts, engineers, teachers—all that crowd of
no-goods.”

“Yeah, them are the ones.”

“And once you got them out of the way, the regular fellows
would have a chance; chaps that don’t spend all their time taking baths and
reading books and using big words; good Joes that don’t mind picking their
noses in public.”

“We got as much right as anybody—”

“Jake, who’s Corasol?”

“He’s—I don’t know.”

“I thought I overheard his name somewhere.”

“Uh, here’s the communication center,” Jake cut in.

Retief swung into a parking lot under a high blank façade. He
set the brake and stepped out.

“Lead the way, Jake.”

“Look, Mister, the corporal only wanted me to show you the
outside—”

“Anything to hide, Jake?”

Jake shook his head angrily and stamped past Retief. “When I
joined up with Sozier, I didn’t figger I’d be getting in this kind of
mess . . .”

“I know, Jake; it’s tough. Sometimes it seems like a fellow
works harder after he’s thrown out the parasites than he did before.”

A cautious guard let Retief and Jake inside, followed them
along bright lit aisles among consoles, cables, batteries of instruments. Armed
men in careless uniforms lounged, watching. Here and there a silent technician
worked quietly.

Retief paused by one, an elderly man in a neat white
coverall, with a purple spot under one eye.

“Quite a bruise you’ve got there,” Retief commented heartily.
“Power failure at sunset,” he added softly. The technician hesitated, nodded,
and moved on.

Back in the car, Retief gave Jake directions. At the end of
three hours, he had seen twelve smooth-running, heavily guarded installations.

“So far, so good, Jake,” he said. “Next stop, sub-station
Number Nine.” In the mirror, Jake’s face stiffened. “Hey, you can’t go down there—”

“Something going on there, Jake?”

“That’s where—I mean, no; I don’t know.”

“I don’t want to miss anything, Jake. Which way?”

“I ain’t going down there,” Jake said sullenly.

Retief braked. “In that case, I’m afraid our association is
at an end, Jake.”

“You mean . . . you’re getting out here?”

“No, you are.”

“Huh? Now wait a minute, Mister; the corporal said I was to
stay with you.”

Retief accelerated. “That’s settled, then. Which way?”

Retief pulled the car to a halt two hundred yards from the
periphery of a loose crowd of brown-uniformed men who stood in groups scattered
across a broad plaza, overflowing into a stretch of manicured lawn before the
bare, functional facade of Sub-station Number Nine. In the midst of the
besieging mob, Sozier’s red face and bald head bobbed as he harangued a cluster
of green-uniformed men from his place in the rear of a long open car.

“What’s it all about, Jake?” Retief inquired. “Since the
parasites have all left peacefully, I’m having a hard time figuring out who’d
be holed up in the pumping station—and why. Maybe they haven’t gotten the word
that it’s all going to be fun and games from now on.”

“If the corporal sees you over here—”

“Ah, the good corporal. Glad you mentioned him, Jake. He’s
the man to see.” Retief stepped out of the car and started through the crowd. A
heavy lorry loaded with an immense tank with the letter H blazoned on its side
trundled into the square from a side street, moved up to a position before the
building. A smaller car pulled alongside Sozier’s limousine. The driver stepped
down, handed something to Sozier. A moment later, Sozier’s amplified voice
boomed across the crowd.

“You in there, Corasol. This is General Sozier, and I’m
warning you to come out now or you and your smart friends are in for a big
surprise. You think I won’t blast you out because I don’t want to wreck the
plant. You see the tank aboard the lorry that just pulled up? It’s full of
gas—and I got plenty of hoses out here to pump it inside with. I’ll put men on
the roof and squirt it in the ventilators . . .”

Sozier’s voice echoed and died. The militiamen eyed the
station. Nothing happened.

“I
know you can hear me, damn you!” Sozier squalled. “You’d better get the doors
open and get out here fast—”

Retief stepped to Sozier’s side. “Say, Corporal, I didn’t
know you went in for practical jokes—”

Sozier jerked around to gape at Retief.

“What are you doing here!” he burst out. “I told Jake—where
is that—”

“Jake didn’t like the questions I was asking,” Retief said,
“so he marched me up here to report to you.”

“Jake, you damn fool!” Sozier roared. I gotta good mind—”

“I disagree, Sozier,” Retief cut in. “I think you’re a
complete imbecile. Sitting out here in the open yelling at the top of your
lungs. For example: Corasol and his party might get annoyed and spray that
fancy car you’ve swiped with something a lot more painful than words.”

“Eh?” Sozier’s head whipped around to stare at the building.

“Isn’t that a gun I see sticking out?”

Sozier dropped. “Where?”

“My mistake; just a foreign particle on my contact lenses.”
Retief leaned on the car. “On the other hand, Sozier, most murderers are sneaky
about it; I think making a public announcement is a nice gesture on your part.
The Monitors won’t have any trouble deciding who to hang when they come in to
straighten out this mess.”

Sozier scrambled back onto his seat. “Monitors?” he snarled.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you’ll be around to do any blabbering to
anybody.” He raised his voice. “Jake! March this spy over to the sidelines. If
he tries anything, shoot him!” He gave Retief a baleful grin. “I’ll lay the
body out nice and ship it back to your cronies. Accidents will happen, you
know. It’ll be a week or two before they get around to following up—and by then
I’ll have this little problem under control.”

Jake looked at Retief uncertainly, fingering his empty rifle.

Retief put his hands up. “I guess you got me, Jake,” he said.
“Careful of that gun, now.”

Jake glanced at Sozier, gulped, aimed the rifle at Retief,
and nodded toward the car. As Retief moved off, a murmur swept across the
crowd. Retief glanced back; a turret on the station roof was rotating slowly. A
shout rose; men surged away from the building, scuffling for way; Sozier
yelled. His car started up, moved forward, horns blaring. As Retief watched, a
white stream arced up from the turret, catching the sun as it spanned the lawn,
down to strike the massed men in a splatter of spray. It searched across the
mob, came to rest on Sozier’s car. Uniformed men scrambled for safety as the terrified
driver gunned the heavy vehicle. The hose followed the car, dropping a solid
stream of water on Sozier, kicking and flailing in the back seat. As the car
passed from view down a side street, water was overflowing the sides.

“The corporal will feel all the better for an invigorating
swim in his mobile pool,” Retief commented. “By the way, Jake, I have to be
going now. It wouldn’t be fair to send you back to your boss without something
to back up your story that you were outnumbered, so—”

Retief’s left fist shot out to connect solidly with Jake’s
jaw. Jake dropped the gun and sat down hard. Retief turned and headed for the
pumping station. The hose had shut down now. A few men were standing, eyeing
the building anxiously. Others watched his progress across the square. As
Retief passed, he caught scattered comments:

“—seen that bird before.”

“—where he’s headed.”

“—feller Sozier was talkin to . . .”

“Hey, you!” Retief was on the grass now. Ahead, the blank
wall loomed up. He walked on, briskly.

“Stop that jasper!” a shout rang out. There was a sharp whine
and a black spot appeared on the wall ahead. Near it, a small personnel door
abruptly swung inward. Retief sprinted, plunged through the opening as a second
shot seared the paint on the doorframe. The door clanged behind him. Retief
glanced over the half-dozen men confronting him.