War World X: Takeover (54 page)

Like Antigone, Wyn had a brother who had betrayed his family. That had to be set right as best she could.

Perhaps Wyn should have been more discreet. She could not have been less foolish. Not when she knew. And she knew other things too: that there was always a payment for knowledge.

Now, she spoke to the kids who would never see this over-civilized room. The faces that she saw only in her imagination—the blackened eyes and bloodied mouths—seemed to relax as she spoke, then fade as if they were ghosts she had assuaged. Then, to faces leached by unaccustomed fear of their confidence, she spoke of the students they would never meet.

“They were dispossessed, you see, being weak; being only Citizens. You say that you are safe, being Taxpayers? Taxpayers you are; Taxpayers we are; and yet I tell you, when a government like that of Athens turns first upon its principles and then upon the people who still espouse them—as if ashamed before them—anyone can become the weak. And in that situation, one may only hope one has the strength to endure. If you take one thing from today’s class, I suggest it be this: the
Gedankenexperiment
… Einstein’s term, which translates as thought experiment…. Assume that you have become ‘the weak.’ What will you do now?”

Pause to draw a long, much-needed breath and meet the eyes that challenged hers.

“You’re quite right, of course. The question cuts both ways. What would I do?”

She looked down into those faces and nodded, a minute bow of conclusion.

“I should hope to be equal to the ordeal.”

For a moment, she stood, catching her breath, assembling her papers and stowing them in her book bag. To her astonishment, the students cheered her as if she were Lilith. Their red, opened mouths reminded her of students in the first riot she had seen and how their mouths bled as they fell.

She forced a smile and a rueful, modest headshake. Then, with a last look around the wooden vaults of the old theater, she slipped out a side door. Memories died as quickly as the sound of old applause. She wondered who would forget first: her students or the kids from the Welfare Districts.

It took all the strength she had to leave Mem Hall and begin her usual leisurely stroll toward the Yard and her study in Widener Library.

“Professor Baker?” Outsiders, then, not to use a social title. They didn’t call her “doctor” either: that would be reserved for medical types. So it was the rest home, was it? And so soon! She turned and eyed the two men and one woman as she might size up freshmen. Their tailoring was good enough to let them pass for Taxpayers, yet loose enough to let them move freely. She wondered if she could outrun them; she was certain it wasn’t worth trying.

She inclined her head, then continued on her way. “Could we talk with you?”

“I have office hours in the Library.”

“We would prefer some place more private.”

She kept on walking. Quick steps sounded behind her and someone laid a hand on her arm. Wyn spun around, the arm holding her book bag coming up in pathetic defense.

Two students strolled past. More emerged from the iron and brick gates that opened into the yard. Could she appeal to them?

The woman in the group had a hand in her breast pocket. Wyn wondered if she would produce sedatives or a weapon.

“Not here,” she said. “And not in front of them.” She gestured with her chin at her students.

They nodded, relaxing visibly now that she was proving reasonable. That should be in her favor at a sanity hearing.

“This way,” said the man in the lead. His voice held the deliberately soothing tones of a psychiatrist, though Wyn had never met a shrink who moved as if he led katas every morning. He took her arm—just a friendly meeting, wasn’t this; and
smile
for the innocent kids, why don’t you?

Past the Science Center. Past Mem Hall again. Past the dreadful ersatz Georgian of the Fire Station and onto the street. A white van, bare of logo, idled.
Psycops indeed
, Wyn thought. Might as well announce in the Freshman Union that she had run mad. The door was opened for her.

“I suppose,” she said cautiously, “There is no point in talking you out of this?”

“Please get in.”

No students were on the street. Wyn spun on her heel, preparing to run into the street, to shout; but the hand was on her arm again, urging her toward the car. And a lifetime of civility, of restraint blunted her willingness to make the scene that might have saved her.
We are the weak.

The door whined shut. There was no release mechanism on her side of the vehicle. The car rose on its hoverpads and sped down Cambridge Street, out of the city, beyond Boston into the manicured exurbs where only the wealthiest Taxpayers lived. No one spoke to her.

“Damn!” the exclamation forced a grunt of surprise from the man who sat beside her as lights and sirens erupted behind them.

“Why dint y’stay inna the speed limit?” he slurred as he hit his chin on the Plexiglas dividing driver from passengers.

“I did,” protested the driver.

“Keep on going.”

“You keep on going, Taxpayer.” The driver said, “It’s not your license they’ll lift, and then what do I have?” A quick trip to a Welfare District.” He pulled over.

A prowl car pulled up. “You have custody of Professor Winthrop Baker? This warrant authorizes us to demand her release.”

A flood of warmth, of gratitude, washed over her. Bless her lawyer and his timing!

“That’s not a good idea,” replied the psychiatrist. “She needs medical intervention…” His voice, so assured when dealing with Wyn, trailed off as he saw the sonic shockers that the newcomers held. Now he was “the weak.” She wondered what punishment he would face?

He took the papers, leafed through them, and exclaimed before he could control himself. “But we—”

“Apparently, someone had second thoughts about security.”

The psychiatrist eyed Wyn. “For
her?
”

Both men shrugged. “Whatever else you can say, he’s thorough.”

The man from the prowl car gestured at Wyn. “Out.” The door opened. Wyn slid out. Her book bag lay on the seat. When she bent to retrieve it, someone waved a shocker at her.

“Let her have it”

Wyn seized its strap before anyone could countermand that.

“Whatever she’s got in there, she’ll need it where she’s going.”

The prowl car pulled round. Now Wyn could see the panel on its door. Bureau of Relocation.

She had been out-plotted and outfoxed. Her fingers rose to her throat, tightening convulsively on her poli code that would call out to a force of her own choosing.

“Cancelled. Get in.” The absence of even a pretense of civility chilled her. Dispossessed and disenfranchised like her students. And now she would learn what they had endured. She heard an appalled whimper, flushed with fear and shame, and began desperately to run.…

A wave of sound rolled after her and struck her down.

Antiseptic and old pain were in the air. Wyn turned her head on what felt like a paper sheet on a too-worn mattress.
I am not going to ask “where am I?”
she vowed. She knew she was some place medical: had to be, seeing that her last memory was of taking a sonic shock.

You have been to the wars, haven’t you?
she asked herself, astonished.

She was determined to sit up and was astonished at how weak she felt. What felt like the grandmother of all migraines glittered and stabbed in her eyes.

“Coming around?” asked a man in a white coat so worn that even the red staff and crossed serpents of his profession were frayed. RYAN said the badge on the coat. His eyes were blue, and his hair was graying. His face bore the reddish patches of skin cancers, cost-effectively (if not aesthetically) removed. To her surprise, Wyn heard a South Boston accent.
A contract physician?
He was a long way from home. The tones were efficient, kind and blessedly familiar. She felt her eyes fill as he propped her up and handed her a disposable cup.

“As soon as you can think straight, I have to talk you. There’s not much time.”

She gulped the bitter analgesic. The spikes into her brain seemed to withdraw, and then diminished to a bearable level. Light from warped overhead panels: no windows.

Damn all, had they taken her to a state institution? She’d never be found, much less sprung from one of those rat-holes!

“I don’t have time to break this to you,” the physician told her. “You took a hit from a sonic stunner. You’re at the BuReloc station in Florida. When I finish processing you, you’ll be put on the first ship out.”

If she started laughing, she knew she would never stop. Emigrants, forced or voluntary—wouldn’t do for them to die in droves aboard a star-ship, now would it? And what was
she
doing here?

“May I make one call, please?” she asked. Her lawyer…her family… could she reach their Senator’s staff? It would be a waste of breath, even if she could. They probably all knew and assented.

“What good do you think it would do?” Ryan asked her gently. “Records have you down as a political.” His hand went up, blocking Wyn’s sight of the scratched data screen.

Wyn allowed herself to chuckle once, briefly. “So the son-of-a-bitch got to his Important Contacts, did he? Got named guardian of his crazy sister, the dangerous radical. No civil rights. And off she goes.”

She shook her head to clear it of the ghosts that threatened to storm her sanity: Hecuba wailing before the black ships; Andromache in a cart; Melos burning, the men dead and the weak led away into slavery.

“Nothing I can do?” She couldn’t take that. She jumped to her feet, looking for the exit. She was taller than Ryan, stronger, probably, from years of all that good Taxpayer nutrition and exercise. She could push her way past…

“For Christ’s sake, don’t try it, Ms. Baker!” The sincerity in that shout brought her around.

“This is kidnapping,” she told him. “You know that.” She paused to catch his eye, to underscore his awareness that they shared a hometown.

“In the name of God,” she whispered, “could you make some calls for me?”

It was hopeless. Already, he was shaking his head. Wyn met his eyes.
I’m not throwing my life away the way you did.
Astonishment and fear that she had had chances he could barely dream of, yet had blown them all showed in his face. He was half afraid of her, half angry.

“Sure, you’ve been shafted.” He spoke too fast, his face now turned away. “Ms. Baker, five more years, and I reach Taxpayer status, and my kids with me. We’ll never have what you threw away, but we’ll get by. You think I’m going to risk that? We’re just little people. Look: I can make sure you’re fit to ship out. But I’m not ruining my kids’ lives for you.”

He paused, and his face, already pocked with the scars of skin cancers flushed dark. “I’m sorry, Professor. But it wouldn’t do either of us a damn bit of good.

“And you can hate my guts all you want. Damned if I care. I don’t have to do this, you know. There are people out there who’d be grateful if I spent more time with them.”

Wyn bowed her head, fighting panic. I’m not equipped for this, she thought.
Read, listen, stay at home; why join the rat race?
She’d been told all her life. Her family was too old for people like her to go haring around the universe. Space travel—she tried to recall what she knew of it and was embarrassed she knew so little.

She wasn’t going to live through this, she thought abruptly. But other exiles had survived. If she were weak, if she let her life slip away, she only let her brother and his trained slaves win that much earlier.

Listen, remember; try to keep alive.

“Now, you’ve one hour, one hour before you ship out. It’s going to be rough. And if you’re as smart as your records say”—incredulous headshake—”you’ll help me prepare you to survive.”

I don’t believe this. I just don’t believe it.
She shook her head, waving away the offer of a trank. This was one nightmare for which she had to be conscious.

“Go ahead, Doctor,” she said in the crisp voice she would use with her own specialists. “Maybe you could start by telling me what I face.”

“First, Luna Base, then out-system. Tanith, maybe, or Haven.” Coerced, perhaps, by her tone, he tapped in an inquiry on the computer, muttering under his breath as it beeped and sputtered. “There’s a ship bound for Haven scheduled to leave Luna Base. Cold weather world. I can make sure you’re not dropsick, that your immunizations are up to strength and that your circulation is in as good a shape as it can be.”

I’ll live
, Wyn vowed to herself.
Living well—living at all—is the best revenge
.
And I’ll get back….

He shook his head. Compassion replaced his earlier defensiveness. “Something else,” he said. “I need your permission to inhibit your fertility.”

Wyn burst out laughing.

“At my age?” she demanded. “Whom—or what do you think I’m going to meet on Luna Base….”

“Lady, you listen to me. You’re still at risk. And there’s damn few contraceptives on board ship, and those’ll go to the younger women—if they’re lucky. If they’re damned lucky. You
don’t
want to be pregnant when a ship Jumps, believe me. Not with what they’ve got for medical care on board if you miscarry….”

Wyn raised her eyebrows at him. “Doctor, I am not sexually active.”

He shook his head at her. “Dr. Baker, you’ve got to understand. This trip’s
long
. And it makes steerage look like a yacht. You won’t be Dr. Winthrop Baker on board a BuReloc ship. You won’t be much of anything except a female body. I can’t tell you what to do with your own body. But if you’ve got any sense, you’ll take the implant. It’ll suppress menstruation, too. And believe me: you want that.”

Ultimately, she did. Feeling vaguely queasy, she slid down off the examination table and dressed in the coverall he handed her, a coarse thing of greenish gray.
Ship issue?
she wondered and wondered even more to find herself curious.

“Better move it,” said the medic. “But before you do…” he handed over her book bag. “Your things are packed in it. I wouldn’t let anyone handle that, if I were you. I added a few more medical supplies. You’ll need them.”