Frank Herbert - High-Opp

The old man nodded. “Good.”

“Under my own conditions,” said Movius.

“Yes?” The hunter’s eyes seemed to be watching him, ready to pounce.

“We’ll run things my way. No organization! I’m going to organize. No coordination! I’m going to coordinate. I’m the new Sep coordinator. And maybe…”

Quilliam London leaned toward him. “Maybe what?”

“Nothing. We’re going to blast those High-Opps right out of their seats!”

“That’s what we had in mind,” said London.

“You accept?” He had expected an argument.

The old man’s smile was reserved. “You leave us no choice.”

Movius looked away, turned back to Navvy. “Where are you going to hide me?”

Navvy looked down at his father.

“Best get him settled,” said Quilliam London.

“Right away, father.” To Movius, “This way, sir.”

Still that damned sir , thought Movius.

It was a hidden room a few feet into the tunnel. They had to squirm over the tops of pipes, wriggle sideways through an opening hardly more than a crack. Navvy dropped a black curtain, clicked a switch. A single light illuminated an oblong cell about fourteen feet by eight. The shadow of an alcove was a black square at the opposite end of the room.

“We tapped the conduits for power,” said Navvy. “There’s a washroom of sorts in the alcove down there.” He held back the entrance curtain. “See you tomorrow.” Before Movius could protest, he was gone.

There was a canvas cot with two blankets. Movius turned off the light, undressed in the dark, put the stolen gun atop his clothes and placed the pile of them beside the cot. The blankets were rough against his skin, not like the smooth sheets of his apartment. His apartment!

Low-opped!

There still were so many unanswered questions. Well, tomorrow. He put a hand to his jaw where the man had kicked him. With a fierce vindictiveness, he hoped he’d hit the gunman too hard above the bridge of the nose. Okashi had said it would kill a man.

Something had gone out of him about the time of the flight. The last of the numbness had been replaced by an electric tension. Active hate. Not the standard brand at all.

I’m going to get your job, Glass! From now on things are going to be run for Daniel Movius!

He let his hand drop to the floor beside the cot, felt the outline of the gun he had taken from the fallen thuggee. It gave him a sense of power and recalled something he’d read in one of his father’s books.

“To make a revolution one must have monstrous inequality, suppression of freedom until the people think of little else. Then there must be someone with that vital spark needed to unify a movement. With that person there must be a belief that nothing is of importance except his cause.”

Nothing else of importance.

He fell asleep on the thought, hand touching the gun.

Helmut Glass—The Coor—reclined on a couch in his apartment, one hand touching a frosted drink on the floor beside him. An atmosphere of Romanesque indolence hovered about him. Part of it was the way he spoke to the two men standing about ten feet from the couch; spoke to them, but never looked at them while he spoke.

“So you missed him.” It was a statement, not a question.

One of the standing men stirred. “He walked around the corner from the Warren and when we got there this car was just pulling away. We couldn’t catch the number of it. Something was over the number.”

“And you didn’t recognize the people in the car?” The Coor lifted his head, took a sip of his drink, still not looking at the two men.

“Couldn’t even see them.”

Glass replaced his drink on the floor, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “What happened when he came to the Warren?”

The man who had been speaking, looked to his companion, back to The Coor. “He met a woman.”

“He what?” How Glass looked at his men. He sat up. “And what did he and the woman do?”

“They made love,” said the man. “We had a peeper on the apartment, a little portable job, so we couldn’t make out their whispering, but they got on the bed and…”

“Spare me the details,” said Glass. “Did you have the woman followed or is that too much to hope for?”

“Ourran trailed her, but he lost her in the Lascadou District. He said he thinks she ducked into the tunnels.”

“That’s Ourran’s excuse for inefficiency,” said Glass. “Did you recognize the woman?”

“She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.” The man looked at the floor.

“And I presume you had no camera to get a picture of her?”

“It wasn’t that kind of assignment.”

Glass showed signs of restlessness, chewed at his lip. The nervous tic rippled across his cheek. “A badly bungled job. All I asked you to do was to pick him up, hold him overnight and send him off to the ALP in the morning. It seems you can’t do a simple little job like that.” He drained his drink.

The men shuffled their feet. “I think he has friends in the High-Opp,” said the one who had been doing the talking.

The Coor rattled the ice in his glass. “Yes, that’s a possible explanation.” He looked toward his bedroom where someone could be heard stirring about. “Put a watch on the Warrens. Get Addington to send out search squads.”

“We’ll keep an eye on the transports, too, sir.”

“Do that.” Glass suddenly glared up at the man who had been speaking. “And listen to me, Pescado! No more bungling!”

The man lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir. What’ll we do with Movius when we find him?”

Glass lifted himself to his feet, again looked toward the bedroom. “Kill him.”

“You don’t want us to question…”

“Good night,” said The Coor. “I have some business which requires my attention.”

“Kill him it is, sir.”

Glass escorted them to the door, returned, mixed two drinks at a portable bar, took them into the bedroom.

Nathan O’Brien, his back to the night-filled window, stared at Quilliam London for a moment. The old man had just entered the top floor office in the Bu-Psych Building. “Well?”

London took his time sitting down, settled back in the chair, suddenly looked up at O’Brien with those sharp hunter’s eyes. “He’s the one, all right.”

O’Brien relaxed. “I take it you approve?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh?”

Silence fell between them. London turned, stared at a chart on the wall. It was the chart which had been on the table. The single red line had been moved perhaps a quarter of an inch farther along its mysterious crossing.

“The loyalty index thing?” asked O’Brien.

London nodded. “He moves too quickly. Snap decisions. He made some fool statement about not thinking out things. The right solution always comes to him. I’m afraid he may turn ruthless.”

“That makes a good revolutionary.”

“Depends on the revolution.”

O’Brien looked at the red line on the chart. “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“I know he’s dangerous.” London leaned forward, tapped a yellowed fingernail against the table top. “Give him a taste of the power that goes with an absolute commander and he’ll be dangerous to anyone or anything that crosses him.”

“No one is proof against a bullet,” said O’Brien.

“That is exactly what I mean,” said London. “You and I are mortal.”

O’Brien’s eyes widened.

“One way thinking is dangerous,” said London. “If Movius found out any of the basic elements of our plans—say he discovered that Cecelia Lang deliberately vamped The Coor to get Movius low-opped…” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, a sound surprisingly like that of a fap-gun.