F. Wilson - An Enemy of the State

“Because somebody who says she's your wife is on the vid!” Boucher said, urging his bulky frame into a trot. “And is she going to be in trouble!” He puffed up to LaNague's cell and held out a hand-sized vid set. It was a flat screen model and Mora's face filled the viewplate.

LaNague watched with growing dismay as Mora sent out a plea for all those who had come to believe in Robin Hood to come to his aid. She was saying essentially what LaNague himself had said on the second pre-recorded spool-the one to be played for the trial contingency-but not the way he had said it. Her appeal was rambling, unfocused, obviously unrehearsed. She was ruining everything.

Or was she?

As LaNague listened, he realized that although Mora was speaking emotionally, the emotion was clearly genuine. She was afraid for her man and was making an appeal to any of his friends who might be listening to help him now when he needed them. Her eyes shone as she spoke, blazing with conviction. She was reaching for the heart as well as the mind, and risking her life to do it. Her message was for all Throners; but most of all, for her husband.

As she paused briefly before beginning her appeal again, Boucher glanced at LaNague, his voice thick. “That's some woman you've got there.”

LaNague nodded, unable to speak. Turning his face away, he walked to the far corner of his cell and stood there, remembering how he had so bitterly resented Mora's very presence on Throne, his cold rejection of the warmth, love, and support she had offered. Through the thousand tiny insults and affronts he had heaped on her during the past few months, she had remained true to him, and truer than he to the cause they shared. He remained in the corner until he could breathe evenly again, until the muscles in his throat were relaxed enough to permit coherent speech, until the moisture welling in his eyes had receded to a normal level. Then he returned to the bars to watch and listen to the rest of Mora's appeal.

THEY MAY HAVE confined him to quarters, but at least he wasn't incommunicado. He had turned to the vid to see what Sayers would be saying to the public on his Robin Hood news special; but instead of the vidcaster's familiar face in the holofield, there was a strange woman calling herself Robin Hood's wife, pleading for revolution. He immediately tried to contact the studio, but no calls were being taken through the central circuits at the building. Checking a special directory, he found a security code to make the computer patch him through to the control booth in Sayers’ studio.

A technician took the call. He did not look well. Although he recognized Daro Haworth immediately, it seemed to have little effect on him.

“What is going on over there? I want that transmission cut immediately! Immediately! Do you hear?”

“I can't do that, sir.”

“Unless you want this to be the last free day of your life,” Haworth screamed, “you will cut that transmission!”

“Sir…” The technician adjusted the angle on his visual pickup to maximum width, revealing a number of black-cloaked figures with red circles painted on their foreheads and weapons belts across their chests arrayed behind him. “Do you see my predicament?”

Flinters! Was Robin Hood a Flinter? “How did they get in?”

The technician shrugged. “All of a sudden they were here with the woman. Radmon seemed to be expecting them.”

Sayers! Of course he'd be involved!

“What about security? Didn't anyone try to stop them?”

The technician glanced over his shoulder, then back to Haworth. “Would you? We got an alarm off immediately but no one's showed up yet.”

At that point, one of the Flinters leaned over and broke the connection. Shaken, but still functioning, Haworth immediately stabbed in the code to Commander Tinmer over at the Imperial Guard garrison. The commander answered the chime himself, and his expression was far from encouraging.

“Don't say it!” he said as soon as he recognized Haworth. “I've been personally trying to muster a force big enough to retake the broadcast station ever since we received the alarm.”

“You've had plenty of time!”

“We're having some minor discipline problems here. The men are letting us know how unhappy they are with the way their pay has been handled recently. There's been a delay here and there in the currency shipments due to breakdowns in machinery over at Treasury, and the men seem to think that if the pay can be late, they can be late.” His sudden smile was totally devoid of humor. “Don't worry. The problem's really not that serious. Just some flip talk and sloganeering. You know…‘No pay, no fight’…that sort of thing.”

“What are they doing instead of obeying orders?”

Tinmer's smile died. “Instead of scrambling to their transports as ordered, most of them are still in their barracks watching that whore on the vid. But don't worry. We'll straighten everything out. Just need a little more time, is all. I-”

Haworth slammed his fist viciously against the power plate, severing the connection. He now saw the whole plan. The final pieces had just angled into place. But there was no attendant rush of triumph, only crushing depression. For he could see no way of salvaging the Imperium and his place within it. No way at all, except…

He pushed that thought away. It wasn't for him.

Gloom settled heavily. Haworth had devoted his life to the Imperium, or rather to increasing its power and making that power his own. And now it was all slipping away from him. By the end of the day he would be a political nonentity, a nobody, all his efforts of the past two decades negated by that man down in max-sec, that man who called himself Robin Hood.

It no longer mattered whether or not he was actually Robin Hood. The Imperium itself had identified him as such and that was good enough for the public. They were ready to follow him-Haworth could sense it. No matter if he were the true mastermind behind the colossal conspiracy that had brought the Imperium to its present state, or just a standin, the public knew his face and he would live in the battered and angry minds of all out-worlders as Robin Hood.

Or die…

The previously rejected thought crept back into focus. Yes, that was a possible way out. If the proclaimed messiah were dead, the rabble would have no one to follow, no rallying point, no alternative to Metep and the Imperium. They would be enraged at his death, true, but they would be leaderless…and once again malleable.

It just might work. It had to work. But who to do it? Haworth could think of no one he could trust who could get close enough, and no one close enough he could trust to do it. Which left Haworth himself. The thought was repugnant-not the idea of killing, per se , but actually doing it himself. He was used to giving orders, to having others take care of unpleasant details. Trouble was, he had run out of others.

He went to a locked compartment in the wall and tapped in a code to open it. After the briefest hesitation, he withdrew a small blaster, palm-sized with a wrist clamp. He had bought it when civil disorder had threatened, when street gangs had moved out to the more affluent neighborhoods, oblivious to the prestige and position of their victims. He never dreamed it would be used for something like this.

Hefting the lightweight weapon in his hand, Haworth almost returned it to the compartment. He'd never get away with it. Still…with an abrupt motion, he slammed the door shut and clamped the blaster to his right wrist.

As far as he could see, there was no choice. Robin Hood had to die if Haworth's life was to retain any meaning, and an opportunity to kill without being seen might come along. The tiny blaster could be angled in such a way that he could appear to be scratching the side of his face while sighting in on the target. With caution, and a great deal of luck, he could get away with it.