Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1) Page 5

  "I'll be responsible. Get the names."

  The safe opened with a ponderous creak. The graduate student extracted the master association lists and swiftly located the two codes and the names that went with them. He tried hard not to see any of the other names there. "P three seventeen, Victoria Peterson. M six eighty-nine, Armand Morelon." He thrust the folder back into the safe, closed the door and twirled the combination knobs. He turned to face Magnusson and found the biophysicist wearing a mask of dismay.

  "What's the matter, sir?"

  "Morelon," Magnusson whispered. "Not a Morelon. We can't."

  "Why not, sir?"

  Magnusson told him.

  ***

  Teresza settled herself next to Armand on the bench at the back of their lane. He raised his arm, and she snuggled into his embrace. Chuck Feigner picked up his ball and peered over it at the triangle of pins sixty feet away.

  "He takes his bowling seriously."

  Armand squeezed her gently. "He takes everything seriously."

  She tightened her arms around him. "Not a lot like you."

  Armand shook his head. "I haven't gotten to the serious part of my life yet, Terry. He has."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm here to learn a little something and have a few years away from the farm. Chuck's here to become a genetic engineer. That's his calling, the one thing in life he wants more than anything else. I could toss this tomorrow and no one would care. Well, maybe Charisse. He can't. And it seeps into everything else he does."

  Feigner skittered forward and flung his ball with great force. It arrowed for the pocket and sent the ten pins flying in all directions. Teresza winced at the crash of impact. The pin boy leaped into the pit and hurriedly reset them in the triangle configuration.

  "He's good."

  Armand nodded. "That's the reward."

  "Don't be the sober-sided sage with me, you big lump."

  He chuckled. "It's a family thing. You'll understand it a little better when you meet Grandpere Alain."

  She relaxed her embrace and looked up into his face. "Will that be soon?"

  He nodded. "I hope so. Spring break, maybe?"

  "Armand..." She paused and swallowed the sudden obstruction in her throat. "I'm more than just a little fond of you, you know."

  His face had become solemn. "I know."

  It didn't take long, either. And I know it baffles you. You keep studying me with that "why me" expression, and you think I don't see it. But that's not a problem, for now.

  "They gave me my scores today at the screening."

  "Oh?" His expression returned to pleasant sociability. "What did you get?"

  She smirked. "Five randoms. Third time. If I show up next year, they'll probably have it printed on a little card for me already."

  He chuckled again and ran a hand through her short blonde hair. "No big deal, Terry. Unless you're Vicki Peterson."

  The mention of his townswoman made her want to stiffen. She held it down as best she could. "Why do you say that?"

  "You know how competitive she is. It would drive her right around the bend not to be tops at anything."

  "Did the two of you get your scores yet?"

  He shook his head. "That Mandeville fellow wants us to come in Spoonerday morning at eleven for a chat. I guess we didn't get five randoms."

  "Hm."

  Another explosion of pins came from the lane in front of them. Chuck pumped a fist, then trotted back toward them with a grin of satisfaction.

  "Hey, lovebirds, are you gonna toss a few rocks at those ducks down there, or did you come here to sit and neck?"

  Teresza squawked indignantly. Armand chuckled, disengaged himself from her, and headed for the ball return.

  Chapter 7

  Armand settled into a seat at the back of the lecture hall and laid his writing materials before him. He was alone. The dais on which the lectern and blackboard stood was empty. If Professor Stromberg intended to use props in the demonstration he'd promised them, he'd be bringing them with him. There were still ten minutes to the beginning of the class, so Armand leaned back, closed his eyes and relaxed.

  Social Patterns One was the only mandatory freshman-level course in Gallatin's Humane Studies curriculum. Armand had chosen to defer it to his second semester, expecting it to be dry. Why else would they have made it mandatory? But he found himself intrigued by the scope of Arne Stromberg's lectures, and tantalized by the professor's skillful hints that there was a grand pattern behind the lesser patterns, a unifying force that could explain it all.

  Social Patterns One. Why One? Why does there have to be a Two, or a Three? None of it is particularly complicated. The examples all seem simple. The labels don't really matter. People arrange their lives the way they want to. Anyone that doesn't like it can either hold his nose or go somewhere else.

  How in Hope could there be a single explanation?

  Students trickled in slowly, mostly alone, a few in groups of two or three. Many looked sleepy. A few appeared to have spent too much time in the embrace of the grape the night before.

  As the bell rang, Professor Arne Stromberg bounded in through a side door. The gaunt, gray-haired sociologist dangled his familiar, battered briefcase from his right hand and a large canvas bag from his left. He tossed both at the side of the lectern, switched on the microphone and bathed the class in his relentlessly sunny smile. Armand straightened up and uncapped his pen.

  "Good morning. Last Randsday I promised you that we'd have a special demonstration today, something you've heard about many times but have never seen in operation. Did everyone bring ten one-deka bills?"

  There was a rustling among the seated students, but no one spoke.

  Stromberg nodded. "All right. We'll need a small clear area, and up here by me is as good as any." He pulled an index card from his breast pocket and peered at it. "Will the following students please come join me at the front of the room: Albermayer, Claire; Diederick, Fred; Farquharson, Jules; Ianotti, Ottavio; Morelon, Armand; Pierce, Aurelyn; Reinach, Denise; Thorkild, Lars; Untermeyer, Klaus; and Wolzman, David."

  Armand started at the sound of his name. He rose and ambled down the center aisle to join the other students whose names had been called. When all were present, Stromberg picked up his canvas bag and spread it open before them. It was empty.

  "Put any weapons you're carrying in here. You'll get them back when the demonstration is over."

  A prickle of unease danced down the back of Armand's neck, but he pulled his needlegun from his pocket and flipped it into the bag. Presently the bag bulged with an impressive amount of hardware. Stromberg deposited it by the side of the lectern with a clank.

  "Very good. Now, arrange yourselves in a circle about ten feet in diameter and sit on the dais."

  Armand formed a rough circle with the other nine, then sat cross-legged on the wooden surface. The expressions on the other faces in the circle were wary.

  Stromberg slipped through the circle, moved to its center and turned to face the lecture hall. An impressively perfect silence prevailed.

  "You are about to see a demonstration of the State. For the purposes of the demonstration, I will play the role of the State. Please don't become alarmed. Above all, remain in your seats."

  The professor swept his eyes around the circle. "Take your ten one-deka notes and fan them out before you."

  A student across the circle from Armand asked, "Why?"

  Stromberg smiled down at her. "Just do it."

  They did.

  The professor stooped and with practiced rapidity plucked a note from each student's hands. It took about fifteen seconds. When he'd rounded the circle, he returned to its center, divided the notes into two sheaves of five each, and stuck one in his pocket.

  A student in the circle cried, "Hey!" He started to rise from the floor.

  Stromberg turned a stony face toward the objector. "Be quiet." The young man subsided.

  As if at random, the professo
r selected the student next to Armand and handed her the other five bills. The young woman accepted them with an incredulous stare. Stromberg smiled. "Add these to your fan."

  Armand looked sideways at the girl. If she had been prepared for Stromberg's act, she gave no sign.

  Stromberg stood at the center of the circle looking at his watch for a few seconds, then began to pluck bills from the students' hands once again, quickly and wordlessly. As the professor approached, Armand shoved his nine remaining notes into his pants pocket. Stromberg cocked an eyebrow.

  "Where are your dekas?"

  "Safe in my pocket." Armand smiled formally.

  "Well, bring them out."

  "I prefer not to."

  A grin spread slowly across Arne Stromberg's face and became a wide, vicious smile. "Ah, but you will." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Bronson coagulator and leveled it at Armand's face.

  A gasp raced across the hall. Armand's breath went short. He'd never before faced the business end of a weapon in another man's hand.

  "You see, Mr. Morelon, I am the State." Stromberg's smile did not waver. "I can do as I please to you. If you refuse my demands, I can take your life, and no one can call me to account. That's what it means to be the State. And that's what it means to be a subject of the State. Now produce your bills."

  Armand's blood rose. He started to clamber to his feet. Before he could do so, Stromberg's foot lashed out and struck him on the breastbone. He toppled backward, roared in anger and made to rise again, but stopped. The professor's thumb was visibly caressing the coagulator's firing stud.

  "You don't have the idea yet, Mr. Morelon. Your family is the oldest and most honored on Hope. You're used to gentle treatment, maybe even a little deference. But I am the State, and I concede nothing to you. You have no rights I am bound to respect. Your preferences are unimportant to me. You are only fodder for my plans. Produce your money or be prepared to die."

  The room buzzed with surprise and anger. Armand glared up in outrage. The gun did not swerve from his face. Abruptly Stromberg's thumb bore down on the stud. The coagulator's tracer beam struck Armand full in the eyes.

  Every student in the hall screamed, Armand loudest of all. The brilliance of the beam dazzled him. He heaved himself backward, one arm thrown across his eyes. From around him came a thunder of feet as his classmates stormed toward the dais, toward Arne Stromberg.

  "Wait!" Armand shouted. "I'm all right!"

  The thunder died. Armand lowered his arm from his face and opened his eyes. His vision was a sea of colored blurs. It took several seconds to clear and reveal the surrounding tableau. His classmates were clustered around him, staring at him in shock.

  A group of four held Stromberg by the arms. A wild panic was evident in their expressions. Apparently unfazed by the tumult he'd caused, the professor was shaking his head and clucking in disapproval. "I told you to stay in your seats. Mr. Morelon." Stromberg pulled himself free of restraint, then squatted before Armand. "You have the makings of a revolutionary martyr. Or did you guess that my gun was disabled?"

  "I don't know. Maybe. No decent person would do such a thing, right?"

  The professor nodded slowly. "That's the problem I face year after year. No decent person would use force to get something he wanted from someone else. Force is for the defense of life and property, never anything else. You all drank that in with your mothers' milk, and it's been reinforced by two decades of life in a decent society." He retrieved his dud gun from where it had fallen and returned it to his pocket. "Please, ladies and gentlemen, return to your seats. Yes, you in the circle as well. Oh, get your weapons from the bag first."

  When the class had settled into its seats again, Stromberg went to the lectern and leaned against it. Droplets of sweat glistened on his forehead. The demonstration had taken as much from the sociologist as from anyone else, Armand included.

  "This is a hard job." Stromberg grimaced. "None of you knows of the State, except for Sacrifice Day stories. After twelve hundred years of perfect freedom, none of you can even entertain the notion that someone could claim the power of life and death over you, and not be held answerable for his actions. So I have to make it real for you with a little play like the one you just saw. But even that isn't enough, as witness Mr. Morelon's inability to believe that I would really kill him for his defiance."

  A murmur stirred the room.

  Stromberg chuckled. "And of course I didn't. What would have happened to me if I had? Would you others have permitted me to shelter under the privilege I had claimed, the State's privilege of 'sovereign immunity'?" He shook his head. "Not for a minute. If I had really hurt that young man, you would have torn me limb from limb, and you would have been right to do so. That's what a decent society does with those that claim the privilege of coercing others. We eliminate them."

  The professor's face grew tight. "And that's why the Spooner Federation abandoned the Earth."

  Armand's thoughts churned. He raised his hand.

  Stromberg acknowledged him. "Yes, Mr. Morelon?"

  "Sir...I know Earth had States, and I know they hated our ancestors, but weren't there any decent people left?"

  The professor looked at him in silence for a long time.

  "This is truly a hard job, Mr. Morelon. The answer to your question is: No, there weren't. Not after the Spoonerites left. I know you don't want to believe it. But the people of Earth had all accepted force and terror as legitimate means to an end. They had accepted the State, and the State had swallowed them whole. There were no free men anywhere. There were only rulers and subjects. As a result, there was no peace and no security anywhere. Have you ever read about war, Mr. Morelon?" Stromberg looked around the room. "Have any of you?"

  There was no answer.

  "It was the greatest of the obscenities of the States." Stromberg's voice dropped to a murmur. "Now and again, for any reasons or none, they would hurl their populations at one another. Millions of men would clash in combat, striking and being struck, killing and being killed in numbers beyond imagination. Why? So that one State could enforce its will upon another.

  "The economy of a warring State would be channeled to warlike priorities. No longer did the skills of producers determine what would be made and who would make it. No longer did the desires of consumers determine how much of it would be purchased and at what price. The State ruled all. The engines of production became merely another weapon in its hands, to be wielded against its enemy as it saw fit. To disobey the State in peacetime would cost you your liberty or your property. To deviate from the State's decrees in wartime was called treason, and would cost you your life."

  The old lecturer straightened, for a moment looking very like Armand's grandfather. His eyes had become piercing beacons of anger.

  "And I am charged with teaching you about this. I, who have no more direct knowledge of it than you. Every year I spend hundreds of hours reading histories of old Earth. I steep myself in them until I can smell the greed of the States on the air and feel the chill sweat of their subjects' fear on my own skin. But why? We've left the State behind forever, haven't we? Would any of you care to guess why I put myself through that torture year after year, and why I've put you through this briefer one today?"

  A student raised a tentative hand. "Because it's necessary, sir?"

  Stromberg shook his head slowly. "Necessary to whom, Mr. Untermeyer? Necessary by whose judgment?" He grinned ruefully. "Necessity is the creed of tyrants. A great man named William Pitt said that. He proved it by going on to become a great tyrant. A man of Hope determines his own necessities. He doesn't have them determined for him by others."

  Klaus Untermeyer stood, and the class turned toward him. "But if it isn't necessary, what other reason could there be?"

  Stromberg pursed his lips and looked down at his lectern. "I noticed that you carry a needlegun, Mr. Untermeyer. May I ask why?"

  The student shrugged. "I've always carried one."

  "Are yo
u good with it?"

  The young man's eyes narrowed. "Fair."

  "Have you ever used it to defend yourself?"

  "Uh, no."

  "But I'd wager a year's salary that you never leave your room without it. Why?"

  Untermeyer shrugged. "My parents taught me to keep it with me. You never know what might turn up."

  The sociologist nodded. "Indeed you don't. Not now, and not in the future. If there's a soul among you who doesn't go armed whenever he's beyond the walls of his home, he's a benighted fool. Because you don't know what might turn up. And after twelve hundred years of peace and freedom, neither do we of Hope."

  Stromberg brought forth his disabled coagulator. "I removed the power leads to the maser at my breakfast table, and I've felt naked ever since. If you'll allow me, I'm going to reconnect them now." He pulled a small screwdriver from his pocket, opened the weapon's case, and swiftly reconnected the severed leads. "You can never know what might turn up, ladies and gentlemen. The justifications for creating and submitting to a State have piled up thickly over the eight millennia of recorded human history. Each has been cleverer and more complex than the last. We of Hope have not succumbed...yet. And if we keep green our memories of what the State really was, how it operated, and what it meant to be unfree, perhaps we never will."

  Armand raised his hand again. "Sir?"

  "Yes, Mr. Morelon?"

  "During the demonstration? Why did you give Claire five of the dekas you, uh, stole?"

  Stromberg smirked. "Thank you for asking, Mr. Morelon. That's how States create loyalists."

  The bell rang.

  Chapter 8

  Victoria slipped mock-furtively into Ethan Mandeville's narrow little office. The graduate student was seated at a scarred wooden desk well covered with papers and place-marked books. Armand stood leaning against the windowsill. Mandeville gestured to her to shut the door and pointed to the unoccupied guest chair. She seated herself and laid her purse on the floor beside her.