“Get back, Bayard,” Bale snarled. “Rotten luck, that; I needed the swine alive for hanging.” I stood up slowly. He stared at me, gnawing his lip. “It was you I wanted dead; and this fool traded lives with you.”
He seemed to be talking to himself. I recognized the voice now, a little late. Bale was the Big Boss. It was the fact that he spoke in French here that had fooled me.
“All right,” he said in abrupt decision. “He can trade deaths with you too. You’ll do to hang in his place. I’ll give the mob their circus. You wanted to take his place, here’s you chance.”
He stepped farther into the room, motioned others in. Evil-looking thugs came through the door, peering about, glancing at Bale for orders.
“Put him in a cell,” Bale said. “And I’m warning you, Cassu, keep your bloody hands off him. I want him strong for the surgeon.”
Cassu grunted, twisted my arm until the joint creaked, and pushed me past the dead body of the man I had come in one night to think of as a brother.
They marched me off down the corridor, pushed me into an elevator, led me out again through a mob of noisy toughs armed to the teeth, down stone stairs, along a damp tunnel in the rock, and at the end of the line, sent me spinning with a kick into the pitch black of a cell.
My stunned mind worked, trying to assimilate what had happened. Bale! And not a double; he had known who I was. It was Bale of the Imperium, a traitor. That answered a lot of questions. It explained the perfect timing and placement of the attack at the palace, and why Bale had been too busy to attend the gala affair that night. I realized now why he had sought me out afterward; he was hoping that I’d been killed, of course. That would have simplified matters for him. And the duel—I had never quite been able to understand why the Intelligence chief had been willing to risk killing me, when I was essential to the scheme for controlling the dictator. And all the lies about the viciousness of the Bayard of B-I Two were Bale’s fabrications designed to prevent establishment of friendly relations between the Imperium and this unhappy world.
Why? I asked myself. Did Bale plan to rule this hell-world himself, making it his private domain? It seemed so.
And I saw that Bale did not intend to content himself with this world alone; this would be merely a base of operations, a source of fighting men and weapons—including atomic bombs. Bale himself was the author of the raids on the Imperium. He had stolen shuttles, or components thereof, and had manned them here in B-I Two, and set out on a career of piracy. The next step would be the assault on the Imperium itself, a full-scale attack, strewing atomic death. The men of the Imperium would wear gay uniforms and dress sabres into battle against atomic cannons.
I wondered why I hadn’t realized it sooner. The fantastic unlikeliness of the development of the MC drive independently by the war-ruined world of B-I Two seemed obvious now.
While we had sat in solemn conference, planning moves against the raiders, their prime mover had sat with us. No wonder an enemy scout had lain in wait for me as I came in on my mission.
When he found me at the hideout, Bale must have immediately set to work planning how best to make use of the unexpected stroke of luck. And when I had escaped, he had had to move fast.
I could only assume that the State was now in his hands; that a show execution of Bayard in the morning had been scheduled to impress the populace with the reality of the change in regimes.
Now I would hang in the dictator’s place. And I remembered what Bale had said; he wanted me strong for the surgeon. The wash tub would be useful after all. There were enough who knew the dictator’s secret to make a corpse with legs embarrassing.
They would shoot me full of dope, perform the operation, bind up the stumps, dress my unconscious body in a uniform and hang me. A dead body wouldn’t fool the public. They would be able to see the color of life in my face, even if I were still out, as the noose tightened.
I heard someone coming, and saw a bobbing light in the passage through the barred opening in the door. I braced myself. Maybe this was the man with the saws and the heavy snippers already.
Two men stopped at the cell door, opened it, came in. I squinted at the glare of the flashlight. One of the two dropped something on the floor.
“Put it on,” he said. “The boss said he wanted you should wear this here for the hanging.”
I saw my old costume, the one I had washed. At least it was clean, I thought. It was strange, I considered, how inconsequentials still had importance.
A foot nudged me. “Put it on, like I said.”
“Yeah,” I said. I took off the robe and pulled on the light wool jacket and trousers, buckled the belt. There were no shoes; I guessed Bale figured I wouldn’t be needing them.
“OK,” the man said. “Let’s go, Hiem.”
I sat and listened as the door clanked again; the light receded. It was very dark.
I fingered the torn lapels of my jacket. The communicator hadn’t helped me much. I could feel the broken wires, tiny filaments projecting from the cut edge of the cloth. Beau Joe had cursed as he slashed at them!
I looked down. Tiny blue sparks jumped against the utter black as the wires touched.
I sat perfectly still. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I didn’t dare move; the pain of hope awakening against all hope was worse than the blank acceptance of certain death.
My hands shook. I fumbled for the wires, tapped them together. A spark; another.
I tried to think. The communicator was clipped to my belt still; the speaker and mike were gone but the power source was there. Was there a possibility that touching the wires together would transmit a signal? I didn’t know. I could only try.
I didn’t know Morse Code, or any other code; but I knew S.O.S. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. Over and over, while I suffered the agony of hope.
A long time passed. I tapped the wires, and waited. I almost fell off the bunk as I dozed for an instant. I couldn’t stop; I had to try until time ran out for me.
I heard them coming from far off, the first faint grate of leather on dusty stone, a clink of metal. My mouth was dry, and my legs began to tingle. I thought of the hollow tooth and ran my tongue over it. The time for it had come. I wondered how it would taste, if it would be painful. I wondered if Bale had forgotten it, or if he hadn’t known.
There were more sounds in the passage now, sounds of men and loud voices; a clank of something heavy, a ponderous grinding. They must be planning on setting the table up here in the cell, I thought. I went to the tiny opening in the door and looked through. I could see nothing but almost total darkness. Suddenly light flared brilliantly, and I jumped, blinded.
There was more noise, then someone yelled. They must be having a hell of a time getting the stuff through the narrow hall, I thought. My eyeballs ached, my legs were trembling, my stomach suddenly felt bad. I gagged. I hoped I wouldn’t go to pieces. Time for the tooth now. I thought of how disappointed Bale would be when he found me dead in my cell. It helped a little; but still I hesitated. I didn’t want to die. I had a lot of living I wanted to do first.
Then someone called out, nearby.
“Wolfhound!”
My head came up. My code name. I tried to shout, choked. “Yes,” I croaked. I jumped to the bars, yelled.
“Wolfhound, where in the hell…”
“Here!” I yelled. “Here!”
“Get back, Colonel,” someone said. “Get in the corner and cover up.”
I moved back and crouched, arms over my head. There was a sharp hissing sound, and a mighty blast that jarred the floor under me. Tiny particles bit and stung, and grit was in my mouth. With a drawn-out clang, the door fell into the room.
Arms grabbed me, pulled me through the boiling dust, out into the glare. I stumbled, felt broken things underfoot.
Men milled around a mass blocking the passage. Canted against the wall a great box sat with a door hanging wide, light streaming out. Arms helped me through the door, and I saw wires, coils, junction boxes, stapled to bare new wood, with angle-irons here and there. White-uniformed men crowded into the tiny space; a limp figure was hauled through the door.
“Full count,” someone yelled. “Button up!” Wood splintered as a bullet came through.
The door banged shut, and the box trembled while a rumble built up into a whine, then passed on up out of audibility.
Someone grabbed my arm. “My God, Brion, you must have had a terrible time of it.”
It was Richthofen, in a grey uniform, a cut on his face, staring at me.
“No hard feelings,” I said. “Your timing…was good.”
“We’ve had a monitor on your band day and night, hoping for something,” he said. “We’d given you up, but couldn’t bring ourselves to abandon hope; then four hours ago the tapping started coming through. They went after it with locators, and fixed it here in the wine cellars.
“The patrol scouts couldn’t get in here; no room. We pitched this box together and came in.”
“Fast work,” I said. I thought of the trip through the dreaded Blight, in a jury-rig made of pine boards. I felt a certain pride in the men of the Imperium.
“Make a place for Colonel Bayard, men,” someone said. A space was cleared on the floor, jackets laid out on it. Richthofen was holding me up and I made a mighty effort, got to the pallet and collapsed. Richthofen said something but I didn’t hear it. I wondered what had held the meat cutters up so long, and then let it go. I had to say something, warn them. I couldn’t remember…