"Papers?"
And the papers appeared on the desk. Jas insisted that the receptionist write in Duncan
as the legal contract destination, and in the preferred work space Jas wrote, "Clerical." The chances of anyone getting a clerical assignment on a colony world were very slim, but there was no harm in asking. And then the papers were in front of his mother, and she meekly picked up the pen and signed, writing the name very, very carefully, as if for the first time, though she was a legal scribe, both longhand and punching.
"You have a few minutes for good–byes," the receptionist thoughtfully said. "And then these nice men will take you with them." These nice men were two blond, blue–eyed gorillas with cheerful smiles on the front of their microcephali. Jas felt a strange lightness in his stomach, a gentle twisting that he recognized as guilt, though he had never felt much guilt before.
He turned to face his mother. She was looking at the two guards.
"You selfish bastard," she whispered gently, "I'm not crazy enough not to know what you just did."
"I had to," Jas said, not believing himself.
"I would have done it gladly if you had asked."
Jas took her hand. It was lifeless as it lay in his. "I'm sorry," he said. "I love you."
And in his mother's mind he saw his father, heard him say, "I'm sorry. I love you."
His mother's face contorted. "Selfish," she said loudly. Then she screamed: "Selfish bloody flaming Swipe bastard, you're your father's son, you're no son of mine!"
Jas had made a gesture as if to stop her when she said the word Swipe, and she noticed it. "That's right, Jas, boy, look out for number one, the old lady's going crazy, but all you care about is who can overhear us, well I can shout it out, you know —" and her voice rose to a high–pitched scream — "I can yell to the whole world that you're a stinking —"
"Sedation?" asked the receptionist. Jas didn't answer, but one of the gorillas came over with a needle anyway. Jas's mother tried to back away, but there was no retreat. The needle dug into her back, and in less than a minute she was smiling sweetly. "Hi," she said to the gorilla. "I'm Nita Worthing. Are you coming to Duncan
, too?"
The gorilla smiled and patted her shoulder.
Nita turned to her son and smiled again. "Thank you, son. Good–bye. Wish me a happy voyage."
"Have a happy voyage, mother."
"It'll be happy because at the end of it, I'll have memories of you."
The gorillas led her away. She was telling them a joke as they went through the doors to the inner complex.
The receptionist leaned forward over the counter. "Your mother signed on as a volunteer, didn't she? No legal problems, right?"
Jas nodded, shook his head. "Volunteer. She's not wanted for anything."
"Don't worry about her," the receptionist said kindly. "They often react that way. The minute the papers are signed they're frantic to change their minds. Silly, isn't it? You'd think they'd just
signed their own death warrant or something. Why, they're absolutely lucky to get away from this tin can of a world."
Jas smiled. "You're right. No doubt you've already signed onto a colony ship."
The woman's smile disappeared. "Get out of here, smartmouth," she said. As Jas left he heard her muttering, "Some people, you try to get friendly and they get so..."
Jas took another tube and ended up in one of the huge parks that were placed in every borough by some politicians who had visited Earth and had thought it would be wonderful to spend tax money duplicating it on Capitol. Live trees growing out of real lawns. The residents were unimpressed, by and large — most of them had never seen a tree, and chlorophyll smelled dirty, somehow. Green growing things were just large forms of mold, and mold meant you had to have your humidifier adjusted.
But Jas had been drawn to the parks since childhood, and as he stepped onto the lawn he remembered coming to this very park with his mother, several times. She had sat on the grass, spooning beef out of a dish, as Jas had climbed that rock, and jumped onto the lawn, laughing and laughing.
Well, I don't feel like laughing now, Jas reminded himself. And then wondered what it would be like on a colony world — green, like this? Only without the ceiling. Without the walls. Without the crowded corridors leading off in six directions.
The park was nearly empty, as always, and Jas hoped that though cameras monitored the comings and goings here as everywhere else, such an unfrequented place might not be too well monitored. He crept into the middle of a large clump of bushes and curled up around the base of the tree that grew out of the middle. It was shady, and so darker than everywhere else in the open corridors. In the darkness of the shade he tried to think. Had to decide what to do.
He daren't be caught by the constables because of Radamand. And only the constables could offer him any protection from Hartman Tork and the mobs that would form if word got out that a Swipe had been found. Mother's Little Boys? Jas shuddered. You just don't go to Mother's Little Boys. For finding missing persons, yes. For protection? Who would protect you from the Little Boys?
If he used the computers he could be found, and yet the computers were the only way he could get into the Service. And the other escape route, the Colonies, he wouldn't do that. Jas had dreams of an impressive and important future for himself. People on Colony ships didn't have impressive and important futures.
He thought of his mother, and the future she had, and again felt the twist of guilt; maybe she wouldn't have been caught, maybe they wouldn't have tortured her and got the answer, maybe —
There were no maybes. And when they had proved that Jas was a Swipe and killed him, they would have executed her, too, because the trait is passed from mother to son. That's all they know,
Jas thought. Mother to son indeed. I'm like my father. He thought the words again and again. I'm like my father.
He woke about six hours after he had crept into the bushes. And when he woke he knew what to do. How long had it taken Mother's Little Boys to find him when he had used the computer terminal the last time? Not long — three minutes, perhaps. But that would be long enough, if he hurried.
For a moment he wondered what he was so worried about. For all he knew, Mother's Little Boys weren't even looking for him — just the constables and the school.
But it was too easy to file a missing persons query, and the constables and the school would have little trouble proving right–to–know. Mother's Little Boys would be looking for him, all right.
He walked to the nearest public terminal. Five specifications got him an application form for entry into the Service. Then he punched memory and coded it to his private number, snapped on a cover code, and then retrieved his card and hurried away from the terminal. Mother's Little Boys wouldn't find him there — it had taken only one minute.
Jas took the tube (did they monitor the credit cards at the tube stations? Probably — but not even the Little Boys could board a moving tube), and switched at the first station. Then he got off again, went to another terminal, punched in the memory code and the cover code, and started filling out the application.
After a minute, the same thing — a dash through the tubes, a new terminal, and a few more items on the application. And since the application wasn't long, that finished it; Jas punched the send button, and left.
Another tube, another terminal, and he requested an answer.
Fifteen seconds, and the screen said, "Reject."
He queried.
"Personal."
He queried again. Specify.
"Personal. Father killed in Swipe Wars."
He quickly punched in, desperately punched in a rebuttal, a request for voice contact. It was an agonizingly long wait. Then a face came on the screen, and immediately Jas said, "Can you hold? For just a minute?"
"I'm busy," the woman said, irritated.
"Please," Jas said, acutely aware that he had been at the terminal for nearly three minutes.
"All right, hurry," she said.
Jas ran from the terminal, bumping into a man, and behind the man's eyes Jas discovered in a moment that the man was one of Mother's Little Boys, coming to fetch him from the terminal. No doubt now — they were after him.
This time Jas didn't bother with the tube. He ran to the nearest terminal, only a few ramps away, and punched in. The woman's face reappeared.
"What was that all about?" she asked.
"I'm sorry." Jas didn't have time to explain. "I need to know" breath "why my application" breath "was rejected."
"Your father was killed in the Swipe Wars," she said, as if that explained everything.
"But I don't have the Swipe. Telepathy isn't passed from father to son!" he insisted, wondering if she could possibly guess that it was a lie, that she was talking to a member of the one family in which the Swipe was, in fact, inherited on the male line.
"Of course the Swipe isn't hereditary," she said. "We aren't the least bit worried about that. In fact," she said, as Jas inwardly urged her to hurry, "in fact, you're a remarkably bright young man, widely educated, ridiculously high test scores on your record, and ordinarily we'd accept you in a moment."
"Thanks. Then accept me."
"The Swipe isn't hereditary. But revenge is. Sorry."
"I don't want revenge!" Jas shouted.
"If you're going to shout, please turn your volume control down. I'm not deaf."
"I won't try to get revenge —"
"Of course you'd say that, but our statistics make it almost a probability that —"
"Dammit, my father burned three planets and killed eight billion people, do you think I'm going to try to avenge his death?"
She shrugged. "We have the psychological profiles, and I'm afraid the policy can't be reversed without a lengthy process of appeal. Go ahead and try. It'll take only two weeks, and maybe you can change somebody's mind, though I doubt it. I wish you luck, young —"
An iron hand gripped Jas's shoulder. Involuntarily he cried out. The woman smiled. "Do you have him, officer? Very well then. Out."
The screen went blank.
The iron hand turned Jas around to face the man. Jas looked behind his eyes.
Amusement. That warm feeling of success. "You've been leading us a merry chase, boy," the man said.
Jas smiled weakly. "Tag I'm it?"
It worked. The man smiled back. "You're from Rockwit?"
"I'm from Capitol. But I know the game. I studied it."
"Then I'll feel a little worse turning you in. How did you guess I was from Rockwit?"
I saw it in your mind, of course, Jas thought. But he said, "Your accent."
"That bad, huh?"
"I study accents. It's a hobby."
"Accents and archaic games," the man said. "Come along now, boy. I don't know why, but somebody important wants you real bad."
Radamand, then. No one could call Hartman Tork important. But Jas went along peacefully enough. No sense struggling and increasing the man's vigilance. Just wait for an opportunity.
The opportunity was the commuter traffic in the tubes. The rush hour was starting, and as with commuters in all times and places, the signs saying enter and exit were regarded as mere decoration. Those getting off the tube rushed out, making rivulets around those struggling forward to get on. Of course there were dozens of people who stopped, greeted each other, blocked traffic — others, caught in the rush, desperately trying to reach a destination different from that of the crowd that swept them along. Three times a day the shifts changed, as the night boroughs, morning boroughs, and afternoon boroughs in each district lived their separate and rarely interconnecting days.
In the shoving and elbowing at the door, Jas lurched into the secret policeman who was holding him, then tripped and fell, ripping his shoulder painfully away from the man's hand. Someone tripped over him; someone else stepped on his leg; the crowd pulled Mother's Little Boy away from Jason. In a moment friendly hands helped Jas to his feet, and he began moving away in the crowd.
"He's cut!" shouted the security policeman. "Get him!"
He's cut? Jas realized as he threaded through the crowd that the security policeman wasn't alone. There had been more of Mother's Little Boys close enough to call to. Who?
For a moment Jas tried identifying people as they passed, before they came near him, but he couldn't — it was too dizzying, darting from mind to mind. And moving that quickly, impressions became vague, too fleeting to catch.
A hand grabbed at his hip. Jas lurched away. Again the hand was stronger than he expected, and pulling away took so much force that Jas fell to the ground. Someone stepped on his hand, hard, and Jas cried out in pain, but pulled his hand out from under the heavy boot. Blood leaped from torn–open veins, but Jas ignored it, scrambling to his feet. Hands reached for him. He swerved away, ducked, and then spotted a break in the crowd, ran through, and shoved his way into the mass of people piling up around the station doors.
Now the crowd that had helped him escape helped Mother's Little Boys to catch him. Where the people had been moving fast, his small size let him dodge through much faster than the police could. But with the crowd moving slowly, shoulder to shoulder, his small size was a disadvantage. He couldn't shove people out of the way, and Mother's Little Boys could. In a moment rough hands gripped him everywhere, and he was lifted off the ground and tossed into the air. When he came down there were six men around him.
He panted for breath. So did they. They looked angry. Wary, too, waiting for Jas to try something, to move. Jas didn't move. Blood dripped from his hand.
"What do you guys think I am?" he finally said. "Six of you to take a thirteen–year–old kid?"
The one who had first caught him smiled. "For a minute there, we were wishing for an even dozen."
"Well, you've got me," Jas said, still panting from the chase. "What now?"
But they just watched him, and the exhilaration of flight and pursuit gave way to the despairing knowledge that he was, indeed, caught, and there was no way he could stop them from doing whatever they wanted. Would it be the school, and facing charges as a Swipe? Or Radamand, and death to protect a rising politician?