The "Believer" Councilor frowned. He obviously wanted to protest, to proclaim his supporters' suitability, but Cesar had already made the motion he really wanted. "Second," he grated.
He wasn't the only unhappy Councilor. Doug Ryles could sense the Council opinion swinging toward Cesar, and tasted the bitterness of defeat.
Cesar's motion, too, was approved by a wide margin, over twenty years after he had first proposed it.
********
"Damn it, Cesar, you
can't
retire!" Vlad's voice was loud, near shouting. "Ever since Ryles rammed through that proposal to let him take over all the gambling, he's been on course to take over the council and the whole colony. He's skimming the profits, and using them to hire bullies and toughs. Nearly all the militia officers and sergeants are his bully boys now.
"And you know he's just a small-time crook. There's no way he'll be able to deal with this crisis with the natives."
Cesar sighed deeply. "I know. I had hoped to deal with Ryles before I retired. But he's too slippery. Nothing is ever provable. He's never involved in the rough stuff himself." He shook his head. "I’m tired, Vlad. I've come a long way since I retired from teaching in Manila. And I don't think I'm up to dealing with this 'native' business, either."
"I'm ninety-one years old, Vlad." He continued. "At least I think I am. That's what I've lived through, anyway. Yes," he waved Vlad to silence as he began to interrupt. "I know that damned symbiont seems to be extending our lifespans, but we don't yet know how long. I want some time to enjoy my wife and my children and grandchildren. Do you know I have eight great-grandchildren and three great-
great
grandchildren now? I do
not
want to spend whatever time I have left trying to catch Doug Ryles with his hand in the cookie jar."
Vlad frowned and sighed. "I know, Cesar. But Ryles isn't that smart; he's just cunning. He's bound to make a mistake and end up…" His voice trailed off as a sudden thought occurred. He frowned in concentration for a moment, and a slow smile spread across his dark features.
"Y'know, Cesar," he said, white teeth flashing, "It's funny how we get locked into a certain mindset, and can't see the forest for the trees. Well, we've been working from the wrong mindset. Listen…"
********
Doug Ryles strode into the Council meeting, his usual confident swagger even more pronounced. He was good. He knew it. He was smart. He was tough. But he'd never been able to catch a break. It seemed there was always somebody just a little tougher, just a little smarter, or even just a little luckier. So, he was always a small-timer; a big man in a small neighborhood. But not anymore. The plague had almost destroyed the entire colony; but it had been the making of Doug Ryles. It sure had scared him for a while, though. That Renko woman admitting there was no cure had scared him badly. Then he got sick himself, and that was the worst two weeks of his life. He'd been sure he was going to die, but he turned out to be one of the lucky ones who could live with the symbiont.
When he got well, he knew this was it.
This
was his chance. His luck had turned. The thousand-odd surviving colonists were still in shock, and it wasn't hard. A sympathetic smile and a little phony compassion had kept him secure on the Governing Council. He just kept telling people nothing was
their
fault, it was always someone else grabbing what was rightfully theirs.
That geezer Montero and his tame black spotted him for a grifter right away, though. Month after month and year after year, those two and their friends had kept Doug down and prevented him from assuming his rightful place as leader of the colony. Doug kept hoping the two of them would just die and get out of the way. Now it had been more than twenty years, but finally Doug was getting the upper hand. He'd got dirt on enough Council members to push hard against the geezers. He'd loved the looks on their faces when the Council handed him the gambling concession for the whole colony. And now, the officers of the Militia were his boys. He was almost ready to make his move when this blasted "native" thing came up. He
still
wasn't sure it wasn't a trick staged by Montero.
The old chink still looked like a damned statue, though his eyes narrowed slightly when Doug and his bodyguard Vic entered the room. But what was the black looking so happy about?
As soon as the meeting opened, Vlad signaled a desire to speak.
"My fellow councilors," he began formally, "We all know about the greatest risk facing this colony since the Plague. The images our scouts brought back leave no doubt there is
something
out there. A creature that organizes in groups, and that builds shelters. Whether they are intelligent as we know it, we have no idea. Nor have we any idea what their reactions will be when they discover us. We don't even have very clear images of what they look like; our scouts properly decided that going closer would risk detection.
"Yes, this is our great challenge. But before we confront it, I feel that there is a minor detail that must be resolved.
"I move that Douglas Ryles be investigated by this Council on charges of murder, theft, assault, battery, intimidation, and blackmail. I further move that if the Council agrees on his guilt, that he be removed from his position on the Council and his position as Director of Gambling Control, and that he be assigned to farm field labor duties."
"
WHAT!
" Doug leapt to his feet, astounded and furious. "You can't railroad
me
! I demand a lawyer and a proper judge and jury."
A wide grin suffused Vlad's face. "The nearest lawyer or judge is about a hundred light years away," he replied. "Besides, the things you're asking for are part of the EarthGov legal system. We're no longer a part of EarthGov; they threw us away. Moreover," he added, "I'm not asking for criminal punishments. The Council has the power to expel members it considers unworthy, and it awarded you the position of Gambling Control Director. The Council also has the power to assign work responsibilities. Is there a second to my motion?"
A man down the table leapt to his feet and yelled, "Second!"
Doug couldn't believe it. The old men were going after
him
! After a few moments, though, he regained his composure. He'd always been careful. There was no proof, no evidence. He thought hard. Murder. That had to be that old biddy Charley had hit too hard when she tried to hold out a beer. And then it turned out Charley had miscounted, and she hadn't really been holding out on him. They'd had a good laugh about that, at the time. Assault, battery, intimidation; probably people whining about it when the boys got a little rough. Blackmail? Doug almost smiled. Who would file a complaint? They would know he'd spread the dirt on them through the whole colony.
Doug leapt to his feet. "It's a trick!" he shouted. "Montero just wants to scare us. He's trying to take over the colony!"
Vlad laughed aloud. "He could have done that twenty years ago, when the plague hit," he said.
Doug relaxed. "You can't prove nothin'," he said, resuming his seat and struggling to maintain his composure. "You got no proof, no witnesses, and no evidence that'll stand up in court!"
Cesar shrugged. "We'll see. First, I'd like to talk to your friend, here. Let's see, you are Victor…Tablana, are you not?"
A wide grin flared on Vic's placid countenance as he turned to Doug. "Hey, Messer Ryles! Messer Montero knows my name! Ain't that dar?"
Doug nodded with a troubled expression. He started to tell the fool to keep his mouth shut, but he didn't like the way the other Council members were looking at him. Besides, anything the dumb brute said would be hearsay, and not admissible.
Cesar smiled. "Of course I know you, Victor. You grew up with Ron Creding's son, didn't you?"
Vic nodded. "Yar, that's right. We didn't get along real good, though."
Cesar nodded. "Let's see, Victor. You work for Messer Ryles, Don't you?"
Victor nodded. "Yar, that's right. I been workin' for him for a few years, now."
"And what do you do for Messer Ryles?" Doug started to interrupt, but a grim-looking Vlad caught his eye and shook his head slowly. Doug glanced around, and suddenly noticed two militiamen standing near him; and not
his
militiamen, either. His worry grew.
Vic shrugged. "Anything he wants. Like comin' to these meetings. But mostly, I'm a Collector."
"A Collector?"
Vic nodded enthusiastically. "Yar. A lotta people owe Messer Ryles money. Me and Charley and Frankie go remind 'em not to forget to pay up."
Cesar smiled at the large man. "That must be a hard job. A lot of people in the colony don't have much money."
A grim smile rose on Vic's scarred face. "Oh, mostly we just talk to 'em. 'Course, sometimes we gotta remind 'em how important it is that they pay up."
"Do you ever have to hit anyone, Victor?"
"Naw. Well, hardly ever. Mostly we just rough 'em up a little and talk tough. They pay. The most I ever did was break a guy's arm, and that was an accident."
Cesar smiled. "Do you like working for Messer Ryles, Victor?"
Victor grinned and nodded. "Oh, yar. It's a lot better than workin' in the fields, and now that Mr. Ryles runs all the gamblin', the pay's even better."
Doug rolled his eyes and shook his head disgustedly. Was there
anything
that fool wasn't going to blab about?
"One last question, Victor," said Cesar. "Does the name Mary Redling mean anything to you?"
Victor's grin faded, and he looked trapped, as though he suddenly realized he could be in trouble. He shook his head. "I don't know nothin' about that." His face took on a crafty expression. "I mean, she was that old lady died a year or so ago, right?"
Cesar smiled. "Thank you, Victor. Would you wait for Messer Ryles outside, please?"
Victor's grin resurfaced, tinged with relief. "Yes, sire, Sure."
As Vic exited the room, Doug heard him say, "Hey, Charley! What're you doin' here?" His heart sank. Charley was smarter than Vic, but Montero and Renko were smarter than Charley. Doug could only hope he'd keep his mouth shut – especially about Mary Redling. After a moment, Charley came into the room, escorted by two militiamen.
Charley was trying to display swaggering confidence, but it was obvious he was scared in these unfamiliar surroundings.
"Good morning," Cesar began in a friendly tone. "Let's see, you are Charles Worthing, is that right?"
Charley was all bravado. "Yar, that's right. They call me Charley Worthless, but that's just a joke."
Cesar smiled. "I understand. Tell me, Charles, have you heard the name Mary Redling?"
A wary expression crossed Charley's face. "Naw," he replied. "I never heard of her."
Cesar frowned. "Well, now, that's odd, Charley. Because the night she died, you were seen talking to her. A man came by with a basket. He asked if everything was all right. Do you remember that? He's right outside; we can call him in to remind you, if you'd like. In fact, I understand you visited him later to talk about what he'd seen."
The bravado was gone. Charley was looking trapped. "Uh, I don't think I'd better say nothin' else." Doug relaxed slightly. If that fool shut up, at least he wouldn't talk them into a noose.
But it was no use. Montero called in witness after witness. Some of them surprised him. The bartender who overheard Charley bragging about killing the Redling woman. People who admitted to being intimidated and frightened. Some admitted to falling behind in their payments. Most damning of all, though, was when Cesar told the computer to stop recording the minutes.
"Yes, Mr. Chairman. The minutes, will, of course, be incomplete." The computer said.
"Understood," was all Cesar replied before turning back to the Council. "I have asked the computer not to record this because it involves very intimate and personal information concerning a Council member. Messer Park?"
Doug's heart sank. He'd been blackmailing Park for years. Surely he wasn't going to spill?
Messer Park was rather large for an Asian, nearly normal for a westerner. As he got to his feet, he stared challengingly at Doug.
Park looked silently around the table. "This will be very hard for me," he began, "and I hope that all of you will respect my confidence in this matter.
"It was over twenty years ago, now. The time of the Plague. I was married to a woman whom I loved very much. We were both infected at about the same time, and I was soon too sick to tell her how much I loved her, and she was too sick to hear it. Her last memory must have been of a sick man snapping at her and accusing her of not loving him.
"I recovered, of course, but I could not forget our last fight, and my guilt. I stayed drunk on beer until I ran out of money and credit. Then I sneaked into the training room, and had the computer show me plans for a still for making whiskey, and started distilling garbage into liquor. By this time I was very nearly an alcoholic. I built the still in an empty storage room aboard the ship, and I was very proud of myself when I ran off the first batch. It tasted pretty bad, but it came out at about ninety proof, plenty for my purposes.
"That night I got
very
drunk. I was stumbling around the ship when I chanced upon a young woman I knew slightly. She was a beautiful young thing with an infant daughter, and her husband had been one of the first to die of the plague.
"As I said, I was very drunk, but I vaguely remember thinking how unfair it was that this beautiful young woman survived and my own Ton Lu died. Suddenly I was very angry, and I dragged her into a storage compartment, and I…I raped that young woman. My last coherent memory of that night is of her crouched, naked and sobbing, in a corner of the room.
"The next morning I awoke to a horrible headache, and an even more horrible memory of the night before. I sought her out, of course. She was obviously very frightened of me, and begged me to leave her alone, swearing that she had told no one of the rape.
"But that was not enough for my conscience. I swore to take care of her and her child as though they were my own. And I kept my oath. I have not even touched beer since that night. Two years later, we were married, and our daughter was married last year. No one, including our daughter, knows about the rape." His grim look surveyed the table as he continued, "And I sincerely hope they never will.