[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]them, and though their uniforms were the gray and blue and silver of ceremony,
their nfies held magazines and fixed bayonets. He half-rose and chopped one
hand down across his chest; above him his bodyguard
270 Jerry PoumeUe b S.M. Stirling
Cheung relaxed from the beginning of a move that would have ripped out a
soldier's throat as he sprang to seize a weapon. The visitors were led away,
out of the galleries, out of the chamber.
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Croser keyed the circuit that connected him with the other NCLF
representatives in the Senate. "All to be detained," he murmured. "So that
nothing can get out. Although silence is a message in itself."
"Leader, what shall we do?" one of his supporters hissed in his ear.
"Shut up."
"But, Leader "
"Shut up and stay shut up. Not one word, any of you; not under any
circumstances whatsoever."
Croser forced his lips to stop curling back from his
' teeth, tasting sweat as he reached out calmly to take a sip of water. What
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was it that old tombstone said? "I
expected this, but not so soon."
The Speaker rapped his gavel. "I recognize the
President of the Council of Ephors," he said.
Citizen Selena Borah Dawson, wife of the Principal
Secretary of State, and very popular in Citizen Assem-
blies, The Ephors functioned largely as ombudsmen, but they had certain formal
duties as direct repre-
sentatives of the Citizens. "Senators, I ask for a resolution which under the
Constitution the Kings may not request, but which you may grant."
There was a ripple of movement. Croser hit the record and playbacVscan
functions. "Ah, interesting,"
he murmured. "See, there are the ones who knew it was coming." Excellent
security on this measure, if
Murasaki hadn't picked it up. A damaging blow, despite all the preparations.
"Senators, I make no speeches," Selena Dawson said. "The Speaker will show the
evidence on which the request of the Citizens will be based."
PRINCE OF SPARTA 271
"Hie Speaker touched buttons, doing the work of his vanished clerk. The
crowned mountain faded from the giant display screen above the dais, to be
replaced with a close-up shot. Croser recognized it; the Velysen ranch, with
the dead bodies displayed.
"Senators, bear witness," the old man said.
The image faded, to be replaced by another. This time a bleeding child,
screaming by the corpse of its mother outside a burning building.
Hmmm. Croser thought. Oh yes, the Hume Con-
solidated Financial Bank bombing.
More. Burnt out ranches. A playback of Steven
Armstrong's engine crew drowning before the camera
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burning in their car.
Chaos and blood in a restaurant, and a young man with his ribs peeled open by
the grenade he had smothered. The frozen body of Deborah Lefkowitz, as the
Helots and the scavengers had left it. More still;
after fifteen minutes Croser leaned back in his chair and let his eyes slide
down to the panel before him, flicking through shots of the other Senator's
faces.
Even a few of his own NCLF appointees were looking gray; there were tears
elsewhere on the benches, and not only among women. A few were looking away
also, swallowing. Colleagues moved to assist one elderly representative who
fainted.
"And the final horror," the Speaker said. The wall was filled with the image
of the shattered bunker at the
Stora Mine. The camera moved inside, to hospital beds thrown over, then came
to a halt on a tangle of broken and bleeding children shielded by dying women.
"A
deliberate act, done with equipment imported for the purpose," Scaevoli said.
"Imported from off-planet, brought all this way to be used to kill our women
and children. Madame President, do the Ephors have a request of this body?"
272
Jerry PoumeUe ir S.M. Stirling
"We do. My Lord Speaker The State is in danger.
We ask for the Ultimate Decree."
Lars Armstrong leapt to his feet, "At last!"
I might have known, Croser thought. Steven Arm-
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strong's brother, and his successor as representative of the Maritime Products
Trade Association.
Scaevoli looked to the Ephors. "Is this the request of the Ephors? Do each of
you agree?" Three nods of assent. A fourth, a young man thought to be a
radical fireball, stood staring in horror at the screen- He looked from that
to Croser, looked defiantly to the
Speaker. "Aye," he said.
The Speaker bowed, and turned to the chamber. "I
recognize Senator Armstrong."
"My Lord Speaker, I move that the Senate instruct die Kings to take all
measures necessary to ensure the safety of the state, effective as of this
date and to run for one Spartan year before expiry or renewal."
"Mr. Speaker!" Croser said, shooting to his feet.
"I recognize Senator Croser."
"If the honorable Senator moves the Ultimate
Decree " essentially a drastic form of martial law, with the suspension of
civil rights " then surely there must be debate beyond mere assertion! Is
this a
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rubber-stamp whose assent is secured in advance by conspiracy?"
Or a lynch mob, he thought, looking at the faces glaring at him from every
corner of the chamber.
"Mr. Speaker."
"I recognize Senator Armstrong."
"Mr. Speaker." Armstrong was a tall blond man like his brother, perhaps a
little heavier, with hair that was thinning on top. His smile was much like
that of the carnivore piscoids his family's ships hunted. "I can best reply
using words other than my own.
PRINCE OF SPARTA 273
"How long, 0 Croser. how long" he began, in a calm conversational tone.
"How long will you continue your abuse of our for-
bearance? What bounds wtB. you set to your display of reckless contempt? Are
you not affected by the alarm of the people, by the rallying of all loyal
citizens, by the convening of the senate in this safely-guarded spot, by the
looks and expressions of all assembled here? Do you not perceive that your
designs are exposed? The
Senate is weU aware of the facts, but the criminal stiU
lives. Lives? Yes, lives; and even comes down to the
Senate, takes part in the public deliberations, and marks down with ominous
glances every single one of us for massacre.
"As to why " Armstrong pointed silently to the screen.
Croser waited out the applause. You'll envy your brother before I'm through
with you, he thought coldly.
"Mr. Speaker," he said quietly.
"I recognize Senator Croser."
" "My compliments to the Senator on his ability to paraphrase the Classics;
,
however, he is not Marcus
Tullius Cicero. Nor is this Rome. Nor am I," he went on, letting a slight
sneer into his tone, "the brother of the man whose agents destroyed a shuttle
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