Salvo suddenly understood. Abrams’s lover had been chilled by a self-styled Pit boss decades ago. He’d become cynical and morose, and therefore an excellent candidate for the Trust. Salvo also understood Abrams had accepted the likelihood that the murder had been ordered by the baron, not the Pit boss.
“Yes, Administrator,” Salvo said softly. “As was done to you.”
He turned and left the chambers. As he entered the brilliantly lit hall, he paused long enough to stare contemplatively at the two guards. They met his gaze impassively.
“Soon,” he said, and went on his way. His thoughts swarmed with speculations. He would make his new responsibility a spectacular success, and then neither the Baron nor the Directorate could deny him anything, even a whim. Nothing else mattered. Instant termination would be the immediate fate of anyone who opposed or even postponed that success.
Including, even if circumstances didn’t warrant it, the third Magistrate to bear the loathsome name of Kane.
Chapter Seven
Kane didn’t go home. He hung out in the dayroom, taking a corner table away from the door, blocked from the glances of passersby in the corridor by people coming and going. The table was also out of the range of the vid spy-eye attached to the ceiling. He sipped at a cup of sub, and read over the daily Intel report transmitted along the ville network.
Intel Level. Copies All Mag Divs
Ragnarville, MNAfter several incursions in the territory, a band of roamers was apprehended and terminated. Sympathizers within ville also terminated.
Mandeville, KSMeasures taken to degrade fighting ability among hostile Lakota group include introduction of nerve toxins into hunting grounds.
Snakefishville, CAReport of stickie clan settlement on Western Island investigated, no foundation for report.
The reports from the other five villes comprising the network were similar. Even by reading between the lines, there wasn’t even the vaguest hint of a rebellion brewing anywhere, much less the appearance of a charismatic warlord.
The territories controlled by the villes were vast. Cobaltville itself had absorbed several Colorado baronies, including Vistaville and Hightower. The other ville territories were arranged similarly, so if anything as big and nasty as Salvo had described was brewing, some crumb of Intel should appear on the reports.
Though it was heresy to even think of it, Kane was certain Salvo was lying. The barbs about his father and grandfather had been aimed to prick his pride, make him question his doubts.
Kane held his two namesakes in high regard, and he felt that he, the third Kane to serve as a Magistrate, had to measure up to a level of duty established decades before.
The use of first names in the division had been taboo for three generations. The original drafters of the Program of Unification had believed that only surnames, family names, engendered a sense of obligation to the duties of their ancestors’ office, ensuring that subsequent generations never lost touch with their hereditary roles as enforcers. Last names became badges of social distinction, almost titles.
If nothing else, Kane thought a little sourly, it kept every man toeing the line so he wouldn’t tarnish the honor of his antecedents.
Kane had never met his grandfather. He had been chilled fifteen years before he was born in the retaking of the Pits from insurgents who believed ville authority was completely arbitrary. That had been a bloodbath. Many Magistrates had been literally torn limb from limb by the rioting Pit dwellers.
As for his father, Kane had seen him only rarely after he had joined the division. Though they were never close, his relationship with his father had turned stiff and coldly formal, as if the man were disappointed in him. Or afraid of him. His father had virtually disappeared from his life once he assumed the mandatory administrator’s post. For all Kane knew, he could have died three years ago, shortly after the last time he had spoken to him.
He lingered for an hour in the dayroom, then went out into the broad, brightly lighted main corridor. He headed toward the elevator tube that would deposit him at his Enclave. He passed Salvo’s office. The door was open, but the desk was vacant. Kane kept walking, then turned sharply into the Intel section. Two steps inside, he paused and looked around. His arrival was unnoticed, except by the spy-eye rotating slowly on the ceiling.
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