“What could you have done?” Shaeffer asked.
“Our ship is close to Preston’s ship. Moore wouldn’t be interested in it, though.” Cartwright shook his head irritably. “Is there any way we can set up a screen to follow Moore?”
“I suppose so,” Benteley said. “Ipvic arranged a constant visual beam from the body back to Farben. We could cut into it; it’s still being relayed. I know the frequency of the channel.” A thought struck him. “Harry Tate’s under fief to Verrick.”
“Everybody seems to be under fief to Verrick,” Cartwright said. “Is there anybody at ipvic we can work with?”
“Put pressure on Tate. If you cut him off from Verrick, he’ll cooperate. He isn’t keen on this stuff, according to what Eleanor Stevens told me.”
Shaeffer looked into his mind with interest. “She told you a lot. Since she left us and went to Farben she’s been useful.”
“Yes, I’d like to keep some kind of a visual check on the Pellig body.” Cartwright fumbled with his popper and finally slid it into a half-unpacked suitcase on the floor. “We’re better off now, of course. Thanks, Benteley.” He nodded vaguely to Benteley. “So things have changed. Pellig won’t be coming here. We don’t have to worry about that, any more.”
Rita was eying Benteley intently. “You didn’t break your oath? You don’t consider that you’re a felon?”
“I told you,” Benteley said, returning her hard stare. “Verrick broke his oath to me. He released me by betraying me.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “Well,” Cartwright said, “I still want something to eat. Let’s have lunch or dinner or something, and you can explain the rest to us.” He moved toward the door, the ghost of a relieved smile on his tired face. “We have time, now. My first assassin is a closed book. We don’t have any reason to hurry.”
FOURTEEN
AS THEY ate, Benteley put his feelings into words. “I killed Moore because I had no choice. In a few seconds he would have turned Pellig over to a technician and returned to his own body at Farben. Pellig would have gone on and detonated against you; some of Moore’s staff are that loyal.”
“How close would the body have had to be?” Cartwright asked.
“The body got within less than three miles of you. Two miles closer and Verrick would now dominate the known system.”
“No actual contact was necessary?”
“I had time for only a quick look at the wiring, but a standard proximity mechanism tuned to your brain pattern was wired into the circuit. And then there’s the power of the bomb itself. The law specifies no weapon a man can’t carry in one hand. The bomb was a regulation H-grenade from the last war.”
“The bomb is,” Cartwright reminded him.
“Everything depended on Pellig?” Rita asked.
“There was a second synthetic body. It’s about half complete. Nobody at Farben expected total disorganization of the Corps; they got more than they hoped for. But Moore is out of the picture. The second body will never go into operation; only Moore can bring it to its final stages. He kept everybody else down to lower levels—and Verrick knows that.”
“What happens when Moore reaches Preston?” Rita de-manded. “Then Moore will be back in the picture again.”
“I didn’t know about Preston,” Benteley admitted. “I destroyed Moore’s body so he couldn’t leave the synthetic. If Preston is going to help him hell have to work fast. The synthetic won’t last long in deep space.”
“Why didn’t you want him to kill me?” Cartwright inquired.
“I didn’t care if he killed you. I wasn’t thinking about you.”
“That’s not precisely true,” Shaeffer said. “The thought was there, as a corollary. When you made your psychological break, you automatically switched against Verrick’s strategy. You acted as an impeding agent semi-voluntarily.”
Benteley wasn’t listening. “I was tricked from the beginning,” he said. “All of them were mixed up in it; Verrick, Moore, Eleanor Stevens. From the moment I set foot in the lounge, Wakeman tried to warn me; he did what he could. I came to the Directorate to get away from rottenness. I wound up doing its work; Verrick gave me orders and I followed them. But what are you supposed to do in a society that’s corrupt? Are you supposed to obey corrupt laws? Is it a crime to break a law that’s a rotten law, or an oath that’s rotten?”
“It’s a crime,” Cartwright admitted slowly. “But it may be the right thing to do.”
“In a society of criminals,” Shaeffer offered, “the innocent man goes to jail.”
“Who decides when the society is made up of criminals?” Benteley demanded. “How do you know when your society has gone wrong? How do you know when it’s right to stop obeying the laws?”
“You just know,” Rita O’Neill said fiercely.
“You’ve got a built-in mechanism?” Benteley asked the woman. “That’s great; I wish I had. I wish everybody had . . . It must be a hell of a handy thing. There’s six billion of us living in this system, and most of us think the system works just fine. Am I supposed to go against everybody around me? They’re all obeying the laws.” He was thinking of Al and Laura Davis. “They’re happy, contented, satisfied; they-have good jobs; they eat well; they have a nice place to live. Eleanor Stevens said I had a sick mind. How do I know I’m not a sick misfit? A quasi-psychotic?”
“You have to have faith in yourself,” Rita O’Neill said.
“Everybody has that. That’s a dime a dozen. I stood the rottenness as long as I could and then I rebelled. Maybe they’re right; maybe I am a felon. I think Verrick broke his oath to me . . . I think I was released. But maybe I’m wrong.”
“If you’re wrong,” Shaeffer pointed out, “you can be shot on sight.”
“I know. But . . .” Benteley struggled up the words. “In a way that isn’t important. I never kept an oath because I was afraid of breaking it. I kept it because I didn’t think it should be broken. But I can only go so far. A point came when this whole thing sickened me so much I couldn’t work with it any more. I can’t stand to get it on my hands! Even if it means being hunted down and shot.”
“That may happen,” Cartwright said. “You say Verrick knew about the bomb?”
“That’s right.”
Cartwright reflected. “A protector isn’t supposed to send a classified serf to his death. That’s reserved for unks. He’s supposed to protect his classics, not destroy them. Judge Waring would know, I suppose; it takes an expert. You didn’t know Verrick had been quacked when you took your oath?”
“No. But they knew.”
Cartwright rubbed his grizzled jaw with the back of his hand. “Well, maybe you have a case. Maybe not. You’re an interesting person, Benteley. What are you going to do, now that you’ve tossed off the rules? Are you going to take a fealty oath again?”
“I don’t think so,” Benteley said.
“Why not?”
“A man shouldn’t become another man’s serf.”
“I don’t mean that.” Cartwright picked his words carefully. “What about a positional oath?”
“I don’t know.” Benteley shook his head wearily. “I’m tired. Maybe later on.”
Rita O’Neill spoke up. “You should join my uncle’s staff. You should swear on to him.”
They were all looking at him. Benteley said nothing for a while. “The Corps takes a positional oath, doesn’t it?” he asked presently.
‘That’s right,” Shaeffer said. “That’s the oath Peter Wakeman thought so much of.”
“If you’re interested,” Cartwright said, his shrewd old eyes on Benteley, “I’ll swear you on to me—as Quizmaster— with a positional oath.”
“I never got my p-card back from Verrick,” Benteley said.
A fleeting, potent expression crossed Cartwright’s face. “Oh? Well, that can be repaired.” He reached in his coat and got out a small carefully-wrapped package. With slow, deliberate fingers he unwrapped the package and laid the contents on the table.
There were a dozen power cards.
Cartwright sorted through them, selected one, examined it intently, then replaced the others in the package and wrapped them up tight. He restored them to his pocket and passed the single p-card to Benteley. ‘Two dollars does it. And you can keep it; I won’t collect it back. You should have one; everybody ought to have an even chance in the great game.”
Benteley got slowly to his feet. He dug in his wallet and presently tossed two paper dollars down. He pocketed the p-card and stood waiting as Cartwright rose. “This feels familiar,” Benteley said.
“You know,” Cartwright said, “I haven’t any idea how the oath goes. Somebody’ll have to help me out.”
“I know it,” Benteley said. With Rita O’Neill and Shaeffer watching silently, he recited the positional oath to Quizmaster Cartwright and then abruptly took his seat. His coffee was cold but he drank it anyhow. He barely tasted it; he was deep in thought.