“You’ll be gone before I’m elevated, Captain Leary,” said the Prior, hunching slightly. Two husky male acolytes waited nearby to accompany him from the library and carry him down the long steps, just as Lamsoe and Claud had done earlier in the day. “Goodbye, then, and may good fortune attend your later endeavors as well.”
He held The Institutions in both hands. Adele had scanned it to provide both herself and the Service with copies of the text, but the Prior would take the codex itself with him.
“Good day to you, sir,” Daniel said, dipping his head in a cross between a nod and a bow. “I’m glad we could reach an accommodation that permits your Service to survive.”
Adele noted with silent wonder the way Daniel verbally drew a glove over his iron fist. The present Prior would become the next Intercessor, and the same thing would happen at his death, then henceforth till time or the Service ended.
Daniel hadn’t made an open threat when he addressed the Prior and his assembled acolytes, but they’d correctly understood what he meant when he said, “I will not permit the present situation to continue.”
Intercessors lived longer than ordinary humans; the Tree was a wise and abstemious master. Much the same comparison could be made of pet cats and their feral cousins, Adele supposed. Pets generally seemed to be content, too. . . .
Most of the Sissies were aboard, making the ship ready for return to Todos Santos, but six armed spacers watched over Adele and Daniel so long as they were on the ground. From the guards’ scowls and the way they held their weapons, they genuinely thought there might be trouble.
Adele didn’t—the Service was completely cowed. But she carried her pistol and Hogg and Tovera watched the entrances on opposite sides of the long room; just in case—and at least for Hogg, in hope.
A waiting acolyte said harshly, “What happens to one man is of little account when balanced against the good of all humanity!”
His partner tried to shush him, a look of fear on his face. “Andre, it’s been decided,” the Prior said tiredly.
Adele looked at the acolyte. “Sir,” she said, “you’re welcome to make that choice regarding the worth of your own life. I wouldn’t hesitate to make it regarding mine. But you will not make that choice for a friend of mine!”
Daniel looked at her and smiled. “No, they won’t,” he said. He turned again to the Prior and repeated, “Good day.”
He strode toward the corridor leading most directly to the ship. Hogg and four of the guards walked with him.
Adele ran a fingertip over the vellum cover of A Catalog of the Library of Barnard’s World, sighed, and followed her friend—but slowly. The library of Barnard’s World, supposedly the finest collection of Terran books extant since the asteroids blasted Earth and humanity into the Hiatus, had burned three hundred years ago.
“Clear away, bitch!” one of Adele’s escort snarled, brandishing his impeller. “Or take your chances on which end of this I use on you!”
Adele raised her head, recalled from a reverie in which young Adele Mundy grew up to become Director of the Academic Collections on Bryce, revered for her knowledge and the quiet assurance of her demeanor. The novice who’d lured Daniel into the trap, Margarida, waited in the corridor.
“Mistress?” the girl said to Adele. The right side of her head had been shaved so that the pressure cut from Tovera’s sub-machine gun could be bandaged. “Might I walk with you?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” the Sissie shouted, lifting his gun for a butt-stroke.
“Vincent!” Adele said. “If I wanted her dead, I’d have killed her!”
She took a deep breath, because part of her did want the girl dead; so very much that her arm trembled with the effort of not drawing her pistol. Tovera smirked, amused to watch a conscience in action. Daniel wouldn’t have to know. . . .
“Yes, if you like,” Adele said, her voice as calm as a pond in which a great carnivore waits. Did the girl think she was going to follow Daniel aboard the Princess Cecile? “To the boarding bridge and no farther.”