“We do not pretend that what you saw was taking place this instant in the palace. That would be too much of a coincidence. But it was taken two weeks ago; the woman is the empress. The man whose death she ordered is one of her many former lovers. He was found murdered two weeks ago; his name, if you care to look it up in the news files, is Banton McCreddie. However, let that pass. We’re finished with you now and—”
“But I’m not finished,” Fara said in a thick voice. “I’ve never heard or seen so much infamy in all my life. If you think this town is through with you, you’re crazy. We’ll have a guard on this place day and night, and nobody will get in or out. We’ll—”
“That will do.” It was the silver-haired man;. and Fara stopped out of respect for age, before he thought. The old man went on: “The examination has been most interesting. As an honest man, you may call on us if you are ever in trouble. That is all. Leave through the side door.”
It was all. Impalpable forces grabbed him, and he was shoved at a door that appeared miraculously in the wall, where seconds before the palace had been.
He found himself standing dazedly in a flower bed, and there was a swarm of men to his left. He recognized his fellow townsmen and that he was—outside.
The incredible nightmare was over.
“Where’s the gun?” said Creel, as he entered the house half an hour later.
“The gun?” Fara stared at his wife.
“It said over the radio a few minutes ago that you were the first customer of the new weapon shop. I thought it was queer, but—”
He was eerily conscious of her voice going on for several words longer, but it was the purest jumble. The shock was so great that he had the horrible sensation of being on the edge of an abyss.
So that was what the young man had meant: “Advertise! We’ll advertise his presence and—”
Fara thought: His reputation! Not that his was a great name, but he had long believed with a quiet pride that Fara Clark’s motor repair shop was widely known in the community and countryside.
First, his private humiliation inside the shop. And now this—lying —to people who didn’t know why he had gone into the store. Diabolical.
His paralysis ended, as a frantic determination to rectify the base charge drove him to the telestat. After a moment, the plump, sleepy face of Mayor Mel Dale appeared on the plate. Fara’s voice made a barrage of sound, but his hopes dashed, as the man said:
“I’m sorry, Fara. I don’t see how you can have free time on the telestat. You’ll have to pay for it. They did.”
“They did!” Fara wondered vaguely if he sounded as empty as he felt.
“And they’ve just paid Lan Harris for his lot. The old man asked top price, and got it. He just phoned me to transfer the title.”
“Oh!” The world was shattering. “You mean nobody’s going to do anything. What about the Imperial garrison at Ferd?”
Dimly, Fara was aware of the mayor mumbling something about the empress’ soldiers refusing to interfere in civilian matters.
“Civilian matters!” Fara exploded. “You mean these people are just going to be allowed to come here whether we want them or not, illegally forcing the sale of lots by first taking possession of them?”
A sudden thought struck him breathless. “Look, you haven’t changed your mind about having Jor keep guard in front of the shop?”
With a start, he saw that the plump face in the telestat plate had grown impatient. “Now, see here, Fara,” came the pompous words, “let the constituted authorities handle this matter.”
“But you’re going to keep Jor there,” Fara said doggedly.
The mayor looked annoyed, said finally peevishly: “I promised, didn’t I? So he’ll be there. And now—do you want to buy time on the telestat? It’s fifteen credits for one minute. Mind you, as a friend, I think you’re wasting your money. No one has ever caught up with a false statement.”
Fara said grimly: “Put two on, one in the morning, one in the evening.”
“All right. We’ll deny it completely. Good night.”
The telestat went blank; and Fara sat there. A new thought hardened his face. “That boy of ours—there’s going to be a showdownHe either works in my shop, or he gets no more allowance.”
Creel said: “You’ve handled him wrong. He’s twenty-three, and you treat him like a child. Remember, at twenty-three, you were a married man.”
“That was different,” said Fara. “I had a sense of responsibility. Do you know what he did tonight?”
He didn’t quite catch her answer. For the moment, he thought she said: “No; in what way did you humiliate him first?”
Fara felt too impatient to verify the impossible words. He rushed on: “He refused in front of the whole village to give me help. He’s a bad one, all bad.”
“Yes,” said Creel in a bitter tone, “he is all bad. I’m sure you don’t realize how bad. He’s as cold as steel, but without steel’s. strength or integrity. He took a long time, but he hates even me now, because I stood up for your side so long, knowing you were wrong.”
“What’s that?” said Fara, startled; then gruffly: “Come, come, my dear, we’re both upset. Let’s go to bed.”
He slept poorly.
There were days then when the conviction that this was a personal fight between himself and the weapon shop lay heavily on Fara. Grimly, though it was out of his way, he made a point of walking past the weapon shop, always pausing to speak to Constable Jor and— On the fourth day, the policeman wasn’t there.
Fara waited patiently at first, then angrily; then he walked hastily to his shop, and called Jor’s house. No, Jor wasn’t home. He was guarding the weapon store. Fara hesitated. His own shop was piled with work, and he had a guilty sense of having neglected his customers for the first time in his life. It would be simple to call up the mayor and report Jor’s dereliction. And yet— He didn’t want to get the man into trouble— Out in the street, he saw that a large crowd was gathering in front of the weapon shop. Fara hurried. A man he knew greeted him excitedly: “Jor’s been murdered, Fara!” “Murdered!” Fara stood stock-still, and at first he was not clearly conscious of the grisly thought that was in his mind: Satisfaction! A flaming satisfaction. Now, he thought, even the soldiers would have to act. They— With a gasp, he realized the ghastly tenor of his thoughts. He shivered, but finally pushed the sense of shame out of his mind. He said slowly: “Where’s the body?”
“Inside.”
“You mean, those . . . scum—” In spite of himself, he hesitated over the epithet; even now, it was difficult to think of the fine-faced, silver-haired old man in such terms. Abruptly, his mind hardened; he flared: “You mean those scum actually killed him, then pulled his body inside?”
“Nobody saw the killing,” said a second man beside Fara, “but he’s gone, hasn’t been seen for three hours. The mayor got the weapon shop on the telestat, but they claim they don’t know anything. They’ve done away with him, that’s what, and now they’re pretending innocence. Well, they won’t get out of it as easily as that. Mayor’s gone to phone the soldiers at Ferd to bring up some big guns and—”
Something of the intense excitement that was in the crowd surged through Fara, the feeling of big things brewing. It was the most delicious sensation that had ever tingled along his nerves, and it was all mixed with a strange pride that he had been so right about this, that he at least had never doubted that here was evil.
He did not recognize the emotion as the full-flowering joy that comes to a member of a mob. But his voice shook, as he said:
“Guns? Yes, that will be the answer, and the soldiers will have to come, of course.”
Fara nodded to himself in the immensity of his certainty that the Imperial soldiers would now have no excuse for not acting. He started to say something dark about what the empress would do if she found out that a man had lost his life because the soldiers had shirked their duty, but the words were drowned in a shout:
“Here comes the mayor! Hey, Mr. Mayor, when are the atomic cannons due?”
There was more of the same general meaning, as the mayor’s sleek, all-purpose car landed lightly. Some of the questions must have reached his honor, for he stood up in the open two-seater, and held up his hand for silence.
To Fara’s astonishment, the plump-faced man looked at him with accusing eyes. The thing seemed so impossible that, quite instinctively, Fara looked behind him. But he was almost alone; everybody else had crowded forward.