Stormbel drew his automatic and leveled it at Ramisson’s back. “You have one warning,” he called out. Ramisson kept walking. Stormbel fired. Ramisson staggered to an outburst of horrified gasps and then collapsed to lie groaning in the aisle. Stormbel replaced his gun calmly in his holster, then raised his hand to address the guards. “Remove that man, and see to it that he receives medical attention.” Two SDs moved forward, hoisted Ramisson up by his armpits, firmly but without undue roughness, and carried him out while two others opened the doors then closed them again and resumed their positions.
“Are there any more objectors?” Sterm inquired. Behind him Wellesley, white faced and haggard, slumped into his chair.
“Stop this now,” Borftein advised grimly. “How much of the Army do you think will follow you?”
Stormbel gave him a contemptuous look. “How much of your Army is left?” he asked. “Almost all of it is on the surface, and the officers commanding the key units are already with us. Besides, we control the ship, which is the most important thing.”
“For now,” Sterm added. “The rest comes later.”
Borftein licked his ups and thought frantically. As Stormbel! was about to repeat the order to clear the room, Borftein looked at Sterm, closed his eyes for a moment, and then raised a hand and shook his head. Sterm looked at him questioningly. “I m not sure I even know what’s happened,” Borftein said. “It’s been too sudden. Just what do you think you’re going to do?” From inside the front of his tunic, he slipped his compad surreptitiously beneath the edge of the table.
Sterm emitted a sigh of sorely tried patience. “I will endeavor to spell it out in simple terms,” he replied. “This act of clowns has been…”
While staring at Sterm, Borftein tapped Judge Fulmire’s personal call code with his fingertips and moved the compad quietly beneath some loose papers lying against a folder in front of him on the table.
Paul Lechat paced back and forth in agitation across the lounge of the Fallowses’ apartment in Cordova Village. “I didn’t think the Chironians would go that far.” he said. “I thought they would react only against direct violence. Why couldn’t they have just let everything die a natural death?”
“Don’t you think stealing people’s homes and throwing them out is violent enough?” Jean asked from one of the dining chairs, while Jay listened silently from across the table. “What were they supposed to do? They ignored the soldiers and settled it with the man responsible. He should have been expecting it.”
Lechat shook his head. “It wasn’t necessary. In a few more days Ramisson would have been elected, almost certainly. Then everything would have worked itself out smoothly and tidily. This action complicates everything again. Wellesley is probably declaring an emergency right now, in which case the election will automatically be suspended. It puts everything back weeks, maybe months.”
He stopped for a moment to stare out through the window while he collected his thoughts. Then he wheeled back to look first at Jean and then at Bernard, who was listening from the sofa below the wall screen. “Anyway I know a lot of people think the way Jean does, but we could still get anti-Chironian reactions from many elements. That’s what worries me. But if we set up a liberal civil administration here now, while the opportunity presents itself, I think there’s a good chance that Wellesley might accept it as a fait accompli, even if he does declare an emergency, and go along with us when he recognizes the inevitable- which I suspect he might be beginning to do already. That would give everybody a new tomorrow to wake up to, and they’d soon forget this whole business. But there isn’t much time. That’s why I skipped the meeting. Now you two can help, pretty much in the ways we’ve discussed. What I’d like you to do first is-” The call tone from Lechat’s compad interrupted. He looked down Instinctively at the breast pocket of his jacket. “Excuse me for a moment.”
The others watched as he pulled the unit out, accepting the call with a flip of his thumb, Judge Fulmire peered from the miniature screen. “Are you alone, Paul?” Fulmire asked without preamble. His voice was clipped and terse.