Some men are not born idealists...
The boys were all Alphas, of course. All tested and true, sons of men and women who'd made the grade and passed on their talents to their certified offspring. School ZL6-202 only received born-Alphas. There were other institutions for those who tested higher than their nominal grade, those with the potential but families of no account.
Born-Alphas were different, Paldit and the others told each other, swapping sniggering stories of jumped-up Beta grades they'd known, forever currying acceptance from families of the right sort. Born-Alphas — well, they just had style.
All equal in grade, hundreds of scions of good birth trained up to take their first steps on that cutthroat ladder that led to greater things. Millions of good little Alphas, across the worlds. Only the most ruthless would win through to the prized positions of those topmost rungs. For the rest, well... there were the countless offices in need of a junior boss, projects that rated a higher-grade tech, button-pushers, time-servers and the like. It was all a matter of who you knew, whose family could trade you a favour.
You didn't get to ZL6-202 in the first place unless you had the brains and the background. As in adult life, it was the use you made of them that counted.
Of course, some were more equal than others. Off-world connections helped. Governor Paldit's son, jetting home to the Pharos system three times a year, had more favours to pull at the tip of his finger than any of the pallid Earther brats. Fisher was Earth-born, but his father's wife was deputy in command of this section of the Dome. They'd tested their strength against each other five years ago when Brannam Paldit had first transferred, circling in stiff-legged menace as distant levers pulled. Obstructions and favours balanced out within the Dome and beyond, buying support from their age-mates, bidding for influence from the older boys who ran the school.
Fisher had stepped down, in the end. Traded his leadership among their year for a place as second-in-command. Between them, they ran the year-group with an iron grasp, fixing the best for their followers and keeping the others well in hand. The instructors, as ever, turned a blind eye. The school ran itself, their boyhood a precursor of adult life. From time to time, when a younger boy needed handling, an instructor would drop Paldit or those above him a quiet word.
Some of the brats had been getting cocky, of late. They'd had to work the Flake over two or three times last year before the kid had got the message. The first time, little Flaky had gone to an instructor. Mr Molden had let him blub, then called Paldit and his boys back in for another session. It took a while, but Flaky cottoned on.
Every year there was some new sprog with ideas above his station. Some of them would follow Paldit and Fisher up the ladder. The Flake would never be one of them. He didn't have what it took.
This year, he'd been keeping his head down, hanging around with a group of younger boys from the new intake. Paldit had kept an eye on him for a while — anyone thick enough to take three beatings to see sense bore watching, in his book — but Flaky had paid over his dues and kept his eyes down when the big boys passed, and Paldit had concluded he'd finally learned his lesson. They all did, in the end. It didn't matter who you thought you were. It was who you knew.
Paldit and Fisher, together, cocks of the walk. Feared and admired by the whole school. He'd told big Beefy Rangin once to hold his thumb in the tool-laser down in the workshop, just to see what would happen. And Beefy — who outweighed him by fifty pounds, who'd had hair on his chest since they were twelve years old, who could strip a micro-grenade faster than anyone in the school — had stuck his whole hand in the laser beam and held it there for fear of what Paldit might do, and it had cost a week's worth of favours to get the bigger boy's assignments covered until the burns healed enough for him to hold a stylus.
Five years on, and the last of the older boys were gone. Paldit and his followers reigned supreme, the ultimate court of appeal. The school stretched away beneath them, rank upon rank of juniors obedient to their every call. Life was sweet, for those with the strength to grasp it.
He'd thought it was his right, his by merit. He'd never known how fast the knife-edge of power could twist.
"Brannam Paldit?"
Old Mouldy — Mr Molden — had called him out of class with that deadpan voice of his, giving no clue. All done with the utmost discretion. All so correct.
Paldit had shoved his tablet back into the desk — one of the others would get the work finished off — and followed Old Mouldy down to his narrow office, swaggering to a seat across a chair as he waited for the instructor to ask him the favour. Some new kid asking the wrong question in class, maybe. Maybe a travel upgrade for Mouldy's sister's niece.
And then Molden had broken the news, in that same flat voice, with only the deadly little sparkle in his eyes to betray just how much pleasure he was taking in the recital; how the balance of power had swung, in an instant, from the strapping youth to the dried up, grey-haired old man. Paldit had never known, until that moment, just how much Molden hated him.
He'd read the newsflash again for himself, the printout still warm on the flimsy pseudopaper. His hand had been trembling enough to betray him, and the blurring letters were hard to read.
'GOVERNOR PALDIT DENOUNCED BY DEPUTY. EVIDENCE OF MASSIVE PECULATION IN PHAROS SYSTEM. PALDIT ESTATES UNDER OFFICIAL SEAL. TRIAL DATE SET 02/05.'
His first conscious thought had been "Father, you fool." But the instinctive reaction that preceded it had been that of a much younger child: "All gone..."
All gone. All his own possessions, all the treasures on display in his father's office. He could imagine what was going on out there even as he read. He'd seen it all before, when Governor Beloss had lost her seat, and his father had moved to take her place. 'Under official seal' meant open wide, for the Civil Administration to take what it liked. For the deputy who'd found a chink in the Governor's armour to reward himself.
Brannam had been eleven years old. The youngest Beloss girl couldn't have been above seven. He'd stood on the edge of the lawns that were to be his, hands on hips, practising proprietorship, and watched the workmen carting out his predecessors' junk, stacking it high in preparation for grav-compaction. The little girl had come running out, howling, beating at the men, to try to retrieve some shabby favourite toy.
She hadn't understood her mother's suicide and disgrace, all the machinations that had brought Paldit up and Beloss down. All she'd understood was that her home was being pulled apart piece by piece for its face-value, all her beloved treasures discarded like the rubbish they were.
Father, of all people, should have known enough to cut his deputy in on the take. By the sound of it, he hadn't even had the guts — or the wits — to follow Beloss' example and blow his brains out.
Brannam Paldit had gone back to class in a state of shock, fending off the queries of the others with automatic hints and whispers. All gone. No more trips out to Pharos. No more little luxuries shipped from home. No more home, unless Mother's people could cram him into an apartment somewhere.
Father had put him down for the Space Academy almost at birth; spared no expense. Brannam, who'd planned out for himself a safer and more lucrative career over in AgTech, had never quite got round to letting the old man know he didn't mean to go in for combat flying after all... not when he got flashy toys like the latest full-size flight sim unit out of it. Lev Fisher fancied himself as a hot-shot pilot. Paldit had planned to take him back to Pharos this winter, show the Earther just what off-world tech could do. No chance of that now. The treasured sim unit would be gone like the rest.
He hadn't realised, even then, the whole implications of what his father had done to him. What would happen once the others found out.
He should have run while he had the chance, he told himself, throat raw and gasping. Quit the school and taken up that AgTech place a few months early. It hadn't even been bravado that brought him down to breakfast the next morning as if nothing had happened. He'd made his father's mistake. It hadn't even occurred to him that his deputy might still be nursing ambitions of his own...
Yesterday, Paldit had been somebody. Master of all he surveyed, leader of the pack. Now, with his father's power in ruins, he was any man's meat — and the first to work that out could take his place. Fisher, as ever, had been quick off the mark.
"Paldit, we know you're in there." Beefy's voice, calling the hunt down. They were gathering at the head of the lift-shaft. He'd jammed the lift. They wouldn't get down here unless they climbed the shaft, as he had. It wouldn't stop them for long.
Fisher laughed, somewhere up above. "Come out and play, Paldit. Here, Ditty-ditty-ditty... here ditty-ditty..."
The summons was taken up by a dozen throats in a howl of derision, and for a moment, half-choked by the mockery, Paldit almost turned at bay. But they'd caught up with him once already. He couldn't run much longer. His only chance was down here in the basement, where he could hide. Somewhere.
Boots rang in the access shaft, and Paldit caught his breath and stumbled on. He didn't know who'd let the news slip. Old Mouldy could have told the whole class there and then if he'd wanted. But he'd done it by the book, as ever, always so discreet. No, Mouldy would have played the facts close to his chest, waited to use the leverage. There'd be no more favours to be milked from Paldit, not now. Molden must be cursing his luck.
It didn't matter, in the end, who'd found out. The end was the same. The pack that had hunted so long at his heel was baying close on his track - and once they'd pulled him down, it would only be the start. Bran Paldit was fair game now for all those who'd ever hated him; all those who'd ever wanted to strike back.
He staggered to a halt, bent double to catch his breath, as bruises protested with every move. Had to stop. Had to find somewhere they'd never guess...
The room was bare and white. A dead-end. Big doors. A spatter of dried blood, scuffed on the floor. They'd brought Flaky down here, that third time last year. Where no-one could hear him yell.
The brat had lived up to his name when they'd finally let him out. Ashen-pale and dangling in Beefy's grasp, the only colour beneath the matted hair had been the caked blood from his lip and nose. But they could have done worse, a dozen youths against one nine-year-old. Paldit remembered the crunch as the bar in his hand had thudded home against the boy's face; remembered pulling the blow. The Flake had been small fry, not worth damaging, not permanently. But Fisher and the rest wouldn't be holding back this time. Not with him.
A half-sob of panic. He had to get out of here... but it was too late.
Voices at the foot of the lift-shaft. Paldit froze, edging the door shut. Maybe they wouldn't come this way. Maybe it was the last place they'd think of looking.
He took the risk and darted across to get the other door moving, heaving the last of his strength against its ponderous weight. The sounds of the others' footsteps echoed confusingly in the passageway outside. He couldn't tell whether or not they'd picked up his trail.
Both doors were shut now. He looked around wildly and found the bar he'd remembered, jamming it crosswise behind the doors. A few empty boxes. That wouldn't stop them more than two minutes.
And then there was nothing more he could do, but sit and wait in helpless silence. Willing them to go by.
"Paldit."
Right outside the door. His stomach lurched. He tried not to breathe.
"Now that wasn't too clever, was it, Ditty-boy? Straight back to your good old haunts, with a trail in the dust twenty spacials wide..." Fisher sniggered, and the door creaked as if someone had leaned on it experimentally. Paldit's mouth had gone dry. He couldn't have spoken if he'd tried.
"You made me eat dirt, Ditty-boy. I sucked up to you for five years just to get back half the place that was mine. Maybe you'd like a taste of what your grand Governor-father is getting..." Fisher sniggered again in anticipation, and it was taken up by all the rest. The door quivered. Caught between the instinct to fling his own shoulders to brace that frail barrier and to back away before it fell, Paldit was frozen, trapped like a rat on the point of a soldier's knife.
"C'mon, Beefy -"
The buzzer for classes sounded, far above.
Spherical Geometry, Paldit thought, in a tiny automatic part of his mind. Astro-navigation swot-stuff. Space Academy requirement. He could have cut that class with impunity for an hour's fun down in the basement... but Fisher couldn't. Beefy Rangin couldn't. The flicker of hope was almost more painful than the cringing certainty that had preceded it. It all depended on how badly they wanted to take him down...
A murmur of voices outside. Dismissive laughter. A clang. They were going.
Behind closed doors, as his knees gave way, Brannam Paldit slid down to a crouch in the angle of the wall, and wept.
They'd taken his chrono, earlier. Time passed, marked only by the harsh note of the school buzzer overhead. After a while he knew he should move; but it was hard to leave the illusory safety of the barricaded room. Stiffened muscles screamed. A few more minutes, he told himself. A few more minutes, and he'd have his strength back...
The triple blast of the buzzer cut through his daze, startling him to his feet despite the bruises. Third sitting for the canteen — and his own empty belly confirmed it. The afternoon meal was all but over. Spherical Geo had been finished for hours. What was Fisher up to? Why hadn't they come back, to finish off what they'd started?
Not pity. He knew Lev Fisher better than that. Remembered what they'd done last year to little Flaky... remembered muffled laughter as the others left.
All stiffness forgotten, Paldit flung himself at his improvised barricade, tearing apart the boxes, jerking the jammed crossbar free. He yanked at the handles with all his might. The doors wouldn't move.
Big Beefy had pulled down the locking bar by hand. They'd shut him in, down in the basement with no-one to hear... just like they'd done with the Flake.
Oh, they'd come back for Flaky, twelve hours later, when he finally went quiet. Dragged him out like a wet rag at the end of Beefy's arm, laughing at the fresh marks on his hands and face where he'd beaten against the door, grinning at the way he'd messed himself. Tough medicine. They hadn't had any more trouble out of the little squirt.
How long was Fisher going to leave him here? Panic set in. How long before he was missed? How long would the instructors trouble to search? He had to get out — he had to get out —
His fingernails were torn from clawing before he admitted defeat, whimpering a little in his throat. "Fisher, I know you're listening — I know you can hear me —"
Threats. Promises. Begging. Abasement. Raw howls at the last, a trapped animal.
Nothing from beyond. Not even a snigger. No-one to hear. No-one at all. He lost track of time around that point. It was much later that the lights dimmed.
Night cycle. It was the first coherent thought he'd had in some time. Moments after, the second thought was that he could hear voices.
Fisher — no. Whispering, when Fisher had nothing to hide. A moment's outbreak, quickly hushed, was high-pitched and childish. Some of the younger boys, creeping round after lights-out.
Paldit tried to yell, felt his voice crack and managed a hoarse bellow. "Hey — you — juniors — get over here! Get this door open, or it'll be the worse for you! You know who I am —"
"We know who you are." The smaller boy's quiet voice was very close on the far side of the door. "We know they're after you, Paldit. The whole school knows."
They'd come to gloat. It was the Flake.
Paldit hardly knew what he'd said in the next few minutes. Knew he'd been weeping, pleading, a torrent of speech that drowned out whatever the other boy's words might have been.
"No!" Flaky had abandoned caution, was yelling in his turn. "It's not like that. We've come to get you out!"
'We'? Stunned at last into silence, Paldit pressed his face against the door, listening as the younger boy marshalled his group. Little Flaky had learnt to keep his head down last year, all right. It seemed that wasn't the only thing he'd learnt.
There had to be a dozen of them at least out there, skinny nine- and ten-year-olds barely half his weight. Working all together, they could pull him down — him and Fisher both, or any other two or three of Fisher's group.
And maybe, just maybe, there were enough of the juniors to force up that locking bar Beefy had slammed so casually down.
Paldit listened to them trying. Listened to the grating sounds, the thud as the bar slipped and crashed back home. Listened to the unbelievable sweet click as the bar split and lifted back into its sockets, and the door trembled and swung towards him as the lock slid free.
He managed a few steps back as the door opened. The other boy's eyes met his as an equal, unafraid. For the first time, Paldit was aware of the tear-stains on his own face. It didn't seem to matter. He swallowed. "Flaky —"
The old nickname didn't fit. Never had, if Paldit was honest. Even a year ago, white and retching as Beefy held him up, the kid hadn't flaked out.
"Roj," the Flake said quietly, with what might have been a smile. "Roj will do. Roj Blake."
And somehow he was reaching down gravely to shake the kid's hand, ten years old to seventeen, and none of those watching seemed to find anything odd in it at all.
"Lev Fisher's coming back in an hour," Roj was saying with a frown. "The whole school knows what happened — you won't be safe now, even if you can keep out of his way till daylight. You can't stay here at ZL6-202, Paldit. We're going to have to get you out. Have you got anywhere in the city you can stay? There's my parents' apartment, down on Level 183 —"
"You'd let him anywhere near your people? After what his lot did to Mikey's brother, and Felson?" Whatever influence Roj had used to get the other juniors down here, it was clear enough some of them were less than happy. "He got nothing from Fisher but what they gave out to the rest of us, with him the worst of the lot — and now you're trusting Bran Paldit?"
Letting him off scot-free into the bargain. The words weren't spoken, but they were there.
"I trust a man by the company he keeps." It was said very simply. Roj looked up, glancing round the little circle, and caught Brannam's gaze in his own steady eyes. "Paldit's one of us."
A gift, and a promise exacted, in the same moment. When Roj Blake was grown, Brannam understood in that instant, men would follow him to the ends of the earth — and beyond.
He nodded in return. I'll protect them, Roj. These children, and others like them. I'll protect them from those of my own kind... as best I can.
One of the boys had brought down Brannam's kit from his room — what was left of it. He'd found a wearable change of clothing from among the stuff that had been slashed, plus another set that would do at a pinch, and sorted out a small case of personal belongings without the betraying Pharos crest. The data tapes had all been scrawled over and discarded, half of them with casings cracked; nothing there he cared enough to salvage — except —
In sudden panic, he scrabbled through the remnants. He'd left the enrolment tape in amongst the rest. If they'd found that... or, worse, smashed it without even a thought.... Roj caught the movement and looked across with a frown; but in that same moment the older boy's fingers closed around the small grey datatape, unmarked and anonymous, and Brannam felt his own face go slack with relief.
"Here." He held it out. "Thanks for the offer, Roj, but that's all I'll need. Enrolment into AgTech; it's big enough to disappear in, and Fisher won't know or care. He and his lot can have the Space Academy and welcome — bio-research is where the future'll be, with the Outer Worlds opening up..."
A sense almost of freedom hit him. Who cared about school any more, anyway? He had the grades for AgTech already; didn't need the extra months of classes for that. Let old Lev hang around with the schoolboys, the big Fisher in a small pond. There were wider prospects out there, and they all lay ahead.
Roj had flicked the playback circuits, and was trying to make sense of the grainy data. For the first time, he looked like a small boy out of his depth. "But this isn't in your name, Paldit —"
"No... well..." He shrugged it off, grinning for the first time. "I faked a few fields on the entry form. The numbers add up, and that's all the computers care. I didn't want it getting round at home ahead of time." Never had quite worked out how he was going to break it to his father, to be honest... And then the rueful smile slid off sideways as if it had never been.
That wasn't going to be a problem, now. Wasn't going to be a problem ever again. Father, you fool...
"Just as well, the way it turned out." He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, and almost succeeded. "'Paldit' won't be too healthy a name to carry for a while, by the looks of it."
Roj looked very young and very puzzled, he thought. Wanting to help, but not knowing how. A spectre without appeal hung between them over his father's head, the only law that could not be breached at one time or another with impunity: Thou shalt not get caught. When he grew up, the kid would have to learn some time there were things you just couldn't fix.
Brannam gathered up his belongings, glancing round again at the circle of small faces, all so intent. Somehow, he didn't think Roj and this mutual protection league of his were going to stop here. It occurred to him for the first time that Fisher might not find his path from now on quite as smooth as he'd been counting on. The prospect had appeal.
It was with a genuine grin that he held out his hand for the datatape's return. "Good luck, Roj Blake. I won't forget."
Roj took the older boy's hand, with a glance at the name on the tape, and hesitated a moment before returning the grin with interest. "Good luck then — Bran Foster..."
Return to Igenlode's Blake's 7 page