The Collection (76 page)

For
a moment he considered it and then he remembered that it was only probable,
not certain, that they'd send him to the psycher. The Callisto penal
colony-well, that wasn
^'
t so good, either, but there was always at
least a remote chance of escape from Callisto. Enough of a chance that he
wouldn
^'
t jump out of any thirtieth-story windows to avoid going
there. Maybe not even to avoid staying there.

But
if he had a chance, after being ordered to the psycher, it would be an easier
way of killing himself than the one he
^'
d thought of first.

A
voice behind him said,
^"
Your trial has been called for fourteen-ten.
That is ten minutes from now. Be ready.
^"

He
turned around and looked at the grille in the wall from which the mechanical
voice had come. He made a raspberry sound at the grille-not that it did any
good, for it was strictly a one-way communicator-and turned back to the window.

He
hated it, that sprawling corrupt city out there, scene of intrigue-as were all
other cities-between the Guilds and the Gilded. Politics rampant upon a field
of muck, and everybody, except the leaders, caught in the middle. He hated
Earth; he wondered why he'd come back to it this time.

After
a while the voice behind him said, "Your door is now unlocked. You will
proceed to the end of the corridor outside it, where you will meet the guards
who will escort you to the proper room."

He
caught the distant silver flash of a spaceship coming in; he waited a few
seconds until it was out of sight behind the buildings. He didn't wait any
longer than that because he knew this was a test. He'd heard of it from others
who'd been here. You could sit and wait for the guards to come and get you, or
you could obey the command of the speaker and go to meet them. If you ignored
the order and made them come to you, it showed you were not adjusted; it was a
point against you when the time came for your sentence.

So
he went out into the corridor and along it; there was only one way to go. A
hundred yards along the corridor two uniformed guards were waiting near an
automatic door. They were armed with holstered heaters.

He
didn't speak to them, nor they to him. He fell in between them and the door
opened by itself as they approached it. He knew it wouldn
^'
t have
opened for him alone. He knew, too, that he could easily take both of them
before either could draw a heater. A backhand blow to the guard on his left and
then a quick swing across to the other one.

But
getting down those thirty stories to the street would be something else again.
A chance in a million, with all the safeguards between here and there.

So
he walked between them down the ramp to the floor below and to the door of one
of the rooms on that floor. And through the door.

He
was the last arrival, if you didn
^'
t count the two guards who came in
after him. The others were waiting. The six jurors in the box; of whom three would
be Guilders and three Gilded. The two attorneys-one of whom had talked to him
yesterday in his cell and had told him how hopeless things looked. The operator
of the recording machine. And the judge.

He
glanced at the judge and almost let an expression of surprise show on his face.
The judge was Jon Olliver.

Crag
quickly looked away. He wondered what the great Jon Olliver was doing here,
judging an unimportant criminal case. Jon Olliver was a great man, one of the
few statesmen, as against politicians, of the entire System. Six months ago
Olliver had been the Guild candidate for Coordinator of North America. He'd
lost the election, but surely he would have retained a more important niche
for himself, in the party if not in the government, than an ordinary criminal
judge's job.

True,
Olliver had started his political career as a judge; four years ago he'd been
on the bench the one previous time Crag had been arrested and tried. The
evidence had, that time, been insufficient and the jury had freed him. But he
still remembered the blistering jeremiad Olliver had delivered to him
afterward, in the private conversation between judge and accused that was
customary whether the latter was convicted or acquitted.

Ever
since, Crag had hated Jon Olliver as a man, and had admired him as a judge and
as a statesman, after Olliver had gone into politics and had so nearly been
elected Coordinator.

But
Coordinator was the highest position to which any man could aspire. The only
authority higher was the Council of Coordinators, made up of seven Coordinators
of Earth and four from the planets, one from each major planet inhabited by the
human race. The Council of Coordinators was the ultimate authority in the Solar
System, which, since interstellar travel looked a long way off, meant the
ultimate authority in the known-to-be-inhabited universe. So it seemed almost
incredible to Crag that a man who'd almost been a Coordinator should now, in
the six months since his candidacy, have dropped back down to the unimportant
job he'd held five years ago. But that was politics for you, he thought, in
this corrupt age; an honest man didn't have a chance.

No
more of a chance than he was going to have against this frameup the police had
rigged against him.

The
trial started and he knew he
^'
d been right. The evidence was there-on
recording tapes; there were no witnesses-and it proved him completely guilty.
It was false, but it sounded true. It took only ten minutes or so to run it
off. The prosecuting attorney took no longer; he didn
^'
t have to. His
own attorney made a weak and fumbling-but possibly sincere-effort to disprove
the apparently obvious.

And
that was that. The jury went out and stayed all of a minute, and came back. The
defendant was found guilty as charged.

Judge
Jon Olliver said briefly, "Indeterminate sentence on Callisto.
^"

The
technician shut off the recording machine; the trial was over.

Crag
let nothing show on his face, although there was relief in his mind that it had
not been the psycher. Not too much relief; he'd have killed himself if it had
been, and death wasn't much worse than life on Callisto. And he knew that
indeterminate sentence on Callisto meant life sentence-unless he volunteered to
be psyched. That was what an indeterminate sentence really meant; it gave the
convicted his choice between a life sentence and the psycher.

A
signal from the judge and the others began to leave. Crag did not move; he knew
without being told that he was expected to wait for the customary private
conversation with the judge. That always came after the sentencing and, in
very rare cases, could make a change in the sentence. Sometimes, but not often,
after private conversation with a prisoner a judge lessened or increased the
sentence; he had power to do so up to twenty-four hours after his original
pronouncement.

It
was optional with the judge whether the guards remained; if he thought there
was a possibility of the prisoner attempting physical violence, he could have
them remain, with heaters ready, but back out of hearing range in a far corner
of the room. That was what Olliver had done the last tune Crag had appeared
before him, after the acquittal. Undoubtedly it was because he had recognized
the violence in Crag and had feared to provoke him by the things he was going
to say.

But
this time Oliver signaled to the guards to leave the room with the others.

Crag
stepped forward. He thought,
1 can reach across that bench and kill him
easily.
He was tempted, simply by how easy it would be, even though he knew
that it would mean the psycher-or his own private alternative.

Olliver
said, "Don
^'
t do it, Crag."

Crag
didn
^'
t answer. He didn
^'
t intend to, unless he found
himself provoked beyond endurance by what he was going to have to hear. But he
knew the best way to handle one of these interviews was to keep it strictly a
one-way conversation by refusing to talk back. Silence might annoy Olliver, but
it would not annoy him sufficiently to make him increase the sentence. And
nothing he could say would make Olliver lessen it.

^"
You
^'
d be sorry if you
did, Crag. Because I
^'
m not going to ride you this time. In fact,
I'm going to make you a proposition."

What
kind of a proposition, Crag wondered, could a judge want to make to a man he
^'
d
just sentenced to life on Callisto? But he didn't ask; he waited.

Olliver
smiled. His face was handsome when he smiled.

He
leaned forward across the bench. He said softly, "Crag, how would you like
your freedom, and a million credits?
^"

ESCAPE TO DANGER

Crag
said hoarsely, "You're kidding. And if you are-
^"

He
must have swayed forward or, without knowing it, started to lift his hand, for
Olliver jerked back and his face was a bit white as he said "Don't"
again, this time sharply.

And
he went on, fast: "I'm not-kidding, Crag. A million credits, enough to
keep you drunk the rest of your life. Freedom. And a chance to help humanity,
to null the human race out of the bog into which it has sunk in this period of
mankind's decadence. A rare chance, Crag."

Crag
said,
^"
Save that for your speeches, Judge. The hell with
humanity. But I
^'
ll settle for my freedom and a million. One thing,
though. This trial was a frameup. I didn't do it. Was it
your
frameup?"

Olliver
shook his head slowly. He said,
^"
No, not mine. But I rather
suspected it was framed. The evidence was too good. You don
^'
t leave
evidence like that, do you, Crag?"

Crag
didn't bother to answer that. He asked, "Who did it, then?"

^"
The police, I imagine. There's
an election coming up-and the Commissioner's office is elective. A few convictions
like yours will look good on the records. You're pretty well known, Crag, in
spite of the fact that there
^'
s never been a conviction against you.
The newscasts from the stations on the Gilded side are going to give Commissioner
Green plenty of credit for getting you."

It
sounded logical. Crag said, "I know what I'm going to do with part of my
freedom, then.
^"

Olliver's
voice was sharp again.
^"
Not until after, Crag. I don't care
what you do-after the job I want you to do for me. You agree to that?"

Crag
shrugged. "Okay. What's the job?
^"
He didn
^'
t
really care what it was, or even how risky it was. For the difference between
life on Callisto and freedom and a million, he couldn't think of anything he
wouldn't do. He'd try it even if there was one chance in a thousand of his
pulling it off and staying alive.

Olliver
said,
^"
This isn't the time or place to tell you about it; we
shouldn't talk too long. You'll be a free man when we talk. That much comes
first. The million comes afterwards, if you succeed."

^"
And if I turn down the job after
you've let me go?”

“I
don
^'
t think you will. It's not an easy one, but I don't think you'll
turn it down for a million, even if you're already free. And there might be
more for you in it than just money-but we won't talk about that unless you
succeed. Fair enough?"

^"
Fair enough. But-I want to be
sure about this framing business. Do you mean to tell me it was just coincidence
that you wanted me to do something for you and that I got framed and you sat on
the case?
^"

Olliver
smiled again. "It's a small world, Crag. And it's partly a coincidence,
but not as much of a one as you think. First, you're not the only man in the
system that could do what I want done.
⁺
You're one of several I had
in mind. Possibly the best, I'll give you that. I was wondering how to contact
one of you. And I saw your name on the docket and requested to sit on the case.
You should know enough about law to know that a judge can ask to sit on a case
if he has had previous experience with the accused.
^"

Crag
nodded. That was true, and it made sense.

Olliver
said, "But to brass tacks; we shouldn
^'
t be talking much longer
than this. I don't want any suspicion to attach to me when you escape."

"Escape?"

^"
Of course. You were judged
guilty, Crag, and on strong evidence. I couldn
^'
t possibly free you
legally; I couldn't even have given you a lighter sentence than I did. If I
freed you now, you I'd he impeached. But I-or perhaps I should say we-can
arrange for you to escape. Today, shortly after you
^'
re returned to
your cell to await transportation to Callisto.
^"