"You won't, Selene." His voice bit. "You're _broken_."
She nodded vaguely, started to say something and then went out without
saying it.
Reuben luxuriously stretched in his narrow bed. Later, his beds would
be wider and softer, he thought. He drifted into sleep on a half-formed
thought that some day he might vote with other generals on the man to
wear the five stars--or even wear them himself, Master of Denv.
He slept healthily through the morning alarm and arrived late at his
regular twentieth-level station. He saw his superior, May's man Oscar
of the eighty-fifth level, Atomist, ostentatiously take his name. Let
him!
Oscar assembled his crew for a grim announcement: "We are going to even
the score, and perhaps a little better, with Ellay. At sunset there
will be three flights of missiles from Deck One."
There was a joyous murmur and Reuben trotted off on his task.
All forenoon he was occupied with drawing plutonium slugs from
hyper-suspicious storekeepers in the great rock-quarried vaults, and
seeing them through countless audits and assays all the way to Weapons
Assembly. Oscar supervised the scores there who assembled the curved
slugs and the explosive lenses into sixty-kilogram warheads.
In mid-afternoon there was an incident. Reuben saw Oscar step aside
for a moment to speak to a Maintainer whose guard fell on one of the
Assembly Servers, and dragged him away as he pleaded innocence. He had
been detected in sabotage. When the warheads were in and the Missilers
seated, waiting at their boards, the two Atomists rode up to the
eighty-third's refectory.
The news of a near-maximum effort was in the air; it was electric.
Reuben heard on all sides in tones of self-congratulation: "We'll
clobber them tonight!"
"That Server you caught," he said to Oscar. "What was he up to?"
His commander stared. "Are you trying to learn my job? Don't try it, I
warn you. If my black marks against you aren't enough, I could always
arrange for some fissionable material in your custody to go astray."
"No, no! I was just wondering why people do something like that."
Oscar sniffed doubtfully. "He's probably insane, like all the Angelos.
I've heard the climate does it to them. You're not a Maintainer or a
Controller. Why worry about it?"
"They'll brainburn him, I suppose?"
"I suppose. _Listen!_"
* * * * *
Deck One was firing. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three,
four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six.
People turned to one another and shook hands, laughed and slapped
shoulders heartily. Eighteen missiles were racing through the
stratosphere, soon to tumble on Ellay. With any luck, one or two would
slip through the first wall of interceptors and blast close enough to
smash windows and topple walls in the crazy city by the ocean. It would
serve the lunatics right.
Five minutes later an exultant voice filled most of Denv.
"Recon missile report," it said. "Eighteen launched, eighteen perfect
trajectories. Fifteen shot down by Ellay first-line interceptors, three
shot down by Ellay second-line interceptors. Extensive blast damage
observed in Griffith Park area of Ellay!"
There were cheers.
And eight Full Maintainers marched into the refectory silently, and
marched out with Reuben.
He knew better than to struggle or ask futile questions. Any question
you asked of a Maintainer was futile. But he goggled when they marched
him onto an upward-bound stairway.
They rode past the eighty-ninth level and Reuben lost count, seeing
only the marvels of the upper reaches of Denv. He saw carpets that ran
the entire length of corridors, and intricate fountains, and mosaic
walls, stained-glass windows, more wonders than he could recognize,
things for which he had no name.
He was marched at last into a wood-paneled room with a great polished
desk and a map behind it. He saw May, and another man who must have
been a general--Rudolph?--but sitting at the desk was a frail old man
who wore a circlet of stars on each khaki shoulder.