The woman's voice was musical, but without warmth, like a nicely
constructed music-box. "What is your name?"
He did not answer.
"You should answer, soldier. Voluntarily. I can assure you that we have
ways to force your mind to give up all of its secrets."
She waited. He did not answer.
"Your actions have been peculiar, soldier. We are interested."
Danton thought fast. They had spaceships. Three of them he had seen,
the three they no longer had, thanks to Keith. If he admitted being
from Earth it would certainly incite immediate reprisal, and Seers
wasn't ready. He wouldn't be ready for a long time. He would never be
ready to receive an attack from Mars. His idea was to send a secret
force to attack Mars, so that the New World populace would never know
about it.
A well-planned series of lies, elaborate, complex, provoking. Find out
facts. Try to postpone or avert any immediate attack on Earth. Reduce
things to as individual a level as possible. He had one advantage:
from his observations to this point, the Oligarch culture seemed not
to have changed its basic pattern. Evolution had merely moved that
pattern forward a hundred years, solidified its static essence. Cold
efficiency, egomania, class superiority--the system supported by
scientific method and a fanatical, one-track dogma based on paranoia.
He had fought this force a long time. He thought he understood it.
"Your name, soldier. Your unit and rank."
"Danton West," he said. He remembered the line-officer's words, a quick
frame of reference. "Captain. Second Army. That was a while back. More
lately of the Revolutionary Forces."
"Revolutionary--"
Danton saw their expressions alter, almost imperceptibly, but alter
they did under the masks. When that fifty-years war had ended, none of
the central ruling clique, the Oligarch Council, had been found. And
one thing seemed incredible to Danton as he stood there:
These three men and women seemed to be the same individuals who had
made up that Oligarch Council on Earth a hundred years before.