Part 4 (1/2)
”Being expected,” said Dalroi sourly, ”is a luxury I can do without. I appear to have been elected target practice for every murderous thug for a pretty fair radius.”
”You knew it was dangerous when you took on the job.”
”I'm not speaking of natural chances. I speak in the capacity of a full fledged sitting duck. I am antic.i.p.ated whichever way I turn.”
”You spoke to Madden?” asked Cronstadt impatiently. ”How did he react?”
”Twisted,” said Dalroi. ”Like everything else about this affair. He tried to bribe me and then set an a.s.sa.s.sin to follow me. I lost two good friends in that episode. Somebody's going to pay for that mistake.”
”Curious,” said Cronstadt. ”I thought Madden was the one Failway contact who might be persuaded to reason.”
”That's the way I saw it too.”
Dalroi got up and paced the office thoughtfully. The walls were s.h.i.+mmering with tri-di murals of the great north forests, lending the impression that the room was an isolated island in a world of cold and conifer.
Symbolically the woods mirrored Cronstadt the man: frigid, inaccessible, demanding. Then the tri-di s.h.i.+vered and dissolved with the inscrutable complexity of the art, and suddenly Dalroi was staring into the blinding white-heat of a blast furnace, mentally reeling in the face of the streaming fury of boiling steel cascading into some unnoticed ladle. Instinctively he stepped back as if to escape the jaws of h.e.l.l.
”Effective, isn't it?” asked Cronstadt, his finger still on the b.u.t.ton.
Dalroi nodded. The symbolism was not wasted on him. ”For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory ... !”
”What's that?”
”Skip it!” said Dalroi. ”It seems you don't know me very well. I'm a lone wolf in all things and whereas I can stand a little cooperation I don't take kindly to being thrown to the wolves. Try it once more and I'll hit you so hard they'll have to fetch you out of orbit to bury you.”Cronstadt recovered his composure. ”For a n.o.body, Dalroi, you have remarkably big ideas.”
”And for a rich man, Cronstadt, you have a remarkable tendency to confuse yourself with G.o.d.”
Cronstadt inhaled sharply, then his face broadened into a slight, slow smile. ”It seems we begin to understand each other. I see how you gained your reputation.”
”And I, how you lost yours.”
”Touche! You choose your a.s.sociates with care.”
”I have to,” said Dalroi sourly. ”They all carry knives and I've a very broad back. Now I want to know what the h.e.l.l is going on. I joined you in good faith for a fight with Failway. Since then I've tangled with nearly everyone who has a gun or a brickbat and a general grudge against humanity. You're giving me the b.l.o.o.d.y run-around and I want to know why. Start talking.”
Cronstadt inspected his nails closely. ”You think I'm responsible?”
”I know you are. I was baptised under the shadow of the mighty double-cross. Ask your friend Gormalu about our last interview. What was your purpose in hiring me for a twisted, two-faced a.s.signment like this?”
”Some people hire technicians and advisers: we hire fanatics - they have a single-mindedness which begets results. You were picked because you have the disruptive and demoralising talents which we need.”
”Who is 'we'? Your bogus committee?”
Cronstadt opened a desk drawer, withdrew a chess-piece and stood it on the table. ”Does that answer your question?”
”Not quite,” said Dalroi. ”I've got the wrong shaped head to make a convincing Trojan-horse. I'm getting the h.e.l.l out to fight a private war on my own.”
”You're too late,” said Cronstadt gently. ”Too late and much too valuable. We couldn't let you go now if we wanted to. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The die is already cast. We've big things planned for you.”
”Such as a marble slab?”
”If necessary, but I don't think we shall need it. You seem to possess a high degree of immunity against ordinary murder and an innate capacity for violent destruction. Those are most useful a.s.sets for someone who is intended to take on Failway almost single handed.”
”Do me a favour!” said Dalroi. ”All this power-play has addled your brain. Sure I'm tough. You have to be tough to stay self-respecting down in the river area, but there's another hundred thousand just as tough playing the rackets or doing time on the Moor.”
”I wonder,” said Cronstadt quietly. He twisted round suddenly. Something flashed from his hand, glinting in the dim light - a sharp knife, curving.
Dalroi moved sideways with instant reaction, scarcely aware of how he moved or why. One instant he was leaning on the desk, the next he was standing bewildered with the knife he had caught still trembling in his fingers, the blade buried in his sleeve. But for his action the blade would have been buried in his heart. The wrath surged upon him like a runaway train-load of white-hot coals. With an uncontrollablemadness he sprang towards Cronstadt intent on wreaking terrible vengeance.
The baron offered no resistance. He stood perfectly still, smiling very slightly, looking Dalroi straight in the eyes. Had he done otherwise he would have been torn limb from limb. The unexpectedness of his composure robbed Dalroi of the blind anger, robbed him even of words.
Dalroi swayed uncertainly, peering once again into the blazing chasm which had opened momentarily in his mind. As the angry gulf closed down he found he was trembling from head to foot, his stomach knotted with the fearful implications.
”Lord!” he said. ”Don't you ever try a trick like that again if you want to stay alive.”
”That was by way of demonstration.” Sweat stood out on Cronstadt's brow. ”How many of your hundred thousand could catch an unexpected knife in mid-flight? Have you any idea of the reaction speed needed to do just that?”
”You knew I'd stop it,” said Dalroi accusingly. ”How?”
”Because we looked a long time for somebody with just that sort of talent. If you look long enough you can find somebody with a flair for anything. Your speciality appears to be staying violently alive. I would go so far as to say you're something of a genius at it.”
”I manage to get by,” said Dalroi sourly. ”But let's get this straight. I contracted into this as one of a team.
What's this single-handed idea?”
”Think what we're trying to do with Failway. It's as big as the government and it isn't limited by the same niceties of means and morality. If the government declared war on Failway there wouldn't be any government by morning. Yet somebody's got to chop Failway back to size, somebody more terrible than the most ruthless opposition.”
”We should have done it years ago,” said Dalroi.
”Years ago, yes, but we didn't see the danger until too late. Now there is no civilised course of action left to take. Failway maintains a staff of around five hundred thousand souls, most of whom are virtually slaves, and the visitors average about four million. With that many potential hostages not even the Black Knights dare make an overt move of war. Failway is a dictators.h.i.+p which wouldn't hesitate at ma.s.s murder if it helped to maintain its hold. It's the most savage and b.l.o.o.d.y-minded piece of blackmail in the history of the human race.”
”You don't have to tell me,” said Dalroi. ”Failway grows like a malignant cancer, feeding on the very filth and degradation which it breeds. You can't remove such barbarous poisons with good intentions and prayers; you have to take up a knife and hack out the rotting flesh, losing the limb if necessary, cauterising the wound with red-hot iron and cooling the iron with tears of pain. Barbarity must match barbarity, cruelty match cruelty; a dozen eyes for an eye and a hundred lives for a limb.”
”Very true,” said Cronstadt, ”but do you appreciate the strategy needed for such a task? To send an army or even a team into Failway would result in the most unholy slaughter of thousands if not millions of innocent people. If Failway can be broken it can only be by one man who can't be touched by force or guile, fear or pity; one man whose frenzy is such that he could bear a million murders on his conscience without snapping; a man whose terrible thirst for vengeance would lead him on where even dedicated madmen fear to tread.”
”And I take it that I've been elected?””Just so. It had to be. somebody tough and somebody who was not afraid to kill; it had to be somebody with a pa.s.sionate and relentless hatred of Failway and with a mind strong enough not to burn out under the strain: and primarily it had to be somebody whose innate capacity and ruthless determination to survive transcended all other emotions. We needed an indestructible and highly intelligent gutter-rat. It turned out to be you.”
”Suppose I don't choose to be a b.l.o.o.d.y martyr?”
”You have no choice. We aren't fools, Dalroi. Either Failway goes under or we do, taking the remnants of our type of civilisation with us. n.o.body ever supposed you'd choose to take on the job. I merely put it to you that you don't have any alternative. Failway's already after your guts, we've made sure of that.
We've told them just how dangerous you are. Now you either fight Failway with our support or you fight them without.”
”Fiends in h.e.l.l!” said Dalroi. ”What kind of proposition do you call that?”