CHAPTER SIX

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Tired as he was, Gunnar Holt could still evaluate a tone of voice. Now that he could see the set whole and steady, he could also see that, size and color apart, there was nothing familiar about the suits worn by the reception party. They were very sophisticated items.

Visors were clear plexiglass, with the air-change function housed in a deep collar, like a thick ruff. Legs were corrugated and ended in high-laced ankle boots with thick foam rubber soles. At the waist there was a broad belt hung about with pouches. Men on either side of the spokesman had drawn bulbous hand guns, of a type he had never seen even in illustration.

Shesha Haddon asked huskily, "How do I get to be here?"

Holt said, "Don't worry about that. Everybody has to be somewhere. We've arrived at Woodslee and it looks as though a party from Alpha are paying it a visit. How do you feel now?"

"Better every minute. Thirsty, actually."

"This will save us a lot of time, we can go up with them."

Taubman's voice cut coldly into the dialogue. "You will be the man Holt and the woman Haddon, who have caused a disturbance on Horizon Delta. Do you seriously think we could tolerate your activities in Horizon Alpha? You are already outside the law. One of the objectives of this mission is to finish the job that the special force has failed to do."

Shesha Haddon, still feeling confused, said, "What's he talking about? What does he mean?"

"Nothing good." Holt took her hand, moving slowly and making the intention plain. He spoke to the center man.

"You know about us. Then you will know that we do not belong on Horizon Delta. Everything we have done has been toward finding a way out. The damage has come from the mechanical marvels that tried to stop us. If you know so much, you will know that is true. Now that we see you, it is even more plain. We belong on whichever horizon you have come from. What can be wrong with that as a proposition?"

"Your opinion is of no importance. You are deviants. Eugenically tainted. You belong nowhere. You have canceled any rights you might have had, by your actions. As representative of the law enforcement division, my ruling has legal force. Hicks, Grove. Kill them."

Holt felt the nudge of a sixth sense before the payoff and had shifted his grip to the girl's shoulder. He shoved hard and threw himself sideways. Two meters of clear space opened between them, and twin searing jets flared away through the hole in the bulkhead. A girl's voice from the end of the line called sharply, "Stop! You can't do it, Guy."

A tin-can clatter from outside the hatch made a further diversion. Taubman said, "Wait!" He stepped out of the semicircle himself, carefully keeping from masking the line of fire, and looked through the hatch.

Holt, on hands and knees and feeling like a dog, saw him take a dull-gray palm-sized ovoid from his belt and speak to it.

It was bitter confirmation that the specials were under direct control from Alpha. Taubman said, "All special details. Stand still. Remain on alert." Then he addressed his own party, paying no attention to the two heraldic beasts crouched left and right "Let me remind you, Joanna, you are here as an observer. What difference will it make to them, if they wait a few days for a computer to make the same decision?"

There was no easy answer to it, and she was still searching for an unshakable argument when the only other nontechnical member of the group spoke quickly in support.

Taubman's safari had finally been set up with a blend of political and professional nominees. Grove and Hicks were members of the security force, agents with a long record of discreet assassinations. Harold Sark was second man in the hierarchy of the City Engineer's department, actively being groomed to be the next pro-Taubman place holder in the top slot. Cooley was in as a direct observer from the Council. If anybody, he should have been the one to call for politic caution and the due process of justice having been accomplished with witnesses.

In fact, support came from Dr. Jacob Dimeter, included on the tally as a well-known dianetician, whose observations on the Woodslee scene would make the trip respectable on Actualities Newscasts. He said,

"I agree with the Subcontroller. I know that we have monitor records of the life cycle of deviants, but there are other lines of inquiry that would give interesting data. Our experimental psychology labs have not had such subjects for many years. Even as training exercises for our students, there would be enough value to justify taking them back. I concede that it is inconvenient, but you would be making a valuable contribution to mental research."

Joanna said quickly, "That was what I had in mind. There have not been any close studies of people moved, at this age, from an enclosed Horizon into the open. There is no security problem, they will be kept under supervision. In any case, they are easy to identify.

They are both unusual. Red hair, for instance, is not recorded on any current profile in Wirral City, and the girl is a unique flowering of recessive genes."

Grove, a heavily built, balding man, who had Shesha Haddon lined up as a target, had come to his own conclusion about the unique bit. He was not too clear on the rest of the message, but he said, "That's right, Boss, you can leave her to me. I'll watch the monkey."

Taubman said, "Very well. They can stay here. We'll pick them up on the way back. Stay with them, Grove. I'll leave you on guard."

Holt had been sidetracked by the face behind Joanna Taubman's plexiglass dome. Shesha, who had sized up Grove's interest, followed the direction of his fixed gaze and said bitterly, "I want no favors, I'll go back to Delta."

But Taubman was already moving his party on. Now, they could see a line of androids parked along the far wall beside two elevator shafts. An unfamiliar type, intermediate in size between the precinct forces and the specials. Steel gray and heavily armored, hung about with ancillary gear to face any crisis from a blown fuse to a forest fire. Beyond them, the bulkhead was open in a wide rectangle. Seemingly the Alpha group had come in that way.

Grove's handyman whipped out a tubular grab and pinned Holt back to the bulkhead by his throat, before he could take any avoiding action.

Shesha Haddon edged cautiously to his side, brown eyes all pupil. Illogically she said, "Don't let him touch me."

For Holt, it was the classic situation of a man unable to protect his own. He was at one with peasants down the millennia who had been pushed around by the higher echelons. He had gotten her into this. After trying to shift the grab with both hands, he knew for a fact that whatever Grove had in mind, he would be powerless to stop him. Beyond all else, he was grappling with the knowledge that he was as much an outcast on Alpha as anywhere else. Even the nubile blonde's intervention seemed colored by motives that had nothing to do with himself as a person.

Grove seemed ready to wait his time. The rest of the contingent took turns to go up in the cages. Two loads of androids sent up first with instructions to fan out and hold a bridgehead. Then the six. Last aboard, Taubman spared a parting word for the jailer, loud enough to make the point to the detainees.

"I'm not choosy about taking them back. If you have trouble, you know what to do. I'll take responsibility if anything terminal happens to them."

"Thanks, Boss. I'll remember that. I like a free hand."

When the cage had gone there was a digestive silence, and the small noises of the telemetering gear came over the threshold of attention. There was a large clock on the main console with a sweep second hand that moved two centimeters at a go with a soft, sliding click. It was fifteen-forty on the nose. Lights flicked up an indicator panel and held steady as the last cage reached its goal somewhere in Woodslee precinct. The mezzanine of the executive tower, more than likely.

Grove heaved himself casually off the wall, where he had been parked, sauntered over to Shesha Haddon, and grabbed her roughly by the left arm. He said, "Let's have you out of that comic outfit and see what the rest looks like. If the ginger deviant doesn't let go, I'll have my zombie friend squeeze the pips out of him."

Holt had his left arm clamped around her waist and felt the tremor that started up. Ether way she had a problem. But, right off, there was a danger of being pulled apart. She said, "Let go, Gunnar. Please. It doesn't matter."

Grove mimicked her voice, "Let go, Gunnar, like the man said." Gunnar Holt transferred his grip to the grab and took his weight on it, while he swung both feet up to kick at the android's dome.

Except for coming near to dislocating his neck, it made no change in the status quo. It was like kicking a wall.

Shesha said, "Stop it, Gunnar. He'll kill you. It doesn't matter." Repetition confirmed that her thinking had matched his own. High hopes of Alpha were in eclipse. She was in a limbo where values were drowned out. She was already two-thirds through the seals and the suit collapsed around her on the deck.

"Nice, very nice." Grove put a hand flat on her chest and steered her around, until she could feel the edge of a desk against her tights. "Now the rest. Start with that chain mail. Real slow, as if you was preparing a big surprise."

To Gunnar Holt's inflamed eye, the set was etched in acid. Every tick of the clock fell like a lead disk. Shesha Haddon had her arms above her head with the metallic filigree tube clear of her chin, a taut, erect figure, sculptured in warm bronze, hemisphere breasts, lifted and tightened by the mechanics of the action, in the highest tradition of Hindu temple art.

Grove had a hand out to touch, when the tableau held as though an actualizer had struck a repeating loop. Only the clock moved on. Fifteen forty-three. It seemed longer since the expedition had moved out.

Gunnar Holt was aware of more activity on every dial on the computer spreads. And Grove, led by the weight of his extended arm was crumpling forward onto the parquet.

Shesha had her head clear. She was swaying, holding on to the table behind her for support. Holt shouted urgently, 'Fight it, don't give way! Search his pouches. There's a control box for this ape. Shesha! Do you hear me?"

She answered thickly. His voice was coming from an infinite distance. All she wanted to do was lie down and give in to the surging rhythms that were beating inside her head. But fear had still left its adrenalin booster in the circuits. She was not ready for quiet or unquiet sleep. She heard his voice again and surrendered her will to it, as it talked her onto hands and knees to crawl to Grove and begin a systematic search, emptying pouches one by one and calling the contents over.

It took all her strength to roll his dead weight onto his back, and she was ready to give up, when she found what she was looking for.

In a hazy way, she began to hate Holt for driving her on against the overwhelming urge to stop and drift into sleep. He saw what was happening and lashed her with his tongue. "Move, you fool. This way. Bring it to me. All right, like a dog. Crawl, dog. Crawl, you ninnyhammer. To me. Come on. Keep moving. Hold it out, higher."

When his hand closed on it, she collapsed and let the warm red flow carry her mind away with it. Holt knew that time would be running out for him. Down in the library, he had gone under and Shesha had stayed awake; but there, the effect had not lasted as long. Maybe the single-mindedness of his purpose had kept him clear so far. But he could feel the pressures building up. He concentrated on the box and thumbed a micro switch for voice control. Then he said, "Release your prisoner and stand clear."

When it was done, he realized that he had been held erect against nature. He had to struggle to stay on his feet, but there was one thing he had to do before he let go.

He drove himself to reach Grove and unclipped the equipment belt from his suit The control room was wheeling in a slow spin as he set his teeth and checked out the other pockets. In one, there was a Sat pocket book with the city arms on the flap. He had a confused impression of blue and silver, a full-rigged ship, and a dolphin. He shoved it in his own breast pocket and found the blaster. Taking infinite pains, he balanced himself flat-footed, feet astride, and took both hands for a steady aim. Even at that, with the target only a meter away, he was erratic, and the beam carved up an area of ceramic tile before it broke the plexiglass dome, crossed Grove's fleshy throat, and neatly separated his head from his trunk.

Holt thought woozily, "That'll surprise him when he stands up." There was still something bugging him that had to be done before he could rest. The android, having been switched from personal program, where it would have been using its own initiative, to external voice control, was standing still, with only an occasional flicker from a green cathode tube set in its left cheek to show that it was full of sap and brio and only waiting to be asked. Holt said, "Go to the elevator shafts. As soon as a cage begins to move, shoot into the floor. Do whatever is needed to stop the cages being used. Do you understand?"

"Certainly, Excellency."

It jogged off and stood where it could command either shaft.

Holt was crawling now, using every last fading urge of the anger that had given him momentum. He took their useful tool bag, the headlamps, and the pouch belt and put them through the opening the Alpha group had used. Then, as a last move, he angled Shesha Haddon across his arms, like a drunken priest with a comely sacrifice, draped her chain mail over his shoulder, and went through himself. He managed three paces into the farther reaches of the tunnel, saw that a portion of the vaulted ceiling was hinged away, felt her skin, smooth and cool as stone, and crumpled slowly to his knees. Care for her, flowing from a deep unconscious level, guided his hands to lower her the last few feet without knowledge of what he was doing. He folded up with his forehead berthed on her slowly-moving diaphragm.

Senator Fred Bairstow Holmes, in a loose toga, lacked only a chaplet to make the scene as a latter-day Roman. Some of his guests looked less comfortable. Harry Grabe found it all slightly ridiculous and had sat throughout on his divan as though it were a settle drawn up to an unsuitably high table. Altogether, there were twenty present, and some had entered into the spirit of the banquet to the extent of using a vomitarium. A heavy bouquet of food, fresh and regurgitated, sweat, wine, resin from the torch flares, and incense from a couple of hanging dispensers battered the five wits. Outside, it was a cold, clear night with the jut of an escarpment a kilometer from the villa, standing sharp like a cardboard cutout.

Holmes clapped his hands. Every eye tracked around to the high table. The domestic androids filed out. Harry Grabe stopped trying to make a swathe of cloth stay in place around his paunch. He said, irritably,

"For godsake, Fred, cut the mummery and get down to business. All this What's-Nigel-doing-with-his-strigel bit, is regression to the crib. I don't see why it couldn't have been a regular meeting in one of our precinct executive suites. You could have come to Pensby." Across the table, the senator for Arrowe said, "And missed the belly dancer? You must be joking, Harry. Unless you've got something very special in Pensby. Just relax and listen to Fred." Senator Holmes had swung himself off his couch and made a totally nonpolitical move by getting down to cases in his first sentence.

"You can speak freely here. There's a screen around this place, to turn any listening beam right up its own ass. You all know the score and I won't insult you by going over the ground. But I guess everyone here is sick to death over the way Taubman has the Council sewed up. It's plain to see that he's fixing it to go for another term. After that, you can kiss goodbye any chance of getting him out of Government House." Mort Ogden, the gaunt senator for Landicon, who had been lying on his couch as if on a catafalque, sat up and pointed a bony arm. "Hold it there, Fred. What's your interest? None of us like Taubman's administration, but it's constitutional. Ninety per cent of the voters don't care either way. He does nothing extreme, and his two running mates never put a foot wrong. What could we expect better?" It was a nice lead. Holmes picked up the cue line. "I'll tell you what we can expect better. We can expect real consultation and some piece of power left with the Council. Taubman's meetings are a sham. He knows what he wants and he gets it. We can expect Wirral City to take more part in Federal affairs. When did any rep from this Council get on the Western Directorate or on the Regional Synod, for that matter? We're a dead letter."

Grabe had no particular friendship for Mort Ogden, but he came in on a supporting tack. "All that's true, Fred. But it's been true for three or four decades. There's nothing to gain from the big league. We're self-contained. Nobody starves. We all have our interests. You haven't brought us out here to tell us that."

"No, I haven't. I tell you Taubman's playing down something that could be serious. We might be glad of help from the Association. There's big trouble brewing on Delta. He's pussyfooting around it, instead of tackling it. Leaving him in charge is giving it time to escalate out of hand. Our whole way of life is threatened. We can't afford to let him gamble with security on his own judgment." Grant Slocumbe poured himself another beaker from a double-handled red jar and said, "Right. You have the right of it. But we all know the constitution. Once elected, the management committee is set. Nobody can do a thing about it. Until Taubman hands over to the executive computer for the ten days'

election period, he has all the law enforcement machinery under his thumb. Military units only operate on the Government House circuits. For the first time in history, the administration has an absolute power that can't be bucked. And it works. When has there been a longer period of stability?" Holmes fished in the folds of his toga and brought out a control manual like a conjurer producing a gray egg. It was too common an artifact to have them rolling around the peristyle, but he held it up for all to see. He even spoke to it "Come in triple-O-seven."

After the exotic entertainment they had been treated to, it could have been anything. In fact, there was mild disappointment when a bulky steel-gray android, distinguished by three interlocking zeroes and the numeral 7 on a blue-gray rectangle across its barrel chest, rolled in from the colonnade and stopped on his right, beside the high table. Its locomotive principle was unusual but hardly revolutionary in the strict sense. It had a single ball foot in a skirted socket and was held upright by a gyroscope, which gave a continuous high-pitched whine.

Holmes did his trick again and brought out a second control unit. A black one. This time, the android he summoned had a better press; it was indistinguishable from the units of the Government House special force.

He parked it on his left, so that it was looking over the length of the table at the first witness. A certain excitement had gathered in the air. After all, Holmes had something more than rhetoric up his toga. There was enough silence to hear the drip of spilled wine from the edge of a table. They heard Holmes say quietly to the gray control unit, "Destroy the android that faces you." Action was too quick to isolate into detail. There was a blur of movement from the right. A stream of bright lines crossed the table and hid the conjurer momentarily from his audience. When it stopped, there was silence again. Holmes was grinning in a rictus that had no contact point with humor. The android on his right was stock still as though it had never moved. The Government nominee had disappeared as far as the waist except for a long, shuddering coil of bright spring steel, which had released itself after the broadside and was still quivering with the shock of freedom.

If he had produced the Great Reaper, complete with scythe, out of a chocolate egg, he could not have found a better show stopper.

All hands had gone stone sober. The senator for Margrove, Ed Sandall, a fringe adherent, whipped smartly off his couch and fairly ran for the colonnade, unwinding a green toga, which he left as a 3-D

addition to the gaudy tesserae, content to leave in his candy-striped briefs. Every eye followed him out, then turned back to Holmes full of query. It was plain that they had expected another show of force.

Holmes said, "Let him go. It doesn't matter. Better to know who has the will for change and who hasn't. He can't do anything about it. I have twenty of these monkeys and more being serviced. There's a complete workshop under the hill, dates from 2260 when they had a talent for mayhem. A variant of this type is the life form on Horizon Beta. Government House androids don't mean a thing. Now we have the power. If we don't like what Taubman does, we don't have to take it." Grabe put his finger on one weakness in the chain. "That's fine, Fred, as far it goes. But who's to say where it stops? Androids carving each other up is one thing, but suppose human operators get hurt. I don't fancy ending up as a burnt offering to the liberal idea."

Holmes said, "I'm surprised at you, Harry. You should know how the system works. As soon as Taubman feels threatened he hands over to the law enforcement computer. That directs operations. I have a parallel setup here. I can leave a mechanical marvel to get on with it. We disperse to our precincts. Let them battle it out. Later, when Taubman's tin men are all scrap, we demand a Council session and get our change of executive."

Harry Grabe had another one and felt himself that his welcome was wearing thin. "A town manager in Taubman's dilemma could call in the Feds. On request, the A.E.C. would send a commission to take over and restore order. Now, they have some fancy units. How would your boys do against them?"

"Holmes stayed patient" He said, "You and I know, both, that the Association of European Communities is something and nothing. Who's the Wirral City rep on it? Does anybody remember? As I recall, it's Digby Calder, and he's there because nobody else can be bothered to make the trip. When did they last make a ruling that was adopted? It'll take them a month to debate it and another two to get a decision. By that time, there'll be a change of chairman in the Government House and the new man can reverse the request and tell them to go back to sleep."

It was all very plausible. Certainly the name of Senator Digby Calder was no booster to the A.E.C. image. He hardly knew the day of the week. Some thumped agreement on the table, others copied ancient procedures and shouted "Aye."

Grant Slocumbe moved the affair forward. He said, practically, "What are you going to do as of now?

Taubman will hear about this meeting from Sandall."

It was Holmes's night for gestures. He cleared an area of the table top with a sweep of his arm and pressed a recessed key. A hinged flap turned up, facing the party, and the master of ceremonies moved around to the front.

There was no mystery. Except perhaps the query of who in his right mind would want an elaborate video system under his meat and veg. Holmes did some swift selecting and the screen glowed with the Government House waiting signal, an elaborate crest compounded of many armorial bearings of the ancient Wirral towns that had combined to form the city.

They waited for a count of ten and the scene faded to be replaced by Taubman's face, as full of zest as a lump of putty.

"Taubman. Oh, it's you, Senator Holmes. What do you want at this time? Can't it wait to go through the proper channels?"

"What the proper channels are is a big question. I'm not satisfied with your administration, and I have ten names to support a referendum. That's what I want. You can hand over to the executive computer and get the election machine moving tomorrow."

The face, getting full-color treatment from a discriminating scanner, had taken on a puce look. Taubman said chokily, "You're out of your mind, Holmes. There's no case for an election and you know it."

"What's the answer?"

"You know the answer. No."

"You may regret that."

"You certainly will. I'll have you in for investigation. Conspiracy to undermine the constitution. Pack your toothbrush and a spare toga. Goodnight."

Holmes was grinning. "Now he'll send along a couple of his zombies in a patrol car. It couldn't be better. Five minutes. That gives us nice time to set it up."

The manifest content of the dreams that chased one another through Shesha Haddon's head had one common feature. From the coal-black eunuch with golden bracelets to the monster, animated shroud with goggle eyes, all the protagonists had an interest in getting her flat on her back so that they could balance exotic artifacts on her abdomen.

Latest contender was some kind of cannon ball, and her exploring fingers signaled back to base that this culminating horror was partly covered with springy human hair.

She sat bolt upright with a strangled "Eek," hands crossing instinctively on her bare chest, and Holt's head left its pneumatic pillow and hit the deck.

His freewheeling mind snapped into gear and, on a first run through the sense data, reckoned that the Holt empire was once more under heavy attack. He grabbed for Shesha, in a tackle that flattened her back to the tile floor, and only identified the party of the second part when his raised fist was on its way to the bridge of her nose.

She said, "Gunnar!" and her brown eyes were filled more with a sense of betrayal than with fear. When he stopped short, looking at his hand as if it belonged to an intruder, her face cleared of doubt; but at the back of her mind she filed a memo that the next run of the sequence could see her off before identity cards could be checked.

Back in business, Holt's memory banks were busy with recall, and none of it good. His time disk told him it was sixteen hundred on the nose. Seventeen minutes since Grove had been blacked out. If the condition was general, the Alpha party would have been frozen for the same period. A lot hinged on what long-term plan they had, whether it was a brief call or an extended stopover. Shesha said, "Can I get up now?"

"Sorry. I was thinking."

"About that patronizing blonde girl?"

Holt hesitated. Even the truth, given the position he was in, was no compliment. She rushed in with a quick change of topic. "What happened to the man Grove? How did you get free? How did we get down here?"

Holt pulled her to her feet. Dark hair swung silkily to her bare shoulders. He kept hold of her hands and looked at her at arms length.

"What are you thinking now?"

A distant siren wail from somewhere overhead, channeled via the elevator shaft and the control room, made a period.

"Get your shirt on, or I can't think at all. It's time we were moving on." Confirmation came with an outburst of confused noise from the control room. The guard was sticking to his brief, but the Alpha party might well have overriding circuits on tap to bring a rogue android to heel. Holt put his back to the wall and made a stirrup.

Seeing her disappear overhead was getting to be a fact of life. He passed up their growing hand baggage. Then he had to run to make a jump for the lip of the opening and was glad of her help to haul the dead weight of his tiring body over the sill.

It was dark. She had switched on the lamps, and a shaft of light lost itself in gloom either way. There was the familiar feature of a black meter-thick cable, but a curious smell of formaldehyde that had been missing from the lower levels.

"Which way?"

It was a good question and there was no easy answer. Holt said "left" as though he had a hotline to God, and they crossed four saddles before a bulkhead showed up in the lights. It was another control room and an entry hatch was open, but Holt had a niggling doubt that the Alpha party had not used it. Light would be no problem to them, but there was an air of disuse that did not match up with expectation.

Shesha said, "Do you think this is right?"

"It goes up. That's the direction."

When the elevator cage wheezed protestingly into movement, he felt even more that they could be wrong. Doubt became certainty when the cage grated to a halt, after a longer journey than they had made to Delta, but hardly long enough for four Horizons. They were in a large lobby with a central kiosk, very like the one at Brimstage. There were not many people about. All standing stock still. The hospital smell of formaldehyde was much stronger.

Shesha hung back, reluctant to leave the cage. Holt had Grove's belt on and took out the blaster. His steps echoed as though he was disturbing the long silence of a vault. At the kiosk, two figures with their backs to him stayed still like waxworks in a tableau. Another, on the far side of the desk, appeared to be in the act of filling out a form. But the features were wrong—old, wizened, skin parchment-tight over the bone.

The small vibration he made carried to them and started a landslide, which had been held back by a hair thread. All three appeared to fold to the floor as though the clothes had been plumped out by a collapsible wire frame.

Shesha Haddon, finding loneliness at least as unpleasant as the way ahead, settled for joining him at a run. Now she could see that for every figure standing up, there were two or three lying every which way on the floor. As she reached Holt, the rest began to fall.

He had time to put the blaster on the desk 'op and gather her in.

Head on his chest, she was racked by sobbing she could not control. It was not for herself, not disappointment that they had fetched up in rats' alley, but a generalized pity for the human condition. The mounds of cloth had been people, looking out from their own eyes. They had been overwhelmed by something outside their knowledge, unexpectedly, without redress.

Insight took Holt to the core of it. He stroked her hair and made comforting noises as if to a child. When the harsh crying stopped, he said, "They didn't feel a thing. You can tell from the faces. They just stopped dead, where they were. That's not so bad. When you think of all the dead, they're the majority party. It's more common to be dead than alive. This is Horizon Gamma. All dead, or somebody would have been along to clear this lot away. No androids by the look of it— a different setup from ours."

"I'm sorry. I'm not being much help to you."

"Never say that. You're the best help a man could have. You've more than doubled the valise I was living out of. You make sense out of being alive. And if we want to stay that way, we'd better get on before the Alpha group closes off the route to the top. All right?"

"We don't want to join the majority party. The majority has to be wrong, as your friend Sutton said."

"Roger."