Utopia

He wiped the sweat from his brow with a pristine white handkerchief and went into his wind-up, the crowd shouting louder, his voice growing stronger and more angry with each demand. “No more delay in returning our robots from their illegal government seizure! No more coddling of those so-called New Law robots that threaten the stability of our society! No more Settlers shoved down our throat!” By now the crowd noise was so deafening there was no longer any point in attempting to be heard. But he shouted at the top of his lungs, not so much to make his voice audible, but in order to make it possible for his followers to read his lips. “No more!” he cried out. “No more!”

“NO MORE!” the crowd shouted back, and the chant had begun. “NO MORE! NO MORE! NO MORE!”

Simcor Beddle grinned broadly and spread his arms wide, waving to them all, drinking in the cheers and the shouts and the anger. They were still there, and they were still his. The sea of faces roaring its approval might not have been quite as large as it once had been, but it was still there, and he still controlled it. It was a great pleasure, and a great relief, to know that. The Ironheads held these meetings to keep up the enthusiasm of the rank-and-file, but there was no doubt in Beddle’s mind that they did him a great deal of good as well.

He raised his arms a bit higher, and grinned a bit more broadly. That got the crowd shouting and cheering louder. He nodded to them, waved, and made his exit to the stage right wings.

Jadelo Gildern was waiting for him there. Beddle nodded to him as a serving robot handed Beddle a large glass of fruit juice to quench his thirst and ease his throat. “How big was the crowd?” Beddle asked as his took the juice and drank it down greedily. Rabble-rousing was thirsty work.

“Five thousand two hundred and thirty-three,” Gildern replied. “We’re holding on to more of them than I had expected. But sooner or later, we’re going to have to do something.”

He nodded toward the still-cheering crowd out there. “That lot out there expects action. If they don’t get it from you soon, they’ll look elsewhere.”

“Let’s just be thankful they don’t have anyplace else to go,” said Beddle as he handed the empty glass to the robot and took a big towel to his face. He rubbed his face and his scalp vigorously. It might not be as decorous as a handkerchief, but it did a better job of drying off the sweat.

“Let’s get you home and in and out of the refresher,” Gildern said. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“That informant that walked in earlier today?”

“That’s the one,” said Gildern. “You ordered us to pursue it, and we have. We’ve don’t have much just yet, but you said you wanted to be kept informed.”

“Then let’s go,” said Beddle. He followed Gildern out of the auditorium, leaving the still-cheering crowd behind.

Forty-five minutes later, Simcor Beddle was at his desk, reading a file prepared by Gildern, and learning the name of Davlo Lentrall.

He studied the file carefully. Once Gildern’s agents had been tipped off by the informant Ardosa, they had to set to work at once. They had procured a full summary of Lentrall’s career to date, but it did not make very informative reading. He was born, he went to school, he studied astronomy. None of it made for shocking revelations. So what was so important about Lentrall? Was their informant playing some sort of game with them?

“This tells us very little,” Beddle said to Jadelo, who sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Do you still think this is something big?”

“Yes, I do. I’ve worked with this particular informant for quite some time. He has been a reliable small-time operative for us. His information has always been good. And as best I can tell, he is either behaving exactly the way a small-timer should when big, dangerous information drops in his lap, or else he is one of the best actors I have ever met.”

“Hmmmph.” Beddle glared at the file in front of him, as if he could force more information out of it by sheer force of personality. “Lentrall has something, or knows something, that is causing a lot of turmoil. I find it intriguing, but we need more. Maybe it’s just some arcane academic dispute.”

“I doubt it. Whatever it is, it’s gotten him in to see a whole series of government officials-and gotten him in to see Governor Kresh in a private interview,” Gildern pointed out. “But that’s all we’ve been able to get.”

“You’re saying we’re stuck. I don’t like being stuck.” Simcor Beddle was a man of action, a man given to straight-ahead action, not to waiting.

“We’ll get more information,” Gildern said. “But when we do, I have a feeling that we’re going to have to act on it fast.”