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Assassins' Justice!"
He nodded to the others. They threw the gamekeeper forward on the floor, and
Sarnax shot him through the head, then tossed the pistol down beside him. "Any
more of these people who violate the decencies will be treated similarly," he
promised.
"Thank you, Sarnax," Dirzed spoke up. "But we lost an Assassin; discarnating
this lackey won't equalize that. We think you should retire one of your
number."
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"That at least, Dirzed; wait a moment."
The three Assassins conferred at some length. Then Sarnax hooked fingers and
clapped shoulders with his companions.
"See you in the next reincarnation, brothers," he told them, walking toward
the gun-room door, where Verkan Vail, Dalla and Dirzed stood. "I'm joining you
people. You had two Assassins when the parley began, you'll have two when the
shooting starts."
Verkan Vail looked at Dirzed in some surprise. Hadron Dalla's Assassin nodded.
"He's entitled to do that, Lord Virzal; the Assassins' code provides for such
changes of allegiance."
"Welcome, Sarnax," Verkan Vail said, hooking fingers with him. "I hope well
all be together when this is over."
"We will be," Sarnax assured him cheerfully. "Discarnate. We won't get out of
this in the body, Lord Virzal."
A submachine-gun hammered from above, the bullets lashing the fountain pool;
the water actually steamed, so great was their velocity.
"All right!" a voice called down. "Assassins' Truce is over!"
Another burst of automatic fire smashed out the lights at the bottom of the
ascent tube. Dirzed and Dalla struggled across the room, pushing a heavy steel
cabinet between them; Verkan Vail, who was holding Olirzon's submachine-gun
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aside to allow them to drop it on edge in the open doorway, then wedged the
door half-shut against it. Sarnax came over, bringing rifles, hunting pistols,
and ammunition.
"What's the situation, up there?" Verkan Vail asked him. "What force have
they, and why did they turn against us?"
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"Lord Virzal!" Dirzed objected, scandalized. "You have no right to ask Sarnax
to betray confidences!"
Sarnax spat against the door. "In the face of Jirzyn of Starpha!" he said.
"And in the face of historian mother, and of his father, whoever he was!
Dirzed, do not talk foolishly; one does not speak of betraying betrayers." He
turned to Verkan
Vail. "They have three menservants of the family of Starpha; your Assassin,
Olirzon, discarnated the other three. There is one of Prince Jirzyn's poor
relations, named Girzad. There are three other men, Volitionalist precinct
workers, who came with Girzad, and four Assassins, the three who were here,
and one who came with Girzad. Eleven, against the three of us."
"The four of us, Sarnax," Dalla corrected. She had buckled on a hunting
pistol, and had a light deer rifle under her arm.
Something moved at the bottom of the descent tube. Ver-kan Vail gave it a
short burst, though it was probably only a dummy, dropped to draw fire.
"The four of us, Lady Dallona," Sarnax agreed. "As to your other Assassin, the
one who stayed in the airboat, I don't know how he fared. You see, about
twenty minutes ago, this Girzad arrived in an airboat, with an Assassin and
these three
Volitionalist workers. Erarno and I were at the top of the dome when he came
in.
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He told us that he had orders from Prince Jirzyn to discarnate the Lady
Dallona and Dirzed at once. Tamod, the gamekeeper" Sarnax spat ceremoniously
against the door again "told him you were here, and that Marnik was one of
your men. He was going to shoot Marnik at once, but Erarno and I and his
Assassin stopped him. We warned Marnik about the change in the situation,
according to the code, expecting Marnik to go down here and join you. Instead,
he lifted the airboat, zoomed over Girzad's boat, and let go a rocket blast,
setting
Girzad's boat on fire. Well, that was a hostile act, so we all fired after
him. We must have hit something, because the boat went down, trailing smoke,
about ten miles away. Girzad got another airboat out of the hangar and he and
his Assassin started after your man. About that time, your Assassin,
Olirzon happy reincarnation to him came up, and the Starpha servants fired at
him, and he fired back and discarnated two of them, and then jumped down the
descent tube.
One of the servants jumped after him; I found his body at the bottom when I
came down to warn you formally. You know what happened after that."
"But why did Prince Jirzyn order our discarnation?" Dal la wanted to know.
"Was it to blame the Statisticalists with it?"
Sarnax, about to answer, broke off suddenly and began firing at the opening of
the ascent tube with a hunting pistol.
"I got him," he said, in a pleased tone. ' "That was Erarno; he was always
playing tricks with the tubes, climbing down against negative gravity and up
against positive gravity. His body will float up to the top Why, Lady Dallona,
that was only part of it. You didn't hear about the big scandal, on the
newscast, then?"
"We didn't have it on. What scandal?"
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Sarnax laughed. "Oh, the very father and family-head of all scandals! You
ought to know about it, because you started it; that's why Prince Jirzyn wants
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you out of the body You devised a process by which people could give
themselves memory-recalls of previous reincarnations, didn't you? And
distributed apparatus to do it with? And gave one set to young Tamov, the son
of Lord Tirzov of
Pastor?"
Dalla nodded. Sarnax continued:
"Well, last evening, Tarnox of Pastor used his recall outfit, and what do you
think? It seems that thirty years ago, in his last reincarnation, he was
Jirzid of
Starpha, Jirzyn's older brother. Jirzid was betrothed to the Lady Annitra of
Zabna. Well, his younger brother was carrying on a clandestine affair with the
Lady Annitra, and he also wanted the title of Prince and family-head of
Starpha.
So he bribed this fellow Tarnod, whom I had the pleasure of discarnating, and
who was an underservant here at the hunting lodge. Between them, they shot
Jirzid during a boar hunt. An accident, of course. So Jirzyn married the Lady
Annitra, and when old Prince Jamid, his father, discarnated a year later, he
succeeded to the title. And immediately, Tarnod was made head gamekeeper
here."
"What did I tell you, Lord Virzal? I knew that son of a zortan had something
on
Jirzyn of Starpha!" Dirzed exclaimed. "A nice family, this of Starpha!"
"Well, that's not the end of it," Sarnax continued. "This morning, Tamov of
Pastor, late Jirzid of Starpha, went before the High Court of Estates and
entered suit to change his name to Jirzid of Starpha and laid claim to the
title of Starpha family-head. The case has just been entered, so there's been
no hearing, but
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there's the blazes of an argument among all the nobles about it some are
claiming that the individuality doesn't change from one reincarnation to the
next, and others claiming that property and titles should pass along the line
of physical descent, no matter what individuality has reincarnated into what
body. They're the ones who want the Lady Dallona discarnated and her
discoveries suppressed.
And there's talk about revising the entire system of estate-ownership and
estate-
inheritance. Oh, it's an utter obscenity of a business!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]