Interlude
Sim Ban-Gor was bored. The vast, milling throng in front of him held no interest, His mind was only slightly engaged in the effort to maintain the President’s appearance. High up on the wide palace stairs, he could see the gigantic crowd pressing forward against the force barriers defining the street.
Down that street came the President at a dead run, hundreds of legislators following closely behind.
This annual run was a key event on Aero. The original human settlers had been part of the Perfectionists cult — people who were looking for a healthy way of life. Like most of the human worlds in the galactic arm, Aero had first been settled during that chaotic time just after humanity had discovered interspatial drive. Starships had suddenly become not only available, but cheap. Every little cult and club and interest group that wanted one, got one. Each took off to find an empty world on which they could do their thing, and because there were so many stars and so many planets, enough Earthtype worlds were found to satisfy all of them and then some. Once settled, the cult or club or group faced the problems of government and population growth, one way or another.
So by the time humankind came to the attention of the Galactic Council, there were hundreds of human worlds with all sorts of political and social setups. Aero was only one.
The Perfectionist creed called for healthy food and exercise for all. Anything opposed to health was banned. Someone caught smoking a cigar on Aero, for example, would be exiled from the planet, If he weren’t lynched first by a maddened, health-conscious mob.
That’s why Sim Ban-Cor was so bored this day. After a decade on Aero, the sight of so many healthy people nearly made him sick.
There was a rule In Aero’s Constitution that no one could hold the Presidency who could not run 15 kilometers in the same time or faster than the original founder of the cult, the legendary Calvin Senna. The test of this ability took place once a year at the start of Aero’s legislative session, when the President and legislature indulged in an official run before the Inauguration speech.
It seemed to Sim that half the population of the planet was surging around him on the steps of the Presidential palace. Actually, he knew, most were watching the holographic image of their President on home receivers all over the planet, for the run was taken very seriously indeed. Failure to run the 9.3 miles in the required time was a sure sign that the mind was sick, along with the body. Perfectionists would not allow a sick mind to rule them. And they were right, in their way: a certain decadence was settling in on Aero.
The trouble was that the present President was inclined to fat. It had been ten years ago, after puffing through a run and barely meeting the time, that the President had hit upon an idea to spare himself this annual ordeal. He would hire himself an Adept of the October Guild, and . . .
And now Sim Ban-Gor was controlling the image of the President that everyone saw. Instead of the overweight slob that was really there, Sim projected with his mind a distinguished athlete of respectable build and stamina. Instead of gasping out an eight-minute mile, the President had Sim propel him along with levitation, scant fractions of an inch from the ground.
The spectators commented at the President’s amazing fluidity of motion. Certainly he was easily surpassing the speed required.
That the October Guild was being paid, and handsomely, for this deception, was no great comfort to Sim Ban-Cor. He was bored and wanted to be somewhere else. His highly developed Skill was being wasted here on simple imaging tricks.
The milling crowd kept pressing closer around him as more people streamed onto the steps, waiting for the President to come around on his second lap. Sim’s four bodyguards fidgeted. They were well-armed, with needlers tucked up their bodice sleeves, but security guards never like crowds.
A young woman, pressed backward by the crowd two steps below the Adept, tripped as she hit a step and fell backwards at his feet between two of the guards. Amused, Sim bent over to help her up. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a man pointing a holographic camera at him. Curious . . . The woman glanced gratefully over her shoulder at him as he pulled upward, and he saw pale blue eyes in a fair, freckled face. Then she drove her elbow deep into the pit of his stomach in a movement of blinding power.
The breath left Sim’s body in an explosive cough, and he went down. The guards, highly trained, reached as one man for their weapons, but the woman was in motion. In a sequence much faster than it takes to tell, she slammed her right fist against the temple of the guard to her right caught the arm of the guard on her left in a lock and, in a sudden movement of her head, lashed his eyes with her streaked brown hair; bent slightly forward and snapped a backward kick into the chin of the guard to her right rear; snatched the weapon from the sleeve of the guard she held and propelled him headlong down the stairs; and shot the remaining guard high in one shoulder, then, more deliberately, in the other.
Sim, mouth open like a fish, gasped for air, but it would not come in. His chest was paralyzed, stomach heaving in ineffective gasps. His mind lost interest in the world. He gasped for life.
A roar rose from the crowd as the President stumbled forward and fell in a scraping slide on his knees and elbows, the levitation gone. A dozen legislators tried to come up short, but tripped over him and each other in a tangled mass of arms and legs. The woman brushed her brown-blond hair from her face and eyed the guards she had attacked. The one she had punched was huddled on a step, holding his head and moaning. The man she had kicked was spread-eagled, jaw probably broken, unconscious. The man she had shot was sitting, unable to move his arms. The one she had pushed down the stairs was in a fight with someone he had knocked over on the way down.
And Sim . . .
The crowd roared again as the tangle of lawmakers drew apart and the President clawed his way to his feet, elbows and knees bleeding. This was a President they had never seen—an out-of-shape, fat . . .
“This is the wizard,” the woman said in a clear, level voice to the holographic cameraman pressing forward. Sim’s muscles suddenly relaxed in a tremendous gasp. The woman leaned over him, hypodermic jet-sprayer in hand. “He, of the October Guild, who controlled your President.” All over the planet, people were watching a split image—the President in his real form, the wizard gasping for breath.
“And now sleep, wizard-man,” the woman said. She pressed the sprayer home, and Sim Ban-Cor passed into sleep, breathing then easily.
It made the news all over that arm of the galaxy. The October Guild was in disgrace. Worse, it was laughed at.