MUTINEER

Raging, Trooper Lane
hovered three thousand
feet above Tammany Square.

The cool cybrain surgically
implanted in him was working
on the problem. But Lane
had no more patience. They'd
sweat, he thought, hating the
chill air-currents that threw
his hovering body this way
and that. He glared down at
the three towers bordering on
the Square. He spat, and
watched the little white speck
fall, fall. Lock me up in barracks.
All I wanted was a
little time off. Did I fight in
Chi for them? Damn right I
did. Just a little time off, so
I shouldn't blow my top. Now
the lid's gone.

He was going over all their
heads. He'd bowled those city
cops over like paper dolls,
back at the Armory. The
black dog was on Lane's back.
Old Mayor himself was going
to hear about it.

Why not? Ain't old Mayor
the CinC of the Newyork
Troopers?

The humming paragrav-paks
embedded beneath his
shoulder blades held him
motionless above Newyork's
three administrative towers.
Tammany Hall. Mayor's Palace.
Court House. Lane cursed
his stupidity. He hadn't found
out which one was which
ahead of time. They keep
Troopers in the Armory and
teach them how to fight. They
don't teach them about their
own city, that they'll be fighting
for. There's no time. From
seven years old up, Troopers
have too much to learn about
fighting.

The Mayor was behind one
of those thousands of windows.

Old cybrain, a gift from the
Trooper surgeons, compliments
of the city, would have
to figure out which one. Blood
churned in his veins, nerves
shrieked with impatience.
Lane waited for the electronic
brain to come up with the answer.

Then his head jerked up, to
a distant buzz. There were
cops coming. Two black paragrav-boats
whirred along the
translucent underside of Newyork's
anti-missile force-shield,
the Shell.

Old cybrain better be fast.
Damn fast!

The cybrain jolted an impulse
through his spine. Lane
somersaulted. Cybrain had
taken charge of his motor
nerves. Lane's own mind was
just along for the ride.

His body snapped into a
stiff dive position. He began
to plummet down, picking
up speed. His mailed hands
glittered like arrowheads out
in front. They pointed to a
particular window in one of
the towers. A predatory excitement
rippled through him
as he sailed down through the
air. It was like going into
battle again. A little red-white-and-green
flag fluttered
on a staff below the window.
Whose flag? The city flag was
orange and blue. He shrugged
away the problem. Cybrain
knew what it was doing.

The little finger of his right
hand vibrated in its metal
sheath. A pale vibray leaped
from the lensed fingertip.
Breakthrough! The glasstic
pane dissolved. Lane streamed
through the window.

The paragrav-paks cut off.
Lane dropped lightly to the
floor, inside the room, in battle-crouch.
A 3V set was yammering.
A girl screamed. Lane's
hand shot out automatically.
A finger vibrated. Out of the
corner of his eye, Lane saw
the girl fold to the floor. There
was no one else in the room.
Lane, still in a crouch, chewed
his lip.

The Mayor?

His head swung around and
he peered at the 3V set. He
saw his own face.

"Lashing police with his
vibray," said the announcer,
"Lane broke through the cordon
surrounding Manhattan
Armory. Two policemen were
killed, four others seriously
injured. Tammany Hall has
warned that this man is extremely
dangerous. Citizens
are cautioned to keep clear of
him. Lane is an insane killer.
He is armed with the latest
military weapons. A built-in
electronic brain controls his
reflexes—"

"At ease with that jazz,"
said Lane, and a sheathed finger
snapped out. There was a
loud bang. The 3V screen dissolved
into a puddle of glasstic.

The Mayor.

Lane strode to the window.
The two police boats were
hovering above the towers.
Lane's mailed hand snapped
open a pouch at his belt. He
flipped a fist-sized cube to the
floor.

The force-bomb "exploded"—swelled
or inflated, really,
but with the speed of a blast.
Lane glanced out the window.
A section of the energy globe
bellied out from above. It
shaded the view from his window
and re-entered the tower
wall just below.

Now the girl.

He turned back to the room.
"Wake up, outa-towner." He
gave the blonde girl a light
dose of the vibray to slap her
awake.

"Who are you?" she said,
shakily.

Lane grinned. "Trooper
Lane, of the Newyork Special
Troops, is all." He threw her
a mock salute. "You from
outa-town, girlie. I ain't seen
a Newyork girl with yellow
hair in years. Orange or
green is the action. Whatcha
doing in the Mayor's room?"

The girl pushed herself to
her feet. Built, Lane saw.
She was pretty and clean-looking,
very out-of-town. She
held herself straight and her
blue-violet eyes snapped at
him.

"What the devil do you
think you're doing, soldier? I
am a diplomat of the Grassroots
Republic of Mars. This
is an embassy, if you know
what that means."

"I don't," said Lane, unconcerned.

"Well, you should have had
brains enough to honor the
flag outside this window.
That's the Martian flag, soldier.
If you've never heard of
diplomatic immunity, you'll
suffer for your ignorance."
Her large, dark eyes narrowed.
"Who sent you?"

"My cybrain sent me."

She went openmouthed.
"You're Lane."

"I'm the guy they told you
about on the 3V. Where's the
Mayor? Ain't this his place?"

"No. No, you're in the
wrong room. The wrong building.
That's the Mayor's suite
over there." She pointed. "See
where the balcony is? This is
the Embassy suite. If you
want the Mayor you'll have to
go over there."

"Whaddaya know," said
Lane. "Cybrain didn't know,
no more than me."

The girl noticed the dark
swell of the force-globe.
"What's that out there?"

"Force-screen. Nothing gets
past, except maybe a full-size
blaster-beam. Keeps cops out.
Keeps you in. You anybody
important?"

"I told you, I'm an ambassador.
From Mars. I'm on a
diplomatic mission."

"Yeah? Mars a big city?"

She stared at him, violet
eyes wide. "The planet Mars."

"Planet? Oh, that Mars.
Sure, I've heard of it—you
gotta go by spaceship. What's
your name?"

"Gerri Kin. Look, Lane,
holding me is no good. It'll
just get you in worse trouble.
What are you trying to do?"

"I wanna see the Mayor. Me
and my buddies, we just come
back from fighting in Chi,
Gerri. We won. They got a
new Mayor out there in Chi.
He takes orders from Newyork."

Gerri Kin said, "That's
what the force-domes did. The
perfect defense. But also the
road to the return to city-states.
Anarchy."

Lane said, "Yeah? Well, we
done what they wanted us to
do. We did the fighting for
them. So we come back home
to Newyork and they lock us
up in the Armory. Won't pay
us. Won't let us go nowhere.
They had cops guarding us.
City cops." Lane sneered. "I
busted out. I wanna see the
Mayor and find out why we
can't have time off. I don't
play games, Gerri. I go right
to the top."

Lane broke off. There was
a hum outside the window. He
whirled and stared out. The
rounded black hulls of the two
police paragrav-boats were
nosing toward the force-screen.
Lane could read the
white numbers painted on
their bows.

A loudspeaker shouted into
the room: "Come out of there,
Lane, or we'll blast you out."

"You can't," Lane called.
"This girl from Mars is here."

"I repeat, Lane—come out
or we'll blast you out."

Lane turned to the girl. "I
thought you were important."

She stood there with her
hands together, calmly
looking at him. "I am. But
you are too, to them. Mars is
millions of miles away, and
you're right across the Square
from the Mayor's suite."

"Yeah, but—" Lane shook
his head and turned back to
the window. "All right, look!
Move them boats away and
I'll let this girl out!"

"No deal, Lane. We're coming
in." The police boats
backed away slowly, then shot
straight up, out of the line of
vision.

Lane looked down at the
Square. Far below, the long,
gleaming barrel of a blaster
cannon caught the dim light
filtering down through Newyork's
Shell. The cannon trundled
into the Square on its
olive-drab, box-shaped caterpillar
mounting and took up a
position equidistant from the
bases of the three towers.

Now a rumble of many
voices rose from below. Lane
stared down to see a large
crowd gathering in Tammany
Square. Sound trucks were
rolling to a stop around the
edges of the crowd. The people
were all looking up.

Lane looked across the
Square. The windows of the
tower opposite, the ones he
could see clearly, were crowded
with faces. There were
white dot faces on the balcony
that Gerri Kin had pointed
out as the Mayor's suite.

The voice of a 3V newscaster
rolled up from the Square,
reechoing against the tower
walls.

"Lane is holding the Martian
Ambassador, Gerri Kin,
hostage. You can see the Martian
tricolor behind his force-globe.
Police are bringing up
blaster cannon. Lane's defense
is a globe of energy
similar to the one which protects
Newyork from aerial attack."

Lane grinned back at Gerri
Kin. "Whole town's down
there." Then his grin faded.
Nice-looking, nice-talking girl
like this probably cared a lot
more about dying than he did.
Why the hell didn't they give
him a chance to let her out?
Maybe he could do it now.

Cybrain said no. It said the
second he dropped his force-screen,
they'd blast this room
to hell. Poor girl from Mars,
she didn't have a chance.

Gerri Kin put her hand to
her forehead. "Why did you
have to pick my room? Why
did they send me to this crazy
city? Private soldiers. Twenty
million people living under
a Shell like worms in a corpse.
Earth is sick and it's going to
kill me. What's going to happen?"

Lane looked sadly at her.
Only two kinds of girls ever
went near a Trooper—the
crazy ones and the ones the
city paid. Why did he have to
be so near getting killed when
he met one he liked? Now that
she was showing a little less
fear and anger, she was talking
straight to him. She was
good, but she wasn't acting as
if she was too good for him.

"They'll start shooting pretty
quick," said Lane. "I'm
sorry about you."

"I wish I could write a letter
to my parents," she said.

"What?"

"Didn't you understand
what I said?"

"What's a letter?"

"You don't know where
Mars is. You don't know what
a letter is. You probably can't
even read and write!"

Lane shrugged. He carried
on the conversation disinterestedly,
professionally relaxed
before battle. "What's
these things I can't do? They
important?"

"Yes. The more I see of this
city and its people, the more
important I realize they are.
You know how to fight, don't
you? I'll bet you're perfect
with those weapons."

"Listen. They been training
me to fight since I was a little
kid. Why shouldn't I be a
great little fighter?"

"Specialization," said the
girl from Mars.

"What?"

"Specialization. Everyone
I've met in this city is a specialist.
SocioSpecs run the
government. TechnoSpecs run
the machinery. Troopers fight
the wars. And ninety per cent
of the people don't work at all
because they're not trained to
do anything."

"The Fans," said Lane.
"They got it soft. That's them
down there, come to watch the
fight."

"You know why you were
kept in the Armory, Lane? I
heard them talking about it,
at the dinner I went to last
night."

"Why?"

"Because they're afraid of
the Troopers. You men did too
good a job out in Chi. You are
the deadliest weapon that has
ever been made. You. Single
airborne infantrymen!"

Lane said, "They told us in
Trooper Academy that it's the
men that win the wars."

"Yes, but people had forgotten
it until the SocioSpecs of
Newyork came up with the
Troopers. Before the Troopers,
governments concentrated
on the big weapons, the
missiles, the bombs. And the
cities, with the Shells, were
safe from bombs. They learned
to be self-sufficient under
the Shells. They were so safe,
so isolated, that national governments
collapsed. But you
Troopers wiped out that feeling
of security, when you infiltrated
Chi and conquered
it."

"We scared them, huh?"

Gerri said, "You scared
them so much that they were
afraid to let you have a furlough
in the city when you
came back. Afraid you Troopers
would realize that you
could easily take over the city
if you wanted to. You scared
them so much that they'll let
me be killed. They'll actually
risk trouble with Mars just to
kill you."

"I'm sorry about you. I
mean it, I like—"

At that moment a titanic,
ear-splitting explosion hurled
him to the carpet, deafened
and blinded him.

He recovered and saw Gerri
a few feet away, dazed, groping
on hands and knees.

Lane jumped to the window,
looked quickly, sprang
back. Cybrain pumped orders
to his nervous system.

"Blaster cannon," he said.
"But just one. Gotcha, cybrain.
I can beat that."

He picked up the black box
that generated his protective
screen. Snapping it open with
thumb-pressure, he turned a
small dial. Then he waited.

Again an enormous, brain-shattering
concussion.

Again Lane and Gerri were
thrown to the floor. But this
time there was a second explosion
and a blinding flash
from below.

Lane laughed boyishly and
ran to the window.

"Look!" he called to Gerri.

There was a huge gap in
the crowd below. The
pavement was blackened and
shattered to rubble. In and
around the open space
sprawled dozens of tiny black
figures, not moving.

"Backfire," said Lane. "I set
the screen to throw their
blaster beam right back at
them."

"And they knew you might—and
yet they let a crowd
congregate!"

Gerri reeled away from the
window, sick.

Lane said, "I can do that a
couple times more, but it
burns out the force-globe.
Then I'm dead."

He heard the 3V newscaster's
amplified voice: "—approximately
fifty killed. But
Lane is through now. He has
been able to outthink police
with the help of his cybrain.
Now police are feeding the
problem to their giant analogue
computer in the sub-basement
of the Court House.
The police analogue computer
will be able to outthink Lane's
cybrain, will predict Lane's
moves in advance. Four more
blaster cannon are coming
down Broadway—"

"Why don't they clear those
people out of the Square?"
Gerri cried.

"What? Oh, the Fans—nobody
clears them out." He
paused. "I got one more
chance to try." He raised a
mailed glove to his mouth and
pressed a small stud in the
wrist. He said, "Trooper HQ,
this is Lane."

A voice spoke in his helmet.
"Lane, this is Trooper
HQ. We figured you'd call."

"Get me Colonel Klett."

Thirty seconds passed. Lane
could hear the clank of caterpillar
treads as the mobile
blaster cannon rolled into
Tammany Square.

The voice of the commanding
officer of the Troopers
rasped into Lane's ear:
"Meat-head! You broke out
against my orders! Now look
at you!"

"I knew you didn't mean
them orders, sir."

"If you get out of there
alive, I'll hang you for disobeying
them!"

"Yes, sir. Sir, there's a girl
here—somebody important—from
Mars. You know, the
planet. Sir, she told me we
could take over the city if we
got loose. That right, sir?"

There was a pause. "Your
girl from Mars is right, Lane.
But it's too late now. If we
had moved first, captured the
city government, we might
have done it. But they're
ready for us. They'd chop us
down with blaster cannon."

"Sir, I'm asking for help. I
know you're on my side."

"I am, Lane." The voice of
Colonel Klett was lower. "I'd
never admit it if you had a
chance of getting out of there
alive. You've had it, son. I'd
only lose more men trying to
rescue you. When they feed
the data into that analogue
computer, you're finished."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm sorry, Lane."

"Yes, sir. Over and out."

Lane pressed the stud on
his gauntlet again. He turned
to Gerri.

"You're okay. I wish I
could let you out. Old cybrain
says I can't. Says if I drop the
force-globe for a second,
they'll fire into the room, and
then we'll both be dead."

Gerri stood with folded
arms and looked at him.
"Do what you have to do. As
far as I can see, you're the
only person in this city that
has even a little bit of right
on his side."

Lane laughed. "Any of them
purple-haired broads I know
would be crazy scared. You're
different."

"When my grandparents
landed on Mars, they found
out that selfishness was a luxury.
Martians can't afford
it."

Lane frowned with the effort
of thinking. "You said I
had a little right on my side.
That's a good feeling. Nobody
ever told me to feel that way
about myself before. It'll be
better to die knowing that."

"I know," she said.

The amplified voice from
below said, "The police analogue
computer is now hooked
directly to the controls of the
blaster cannon battery. It will
outguess Lane's cybrain and
check his moves ahead of
time."

Lane looked at Gerri. "How
about giving me a kiss before
they get us? Be nice if I kissed
a girl like you just once in
my life."

She smiled and walked forward.
"You deserve it, Lane."

He kissed her and it filled
him with longings for things
he couldn't name. Then he
stepped back and shook his
head. "It ain't right you
should get killed. If I take a
dive out that window, they
shoot at me, not in here."

"And kill you all the sooner."

"Better than getting burned
up in this lousy little room.
You also got right on your
side. There's too many damn
Troopers and not enough good
persons like you. Old cybrain
says stay here, but I don't
guess I will. I'm gonna pay
you back for that kiss."

"But you're safe in here!"

"Worry about yourself, not
about me." Lane picked up the
force-bomb and handed it to
her. "When I say now, press
this. Then take your hand off,
real fast. It'll shut off the
screen for a second."

He stepped up on to the
window ledge. Automatically,
the cybrain cut in his paragrav-paks.
"So long, outa-towner.
Now!"

He jumped. He was hurtling
across the Square when the
blaster cannons opened up.
They weren't aimed at the
window where the little red-white-and-green
tricolor was
flying. But they weren't aimed
at Lane, either. They were
shooting wild.

Which way now? Looks
like I got a chance. Old cybrain
says fly right for the
cannons.

He saw the Mayor's balcony
ahead. Go to hell, old cybrain.
I'm doing all right by myself.
I come to see the Mayor, and
I'm gonna see him.

Lane plunged forward. He
heard the shouts of frightened
men.

He swooped over the balcony
railing. A man was
pointing a blaster pistol at
him. There were five men
on the balcony—emergency!
Years of training and cybrain
took over. Lane's hand shot
out, fingers vibrating. As he
dropped to the balcony floor in
battle-crouch, the men slumped
around him.

He had seen the man with
the blaster pistol before. It
was the Mayor of Newyork.

Lane stood for a moment in
the midst of the sprawled
men, the shrieks of the crowd
floating up to him. Then he
raised his glove to his lips. He
made contact with Manhattan
Armory.

"Colonel Klett, sir. You
said if we captured the city
government we might have a
chance. Well, I captured the
city government. What do we
do with it now?"

Lane was uncomfortable in
his dress uniform. First
there had been a ceremony in
Tammany Square inaugurating
Newyork's new Military
Protectorate, and honoring
Trooper Lane. Now there was
a formal dinner. Colonel Klett
and Gerri Kin sat on either
side of Lane.

Klett said, "Call me an opportunist
if you like, Miss
Kin, my government will be
stable, and Mars can negotiate
with it." He was a lean, sharp-featured
man with deep
grooves in his face, and gray
hair.

Gerri shook her head. "Recognition
for a new government
takes time. I'm going
back to Mars, and I think
they'll send another ambassador
next time. Nothing personal—I
just don't like it
here."

Lane said, "I'm going to
Mars, too."

"Did she ask you to?" demanded
Klett.

Lane shook his head. "She's
got too much class for me. But
I like what she told me about
Mars. It's healthy, like."

Klett frowned. "If I thought
there was a gram of talent involved
in your capture of the
Mayor, Lane, I'd never release
you from duty. But I
know better. You beat that
analogue computer by sheer
stupidity—by disregarding
your cybrain."

Lane said, "It wasn't so stupid
if it worked."

"That's what bothers me. It
calls for a revision in our tactics.
We've got a way of beating
those big computers now,
should anyone use them
against us."

"I just didn't want her to
be hurt."

"Exactly. The computer
could outguess a machine, like
your cybrain. But you introduced
a totally unpredictable
factor—human emotion.
Which proves what I, as a
military man, have always
maintained—that the deadliest
weapon in man's arsenal
is still, and will always be, the
individual soldier."

"What you just said there,
sir," said Lane. "That's why
I'm leaving Newyork."

"What do you mean?" asked
Colonel Klett.

"I'm tired of being a weapon,
sir. I want to be a human
being."

END