'I understand.'

The public pays for this Bureau. In essence, the public is paying people to cause trouble.'

'Isn't that what we do when we hire police, tax investigators and the like?' McKie asked.

A look of gloating satisfaction came over Bolin's face. 'But these agencies operate for the greater good of humanity!' he said.

'Before he begins training,' McKie said, and his voice took on a solemn, lecturing tone, 'the potential saboteur is shown the entire sordid record of history. The do-gooders succeeded once ... long ago. They eliminated virtually all red tape from government. This great machine with its power over human lives slipped into high speed. It moved faster and faster.' McKie's voice grew louder. 'Laws were conceived and pa.s.sed in the same hour! Appropriations came and were gone in a fortnight. New bureaus flashed into existence for the most insubstantial reasons.'

McKie took a deep breath, realizing he'd put sincere emotional weight behind his words.

'Fascinating,' Bolin said. 'Efficient government, eh?'

'Efficient?' McKie's voice was filled with outrage. 'It was like a great wheel thrown suddenly out of balance! The whole structure of government was in imminent danger of fragmenting before a handful of people, wise with hindsight, used measures of desperation and started what was called the Sabotage Corps.'

'Ahhh, yes, I've heard about the Corps' violence.'

He's needling me,McKie thought, but found that honest anger helped now. 'All right, there was bloodshed and terrible destruction at the beginning,' he said. 'But the big wheels were slowed.

Government developed a controllable speed.'

'Sabotage,' Bolin sneered. 'In lieu of red tape.'

I needed that reminder,McKie thought.

'No task too small for Sabotage, no task too large,' McKie said. 'We keep the wheel turning slowly and smoothly. Some anonymous Corpsman put it into words a long time ago: 'When in doubt, delay the big ones and speed the little ones.''

'Would you say the Tax Watchers were a 'big one' or a 'little one'?' Bolin asked, his voice mild.

'Big one,' McKie said and waited for Bolin to pounce.

But the Pan-Spechi appeared amused. 'An unhappy answer.'

'As it says in the Const.i.tution,' McKie said. ''The pursuit of unhappiness is an inalienable right of all humans.''

'Trouble is as trouble does,' Bolin said and clapped his hands.

Two Pan-Spechi in the uniforms of system police came through the creme de menthe emerald door.

'You heard?' Bolin asked.

'We heard,' one of the police said.

'Was he defending his bureau?' Bolin asked.

'He was,' the policeman said.

'You've seen the court order,' Bolin said. 'It pains me because Ser McKie accepted the hospitality of my house, but he must be held incommunicado until he's needed in court. He's to be treated kindly, you understand?'

Is he really bent on destroying the Bureau?McKie asked himself in sudden consternation.Do I have it figured wrong?

'You contend my words were sabotage?' McKie asked.

'Clearly an attempt to sway the chief officer of the Tax Watchers from his avowed duties,' Bolin said. He stood, bowed.

McKie lifted himself out of the chairdog, a.s.sumed an air of confidence he did not feel. He clasped his thick-fingered hands together and bowed low, a grandfather toad rising from the deep to give his benediction. 'In the words of the ancient proverb,' he said, ''The righteous man lives deep within a cavern and the sky appears to him as nothing but a small round hole.''

Wrapping himself in dignity, McKie allowed the police to escort him from the room.

Behind him, Bolin gave voice to puzzlement: 'Now, what did he mean by that?'

Chapter III.

'Hear ye! Hear ye! System High Court, First Bench, Central Sector, is now in session!'

The robo-clerk darted back and forth across the cleared lift dais of the courtarena, its metal curves glittering in the morning light that poured down through the domed weather cover. Its voice, designed to fit precisely into the great circular room, penetrated to the farthest walls: 'All persons having pet.i.tions before this court draw near!'

The silvery half globe carrying First Magistrate Edwin Dooley glided through an aperture behind the lift dais and was raised to an appropriate height. His white sword of justice lay diagonally across the bench in front of him. Dooley himself sat in dignified silence while the robo-clerk finished its stentorian announcement and rolled to a stop just beyond the lift field.

Judge Dooley was a tall, black browed man who affected the ancient look with ebon robes over white linen. He was noted for decisions of cla.s.sic penetration.

He sat now with his face held in rigid immobility to conceal his anger and disquiet. Why had they put him in this hot spot? Because he'd granted the Tax Watchers' injunction? No matter how he ruled now, the result likely would be uproar. Even President Bindley was watching this one through one of the hot-line projectors.

The President had called shortly before this session. It had been Phil and Ed all through the conversation, but the intent remained clear. The Administration was concerned about this case. Vital legislation pended; votes were needed. Neither the budget nor the Bureau of Sabotage had entered their conversation, but the President had made his point -don't compromise the Bureau but save that Tax Watcher support for the Administration!

'Clerk, the roster,' Judge Dooley said.

And he thought:They'll get judgment according to strict interpretation of the law! Let them argue with that!

The robo-clerk's reelslate buzzed. Words appeared on the repeater in front of the judge as the clerk's voice announced: 'The People versus Clifton Watt, Jorj X. McKie and the Bureau of Sabotage.'

Dooley looked down into the courtarena, noting the group seated at the black oblong table in the Defense ring on his left: a sour-faced Watt with his rainbow horror of Medusa head, McKie's fat features composed in the look of someone trying not to snicker at a sly joke - the two defendants flanking their attorney, Pander Oulson, the Bureau of Sabotage's chief counsel. Oulson was a great thug of a figure in defense white with glistening eyes under beetle brows and a face fashioned mostly of scars.

At the Prosecution table on the right sat Prosecutor Holjance Vohnbrook, a tall scarecrow of a man dressed in conviction red. Gray hair topped a stern face as grim and forbidding as a latter day Cotton Mather. Beside him sat a frightened appearing young aide and Panthor Bolin, the Pan-Spechi complainant, his multi-faceted eyes hidden beneath veined lids.

'Are we joined for trial?' Dooley asked.

Both Oulson and Vohnbrook arose, nodded.

'If the court pleases,' Vohnbrook rumbled, 'I would like to remind the Bureau of Sabotage personnel present that this court is exempt from their ministrations.'

'If the prosecutor trips over his own feet,' Oulson said, 'I a.s.sure him it will be his own clumsiness and no act of mine nor of my colleagues.'

Vohnbrook's face darkened with a rush of blood. 'It's well known how you ... '

A great drumming boomed through the courtarena as Dooley touched the handle of his sword of office.

The sound drowned the prosecutor's words. When silence was restored, Dooley said: 'This court will tolerate no displays of personality. I wish that understood at the outset.'

Oulson smiled, a look like a grimace in his scarred face. 'I apologize, Your Honor,' he said.

Dooley sank back into his chair, noting the gleam in Oulson's eyes. It occurred to Dooley then that the defense attorney, sabotage-trained, could have brought on the prosecutor's attack to gain the court's sympathy.

The charge is outlaw sabotage in violation of this court's injunction,' Dooley said. 'I understand that opening statements have been waived by both sides, the public having been admitted to causae in this matter by appropriate postings?'

'So recorded,' intoned the robo-clerk.

Oulson leaned forward against the defense table, said: 'Your Honor, defendant Jorj X. McKie has not accepted me as counsel and wishes to argue for separate trial. I am here now representing only the Bureau and Clinton Watt.'

'Who is appearing for defendant McKie?' the judge asked.

McKie, feeling like a man leaping over a precipice, got to his feet, said: 'I wish to represent myself, Your Honor.'

'You should be cautioned against this course,' Dooley said.

'Set Oulson has advised me I have a fool for a client,' McKie said. 'But in common with most Bureau agents, I have legal training. I've been admitted to the System Bar and have practiced under such codes as the Gowachin where the double-negative innocence requirement must be satisfied before bringing criminal accusation against the prosecutor and proceeding backward the premise that ... '

'This is not Gowachin,' Judge Dooley said.

'May I remind the Court,' Vohnbrook said, 'that defendant McKie is a saboteur extraordinary. This goes beyond questions of champerty. Every utterance this man ... '

'The law's the same for official saboteurs as it is for others in respect to the issue at hand,' Oulson said.

'Gentlemen!' the judge said. 'If you please? I will decide law in this court.' He waited through a long moment of silence. 'The behavior of all parties in this matter is receiving my most careful attention.'

McKie forced himself to radiate calm good humor.

Watt, whose profound knowledge of the saboteur extraordinary made this pose a danger signal, tugged violently at the sleeve of defense attorney Oulson. Oulson waved him away. Watt glowered at McKie.

'If the court permits,' McKie said, 'a joint defense on the present charge would appear to violate ... '

'The court is well aware that this case was bound over on the basis of deposa summation through a ruling by a robo-legum,' Dooley said. 'I warn both defense and prosecution, however, that I make my own decisions in such matters. Law and robo-legum are both human constructions and require human interpretation. And I will add that, as far as I'm concerned, in all conflicts between human agencies and machine agencies the human agencies are paramount.'

'Is this a hearing or a trial?' McKie asked.

'We will proceed as in trial, subject to the evidence as presented.'

McKie rested his palms on the edge of the defense table, studying the judge. The saboteur felt a surge of misgiving. Dooley was a no-nonsense customer. He had left himself a wide avenue within the indictment.

And this was a case that went far beyond immediate danger to the Bureau of Sabotage. Far-reaching precedents could be set here this day - or disaster could strike. Ignoring instincts of self preservation, McKie wondered if he dared try sabotage within the confines of the court.

'The robo-legum indictment requires joint defense,' McKie said. 'I admit sabotage against Ser Clinton Watt, but remind the court of Paragraph Four, section ninety-one, of the Semantic Revision to the Const.i.tution, wherein the Secretary of Sabotage is exempted from all immunities. I move to quash the indictment as it regards myself. I was at the time a legal officer of the Bureau required by my duties to test the abilities of my superior.'

Vohnbrook scowled at McKie.

'Mmmm,' Dooley said. He saw that the prosecutor had detected where McKie's logic must lead. If McKie were legally dismissed from the Bureau at the time of his conversation with the Pan-Spechi, the prosecution's case might fall through.

'Does the prosecutor wish to seek a conspiracy indictment?' Dooley asked.

For the first time since entering the courtarena, defense attorney Oulson appeared agitated. He bent his scarred features close to Watt's gorgon head, conferred in whispers with the defendant. Oulson's face grew darker and darker as he whispered. Watt's gorgon tendrils writhed in agitation.

'We don't seek a conspiracy indictment at this time,' Vohnbrook said. 'However, we would be willing to separate ... '

'Your Honor!' Oulson said, surging to his feet. 'Defense must protest separation of indictments at this time. It's our contention that ... '

'Court cautions both counsel in this matter that this is not a Gowachin jurisdiction,' Dooley said in an angry voice. 'We don't have to convict the defender and exonerate the prosecutor before trying a case.

However, if either of you would wish a change of venue ... '

Vohnbrook, a smug expression on his lean face, bowed to the judge. 'Your Honor,' he said, 'we wish at this time to request removal of defendant McKie from the indictment and ask that he be held as a prosecution witness.'

'Objection!' Oulson shouted. 'Prosecution well knows it cannot hold a key witness under trumped up ... '

'Overruled,' Dooley said.

'Exception!'

'Noted.'

Dooley waited as Oulson sank into his chair. This is a day to remember, the judge thought. Sabotage itself outfoxed! Then he noted the glint of sly humor in the eyes of saboteur extraordinary McKie, realizing with an abrupt sense of caution that McKie too had manoeuvered for this position.

'Prosecution may call its first witness,' the judge said, and he punched a code signal that sent a robo-aide to escort McKie away from the defense table and into a holding box.

A look of almost pleasure came over prosecutor Vohnbrook's cadaverous face. He rubbed one of his downdrooping eyelids, said: 'Call Panthor Bolin.'

The Achusian capitalist got to his feet, strode to the witness ring. The robo-clerk's screen flashed for the record: 'Panthor Bolin of Achus IV, certified witness in this System High Court.'

'The oath of sincerity having been administered, Panther Bolin is prepared for testifying,' the robo-clerk reelslated.

'Panthor Bolin, are you chief officer of the civil organization known as the Tax Watchers?' Vohnbrook asked.

'I ... ah ... y-yes' Bolin faltered. He pa.s.sed a large blue handkerchief across his forehead, staring sharply at McKie.

He just now realizes what it is I must do,McKie thought.