Thin Edge Read online

fit today? Tarnhorst wondered. For a fullmillennium, men had been trying, by mass education and by massinformation, to bring the peasants up to the level of the nobles. Hadthat plan succeeded? Or had the intelligent ones simply been forced toconform to the actions of the masses? Had the nobles made peasants ofthemselves instead?

  Edway Tarnhorst didn't honestly know. All he knew was that he saw anew spark of human life, a spark of intelligence, a spark of ability,out in the Belt. He didn't dare tell anyone--he hardly dared admit itto himself--but he thought those people were better somehow than thecommon clods of Earth. Those people didn't think that just because aman could slop color all over an otherwise innocent sheet of canvas,making outre and garish patterns, that that made him an artist. Theydidn't think that just because a man could write nonsense and useerratic typography, that that made him a poet. They had other beliefs,too, that Edway Tarnhorst saw only dimly, but he saw them well enoughto know that they were better beliefs than the obviously stupid beliefthat every human being had as much right to respect and dignity asevery other, that a man had a _right_ to be respected, that he_deserved_ it. Out there, they thought that a man had a right only towhat he earned.

  But Edway Tarnhorst was as much a product of his own society as SamFergus. He could only behave as he had been taught. Only onoccasion--on very special occasion--could his native intelligenceoverride the "common sense" that he had been taught. Only when anemergency arose. But when one did, Edway Tarnhorst, in spite of hisenvironmental upbringing, was equal to the occasion.

  Actually, his own mind was never really clear on the subject. He didthe best he could with the confusion he had to work with.

  "Now we've got to be careful, Sam," he said. "Very careful. We don'twant a war with the Belt Cities."

  Sam Fergus snorted. "They wouldn't dare. We got 'em outnumbered athousand to one."

  "Not if they drop a rock on us," Tarnhorst said quietly.

  "They wouldn't dare," Fergus repeated.

  But both of them could see what would happen to any city on Earth ifone of the Belt ships decided to shift the orbit of a good-sizedasteroid so that it would strike Earth. A few hundred thousand tons ofrock coming in at ten miles per second would be far more devastatingthan an expensive H-bomb.

  "They wouldn't dare," Fergus said again.

  "Nevertheless," Tarnhorst said, "in dealings of this kind we arewalking very close to the thin edge. We have to watch ourselves."

  VI

  Commodore Sir Harry Morgan was herded into a prison cell, given ashove across the smallish room, and allowed to hear the door slambehind him. By the time he regained his balance and turned to face thebarred door again, it was locked. The bully-boys who had shoved him inturned away and walked down the corridor. Harry sat down on the floorand relaxed, leaning against the stone wall. There was no furniture ofany kind in the cell, not even sanitary plumbing.

  "What do I do for a drink of water?" he asked aloud of no one inparticular.

  "You wait till they bring you your drink," said a whispery voice a fewfeet from his head. Morgan realized that someone in the cell next tohis was talking. "You get a quart a day--a halfa pint four times aday. Save your voice. Your throat gets awful dry if you talk much."

  "Yeah, it would," Morgan agreed in the same whisper. "What aboutsanitation?"

  "That's your worry," said the voice. "Fella comes by every Wednesdayand Saturday with a honey bucket. You clean out your own cell."

  "I _thought_ this place smelled of something other than attar ofroses," Morgan observed. "My nose tells me this is Thursday."

  There was a hoarse, humorless chuckle from the man in the next cell."'At's right. The smell of the disinfectant is strongest now. Saturdaymornin' it'll be different. You catch on fast, buddy."

  "Oh, I'm a whiz," Morgan agreed. "But I thought the Welfare World tookcare of its poor, misled criminals better than this."

  Again the chuckle. "You shoulda robbed a bank or killed somebody. Thentheyda given you a nice rehabilitation sentence. Regular prison. Roomof your own. Something real nice. Like a hotel. But this'sdifferent."

  "Yeah," Morgan agreed. This was a political prison. This was the placewhere they put you when they didn't care what happened to you afterthe door was locked because there would be no going out.

  Morgan knew where he was. It was a big, fortresslike building on topof one of the highest hills at the northern end of ManhattanIsland--an old building that had once been a museum and was built likea medieval castle.

  "What happens if you die in here?" he asked conversationally.

  "Every Wednesday and Saturday," the voice repeated.

  "Um," said Harry Morgan.

  "'Cept once in a while," the voice whispered. "Like a couple days ago.When was it? Yeah. Monday that'd be. Guy they had in here for a weekor so. Don't remember how long. Lose tracka time here. Yeah. Sure losetracka time here."

  There was a long pause, and Morgan, controlling the tenseness in hisvoice, said: "What about the guy Monday?"

  "Oh. Him. Yeah, well, they took him out Monday."

  Morgan waited again, got nothing further, and asked: "Dead?"

  "'Course he was dead. They was tryin' to get somethin' out of him.Somethin' about a cable. He jumped one of the guards, and theyblackjacked him. Hit 'im too hard, I guess. Guard sure got hell forthat, too. Me, I'm lucky. They don't ask me no questions."

  "What are you in for?" Morgan asked.

  "Don't know. They never told me. I don't ask for fear they'llremember. They might start askin' questions."

  Morgan considered. This could be a plant, but he didn't think so. Thevoice was too authentic, and there would be no purpose in hisinformation. That meant that Jack Latrobe really was dead. They hadkilled him. An ice cold hardness surged along his nerves.

  * * * * *

  The door at the far end of the corridor clanged, and a brace of heavyfootsteps clomped along the floor. Two men came abreast of thesteel-barred door and stopped.

  One of them, a well-dressed, husky-looking man in his middle forties,said: "O.K., Morgan. How did you do it?"

  "I put on blue lipstick and kissed my elbows--both of 'em. Goingwiddershins, of course."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The guy in your hotel suite. You killed him. You cut off both feet,one hand, and his head. How'd you do it?"

  Morgan looked at the man. "Police?"

  "Nunna your business. Answer the question."

  "I use a cobweb I happened to have with me. Who was he?"

  The cop's face was whitish. "You chop a guy up like that and thendon't know who he is?"

  "I can guess. I can guess that he was an agent for PMC 873 who wastrespassing illegally. But I didn't kill him. I was in ... er ...custody when it happened."

  "Not gonna talk, huh?" the cop said in a hard voice. "O.K., you've hadyour chance. We'll be back."

  "I don't think I'll wait," said Morgan.

  "You'll wait. We got you on a murder charge now. You'll wait. Wiseguy." He turned and walked away. The other man followed like a trainedhound.

  * * * * *

  After the door clanged, the man in the next cell whispered: "Well,you're for it. They're gonna ask you questions."

  Morgan said one obscene word and stood up. It was time to leave.

  He had been searched thoroughly. They had left him only his clothes,nothing else. They had checked to make sure that there were nomicrominiaturized circuits on him. He was clean.

  So they thought.

  Carefully, he caught a thread in the lapel of his jacked and pulled itfree. Except for a certain springiness, it looked like an ordinarysilon thread. He looped it around one of the bars of his cell, highup. The ends he fastened to a couple of little decorative hooks in hisbelt--hooks covered with a shell of synthetic ruby.

  Then he leaned back, putting his weight on the thread.

  Slowly, like a knife moving through
cold peanut butter, the threadsank into the steel bar, cutting through its one-inch thickness withincreasing difficulty until it was half-way through. Then it seemed toslip the rest of the way through.

  He repeated the procedure thrice more, making two cuts in each of twobars. Then he carefully removed the sections he had cut out. He putone of them on the floor of his cell and carried the other in hishand--three feet of one-inch steel makes a nice weapon if it becomesnecessary.

  Then he stepped through the hole he had made.

  The man in the next cell widened