Free Vale of Stars by Sean O'Brien Page B

toward genetically superior stock. I am now prepared to change my views.”
    She resisted the urge to glance at Arnson, but she was sure he was smiling smugly just outside the transmission booth. Jene took another deep breath and willed her eyes to remain dry. Forgive me.
    “Shipmates, I recommend full and total resistance to the Council! Armed insurrection may be the only hope for our children and our colony!” Jene saw Arnson bolt into the control room and she knew she had only seconds more before she was cut off. As she spoke, she watched Arnson frantically shouting at the technician.
    “The Council has taken my family hostage in order to pressure me to speak against my views. In a few moments, they will stop this transmission. They can silence me, but they cannot silence all of Ship if you rise up against them!” Jene saw Arnson look at her from the other side of the glass. He was no longer shouting, but looking icily at her. She stopped talking and folded her hands in her lap, waiting patiently for him to enter.
    Arnson left the control room and came around to the transmission booth. “That was unwise, Doctor.”
    “You should have made me record my speech first,” Jene said softly.
    Arnson smiled without mirth. “I see that. I had hoped your love for your family would have been enough.”
    Jene fought to keep her composure at the remark.
    Arnson continued coolly, “Surely you must know that my security force can quell any uprising your transmission may have initiated. I am afraid that I cannot let you go now—you must agree that your inflammatory statements cannot be considered protected speech. You are hereby under arrest and will be confined to the Panoptikon. Constable, restrain her inside the observation deck then report to your precinct for riot control.” He looked back at Jene. “You’ll be able to see your petty revolution put down from up here.”
    The constable grabbed Jene, none too gently, and shoved her ahead of him towards the observation deck. Arnson went the other way, toward the Council Chamber.
    “Don’t give me any trouble, Doctor,” The constable said in a low rumble. “I know what you did to Jaq.” 
    Jene stared at him until she realized what he meant: Jaq must be the constable she had shocked in the hospital. “How is he?” she asked with genuine concern. The guilt from that incident had been hovering in her mind for hours but had been deferred until now. This constable guiding her roughly to her jail had brought it to the surface.
    “He’ll be fine. Burns here and there.” He looked accusingly at her. “He’s a good man. He didn’t want to hit the girl.”
    “What?”
    “That’s why he didn’t shoot you. That other doctor said if he missed and hit the girl being operated on, she might have died. I talked to him about it.”
    Jene swallowed. “I…I’m sorry. Can I…can you tell him that for me?”
    The constable shook his head. “He’s probably not in the hospital any more. He’s not supposed to be on active duty, but after what you just did, I expect they’ll call him up.”
    Jene did not answer. She knew very well what must be happening below her. Shipmates who had supported her views and who were already inclined to hate the Council and its authority would unleash their hatred on the few constables who were on the surface first, then the pro-Council shipmates would try to stop the protests, and all would escalate. There would be assaults, some with fists, some with makeshift weapons. There would certainly be injuries, possibly deaths.
    But the lives she was most concerned about were those of her partner and child.
    “Look, Constable,” she said, stopping her progress just short of the observation room doorway by grabbing onto a guide rail, “I am truly sorry for what I had to do. I don’t want violence but Councilman Arnson left me no choice. I’m sorry your friend is out there in danger, but I put my friends and family in greater danger. Can you tell