Free Fanatics: Zero Tolerance by David J. Ferguson Page B

and glanced about him. There were people pressing closely on every side but immediately in front, where the Bureaucrat’s table was; being discreet seemed impossible.
    The Bureaucrat frankly didn’t care about Barry’s discomfiture. He had his orders (more like strongly worded suggestions, actually), and since they apparently came from quite high up in the chain of command, he would do his job and obey them; but that didn’t mean he had to approve of them, or make things easy for the vile creatures who were eagerly leaping to (in some cases, literally) stab their neighbours in the back. “You’re here to report the decease of a certain person, I take it?” he said in a voice that caused nearby heads to turn. “A certain kind of person?”
    Barry shuffled nervously; his face reddened. “Uh, yeah. A Lemming.”
    “A Lemming,” said the Bureaucrat. “And how was this accomplished? You’ll have to put it all down, you know.”
    “There’s supposed to be a reward,” said Barry, growing angry. “The posters said about a reward. Do I get it here? How much is it?”
    “Well, I don’t have the money on me, son - I mean, Sir - and besides, we won’t know whether you’re eligible until we’ve had a chance to look at your case. We don’t know whether your victim was a Lemming, do we?”
    “Are you calling me a liar?” demanded Barry.
    “I’m not calling you anything,” said the Bureaucrat quickly. “I don’t know the first thing about you. I’ve never met you before in my life.” Then, in his former tone, he added: “The Government can’t be seen to sanction murder. We have to know the particulars of every case. That’s what the form is for, Sir . Go to one of those tables over there and bring it back to me when it’s filled in.”
    Barry scooped the form off the Bureaucrat’s desk furiously, almost leaving nail gouges in the desktop, and stormed away, (somewhat inefficiently, it must be said, since he had to shove his way through a substantial crowd).
     
    *****
     
    Since the general atmosphere in the somewhat euphemistically-named relief centre was noisy in a bustling, businesslike way, the almost theatrical air of conspiracy between Barry McCandless and the man on the other side of the desk made them more readily noticed; so once Barry raised his voice angrily, bystanders had what amounted to a licence to be nosy.
    Only a metre and a half away, Michael Andrews, attempting to fill in a form with a very short and almost blunt pencil, was therefore quite easily defeated by the temptation to mind someone else’s business.
    The more he listened, however, the more he became alarmed, for what he heard was his business, after all. He was not a Lemming, but he could not deny he had spiritual kinship with them. They would all be tarred with the same brush; someone anxious to start rebuilding his life with the reward money would not care about the differences between one set of fanatics and the next. Government sanction for murder! he thought for the fourth or fifth time, having discounted almost immediately the bureaucrat’s attitude of disapproval. People like that little man would do as they were told. Half-remembered details of biographies Michael had read of those who’d suffered under repressive governments for holding “incorrect” ideologies churned and roiled in his mind.
    The surging wave of associations suddenly slapped into a wall as he realised he’d come to a section on his form which required details about his relatives: names, addresses, and so on. He put down the pencil stub, and folding the form and putting it into a pocket, slipped away as surreptitiously as he could manage. Dad has to hear about this, he thought.
     
    *****
     
    Vehicles of every description moved Northward in a great mass that made rush hour look light. Clare Latimer, a passenger in one of them, looked at her watch; she and her husband Stephen had been on the road four hours, and were still only twelve or thirteen