Free Five to Twelve by Edmund Cooper Page A

their jet packs and duty accoutrements and became airborne.
    At first, the attack on Victoria’s Hallowe’en party looked as if it might have been the impractical joke of a few itinerant sports. But clearly it wasn’t. As more than fifty of them jetted down in disciplined formation, it became evident that the whole thing had been planned very carefully.
    Juno was one of the first Peace Officers to get herself into the air. Dion watched her go with irritating bewilderment. One impulse goaded him to follow her, to see that she came to no harm. Another impulse held him back, persuading him to let the dom stew in her own crisis. Besides, these boyos from the fourth dimension were hotting up what had been a very cold piece of social discomfort.
    By the time he had disposed of the second impulse, Juno had already departed and there were other things to think about. Particularly when a surprisingly small Guards officer fell out of the sky and inconsiderately died almost at his very feet.
    She had such a young face—probably she was no more than thirty-five or forty. With multiple fractures in legs,arms and pelvis, she lay on the ground, a tiny extinguished glow-worm.
    Dion cradled her head in his arms. She was hurt in too many places to feel pain. But an intense weariness came over her childlike features.
    She uttered only six words before she died.
    “Love me,” she said. “Love me! Love me!”
    Then the body became slack and she was just another dead dom.
    He picked her up, oblivious of the general pandemonium, and carried her out of the circle of light, away from the grotesque null-comedies that were being played around the megaliths of Stonehenge, to a quiet grassy hollow where there was nothing but frost and stars.
    He laid her down very gently and straightened the shattered limbs. Then he sat there silently for a while, remembering the taste of frozen blood, thinking how easy it was to stifle the thin warm worm of life.
    Presently, he kissed her already cold forehead and was guiltily pleased to find that he had bathed it in tears.
    He didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. There was only the disquieting notion that, dom though she was, she never had been an enemy. She had been nothing more than a sad little machine.
    But even machines are beautiful. And she had been a very beautiful machine.
    He loved her. It was easy to love someone you had never known. Someone with whom you would never make love. Someone whom you could never hate, despise or grow tired of. It was easy—and heartbreaking.
    By the time he got back to the floodlit group of stones, the attack was over, the wounded and the temporarily dead were being treated, and the absolute dead had been removed.Victoria looked very regal—and pleased with herself—in the bandage that covered her broomstick bruise.
    There was no sign of Juno. Dion inspected the party debris, then worked his way through the casualty treatment area and the resuscitation unit that had obviously jetted down only a short time before.
    Still no sign of Juno.
    Not that he was disturbed, of course. By this time, no doubt, like many other Peace Officers who were now jetting back in ones and twos, she had abandoned pursuit of the stragglers and was returning to Stonehenge.
    On the other hand, she might have collected a laser burn for her trouble and homed on the nearest domdoc for a shot or two before returning to get a full fix. Not that he cared… Much…
    Nevertheless, by the time another dozen Peace Officers had touched down, he found himself walking to Reception to collect his jet pack.
    He had Reception put out a call for Juno while he was switching gas tanks. Then, when there was no response, he lifted. Looking for her would be about as easy as looking for a black beetle in the Channel Tunnel. But, Stopes, it was better than fabricating zero.
    Besides, the party was over. And all the remaining marionettes were drunk, dead, wounded or very tired. Apart from the fracas, it