“Did you hear that?” James’s voice asked. “Could something be wrong? Just two votes for Sir Hector Harapo-and every other vote for Zapilote. Let us find out for ourselves.” A switch was thrown and his voice boomed from all of the loudspeakers. “Good people of Tortosa, this is the representative of Sir Hector speaking. He is of the belief that the repulsive swine of a general-president has thrown your votes away, that the voting machines are crooked, that Zapilote is cheating you out of your representation on this ballot. Let us discover the truth. Will every person here who voted for Sir Hector Harapo please raise his or her hand. Thank you.” Silence filled the square as the hands went up. Slowly, firmly, proudly. A sea of hands. An uplifting demonstration of the truth.

“Very good. Thank you. Will you please lower your hands. Now I ask for the hands of those who voted for Zapilote.” All of the hands dropped. Not one hand lifted. Yes, one, two hands, as the mayor and the chief hesitantly raised their palms. James’s voice was jubilant.

“There you have it, people of Paraiso-Aqui. Proof positive of the crime of disfranchisement. All of the people of this town, with two verminous exceptions, have been deprived of their vote. We have positive proof that in Tortosa the voting was fixed. The wrong man won.” I signaled and the camera came back on me. I pointed gravely at the massive tome beside me.

“A crime has been committed. A crime that you will find reference to on page nine thousand and three of the sacred constitution of this planet. The wording of clause seventynine on this page is clear, painfully clear. I will read it to you.” I raised a copy of the clause and read from it in my most impressive and sonorous voice.

“Due to the nature of electronic voting and due to the necessity of assuring that the voting is always recorded with utmost accuracy and due to the invisibility of the votes once they have been recorded in the voting machine, it is hereby ordained that strictest controls and regulations must be observed as stated in paragraph nineteen, subsection forty of the voting act, and as further guarantee of the surety of the votes it shall be declared and enacted that if it be proven beyond doubt that the recoird of votes in a single voting machine during a presidential ballot be proven to be substantially altered, then that presidential ballot shall be declared null and void, and all of the ballots cast in that election shall be declared null and void. It is furthermore required that two weeks after this declaration of nullity there shall be another ballot and this ballot will be potentiated using the original system of paper ballots and ballot boxes and the winner of this election will be declared President and he shall instigate an investigation of the voting machines before their next use in any election.” I placed the paper reverently back upon the constitution, then turned slowly to the camera. In a serious and ominous voice I spoke.

“I therefore declare this election null and void. In two weeks’ time there will be another election. At that timemav thp hp. [it man win

Chapter 30

“Cut,” Angelina said, and there were shouts of joy from all present.

“You have done it,” she wid, and kissed my cheek above the fuzz line. “And you have taken care of all of the voters of Tortosa as well.” “Absolutely. For our sake, as well as theirs, they are now settling down in their bedrolls in the tents outside. Safe from any retaliations from Zapilote’s creatures. They will remain for the two weeks until the next election and will be handsomely paid for their little vacation. All of them seemed to enjoy the idea.” “He will ignore us,” de Torres said gloomily. “He will pay no heed to the demand for another election. He has the power to do this.” “He dare not,” I said. “It would ruin the planet’s economy. Without the import of ofiworld currency his corrupt and incompetent administration would be bankrupt in a week. I have sent full details on the election to every planet supplying tourists to this world. They will be watching the result with close attention.” “Then we have won!” de Torres said, striking a victorious pose, “Not yet,” I told him. “We have still to fight the battle of the ballot boxes. But this time we will be ready. For every dirty trick he knows I know three. It will be a conflict every step of the way, but at least now we stand a chance.

It was a very busy two weeks. The official ballot boxes were manufactured and sealed under the ‘strictest supervision. But we had little trouble extracting a sample from their warehouse in order to go into the ballot-box business for ourselves. We did the same thing with the ballots, and very quickly had printed as many as had the government presses. I didn’t know what kind of dirty tricks they would be trying, 168 so we had to be ready for everything and anything that might come our way.

Nor were we being tardy on the organizational front. Jorge, once a tourist guide and now in charge of our recruiting campaign, had flying squads visiting every polling district. Local volunteers were formed into secret committees, then issued with scrambler radios so we could be in constant touch with all of them. Campaign brochures poured forth from printing presses right around the planet, and we saw to it that there were two news bulletins on radio and television every night. First came the lying government one-then ours followed immediately afterwards. We kept the news factual and accurate and free of political bias. That was enough-it was a breath of fresh air after the drivel that had proceeded it. We knew that their technicians were doing everything they could to jam or trace our signals. To no ayail. Freedom of information had come to the planet. If the ballot could be kept relatively honest Zapilote’s regime was surely doomed.

We had real proof of this when the government car approached our perimeter defenses on day eleven, just three days before the election. It was stopped by the guards who put a call through to me.

“Excuse me. Sir Hector, but the party in the car will speak to no one but you.” “What’s the security status?” “Detectors reveal only small arms. No bombs, no radiation devices of any kind. One passenger in the back, a driver and guard in the front.” “Sounds good so far. Who is the passenger?” “We can’t tell. The windows are opaqued.” “Let them through. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble looking after them.” Nor did we. The car was stopped among the trees well away from the castle. Rodriguez and Bolivar had a squad with them; they had the two men who were in the front of the car disarmed and whisked away within seconds. I strolled into sight and looked at the dark windows. I was quite relaxed, possibly because of my superior combat ability, but truthfully because of the portable force field generator that protected me.

“You can come out now,” I said.

The door slowly opened and Zapilote poked his head through, then climbed down.

“What an unexpected pleasure,” I said.

“None of that nonsense, Harapo. I’m here to talk business.” He reached behind him in the car and removed a metal box. When he turned back with it in his hand my pistol was trained between his little beady eyes.

“Put that away, you moron,” he snarled. “I’m not here to try to kill you.” He threw a switch on the box and it began to hum loudly. “This is a white noise generator. It blacks out any kind of recording equipment and sets up air tremor patterns that make photography and lipreading impossible. I want no record of this conversation to exist. “ “Fine by me.” I put the gun away. “What do you want?” “A deal. You’re the only person in a hundred and seventy years that eyer gave me a fight. I appreciate that. It was getting kind (n boring.” “Not to the people you had beaten to death. “ “None of that liberal hogwash for the masses. There are just the two of us here now. You don’t care about the microcephalic mob any more than I do...” “What makes you say that?” The conversation was beginning to get interesting.