The Wellstone Read Online Free Page B

“Steady, men. Nobody wants to get hurt over this. We just need the fax gate.”
    “Can’t leave without your parent or guardian,” Rock said, attempting to straighten. “Regulations, no exception.”
    “Except today,” Bascal said, and Conrad had to marvel at the casual, agreeable tone of this kid’s voice, trained from birth in the art of persuasion. It wasn’t going to
convince
Rock or anything—not after he’d been whacked in the balls with a canoe paddle—but it did put a vaguely legitimate face on these proceedings. Made it sound like their side of it had some validity.
    Which it did; this wasn’t a jail, strictly speaking, but neither were the boys free to leave, or to do as they pleased while “guests” of the camp. Which might be great if you were twelve or something, but sucked hugely when you were old enough to want female companionship and other assorted contraband. But there was no one to complain to, no cops or social workers to call. No one here at all who was not in the immediate employ of Camp Friendly, and therefore an extension of the parents who’d banished them here.
    So here in the twenty-ninth decade of the Queendom of Sol, on a miniature planet orbiting in the middle depths of the Kuiper Belt, far from the sun and planets, young men were forced—literally forced—to reenact the squalors and deprivations of a less civilized era. So it made perfect sense for them to respond in an uncivilized way.
    “You kids in a lot of trouble,” Rock cautioned. From his tone he was worried
for
them as much as because of them. He wasn’t going to offer any further resistance; he couldn’t win if he tried.
    On the horizon, twenty meters away, three more counselors materialized. One Conrad recognized but didn’t know; he worked with the younger kids on the other side of the world. The other two were D’rector Jed: two faxed copies of the same individual, each holding the electric cattle prod he’d often warned about.
    “What’s going on here?” one of him demanded officiously. The other just stood there looking stern. It said a lot about D’rector Jed, Conrad thought, that he liked to go everywhere in twos. Did he enjoy his own company that much, or was he simply concerned that the universe outnumbered him?
    “Cessation of involuntary confinement,” Bascal called back without missing a beat. “This man illegally tried to detain us.”
    The distance was not too great to see a veil of caution drop across D’rector Jed’s features as he recognized Bascal’s voice. He seemed to have trouble actually picking Bascal out of the crowd, though. Before starting this, the boys had smeared their faces with dirt and mussed up their hair, mainly as a way of psyching themselves up but also, Conrad now saw, to blur the lines of identity that made them accountable.
    “Your Highness,” one of the Jeds said, and you could see him still mentally backpedaling, rethinking his approach. “Prince” was a funny word, a funny concept; the child who would someday rule.
    If his parents weren’t immortal.
    How did one treat a child, educate or punish or even reward a child, who might someday stand higher, enormously higher, than the educator himself? A tricky business indeed, and one that Bascal, in Conrad’s limited experience, twisted constantly—perhaps reflexively—to his own advantage.
    “Highness,” the other Jed tried, “you and your friends have been entrusted to my keeping. I will not hesitate—”
    “You
will
hesitate,” Bascal shouted back, taking a large symbolic step in the Jeds’ direction. “In fact, you’ll stand aside entirely, or my merry men here will beat you both senseless. This is not a joke; they’re escorting me for a call to Child Welfare Services, with whom I have a total legal right to consult.”
    This was news to Conrad; three minutes ago, the plan had been, “Come on! Let’s show these bastards!” But this sounded better, more refined. Legitimate, almost.
    “I’ve