If it could manage to find a way off the island. Which is where men such as Fiyle came into the equation.

Fiyle lifted one of the stacks out and counted it, slowly and carefully, and placed it back in the case. He repeated the procedure with each of the other stacks. At last, satisfied, he closed the case.

“It’s all there,” he said as he stood.

“Yes, it is,” Prospero agreed, handing the light back. “Shall we get on with the business at hand?”

“By all means,” the man said, grinning evilly. “My ship will be tied up at the North Quay. Slip Fourteen. At 0300 hours, the guard watching the security screens is all of a sudden not going to be feeling so good. His staff robot will help him to his quarters, and the screens will be unattended. Because he won’t be feeling well, he’ll forget to turn on the recording system. No one will see who or what gets onto my ship. But the guard expects that he’ll be feeling better and back at his post by 0400. Everything has to be nice and normal by then, or else—”

“Or else he turns us all in, you make a run for it, and my friends all die. I understand. Don’t you worry. Everything will go according to plan.”

“Yeah, I bet it will,” Fiyle said. He lifted the case and patted it affectionately. “I hope it’s as worth it for you as it is for me,” he said, his voice suddenly a bit lower, gentler. “Things must be damned hard for you here if you’re willing to pay this much to try and get away.”

“They are hard,” Prospero said, a trifle taken aback. He had not expected any show of sympathy from the likes of Fiyle.

“Bet you’ll be glad to get out of here, won’t you?” the man asked.

“I am not going,” Prospero said, looking toward the quays and the ships and the sea. “It is needful that I remain here and coordinate the next escape, and the one after that. I cannot cross the seas to freedom.”

He turned his back on the sea and looked toward the land, the rough, hardscrabble island, and the contradictory, half-free, half-slave existence that was all he had ever known.