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If the authorities had known all that I, Vila Restal, was involved in, I would have ended up on a prison ship going to a planet of no return for a long time, a long time before I did. Or worse.
I am a thief and I can pick locks like nobody's business--which is the problem so to speak. If I could have made an honest business of it, I would have had no problem--but I couldn't, so there I was.
I sometimes say I bought my Delta grading. That is not quite accurate--I bought my entry into the Delta grade technical courses. Who wouldn't consider any alternative to cannon fodder or being otherwise damaged unnecessarily? I did well on the path I had chosen. The main problem was that I wanted to try my skills on things other than those expected of me. That is why I ended up being sent to a 'penal colony' at age fourteen. This was a slight misnomer though, and for once not quite a euphemism. The authorities hoped that off-loading youngsters like me on frontier planets rather than have us disrupting the domed cities would make use of our energies and bring peace to the latter. It did work for some. I got bored, though, and stowed away. This also turned out to be part of the testing process--anybody ingenious enough to get back to Earth was given special training. Which I also made full use of, but not in the way they intended.
I preferred being my own man, and ended up in the 'grey economy.' I had a reasonable standard of living as I saw it--if only the authorities would not interfere. That is the problem with the Federation--those who choose to work on the margins, whether honestly or not, are included with the criminals, and end up acting accordingly. I thus ended up in jail regularly, extending my range of skills therein. Sometimes I went through my own choice, preferring a few days' prison 'bed and board' to the alternatives. I even introduced cats to my 'regulars' to keep away the vermin. They proved useful to guards and prisoners alike, as they were almost as good at 'finding' and 'losing' things as I was. If the cats could've complained they probably wouldn't--they had a comfortable life in return for an occasional scolding, which they ignored anyway.
Perhaps inevitably, I encountered rebels, though they rarely identified themselves as such. We were prepared to maintain the pretence, even as I opened the doors to outside the domed cities in a manner so they could escape being detected. I even went outside occasionally--there was nothing there for me, and it frequently rained. I was not the only criminal who co-operated with the rebels as our interests sometimes overlapped--we both wanted less official interest in what we were doing. It was also in our separate interests that our activities did not overlap too obviously--or suspicions might be raised if too many people were 'doing strange things' in a given area.
Somehow the authorities never did twig my connection with the rebels. I was careful to cover my tracks--and my criminal record saved me on occasion. Besides, I was too useful to the local police--I was a dab hand at opening the drinks cupboard, or dealing with their 'accidents' with handcuffs and cell door locks, as well as more legitimate purposes. On the few occasions when my happening to be in the neighbourhood of rebels was brought to the attention of policedom it tended to be explained away.
Of course I was aware of Roj Blake's Freedom Party--who wouldn't be?--not least because the aftermath involved increased surveillance in the areas I worked in. He was indirectly responsible for my being arrested a couple of times--not that I would hold it against him, though. He was not the only activist, only the one who came to everybody's notice. And I never saw him--I said so at my trial, and I was on oath wasn't I?
He was arrested, tried, and marginalised, and the situation reverted to normal for a few years. Then anti-official activities increased again, as they seemed to do every few years. I decided that I would train some of the rebels to open the doors to the outside without my help--I had been arrested so many times that the Justice lot were making threatening noises. I knew one of the rebel organisers--Bran Foster--and he agreed with me. I was more use to him and his on Earth and keeping my formal distance from the rebels than sent to some mouldy prison planet--and not just because I was a professional coward. I was never going to be a rabble-rouser to the cause among my fellow criminals, and I had my future to consider.
Foster told me that he and his were going to initiate a new phase of their activities, and so I better lie low. I decided that the best way to do this was to get myself arrested, as I had done on previous occasions, to get an alibi or to keep away from people I have inadvertently annoyed. What Foster was about to do was likely to justify both excuses. I might even be able to manipulate the system and get in touch with the man who had apparently got close to turning the Federation's banking system on Earth inside out.
Unfortunately my plans did not quite work out like that. I should have been keeping up with the news--there was a clampdown on 'general criminal nuisances' with the intent of sending the 'worst cases' off-planet. I exceeded the 'arrest quota' for transportation several-fold. They were also cracking down on the rebel groups--Blake's arrest, which was news throughout the criminal groups, as it was among the general population, was not the only one. It was bad luck that the one time that I most wanted the prison service to provide me with a safe refuge it refused to do so.
the end
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