Maximum! Maybe the others in the room didn’t understand what that meant, but every Guardian did. Maximum meant termination voltage. Nicole looked up at Travis and flushed. It was an effort to keep her face expressionless, for her mind was hurtling through white-water rapids of thought. Monitors were classed as critical personnel, so she was under no threat personally. But her aunt would be implanted, and that made her stomach drop. Then she saw Clayne Robertson sitting in front of her, and she felt ill as her mind leaped to Adrienne and Sarah and Timmy.

Eric’s final sardonic comment as he slipped out the back door Saturday night had been, “I think it’s time to see if we can bloody the Major’s nose a little, goad him into action.” He had gotten his reaction all right, and Nicole felt a burst of despair. Eric was underestimating the Major. Shalev had just been clamped down so tightly that Eric’s rebellion would be crushed like a bug under the wheels of a juggernaut.

“The fourth rule,” the Major continued, cutting into her thoughts, “will be in effect, but is not included in the official statement. It will not be announced to the people, but will affect some of you in this room directly. The fourth order of action is that during the state of emergency all media reports—broadcasts, press reports, any announcements—must first be approved by a special public communications committee in Central Control.”

“No!” Roy Hartford of the Herald had leaped to his feet. “You can’t do that!”

The Major sighed. “Roy, of all the requirements of this sordid mess, that one causes me the greatest sorrow. We have never had censorship of the media in Shalev.” His voice grew suddenly hard and cold. “But Eric Lloyd is depending on the media to make him into some kind of twisted folk hero, to turn the hearts of this people so they support him. To some degree, that has already been happening. The media are partially responsible for generating a base of action for Lloyd and the other criminals who have joined him.”

His fist crashed down on the table. “And that is going to stop!” he thundered. “You will not in any way help this man. Is that clear?”

The editor rocked back, stunned by the savagery in the Major’s face, but he was not totally cowed. “May I ask what events have justified this? All we know is that everyone has been put under curfew.”

The Major’s anger disappeared with the same swiftness with which it had flared up. “Yes. That finishes the formal statement. I’ll now answer your questions. The rebels have begun a major offensive. Nine people in Shalev have had their implantations illegally removed since three o’clock this afternoon. Arsonists set a fire in Shalev General Hospital today to cover an attack on the team guarding Dr. Clifford Cameron.”