Come the Revolution (5 page)

“What are you blathering…?” e-Bomaan started but then faltered. Everyone in the room froze for a moment. Gaant had made a signal to someone, a slight raising of his hand, and suddenly the soft background hum of the local jammer was gone from my ears. I immediately squinted up the access to our local float nexus in Praha-Riz and set up a full-feed recording of my audio and visual input, and locked a coded channel. I snapped to it before the bandwidth got swamped once everyone else in the room figured out what was happening. I must have beaten most of them to the draw because I got my channel up and running. From here on, everything that I saw and heard would be out there on the float memory, and as far as I knew, nobody was good enough to hunt down all those threads and erase them.

Since that was all done with eye movement and pressure, my mind and eyes weren’t on the room. As I looked up Gaant gestured again and the wide double doors to the conference room opened. First the jammers, then the door. Whatever cult Gaant was peddling with himself as a leader, obviously someone at the counseling house was on board.

The crowd we saw earlier in the atrium started shuffling in—hundreds of them, silent but curious. Some craned their necks, taking in the occupants of the room and the rich, elegant simplicity of its fixtures. Most of them watched Gaant the way I imagined people look at their messiah.

Chapter Seven

“Shit!” e-Bomaan shouted the English expletive in surprise and anger, which just goes to show he wasn’t as much of a traditionalist as Gaant. None of the other five races could swear like Humans, but Varoki weren’t above borrowing on occasion. This time I was inclined to agree with the sentiment. I started to reach instinctively for the gauss pistol under my jacket but stopped, because there wasn’t one there today.

This must have been the surprise Gaant bragged about earlier. For all these people to make it back to the conference room, they had to have gotten past the entrance security and then through the whole office complex. Since there was no sign of violence, and none of the crowd seemed worked up, somebody let them in—a fair number of somebodies, come to think of it, including Munies at the security station. Gaant had people in the Munies as well as the counseling house? This was a pretty elaborate operation, more than I’d credited him with.

I did a quick scan of the room—no way out. I felt sweat tickle my sides under my armpits. I only saw one possible refuge if things turned ugly, and it wasn’t much.

“Ah-Quan, corner to your left, get ready,” I said softly in Szawa, the Zaschaan trade language. Ah-Quan would understand but I was betting nobody else in the room would. I put my hands on
The’On
’s shoulders.

“If you want to trade away their heritage, you will not do so in darkness,” Gaant said to the men at the table, his voice rising in volume and taking on a more dramatic tone. This was probably his motivational speaker voice. He gestured toward the quiet crowd filling the room. “Conduct your dirty business with these people as witnesses, if you have the courage. Let them see the color of your souls!”

I think Gaant had a plan as to what came next. He must have. But no plan survives contact with stupidity, and there was plenty of that going around. One of the Varoki at the back table, one of the staffers, jumped to his feet and pulled a neuro-wand from his under his jacket. So much for no weapons on neutral ground, huh?

“Put that away you moron!” I shouted. As everyone turned to look at him, the guy hit Gaant with the wand. Gaant didn’t make a sound except for a sharp hiss of inhaled breath. His whole body spasmed as every nerve in it fired at once and then he seemed to fall in slow motion, the crowd gaping, someone at the table reaching out too late to catch him, until his head clipped the hard stone edge of the table and made a sound like a melon hitting pavement. He continued falling to the floor and then didn’t move.

My knees went weak. For what seemed like a very long time but could only have been a second or two nobody moved, nobody said anything. I didn’t breathe. I guess I feared—we all feared—the slightest act might break the spell and bring what came next. Then a collective gasp escaped from those at the head of the crowd as they surged forward and some knelt at Gaant’s side. Some screamed, some shouted questions from behind, others shouted back.

What happened?

The Guide is dead!

They killed the Guide!

“The corner!
Move!”
I screamed to ah-Quan.

More people surged through the doorway, jostling those in front. Some of those kneeling by Gaant got pushed over and cried out as the mob stepped on them, but a couple big guys managed to lift Gaant’s limp body up and over their heads, and soon the crowd passed it back, hand to hand, out of the room, his dripping blood anointing them.

Ah-Quan reached forward and grabbed Gaisaana-la by the shoulders of her suit, snatching her up and over the back of her chair by sheer brute strength, and then he plowed through the crowd starting to fill the space to our left. I didn’t get
The’On
up nearly as quickly and by the time we started after ah-Quan the crowd had closed in.

A female Varoki from the crowd lunged at the staffer with the neuro-wand and he hit her with it, then started trying to drive the crowd back with it, wanding everyone in the front rank, even though they couldn’t get away through the press of bodies behind them. Screams of pain and fear and rage. Bodies twitching and falling limp to the floor to be trampled by those behind. Then a growing rumbling chorus of hatred and pent-up rage as the crowd became a mob and then an avalanche under which the staffer with the wand just vanished.

E-Bomaan and the other Varoki across the table from us were all on their feet and pressed back against the stone surface by the pressure of the mob, now tearing and striking at them. The table tipped over on its side and then onto its top and both members of the mob and their targets tumbled over it, the wave of flesh behind them surging over them.

I backpedaled frantically, pulling
The’On
with me, but came up against the smooth, hard composite resin surface of the big window overlooking the river.

The’On
started to drop down to the floor but I pulled him up.

“Stand up!” I shouted above the howl of the mob. I turned him so his right shoulder was against the window. “Cover your head! Shoulder against the window, not your chest or back. Otherwise you’ll suffocate!”

I saw the panic in his eyes fighting to take control but he nodded. I tried to partially cover him with my own body, my right shoulder under his left armpit, both our arms covering our heads, and then the mob hit us. Someone’s fist caught me a good one on the back of my skull that left me seeing flashes of light for a few seconds, but as the mob pressed on from behind, the ones in front lost the ability to do anything but try to stay upright. The pressure grew and in just a few seconds the Varoki pressing against us went from enraged enemies to terrified fellow victims.

A shrill cry of agony sounded to my immediate left and I turned my head. I was face-to-face with e-Bomaan, his chest flat against the window, eyes bulging as the air was forced from his lungs by the inexorable pressure of the mob. His eyes made contact with mine, filled not only with pain and fear, but shock bordering on disbelief. A few seconds ago he had been one of the richest and most powerful men in the
Cottohazz
, and now here he was, losing the fight for life. How had this happened? How was it even possible?

Another surge from behind, even stronger than before, hit us. E-Bomaan’s ribcage collapsed against the thick unyielding composite surface of the window, the bones popping and breaking one by one, and his last exhaled groan turned into bloody foam. I turned away, spitting his blood out, and then the surge caught me. For a moment it didn’t take my breath because of my position. Then my right shoulder came out of the socket and I screamed in pain as the mass of the crowd flattened me against the window.

With a loud, sharp crack the composite resin of the window finally gave way and I was instantly weightless, surrounded by other screaming, flailing bodies tumbling through the air.

Chapter Eight

Screams filled my ears until we hit the surface of the Wanu River, hit it hard enough to knock the wind from my lungs, almost hard enough to knock me out. Muffled and remote underwater sounds replaced bedlam. Groggy and disoriented, I wasn’t sure which direction was up until my feet sank into the weeds and bottom muck. My right arm was useless and I still had the front of
The’On
’s tunic crumpled in my left fist. He floated limp beside me. I couldn’t let go, he’d drown. I pushed off from the bottom and kicked with my feet as hard as I could. I didn’t seem to be making any progress. I started feeling dizzy from oxygen starvation, could hardly keep my straining lungs from sucking in the Wanu River, when the water around me got lighter and then I broke surface.

Air!
I vacuumed in a big, shuddering lungful and my vision cleared, sound came back—people crying for help, screaming in pain and fear, splashing into the water. I looked around, oriented myself. We were close to the river bank, near the base of Praha-Riz, but the river was deep like a canal, so we’d had enough water under us to absorb our fall. Folks after us hadn’t been as lucky, and lots were still falling from the shattered windows, tumbling down like an organic waterfall to land with soft thuds among the heaps of still-twitching bodies along the river bank. Only the first of us had been thrown far enough out to reach deeper water and avoid being crushed by the bodies cascading down afterwards.

It was hard treading water with just my legs, but I needed my one good arm to keep
The’On
’s head up. I wasn’t sure he was breathing but couldn’t do anything about it in the water so I started kicking us toward the bank. I hadn’t gone far when one of the Varoki pulling himself up out of the shallows noticed us.

“There, the Human! The one who killed the Guide!”

Killed Gaant! Me?
Well, just about everyone who actually saw what happened was probably dead by now, so it made sense to just blame the closest Human. The Varoki groped in the shallow water and came up with a good sized rock, threw it but it fell several meters short. He started looking for another one and a couple of the dazed survivors on the bank started pointing and shouting as well, wading into the water toward us. I kicked harder, now pulling us away from the shore.

The river was too wide to swim this way. As it was I was already tiring and barely making headway, but I had to get away. Reason and calm words weren’t going to get me very far with the Varoki survivors on the bank. I stopped for a second and used my good hand to push the back of The’On’s collar into my mouth. I held it with my teeth and started kicking again and doing a half-assed back stroke with one arm. I made better progress but I could hardly keep my head above water and was having trouble breathing.

I got another twenty or thirty meters out but my breath came in ragged gasps and my legs were losing power. I needed to take a break, catch my breath, but couldn’t with
The’On
. I wasn’t sure I could make it back to shore even if the mob weren’t there, and I felt panic start to tighten my throat. I got a noseful of water by mistake and started choking. That’s when something hit me in the head from behind. Fortunately, it was a rescue float.

I let go of
The’On
’s collar, twisted around, and saw a commercial fishing boat about ten meters away, idling in the channel, with four Humans along the rail yelling in English to me. One of them held the line attached to the float. Problem: I was still coughing, still couldn’t manage to gulp down any air, and I’d pass out pretty soon unless I could. I wrapped my legs around
The’On
’s torso and grabbed for the float’s handholds with my good hand.

Got it!

I threw my chest over the float and coughed the water out of my lungs as the crew dragged us alongside. A great big guy bent over the rail, grabbed my good arm, and started lifting. He could have managed me, but I still had my legs wrapped around
The’On
and the extra weight stalled him. He struggled for a couple seconds and then growled.

“Let the leatherhead go, yeah?”

Leatherhead.
That’s what Humans called Varoki sometimes. It’s what I used to call them, back before a lot of things happened to me.

“Drop him!” the fisherman repeated.

I shook my head. “He’s my friend.”

He let go and I splashed back into the water. “Fuck you, then. Drown with your leatherhead friend, yeah?”

One of the other fishermen started pulling in the line to recover the float but I hooked my good arm through one of the flexible loops and held on with what strength I had left.

“Let go!” the big fisherman said.

“Leave me the float,” I said. “At least give us a Goddamned chance!”

“I give you boathook is what,” he said and turned away from the rail. The fisherman who’d pulled the line taut looked at me, frowning but not angry. When the big guy reappeared with a nasty-looking all-metal boat hook, the three others started talking to him. Up until then we’d been talking English. I didn’t understand the language they argued in now, but I recognized it: Portuguese.

After maybe a minute of spirited argument the big guy lowered the boat hook, leaned over the rail, and looked at me. Since my one good arm was tangled in the rescue float and I was mostly out of the water, hanging from the rail by the rescue line, I was about as helpless as I could get. There wasn’t any point in giving him a tough-guy glare; I had nothing. But I wasn’t going to let go of
The’On
, no matter what. So I just looked back at him and after a couple seconds he shrugged.

He said something in Portuguese I couldn’t understand and walked away.

The other three fishermen pulled me and
The’On
over the rail and onto the deck.

I didn’t have much strength left but I’d at least recovered my breath. I checked
The’On
for a pulse. It was faint, even for a Varoki, but his plumbing was still working. He wasn’t breathing, though, so I started mouth-to-mouth and after about five good puffs he vomited river water and started coughing.

That’s about when a stabbing axe blade of pain reminded me how messed up my shoulder was. The fatigue, trauma, and reaction to the adrenaline high all came home at the same time and I passed out. Didn’t even feel myself go
clunk
against the deck.

* * *

I came to, felt the soft vibration of the boat’s electric motors through the metal deck, found my arm strapped against my body and the shoulder packed in ice. Shoulder felt different, too—still hurt, but in a different way. Propped up against a metal locker, I sat up straighter, looked for
The’On
. He was a couple meters away, lying on his stomach, still unconscious. Vomit stained the deck around his face—that alarming orangey-pink Varoki vomit that looks too much like blood—but he was breathing.

I squinted up my commlink and saw I was still recording on the locked channel. I cut it and commed Marr, subvocalizing to keep it private.

Sasha! Oh, thank God you’re alive! The feed just went out. I didn’t know—

The’On’s
hurt and I’m banged up a little, unconscious for a while, but we’re both alive. Have you heard from the others?>

The comms are blacked out in Praha-Riz below Level Two Hundred. You must be outside the effect radius.

From when the trouble started, yes. I could hardly watch, and when the window broke…

Her voice faltered and I could hear her crying softly. I tried to imagine what I’d have felt seeing that feed, knowing it was through
her
eyes and ears, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine it, or what I’d have done waiting to find out the rest. I got choked up myself.

The fishermen noticed the movement and the big guy started walking over.

I love you,
she answered, voice wavering.

I cut the link as he got to me and looked down.

“So, not dead, yeah?”

I touched my ice pack. “Sore as hell.”

“We pushed shoulder back in. Not good to leave it out like that. So you the Sasha fellow on the vid feed?”

“Probably.”

He looked over at
The’On
’s stationary form.

“So you like the leatherheads, yeah?”

“A couple of them. What’s the vid on me?”

He glanced over his shoulder where two of the crew in viewer glasses stood in the lee of the small superstructure. The big guy nodded at them.

“Still coming in, yeah? Different feeds, all show you standing there mouth open and dick in your hand when hell breaks loose. Feed-heads going on about what a mastermind you must be. You know, to arrange the whole thing and then look so stupid-surprised when it happened. You really that smart?”

“Do I look like it to you?” I asked.

“I think maybe I like you better if you did it.” Then he shrugged, as if letting go—letting go of the idea he’d rescued a Human outlaw who’d just masterminded the biggest and most brutal mass killing of Varoki big shots in history. Yeah, that’d be something to tell the grandkids someday. “My name—Cézar Ferraz,” he said. “Over there is—
Hey! Dado!”

The brawny fisherman who’d pulled me in on the line looked up and then grinned and waved at me.

“Eduardo Socorro, call him Dado. He pulled you out, yeah?”

I nodded and waved back with my left hand.

“Other fellow’s Joäo Pacifico.”

The other one, shorter and wiry-looking, glanced up and waved once, as if to say leave him alone, and went back to his viewer.

“Other guy at the helm?” I asked and Ferraz nodded.

“Constancio, my partner. So you’re Sasha Naradnyo, yeah? What kinda name is Sasha? Sounds like a girl’s name.”

“Ukrainian, short for Aleksandr.”

“Short for Alexandre? We’d say Xandinho.”

“Can you get us back upriver to the Red Forest marina?” I asked. “We got a boat there I can use to lay low until I get a handle on this.”

“A boat? That’s nice. But no, we’re not gonna do that. River Watch already thick in there, diverting traffic. Be asking too many questions, yeah? We gonna get you to shore up here, at the commercial docks is what.” He turned back to the other two.
“Joäozinho! Me jogar seu chapéu.”
The short one took off his baggy black wool cap and threw it to
Ferraz, who put it on my head and then pulled the bill down over my eyes.

“You’re Xandinho the fisherman at the dock, yeah? Mouth shut. One of us asks you a question, just nod. That way nobody wonders about some dangerous mastermind. This one we pulled out of the water alone,” he said, hooking a thumb toward
The’On
. “I commed for an ambulance, meet us up there. No drama, yeah?”

I wondered what a bunch of Portuguese fishermen were doing trolling the Wanu River, pulling out longjaws and blacksnaps they couldn’t even eat. I didn’t ask, though. It would have sounded ungrateful. These guys were getting me and
The’On
out of this, and with “no drama,” or at least as little as possible.

“Obrigado,”
I said.

He frowned. “You know
Português
?”

“Couple words is all. Had a Brazilian girlfriend.”

“
Brasileira?
They crazy, yeah?”

“She did try to kill me once,” I admitted.

He nodded and looked back down the river at the towering form of Praha-Riz. “She got some company now.”

* * *

The’On
was still unconscious when we got to the docks and I was getting nervous about that. We loaded him into the waiting ambulance, and I rode along
to the trauma/med center in Katammu-Arc. Praha-Riz was closer, but the Varoki medic riding in back and working on
The’On
told me both med centers in Praha-Riz were closed to admissions except from inside the arc. They were swamped with injuries. He also said it looked like
The’On
might have a cranial fracture.

I commed Marr and brought her up to date on
The’On,
not bothering to subvocalize. Tweezaa got on the circuit as well.

Boti-Sash! Is Boti-On going to be all right?

“I don’t know, Hon’. The medic says he’s stable, and his color’s good, but I wish he’d wake up.”

I saw the video feed of you in the water, the feed from your eyes. I do not…

She trailed off. For a while the three of us just sat, commlinked but silent, overwhelmed by what had happened.

“Is there any word yet on Gaisaana-la, ah-Quan, or Borro?” I asked finally.

No,
Marr answered.
No news at all and Praha-Riz below the executive layer is still blacked out.

That didn’t sound good.

I have to go,
she said.
I’ll have someone waiting for you at the med center. I love you.

“I love you both,” I answered and we broke the link.

I considered my options as the ambulance made maddeningly slow progress through the ground traffic, which seemed thicker and more frenzied that usual. A flyer would have had us to the med center by then, but a call from some Human fisherman didn’t rate one. If they’d realized the unconscious Varoki was one of the highest-ranking diplomatic envoys from the
Cottohazz
Executive Council, things would have been different.

All I could see of the traffic was through a small rear window, but the faces on powerscoots and pedcycles looked nervous, frightened. The news from Praha-Riz had folks spooked, and for all they knew this could get worse before it got better.

So what was I going to do? Hiding out was pointless by now; the Munies would have locks on
The’On
’s and my commlinks if they were that interested in us, and it sounded like they might be. I could power down, go black and make a run for it, but how far would I get with a bum shoulder? Besides, I didn’t have any cash so I couldn’t use any transportation, buy food, do much of anything without using my e-nexus credit line, and then I’d pop right back onto the data grid. So I’d have to face the Munies and see what that led to, but unless they were into manufactured evidence I didn’t see they had much on me.