The Kanshou (Earthkeep) (25 page)

Simultaneously, he watched the crazed Cuza raise his shotgun again and fire into the midst of those who advanced upon him.  Several figures staggered or dropped.  Others stepped over them to smother the raging Cuza with their bodies.

At the same time, Gabriel watched Lucas Dobruja, his posture set for an orgy of annihilation, laying open a full spray of death from his M-60.  Eleazer Ben Asher, arms outflung, hurled himself from the top of a bench into the line of Dobruja's fire.  In midair, he jerked into stillness.  Simultaneously, an invisible blow stiffened Dobruja into a grotesque mimicry of Eleazer.  Both figures toppled and were enveloped by the waves of a black and purple sea.

And Gabriel himself was being overpowered by the throng of people surging toward him.  He offered no resistance.  Thinking only of the rebbe's smile, he dropped his rifle and yielded to the bodies that covered him. 

* * * * * * * *

Chaos and pain filled the gathering room.  An unbelieving congregation, so recently an unlikely army, reached for its wounded and held each other in comfort or relief.  Children clung to adults or to each other, watching with big eyes as Ángel's body was rolled onto an anti-grav gurney and gently steered out of the shul and into a hovercraft.

Eleazer Ben Asher, who had blocked Dobruja's barrage, was also dead.  He lay in the gathering room in the arms of his weeping lover, Vabili Tatosbuc, while the rebbe and the people surrounded them in song and ritual invocations.

The shul swarmed with Femmedarmes.  They moved quickly but quietly around the mourning group as they secured the building and its periphery.  They dispatched all the wounded congregants including Hasora to healing centers -- none of them, fortunately, in danger of death.  Seven people, some hurt worse than others, had caught the pellets of Cuza's shotgun, and two women had been struck by Dobruja's fire before Kanshou Bukhari's stun blast from the loft had immobilized him.

Gabriel Girardon sat, flanked by Femmedarmes, in the foyer of the shul.  He was bound in a forcefield wrap that allowed only his head to move.  Cuza and Dobruja, each in similar custody, had just been hustled out to flex-cars.  Gabe waited his turn.

Tyrotrooper Yukana Asachi stood in the door of the gathering room, watching Gabriel.  Her eyes were red and puffy, suggesting that she was learning early the cost of courage and glory.  She drew a long breath and then approached one of the Femmedarmes.  "With respect, Adjutant, please let me talk to him."  She indicated Gabriel. 

The 'Darmes exchanged glances.  Then the Adjutant answered, "You can.  He's secured."  She smiled.  "And we'll protect you."

Yukana smiled back.  She turned to the black man and met his eyes.  "Tell me something, Mister--?"

"Girardon.  Call me Gabriel."

"Gabriel," she said.  "My name is Yukana."

"Yukana."

"Yes."  She shuffled and stood firm again.  "People are saying it was an accident.  An accident that you missed the rebbe."

Gabe's eyes narrowed.  "That so?"

"It wasn't an accident, was it?"

Gabe did not smile.  "I'm a pretty good shot."

Yukana nodded.  She started to turn away. 

Gabriel stopped her.  "Wait . . . Yukana.  Would you do me a favor?"

Yukana looked at the Femmedarmes and back to Gabriel.

"I need to scratch my arms mighty bad," he went on.  "And I can't.  You see?"  He tried in vain to move his arms.  "I figure a law-abiding citizen like you could convince these officers--"

"Girardon, are you pulling a fast one?"  The Femmedarme moved in front of Gabriel.

"Word of honor, Adjutant.  I just need to scratch.  That too much to ask?  Do the Rwanda Accords say a prisoner can't scratch?"

The Adjutant's voice was impatient.  "If it's something painful, then all you need to do is ask."  She gestured to Yukana.  "Step back some."  She crossed a button on her subvention belt that deactivated the forcefield.  "Scratch away, Habitante Girardon."

Gabe did so, gratefully pushing up his sleeves and raking his nails up and down the insides of his forearms.  "You are a considerate officer. . . ."  He froze.

The Femmedarme's eyes followed his.  "What you got there?" 

Yukana drew close again, frowning.  Gabe's forearms were covered with thin white lines.  "That looks like . . ."

"Girardon, how the hell did you get tattoos?"  Both Kanshou were examining the figures on Gabriel's arms.

"Are they tattoos?" Yukana said.

Gabriel sat galvanized.  They were all there, Eagle on the right arm, Snake and the doxy on his left.  They were outlined as if with the superfine point of a piece of chalk.  Plain as day if you knew what you were looking for.  His hands shook as he drew his sleeves over his arms again.  His eyes were big and his breathing was uneven.  "Just a . . . rash, Adjutant."  He tried to smile.  "I'm fine."

Any retort from his guardians or Yukana was lost in a low murmuring from the gathering room.  People poured out the door and stood aside, making way for a sheet-covered gurney being floated by Avrom and Bela Isachs.  Vabili Tatosbuc followed the body of his lover out into the street.  Then scores of people came after him, among them Yukana's mothers toward the end of the group.  One of the women beckoned Yukana to her as she went out the door. 

"Wait," Gabriel said, again clad in the forcefield wrap.  Yukana paused.  "Will you give a message to that man's . . .to his friend?"

"Sure."

"Tell him that I'm really sorry."  Gabe held her eyes for a long moment.  He was sweating.

"I will," Yukana nodded.  "I will."  She turned and ran after the crowd.

"On your feet, Girardon.  We can go now."  The Adjutant had deactivated the lower portion of his forcefield. 

Gabriel stood up and moved slowly with the Femmedarmes toward the street.  At the door he stopped, turned back, and got to look one last time into the black eyes of Rebbe Sarah Bas Miriam as she stood at the door of the gathering room.  She was clearly herself now, not his Philipa at all. 

She gave to him the shadow of a nod.  He returned it with a slight nod of his own.  Then he held his head high and stepped out into the bright morning of Bucharest.

11 - Peace Room - [2087 C.E.]

The seasoned Kanshou knows that yes and no

are but two of three answers.

--The Labrys Manual

Zude barely thanked the Vigilante gert that deposited her by the wind chute on the Shrievalty roof.  As she dropped the seven floors to the Peace Room she learned by audio from her staff the state of the tri-satrapies in the aftermath of the multiple habitante revolts.  The Caracas Bailiwick was quiet and in Vigilante hands.  Damage to Caracas City water lines was substantial and required immediate shunts from neighboring cities if panic and deaths were to be avoided.  Magister Lin-ci Win was ready to join Zude on inter-tri-satrapy holohookup, and Magister Flossie Yotoma Lutu had not yet been reached for the three-way conference.

Captain Edge emerged from the glow of tocsin lights at the door of the Peace Room and escorted the Vigilante Magister through the soft beeps and bells, the hum of low voices, and the maze of screens, to a contour chair in near-recline position.  Before she plugged herself into the full-spread commuflow of a companion chair, Edge directed the swift construction around herself and the Magister of an electronic enclosure that brought all of Little Blue to their fingertips even as it assured them of a measure of privacy.  Maps and flatfield reproductions swung into place above and to every side of them; key plates lifted and cocked to eye-activation marks.  Zude allowed herself to be instructed in the use of new access orbs, and turned her attention to the ceiling where the actions of Kanshou in Caracas, Bucharest, and Hanoi were projected in flatcast.

In Caracas, Sea- and Foot-Shrieves hung with hoses from bridges and buildings, directing water to cottage-size holding bags; other Vigilantes molded crowds, moved traffic, and interviewed bailiwick habitantes; Sea-Shrieves rode the Caribbean in old oil tankers, now filled with precious drinking water from Río Chico.  In Bucharest, Femmedarmes on foot and in flex-cars surrounded a public meeting house at several elevations, and pairs of green-clad Flying Daggers approached it at staggered intervals, dropping to neighboring rooftops, and waiting.

In Hanoi, red-garbed Amahs moved between and atop buildings, stalking lone habitantes, firing darts and stun-guns at culprits armed with far more dangerous weapons.  Zude watched with a critical eye as Foot-Shrieves diverted and held the fire of a large group of habitantes barricaded behind cushcars and touring carts.  Overhead, pairs of Flying Daggers hovered without being discovered, and on signal released strand after strand of the benign tanglestick that fell like threads upon the habitantes below.  Some of the culprits managed to fire at the Sky-Shrieves before the threads stuck to them and immobilized them under neurological bonds, ultimately rendering them unconscious; others simply shouted and fought the descending blanket of entanglement, tripping and falling, flailing wildly in vain until they passed out.  "Reggie would love this," Zude thought, recalling her chosen daughter's affinity for action flatfilms about Kanshou.

"Magister Lin-ci Win, Ma'am."  Edge's voice in discreet reminder at her elbow was formal yet warm.  Zude pulled herself away from the dramas above her and set her attention to her Kanshoumate and companion in Magistership.

"Magister," Zude said directly to the figure in the air before her.  Lin-ci Win sat cowelled and cloaked in a setting of quiet activity similar to Zude's own.  As she returned Zude's greeting, her holo-techs phased out the background bustle and brought Lin-ci's head and shoulders to Zude's level and size.  The corners of her Greatchair -- the wheelchair in which the Amah Magister always sat -- were visible behind the red-clad figure.

"It is good to see you again, Magister Adverb," said Lin-ci Win, "though we could wish for happier circumstance."

"To be sure, Magister Win," said Zude, matching her own level of formality to the other woman's.  "Still, your Amahs just presented us with a textbook demonstration of tanglestick's proper use.  That was quite a coup."

Lin-ci Win smiled.  "Only an Amah could have appreciated it so fully.  Our colleague is not with us yet?"

"If I know Yotoma, she's rocketed to Bucharest--"

"Wrong, Adverb."  Flossie Yotoma Lutu's long-waisted holofigure materialized at a sixty degree angle to each of them.  I'm right here in Tripoli."  Her dark face barely stood out against the blackness of the holoroom.  "I've been brain-to-brain for an hour with my Hedwoman in Bucharest.  We're moving toward negotiation now unless something blows first."  She scanned her consoles and analysis boards.  "Are you getting flatcasts of the bailiwick?  Or of the shul?"

Zude looked at the ceiling for confirmation as she spoke.  "We've got the 'Darmes surrounding a city building.  Nothing from the bailiwick."

"That's because the bailiwick is no longer a problem.  Leadership of the uprising is right there in the building you're looking at.  Four habitantes holding about a hundred people hostage.  Here."  Yotoma waved her hand to bring an electronic flatmap across her chest, a diagram of the shul with lume points that moved as the voice of the Femmedarme Sub-Aga in Bucharest  described the drama unfolding there.

Zude and Lin-ci Win focused attentively on the description of the Bucharest standoff.  Then Lin-ci interrupted.  "Pardon.  Here's news from our observers."  The Amah Magister re-directed  to Los Angeles and Tripoli the audio report of the cessation of all fighting in Hanoi.  The report ended with the request of the surrendering habitante leaders for a meeting with Magister Lin-ci Win to discuss their demands.

Zude glanced at the ceiling.  The Hanoi flatfield there displayed a group of subdued men speaking in turns to attending Amahs, their voices over the holotransmissions resigned but still filled with frustration and anger. 

Zude let go of a pound of tension.  "That's two in control, one still to go," she sighed as the three women turned again to each other.  "We know all this is no accident.  I'd like to understand how long this particular conspiracy has been brewing.  Lin-ci--"

Lin-ci Win drew her considerable bulk into the posture of gigantic affront.

"Magister," Zude corrected herself immediately, "when you speak with those habitantes, I hope you can determine when the collaboration with the other two bailiwicks began."

"Of course.  That is, if I speak with the habitantes."

Zude's hackles rose.  "What do you mean, 'if,' Magister?"

"I mean I may not choose to grant them an audience."

Zude moved as close as she could to Lin-ci Win's holo-image.  "With respect, Magister," she said softly, "this isn't just the bailiwicks' bi-monthly complaint about food and the trusties's privileges.  This is an explosion of violence, carefully planned and remarkably timed, in three discrete containment ranges separated by vast distances.  It is a concerted and highly visible effort on the part of three bailiwicks, one in each tri-satrapy on this globe, to gain the attention of the public and the Kanshoubu.  They have unquestionably succeeded.  You
must
talk to the habitantes, Magister.  Not only do they have the right to demand your audience, and not only do we need to honor their concerns about a matter growing daily more critical, but we also need any information they can provide about how the plans for this uprising escaped us."

Lin-ci Win closed her eyes.  When she re-focused, it was first on Yotoma, then on Zude.  "You are right, of course, Magister Adverb.  But I remind you that our Asia-China-Insula Tri-Satrapy has suffered far more uprisings recently than Africa-Europe-Mideast has.  Or your own Nueva Tierra.  I've talked personally with far too many habitantes lately, with too little effect, to rejoice in the prospect of more such verbal contention."

Flossie Yotoma Lutu unclasped her black and green Magister's cloak and addressed Lin-ci-Win.  "I'm with Adverb on this one, Magister.  How come we didn't have any hint of this global cooperation?  Is our security that faulty?  I'll be talking to the habitantes in Bucharest and you can be sure I'll press them for that informa--"