A kind of hedgehog formation that herded the rushing enemy onto the wickedly sharp, meter-long, Badger Metal blades. Blades that never dulled no matter what material they cut through: wood, cloth, crystal.
Flesh.
Bone.
Chills ran through Jake. He had to clench his teeth to quell his shivers. No rules. No boundaries. No stopping at first blood.
He remembered Billy and Mickey on Prometheus XII. His insides trembled. He clenched his teeth and locked his knees to hide the fear rising in him.
The first two privates stood on either side of the door handles, each grabbing one. Lieutenant da Martin counted silently to three. The privates yanked and withdrew, bringing the door panels with them.
Bodies rushed free of the building. Ragged, filthy, scabrous, reeking bodies burst into the alley, yelling, screaming. Hair tangled, hands clawing, clothing flying in tatters behind them. Eyes desperate. Or insane.
Driven insane by desperation?
The first wave of beings leaped in all directions at the soldiers, impaling themselves on the swords. Twenty-one uniformed men struggled desperately to free their blades.
A second wave followed. They climbed the backs of their dead inmates, clawing at the line of men still trying to yank their weapons free.
Screams of pain as fingernails and teeth met eyes and noses.
Then more screams as the second tier of men brought their daggers to bear for close infighting.
But a third wave of inmates burst free. They kicked aside anyone in their way, fellows or soldiers. They didn’t seem to care what or who stood in the way of their path to freedom.
In absolute terror, Jake hacked and slashed at the distorted features of an inmate. He watched as his victim’s face froze in surprise, blood spilling from a gut wound, and his mouth.
The absolute intimacy of the act nearly sent Jake to his knees.
Another desperate body flew at him. Jagged nails raked his face. Hands made strong by desperation tried to dislocate his shoulder.
He had no time to think, only to act, to defend himself.
Thank the Host of Seven for drills.
He jabbed with his dagger and slashed with his boot knife. Then he had to brace with his foot on the chest of his first victim while he pulled his sword free.
Dead PEOPLE fell in bloody heaps. Hundreds of them. Soldiers pressed on, slowing as their arms tired and gore dripped from their blades. They, too, suffered injury to exposed faces and hands.
And more inmates plowed forward, leaped. A few grabbed weapons from fallen soldiers.
Jake found himself parrying wild slashes from a dagger. He lunged and ran the woman through. A pregnant woman.
Time slowed as the awful horror of his act penetrated his crazed and frightened mind.
“Fall back,” Jake ordered his men. They had to keep space between themselves and the demented people pouring at them in never-ending numbers.
One pace, two, then three they retreated, separating themselves from the wall of dead bodies and demented beings. And still they fought for their lives.
As Jake watched, he saw five inmates descend upon Lieutenant da Martin and rend him limb from limb.
The charnel stench threatened to choke him. His eyes burned. Heaviness filled his shoulders and arms.
And still he wielded his blade.
They fell back again and again. Bodies filled the street from gutter to gutter, five and six deep.
Acid burned Jake’s gullet.
He slashed blindly.
He wept.
A strong hand on his shoulder. He whirled to face this new danger and had to forcibly stay his blade.
“It’s over, Jacob da Jacob,” Morrie da Hawk said sadly. Blood dripped from a slash across his brow and an ear nearly bitten off.
“Over?” Jake had to shake his head to clear his mind of the blind terror and need to defend himself.
“The only inmates left are the ones chained to their beds, most likely cowering beneath them.” Da Hawk pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it tightly against his ear. His face blanched and he swayed.
Jake propped him up with a shaking shoulder.
“They’ll make an officer of you yet, Jake. You pretty much led the entire fight. Saved my arse a couple of times,” Morrie muttered.
Then Jake swallowed hard and forced himself to look at what he and his men had done.
Arms and legs sprawled at unnatural angles. Eyes stared blankly at the empty sky, mouths open in surprise, or slightly smiling in the joyful release that only came with death.
What kind of life had these people lived that they embraced death with joy?
“Don’t take it so hard,” da Hawk said. “They’re just Loods.”
“They were people.”
“No, they weren’t.” Da Hawk looked puzzled. “Don’t let any officer hear you say that. No one with a mutant caste mark is a person!”
Except the High Priestess of you all, you hypocrites! Jake wanted to shout.
He looked closer. He saw smudged and indeterminate caste marks on left cheeks. Double marks on the right cheeks. Worker brown Xs, Professional green triangles, Poor black bars, even a Noble blue diamond, and a Spacer yellow star. Not perfect but still discernible. Then he spotted two faces clear of any mark.
He turned to ask da Hawk’s opinion only to watch the man kick at those two bodies. “Less than Loods,” he muttered.
“They were people once, and I just killed a lot of them,” Jake whispered. “I just murdered a whole lot of innocent people.”
He joined the ranks of young men emptying their guts in the gutter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
"DEAD. DID YOU SAY they were all dead?” Penelope whispered to Gil.
He’d just crawled into bed after a very long day and night in the aftermath of the riot. No one quite knew how to deal with the cleanup. Should they order an investigation of the Military action? Or should they look more closely at the administration of the asylum itself for the cause.
And what to do with all of those dead bodies?
Never before in all of Harmony’s history had so many died so violently in so short a time.
“A few dozen inmates survived. Only because they were chained to their beds and had not the strength to break their beds as the others did. The instigators killed two of the Workers they held hostage. The others are barely sane from the horrors they witnessed and endured,” he whispered back, afraid he’d wake the youngest children. They still had three sharing their quarters, the twins who served Penelope and their older brother, taking advanced schooling before assignment as an acolyte.
“What . . . what could drive them to such desperation?” Penelope asked, head buried against his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her naked body. Her warmth and her scent banished the awful images for a moment. If he pulled her close enough, could he hold the outside world at bay?
“The inmates aren’t just Loods. They were human once. Intelligent, thinking, feeling human beings who love Harmony and Empathy as much as we do.” His teeth began to chatter. But not from the cold that ran rampant through his veins. “The asylum was licensed for eight hundred inmates, two to a room. There are nearly seventeen hundred dead. How did they pack so many people in the building?”
“I almost understand Sissy’s fear,” Penelope whispered. She, too, shiveredwith the cold of shock. After a moment of silence she added, “Sissy isn’t what I expected her to be.”
“Me either. I find her delightful. A breath of fresh air in our rather stagnant lives.”
“You’re right. Bethy smiles more now that she’s with Shanet and working closely with Sissy. I enjoy our daughter when she smiles and bubbles with enthusiasm for her lessons and her work.”
“She was rather grim with teenage anger.” Gil almost chuckled. This was what he needed. Reminders of his family and the everyday life that continued despite the massacre of thousands of asylum inmates. Would continue.
> Must continue.
Otherwise . . .
“I’m frightened. Things are changing and not always for the better. Hold me, Gil,” Penelope begged. “I need to hear your heart beat.”
Gratefully, he complied. “I’m scared, too.”
Sissy took a deep breath for courage and gathered her seven acolytes and Dog into the motorcar. A little crowded. Manageable with only Dog from the growing family. Cat wouldn’t set foot outside. Godfrey the lizard, Milton the weasel, and the other pets needed to stay in her quarters until they recognized the place as home. The pressure of small bodies against her in the car reminded her of home: younger brothers and sisters, parents, grandparents, and always visiting aunts, uncles, cousins, all joined together in laughter, tears, reminiscence, and excitement over current activities.
And support in times of trial. More and more, she found herself treasuring the companionship these girls gave her, storing up the memories for when everything was taken away from her.
Someday, possibly soon, she would lose everything.
The riot at the asylum last night had shown her that.
And when it happened, she wouldn’t get to go back to her family and work at the factory.
The entire city reeled with uncertainty in the aftermath. Laud Gregor and the other Temple people walked warily, speaking in hushed tones, avoiding discussions of that in public.
Sissy had to fight her own fears to leave her rooms. She’d feared exile to an asylum all her life. She would become one of the crazed, desperate people ready to die rather than face another day locked away, chained to a bed, never again to see Empathy’s light or feel Harmony’s caress on her feet.
If Laudae Penelope had her way, she’d remove Sissy from Laud Gregor’s protection and send her to an asylum.
Sissy had to force herself to take her girls on their daily outing. She had to show her face in public, project calm and stability when Discord threatened Harmony.
“Where to, Laudae Estella?” Bertie, the driver, asked when the nearly silent children had all settled inside the motorcar. They might not understand the riot and massacre, but they picked up the mood of their elders.
Sissy cringed a little at her new name. No one listened to her when she told them to forget the nonsense of calling her that. Laud Gregor had decreed. Therefore she had a new name. Like it or not.
“To the park beside Lord Chauncey’s factory.”
“Laudae Estella, is that wise?” Bertie looked frightened.
“I played in that park as a child. Then I worked in the factory for nine years. I deem the outing wise.” Something in the man’s demeanor made her nervous.
“Perhaps the park beside the lake would be a better choice,” he suggested.
Sissy had never been to the park reserved for the highest of the Professional caste families. She’d listened to stories about it with envy. Now she had the right to go there.
“Very well, Bertie. Just so long as we can spend the afternoon playing in the fresh air with green grass and tall trees all around us.”
“Yes, My Laudae.”
“But we’ve got grass and trees in the Temple Reserve,” Mary, the oldest of the girls, protested.
“The Reserve is walled in. I like the idea of an open field better.”
She didn’t like the casual way men and women cast off all of their clothing to swim in the pool in the Reserve. Nor did she like the way men and women paired off and returned to their chambers for the night. Or even the afternoon!
That was a part of Temple life she’d never accept, never participate in.
She’d never be able to swim in the pool or share the Reserve with her girls. Not without drastic changes. Changing attitudes and long traditions was beyond her.
She swallowed her distaste and concentrated on memorizing the route to the park.
“May I keep the next cat that comes to you, Laudae Estella?” Suzie, the youngest of the seven, asked. She petted Dog with vigor as he moved across the floor, resting his muzzle on successive knees eager for as much love as he could gather. Storing it up in his memory as if he, too, feared being outcast very soon.
“Perhaps, my dear. We’ll see what happens.
Jake led his squad of twenty men jogging through the city streets. He made the twenty-first. Three sevens. He was sick and tired of doing the math in his head. Why couldn’t they count in a civilized base ten! Or a wild card three. Or something different!
He had an uneasy feeling. The city felt tense; a combination of uncertain and uncomfortable. With a touch of fear embedded deep in the lizard brain. Not quite anger. Not yet.
He didn’t trust it. When a Military unit fidgeted the way the city did today, trouble usually followed.
Each apartment block elected three to five men as their part-time constables to keep order. The lords had their own security people to police the factories and businesses. The Professional caste hired muscle when they needed protection from criminals. But for the city as a whole, only the Military had the authority to maintain order.
So he ran his men as hard as he could through the streets, to help banish yesterday’s horror from their consciousness and to keep tabs on the city.
Fully armed with packs, he drilled his men openly, letting the populace know they could depend upon the Military caste to protect them.
The jokes about a thousand fewer Loods to worry about fell flat and sounded like false bravado.
All the while he felt half sick to his stomach. Even the talk of promoting him didn’t quell his uneasiness. Such a promotion required serious thought and lots of paperwork and research of precedence since his “family” came from enlisted stock rather than officer. A promotion required DNA manipulation to upgrade his caste mark.
Would the medicos discover the nanobots that gave him the caste mark in the first place?
Should he use his emergency signal—embedded in his wrist—and abort the mission? How badly did the CSS need Badger Metal anyway? Maybe Pammy’s scientists had decoded Grecko’s computer and come up with a substitute.
Not bloody likely.
Damn, he wished she’d reply to his first message. Give him a clue as to his next move. Something more than a few words from Jacob da Jacob’s parents that sounded like a loving family missing a key member but decoded to “Frontier getting hot. Get the damned formula and hurry up about it.”
Pure Pammy.
He rounded the big lake at the center of the city. The beach opened to a wide field. Picnic benches, swing sets, and game courts spread out across the ten or so acres. So much like the neighborhood where he’d grown up on Earth he almost stumbled, certain he’d drifted through a jump point.
A splotch of purple on the fringes drew his attention. The same purple Laudae Estella had worn at the ordination.
Curious, he led the men onto the sidewalk. They lined up, two abreast and trotted behind him like good little soldiers should. He could have taken them into the street. Motorcars were rare here, but a number of mass transit loxen-drawn buses, carts, pedicars, and sedan chairs moved along. Pedestrians darted in and out of the slow traffic.
The big black motorcar with the uniformed driver must be from the Temple. Sure enough, as he passed and nodded he recognized the purple circle surrounding the man’s Professional caste mark.
He shifted his attention to the slight young woman with seven little girls—also dressed in shades of purple—sitting in a circle examining a bird with bright yellow-and-red plumage. Laudae Estella let the bird perch on her outstretched hand. A brindled mutt crouched beneath the nearest picnic table with all their shoes, preparing to pounce on its natural prey. The bird seemed oblivious to the dog, completely enthralled with the HPS.
A number of other children had crept closer. Not so nicely dressed, with green caste marks.
She created an island of quiescence.
Jake almost laughed at the sight. Innocent children and animals trusted the new HPS. It was the hidebound and fearful adults she had to fear
.
“Sarge,” Corporal Camden da Chester drew alongside him. “That dark blue motorcar seems to be circling the park. I’ve counted three times.”
Jake yanked his gaze away from the enticing vista of Laudae Estella rising gracefully with the bird still in her hand. It caressed her palm with the side of its broad beak.
“Only Nobles can afford cars like that,” Jake mused. “Or Temples.”
Sure enough, the car slowed as it approached the gaggle of giggling girls. A window rolled down.
Jake veered off course. Sped up to an all-out run. Ten long strides later he hoisted Laudae Estella up by the waist. The bird squawked and floundered to the ground. The moment the HPS’ feet left the ground, Jake sprinted as far and as fast as he could toward the lake. Away from the car.
Behind him, he sensed Camden da Chester and some others gathering the children.
A concussion slammed him to the ground with his burden. Half a heartbeat later he heard the explosion.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SISSY KICKED OUT AT THE STRANGE man carrying her away. Where was Bertie? Were her girls safe?
She gathered a deep breath to scream. Air caught in her lungs. Her back arched in the first spasm of a cough.
A blast of pressure and noise knocked the cough from her chest. Then she was on the ground, with grass trying to grow into her cheek. And the man atop her.
Dog added his own weight to her back. He growled deep in his throat.
“Forgive my presumption, My Laudae,” the strange man said as he rolled off her. “Are you okay?” He ran his hands along her back, impersonal, assessing, much like a physician would.
“I . . . I think so,” Sissy choked out. The cough erupted with her words.
He slapped her back, pushing the bad air and a wad of dust-laden phlegm from her throat.
The spasm passed quickly. She closed her eyes a moment, trying to figure out if she actually hurt somewhere or merely felt the aftermath of shock. A tickle at the back of her throat demanded another cough. She fought it for three heartbeats. Pressure built up in her chest. No air penetrated the blockade of the cough. She couldn’t fight it any longer.
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