02. Empires of Flux and Anchor (29 page)

"Take it easy," Matson cautioned her. "Remember,
I'm
a
man, and so's your dad, your grandson, and all those poor devils out there."

She sighed. "You're right, of course. But if this is an example of the male ego in charge, I want none of it."

"Let's get some sleep," Matson suggested. "I'll take first watch, and anybody who snores even a peep gets second."

Even at a distance and through binoculars, watching the new order go by proved to be quite an education. The main road was regularly patrolled at randomly timed intervals, although the longest gap was under fifteen minutes. There was, however, little other traffic, and all of the common folks seemed to be either walking or in open wagons. Only a few women were glimpsed on the road, always bare from the waist up, always walking a step or two behind a man.

More sights, sounds, and smells were closer at hand. The smell of cooked food wafting into their hideout was maddening as they munched their concentrated rations, but crews checked and replenished the cow troughs in the same old way, and there were sounds of work from the smithy and of horses being exercised in the corral. Every once in a while people could be seen walking between the farm buildings as well. This was strictly the livestock side, so it was far less populated than the administrative area several kilometers west, and farmers working in cultivated fields were also elsewhere. From the few closeups they saw, it appeared that men were being required to wear hats outside, for some reason, and all seemed to be growing beards.

"I have to know about my parents," Spirit told them. "I have to tell them that I'm whole again and see that they're not on posts somewhere."

Kasdi felt a jealous pang, considering both her real parents were there, but she understood, too. Matson tried hard to talk her out of it, but on this she wouldn't budge. Finally he said, "All right, but not all of us. If anything happens, we most likely won't be able to pull you out of there, and the less they know of who and how many we are, the better it'll be."

"I'll go," Kasdi said. "Alone. I'll deliver your message, Spirit, and give you a complete report. But there's no use in risking two when one will go, and right now I'm the most expendable of the bunch."

There was some argument, but finally it was agreed. Matson cautioned her again that they would leave on the first sound of trouble, and added, "We're southwest. Let's agree that if nothing happens on this journey to blow our cover, we head for the nearest one. If anybody gets separated, any time, for any reason, we'll rendezvous at the closest place of concealment near the secondary target. Got it?"

They nodded, and Kasdi kissed them all and left. It felt very odd to be an armed individual sneaking into such a familiar and friendly place with the knowledge that discovery might mean death, but she took nothing and no one for granted. Darkness had fallen but the cloud cover had not lifted, so there was an extra measure of darkness for her, although a slight and slippery drizzle had also begun.

A mounted patrolman turned off the main road and came down all the way to the buildings themselves. He was pretty relaxed, and he rode past the blacksmith's and right past Kasdi, stopping near the large cow barn. A figure there greeted the patrolman and walked out of the barn carrying a rifle. They talked and exchanged a few laughing comments, and then the patrolman turned on his horse and rode back. Kasdi was grateful for him; she would have missed the man in the barn without him.

Keeping to the shadows, she made her way to the apartment complex, a structure of cubes on top of cubes, each slightly offset from the row below, where those who worked on this side of the farm lived. She thanked heaven that Cloise and Dannon lived on the ground level. She stopped, facing the building while still hidden, and saw lights inside just about every apartment. It was particularly bright because, it seemed, they had had to take their front curtains down allowing anyone to peer inside at least the living room. She could see people moving about, although most seemed to have abandoned the living room as a usual place for very obvious reasons. It was a good thing, she thought, that the one-room studios were on the top—the sixth—level.

She saw no one, but did an extra-careful check, even tossing a few stones in different directions to see if there was any reaction. There was not, and she decided to chance it, although she hated being illuminated so well. Perhaps, she thought, my looks will get me confused for a man in the dark. It didn't matter. If she was going, she had to go now, and there was no back door.

She approached the steps to the porch from the side and ducked low beneath the open windows. Finally she reached the familiar door and stood, peering in the window. She knocked softly, and in a moment Cloise came and opened the door. When she saw who it was, she gasped, pulled Kasdi inside, and shut the door fast. "Quick! Into the back bedroom before the patrolman sees you!" she hissed, and they went back.

Once there, they both relaxed a bit, although Cloise looked nervous. More than nervous. Also pretty odd in full makeup, ring-type earrings, bare to the waist, and below it wearing a very tight-fitting green body stocking that was see-through close-up.

"What are you
doing
here?" Cloise wanted to know.

"Delivering the mail, mostly," Kasdi told her. "Boy! You look like one of the women on Main Street minus the bra."

"It's easy when everybody has to do it. They confiscated all our clothes and issued new ones. You don't know what it's
like.
You
can't
!"

"I got an idea from some of the people we captured and some of the proclamations we read."

"We?"

She nodded. "Spirit's here. And she's well. She can speak and wear clothes and is almost back to normal." She decided not to mention Suzl. It might be one shock too many for the poor woman.

Cloise sat down in a chair. "Well, thank somebody for that! But I wish it were anyplace but here." She paused a moment. "Uh—you know about your father?"

Kasdi's stomach did a turn. "No. Tell me. I have to know."

"When they . . . came . . . not everybody just sat back. Your father and a number of others formed a group, jumped some of them, and stole their weapons. It didn't do any good. They got them all pretty quickly and made examples out of them."

Her heart sank. "Then one of those bodies out there is . . . him?"

She nodded, and named a long string of other men's names, many familiar. Her fury, which she didn't think could get worse, grew, but she remained calm. "Where's Dannon, or is he . . . ?"

"Oh, no. In fact, he's been promoted to chief mechanic. He has special permission to be out late on the farm to check on things. You had better be gone when he gets back."

She frowned. "You sound like you're cooperating with these butchers."

"A fat lot you understand the situation! They have complete control. The government officials they didn't kill or who didn't see it their way were taken off and came back in uniforms as dedicated soldiers of the Kingdom. The enforcers carry a . kind of whip that is terribly painful and hurts for days but doesn't leave a
mark on you. They use it for the least infraction. But they reward cooperation handsomely. Everything is tightly rationed, but those who cooperate get more. People are seeing the light. They're going along."

"But—
you
?
And
Dannon
?"

"Who are you to judge us? You brought this on Anchor Logh, but you don't have to live with it. They've started classes now, separate ones for men and women. It's a fast question and answer, and hesitation can cost you the lash. Pretty soon you realize that the only way to always answer correctly is to start thinking their way. It doesn't take long, and it's
easier
that way."

Kasdi was appalled. This soon? This close? She was more than happy now that Spirit had not come.

"You're going to cause trouble here, aren't you?" Cloise asked her.

"We hope more than trouble. There's a whole army waiting for the door to be unlocked."

"Kasdi—don't. Haven't you hurt Anchor Logh enough?"

"What do you mean?"

"First the war, then Spirit, then this takeover. We're peaceful people. We can't stand another war, Kasdi. Particularly not of this kind. These men will fight to the last and will take us with them. You may win, but you'll kill us all. If you just knocked out that guard out there—you didn't, did you?—ten of us in this complex would be picked at random and shot. I don't know how you got in, but please go the same way and quickly. I'll not report this, even though Dannon would be tortured for it if they find out."

"You would rather live with women reduced to slaves? Live out your whole life this way or worse?"

"Rather do it than what? Mass killing? Mass destruction? Total devastation? Yes! And you'll find that almost all of Anchor Logh will agree with me. They won't aid your army—they'll fight it. We all want to
live
."
Cloise suddenly looked very tired. "Please don't bring in your army. Things are levelling out now, easing up. People are getting used to the new ways. You destroyed so many lives. Don't destroy us all. Now—go!"

Cloise went into the living room and pretended to be straightening up. She then turned out the light, as if she were going to bed, to allow Kasdi some exit darkness. As she slipped out of the door, she heard Cloise whisper, "Don't come back, Kasdi."

The drizzle had turned into a chilly rain, which matched her dark mood.

The others were still waiting for her, and as briefly as she could, she filled them in on the conversation as well.

"I can't believe they would do it!" Spirit responded. "I just can't believe it!" She wanted to go down there, but Suzl believed it and dissuaded her.

Matson thought things over a moment. "Trouble is, she's probably right. This is a new angle, folks. One we better think about before going further. These guys have done a lot of meanness here. Cass, you yourself said what would happen to them when you got hold of them. They know it, too. In the time it takes us to march, they'll blow the buildings, burn the fields and forests, and machine-gun all the people they can. And while we're trying to pick up the pieces, the bulk of 'em will drop all shields and run like hell in all directions. They got no other choice. And Coydt wouldn't care if he did make this place a burnt-out ruin. That alone would collapse the empire, and you know it, and it would maybe take the Church with it."

Kasdi wished she hadn't vowed never to curse. "I don't care about the empire
or
the Church. They're not mine. The real rulers just used me all these years. I thought I grew up when I found that out, but I was wrong. I just grew up now. I'm forced to make a choice between wiping out perhaps a million people and the land of my birth, or leaving it to an insane system where women are slaves and all men are like they're in the army." She looked strickenly at Matson, Suzl, and Spirit in turn. "What do I do?"

14

DEMON PRINCE

Coydt had kidnapped Spirit from the farm and made away with her into Flux in under five hours. Unfortunately, that meant he knew all the best getaways and had compensated for them. With individual horse use also restricted to specific farm use except for officials, even stealing four horses would only have raised a sign telling everyone where they were. So, two hours after Kasdi's return, they were still threading their way southwest through the woods. On foot, through well-patrolled and booby-trapped country on a rainy night, the one thing they were not making was time. They did, however, continue to agonize over the choice they had not yet been forced to face.

"My feeling is, Coydt's won no matter how it turns out," Matson said as they made their way over rough, rocky ground about twelve kilometers from their destination. "By relegating women to property and forcing them into accepting public humiliation, he's totally undercut the social and moral fabric that was supposedly divine law and broken the heart of the faith. Now, if we don't invade, he and his apparently very smart officers here will have this new system so well dug-in that they can make it a base and demonstration for every half-baked crackpot with a grudge against the system as a better way of doing things back home. He'll control the shield machines, and so he'll control them as well."

"Then they must be crushed regardless of the cost? Is that what you're saying?" Kasdi asked him.

"That's the trouble. If we manage to punch a hole from this side and establish our beachhead, they'll have plenty of time before we can overrun the place from such a small entry. These officers and men are committed. There's nothing for them in Flux. They'll fight to the last man, just like your cousin said they would. They'll burn the fields and the forests and blow up the buildings. They'll machine-gun the population, if only to make it tougher on us. It won't be easy going either, since faced with total destruction, the people of Anchor Logh will fight us, too. And if we win, along with enormous casualties we'll inherit a ruined and brunt-out land with maybe sixty to seventy percent of its people dead. Coydt won't care. He and his wizards will be long gone to do it somewhere else and leave the horror of Anchor Logh for everybody to look at as a warning. He wins."

"But we can't leave them to this insane system," Suzl protested. "I mean, women suppressed and owned by man, while the men are all sort of like in the army, expected to obey every order no matter how nutty. It's a horror."

"Nevertheless, if this Cloise is typical—and from what we've seen so far sneaking around, it looks like she is—these people would rather live under a tyrant than lose their land and children and their very lives. People always were that way in Flux; I don't understand why it's such a shock to see it in Anchor, where folks are, pardon me, even more naive. That's why we haven't even been able to risk any contact at all. Most of them would turn us in in a minute."