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Martinho glanced around him, noted that other shields were advancing across
the lawn.
'Quickly,' he said, 'we must be the first there.'
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Alvarez rotated the control handle. Again their shield ground its way toward
the fountain.
Vierho came up close beside his chief, spoke in a low voice: 'Jefe, there are
stories back there at the truck. It is said that some creature ate the pilings
from under a warehouse at the waterfront. The warehouse collapsed. People were
killed. There is much upset.'
'Chen-Lhu hinted at this,' Martinho said.
'Is this not the place?' Alvarez asked.
'Stop the shield,' Martinho said. He stared at the grass ahead of them,
searching out the place - the relationship to the fountain, the grass marked
by the previous passage of their shield.
'This is the place,' he said. He passed his carbine to Vierho, said, 'Give me
that prybar ...
and a stun charge.'
Vierho handed him a small packet of plastic explosive with detonator, the kind
of charge they used in the Red areas to break up an insect nest in the ground.
Martinho pulled his head shield down tight, took the prybar. 'Vierho, cover me
from here. Benito - can you use a handlight?'
'Of course, Johnny.'
'Jefe ... you are not going to use the shield?'
'There isn't time.' He stepped around the shield before Vierho could answer.
The beam of a handlight stabbed down at the ground ahead of him. He crouched,
slid the tip of the prybar along the grass, digging, pushing. The bar caught,
then slipped down into emptiness.
Something touched it down there, and an electric tingle shot all through
Martinho.
'Padre, down here,' he whispered.
Vierho leaned over him with the carbine. 'Jefe?'
'Just ahead of the bar - into the ground.'
Vierho aimed, squeezed off two shots.
A violent scrabbling noise erupted under the lawn ahead of them. Something
splashed there.
Again, Vierho fired. The blast pellets made a curious thumping sound as they
exploded under the ground.
There came the liquid sound of furious activity down there - as though there
were a school of fish feeding at the surface.
Silence.
More handlights glared on to the lawn ahead of him. Martinho looked up to see
a ring of shields around them - I.E.O. and bandeirante uniforms.
Again he focused on the patch of lawn.
'Padre, I'm going to pry it up. Be ready.'
'Of course, Jefe.'
Martinho put a foot under the bar as fulcrum, leaned on his end. The trapdoor
lifted slowly. It appeared to be sealed with a gummy mixture that came up in
trailing sheets. A
whiff of sulphur and corrosive sublimate told Martinho what the sealant must
be - the butyl carrier he'd fired from the sprayrifle. With a sudden giving,
the door swung up, flopped back on to the lawn.
Handlights were beside Martinho now, probing downward to reveal oily black
water. It had the smell of the river.
'They came in from the river,' Alvarez said.
Chen-Lhu came up beside Martinho, said, 'The masqueraders appear to have
escaped.
How convenient.' And he thought:
I was correct to give Rhin her orders when I did. We must get a line into
their organisation. This is the enemy: this bandeirante leader who was
educated among the Yankee imperialists. He is one of those who're trying to
destroy us;
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there can be no other answer.
Martinho ignored Chen-Lhu's jibe; he was too weary even to be angry with the
fool. He stood up, looked around the Plaza. The air held a stillness as though
the entire sky awaited some calamity. A few watchers remained beyond the
expanded ring of guards - privileged officials, probably - but the mob had
been cleared back into adjoining streets.
A small red groundcar could be seen coming down an avenue from the left, its
windows glittering under the slavelights as it scuttled toward the Plaza. Its
three headlights darted in and out as it skirted people and vehicles. Guards
opened a way for it. Martinho recognised the I.E.O. insignia on its tonneau as
it neared. The car jerked to a fast stop at the edge of
the lawn and Rhin Kelly jumped out.
She had changed to coveralls of I.E.O. working green. They looked almost like
sunbleached grass under the yellow lights of the Plaza.
She strode across the lawn, her attention fixed on Martinho, thinking:
He must be used and discarded. He's the enemy. That's obvious now.
Martinho watched her approach, admiring the grace and femininity which the
simple uniform only accented.
She stopped in front of him, spoke in a husky, urgent voice: 'Senhor Martinho,
I've come to save your life.'
He shook his head, not quite believing he'd heard her correctly. 'What ... '
'All hell is about to break loose,' she said.
Martinho grew aware of distant shouting.
'A mob,' she said. 'Armed.'
'What the devil's going on?' he demanded.
'There've been some deaths tonight,' she said. 'Women and children among them.
A
section of the hill collapsed behind Monte Ochoa. There're burrows all through
that hill.'
Vierho said, 'The orphanage ... '
'Yes,' she said. 'The orphanage and convent on Monte Ochoa were buried.
Bandeirantes are blamed. You know what is being said about ... '
'I'll talk to these people,' Martinho said. He felt outrage at the thought of
being threatened by those he served. 'This is nonsense! We've done nothing to
... '
'Jefe,' Vierho said, 'you do not reason with a mob.'
'Two men of the Lifcado band already have been lynched,' Rhin said. 'You have
a chance if you run now. Your trucks are here, enough for all of you.'
Vierho took his arm. 'Jefe, we must do as he says.'
Martinho stood silently, hearing the information being passed among the
bandeirantes around them - 'A mob ... the blame on us ... orphanage ... ' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]