Use of Weapons (37 page)

'I
hear we might be taking a trip up to the city,' the woman said. She looked down
at the old man, smoothed her plain smock dress with her other hand. 'This is
very sudden.'

'Yes,'
Beychae agreed. He smiled up at her. 'You'll find that old men still retain the
ability to surprise, on occasion.'

'It'll
be cold,' the woman said, drawing away. 'I'll fetch your warm clothes.'

Beychae
watched her go. 'Wonderful girl,' he said. 'Don't know what I'd do without
her.'

'Indeed,'
he replied.
You may have to learn
, he
thought.

The
journey back up to the surface took an hour to arrange. Beychae seemed excited.
Ubrel Shiol made him put on warm clothes, changed out of her smock into a
one-piece, and put her hair up. They took the same car; Mollen drove. He,
Beychae and Ms Shiol sat on the broad rear bench; the woman in the black robe
sat across from them.

They
left the tunnel for the bright light of day; snow covered a broad yard with
tall wire gates before them. Security men watched the car go past as the gates
opened. The car set off down a side road for the nearest turnpike, then stopped
at the junction.

'Is
there a fair on anywhere?' Beychae asked. 'I always enjoyed the noise and
bustle of fairs.'

He
recalled there was some sort of travelling circus camped in a meadow down near
the river Lotol. He suggested they went there. Mollen turned the car onto the
broad, almost empty boulevard.

'Flowers,'
he said, suddenly.

They
all looked at him.

He'd
put his arm back on the seat, behind Beychae and Urbrel Shiol, and brushed
Shiol's hair, dislodging a clasp Shiol had secured her hair with. He laughed,
and retrieved the clasp from the shelf under the car's rear window. The
manoeuvre had given him the chance to look back.

There
was a large half-track vehicle following them. 'Flowers, Mr Staberinde?' the
woman in the black robe said. 'I'd like to buy some flowers,' he said, smiling
first at her, then at Shiol. He clapped his hands. 'Why not? To the Flower
Market, Mollen!' He sat back, smiling beatifically. Then he sat forward, all
apologetic. 'If that's all right,' he said to the woman.

She
smiled. 'Of course. Mollen; you heard.' The car turned down another road.

In
the Flower Market, amongst the packed and flurried stalls, he bought flowers
and presented them to the woman and to Ubrel Shiol. 'There's the fair!' he
said, pointing over the river, where the tents and holograms of the fair
sparkled and rotated.

As
he'd hoped, they took the Flower Market Ferry. It was a tiny, one-vehicle
platform. He looked back at the half-track waiting on the other side.

The
far bank. They drove towards the fair; Beychae chattered, remembering fairs
from his youth for Ubrel Shiol.

'Thank
you for my flowers, Mr Staberinde,' the woman sitting across from him said,
putting them to her face and breathing in their scent.

'My
pleasure,' he said, then leant across Shiol to tap Beychae on the arm, to
attract his attention to a piece of fairground equipment wheeling into the sky
over some nearby roofs. The car drew to a stop at a light-controlled junction.

He
reached across Shiol again, pulled down a zip before she realised what was
happening, and extracted the gun he'd already felt there. He looked at it and
started to laugh, as though the whole thing was a silly mistake, then turned it
and fired at the glass screen behind Mollen's head.

The
glass shattered. He was already kicking through it, launching himself from the
seat and lancing forward with one leg. His foot crashed through the
disintegrating glass and connected with Mollen's head.

The
car leapt forward, then stalled. Mollen slumped. The instant of stunned silence
lasted just long enough for him to shout, 'Capsule;
here
!'

The
woman across from him moved; her hand dropped the flowers and went to her waist
and a fold in the robe. He punched her in the jaw, sending her head cracking
back against the still intact part of the glass screen behind her. He
swivelled, crouched near the door, as the woman slid unconscious to the floor
beside him and the flowers spilled across the footwell. He looked back at
Beychae and Shiol. Both their mouths were open. 'Change of plan,' he said,
taking off the dark glasses and throwing them onto the floor.

He
dragged them both out. Shiol was screaming. He threw her against the rear of
the car.

Beychae
found his voice; 'Zakalwe, what the hell do you...'

'She
had
this
, Tsoldrin!' he yelled back,
flourishing the gun.

Ubrel
Shiol used the second or so that the gun wasn't pointing at her to stab a kick
at his head. He dodged it, let the woman spin, then cracked her, open handed,
across the neck. She crumpled. The flowers he had given her rolled under the
car.

'Ubrel!'
Beychae shrieked, falling to the woman's side. 'Zakalwe! What have you done
to...'

'Tsoldrin...'
he began. The driver's door burst open and Mollen launched himself at him. They
tumbled across the road into the gutter; the gun went spinning.

He
found himself wedged against the kerb, Mollen above him, bunching his lapels in
one hand, the other arm swinging up, the voice machine swinging out on a
lanyard as the huge, scarred fist plunged downwards.

He
feinted, then flung himself in the other direction. He jumped up as Mollen's
fist hit the kerb stones.

'Hello,'
said Mollen's voice box as it clattered into the road surface.

He
tried to steady, aiming a kick at Mollen's head, but he was off-balance. Mollen
caught his foot with his good hand. He wriggled out of the grip, but only by
turning away.

'Pleased
to meet you,' the box said, swinging again as Mollen rose, shaking his head.

He
aimed another kick at Mollen's head. 'What do you require?' The machine said,
as Mollen dodged the kick and threw himself forwards. He dived, skidded across
the concrete road surface, rolled and stood.

Mollen
faced him; his neck was bloody. He staggered, then seemed to remember
something, and dug inside his tunic.

'I
am here to help you,' said the voice box.

He
flung himself forward, smashing a fist into Mollen's head as the big man
turned, loosing a small gun from his tunic. He was too far away to grab it, so
he pivoted and swung one foot, connecting with the gun in the man's fist and
forcing his hand up. The grey-haired man staggered back, looking pained and
rubbing his wrist.

'My
name is Mollen. I cannot speak.'

He'd
hoped the kick might have dislodged the gun from Mollen's grip but it didn't.
Then he realised that directly behind him were Beychae and the unconscious
Shiol; he stood for a second while Mollen aimed the gun at him, waggling his
body one way then the other, so that Mollen, shaking his head again, let his
hand waver on the gun.

'Pleased
to meet you.'

He
dived at Mollen's legs. Collided satisfactorily.

'No,
thank you.' They crashed into the kerb-side. 'Excuse me...'

He
brought his fist up, tried to whack the man across the head again.

'Could
you tell me where this is?'

But
Mollen rolled. His punch sailed through air. Mollen shifted and almost
head-butted him. He had to duck, hitting his head against the kerb-stones.

'Yes,
please.'

He
splayed his fingers as his head rang with light, flung them out where he
thought Mollen's eyes ought to be, and felt something connect liquidly. Mollen
screamed.

'I
cannot reply to that.'

He
bounced up using hands and feet, kicking out at Mollen as he did so.

'Thank
you.' His foot slammed into Mollen's head. 'Would you repeat that, please?'

Mollen
rolled slowly into the gutter and lay still. 'What time is it?' What time is
it? What time is it?'

He
stood up shakily on the sidewalk.

'My
name is Mollen. Can I help you? You are not allowed in here. This is private
property. Where do you think you are going? Stop or I shoot. Money is no
object. We have powerful friends. Could you direct me to the nearest telephone?
I'll fuck you harder all right, bitch; feel this.'

He
smashed Mollen's voice machine with one boot.

'Graap!
No user-serviceable components ins -'

Another
stamp silenced it.

He
looked up at Beychae, who was crouched by the side of the car, Ubrel Shiol's
head cradled in his lap.

'Zakalwe!
You madman!' Beychae screeched.

He
dusted himself down, looked back in the direction of the hotel. 'Tsoldrin,' he
said calmly. 'This is an emergency.'

'What
have you done?' Beychae - eyes wide, face aghast - screamed at him, glancing
from Shiol's inert form to Mollen's, then taking a detour via the slumped feet
of the woman lying unconscious in the car, flowers scattered around her feet,
before returning to Shiol's already bruised neck.

He
looked to the sky. He saw a speck. Relieved, he turned back to Beychae. 'They
were about to kill you,' he told him. 'I was sent to stop them. We have
about...'

There
was a noise beyond the buildings shielding the river and the Flower Market; a
bang and a whoosh. They both looked to the sky; the enlarging speck that was
the capsule blossomed with light on a stalk that led back behind the buildings
towards the Flower Market. The capsule sailed through the resulting
incandescent bloom, seemed to shake itself, then a lance of light darted from
it back down the same line, as though in reply.

The
sky above the Flower Market flared; the road underneath them bounced, and a
terrific crack of sound burst over the roadway and rolled back from cliffs
further up the slope city.

'We
had about a minute,' he said, breathless, 'before we had to leave.' The capsule
swooped from the sky, a four-metre cylinder of darkness impacting on the road
surface. Its hatches opened. He went to it and took out a very large gun. He
touched a couple of controls. 'Now we have no time.'

'Zakalwe!'
Beychae said, voice suddenly controlled. 'Are you insane?'

A
tearing, screaming noise came above the city, from up-canyon. They both looked
up at a slim shape streaking towards them, bellying down through the air.

He
spat into the gutter. He raised the plasma rifle, sighted at the fast
approaching dot, and fired.

A
bolt of light leapt from gun to sky; the aircraft burst smoke, and veered away
on a helix of debris, crashing somewhere down-canyon in a scream that became
thunder, echoes rolling back from all over the city.

He
looked back at the old man.

'What
was the question again?'

V

The
black fabric of the tent roof was above him and yet he could see through it to
the sky, which was the shaded blue of day, and bright, but black as well
because he could see through that easy blueness, and beyond was a darkness more
profound than that inside the tent, a darkness where the scattered suns burned,
tiny firefly lights in the cold black empty deserts of the night.

A
dark crop of stars reached out towards him, picked him up softly between vast
fingers like some delicate ripe fruit. In that immense enfolding he felt
deliriously sane, and understood then that in an instant - any instant, and
with only the most minute of efforts - he might understand everything, but did
not desire to. He felt as though some awesome galaxy-quaking machinery, always
hidden under the surface of the universe, had somehow connected itself to him,
and dusted him with its power.

He
sat in a tent. His legs were crossed, his eyes were closed. He had sat like
this for days now. He wore a loose-fitting robe, like the nomad people. His
uniform lay neatly folded a metre behind him. His hair was short; stubble grew
on his face, and there was a sheen of sweat on his skin. It seemed to him that
sometimes he was outside of himself, looking back at his body, sitting there on
the cushions under the dark fabric roof. His face grew darker because the black
hairs grew through the skin, yet looked lighter because the film of sweat on it
glistened in the lights of the lamps and the smoke-hole in the roof. This
adversarial symbiosis, competition creating stasis, amused him. He would rejoin
his body, or set off further afield, with a sense of Tightness at the core of
things.