Christmas Carol (33 page)

“Car.” Nik’s hand was on her shoulder. “Take
care.”

“I will. You, too.” She was no longer afraid.
All of her fear had vanished in the same moment when Nik agreed to
allow her to take part in the day’s events. What Carol felt now was
excitement mixed with anticipation. Yet at the same time she was
oddly calm, as Pen and Jo were calm when they bid Bas good-bye and
walked out of the house. Like her friends, Carol would do what was
required of her and pray that all of them would meet again in
victory. Al and most of the other men were already out there in the
square, moving into position and waiting for the signal to begin.
Carol was eager to join them.

“Go now, Luc,” said Nik.

“I will see you again in an hour,” Luc
replied, grinning at Carol. “I hope you will enjoy the fireworks I
have designed.” With a cheery salute to Nik and a quick handshake
for Bas, Luc slipped out of sight around the partially opened
barricade.

“We’re next,” Bas said to Nik a few minutes
later. “Aug and Car are to go out last. Aug, be sure you close the
barricade. You know how. We don’t want any desperate civil guards
hiding themselves in here and ambushing us when we return.”

“Good luck,” Carol said to them. “We’ll meet
again soon.”

“Yes,” said Bas, smiling at her. “We
will.”

Nik’s hand tightened on Carol’s shoulder. She
knew he would not kiss her, but the glance they exchanged was worth
a dozen kisses. For a moment she covered his hand with her own.
Then Nik was gone, following Bas past the barricade, and Carol was
alone in the kitchen with Lady Augusta. Carol was tempted to ask
again if Nik and his friends would come safely through the next few
hours, but she did not think Lady Augusta would give her a straight
answer.

“It is time to go,” said Lady Augusta. She
motioned to Carol to leave the house first.

Carol heard the barricade slide shut behind
her. Quickly she went up the steps and climbed across the first
mound of broken materials before she turned around to reach down a
hand to help Lady Augusta up beside her.

Lady Augusta was not there.

“Is this a good sign, or not?” Carol
wondered. She paused, looking around in case Lady Augusta had
somehow gotten past her, but if she had, Carol could not discover
her whereabouts.

There was an inch of fresh snow on the
ground, and it was quickly being churned into gray slush by the two
dozen or so civil guards who were pacing about the square with a
false air of casualness that could not have fooled anyone. They
were not deployed in a group but were moving individually, and they
appeared to be greatly interested in the activity at the center of
the square, as if that were the reason for their presence.

The noisy old machine was back and with it,
the same bunch of workmen whom Carol had encountered on her first
day in this future city of Lond. Beneath dismal gray skies, in
bone-chilling cold, the men were in the process of removing the
World Tree.

“I guess it’s like an artificial Christmas
tree,” Carol said to herself. “They put it up at the beginning of
the season, and then dismantle it when the holiday is over. I
wonder if the branches unscrew from the trunk. Or if they have an
attic to store it in.”

She did not watch the workmen for long. They
did not seem to be working very hard or accomplishing much for
their half-hearted efforts, and Carol had her own duties to think
about. She was supposed to join Pen and Jo, and to operate under
Jo’s direction. She could see her friends just a few yards away,
talking to Lin. After a last glance at the World Tree and the
workmen, Carol strolled over to the other women while trying to
appear natural.

“Where is Sue?” she asked Lin, mindful of the
civil guard who stood near.

“Gone to stay with my sister for a few days.”
Lin responded with a wink the guard could not see, to let Carol
know she understood the need to make their conversation sound
ordinary, and that she also understood Carol’s concern for the
little girl’s safety. “It’s a good thing, too. I have fallen behind
in my work over the holiday.”

“You’ll be back in the rhythm of it in
another day or two,” said Jo with just the right touch of
indifference toward boring work. “Oh, look, the tree is about to
come down.”

The men operating the machine were
maneuvering it so that its long, rusty arm reached toward the trunk
of the World Tree. The jaws at the end of the arm opened and then
began to clamp themselves around the trunk, preparing to lift the
metal tree off its base. Everyone in the square stopped to watch,
including the guard who was standing near Carol and her three
friends. This was the moment they had been waiting for, when the
attention of the guards was distracted by a routine and
unremarkable event. All around the square other rebels were
silently poised for action, though they, too, appeared to be
watching the removal of the tree.

Jo made a quick gesture with one hand and at
her signal Pen moved toward the nearest guard. Carol could see that
Pen was holding a stunner weapon in the hand that rested beneath
the folds of her heavy coat as if she were seeking warmth. The
charge generated by the stunner would not hurt the guard, it would
simply make him unconscious for several hours. By the time he awoke
the action should be over, and he would be given the opportunity to
join the rebels. Nik had told Carol that many of the guards were as
opposed to the present Government as anyone else, but were kept in
line by threat of harm to their families if they did not follow
orders. Nik believed the disaffected guards would go over to the
rebel side as soon as it became clear that the Government was going
to fall.

“Luc’s surprise is overdue,” Jo murmured,
displaying the first sign of nervousness Carol had seen in her.

“Give him a moment or two more. Luc is
dependable.” Lin’s voice was as low as Jo’s, but Pen must have
heard her, for she glanced backward and wiggled her eyebrows at
Carol. Carol grinned and held her breath, grateful for Pen’s
tension-breaking sense of humor.

When the rumbling started, Carol thought at
first that the noise was coming from the machine standing next to
the World Tree and that something was wrong with the machine. She
realized her mistake when smoke began to pour from the end of every
branch of the tree. Flashes of red and blue light followed the
appearance of the smoke. From where Carol stood it looked as if the
metal fingertips of the tree were hurling out miniature bolts of
lightning. The noise was certainly loud enough by now to be
mistaken for thunder.

Carol did not know precisely how Luc had
created this show of light and sound, but it produced exactly the
effect Luc and Nik had intended. The men who were working on
removal of the World Tree began to back away from it, talking
anxiously among themselves and looking frightened. Then the rusty
machine waiting to lift the tree began to belch and shake, and the
workmen moved more quickly, putting distance between themselves and
the machine.

With the eyes of most people in the square
directed toward the machine and the World Tree, the moment for
action was at hand. Pen released the safety catch on her weapon,
aimed it at the guard in front of her, and leveled him with a
single burst. The buzzing noise the stunner made reverberated
unpleasantly in Carol’s ears for several seconds after Pen was
finished. The guard lay unmoving. Jo reached down and grabbed his
weapon, taking it for herself. They left him where he fell,
comatose but unharmed. All across the square similar incidents were
taking place and, for a moment or two, no one appeared to notice
what was happening. Carol saw Nik not far away, leaning over to
take the weapon from the guard he had personally sent into
involuntary sleep.

“Start moving the bystanders out of the
square now,” Jo ordered. “Anyone who isn’t going to fight along
with us will have to leave or risk being hurt.”

“Look!” Lin pointed, laughing. Fiery golden
pinwheels were shooting out of the World Tree from all angles.

“When Luc said fireworks, he meant it,” Carol
remarked. “What a brilliant idea to distract the guards.”

“Not for long,” Pen noted. “And don’t let
Luc’s contribution distract
us
from our work. I see a couple
of elderly women over there who ought to be sent home where they
will be safe. We only have stunners, but the guards have killing
weapons and they won’t hesitate to use them on anyone who gets in
their way.” Pen started forward and Carol went with her.

Out of the corner of her eye Carol saw one of
the civil guards who was standing near the World Tree pull out his
weapon and adjust the setting. Taking aim, he fired at one of the
twirling pinwheels. A flash of electric blue light enveloped the
World Tree.

Carol had not gone two steps more before a
violent explosion roared through the square. She was so stunned by
it that she could not move, could not have saved herself if it were
necessary. She saw the machine beside the World Tree disintegrate
into a thousand pieces of jagged metal that rained down on the
square, carrying with them injury and, in some cases, death. And
then, with a second roar that shook the ground, the World Tree
itself exploded.

“Come on!” Pen yelled, pulling at Carol’s
arm. “Let’s get those old women, and the children, out of
here.”

“Lin?” Carol shouted. She looked around,
expecting to find Lin right next to her. But Lin was lying facedown
over the stairs leading to a ruined house. A long shred of twisted
metal protruded from her back. Jo bent over her, then lifted her
head, weeping.

“There is nothing we can do for her,” Jo
said, not bothering to hide her grief. Bravely she tried to pull
herself together. “We knew there would be losses. Let’s keep them
to a minimum by getting those innocents away so we can come back
and join the fighting with clear consciences.”

They tried, pushing terrified, crying old
people and mothers with young children toward the avenues that led
to safety. It was not an easy task. There were a lot more people
running into the square than attempting to leave it and it was
difficult to open a path, but eventually everyone who was not to be
directly involved in the revolt had been convinced to go home. Then
Carol, Pen, and Jo hurried back to the square, where the civil
guards were doing their best to restore order. They were not
succeeding. In fact, the guards were quickly losing control of the
situation. One by one they went down, felled by the stunner weapons
in the hands of Nik’s friends.

Carol did not know when the serious weapons
fire began, but all at once the air was full of the buzz and
crackle of killing side-arms and around her in every direction
people were screaming.

“Get down!” Jo pushed Carol hard and she hit
the pavement. A split second later a large, solid building stone
directly behind her burst into tiny fragments.

“What happened to the World Tree?” Carol
cried. “Why did the machine blow up?”

“That stupid guard who shot at the tree
ignited all of Luc’s fireworks at once,” Jo answered. “Luc was
there, near the tree, firing the fuses. I don’t know how he could
have survived those explosions.”

“Oh, God, not Luc, too,” Carol whispered.
Then: “Where is Pen? She was here with us a moment ago.”

Carol looked around. She could see Nik
crouching behind some stones with Bas beside him, so she knew they
were still all right. She did not recognize anyone else, but
perhaps the other rebels were as well concealed as Nik.

“Car, I think Pen is hurt,” Jo said. “Let’s
try to reach her.”

Crouching down they ran to where Pen sat on
the ground. White-faced, looking as if she was going to be sick,
Pen clutched at her left shoulder.

“This wasn’t done by a stunner,” Pen said
through gritted teeth. “One of those cursed guards got me with a
killing weapon. I’m just lucky he wasn’t a very good shot.”

“Can you walk?” Jo asked her. “Car and I will
get you back to the house. You will have to take care of yourself
after that, because we are needed here.”

“I can manage,” Pen grated, wincing when she
tried to move her left arm. “I know where the medical supplies are
stored and I know how to use them.”

“Let’s go, then. Car, you help her up and
I’ll provide protection. I’m sure to be better with a stunner than
you are.”

Carol wrapped an arm around Pen’s waist,
steadying her. Pen groaned once, but stifled any other sound of
pain. Together the three of them stumbled toward Marlowe House.
Meanwhile, Carol could hear weapons firing in the far distance
outside the square, a sure sign that the revolt had spread to other
areas of the city.

“Do you hear it?” she said to Pen. “We aren’t
alone. The other dissident groups have joined us, just as they
promised they would/’

“We need their help,” Pen gasped. She stopped
dead, forcing Carol to stop, too. The two of them stared in
disbelief as four armored vehicles as big as twentieth-century
tanks rumbled into the square. They bore the Government’s markings.
Formidable-looking guns bristled from every side of the
vehicles.

“Oh, no,” Pen cried. “What has happened to
the demolition teams? They were supposed to eliminate the
Government’s heavy arms.”

“Obviously, something went wrong.” Carol
tried to pull Pen toward the house and safety.

“Al was with one of those teams,” Pen said in
a desolate voice.

“Perhaps they were only delayed for a while,”
Carol suggested, trying to offer hope. She was aware of how badly
Pen was sagging against her, and she began to worry that Pen’s
shoulder wound was more serious than they had previously
realized.

“Come on, hurry,” Jo urged. “There is a major
battle shaping up and I want you inside, Pen, before it
starts.”