Sword of the Lamb (26 page)

Alber was called a compound city, and it was more a compound than a city, housing the twenty thousand Bond laborers who tilled this portion of the earth claimed by Lord Charles Desmon Fallor. And in the waning afternoon light, Alber was a beleaguered island in an endless sea of grain fields golden in the autumn of the northern hemisphere. The final crop of the year was ready for harvest, and it was going up in flames. The Bonds had fired the fields around it.

That had been Alber from the air. From the ground, it was a Stygian world in which masses of men and machines moved in incomprehensible patterns, submerged in a pall of black smoke that confined visibility to a few meters. Alexand felt himself a blind pawn on a trimensional chessboard, his only awareness of the game the movements of the pawns around him and the voices buzzing in the receiver in his ear. He knew they were outside the south gate of Alber, he knew the immediate objective of the 1,600 ’Fleeters of Evret’s unit was to stop the outward flood of Bonds and drive them back to their compounds, but that was all he knew, all that bore any semblance of purpose or rationality.

The sound was staggering: the devouring roar of the fires; the rumble of emergency ’cars overhead, swimming through the smoke, sirens shrilling; the hissing shrieks of compressor nozzles spewing chemicals to contain the ravenous flames; the pounding beat of thousands of booted feet; the ampspeakers erupting with commands and demands; the sound of his own breathing amplified by the filter mask.

And as they moved deeper into the blackness, a sound that seemed born of the stifling smoke, that seemed only an accident of nature, like the whining of wind.

A chorus.

It was only a vague moaning at first, but as they marched inexorably closer—a long black line echoing the advancing lines of the fires across the fields—it resolved itself into a wordless threnody of abject terror.

Alexand’s own terror at that sound was irrational and atavistic. It was a primeval sound, all the more awesome because it seemed to have no tangible source.

He marched into the darkness, muscles registering the cadenced impacts of his footfalls, but his body seemed no longer his own. He was only part of a larger entity, that long black line. Orders crackled in his ear, and if they were for him, he obeyed; if they were for others, he ignored them. The stubble crumbled under his boots like fine bones, the heat from the fires came in searing waves, and, even with the goggled filter mask, the smoke burned his eyes and throat.

The wailing chorale was louder, and still he could see nothing beyond the black line except black smoke. His body moved, part of the line, his footfalls part of the rhythmic thudding. He wondered how many kilometers they had crossed, or how many meters; how many hours they had marched, or how many minutes. Through the narrow field of his goggles, he saw shapes materializing ahead as if newly created out of the bitter black clouds, and he heard the disembodied voices from the ampspeakers: “
Attention! All Bonds return to your compounds. All Bonds return to your compounds. Attention! All Bonds return to your compounds
. . . .”

It went on and on, a meaningless litany serving as a counterpoint to the pounding fugues of equally meaningless sounds. The shapes resolved as the black line advanced: X
⁴
gun crews; two men to each gun. Miniature cannons, floating lightly on their nulgrav mounts, directed into the smoke.

X
⁴
s against unarmed Bonds?

It didn’t make sense. He expected the guns to vanish if he looked closely; they could only be nightmare illusions. But they became more real with every step, and rage assumed solidity in his mind in direct ratio, an intensely personal sensation that severed him from the long black line.

Yet he still reacted when the voice in his ear commanded a halt behind the gun crews. He still responded with every other man in the line when he was ordered to unholster his X
²
and attach the shoulder brace. He obeyed when he was told to bring the gun into firing position, and felt the brace against his shoulder like an iron hand.

The spectral chorus howled behind the smoke, and he wondered if those wails, waxing and waning like tide-drawn waves, weren’t born in his own mind.

Until the wind changed.

It shifted with the caprice of natural forces that only the human mind could interpret as purposeful; the darkness faded to a dull, reddish glow, and finally he saw the source of the wailing chorus, and his breath stopped with nausea.

Thousands. He could only think thousands. Thousands of nebulous figures coalescing out of the carmine haze; thousands of milling, scrambling, trampling, reeling Bonds, like leaves tossed and tumbling in the wind. White and blue, their tabards, tinted blood brown and ash gray in the murky light. Men and women, young and old. And children, some clinging to a mother’s hand or clasped in her arms, more running aimlessly, lost, abandoned. He could hear the gasping and coughing now. They had no filter masks; they were running blind, choking for breath. The stubble was strewn with dead and dying, victims of the smoke or the panic of the mass.

“. . .
return to your compounds immediately. Attention! All Bonds return to your compounds
. . .”

The ampspeakers boomed their mechanical, unheeded commands; Alexand stood transfixed, hearing the chorus suddenly mount, seeing a change in the random movements, the beginning of a concerted movement in a single direction.

The turning of the wind . . .

That wayward shift had opened what must seem to the Bonds a corridor of light out of darkness, out of the lethal smoke. They were beyond realizing that the light led them away from the compounds in defiance of those monotonously repeated commands, that it led them straight toward the long black line and the X
⁴
s.

“
Turn back! Attention Bonds! To your compounds
!”

Even the voice of the ampspeakers changed pitch. Alexand felt the tension shivering through the black line and the wrenching acceleration of his pulse. Out of that disordered mass another multicelled entity with a collective will was emerging, an entity driven by savage desperation.

For the first time he felt fear in more than an atavistic, generalized sense. He was afraid for his life. That despairing, mindless mass was rolling toward the black line with a rumbling roar and the implacable momentum of an avalanche, and for an endless moment it seemed inconceivable that any human power could stop or withstand it.

But only for a moment.

He heard an order, but his mind was still automatically sorting the buzzings in his ear; it wasn’t for him. It was for the X
⁴
gun crews.

“
Fire
!”

He was encompassed in whining lightnings, and his mind sorted a new buzzing in his ear.

“
Ariad
crews, prepare to open fire.”

The answer to the lightning wasn’t thunder, but an explosion of shrieks born of something more than terror; born of agony. And he wondered why his vision was suddenly so clear, why no protective mechanism switched on to numb his senses.

“Guns at ready . . .” He obeyed, gloved hands locked on cold metal.

Why he could watch an X
⁴
beam slice through a man’s body and hear that one, individual scream so clearly; see a woman tumble to the ground, her legs cleanly severed, watch her insensate thrashings, and pity her that she still lived.

“Gun safeties off . . .” And again he obeyed.

Why he could watch the first rank falling into the black stubble, shuddering, maimed bodies smeared with soot and earth, and see every face in sharp detail. Why he could watch the next rank falling over their bodies, living and dead, and every gaping mouth had its own timber, each voice as distinct, as tangible as a knife blade.

“Aim . . .”

Why his sense of smell was so heightened; why he could distinguish the odor of burning stubble from that of burning flesh, and both from the pervading stench of fear. And still they kept coming out of the smoke, rank on doomed rank.

“
Fire
!”

He heard the hot whines of laser beams around him, but his gun was at his side. He stood motionless, silence moving through his veins.

How many had already died here on the fields of Alber for the body of a Shepherd? He would not add to the toll.

“
Leftant Woolf! Didn’t you hear my order
?”

This voice wasn’t in his ear ’ceiver; it was behind him and less than a meter away. He turned slowly, the images lingering on his retina, and looked through that tumbled, bloody montage to Major Goring. He had stripped off his mask, as if his outrage wouldn’t tolerate that barrier to expression; he was shouting against the roaring and shrieking, but his anger had nothing to do with the carnage.

“Leftant—I gave the order to fire!”

Alexand methodically removed his own mask. The capricious wind was still blowing; the veils of smoke eddying around him had the clean bite of a cauterizing agent.

“I chose to disregard it.”

“You—you
chose
!” Goring seemed to swell with the rush of blood to his face as he became aware of the curious glances from the other men. “By the God, when I give an order, Leftant, you’d damned well . . . better . . .”

Goring would always wonder how he did it, how, with the slightest lift of his chin, a subtle change of expression,
Leftant
Woolf silently reminded him that he wasn’t giving orders to a raw cadet fresh out of the Academy; he was giving orders to the Lord Alexand DeKoven Woolf. The reminder came as a shock. Leftant Woolf had played the game up to this point, had been a model officer.

But it was the Lord Alexand who said tersely, “You’ll find me in my cabin, Major,” then turned on his heel and walked away into the fog of smoke toward the ships. Goring’s hands knotted into fists. He pivoted to face the staring ’Fleeters, insect-like behind their masks.

“Back to your positions—all of you!”

They obeyed, but with a hint of reluctance. He strapped on his mask and activated the mike, concentrating on the pressing mob beyond the Confleet line.

“Guns at ready!”

The response was quicker, a concerted snapping motion.

“Aim . . .”

Again, a unison response. He watched it with grim satisfaction. But one man was slower than the others, and Goring swore inwardly, reading the open contempt in the goggled eyes.

Karlis Selasis.

As if
one
Lord’s son wasn’t enough.

“
Fire
!”

The lightning sprang from the muzzles and the air shivered with a new onslaught of shrieks.

Two
sons of Lords, And not just
any
Lords’ sons—the first born of Woolf and Selasis.

“Guns at ready . . .”

“My lord . . .”

The guard at the entrance to the family wing hesitantly raised a hand. Alexand paused, watching his gaze falter. He knew. No doubt all Concordia knew by now, and to a Fesh House guard, that fruitless revolt on the fields of Alber must seem an incomprehensible act of treason or cowardice.

“What is it, Ket?”

“Uh—your lord father asked me to tell you he wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience.”

Which meant immediately. The Plaza ceremonies would begin in an hour.

Alexand nodded and walked away down the empty corridor, listening to the regular thuds of his booted feet, a tangible reminder of his own existence here, in this hall—home. He still carried the smell of smoke and burned flesh in his cloak.

The Lord Woolf would, no doubt, be impatient. But Alexand went to his own suite first. His bedroom was lighted and furnished with fresh flowers; that would be at his mother’s behest. Tuck was waiting for him, and so was the dress uniform.

“Welcome home, my lord.”

Tuck was standing by the open dressing room door. The black, gold-embellished uniform hung on the rack inside, multiplied by the mirrored walls. Tuck’s usually cheerful features were drawn with uncertainty.

He knows, too, Alexand thought, and almost laughed. It didn’t surprise him that the news was already out. He’d returned to Concordia aboard the flagship, enduring a long monologue from Commander Evret. The flagship was the last of the fleet to touch down, and Karlis Selasis, aboard
Ariad
, had arrived well ahead of him.

“Thank you, Tuck. It’s . . . good to be home.” Alexand took off his cloak and handed it to him, glancing toward Rich’s room, seeing the welcoming light within it. Thank the God Rich was home.

“Will you be dressing for the evening now, my lord?”

“No, not yet. I’ll page you later.” He stripped off the jacket, tossing it on the bed as he crossed to Rich’s door.

The long months of absence seemed to dissolve. It was as if Rich had always been here, waiting for him. They’d both been through experiences in the last half year that had inevitably changed them, but some things were immutable.

Rich was at his desk console. When Alexand came in, he waved off the reading screen and turned the nulgrav chair to face him. An empty chair was placed nearby, and on the desk was a decanter and two crystal glasses. Rich reached for the decanter as Alexand went to the empty chair, feeling the quivering of his taut muscles as he sank into it. He took the glass Rich offered and tasted the brandy, holding it on his tongue to mask the clinging taste of smoke, and studied his brother’s almost translucent face, the eyes that were warm as a summer sky, but too large, too intensely alive for that thin face. Yet he looked well. He’d lost a little weight, but his color was good.

“Rich, how are you?”

“I’m well, Alex. Very well.”

“And . . . are you still enjoying your work in Leda?”

Rich’s response was guarded, as all their communications had been, but there was no hesitancy in it, no doubt or equivocation, and it told Alexand everything he needed to know.

“Yes, I’m enjoying it, Alex. It’s all I expected and hoped it would be.”

“Thank the God.” And tonight that prayer of thanks wasn’t only for Rich’s sake.

“We’ll talk about it later.” He paused, his luminous eyes shadowed. “Alex, I’m sorry about Alber.”

“I know.” And he did know. Now. He had thought he understood what Rich suffered in the Selasid uprising, but now he knew he hadn’t grasped more than a fraction of it. Now he understood.

“I’ll have to face up to Father soon, Rich. Have you any idea what he’s been told?”

“The gossip has it that you panicked under fire—”

“Under
fire
?” He laughed bitterly. “Karlis has been busy.”

Rich nodded, taking a moment to taste his brandy. “O course, but he isn’t generally considered a credible witness. Certainly not by father. He got his information directly from Commander Evret.”

“Then he was probably given a fairly accurate account. Evret is honest, if nothing else. He said he wasn’t any happier about having me in Confleet than I was in being there; he only hoped both of us survived the experience.”

Rich laughed. “An honest man, indeed.”

“Yes. Well, I wasn’t looking forward to this evening to begin with, but this should make it doubly unbearable. I suppose Julia is mortified.”

“We’ve had no communication from the Fallor.”

“I see. That means she’s definitely mortified, which almost makes it worthwhile.”

Rich made no response, but there was a question implicit in his silence. Alexand looked across to the windowall, listening to the music on the room speakers: a Simonetta
Chanson
; a slow minor melody against a shimmering fugue, graced by an unexpected dolchetta solo in the coda.

Art demands form; the elusive light of creative impulse captured, confined in universally comprehensible order. Yet order is a fragile thing, far more fragile than the unquenchable impulses of creativity.

His eyes moved to his brother, who waited with fathomless patience.

“It wasn’t worth it,” Alexand said finally. “I had time enough on the flight home to think it out.” The smell of smoke was still with him; he took a swallow of brandy. “At the time my gesture seemed right; morally right. But I failed to recognize something, and there was also an element of cowardice in it because I made my great protest from a position of safety, flanked by thousands of ’Fleeters with a line of X
⁴
s in front of me.” He paused to bring his trembling under control. “Rich, that mob—there was a moment when I was mortally afraid; afraid I might die. But when the guns opened fire, my life was no longer in danger.”

“You weren’t protesting the necessity of self-defense.”

“No, but my point is, I failed to recognize it. Or the necessity of the defense of order; social order. What I was protesting—other than the sheer magnitude of the carnage—was that the uprising should never have happened, and
that
protest is valid.”

Rich sagged back into his chair. “Yes, it is.”

“You know what caused the uprising?”

“Yes.”

He knew through the Phoenix. Alexand nodded absently. Under other circumstances, he’d have been impressed by the efficiency of their communication system, but it didn’t seem important now.

“It was a futile and feckless protest, Rich. Still, I learned something from it—that when violence reaches that point, justice becomes meaningless. It doesn’t matter then what triggered the violence. The protest, if it’s to be valid or effective, must come
before
the triggering act. Afterward, you’re dealing with an entirely different set of factors.”

Rich shook his head through a long sigh. “Alex, I find you incomprehensible sometimes.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I agree entirely. That’s not what I mean. I’m not deceived by your calm or your objectivity. I’m only amazed that you’re capable of either right now.”

Alexand closed his eyes. “Don’t . . . burden me too much with your amazement.” Then he pulled himself to his feet, thinking that a drenaline tablet might be advisable to see him through the evening. “At least I can honestly assure Father that I won’t repeat my one-man revolt. . . .” His eye was drawn to the leather-bound tape-spool case lying on the desk. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before, noticed the initials on it.

Another world. Wherever he was on this endless day, that world seemed unreal and spiked with reminders of yet other worlds.

The initials were embossed in gold script: A.C.E.

Adrien Camine Eliseer.

Rich said, “Adrien sent me some tapes today. She’s studying with Layn Powers at the University in Helen, and she taped some of his lectures for me.”

Alexand only asked absently, “The Eliseer are in Concordia now?”

“Yes. They’re guests of the Robek for the holiday. Alton is her escort tonight.”

Alexand made no response; he couldn’t deal with that now. “Rich, I must go talk to Father.”

“I know. Alex, I’ll be awake tonight when you return.”

He looked at Rich and finally nodded. “Thank you.”

He found his parents sitting in one of the window alcoves in Woolf’s private salon, a room that was typical of the man himself in its spare, elegantly restrained décor. They were both dressed for the Plaza ceremonies, Elise in pale blue satinet, Woolf in rich brown velveen, and whatever the subject of their conversation, they were deeply engrossed in it when Alexand entered the salon. Elise was the first to look up, and it seemed to take a moment for her to recognize him. Then she rose and hurried across the room to embrace him.

“Alex, you’re home—thank the God.”

He smiled and said lightly, “You look lovely, Mother. How are you?”

She smiled, too, but a little unsteadily. She wouldn’t be unaware of the repercussions of his choice today at Alber, but the concern in her eyes was for him.

“I’m fine, Alex, but you must be exhausted. I wish you could just rest tonight.”

“I’ll rest tomorrow.” He looked past her. Phillip Woolf hadn’t left his chair. “Hello. Father.”

Woolf called up a smile, but it was remote and cool, and Alexand felt an irrational urge to laugh. The Lord Woolf was displeased. But then he had every right to be.

“I’m glad your leave was only slightly delayed, Alex.”

“Did you expect it to be canceled? It only takes a few hours to put down an uprising.” He walked with his mother to the alcove, then pulled up a chair and sat down facing his father. Woolf made no reply to his comment; instead, after a brief pause, he looked at his wife.

“Darling, we’ll have to leave for the Plaza soon.”

It was a cue, and she took it unhesitatingly, but there was a cast of anxiety behind her smile.

“Yes, of course. I must put on the finishing touches.” She paused to kiss Alexand’s cheek. “I’ll see you later, dear.”

He pressed her hand to his lips, smiling because she was smiling, and watched her go, wondering at the straightness of her back, the quickness of her step. The door closed on a silence. Woolf rose and turned to stare out the window, and Alexand leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him, studying the tense lines of his father’s shoulders.

“I gather Karlis has already spread the news about my insubordination.”

Woolf turned, his aquiline features closed. “Of course. It’s all over Concordia by now.”

“And you’re embarrassed by it.”

“ ‘Embarrassed’ is hardly the word.”

“What is the word, then—‘shamed’?”

Woolf met his gaze directly, his eyes cold, but behind the coldness, Alexand recognized the pain of betrayal, and that disturbed him more than the coldness.

“Yes,” Woolf said, “
shamed
would be more apt.”

“I’m sorry for that.”

“Sorry for what? The act itself, or its effect on me?”

Alexand felt a numbness growing within him, as if the protective mechanisms of his mind were finally, too late beginning to function.

“I’m particularly sorry for the effect on you. I regret the act itself only in that it was ill advised. It wasn’t the proper context in which to take a stand.”

Woolf went white. “A
stand
! Alex, you’re remarkably cool about this. Ill advised . . . proper context—Holy God, you’re talking about an act of insubordination.
Mutiny
. Commander Evret would have every right to bring charges against you, and that would be a historic first: the first time a Lord of DeKoven Woolf has ever been brought before a martial court.”

“He won’t bring charges against me.”

Woolf turned away abruptly. “If Evret knew me better, you might not feel so damned self-confident about that. I’m not sure I’d object if he did bring charges.”

“I’m not sure I’d object, either, but no charges will be brought. It will stir up some gossip, but that will settle in time. And I’ll be a good little soldier from now on; a good, unthinking, unquestioning soldier.”

Woolf turned and took a step toward him, his anger fading into uncertainty.

“Alex, I . . . I suppose you’ve spoiled me. You’ve never done anything I couldn’t take pride in. Sometimes I forget you’re still so young. Perhaps I expect too much.”

Alexand knew that if he let himself think about this conversation, he couldn’t control the urge to weep. He held on to his blanket of numbness.

“Perhaps you do expect too much, Father.”

Woolf looked down at his son, and his frown reflected bewilderment and a vague, nameless regret.

“Well,” he said finally, glancing at his watch, “we’re due at the Plaza in a short while.”

Alexand nodded, then rose and started for the door.

“Alex . . .”

He turned when he reached the door and looked back at his father, aware of the span of space between them.

“Yes, Father?”

“Alex, we’ll talk about this again. Later, when there’s more time.”

“Will we?” The protective blanket was slipping. “
What
will we talk about? Will we talk about the cause of that uprising? Will you bother to ask me why I chose not to fire into a panic-stricken, unarmed mob, half of them women and children? Will you ask me
why
?” He touched the doorcon and the panels slid open. “No, Father, we won’t talk about it again.”

He stepped out into the anteroom, and the doors snapped shut behind him.