CHAPTER 5

Flowers blossomed everywhere. The streets were full of people taking an oddly somber holiday. Old folks sat quiet on front stoops and boxes while the younger men and women wandered around, not separated into bantering packs of male and female but all intermixed and all serious. A few children ran about, splashing in the puddles, but even they were wary and kept close by their parents. Clark hurried along, hoping no one would speak to him in Outlander. Twice he passed police squadrons marching down the street through hostile crowds. As he came up 67th Street to the Words of Love, Clark heard a distant rumbling. The crowds grew so dense that he had to walk in the middle of the roadway. There was a disturbance somewhere ahead. People shouted.

The disturbance came closer. Fists waved in the air. The shouts turned to chanting. Youngsters in red headbands raced through the crowd distributing leaflets. Somebody passed one to Clark.

He could not read the words, but he recognized one of Fuego's pictures, uniformed police dragging someone along the sidewalk by his fettered wrists. A second photograph showed a woman weeping over the same body. The kid had died in jail.

Everywhere the leaflets passed, the chant was taken up. Red shirts and kerchiefs were appearing in the crowd. Groups of kids ran out of the houses with stones and metal barricades to block off traffic. Drums and gongs, pots and pans and broken bits of walls and plumbing were carted out and passed around. Radios in people's hands and windows blared full volume. Funeral music overrode the din.

Paula ran out of the Words of Love to meet him and pass around sacs of funeral red dye. She handed him a scarlet jacket, saying, "Put that on. We're going downtown for the ceremony."

"Won't we be targets in these?" he asked, obeying.

"I don't think they'd do it. Besides, the area is pretty well covered. We have people on all the rooftops," she assured him. "Comb your hair, too. You'll be up front with the parents." He noticed a wig stuffed into her pocket.

Inside the cafe, the three surviving toughs sat with the mother of the dead one, all glassy-eyed from sedatives. Three other mothers and a couple of fathers paced. Fuego and Luz were busy ushering everybody else out. People ran around exchanging messages, guessing at the crowd's size and spreading rumors about what the police had planned.

A paint-spattered Muer land cruiser turned up in the street. The six parents got in. Fuego operated the steering wheel while dozens of people pushed it to the city's capital. Luz, Clark and Paula followed.

When they passed the Merced Security building, Paula whispered, "We wired the administrative offices last night. If anything happens, Commissioner DiFiore's suite will go to smithers."

"Won't there be workers and prisoners inside?"

"They'll evacuate if trouble starts. And the cells aren't in that part of the building."

In the great open square between the Security building, the city hall and the Bank of Merced, people stood tightly packed in the streets and greens. Some perched on cans, boxes, overlands and one another's shoulders. Others hung from windows and clung to the statues and cornices of the buildings. The painted car was pushed up to the city hall's steps by shrieking women who were to be part of the chorus in the Nightbird magic ceremony.

The outline of the bird had been marked off with feathers and shiny obsidian stones at the foot of the steps. Scarlet-robed men and women stood around inside it, adjusting bone bracelets and anklets, looping strings of teeth and clay beads around their arms and tying various kinds of rattles to their wrists. The crowd surrounded them.

An old man blew a bone whistle. The others moved out of the bird. The men's chorus danced slowly around the outline, moving sideways, left foot over right, step and pause, left over right. Behind them, the women chanted.

The old man touched a lighted stick to a heap of incense at each wingtip, releasing a puff of fragrant smoke, and began the bird dance. He strutted back and forth, head jutting down and up in time to the women's chanting. At the ends of the wings he arched his back and flapped his arms, elbows raised above his shoulders, so that when he jumped he seemed to fly.

Police hovercraft circled the crowd. The tops of people's heads could be seen moving on the rooftops and once or twice a black-clad figure darted out from behind a statue or railing, took aim and dropped back.

The old man ended his dance and began to speak. At the end of each sentence the chorus shouted his words. The crowd was silent. Clark looked around for someone to translate, but Luz and Fuego had vanished.

Looking up at the windows in the city hall behind him, he saw the barrels of old-fashioned Sagradas leveled at the Nightbird chorus. He tapped Paula's shoulder. She looked and nodded.

Clay bowls full of burning incense passed among the crowd. People began shouting the dead man's name. A window beside the bronze door behind them opened. A dozen police troopers, carrying smaller Sagradas, dropped onto the portico. They stood at the top of the stairs, four facing each direction. At the same time, a mounted squadron came out of the Bank of Merced's side entrance and took up a position opposite, on the other side of the square.

The war of contradictory instructions began. None were translated into Eyimalian, except the foot police's, "Disperse. Go home. Persons who refuse to disperse are rioting. This is your final warning. Go home."

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SKIP THE FIGHT
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A band of thugs were jostling their way from somewhere in the middle of the crowd to the steps. Some people tried to block them. Others lifted up the old people and children and tried to convince the crowd to pass them overhead to the outside. These two were the factions trying to start a fight. The peacekeeping factions passed more and more bowls of incense through the crowd. They grabbed the people being passed overhead and set them firmly on the ground. Clusters of students from the Pravela Mission College sang pacific hymns, clapping hands and swaying in time.

The police at the top of the steps began to move down. They stepped quickly, faces expressionless, pushing everyone aside and giving a deft kick to the ankles if they met resistance. Some of the people they struck kept quiet, others yelled deliberately loud.

As the police approached the Nightbird, the chorus darted forward to pick up the feathers and stones that demarcated it. They stood holding the markers at chest level with both hands, elbows interlinked. At a signal the police officers kicked them in the backs of the knees and the line swayed, but there were twenty-eight in the choruses and only twelve officers, so they were never all kicked at the same time. Devotees of the Outlander religious faction interceded almost at once, taking blows aimed at the chorus and then retiring.

People were shouting and jostling, fleeing or crowding round, so many kicks went off the mark. Clark saw an old woman get a boot in the chest. He ran forward and pushed the attacker's leg upward, but the cop was expert and set Clark sprawling with an elbow in the jaw. Human history in microcosm, Clark thought. The thugs had reached them by now and allied with the religious Outlanders. Police boots made a steady rattle on the stairs as fresh troops raced out to help the advance guard.

About half the children and old people were at the back of the crowd by now, near the Bank and the horses. The charge began slowly, perhaps in deference to them. Their screams roused the Pravelany Mission students to sudden fury. Soon the horses were galloping in full panic with the long strides of low-gravity animals that took them barely over people's heads, and the riders were fighting for their lives. Clark watched in astonishment. They almost fly, he thought. Paula had occasionally ridden horses, so she was able to grab onto a bridle and swing a beast's head down to dismount the cop who rode it, but then no one could control the horse and she had to let go. A thickset Outlander lad in a greasy hide coat caught hold of its neck and managed to climb up. Once there he could not stop it, but eventually he rode the frightened animal out of the square.

More police ran out of the bank, some bandaged. They had come down from the roof where the Armies of Daybreak, later reported in the Resheborian press to be about a hundred strong, were fighting to disarm the big guns mounted by the Civil and Industrial Peace Administration, a Viyato gang so unpopular that the regular police refused to aid them and deserted the field of battle, the Bank's roof garden. One of the guns had been pushed over the edge of the slotted granite wall that sheltered the garden and now dangled by a few cables above a group of youngsters trying to catch one of the wounded horses. It was to hang there nearly a week.

The Sagradas on the second floor of the capitol suddenly discharged, smashing the Bank's windows and leaving blackened gouges on the plastic sills and decorations. Responsibility for the damage was never to be fixed. The Viyato local guard accused the Dagrov army, who returned the compliment.

The police had the crowd pinned between the Bank and the city hall. Those who fell were trampled underfoot. People were pushed into the flailing hooves of dying horses, others crushed against the Bank's walls as men and women fought to get in. Squadrons of police trapped inside the building fired on the crowd or left their posts and ran. When the lobby was filled, those inside fought to keep the rest from entering. Troops poured out of the Security building, crossed the half-empty square and surrounded the Bank.

Somewhere behind the lines reason prevailed, and instead of massacaring the crowd, soldiers fired cannisters of stupefying gas in through the windows. When most of the people inside had passed out, they let off a few more to be safe at the cost of killing those with a low tolerance. Then they went in and selected their prisoners. It was midnight and the square empty when the two hundred Tactical Security Officers led eighty-five chained civilians out of the building.

Clark was still groggy from the tranquilizer when the troops left the Bank. A man was shouting at him in Outlander. Clark seized him by the the collar, yelling, "What is it!" in Eyimalian.

The man thrust a Puro into Clark's hands. "Surround the troops. Rescue mission."

Clark pocketed the weapon.

Men and women were arming the mob. For the first time, Clark genuinely feared for his life, but he saw the necessity for immediate action. If the prisoners reached the Security building, they were probably as good as dead. Looking through the holes in a windowpane opaqued by heat blasts, he saw that most of the troops had been dismissed, leaving a small detail to act as the firing squad.

On a shouted command, the mob ran out of the building, firing into the air. The prisoners cheered and shuffled back in their chains to meet them. The captors fled. Clark returned to the Words of Love feeling rather proud of himself.

Paula, Luz and Fuego waited inside among a litter of scarlet rags, papers, smashed glass, food and spilt drinks. One of the plate windows had been struck by a Sagrada and now bowed outward. Bits of chairs lay in a heap near the bar. As soon as they saw Clark, Luz and Fuego stood.

"You're safe," Fuego observed. "We'll go tell Greyesar."

"Who?" Clark asked, sitting.

"Sevit's cousin," Paula said. "Everybody calls him that. It's as good as his name."

"Greyesar. That's a mythical person, isn't it?"

"Yes. The dream king. He deals drugs."

"What kind?"

"I don't know. Whatever the Uchides need, I guess. He works for the family. Where have you been? We were worried. Greyesar was looking for you. Did you get caught in the bank?"

Clark nodded. He felt too sleepy even to look at Paula. "The Security office is still there," he managed.

"We decided not to. There were people inside all day. We can set it off any time. They're sure to retaliate for what happened today. We can retaliate then." She got up and began nudging bits of litter into a heap with her feet. When Clark told her about the rescue operation, she clapped him on the back but said nothing.

He went to their room and slept until Paula came in to shake him, saying, "Come on. They're here." As he came down to the cafe, she was admitting two men.

The first was very much an Uchide. Though taller by far than Sevit, he was not lanky and he did not hesitate to look down at Clark's face or stare into Paula's eyes, both violations of Eyimalian etiquette. His face was long, his chin sharp, and his cheekbones jutted out fiercely. He wore a long grey vest, unbuttoned at the bottom, that billowed slightly behind him, tight-fitting pants and high leather boots. His hair was thick, jet-black except for a white streak above the right eye, and it reached to his shoulders.

Looking at him, Clark felt a sudden pang of recognition. The visitor bore more than a cousin's resemblance to Sevit. Greyesar was an enlarged picture of the lost man, with his poise and confidence, his motions constrained by the half-imagined horde depending on his judgment. Later, Clark decided that the man was a degenerate image of Sevit, arrogant, without Sevit's compassion or intelligence. The second Eyimalian was taller, thinner, younger and very nervous.

The first man carried an envelope. He tossed it on the cafe table. "Hello, Paula. I've got what you need," he said in Eyimalian. His companion stared at her.

"Good. Sit down, all of you. This is Clarkwell Brockhurst."

Clark touched the older man's palm, saying, "You must be Greyesar."

The younger apparently did not expect to be greeted. He sat down and began drumming his fingers on his knee.

Greyesar nodded. "Right. Now, we've got all the field equipment for you and I can have you on Paffir Eket in six days."

"Paffir Eket," Clark repeated. He'd have to read up on sampling techniques to investigate the use of Ecclesiam purpuream first-hand.

Greyesar sat down opposite Paula, resting his arms on the table so that his hands were in the middle of it and kept everyone's attention when he gestured. He spoke to her. "I have been conferring with Adelaide and the family for the past four days. She is convinced, and she has convinced me, that Sevit is alive. She has received an offer to sell him for three million casheeks."

Paula shook back her hair and wiped her forehead with her sleeve. She looked dusty. "Well, that certainly is a stiff price," she said.

"The Uchide refuse to pay," Greyesar said. "They will not allow themselves to be convinced."

"What evidence does she have?" Clark asked. Unless someone interrupted him, Greyesar might go on with these sudden revelations for hours. None of them would be able to stand it.

"She has a holo of him. Nothing elaborate--he faces front, eyes closed. Looks up on cue, recites a few ore market prices and the date, closes his eyes."

"I want to see it," Paula broke in. She leaned across the table, staring earnestly.

Greyesar shook his head. "You don't."

Paula sat up and looked away from him. Clark wished he could stop the contest a moment and assure Paula that she lost no merit, at least in his eyes, if she wept. He touched her knee and she surprised him with a look of keen anger. It occurred to him that her father might have hinted something of this when she called him from the comm office. And she had concealed it, in case it prove untrue.

Greyesar went on, "Unfortunately, the Uchide would not permit Adelaide to show the holo at their council. It was held at the old lady's. That was Adelaide's idea. She and Sevit were married there. Dark, curtains pulled--you know, the worn-out brown ones with the embroidered picture of Fiya and the names of dead relatives. Myself included, but that's another story. Incense. You could hardly breathe. Even the candle flames were dark from the smoke. The highbacked chair, the old one with the fan-shaped back that has the mandala of the godhead carved on the inside and a Sunchild on the outside, Adelaide in the chair. Dressed in red. It wasn't even a blood red, it was scarlet. She she made a speech. Let's see...'In the old days, they exhibited a fallen warrior, and showed the people every wound. I may only speak. Need I tell you what he suffers, locked away with our enemies? Need I make you see his eyes, that look upon the horror that looms above us all? Look at me and see him. I will recite his wounds. See here the eyes that look upon his betrayal.'" Greyesar pointed to his head.

He yanked down his collar. "'Here, here and here, deep bruises. Here, where a shoulder is broken. Here, where their wires enter his brain and make his own flesh his enemy. His flesh. His own, that conspires with his grinning captors. Yes, I am afraid so, fathers and mothers. Our abandonment of him is the mortal wound.'"

Greyesar paused a moment and repeated, "'That is the mortal wound.'" He still stared at Paula. "What else... his feet broken, and so forth, and on to the finish: 'Look at me and see him, dying. Look at him and see your mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. Look at them and see yourselves. Disunited, we are at the mercy of the growing mob that does not fear us.'"

Paula had shaken a pile of salt onto the table and was sprinkling it in a jagged line. Her hand moved so slowly that she seemed to forget it in mid-air. Greyesar was watching her, leaning back in his chair with his index finger touching his lips. Clark looked at him and felt dizzy with hatred. This Uchide had revealed the details of Sevit's mutilation so that he could admire her response.

Clark's hands gripped the bottom of his chair, the muscles of his abdomen pulled taut. When he looked across the table at Greyesar's companion, he saw that the young man was nodding his head in agreement, his face angry but his body loose and restless. Maybe they do this all the time, Clark thought.

Paula sighed, and he heard her whisper, very low, "Damn you, Greyesar. Damn your eyes and soul." Tears welled in her eyes, spilled out and ran down her cheeks to the corners of her mouth.

The younger Eyimalian leaned forward suddenly. He seized Paula's hand, but before he could begin the passionate declaration obviously on his tongue, Greyesar touched his shoulder and motioned him back.>

Luz and Fuego came in, followed by half a dozen solemn Outlanders. All nodded to Greyesar. They stood conferring at the bar, others coming in from time to time to join them.

"As I say, the Uchide will not ransom him. In fact, I doubt they have three million casheeks available. It seems fairly clear that Sevit is on Paffir Eket," Greyesar said. He tilted his head to wait.

"Why is that clear?" Paula whispered.

"Because the ransom offer came not from the Viyato family but from the Ketry, who run the Viyato business operations day to day. His care was legally entrusted to Viyato by the Dagrov authorities, if we may call them that, along with a fee for his maintenance. Since Paffir Eket is their planet and they have no need to hide him from the Eyimalian government but some need to conceal him from us, it stands to reason he is there."

"And we--" Paula began.

"We will destroy the Viyato family. The Outlander people will finish them here, in the mines. You and the farmers of Paffir Eket will end their exploitation of foreign grain. My cousin Tiyar Kituman, here, will go with you. So will Luz and Fuego. They can't stay in Merced anyhow. They are going specifically to organize the agricultural population. I've made arrangements to ship the five of you with Holy Huey."

Paula raised her eyebrows. "Himself?" To the young man she said with almost regal courtesy, "Welcome to our expedition, Mr. Kituman."

Tiyar leaned forward. "It is an honor to work with you," he declared. He was slight of build and seemed pale, though his skin was naturally dark, with heavy lines around his shining eyes. Thin, straight brows shot out from the bridge of his nose. He was pushing the balls of his feet against the floor but his knees knocked the edge of the table.

"He knows the language," Greyesar said.

They looked at Tiyar, who smiled. "I am a linguist. It is my job to study a language and learn it. In this case, I have the advantage that I know the language which was most widely spoken before the planet was given over to the families who control it. In addition, I have learned the language that members of these families speak among themselves."

"How?" Paula asked.

"By listening. They speak it openly, when they do not wish to be understood by outsiders."

"No," he answered mournfully.

"There are three main families, and I can tell you a little about them, mostly scuttlebutt," Greyesar said. "You know the Viyato. They used to be old church, moralistic. They probably got into it by wanting to be missionaries, as they did in the Outland. Second is the family named Ketry, who are involved in the foreign grain business. That all comes from Paffir Eket. They sell it to the Ag Ministry and get a nice profit and they're all fat and happy and give to charities at tax time. But there is a second product on Paffir Eket in whose manufacture they may--may, I said--play a role. It is called Love's Arrow. It is sold from there into the interplanetary market by a slimy gang of thieves with whom I have the misfortune of doing business. Their name is Var. Any one of them would slit any other's throat for no other reason than pure Varishness. Their only contribution to society is their flagrant overuse of Love's Arrow, which they very often take in doses sufficient to do their vermin-like selves in. Some of them who are no longer welcome on Eyimalia have taken up residence on Paffir Eket."

Clark watched Greyesar's hands, which had become active when he described the Vars, fold over one another again. Personalities, he thought. An index finger rose when Greyesar continued.

"What's going on down there? I don't know. One story is that those families act like kings there, that any one of them can do anything he wants, there." He paused for effect. "We really don't know. I've heard stories. Some people say it's a huge breeding ground for sex mills all over the system. You can get whatever you want, any age or size--on the other hand, it could be an ordinary agricultural planet. It might be a big community, like Eyimalia during the first century. A workers' paradise where everything is done scientifically, the greatest benefit for the least labor, each one working freely for the good of all and producing grain in such miraculous abundance that they can afford to sell off the amounts the Ketries take away at the low the price the Ketries are evidently paying."

Clark watched a current of smoke run past the light above them. He remembered a man's voice at the Eyimalia House graduation party, saying that his uncle had worked on Paffir Eket. He looked at Greyesar. "These families keep pretty much to themselves? Tiyar couldn't just hang around with some of the members and find out that way?"

Greyesar shut his eyes. Paula said, "Remember, on Eyimalia most businesses and things are run by families. That lets them have a loose structure within the outfit. So everybody is likely to know the trade secrets, and there's a lot of pressure to keep it all in the family. It's just unspeakably rude to ask anything about it on a social occasion. You couldn't make a question like that seem casual." She looked at Greyesar.

"Right. You'd get your panels cracked." He jerked his head very slightly toward the door. All four of them turned to look, as did everyone at the bar.

Teresa daFlora hesitated a moment, until she saw Clark, and then marched straight in. Her dark blue suit gave an impression of severity that must have been deliberate. She had emphasized it by pulling her hair tight to her head and binding it in a knot on top. She smiled. "Let me borrow Clark for just a moment, please. I'll bring him right back."

He rose, she holding his forearm, and led her to the room he and Paula shared. The streetlights had been damaged during the day so the room was deep black, the stars beyond the window grate gleaming like fish. He switched on the light and she sat down.

"Now, Clark, tell me why the police were at my house asking about you."

Clark tried to think of the correct answer. Their meeting had been so coincidental that he was fairly sure Teresa could not be a police agent, and he wanted to tell her the truth. But it wouldn't be fair to involve her in his shady doings. On the other hand, she might need some information to give the police if they returned and threatened her. But what? There were several people and arrangements they might be looking into, and he didn't want to tip them off to anything they weren't working on yet. "Let me think a minute," he said.

It occured to him that they might have told her why they wanted to know about him, and she might be testing him. Then he ought to say he was involved in many things, and decline to tell her much about any of them. That was the safest course. "Did you notice the woman at the table?" he asked, trying to remember whether Paula were still wearing her wig.

"Yes," Teresa said.

"Well, she has a friend who's connected with...people who sell drugs."

"And you?"

"Well, I've met them, among others. We've been looking for jobs, you know."

"I see. Are they Uchide?"

"Yes."

"Then that explains it. They're harassing you because they don't like the Uchide." She smoothed her hair. Clark enjoyed the superfluity of the gesture. It seemed ridiculous to like her so much. He had hoped that now she would volunteer something about what the police had said, but she didn't. He felt tired and wished they could just talk as before, without suspicion or ulterior motives.

"Teresa, I'm going to leave the planet soon," he said.

"Naturally."

"What do you mean?"

"Most people do. Leave Merced. If they can. You'll go and settle in another place, probably a much nicer one. Maybe not. I do wish you well, though."

"Teresa, if it were just a question of what I want to do--"

"You'd stay here? No, you wouldn't."

"Sure."

"Don't be silly. But you're drunk, aren't you? Well, be silly, then. It's no fun to be sensible."

Clark suppressed the impulse to deny that he was drunk. "Teresa, listen to me," he pleaded.

"Of course. Talk away."

A child in the street yelled, "Mama!"

"I mean it," Clark said. This is ungentlemanlike, he thought. He put his arms around her and kissed her, passionately.

"Mama! Mama!" the children screamed.

You shouldn't start this as you're about to leave, Clark told himself. Teresa returned his passion. He declared his devotion again and again. She murmured denials.

In the neighboring houses, the children were frantic. "Mama! Mama! Mama!" they shouted, sometimes all together for a few seconds, breaking into disunity as some shouted a fraction quicker than others. The cries grew louder and louder. The children were running from their beds to the windows the better to make themselves heard. How they flew to their windows! Would they break through the panes in their enthusiasm and land like little birds on the sidewalk? Their mothers must be going mad with anxiety.

"Teresa, you can't stay here. I'll show you how to go out the back way," he whispered.

She followed him up the stairs to the roof. All was still dark, the stars bright. The children were growing hoarse. Their voices leapt and dived. Teresa stepped out ahead of Clark and turned back to look at him, saying, "I wish..."

She knelt, so their heads were at the same level, and looked into his eyes. "I haven't harmed you. Have I?"

Clark shook his head. He wanted to leave her some physical thing to remember him by. Emptying his pockets, he finally selected his Reshecard, which had his picture and a recording of himself saying, "Hello, this is Clarkwell Brockhurst." The card was invalid, anyhow, since he had left Reshebora. She accepted it with a warm, surprised smile. He pointed out the rooftop walkway gleaming faintly against the black surfaces, then shut the door.

The card wasn't a very good present to leave her, he thought as he went downstairs. He tried to imagine what she would do with it, but had no idea. It disturbed him that he knew her so little and was unlikely ever to know her better. Perhaps he would find others like her on Paffir Eket.

Greyesar sat picking his teeth in the cafe. "The others are collecting their things," he said. "Your clothes are under the table."

Clark sat down. The information he might collect now from Greyesar was more important than the personal effects he took or left behind. "What's Love's Arrow?" he asked.

"Not so loud," Greyesar said. Heads were turning.

"It's a potent, vicious aphrodesiac. A small dose, which is what most people take, will improve your romantic life. Chronic use, which is what much of the Outland suffers from, will kill you. Quite a few people in Merced derive part or all of their income from the trade, one way or another. It's illegal. Here, I've got some." He pulled a vial of white powder from a pouch on his belt. "Just put a little on your tongue."

Clark touched the powder and licked his finger. A woman laughed shrilly at the bar. He turned to look. People were still in conference, mouths working, open and ugly, at their plans. What an idiot you are, he thought. Love's Arrow had been the spice in Teresa daFlora's tea.

The rest of the expedition were coming down the stairs. Clark pressed his hands against his temples, trying to understand the tears that were coming to his eyes. "All right, let's go," he said.

Chapter 6

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