S. Stirling - Against the Tide of Years

"Dekkomosu…" Giernas began.

The Lekkansu-former Lekkansu, now a Cloud Shadow warrior, Girenas thought-smiled and shook his head.

"My heart's full of love for you, brother," he said softly. "But not for your people. I'll stay here, where I don't have to meet them soon. And where I can help these people who've taken me in."

"Look, Henry, it's okay now… but what if you decide you've made a mistake? What if you get sick?"

"If I get sick, I'll heal or I'll die," Morris said. "And if I decide I'm making a mistake, well, I'm closer to the Island than you are, aren't I?"

"Okay, okay," Girenas said. "So, that's fair; we leave you your share of the gear and all the mares in foal, and one of the stallions. Good enough?"

"Good enough," Morris said. He advanced and shook Girenas's hand, embraced Sue Chau, thumped Eddie Vergeraxsson on the shoulder.

Girenas swung into the saddle. Their six packhorses and remounts were ready. So was Eddie, of course, and Sue. Beside her Spring Indigo rode, their child across the saddlebow in a carrying cradle he'd made overwinter himself. Girenas turned his horse's head to the west. Ahead the spring prairie waved in a rippling immensity of green, starred with flowers, loud with birdsong.

"Let's get going," he said to his party. "Long way to California. Hell-" he turned in the saddle and looked back at Morris. "You'll never find out what happens!"

Morris waved, laughing. "I'll know what happens here," he called. "And that's as much as any man can know!"

May-August, Year 10 A.E.

"He should have called off the ceremony," Clemens said desperately.

"He could not," Azzu-ena said. "A king who does not celebrate the New Year is no king, or so the people think."

He turned away from the beds. There were twenty in this room, but only ten were occupied-the only patients he was absolutely sure were going to recover. There were over a hundred in the wards now, and the guardsmen were bringing in dozens more every day. Twenty deaths a day, that he was sure of-he was also sure that more victims were being hidden by their relatives.

He bent over one and drained a pustule into the little ceramic dish. Then he scrubbed down, shed gown and mask, and moved into another chamber, where a long line of palace servitors and royal guardsmen waited. A couple of Kathryn Hollard's New Troops were there too, to keep order and make sure nobody bolted.

"Bare your arms," he said to those waiting, ignoring the fear and the hopeless resignation.

Goddamn this inoculation, he thought as the first of them shuffled forward. Apart from the small percentage who would develop the fullblown disease, everyone he inoculated would be contagious for at least a week, which meant they had to be kept in strict isolation. Which meant they'd be useless until then, and he needed immune people for a hundred different tasks.

"At least the king agreed to detain all the people from other cities," Azzu-ena pointed out, taking up a roughening scraper and small scalpel beside him. "And make them take the inoculation before they are allowed to depart."

"That's something," he said grudgingly.

Unless some of them are asymptomatic carriers, he thought. Christ, have mercy.

The line shuffled forward, and Justin Clemens forced himself to remember that he was saving ninety-nine lives for each human being he killed.

"Release!" the ground-crew officer barked.

The hundred and fifty of the New Troops detailed to the landing crew let go of the ropes, and the Emancipator bounded up from the temenos of the great temple-the only open space in Babylon big enough to moor it. The crowd gathered to watch was small, for fear and illness kept most away. The dirigible rose, a cloud of dust whipping across the stone pavement; Kenneth Hollard threw up a hand and squinted to save his eyes. It circled as it fought for altitude, and artificial raindrops fell as some hand released ballast. Then it was up and rising, its silvery-gray hull catching the light and making the red Guard slash stand out even more vividly.

He turned away, shaking his head. "Must be really heavily laden," he said. "Vicki Cofflin told me she hates to valve ballast like that."

"Well, they've got a long way to go-it's nearly six hundred miles to Hattusas," his sister said in turn.

Kashtiliash shook his head. "And all that distance in an afternoon and a night," he said softly. "Great gods, to command such power!" He moved a hand through the air. "Strange, for air to carry such weight."

They watched for a few minutes, until the Emancipator had dwindled to a dot in the northwestern sky.

"What's the news on the smallpox?" Hollard asked.

"Not good," Kat said grimly, and the prince nodded. "Clemens says the isolation policy isn't working, or it's just slowing the spread from prairie-fire to forest-fire speed."

"The only good thing is that we have no news of outbreaks elsewhere, which there would be if the contagion"-Kashtiliash used the English term-"had escaped from the city. Nobody is allowed out of the city without fourteen days in the quarantine camps."

"At which people are not happy," Kat added.

Kashtiliash nodded. "Plague is a sign of the anger of the gods," he said, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. "I think that I understand what your asu says of the small animals that cause disease. I have seen them through the microscope with my own eyes-and I trust you Nantukhtar.

"That is, my thoughts believe. My liver trembles and yearns to appease the gods. I fear that there are only a handful who are convinced even in their thoughts. More who fear your magic worse than the plague, or are loyal to the throne despite their terror. But the priesthoods, many of them-"

Kashtiliash looked up and frowned, then continued in a different tone. "What is this?"

The crowd hadn't dispersed. Instead they were gathering into clumps, staring and muttering. The prince turned to command an aide and waited impatiently while the man trotted away; he kept a hand clenched on the hilt of his sword, the other resting on the butt of the revolver that he' d been presented as part of the New Year ceremonies.

"Lord Prince," the aide said, panting-moving fast in bronze scale armor was never easy, and the day was growing warm-"there is unrest."

"What sort?"

"Lord Prince, there are agitators amongst the crowd-priests of Nergal and Enna. They claim that the sickness is brought by our brave allies"-his sidelong glance wasn't as friendly as his words-"and spread by their magical ships of the air."

"Disperse them," the prince commanded tersely. "Arrest any man who speaks so. Spread the command. Go!"

The aide went; a minute later the guardsmen spread out and advanced with leveled spears, shafts reversed to show the small bronze knobs on the butt ends. Their officer shouted the royal command to disperse. Normally that would have been enough-more than enough. This time it wasn't. The crowd eddied and milled, and then things began flying through the air-lumps of donkey dung first, then bricks. A soldier wobbled out of line, dropping spear and shield and clapping his hands to his face, blood leaking out between his fingers.

The others were cursing and shouting, plying the spearshafts with a will. More bricks flew, and a few of the crowd tried to wrestle the weapons away from the troopers. Another command from their officers, and the six-foot shafts flipped around, showing sharp bronze or Island steel. Still the crowd did not disperse-not until another order rapped out and the guardsmen advanced shield to shield, their points jabbing in earnest this time. Bodies lay on the pavement after they passed, and the townspeople turned and ran.

The Hollards and the prince looked at each other, and at the rioters lying still or moaning and curling around their wounds.