Jo Clayton: The Burning Ground

Thann stared into the darkness and wondered about the offworlder who’d rescued them; it seemed a logical connection. Who else would know how to’bring the Fence down?

“Praised be God, the Fence has fallen.” Isaho’s voice rang out, broke the spell that was holding the watchers silent.

A mal somewhere in the middle of the press shouted, “Miracle!”

More shouts.

Holy Child.

Messenger of God.

Bless us, Child.

Touch my hand.

Heal me.

Bless me.

Thann huddled against the bitts and tried to keep from being stepped on as xe watched two Brothers lift Isaho onto their shoulders.

Surrounded by Mercys and Bond. Sisters and Brothers and Prophet Speakers, Isaho and the mals holding her pushed through the crowd toward the gate, chanting the Praises.’Xe watched xe’s daughter accept this adulation as her due, then xe leaned xe’s head against the bitts, closed xe’s eyes and mourned. Xe’s daughter was gone; the Holy Child was a stranger with the same face. 6. Plotting the road to Change and a New Balance

Wintshikan closed her hand around Zell’s as the Fence vanished. “They did it. I didn’t believe they could, but they’ve done it.”

She watched Zaro and Kanilli grab hold of Xaca’s hand and the three of them join the rest of the Pixa hohekil on the beach in a wheeling, shouting, laughing dance. “I don’t think my knees will hold out for that.”

Zell waggled xe’s hand in anya laughter.

They sat on the side of an abandoned boat and watched the celebration develop along the sands, merchants bringing out bottles of shwala and injyjy, hot meat pies, and roasted tatas. A drummer, a fiddler, and a flutemal met on the raised porch of a house a short distance off and started playing. Others were doing the same farther along the beach. Bonfires bloomed on the sand.

Wintshikan looked out to sea once again, rejoicing at the darkness at the edge of the sky-a darkness that meant the Fence was still down. She took a deep breath, let it out as she turned to her anya. “Zizi, I’m thinking that I want to stand in new mountains and watch the sun go down over land I haven’t seen before.”

Zell smiled. These damp lowlands hadn’t been good for xe; breathing was difficult and the pain in xe’s hip never left xe. +Where there’s no war.+ Xe stroked xe’s hand along Wintshikan’s arm. +Where hate is a personal thing and not visited on strangers.+

Wintshikan sat silent as a long line of femlits, mallits and anyalits snaked past them, laughing and stomping the sand as they moved. When they were by, she said, “We’ll wait a few days for Luca and the others. If they come back. If they’re all right. But if we wait too long, the price may move beyond what we can pay.”

+We can leave word where we’re going if the time comes before they do. We should think of Zaro and Kanilli. And Xaca. The Coranthim Remnant might meld with us to make a new ixis; they’ve got young orals but not much coin. We’ve got coin.+

“Speaking of coin, I’m hungry. You?”

+I could swallow a tam or two.+ Xe used Wintshikan’s arm as a brace and pushed onto xe’s feet. +Ahh, Wintashi, what a night. I truly didn’t think I’d live to see this.+

Shadith swung the chair around, stretched, groaned, and ran her hands through her hair. “Vumah vumay, that’s done.” She glanced from the piles of debris to the anxious, waiting faces of the locals. “The Fence is gone.”

Yseyl closed her eyes and went very still.

Hidan grinned, tucked xe’s rifle under xe’s arm, made a broad sweeping sign of triumph. When the sign was done, though, xe’s grin shrank to a tight smile. +Ptaks been circling this place and trying to get in through the door for the past half hour.+

Shadith listened and heard through the noise of the storm a confused and muted muttering barely louder than the hum of the station behind her. A reach told her a crowd of wet, mean, frustrated Ptaks were milling about outside; as yet there was no organization in that mob, just a few individuals around the Exec who were focused on the codex, a few others trotting off to circle about the building, hunting, no doubt, for the place where the intruders breached security. She rubbed at her back. “They won’t be getting in, I changed the… urn… keys. You’ve been watching. Has anyone noticed yet that the glass is out in that storeroom window?”

+I haven’t thinned many Ptaks back there, just a few who keep trotting around and around the building, I think because they’re too steamed to stand still.+

Yseyl shuddered and opened her eyes. “Syon would have started shooting if they found the hole and tried to get in. Start the fire and let’s go. I don’t see any reason to hang about.”

Shadith glanced toward the Ptak techs. Tied, gagged and blindfolded, rolled up against the wall under the windows, they wouldn’t have a chance once the fire got going. They were awake now, frightened and furious. “Right, but we’ll switch the order of things. Ghost, you and the others mask up and head out, P11 give you a few minutes’ start before I touch off the fire.”

Yseyl stopped a moment in the arch, looked back. The mask hid her face, but Shadith had no trouble reading her suspicion and speculation. A moment later she was gone.

Shadith leaned back in the chair and contemplated the Ptaks. “Listen carefully,” she said. “The others will be out and clear in a few minutes. Well on their way into the mountains. You’ll never find them. This is their home ground. I came into this for ethical reasons. That Fence is an abomination in the face of God, so I have destroyed it. Be warned, what I have done, I can do again. I will remove your gags before I go to join my allies. In their anger they would have left you to burn to death, but I will not. I have programmed the shield to go down and the door to open ten minutes after I leave. Yell for your people to come get you. Tell them that the kephalos has been infected and will fail five minutes after the door opens.”

Shadith set the stunner to broad beam, clipped the collapsed ladderpole to her belt, and vaulted through the window. She hit the ground with a loud splash, slid across the gelatinous mud, and finally managed to scramble to her feet. Half blinded by the rain, disoriented by the slither, she dropped to a crouch, touched the triggering sensor on the stunrod, and swept the field through a wide arc. As she rose, she reached in a quick check of the area. No active minds anywhere close. She groped for the narrow path she’d sliced into the thorn hedge, eased through it, jumped the body of a stunned Ptak and ran for the trees.

Away from the lights and the buildings with the foliage dripping about her, the darkness was intense. The ground was soaked and slippery underfoot; though the leaves gave her some shelter, each time she brushed against a branch, it unloaded; itself over her and she was wet through after her first few strides.

As she headed for the end of the lake and the Drill Field, she tried to run and scan at the same time. That was a mistake. Her foot slipped off a root she didn’t notice and hit a patch of clay mud. She went down hard, her head glancing off the tree, her other knee twisting as she fell on it, the stunrod flying from her hand.

For a moment she lay there, dazed and hurting, then she heard Ptak shrieks and the splatting of feet off to one side.

She struggled up, gasping at the pain in her knee. There was no time to search for the rod and maybe no need; between the rain and the mud the Ptaks shouldn’t be able to learn much from it. And they already knew an offworlder was involved. She took a step, gritted her teeth, and limped as fast as she could toward the Drill Field.