Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

Pels worked the bug through the fur on his throat, screwed the plug in his ear. “Don’t massacre too many infants,” he said and dropped through the hold.

I pasted the phone on my throat, pushed the plug into my ear and touched the bug on; I winced as Pels’ breath came roaring into my head, threatening to blow my eardrum. I tapped on the AFT which I should have done before I stuck the thing in my ear, head dead, yes, I wiped the tears from my eyes. With a faint chuff-chuff in my head, I got to my feet and inspected the roof. There was a fat tapering chimney a little taller than I was, several padlocked sheds, half a dozen blocky bins, stacks of drums, huge spools, piles of scrap lumber, bales of fiber; the flat space behind the parapet was a kind of storage area for anything the factory wasn’t planning to use anytime soon, all of it throwing complex shifting shadows in the double moonglow. The fires that spread along the waterfront and the slum areas near it put hard edges on those shadows; the black square hole of the open trap stood out stark against the pale roof. Made me nervous. I salvaged a chunk of two-by-four from a scrap pile, laid it across one corner of the hole and lowered the trap on it. The skip was squatting like a dark toad in one of the open areas, far too visible for my peace of mind, but I couldn’t do anything about that except hope if the yizzy inklins came close enough to see it, they’d think it was something belonging to the factory. I dropped onto the roof tiles, sat with my back against the chimney, some broken boxes beside me to thicken its shadow and break my silhouette. The launch tube balanced across my knees, a clip in the slot, I waited.

I watched the firefight move farther from us and breathed easier; the thought of having to shoot children out of the sky put a sour taste in my mouth, though that wouldn’t stop me from blowing the tailfeathers off any snooping yizzy even if it meant I’d send shrapnel through the body of its pilot. I listened to Pels breathe and thought I’d been in some lousy situations before but I couldn’t remember any this bad. Children fighting a war their elders funked. No, not fighting, destroying to scratch an itch, to drive off futility. Hanifa, I thought, if this goes on much longer, what you’ll get when you win won’t be worth the price. You and Pittipat are birthing a generation of killers and vandals and they won’t settle into model citizens once the battles are over.

“Snoops,” Pels breathed into my ear, “audio and video. Three of them in the ceiling where I came off the stairs. I popped them, probably set off an alarm. One guard on the stores level, got him; another round the corner just ahead.” A breathy chuckle. “The maffit is farting like a misfiring engine. Fui! Be doing the world a favor when I hit him. A minute.” The breathing didn’t change; slow and steady, little hunter stalking his prey, go Pels! “Got him. And there’s door 5. Tsa! more lenses.” A moment’s silence. “Got them. Five minutes, then we’re on our way up.”

As I listened to Pels go through the routine speech, picking up echoes of the targets’ responses, I looked out across the burning city and felt a deep relief that I was going to be getting out of this. I got to my feet and took a step toward the trap.

A darkness huge and ominous dropped through the shredded clouds. Light beams walked across the city, seeking out and touching the yizzy inklins. Dainty delicate killer blades darting out to touch and kill, clearing the sky. The inklins tried to run, they scattered like leaves in a whirlwind, but it did no good, the lines of light rotated out with an awe-full precision, touch and fry, immense and eerie lightshow.

I swore; it wasn’t fair, dammit. “Pels, trouble up here. Stay where you are. Pittipat’s brought the Warmaster down.”

“Huh?”

“I know. Swatting a fly with a maul, but it’s happening. No way I can take the skip up; the Warmaster’s knocking everything out of the air.”

“Shit.”

“Yeh.”

“Ah, what about the skip? It’s not airborne, is it safe?”

“Haven’t a clue. Hmm. If it weren’t for those snoops…”

“Yeh. We got to get out of here before company arrives.”

“Let me think… um… the Warmaster is concentrating on the waterfront, most of the trouble is over there. I think you’d better try the streets. Go south and west, make your way out of the city. Watch out for lice.”

“Better them than frying. What about you?”

“Sit it out, I suppose, till the ship leaves. She won’t hang around after she’s finished. You go to ground as soon as you’re out of the city. First fair cover you can find. Me, I’d take to the forest somewhere round the river. If you do, don’t go in too deep, I want to use the bug to locate you.”

“Swar.”

“What?”

“Can you get to the skip without exposing yourself too much?”

“Yeh.”

“Thing is, the scanners on the Warship can pin a flea… “

“A throw of the dice, eh? She spots it or she doesn’t.”

“Yeh. Get the spare com, I don’t feel like walking home.”

I had to laugh. “Point to you, furface. But I won’t move till you’re clear. Give me a whistle when you’re a few streets off.”

Silence for a moment, only the chuff-chuff of his breathing. “A couple things I want to do before I leave. Give me a commentary, huh. What’s happening up there.”

“The ship has finished clearing the sky, her nose is over the harbor now. I can see gouts of steam so I suppose they’re going after boats or swimmers.” A mutter from Pels was a faint background noise to what I was saying; he’d turned the volume down so he could talk to the targets while he listened to what I was saying. “She’s going out farther, that’s one huge mother, Pels, her belly’s still over us here, the tail is out in the hills where the rich folk have their houses. Wait till you get a look at her. Hmm. Whatever she was after, she got it. She’s starting to swing around; it’s going to take her a good half hour to finish that turn. Hunh. She just picked off something else, I can’t see steam this time. It’s pretty far offshore, might even be one of the Sea Farms. If it is, Pittipat’s going to have more trouble on his hands than a few juvenile delinquents. Hmm. She’s stopped the massacre, for a while away. You better get a move on, Pels.”

“We’re on our way. Better not transmit for a while. I’ll keep the plug in place, wait on your beep. Luck, Swar.”

“Keep your nose cold, teddybear.”

“You’ll be sorry for that, you apostate Scav.”

“I hope. On your way, babe.”

“Rrrr.”

The hum in my ear broke off. I dropped into a squat, my back against the chimney. The ship continued to turn, slowly, ponderously, so huge it obscured a quarter of the sky.

A whistle in my ear. “Gotcha.” I eased to my feet, set the launch tube against a box. Glancing repeatedly at the ship, I edged around the chimney and walked slow as a weary sloth from junk pile to pile of junk, staying in the deepest shadows as long as I could, breaking my motion at irregular intervals, using everything I knew to avoid alerting a watcher, whether that watcher was a program or a man. The wind swept over the roof, carrying past me the stench of burnt meat, faint cries from the wounded, hoarse yells from the hunters in the streets below me. The air was cleared of fliers, but the ground fight was going on, more deadly than before, there were no yipyips, no more coup games, these were rats slashing at rats. I crept a few steps, stopped, went on, until I was crouching beneath the skip below the toolbox. The Warmaster was still turning, dark, silent, massive, no more lightblades though. I eased out, got the box open and dug around for the spare handset. For a cold moment I thought I’d gone off without it this time, the ready-check was so automatic I could have been careless, then my hand closed on the padded case. Pels must have moved it when he got the buzbugs. I lifted it out, slipped the strap over my shoulder, pulled the box shut. I looked up. Still turning, measurably closer.