Empires of Flux & Anchor

most seemed to have abandoned the living room as a usual place for very obvious reasons. It was a good thing, she thought, that the one-room studios were on the top—the sixth—level.

She saw no one, but did an extra-careful check, even tossing a few stones in different directions to see if there was any reaction. There was not, and she decided to chance it, although she hated being illuminated so well. Perhaps, she thought, my looks will get me confused for a man in the dark. It didn’t matter. If she was going, she had to go now, and there was no back door.

She approached the steps to the porch from the side and ducked low beneath the open windows. Finally she reached the familiar door and stood, peering in the window. She knocked softly, and in a moment Cloise came and opened the door. When she saw who it was, she gasped, pulled Kasdi inside, and shut the door fast. “Quick! Into the back bedroom before the patrolman sees you!” she hissed, and they went back.

Once there, they both relaxed a bit, although Cloise looked nervous. More than nervous. Also pretty odd in full makeup, ring-type earrings, bare to the waist, and below it wearing a very tight-fitting green body stocking that was see-through close-up.

“What are you doing here?” Cloise wanted to know.

“Delivering the mail, mostly,” Kasdi told her. “Boy! You look like one of the women on Main Street minus the bra.”

“It’s easy when everybody has to do it. They confiscated all our clothes and issued new ones. You don’t know what it’s like. You can’t!”

“I got an idea from some of the people we captured and some of the proclamations we read.”

“We?”

She nodded. “Spirit’s here. And she’s well. She can speak and wear clothes and is almost back to normal.” She decided not to mention Suzl. It might be one shock too many for the poor woman.

Cloise sat down in a chair. “Well, thank somebody for that! But I wish it were anyplace but here.” She paused a moment. “Uh—you know about your father?”

Kasdi’s stomach did a turn. “No. Tell me. I have to know.”

“When they… came… not everybody just sat back. Your father and a number of others formed a group, jumped some of them, and stole their weapons. It didn’t do any good. They got them all pretty quickly and made examples out of them.”

Her heart sank. “Then one of those bodies out there is… him?”

She nodded, and named a long string of other men’s names, many familiar. Her fury, which she didn’t think could get worse, grew, but she remained calm. “Where’s Dannon, or is he…?”

“Oh, no. In fact, he’s been promoted to chief mechanic. He has special permission to be out late on the farm to check on things. You had better be gone when he gets back.”

She frowned. “You sound like you’re cooperating with these butchers.”

“A fat lot you understand the situation! They have complete control. The government officials they didn’t kill or who didn’t see it their way were taken off and came back in uniforms as dedicated soldiers of the Kingdom. The enforcers carry a. kind of whip that is terribly painful and hurts for days but doesn’t leave a mark on you. They use it for the least infraction. But they reward cooperation handsomely. Everything is tightly rationed, but those who cooperate get more. People are seeing the light. They’re going along.”

“But—you? And Dannon?”

“Who are you to judge us? You brought this on Anchor Logh, but you don’t have to live with it. They’ve started classes now, separate ones for men and women. It’s a fast question and answer, and hesitation can cost you the lash. Pretty soon you realize that the only way to always answer correctly is to start thinking their way. It doesn’t take long, and it’s easier that way.”

Kasdi was appalled. This soon? This close? She was more than happy now that Spirit had not come.

“You’re going to cause trouble here, aren’t you?” Cloise asked her.

“We hope more than trouble. There’s a whole army waiting for the door to be unlocked.”

“Kasdi—don’t. Haven’t you hurt Anchor Logh enough?”

“What do you mean?”

“First the war, then Spirit, then this takeover. We’re peaceful people. We can’t stand another war, Kasdi. Particularly not of this kind. These men will fight to the last and will take us with them. You may win, but you’ll kill us all. If you just knocked out that guard out there—you didn’t, did you?—ten of us in this complex would be picked at random and shot. I don’t know how you got in, but please go the same way and quickly. I’ll not report this, even though Dannon would be tortured for it if they find out.”

“You would rather live with women reduced to slaves? Live out your whole life this way or worse?”

“Rather do it than what? Mass killing? Mass destruction? Total devastation? Yes! And you’ll find that almost all of Anchor Logh will agree with me. They won’t aid your army—they’ll fight it. We all want to live.” Cloise suddenly looked very tired. “Please don’t bring in your army. Things are levelling out now, easing up. People are getting used to the new ways. You destroyed so many lives. Don’t destroy us all. Now—go!”

Cloise went into the living room and pretended to be straightening up. She then turned out the light, as if she were going to bed, to allow Kasdi some exit darkness. As she slipped out of the door, she heard Cloise whisper, “Don’t come back, Kasdi.”

The drizzle had turned into a chilly rain, which matched her dark mood.

The others were still waiting for her, and as briefly as she could, she filled them in on the conversation as well.

“I can’t believe they would do it!” Spirit responded. “I just can’t believe it!” She wanted to go down there, but Suzl believed it and dissuaded her.

Matson thought things over a moment. “Trouble is, she’s probably right. This is a new angle, folks. One we better think about before going further. These guys have done a lot of meanness here. Cass, you yourself said what would happen to them when you got hold of them. They know it, too. In the time it takes us to march, they’ll blow the buildings, burn the fields and forests, and machine-gun all the people they can. And while we’re trying to pick up the pieces, the bulk of ’em will drop all shields and run like hell in all directions. They got no other choice. And Coydt wouldn’t care if he did make this place a burnt-out ruin. That alone would collapse the empire, and you know it, and it would maybe take the Church with it.”

Kasdi wished she hadn’t vowed never to curse. “I don’t care about the empire or the Church. They’re not mine. The real rulers just used me all these years. I thought I grew up when I found that out, but I was wrong. I just grew up now. I’m forced to make a choice between wiping out perhaps a million people and the land of my birth, or leaving it to an insane system where women are slaves and all men are like they’re in the army.” She looked strickenly at Matson, Suzl, and Spirit in turn. “What do I do?”

14 DEMON PRINCE

Coydt had kidnapped Spirit from the farm and made away with her into Flux in under five hours. Unfortunately, that meant he knew all the best getaways and had compensated for them. With individual horse use also restricted to specific farm use except for officials, even stealing four horses would only have raised a sign telling everyone where they were. So, two hours after Kasdi’s return, they were still threading their way southwest through the woods. On foot, through well-patrolled and booby-trapped country on a rainy night, the one thing they were not making was time. They did, however, continue to agonize over the choice they had not yet been forced to face.

“My feeling is, Coydt’s won no matter how it turns out,” Matson said as they made their way over rough, rocky ground about twelve kilometers from their destination. “By relegating women to property and forcing them into accepting public humiliation, he’s totally undercut the social and moral fabric that was supposedly divine law and broken the heart of the faith. Now, if we don’t invade, he and his apparently very smart officers here will have this new system so well dug-in that they can make it a base and demonstration for every half-baked crackpot with a grudge against the system as a better way of doing things back home. He’ll control the shield machines, and so he’ll