'I'll try, sir,' she answered, smiling. She walked up to one of the dancers and asked, politely, 'Sir, could you please-'
And then the ceramic knives came out.
Cochea
Hennessey sliced off a bite of ham as he, Parilla and Jimenez took their breakfast in the courtyard, not far from the statue of Linda.
The sun was up, a pleasant breeze blowing. The head of the waterfall was just visible from the spot where they sat. The air was fresh and clean, washed by the previous night's rain. The mosquitoes were vanquished by day. Nor was anything allowed to gather anywhere near the house that might draw or breed flies. There was only the smell of the flowers, Linda's carefully nurtured garden in the courtyard, and of the repast: bacon, ham, eggs, corn tortillas, some cheese Lucinda made herself from the few score cows the Hennesseys owned, mostly for the sake of Linda's family tradition. Above all was the smell of strong Balboan coffee, grown by one of Hennessey's in- laws in a high, cool mountain valley halfway to the southern coast.
The courtyard was doubly screened in, overhead. The finer mesh was intended to keep out mosquitoes and flies. The coarser, steel wire mesh was prevention against entry of the unsavory antaniae, nocturnal flying lizards with batlike wings and highly septic mouths. Like tranzitrees, bolshiberry bushes, and progressivines, antaniae were neither terrestrial in origin nor Terra Novan, but showed evidence at the cellular level of being artificial creations.
A portion of the screen, a panel of perhaps four feet by six, had receded when light sensors told it the sun had risen enough to drive off the bugs and the winged lizards. Just as Hennessey took the bite of ham an emerald, blue, red and gold reptilian bird-or flying reptile; it was somewhere between the two, though most called them birds- appeared at the opening, circled almost incredibly slowly twice, then descended to land in front of Linda's statue. There it squawked several times before twisting its head to cast an accusing glare at Hennessy.
'She's still not back, Jinfeng,' Hennessey called to the bird. 'Come over for your breakfast.'
Hennessey picked up a still warm corn tortilla and held it down between the level of the table and the level of the courtyard's ground. The bird looked at the tortilla, then looked with vast suspicion at Parilla and Jimenez in turn. Hennessey wriggled the flat fried corn cake to distract the bird.
'My friends won't harm you, Jinfeng. Come get your chow.'
The bird opened its beak wide, wide enough to show that it was lined with teeth. A warning? Possibly. Jinfeng and her kind had not survived-so far-on Terra Nova by failing in the paranoia department. Then she waddled over, her long boney tail scrapping along the stone walkway that ran the length, also the breadth, of the courtyard while the claws on her partially reversed big toes went click-click- click.
She stopped beside Hennessey's chair and reached out with a three-fingered claw sprouting from her wing for the tortilla. Before eating it she gave another screech, this one sounding almost polite. Then she raised the tortilla to her beak and began ripping off pieces with her teeth.
'You don't see many of those around anymore,' Parilla commented. 'There were a lot more when I was a boy.'
'They're smart, you know,' Hennessey said. 'At least as bright as a grey parrot.'
'If they're so smart,' Jimenez asked, 'why are they nearly extinct?'
'It's the feathers,' Parilla answered. 'I daresay if you were that good looking, my ebony friend, people would be hunting you, too. Besides, coming near extinction, in the presence of man, is no shame… except to man.'
'And they still do hang on,' Hennessey added, flipping the bird a slice of fried ham that it caught and likewise bolted down. 'Linda's been looking for a mate for this one.'
'Speaking of hanging on, why did so many of you stay and hang on in the Estado Mayor?' Hennessey asked again, as breakfast neared its end. 'Don't get me wrong. I think you did the right thing. I admire you dumb bastards, I did even then. But it was hopeless.'
Jimenez sighed and shrugged. 'We knew that. But what's a principle worth? What's honor worth, Patricio?
'Not everybody did stay in the Comandancia, you know. Truthfully, I do not know how many took off as the screen between the Transitway Zone and the Estado Mayor collapsed. For a certainty, very few of the real thugs Pina brought in stayed.'
'We found well over a hundred bodies inside,' Hennessey reminded. 'And only the five of you that were too badly wounded to fight were taken prisoner.'
Jimenez winced. 'Oh, I know, Patricio.'
'Damn shame. You had some good kids with you that day.'
Jimenez smiled. 'Yes. They were the best, the ones who wouldn't give up.'
Parilla interjected while spreading butter on a piece of toast, 'You will note, young Patricio, that those were men Herrera and I trained, for the most part-the old guard. I wish to hell we had their like again in the uniform of the country.'
'We do, General,' Jimenez objected. 'The Civil Force boys are as good as what I commanded in 447.' He grinned ruefully. 'One of the good side effects of having been abandoned by most of their officers is that a lot of good men survived who would have been killed had they been properly led.'
Parilla scowled as he buttered a bit of toast. 'But they aren't an army, Xavier. A country needs an army.'
Jimenez looked down at his own plate and, nodding, frowned. 'Yes… well we're not going to get an army again; so we have to make do.'
'We could have an army again, if…' Parilla didn't finish the sentence.
Hennessey thought for a bit, then said, agreeably, 'You have good people. They make good troops. If you ever get an army again and need a little help…'
'Yeah, well,' Jimenez said, 'no one believes that here. We lost, after all.'
'So did the Sachsens in the Great Global War,' Hennessey objected. 'Xavier, General… you know I was in the Petro War, too?'
Jimenez nodded as did Parilla.
'Well, let me tell you this. Six companies and fewer than a dozen independent platoons of Balboan light infantry-outnumbered, outgunned, hit without warning in the middle of the night-gave the FS Army more trouble than fifty divisions of heavily armed Sumeris. That's the truth; from someone who fought both. Your boys had nothing to be ashamed of.'
Parilla smiled with pleasure. In truth, the Armed Forces of Balboa-be they called 'Civil Force,' 'Defense Corps,' or ' Guardia Nacional ' had been and remained his one greatest love. To hear good words of an organization and tradition for which few in the country had much use anymore did him a great measure of good.
Just as Parilla was touched by the admission, so too was Jimenez. Normally a block of black ice to the world, still his voice choked a bit as he tried to formulate fumbling words of thanks. Before he could get those words out he was interrupted by Lucinda, gone suddenly pale, bursting in on them.
' Senor, senores… come quick. Something terrible in the Federated States. On the Televisor. Come quickly!'
Exchanging worried glances, the three arose and hurried to the television room.
Columbian Airlines Flight 39, 0827 hours, 11/7/459 AC
Legs splayed, the stewardess lay face up with her open eyes staring blankly at the ceiling of the first class cabin. Her throat was raggedly slashed and a great pool of her blood stained the carpet around her. The blood likewise stained the back of a now abandoned guitar.
Forward of the stew's corpse, halfway up the flight of steps that led to the bridge of the airship, was another, smaller, pool of blood. It dripped from the steps down onto its donor, the airship's purser. His throat had been cut at leisure, after he'd been beaten senseless. It was a much neater slash.
At the head of the stairs, there was a bolted door that now sealed off the bridge from the rest of the ship. Inside were eight men, three of them dead and on the deck. Of the five living, all were covered in the blood sprayed from the throats of the crew as they were sliced open. Two of those living sat the pilot's and copilot's seats. Another two guarded the bolted door against some desperate bid on the part of the passengers to regain control.
