the line in all the confusion when they advance. We could try disguising ourselves as kolfrans; or we could hide out somewhere until they pass by us. It’s got to be worth a try.”
“A non-aggressive evasion policy,” Rana said thoughtfully. “I’m certainly with you on that.”
“No way,” McPhee said. “Look, I’m sorry Stephanie, but we’ve seen the way the serjeants move forwards. You couldn’t slide a gnat between them. And that was before the mortar attack. They’re wise to us using the ferrangs as camouflage now. If we go out there, we’re just going to be the first to be de-possessed.”
“No, no, wait a minute,” Cochrane said. He swung his feet off the settee and walked over to the table. “Our funky sister might be on to something here.”
“Thanks,” Stephanie grunted sarcastically.
“Listen, you cats. The black hats and their UFOs are like scoping the ground out with microscopes, right? So if we like cooperate with each other and dig ourselves a nice cozy bunker out in the wilderness, we could sit tight down there until they’ve invaded the town and moved off.”
Several surprised looks were passed round. “It could work,” Franklin said. “Hot damn!”
“Hey, am I like
Tina sneered. “Definitely a what.”
“I keep expecting to be asked for my ident disk,” Rana said as the seven of them walked down Ketton’s main street.
They were the only people not wearing military fatigues. Ekelund’s army gave them suspicious glances as they passed by. Cochrane’s tinkling bells and cheery, insulting waves didn’t contribute to making them inconspicuous. When they walked out of the house, Stephanie considered junking her dress and adopting the same jungle combat gear style. Then she thought to hell with that. I’m not hiding my true self anymore. Not after what I’ve been through. I have a right to be me.
Near the outskirts, the road led between two rows of houses. Nothing as elaborate as the Georgian town house, but comfortably middle-class. The barrier between town and country was drawn by a deep vertical-walled ditch, with thick iron spikes driven into the soil along the top. Some kind of sludge trickled along the bottom of the trench, stinking of petrol. The arrangement wasn’t terribly practical, it was more a statement than a physical danger.
Annette Ekelund was waiting for them, lounging casually against one of the big spikes. Several dozen of her army were ranged beside her. Stephanie was quite sure the hulking guns they had slung over their shoulders would be impossible to lift without energistic power fortifying their muscles. Three-day stubble seemed compulsory for the men, and everyone wore ragged sweatbands.
“You know, I’m getting a bad case of dйjа vu here,” Annette said with ersatz pleasantry. “Except this time you haven’t got a good cause to tug my heartstrings. In fact, this is pretty close to treachery.”
“You’re not a government,” Stephanie said. “We don’t have loyalties.”
“Wrong. I am the authority here. And you do have obligations. I saved your pathetic little arse, and all these sad bunch of losers you have trailing round with you. I took you in, protected you, and fed you. Now I think that entitles me to a little loyalty, don’t you?”
“I’m not going to argue this with you. We don’t want to fight. We won’t fight. That gives you three choices, you either kill us here on the spot, imprison us which will take up valuable manpower, or let us go free. That’s the only issue, here.”
“Well that’s actually only two choices then, isn’t it? Because I’m not diverting anybody from their assigned duty to watch over ingrate shits like you.”
“Fine, then make your choice.”
Annette shook her head, genuinely puzzled. “I don’t get you, Stephanie, I really don’t. I mean, where the fuck do you think you’re going to go? They do have us surrounded, you know. An hour walking down that road, and you’re straight into zero-tau. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. And you will never ever get out of jail again for the rest of time.”
“We might be able to dodge them in open ground.”
“That’s it? That’s your whole game plan? Stephanie, that’s pitiful even for you.”
Stephanie pressed closer to Moyo, unnerved by the level of animosity running free in Annette’s thoughts. “So what’s your alternative?”
“We fight for our right to exist. It’s what people have been doing for a very long time. If you weren’t such a small-town imbecile you’d see that nothing easy ever comes free; life is cash on delivery.”
“I’m sure it is, but you haven’t answered my question. You know you’re going to lose, what’s the point in fighting?”
“Let me explain,” Soi Hon said. Annette flashed him a look of pure anger, then nodded permission.
“The purpose of our action is to inflict unacceptable losses on the enemy,” Soi Hon said. “The serjeants are almost unstoppable here on the ground, but the political structure behind them is susceptible to a great many forces. We might not win this battle, but our cause will ultimately triumph. That triumph will come sooner once the Confederation leadership is forced to retreat from ventures like this absurd Liberation. Their victory must be as costly as we can make it. I ask you to reconsider your decision to leave us. With your help, the time we have to spend in the beyond will be reduced by a considerable margin. Just think, the serjeant you exterminate today may well be the one that breaks the camel’s back.”
“You lived before Edenism matured, didn’t you?” Moyo asked.
“The habitat Eden was germinated while I was alive. I didn’t survive long after that.”
“Then I have to tell you, what you’re talking is total bullshit. The political ideologies you’re basing your justifications on are centuries out of date—just like all of us. Edenism has a resolution which is frightening in its totality.”
“All human resolve can be broken in the end.”
Moyo turned his perfect, unseeing eyes to Stephanie, and twisted his lips in a humble grimace. “We’re doomed. You can’t reason with a psychopath and a demented ideologue.”
“You should tell your boyfriend to watch his lip,” Annette said.
“Or what?” Moyo laughed. “You said it, psycho mamma, you told Ralph Hiltch all those weeks ago: the possessed don’t lose. It doesn’t matter how many bodies of mine you blast away. I will always be back. Learn to live with me, because you can never escape. For all of eternity you have to listen to me whining on and on and on and on . . . How do you like that, you dumb motherfucker?”
“Enough.” Stephanie patted his shoulder in warning. He couldn’t see Annette’s expression, but he’d be able to sense her darkening thoughts. “Look, we’re just going to go, all right.”
Annette turned and spat into the trench. “You know what’s down there? Its something called napalm. Soi Hon told us about it, and Milne made up the formula. There’s tons of the stuff; lying down there, in squirt bombs, loaded into flame throwers. So when the serjeants come over, it’s going to be barbecue time. And that’s just this section. We’ve got a shitload of grief rigged up for them around this town. Every street they walk down is going to cost them in bodies. Hell, we’re even running a sweepstake, see how many we can take with us.”
“I hope you win.”
“The point is, Stephanie, if you leave now, you don’t come back. I mean that. If you desert us, your own kind, then you’re our enemy just as much as the non-possessed are. You’re going to be trapped out there between the serjeants and me. They’ll shove you into zero-tau, I’ll have you strung up on a crucifix and fried. So you see, it’s not me that makes the choices. In the end, it’s down to you.”
Stephanie gave her a sad smile. “I choose to leave.”
“You stupid bitch.” For a moment, Stephanie thought the woman was going to launch a bolt of white fire straight at her. Annette was fighting very hard to control her fury.
“Okay,” she snapped. “Get out. Now.”
Praying that Cochrane would keep his mouth shut, Stephanie tugged Moyo gently. “Use one of the spikes,” she murmured to McPhee and Rana. They both began to concentrate. The nearest spike started to droop, lowering itself like a drawbridge across a moat. When its tip touched the other side, the metal flattened out, producing a narrow walkway.
Tina was over first; shaking and subdued at the naked hostility radiating from Ekelund and imitated by her troops. Franklin guided Moyo over. Stephanie waited until the other three were on the far side before using it
