'We'd put out the fire if we could. If we had blankets or--or
anything we could beat it out with.'
'_I die! Hear me!_'
'I just wanted to say we're sorry.' She glanced back at the four
men, and Dace nodded.
'_I serve Scylla! You must!_'
Incus drew himself up to his full height. 'You may rely upon me to
do everything in my power to carry out the goddess's will. I speak
here for my friend Corporal Hammerstone, as well as for myself.'
'_The Ayuntamiento has betrayed her! Destroy it!_'
Hammerstone snapped to attention. 'Request permission to
speak, Talus.'
The slender black barrel of one buzz gun trembled and the gun
fired, its burst whistling five cubits above their heads and sending
screaming ricochets far down the tunnel.
'Maybe you better not,' Auk whispered. He raised his voice,
'Scylla told us Patera Silk was trying to overthrow them, and
ordered us to help him. We will if we can. That's Chenille and me,
and his bird.'
'_Tell the Juzgado!_'
'Right, she said to.' Dace and Incus nodded.
A tongue of flame licked the talus's cheek. '_The tessera! Thetis!
To the subceltar..._' An interior explosion rocked it.
Needlessly, Auk shouted, 'Get back!' As they fled down the
tunnel, fire veiled the great metal face.
'She's done fer now! She's goin' down!' Dace was slower even
than Auk, who tottered on legs weaker than he had known since
infancy.
A second muffled explosion, then silence except for the sibilation
of the flames. Hammerstone, who had been matching strides with
Auk, broke step to snatch up a slug gun. 'This was a sleeper's,' he
told Auk cheerfully. 'See how shiny the receiver is? Probably never
been fired. I couldn't go back for mine 'cause I was supposed to
watch you. Mine's had about five thousand rounds through it.' He
put the new slug gun to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel.
Oreb squawked, and Auk said, 'Careful there! You might hit Jugs.'
'Safety's on.' Hammerstone lowered the gun. 'You knew her
before, huh?'
Auk nodded and slowed his pace enough to allow Dace to catch
up. 'Since spring, I guess it was.'
'I had a girl myself once,' Hammerstone told him. 'She was a
housemaid, but you'd never have guessed it to look at her. Pretty as
a picture.'
Auk nodded. 'What happened?'
'I had to go on reserve. I went to sleep, and when I woke up I
wasn't stationed in the city any more. Maybe I should've gone
looking for Moly.' He shrugged. 'Only I figured by then she'd found
somebody else. Just about all of them had.'
'You'll find somebody, too, if you want to,' Auk assured him. He
paused to look back up the tunnel; the talus was still in view but
seemed remote, a dot of orange fire no larger than the closest light.
'You could be dead,' he said. 'Suppose Patera hadn't fixed you up?'
Hammerstone shook his head. 'I can't ever pay him. I can't even
show how much I love him, really. We can't cry. You know about that?'
'Poor thing!' Oreb sounded shocked.
Auk told him, 'You can't cry either, cully.'
'Bird cry!'
'You meatheads are always talking about how good us chems
have it,' Hammerstone continued. 'Good means not being able to
eat, and duty seventy-four, maybe a hundred and twenty, hours at a
stretch. Good means sleeping so long the _Whorl_ changes, and you
got to learn new procedures for everything. Good means seven or
eight tinpots after every woman. You want to try it?'
'Shag, no!'
Dace caught Auk's arm. 'Thanks for waitin' up.'
Auk shook him off. 'I can't go all that fast myself.'
More cheerfully Hammerstone said, 'I could carry you both, only
I'm not supposed to. Patera wouldn't like it.'
Dace's grin revealed a dark gap from which two teeth were
missing. 'Mama, don't put me on no boat!'
Auk chuckled.
'He means well,' Hammerstone assured them. 'He cares about
me. That's one reason I'd die for him.'
Auk suppressed his first thought and substituted, 'Don't you
think about your old knot any more? The other soldiers?'
'Sure I do. Only Patera comes first.'
Auk nodded.
'You got to consider the whole setup. Our top commander ought
to be the calde. That's our general orders. Only there isn't one, and
that means all of us are stuck. Nobody's got the right to give an
order, only we do it 'cause we've got to, to keep the brigade
running. Sand's my sergeant, see?'
'Uh-huh.'
'And Schist and Shale are privates in our squad. He tells me and I
tell them. Then they go sure, Corporal, whatever you say. Only
none of us feels right about it.'
'Girl wait?' Oreb inquired. He had been eyeing Chenille's distant,
naked back.
'Sooner or later,' Auk told him. 'Snuff your jaw. This is interesting.'
'Take just the other day,' Hammerstone continued, 'I was
watching a prisoner. A flap broke and I tried to handle it, and he got
away from me. If everything was right, I'd've lost my stripes over
that, see? Only it's not, so all I got was a chewing out from Sand and
double from the major. Why's that?' He leveled a pipe-sized finger
at Auk, who shook his head.
'I'll tell you. 'Cause both of them know Sand wasn't authorized to
give anybody orders in the first place, and I could've told him
dee-dee if I'd wanted to.'
'Dee-dee?' Oreb peered quizzically at Hammerstone.
