He decided it was not relevant to mention.
They were crossing Schuyler Plaza, a huge cobblestone expanse, when a spray of something hit the front window. Tal steered them immediately behind one of the fountains. “Damn,” he muttered.
“What is it?” asked Spider.
“Our front window is melting. Does anybody see anything?”
The nearest buildings were thirty meters away. The plaza was littered with abandoned vehicles, though, and there was a makeshift platform where somebody had recently been giving a speech.
“There—the paisley car on its side,” said Keylinn briefly.
Tal’s attention locked onto it. “How many?”
“I don’t know’, I just saw a movement.”
“I can’t shoot them from where we are. Even if I was sure I knew what I was doing.”
Nothing happened for a minute. “We can’t sit here forever,” said Sondy. “And the longer we wait, the less likely we are to get a shuttle.”
“Does that mean you have an idea?” asked Tal.
Sondy lapsed into silence.
Another few minutes passed. Then two men came out from behind the paisley car. Their Baret skirts had been ripped short to make fighting easier, and they wore white bands tied to their arms.
“Rebels,” said Sondy unnecessarily.
They each carried a light-rifle. Two more men and a woman appeared from behind a fountain to the far left. “Everyone is armed but us,” said Spider. His voice was higher than normal.
“I think we should try to look harmless,” offered Keylinn, “but if you want, I can lean over these gentlemen and get a few shots out the window.”
“We’re supposed to be neutral,” observed one of the knights. No one commented on this.
The rebels reached the car. They trained their rifles on the occupants. Tal ran down his window and said, “Is there something we can do for you?” He let a Cities accent fill his speech.
“Who are you?” said one man.
“We’re citizens of the Diamond. Just trying to get to the port.”
“Redemptionists,” said the rebel woman, a sneer in her voice.
“Neutral Redemptionists,” said Tal. “The Cities have agreements with the Republic and the Empire both, not to interfere in any … private problems.”
“We’re not Republicans,” said another rebel. “We’re freedom fighters.”
“Well,” said Tal, “that’s good. We’d just like to get to the port—
The rebel woman screamed suddenly. A white halo surrounded her and her flesh crisped. What was left of her collapsed to the cobblestones. The other rebels scattered at once.
“Shit,” said Spider. “Half a dozen of state security, behind us.”
“And we’re in the middle.” Tal powered up hopelessly. Driving out wouldn’t work, but neither would anything else.
More spray hit them. The entire left side of the car started to melt.
“Everybody out!” Keylinn kicked out the opposite door, startling the knight she lay across to do it.
They scattered behind the fountain and the nearest vehicles. Light-rifles and pellet-guns were firing all over the place. Keylinn found herself behind an abandoned truck filled with pastry; where was her tarethi-din? It wouldn’t be polite to ask him to yell and give away his location, but she was worried.
“Tal!” she yelled. “If you’re alive, shoot that light over the cupid fountain.” Could anyone even hear her? It was fifty-fifty, she figured, that he had a weapon.
The light over the cupid fountain exploded.
Well, that relieved some stress. A figure ran over to her, and she saw it was Sondy. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Here to protect a lady, with his trusty knife. “I’m fine, Sondy.”
A dozen men and women in state security uniforms were pouring into the plaza. Other people, probably rebels, were firing from nearby buildings. Keylinn looked down, and saw that Sondy was dead.
It was about then that she lost track of what was happening.
Tal saw that people were hand-fighting in the plaza; state security was probably desperate to take prisoners for questioning. It was less important at this stage to kill people than it was to pinpoint leaders and locations before things got out of hand.
Then he saw Keylinn out there. She had what he assumed was the Wender pistol in one hand, and a large knife in the other, and she was moving like the indiscriminate wrath of God through the fighters. She’d already killed three rebels, which was bad enough for a neutral, but wasn’t that a state security person she’d just dropped? How were they ever going to explain that?
Her eyes were blank, and she was smiling steadily.
Keylinn didn’t feel blank, she felt occupied. Busy. It was too bad the knife and pistol were so slow.
In front of her she saw a rebel knock a light-rifle out of a security man’s hand, and crack him on the knees in the next second, bringing him down. She was vaguely aware that it was the rebels they needed to get through, so she shot that particular rebel and picked up the discarded rifle.
She tested the trigger and the releases. A state security rifle was keyed to the retinal pattern of the person it was issued to that day, and for the next ten hours would function only in their hands. Unless they were unlocked by the issuee speaking that day’s codeword.
Around her was dust and blood. She sought out the rifle’s owner on the ground and met his eyes.
“Release it!” she yelled over the din. “Release your weapon to me! It’ll be all right. I swear!”
The private lay there, all of seventeen, maybe, looking at her with calm despair. In a sudden, time-slowing pocket of silence Keylinn could hear the old sayings:
When a Graykey swears, cover your ears.
Trusting a Graykey is like picking up an alleycat.
Graykey truth has a new color every day.
He couldn’t possibly know what she was. Graykey and dirt soldier, paired statues, part of a fountain grouping of their own. She came out of it to the realization that the release light was already blinking. She pulled down the bolt and looked through the sight, getting a rebel near Sondy’s body in target and allowing the weapon to read her retinal pattern.
