Instead, Selene found herself pressing on the guard's wound to stanch the flow of blood. There'd been people like this on Maes Far, too: complicit, widely despised. But also, in their own way, victims, hated by those they'd grown up amongst, perhaps simply doing what they had to do in order to survive, to feed their family. Was that how it was on Migdala as well?
The Guard's head at least was unharmed. Selene unbuckled the strap of her helmet and lifted it clear. The woman's black hair was matted to her skull with sweat. Her eyes flickered open and her lips began to move. Her voice was the faintest whisper, but Selene was able to amplify it to audibility. She hoped for some explanation of what had taken place, a clue as to how such a bright day had descended so rapidly into violence and death, but the woman simply whispered the same word over and over. The name of a lover or a child, perhaps. Selene's flecks could make no sense of the word.
“Aibo, Aibo.”
More shouts echoed down the side-passage. Reinforcements from one side or the other, most likely more City Guards answering the electronic summons. An observation platform hovered around somewhere overhead, the electric whine of it echoing off the hard walls, but it hadn't yet come into view as it homed in on its target. She had to go. Whoever was coming would look after the injured officer. Hopefully they'd attend to the fallen blank-mask, too.
She raced away from the scene, down the passageway the others had taken, slipping her own demon visage back into place. Strange how it gave her a sense of anonymity, the illusion of safety. If they caught her, it wouldn't help much. Her right hand was slick with the blood of the Guard. She needed to find water so she could wash it off before making her next move.
Then a hand seized her shoulder from the shadows, pulling her off-balance. She staggered backwards through a doorway, while her threat assessment routines kicked in, and she prepared herself to fight.
6. The Unmoving Stars
A blank-mask leaned over her, a woman judging by her slender neck and the swell of her breasts. Two others stood behind her, their faces also hidden, tension visible in their stance. A gash of blood ran diagonally across the woman's forearm, trickling over a tattooed representation of a winged heart adorning the inside of her wrist. The gallop of their real hearts was loud to Selene, the labouring of their lungs elevated.
The newcomer lifted her finger to her concealed lips in a gesture that meant the same on any planet where people spoke through their mouths. Selene remained crouched in shadowy darkness while a squadron of City Guard troopers racketed past in the passageway outside.
When they were gone, the woman waited a few minutes more, then visibly relaxed, the tension in her posture easing.
She spoke in a whisper. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
Selene gave her the backstory she'd worked out for herself. She tried to sound alarmed, terrified. “I'm from A'cha. Come for the carnival.”
“People from A'cha carry blasters like that around, do they?”
“I was given it by a friend. They said Senefore could be dangerous.”
“Why are you lurking around in the backstreets?”
Selene rose to her feet, brushing dust from her arms, glancing around warily. “I got lost. I thought this passage might give me a way through the crowds to the central square.”
Another of the group said, “A'cha? I've been there. Where, exactly?”
“Fioren.” A medium-sized city, small enough that it was unlikely anyone would have gone there, large enough for her to be anonymous if anyone had.
The woman appeared to believe the story. “You should stick to the main streets. It's safer there.”
“Why were you fighting?” said Selene. “What's going on here?”
The woman didn't reply for a moment. When she did, her suspicion had returned. “You don't have the troubles in Fioren?”
Selene scanned a brief summary of recent events in her pretend home before replying. “Of course, who doesn't? It's not usually so violent, though.” She adopted the tone of a bored and frustrated parochial. “Nothing ever happens in Fioren.”
“Things are different in Senefore, especially at this time of year. If the revolt is going to kick off, it will be here.”
“The revolt?”
A third blank-mask, a man, stepped forwards. He was tall and powerful, the muscles on his arms sculpted. “You're asking a lot of questions. Are you working for them? Do we need to do to you what we did to those guards? Because no one is going to come to your help if we do.”
She hid her amusement at his threats; they posed no danger to her. Not only was she stronger, she'd also downloaded a battery of armed and unarmed combat routines that her biomechanics could execute if need be. She hoped it wouldn't come to a fight, however; better to remain the wide-eyed, naïve traveller from distant A'cha. “I'm not working for anyone. I've come for the carnival; I just don't understand what's going on.”
The woman said, “You saw Godel's broadcast? All the Templers on the streets? Things are kicking off, there's going to be trouble. The revolt is coming. If you are here to see the sights, then my advice is to stay in the well-lit areas and leave before dark.”
“Those masks you wear. I haven't seen anything like them back home.”
The woman shrugged. “Someone's idea of a way to identify ourselves to each other. A symbol. It's becoming a uniform if you ask me, time we dropped it. Sometime, soon, we'll fight them in the open.”
That troubled Selene; the rebels were hopelessly misguided if they thought they had a chance in open combat. “You can't fight them. You have sticks and
