He settled back in his seat and ordered Wightman to continue. Donald followed suit, frowning, withholding any comment. During the next couple of hours, they passed through four more banks of stench without stopping. Apparently Farkas had only paused at the first in support of Donald’s ‘social education’.
They passed more gates of the Lands of Dasti-Jones and began to mix with other traffic, mostly trucks loaded with troops, although they did pass a column of Night and Fog slave labour foot-slogging the other way. There must have been at least a hundred foggers, yet they were under the supervision of only eight ultramarines in their jet-black uniforms. It amazed Donald that so few could enslave so many. Of course, what one did not see was the invisible discipline of fear: foggers who escaped presumably ‘dissipated’ and their rotting flesh went down the gullets of the lammergeiers.
“We’ve made good time. We’ll stop at Blue Bell Plaza,” Farkas said. A few minutes later, the public drain passed under a mighty concrete span where another drain crossed overhead. The great concrete structure with its curving, graded ramps was unmistakably a relic of the Public Era. As Farkas commented, during the Public Era both of these drains would have been open tarmac flooded with torrents of sheet metal motor cars and trucks all whistling along at the speed of a flying boat. Wightman steered towards one of the ramps. It led up to an expanse of several acres of gravel surrounded by birch trees with various stalls and tents around the edges. The smells of roast meat were tantalising for Donald, who had not enjoyed a decent meal for eleven days.
“I don’t have any money with me,” he said.
“General Wardian provides an allowance for food and drink, don’t worry about it,” Farkas said. “They do a very nice wild hog burger here.”
With his glory escort, Donald joined a queue at an open-air stall where a hog carcass was being turned over a charcoal stove. The chef sliced tender meat straight off the carcass onto thick slabs of freshly-baked bread and served the burgers on wooden platters with mugs of tea. There were all sorts gathered around the Blue Bell Plaza. Glory troops in the olive green of General Wardian, the field green of Universal Parrier and the grey-green of Guards to the People were there, along with ultramarines in their smart, jet-black uniforms. Donald saw no mixing at all amongst these different groups. They queued politely together but afterwards moved apart to their cliques, being extremely careful not to upset either their own tray or anyone else’s. The ultramarines were generally larger and tougher-looking men. They had more of a swagger to them, something of an arrogant heartiness. Their weaponry appeared to be personalised, with some bearing a pistol holster, others sported a sawn-off shotgun slung about their chest, others still a submachine gun. All of them kept a steel pipe hung from a loop in their belt. These varied in length, colour and style of handle. Donald was a little careless in his observations and incited a belligerent glare in return. He immediately looked down and kept his burger out of sight for several minutes until the tough had drawn his satisfaction.
Wightman called their attention towards the ramp that went down to the public drain. A group of young men had stopped at the top of the ramp. They wore sleeveless sheepskin jackets and brown canvas pants. Their footwear was Roman sandals, cross-laced up the calves. Donald watched as more young men drifted up and joined them. They appeared tentative and curious. Now a larger group of women in long, muddy dresses rose into view bringing with them some children. Donald thought they looked exactly like natives.
“That’s surplus flow,” Farkas said. “There’s a discharge tank about a quarter of a mile up the drain. I’ve not seen them come up here to the plaza before.”
The surplus attracted the odd glance from the glory troops and ultramarines, no more. This indifference must have emboldened the surplus. The young men advanced. There were perhaps thirty of them coming on with rising confidence and obviously drawn by delicious whiffs of roast meat, for them no doubt a rare treat, or perhaps only a dream. Donald watched a confabulation amongst four or five who were obviously bolder and stronger than the rest. They squared their shoulders and strode forward. When the circles of ultramarines and glory troops realised there was surplus flowing through them, all bantering ceased. Dead silence stiffened the air.
It was possible Donald attracted attention because he was the only man there dressed in brown canvas overalls rather than a uniform. Or perhaps it was his face, with its refined bearing cultivated from life in a society that required poise and disarming quips. One of the surplus men strode forward and confronted Donald. He was the shorter and younger, with dark curly hair and a face scarred by small pox. One eye was badly aligned, with a milky pupil. That eye looked wide over Donald’s right shoulder while the good eye scowled directly at him.
“You give us eat. Give us to eat,” he said.
“We don’t have any fodder,” Farkas said. “You’d better get—”
An explosion from the left blew Donald away into a shocked crouch, his senses catching up to grasp the report had been a pistol shot and the surplus man seeking food had collapsed on the gravel and a stream of blood was pouring through his curly hair. A couple of ultramarines erupted in yells of rage, tore their submachine guns over the heads and started firing. Brass cartridges spat up sparkling in the sunshine. The pack of surplus burst apart, sprinting in panic from the hail of bullets. Some fell screaming, others lurched but kept running. They fled into the bushes around Blue Bell Plaza. Within seconds, the gravel area was clear of any upright surplus. Those
