The Chosen

Snap. The sound was like a piece of glass breaking in the tiny room. A black dot appeared between the would-be rapist's eyes, precisely 5.6mm in diameter, turning red as she watched. The expression slid off his face like rancid gelatin, and he toppled forward to lie at her feet. His skull struck the stone floor with a final-sounding thock.

Pia hid her surprise. She'd been aiming at his stomach, and he was only four feet away. The other two orderlies were backing towards the far wall, their hands held out palm-up, making incoherent sounds.

'There are three more bullets in this gun,' she said crisply, backing up two paces and standing aside. 'Go!' They hesitated, unwilling to approach any closer. 'Go now, or I will shoot.'

The two men sidled past her and ran blundering down the corridor, eyes fixed on the four muzzles of the little gun. Pia waited until they were out of sight before letting the hand that held the derringer drop. Acrid-tasting bile forced itself up her throat as she looked down at the man she'd killed.

'It was so quick,' she whispered, and forced herself to swallow.

Just then Lola struck her, clinging and whimpering. Pia shook her sharply. 'Get dressed! We have to get out of here!'

Back to the palace district; the embassy was there, or at least there wouldn't be total anarchy.

Pia remembered John pleading with her not to go to the hospital today. I should have listened.

* * *

'Sweet Jesus on a crutch,' Harry Smith muttered.

A thousand yards down the hill a crowd was tipping a car over. It was an aristocrat's vehicle-few others could afford them, in the Empire, and this was a huge six-wheeler-strapped all over with luggage. The owners were still inside; a woman tried to crawl out one of the rear windows and was met with sticks, fists, pieces of cobblestone. She screamed and slumped, and hands dragged her limp and bleeding body back inside. A gun spoke; the noise covered the report, but John could see the puff of smoke.

'Stupid,' he whispered.

Half a dozen rifles answered the shot; there were scores of Imperial army deserters in the crowd, many with their weapons. John could see sparks flying as bullets hit the metalwork of the car. Some ricochetted into the densely packed ranks of the rioters. One must have punctured the fuel tanks, because a deep soft whump and billow of orange flame drove the mob back, some of them on fire. Both the figures that tried to crawl out of the burning automobile were on fire, and probably would have died even without the hail of rocks that beat them back.

'All right, Harry,' he went on. 'What's your plan?'

'Well, sir, there's a side route,' the driver said thoughtfully. 'But its a bit narrow.'

'You're the expert,' John said.

For once, he was glad that diplomatic corps conservatism stuck the embassy with steamers; they had less pickup than the latest petrol-engine jobs, but they were quiet. Smith spun the wheel away from the main avenue, down a side-street, and into a maze of alleyways. Some of them were old enough to date back to the founding of Ciano, to the centuries right after the Collapse, when men first started building again in stone. The wheels drummed on cobbles and splashed through refuse and waste, throwing him lurching into the four Marines packed into the rear of the touring car. Normally the district would have been crowded, but most of the people were missing.

Probably out rioting. Not that it would do them any good when the Chosen showed up, but he supposed it was more tolerable than sitting and waiting. The ones who were left were mostly children, or old. They slammed shutters and ducked aside at the sight of an automobile filled with uniforms and armed men.

'Uh-oh.'

The hill was steeper here, and it gave them an excellent view south over the river to the industrial section- the prevailing winds in the central Empire were always from the north, which meant that residential properties were on the north bank of the Pada. They could see the Land airships coming in over the flatter southern shore at two thousand feet, only a thousand feet above their own position.

Probably aligning on landmarks, Raj thought at the back of his mind.

probability near unity, Center confirmed.

John felt a spurt of anger. God damn it, that's my wife down there, he thought coldly.

I could never keep mine out of it, either, Raj thought. And she was a lot less of a romantic than yours.

The dirigibles were coming in fast, seventy miles an hour or better; the lead craft seemed to be aimed straight at him. The bomb bay doors were open, but nothing was coming out. John looked out of the corners of his eyes; the Marines looked a little tense, but not visibly upset. They kept their eyes on the buildings around them, only occasionally flicking to the approaching bombers.

'Smith, pull in here. We'll wait it out and then continue.'

Here was a nook between two walls, both solid. Bad if the buildings come down, good otherwise. You paid your money and you took your chances. .

'Anyone who wants to can get out and take cover,' John said in a conversational tone.

Nobody did, although they squatted down. The dirigibles were over the river now, moving into the railyards and the residential sections of Ciano. Their shadows ghosted ahead of them, black whale-shapes over the whitewashed buildings and tile roofs.

'Hey,' one of the Marines said. 'Why aren't they bombing south? That's where the factories and stuff are.'

Smiths hands were tight on the wheel. 'Because, asshole, they don't want to damage their own stuff-they'll have it all in couple of days. Shit!'

Crump. Crump. Crump. .

The bombs were falling in steady streams from the airships; the massive craft bounced higher as the weight was removed.

'Fifty tons load,' John whispered, bracing his hand on the roof-strut of the car and looking up. 'Fifty tons each, thirty-five ships. . seventeen hundred tons all up.'

'Mother,' someone said.

'Won't kill y'any deader here than back at the embassy.'

'They wouldn't bomb the embassy.'

'Yeah, sure. They're gonna be real careful about that.'

'Can it,' the corporal said. 'For what we are about to receive. .'

The sound grew louder, the drone of the engines rasping down through the air. John could see the Land sunburst flag painted on their sides, and then the horseshoe-shaped glass windows of the control gondolas. A few black puffs of smoke appeared beneath and around the airships; some Imperial gunners were still sticking to their improvised antiairship weapons, showing more courage than sense. The pavement beneath the car shook with the impact of the explosions. Dust began to smoke out of the trembling walls of the tenements on either side. The crashing continued, an endless roar of impacts and falling masonry.

'Here-' someone began.

The shadow of a dirigible passed over them, throwing a chill that rippled down his spine. There was a moment of white light-

— and someone was screaming.

John tried to turn, and realized he was lying prone. Prone on rubble that was digging into his chest and belly and face. He pushed at the stone with his hands, spitting out dust and blood in a thick reddish-brown clot; more blood was running into his left eye from a cut on his forehead, but everything else seemed to be functional. And someone was still shouting.

One of the Marines, lying and clutching his arm. John came erect and staggered over to the car, which was lying canted at a three-quarter angle. The intersecting walls of the nook they'd stopped in still stood, but the buildings they'd been attached to were gone, spread in a pile of broken blocks across what had been the street.