The Chosen

Church here was a great landed magnate, come to that.

'And we'll hand out arms to the party militias of the coalition, and to the workers in the streets-let's see how the Regulars like being drowned in a sea of armed workers.'

'It's good to see you're in earnest,' Jeffrey said. It all sounded like a prescription for a bloodbath, but that was preferable to another swift Chosen triumph, he supposed. 'For my part, I can assure you that my government will declare any outright intervention in internal Union affairs an unfriendly act.'

That meant less than it should; semi-clandestine intervention wouldn't provoke Santander retaliation. The Republic simply wasn't ready for war, either physically or psychologically.

'And I think we can guarantee that you'll be allowed to purchase weapons. Speaking in my private capacity, you'll also find some of our banks sympathetic in the matter of loans. Provided your government is equally reasonable.'

'I suppose you'll want concessions. . '

They settled down to dicker; when Vincen left, the expression on his face was marginally less sour. Fortunately, the Chosen officers left a little later. The men went with their local companions; one of them stopped to say a final word with Gerta Hosten. She laughed and shook her head. The man shrugged, and the girl with him pouted. When they had left, Gerta picked up her wineglass and came over to Jeffreys table.

'You're welcome,' he said as she seated herself without asking permission.

The hard dark face showed a slight smile. 'We meet again. A pleasure. It would have been an even bigger one if Heinrich had had the sense to shoot you four years ago. I told him you were a spook.'

'I'm here on vacation,' Jeffrey said, smiling back despite himself. 'Besides, Heinrich doesn't have your suspicious mind.'

'Which is why he's a straight-leg. Too damned good-natured for his own good.' Gerta raised her wineglass. 'These Unionaise make some pretty things,' she said as the cut crystal sparkled in the evening sun. 'And they make good wine. But they couldn't organize sailors into a whorehouse.'

'Well, that's your problem,' Jeffrey said. 'You're the ones with the training mission here.'

'Purely as private contractors, on leave from our regular duties,' Gerta said piously.

'And I'm a tourist,' Jeffrey said.

Unwillingly, he joined in Gerta's chuckle.

'You know the best thing about competing with you Santies?' Gerta asked. When he shook his head, she continued: 'It's not that you're short of guts, because you aren't, or because you're stupid, because you aren't that, either. It's that you're never, ever ready.' She finished her wine and rose.

'And we're going to win this round,' she said.

'Why's that, the invincible destiny of the Chosen race?'

'Invincible muleshit,' she said cheerfully, with a grin that might have come out of deep water, rolling over for the killing bite. 'The reason that we're going to win this one is that we're trying to help fuck this place up-and the Unionaise are positive geniuses at that, anyway.'

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Everyone in Bassin du Sud was afraid. John Hosten could taste it, even without Center's quick flickering scans of the people passing by. The narrow crooked streets were less full of people than he'd seen on previous business visits, and the storekeepers stood at the ends of their long narrow shops, ready to drop the rolling metal curtain- doors. Windows were locked behind the scrolled ironwork of their balconies, and similar ironwork doors had been pulled across most of the narrow entranceways that led to interior courtyards. He could still get glimpses down them, the sight of a fountain or a statue in old green bronze, or a line of washing above plain flagstones.

Gerta's smile haunted him, seen through Jeffrey's eyes.

Every time he'd seen her smile like that, people started dying in job lots.

There was something else about the streets, he decided. I hope Jean-Claude is still there. Something very odd about the streets, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

few military personnel, Center said.

Bassin du Sud had a fair-sized Union garrison, plus a navy base. In fact, if he turned, he could see part of it downslope from the rise he was on. His stepfather would have gone into a cold rage at the knots hanging from the rigging of the three hermaphrodite cruisers at the dock, and the state of their upperworks, but. .

The sound hit a huge soft pillow of air, knocking him backward. Down by the naval docks a hemisphere of fire blossomed upwards, with bits and pieces of iron and wood and crewmen from the three cruisers. A stunned silence followed the explosion, then a great screaming roar like nothing he had ever heard in his life.

A mob, Raj's mental voice said softly. That's the sound of a hunting mob.

Over it came sounds he had no problem recognizing. First a series of dull soft thuds in the distance, like very large doors slamming. Then a burbling, popping sound that went on and on, rising and falling. Artillery and small arms.

'I'm late, God damn it,' he said, and began to run. Perhaps too late. The rough pavement was slippery and uncertain under his boots; he kept his right hand near the front of his jacket, ready to go for a weapon.

Careful, lad, Raj cautioned. I don't think foreigners are going to be all that popular around here right now.

The narrow street widened a little, into a small cobbled plaza the shape of an irregular polygon, with a fountain in the middle spilling water into granite horse troughs around it. A bullet spanged through the air. He dove forward and rolled into the cover of the troughs, ignoring the stone gouging at his back, and came up with the automatic ready in his hand.

A man in a monk's brown robe was staggering away from the little church on the other side of the plaza. He was a thick-bodied man, with a kettle belly and a round, plump face. A few hours earlier it might have been a good-natured face, the jolly monk too fond of the table and bottle of the stories. Now it was a mask of blood from a long cut across the tonsured scalp. Dozens of men and women in the rough blue clothing of city laborers were following the monk, jeering and poking him with sticks, spitting and kicking. The cleric's heavy body jerked to the blows, but his wide fixed eyes looked out of blood-wet skin with a desperate fixed expression, as if his mind had convinced itself that the exit to the plaza represented safety.

There was no safety for him. One of the mob tired of the fun. The pried-up cobblestone he swung must have weighed ten pounds; the monk's head burst with a sound much like a watermelon falling six stories onto pavement. He collapsed, his body still twitching beneath the brown robe. John swore softly to himself and rose, letting the pistol fall down by his side. The black crackle finish of the weapon's steel probably wouldn't show much against his frock coat. . and while the ten rounds in the magazine also wouldn't be much good against a charging mob, he didn't intend to die alone if it came to that.

'Hey, there's one of the Chosen dog-suckers who're in bed with the elite and the Christ-suckers!' someone bawled.

'Santander!' John shouted, in a controlled roar. It cut through the murmur of this little outlier of the mob. 'I'm from Santander'-though I was born in Oathtaking and my father's a general on the Council, but there's no need to complicate matters-'on diplomatic business.'

He pulled out his passport with his left hand and held it up. Half the crowd probably couldn't read, much less recognize official stamps, but his accentless Fransay and his manner made them hesitate.

'I'm on my way to the Santander consulate right now,' he went on, and pointed to the northward where the sound of fighting was heaviest. 'Don't you people have business up there?'

The crowd milled, people talking to their neighbors; individuals once more, rather than a beast with a single mind and will. John holstered his weapon and trotted past them, past the church where flame was beginning to lick out the shattered stained-glass windows. A quick glance inside showed the chaos of swift incompetent looting and the body of a nun lying spread-eagled in a huge pool of blood from her gashed-open throat.

What lovely allies, he thought dryly, and mentally waved aside Centers comments.