They watched for a few minutes, until the Emancipator had dwindled to a dot in the northwestern sky.
"What's the news on the smallpox?" Hollard asked.
"Not good," Kat said grimly, and the prince nodded. "Clemens says the isolation policy isn't working, or it's just slowing the spread from prairie-fire to forest-fire speed."
"The only good thing is that we have no news of outbreaks elsewhere, which there would be if the contagion"-Kashtiliash used the English term-"had escaped from the city. Nobody is allowed out of the city without fourteen days in the quarantine camps."
"At which people are not happy," Kat added.
Kashtiliash nodded. "Plague is a sign of the anger of the gods," he said, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. "I think that I understand what your asu says of the small animals that cause disease. I have seen them through the microscope with my own eyes-and I trust you Nantukhtar.
"That is, my thoughts believe. My liver trembles and yearns to appease the gods. I fear that there are only a handful who are convinced even in their thoughts. More who fear your magic worse than the plague, or are loyal to the throne despite their terror. But the priesthoods, many of them-"
Kashtiliash looked up and frowned, then continued in a different tone. "What is this?"
The crowd hadn't dispersed. Instead they were gathering into clumps, staring and muttering. The prince turned to command an aide and waited impatiently while the man trotted away; he kept a hand clenched on the hilt of his sword, the other resting on the butt of the revolver that he' d been presented as part of the New Year ceremonies.
"Lord Prince," the aide said, panting-moving fast in bronze scale armor was never easy, and the day was growing warm-"there is unrest."
"What sort?"
"Lord Prince, there are agitators amongst the crowd-priests of Nergal and Enna. They claim that the sickness is brought by our brave allies"-his sidelong glance wasn't as friendly as his words-"and spread by their magical ships of the air."
"Disperse them," the prince commanded tersely. "Arrest any man who speaks so. Spread the command. Go!"
The aide went; a minute later the guardsmen spread out and advanced with leveled spears, shafts reversed to show the small bronze knobs on the butt ends. Their officer shouted the royal command to disperse. Normally that would have been enough-more than enough. This time it wasn't. The crowd eddied and milled, and then things began flying through the air-lumps of donkey dung first, then bricks. A soldier wobbled out of line, dropping spear and shield and clapping his hands to his face, blood leaking out between his fingers.
The others were cursing and shouting, plying the spearshafts with a will. More bricks flew, and a few of the crowd tried to wrestle the weapons away from the troopers. Another command from their officers, and the six-foot shafts flipped around, showing sharp bronze or Island steel. Still the crowd did not disperse-not until another order rapped out and the guardsmen advanced shield to shield, their points jabbing in earnest this time. Bodies lay on the pavement after they passed, and the townspeople turned and ran.
The Hollards and the prince looked at each other, and at the rioters lying still or moaning and curling around their wounds.
"Oh, shit," Kenneth Hollard said and pulled the hand-held radio from his webbing. Outside the wall of the great open yard, a growing clamor came from the streets.
"Ian. Wake up."
Ian Arnstein did, blinking gummy eyes and swinging his feet down from the bunk. The sleeping arrangements of the dirigible were pull-man style, bunks that were strapped up against the ceiling when not in use.
Right now they were in use, and only the night watch was awake. The interior of the Emancipator's big gondola was quiet under the drone of the engines-they were running on four, to save fuel. Soft light blinked from the instruments forward and from bulbs overhead. For a moment he simply stared at them, his mind whirling back through the years to days when electric bulbs were a commonplace, not a wonder. Then he rubbed his face and yawned. Doreen was sleep-rumpled too, but on her it looked fairly good.
Chill air seeped through the permeable sides of the craft. He shivered a little, pulled a blanket around his shoulders, and accepted the cup of hot cocoa that his wife put in his hand.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Ken's on the radio from Babylon," she said. "It doesn't look good."
"Oh, Lord," he muttered. "I'm coming, I'm coming."
He pulled on his clothing-wool pants and sheepskin jacket and cap-then made his way up the central corridor. Outside, the moon was shining on the peaks of the Anti-Taurus range, north of what would have been the Turkish border in the twentieth century. He stopped for a moment to look and shiver. The Emancipator was rising only gradually, threading her way between the mountains rather than soaring over them, and they were close enough to look big. Snow glistened salt-white on the higher peaks, and he could see a long streamer of it blowing off one only a few thousand yards to his left. Below that were dense forests, deep black-on-black in the moonlight.
Brrrr, he thought-it was spring, but nobody had told that high mountain country below. I'll be glad when we get into the plateau. He went on to the forward control area of the gondola. The same view was spread out on three sides there, but it looked less intimidating with the ordered activity of the flight crew. Vicki Cofflin and her second-in-command were bent over the navigation table.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Hi, Councilor," she said. "Right here-north of what would be Diyarbakir, heading northwest toward Hattusas. On course. Should get there about an hour before dawn, another three hours or so."
"Okay, then," Ian said, feeling the last tendrils of sleep leaving him. "Let me at the radio and we'll find out what's gone wrong now."
He sat in the chair next to the communications officer and accepted the headset from her. "Arnstein here," he said, conscious of a very slight grumpiness in his tone.
"Colonel Hollard here," came the voice in his earphones. "I'm afraid we have a… bit of a situation."
"What do you mean?" Arnstein snapped. It wasn't like Ken to be slow coming to the point.
"We've got a full-blown revolt here in Babylon."
Damn. He wasn't altogether surprised, though. These people didn't believe in accidents. If something went wrong, it was gods or demons responsible, offended by some lapse of piety or let in by the breaking of a taboo.
"That isn't the worst of it, of course," Hollard went on.
"What could be worse than-wait a minute, do I want you to tell me?"
"No, but I'm afraid you need to hear it."
Ironic, Kathryn Hollard thought. This was the rooftop-cum-balcony where she and Kash had met the week before. Now it was their command post.
From here she could see the flame-shot darkness of Babylon the Great. This northern district by the river and the Ishtar Gate wasn't too bad; the Royal Guard had it under firm control, and the Marine battalions were marching in down the Processional Way, along with the rest of her New Troops. Elsewhere fires were burning; she could see one three-story building about a quarter of a mile away clearly, backlit by flames. Flames shot out of the slit windows, and then the flat roof collapsed, the heavy adobe tumbling down on anyone still left within. Faint in the distance came the surf-roar of the crowds, screams, the clash of metal… and now and then the faint popping crackle of firearms.
The smell of it came too, carried on the cool night wind, the rank scent of things not meant to burn. Fire was a terror in these densely packed cities without running water. Let it get out of hand, and a firestorm could consume everything within the walls.
King Shuriash lay on a bed in one corner, his breath slow and heaving. Justin Clemens rose and tucked away his stethoscope. Priests and ashipu came closer to the bedside, their chants a soft, wailing falsetto under the distant mutter of conflict.