After a few general questions about space lag, the Doctor asks with elaborate casualness: "Would you please tell me in your own words everything you remember about this uh Arn." He glances down at a file in front of him.
Audrey tries to comply but he encounters blanks in his memory like trying to recall a dream that hovers just out of reach on the edge of perception, skittering away as you try to grasp it, erasing memory traces with a little broom that fades out, in turn wiping away footprints in distant sand.
The Doctor leans across the table and breaks an ampule under his nose. "Just relax now and breathe in deeply."
Audrey finds himself on a table looking up at masked faces.
"That's right now—count up to fifty...."
When Audrey wakes up he finds a shaved spot at the back of his head that is slightly sore to his touch.
"Well, Audrey," the Doctor explains, "we've installed a separator. Might come in handy if you ever need to be in two places at once...." He pats Audrey's shoulders. "You can leave the hospital tomorrow morning. Now I'm going to give you an injection."
The days seem to flash by like a speeded-up chase scene in a 1920s comedy ... patrols always behind them, bullets thudding into flesh, bombs in Middletown bars and theaters and restaurants. A wake of glass, blood and brains and the hot meaty smell of entrails remind Audrey of a rabbit he had once seen dissected in biology class. A girl had fainted. He could see her slump to the floor with a soft plop.
Shatter Day always closer ...
Moves and checks and slays
Like many riots, the Ba'dan riots began with a "peaceful demonstration," but neither side had any intention of letting it end that way.
The Anschluss with Yass-Waddah was to be put to a plebiscite. Those most directly concerned, namely the inhabitants of the Casbah, were disenfranchised. But they had obtained permission from the Town Council to make a peaceful demonstration in Courthouse Square around which most of the government buildings were located.
Meanwhile, Yass-Waddan agents were arming and organizing paramilitary forces in Middletown, intending to catch the "Arabs," as they called them, between the Heroid Police and the armed vigilantes and wipe them out. After which, they would demolish the Casbah and drop poison gas down the tunnels and occupy Portland.
Dimitri had his own plans. After delicate negotiations, he had made contacts in Portland. Portland officials are supposed to keep out of local politics except in cases of "dire emergency." But the Anschluss posed such a threat to their continued function, if not to their personal safety, as to constitute a "dire emergency" and all Dimitri asked was for a customs agent to look the other way for a few seconds when the containers of heroin for the Heroid Police were being passed through customs, while Dimitri's agents substituted identical containers filled with a short-acting opiate antagonist.
Dimitri also had promises of arms caches in the courthouse building provided by certain wealthy families who preferred to avoid more direct involvement. None of the old families wanted the Anschluss. It was a threat to their power and Yass-Wadan agents were talking openly about "parasites" and "traitors."
Audrey knew the battle plan. Even if it went according to plan, there would be close fighting and heavy casualties. So he had these special codpieces made up of a tough plasticlike material and issued them to his team, which was very good for morale. He was in charge of a commando group who were supposed to break through the line of Heroids like a football scrimmage then race upstairs to a room in the courthouse where a cache of arms was to be waiting and then take over the courthouse building.
On the appointed day, the demonstrators from the Casbah, after passing a metal detector and a hand search for weapons, made their way towards the square past snarling middies. So many things could go wrong: the guns aren't there ... they are in the wrong place ... the keys don't work.
As they filed into the square, he saw the line of impassive Heroids in front of the courthouse armed with 9-M grease guns. Sandbags and heavy machine guns on tripods were at the windows and on the roof.
The provocation was carefully planted: crowbars and a stack of cobblestones from street repairs. Audrey glanced at his watch. Two minutes to countdown.
Muscular youths snatch up cobblestones. Jeers and catcalls explode from the demonstrators. Automatic weapons are raised. This is it.
And something is happening to the Heroids. A composite groan is followed by the sound of emptying bowels and a reek of excrement. Instead of responding with deadly accurate machine-gun fire, the Heroids are going down like tenpins as the cobblestones hit. So far, Dimitri's plan is working.
On duty when there is no time for injections, the Heroids function on heroin capsules that dissolve at different rates, releasing a dosage every few hours. However, what is dissolving now is not heroin but a short-acting opiate antagonist. Withdrawal symptoms that would be severe enough spread over several days are compacted into minutes, resulting in immediate incapacity and, in many cases, death from shock and circulatory collapse.
A boy throws a football block into a Heroid in front of Audrey. The gun flies out of his hand and Audrey catches it in the air. Now they are racing from the gangway. Two Heroids in front of the main door are trying to raise their weapons, Audrey gives them a burst as he runs past.
A heavy iron door. The key works. Now down the gangway. Side door is open as it should be. Upstairs and this must be the room.
Key works and there are M-16s, ammo, grenades and grenade launchers, and a few bazookas. (The Paries he knows are equipped with the older and more cumbersome M-15s and some even with Garands.)
Immediately Audrey's team spreads out in groups of five to take over the gun emplacements in the building and on the roof. Audrey and four others fan into a room. A machine gun is on a tripod behind sandbags. The crew, sprawled on the floor and over the sandbags, is completely disabled. Two are dead.
Audrey kneels beside a young Heroid who is lying on his back, his deathly pale face covered with sweat, his pants sticking up at the fly. Audrey whips out a Syrette containing a quarter-grain of pure heroin and injects it into the boy's arm. Now the second part of Dimitri's plan is going into effect: the conversion of the Heroids. This is why he did not simply substitute a quick-acting poison for the heroin.
The boy sits up.
"Welcome to our cause, comrade," says Audrey.
The first shots in the area signal the Paries, under the command of General Darg, to pour out of side streets into the square, where they expect to catch the fleeing unarmed demonstrators on the flank. Instead, they run into a hail of machine-gun fire from the demonstrators who have seized weapons from the fallen Heroids. Even deadlier sniper fire strikes down from the windows and roof of the courthouse. To conserve ammunition, Audrey's commandos keep their weapons on semiautomatic, making sure of a hit with every shot.
In a few seconds, Darg's forces have suffered several hundred casualties. He hastily withdraws to seize and fortify buildings on the opposite side of the square and along the side streets leading into the square. He dispatches troops to cover the entrances from the Casbah and to patrol Fun City to prevent more men and weapons being brought into action.
By the end of the first day, rioters are in control of most of the buildings on the south side of the square. They are, however, unable to open a passage to the Casbah.
Meanwhile, there is much rejoicing in Yass-Waddah. The courtiers are planning a torture festival for the captives, camping around in costumes and, of course, there will be a prize for the most ingenious torture device. The tortured captives will be rendered down into the most exquisite condiments and sweetmeats: raw quivering brains served with a piquant sauce, candied testicles, sweet-and-sour penis, rectums boiled in chocolate.