"What the clot did you say?" was all Schour could get out.
"Don't swear in my presence," Lay Reader Cristata said. "The Great One does not tolerate swearing!"
"I'm s-s-sorry," Schour stuttered. "But what—"
She broke off in bewilderment as more "peasants" appeared. Three of them, all wearing the same pale green and brown, were obviously Imperials. The others were Tahn. Peaceful Tahn. Sten would have been at first massively surprised and then equally massively amused that everything had gone according to plan for Cristata. The lay reader not only had successfully escaped but had converted an entire Tahn peasant village.
"Are you going to remove yourself from our tubers, or are you going to force me to complain to your superiors?" Cristata asked.
All the amazed Schour could do was blurt, "Don't you know there's a war on?"
Cristata sniffed, unconcerned. "War—like governments—is for the lower orders," he said. "Both are forbidden. We who bask in the glory of the Great One do not participate in these mundane matters."
The other peasants muttered in agreement, waving their hoes for emphasis. All Schour could do was gape and sweat and stutter. Cristata took pity on her. He put down his hoe and walked to Schour's side.
"You look very tired," he sympathized. "Perhaps this humble follower of the Great One could help you lift this burden from your spirit."
And Cristata set about adding Sergeant Major Schour of the First Imperial Guards to his flock of converts.
Wichman had always been suspicious of Pastour's sudden illness and decision to reduce his public duties. The reports of Pastour's increased profile at Koldyeze had only added to his suspicions. And so, when the young, fresh-faced guard he had planted on Pastour's staff came to him with the news of the mysterious message and the sudden saddling up of the colonel and his staff to head for the monastery, it did not test his reasoning powers to add one and one and get the obvious two: Pastour was planning to protect the prisoners of Koldyeze. But for what purpose? What did Pastour expect to gain?
As the next piece of the puzzle fell into place, Wichman was filled with loathing. Pastour was a traitor. And he intended to use the prisoners as trading stock to assure his future as a toady for the Emperor.
But what could he, Wichman, do about it? Lady Atago, the last Tahn hero, had fallen. At that moment Wichman imagined Atago beckoning to him. And in his mind, the hero's mantle was passed on. Wichman would pick up her sword. And he pledged that before he died, there would not be one prisoner left alive at Koldyeze.
Senior Captain (Intelligence) Lo Prek ducked into the ruined tenement that lay just below the approach to Koldyeze. He had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. At his belt was a rationpak. He tugged with all his puny strength at the door that hung from sprung hinges, jamming the entrance to the stairway that led up to the second floor. It finally gave way with a loud shriek that almost stopped his heart.
Lo Prek waited for a moment, breathing in deeply, until his heartbeat returned to normal and the fear was gone. Then he padded up the stairs. On the top floor, he found a gaping hole in the wall where a window once had been. From there he had a clear view of the front entrance of Koldyeze and the narrow cobblestone street that wound up the hill to the old cathedral.
Lo Prek cleared a space and settled in to wait.
That it was probably going to be a long wait did not trouble him at all. It was patience that had allowed him to track his brother's murderer across many years and millions of miles, and now he was sure his moment was near. Lo Prek had added one more factor to Wichman's logic. If there was to be a final fight for Koldyeze, Sten was sure to be there.
Lo Prek would be waiting.
He loaded his weapon and made final adjustments to the sights.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The survival of Koldyeze—and the lives of the many hundreds of VIP internees and POWs inside the walls—was perhaps attributable to the fact that Lieutenant Colonel Virunga had been a bit more of a musician than he had admitted to Sten.
When the young Virunga had become fascinated with reed instruments, to the point that his parents grudgingly paid for the astronomical cost of importing—from Earth—an archaic instrument called the saxophone, he had become part of a rebellion. The N'ranya's music at the time was formalized into a thirty-nine-tone structure, with each musical composition in two parts. Part one began with a certain number of notes, which were then repeated in varying patterns, with the section ending in a different key. Part two rang changes on those notes to finish eventually in the beginning key.
The N'ranya delighted in descending from their trees, gathering in great glades, and listening to those pieces. Virunga's generation found that boring, boring, boring and created other forms of music—music in which not only might a key never be repeated but each musician was permitted endless individual variations as he or she saw fit. They called it y'zz and gathered secretly in small clearings to perform the banned music.
Virunga, loving improvisation, was in no trouble when Sten's sonata in the key of freedom, for unaccompanied soloists, went badly awry.
The first movement opened in the cellars below Koldyeze. Combat-experienced prisoners unsealed the long-forgotten weapons in the crypts and trained those who were still sane and healthy enough to use them.
Grudgingly, Virunga let Kraulshavn and Sorensen prepare azimuth cards and range sketches for his soon-to-be-used artillery. He himself spent hours closeted with Derzhin and Avrenti, discussing what was inevitably going to happen—and what must occur. Avrenti, ever the professional, had no trouble realizing that he almost certainly would be serving new masters in short order. And Lord Pastour's increasing presence inside the prison made it easy for Derzhin to give in. The problem was Genrikh and the handful of uncorrupted Tahn guards he had as followers. But it was still not a problem, Virunga thought. His armed prisoners, plus Chetwynd's now-enlightened—translation: corrupted or scared—guards, would be capable of dealing with them.
The first movement closed, as expected, as Imperial ships blasted overhead. The landing was under way. Minutes later, sirens shrilled for an emergency formation and to open the second movement. The prisoners formed up slowly in spite of the screams of the guards. Virunga took the count. His formation leaders reported all prisoners accounted for. An alert Tahn was about to bellow in anger at the huge gaps in the formation. Instead, he found himself trying to shout through the ruins of a windpipe and then collapsed.
The killing had been done by Sorensen. Mahoney's giving Sten Sorensen's code word had done more than merely grant access to his mental battle computer—it also freed Sorensen to exercise some of his other Mantis Team skills.
Police Major Genrikh was standing at the head of the guards' formation, facing the prisoners, when he saw that guard die. He could see other prisoners—armed prisoners—suddenly appearing on battlements and on balconies. He was shouting a command, gun coming up and aiming across the courtyard at Sorensen when Chetwynd moved. Initially, Chetwynd had growled at Sten's orders. By rights, he should have been out on the streets running his teams. He considered further. Suppose things did not go exactly right in the beginning? A being could get killed being the first to fight. Koldyeze seemed a fairly good place to wait until the Empire stabilized things. And there was something else to take care of.