"Hunter." The Pihtatipli was leaning over the rail again, looking eager.
The Ciocan stared back. "What?"
"Will you come below? You will be more comfortable." Shadith sniffed, pulled her mouth down. Almost wagging his tail, and so he should, how he's planning to use us. Come on, Ro, give him an answer, I'm freezing my ass off out here.
As soon as the Three were settled in the Tipli's Quar ters (the Pihtatipli hovering hospitably, leaving the running of the ship to his Second), the engines were brought up and the destroyer began racing for the harbor at Aina'iril.
WATCHER 7
The cluster of Cells focused on the Pilgrim Road were filling up with hordes of people as if the countries along the Road were draining into it. Ginbiryol Seyirshi scanned them repeatedly, tightening the focus onto individual eccentricities of the pilgrims, rejecting all but a few of the images, blending the remnant into a collage to heighten the feel of a swarm building toward an immensity powerful enough to eat the land.
Rebel activity in Nakiskwen (west coast), Kwamitaskwen (central plains), Kwamaskwen (north plains) and Swamiskwen (south coast) dipped to nothing as the population decreased to a skeleton of skeptics and thieves (public and private); in Wapaskwen (east coast) where the Mistiko Otcha Cicip was, where everyone was going, the rebels were growing more frantic, more disorganized-more violent. Ginbiryol clucked with satisfaction as he tasted and took scene after scene of burning and bombing, of streetfights and stoning, of kanaweh and kipaos killing and being killed, of Na-priests on the Question floor doing torture by the numbers because there was too much work for personal attention; what had been art was now mechanical process. The Pliciks drew in on them selves, retreated behind armed guards, bars, and a hardening resistance to change.
Ginbiryol labored steadily at his assemblage until he heard an exclamation from Ajeri Kilavez. He looked up. "What is it, Jeri tiszt?"
"Smuggler's pram. He's offworld and scooting for the Limit, Puk's on his tail, no chance of catching that pram, but he might get a missile off in time… yes, there it goes. Missed! Shit."
"Language, Ajeri tiszteh. Continue, please."
"Puk's after him… more missiles… the pram must have a slide shield, it's slipp'rier than a bead of mercury… Puk's dropping behind fast, I've never seen anything go like that sublight, 'specially that size… Puk's still trying, but he hasn't got a hope… you want me to keep on?"
"No. Call him back, there is no point in continuing this. Have you begun the Crust assessment yet?"
"The kephalos is working on that now…" she touched a sensor, scanned the readout, "it'll be finished in approximately twenty minutes. You want a preliminary, or shall I call you?"
"Call me." He went back to his editing, dumping and saving, cutting and juxtaposing, focusing down or expanding to wideshots.
CELL 44
Children with Pakoseo ribbons tied in their hair clapped hands in a circle dance about other children who were swinging folded paper birds from strings tied to long slicks; they shouted the Nataminaho Song, the Hunter singing to the birds and beasts:
He is coming, Nataminaho the Hunter is coming, run before him for he will take you to feed the People.
Around them the marching adults smiled indulgently but stopped them after a short while so they wouldn't exhaust themselves and have to be piled on the supply wagons in order to keep up with their families in that grueling, all day, day on day on day march.
Fires dotted the Plain from horizon to horizon along the Pilgrim Road, north and south, east and west.
Ghostdancers in black and white paint came out of the dark and danced their secret, subversive, and very sacred mime tales. They danced to ancient music, music that belonged to them alone, that was never heard outside the secret societies except on the Pakoseo trek, music that was forbidden by the Gospahs and lightside priests of all degrees, music that brought the singer, musician, or dancer instantly to the Question if he was discovered. The list was endless, that name roll of ghostdancers forced to deny and abandon their rites, their dances, their music; whole families seemed to lose ancient, hidden traditions, but the patterns survived, the music lived, the dances were performed and passed on, generation to generation. And every Pakoseo had its ghostdancers, as if the earth herself spawned them in swarms too vast to count.
CELL 46
Tagwit priests stirred the vast cauldrons of beans and soup, starting new pots as soon as one was emptied. Day on day on day, dishing out bowls of food to the horde marching past, a meal three months long without interruption. More supplies came in every day, meat animals from the Plicik ranches, beans and rice from the Collective Farms, the Pakoseo assessment given freely by some and grudgingly by others. Soup and beans, beans and soup, steam curling up from the cauldrons, odor of sanctity, pleasing In the nostrils of Oppalatin.
Grumbling under his breath, the kana climbed into the flit. "This is gettin to be like work, Weeshk, we might's well be fuckin plainboys chasin fuckin bos out 'n the fuckin Grass."
"Shut up, Wakso, you worsen a sore toe. Sit down and strap up. We got a job to do, might's well get at it." Kaweeshk waited until his sour grumbling partner was settled, then he thumbed the starter…
The flit exploded, molten metal and metal shards slammed into other flits garaged at the Kasta, they began to burn, fuel caught, there were more explosions, alarms were clanging, there was confusion, panic, that gradually devolved to order as a few effective leaders appeared.
When the fire was out, two men stood by the twisted sooty rail of a walkway. "Bomb," one said. "At a first guess, one would say packed with thermit."
The second man was in such a rage he was trembling. He slapped his left hand against his leg, again and again and again, a dreary monotonous slap slap slap that he didn't realize he-was doing. After a long tense silence, he said, "Them!"
"Not much doubt of that. In here, too. Looks like we've got rats in the walls. Who was it in the flit?"
"One doesn't know, it doesn't matter. A brace of scuts on street patrol, no one Important." He grabbed the rail with both hands, shook It. "May their souls rot in hell's cellar. It's deliberate provocation, no question. And they're going to get what they asked for. Come on. One has to report to to the Math Hen. How long before one has your assessment of the debris?"
CELL 30
Shadows flickered from house to house; night in the Maka quarter was busier than a broken anthill. Flits whined overhead, stabbing searchlights into the murk, missing with an impatient inevitability everything they were trying to find. Squads of kipaos marched with equally ineffectual arrogance through the potholed, twisting streets of the Quarter, shining the beams of their hand lumens into the sidestreets, blind alleys, the barred windows, and the recessed doorways of the crumbling structures that passed as houses In this part of the sprawling city; they were terrified, sweating with it and stinking, despite their armor and their weapons and the poverty of the people they were hunting. The smells, the shadows that moved in the corners of their eyes but vanished when they swung round to confront them, the miasma of rage and hatred that stirred like smoke in the rancid air, all this spooked them more and more; several times a number of the younger recruits shot holes out of the air or blew up piles of garbage. They were growled at, warned of punishment detail when they got back to barracks; it didn't help, their Immediate fear was too great.
CELL 19
In the village three bodies were laid on improvised biers before the village Wikhouse, the Mehewik, a boy and two girls, none older than seven. The Wik priest stood on the steps of the Mehewik and spread his hands in helpless grief. He could not meet the accusing eyes of the Maka, nor could he blame them, whatever happened. He'd pushed for a probe Into the deaths, pulling every string he could get his hands on though he was warned off, told he would be severely disciplined if he persisted; he even tried to reach the Wapaskwen Gospah, but all that brought him was a visit by a triad of Na-priests and an order from the Gospah to cease and desist if he wanted to retain his seat; if he refused he would be declared contumaceous and brought to Aina'iril for re-education at the hands of the Question. He was from a relatively poor but unusually gifted Kiser family and was deeply devoted to the service of Oppalatin and to the Poor Ones beloved of God, the Make working the soil who were His Own Children. The Wik priest looked at the dead children and their kin and was bitterly angry at the hierarchy, at the greed and the maneuvering for influence and power, the corruption of those who should have cared for these Little Ones. He sighed and stared down into his open hands, then quietly took off his cassock, stood there shivering in his underwear. "Wait," he said. He tossed the cassock into the dirt beside the steps and went inside. When he came out, he had on the trousers and sweater he wore when he worked in the garden. He left the door open'behind him and•came down the steps to join the men. "I'll bring him out to you," he said. "What you do, do it quickly and without unnecessary pain; he is a beast, not a man. Give him the swift death of a beast."