“Gedunk,” the flier replied. “Population one hundred twenty-three, river landing, eastmost designated regional evacuation center for—”
“I know all about Gedunk! What are we doing over it? We’ve gotten turned around somehow.” She craned about. “We’re headed north! How did that happen? We’re back over the river.” From this height, the cattleboat on the water looked a toy, the evac workers scurrying dots. To the south of town the ragged remains of the relocation camp stood forlorn. A tent that had torn loose from its pegs flapped weakly on the ground like a dying creature. The massed evacuees were crammed into side-by-side rectangular pens by the pier. A steady trickle were being one by one checked off and fed into the boat.
“Take us down,” the bureaucrat instructed the flier. “That melon field just west of town will do.”
The flier reshaped itself, spreading and flattening its wings, throwing out cheaters to help it dump speed. They descended.
As the flier landed, half the white melons scattered across the field suddenly unrolled and scurried away on tiny feet, sharp-nosed creatures, gone before the eye could fix on them. Fish would graze these meadows soon. Ramshackle sheds and a broken-spined barn stood open-doored in the distance, ready for new tenants, undersea farmers, or submarine mice, whichever the lords of the tide would provide. The canopy withdrew into the flier.
Puffs of wind pushed here, there, from every point of the compass. The air was everywhere in motion, as restless as a puppy. “Well?” Chu said.
The bureaucrat reached into his briefcase, and extracted a slim metal tube. He pointed it at Chu. “Get out.”
“What?”
“I assume you’ve seen these before. You wouldn’t want me to use it. Get out.”
She looked down at the gleaming tube, the tiny hole in its tip aimed right at her heart, then up at the bureaucrat’s dead expression. A rap of her knuckles and the flier unfolded its side. She climbed out. “I don’t suppose you’re going to bother telling me what this is all about.”
“I’m going on to Ararat without you.”
The wind stirred Chu’s coarse hair stiffly. She squinted against it, face hard and plain, looking not so much hurt as puzzled. “I thought we were buddies.”
“Buddies,” the bureaucrat said. “You’ve been taking Gre-gorian’s money, running his dirty little errands, reporting every move I made to him, and you… It takes a lot of nerve to say that.”
Chu froze, an island of stone in the rustling grasses. At last she said, “How long have you known?”
“Ever since Mintouchian stole my briefcase.”
She looked at him.
“It had to be one of the two of you who drugged me in Clay Bank. Mintouchian was the more obvious suspect. But he was only a petty criminal, one of the gang that was counterfeiting haunt artifacts. His job was running crates to Port Richmond in the New Born King. He stole my briefcase so he could start the operation up again. But Gregorian’s goons had already tried stealing it, and knew it could escape. Which meant he didn’t work for Gregorian. Which meant that the traitor was you.”
“Shit!” Chu turned away irritably, swung back again. “Listen, you don’t know the way things are here—”
“I’ve heard that one before.”
“You don’t! I — look, I can’t talk to you like this. Climb up out of the flier. Stand on your own two feet and look me in the eye.”
He raised the metal tube slightly. “You’re in no position to give orders.”
“Shoot me, then! Shoot me or talk to me, one or the other.” She was so angry her eyes bulged. Her jaw jutted defiantly.
The bureaucrat sighed. With poor grace he clambered out of the flier. “All right. Talk.”
“I will. Okay, I took Gregorian’s money — I told you when we first met that the planetary forces were all corrupt. My salary doesn’t even cover expenses! It’s understood that an operative is going to work the opposition for a little juice. It’s the only way we can survive.”
“Reconfigure for flight,” the bureaucrat said to the flier. He felt sick and disgusted, and yearned for the clean, empty sky. To judge by Chu’s expression, it showed on his face.
“You idiot! Gregorian would’ve had you killed if it hadn’t been for me. So I left the occasional dead crow in your bed. I didn’t do anything any op in my place wouldn’t have, and I did a lot less than some. The only reason you aren’t dead now is that I told Gregorian it wasn’t necessary. Without me, you’ll never come back from Ararat.”
“Wasn’t that the original plan?”
Chu stiffened. “I am an officer. I would have brought you out alive. Listen to me. You’re completely out of your depth. If you have to leave me behind, then don’t go to Ararat. You can’t deal with Gregorian. He’s crazy, a sociopath, a madman. With him thinking I was his creature, we could have taken him. But alone? No.”
“Thank you for your advice.”
“For pity’s sake, don’t. . .” Chu’s voice faltered. “What’s that?”
Voices floated in the air, and had in fact been in the background for some time, a babble of cries and shouts rendered soft and homogeneous by distance. They both turned to look.
Far below, the pens of evacuees crawled with motion. Fencing had been torn down, and the crowd flowed after retreating handlers. Batons swung, and the sharp crack of wood floated above the swirling noise. “The fools!” Chu said softly.
“What is it?”
“They brought out the people too early, bottled them together too tightly, handled them too roughly, and told them nothing. A textbook case of how to create a mob. Anything can set off a riot then, a cracked head, a rumor, somebody giving his neighbor a shove.” She sucked thoughtfully on a back molar. “Yeah, I’ll bet that’s how it happened.”
The cattleboat was separating from the dock, its crew hoping to isolate the riot ashore. People desperately leaped after it, and fell or were pushed into the water. The evacuation officials were regrouping downriver, behind a clutch of utility buildings. From here it was all very slow and lazy and easy to watch. After a moment Chu squared her shoulders. “Duty calls. You’ll have to kill yourself without my help. I’ve got to saunter down there and help pick up the pieces.” Abruptly she extended a hand. “No hard feelings?”
The bureaucrat hesitated. But somehow the mood had changed. The tension between them was gone, the anger dissipated. He shifted the tube from one hand to the other. They shook.
Far below, a roar went up as behavior dampers exploded in orange smoke at the front of the mob. The thought of going down there horrified the bureaucrat. But he forced himself to speak up anyway. “Do you need help? I haven’t much time, but. . .”
You ever had any riot training?”
“No.”
“Then you’re useless.” Pulling a cigarillo from one pocket, Chu started down the hill. After a few steps, she turned back. “I’ll light a candle in your memory.” She lingered, as if reluctant to break this last contact.
The bureaucrat wished he could make some kind of gesture. Another man might have run after Chu and hugged her. “Say hello to that husband of yours for me,” he said gruffly. “Tell him I said you were a good little girl while you were away.”
“You son of a bitch.” Chu smiled, spat, and walked away.
In the air again and heading south, the briefcase said, “Are you done with the pen?”
The bureaucrat looked dully down at the metal cylinder he still held in his hand. He shrugged, and returned it to the briefcase. Then he snuggled back into the recliner. His shoulders ached, and the back of his skull buzzed with tension and fatigue. “Tell me when we’re near the city.”
They passed over still fields, lifeless towns, roads on which no traffic moved. Evac authority had scoured the land, leaving behind roadblocks, abandoned trucks, and bright scrawls of paint on the roads and rooftops, sigils huge and unreadable. The marshes began then, and the traces of habitation thinned, scattered, disappeared.