"They've got flood shutters on all the lower floors," Scratchard explained/ agreed. "They say it happened seventy-odd years ago when everything came together—tides and a storm that backed up the outlet channels up-coast. But they know what they're doing, their engineers."
He paused, then added in a tone of disgust, "Their politicians, now . . . But I don't suppose they know their asses from a hole in the ground, any of 'em anywhere."
He didn't expect an argument from an officer of Hammer's Slammers; and Tyl Koopman wasn't about to give him one.
Bamberg City was clean, prosperous. The odor of toasted tobacco leaf permeated it, despite the fact that the ranks of hogsheads on the waiting barges were all vacuum-sealed; but that was a sweet smell very different from the reeks that were the normal concomitant of bulk agriculture.
Nothing wrong here but the human beings.
A flagpole stood in the courtyard of the Palace of Government. Its twelve-man honor guard wore uniforms of the same blue and gold as the fabric of the drooping banner.
In front of the cathedral were more than a thousand of the men in cross-marked white robes. They were still chanting and blocking vehicles, though the gaps in the ranks of staff-armed choristers permitted pedestrians to enter the cathedral building. The dome towered above this side of the river, though it in turn was dwarfed by the House of Grace opposite.
There was a pedestrian bridge from the embankment to the courtyard of the Palace of Government, crossing the vehicular road. As they joined the traffic on it, heavy because of the way vehicles were being backed up by the tail end of the procession, Tyl asked, "Who wears white here? The ones who hold Easter on Christmas?"
"Umm,"said the sergeant major.Then on com'stone reminded Tyl of the pistol that weighted his pocket—and the reason it was there.
In a barely audible voice, Scratchard went on, "Those are orderlies from the House of Grace. They, ah, usually turn out for major religious events."
Neither of the mercenaries spoke again until they had reached the nearly empty courtyard of the government building. Then, while the honor guard was still out of earshot, Tyl said, "Jack, they don't look to me like they empty bedpans."
"Them?"responded the big sergeant major."They do whatever Bishop Trimer tells them to do, sir."
He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the massed orderlies. His eyes held only flat appraisal, as if he were estimating range and the length of the burst he was about to fire.
"Anything at all," he concluded.
Tyl Koopman didn't pursue the matter as he and Scratchard—the latter limping noticeably—walked across the courtyard toward the entrance of the Palace of Government.
He could feel the eyes of the honor guard following them with contempt. It didn't bother him much, anymore.
Five years in the Slammers had taught him that parade-ground soldiers always felt that way about killers in uniform.
Chapter Six
The flood shutters of the Palace of Government were closed, and Charles Desoix wasn't naive enough to think that the thick steel plates had been set against the chance of a storm surge. Bamberg City had really come apart in the two weeks he was gone.
Or just maybe it was starting to come together, but President John Delcorio wasn't going to be part of the new order.
Desoix threw a sharp salute to the head of the honor guard. The Bamberg officer returned it while the men of his section presented arms.
Striding with his shoulders back,Desoix proceeded toward the front entrance—the only opening on the first two stories of the palace that wasn't shuttered.
As Desoix looked at it, the saluting was protective coloration. It was purely common sense to want the respect of the people around you . . . and when you've wangled billets for yourself and your men in the comfort of the Palace of Government, that meant getting along with the Executive Guard.
By thumbing an epaulet loop, Desoix brightened the gray-spattered markings of his uniform to metallic silver—and it was easy to learn to salute, as easy as learning to hold the sight picture that would send a bolt of cyan death downrange at a trigger's squeeze. There was no point in not making it easy on yourself.
He thought of making a suggestion to the Slammers officer who'd just arrived, but . . . Tyl Koopman seemed a good sort and as able as one of Colonel Hammer's company commanders could be expected to be.
But Koopman also seemed the sort of man who might be happier with his troops in the police barracks beneath the City Offices than he would be in the ambiance of the Palace.
The captain in command of the guards at the entrance was named Sanchez; he roomed next door to Desoix in the officers' quarters in the West Wing. Instead of saluting again, Desoix took the man's hand and said, "Well, Rene, I'm glad to be back on a civilized planet again . . . but what on earth has been going on in the city since I left?"
The Guard captain made a sour face and looked around at the sergeant and ten men of his section. Everyone in the Executive Guard was at least sponsored by one of the top families on the planet. Not a few of them were members of those families, asserting a tradition of service without the potential rigors of being stationed on Two if the Crusade got under way.
"Well, you know the people," Sanchez said, a gentleman speaking among gentlemen. "The recent taxes haven't been popular, since there are rumors that they have more to do with Lady Eunice's wardrobe than with propagation of Christ's message. Nothing that we need worry about."
Desoix raised an eyebrow. The Executive Guard carried assault rifles whose gilding made them as ornamental as the gold brocade on the men's azure uniforms . . . but there were magazines in the rifles today. That was as unusual as the flood shutters being in place.
"Ah, you can't really stay neutral if things get . . . out of hand, can you?" the UDB officer asked. He didn't like to suggest that he and Sanchez were on different standards; but that was better than using "we" when the word might seem to commit the United Defense Batteries.
The guardsman's face chilled. "We'll follow orders, of course," he said. "But it isn't the business of the army to get involved in the squabbles of the mob: or to attempt to change the will of the people."
"Exactly," said Desoix, nodding enthusiastic agreement. "Exactly."
He was still nodding as he strode into the entrance rotunda. He hoped he'd covered his slip with Sanchez well enough.
But he certainly had learned where the army—or at least the Executive Guard stood on the subject of the riots in the streets.
There was a small, separately guarded elevator off the rotunda which opened directly onto the Consistory Room on the third floor. Desoix hesitated. The pager inset into his left cuff had lighted red with Major Borodin's anxiety, and Desoix knew what his commander wanted without admitting his presence by answering.
It would be a very good idea to take the elevator. Borodin was awkward in the company of President Delcorio and his noble advisors; the major, the battery, and the situation would all benefit from the presence of Lieutenant Charles Desoix.