It amazed the UDB officer to realize how easily he had decided to ruin his life. The saving grace was the fact that there wouldn't be many hours of life remaining to him after this decision.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tyl watched the antenna of his laser communicator quest on the porch outside the Consistory Room, making a keening sound as it searched for its satellite. The link was still thirty seconds short of completion when his commo helmet said, "Four-six to Six, over."
Tyl jumped, ringing the muzzle of his submachine-gun against the rail as he spun.
"Go ahead, Four-six," he said to Sergeant Major Scratchard when he realized that the call was on the unit push, not the laser link he'd been setting up. He was a hair late in his response, but nobody else knew the unexpected call had scared him like that.
"Sir," said Scratchard, "the Palace troops, they're all marching out one a' the side doors right now. Over."
Good riddance, Tyl thought. "Let 'em go, Jack," he said. "Six out."
"Six?"
"Go ahead, Four-six."
"Sir, should we secure the doors after them? Over."
"Negative,Four-six,"Tyl snapped."Ignore this bloody building and carry out your orders! Six out."
It hadn't been that silly a question. Jack was nervous because he didn't know much, because Tyl hadn't told him very much. The noncom was trying to cross all possible tees because he couldn't guess which ones would turn out to be of critical importance.
Neither could his captain. Which was the real reason Tyl had jumped down the sergeant major's throat.
A dim red light pulsed on the antenna's tracking head, indicating that the unit had locked on. Tyl switched modes on his helmet, grimaced, and said, "Koopman to Central, over."
Seconds of flickering static, aural and visual, took his mind off the cross dominating the skyline toward which the laser pointed. It was only an hour before dawn. The streets were alive with bands of men and women, ant-small at this distance and moving like foraging ants toward the plaza.
"Hold one,"said the helmet. The screen surged into momentary crystal sharpness. Colonel Hammer glared from it.
He looked very tired. All but his eyes.
"Go ahead, Captain,"Hammer said, and the static fuzzing his voice blurred his image a moment later as well, as though a bead curtain had been drawn between Tyl and his commander.
Tyl found that a lot more comfortable. Funny the things you worry about instead of the really worrisome things . . . .
"Sir," he said, knowing that his voice sounded dull—it had to, he couldn't let emotion get out during this report because he hadn't any idea of what emotion he'd find himself displaying. "I've alerted my men for an operation at dawn to bottle up the rioters and demand the surrender of their leaders. We'll be operating in concert with elements of the UDB."
There was no need to say"over," since the speakers could see one another—albeit with a lag of a few seconds. Tyl keyed the thumb-sized unit on his sending head,a module loaded with the street plan, routes, and makeup of the units taking part in the operation. The pre-load burped out like an angry katydid.
Hammer's eyes, never at rest, paused briefly on a point to the left of the pickup feeding Tyl's screen. A separate holotank was displaying the schematic, while Tyl's face continued to fill the main unit.
Hammer's face wore no expression as it clicked to meet Tyl's eyes again."What are the numbers on the other side?" he asked emotionlessly.
"Sir, upwards of twenty kay. Maybe fifty, the plaza'd hold that much and more."
Tyl paused. "Sir," he added, "we can't fight 'em, we know that. But maybe we can face them down, the leaders."
People were moving in the courtyard beneath him, four cloaked figures sopping out of the Palace on their missions. Desoix and his two clerks to the warehouse and the calliope they'd set up only hours before. And . . . .
"How are you timing your assault?"the colonel asked calmly."If the ringleaders aren't present, you've gained nothing. And if you wait too long? . . ."
"Sir, one of the women from the Palace," Tyl explained. "She's, ah, getting in position right now in the south gallery of the cathedral. There's a view to the altar on the seafront, that's where the big ones'll be. She'll cue us when she spots the ones we need."
He thought he was done speaking,but his tongue went on unexpectedly, "Sir, we thought of using a man, but a woman going to pray now—it's not going to upset anything. She'll be all right."
The colonel frowned as if trying to understand why a line captain was apologizing for using a female lookout. It didn't make a lot of sense to Tyl either, after he heard his own words—but he'd been away for a long time.
And anyway, the only similarity between Anne McGill and the dozen females in Tyl's present command was that their plumbing was the same.
"What happens if they don't back down?" Hammer said in a voice like a whetstone, apparently smooth but certain to wear away whatever it rubs against, given time and will.
"We bug out,"Tyl answered frankly. "The mall at the main stairs,that's where we'll be,it's got gates like bank vaults on all four sides. Things don't work out, Trimer ducks instead of putting his hands up and his buddies start shooting—well, we slam the plaza side doors and we're gone."
"And your supports?"Hammer asked. His mouth wavered in what might have been either static or an incipient grin.
"Desoix's men, they're mounted," Tyl said. It was an open question whether or not you could really load a double crew on a calliope and drive away with it, but that was one for the UDB to answer. "Worst case, there's going to be too much confusion for organized pursuit. Unless . . ."
"Unless the streets are already blocked behind you,"said Colonel Hammer,who must have begun speaking before Tyl's voice trailed off on the same awareness. "Unless there's a large enough group of rioters between your unit and safety to hold you for their fifty thousand friends to arrive."
"Yes sir," said Tyl.
He swallowed. "Sir,"he said, "I can't promise it'll work. If it does,it'll give you the time you wanted for things to hot up over there. But I can't promise."
"Son," said Colonel Hammer. He was grinning like a skull. "When you start making promises on chances like this, I'll remove you from command so fast your ears'll ring."
His face straightened into neutral lines again."For the record," Hammer said, "you're operating without orders. Not in violation of orders, just on your own initiative."
"Yes sir," Tyl said.
Hammer hadn't paused for agreement. He was saying, "I expect you to withdraw as soon as you determine that there is no longer a realistic chance of success. Nobody's being paid to be heroes, and—"
He leaned closer to the pickup. His face was grim and his eyes glared like gun muzzles. "Captain, if you throw my men away because you want to be a hero, I'll shoot you with my own hand. If you survive."
"Yes sir," Tyl said through a swallow. This time his commander had waited for an acknowledgment.
Hammer softened. "Then good luck to you, son," he said. "Oh—and son?"