They were broadcasting pictures right now of scores of scenes all over Rurik. And those pictures told a different story than the Emperor's livie casts.
Yes, calm had been restored. But only compared to the mess Sten encountered when he first arrived. The screen in the upper left-hand corner showed the scene outside a Jochi military compound. Peaceful... on the surface.
But as Alex coaxed his little snooper closer, Sten could see several armored tracks. Idle, but ready to go in an instant. Maintenance crews were hard at work on others. He could see gravlifts hauling in ammunition and supplies.
The screen below it displayed a rebel Jochi force undergoing intense drilling and training. Another, a Tork encampment, bristling with arms and hot talk.
There were similar scenes on other monitors: Suzdal and Bogazi barricades being rebuilt and strengthened; militias patrolling neighborhood streets, in one case pointedly ignoring a group of adolescents filling glass jars with pilfered flammable fuel.
The main market district of Rurik was empty. Shops were buttoned up tight, some with hired thugs as guards. Sten saw gangs of young beings swaggering through the streets looking for trouble and loot. One of Alex's bats swooped past a blasted-out storefront. Figures hauled out valuables by the armload. In this case the looters were soldiers, with a few police sprinkled in.
"Aha, wee Sten," Kilgour said. "Here's th' lass Ah wae blatherin' aboot." He threw the projection to one of the larger, center wallscreens. Sten saw a joygirl exiting an alley. The screen's map inset showed she was near a Jochi military compound. A wolf whistle shrilling through a speaker told him just how close.
The view shifted, and Sten could see several soldiers reacting to the scantily clad woman. The joygirl stopped and posed with hand on hip, bosom and other goodies jutting. A soldier called to her. The joygirl gave a pouty flip of her head, swiveled on shapely heels, and ankled back into the alley.
The soldiers looked at each other and laughed. Two split away to follow.
"Now watch this lass at work," Alex said, tugging at a tiny joystick as he sent the bat soaring over the alley. The soldiers had caught up to the girl. Bargaining was in progress. Finally, price agreed on, the joygirl leaned against the alley wall. Fumbling with his clothing, and joking with his buddy over his shoulder, the first soldier advanced.
As he was lifting the joygirl off her feet, there was sudden motion, so quick that Sten almost missed it.
The joygirl had some hefty friends. They clubbed the soldiers down. By the time the joygirl had finished straightening her scant tunic, the soldiers' unconscious bodies were being stripped of weapons, uniforms, and IDs.
Sten watched the joygirl and her group head off to set up another trap. "How many does this make?"
"A score or so. But on'y since Ah've been countin'. She's verra quick. Got a few more lads jus t' haul th' stuff t' the rebels."
"Jackrollers for a Free Jochi, huh?" Sten said. "It'd almost be funny, if I didn't think any minute now the lid was going to blow off the pot.
"The big pain is that there isn't much we can do. Except sit tight, hope for the best, and jawbone the locals to be patient. And wait for Dr. Iskra to show up."
"When first we met, young Sten," Kilgour said, "you were nae such a honey-tongued liar. Ah'm pleased a' y'r progress."
"Thanks... I think," Sten said. "Trouble is, now I've got to be really creative." He tapped the diplomatic note he was composing. "When Iskra arrives there's going to be some pretty pissed off beings."
"Y'll do fine, lad. Liars like us'r made, nae born. Otherwise, our dear mums'd ice us when we were bairns."
Sten groaned in agreement. But what choice did he have? He knew that just as long as relative calm lasted on Jochi, so the rest of the cluster would stay at "peace."
The joyous enthusiasm that had greeted his arrival had lasted about as long as the sudden spring weather—which had almost immediately turned foul. Tempers rose with humidity. Black clouds bunched under that humidity. Moods bounced from euphoria to headache gloom. Which, Sten was already learning, pretty much described the nature of all the beings on Jochi.
A few hours before dusk on the second day, a whole snake's nest of cyclones appeared above the Rurik skyline. The twisters roared around in the strange nonlogic of the inanimate. Dashing for the city. Scaring clot out of everyone. Then retreating. All the while, sucking up trees and topsoil and outbuildings—which did nothing to lessen the fear. Suddenly, they sped off and were gone.
Ever since then the citizens of Rurik had been casting nervous looks at the horizon. And at one another.
Then, just the previous day, winter had returned with a cold snap as if the spring and then the humidity and heat had never been. Another part of the wonders of Jochi.
Sten went back to his lying scribbles. "... Whereas the Eternal Emperor... in his deep affection for all the beings of the Altaic Cluster..."
"Holy clot! Look't thae!"
Sten's head bounced back up. He looked where Alex was pointing. The center monitor screen was complete confusion. Sten strode over to get a closer look.
A whole mass of beings was parading in front of some institutionlike structures; evidently built by the late Khaqan, the structures were heroic in size and drabness. To Sten, they looked like giant beehives tied together with sky-high walkways and belt-ways.
"It's the Pooshkan University," an earnest young tech said. Sten recalled that her name was Naomi.
He groaned. "Students? Oh, no."
"Aye. W' hae hormone trouble, lad," Alex said. He twiddled with controls and suddenly a dozen views of the university leapt up on the main screen.
Here, uniformed campus cops were being hauled out by young beings and dumped through the main archway. In another section of the campus, Sten could see students smashing through what appeared to be a glass-fronted cafeteria. In half a second a wild food fight erupted.
Teachers were fleeing for cover, not too successfully ducking hurled food and other debris. Bonfires were being set all over the campus. Fed, Sten was sure, with the records of any students who happened to be failing.
He also caught glimpses of naked flesh through bushes and trees and heard squeals of joy as some of the students protested in a more passionate manner.
A huge barricade was being erected at the main gate of Pooshkan University. There was enough logic to the tumble of junk that Sten was sure engineering students had to have been involved. Which took planning.
Further proof of this was the sudden unfurling of carefully printed banners. The banners demanded many things. But mostly they demanded: "Democracy Now!"
"Wonderful," Sten said. "The one thing nobody in this place is going to get."
He peered closer at one of the views of the students—and he realized just how odd these students were. To begin with, it was a mixed group. As many Suzdal and Bogazi youths as there were Jochians and Torks. Second, they were all working—rioting, actually—together. This almost never happened on Jochi, much less in the rest of the cluster, where segregation was a prized fact of society's status quo.
"What kind of a place is this?" Sten asked, noting as he did, just how well fed—and clothed—these young beings appeared.