CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The echoes of the barracks bombing were still reverberating when Iskra moved to consolidate and extend his power. The Eternal Emperor's news blackout played right into his hands. Iskra hit the airways with a blistering attack on those (unnamed) traitors who had humiliated the Altaic Cluster by their cowardly attack on the Emperor's peacekeeping forces. He declared martial law. Set a one-hour-after-dawn and one-hour-before-dusk curfew. Banned all demonstration, public protests, and strikes. He also hinted darkly at "other measures" that would be "revealed at the appropriate time." He ended with an impassioned plea that all citizens search their "souls and their neighbors' souls" for any sign of disloyalty.
After generations of violent repression, people knew what was going to happen next. Some dug into mattresses and gardens for bribe money. Some made lists of enemies they could nark on. Most cowered in their homes and waited for the crash of bootheels and rifle butts thundering on doors.
But experienced as they were in the politics of fear, the beings of the Altaic Cluster were not braced for what followed.
Milhouz was lean and proud in his new black uniform with its rakish beret and silver "Students for Iskra" badge. He had a captain's tab on one shoulder and a Purity Corps patch on the other.
He hoisted his pistol and snarled orders to his eager, youthful forces. "I want this timed perfectly. Get into position-quietly, dammit! And when I give the signal, we all rush at once. Got it?"
There was a hushed chorus of "yessirs."
Milhouz made imperious go-for-it motions with his hands. The Purity Corps sprang into action.
His battering ram squad took point. Milhouz and the main force followed behind. They all trotted down the dark, tree-lined lane that led to the central Rurik library. Jochi's moons dimly lit the scene.
The lights were burning late at the library that night. The head librarian-an elderly Tork named Poray—had lobbied hard for a permit to ignore the curfew and work late that night. His official reason: to comb through the stacks for seditious material banned under Iskra's emergency decrees.
The librarian's real intent was to rescue as much of this material as possible. Poray and his staff put out a call to all like-minded intellectuals. It was a drill they had performed many times during the rule of the Khaqans. In the past, this tradition had saved the most valued texts in the library system.
As the dark shapes of Milhouz's Purity Corps fanned out around the building, Poray was once more mourning his choices. He couldn't save everything. Enough seditious material had to be turned over to make a large display of the intellectual community's loyal intentions.
He eyed the trolleys of fiche and books being rushed to the secret vaults in the library's basement. To one side was a mound of material he was planning to give to Iskra's book burners.
It was a very small mound.
Poray sighed. He was not doing well. He had to cut harder. He hefted two elderly volumes. They were real books-the library's sole copies of the works.
One was a much-thumbed Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury. The other was a pristine copy of Common Sense, by the ancient thinker Thomas Paine.
Poray hated playing intellectual god. It tormented him that his tastes were the sole judge of what should stay and what should be destroyed.
He looked at Common Sense again. Then at Fahrenheit 451. He shrugged.
Bradbury went on a trolley of books to be saved.
Common Sense was for the burning. Forgive me, Sr. Paine, Poray thought.
There was a smash of glass and wrench of metal as Milhouz struck.
Poray gaped as black-uniformed youths thundered into the library. There were screams of terror from his staff and volunteers.
"Down with the intelligentsia!" someone bellowed.
Milhouz thundered toward Poray, pistol coming up. Poray instinctively raised Thomas Paine as a shield.
Milhouz fired.
Poray fell to the ground.
As dead as Common Sense.
The line from the grocer's stretched half a kilometer. Hundreds upon hundreds of hungry beings were lined up, ration cards ready for the moment the doors opened.
They had been waiting since the morning curfew lifted, which meant seven hours for the first being in line. All under a sun that had dawned a scorcher.
"It gets later and later every day," grumbled one elderly woman.
"And less and less food to buy," muttered another.
"All garbage," said a third. "Dr. Iskra should come down here and look at this slop. He'd have the storekeep's head for being such a thief."
Before anyone could answer, the line surged forward. "They're opening!" someone shouted. Then the line came to a jolting halt. There were shocked gasps. People in the back craned their necks to see what was happening at the front.
The grocer's was not opening.
Instead, a line of troops was trotting out from the alley, weapons ready.
An officer's voice bullhorned over the crowd: "No one will move. This is an inspection of papers. You will have ration cards displayed in the left hand. Citizenship papers in the other."
The crowd grumbled, yet moved quickly to do the officer's bidding.
But the old woman who had complained about the long wait for food had other ideas. She stepped out of the crowd and hobbled up to the officer.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, young man," she said. "We are all hungry. And we have waited hours and hours to buy food for our families."
The officer shot her where she stood. He kicked her still-twitching corpse. "There you go, grandmother. Now, you don't have to wait."
The Bogazi neighborhood watch commander picked her way along the barricade, checking for gaps in the protective jumble and inspecting the guards at their posts. The barricade proved as sound as her last inspection, her guards alert as when they first came on duty.
She looked over the sleeping neighborhood. Not a light in a window, a stir in a hutch. This is good, she thought. This is very good. Then she heard a low sound from behind her. She whirled around. The sound was gone. Imagination only, she thought. I am silly being.
The gunship popped up above the barricade, chain guns yammering.
The watch commander was cut in half before she had time to gurgle a warning.
Two more gunships jumped into view, opening fire on the neighborhood. Within minutes the hutches were burning and Bogazi were streaming out. Some were wounded. Some were carrying wounded. All were paralyzed with fear.
Jochi troops smashed through the barricade. They were followed by a long line of gravlighters.
One hour later the trucks were loaded with the Bogazi survivors and heading out into the night.
The next day, dozers scooped up the dead along with smoking rubble. By nightfall the neighborhood was bare ground.
The following evening the Jochi vid casts announced the availability of new home sites for "qualified citizens." They were snapped up by morning.
A letter from Sapper-Major Shase Marl, to Direktor-Leader S!Kt, Seventh Military Front commander:
... and while I realize sending this letter violates the military chain of command, I felt I had no one else who would have the authority and distinction to solve this problem, as you will see.
I write you not only as my supreme commander, but also because I remember, years past, before that evil one who used to rule (cursed be his memory) forced you into retirement. You spoke before my firster class at Kuishev Academy, and I never forgot your words. How an officer has a