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de-fense system that seemed to be working. They stood in a triangle, facing one to the left, one to the
right, and one directly front. They fanned their weapons, the humming beams crossing and magnifying one
another so that where they hummed alone they burned Populars, and where they crossed they even
destroyed the darts in midflight. With a single bark of command, the leader who faced front could shift
the triangle slightly to meet any new angle of attack that seemed dangerous. It was a deadly, impenetrable
wall of negating vibrations, and the Pop-ulars were forced into a retreat minus two-thirds of their original
numbers.
Strong was praying. Very loudly.
Then salvation came . . .
. . . for the Populars: the manbats.
They swooped down from above, three bats for three men. The Musicians fell, their weapons
skidding away from them, spinning across the street into the waiting hands of the ecstatic mutants. The
manbats battled with fangs and claws, tore at the enemy flesh with maniacal glee. Even from the sled, Guil
could see that the bats' eyes burned with a potent flame more savage and prim-itive than anything Nasty
had possessed when he had attacked Guil. This was sheer bloodlust, the rending of flesh and blood and
bone for the pleasure of it, and it reached its slimy hands toward Guil's stomach and petted him toward
illness.
Guil wanted to throw up, but he couldn't. Rather, he felt that he should puke. It was an obligation,
was it not, for the sensitive to physically rebel at such a sight? But rebellion at this crude man-against-man
spectacle was something no longer in him. When had that sensitivity utterly died? With the first
understanding that his parents had been willing to give him away, to use him, to sacri-fice him for a
cause then to warp his life twice? No, it had not died then, but it had begun to. Had it died with the
realization that the Musicians had warped other men into grotesque freaks in order to complete the chain
of their society, in order to give their lowest class an object to which it could feel superior? No, but it had
sickened severely with that knowledge. Had it died with the carnage below? Had that sapped his
compassion for man-kind? Perhaps, though it would seem to be a slow deterio-ration rather than a
sudden death, with each of these things contributing to the weakening of its structure.
The death of compassion had been an outgrowth of the understanding that the man who was abused
this moment would as likely abuse someone else the next. Show com-passion upon a beggar and make
him into a rich man, and he will eventually turn upon you and compete with you to win your own riches.
He will leave you a beggar for your kindness, refusing to stop and return the favor owed you, possessing
the knowledge that if you were made rich out of his pity, you would break him and make him a beggar
again.
Guil told himself that not all men were this way. In-deed, he argued, he was not. But he could
remember a week earlier when Rosie had won his Medallion and all Guil could think of was that Rosie
would go down in history and that he would have known him. A touch of selfishness? Perhaps. The
system broke even the good men. The system was bigger than all, and the system used people. It was the
toolmaster of toolmasters, using even those who fancied themselves as users.
The system would not allow a man the privacy of his soul and the pleasure of living life as he saw fit.
The sys-tem forced the toolmasters to use him, and to avoid the masters and live his life in his own way,
he must pull strings, use people in short, be a toolmaster himself. He was not, therefore, living life as he
wanted. It was not really a vicious circle; it was a set of concentric circles, all madly whirling through even
more sets. No place was still or quiet. No place of peace. Save one . . .
 That's more like it! Strong laughed as the manbats shredded the Musicians with electric, jolting,
screeching glee, then pulled away, their bloody grins punctuated with specks of what had been their
enemies, their green eyes greener than ever before.
The pillar, Guil thought. That was the one place . . .
 I have it, Gypsy Eyes shouted.
 What? Strong had become so enthralled in the raging slaughter below the sled that he had
momentarily for-gotten all else even, it seemed, the prayers from his Seven Books.
 Those two groups of Musicians, Gypsy Eyes said.
 And?
 One has been destroyed by a commando team. I can tell, because they have totally vanished from
the possible futures.
 Let the angel of the Lord chase them, let them be as chaff before the wind! The prayers were back
now.
 The other group is concealed by a stand of oaks a hundred yards west of the Congressional Tower,
at least, that's where they are in most of the immediate probabilities.
 Chances?
 Still fifty-fifty, Gypsy said.
Strong didn't like that. His face contorted into a hard, angular mask of anger.  Which way will they
attack?
Gypsy Eyes concentrated a moment, leaned against the railing and clenched it tighter as if he would
gather strength from the hard steel of the craft.  They'll come around the perimeter of the West Neon
Stone Garden and attack from the rear, the direction of the major ruins. It is all slated as a surprise, and I
imagine they think themselves extremely clever. There is a ninety-two per-cent probability that this is the
avenue of attack.
The anger in Strong's face subsided as he dealt with this positive piece of prediction.  Good enough.
We'll sneak behind them with a force of manbats and drop unawares. He kicked the accelerator with a
massive foot, bucked the sled, and plunged them on, stopping only to confer with a manbat and have the
creature relay his orders to Redbat. Then they were on to the stand of oaks, gliding silently like a large
moth.
There were approximately eighty Musicians in the group that waited in the oaks, all robed in
shimmer-cloth, file brilliant fabric that would always remain intact once its basic patterns had been
generated, its own innate energy charge holding the patterns in countless coils. From what Guil could see
as they drifted on their moth through the night above the mob, all eighty were armed with sound rifles,
some with sonic knives as well. The initial burst of destruction had caught them off-guard, surely, as the
other Musicians who had already died or had not yet rallied, but these were more quick-witted and had
come to terms with the situation in surprisingly short order. And these, if any, would be the ones to come
out of this alive. They were toolmasters, leaders. And, considering the fact that everywhere battles raged
Musi-cians destroyed the weapons of their dead allies, this counter-attack mounting among the oaks was
better armed than any of the Populars.
They might just have a chance.
 Chances! Strong hissed.
 Still fifty-fifty, Gypsy Eyes whined.
Tisha tried to snuggle even closer.
 Something has to break, Strong said.  Something just has to!
Then Redbat was there with his legions.
They filled the air, flapping, gliding, making shrill sounds to one another as they jockeyed for position.
They dived with such speed and in such a vertical angle that Guil thought they must surely smash into the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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