«Oh, well, you must have passed 'em, two blocks west of 'em. They went up Grand. Man, I hope never to see nothing like that again. But say, you don't think they're here now, do you, like them big ants that just appeared half a dozen summers ago and now can't be got rid of?»
Rivas looked out through the broken window at the street. A dog was asleep under an awning across the way, and a couple of children clattered past on low wooden tricycles, raising a cloud of dust that hung nearly motionless in the air.
«No,» Rivas grated wearily, almost in a whisper. «No . . . I imagine they'll be . . . moving on.» He looked around the room, as if to fix it in his memory. «How late can first-class citizens leave the city, Mojo?»
«Well . . . you know, Greg. Until the bells. Until they see the enemy. And after that, nobody can leave.»
«I've got time for one more beer.»
«Always, Greg,» said Mojo, glancing at him in mild surprise. «Hey, and this afternoon it's on the house. I mean, it's gonna go flat otherwise, right?»
The swish and rattle of Mojo's broom in the debris started up again, and then there was also the echoing click click, click click of Rivas working the beer pump; and the next sound was booted footsteps approaching from the office.
Steve Spink's grin relaxed when he saw Rivas sitting cross-legged on the bar. He walked over, nodded curtly to Barbara, and then said, «Howdy, Greg.»
«Hullo, Steve,» said Rivas, lowering his glass and wiping foam from his moustache. «Sorry your place got busted up.»
«We'll live. Two weeks ago we lost our Venetian pelicanist, but at least now we got genuine Venetian madwomen.» He looked from Rivas's pelican case to his leaned and bearded face. «I found out who that old guy was, who was in here a week ago, remember? The guy that told me you were latently birdy. And now I hear he's got his daughter back from that gang.»
Rivas nodded over the rim of his glass.
«Well—assuming the Berdoos don't take us—any time you want your job back, just say.» He turned and walked back toward the office.
«Thanks, Steve!» Rivas called.
Spink waved over his shoulder without looking around.
Rivas finished his beer and lowered himself down from the bar. «You know why I'd better get moving,» he told Barbara. «Luckily the spirit bank is south of here. Reckon I'll get a bank draft and then see how far respect for Ellay money extends. A horse, food, liquor, a weapon—I should be out of the city in under an hour. Come to the bank with me and I'll loan you some money to get settled with, and then when you do, leave your address with, say, Mojo over there, and when I can—»
«You're sure leaving is the only way?» Barbara asked, stretching her long legs to keep up with him as he strode across the littered floor. «It is just a gang of crazy women.»
«Led by Sister Sue, of fond memory.» He ducked under the board across the doorway, and she followed. «No, Barbara, I can't spend the siege locked up in the same city with them; I'd rather run than have to slingshot every birdy-eyed lady I see . . . and of course if one of them got me and was to swallow this,» he touched the crumpled gray pendant, «Jaybush would be back. And, hell, this is just the gang that followed us most closely. If I hang around, they'll all drift here, and even after the Berdoos go home nobody'll dare open the gates.»
«Are you sure you can't destroy the crystal?»
They were moving energetically south on Grand, Rivas forcing himself to maintain a brisk pace. «I'm pretty sure. Remember when you laid it on the pavement and took a hammer to it? The pavement broke. And I happen to know that, short of shooting it into the heart of the sun, heat's no problem to it. If I could find a really deep, really cold well, I might risk dropping it in and then devoting the rest of my life to filling the well with the heaviest rocks I could find . . . but even then I'd worry. He obviously wasn't ready to become . . . discorporated . . . when he did—he weakened himself drastically ten years ago, and way too much of what energy he had was externally invested, like a millionaire who's a pauper if you time the audit just right, and so he can't do his fly away into outer space trick—but I think with years to work he could move a pile of stones.» They rounded a corner, and the white pillars of the spirit bank wavered in the sunlight ahead. «No, I think I have to just carry it, and try to keep it cold, and if I should ever have any children, pass the duty on to them.»
Barbara grabbed him by the arm and stopped him. «You want company?»
He squinted at her. «Company. Do you mean you'd—»
«Like to come with you. Yes.»
He put his hand on her shoulder. «No,» he said gently. «Thank you, I appreciate it, but no, Barbara. Get yourself a nice place and a good job, and keep some extra blankets and liquor for when I pass through, okay? Dammit, girl, you've had your stroll through hell.»
«You haven't? Anyway, what's so safe about staying here?»
«It's better than what I'll be doing. Until the last pocaloca dies, I'll be hiding, running, hunting, going hungry—making only furtive, hurried visits to civilization—and even after they all die, I'll still have him .» He touched the pendant.
«To pass on to your children,» said Barbara sarcastically. «Where are you going to find them? I guess you'll just have to dally with one of the pocalocas, huh?»
Rivas blinked. His chest was hollow, and though the light didn't change, he felt as if he'd just stepped out of a dark stuffy room into breezy sunshine. He opened his mouth to speak. . . .
And a bell began ringing on the east wall, and a moment later bells were ringing everywhere, church bells, wagon bells, chimes like excited parakeets, even just randomly snatched up pieces of metal banged clangorously together. Up on the wall soldiers were shouting orders, and a number of people in the streets were just screaming wordlessly. Rivas felt the dark stuffy room close in on him again.
There was no point in trying to talk over the racket. Rivas took Barbara's hand so that together they could make their way through the surging crowd toward the Dogtown section of the city wall.
The stairs leading up to the catwalk were already jammed with denizens of Dogtown, and it took two burly soldiers to keep them off the catwalk. Every few seconds one of the people fell, flailing and perhaps screaming, down into the crowd.
One soldier was shouting down through a bullhorn. «Get away from the wall! » he was yelling. «There is nothing to see! They are still across the river, at least a mile away! The device they've got is not a cannon! Repeat, not a cannon! »
Then Rivas saw several of the wall-top soldiers stare in sudden startlement out to the east—and a couple of seconds later a section of the wall to his right exploded, the flying stones knocking down people and shacks and then the boiling dust-cloud considerately veiling the view of splintered wood, broken stone and torn flesh.
Rivas felt a flicker of wild elation, the breezy sunshine feeling again, as the wash of sour dust blew over them and he inventoried what he had with him: his pelican, some pocket change, and a girl who wanted—of all the unheard-of things—to share his life.
He gave her a wild, challenging grin. «Leave by the Dogtown gate?»
She grinned back in sheer delight. «High time.»
Hand in hand they ran forward, and hopped and clambered and slid over the tumbled masonry, coughing in the dust and the acid smell of broken stone, and then, out in the sunshine, they ran down the slope toward the river and the abandoned boats.