MORE TROOPS HAD BEEN arriving all morning, landed from huge assault carriers on the new strip the Security engineers had laid in the upper meadow. They had pitched their tents in the lower fields, their glossy black half-tracks—new machines used normally for the defense of the Plantations—lined up along the upper edge of the strip. Ben stood with Haavikko in the lower garden, watching the activity in the fields surrounding the cottage. Everywhere you looked there were signs of hurried preparations. Equipment was being unpacked, weaponry stripped down and cleaned. Soldiers drilled, or washed, or simply took the opportunity to rest before the attack that evening. At the upper end of the field to the left of the cottage a huge mess tent had been set up. Soldiers in their shirtsleeves queued to go inside, joking among themselves in the sunlight.
Ben sighed and looked to Haavikko. "It's a wonderful sight, don't you think, Major?"
Haavikko nodded, but he was uncomfortable in Ben's presence. The intensity of the young man was hard to get used to. And when he looked at you.
Ben smiled thoughtfully, the tiny remote that always hovered about him drifting slowly to one side. "Sometimes I wonder how it must have been in the old days, before the City. To see an army of a million men on the battlefield. Now, that must have been a sight!"
Haavikko looked down. "I've seen half a million lined up ready for battle. In West Africa. In the campaign against Wang Sau-leyan. And I've seen corpses stacked ten deep, six wide for half a li. The stench!" He grimaced.
"You don't like war, do you, Major Haavikko?" Haavikko looked up, meeting Ben's eyes directly. "No. I've no love of it, if that's what you mean. I've had too many friends killed or badly wounded to be fond of so-called glory. But it's a necessity of our world, and I'll not shirk my duty."
"And yet you seemed keen earlier when I agreed to countermand the General's orders. . . ." "That's different." "Why?"
Haavikko drew himself up straight. Ben might be his nominal superior, but he did not like this line of questioning.
"War—I mean war like we saw it in Africa—may not be a pleasant thing, but at least there's some element of honor in it. All this skulking in the darkness . . . that's a weasel's game!"
Ben laughed. "So you mean to cleanse the Clay?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Why? Because the Enclave was their last hope. If it fell, then the darkness would be everywhere, and that could not be tolerated. To root out every last trace of opposition was his task, almost his obsession now.
"Because I must," he answered, damned if he'd justify himself any further than that. But Ben seemed to accept his answer, or perhaps sense his reluctance.
"Even so, Rheinhardt will be angry, don't you think?"
Rheinhardt . . . He sighed and looked down, disturbed. Rheinhardt did not understand. He lacked the proper sense of urgency. Like all of the older generation, he was complacent: he did not see just how fragile their existence as a society was.
He feared for the years ahead; feared for them in more than a personal sense. For himself he cared little; had cared nothing, in fact, since the death of his sister, Vesa. No, his was a generalized fear: a fear for Humankind itself. Life here on earth was tenuous at best. Destroy the North European Enclave and there was the distinct possibility of radical ecological destabilization.
R.E.D. It was the doomsday scenario, the one all his colleagues in the service talked of constantly; the final kicking away of the props of terrestrial existence.
"What will your soldiers use?" Ben asked.
"Pardon?"
"To cleanse the Clay?"
"I thought we'd use flamethrowers. We've some of the hew high-powered models."
"Won't that be dangerous? There's not much air in there as it is, and those things devour oxygen."
"True. But my men will be wearing breathing masks and carrying their own air supplies. Whether we bum them out or simply suffocate the bastards, it's all the same to me, as long as the job gets done. Minimal casualties, that's my prime directive."
"Maybe so, but I'd prefer it if you didn't use flamethrowers in there."
Haavikko frowned. He was happy to take generalized instructions from Ben, but if he was going to interfere in operational matters, then he might as well report back to Rheinhardt. "Why?"
Ben's eyes met his and held them. "Because I want something."
"What?"
"I want their king, the Myghtern. Alive if at all possible, but if not, well, I'd like his body at the very least, not some charred remnant."
Haavikko nodded, trying to keep the distaste he felt from showing in his face. "Are you sure?"
Ben straightened up, mock military for a moment, affecting Rheinhardt's voice with a frightening accuracy. "That is an order, Major Haavikko."
Haavikko bowed his head. "Then I shall ensure it receives priority, sir!''
Ben walked past him, then stopped, looking up the slope of the lawn toward the cottage.
Haavikko studied him a moment, trying to figure him out. "Forgive me for asking, but why do you want him?"
Ben half turned toward him. "Do you believe in vividness, Major?"
" Vividness?"
"Yes, vividness. It's the force that lies behind things. What the poet Dylan Thomas once called 'the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.' We can't see it, not normally, but sometimes—just sometimes, mind—it shows itself, in an event, or occasionally—very rarely—in a person. The Myghtern ... he has vividness. I saw it at a glance. And I want him, even if it's only the shell of him. The rest . . . well, the rest I'll fill if I have to. It'll be my greatest art. To recreate him. To make him real for others."
Haavikko stared at him, astonished, wondering for a moment if it were true what they said and Ben Shepherd really was mad. Then he turned and looked back at his men, busy in the fields nearby.
What do you make of this? he wondered, his eyes traveling among the familiar faces. To be here in this valley, on this afternoon.
It was strange. Stranger than anything he'd ever known.
He let out a long breath, calming himself, forcing himself to bite the bullet, then turned, facing Ben again. "If it makes you any happier, I'll order the men to use their flamethrowers only as a last resort."
"Good. And the Myghtern?"
"I'll send a special squad to try and capture him."
"Good. I'm delighted you've seen reason."
Haavikko hesitated. "If that's all, I think I'll go now. Please, thank your sister for the tea. It was most pleasant." He bowed, feeling suddenly awkward, as if he'd outstayed his welcome.
Ben stared at him, an unexpected hardness in his face.
Again Haavikko felt himself at a disadvantage. Sometimes it was as if Shepherd were on a whole different level from himself. As if there were things he'd misread entirely.
"We go in at dusk," he said. "I think the men should rest until then."
Ben smiled, all charm again. "Of course. And come again some time, Major Haavikko. Please, call on us again."
THEY GATHERED in the High Cross, beside the cathedral; Tak, Thorn, the five from the Above, DeVore, and two of his henchmen.
Hastings and the others were suited up—sleek, elegantly silvered suits, gusseted at the neck to take a helmet. They carried simple guns, holstered at the waist: primitive weapons, not lasers. Old models that worked on explosive principles. Thorn smiled on seeing them, knew that it was all of a pattern, deliberately old fashioned, like the valve, the electric bulbs—all of it an elaborate charade to fool the Myghtern.
They went east, out past the sewage dump at Malpas—a vast reservoir of waste, contained within the old Fal's course. Twenty U south it stretched, and each year its level grew higher: a rich soup of effluence pumped down from the City. Life swarmed on the shores of this great lake of shit. A twisted, stunted form of life, admittedly, yet life.