And then there was the matter of the People themselves. Macalic had sent back numberless directives voicing his fears at their increasing solidarity. Instead of individually worshiping the Technos, they had united into a mass and had begun to worship the
Victory.
Just as the Technos had donned the black and silver of the Caroline to dramatize their new apartness and divinity, and to show their basic loyalty to the nation, so the People had taken to wearing inordinate amounts of white clothing. There were those cursed People's Palaces—God, what a name, he thought—hopefully nothing more than workers' canteens or what they thought ought to pass for nightclubs, but again it was just that the People should not be doing that sort of thing.
Because of all this, it was understandable that Macalic was not in the best of humors when Shan entered the room, sat down and proceeded to tell him that there was a good chance the roof was about to cave in on all of them. Macalic offered him a little brandy; they both morosely toasted the
Victory
and the furtherance of their own respective lives.
The brandy was beginning to warm their hearts and hopes when a rather agitated young man entered, dropped a sealed envelope on the director's desk and then left. Macalic waited until the door shut and then broke open the seal and read the handwritten note inside; he read it and looked even more miserable than before. "Anything the matter?" Shan asked, immediately feeling stupid.
Macalic looked around the room vacantly, looking for a thing he knew wasn't there. "Well, Shan, it seems that our darling People have decided they deserve the stewardship of the
Victory
more than we do. They have"—Macalic cleared his throat—"or rather, are now attempting to take over the capital."
"What of the Army?" whined Shan.
Macalic touched the paper lightly with his hand. "The Army, I am told, performed just as I should have expected it to. The officer corps, or that good portion of it that knew of the
Victory,
held their posts and I suppose died as valiantly as circumstances would permit. Of the rest . . . you know as well as I, Shan, that the enlisted ranks are drawn mostly from the People anyway." Macalic glanced stiffly at the paper again. "It says here that the Government has retained control of most of the arsenals."
"Good. Then there's hope for them . . . us," Shan said, brightening slightly.
"No, not even there. Remember that the benefits of our technological revolution have not yet reached the home Government. The reliability of our Army's weaponry should still be up to its traditional, dismal standards." A vein of sarcastic anger crept into his voice." Besides, the People are literally hurling themselves at the guns. God, I'd never expected them to be so shattered, I guess you would say, to find out our secret. Never! You'd expect the wretches to behave with a little more rationality." Macalic sighed and raised his eyebrows. "But then again, if the People had ever been capable of thoughtful behavior without the
Victory,
it would have never been needed in the first place. Would it?"
Shan nodded assent sadly. Then the sadness turned to incipient fear as he realized that he was sitting in the very midst of what the People saw now as a huge conspiracy; he felt very conscious of the black and silver uniform he wore.
Macalic pushed a button on his desk and the aide who had delivered the original communication entered. Macalic issued a set of general orders: all weapons were to be broken out; the Army garrison was to be placed on immediate alert with the officers to pay particular attention to the behavior of the enlisted men; work on the
Victory
was to be halted and the Yards cleared of all People; all Techno women and children were to be removed to the highlands; the three Palaces of the People were to be occupied by Techno forces.
Shan respectfully noted that this last action might prematurely trigger any planned insurrection, but Macalic told him that at the worst they would lose some men—who would probably be lost eventually any-way—and at the best they just might upset the whole timetable, giving them a slight advantage.
The aide, who had been turning progressively paler, wrote all of this on a pad and then ran out of the office. "And what do we do now?" Shan asked, feeling some confidence return now, knowing that something was being done.
"We shall sit here, Shan, and wait, and think of all the things we might have done to prevent this day from ever happening." Macalic stopped and uttered a low curse; he pushed the button again. "Here is something that should have been done." The aide burst in, almost stumbling over the threshold. "Jennings, do you know who the leader of the People is?"
"Yes, sir, he's a bloke named Coral."
"Good. Do you know what he looks like?"
"Yes, a big fellow, well over six feet tall. Graying hair scarred-up face, all very tough and distinguished. Ex-Army, they say, but I'm afraid they don't say in which army he might have served. I think he's known especially by a big gold signet ring that's engraved with a hand and pegasus or something."
"The crest of Mourne, I believe," Shan piped in. "Home of old Miolnor IV and his ghost."
"And that of General Toriman," Macalic reflected. "A strange nation, Shan, very curious. Way to the north of us, right up next to the Dark Powers, and one of the World's staunchest defenders against them . . . when such conflicts were going on, of course," Jennings coughed nervously; Macalic was shaken out of his little reverie. "All right then, detail a party to find this man. Go with them yourself so there is no mistake—and kill him."
Jennings turned dead white. "Sir?" he asked in a bewildered voice.
"Kill him—as quickly as you can! Now get out." Macalic waved the man away and returned to his broodings.
When the aide had gone, Macalic set up a chess board, both men were too nervous to play a very good game. Macalic won the first match and they were halfway into a second when they were interrupted by the thud of a heavy gun. Shan felt a fear-borne smile twisting his features as Macalic pulled three pistols from his desk, two beautiful First World automatics inlaid with pearl and ebony, and a pitted old revolver of colossal dimensions. Shan was surprised when Macalic pushed the automatics and their holster belt to him, keeping the revolver. "Come on, Shan," Macalic said in" a harsh, grating whisper. "Would you care to see our world die?" Shan toyed with the idea of making light comment on Macalic's indomitable optimism, but soon dropped it for he felt the same way.
The building was deserted as they walked down the spiral staircase, the sounds of gunfire and shouting growing louder as they reached the ground level. The two men ran from the tower and across the courtyard to a coach that was about to leave. The driver was going to the highlands, but a firm word from Macalic (and an ostentatious checking of the revolver's cylinder) convinced the man that honor compelled him to run to the Yards.
They rumbled through the People's districts of Gateway; both the streets and the houses were empty. Ominous trails of smoke and the crackle of gunfire were coming from the direction of the Techno highlands and the industrial perimeter of Gateway.
They reached the Yards within five minutes. They crossed the barren strip of ground separating it from the city; they passed the tombs of George and Limpkin. Above them, covering fully half the western sky, was the
Victory
; Shan stared up in absolute amazement. The
Victory
was completed up the point where the hundred foot thickness of its wings was more than half fulfilled. Shan's eye discerned the ugly mortuary temples of the People on the spider web of scaffolding, and then hundreds of the People themselves, dead. An easy five hundred white-clad bodies hung within sight amid the scaffolding and at least as many more lay scattered on the ground.
The coach stopped and both men jumped out, Macalic full of questions and then full of calm orders, Shan still in a stupor.
Macalic was more assured now, taking grim comfort in the fact that he and his men were already defeated; only a formality remained. From what he could gather from the Technos and loyal Army officers, the People had attempted a sudden withdrawal half an hour ago. They were gathering at some point near the mountains, possibly seeking to sweep inward, wiping out all Techno properties in one move. From the amount of smoke in the sky, Shan surmised that they had already begun on the highlands. There was an emptiness in him; he checked his new weapons to see if there were shells in their chambers.
Macalic conferred with the ranking Army officer and redeployed some of their forces; although their heaviest artillery was machine guns and rifle grenades of recent manufacture, the Technos felt reasonably sure that they could, if not defeat the People, then at least extract so dear a price from them that they would be forced to negotiate.
The director of the Yards stationed himself in a well-barricaded machine gun position on the second level of the scaffolding, about fifty feet from the ground and directly across from the main gate, two miles off. The defensive perimeter had been tightened up to form an almost solid ring of machine gun and rifle positions around the edge of the
Victory
's shadow; black and tan uniforms scurried back and forth below, carrying . . .
A faint yell split the quiet clank of metal and the murmur of busy voices. Shan saw a movement near the main gate; Macalic handed him a pair of battered binoculars. He saw the People, their white clothes stained with black and red from their first battles. Flashes blossomed along the line of the fence, and a torrent of white began pouring through the smoking breaches. They ran forward a bit and then divided, hurrying north and south along the edge of the Yards. For two hours they came, running through the holes and then up to the mountain end of the Yards or down toward the Sea. Running, running until some dropped and were crushed in the rushing tide. Shan could see that many of them had traveled far to reach here, for certainly Gateway could never have housed so many or embraced so many different types. And despite the wildly different kinds of clothing the mob wore, almost every item was dyed a deathly, morbid white. Guns, also white, broke up the oppressive pallor of the mob with the gaping black of their muzzles. Pikes and halberds waved above the crowd; some held crossbows, while others grasped kitchen knives or convenient pieces of wood.
Then there were no more, and the immense crowd stood, two miles from the
Victory,
resting and waiting; their tired, bestial panting sounded like a distant hurricane to the men aboard the ship.
Quiet. Then a new sound, the one Shan had been dreading: engines. The white mass opened at many points and not one, but many tanks of the type that Annandale had described moved forward. And behind them came yet larger vehicles; terrifying in their sheer mass, guns, antennae and flags sprouting from every possible spot, they rolled out in front of the People, who then closed ranks behind them. Dark, rust-pitted hulls contrasted oddly with the satanic whiteness of the People. Shan picked out the iron fist and winged horse on their turrets; this Coral then, was at the head of it all, for they were carrying his crest. He prayed that Jennings had found and killed the man. The juggernauts drove to a point fifty feet in front of the white mass, and then they too stopped and waited silently.
Five minutes passed. Macalic subconsciously complimented the sense of drama of whoever had planned this operation. The wind drifted in from the west, whistling softly through the naked bones of the
Victory
and bringing with it some small, indefinable trace of corruption.
Then a yell, increasing into an insane roar. Shan swung his binoculars back to the main gate where the People were again opening a path. A colossal tank, three times the size of anything on the field, moved slowly through the passage and continued onward without pausing. The fighting machine was of purest white, edged with delicate gold striping. Shan was paralyzed with fear; every one of its myriad guns seemed to be pointed directly at him. Even at that great distance, the vehicle's engines were easily heard; they sounded like a continuous, never-ending cannonade.
Shan fiddled with the focus of his binoculars and soon made out a man perched on the main turret, his proportions in keeping with the heroic dimensions of the tank—it must have been Coral. The sun sparkled off some object on his right hand; the ring, Shan guessed, thinking how ironical that a single nation should produce a savior, a redeemer, and then a destroyer. In his left hand the man held a glistening broadsword wreathed with blue-white fire.
The fighting machine drove on until it was clear of the masses. The man, his shirt and trousers as white as the metal he clung to, transferred the sword to his right hand and raised it to the sun. Seeming to catch the cosmic burnings, the sword now glowed with a shattering light, yellow flames rising from its tip. "For the Ship then, my People! Kill the bloody bastards who would keep her from you!" The cry drifted across the rapidly diminishing distance with astonishing clarity. The horde picked up the words. "The Ship, the Ship, the Ship . . . !" The chanting swelled with the sound of gunfire and engines until the roaring of the Sea was lost and the wind was silenced in its awful power. "The Ship, the Ship . . . !" Technos and soldiers hunched over their weapons, counting bullets, calculating ranges and arcs of fire. "The Ship, the Ship . . . !" Shan became dimly aware of the hatred that permeated the chanting. "The Ship, the Ship . . . !" A gun was in his hand; he and the men around him began to fall into the brutal tranquillity that Rome had felt at Bloody Ford. "The Ship, the Ship . . . !"
Now it was so clear—here, around Shan and Macalic, the
Victory,
the Technos, the machinery, the steel and iron magnificently cold and inhuman in the afternoon sun. It was the First World in all its tragic power, standing again upon the hangman's drop, as good as dead yet wanting to go in a ruthless, slashing cloud of jagged metal and cordite. The compounded blubber of Shan's plump body sloughed away as he moved into the same creation that the first Ship might have been conceived in. His right hand gripped the automatic with a mechanical fury; the metal grip cut into his fingers and droplets of red flowed from his hand onto the gun, joining the two.