Terrible Swift Sword
by
David Pascal
Part Two: 'Broken' (chapters 33-37)
(Note: Part Two is long, so I�m posting it on the FFML day by day in
smaller sections. Interested readers who would like to read or download
the whole of Part Two can find it at the SMJ Fanfiction Page at
http://www.geocities.com/~davidpascal/smj and get the whole piece there
� and really ought to, since it�s much more readably formatted.
Technically, none of the characters appearing in the original Saber
Marionette J series appear in TSS, though a few are referred to. Nor
(offhand) do I think there are any spoilers.
Saber Marionette J is owned and copyrighted by AnimeVillage.com * Satoru
Akahori * Hiroshi Negishi * Tsukasa Kotobuki * Kadokawa Shoten * Bandai
Visual * Sotsu Agency * TV Tokyo.)
Comments should be directed to: davidpascal@juno.com.)
33
She slapped it.
Belt slapped the missile in the face.
With a resounding clang like a Shiyanese gong, the missile took an
instant 90 degree turn left, crashed through the front window of Houston
Hubert�s Haberdashery, into the fitting room, out the back window, down
the side street, into the front window of a Mexican restaurant, through a
heaping dish of tortillas carried by a marionette with two Mexicali
spit-curls, through the owner�s prized velour painting of The Cisco Kid
and Pancho, through the flimsy rear wall behind it, and shot three
hundred feet over the landscape till it arced down to slam into a large
privately-owned rabbit hutch, where it exploded with a bang you could
hear two miles away.
Rabbits� feet rained down onto the main street of Jacksonville like
snowflakes.
�Punks,� muttered Belt. She looked down at her feet and suddenly noticed
McCabe. She reached down, grabbed him by his hair, and pulled his head
up, unhooking his nose from her spur. �What the hell -- ?� she said.
Billy ran up to her. She looked at him. He was bent over, hands on
knees, panting. �Belt! -- you�re OK! -- thank the Lord! -- I was � I
mean -- I didn�t � I should�ve � I meant to -- .� He straightened up all
at once, looked around, ran over to a watering trough for chevies,
scooped up two handfuls of water, ran back to Belt, noticed all the water
in his hands had leaked out along the way, said �Dang Dang Dang!�, ran
back, reached into Hubert�s front window, took a vase of flowers, pulled
out the flowers, left them on the doily beneath the vase, dunked the vase
in the trough till it was full of water, ran back to Belt, and looked at
her.
She looked at him.
He poured all the water in the vase over her head.
It ran down her face. She blinked.
�I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,�
said Billy.
�You�re out of your fucking mind, aren�t you, Billy?� said Belt.
A soldier in a blue uniform jumped on her and began smacking her in the
ear with his pistol butt. She casually flipped him backwards over the
nearest building. His scream was a long fading yowl.
�Don�t do that!� said Billy.
�Yeah yeah yeah,� she mumbled, wiping water out of her eye. �I�ll toss
him through the building next time. Better?�
�No, it ain�t better! You�re saved now! You got to learn to be gentle
with menfolk!�
Two bullets, a chevy�s horseshoe, and a bottle of Russian Rum bounced off
her head.
�Gentle,� she said. She nodded.
�Cut it out, you rapscallions!� shouted Billy. �Dagnab it! Can�t we all
just get along?�
Another bottle of rum bounced off Billy�s head. He keeled over and fell
flat on the ground. Through a merry-go-round haze, he saw pretty stars
waving hello at him, and he half-grinned back like Elvis. His
consciousness twanged like a Grand Ol� Opry steel guitar on terrible LSD.
Belt turned slowly, a one-marionette Panzer Division, eyes narrowing.
�Who threw that goddam bottle?� she roared.
There were about twenty men in the street. All twenty of them pointed
straight at each other. An inarticulate but loud low growl emerged from
Belt�s throat. They stopped pointing and jumped for cover through the
nearest available doors or windows.
One Mexican-looking boy stood stock still in the center of the street.
He was wrapped in a blanket that covered his face, and just stood there.
He didn�t seem scared of Belt at all. Enraged, Belt leapt, landed in
front of him, and tossed a subsonic punch guaranteed to pop the fool�s
brain into orbital trajectory.
He caught her hand. And stopped it. Just like that.
Belt�s fury evaporated in sheer astonishment. She looked at the boy�s
face. The blanket lowered. It wasn�t a boy. The huge slightly slanted
black eyes, the short hair lifting slightly in the storm breeze, the
blanket � the blanket from the buckboard.
�Gel,� she said.
34
By the time the Civil War was over on paper, Doctor Ahab Pierce was
fifty, and he had achieved a measure of status, influence, and even
power, that very few people indeed held in New Texas. At the conclusion
of the War, President Joy had issued him the Congressional Medal of Honor
and Valor, the Lifetime Scientific Achievement Award, the Hero of Texan
Freedom Award, three coveted Silver Stars, nearly every top honor
available. He�d earned a measure of respect, a leeway, even with those
in Washington. The Press, eager to manufacture heroes for a
conspicuously unheroic war, compared him to Lincoln: he had the same
hollow eyes, the gaunt heavily lined cheeks, the grieving features. Like
Lincoln, he had won the war, preserved the Union. And unlike the
saber-rattlers and the politicians, he was unsullied -- a heroic
researcher dedicating his life with monastic intensity to pure research.
All the images were lies, and all, to Ahab, meant nothing.
It helped, in some ways. The younger assistants and researchers � there
was no reason to bark and prod anymore. He was the great Ahab Pierce
now. They were honored simply to be in his presence. They idolized him.
He did not respond with affection, of course. He remembered Gauleiter.
The only thing that mattered to Pierce was survival and further research,
because so long as he survived, Gel survived, and so long as he could
continue to do research, Gel would continue to grow.
It took him nearly nine years to resurrect her. There were a number of
reasons. He didn�t want to put her through version after crippled
version. He wanted her back intact. And that was tough. They�d taken
her to a �safe place� in New Washington � an underground bomb shelter
with concrete walls six feet thick and a five-inch by five-inch slot to
let in air. They shut her in, to wait for Pierce�s call. She was given
a metal box to sit on, if she wished. It contained one hundred grenades.
It exploded two minutes after they shut the door. They respected Ahab
Pierce�s legendary craftsmanship. Another hundred grenades were shot
down in through the air slot. And then another. Her body was completely
destroyed. But not her mind. That was nano-based now. It could rebuild
itself, once activated.
Pierce chose to wait. By day he gave the government their launchers and
incendiary devices, slowly and reluctantly and with disgust, and then he
labored privately at night, working each last nano-inference out in his
mind on the loneliness of his cot under the blackboards before falling
asleep. He even managed to artfully combine the two lines of research �
after all, a saber marionette could lay waste to a hundred soldiers, and
William Ahab Pierce gave New Texas the greatest saber marionettes in the
world. They tooks years to manufacture and hundreds of thousands of
dollars to produce, but once produced, it was like Pierce had said: no
human army could withstand them. The President was particularly pleased
� armies incapable of disobedience. Incapable of treachery. Incapable
of mercy. Pierce would enter the labs to direct research and the lab
assistants would read the news of the war and crow � six thousand dead in
Emmetsburg, three thousand dead in Twelvetrees, eleven thousand dead in
Only Oak. The sabers slaughtered everything in their path. Pierce
pretended he heard nothing, and heard every last word every single time.
Joy was gratified. Deeply gratified. He gave Pierce all the funding he
needed. The Enclosure was like a small city now � the military research
center of New Texas. And in it Pierce was revered. Even the spies who
still watched him round the clock barely paid any real attention anymore.
What for? After all -- he had been broken. William Ahab Pierce and New
Texas were one
Pierce used the money and the center to establish an new branch of
research into an entirely new level of marionette development � models
called �Swift Swords�. The ultimate ground-force fighting weapon. The
war was nearly over by the time Swift Sword development produced its
first fruits -- its first flower: Gel. It wasn�t an accident. He could
have brought her back earlier. He didn�t want to. He didn�t want her to
be sent out like the other marionettes. He didn�t want her to wallow in
blood -- the way he had wallowed in it. Drowned in it. Gel had never
hurt a thing in her life. Pierce wanted to make sure she would never be
forced to. So he waited nine long years, till the war was all but over.
By then the Enclosure had assembled all the components, all the
mechanisms, and when Gel had been put back together completely, Pierce
ordered them every last person out of the laboratory and out of the
corridors and he picked Gel up in his arms and took her back to her room
and sat her on her pillow beside her bonsai trees and her koto, and
pushed a button on her back.
Her head twisted, her shoulders straightened, she lifted her face, she
opened her eyes, she saw Ahab�s face and began to smile the exquisite,
beautiful fourteen-year-old�s smile he had seen in the rain, on the steps
of a glistening gazebo, nine years earlier. It faded away almost
immediately, in shock. Of course. Not a moment�s time had passed for
Gel since New Washington. She had only left him moments ago, to wait for
his return. He was young and arrogant and vital then. Now he was
white-haired and scarred, his face and limbs marred by beatings, lines of
age and sorrow and overwork cut into his pale thin face.
�Hi honey,� he said. He tried to smile.
She reached her hand out and touched his cheek. Then she threw both her
arms around her.
He had so much to tell her. There was so much he�d planned to say. But
all he could do was hold her in his arms and weep.
35
�Hajimemashite, 3.3,� said Gel. She smiled. It was an � extraordinary
smile. Belt didn�t know what to make of it � she�d never seen an
expression like that on anyone�s face, human or marionette. It was � it
was radiant. Angelic. Physical beauty wasn�t the word to describe it.
It was a face in which hatred, anger, fear simply did not exist. Hope
and serenity poured out of it like a beam out of a lighthouse. Belt
looked into it and -- began to � no! She twisted her head away and
threw a punch with her other hand that would smash steel.
But somehow, Gel merely twisted her head slightly and the punch failed to
connect. Belt flew past her and spun headfirst into a hitching post and
through a store front.
McCabe, who had staggered to his feet, watched Belt careen head over
heels into the store. �Good!� he hollered after her, rubbing the
swelling lump atop his head. � -- lousy, evil, dirty, lousy, dirty,
lousy, evil -- .�
A tall officer in a long brown greatcoat over a grey military tunic rode
by him on a majestic chevy. He pulled up the reins as he approached Gel
and the chevy�s two spidery forelegs pawed the high air, then came down
by Gel�s feet. The chevy looked at her, and began to mew, like a hungry
kitten. Gel reached her hand out and stroked its face. It nuzzled its
cheek into it, and shut its eyes.
�Miss Gel?�
�Hai,� she said. �I am Gel.� She looked up at him and smiled. �You are
General Baker?�
�No ma�am,� said the man on horseback, who had also begun to stare at her
face. �I�m � that is � I�m Major Thaddeus Jeffries, Second Army
Irregulars. General Baker is -- .�
�I�m General Baker,� mumbled Gabriel McCabe, limping over. He
straightened, feeling a pain in each individual bone in his backbone. He
straightened and looked her straight in the eye, unflinching. �An honor
to finally make your acquaintance properly, ma�am,� he said, bowing
slightly.
�The honor is mine, General,� she said.
�Not at all, ma�am. You grace the entire Confederacy,� said McCabe.
�Jeff, you got the roads secured?�
�We had some unexpected skirmishes with a squad of bluecoats, Gen�ral,�
said Jeffries. �But I had the boys circle round, and -- .�
�You can bullshit about your Napoleanic leadership later, dammit.
(Beggin� your pardon, ma�am.) You got the road secured or not?�
�The road is secure, sir!�
�Then let�s get hell out of here,� he said. �Well? Get us some chevies.
You expect me to take this lady out of here piggy back?�
�Yes sir! -- I mean, no sir! � I mean�at once, sir!� With a dig of his
spurs, he reared his chevy around and rode down the street.
McCabe turned. Fall shot down from the sky straight in front of him. He
nearly jumped out of his shoes. �Damn, when are you andys gonna act
normal?�
�You�re Gel, aren�t you?� said Fall, ignoring McCabe. She leaned
forward, bringing her nose to within an inch of Gel�s face and looking
all over it. Gel laughed. It was like a distant wind chime. �You�re
really pretty,� said Fall.
�Thank you, 1.0,� said Gel.
Fall touched Gel�s face, and then brought her other hand up and put it on
Gel�s cheek. �You�re really pretty,� said Fall. She seemed puzzled.
�Are you like us?�
Gel put her hands on Fall�s. She smiled. �I�m your mother,� she said.
Half the inside of Buford�s Dolly Dress-Up Emporium blew clean outside of
Buford�s Dolly Dress-Up Emporium and scattered across the street.
Covered with pink ribbons and rouge puffs and a frilly brassiere on her
head, Belt stalked out, black murder in her face. She spotted Gel.
�You. Are. Dead. Meat,� she rumbled.
�Hi, Belt!� said Fall. �Ha you sure look awful dopey!�
�You�re both dead meat!�
�Hold it!� said Billy.
Belt stopped in mid-pounce, groaned, cursed, and fell to her knees. �
�Hold it�,� she said, shaking her head, � �hold� it!� Cursing even more,
she looked round and finally reached up and pulled the brassiere off her
head. She held it.
�Good girl!� said Billy.
�GrrrRRRRGHhhhHHHhhh�.� said Belt.
Billy turned. McCabe spotted his. His jaw dropped. He pulled his
pistol up instantly and pointed it at Billy�s face.
Billy saw him. And the pistol too. He walked up to McCabe, who looked
at him as though he were looking at a ghost.
"Why'd you shoot me in the head, Mr. McCabe?" said Billy.
�You�re dead!� said McCabe.
Billy smiled. �Oh, that�s right, you don�t know, do you?� Billy patted
the knot on the neckerchief around his temples. �I got a hard head, Mr.
McCabe.�
�What?�
�Hajimemasite, Billy-sama,� said the small girl beside McCabe.
Billy didn't understand the words, but then it came to him.
"You're...you�re Gel, ain�t you?"
She nodded. She reached out, and put her hand on his cheek. She smiled,
looking at him with a strange expression bordering on heartbreak.
Fall instantly drew both her arms, like boas, through Billy's. "He's
mine!" she barked.
Gel let her hand fall. She nodded. "As it was meant to be." She looked
at Billy again. She smiled again. "Take her and 3.3 and leave this
place. Go away. Far away." Gel turned to McCabe. "It's time we were
leaving too, General," she said.
McCabe nodded. "How much time we got?" said McCabe.
"Thirty-five hours," said Gel.
"Thirty-five hours?" said Billy. "Till what?"
Gel looked at Billy. "The end of the world, B-chan."
"What?" said Billy.
"Go," she said. "Now." Gel turned and walked to McCabe, who had mounted
a chevy brought by the Lieutenant. He stretched his hand out to her.
"Wait a minute," said Billy. "You're -- you're just gonna leave us
here?"
"You can't help," said Gel. "You can only destroy yourself. And the
others. There's no need to die. Walk away. Live."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about, ma'am. But I do know that I
ain't runnin' away from nothing. I � I want to know who I am and I want
to know what this is all about. You know. Don't you?"
She smiled. An incredible, beautiful smile. "I know everything."
"Then tell me!"
She looked at him and gave him the same serene radiant smile. "No."
" 'No'? But � you can�t -- ."
Gel turned away.
Belt grabbed Gel by the arm.
"Billy gave you an order, bitch," said Belt.
"You can't stop what has to be, 3.3. Please let go."
Belt laughed. " 'Please let go'. You think we�re just going to let you
stroll off after all this. �You know everything�. Shit, you probably
set us up. All of us. Didn't you? You're probably still setting us up.
You think I'm just going to let go?" She stared at Gel. "Billy gave
you an order. He gave you an order! How can you walk away? How can you
say no and walk away?"
"Let go," said Gel.
Suddenly the air between Belt and Gel began to somehow buckle. It was as
though a glass wall had fallen between them, a wall of acetylene heat,
making everything seen through it warp. It cut cleanly down on Belt's
wrist. Belt threw a punch so fast Billy's eyes couldn't register it, but
when it hit the wall of heat it penetrated barely more than three of four
inches and no more. Belt cursed aloud, and pushed, but the fist went no
further, and as it hung there it began to fume. It began to be pushed
back, millimeter by millimeter, till finally it seemed to almost be spit
out with a sizzling hiss. But Belt held on to Gel's arm. She wouldn't
let go, despite the staggering heat. And then purplish dots, like
fireflies, flitted up and encircled Gel, and a low swiftly rising whine
began to sound, an apocalyptic cross between a radio siren and siren.
"Let go," said Gel.
"How can you say no?" said Belt, and dug her fingers into Gel's arm,
trying to twist it off.
Belt's hand began to blacken and fume. Blue smoke rose from it. The
black skin peeled back, revealing steely knuckle-knobs and
molybdenum-cased fingers.
Gel�s head tilted sadly. "Gomen nasai," said Gel.
Fall twisted and grabbed Billy and ran for cover.
A sonic boom crashed down onto the streets of Jacksonville, like an
insanely amplified crash of thunder. A hundred feet away it managed to
toss Fall into the air like an autumn leaf; she wrapped herself around
Billy like an overcoat and the two tumbled with the force behind a high
porch, all the wood planks of which flew up like chopsticks. Belt's hand
exploded like a sparkler, she screamed, and the force slapped the stub of
a wrist clean away, throwing her severed hand and her body with it down
the street with the velocity of two cannonballs. She crashed through a
hitched wagon and the water trough beside it into a storefront.
Gel turned to McCabe. "It is time to go, General," she said.
36
One year earlier, on Ahab Pierce�s sixtieth birthday, Dr. Pierce was
cordially invited to New Washington to celebrate the formal establishment
of NATO � the Newly Allied Terratoon Organizations, a mutual defense
organization consisting of New Texas, Petersburg, and Romana. Its avowed
goal was to provide mutual defense in the event of invasion; its unspoken
goal was to keep Garlant inside its borders; its eventual goal was to
give Frank Joy de facto control over the planet.
Gartlant had clearly considered occupying the Southern Territories and
possibly even New Texas itself had Joy�s government collapsed; Japoness
had on more than one occasion protested New Texas� genocidal policies in
the Southern Territories, and had debated giving economic aid to the
rebels. A global war could have erupted. That was not a problem now, of
course. Thanks to Ahab Pierce. The Civil War had given Franklin Joy the
best battle-trained army in existence, a saber marionette force equal to
any in the world, and any day now � if Pierce�s experiments panned out,
and they invariably did � nuclear plasma armaments, and the missiles to
deliver them. Gartlant was not far behind, but it was far enough behind.
Faust hadn�t taken the gamble that Doctor Lightner had urged onto
President Joy: he hadn�t created someone smarter than himself.
It had become a race of technologies, and New Texas was winning the race.
Romana and Petersburg knew it, and were picking the winning side early
and allying themselves with New Texas. Shiyan would be next, and if
Shiyan joined, then Japoness would join�and Japoness, well, there was
never any love lost between Shiyan and Japoness � an incident could be
arranged; Shiyan could �protect itself�. New Texas would come to the aid
of its beleaguered ally. Japoness would be partioned into slices like a
pizza. And then, last of all, it would be Gartlant�s turn.
�And we owe it all to you, Dr. Pierce,� said some Senatorial nonentity,
clapping Pierce on the back. Pierce looked at him as though he were some
sub-variety of paramecium. The man cleared his throat and scuttled off
to schmooze elsewhere. Pierce took his champagne glass to one of the
great bay windows overlooking the Capitol and Lake Potomac. The moon
shone over it. Pierce was thinking about the conversation he�d had
earlier with a number of geologists. The information from sources in
Gartlant had been confirmed: there was in fact evidence that Terratoo
underwent periodic catastrophic geological change. Every 80,000 or so
years, tectonic plates would shift, the planet�s crust would crack, and
volcanic plasma would burst out, exterminating life on a global scale.
Faust was developing some sort of marionette-based absorption system.
Strategically placed marionettes could bore into the most dangerous
pressure points, absorb the plasma energy when it approached critical
mass, and re-direct it elsewhere. There were numerous pressure points,
however, and it would require joint national cooperation.
The government of New Texas replied that it would take it under serious
advisement. The information went to its Science Advisor, Dr. Ahab
Pierce, who replied by top-secret courier to President Joy, that his
personal analysis indicated that exploding one small-scale nuclear device
at the exact position of a major pressure point would set off a series of
earthquakes accompanied by bursts of underground plasma radiation leakage
exterminating most all forms of mammalian life within roughly a thousand
miles of the epicenter. One nuke to an already designated plasma point
near the Gartlant capital would put an end to Gartlant. Period. The
surviving nations would presumably wish to avoid a similar fate, and join
New Texas, rather in the way that the Southern Territories had. Joy was
� overjoyed.
Pierce had added that New Texas had a very limited window of opportunity.
Gartlant was developing its own missiles and its own nuclear capability
and there were plasma points on New Texas territory as well. New Texan
research couldn�t simply stand still while Gartlant developed the power
to obliterate the entire nation. It was another race � which Pierce
would win, given the funding.
Joy sent a simple two word response: �Do it.�
Pierce did it. It was simple -- infantile. Varieties of plasma were
fissionable, like uranium. All one had to do was copy ancient American
nuclear bomb devices plans dating back to Alamagordo. Even New Texas�
joke of an industrial infrastructure could handle that. As for missiles?
Neither New Texas nor any other nation had an effective radio and no air
force or missile capability. The plasma clouds precluded that. Whatever
went up high enough was struck down by electrical bolts from a plasma
cloud within minutes. They permeated the skies. Pierce�s solution was
equally simple: create a radar-operated missile that hugged the ground.
It would shoot out at an angle and adjust itself to rise no more than six
to twenty feet above ground, rising or falling with the lay of the land.
He completed it on paper within a week, and made it operable within six
months. And told New Washington it would not be operable for a minimum
of two years.
Pierce returned to the Enclosure under armed military escort. He sat in
the personal coach, looking through the bulletproof glass out at the vast
surrounding plains, thick now with vast roaming herds of chevies, pouring
sea-like over the plain like the long-gone Buffalo. When he got out,
lines of crack troops clicked their heels and saluted him. Elite teams
swarmed around his coach, ready to give their lives to keep him from
being scratched. The Enclosure, on his return, almost seemed to sparkle.
Hundreds upon hundreds of researchers worked there now. Five thousand
troops were stationed round the clock in barracks. Dozens of
above-ground laboratories and facilities were mirrored by dozens of
below-ground ones. Off to the East, Pierce could see the deep metal
groove being dug, the launch pad for the New Texan Missile Defense
project. Far past that, out of sight, a test range for the first plasma
nuke was already being prepared.
Pierce looked at it all, and thought: madness. Sheer absolute madness.
He entered the underground facilities and, as always, stopped first at
the experimental robotics section. The researchers fell all over
themselves at his unannounced presence. He went to the Tombs, the
nickname for the sarcophagous-like sapphire crypts within which inactive
experimentals were stored. He checked the readings, and looked inside.
There were twenty in storage. Ten were being �tested�. Pierce�s face
turned red with anger at the mere thought of it. The experimentals were
all like her, like Gel � more human than the �human beings� who made
them, not less. They ought to have been educated, cultivated, worked
alongside, cared for � loved. But Pierce could only get funding for
�military weapons� and so every experimental, every exquisite flower of
consciousness he brought into being, sooner or later had to be brutalized
and assaulted and �honed for combat�. Pierce�s anger turned to fury as
he thought about it. He virtually had to beg them to continue funding
this year. They looked back with that constant mindless stare. �Why
waste military money on brainy marionettes when you can spend it better
things like nukes?� Apes might have said the same things. Why develop
man, when what we apes really need are harder clubs and more bananas.
That�s what they were � apes. Monsters. Ahab put his hand on his chest.
Pain sparkled through it like a branch. He reached into his pocket and
took out a pill and swallowed it. The pain lessened. Calm down, he
thought to himself. You�re not young anymore. Calm down.
He placed his hand on a sapphire crypt. My creations, he thought. My
children. He almost cursed himself for having to bring them into the
murderous human world. But he had to. Gauleiter was right. There had
to be something greater in the universe than man. There had to be � even
if man had to create that something himself.
He sighed and turned away and walked down the now-gleaming silver
corridors to Gel.
Later that evening, Pierce and Gel lay together on the floor in their
futon in Gel�s room. The water in the babbling brook trickled quietly.
Cool air glided calmly in through artfully concealed vents. Gel slept in
his arms. He looked at her face. It moved, subtly. She was dreaming.
He had given her that -- dreams. Gentle dreams, he was sure � what else
could Gel�s dreams be, but exquisite, like herself? He wished they could
both enter her gentle dreams, and leave the bitter world outside forever.
All their lives together Ahab Pierce and his marionette Gel held a very
deeply hidden secret amongst themselves. The secret was that each knew
the other had a soul. Pierce would have discarded the word with utter
contempt, but � he felt it. When Gel played the koto, or placed a Go
stone, or trimmed her bonsai, or simply looked up at him and smiled, he
realized something he could not put into words but which he felt � he
knew -- was the most important thing in the world. The most important
thing of all. He would sometimes hold her face in his hands and simply
look into it, like someone hypnotized by the depths of a pool or a gem.
She was real; she was all that was real; his titles, his discoveries, his
power, the people he dealt with, the walls that surrounded him, the
present, the past � it was all nonsense, shadows. He loved her so deeply
that looking at her was like looking into the roots of eternity. A light
that made time�s shadows vanish. And what he saw in Gel, incredibly, Gel
saw in him. Him, with his aged, broken body, his social clumsiness, his
conceit, the lakes of human blood on his hands. How was it possible?
And now that Ahab had reached the age of sixty, they began to share
another secret, a secret they never mentioned. The secret of death. He
would look at her eternally lovely fourteen-year-old�s features, and
realize the contrast to his own. His wrinkled hands with brown age
spots, his pale slack skin, the bags under his eyes, the slack flesh over
his aching arthritic bones, the pills he increasingly took. How long?
He would think those words over and over: how long? Life�s wounds
seemed to grow more vivid with age: his face would still ache at night
where the cowboy in the alley had struck him, and the ribs and knee Joy�s
men had shattered would take their dig with the wrong breath, turning
like a dirk. Even the wrists he�d slashed as a boy began to wake him at
night with their spasms. All the old pains came back like ghosts and
whispered a single word, an annunciation: death. The old, failing body
would break down. And where would he be then? He looked at the gravel
whorls of the Zen garden in Gel�s room, and thought � soon, in six years,
or five, or one, I�ll be gone. I�ll leave everything � my surroundings,
my world, my body, my mind, the only person in the universe that I love.
All that I did, all that I am, will be nothing. An absence. An
emptiness.
And Gel (he knew), who loved him, saw the decay, the toll, and pretended
not to. He had gone from child to student to lover to father to
grandfather � his body was a scarecrow on a stick, flapping in the wind.
But the wind was Ahab Pierce, the gusts moving the tatters were the mind
and heart of the person who had given her life, awareness, understanding,
love � hers and his own. The one who had sacrificed everything for her,
his own liberty, his own conscience. She had held his small hand as a
child, and now cradled his weary frightened white head. Love began a
slow dance with fear, pity, denial of the inevitable. And every moment
under that spectre took on a new unique intensity, like the guttering of
a last candle
How long, he thought, how much longer could it be? He was old now. Old,
and ill. His leg had never healed; the beatings he had had had damaged
his liver and perhaps his heart. His broken bones ached, and arthritis
began to rack the ones that remained. He would wash his face in the
morning, astounded at the white hair, the deeply cut lines. Old man!
He had so little time, yet he began to waste even what little he had, on
memories, even on history, on books. The only culture he had ever known
was Japanese, through Gel, yet strangely enough he began to savor the
culture of the old Soviet Union: that poignant art of the totally
enslaved, the symphonies of Shostakovich, the poetry of Tsvetaeva and
Akhmatova. He read Sakharov: Sakharov who gave Stalin the H-Bomb.
Sakharov, his brother. He read literature and philosophy, and would sink
into gloom, brooding. Till Gel would interrupt his brooding, run up to
him and take his hand and pull him to her bonsai garden, still the girl
of fourteen, pulling the old man limping behind. She would cover his
striking tragic face with kiss after kiss, and he would think: how long?
Time had stopped for Gel, but for Ahab evening was descending, evening
and darkness. The reality of his own death amazed him. Soon � soon he
would leave behind these walls where he had lived all his life and be �
where? And Gel would be alone. Alone.
No. Not alone. She would be surrounded again. Surrounded. By
monsters.
He touched his hand to her soft black hair.
No, he thought. No. Never. Never.
37
McCabe looked at the hole in the storefront through which Belt had been
thrown. He looked at Gel and cleared his throat. "Uhh�say, you, uh,
probably need a leg up to get upside this chevy, don�t you, ma�am?� he
said. What the hell else was there to say? He dismounted and prepared
to help Gel up. To his amazement she weighed barely seventy pounds. He
could have lifted her with one hand. He lifted her in the air with two,
to nestle her up on the saddle � till she saw the expression on her face.
�Let go of me,� she said. �Run.�
McCabe stood there holding her up. Puzzled, he twisted his head to see
what she was looking at. It was a terrified-looking Union soldier still
in his teens shaking like leaf and holding a � weird-looking something at
Gel.
�Shit!� he said. He dropped Gel to the ground. It was Skinner�s
experimental blaster. He�d dropped it when he�d slammed his head into
Belt!
Gel grabbed him by his shirt front and casually flicked him twenty or so
feet into the relative softness of a chevy lying outside a storefront on
its side, knocked asleep by the explosion she�d caused.
The young soldier raised the thing in his hand at her. It was entirely
plain-looking: a rectangular shape, like a cigarette box, only larger,
and with a silvery brass-knuckles-like attachment at one end for the user
to hold and aim it with. It shone oddly, like mother-of pearl, and had
no other distinguishing features except for the front, the barrel
opening, which was a large, flat, and a moist gleaming black, almost like
Gel�s eyes.
The soldier lifted the thing underneath, like a sawed-off shotgun. Gel
looked at him. He looked barely thirteen. He stared at her, not sure
himself whether he was going to fire at her or be killed by her. She
smiled at him and held out her hand. He stuttered a prayer.
Billy and Fall got up from way down the street. A burst of wood flew
out of a storefront, and Belt staggered out of the storefront like a
drunkard. The edges of her hair were on fire. "Where are you, bitch!"
she shrieked, holding her blackened stump of a wrist.
Gel turned. A woozy halo of buckling purple appeared around the tips of
her fingers. She pointed her index finger at Belt.
Belt launched herself at Gel with a scream. A crackle of lavender
lightning appeared instantaneously. A sound, a deafening roar, twice as
violent as before, fell from the heavens. The bolt and the roar caught
Belt in the mid-section and threw her through another hitching post.
Belt tried to raise herself with one arm, twitched violently, and then
fell back and lay there in dead silence. Gel turned again and spotted
Billy. She pointed at Billy.
�No!� screamed Fall, throwing herself in front of him. A different
lavender bolt, as bright and as loud, but absolutely straight, like a
laser, slammed into Fall�s back. It threw neither Fall nor Billy a single
inch. It�s light merely crackled around them for a moment, roaring
horrendously. Then Billy�s head fell forward, lifeless, on Fall�s
shoulder. She stood there, shuddering, jerking, machine-like, holding
Billy up in her arms. She began to sink to her knees and light seemed to
drain out of everything everywhere. Is this it -- death, she wondered?
She looked to the left and to the right for Jesus, but only Billy was
there. Billy�you�re so pretty�, she thought., as he slipped from her
arms.
She took two steps backwards, and stood there, and exploded.
Gel turned. The young soldier facing her was still standing there. He
was too scared to run. So scared, a dark spreading stain had appeared at
his crotch. Gel faced him. Gel smiled at him.
�Fucking machines,� he began to mutter, louder and louder, his teeth
chattering. He put his finger against a button on the brass-knuckle-like
end he held. �Fucking machines. Fucking machines. Fucking machines!�
He screamed and pushed the button.
There was an utterly silent light burst like an intense photoflash,
whitening the entire Jacksonville street. Gel�s head was torn off at the
neck and flew up into the air, like a champagne cork, and her left arm
and upper shoulder also tore away with it, whirling beside the head in
the air like a tossed baseball bat. The head snapped away and plopped
into a watering trough where a wounded chevy had dragged itself for a
last drink before dying. A splash flew up, and the arm and shoulder fell
down nearby.
The blanket slipped from Gel�s headless, one-armed nude body. It simply
stood there. The young soldier stared at it, unblinking. The brass
knuckle handle was glowing red hot, turning the soldier�s palm to charred
fuming meat. He didn�t notice. He stared at the remainders of Gel�s
body and began giggling. A high crazy giggle. Gel�s body sank to its
knees, and fell over. Dust rose.
The soldier giggled some more, then fell to his knees and lowered the box
gun. He vomited. After the last trace of his breakfast splashed out
along his knees, he shut his eyes and praised merciful God. Then he
lifted his head and opened them. Gabriel V. McCabe�s boot kicked his
face a good six feet.
Sergeant Matthews sat in a second floor window watching it. He steadied
his .45 Colt Peacemaker on the sill and drew a bead on McCabe�s head.
�Matt!� said the buck-toothed junior officer behind the Union soldier.
�What the hell you want, Ned?� barked Matthews, staring down the gun
sight. Christ Almighty, he�d seen four years of chasing defective andys
and nothing like this street fight, ever.
�We�re getting zero readings.�
�The damned things are dead?�
�Yes, sir,� said the soldier, looking at the sensor issued at the
Enclosure. The soldier smiled � he laughed, joyously, nervously.
�They�re dead as hell. They�re all dead as hell, Matt!�
Matthews turned back to blow away McCabe. He aimed. A burst of
Confederate gunfire from across the street blew in the window.
�God damn!� Tiny spurs of glass stuck into his cheek like bristles. He
pulled one or two out carefully and swore.
�The hell with the damned andys,� said the Matthews, �and the hell with
this damned town. Dead�s good enough. We�re pulling out. They can send
in the regulars to clean up. Give the order, Ned.�
McCabe looked down the street, trying to understand what had happened,
what to do. He pulled the box gun from the hand of the boy he�d just
kicked in the face and stuck it down his longcoat�s pockets and looked
around. A terrified chevy was cowering beside a porch, whining high fast
mews like piccolo notes. He ran over and curled his leg around and sat
down and took the reins. He kicked her with his spurs. �Get up,
dammit!� It stood up, nervously. He flicked the reins and said, "Git."
The chevy emitted a flute-like whinny, circled, and galloped down the
street on all six legs.
McCabe crouched, expecting Union gunfire. But there was nothing. Out of
the corner of his eye he could see blue uniforms in retreat. Were they
withdrawing? Didn�t matter, he thought; didn�t matter anymore. Maybe
nothing mattered anymore. He and the chevy charged down the street till
he got to Fall and Billy. He had the chevy kneel down. He reached over
and grabbed Fall by her pony tail. She was in six parts, but they were
all held together by wiring, like a puppet with the strings still
intact. She was light too. Not like Belt, he thought. He pulled her up
and hauled the pieces over his saddle. The chevy rose.
�Hopkins! Johnson! You still alive?� he shouted.
A head peered out of a second-floor window and a voice behind a rifle
barrel called back around a corner.
�We is,� they said.
�Grab the pieces of that andy there and meet me at rendezvous Able
Charlie. Rest of the boys � disperse. Got it?�
�Yep.�
�Move!�
The two Confederates were on the street in seconds, scarfing up panicked
chevies, and casting distrustful eyes at the windows and rooftops. It
looked like the Bluebellies had had enough, but you never knew. Johnson
picked up the Gel�s torso and dragged it over his saddle. Hopkins got
the shoulder-and-arm and somehow managed to stuff all but the forearm
down his saddlebags. He examined the water troughs, and there at the
bottom of the second was Gel�s head. Hopkins pulled it out by the hair
and got on his chevy, holding it under his arm like a soccer ball.
They rode over to McCabe, who had moseyed over to Belt and was looking
down silently at her from his chevy. Two other Confederates had joined
him. Hopkins and Johnson rode past them and headed toward the
rendezvous.
�What about that one?� said one of the men with McCabe.
McCabe turned his head away. �Leave her. She don�t matter,� said
McCabe. He pulled up on his reins. �Let�s go.�
The three chevies galloped off down the street.
*