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her self and cause and Shadith opened her throat and sang with her, wordless
wondrous play and passion, her soprano lifting up and up, echoing, mirroring,
plaiting distant harmonies ... until Miowee stopped the interplay,
stilled the strings with a sudden, powerful dissonance. After a beat of
silence, she took up the chain...
There s fire in the palaces and factories
The factories fill with the stilled breath of dead men Dead men
rise and cry out for retribution
Retribution rides the winds of revolution
Revolution burns with holy fire
There s fire in the streets....
Enough! Amplified and colder than the rain, the Nish mok s shout drowned
instrument and voice both.
Shadith swung round, furious at the interruption; she opened her mouth to
excoriate him and a laugh was startled out of her as Miowee complied but got
in a small dig, a slide down a string, a clown s pratfall in sound.
Makwahkik ignored both of them. You at the far end, stand with your backs
against the wall, the rest of you join the singer. Quickly. The handheld
bullhorn filled the space without effort. He wasn t shouting any more. He
didn t need to. Kimeesit.
A kana stepped through the door, touched his chest and bowed, a lean,
gray-haired man taller than most. Move them.
The man bowed again and stepped back inside.
The next several minutes were noisy confusion and deliberate brutality, the
meanness of the kanaweh gnaw-ing at Shadith all the more because it was so
unneces-sary, these people were starvling skeletons with barely enough energy
to stand; only the boys were offering any resistance and even that was passive
rather than active they clustered around Miowee, taking on their own bod-ies
the shoves and kicks that were aimed at her, the cuts from the limber, slitted
canes.
When the confusion was sorted out, around a dozen prisoners were pressed
against the southwall, the rest (about twice the number) were
regimented in three rows back against the northwall; eight kanaweh
were arranged in a line across the middle, four facing south, four north.
Kimeesit stood in the doorway looking up.
Makwahkik held up four fingers, then pointed south. He clapped his hands.
The sound made Shadith jump, then gasp; the crack of the pellet guns came
amplified and echoing up the pit. Four prisoners fell.
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One has learned your lesson, Singer, Makwahkik said. Tomorrow it will be
eight. He clapped his hands again and the kanaweh began herding the prisoners
out of the pit. The next day ten. You can stop it any time.
WATCHER 9
CELL 3
One
Sing
Tom
He c the
CELL 2
One
Sing
Tom
He c the
CELL 1
One has learned your lesson, Singer, Makwahkik said.
Tomorrow it will be eight.
He clapped his hands again and the kanaweh began herding the
Ginbiryol Seyirshi stroked the simi and smiled with contentment as the scene
played out. He was almost regretting the need to ash the world. This was
better. Much better. Experience counted, after all.
Yes. Mak-wahkik was handling her very well indeed. And I was right about that
streetsinger, she will be more important than ever if I read him correctly. We
Praise again this night. Yes. Yesss.
He turned his head. Ajeri Kilavez was playing with her sensorpad, readjusting
the EYE transmissions.
I am aware, Ajeri tiszt, how difficult it was to shift the EYEs, all those
EYEs, without losing important scenes. Good work, Pilot.
Thank you, sir.
He cleared his throat. Puk is?
I think we can untie him tomorrow.
Not tonight?
Better not.
Hmm. Ginbiryol swallowed his disappointment with-out much difficulty, it was
the tiniest of flaws in his vast and increasing happiness. He went back to
studying the Cells, one hand stroking the simi, the other moving over the
test:transfer sensors of the pathecorder outlet.
Chapter 19. Somehow, someway, I m going to get out of this
The room was a cube, covered floor, ceiling, walls with institutional gray
enamel, so many layers of paint the thickness was tangible like an ancient
dirty hide pulled over the stone. The entrance was a rectangle of
gray-painted steel with a slot waist-high for mealtrays and a head-high
covered grill for looking in at whoever occupied the room; a second
door led into a smaller room with a toilet and shower, washbasin, and
mirror. A three-layer bunk bed was shoved into the corner opposite that door.
There were two battered wooden chairs pushed against a wall, a table and an
hassock out in the middle of the floor. In a futile attempt to liven what was
essentially a prison cell, some hopeful soul had brought in rugs with
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geometric patterns in bright primary colors and scattered them about
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