10

16th Side: After the Fight

Per struggled toward where he’d seen his father fall. Panicked people shoved by, yelling, bashing into him, sending him staggering. Hands grabbed at him, pushed him. Angry, frightened men lunged at him drunkenly. He was aware, remotely, of his eyes stinging, as if smoke had got into them. He seized a man by the scruff of his shirt and his hair, trying to heave him out of his way, and his eyes gushed tears, blinding him. Letting the man go, he put his hands to his eyes, to wipe them, but the tears were a flood stream. Light dazzled and starred, his eyes closed. However hard he tried to keep them open, they smarted and closed. Breathing was harder. His chest and throat tightened. Choked and blinded, his heart pounding with fear of attack while blind, he groped around him, touching hair, touching skin. Was this Elf-Work? His hand closed on air, then smacked against other groping arms. He struck out at them, angry and afraid, and the arms struck back. But Per hadn’t the breath for fighting. Bent double, eyes sore, he waited for the next blow from his unseen opponent, but none came. The noise around him had changed. Instead of cries of alarm and anger, now there was a confused groaning and sobbing. Forcing himself to stand upright, he tried to raise the rallying cry but couldn’t draw the breath.

Andrea, rounding the corner of the Sterkarm dormitory, saw that the brightly lit area in front of the inflatable was full of people, half dressed, half awake, half drunk, running about and beckoning others on. She hurried toward the entrance of the building but saw something that made her stop dead and raise fists to her face. A man wearing camouflage fatigues and a large, face-covering helmet and carrying some sort of gun—he was unmistakably a 21st sider—darted across the open space in front of the dorm, dodging the confused people. Near the entrance he dropped to one knee, raised his weapon, and fired into the inflatable building.

Andrea shouted, “No!” but couldn’t move. Cringing, she waited, horrified, for the dorm to explode, to burst into flames.

Isobel hauled herself upright again and stood, clutching a bedpost. She shook her head and cursed herself for being weak.

The dorm, when she looked about, was almost empty, except for a few very small children cowering on a bed against the wall while a row of women stood in front of them, armed with candlesticks and knives. Isobel let go of the bedpost and determinedly set herself to cross the room and join them.

Something flew through the beaded curtain and landed, smoking, on the floor.

The women cried out in anger and shock, and two of them ran forward and swiped at the thing—it was a canister—with their candlesticks. And then they dropped their weapons and put their hands to their faces.

Isobel took another two steps toward them and found herself blinded.

And Joan, having pulled on her shift and nerved herself to find courage, for the sake of the Grannams’ reputation, edged through the bead curtain from her bridal suite, to see her mother-in-law crawling on the floor, sobbing. She halted, appalled, and saw a group of other Sterkarm women twisting and writhing as they turned their faces this way and that, and mopped at their eyes with sleeves and skirts. A heap of children squealed and sobbed on a bed.

Joan drew back into her suite, unable to understand what was wrong with the women. As she stood there, bewildered, her own eyes smarted and flooded.

Everyone Andrea could see was doubling up, clutching at their faces—but the dorm didn’t explode or burn. Something arced over the heads of the people. It looked like a large tin can, trailing smoke. The can was lost to view as it fell among the people—but another and another came arcing into view.

She stopped again, thinking: What are they? Grenades? Shells? She didn’t know whether to run forward, shouting warnings, or to run away. As she hesitated, her eyes spurted tears. Putting her hands to her face, she found water streaming from her eyes and felt them smarting. She couldn’t open her eyes. They were closed with tears, gummed shut with a barrier of water she couldn’t see through. The air had thickened, or her throat narrowed. It was harder to breathe.

Tear gas! She’d seen film of it being used to break up riots—she even had a friend who’d been in a crowd at a demonstration when the police had fired tear gas among them. Her first reaction was gratitude. This would end the fight between the Sterkarms and the Grannams, which would certainly have resulted in murder. It had to be Windsor’s doing. Good for him! For once. There’d be some sore eyes among the 16th siders and some coughs, but no one would be hurt.

Her gratitude changed to fear when she felt a hand close around her arm and someone pulled at her. She reached out wildly with one hand, groping, and connected with something hard and rounded—a helmet.

A man’s voice, rather muffled and indistinct, said, “It’s all right, miss. I only want to take you to the truck. Get you out of here.”

The gruff politeness calmed her considerably, and she allowed herself to be towed along, too breathless to talk. At first, bodies bumped against her and staggered away—obviously they were picking their way through people as blind as herself. But then there was more space, and the man beside her said, “Here we are, then, miss. You’ll be okay here.” The guiding hand left her arm, and she felt lonely and helpless. Her eyes and throat burned and she didn’t know when the pain would ease. She heard other people nearby—she could hear them moving, and she heard a car engine. A lot of shouting and moaning was still going on. Putting out a hand, she felt cold metal. Feeling around, she decided that she was standing next to some kind of vehicle.

“Andrea!” said a voice she knew, despite its muffled sound. “Silly girl! What did you do with your gas mask?”

Windsor. She couldn’t tell exactly where he was, and that made her feel oddly insecure. She wanted to say, angrily, that she didn’t have a gas mask, and hadn’t known she would need a gas mask, but she could only cough and gasp.

“Couldn’t wait to get your hands on young Sterkarm, could you?” Windsor said. “I saw you running out of the tent with him. Indecent haste, I call it.”

Andrea coughed again. It was the only sound she could manage.

“If you’d only waited, you could have done it in much more comfort. But you hot-blooded barmaids … Never mind! Out of here soon. When we’ve finished the roundup.”

She managed to croak, “What?”

A confused sound of grunting and panting came from close by, and someone—Windsor, she supposed—pulled her out of the way. There were clanging noises, as of something being thrown into a van, sounds of dragging and shoving and shouted, muffled orders.

“We’re all off to have tea at Sterkarm Tower,” Windsor said. “Oh, girls! Isn’t this fun?”