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They took her for part of their game of deviling the marshals and collected
around her as she ran at the cordon. Behind her, Azevedo, far outdistancing
Shanlun, was gaining. Then she was in the alley. The cordon of marshals had
their backs to her, the tumultuous noise of the gypsies masking Laneff s
approach.
She breasted the cordon, the slightness of her body fitting cleanly between
the shoulders of two burly Gens. The two Simes on either side of the Gens
reacted fast enough to get a tentacle hold on Laneff, but Azevedo hit the line
at that moment, and three of them went sprawling, dragging Azevedo down with
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them.
The swarm of children fell on the marshals, laughing gleefully, but she
didn t pause to watch. She plowed into the standing crowd, shouting in every
language she knew, Hurry, hurry. The sun is falling! Tell everyone. The sun
is falling!
It was already so bright that she couldn t see. She was certain her optic
nerve had been destroyed. But zlinning, she made her way along the street,
leaving astonishment ringing behind her. She thought surely the weight of that
rising astonishment would buoy the sun up long enough for everyone to find
safety, as she would. .Running, shoving, she cut across the line of bedecked
cars creeping along with their waving dignitaries. She spooked an honor
guard s camel mount and made it out a side street. Here she had the sidewalk
to herself.
Running under high augmentation, she barely felt need against the euphoria of
hunting mode. People began to pour into the street behind her, spreading her
message by their shouts, and the shouts themselves rose like doves carrying
blue ribbons of peace to the warring heavens. And it seemed the sun was
slowing in its fall!
She was glad she d seen it in time; perhaps humanity had a chance after all.
She ran. She didn t know the city, but something about the place seemed
familiar.
With the Simes on her heels, gaining on her again, she beat a jagged path
toward that familiarity, wondering when the hallucinations were going to
begin. But that hardly mattered if the world came to an end before she had a
chance to disjunct.
She came out of the narrow streets fronted by a thick-walled stone building
into a huge, flat, round area, grassy fields and a few scattered trees,
benches, strolling couples.
In the center of the area was a dark stone monument, a huge replica of the
starred cross. The sun was falling right onto it. Yelling her message, she
leaped over the plastic chain fences and ran up to the monument.
Sandblasters had been working to clean the monument, their scaffold on the
ground, cables pooling about it, and the men themselves were gone. An open
padlock lay beside the equipment, security forgotten as the men went to lunch.
The monument itself stood on the two splayed points of the five-pointed star,
the fifth point shooting straight upward. The equal-armed cross, carved out of
the same solid piece of pink granite as the star, was suspended in the air
just high enough for people to walk erect under its bottom flange.
Laneff s plunge carried her into the exact spot where she had once stood
while her name had been inscribed on this very monument, the Monument to the
Last Berserker.
The memory of that day rose crystal-clear, and the wrenching thrum of her
oath to be the Last Berserker seared through the veil of insanity. She found
herself standing, cold, in the midst of the plaza, unaware of how she d come
there save that this was the moment her life had been focused on, the moment
of the Last Berserker.
The long run under augmentation had sharpened her need to the pitch it had
held at First Need. There were Gens about, alarmed now by the sudden
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appearance of a haggard Sime gypsy. One or two of them were Donors, aware of
her need and moving automatically to her aid.
No! No matter what, I won t kill! No matter how much I want it I won t! But
she was only a renSime. Her resolve meant nothing before the relentless
onslaught of physiology. A woman cannot resolve not to give birth; a renSime
cannot resolve not to kill.
The swarm of pursuers boiled from the outlet of the street she d raced down a
moment before. With an anguished cry, she seized up one of the scaffold
cables, yanked its looped end free of a bossing, grabbed up the padlock and
with desperate, clumsy movements passed the cable around the narrow end of one
of the star points that touched the ground. She wrapped the cable around her
own body, twisted it through its own loop, and fastened the two grommets
together with the padlock, ramming it home with a thundering snap. With her
waning strength, and in the disorganized insanity of attrition, there was no
way she could get loose to attack a Gen.
Safe.
She surrendered.
CHAPTER 12
RENSIME!
Laneff fell into the sun, blinded by brilliance until all seemed black.
And after a long time, far in the distance, a tiny light blossomed.
Instantly, like fireworks, echoes of colored reflections exploded all about
the glimmer. She took heart in her aloneness and wanted to glow like the
little light. She ached and yearned and was kindled.
She felt the surge of will brighten within her, a smile. And then dots of
brilliance danced all about her, herself reflected back a billion times a
billion times. Dazzled, she twisted away, only to find more and more dizzying
reflections.
In self-defense, she fixed on just one of those dots. It loomed larger and
larger, took on individual characteristics, face, hair, peculiar little nose,
wistful smile in a round face.
Jarmi!
She twisted away. Another face: red-blond hair, mustache, beetling eyebrows,
sunburned nose, fierce joy. Yuan!
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