The Fifth Sacred Thing (62 page)

Most of the old freeways had been torn down as earthquakes weakened them, or later, after the Uprising, when trucking was replaced by the solar trains. But one stretch remained, an old segment of Highway 101 coming up from the south, carrying electric or alcohol-fueled trucks and horse-drawn wagons from the peninsula farms. Now it spilled down an off ramp into Market Street, not far from the open plaza that fronted Old City Hall. Bird met Marie, Roberto, and Lan there. Together they waited. It was market day, and the plaza was crowded with stalls and bright awnings, bins of vegetables and grains and ripe fruit.

“We present quite a picture of abundance,” Roberto remarked.

“Not for long,” Lan said.

Even as they spoke, it became clear that word had gone out. Vendors began packing their wares with quiet efficiency. Slowly, a crowd was growing, subdued and silent. Marie reached for Bird’s hand and drew him into a circle with Lan and Roberto. “Let’s breathe together,” she said. “And pray, to whatever gods you believe in.”

They stood in silence for a moment. I still can’t really believe this is happening, Bird thought. The following night was May Eve, Beltane. There would be no bonfires on the hill, no dawn dances the following morning to Sachiko’s sweet music, no maypole.
Madre Tierra
, help us. Help me. Let me find the strength I will need.

Then they heard a loud rumble, followed by a boom that shook the ground. Marie clenched Bird’s hand.

“The bridges,” she whispered. “We’ve blown the bridges.”

Another explosion followed, louder than the first. Tears hung in Lan’s eyes and Bird blinked back his own. Even now all the boats left in the City were casting off, setting sail for the east or north side of the Bay. Even now they were being cut off, isolated.

“Let’s go down by Market Street,” Bird said, breaking the silence. “I want to see what’s coming at us.”

The four moved down to where the plaza joined the street and stood beside the fountain, an affair of tumbling concrete blocks dating back to the
1970s. There they had a clear view of the off ramp constructed to lead directly to the central market. The asphalt surface seemed to be alive, swarming with a movement that resolved itself into line after line of men in dull gray uniforms, marching in perfect step, like a many-legged machine, orderly, regular, disciplined.

Bird felt oddly calm, as if his fear had compressed into a diamond-hard stone somewhere far below the surface of his mind. The waiting was over. They were here. They were real.

The vanguard of the marching lines reached the curb near the fountain. Out of the ranked masses of men, one stepped forward. His eyes were invisible behind a mirrored visor, and his hands were taut on the stock of the laser rifle held clenched before him. The men, Bird noticed, were sorted by color like a box of crayons, the molasses and mahogany in one platoon, ocher and umber in another, beige and tan and shades of pink together.

“I am Commander Pershing Nelson, Acting Commander of the Fourth Army of the Stewardship,” he barked. “Who is in charge here?”

Now it comes, Bird thought. The four of them stepped forward together.

“We are here to repossess this land in the name of the Corporate Stewardship, from which it was stolen,” the Commander said. “If you cooperate, we are prepared to be lenient. Resist, and we can be merciless.”

He waited. There was silence throughout the crowd. He looked at the four of them and finally fixed on Roberto, the oldest male.

“You. I’m waiting for an answer. We’re offering you a chance to surrender without bloodshed. You’re outnumbered and outarmed. All we ask in return is a little cooperation in bringing this city under proper management. Answer me!”

Roberto’s face was calm and composed. He looked into the Commander’s eyes and said mildly, “There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.” “What?”

“There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Marie stepped forward. “I am Sister Marie Seraphim, of the Order of Our Blessed Lady of the Waters, and one of the freely elected representatives of this city. What we mean is that we will never cooperate with violence, neither by submitting to it nor by using it.”

“You got to do one or the other, lady,” the Commander said. “I suggest you submit and save us all a lot of trouble.”

“We propose an alternative,” Marie said, pitching her voice to carry to the ranked troops. “Your armies are swollen with the poor and the dispossessed from your own land. We are a small population now, decimated by famine and epidemics, in an area that once housed and fed hundreds of thousands more.
We can find room for those who wish to join us, to live the way we do, with respect for the Four Sacred Things, air, fire, water, and earth. We are not a wealthy people; everything we have depends on our mutual cooperation. But for those who wish to join us we can make a place.”

“Joining you is not the issue in question,” Nelson said. “We are here to impose the power and authority of the Stewardship.”

“We do not recognize that authority,” Marie said.

“I’m not offering you a choice in the matter.”

“Nevertheless we have made our choice, which is to make this offering to each one of you. There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.” Her voice rang out over the assembled troops, and she arched her neck to meet the eyes of the darker soldiers far down in the ranks.

“I’m not accustomed to arguing with women,” Nelson said to Roberto.

Marie smiled pleasantly. “Then you have some new experiences in store.”

Nelson ignored her, speaking directly to Roberto again. “Get this. We’re moving in here, and we’re taking over. This is not a game. Now, I need your cooperation in billeting my men. As I said, if you show the right spirit, this can go pretty easy on you. If not, I’ll put my men where I decide to put them, and you may be sorry about that.”

“There is a place set for you at our table,” Roberto said.

“The next person who says that’s gonna be sorry they did.”

Lan, Roberto, Bird, Marie, and all the massed crowd chorused together, “There is a place set for you at our table, if you will choose to join us.”

The Commander slapped Roberto across the face with his hand.

“Say it again, boy. Go ahead, just say it again.”

That wasn’t smart, Bird thought. We’ve only provoked him into losing control. And if he hooks Roberto into this duel, we’ll have a murder here. Now comes my turn.

He stepped forward.

“We don’t accept your authority,” Bird said. “We will do nothing to aid you in any way. We will not cooperate, we will resist you in every way short of violence. But we will never stop offering you the choice to join with what is here instead of attempting to conquer and control it.”

Nelson’s face twisted contemptuously. “I am really not accustomed to taking advice from niggers.”

Bird had not heard that term since his escape from the Southlands prison. It struck him as strangely archaic, a weapon out of some bizarre past, as if the officer had suddenly rushed at him with a bronze spear or a stone ax. A ripple of disturbance went through the troops. It was hardly audible, just a low murmur in the darker divisions, like the growl of a dog disturbed from sleep.

There is tension here, Bird thought, a crack, something we can exploit. The hold on this army is tenuous. I must remember this.

Marie opened her mouth to speak, but Bird motioned her back. He needed to handle this himself.

“We are not accustomed to hear that word used in this city,” Bird said, pitching his singer’s voice so that it carried far back through the ranks of men. “There are no barriers of color here. I say this to you, brothers, black and Latin and Chino and white too, that we set an equal place at our table for all who choose to join us.”

Nelson swung his rifle and smashed Bird in the side of the head. The impact hit him with a shock that chased away pain. He stood still, unflinching.

Well, it’s better than being dead, he thought. Blood trickled down his cheeks and wet the collar of his shirt.

“You do not understand,” Marie said to the Commander. She was angry, Bird knew, because of the bright red spots that appeared on her cheeks, but her voice was still low and calm. “You do not understand the power that we have in this city. It is a power you can never destroy or conquer, that will not bend to your will.”

The officer turned his back to her. “Prepare to make camp!” he barked at his men. “Johnson, cordon off the area. Bring up the tents.” He turned back and addressed the crowd. “I want everybody out of here before I count ten!”

Lan sat down.

I’m ready to go, Bird thought. His head was starting to hurt. I could give a little, here, but he sat down too. Roberto, Marie, and the crowd followed.

Nelson turned to his second-in-command. “Clear this area, Jones. I don’t care how you do it—drag them away, run trucks over them, shoot them, but get it clear!” He stomped off, going down the lines, his chest thrust forward and his ribbons bobbing.

“You heard the Commander,” Jones barked, trying to look sure of himself. Nobody moved. “Men, get rid of them!”

The men remained standing.

“Well, what the holy hell are you waiting for?”

“Sir,” one of the men asked quietly, “what exactly do you want us to do?”

“Drag them off. That’s an order! And don’t be too gentle about it!”

The soldiers moved forward, looking scared. If we had guns, Bird thought, concealed under our clothing or in our boots, this would be a highly effective trap. But we don’t. The crowd began chanting, “Hold our ground! Hold our ground!” His head hurt badly, now, with a throbbing that changed to a flare of pain as two officers grabbed his ankles and pulled him along the ground. He tried to become as limp and heavy as possible, but his neck tensed in spite of himself to keep his head from banging on the pavement. His shirt rode up his back and his bare skin scraped against the pavement. Around him he could hear blows being struck and occasional screams of panic as the chant got ragged.

Sing, he thought, we should be singing. As loudly as he could, he began to sing.

“We are the power in everyone, we are the dance of the moon and sun.…”

Around him, voices took up the chant, and it flowed over the crowd and the soldiers both, until they were all of them linked in the same harmonies, the same rhythm, coming not through the ears but direct through the body, or something deeper than the body, sustaining them with the beat.

“We are the hope that will not hide, we are the turning of the tide.…”

The streets filled with soldiers that night. They seemed to be everywhere, marching up and down beside the streams, tramping through the open gardens, kicking at turf in the park, pulling ripe fruit off the boughs. Bird maneuvered his way around them, ducking into the doorways of friends, hiding in the shadows of trees. Sam had bandaged his head; Maya had cooed and fussed and nursed him and tried to make him stay inside, but he had to talk to Lan and Marie and Roberto.

A wooden footbridge crossed the stream that ran south from the hill. He decided to avoid it, heading instead for the stepping stones, where he had always preferred to cross as a boy. They’d played endless games there, pretending the river was full of piranhas, crocodiles, dangers, as they tottered from stone to stone. Now the dangers were real and he took the stones at a run. His bad leg still bothered him a bit, but it was better than it had been; he could compensate for his awkward gait at only a moderate cost to his balance, and some pain. But he slipped on the last stone, twisted awkwardly in the air, and crashed heavily onto the opposite bank, nearly coming down on a still figure who crouched in the shadows.

“Discúlpame,”
Bird said. “Forgive me.”

The figure did not move. Bird caught his breath and looked at the man. A soldier knelt by the river, his hands in the water, tears on his face. Something about him reminded Bird of Littlejohn, the same slight, undernourished build, the stringy hair.

“You okay?” Bird asked. The man had a laser rifle at his feet, but somehow Bird didn’t feel afraid.

“Where does it come from, all this water?” the man asked. There was a dreamy tone to his voice, as if he’d been smoking lows.

“From the hill, from the rains, from the reservoir above, from runoff from watering the gardens,” Bird said.

“But the water just runs through the street here. Anyone can steal it.”

“It’s free,” Bird said. “Nobody has to steal water here. Nobody has to pay for it. Nobody profits from it. Water is sacred to us.”

“My brother got shot for stealing water. I got put in the army.”

“Take what you need here,” Bird said. “Bathe in it, swim in it, it’s clean. You can even drink it, although generally we filter it first.”

“But we’re here to take your water away from you.”

I’ve been going along with Maya and Lily. I’ve put my life on the line for their vision, Bird thought, but this is the first moment I feel an actual glimmer of hope that we might win. He squatted beside the soldier and pitched his voice low, almost crooning as he spoke.