into his black uniform, his muscular body ready to explode out of it.
Daidaunkh spat out a string of Rhyan words which sounded like a proper response but made no sense to the Twenglish-speaking officers.
"Shoot him!" Blue-eyes ordered. "He's not a useful citizen."
"You shoot him! I don't need another misbehavior demerit."
Shoot was a Twenglish word well known to Daidaunkh.
"Some kind of Rhyan," Blue-eyes said, grasping his pistol but hesitating. "Arrogant son of a bitch." More Twenglish familiar to Daidaunkh.
"You will not like the Behavior Interview," Scar-mouth advised. "Can't tell how old he is. What do you think?"
"Probably has lived longer than we will. I gotta have one of them Behavior Interviews to keep up with you, Dumb-ass." He slipped the pistol free of its holster.
"Too late," Daidaunkh spoke Standard with a smile. "Keshona is here." He now noticed that all normal activity in the near vicinity on this wheel had stopped, and customers were exiting the diner and other businesses to find out what was happening. On the nearest wheel, tilted ninety degrees to this one, the closest people stood still, watching the soldiers as they rotated past.
"Is something wrong?" the admiral asked, slowing her approach. She actually looked very comely, Daidaunkh noticed, not for the first time. She walked almost casually in that pretty yellow dress.
The two soldiers turned to see her. Daidaunkh watched as the men positioned themselves instinctively to have a tactical advantage, yet the admiral's presence apparently didn't cause them much concern. It was amusing to see her act the part of a defenseless woman in the presence of dangerous soldiers. He could see her trying - unsuccessfully - to cower like a lesser person. She had a presence that not even a feminine dress and sandaled feet could mask.
"We ask the questions!" Scar-mouth muttered rudely. Then he grinned lopsidedly, appraising her appearance. "Look good! Who're you?"
"I apologize if we've done something wrong," she said nicely. "My name is Ruby. I'm a singer. This is my companion who recently injured himself. We were on our way to seek medical treatment."
"Hah!" Daidaunkh barked a false laugh and spoke Standard. "I tried to kill her and she broke my arm and leg! Why don't you try it?"
"He's upset," she said. "Please, don't pay any attention to him."
"Admiral, I'm trying to warn you!" Daidaunkh spoke harshly in Rhyan Common, the name of her rank in Standard. "These guys are going to kill us!"
"I hope not," she replied in the same Rhyan language. She looked from one to the other of the two young men, dropping her act of weakness. His use of her rank had caused a reaction in the young soldiers - a pause, then dismissal of such an improbable thing. Daidaunkh knew the look she gave them was that of a highly trained veteran of personal combat, a veteran who knew how good she was. Their expressions and their entire demeanor naturally radiated malice but neither seemed to understand the Admiral's threat to them. She was appraising them and they should have seen that. They were also appraising her, perhaps for the wrong qualities, and couldn't realize she was actually warning them of what she could do to them.
"Only two of them," Daidaunkh commented sarcastically in Standard. "Quickly, please! I'm hungry!"
The pair of soldiers struggled to find words to re-establish their command of the situation, neither agreeing on who should speak first. Daidaunkh stymied them.
"Don't assume these ugly uniforms aren't armored," he said in Standard to the admiral. "And don't doubt the cowardly bastards will try to shoot you."
Daidaunkh had risen back to a sitting position. Blue-eyes tried to kick him again. Daidaunkh partially blocked the kick, intended for his broken leg. He couldn't block the back-handed slap to his face.
"Please, don't do that," the admiral said to Blue-eyes, her tone of voice quite like an admiral.
"He has a big mouth!" Blue-eyes complained with false indignity, his gaze locked on her and changing to puzzlement.
Daidaunkh spat blood onto the legs of the soldier. He grinned at him with red lips. "Why do you wait?" he asked the admiral, continuing to provoke the soldiers.
Everyone but Daidaunkh watched Blue-eyes twitch his gun down at Daidaunkh and up, as if trying to make a lethal decision. Daidaunkh tried to ignore the pistol and watched Fidelity from the corner of his eye as she slipped out of her sandals and planted her left foot at a slight angle. She was too far away, he thought. The pistol was on the wrong side of Blue-eyes.
The other soldier - Scar-mouth - seeing Blue-eyes hesitate, reached for his own pistol.
"Thought you weren't going to shoot," Blue-eyes commented, relaxing his gun arm.
Scar-mouth nodded toward Fidelity, apparently realizing she was barefoot now and her position had changed the tactical spacing subtly.
Fidelity put her right foot forward, as though she would leap over Daidaunkh to get at Scar-mouth. She tripped a reflex in Scar-mouth that made him point his weapon at her. Blue-eyes started to swing his left arm to strike Fidelity with a back-handed blow but she dipped her body, pushed herself to the right with her planted left foot, grabbing the thick waist of Blue-eyes to pull herself behind him. Scar-mouth lost his target behind his partner, then his partner lost his feet, began to fall, and a blur of yellow and a dark arm extending from it erupted from the other side of Blue-eyes and knocked the pistol from Scar-mouth's hand.
"Shoot her!" Scar-mouth ordered his partner, but Blue-eyes was still wondering why he was on his knees. Fidelity whirled and kicked the pistol from his hand.
After a collective gasp, the crowd around them fell silent.
The music played on in the quiet air.
"Who are you?" Scar-mouth queried with respect, if not awe. He looked to where his gun had bounced but hesitated to move toward it.
Fidelity did not answer him.
"Navy Marine," Blue-eyes guessed, massaging his empty gun-hand and carefully remaining on his knees. "You want to take her on?" he asked.
"Too small for a Marine," Scar-mouth said. "But real fast!"
"I told you how I got these broken limbs!" Daidaunkh said impatiently in Standard. "I'm Rhyan ex-military and I never even touched her!"
"Well?" Blue-eyes shouted at his partner. When all eyes turned to Scar-mouth for his response, Blue-eyes scrambled off the floor to launch himself at Fidelity. She barely moved to dodge him, gave a flick of one fist as she slipped away from him, sending him back to the floor of the rotating wheel, unconscious. He began to bleed from a wound on his forehead. Scar-mouth saw the opportunity to run for his gun and Daidaunkh tripped him. Fidelity stood over the soldier before he could rise.
"Leave us alone," Fidelity ordered. "Take your friend and go. Now." She picked up the man's gun and took it apart with casual expertise, dropping the parts next to him.
Scar-mouth got to his feet very carefully and tried to rouse his partner. When that failed he started dragging him away through the parting crowd. A few minutes later they could be seen on the nearest wheel in the intersection, rotating away from them.
Fidelity turned to Daidaunkh. "Damn!" was all he could say to her.
"Are you alright?" she asked, massaging her hand that had struck the soldier.
"Never better!" he said, grinning redly. "Why didn't you kill them? You did know they were going to kill us, didn't you?"
"I did not know that," she said.
Daidaunkh looked about, startled at the reaction of the crowd. People were actually fleeing the immediate vicinity. Shouting and shoving people jammed the nearest exit walkway. Many jumped from the disc and drifted away through empty air. Young Percival appeared from the dissolving crowd. Rafael helped Samson hop on his good leg toward the Admiral. It now shamed Daidaunkh to see the child, his innocence inserted into this mess. This moment of Daidaunkh's life, where his ancient hatred had led him, began to have a different meaning for him. He watched sadly as the admiral went to the boy and picked him up. What would happen to the child now?
"Get to the edge of the wh
eel!" Percival ordered Fidelity, pointing in the direction he wanted. "Old man!" he addressed Rafael. "Come with me!"
Percival and Rafael hurried back to the diner.
= = =
Fidelity had to drag Daidaunkh across the illuminated surface of the disc, through debris and around empty stalls and other minor structures, while the rotation kept moving them away from the destination. Samson clutched at her as he hopped beside her, and finally collapsed when they reached the static edge of the disc. At this point three of the great discs formed the curved opening of a corner of the cubic structure. It was open to an ocean of air.
"I'm tired!" Samson complained, lying down. It occurred to Fidelity that Samson would still be recovering from his injury and his long struggle to survive in Africa. How long had it been since he had eaten?
Percival and Rafael returned from the diner carrying three small bags of objects. Percival removed a spool of cord from one bag. He unspooled the cord and handed one end to Rafael. "Tie us all together, with a meter of cord between each of us." He gave a bag to Fidelity and helped Rafael with the cord, then picked up one of the bags. Rafael took the last bag. Percival and Rafael picked up Daidaunkh and positioned themselves at the edge of the disc. Fidelity carried Samson, tethered between her and Rafael. Fidelity was on one end of their group, Percival at the other end next to Daidaunkh.
"We should go south," Percival said, pointing in a general direction. "This is the wrong side of the disc so we have to