I had been so frightened of the apple press that I had almost forgotten what else was at stake. A city. A city, and Elián’s life.
“Once the jammer’s down, I’ll go straight to my—to Armenteros,” said Elián. “Tell her what I’ve— Tell her it’s down. She won’t—” He was struggling. “She won’t take on Talis, not to his face. She’ll let the Precepture go.”
“Cumberland loses the war,” said Gregori. “Everything, click, is over.” He dusted his hands together.
Over. My heart leapt after the word. But only for a moment.
Over, but not undone. War had still been declared. Even if Talis spared Pittsburgh, surely he would kill the Cumberland leaders—and their hostage. I looked at Elián and saw that he knew it.
He read my look. “I can’t have a city on my head. And I can’t just watch them—” He made a mute, angry gesture, toward my hands. In the starlight they peeped from their slings, swollen and purpling. I knew Elián wanted to touch me, but was afraid to hurt me. Was simply afraid. “She’s my grandmother— They’re my people, but I can’t just watch them torture someone. I can’t.”
“And I can’t let them kill you, Elián.”
“Why not?” Suddenly Elián’s carefully tended anger slid into bitterness. He changed in that instant, and I did not like the change. He was polished as a Precepture Child; he was sharp as horseradish.
He was terrified.
“So they’re going to kill me. There’s a war, Greta. I’m the hostage.” And in an echo of my accent: “It’s the way things are done.”
He was right. Somewhere in the last few weeks, I had rejected a lifetime of training, half a millennium of high purpose.
I had not even noticed.
“It’s too late now, anyway.” Elián shrugged like the Abbot, turning his palm up and spreading his fingers. I wished he would laugh. I think I was half in love with him, just for his impossible laugh. He didn’t laugh, though. In a clipped and precise Precepture accent, he said, “It’s out of your hands.”
Below us, from the field of tents, came shouting.
21
SHOCK SHIP
Goats—the shapers of history.
Da-Xia filled me in. Thandi and Atta had been sent to free the nanny goats. Meanwhile slight and quiet Han, one of the world’s overlooked people—Han’s job had been to take the tiny glass tubes of male goat pheromones from their rack in the cold cellar. He had scattered them in the grass around the Cumberland tents like micro-mines. As the Cumberlanders stirred themselves to see what was happening, they stepped on the tubes. The nannies, of course, went mad. They started knocking down the soldiers and doing rude things to their knees.
And then, from above us on the ridge, came an unearthly wailing, a series of shattering crashes. If one had not known it was a sexually excited billy goat crashing horn-first into a wood-and-wire gate, one would have thought it was a demon forcing its way into the world.
In fairness, there’s not a big difference.
The gate gave a twang and crunch; Bonnie Prince Charlie gave an eldritch Grah of triumph and broke loose. I saw the white-and-tawny body bound by, heading downslope, bellowing.
“Han,” said Elián, softly. “You are a magnificent bastard.”
“Truly he is,” Grego whispered back. “You have no notion.”
Below us the first Cumberland tent collapsed. There was shouting, and someone fired a shot into the darkness.
I think technically we were in violation of Talis’s decree banning biological warfare. If he had failed to mention goat pheromones specifically, it was pure oversight. But in this particular case, I was confident he wouldn’t mind.
“Let’s go,” said Xie.
“You will have to stay here,” Grego told me. “The white will give you away.” He was pulling something from his pocket—something liquid and silver in the moonlight. It wasn’t until Da-Xia took it from him and started fastening it like an armband that I recognized it as fabric. It was UN blue, the mark of a noncombatant—a chaplain, a medic. And the color of our bedding. Elián was passing around big squares of—bandages? Kitchen towels? No, it was cotton gauze from the dairy. Da-Xia and Gregori tied the cloth squares round their necks.
“This is your plan?” I said. “You have cheesecloth and bedsheets.”
There was another shot from below. The Cumberland voices were getting louder, and there was the frankly terrifying sound of goats in goat love.
“Behold our assembled genius,” said Da-Xia, softly.
“I’ve always hated those damn symbolic blankets,” said Elián. “’Bout time they were useful.” He was knotting the cheesecloth behind his neck. “Remember,” he said to his fellow masqueraders, “it’s all about attitude. You’re on an urgent and righteous mission to save lives. The guards wouldn’t even dream about stopping you.” He gave them a pair of thumbs-up. “Channel that royal entitlement, right? Greta, try to stay low. If we don’t come back—”