His followers turned to follow his gaze, and their faces took on expressions of dawning realization and disbelief.
Ishmael continued, "I shall lead my people away from this place, away from this world… to freedom."
While the rest of the city bustled with Lord Bludd's latest festivity, Tio Holtzman had more important matters on his mind. The inventor had not thought of Bel Moulay since his execution, which should have ended all the complaints of the Buddislamics on Poritrin.
Like children, slaves should be seen, but not heard.
It was a chilly afternoon, but he wanted to take a late luncheon out on the bluff terrace overlooking the Isana River. He bundled up and told the cooks to serve him out there; if he was comfortable enough, he could spend hours at this vista point, pondering possibilities as a Savant was supposed to do. Hurriedly, a female slave wiped the great man's chair, then held it for him so that he could sit.
He ordered his customary fare. Holtzman liked something specific every day, according to a set routine. He preferred to do things in predictable ways, so that he could lay out each day without time-wasting distractions. The serving slave, a pretty brunette in a white lace dress, emerged with a tray of steaming hot coffee. She poured him a cup the size of a soup-bowl, and he sipped carefully.
On the water far below, a barge piled high with agricultural products drifted lazily downstream toward Starda where it would be unloaded. The water craft didn't have much company. Much of the river traffic had been rerouted for the twilight festivities. Holtzman sighed; Lord Bludd was always celebrating something or other.
For the past week Holtzman had pored over Norma's notes and plans, trying to figure out what she was doing with that old cargo ship. Perhaps he should go confiscate the outdated vessel itself, despite the vociferous protests of Tuk Keedair with all of his legal documents. But VenKee Enterprises had as much money as Holtzman himself, and he didn't want a drawn-out court battle. Most of all he had wanted to send Norma Cenva packing, with her reputation in ruins.
Now, if he could just figure out what she had been up to, that would be a nice bonus.
Sipping his coffee, Holtzman wondered if he should consult with other experts on the matter, but decided not to entrust the documents to anyone else. He'd already experienced too much trouble with Norma.
It's probably all a waste of time, he thought, wiping his mouth with a fine napkin. Norma Cenva is a fool on a fool's mission.
For hours, the Zensunni slaves pretended it was just another work day, shutting down the big hangar facility so that Tio Holtzman could assume control of the operations. Tuk Keedair took inventory and inspected the work, but his heart did not seem in it. Soon he would be departing.
With building excitement, word passed quickly among the Zensunni workers in the cavernous hangar. Hushed whispers and bright-eyed anticipation swelled through the ranks, ripples of imagination and unexpected possibilities. They had waited for Ishmael to receive a sign from Buddallah, and now they were eager to follow him.
Ishmael worried that he had urged them to be passive for too long. He was afraid the Zensunnis had forgotten how to be strong. But now was no time for doubts.
Even before noon, the distant city of Starda began to bustle with preliminary celebrations before the formal commencement of the anniversary festival. The citizens and even the Dragoon guards were unsuspecting and complacent.
At sunset, Alüd would trigger his revolt. Ishmael knew that he must lead his own daughter, her husband, and all of the other slaves away from the conflagration before that time.
As if performing an assigned task, he opened the boarding ramp to the large ship. Pretending to go about their work, his people began loading the ship with water drums and supplies from their barracks and the hangar. Keedair — after discovering to his surprise that the ship still seemed operational — had already ordered them to haul much of his equipment and valuables onboard. With all of the project's materials soon to be forfeited to Lord Bludd, the Tlulaxa merchant meant to take this vessel to orbit, where it would be towed to a spacedock and reconfigured. He had been intending to haul away what he could salvage on suspensor trucks, but now had a better option.
Ishmael, though, intended to guide the prototype ship somewhere else, to a new planet far from raiding slavers or cruel thinking machines. He didn't care where; he only wanted it to be a place where no one would bother them. Ages ago, the Buddislamic faithful had departed from the League of Nobles, refusing to take part in the machine war. They had not fled far enough, however, and evil flesh merchants like Keedair had raided the marsh settlements on Harmonthep, while the Jihad had destroyed the sacred city of Darits on IV Anbus.
Now Ishmael would have a chance to guide his people to the freedom they deserved, and he could become the leader they expected him to be.
By late afternoon, the hard-working slaves had reached the end of their patience. Chamal remained close to her husband Rafel, and flashed anxious glances at her father. Ishmael could not tell them to wait any longer; they had to move soon. Moment by moment anxiety rose, like a hot flush of blood rushing through their veins.
A grumbling Tuk Keedair glowered at the Zensunnis, as if doubts about their behavior had begun to grow in his mind, then stepped back into his offices.
Finally, Ishmael sent a quiet signal, and the slaves left their stations and gathered in the center of the hangar floor. Ishmael stood before the open hatch of the giant, well-stocked ship and emitted a high-pitched, whistling cry, a weird ululation that he had not used since his boyhood hunting days on Harmonthep.
The Zensunni captives let out similar cries characteristic of their different planets and cultures. Though they had been enslaved for a long time, they had not forgotten their pasts.
Young Rafel and a pair of his cohorts ran to the cantilever controls and opened the giant ceiling of the hangar. With a great clatter and groan, the overlapping corrugated plates shifted aside to expose the prototype ship to the cloud-streaked sky outside. The brisk air smelled of freedom, and the people cheered with eager anticipation.
Hearing the commotion, the Tlulaxa merchant hurried out of his administrative offices and looked with disbelief at the hundred slaves crowded below the ship, as if they had arranged themselves for inspection.
"What are you doing? Get back to work. Now! We have only today to —"
Before Keedair could draw his stun gun, fifteen slaves surrounded him and cut off his escape. Rafel led them, and through sheer numbers they easily overwhelmed the small-statured man, ignoring his protestations as he cursed and sputtered at them. Then they grabbed Keedair by his arms. Young Chamal, looking strong and determined, yanked his long gray-streaked braid as if it were a shackle connected to his head.
He cried out in pain and rage. "You cannot do this to me! I will see every one of you executed!"
They dragged him before Ishmael, who looked with disgust and disdain at the man who was directly responsible for his own enslavement. "You will be punished for this foolishness!" Keedair vowed.
"Not so," Ishmael said. "This is our only chance. Within the hour, a bloody revolt will begin in Starda. We want no part of the massacre, but we do insist upon our freedom."
"You cannot escape," Keedair said, not sounding defiant, just stating a fact. "Dragoon guards will follow you no matter where you go. They will hunt you down."
"Not if we get offworld slaver." Rafel pushed close to the former flesh merchant, intimidating the man. "We mean to fly far from here, to a distant world."
Ishmael jabbed a finger at the Tlulaxa's chest. "And you will take us — in Cenva's ship."
Select your battles carefully. Ultimately, victory and defeat are a matter of your own careful — or reckless — choices.
—Tlaloc, Weaknesses of the Empire
As if on cue, the blood red splash of Poritrin's sunset marked the beginning of the violence.
On the docks at the river delta, Alüd and his hardened Zenshüte comrades stood behind the fences
while local incendiary artists arranged the canisters of incandescent powders. Transporting the pyroflowers was considered dangerous work, suitable only for slaves, and Alüd had not complained about the assignment. Instead, he worked with his chosen followers to develop a surprise for their heartless captors. After generations, the time had finally come.
Lord Niko Bludd sat with his pleasure companions on a high, windy barge podium surrounded by flapping banners. The foppish nobleman had decreed that this show would be the grandest of all anniversary festivals.
Grimly, Alüd had promised to make the event not only memorable, but legendary. Surreptitious messages had been distributed throughout the city. Not one of the oblivious masters suspected their peril, but slaves in every household were prepared. His Zenshüte conscripts throughout Starda and across the settlements on Poritrin were itching to begin. Alüd had no doubt that the reign of the nobility here would be toppled swiftly and decisively.
Dragoon guards were stationed at the riverfront for the celebration, and rich families had left their slaves inside manor houses along the bluffs of the river. The conflagration would be so immediate and widespread that the Dragoons could never react in time. The slaves would arm themselves with torches, clubs, makeshift knives, whatever they could lay their hands on. In addition, Alüd knew where to obtain sophisticated weapons that the Dragoons would not expect them to have.
Everything was falling into place.
Long trumpets bellowed a brassy fanfare into the dusk. Lord Bludd swirled his colorful robes about him and raised his hands to announce the beginning of the festival.
On a mudflat in the middle of the sluggish river, incendiary technicians attempted to ignite their artfully arranged pyroflowers without success. When nothing happened after several moments the crowds along the riverbank began to mutter and move around restlessly.
Alüd kept watching, smiling, waiting.
Brassy fanfare blared again, as if Lord Bludd was impatient to get the fireworks going. Alüd grinned, knowing that when the crew pried open their faulty fireworks, they would find them filled with ashes and sand rather than volatile iridescent powders.
The actual explosives had gone elsewhere.
Annoyed, Lord Bludd gestured, and a third fanfare rang out. This time he was rewarded with brilliant explosions that erupted in the gathering darkness — but the dazzling flames came from the loaded warehouses on the docks. All of the fireworks that Alüd and his companions had smuggled from the staging area now detonated in dazzling, furious blasts, setting eighteen warehouses afire at once. Confused outcries rippled through the crowd. Then more explosions sounded high on the bluffs.
Alüd grinned to himself.
Slaves sprinted through the city igniting flammables and accelerants that they had planted over the past several days. If all went as planned, more than five hundred dwellings inside the dense city of Starda should already be blossoming into flames. The holocaust would move quickly, with the flashpoints erupting and spreading fire throughout the city.
Starda is doomed.
There was nothing Lord Bludd, his Dragoon guards, or his citizens could do to avert disaster. The scale of the annihilation would be in proportion to the anger the Buddislamic slaves had bottled inside themselves for so many generations.
Alarms went off across the city, and sirens sounded. Lord Bludd used his voice amplifier to call over the loudspeaker systems, begging every citizen to fight and all owners to contribute their slaves to the effort. "We must save our beautiful city!"
Alüd simply laughed, as did the others with him. When one of the slave supervisors shouted for them to help, they just turned and ran, easily breaking free. All around Starda, the Zenshütes would be dashing from house to house, setting fires, smashing anything they could. In the mining or agricultural districts, more prisoners would rise up and slaughter families, commandeering lands and houses for themselves. The uprising could never be stopped. Not this time.
Alüd and his men broke into one of the Poritrin municipal museums, where weapons were on display: seemingly archaic rocket launchers, grenades, and crude projectile weapons. But Alüd knew they were still functional.
The slaves smashed open display cases and grabbed weapons, taking even knives and swords. Finally, drunk with anticipation, Alüd removed a heavy polished weapon of a type that had been developed centuries before but abandoned for military applications because of its power inefficiency. The enhanced laser-projecting rifle was capable of discharging a high-energy beam that could cut down many enemies from a distance — for as long as its powerpak lasted.
Pleased with the feel and balance of it, Alüd took the lasgun as his own, sensing the level of havoc and destruction it could cause. Then he ran through the streets with his followers. Above, he saw the blufftop laboratories of Tio Holtzman, and knew where to begin his ambitious mission of personal revenge.
Alone in the center of an angry Zensunni mob in the isolated hangar, Tuk Keedair panicked. "Take you in the space-folding ship? Impossible! I'm just a merchant. I know the basics of how to fly, but I am not a professional pilot or navigator. This is an unproven ship, too. Its engines are experimental. Everything is —"
Rafel grasped the flesh-merchant's arms tighter and shook him violently. "It is our last and only hope. We are desperate people. Do not underestimate us."
Ishmael's voice was cold and angry. "I remember you and your cronies, Tuk Keedair. You raided my village on Harmonthep. You threw my beloved grandfather into the marshes with the giant eels. You destroyed my people."
He pressed himself close to the Tlulaxa merchant's face. "I want my freedom and a new opportunity for my daughter and for all of these people." He gestured to the restless crowd in the hangar bay. "But if you force us, I will have to be satisfied with crude revenge."
Keedair swallowed hard, looked at the angry slaves, and said, "If death is my only other option… then I may as well try to fly this thing. But be aware that I do not know what I'm doing. The new foldspace engines have never been tested with a real cargo and passengers."
"You would have experimented on us slaves anyway," growled Rafel, "as test subjects." .
Keedair pursed his lips, nodded. "Probably."
At a gesture from Ishmael, slaves hurried into the ship. They would hide and wait there inside sleeping quarters, communal cabins, and corridors that were not piled with packaged supplies. They would grab blankets, hold onto each other, and hope for the best.
"Another thing." Keedair struggled to regain his confidence, "I only remember the coordinates for one destination: Arrakis. It's a backwater planet where I made most of my recent merchant runs. We were going to test this ship by taking it there."
"Can we make a home on Arrakis?" asked Chamal, her eyes bright. "Is it a land of paradise and peace, a place where we can be free — and safe from people like you?" Her expression darkened.
Keedair looked as if he wanted to laugh at the suggestion, but did not have the courage to do so. "For some it is."
"Then take us there," Ishmael commanded.
The Zensunni captors herded the frightened Tlulaxa man up the ramp and into the piloting deck. One hundred and one Zensunnis filed aboard and sealed the hatches, leaving the hangar's interior empty as dusk gathered over the Isana River.
Keedair looked at the makeshift controls that Norma Cenva had installed, each with labels in her strange shorthand language. He knew the basic principles of the ship's operation and understood how to enter the desired coordinates.
"I have no way of knowing that a human being can endure instantaneous passage through the dimensional anomaly of folded space." Keedair was obviously both frightened of the unknown and intimidated by the slaves' threat. "In fact, I don't even know if this ship will fly at all."
"Set the coordinates," Ishmael commanded. He knew that on the Starda docks and the river delta, the real violence was about to begin. He prayed that Ozza and his other daughter would be safe, far from Alüd's mayhem and bloodshed. B
ut he could not save them now, could never hope to see them again. "We must be away from Poritrin, before it is too late."
"Remember, I warned you." Keedair tossed his long braid over his shoulder. "If these Holtzman engines plunge us into another dimension where you writhe in agony for eternity, do not curse my name."
"I already curse your name," Ishmael said.
Looking grim, Keedair activated the untested space-folding engines. In less than an eyeblink, the ship disappeared into the void.
Tio Holtzman sat relaxed and pondering, until the sky ripened with the colors of a setting sun. Downriver, crowds were gathered in front of speaking platforms to listen to droning pronouncements while bands thumped music in the distance.
He pushed his chair away from the table just as a breeze caught his napkin and carried it out over the bluff. As the scientist watched it sail away, he absently noted the warehouses burning on the opposite bank and in the slave market, but he wasn't concerned. Lord Bludd's people would take care of it.
Upon returning to work inside, Holtzman called for his household slaves. No one responded. Annoyed, he continued trying to decipher Norma Cenva's confiscated documents, scanning the mathematical symbols and ignoring other markings and crude drawings.
He became so engrossed in her frenetic notes that he did not hear the commotion in his house — men shouting, glass breaking. Finally, at the sound of gunfire, he jerked his head up and bellowed for his Dragoon guards. Most of them were gone, working security for the riverside festival. Gunshots? Through the windows he saw more buildings burning down in the main city, and heard a distant roar, followed by screams. Grumbling and uneasy, the inventor donned his personal shield, as was his habit, and went to see about the disturbance.
Racing down a corridor on the top level of Holtzman's elegant home, Alüd fired bursts from his stolen antique lasgun, incinerating fine statues and paintings all around him. From behind he heard the gleeful shouts of his supporters as they liberated house slaves.
Just ahead of him two Dragoon guards attempted to block the corridor, but Alüd cut them to pieces with the lasgun, melting the flesh off their bones. Despite its age, this weapon was quite a useful piece, with impressive firepower.
The Machine Crusade Page 42