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Though there had been no jack, no gain in it for him, Kaa had freed her from
the captivity of the norms. He had freed all the slaves of Willie ville. It
was unheard-of.
And somehow he had managed to unite the stickies and other mutie races into a
cohesive fighting force, which was impossible.
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"What do you think's wrong with him, Jak?" Krysty asked. "Do you think he's
dying?"
"Lion says he's chilling," the teenager said, "in his sleep."
Krysty hadn't heard the lion talk, but she knew that didn't mean he couldn't
She wondered if only
Jak could hear him.
"He's chilling norms out in the ville?" she asked
"No. Can't ck> nothing to norms with head. Chills them with his M-60. Does
things to stickles with brain, though. Look at those guys over there. Shaking
them apart."
That's what it looked like to Krysty, too. The four stickies' bodies were
jerking and snapping, and white foam was pouring out of their mouths.
When she glanced back at Kaa, she was relieved to see that he had stopped his
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thrashing. He sat up and, bracing his back against the brushed steel of the
safety-deposit boxes, pinched his third eye shut The battle was clearly done,
but at a cost. Kaa let his chin sink onto his chest for a few seconds. When he
raised his head, she saw there was anguish, perhaps even a touch of despair,
in his face.
The first words out of his mouth formed a question, and a strange one at that
"Have you ever chilled someone you loved?"
"No," she said, "I haven't."
"I did, just now," he told her, "with my mind. I chilled a trusted friend who
betrayed me, because he couldn't overcome his nature. Because I was too weak
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to protect him from it. The predarks had a word for such weakness. They called
it hubris. I didn't realize until now, because I was blinded by pride, that
there were limits to my gifts. It never occurred to me that my control might
be finite, that six thousand stickies were too many to contain when there was
blood mist in the air."
"I don't understand," Krysty said.
"My paladin, Rogero," he explained, "committed the ultimate crime against the
moral order of the new people. He willfully and for his own pleasure caused
the death of a fellow mutant He did this while connected to every other
stickle mind in my legion. Once he started the chilling of the field slaves,
I. couldn't make him stop. I couldn't siop the stickies with him, either. Soon
their blood lust would have infected the whole army. I had no choice but to
terminate the life of one I
loved, as son, brother, friend, also in full view of the others. I didn't do
it to make a point,
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s%20(12/55)/035%20-%20Skydark.txt as an object lesson to my troops. Stickies
don't learn through pain, their own or that of others.
Pain is their sacrament, Angelica."
When Krysty looked puzzled, he said, "I know all this is strange to you. I
know and I apologize.
You and I have much to talk about. There is much that I do not understand
myself. Much that puzzles me. I know you will be able to help me sort it out"
Kaa rose and went over to examine the four stickies. They had finally quieted
down. They might have been sleeping, except for the thin trickle of blood that
leaked
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from the noseless nostrils, the twin holes in the centers of their faces.
"They were too close to me when I showed the death card to Rogero," he said
ruefully. "I didn't intend to chill them, only him. Brave ones lost, for
nothing."
When Kaa turned back, he caught Krysty staring at the M-60. She hadn't formed
the thought of trying to grab it and use it on him until the instant their
eyes met. Then it was there, as big as life. Grab the blaster and use it. And
she knew that he knew what was in her mind. It was the kind of shameful
idea the opposite of the heart, the spirit that pops up without warning
sometimes, perhaps to chasten people for presuming to think they know
precisely who and what they are. And what they are capable of.
Kaa picked up the autoblaster and leaned it against the wall beside her, along
with yards of belted ammo, thereby demonstrating that he trusted her, even
though he knew what was on her mind.
"I call it Joyeuse," he said, stroking the front sight. "It means 'joy' in a
predark language. It was the name a predark baron gave to his weapon. That
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baron used Joyeuse to beat back a plague of darkness and evil and rebuild his
land."
Outside, the sounds of battle raged on.
"Continue the packing," Kaa told the freed muties. He observed them as they
took the stacks of documents from the floor and from the open safety-deposit
boxes and piled them in plastic trash bags. "Don't fill the bags too full," he
said. "We have to be able to carry
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them. And I don't want them to break. Double-bag them until the supply of bags
runs low."
Kaa then moved closer to Krysty and, while she worked, he spoke to her in a
low, confidential voice. "This predark baron," he said, "this hero I
mentioned, he established law, order and peace in his land during his
lifetime. But after his death, the countryside and the people he had freed
descended back into the pit. The power that he alone possessed had held
together the wild and disobedient paladins, the competing interests of corrupt
administrators and traders.
"I learned much from my study of this man's story. I learned enough to see my
life reflected in his tale. I know that when I die, if my power dies with me,
whatever I have buitt will fall apart
That even if we rid Death lands of the norms who have enslaved and butchered
us, the new people will have no future. That is why you are so important"
"I don't understand."
"You will, Angelica. You will."
HOWLING, THE STICKERS ripped and clawed at the few remaining sec men who stood
between them and the twenty-fourth floor landing. Murchisson thrust his Uzi
over the shoulder of a man in front of him and fired full-auto into the
seething mass of muties, stitching a line of 9 mm lead across their heads.
Even as he fired, the dead-eyed bastards yanked down a sec man and started to
pull his face off. They were damn hard to
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chill. Even a head shot, unless it was a brain-corer, didn't stop them.
All the way up the stairs, he and his men had battled the army of stickies.
The more they chilled, the more they faced a seemingly endless supply of
needle teeth and suckered hands. Murchisson didn't know how many men he'd
lost, at least half of his force, maybe more.
The stairwell was full of stickies now, and they were all climbing, pushing up
to the top floors.
The baron's security force had reached the end of the line. The stairs didn't
access the penthouse; the twenty-fourth floor was as far up as they went.
"Inside!" he shouted to his men. "Get inside the door."
When the last man stepped back over the threshold, the sec men behind him
slammed the fire door closed. Or tried.
A cluster of stickie hands and arms blocked the door from shutting.
Murchisson shoved the muzzle of his Uzi through the crack and opened fire. The
clattering action spewed a cascade of spent brass as he blasted the stickies
away from the door. He fired until the
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s%20(12/55)/035%20-%20Skydark.txt mag came up empty.
Before he could get the blaster back in, a stickie grabbed the barrel. For a
second they played tug-of-war with the carbine, a game Murchisson realized he
couldn't win. With a curse he let go of the weapon, and the sec men crashed
the steel door closed.
The situation was bad.
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