Page 33 (1/2)
Beauty is that Medusa’s head
Which o armed to seek and sever
It is most deadly whenforever
- Archibald MacLeish, "Beauty"
Chapter 33
Invasion
Tally turned fro but empty beds She was alone in the bunkhouse
She shook her head, foggy froround rumbled beneath her bare feet, and the bunkhouse shuddered around her Suddenly, the plastic in one of the s shattered, and the muffled cacophony fro shook as if it would collapse
Where was everyone? Had they already fled the S her there to face this invasion alone?
Tally ran for the door and threw it open Before her, a hovercar was landing, blinding her for a nized the machine’s cruel lines from the Special Circumstances car that had first taken her to see Dr Cable But this one was equipped with four shiroundcar would be - a cross between a norers’
helicopter
It could travel anywhere, Tally realized, inside a city or out in the wild She remembered Dr Cable’s words:We’ll be there in a few hours Tally forced the thought fro to do with her
The hovercar struck the dusty ground with a thud This was no ti She turned and ran
The ca fires had been blown from their pits, and scattered e buildings were ablaze Chickens and rabbits scampered underfoot, dust and ashes coiled in ra to put out the fires, so
Through everything else, the forray uniforh the confusion Graceful and unhurried, as if unaware of the chaos around the Smokies They moved in a blur, without any weapons that Tally could see, leaving everyone in their wake lying on the ground, bound and dazed
They were superhuiven them more than just terrible faces
Near thea stand, holding off a handful of Specials with axes and ht, and the incongruous s haze of srowled
Tally realized that she had slept through the breakfast call, too exhausted to wake up with everyone else
The Specials athered in thetheir invasion
Of course They wanted to capture as le stroke
The Specials weren’t attacking the large group at thewhile their nu every et past the cordon, they reacted swiftly, disar whoever dared to run But most of the Smokies were too shocked to resist, paralyzed by the terrible faces of their opponents Even here, most people had never seen a cruel pretty
Tally pinned herself against a building, trying to disappear next to a stack of firewood She shielded her eyes fro for an escape route There was no way to get into the center of the Smoke, where her hoverboard lay on the broad roof of the trading post, charging in the sun The forest was the only way out
A stretch of uncleared trees lay at the closest edge of town, only a twenty-second dash away But a Special stood between her and the border of dense trees and brush, waiting to intercept any stray Smokies The woman’s eyes scanned the approach to the forest, her head ulara slow-motion tennis match withoutpressed against the building A hovercar passed overhead, blowing a maelstrom of dust and loose wood chips into her eyes
When she could see again, Tally found an aging ugly crouching next to her, against the wall
"Hey!" he hissed
She recognized the sagging features, the bitter expression
It was the Boss
"Young lady, we have a probleh the cacophony of the attack
She glanced in the direction of the waiting Special "Yeah, I know"
Another hovercar roared over the and down behind a druutters
"You noticed her too?" He grinned, showing a ht ht"
Tally sed "I guess" She peered out at the Special, who stood as cal for a pleasure ferry "But they’re pretty fast"
"That depends" He dropped the duffel bag fros I keep ready for e and pulled out a plastic container big enough for a sandwich "This is one"
He popped open one corner of the top, and a puff of dust rose up A second later, a wave of fire rushed into Tally’s head She covered her face, eyes watering, and tried to cough up the finger of flame that had crawled down her throat
"Not bad, eh?" the Boss chuckled "That’s pure habanero pepper, dried and ground down to dust Not too bad in beans, but hell in your eyes"
Tally blinked away her tears and ed to speak "Are you nuts?"
"The other thing is this bag, which contains a representative sample of two hundred years of Rusty-era visual culture Priceless and irreplaceable artifacts So which do you want?"
"Huh?"
"Do you want the habanero pepper or the bag ofout our Special friend? Or save a precious piece of huhed once uessI want to escape"