Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

of the
spacers. I mean, even before you found the evidence, I had them
in the frame. And it’s a bit hard to reconstruct now, you
know how it is, but when I refused to give Dave any hands-off
guarantees, let alone any more… active support, well, that
suspicion must have been in the scales. Might even have tipped
them.’
    Mustafa shouted something and brought the machine-gun down and
around to the rear. Myrashifted her legs smartly away from the
ammo belt and twisted her head around. Five hundred metres behind
them was a small, jockeying pack of cars and jeeps, in front of a
cloud of dust and beneath a halo of camcopters. She clapped
Mustafa’s thigh.
    ‘Leave them alone!’ she yelled.
    He replied with some Uzbek profanity, but desisted, swinging
the machine-gun muzzle skyward again.
    ‘So you’re saying killing Georgi was
counterproductive for the spacers?’
    ‘Damn right!’
    ‘OK.’ Jason leaned back in the cramped seat and
closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Cui bono? Who
benefited?’
    ‘Ah, shit,’ said Myra, realizing, just as the jeep
turned the corner into Revolution Square, and stopped. Myra
grabbed the rollbar and pulled herself up. Long practice in
estimating the size of demos clicked into place automatically,
like eyeband software.
    About ten thousand.
    ‘Oh, Jeez,’ she said.
    It was not a particularly militant or angry crowd, at that
moment. Tents and shelters and stalls had been set up, and many
of the banners were propped against them or leaning on street
furniture, or stuck in the patches of now trampled grass or beds
of flowers that chequered the square. People stood or sat about,
in small groups, chatting, drinking coffee, reading news off
broadsheets or eyebands or handhelds, listening to speeches and
songs, arguing with each other or with the scattered ones and
twos of the Workers’ Militia. Some were dressed casually,
others in their best outfits or in national costumes or
street-theatre radiation overalls.
    ‘Looks pretty dangerous,’ said Jason.
    She gave him an appreciative nod. ‘Yeah, that’s a mass demo if ever I saw one. Not to mention a big fraction
of the remaining population. Shit’
    The kids back in Glasgow had been right: her small state was
having a big political revolution. The two mujahedin glowered uncomprehendingly at the mingled banners of Kazakhstan,
the ISTWR, the old Soviet Union, the International, the red flags
and the black.
    She ducked and placed a hand on Nurup’s shoulder.
    ‘Stand up,’ she ordered. ‘Look cheerful.
Wave your rifle high above your head. Mustafa, for heaven’s
sake smile, man, wave your arms and keep your hands off
the LMG. No matter what, you got that?’
    To the driver, ‘Around the inside edge of the crowd,
towards the entrance. Slow and careful.’
    She lifted herself up, swung her ass around and perched on the
rollbar, feet on the back of Nurup’s seat. The driver
engaged first gear, then second. The jeep rolled towards the
corner of the front of the building. It had about fifty metres to
go, then another fifty when it would have to turn right and inch
along to the entrance. They went unremarked for about half a
minute. Then the people stepping out of their way started calling
and pointing. A moment later the pursuing reporters caught up and
all chance of discretion was gone.
    She could see the news of her arrival spread through the crowd
like a gust of wind on a field. The camcopters circled at a safe
distance, zooming in on her and on reaction shots of the people
looking at her. Their only chance, she’d decided, was to
look confident and triumphant She grinned andwaved, meanwhile
blinking up a call to Valentina.
    ‘You can see us?’
    Yeah, we’ve got you covered. We’ll open the door
for you when you reach it.’
    Cheers and jeers echoed off the government office’s
glass and concrete walls. No organised chanting or coherent mood
as yet – people were still unsure what to make of her
return. She smiled desperately at every individual face that came
into focus, and quite a few smiled back. The hovering camcopters
had their directional mikes aimed at her, but she didn’t
speak to, or for, them.
    ‘It’s all right, folks, comrades, we’re
getting it all sorted out, we’ve got a strong alliance with
Kazakhstan, we’re negotiating with the UN and we’ll
hold off the Sheenisov, I’ll be talking to you all soon,
once I’ve had a chance to consult