A few cheered raggedly when they saw the Jensui. The cloaked man waved them to keep moving and hurried over to the platoon. He was short, hard-bitten, less dark than the others, nose craggy, eyes without obliqueness — Kith, by the look of him.
Panthos drew to a halt. “Form your line,” he commanded. “If any rioters show, shoot above them, warn them off.” To the leader: “Are you Houer Kernaldi?”
“Yes,” replied the man, his Jensui accented but fluent and steady. “You arrived in bare time, Optionary. Thank you. The Ultimate is with you.”
Panthos grinned. “Happenstance is. Are you in charge here? Don’t they have a, uh, priest or councilor?”
“I don’t know where Honrata is. May she be safe.”
“Meanwhile they look up to you, eh? Well, you did a good, forceful job. But this is a blind end. You’re boxed in.”
“There was no other way to go. The sanctuary doors are stout. I hoped they’d withstand battering till a rescue squad came.”
That could have been too long, Panthos thought. He suspected the summarian wouldn’t mind having the Seladorian problem taken off his hands. Afterward he’d shoot several arbitrarily arrested offenders. The Arodish high priest would protest the executions while privately feeling relieved himself, and that would be that.
However, here Panthos was, bearing the authority of his mission. “I’ll call for an airlift to bring you to safety,” he said, and raised his transceiver bracelet.
The response he got hit him in the belly. “We can’t,” a subcommander groaned. “The whole damn city’s erupting. Mobs are collecting around every Jensui property. We’ve got to keep force at the sites, all sites, or else they’ll turn into lynch-and-loot packs.”
“Hoy, you can spare a flyer or two to ferry us.”
“Sorry. The summarian told me to tell you.” He must have monitored the call, Panthos thought, but not wanted to give this matter any more time than that at this moment. “It’d be too provocative, he said. Better to let this thing burn itself out where it is than risk it spreading through the whole province. We’ve spotted you by satellite. You’re secure where you are, aren’t you? Stand guard till we have calm again. Service to the Coordinator.”
The voice cut off. Panthos lowered his arm. “Did you hear?” he asked Kernaldi.
“I did,” the other said without anxiety. “You will protect us?”
“Of course. You’re subjects of the Governance.”
Men appeared at the top of the stairs. They bounded down. “Fire high,” directed the paceman. Fulgurators flared and boomed. It was a more effective demonstration than bullets or sonics. The men scuttled back up out of sight. Their curses and obscenities trailed them.
“We’re safe,” Panthos said. “We just have to wait. No fun in this weather, but if you can keep your followers quiet, we’ll manage.” He felt confident of that. Here was a natural-born commander.
Kernaldi shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Optionary. No water.”
“What?”
“I checked that immediately when we got here. As I feared, nothing flows. The pipes are fed from above. Somebody has turned the valves. They aren’t all witless hysterics. This hasn’t happened randomly. There has been a certain amount of advance planning.”
“Um.” Panthos considered. Each man of his carried a canteen, and would need each drop in it. “The soil must still be moist. We’ll find vessels, dig down, squeeze out what we can for your weakest” — infants, the aged, the infirm. “That ought to keep them alive till morning.”
“I doubt it.” The tone was dispassionate, setting forth fact and logic. “Besides, will we be free then? This siege could go on for days, if the constabulary takes no action to stop it. And, Optionary, think of the spiritual side. The psychological side, if you prefer. Everything else of these people’s is being destroyed. This garden is their center and symbol. If we — they themselves — uproot it, will they ever have the heart to rebuild?”
“Maybe they can’t,” Panthos said. “Maybe they should go back to the old faith and the old ways, rejoin their folk.”
He promptly regretted his words. The small man stood erect and replied — if a knife could speak, so would it have spoken — “That is impossible. We are what we are. We will die here, or flee to Seladorian communities elsewhere, but we will not surrender.”