The Kanshou (Earthkeep) by Gearhart Sally Miller

Author:Gearhart, Sally Miller [Gearhart, Sally Miller]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Sally Miller Gearhart
Published: 2002-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

8 - Stone - [2087 C.E.]

"Habitantes are being punished for crimes against their fellow citizens. They belong in cells or at least in restraints. To allow them to roam freely is a mockery of justice. Who knows what mischief they might conceive of under such permissive circumstances? Matrix-Major Adverb is, frankly, insane."

--Femmedarme Hedwoman Alka Hussein

Mideast Satrapy Commissioner

--Proceedings Of Global Bailiwick Commission

August 18, 2076

The close-range blast of a shotgun shattered and scattered the face of Femmedarme Ippolita Kemel. She flew backward just as the bailiwick's sequencing station exploded behind her. Her attacker, thrown against a deactivated hurtfield, staggered and reloaded for another assault with his antique weapon.

"Stop!" Stone shouted to the man. "Wait!" His voice was a whisper against the chaos of alarm coils and phaserfire. "Fucking stop!" he cried again, scrambling toward the fallen woman. Kemel was one of his jailers, a hard-driving bitch with a voice like raw brake-shoes. But she had her decent moments.

Two Flying Daggers dropped from the sky. They overpowered Kemel's attacker. Together with him and with Kemel they were blown skyward again, in pieces this time, by a trinimbric grenade cluster.

Screams and howls, klaxons and sirens. Then the rattle of an automatic weapon. Stone saw Ángel, African print boxcap askew, spraying with his uzi the lifeless bodies of two more Femmedarmes. Up and down and up, left to right and left again, bullets in a circle to the left, bullets in a circle to the right, up and down and up again, his wild laughter escalating with the splatter of soft flesh, the sting of fast blood.

Stone's distress turned to anger and began a slow rise from the base of his spine. "Ángel!" he screamed, propelling himself into an arching lunge. He brought the little man down to the dirt and split his grinning face with a single blow. Yes!

Anointed by blood, Stone struck again, harder. His adrenaline surged. There, the cheekbone gave way! He balled up his stinging knuckles and hurled them time and again into Ángel's skullbone, burying them deep into the softness of that fanatic brain. He was omnipotent, invincible. Right fist. Left. Harder! His eyes were glazed, his cadence set for forever.

At last he peaked and plunged, roaring into a sharp ecstasy. He rode it downward, slowly, deliciously, until he was washed in a peace as vast as the ocean. He rocked gently and let the frenzy leach from his bones. His torso eased. He smiled.

Silence.

Stone lay quiet, aware only of sticky wetness and throbbing fists. The body below him whimpered. He shook it. It was not Ángel's body. It was smaller and far more frail. Stone felt tears mounting the hill behind his eyes. "Petar!" he whispered. Huge sobs rose and fell in his throat. "Petar, I didn't mean it! I didn't mean--"

He could not fill his lungs. He stroked the trembling form in his arms, rocking it, holding it close, resigned to never breathing again, chanting silent words: "Forgive me! Please . . . Petar!"

Petar's lips quivered. Then his small hand reached upward and touched Stone's cheek.

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