And then a Spackle arrow hits him in the ribcage–
And his Noise stops–
And I’m jerked back onto the battlefield–
Back into hell–
KEEP IT TOGETHER, TODD! the Mayor puts in my head.
But I’m still looking at the dead soldier–
His dead eyes looking back up at me–
“Dammit, Todd!” the Mayor yells at me and–
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
Thudding thru my brain like a dropped brick–
I AM THE CIRCLE AND THE CIRCLE IS ME.
In his voice and my own–
Twisted together–
Right in the centre of my head–
“Eff off,” I try to shout–
But my voice is weirdly quiet–
And–
And–
And I look up–
And I feel calmer–
Like the world is clearer and slower–
And a Spackle breaks thru where two soldiers have separated–
And he raises his white stick at me–
And I’m gonna have to do it–
(killer–)
(yer a killer–)
I’m gonna have to shoot him before he shoots me–
And I raise my gun–
Davy’s gun that I took from him–
And I think, Oh, please, as I put my finger on the trigger–
Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please–
And–
Snick–
I look down in shock.
My gun ain’t loaded.
{VIOLA}
“You’re lying,” Mistress Coyle says, but she’s already turning, as if she could see over the trees and into town. She can’t, there’s just the shadows of the forest against the distant glow. The steam from the vents is so loud we can barely hear ourselves talk, much less anything from the town, and if she took off after the ship the second she saw it come in for landing, she wouldn’t have heard the horn at all.
“That’s impossible,” she’s saying. “They agreed, they signed a truce!”
Spackle! Acorn says, behind me.
“What did you say?” Simone asks me.
“No,” Mistress Coyle says. “Oh, no.”
“Would someone please explain what the hell’s going on?” Bradley asks.
“The Spackle are the indigenous species,” I say. “Intelligent and smart–”
“Vicious in battle,” Mistress Coyle interrupts.
“The only one I met was gentle and much more frightened of humans than the humans here seem to be of them-”
“You didn’t fight them in a war,” Mistress Coyle says.
“I also didn’t enslave them.”
“I will not stand here and have this conversation with a child–”
“It’s hardly as if they’re coming for no reason.” I turn back to Bradley and Simone. “They’re attacking because the Mayor committed a genocide of all the Spackle slaves, and if we can maybe just talk to them, tell them we’re not like the Mayor–”
“They’ll kill your precious boy,” Mistress Coyle says. “Won’t even think twice about it.”
My breath immediately stops as panic starts to rise from what she says, but then I try to remember that she’d like it if I panicked. If I was afraid, I’d be easier to control.
But I won’t be, because we’ll stop this. We’ll stop all of this.
That’s what me and Todd do.
“We’ve caught the Mayor,” I say, “and if the Spackle see that–”
“With all due respect,” Mistress Coyle says to Simone. “Viola is a girl with an extremely limited knowledge of the history of this world. If the Spackle are attacking, we’ve got to fight back!”
“Fight back?” Bradley says, frowning. “Who do you think we are?”
“Todd needs our help,” I say. “We can fly down there and stop this before it’s too late–”
“It’s already too late,” Mistress Coyle interrupts. “If you could just take me up in your ship, I could show you–”
But Simone’s shaking her head. “The atmosphere was thicker up top than we expected. We had to land in full coolant mode–”
“No!” I say but of course they did. Two vents open–
“What does that mean?” Mistress Coyle asks.
“It means we don’t fly for at least another eight hours as the engines cool and replenish their fuel cells,” Simone says.
“Eight hours?” Mistress Coyle says. She makes a fist, actually makes a fist in the air in frustration.
For once, I know how she feels.
“But we’ve got to help Todd!” I say. “He can’t control one army and hold off another–”
“He’ll have to let the President go,” Mistress Coyle says.
“No,” I say quickly. “No, he wouldn’t do that.”
Would he?
No.
Not after we fought so hard.
“War makes ugly necessity,” Mistress Coyle says. “And however good your boy may be, he’s one against thousands.”
I fight down the panic again and turn to Bradley. “We have to do something!”
He looks hard over to Simone and I know they’re wondering what disaster they’ve landed themselves in. Then Bradley snaps his fingers like he’s remembered something.
“Hold on!” he says and rushes back into the scout ship.
[TODD]
I pull the trigger again–
All I get is another snick–
I look up–
The Spackle’s raising his white stick–
(what are those things?)
(what are they that causes so much damage?)
And I’m dead–
I’m dead–
I’m–
BANG!
A gun goes off right by my head–
And the Spackle with the white stick jerks to one side, a trail of blood flying from his neck above the line of his armour–
The Mayor–
The Mayor shot him from the back of Morpeth–
And I’m staring over at him, ignoring the fighting that’s going on all around us–
“You sent yer son to war with an EMPTY GUN?” I scream, shaking from anger and from having just about died–
“Now is not the time, Todd,” the Mayor says–
And I flinch again as the whisk of an arrow flies right past me and I grab the reins and try to turn Angharrad to get the hell outta here and I see a soldier stumble back into Morpeth, blood rushing out from a nightmarish-looking hole in the stomach of his uniform and he raises his bloody hands to the Mayor for help–
And the Mayor snatches the soldier’s rifle from him and tosses it over to me–
I catch it out of reflex, my hands instantly wet from the blood all over it–
NOW IS ALSO NOT THE TIME FOR NICETIES, the Mayor puts in my head. TURN! FIRE!
And I turn–
And I fire–
{VIOLA}
“Survey probe!” Bradley says, coming back down the ramp, carrying what looks like an oversize insect, maybe half a metre long, shiny metal wings spread open over a thin metal body. He holds it up to Simone as if asking her. She nods and I see that she’s Mission Commander for this trip.