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The sergeant considered the very limited number of options at his disposal.
“Sir, surprise inspection, sir?” he said.
“Provisionatedly classificisioned at this time,” said Famine, who had spent years learning how to sell to the federal government and could feel the language coming back to him.
“Sir, affirmative, sir,” said the sergeant.
“Good man,” said Famine, as the barrier was raised. “You’ll go a long way.” He glanced at his watch. “Very shortly.”
:SOMETIMES HUMAN BEINGS are very much like bees. Bees are fiercely protective of their hive, provided you are outside it. Once you’re in, the workers sort of assume that it must have been cleared by management and take no notice; various freeloading insects have evolved a mellifluous existence because of this very fact. Humans act the same way.
No one stopped the four as they purposefully made their way into one of the long, low buildings under the forest of radio masts. No one paid any attention to them. Perhaps they saw nothing at all. Perhaps they saw what their minds were instructed to see, because the human brain is not equipped to see War, Famine, Pollution, and Death when they don’t want to be seen, and has got so good at not seeing that it often manages not to see them even when they abound on every side.
The alarms were totally brainless and thought they saw four people where people shouldn’t be, and went off like anything.
NEWT DID NOT SMOKE, because he did not allow nicotine to gain entry to the temple of his body or, more accurately, the small Welsh Methodist tin tabernacle of his body. If he had been a smoker, he would have choked on the cigarette that he would have been smoking at this time in order to steady his nerves.
Anathema stood up purposefully and smoothed the creases in her skirt.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “They don’t apply to us. Something’s probably happening inside.”
She smiled at his pale face. “Come on,” she said, “It’s not the O.K. Corral.”
“No. They’ve got better guns, for one thing,” said Newt.
She helped him up. “Never mind,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll think of a way.”
IT WAS INEVITABLE that all four of them couldn’t contribute equally, War thought. She’d been surprised at her natural affinity for modern weapons systems, which were so much more efficient than bits of sharp metal, and of course Pollution laughed at absolutely foolproof, fail-safe devices. Even Famine at least knew what computers were. Whereas … well, he didn’t do anything much except hang around, although he did it with a certain style. It had occurred to War that there might one day be an end to War, an end to Famine, possibly even an end to Pollution, and perhaps this was why the fourth and greatest horseman was never exactly what you might call one of the lads. It was like having a tax inspector in your football team. Great to have him on your side, of course, but not the kind of person you wanted to have a drink and a chat with in the bar afterwards. You couldn’t be one hundred per cent at your ease.
A couple of soldiers ran through him as he looked over Pollution’s skinny shoulder.
WHAT ARE THOSE GLITTERY THINGS? he said, in the tones of one who knows he won’t be able to understand the answer but wants to be seen to be taking an interest.
“Seven-segment LED displays,” said the boy. He laid loving hands on a bank of relays, which fused under his touch, and then introduced a swath of self-replicating viruses that whirred away on the electronic ether.
“I could really do without those bloody alarms,” muttered Famine.
Death absentmindedly snapped his fingers. A dozen klaxons gurgled and died.
?
??I don’t know, I rather liked them,” said Pollution.
War reached inside another metal cabinet. This wasn’t the way she’d expected things to be, she had to admit, but when she ran her fingers over and sometimes through the electronics there was a familiar feel. It was an echo of what you got when you held a sword, and she felt a thrill of anticipation at the thought that this sword enclosed the whole world and a certain amount of the sky above it, as well. It loved her.
A flaming sword.
Mankind had not been very good at learning that swords are dangerous if left lying around, although it had done its limited best to make sure that the chances of one this size being wielded accidentally were high. A cheering thought, that. It was nice to think that mankind made a distinction between blowing their planet to bits by accident and doing it by design.
Pollution plunged his hands into another rack of expensive electronics.
THE GUARD ON THE HOLE in the fence looked puzzled. He was aware of excitement back in the base, and his radio seemed to be picking up nothing but static, and his eyes were being drawn again and again to the card in front of him.
He’d seen many identity cards in his time—military, CIA, FBI, KGB even—and, being a young soldier, had yet to grasp that the more insignificant an organization is, the more impressive are its identity cards.
This one was hellishly impressive. His lips moved as he read it again, all the way from “The Lord Protector of the Common Wealth of Britain charges and demands,” through the bit about commandeering all kindling, rope, and igniferous oils, right down to the signature of the WA’s first Lord Adjutant, Praise-him-all-Ye-works-of-the-Lord-and-Flye-Fornication Smith. Newt kept his thumb over the bit about Nine Pence Per Witch and tried to look like James Bond.
Finally the guard’s probing intellect found a word he thought he recognized.
