Demon

She looked at each in turn, fixing them in memory.

Park Suk Chee: a small, fiftyish Korean, in command of the Second Division.

Nadaba Shalom: in her forties, light-ski

Daegal Kurosawa: a racial mix of Japanese, Swedish, and Swazi, who commanded the One Hundred First.

All had been in the military on Earth, but none had advanced beyond the rank of Lieutenant. There were troops under their command who had ranked higher ... but no former Generals. There had been a time, in Bellinzona, when the discovery of an ex-General had been the occasion for a rare celebration. People would get together and burn the fellow at the stake. General-burning had been Bellinzona's only indigenous sport.

There had been no lynchings for some time before Cirocco took power. Nevertheless, it had been difficult at first to get anyone to accept the title, and for a time the Generals had been called "Caesars." But common usage gradually took over, as people grew used to the fact that these Generals had no nuclear weapons to play with.

"Park. Shalom. Kurosawa." She nodded at each of them, and they nodded back, warily.

"First... we won't be building siege towers."

They were surprised, but did their best not to show it. Not long ago, one of them would have asked if she pla

"What is going to happen here will be a little like a big parade. It'll be something like a carnival, and something like a wide-screen spectacular. It'll be a monster movie. It'll be like one of those big outdoor performances of the 1812 Overture, complete with ca

There was a silence for a while. At last Kurosawa spoke.

"Then what will it be?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. First ... if what I'm going to describe to you goes wrong, I will be dead. You'll have to carry on without me. I won't be so stupid as to try to give you orders from beyond the grave. You'll have to make the decisions." She pointed to Park. "You'll be in command, overall. I can do that much, and hereby promote you to Two-Star General. According to the Bellinzona laws, that makes you answerable to the Mayor, when a new one is elected, but it gives you almost total authority in field decisions."

She looked from one to the other. Their thoughts were veiled, but she had a pretty good idea how they were going. Three divisions in the field, one in Bellinzona. If Park wanted to march home and take over, nobody was likely to stop him. She had chosen him as the least likely to have ambitions toward martial law. But she knew she had created a potential monster in the army itself. If there had only been another way ...

But Gaea had wanted a war, and she had to have at least the illusion of one. She had to have her attention diverted, and nothing short of an army would be enough.

"Before we get to the orders of the day, I'll give you the benefit of my thinking about the situation you'll face if I am killed. You can do with it what you will.

"I advise you to retreat."

She waited for a comment, and got none.

"You might successfully breach the wall. I think you could. Inside, you're more than a match for her people. But you're outnumbered. You'd take heavy losses ... and you'd lose in the end. If Gaea decides to pursue you ... it'll be a nightmare such as you've never imagined. She would rampage through your troops. She never sleeps, never gets tired. She might only kill a few of you at first. But as your troops get tired she'll kill more. Maybe a Legion a day, until you're wiped out. That's why, if I'm killed, you should start your pull-out immediately. Once you get to Oceanus, you'll be safe, for a while, because I don't think she'll go in there."

She saw she had managed to frighten at least two of them. Park had merely narrowed his eyes, and Cirocco had no idea what was going on behind them.

"If she lives ... " Park began. His eyes got even narrower. "She will eventually come to Bellinzona."

"I think it's inevitable."

"What do we do then?" Shalom asked.

Cirocco shrugged.

"I haven't the faintest idea. Maybe you can whip up a weapon that can kill her. I hope you can." She jerked a thumb in the direction of the unseen walls of Pandemonium. "Maybe your best course is to knuckle down to her like those poor souls in there. Bow down to her and tell her how great she is, and how much you liked her last picture. Go to her movies three times a day like a dutiful slave, and be thankful you're alive. I don't know if it's better to die on your feet than live on your knees."

"I, personally," Park said, quietly, "would rather die. But this is beside the point. I appreciate your evaluation of this hypothetical situation. Could you tell us now, what we do today?"

That extra star sure emboldens one, Cirocco thought. She leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, earnest as could be. She felt like a three-card-Monte dealer about to go into her spiel.

"Have any of you ever heard of a bullfight?"

EIGHTEEN

Chris climbed down the ladder from the top of the wall to the ground. He had been standing up there for several revs, just to the west of the Universal Gate, watching Cirocco's troops in the distance.

At first he had been impressed. It seemed like a lot of people. Through an observation telescope he had been able to make out the size and shape of the wagons, the type of uniforms the soldiers wore, and the business-like way they moved.

The longer he looked, the less sure he was. So he did his best to make an estimate of just how many soldiers were out there. He did it again and again, and even the largest number he came up with was smaller than he had hoped. There were fewer Titanides than he had expected, too.

Chris had not been completely idle. As the news of the approaching army whispered through the nervous Pandemonium grapevines, he had gone about assessing Pandemonium's strength. He had tried not to be obvious about it-though he doubted Gaea really cared. She made no attempt to conceal anything from him or anyone else in Pandemonium. In fact, she often bragged openly that she had a hundred thousand fighters.

That was true, Chris had decided ... and deceptive. There were that many people inside the wall, and they would all fight. But he assumed Cirocco's army would know how to fight. What Gaea's troops had been trained to do, it seemed to Chris, was wait for the cameras to get into position, wear fierce expressions when charging, shout, and pose in attitudes of stalwart determination.

But there were some things he wished he could get to Cirocco. A spy wasn't worth much if he couldn't get his information out of the country. That thought made him want a beer. ...

He shook his head, violently. He was determined to stay dry until the fighting was over. He had to be ready, if the chance came ... though he didn't know if he would recognize it, if and when. He was too much in the dark. And that made him want a beer-

Damn it.

Gaea came striding along the wall. She had been going around and around, checking the deployment of her troops, ordering units back and forth, wearing them out before the fighting even started.

"Hey, Chris!" she called out. He turned and looked up at her. She gestured out to the north, where the army was assembling. "What do you think? They're real pretty, aren't they?"

"They're going to whip your ass, Gaea," he said.

She roared with laughter, stepped over the Universal globe, and continued on her rounds. Increasingly, Chris found himself in the role of court jester, able to say the outrageous things permitted a comic figure. It didn't do anything to improve his morale, and it hardly even amused him anymore.