Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [139]
As the flow of people began to thin out, he tried once more to advance, to make sure that he would stay out of reach of the Gentleman of the Night. The ice rugby player in him struggled toward the exit, ignoring the blows, focusing on staying upright, and gaining ground yard by yard. The bulk of the cowardly crowd had already passed him as he reached the gate of the arcade, and he stumbled out into the Midway, almost losing his balance among the stragglers who dashed past him.
He found the Midway strewn with scattered hats, scarves, and gloves, and even the odd shoe. But the most striking feature was this: a line of a hundred or so Scavengers in their masks and hats stood spread out across the front of the Inuit People’s Ice Palace, their lever guns pointed skyward and an atrocious stench hovering about them.
“Hello,” called one of them, whose voice Brentford recognized as Blankbate’s.
“Thanks. Once again,” Brentford said, filled with such happiness he felt about to weep.
This was nothing but what he had himself planned, though. Well, more or less.
In the Anarchists’ den, various tactics had been devised, but as soon as the news arrived that the Council had decided to turn the Inuit People’s Ice Palace into a temporary ghetto for the Eskimos (and possibly, Brentford suspected, a permanent one), the armed Scavengers had used the sewage system to enter the Ice Palace from below, so that when the Inuit went in, their liberators were already there, with the four Inughuit as translators, and much to the wardens’ dismay. The lynch riot had been unexpected, but Blankbate, a mysterious man with, it seemed, some experience of combat, had no doubts about how to proceed.
He knew that New Venetians, threatened since they were children with the idea that the Scavengers would come and fetch them if they did not eat their clam chowder, usually tended, more or less consciously, not to cross their path, and if they did to avert their eyes. Suddenly opening the doors the crowd was banging upon and stepping outside to confront them in their full Plague Doctors regalia, the Scavengers were bound to make a certain impression. And reeking of raw sewage and armed with guns as well, they were simply too formidable to resist. Taking in the sight and stench, the mob stepped back like a frightened child and, at the crackling sound of the upward volley ordered by Blankbate, escaped the subtle control of the provocateurs and ran for its lower form of life. And so did the troublemakers on the Council’s payroll.
It was looking good. Unless it wasn’t.
At the other end of the Midway now marched a company of the Sea Lions, their guns pointed toward the Scavengers. Brentford, hypnotized by the spectacle, took a while to realize he was standing right in the middle of the fire zone. He recognized Mason, walking beside the first row of the fusiliers, his sabre held high, as if he were commanding a firing squad. Brentford knew enough of military psychology to know that all the orders Mason had obeyed reluctantly over the past few days could now well turn against him. Enemies usually paid for the stinging humiliations soldiers received from above: this was what could happen when you double-binded people with both a sense of honour and absolute subjection. It was very thin ice that Brentford now trod upon, and he was more nervous, probably, than the Scavengers were. He found himself waving a white handkerchief as if he were waving good-bye to his behind.
The Sea Lions stopped forty yards away from the Scavengers. Mason ordered bayonets to be fixed, and the first line to kneel down and take aim. Behind Brentford, the lever guns of the Scavengers clicked, sputtering cartridges on the ground. Everything came to a standstill. Brentford remembered that a Japanese martial arts instructor of the Navy Cadets had once taught him that life should be conducted as if constantly charging the spears of one’s enemies. This included, he supposed, actually charging the spears of one’s enemies. He contented himself with walking toward