Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [140]
Mason moved toward him.
“I have orders to empty out the street by any means necessary,” he warned Brentford formally.
“When was that supposed to be? Before or after the crowd massacred the Eskimos?” Brentford bit his lips. Perhaps he had gone too far. It was his luck that Mason liked problems to be stated clearly. Brentford could sense the dilemma the officer was in. Mason, he supposed, was not personally overwhelmed by any desire to empty out this particular street, especially if it meant it would endanger his men uselessly, but orders are orders. And certainly—and above all—he dreaded to lose face.
“The Council have forfeited their right to govern the city. I have assumed leadership during the transition,” said Brentford, embarrassed at the pomposity of it.
“It’s not for me to judge the Council,” said Mason, surprisingly coldly. “I’m not taking my orders from you.” Though the second sentence was even harsher than the first, Brentford thought he detected a thread of regret or sympathy.
“Aren’t your orders that you must not intervene in the city?” he tried.
“Is any of this part of your duties as a civil servant? Mason countered. “You ask me to obey superiors’ orders when you are disobeying them yourself.”
They were in a deadlock.
Suddenly, a rattling agitation came from the back of the Sea Lions. A lieutenant hurried up to Mason, almost tripping on his own sabre.
“What is it?”
“At the back, sir, women with weapons.”
Mason instantly pivoted and stared off where the lieutenant indicated. He lowered his sabre, dumbstruck. Brentford followed his gaze and saw—though barely believing it—Lilian Lenton, in a kind of green drum-major uniform, standing on a sled equipped with a Maxim machine-gun. All around her stood dozens of young women in arms, some of them brandishing colourful silk banners that Brentford could not read. It was the little band that had accompanied Lilian during the Recording Riot, back with a vengeance.
“Please,” called out Lilian through a megaphone, a charming, almost flirtatious streak in her otherwise self-assured voice. “We have weapons, but we may not use them quite right. Sorry for the damage we would inflict on you.”
Brentford felt like laughing, a bit nervously.
Mason turned toward him, very calmly, almost relieved. He had found a way out.
“I do not shoot women,” he said to Brentford.
“The contrary would have surprised me,” Brentford replied with a nod.
“I do not help revolutionaries, either.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“I will therefore order my men to retreat and remain neutral,” he added, in a lower voice, his eyes avoiding Brentford’s. “However, I have some doubt that the Navy Cadets will obey me. They have been very dissatisfied with the Council’s orders lately. But would they be mutinous. I would be myself very reluctant to send my other units to march against them in the present confusion.”
“Would the Cadets be mutinous to the point where they could, let us say, help us against the Council?”
“I do not wish to know,” sighed Mason, shrugging his shoulders. “There’s no ‘us’ I’m aware or part of. I’m going back to Frobisher Fortress. If you’re looking for the Council in order to surrender yourself, which I strongly advise, it is now heading back to the Blazing Building. There is a good chance Brainveil will survive, in case you were worried.”
Without waiting for an answer, he turned to his men and ordered them to shoulder arms and about face.
“Forward march!” he called.
The Sea Lions complied in an almost perfectly synchronous rhythm of clicks and jangles, but as they advanced toward the Arcades, Brentford noticed that their faces were turned toward the girls. But then, so was his, as soon as the last soldier had walked past.
Brentford strode quickly toward Lilian, who was, he had to admit, very eye-catching in her braided dolman and feathered hat. The forty or fifty young women who surrounded her wore no uniforms, but a hodgepodge of the fashionable and the military, flouncy skirts with