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By Root 1267 0

superstitions and all their red-handed scruples together you’d end up with some kind of caveman religion. Anyway, what it all adds up to is that when they can’t see no way out they’re just stupidly brave. I mean, I’ve seen that guy in action, and he laughs at death. It’s literally true. OK. Well, when I told him about the cranks, he was shitting himself. He was white. And then he just sort of smiled and relaxed. That must have been when he sussed this place was ANR.’

‘No, I’d already told him. And, even before then, he’d recognized the parachutes. We must find out how he did that…we’ve shown hundreds of people around the areas he saw and nobody’s suspected a thing.’ Valery snorted. ‘He’s taken the Republic’s shilling now, so no doubt he’ll have to tell us.’

‘And what can you tell me?’ Cat persisted.

Valery looked at her, frowning distantly. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I have some things to check out. Meanwhile…’ And she’d suggested that Cat go to this shared but private workroom. One corner was a sewing area, with the machine, a dressmakers’ dummy, and a chest-of-drawers full of fabrics. In the opposite corner stood a computer terminal and a locked rack of diskettes. The walls were an apple-green shade of white; one of them was almost covered by a television screen, with a comprehensive array of subscriber attachments.

she cursored, and the sewing-machine console’s ammo-belt of reels rattled around and slotted one into place. The thread was caught by a pair of clicking pincers and pulled through guides and finally the needle’s eye. ‘Begin,’ said the machine, with what she thought an understandable smugness.

For a while Catherin lost track of time altogether; one part of her mind absorbed the shades and shapes as another part worked away in another place. She began to understand how the sisters could combine their super-ficially frivolous occupations with…preoccupations, in hard and cold and logical thought about logistics and politics, strategy and tactics.

As she now did. She’d thought she had set Moh up, and now saw that she herself had been – first by the ANR, and then by the CLA. As far as she knew she was free to go, now the cranks had cleared her name. She was back on the Committee for a Social-Ecological Intervention’s databases as a gun for hire – she’d checked that as soon as the rent-cop had given her Moh’s receipt and left. But she had no intention of working for the CLA again, united front or no united front. It was obvious that Donovan was out to get Moh, and that something bloody big – big and bloody both – was coming down.

for the lettering. <90mm. serif.>

Rumours of yet another ANR final offensive had circulated throughout the summer and into the autumn. On the very reasonable assumption that it would be a surprise when it came, she’d discounted the story even while spreading it. This hadn’t been irresponsible, in her view. It was perfectly legitimate disinformation, because the Alliance, the spectrum coalition brought together by a faction of the official wing of the Labour Party, was definitely planning a hot autumn of demonstrations and fraternizations, with a few daring armed actions by the Red Rose Brigades thrown in. So, at least, the state media alleged, and the free media denied and confirmed and debated.

The lettering was finished. She smiled at the words. Now back to outlining the appliqué, filling in the spaces.

Anything to get the enemy as confused as we are. Talk about poor bloody infantry. She felt a sudden surge of anger at it all, the deception and manipulation and calculation, the trade-offs and stand-offs, the violence to vulnerable human flesh. Something had genuinely attracted her, she saw now, in the femininists’ cover story, the make-up and veiling of their sinews of war.

It was finished. Cat looked at the clock icon, surprised at how many hours had passed. She snipped and tied off the last threads and took the jacket out of the machine. She stood up and admired it at arm’s-length for a minute, then draped it around