Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [87]
She saw a Chiruwi half-man from Central Africa—a man with only one visible side—befuddling a CS officer who tried to shoot him, showing first his visible side, then his invisible side.
She saw a Chinese Nung-kua-ma—a ravenous creature with the body of a giant bull and the head of a measure of rice—devour a one-eye in one gulp. A CS man, terrified at that sight, dropped his gun and put his hands up. The Nung-kua-ma ate the gun.
Fresh squads of CS soldiers swarmed into the quadrangle and formed a line, firing their weapons continuously at the invaders. Crichton pointed here and there with furious gestures and barked orders into his headset.
But the line of CS soldiers was swamped by a tide of Hopi Kachinas, beings embodying the eternal forces of nature, which had humanoid shapes that were made of cloud-terraces, living trees, thunder, and interstellar space.
The CS guns had no effect on them, and the line of CS soldiers broke up, scattered. The Kachinas pursued, laughing, thundering, singing, stripping off more CS helmets.
Proteus the shape-changer took form right in front of Troi, changing from a man to a fish to a puddle, and finally into a three-headed Cerberus dog, the guardian of the underworld. His roar, the voice of Past, Present, and Future, was deafening. A trio of de-helmeted CS soldiers backed away from him in terror.
The CS soldiers backed straight into another trio who made their stand together: Sir Gawain the Round Table knight, Uyemon the blind samurai, and Stagolee, the invincible blues-playing troubadour of African-American folktale.
“I’d say you’d best be on your way,” the fearless Stagolee laughed at the soldiers, “or we’ll have to whup you good.”
“Yes,” said Gawain, “ye must yield you as overcome men.”
Gawain and Uyemon drew their swords, and Stagolee brandished his fists.
The three CS soldiers, having lost all taste for battle, bolted away.
Crichton stood on the flatbed of the mobile gun and frantically tried to rally his CS. But they seemed to be losing, their weapons ineffective, their helmets gone, confusion supreme. Some had abandoned the fight and were looking around in pure bewilderment. Some were laughing hysterically.
Troi saw several of the Dissenters walking among the myth-beings, helping them. She saw, impossibly, Caliban, even scruffier and bolder than when he had been alive; yet Troi sensed that he lived still—or lived again. She saw Rhiannon, now a beautiful grown woman in queenly dress, riding a magnificent horse. Rhiannon had become her own myth. The horse carried her about the quadrangle, leaping, galloping, taunting, neither man nor one-eye able to catch them or shoot them.
She saw Gunabibi dancing in the middle of the quadrangle. Her body was painted with thick white lines and circles. She was spreading her nature-fertility all around her. Vines grew from the concrete at her feet, spreading and multiplying like a time-lapse film, entwining guns and feet and jeeps in a green arabesque. Little bandicoot marsupials with young in their pouches were suddenly everywhere. One CS soldier found himself awash in a friendly tide of the bandicoots, and fell to the ground, not sure whether he should scream or laugh.
Troi saw a high-ranking CS officer who’d apparently defected. He was running about the quadrangle, ordering CS soldiers to destroy their own weapons, and the men were obeying. He got close to Troi for a moment and she saw he was Coyote, in disguise.
Still Crichton managed to rally his most dedicated men. A core group of them stayed round him, firing their weapons with fierce intensity at the impossible beings invading the seat of CS power. Some of the mythical characters were affected by the blasts of radiation. Some collapsed and some disappeared. Finally, the group of mythical characters began to fall back.
Then the colossal Aztec figure of Tezcatlipoca, the Mirror Man, thundered onto the quadrangle, dragging the leg that had no foot. His head reached the tops of the buildings. His mirrored surfaces reflected the scenes around