The Cassandra Complex - Brian Stableford [68]
“That’s not possible,” he said, raising his voice to make sure everyone could hear him. “That simply isn’t possible.”
“Yes, it is,” Eagle shouted back. “It’s not just possible, it’s easy. All you have to do is let the animals go.”
Haifa million mice! Lisa thought. Well, maybe we should. Give them the half-million mice, and the cats—not to mention the rabbits—and let them carry their prizes away, while smooth-talking them into refraining from killing one another. If only Ed and Morgan had a pride of lions and a flock of lambs! How these fools could educate us then in the art of the possible!
That was when the eggs started to fall on the police line. The “Rioters’ Handbook” on the net advised all demonstrators to start with eggs, because eggs were messy without threatening real injury. The tactic was supposed to put the police at a PR disadvantage, because passing out riot shields in response to half a dozen eggs would always look like over-reaction when the videotapes were studied. Every policeman and newsreader in the land had read the “Rioters’ Handbook,” of course—but that didn’t make the gambit any easier to counter.
Kenneally didn’t hestitate. He signaled for a second line of officers to move in front of the existing line, so that the men with the helmets and shields could be seen to be protecting their defenseless colleagues. As soon as the shields were in place, however, the hail of eggs intensified, smearing the sheets of transparent plastic with an opaque mess. At least one in ten of the eggs was rotten, and the stench of hydrogen sulfide filled the air. The volley was aimed primarily at the helmetless officers, but Lisa and Kenneally were too close to the line to avoid it—and there was no further point in their staying put, given that Eagle, Jude, and Keeper Pan had melted back into the crowd. Lisa didn’t wait for an order before turning on her heel and running back to the command vehicle.
As if her flight were the cue that the demonstrators had been waiting for, a hundred voices took up Keeper Pan’s suggested chant—and the hundred increased as the bystanders began to join in with the fun.
As soon as he was back in the command vehicle, hot on Lisa’s heels, Kenneally ordered up the reserves. He instructed them to move into flanking positions, formed up for a baton charge.
“What kind of gas?” a uniformed inspector demanded.
How nice to have a choice, Lisa thought. Once upon a time, it all had to end in tears, but now we have an entire spectrum of specialist smokes,
“No gas!” Kenneally told him. “They’re just kids, mostly. Let the batons give them pause for thought, then move forward—walking, not running. No head-breaking.”
If only the demonstrators had been working to the same sporting assumptions, all might have been well—but the new kinds of gas were advertised on the net, and the best efforts of His Majesty’s Customs & Excise were inadequate to prevent deliveries to eager customers. The reservists hardly had to to take up their formations when the gas grenades began to break them up again—and when they charged, they charged, raggedly but with violent effect. If they refrained from head-breaking, it was only because their training had taught them well enough the tactics of jab-and-slash. They went for bellies, balls, and kneecaps, and cut down the opposition with far more effect than random blows to hard heads could ever have achieved.
The protesters didn’t panic, but the bystanders did—and somehow, the least-careful bystanders now seemed to be in the front Unes to the right and the left, if not yet in the center.
Lisa and Chan observed the chaos dutifully from the command vehicle, each with a conscientiously clinical eye.
“You were right, Miss,” the security man observed, as if it were cause for surprise.
Lisa knew long before the official announcement came, twenty-four hours later, what the outcome of the riot would be. The university authorities undertook to comply with the spirit as well as the letter of the 2000 Act, banning all current and future experiments on dogs,