sound of the General turning in bed, whimpering, muttering. Some of the riflemen glanced uneasily over at him, dividing their attention.
“See? He remembers, somewhere down in the rubble of his mind. He found it. He sent a letter home to his family, you see, before his last ride. Then he vanished. The Line caught him. Most likely by mistake; they throw those ugly bombs around like toys. Someone brought him down the mountain—and believe me, we’d like to know who. Somehow he ended up in an eerie little hospital back on the world’s edge not that many weeks east of here. What if he still holds the secret? If he still deep down knows where to find that weapon? Or how to make it? What if he found it? He won’t live long. Your town, your Republic, your world is dead. You’ll never have that weapon. But what if I had it? We could kill the Engines. We could teach them fear. You could be revenged. Will you consider it?”
Bradley raised the bomb again, as if he intended to strike Creedmoor with it. “We don’t make deals with your kind, monster. You pervert everything you touch. We saw too many nations fall to your kind. We stand on our own.”
The riflemen flanking Bradley looked wary, Creedmoor noted. But of course, they were irrelevant. Creedmoor had no doubt he could outdraw their trigger-fingers, could outrun their bullets, could even take the wound if necessary.
“Suppose I fought alongside you, Doctor. If you disarm that bomb, I give you my word I’ll hold back the Linesmen as long as I can. You know your people are no match for them. I can make no promise of success, but I believe I may even the odds. You yourself might survive. Do you have children here? A young second wife, maybe?”
“Mind your business, Creedmoor.”
“You’ve played a weak hand well, Doctor. Perhaps you’ve saved your people. You should accept my aid with pride.”
“Your word means nothing, Creedmoor. We’ll make no deals.”
“You used not to be so inflexible, Doctor. Back in the old days, back in the world behind us. Oh, your General and your charters and your speechifying men in medals or top hats all said, stand on your own feet; a government of laws, not Powers; have no truck with devilry . . . all that. I remember the speeches, Doctor. But even back then, you couldn’t keep my kind out. Your sons and daughters dreamed of us. When your leaders were weak and afraid, they let us in. At Wolverhampton, and Tin Hill, and Syme, and a dozen other places, they called on us for aid. It’s not in the history books, but it’s known by those who care to know. You wouldn’t be the first to bend a little.”
“That was back in the old world, Creedmoor. We’re a purer strain out here. Our sons and daughters are taught virtue. No deals.”
“Well then fuck you, Doctor.”
Creedmoor drew and fired, and the air, which had gone silent when Lowry’s machine stopped howling some minutes ago, echoed again. The riflemen all drew in their breath. Bradley’s body fell stiffly backwards, the long black coat opening out behind him. He let go of his walking stick, and it balanced on its steel tip for a moment then fell slowly forward. He let go of the bomb and it fell leadenly toward the earth. The hammer arced toward the striking-plate. There was a tiny screech of wire and a creak of uncoiling springs. A slow shiver and scrape of metal.
Creedmoor, already in motion, crossing the floor in fractions of a second, leaping across the beds in his path (their wooden frames sounding under his feet like drums) heard every slow sound with painful clarity. Launching himself from the last of the beds, he twisted in the air. His old bones creaked and his muscles nearly tore. He focused his will; the flesh could only slow him down. He hit the floor hard on his back, sliding over the hard-packed dirt. The bomb fell with a thud into his outstretched hand. He fumbled his thumb in between the striking-plate and the descending hammer. It stabbed down on the quick of his nail. It was a sharp little thing and it drew a tiny jewel of blood out of him. Fuck, he said; but it worked. The bomb remained silent.
—You madman, Creedmoor. You fool. What if you’d been too slow?
—Then I would be dead, or worse. You could go howling