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48.
The Moss Syndicate counter-attacked with surprising ferocity and speed.
Tedda was outside on the grounds with Nurse Gretchen, a taciturn but kindly old woman. Gretchen wore a shawl and a black dress. She wasn't a small woman, but seemed one of those indestructible grandmotherly types who move at their own speed and never stop moving. Gretchen was always doing something, whether it was cutting up a potato with rutted fingers, or waddling effortfully with a woven basket of wash under one arm and a cane in the other hand, or a hundred things like that. Her one dash of color was always some head kerchief—usually black silk, with glowing blue and other peacock colors in big bold geometries. She seemed to know who and what Tedda was—the resemblance to Amy made it painfully obvious—but did not treat her unkindly—just distantly. Watka stopped by every day to sit in the kitchen and sip schnapps while smoking a cigar, and Gretchen would hover protectively around Tedda, opening windows and using her arms to push billows of smoke out. Amy came by every day, never at the same time as Watka, and would fuss a bit at the sink, maybe have Gretchen make her a bowl of strawberries with milk and white sugar. "You have a nice little corner here," Amy might say, hinting that Tedda should stay with them. And Gretchen would hum contentedly in the corner by the woodpile, next to the crackling fire in a tiny tiled hearth: "You could be sisters, girls. It is so nice to have girls around again."
Every day, Tedda got an hour or so of fresh air, usually in the company of Gretchen and one armed hunter. Today, Gretchen hobbled along with her cane in one hand and a basket to gather mushrooms in the other. "It rained during the night," Gretchen singsonged, "it rained and rained, and the roof is still dripping." She looked up with a grimace at the pearly-gray sky. A flight of birds shot past, black ones that cawed loudly. Hanno, the guard, abruptly unshouldered his double-barreled shotgun and stood at alert.
"What is it?" Gretchen said.
"They shouldn't have done that," he said. His eyes did not follow the winging blackbirds, but gazed toward the hillside toward the northern end of the estate. "Let's pull back toward the main house a bit." He spoke into a collar mike, alerting the duty hunter up in a turret behind them.
Gretchen had a slow time turning around, and Tedda helped her. The old woman turned slowly as a battleship. Tedda felt the fatty strength in her upper arms, the redolent barnyard cowness in her unwashed body. Hanno was a short, powerful man with a large forehead and neatly groomed, upward combed brown hair. He wore a green fedora with a pheasant feather on one side, and sported a Cheddar Billo mustache the color of wet bark. As he stood with his legs propped apart and the long shotgun with its wicked muzzles ready in both arms, a shot rang out. Hanno dropped like a rock. Gretchen screamed, and Tedda shoved her roughly to the ground.
Tedda heard the men running toward them before she saw them. "Amy von Tedda!" one said, and the other said: "Grab her and let's fall back before the others attack." Two of them, in dark fatigues, young and blond, they came running at a crouch over a rise Tedda had not noticed. They carried spidery assault rifles in both hands, ready to shoot.
Tedda threw herself toward Hanno. He wasn't dead, but stunned. His head and shoulder were covered with blood, and he lay helplessly on his side. The shotgun lay before him. Tedda picked it up, broke the breech to make sure it was loaded, all in a second or two. Then she turned the heavy gun around and fired. In a deafening cloud, one of the attackers flew backward. The other attacker raised his weapon but hesitated. He looked at Gretchen, who lay helplessly on her belly. He looked at Hanno, who blinked through bloodied eyes and mouthed a few dull syllables. Then he drew down on Tedda but seemed to remember he wanted her alive. In that time of hesitation, Tedda looked down at the gun, found the other trigger, aimed at the intruder, and fired. He keeled over backwards with his feet flying into the air. Tedda pulled the leather bandoliers and pouches from Hanno's stout body. With the shotgun and pouches, she ran forward at a crouch. She threw herself on the ground just this side of the little rise, so that she overlooked several acres of lower meadows she hadn't seen before. A second later, she regretted her strategic error. The far wall erupted in smoke and flying earth and tumbling bricks about a quarter mile away. In poured several armored personnel carriers, a swarm of leather-clad and helmeted motorcyclists with big goggles and burp gun barrels visible over their shoulders. Behind those came at least thirty or forty foot soldiers in helmets and long coats with their assault rifles at their chests. Several guidons fluttered above the attackers, carrying the old imperial crest and eagle with the letter M superimposed in Gothic alphabet.
Tedda looked back, biting her lip, and assessed her situation. It was too far to get to the house, and the motorcycle riders were coming on too fast. Hanno was on his feet and staggering toward her. His head was cocked to one side as he spoke into his mike again.
Tedda turned and fired. The nearest motorcyclist went down head over wheels. Tedda reloaded and fired again. The effect was to slow the entire attack down by a few minutes. Hanno crashed to the ground beside her, firing with hand gun.
Suddenly, even as the attackers regrouped and starting rolling forward, the fortifications in the house erupted with counterfire. Rockets streaked down and took out the armored cars. Two or three rockets fired at the turrets were shredded by defensive gatling guns. A fusillade of rifle fire rained down from the upper stories, until Moss' forces either lay dead or retreated.
A dreadful calm descended as thick smoke drifted across the battlefield. Tedda heard men crying pitifully in pain and fear. Hanno cursed and shot them one by one with his handgun as they lay dying before him. Tedda wanted to stay his thick, cord-like arm but closed her eyes and rested her head weakly on her forearm. Tedda found that the Gothans demonstrated their ox-stubborn cruelty again and again, inbred and unalterable. This was a moment when she realized that, inadvertently, in creating the rules in their femtoworlds, the Gothans had set forth people better than themselves.
The sounds of a recorded martial victory tune echoed across the grounds. A small troop of hunters carrying ancient colors came galloping around the corner from the barns. Cantering and clattering, they cheered the man and woman who appeared on a high parapet. Amy von Tedda, wearing a nightgown, helmet, and bandoliers, waved a machine gun high. At her side stood Watka, waving two handguns and grinning broadly. As Tedda watched, the two embraced passionately and kissed long and hard mouth to mouth. Wondering about Amy's passion for her husband, the late Hedrick not yet cold in the earth, Tedda realized again that the Gothans' passions were brief, hot, and brutal. She almost expected to see Amy start eating Watka in the midst of the intercourse that would give her an heir. But that was carrying it a bit too far, she thought with a shudder.
The horsemen smelled of sweat and leather. Their mustaches smelled of tobacco, coffee, and beer. Their teeth were large and yellow as they cheered, and their eyes were tiny gray or blue dots of delirious victory. A bugler sounded various stirring attacks and charges as they raced around and around the sprawling house in a thunder of hooves.
A dozen young hunters surrounded Hanno, Gretchen, and Tedda. Hanno brushed their help aside after they got him on his feet. Wrapping himself in a dirty gray towel, he staggered stubbornly toward the house on his own feet. Several nurses came running—horsy and robust young women with serious eyebrows and pretty faces scrubbed until glowing—and they helped Gretchen to her feet. Tedda rose under her own power, and walked to the house alone while the others fussed over Gretchen as was appropriate. Tedda felt her knees begin to shake in reaction now that the fight was over. She went to her little apartment, locked the door, and threw herself into bed with the covers up over her head. Had the Moss troops killed Amy, Tedda would have evaporated in a brief twinkling of mosaic light and dust. Her life was more transient than a mosquito's. She thought again of Alton-Edgar Hedrock, and wished he could come rescue her, but he would evaporate if he came upworld. No, somehow she must get to him. There was no future here for her. The hunters, however, had a different idea about that.
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