Mississippi Roll. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин
heads. Snow. In New Orleans. In the summer. It was … unnatural …
Within moments the surging crowd had stopped. Everyone, the bystanders, the demonstrators on both sides, the cops standing gallantly between them, looked up at the sky, mixed wonder and fear on their faces.
Ray and the others, still getting soaked by the warm rain, could nonetheless feel the chilling breeze blowing from the pocket of extraordinary weather that was now pelting down on the demonstrators as a mix of big, fluffy snowflakes and freezing sleet.
Ray looked from the sky to Colonel Centigrade. His teeth were clenched now, his face was white. Cords stood out on his neck and he was shaking. He looked about ready to collapse.
‘Hold on!’ Ray barked. ‘Concentrate! Another minute—’
The demonstrators had withstood the muggy heat, the harsh sun, even zombies, all of which were to be expected in New Orleans. But a snowstorm? No. That was freakishly grotesque. Voodoo of the worst sort. And goddamned cold.
The mass of demonstrators broke and ran, streaming away through various cross streets, along with the crowd that had gathered to watch the show, leaving only the puzzled and shivering police still manning the barricades.
‘All right, Centigrade,’ Ray snapped, ‘at ease!’
Spencer swayed on his feet and would have collapsed if Maximillian Klingensmith hadn’t grabbed him. Or maybe it was Harrison. Ray wasn’t sure.
‘He did that?’ Jones asked unbelievingly.
Ray nodded, smiling at Spencer, who was grinning weakly as he leaned on his fellow agent.
‘Yes, he did,’ Ray said proudly.
She barely, Ray noted, suppressed a shiver as a flicker of – what? – disgust, perhaps, flashed across her face. ‘All right.’ Jones looked up at the sky. It was still raining. ‘I suppose he can’t stop that?’
Ray shook his head. ‘Not part of his powers.’
‘No. Of course not.’ Jones ran her hand through her hair, which had collapsed in soggy ringlets around her face, pushing it back. ‘Well, rain or shine, it’s my duty to serve these papers.’
Ray hazarded a guess. ‘Max?’
The agent keeping Colonel Centigrade from collapsing with weariness nodded.
‘Take the colonel back to the motel.’ He’d earned that with his heroic efforts, Ray thought. ‘Get him whatever he needs – food, drink, dry clothes.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Max said, and Spencer managed a tiny sneeze.
‘And for God’s sake,’ Ray added, ‘get him something for that cold.’ He looked at Jones. ‘The rest of us will accompany Agent Jones to the Schröder.’
‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Jones said.
‘I’m in charge of your security,’ Ray replied, ‘and I think it is. After all, you’re going to be delivering news to a large number of people who might take it very badly.’
Jones frowned. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ Ray said.
The conditions aboard the Schröder hadn’t changed. It would be hard, Ray reflected, for it to get much worse, and there was no way it was going to get any better.
Jones had ordered the ship’s entire complement to gather on deck, probably, Ray thought, because she’d learned somehow that the news had already reached the refugees, who were regarding her with what could only be silent anger on their faces. Or maybe, he thought, she was just being cautious and figured that she’d be safer there than down in the hold. And also because it just smelled so bad down there.
Backed by Ray, Moon, the Angel, and the Klingensmith brother known as Huginn, she stood on a small raised platform on the bow in front of a set of hatches that led down into the hold, waiting impatiently as all crew and passengers gathered around on the main deck. Fortunately the rain had ceased just before they’d boarded the ship and the blazing sun was doing its best to dry up all the excess moisture that had leaked down from the sky. Ray could feel steam rising from his suit.
It took more than a few minutes for them all to assemble. Olena stood before Jones, who looked down impassively from the height of the raised platform from which she could survey the deck. Dr Pretorius stood with Olena, as did the young woman ace, Tulpar, and the Handsmith, a broad, chunky man with his hands wrapped in strips of burlap. His son, Nurassyl, was next to him, looking like a ghost draped in a sheet, his exposed flesh glistening with the moisture that he exuded, supported by a platform of tiny wriggling tentacles in lieu of feet. Ray recognized some others from the initial meeting, though the JADL representatives were both missing, as was the young priest.
Ray heard the Angel suddenly hiss angrily and he turned and saw Marcus Morgan, the Infamous Black Tongue, coiled behind and partly concealed by a freight derrick midway down the deck. From the waist up he was naked, exposing the body of a fit, young African-American man. He was naked from the waist down, too, but the rest of him was that of an outsized coral snake, glistening in alternating bands of black, yellow, and scarlet scales. He made the largest anaconda look like a garter snake.
The Angel clenched her teeth, took a step forward. Ray laid a warning hand on her shoulder and she angrily shrugged it off. She and IBT, as he called himself, had fought a personal duel at the conclusion of the Talas episode that had left her badly wounded. It had taken her months to recover from her injuries and that had coincided with her long slide into post-traumatic stress.
Ray was unsure what effect seeing him again would have on her. Basically, it seemed to be making her angry, which was something at least. He didn’t know if it was good or bad, but at least his presence was eliciting some sort of reaction.
Jones cleared her throat and began to speak.
‘I am Evangelique Jones, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. I have passed on to Washington your lawyer’s’ – and here she fixed Dr Pretorius with a hard stare that he calmly returned – ‘brief, which has been considered at the highest levels of government. The request for asylum has been granted—’
At this seemingly miraculous reversal of their fortunes an eruption of cheers exploded from the refugees, which built higher and higher as those who understood English translated for those who didn’t. Jones fell silent and looked on with a small smile on her face until the cheering and hugging and cries of joy slowly died down.
Ray could hardly believe the evident glee she was taking in delivering her message in this provocative manner. Even the Angel seemed to forget about IBT and stared at her incredulously.
‘—to the following individuals,’ Jones continued in a loud, satisfied voice. ‘Olena Davydenko. The individual known as the Handsmith. His son, Nurassyl. Inkar Omarov, also known as the Tulpar—’
She continued to read off the names, slowly, sonorously, enjoying the looks on the faces below her as the hope began to drain out of them as they realized that all of those who’d been granted asylum were the few nats among them, the even fewer aces, and those rare jokers with useful abilities or money. After reading off the twenty-ninth name Jones folded the document and looked up impassively.
‘The rest of you,’ she intoned, ‘will remain aboard the Schröder until such time she can be refueled, whence she shall leave the territorial water of the United States and set course to Rathlin Island off the coast of Northern Ireland, where you shall be granted permanent refuge.’
‘This is outrageous!’ Pretorius shouted. ‘I shall appeal!’
Jones looked at him calmly. ‘As I told you, this has been considered at the highest levels of the American government. There is no appeal.’
‘I will not leave my people,’ the Handsmith shouted.
His cry was echoed by others whom Jones had named, anger in every voice.
‘Moon,’ Ray said quietly. ‘Get ready to change.’
The