Dancers in the Afterglow by Jack L. Chalker Read Free Book Online

spaceports. Machist troops are fanning out all over the city..."
    What do they look like, I wonder? the man mused. They were supposed to be multiracial. What strange forms were advancing in those dark trucks?
    The noise front the televisor finally woke the girl, and she sat up, uncomfortably rubbing her eyes.
    "What the hell?" she managed.
    "I told you," he responded, still watching the 'visor, which had shifted back to the rooftop view. "The Machists took over Ondine last night while we slept The navy's gone, beat it out of here. Those are the Machists you see there, occupying the city."
    She saw, and shivered at the endless stream of forms moving along the boulevards. The scene had an unreal quality, like watching a movie. She shivered again, then asked quietly, "What will they do to us?"
    He shrugged. "Who knows?"
    She looked again at the military procession on the screen.
    " They sure as hell do," she said quietly.

    Sten Rolvag picked up his transceiver, noting that he'd cleared the mountains now.
    "Sten to Kiley, Sten to Kiley. You there, Kile?"
    There was a crackle, and then a faint voice said, "Go ahead, Sten."
    "You heard the news?" he asked gruffly.
    "About the Machists, you mean? Yeah, I been on the damn network all night alertin' folks," came the thin, reedy voice of the emergency monitor for the mountains district.
    "Tell everybody you can to take whatever they can and set up bush camps," Rolvag told him crisply. "They'll have the locations of the base camps from company records in a matter of hours. They're already down, you know."
    "Oh, shit," came the response. "You think that's really necessary?"
    "You goddamn better well believe it is," the ex-marine replied emphatically. "We don't know what they do to people when they catch them, but I do know they round everybody up and march 'em out of the cities and set up c-camps. You tell everybody that before they jam you. Tell 'em no fires, nothin' that'll give 'em away. As soon as we can we'll try and get in contact with everybody in the area and talk over what to do. Right now, the name of the game is not to get caught"
    The man at the other end gave a low whistle. "Okay, Sten, I'll get on it. My God! Who'd ever have thought this would happen here?"
    "Yeah, I know," Rolvag sympathized. "Look, they're probably monitoring right now, so I won't say where I'm goin'. Just remember the Hurley Mama's. You beat it there when you're through. Okay?"
    "Hurley Mama's, right," the comm repeated. Then he added, "Good luck and God be with ya, Sten."
    "You too, Kiley," Rolvag responded, suddenly feeling empty. He switched off.
    "What's that about Hurley Mama?" the marine asked in her little girl's voice.
    "Oh, some time back Edun Ferricks, another guide, had this big, fat couple named Hurley out in the bush. Well, there they are, these two hippos and Edun, and suddenly the Hurley woman goes into yelling about pain and all that stuff. There were some caves nearby so Edun and Mr. Hurley, they get her into one just before the fat woman gives birth to twins! And she was so damned fat she didn't even know she was pregnant!" Nobody laughed at the story, not even Rolvag. "So that's where we're going? To those caves?" one of the women asked.
    He nodded. "Yeah. Good protection, good ventilation, lots of wild fruit trees, and a good game area," he told them. "And if you know the caves you got a lot of escape routes. Best place to hide out ever invented."
    "Is this all really necessary, Mr. Rolvag, or is it just your yen for heroics," one of the engineers asked derisively. "Hiding out in caves! Really! I'm sure facing the Machists would be better than that. After all, we're civilians."
    Sten Rolvag snorted. "Ain't no civilians in a war, woman. Listen, what do you think they started the war over? Property rights? Hell, they got more space than we have, more resources. No, they said they were gonna give us their culture. Culture means people, lady. They don't want Ondine, they want the people