The Dark Symphony

really care. And, by this time, the Musicians had metamorphosed (in his mind) into evil, sadistic creatures to-ward which he could feel little pity.
    Turning to the other towers, he could see that much the same thing was happening. The great walls that had hummed for four hundred years now faded, shrunk, and Were gone altogether, leaving their builders without shelter, alone and lost and confused on the bleak face of the earth. With a strange, distant horror (it seemed as if the events of the last week had rendered him incapable of feeling terror or horror as anything but a vague, misty entity clinging to the outskirts of his emotions) he saw what was happening to the people who had been in the towers. He supposed he must have realized this before he planted the bombs, but he had suppressed it, pretending it would not happen. As the walls dissolved around them, the floors under their feet, the people shot through the air like the pews and furniture had in the deserted building. They struck the ground with cruel force, died instantly, leaving only fragments of bone and flesh to mark the point where each had left this life.
    Fascinated too much to turn from the horror even though he realized his interest was equivalent to the black and animal urges that had made it possible for him to defeat Rosie, Guil watched as a Musician and his Lady fell through a dissolving floor, holding hands. They struck another one that still remained solid, were gravely injured. Then down and down, passing through some levels and bouncing off others. Eventually, they parted and fell alone. When they struck the pavement, he could hear their impact. A leg—he could not tell whether it was male or female—stood separated from its body for a long moment, then fell and ran crimson…
    "God," Guil breathed, holding Tisha.
    "I want away from here," she said. "Please!"
    Strong was laughing, breaking his uproar with lines from the Seven Books, nearly foaming at the mouth, eyes glazed with excitement.
    He knows he will be a toolmaster after this
, Guil thought. Here again was Rosie's analysis of men and their social motivations. Strong was going to be a tool-master, and he was already experiencing the joy of planing and scraping and gouging and screwing, bolting and plastering human beings as if they were equipment, tools, or raw materials to be molded. Men were always interfering in the lives of other men, usually for the worse. Men could not leave men alone. They had to be using, twisting, forever hustling for whatever they could get to fulfill their own twisted view of the world. He was right He could never belong here.
    The night was dark.
    Over the tops of the trees, whistling like a flute, came an air sled culled from the prewar warehouses. Gypsy Eyes was driving it, and he shouted as he saw them, brought the craft to settle three feet above the grass on its gravity cushions. Pressing the hold bar, he climbed into the back seat, leaving the controls to Strong who mounted the machine and took them in his hands, fondling them as if they were women. "Chances?" he asked as Guil and Tisha climbed into the three person rear seat beside Gypsy Eyes.
    Gypsy Eyes made a face that drew all his wrinkles in toward his nose. They will see this group and counterattack in five minutes if we stay here. There is one hundred percent probability in that."
    "So we move," Strong said.
    "Yes."
    Strong turned to the manbats. "Redbat, you know what to do next?"
    "Perfectly," Redbat said somewhat disdainfully.
    "Then do it," Strong snapped, pulling the hold bar up and slamming feet into acceleration pedals. Up they went —and fast.
    Wind rushed darkly around them, and the plain of battle was spread in a panorama of wonder beneath them. All the towers had disappeared by now, except for the Congressional Hall which was under heavy guard by Populars to prevent it from being used as a Musician refuge. Only one other sound configuration remained of any size larger than weapons: the Pillar of Ultimate Sound. The tower around it had died. The Great Hall was a nothingness. The arena was only a bad memory—and maybe even that could be disposed of. Still, the ponderous black and brown pillar, throbbing with unidentifiable yet strangely recognizable tunes, lived on, sustained by its own generator, spinning the colors of its voice.
    Commando teams of Populars dashed through the neon stone gardens, brandishing their crossbows and, here and there, a captured sound rifle. The