The Dark Symphony

Musicians were so taken by surprise that they ran about in stupid circles, waving at each other, shocked into disbelief, the disbelief giving birth to the madness of refusing to believe. And as they tried to recover and act, the Populars cut them down as if they were animals, darting them heavily or puffing them into nonexistence with the sound weapons.
    "Chances!"
    "Wait," Gypsy said.
    "Now! I want them right now!"
    "Fifty-fifty." Gypsy Eyes clutched the railing that rimmed the craft, bumping up and down on his seat as Strong shot them first one way, then another in order to see every aspect of the great conquest.
    "Fifty-fifty? No better than that?"
    "Fifty-fifty," Gypsy Eyes confirmed, though he looked as if he wished he could give better percentages.
    "But we haven't even suffered a casualty yet!" Strong insisted.
    "We will."
    "How?"
    Gypsy eyes squinted, his eyes clouding. "There are two major possibilities. Two different groups are forming to mass counter-attacks. Either might succeed, though neither group is actually large."
    "You're seeing this in the future?"
    "In the possible futures, yes. Of course."
    "Where will they attack from?" Strong asked, hunching over the control as if the statistics had struck him a blow to the gut.
    "Too difficult to give an answer to that," Gypsy said. "Each group has three possible directions from which to swoop in upon the Popular forces. That would mean analyzing all six possibilities for probabilities, and that much figuring I cannot keep track of, considering the billions of shadow possibilities that also exist As things develop, I'll have a clearer view."
    Strong snorted. "Then keep looking and tell us as soon as you know anything."
    Tisha huddled next to Guil.
    The sled slid on.
    Guil wished they had struck right for the pillar, had not waited to see how things would go. They had chosen the land beyond as theirs, and they should not have hesitated.
    Below, a group of cornered Musicians, their backs to a stone wall that was left over from pre-Musician days and had been polished and carved as a work of art, had brought out whistles and sound rifles and were making a valiant, if futile, last stand. For the moment, they might seem to be winning, but superior numbers could only wear them out and set them up to be picked off one at a time with more leisure.
    Strong, concerned anyway, brought the sled down above them, keeping it a hundred feet up and out of sight in the darkness. He leaned over the side to watch. There was nothing for the rest of them to do but watch also. After all, it did not really seem as if people were dying but as if dolls, under some magic electric control, were playing out a violent puppet show on a very realistic stage.
    Seven Populars ashed into glow bits and disappeared before they could open fire on the Musicians. The Musicians cheered each other and waved their guns in triumph. A second wave of mutants swept toward them, heedless of the sound weapons. They were fifty Populars with dart guns, and they must have been figuring on the sudden, careless rush to carry them over their enemy before any of the Musicians understood what had happened. There was a madness in their zeal that sent cold shivers through Guil.
    Populars flicked out like bad bulbs and were gone forever.
    Still, the wave did not fluctuate or threaten to turn tail and run. They came on despite the bursts of light that were their comrades suffering total negation. Four of them reached the Musicians and managed to fire point blank with their crossbows. But they only brought down their own number before they were gone too, nulled, dissipated, ashed…
    For a second, everything seemed to freeze. There was no action.
    The fighters were like wax dolls.
    Only their clothes moved slightly, stirred by the wind.
    Then a third wave of Populars under the direction of a shouting, gesticulating little dwarf at their rear approached the Musicians. They held boards before them as protection against the sound beams. Some crouched behind rolling barrels brought from the ruins of the Popular Sector to provide just such cover. The dwarf, oversized head bobbling excitedly, wiped his running nose on the sleeve of his coarse shirt and directed the charge with expertise, pausing only to cough now and then into a yellow piece of paper. The Musicians picked him off first, right in the middle of a cough. Then, turning to the rolling barrels and the shielding planks, they began firing.
    Barrels sparkled and were