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=  Chapter Seven =
==================
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When they arrived at the Malasrionese legislature, it was empty. The
staff had packed up along with the stiff politicians, and had
seemingly all left.

“This is not right.” Palm-Frond cautioned.

The had group collected in the main reception, after checking several
wings of the building's offices. None of the space Anarchists had
understood Stephanie's jokes about Great Danes and shaggy men.

Suddenly, a voice from outside. “I'm out here!”

Everyone spun around to find a member of the legislature clutching
their torso, leaning a bloody hand on the enormous ceiling-high glass
window just outside the parliament main entrance. The group was
particularly stunned to have missed this figure before entering the
building.

They assembled outside. The wounded person was none other than
E. Lysenko, the leader of the Pact. Before everyone could get a good
look at Lysenko, she collapsed. She fell backwards and a rush of
bizarre-smelling liquid gushed out of the back of her head, on the
concrete.

Stephanie instinctively tried to catch the woman, and then rushed to
her aid, only to find the rest of her comrades still standing back. It
suddenly occurred to Stephanie that she should not touch anything, not
Lysenko, most of all. There would be Malasrionese police crawling all
over this area within hours.

Lysenko began to speak, but as she did, the skin on her face sagged,
to reveal what appeared to Stephanie as a stainless steel skull. The
woman's eyes were without pupils or irises, and were stained with the
same liquid that was seeping through her clothes and onto her
hands. It was, on Stephanie's closer inspection, not blood: it was
like thick, concentrated car coolant. Lysenko was not a biological
life-form.

“We are poor fools, Rayan.”

Rayan looked Lysenko directly in her lifeless face. The sound of her
voice was no longer issuing from her mouth. It was being modulated
from somewhere in her abdomen.

“We are lucky, because we are late.”

“You're most likely in the safest part of Malasrion, right now,
Rayan. You have pulled off a miracle. You are the luckiest little
petulant Gremanese children I can think of.”

“I suppose you are right.”

Lysenko began, all of a sudden, to wail and moan. “I trusted them! And
now we are finished. Do not go down to the tavern, unless you are in a
hurry to die. I escaped wounded, and would likely have made it to
Earth, but for the shock of seeing you here. It is a purge, Rayan. We
have had the short-sightedness of trusting the Body Politic with their
plans to unseat Scanlon, only to have them have us right where they
wanted us.”

Goh was particularly pre-occupied during this revelation. Lysenko
never noticed the young one, however, and never addressed anyone
except Rayan, as her voice began to rasp and hiss.

“You never struck me as the sentimental type, Lysenko. You were
ruthless and calculating with all of your enemies, as well as your
friends.”

“I believed in something, Rayan. Surely you can understand that.”

“What is this, a eulogy to yourself? You yourself are a killer. You're
also a very wealthy profiteer from violence as well as
exploitation. Don't patronise me.”

Lysenko had died long before Rayan had finished. Her body had been
motionless for some time now, Rayan had been talking to a lump of
metal. Rayan looked disturbed. Lysenko had died without ever being
challenged directly for her hypocrisy and blood-thirstiness.

***

Some time passed. Lutrin and Goh sat cross-legged opposite the toxic
chemical mess around Lysenko's metallic frame.

Stephanie and Rayan stood with Palm-Frond, a little back, closer to
the entrace of the legislature.

“My own father died, you know.” Palm-Frond spoke.

“I remember my parents, and I remember how my opinion of them changed
over time.” Rayan chuckled a little.

“Did they inspire you to struggle, like this?” Stephanie asked.

“In a way.” Palm-Frond responded. “My parents were better off than
others. I arrived here theoretically. Rayan is of course an old hand
at these matters, having lived many lifetimes longer than I have. We
are lucky in that way that we live longer than humans. Humans
sometimes forget things. Humans also remember and become inspired by
things, but then forget that there was a time before that.”

“Do not think that I don't find the concept complex to fathom.”
Stephanie reassured.

“What inspired you to help us?” Palm-Frond said, unblinkingly.

“You already know the answer to that, you're mind-readers!”

“I want to hear it in your own words.”

“Well this is the hospitality I would show any comrades,” Stephanie
laughed. “Some members of our section sent us an email and said a
chain-smoking Slav man named Drago was arriving in several months'
time for the Anarchist Bookfair we were putting on, he being a
speaker.”

The entire group was listening to Stephanie by now.

Lutrin turned around and flashed Rayan an evil look: “Is this some
sort of a joke?”

Rayan's lips curled into a naughty smile.

“You little devil. You wrote to an Earth Anarchist organisation?”

“Well it turned out well, didn't it?”

Everyone exploded into laughter.

- EOF -