City of Golden Shadow Read Online Free PDF

arms, but there was no debris, only the sound of people screaming. When she struggled to her feet, she could see no sign of injuries on the students milling around her, but a cloud of black smoke was boiling above what must be the Admin Building in the middle of the campus. The campanile was gone, a blackened, smoking stump of fibramic skeleton all that remained of the colorful tower. She let out her breath, suddenly nauseated and light-headed. "Jesus Mercy!"
    Her colleague clambered to his feet beside her, his dark skin now almost gray. "A real one this time. God, I hope they got everyone out. They probably did-Admin always clears first so they can monitor the evacuation." He was speaking so rapidly she could hardly understand him. "Who do you think it was?"
    Renie shook her head. "Broderbund? Zulu Mamba? Who knows? God damn it, that's the third in two years. How can they do it? Why won't they let us work?"
    Her companion's look of alarm deepened. "My car! It's in the Admin lot!" He turned and ran toward the explosion site, pushing his way through lost-looking students, some of whom were crying, none of whom seemed in any mood for laughing or dancing now. A security guard who was trying to cordon off the area shouted at him as he ran past.
    "His car? Idiot" Renie felt like crying herself. There was a distant ululation of sirens. She took a cigarette out of her bag and pulled the flame-tab with trembling fingers. They were supposed to be noncarcinogenic, but right at the moment she didn't care. A piece of paper fluttered down and landed at her feet, blackened along its edges.
    Already, the camera-drones were descending from the sky like a swarm of flies, sucking up footage for the net.

    She was on her second cigarette and feeling a little steadier when someone tapped her shoulder.
    "Ms. Sulaweyo?"
    She turned and found herself confronting a slender boy with yellow-brown skin. His short hair curled close to his head. He wore a necktie, something Renie had not seen in a few years.
    "Yes?"
    "I believe we had an appointment. A tutorial?"
    She stared. The top of his head barely reached her shoulder. "You . . . you're. . . ?"
    "!Xabbu." There was a clicking sound in it, as though he had cracked a knuckle. "With an X-and an exclamation point when the name is written in English letters."
    Light suddenly dawned. "Ah! You're. . . ."
    He smiled, a swift crease of white. "One of the San people-what they sometimes call 'Bushman,' yes."
    "I didn't mean to be rude."
    "You were not. There are few of us left who have the pure blood, the old look. Most have married into the city-world. Or died in the bush, unable to live in these times."
    She liked his grin and his quick, careful speech. "But you have done neither."
    "No, I have not. I am a university student" He said it with some pride, but a hint of self-mockery as well. He turned to look at the drifting plume of smoke. "If there will be a university left."
    She shook her head and suppressed a shudder. The sky, stained with drifting ash, had gone twilight-gray. "It's so terrible."
    "Terrible indeed. But fortunately no one seems badly hurt"
    "Well, I'm sorry our tutorial was prevented," she said, recovering a little bit of her professional edge. "I suppose we should reschedule-let me get out my pad."
    "Must we reschedule?" !Xabbu asked. "I am not doing anything. It seems that we will not get back into the university for some time. Perhaps we could go to another place-perhaps somewhere that sells beer, since my throat is dry from smoke-and do our talking there."
    Renie hesitated. Should she just leave the campus? What if her department head or someone needed her? She looked around at the street and the main steps, which were beginning to resemble a combination refugee center and free festival, and shrugged. Nothing useful would be done here today.
    "Let's go find a beer, then."

    The train to Pinetown was not running-someone had jumped or been pushed onto the tracks at Durban Outskirt. Renie's