It was, she admitted to herself, an interesting way to view a revolution.

She was the first to spot the drop-off in summary executions. She knew before anyone else that the rate of admissions to the labor camps was declining. It was Nova who brought the first estimates of Belllinzona's population to the Wizard.

It turned out that Bellinzona had almost half a million humans living in it, a fact that surprised everyone but Conal. Nova's machines could line them up in any way that might be useful, from national origin to age and sex and languages and height and weight and eye color. It was a hell of a census. It was supposed to provide the basis for a system of identification in some hazy future time. Nova had a staff of one hundred constantly feeding information to her mainframe. She took the results to Cirocco and the Governing Council.

The Council still governed more in name than in fact. Cirocco was still the dictator, no one had any doubts about that.

The economics of Bellinzona had fascinated Nova as she learned more about them. There was one crucial factor that had caused Cirocco endless worry. Nova had dubbed it the Manna Factor.

Though Gaea did not control Dione, she owned the Spoke above it. When she had decided to discharge the human war refugees in the new town of Bellinzona she had apparently wanted to retain what control she could over them. So she had invented manna. As its name implied, it was food that fell out of the sky. It grew on a trillion plants up there in the darkness of the Dione spoke, and every few hectorevs it fell over Dione like a spilled cornucopia. Manna came in the form of coconut-sized balls floating on the ends of little parachutes. Even with the chutes, it was wise to get under cover when it was raining manna.

Like coconuts, manna modules had hard shells. They survived impact, but were not too hard to crack. Inside was one of a hundred varieties of nutritious meat. It came in a lot of flavors. It provided all the vitamins and minerals a human being needed to stay healthy. The manna was so good, in fact, that those who subsisted entirely on it-a large part of the population-were healthier than those who supplemented their diets with expensive and exotic Dionian meats and vegetables. Fat people lost weight on it, until they reached an optimum mass. People suffering vitamin deficiencies recovered after a few kilorevs of eating manna. It also inhibited tooth decay, sweetened the breath, lessened menstrual cramps, and cured baldness. Naturally, it was a sign of status in Bellinzona never to have eaten the stuff.

Manna had a shelf-life of two kilorevs. All but the most inept were able to squirrel away enough of it to last until the next shower. Those few who either couldn't or didn't were ripe for slavery when they got hungry.

Of course, Gaea giveth and Gaea taketh away. The weather in Dione was awful. It never got too cold, but it was often cold enough so the homeless masses shivered through an endless afternoon sleep-time. And it rained a lot. So shelter was something worthwhile, something many people worked to obtain. It was not easy to come by, as the Bosses had grabbed every inch they could control and exacted harsh prices for the right to sleep under a roof.

But aside from seeking shelter and storing a supply of manna every kilorev or so ... there was little one had to do to survive in Bellinzona. Cirocco had called it the ultimate welfare state.

And she had known that, not long after she moved to take control, the manna would stop falling from the sky. The question had been how long?

So the first and most important goal of her administration had been to feed the populace. It was a goal that came before everything else-even law and order. It had to be accomplished at all costs, because nothing could be worse than a subjugated but starving city.

Cirocco had been dismayed at Nova's population projections. She had envisioned feeding a city of two or three hundred thousand.

Still ... Moros teemed with edible fish. The flatlands at the end of Peppermint Bay were fertile. Gaean crops grew quickly. It could be done, but not with a free population. Conscript labor was essential. Some of the laws had been designed with that in mind. Filling the prisons was essential to Cirocco's plans, as she had no illusions about legions of volunteers marching out to clear the jungle and tend the crops. Violent crimes were punishable by instant execution: one less mouth to feed. Other crimes earned the bewildered citizen a long term in the labor camp. Cirocco had been ready to go as far as necessary. She would have made sneezing in public a criminal offense if that's what it took to fill the camps. Luckily, the citizens of Bellinzona had obliged her by violating her entirely reasonable laws in sufficient numbers to guarantee a food supply.

So when the manna had stopped falling, Bellinzona was ready.

FIFTEEN

Without quite knowing how it had happened, Valiha and Virginal had become fisherfolk. Neither had ever netted a fish before.

Those humans who knew something about ships had, with the authority of the Mayor's decrees, taken command of all the Bellinzonan's boats capable of doing more than rocking at anchor. For the last decarev the fleet had been putting out to sea, with Valiha and Virginal at the prow.

Their main function was to ward off the submarines.

There might have been a fishing industry in Bellinzona long before this, but for the fact that human-piloted boats that ventured more than ten kilometers from the environs of the city were promptly eaten. Submarines had huge appetites, and were not picky.

The Captain had made some sort of treaty with them. It worked so well that not only were the ships not eaten, but the fishing fleet could now rendezvous with the submarine flotillas and find the seas strewn with the disgorged and still living schools recently scooped up by the subs' vast mouths.

There was a submarine song. Valiha and Virginal sang it, though it was not one they were born to know. And the leviathans eased up from the depths to give much of their catch to the hungry city.

It was a miracle.

That's what they were doing now. Valiha stood at the prow of one of the largest boats in the Bellinzona fleet and sang the submarine song, while not far away the vast bulk of a submarine wallowed near the surface. Great gouts of water spurted up in the direction of the smaller ships and the nets rigged between them, stunned and bewildered fish vainly thrashing in the torrent, escaping from the jaws of the submarine only to be swallowed by the nets.

It was rather beautiful to watch. Lately, the fisherfolk had begun singing their own version of the submarine song as they hauled on their nets. Valiha listened critically. She knew it lacked the nuances of Titanide song, but like so much human music, it had a simple vitality that was attractive. Perhaps, one day, the submarines would respond to human song alone. That would be good, for Valiha had no wish to command the fleet for the rest of her life.

It had been turbulent seas, at first. With a hard core of dedicated sea-folk and a larger number of human police and a handful of Titanides, it had just been possible to put to sea with a cargo of recalcitrant prisoners. The first outings had produced little but blisters and aching backs. But the human police were zealous-maybe a little too much so, Valiha thought-and soon everyone was at least working as hard as possible. Then a spirit began to grow. It took root slowly at first. But now, when Valiha overheard conversations in the bustling fish markets, there was a clear sense that these people thought of themselves as a group-and what's more, as slightly better than the idlers ashore. It now took fewer police to keep them in line. When the fleet set sail, people hoisted the lines with a will, and when the fish were sighted there was cheering. There were songs for departure and songs for return, as well as the Titanide-inspired submarine chantey.