only by narrow-beam microwave radio and
the occasional foray by individuals
walking across the dangerous series of
beams stretched across the rubble of the
Old Stone Bridge. The two Salzburgs were
distinct in population, with mostly
immigrant populations isolated in the
modern buildings on the east side of the
river, and the old Austrians on the west.
It is impossible to describe the Salzburg
feeling, the aura of a sophisticated
ancient city, wrapped in a glisteningly
pure blanket of snow, under siege, faced
with the daily onslaught of an unseen army
that seemed to have an unlimited supply of
coilguns and metastable hydrogen. We were
never out of range. The Salzburg stride
was relaxed only when protected by the
cover of buildings or specially
constructed barricades, breaking into a
jagged sprint over a stretch of open
ground, a cobbled forecourt of crossroads
open to the rifles of snipers on distant
hills firing hypersonic needles randomly
into the city. From the deadly steel
birds, there was no protection. They could
fly in anywhere, with no warning. By the
time you heard their high-pitched song,
you were already dead, or, miraculously,
still alive.
Not even the nights were still. It is an
incredible sight to see a city cloaked in
darkness suddenly illuminated with the
blue dawn of a flare sent up from the
hilltops, dimming the stars and suffusing
coruscating light across the glittering
snow. There is a curious, ominous interval
of quiet: the buildings of the city
dragged blinking out of their darkness and
displayed in a fairy glow, naked before
the invisible gunners on their distant
hilltops. Within thirty seconds, the birds
would begin to sing. They might land a
good few blocks away, the echo of their
demise ringing up and down the valley, or
they might land in the street below, the
explosion sending people diving under
tables, windows caving in across the room.
