by David Weber
God help us if he gets hit by a stray bead, Armand Pahner thought.
* * *
Pahner glanced at Poertena. The armorer was racked out in the shade under one net-draped wing of the shuttle. The captain knew most of the troops had bitched about hauling the camo nets into place and staking them down, but he'd been adamant. The shuttles' hulls and wings were essentially one huge crystal display; as long as their internal power held out, their programmable skins could produce better reactive camouflage than a chameleon suit or even powered armor. But even though the power requirement wasn't huge, it was more than enough to eventually drain the shuttle capacitors, at which point the craft would stand out like elephants on a golf course if anyone happened to overfly them and look down. Even if that hadn't been the case, the best reactive skins in the universe couldn't do much about the shadows they cast, so he'd ordered the nets out. Not only would they take over when the power did run out, but they broke up the artificial angularity of the shuttle hulls and wings, which also broke up the artificiality of the shadows they cast.
Roger, predictably, had considered it a waste of time, although at least he'd managed to restrict his bitching about it to Pahner himself instead of whining in front of the troops. The captain had wanted—badly—to ask why he'd been so upset when no one was asking him to do the grunt work, but he'd decided against it after only a brief struggle. They'd already gone around and around about his decision to maintain a round-the-clock listening watch on all frequencies. It would only require a single trooper to monitor them through the sophisticated com equipment engineered into his helmet, which would hardly pose a crippling drain on their manpower. Despite that, the prince had done a deplorably poor job of concealing his opinion that worrying about possible communications traffic when the entire mass of the planet lay between them and the only high-tech enclave on it made no sense at all, and Pahner had no doubt that Roger had written him off as a terminally paranoid security dweeb.
Fortunately, the captain had discovered that he was remarkably immune to worries about the prince's good opinion of him, and Roger's arguments hadn't changed his mind about the listening watch or the camo nets. No doubt the prince was right when he pointed out that the chance of any one coming in low enough to see the shuttles, assuming there was any reason to be looking in the first place, on the completely opposite side of the globe from the only spaceport or landing facility on the entire planet was virtually nonexistent. Armand Pahner, however, was not in the habit of exposing his people or his mission to avoidable risk, however remote, even if the "extra work" did piss them off.
And it was remarkable how the troops' attitude had shifted when the sun came back up and they realized what nice shade the nets provided for anyone who could come up with an excuse to get under them. Like Poertena, who looked indecently comfortable as he snored with his head propped on a gigantic rucksack. The captain wondered, briefly, what was in it, then walked over and kicked the Pinopan on the sole of his boot. The armorer's eyes popped open, and he scrambled to his feet.
"Yes, Sir, Cap'n?"
"Circulate around. Leader's conference. Here. Now."
"Yes, Sir, Cap'n," Poertena acknowledged, and trotted off towards the knot around Kosutic, bead rifle at high port.
Pahner turned and looked towards the distant mountains. Trees were faintly visible on the lower slopes.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The trees were spindly and very tall. There were branch scars on their lower surfaces, but the first actual limbs were nearly twenty meters up the trunk. From there, the trunk continued upwards another ten or twenty meters in a spreading crown. They looked misshapen, like some sort of odd, oversized toadstools. The bark was generally gray and smooth, but some of the trees showed gouges that reached nearly to the spreading crowns.
Roger glanced up at the trees through the extruded plastron of his helmet and shook his head.
"Bad sign. Strop marks," he commented. There'd been chatter about the gouges on the tactical net, but he was still having a hard time making out what everyone was talking about. Now, looking up the trees, some of the comments made more sense.
"Pardon me, Your Highness?" Eleanora said, pausing to take a couple of deep breaths. The pace Captain Pahner had set wasn't fast—he knew better than to rush forward in terrain about which he had no knowledge—but combined with the heat, it was terribly debilitating to a woman who'd practically never set foot outside a city. She'd kept up with the Marine company so far, but only by dint of iron determination, and it was obvious that she was exhausted.
The company had been walking for nearly six hours, marching for fifty minutes and then taking a ten-minute water break as per doctrine for the environmental conditions. It had taken them that long to get off the salt flats, and now they were entering an alluvial outflow from the mountains. The outflow, unlike the salt flats, had some vegetation. But not much, and the trees that made up the majority of it were widely spaced. And scarred.
"Strop marks," Roger repeated, absently offering the academic the left arm of his armor to support some of her weight. The prince was sweating profusely, but didn't look particularly worn. That might have something to do with carrying less gear than the rest of the company or being in powered armor, but mostly it had to do with the fact that he preferred being on safari to anything else.
He'd traveled, hunted, and studied in more unpleasant, out-of-the-way places than almost any of the Marines realized. And he rarely hunted game that didn't hunt back.
"Marks on a tree like that come from two things," he explained. "Animals eating the bark, and territory marking. And if it were bark-eaters, all the trees would be marked."
"So," O'Casey asked with another gasp, "what does that mean?" She knew it should be obvious, but she was wilting in the heat. She checked her toot and suppressed a whimper. Twenty minutes until the next rest.
"It means that there's a something around here that's territorial," Roger said with a glance at the marks high overhead. "Something really, really big."
* * *
Sergeant Major Kosutic watched the point guard, PFC Berent, from Julian's squad. The company was moving with two platoons forward of the headquarters unit, and one behind, and they'd started with Third Platoon forward, since Third had the only squad with armor. The private on point not only had her suit sensors on maximum, she had a hand-held scanner in her left hand. The hand-helds were more sensitive than the suits' systems, and this one was dialed to maximum. So far, though, there'd been no signs of the predators the brief entry on the partial planetary survey report had alluded to. Kosutic had just opened her mouth to make a comment on that to Gunny Jin when the point held up a closed fist. Almost as one man, the company jerked to a stop.
* * *
"Well, if we run into whatever it is," Eleanora said, taking a deep gulp of water, "just let it kill me, okay?" She suddenly realized that she was talking to herself and that the whole company had stopped. "Roger?" she said, and turned to look back.
* * *
Pahner had a repeater of the scout's data on one-quarter of his visor, and general data on the company and its formation on two other quarters. The fourth was left for figuring out where to put his feet. Currently, the only one he was paying attention to was the repeater from the scout.
The beast that had come into sight around a pile of boulders was dark brown and nearly as high in the shoulder as an elephant, but longer and wider. The head was armed with two long, slightly curved horns that looked useful for fighting or digging, and the neck was protected by a ruff of armor. Massive shoulders were covered in armored scales that faded back to pebbly hide, and it had six squat, forward-thrust limbs and a fleshy tail that flailed back and forth as it pounded from left to right across the company's path. As it ran, it bugled in rage at whatever it was chasing.
The captain examined it for just a moment. The beast was fearsome looking, but a closer examination confirmed his initial judgment. There was no sign of canines or any analog; only
grinder teeth were revealed when it opened its maw to scream. Nor did the beast have the sort of long, lean look one found in virtually all predators. It was undoubtedly something to keep an eye on and could be a problem, but it wasn't a carnivore, and was therefore unlikely to attack the company.
"All units," he said, knowing that the tac-comp in his communicator would set the radio to all-frequency broadcast. "Don't fire. It's an herbivore. I say again, do not fire."
* * *
There was chatter on the net, and although Roger's inexperience with the com link kept him from following it at all clearly, he could certainly understand its excited overtones. He looked at the creature and its paws. They were odd for a desert creature, webbed and clawed like those of a carnivorous toad. And it was just about the right length and design to be able to rear up on those trees. It was obviously an herbivore, but it was just as obviously a part of whatever herd had marked these trees as its territory. That put it in the "dangerous" slot, and Roger wasn't about to let it circle around and hit the company from behind like a Cape buffalo, or a Shastan rock toad. Or go and get the rest of the herd to squash them all to paste.
He put the rifle to the shoulder and drew a breath. Lead it, easy squeeze.
* * *
Pahner's jaw dropped as the giant beast snapped at its side. It turned on its tail once, then slammed over sideways in a self-made hurricane of dust and gravel. The ground shuddered underfoot with the impact, and it lashed and snapped at the air for several seconds until it was still. He watched it for one sulphurous moment more, and took a deep breath.
"Okay! Who the hell fired?!" There was complete silence on all the nets. "I said, 'who fired?'!"
"That would be His Highness," Julian said ironically.
Pahner cut out the snickering on the squad leaders' net and turned to where Roger stood with a smoking rifle propped on his thigh. The prince had the Parkins and Spencer set for bolt action, and Pahner watched as he jacked the spent round out of the chamber and caught it in midair. He pulled a fresh round out of his vest, chambered it, and put the empty case where the new one had been. Each of the movements was precise, but jerky and over-muscled. Then he reached up and cleared the chameleon field from his helmet so that he could meet Pahner's eye.
Pahner stepped over to where the prince stood and switched to the command frequency they alone shared.
"Your Highness, could we talk for a moment?"
"Certainly, Captain Pahner," the prince said sardonically.
Pahner looked around, but there was nowhere to have a private conversation. So he touched the control that opaqued the prince's visor again.
"Your Highness," he began, then drew a deep, calming breath. "Your Highness, can I ask you a question?"
"Captain Pahner, I assure you—"
"Your Highness, if you please," Pahner interrupted in a strangled tone. "May. I. Ask. You. A. Question?"
Roger decided at that moment that discretion was better than valor.
"Yes."
"Do you want to live to get back to Earth?" Pahner asked, and Roger paused before responding carefully.
"Is that a threat, Captain?"
"No, Your Highness, it's a question."
"Then, yes, of course I do," the prince said shortly.
"Then you'd better get through your overbred, airheaded brain that the only way we are going to survive is if you don't fuck me over every time we turn around!"
"Captain, I assure you—" the prince started to respond hotly.
"Shut up! Just shut up, shut up! You can have me relieved once we get back to Earth! And I am not going to wrap you up in ropes and carry you the whole way, although right now that sounds like a good idea! But if you don't get a grip and start figuring out that we are not on some backwoods adventure where you can go and blast anything in sight and walk away without consequences, we are all going to get killed. And that would really piss me off, because it would mean that I failed to get you back to Earth so that I can give you back to your mother in one goddamned piece. That is all I care about, and if you don't get with the program, I will sedate you and carry you to the spaceport unconscious on a stretcher! Am I making myself absolutely, positively, crystalline clear?"
"Clear," Roger said quietly. He realized there was no way he could possibly explain the situation as he saw it to the enraged captain. He also realized that with the helmets opaqued and on a restricted frequency, no one else had heard the dressing down.
Pahner paused for a moment longer, looking around the desolate wasteland. It might look flat, but he knew it hid dozens of little dips where enemies and predators could be hiding. The whole march, for months on end, was going to be like that. And all the Marines, as opposed to the civilians they were guarding, knew that. He shook his head and switched to the all-hands frequency.
"Okay, show's over. Let's move out."
Great. Just great. Just what a unit in a situation like this needed: an obvious argument in the chain of command right at the start.
* * *
"Woo, hoo, hoo," Julian whispered on his suit mike. "I think the Prince just caught himself a nuke."
"I bet Pahner didn't even ask why he took the shot," Despreaux said.
"He knows why Princy took the shot," Julian shot back. "Big, bad big-game hunter saw the biggest game in town. Time to try out the rifle."
"Maybe," Despreaux admitted. "But he is a big-game hunter. He's dealt with big nasty animals a lot. Heck, he does it as a hobby. Maybe he knew something Pahner didn't."
"The day you find out something the Old Man doesn't know," Julian commented, "you come look me up. But bring some CarStim; I'll need it for the heart attack."
"I t'ink he just like to kill stuff," Poertena said soberly. They'd reached the carcass of the giant herbivore, and he examined more closely. It would have made a fair trophy for any hunter.
Despreaux glanced over at the armorer. Despite the huge rucksack that made him look like an ant under a rock, he'd come up behind them so quietly she hadn't noticed his presence.
"You really think so?"
"Sure. I hear about his trophy room," Poertena said, sipping water out of his tube. "There are all sorts of t'ings in there. He likes to kill stuff," he repeated.
"Maybe," Despreaux repeated, then sighed. "If so, I hope he can learn some control."
"Well, I guess we'll see the next time we have a contact," Julian said.
"Contact!" the point guard called.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Kosutic tapped a bead rifle outward.
"There are three people covering one scummy," she commented to the trooper as she stepped past him. "Watch your own Satan-Be-Damned sector."
" . . . just appeared out of nowhere," the point guard was saying as the sergeant major walked up. The PFC waved the sensor wand at the scummy. "Look, there's hardly any readout!"
"That's what your eyes are for!" Gunnery Sergeant Jin snapped. He looked at the scummy standing quietly just outside the perimeter, and shuddered. He hadn't seen the being until the point yelled, either.
The Mardukan stood two and a half meters tall. He—it was clearly and almost embarrassingly a "he"—carried a figure-eight shield nearly as tall as he was. A lance that was even taller was cast over one shoulder, and he had a large, leather covering thrown over his head. It was obviously an attempt at a parasol, and his need for something like it was clear. Given the fact that Mardukans were covered in a water-based mucus, the fact that he could have survived all the way to the edge of the salt flats was amazing. He should have been dead of dehydration long before he got this far.
Kosutic tossed her bead rifle over one shoulder in a manner similar to the way the Mardukan carried his spear, stepped past the three troopers covering the stranger, and held out one hand, palm forward. It wasn't a universal sign of peace, but humans had found it to be close.
The Mardukan gabbled at her, and she nodded. The gesture meant no more to him than his handwaving at the horned beast did to her. He could
be angry that they'd killed his pet, or happy that they'd saved his life. Her toot took a stab at the language, but returned a null code. The local dialect had very little similarity to the five-hundred-word "kernel" they'd loaded into the toots.
"I need O'Casey up here quick," she subvocalized into her throat mike.
"We're on our way," Pahner responded. "With His Highness."
Kosutic held up one hand again, and turned to look over her shoulder. As she did, she noticed the two bead rifles and the plasma gun still leveled at the apparently benign visitor.
"Go ahead and lower them, Marines. But keep them to hand."
She half-turned at the crunch of gravel, and smiled at the group approaching from the center of the company's perimeter. The diminutive chief of staff was virtually invisible behind the bulk of Pahner and Roger's armor. And surrounding Roger was a squad from Second Platoon that looked ready to level the world. All in all, it looked like a good time to fade, and she bowed to the visitor and drifted backwards, wondering how it would go.
* * *
Eleanora O'Casey wasn't a professional linguist. Such people not only had specially designed implants, they usually also had a flair for language that interacted with their toots so that the final translation was synergistically enhanced. She, on the other hand, was dependent on an off-the-shelf software package and a general knowledge of sentient species to carry her through. There were quite a few "ifs" in that equation.
The regions around the spaceport used a four-armed bow as a sign of parley. Unfortunately, there were a variety of nuances to it—none of which had been very clear in the explanation—and she had only two arms.
Here went nothing.
* * *
D'Nal Cord examined the small being before him. All of the beings in this tribe—they looked like basik, with their two arms and waggling way of walking—were small and apparently weak. However, most of them blended into the background as if they were part of it. It was probably an effect of their strange coverings, but it was also disconcerting. And some weapon or magic among them had killed the flar beast. Both features bespoke great power. And since the flar beast had nearly had him, it also spoke of an asi debt. At his age.
