The cow honked out in pain, arched its back, bringing its front and rear feet closer together, and stomped those massive feet on the ground, turning rapidly in a tight circle, with its tail slashing from side to side with bone-crushing force.
The two predators weaved around their prey in opposite directions, confusing the huge beast and keeping out of reach of its tail. The cow's head swung about in counterpoint to its tail, its neck jinking up and down as well as side to side in an attempt to keep out of reach of the slashing, snapping jaws of its tormentors.
Trees shook violently from the pounding of the feet of the three huge animals in their dance of death.
Every time one of the tigers saw an opening, it leaped in to gouge out another piece of flesh. The cow's stomping, twirling, and lashing became more frantic as its honks of pain and fear became louder and higher. Blood flowed and flew from the wounds in its sides and belly, and ran from the corners of the predators' mouths as they gobbled the hunks of meat they ripped from its sides.
When the first tiger screamed to begin the attack, all the other grazers had turned to look. The cows and sheep saw they weren't under immediate attack and loped away. The half-dozen goats in the area gathered together and stood in a circle facing outward. They flexed their shoulders and rippled their backs, and long, thick spikes that had lain flat and unnoticed against their shoulders swung forward to protrude past their lowered heads.
The spinning of the cow under attack slowed, and its head swung more slowly side to side—it couldn't keep up the manic movement. The tigers also slowed their weaving and darting and began more methodically looking for openings in the bigger animal's defensive maneuverings. Suddenly, just as one of the tigers moved in front of it, the cow reared up onto its tripod and crashed down, lunging at the tiger with its forelegs.
The tiger jumped back, but not fast enough, and a glancing blow from the cow's foot sent it tumbling and screaming in surprise and pain. The cow bolted past its downed tormentor. But before it could get more than a few steps, the second tiger dashed under the base of its tail and locked its jaws onto the back of its thigh. The cow honked louder than before at the new agony. It again reared up into its tripod and tried to sit on the tiger latched onto its hindquarters, but that tiger jerked its head to the side, pulled back on its powerful hind legs, and staggered backward with a huge hunk of meat in its mouth, which it chomped on once and swallowed.
Off balance, the cow sat heavily and tumbled onto its side.
As soon as the cow began its roll to the side, the first tiger darted in and tore a man-size strip of flesh from the cow's belly. A loop of intestine bubbled out of the wound, and the sight sent the tigers into a frenzy. One of them jumped onto the cow and raked deep gouges in its side with its claws. The cow struggled to roll over onto its legs so it could stand, but the weight of the tiger on top of it prevented that. The first tiger bolted toward the cow's front end with its mouth wide open and bit down powerfully on its neck. As far away as he was, Schultz could hear the shattering of bones.
The cow spasmed, throwing both attackers off. Free of the tigers, it struggled to regain its footing but couldn't. Its head and half its neck lay limp on the ground. Its honks were low and feeble.
The tigers stood watching from a short distance away, their chests heaving from the effort of bringing down the huge prey animal. Then they slowly moved toward its back. When the cow's struggles began to slow, the tigers closed in on it to eat the still-living beast.
Kharim nudged Schultz. "Let's go before the wolves come," he whispered harshly.
"Wolves?" Schultz croaked. He got to his feet. "Lead the way," he said.
* * *
Staff Sergeant Bass brought the Marines together for a final briefing when they reached the turnoff for the possible guerrilla headquarters area. He had very little to say that they didn't already know. They were to tell their shifts about the suspected headquarters. The rest of the 257th Feldpolizei had been transported to the other side of the target area and was about to enter it from there, so the two forces might be able to catch the guerrillas in a pincer movement. They were to break into shifts to search the area. Unusual sunspot activity was building on the local star, so they were told to be prepared for scrambled communications and to be ready to receive on the string-of-pearls frequency if they couldn't hear messages any other way. Unfortunately, if they had to rely on the string-of-pearls, communications would be one-way—their helmet radios weren't powerful enough to transmit to the string-of-pearls.
Deep ravines cut through the area, and jagged crags of igneous rock thrust up through the thin topsoil. The flatland giants didn't grow there; there wasn't enough level ground to support them. Lacking enough space to propagate, the grospalms lived in smaller families. The spikers were more common. Two new types of trees dominated. One was an odd-looking growth with a trunk almost as thick as it was high. Between two and four meters above the ground the trunks split into several massive limbs which quickly split again into less massive branches that twisted and wound about in a Medusa's coif. Gnarly roots splayed widely in the surface dirt to anchor them. The other kind of tree had a slender trunk that seldom rose ten meters. The trees' shaggy branches sprouted along their entire lengths, and they resembled unkempt conifers. The fernlike plants that spotted the ground between the trees grew only a half meter in height; smaller ones grew from cracks in the jutting rocks where trees couldn't gain purchase.
"How are we supposed to find anybody in here?" Godenov complained when Company A's first platoon assembled at the end of the first day's search. The lead elements of the battalion's two forces had met in the middle of the search area, and there had been no contact with or sign of the guerrillas.
Schultz gave him a hard look. "We look for them," he said. Godenov swallowed and stopped complaining.
Vanden Hoyt and Bass joined their command units and set up a battalion command post in a defensible high spot near the middle of the search area. From there they would be able to communicate with all of the platoons and shifts wherever they were in this gouged and tangled wilderness.
"I wonder why the guerrillas aren't using this as an observation post," vanden Hoyt remarked when he first saw the hollowed crown of the basalt mound that was the highest spot in the area. He saw no debris left over from human occupation.
Bass didn't see any sign of occupation either, but drew a different conclusion. "I think they aren't using it now because the observers ran when we got too close."
Vanden Hoyt gave him a speculative look.
Bass nodded toward a narrow crevasse in the side of the hollow. A crack led from the top of the rim down to the bottom of the bowl. Near its bottom the crack enlarged into a hole nearly half a meter wide and more than a meter high.
"A small man could slip through there very easily," Bass said.
"You think the guerrillas are hiding in caves and that's the entrance to one?"
Bass looked away from the crack, out over the rim of the hollow at the surrounding, tortured landscape. Instead of replying, he made a gesture. The gesture said, "Everybody out of here."
Vanden Hoyt looked at the experienced NCO for a moment and glanced at the mysterious satchel Bass had brought along. He decided that Charlie Bass must have a very good reason for wanting everybody to leave quietly. He also gestured the few members of the battalion staff who were in the hollow to leave. He followed his own instruction and left as well.
When Bass was alone, he squatted next to the cleft, his blaster ready in case he needed it. Directing his voice into the crack, he said very clearly, in a conversational volume, "If anybody's in there, I suggest you move back, far back. For your sake, I hope you've got another way out." Then he took the satchel he'd been carrying and exposed its control panel. He made an adjustment on the panel, recovered it, and tossed the satchel into the crack. He remained squatting and listened carefully. He heard a faint sound, perhaps someone moving deep inside the cave. Satisfied that there wasn't someone nearb
y who would throw the satchel back out, he rose to his feet and left the hollow. Just outside, standing far enough down the side of the peak so only his head showed above the rim, he looked back at the crevasse. Nothing had changed or moved. He pulled a remote control out of a pocket while keeping his eyes on the crack. "Fire in the hole," he said softly, then ducked down and pressed a button.
A loud explosion, magnified by the walls of the cleft and the sides of the hollow, blasted out over the land. The force of the concussion almost knocked Bass from his perch, even though he had a several-foot-thick slab of basalt between himself and the explosion. He regained his balance and listened. All he heard was the sound of falling rocks and gravel. He gave the worst of the dust kicked up by the explosion a moment to begin to settle, then stood and looked back into the bowl. Its uneven floor was covered with rock fragments. Across the hollow, the explosion had opened a second fissure in the rock, and a wedge of basalt had dropped down to fill it in.
"So that's why you wanted us to bring chemical explosives," vanden Hoyt said as he rejoined Bass.
"Satchel charge," Bass replied. "A long time ago Marines called them 'bunker busters.' I knew this area was riddled with caves and that we'd need a way to close them. Sometimes old methods are still very useful."
"You do think they're in caves, don't you?"
Bass nodded. "The string-of-pearls saw a lot more people enter this area than left it. Our people haven't seen any sign of people on the surface. They must be underground." He cocked his head at the lieutenant. "I pulled tunnel rat duty once on Minh. It's a really nasty job. If we go down after them, we have to be prepared to lose a lot of field police. If we were all Marines, we could do it. Even though we outnumber the rebels by more than two to one and our Marines are in chameleons, most of our people are FPs. We could very easily lose this fight."
"Well, we better get our people started finding cave entrances."
Bass nodded. He knew he was going to hate this.
"C-C-Commander," the panting runner reported, "the Confederation Marines and the oligarchs' troops have sealed the entrance to San Juan."
Hing kept his face bland. This was bad news; he'd lost his best observation spot. It also might mean the enemy knew his brigade was in the caves. "How deep did they seal it?"
"To a depth of at least three meters. Commander. They used explosives. A slab of roof fell into the tunnel."
Hing knew explosives were used; he'd felt the tremor. But a slab of rock that big... If the Marines or the Feldpolizei occupied San Juan, he wouldn't be able to eavesdrop on them through that thickness of rock.
"Have they occupied any of the other observation posts?"
The runner shook his head. "Commander, all I know about is San Juan is blocked."
Hing ordered the runner to return to his post, then leaned back in his chair to think for a moment. Abruptly, he sat erect and started giving commands.
"We must assume they know we are in caves," he began. "Since they sealed San Juan instead of entering it, either they are going to try to seal all the entrances to this complex and hope we die that way, or they want to seal some so they can enter through the remainder and try to kill us directly. Unseal the escape tunnels. We'll seal them back up on our way out. If they get in, we can be waiting for them when they come back out. And we have our little surprises..."
Lieutenant Pincote smiled, revealing her pointed teeth. She was delighted at the prospect of loosing the wolves on the unsuspecting lackeys and their Marines. She still wasn't moving with full freedom, but the synthskin was grafting well. Medic Cildair had agreed she was ready to return, if not to full field duty.
Hing almost glared at her. "You will not release the wolves until I direct you to," he snapped. "When you do, you will report directly back to me immediately afterward."
Pincote's grin slipped only a little before she nodded acknowledgment of the order.
The next morning, Bass was struggling with the radio to coordinate the movements of all the platoons and sections as they moved into position to blow the cave entrances they weren't going to enter. But a massive solar flare was messing up the ionosphere. The Marine squad-leader company commanders had radios that relayed signals through the string-of-pearls, but the only communication he had with the other Marines was line-of-sight—and the terrain prevented him from having line-of-sight communications with more than a few of them. He had to have the string-of-pearls relay his signals back to the platoon and shift leaders, but those Marines couldn't signal back to him the same way; they had to relay through their company HQ units. Coordination was difficult.
Vanden Hoyt was poring over the small bits of data he'd been able to locate on the subsurface structure of that patch of badlands, leaching out any bit of information he could pass on that would help the Marines and their men when they went underground. A call came in over the high-command net.
"Well, I'll be," Bass muttered as he listened to the gist of the message. Then into the radio he said, "Wait one for the Six Actual." He turned toward vanden Hoyt. "Ensign, you gotta hear this."
The two Marines and their FP counterparts listened to the new orders that came over the scrambled circuit, then looked at each other in stunned silence for a long moment.
Finally, vanden Hoyt took the radio handset. "We're patched through the string of-pearls?" he asked. Bass nodded, and vanden Hoyt said into the radio, "All Hen, Chick, and Peep Actuals, this is Henhouse Actual. All Hen, Chick, and Peep Actuals up. I say again, all Marines report to the Henhouse. Leave your Chicks and Peeps in place. They are to take no offensive action in your absence; they may take defensive action only. Chick and Peep Actuals acknowledge to your Hen Actuals. Hen Actuals acknowledge to me once your Chicks and Peeps are on their way." He gave the handset back to the radioman. "Well, what do you know," he said softly.
Bass simply shook his head. Then they settled back to wait. It would take a couple of hours or more for all the Marines to arrive.
Chapter Twenty
Brigadier Sturgeon's landcar wound its way slowly up the long road to Kurt Arschmann's villa. The drive reminded Claypoole of the first visit he had made there with the Brigadier shortly after their arrival on Wanderjahr. Commander Peters had been with them then. How long ago that seemed now. This time Ambassador Spears sat next to the brigadier. And this time the entire Council would be gathered at Arschmann's villa to hear the ambassador and the brigadier give their final report on the 34th FIST's mission to Wanderjahr.
Claypoole's mind drifted back to Maggie again. He never mentioned her to anyone anymore, not even to Dean, but he was always thinking of her, wondering what would have happened if she hadn't been killed. What was her real name? Goddamn, he couldn't even remember it! His face turned red with suppressed rage and frustration. They'd never found her killer. To young Lance Corporal Rachman Claypoole, that was probably the one piece of unfinished business the Marines would leave on Wanderjahr.
Dean sat in the rearmost seat, gazing back down the road. It was a beautiful day on Wanderjahr. The windows of the taller buildings in the heart of Brosigville glinted in the early-morning sunlight. He'd come to like the place, despite the tragedy that had plagued it in recent months, because it was where Hway lived, and though he'd be leaving very soon and would most likely never see the young woman again, the thought of her warmed him.
Ambassador Jay Benjamin Spears pulled contemplatively at his beard, not paying much attention to the passing countryside. His beard was full of gray and the once-dark mat of hair on his head was very thin and streaked with gray. The Confederation Council had already approved his request for retirement, and he was thinking ahead to settling down and enjoying his remaining years. He was not thinking of the unpleasant business that would present itself in only a few minutes. He knew what had to be done, and he would do it. He patted the document folded in a breast pocket and then turned his thoughts back to a future of hunting rare books and maps in exotic cities.
Commissioner Alois Landser s
at beside Chief Long. He was dressed in his most splendid uniform that morning, as befit a momentous occasion. He knew now who had been responsible for his brother's death, and he was going to see that justice was done to that person. A tiny rivulet of perspiration trickled down the left side of his face.
Chief Hugh Long lounged in his seat. He'd met some truly fine people on Wanderjahr and taken care of some very nasty ones. That was his job. The morning would be a superb finish to a very difficult mission. Some eggs would still be broken, but—he shrugged mentally—they were bad eggs anyway.
Brigadier Ted Sturgeon sat stiffly in his seat, staring ahead at the road as it unwound. By then Arschmann's villa was clearly visible. The rays of the morning sun illuminated its walls brilliantly. He thought back to the morning he'd met Lorelei Keutgens here, and of the sunlit garden behind Arschmann's conference room that wafted such a beautiful aroma through the open windows. They had come a long way since then, he reflected bitterly. But now it was over, and he would do his duty this morning as he had done it every morning all his adult life.
The parking lot was full of landcars when the brigadier's party drove up. They dismounted and entered the villa. "Keep your weapons ready," the brigadier whispered to Dean and Claypoole. Commissioner Landser smiled.
* * *
The composition of the Wanderjahrian Ruling Council had changed significantly since Kurt Arschmann had convinced it to ask for assistance from the Confederation of Worlds. Turbat Nguyen-Multan was now light-years from Wanderjahr, facing the rest of his life in prison. Gretel Siebensberg was represented by her chief minister, until her estate could be settled and passed on to some successor. Death, by natural causes, had come to Oligarch Mannlicher, so Carmago Kampot Khong, as heir apparent, had succeeded to his position on the Council.
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