“Well, it’s better than nothing. What about weapons? Ever fired antique projectile weapons?”
“You mean things that shoot solids? Percussive stuff?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen them shot, and I tried it once in a historical target meet, but that’s about it. I doubt if I could hit anything short of a mountain with one.”
“Too bad. We have some here. The Dutchman says that percussive weapons using gunpowder don’t pick up on the Titan radar. Noisy as hell, though, so your position’s a dead giveaway. They’re heavy, bulky, and the ammunition’s worse, but we’re taking some. Even the doc’s been practicing on a range we set up on the Odysseus. I’m not sure she could actually shoot anybody, but she’s more accurate than you say you are. What hand weapons can you use with some confidence?”
“Knife, certainly, and I’ve fenced much of my life. It’s good exercise without driving you nuts.”
“Hmm... Wish I had some swords. Never thought of that. Got some good knives with different weights and hefts, though. Okay, well, so be it. I’ll notify the colonel. Dress is stock camouflage fatigues, waterproof combat boots. Draw what you need. You’ll probably be living in them for a couple of weeks. Oh—forgot. Can you swim?”
“Huh? Yeah, pretty well. Why?”
“We’re gonna be dropped on a tiny island about forty kilometers off the mainland, the first one that’s outside the permanent continental grid. We’ll have to get off and in to shore by boat, and I don’t mean a motorboat. The colonel, the priest, and the Pooka go in the first one; you, me, and the doc in the second. It isn’t gonna be a picnic even getting in. That ocean can be rough and we won’t be able to pick the perfect time. We’re stuck with the gap the polar sweep gives us, period. Otherwise the lifeboat can’t get back off and out of range before it’s detected. No lifeboat and we’re stuck down there. Got it?”
“I got it.”
“And no funny business with the girl. She’s along for a reason. You want to get a romance, wait until we’ve blown up the suckers or we know we can’t get off. Okay?”
He nodded. “No problem there, Chief. When do we do it?”
“Tomorrow. At zero one hundred hours by our clocks. It’s gonna be fast and mean and tense all the way and everybody knows it. And—one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“I’m in the fucking Navy. I’m a sergeant, sometimes sarge, but I’m never a chief. Got that?”
“Sure thing, boss,” he responded. “Anything you like.” And, under his breath, Harker added, just audibly enough for the other man to hear and bristle at, “Chief.”
FIFTEEN
To the Great Sea
Littlefeet was still bothered by what he knew should be the most wonderful of coincidences, the fact that, of all those who’d jumped into the river rather than face the mad ones and Hunters from the demon flower groves, one should be his Spotty, and with no Mother Paulista or anybody else to make the rules. Not anymore. Froggy was a nice bonus; he’d always liked her and had at one time lain with her, but that could be said about almost all the girls of the Family.
“You act like I’m some kinda creature or something, like those things that attacked us,” she accused him, as they sat waiting for the night’s storm.
“I just want to know how come it was you out of all the girls. How come you came to me?”
She frowned and stared into his eyes. “Why, you called me!”
“I what? Oh—you mean my yelling and all?”
“No, not that. I heard you. Callin’ me, drawin’ me to your side. It was almost like those magic stones Mother Paulista had—those—what’d she call ’em? Magnets. Like I was one and you were another and I was almost pulled to you.” She paused. “If anybody oughta be wondering ’bout who’s got witch power and who don’t it should be me. ’Course, it coulda been God, y’know.”
He let out a long, loud sigh. “I dunno. Maybe it me. Ever since I went up to the top of those mountains it’s been weird sometimes, y’know? Like I can feel things I can’t figure out and see things like maybe the demons see things, and I get these crazy ideas and pictures. I’ve got no words for ’em. Some things are really clear; other things are all jumbled up and don’t make any sense. Look, let’s forget this whole thing—not the attack and all. I mean between us. There’s the three of us now and nobody else, at least not yet.”
Spotty wasn’t all that sure it was going to be that easy, but she also was practical enough to realize that it made little difference. In the broadest sense Littlefeet was right: their situation now was the problem, and it had to be worked out.
He moved over, gave her a hug, and kissed her, and she didn’t pull away.
Froggy had made a short exit while they started to work things out, and she now came back and sat with them. “You decided to kiss and make up, huh? ’Bout time!”
“Yeah, don’t seem nothing but crazy to wonder over good luck,” he responded. “So, either of you wanna tell me what happened over there in the camp?”
Spotty looked at Froggy, who looked back and shrugged. Clearly neither of them wanted to bring up the memory, but Spotty finally took the initiative.
They had come from the demon flower groves, she told him. Come just before dawn, when there was much mist and not much light, and they had burst upon the Family in numbers they had never before faced, screaming unintelligible noises and in a killing frenzy, with no thought as to their own safety or protection. The guards had fought well and bravely but they were simply overwhelmed; the Hunters used what looked like human leg bones as clubs, and they took the spears and knives from the fallen and used them as well.
“I heard Father Alex praying and cursing the attackers to hell,” she told him. “Then I heard him cry out in what sounded like pain, and he shouted something I could not hear but which must have been the command to sound the horn, for that’s what happened next, and it kept sounding and sounding until it kinda died in midblast. By that time they were in the women’s kraal, and it was just all mixed up and so confused with everybody yelling and screaming and going every which way. I was asleep far from the nursery. I know some of the crazy ones got there, and I picked up a pole and tried to get there too, but I could see that they’d surrounded the women there and there were more of ’em and they were closing in. I went to run and help them, but then I got hit here, on the hip, and I was in a fight for my life with a man not much older’n us, but there was nothing inside him, just screams and hatred and those eyes that didn’t have anyone in them.”
“I wasn’t that far away,” Froggy added, realizing that Spotty had reached her limit for the moment. “I saw much the same. The only thing that mattered was the kids, but you couldn’t get to ’em. I know some of the older ones ran off into the grass and I pray to God that they got away. The rest, I saw some—some...”
It took until the first cracks of thunder sounded in the great valley before the two could, painfully, piece together the rest. They had seen sights that would haunt them for their entire lives. Babies, little babies, impaled, held up on spears still shrieking, and some of them were their babies and there was absolutely no way they could help them and absolutely nothing they could do.
Eventually, in the carnage, many of the young women had found themselves at the water’s edge, unable to do anything, facing the Hunters and the mad ones which both women described as men without souls. The only choice was between succumbing to the attackers and jumping in the water and drowning.
Many of them jumped, and some, like Spotty and Froggy, found themselves buoyant enough to keep above the water for a short period until, just as they felt themselves going under, each of them had bumped, or were bumped by, something that floated and they’d managed to hold on, remembering Littlefeet’s own example and some of the lessons of the past. Neither remembered much after that, except that Spotty insisted that she had heard and been drawn to his calling. Neither knew how they’d gotten to the other side, but that could be explained by a slow curve in the ri
ver to the east that might have taken them closer to the opposite bank.
And when they’d told their stories and the rains came, their tears were added to the downpour as they simply sat in the mud. He held tightly to each of the women with his arms and they gently rocked in the rain.
And after the storm passed, he stayed as long as they wanted, and, finally, they found a comfortable spot in the brush with good cover and lay down for the night, as close together as they could. He didn’t get a lot of sleep that night, but at least, unlike them, he didn’t dream.
Still, there was an odd sense, almost that magnetic sense that Spotty had insisted he had, that drew him in odd and mysterious directions, first to the tiny point that could barely be seen in the night sky and would soon be washed out by Achilles, the feeling that something was up there, something was on Hector, something not quite god or demon but different than he.
And, as the night wore on, he had the strangest feeling that something had fallen to earth. He still felt the presences above, sort of, but now he felt the same kind of draw down here, to the south, where the great sea was, and where he’d been taught that there was nothing but monsters and endless deep waters.
They would spend the next two days patrolling up and down the riverbank, looking for anyone alive, but if anyone else had survived, they had taken off for the brush. The sounds the two women had told about were made by a hollowed reed specially carved to sound a deep, penetrating note. It was reserved for the greatest of emergencies, and would bring the scouts in and also tell the people to grab what they could and scatter and hide because the defenses had failed.
He had never heard that sound except in practices, nor had any of the others, but they were all properly drilled. If the family could not be defended, it must scatter and preserve as many as possible and merge again when the danger was past.
It was possible that many were now hunting for one another over there, on the other side, but nobody was showing themselves by the river, nothing but some sad corpses.
“We should gather them and give them burial,” Little-feet said, feeling oddly guilty that he’d not been there and had survived mostly for that reason alone.
“No!” Spotty responded. “None of the Hunters will guess that any of us could make it across the river. Some will come, and if they see it like this, they’ll just figure, with no battle signs, that the bodies floated down or from the other side and that’ll be that. If we do anything more, then they’ll know there are some alive on this side and maybe go on a hunt. Their souls are in heaven now and ours aren’t. Leave what’s left.”
He nodded sadly. “Then let’s get away from here. This is an evil place.”
“But to where?” Froggy asked him. “There’s nowhere left to go.”
“We’re on the right side of the river,” he pointed out. “We know this area, at least beyond this new river. I say we follow the river down and stay just out of sight, but look for signs of others across the way. They’ll have gone south along the river because it’s the only way to find any others. If we find any signs, maybe we can get ’em across. If not, at least we’ll know. After that, well, we’ll see about finding Family marks and be on our own. They’ll either find us or else we’ll be starting a new Family. What else can we do?”
“South...” Froggy looked out at the river. “How far south? If this is like all the other rivers we know, it’ll get bigger and wider as it goes on. If they’re on the other side, they’re gonna stay there.”
He sighed. “Maybe. But what else can we do? C’mon. There are no nurseries now. We’re all three scouts and guards and gatherers. Let’s find something to eat and then get on.”
How could he explain about the pull? How could he explain when even he didn’t know what caused it, or what he was being drawn to? Like everything else, he knew he’d simply have to trust his instincts and hope that the pull was God’s and not any of the demons’.
SIXTEEN
Helena after the Fall
As time grew near for the run to the surface, tension mounted within the whole party, not just among those who were going. This was the start of the truly dangerous part of the mission, and none of them even knew what the full price of failure would be, only that they might well be the only hope the human race had for survival.
Katarina Socolov had been cool to Harker and everybody else for much of the time, but suddenly she was quite friendly to him. He suspected that it was less his magnetic charm than the sudden realization that she was going down to a primitive world so alien they might not have imagined just how different it would be, and she was going to be the only woman along with three big military guys, a priest, and a Pooka. N’Gana and Mogutu were good men on your side in a fight, that was certain, but she wasn’t even sure how they felt about women, although she knew full well that they would have preferred she not be along. Not because she was a woman, she suspected, but because she wasn’t military, wasn’t One of Them. They weren’t too thrilled about the priest, either, but they weren’t the ones paying for this trip.
Still, of them all, Harker, who was One of Them but also an outsider to this happy group, seemed to be the one common sense said would be the best friend to have in a hostile environment.
The infiltration team had left the scientists in the control center, attempting to master the system and determine that it would work as advertised. Even if the ones who were going down to the surface were totally successful and got themselves or at least the code data out, they knew they would get only one try with the weapons system. If it worked, that was all they would need; if it didn’t, they were literally dead ducks.
The tiny lifeboat-style ship that would take them down to the surface was cramped and not built with comfort in mind. It could take up to eight people, more than was needed, but those eight would be stacked in tubelike compartments unable to see or do much of anything. There wasn’t even an intercom; that had been stripped out, lest its use alert the Titans below of something unusual.
“You look uncomfortable, Mister Harker,” Alan Mogutu commented with a slight, sardonic smile.
One of these days somebody’s gonna knock that superior grin off your face, you asshole, Harker thought, but instead he replied, “I’m not used to going into a hostile situation without a suit. These camouflage fatigues and boots are no substitute.”
“True,” the mercenary responded. “Still, it is essential to occasionally test yourself against the elements with nothing but your own body, skills, and wits.”
Colonel N’Gana looked up from where he was securing some equipment in one of the small boat’s compartments and added, “Your suit would be your coffin down there. That’s the problem. Always has been. If they notice you at all, they will simply drain all power from your equipment. We don’t know how they do it, but nothing we’ve tried in the way of insulation works at thicknesses you can carry around. That old weapons station back there, for example, is shielded, but the shields involved are of very rare and expensive substances and they’re over a meter thick. Even then, once that shield is breached just long enough to direct fire, just once, and used—they’ll know. At that point, they’ll have a matter of minutes, perhaps as few as seven minutes, depending on how ready our friends down there might be to respond to a threat from such an unlikely area, to live. There is no way they could be evacuated in that amount of time without the ship itself being caught and drained by probable planetary defenses. No, this is one for history, Harker. We do it and we’re the heroes of all humanity. We fail, we die. It’s that simple. I wonder just how many people could actually pull this off, getting down there and doing this job with minimal power, almost like in the ancient times.”
“We’ve all gone soft,” Mogutu continued as N’Gana went back to checking the pack one last time. “I doubt if any of us—you, me, even the colonel—would be any sort of match for a Roman legionnaire in Julius Caesar’s army, or Alexander the Great’s infantry, Ramses II’s conquering horde, or in particular Genghi
s Khan’s. Imagine those Mongols—they had the largest empire on earth and held it without modern communication. The only thing that stopped them from conquering all of ancient Asia, Europe, and probably Africa as well was that they kept knocking off the conquest to go home every time they needed to elect a new emperor. You much on the ancient history of our people?”
“Not much,” Harker admitted. “Just the usual school and trivial stuff. But I know who they were, at least. And you think that a rank private in any of those armies could take us?”
“The lot of us,” Mogutu replied without hesitation. “They walked the whole of a planet and nothing stood in their way. Discipline, skill, constant training. They were the real supermen, Harker. We just try to emulate them with our fancy fighting suits. I wish you’d had a chance to run Socolov’s sim back on the Odysseus. You had to run it through without a suit. Without anything at all, really, except some stones and spears and such. It’s a humbling experience.”
Harker nodded. “So, how many times did you run it before you got all the way through?”
Mogutu’s finely featured face was suddenly a grim mask. “I didn’t get through it, Harker. Nobody did. Not a single one of us survived. And we ran it again and again and again.”
Now that was a sobering thought. Not N’Gana, not Mogutu—“Nobody?”
“Nobody. Of course, it was based on a lot of remote research and intelligence on what these worlds are like without anybody involved having actually been down on one. It might not be as tough as she has it.”
“Or it might be tougher,” N’Gana pointed out. “Still, if these pirates have been looting these worlds under the Titans’ noses, so to speak, then there is a chance. On the other hand, the fellow who got this information out but did not get himself out was a seasoned man on these worlds who could blend in like a native and knew probably more than anyone how the Titans worked and where they were blind. This time he didn’t make it. It could be that Helena is one hell of a Trojan horse.”
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