A Desert Called Peace

by Tom Kratman

  Sitnikov sat silent for a long minute. When he answered, it was a deliberate, measured response. "Some of my men, maybe even more than half, would probably like to stay. Many have found girlfriends. Two, to my certain knowledge, are planning on getting married. I do not know how my government would react to that, however. If they say no, the idea of being stateless does not appeal."

  Carrera looked to Parilla. Parilla gave a nonverbal assent, a shallow nod.

  "What if you men could become citizens of Balboa, Aleksandr, with jobs and ranks in the LdC roughly commensurate with—okay, maybe a bit below—their current ranks in the Volgan Army? Would that sway them, do you think?"

  "Some of them have wives, children. They would not leave them behind . . . well . . . most of them wouldn't."

  "Do you think the current regime would let the men's families emigrate?" Carrera asked.

  Sitnikov couldn't know for sure, but thought it likely. He reminded Carrera that not all of the Volgans were, themselves, first class military material. He had been forced to take some marginal characters, men whose only real qualification was linguistic, to meet the numerical requirements of the training mission.

  "Yes, I know," answered Carrera. "I wasn't planning on keeping all of you. Moreover, while I can offer you pay and rank, I must insist that Balboans and my own people fill all combatant command positions. Most of your men will be on staff or in support. Some may be serving in positions either below their grade or below their ability."

  Sitnikov laughed. "That, Legate, is no problem. It would help, though, if you could hold out a promise of equal opportunity to command once we've been citizens for a few years."

  "I can do that," Carrera agreed readily. "Now find out who will stay and who will go at the end of the training period. Get me a list as soon as you can . . . say, by the end of the week. I expect you to weed out the trash yourself. Give it directly to me as the sergeant major and Tribune Kennison are going over to al Jahara to look things over."

  At that moment Carrera spied his slender secretary through a door. Jesus, what a nice rear end. He called, "Lourdes, have you finished making the flight arrangements for Carl and the sergeant major?"

  She bridled for a moment. "Have you got the reservations, Lourdes? Where's that personnel file, Lourdes? Why don't you shrink your tits and ass so there's absolutely no possibility I ever notice you are a woman, Lourdes?"

  That wasn't fair and she knew it. How would I feel, how would I act, if the person I'd loved most in the world had been murdered? If my children had been murdered? It will take him some time . . . I suppose.

  She answered, calmly enough, "Si, Patricio. I have the tickets, visas and the press passes. And I've gotten yours to go to Hamilton, FD, the day after. I will brief them when you are done here." Her voice held not more than a trifle of anger or sarcasm, and the anger may have been directed at herself. If Carrera noticed, he didn't let on.

  Carrera didn't wake up screaming as often anymore, nor did he scream as loudly as he once had. Usually. There were exceptions.

  There was a low fire burning in the great stone fireplace in the living room. The troops insisted on calling it the "Dayroom" to Lourdes' immense confusion. This was an English word she had never learned and found distinctly odd, since it was almost never used except at night. The fire was unnecessary, as far as warmth went, but the men seemed to find it comforting in ways she only distantly understood. There was, in any case, never a need to designate anyone to cut firewood or build a fire. It just happened whenever any substantial group of them were in the casa.

  Sitting across the coffee table from McNamara and Kennison, Lourdes said, "Sergeant Major, Carl, you are accredited to the Estrella de Balboa, our major newspaper. In theory you are going over there to cover preparations for the war. What you will actually do, I do not know and I know you can't or won't tell me. Your accreditation has been passed through the attaché at the FS embassy and is approved by the FSC's War Department."

  McNamara smiled broadly and blindingly and was about to thank her when an ear-splitting shriek echoed through the casa. Lourdes looked terribly distressed. Kennison hung his head. The sergeant major muttered something about, "Poor bastard."

  "What's wrong? What makes him do that?" Lourdes asked.

  "Nightmares," McNamara answered. "I've been next to him twice when it's happened. I think . . . no, I am sure, he is seeing his family die over and over again."

  "But he didn't see . . ." Lourdes began before stopping herself. "Oh, I see. That makes it worse, doesn't it?"

  McNamara nodded, sadly. Hmmm. I wonder what might make it better. He looked once, intently, into Lourdes' huge brown eyes, measuring her. Then he looked upstairs in the direction of Carrera's quarters and back again at the girl.

  She looked back, eyes narrowing inquisitively. Do you really think that would help?

  The sergeant major's unspoken answer was, How could it hurt?

  Flustered and not a little embarrassed, Lourdes went to the bar and poured herself a stiff drink. This was very rare for her. She then left the "Dayroom" and went to her own room. Undressing and lying down atop the covers with her head propped on pillows, she sipped at her drink and asked herself, How could it hurt?

  She lay that way for half an hour, thinking, sipping, wondering, sipping . . . perhaps even daydreaming. Then she arose, pulled a robe around her, and walked to Carrera's room.

  She didn't knock. She just put her hand on the doorknob and, after a moment's nervous hesitation, turned it and pushed the door open. Enough moonlight entered through the windows to the room that she could make out Carrera lying on his side, his body shaking.

  Walking as quietly as possible she moved to stand beside the wide bed. Then she took off her robe, letting it cascade to the floor around her feet. Her undergarments followed quickly. Again she hesitated, but only very briefly, before pulling the bed clothes down and climbing in behind Carrera, sliding between the sheets to mould her body to his back. She slid one arm around the still-shuddering form and whispered, "There . . . there . . . it'll be all right. Sleep . . ."

  She felt his body spin inside the grasp of her arm. Suddenly her lips and face were being covered with kisses. Hands reached out, stroking . . . grasping . . . squeezing. Fingers probed, not always gently. She felt herself growing wet and warm. Soon—too soon, perhaps—she found herself on her back with her legs spread and Carrera hovering over. She smelled whiskey strong on his breath.

  "Patricio . . . slowly . . . please," she gasped, "I've never . . . ooowww!"

  She bit her lip to keep from crying out any louder. And then the strangeness of having someone inside her, thrusting, moving, took over. This was following by a spreading warmth, a sort of glow that seemed to begin between her legs and spread to every distant part of her body. She found herself thrusting back. Hard.

  "Lie . . . on . . . me," she grunted. "I want . . . to . . . feel the weight . . . of your . . . body . . . on me."

  She felt the strange thing inside her begin to pulse and throb. It grew as the thrusting increased in depth and force. Carrera whispered, "Oh, Linda . . . I . . . love . . . you."

  Lourdes stopped pushing back and began to cry even as Carrera's body, spent, slumped onto hers. The snoring that soon followed suggested he had never really been awake.

  Interlude

  2 October, 2067, UNSS Kofi Annan, alongside Colonization Ship Cheng Ho

  A careful count of the bodies aboard ship revealed that twenty-nine people were missing, all of them either Atheist, Christian, Buddhist or Hindu. They, and the missing shuttle, must have gone below as neither radar nor lidar showed the slightest trace of the shuttle in the solar system. There was no distress signal from the shuttle. The technical manual said that the batteries should have lasted for decades. If the ship had not crashed, someone had deliberately turned the signal off.

  The Annan's shuttles began looking. They were few and the planet was not small. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that the survivo
rs had landed the shuttle in a forest glade.

  The continent was in the southern hemisphere of the planet. It stretched nearly ten thousand miles, east to west. On the eastern end, several geographic projections made it look something like a bull, lying on its back, with an erection. The crew named this portion of the continent "Taurus" because of that resemblance.

  To the west, the continent was mostly flat, open grasslands with occasional forests and marshes, and some impressive mountain ranges near the equator. The grasslands disappeared to the east, giving way to thick virgin woods with some open areas.

  Moving west to east on a sweep, Annan's Shuttle Number Three caught a glimpse of a flash that was unlikely to have been natural. It moved closer to investigate, finally coming to a landing a few hundred meters from the crash site.

  Major Ridilla happened to be aboard that shuttle and was the first to set his feet on the ground. He wore an environmental suit, but without armor, and carried a modern rifle. Neither, as it turned out, was needed. The people, and they were fewer than the twenty-nine missing names even with the babies and young children, came out wearing badly tanned skins, thin to the point of emaciation, and ever so grateful to be rescued.

  "We thought Earth had forgotten about us," their leader said. She might once have been pretty, with her high cheekbones and off-white skin with just the hint of Vedic smokiness lying below the surface. But she was a woman aged far beyond her years. "We thought we'd die here." She looked skyward. "Then again, we thought we'd die up there. I'm Marjorie Billings-Rajamana," she said, putting out her hand.

  She had a very nice, upper class British accent. Well, of course if anyone's going to survive and keep people alive that person would have a British accent, Ridilla thought. I mean . . . tradition and all.

  "What happened?" he asked, taking the hand and shaking it. "What happened on the Cheng Ho?"

  "That's a long story," the woman answered. "And you'd better give me something to drink, something strong to drink, if you want to hear it."

  Assuming that the presence of people meant the absence of disease, Ridilla removed the helmet of his enviro-suit. "I'm sorry, I don't have anything like that with me. There's some on the ship. You do want to go home, don't you?"

  In answer, the woman laughed. Years fell away from her face, as if she had, perhaps, not laughed in all those years. She asked, "Who do I have to blow? If I never see this miserable place again it will still be too soon."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

  In every gesture dignity and love.

  —Milton, Paradise Lost

  Casa Linda, 15/7/460 AC

  Carrera's first words on awakening were, "My, that was a nice . . ."

  He was never quite sure afterwards which it was that first informed him that he had not been dreaming. Was it the mattress slumped slightly with a another human being? The scent? Some half-remembered details that were just too real to have been a dream? Or perhaps it was that all his dreams for months had been nightmares while the preceding night had definitely not been a nightmare.

  How it would turn out, however . . .

  "Lourdes?" he asked, uncertainly.

  She sniffled, "Yes?"

  Oh, shit. What the hell did I do? He asked her.

  "Last night," she answered, "while you were making love to me, you didn't even call out my name. It was like I gave myself to you and it meant nothing." She began to cry in seriousness now.

  He reached to her shoulder and pulled, rolling her over to face him. She resisted, initially, pulling her shoulder away. He was not, however, taking no for an answer. He gathered her in his arms and whispered, "It wasn't that. I was—I'm sorry to say—asleep. I don't sleep well, usually, but when I do I could sleep through a barrage. I have. Anyway, I'm really sorry. And I'll make it up to you, as best I can."

  Lourdes said nothing. How someone was supposed to make up to her the ruination of what should have been the most special—or perhaps the second most special—event of her life was beyond her. She was angry, she was bitter. Above all, she was hurt.

  Carrera continued on, despite her stony silence. "Frankly, Lourdes, I'm glad you came to me last night. Loneliness was killing me and you are . . . well . . . simply wonderful. Thank you."

  Carrera backed off slightly to push her back onto her back. Then he proceeded to kiss her tears away and show her—without any mistakes with names, this time—that he meant what he said.

  And perhaps, she thought, anger lessening, perhaps the hurt will go away if I let it.

  Casa Linda, 27/6/460 AC

  Carrera, Sitnikov, and half a dozen other Volgan officers sat in the conference room in the basement of the house. These half dozen Volgans had indicated that, while they could not, in good faith to their duties to the motherland, give up their Volgan citizenship, they were willing to stay on in Balboa under contract if they were wanted. They also represented another several dozen Volgans in the same straits. Another one hundred and twenty-one of the Volgan trainers had elected to take Legionary rank and eventual Balboan citizenship— and getting the legislative assembly to approve that had cost another series of bribes—and to accompany the Legio del Cid to al Jahara and Sumer—or wherever, for that matter. Legionaries take their orders and march with them. But if these men, and those they represented, remained citizens of the Volgan Republic, they could not accompany the Legion to a war to which their country was not a party.

  Carrera began, "Gentlemen, first of all let me say that I appreciate and respect your decision to remain true to the country of your birth. There is no shame in that. Your absence will be felt when the legion leaves for the desert." Carrera passed around glasses, scotch, and ice as he spoke.

  "Nonetheless, you may, if you wish, still remain here in Balboa to work on a few special projects that I have in mind. If you decide to stay, your pay will be commensurate with the LdC pay for the ranks you now hold. I can arrange some longevity increases as you spend more time here, but you will be, for all practical purposes, frozen in your current ranks for the immediately foreseeable future. Can you accept this?"

  Carrera looked at the Volgans' faces for a reaction. Seeing no negative indicators from them, he continued. "The second condition is that you must still take an oath to the LdC to give loyal and diligent service. This includes not divulging any of the nature of the work you will do to anyone, ever. This includes divulging to the Volgan Republic. Can you accept that?"

  Still the Volgans gave no indication of objection. Indeed, since their whole way of life prior to this had involved the most stringent security procedures, they did not even consider any other possibility. As to whether they would honor those oaths . . .

  Carrera thought, As if they could be trusted not to spill their guts once they go home. Still, my cautioning them may help make them feel they're part of the team and fully trusted. People are odd that way.

  Continuing, Carrera said, "Very well then. Colonel Sitnikov has decided to accept our offer of citizenship and equivalent rank. He will be in charge of you in my absence. I thank you for your decision to stay and help us. Dismissed."

  When the rest of the Volgans had departed, Carrera explained to Sitnikov what it was he wanted done while the legion was gone. He had learned to trust this particular Volgan, implicitly, over the last half year.

  "Aleksandr, there are a number of projects I want your people to work on over the next year or two. Probably two years."

  Carrera stood up, walked to the railing of the porch, turned and leaned against it. He continued. "The first project involves the Isla Real. That's the big island in the Bay of Balboa. I want you, personally, to work out how to turn it into a major Initial Entry Training establishment capable of turning out up to thirty thousand trained privates a year, as well as the needed number of specialists, officers and noncoms to lead an army of about three hundred and fifty to three hundred and eighty thousand. I'll send someone over with the table of organization, eq
uipment, and manning to guide you in your planning."

  "I've already seen it in rough terms," Sitnikov said. "One of your people showed me. You really think you can turn this place into a nation-in-arms?"

  "Maybe not," Carrera answered. "And maybe I won't need to. But it is certain that unless I plan for it, I won't be able to."

  Sitnikov's head rocked from side to side, considering. It's true enough, I suppose.

  "Don't, repeat don't, try to build anything along those lines," Carrera continued. "I will want you to build, as the money becomes available, a less ambitious facility capable of turning out seventy-five hundred to eight thousand trained privates a year, with other specialty and leadership schools as required.

  "Remember, though, all you can do is plan for now. Even to buy the island, or to get the government to condemn it through eminent domain, would cost about half a billion FSD, maybe more. I don't expect to have that kind of money until and unless I can work out a deal with the Feds to hire the legion.

  "In any case, let me make this clear: the planning for the building of the smaller training facility is to be open, once we own the island. The plan for expanding it to the larger capacity is to be very close hold. Even more close hold, I want you to plan for turning the island into a genuine fortress, one capable of enduring air attack and defeating amphibious attack by any possible enemy."

  Sitnikov brushed a hand through thinning hair. Any enemy? he wondered. Even the FSC? The Taurans? I wouldn't enjoy taking on the FSC, were it my fortress to command. But killing Sachsen and Gauls? Zhong? Be still, my heart.

  Sitnikov asked, "You think the others might report back even though they gave their words they will not?"