Firemask

by Chris Bunch

  He saw Lir grin in the darkness. She crabbed sideways and found a jagged lip she could actually stand on. Njangu clambered up beside her.

  The two-centimeter lip was big enough to throw parade on. Better, there were two stud mounts a meter above them. One gave them a secure anchor for their rope. Lir dug into Njangu's pack, took out a fat coil of very thin rope, rated for hundred-kilo strength. She uncoiled it, let it fall to the ground.

  There were pulls, then two strong tugs, and they reeled the line in, had a crude double pulley carved from a hardwood tree.

  The pulley was securely tied to the second stud mount, and the cord went back to the ground.

  Then it was endless hauling, as demo charges were tied on, reeled up, and positioned across the patch.

  Njangu had hauled up a hundred, a thousand, ten million charges when he realized they'd brought up all twenty.

  He bleared at the horizon, hoped it wasn't starting to lighten.

  It was time to go.

  They rappelled back down the ship, using the slings they'd left in place. Monique almost got inverted, kicked hard at the hull, and recovered, hoping thuds didn't transmit.

  Then they were on the ground.

  Njangu wanted to collapse for a week, realized he could make out people's faces, and signaled. They crept back out as they'd come, then, when the lock slid open, before the first Musth came out, ran for cover.

  "Your honors, I believe," Njangu said, handing the det box to Garvin. The command element had been nervously waiting atop a hill some distance from the ship.

  "Give it to the good doctor," Garvin said. "This was his discovery."

  Froude took the detonator, then peered at the distant ship. There were Musth in formation in front of it, and it was almost full daylight.

  He licked his lips, shook his head. "No. I, uh—"

  Garvin took the detonator back.

  "Don't worry about it," he said. "Your decency is something I wish I still had.

  "First Tweg , since you did most of the work."

  "What 'bout me?" Njangu said, as Monique took the box, slid the safety over, pressed hard on the sensor.

  Keffa had decided to take the morning formation himself, and was pacing down the ramp considering his warriors, wondering why he hadn't been able to wipe these wormlets out, wondering when his ordered support would arrive, when one of his officers stopped, pointed up.

  His thoughts broken, Keffa irritatedly looked up, saw a snarl of small objects somehow fixed to his ship, wondered what they could be.

  There was a sparkle of light, Garvin thought from the sun for an instant, then the blast mushroomed.

  Fire erupted from the lock, then a jet of flame, quickly subsiding. Smoke poured out and rumbling began, grew.

  Garvin and Lir swore they saw the skin rip right around the ship, red glaring fire showing. The rip widened in less than a second, and the upper third of the ship blew apart. The ground reeled, and shock waves rolled across the sky.

  The humans were up, running, falling, staggering drunkenly as blast after blast deafened them, and streamers of colors they couldn't imagine arched high through the sky.

  Alikhan stared into nothingness. The raiders had assembled, fleeing from the Armageddon they'd set off.

  "Come on," Dill said. "Keffa would have done the same—or worse, slowly—to you."

  Alikhan didn't respond.

  Dill left him alone, staring back the way they'd come, as the explosions continued.

  It was three days before they couldn't hear the sound of Keffa's ship dying.

  Garvin sent two volunteers back to observe the ship, with a radiation meter. The device buzzed warning more than a kilometer from the ruins, and the scouts returned.

  Whether any of the Musth who'd been outside the ship survived, no one ever knew.

  Five days after the scouts returned, another Musth ship entered atmosphere. It overflew the wreckage of Keffa's ship, then the burnt-out mother ship the humans were now using as a base.

  Alikhan peered up at it, using one tube of Lir's binocs as a telescope.

  "Well?"

  "More goddamned cowmen," Running Bear muttered.

  "Blue, with a yellow stripe," Alikhan said. "That is the emblem of Senza and his Reckoners."

  Some anonymous striker in the rear ranks spoke for them all:

  "What took him so frigging long?"

  Chapter 27

  D-Cumbre

  Wlencing held his blinding rage tightly to him as his flit landed.

  Senza was taking his full revenge, landing at the human port at Leggett rather than Silitric or the Highlands, humiliating Wlencing and his soldiers in front of the worms.

  His transmission had come as a surprise—Wlencing had not had the time to reestablish the outer-world stations, and had been very precise:

  Recent developments within our worlds suggest you might wish to confer with me on the strategic direction now considered optimal for the system known as Cumbre. It might be wise to also take minimal action against the humans until our new course becomes clear.

  Wlencing read through the diplomatic vagueness like a laser.

  Keffa had failed and Alikhan had succeeded.

  Senza had won, evidently destroying Wlencing's and Asser's fragile coalition, and assembling enough clan-masters to force Wlencing to do… to do what?

  The very least would be a return to the old order. Wlencing knew, if the humans were restored to authority, he and his fellows would be driven out of the system.

  Probably they would allow Senza and his mewlings access to Cumbre's riches.

  Not that it mattered. Cumbre was an impossible dream, best abandoned.

  Wlencing wanted to take revenge, to kill Senza when he came before him, but knew he'd never get the chance.

  He hoped his cub would not witness his father's humiliation, but knew he would.

  At least , he thought wryly, Alikhan provably has my determination, even in a cause as foolish as the one he chose .

  The cub must die for his betrayal … but that too was foolish thinking.

  He would never see Alikhan again. He should, must, be thought of as dying when his aksai was shot down into the sea so long ago.

  The future was all that mattered: rebuilding his clan, having more cubs when mating season came, attempting to reestablish his relationship with Paumoto, finding a new direction.

  Wlencing got out of the lifter, flanked by Daaf, other aides, and stalked toward Senza's ship.

  He saw the small crowd of humans nearby, was surprised the wormlings weren't shouting scorn, but just staring, cold-faced.

  Intent on his thoughts, he barely noticed the old man, once a fierce 'Raum rebel, step out of the crowd and, almost casually, lob, underhand, a small ball.

  " You can always take one with you …"

  The grenade went off, blew Wlencing almost in half, killed two aides.

  Daaf, desperately wounded, managed to claw out his devourer-weapon , and shoot down the old 'Raum.

  The landing field was hushed for a moment, except for the dull hum from Senza's ship.

  But only for a moment.

  Chapter 28

  It was a soft, tropical night. Garvin Jaansma, in dress summer whites, wearing the tabs of a Mil, leaned against a deck railing of the Shelburne Hotel, sipping a tall chill drink.

  Njangu Yoshitaro, nursing a beer beside him, wore the same uniform, with the tabs of a cent.

  Caud Angara had promoted Garvin and had made him head of II Section.

  Njangu, for what Angara called "theft above and beyond the call of sanity," got bumped two grades and given I&R Company.

  "You see," Garvin whispered during the long ceremony when the Force licked its wounds with panoply, promotions, and medals, "how virtue triumphs? I expect you to be properly respectful of my increasingly greater rank."

  "Don't hold your breath on that one," Njangu answered. "I'm quite happy letting you have the light-of-lime, whatever that is, and also be the con
spicuous target."

  Now, inside the Shelburne was soft music, enticing smells, and easy laughter.

  The two were waiting for their dinner companions, making sure they stayed a drink up on them.

  "So what's your guess on what Senza's going to do?" Njangu asked.

  "No guess," Garvin said. "He gave the old man the hot skinny a couple of hours ago. With Wlencing dead, no face-saving talks are necessary. The old crew of

  Musth will get shipped back to their clans in whatever they call disgrace.

  "We'll be doing business with Senza. Somebody, most likely Mellusin Mining, will front for him, so there won't be Musth traipsing around Leggett, at least for a while."

  "That'll still piss some folks off."

  "Tough. Who else are we going to trade with? The Confederation still ain't come riding to the rescue lately."

  "Strong point," Njangu said. "It grates, but I guess that's best. Just like there probably won't be much of a war-crimes trial for collaborators."

  Garvin's lips tightened. "That's what Jon said. Maybe they'll lynch a few block wardens, a few other blatant assholes, but not much more. I surely doubt if any Rentiers will be for the high jump."

  "Which leads me," Njangu said, "to be delicately nosy about, ahem, your circumstances?"

  "Loy Kouro's going to stay in jail as long as I can keep coming up with phony charges. Maybe three more weeks. I'm trying to bribe some jailbird to put a length of sharpened bedspring between his third and fourth ribs, so far without success. Jasith's filing a divorce petition tomorrow."

  "Which means what for the two of you?"

  Garvin was silent for a while.

  "I guess… it means what it means. I don't know."

  He saw dark bulks down by the water, recognized Alikhan, Ben Dill, two other Musth.

  "I wonder what will happen to him?"

  "Ben said," Njangu answered, "Alikhan won't stay with his father's clan. I guess there might be some ugly whispers about him setting Wlencing up for what happened, and nobody loves a patricide. Ben told me he'll either become a Reckoner or else join the Force."

  Garvin looked astonished.

  "Huh?"

  "First, there'll be some Musth who haven't gotten tired of war. Second," Njangu said, "Hedley told me there's always people who want to join the side that beat 'em up. Not my style, but what the hell?"

  Garvin recovered.

  "Sure. Why not? We always need pilots, warriors. Maybe that's what those other two furries are talking to Ben about."

  "Especially since we are going to be buying modified aksai , probably some velv , and sure as hell, since we're a little short of navy, some mother ships from the Musth," Njangu said.

  "Well, kiss my moneymaking ass," Garvin said. "Wheels within wheels."

  "Always."

  Njangu finished his beer, set the glass on the railing.

  "PlanGov goes back to the way we had it set up," he said. "And we start rebuilding, rearming in a big fat blur. You know what comes next."

  "Yeh," Garvin grunted. " Protector Redruth,. It might be nice, if he's out of the way, to see about fun things like what's going on with the Confederation, hell, if there even still is a Confederation."

  Two women came through double doors onto the deck, saw the soldiers, started over.

  "It will be interesting to see," Njangu said, "if we can start a war for a change, or if we've got to wait until somebody knocks our dickstrings loose."

  Jasith Mellusin wore a froth of green lace, ending at mid-thigh, with a nearly transparent purple torso stocking under it. Jo Poynton wore a more sober pantsuit in black that clung to her body, left her arms bare, was slit on either leg.

  The two men made appropriate compliments.

  "Come on," Garvin said, taking Jasith's arm, "just once, let's pretend we are civilized humans, instead of underpaid murderers."

  The four went into the Shelburne, out of the night, and the bright lights, music, and laughter swallowed them.

  Appendix

  The Cumbre system has a medium main sequence sun, about 1.5 million kilometers in diameter.

  There are thirteen planets in the system, named, rather unimaginatively, after the alphabet. A- and B-Cumbre are too close to the sun to be habitable, with limited atmospheres, and have only solar and astronomical observation stations.

  Mineral-rich C-Cumbre is the reason for both Man and Musth colonizing the system. Its riches include manganese, tungsten, vanadium, niobium, titanium, goda-rium, natural gamma iron, and some precious metals.

  Mines, worked by both races, stud the arid landscape. It's uncomfortable for both races, more for the Musth than Man. It has a single moon, Balar.

  E-Cumbre is chill, just habitable for Man, comfortable for Musth, who know it as Silitric, and consider it the center of the system.

  F-, H-and I-Cumbre are ice giants.

  G-Cumbre a half-destroyed world from an out-of-system asteroid, and moonlets litter its orbit.

  J- and K-Cumbre are small planetoids, and have small observation stations.

  L- and M-Cumbre are little larger than J- and K-, and are almost certainly trapped asteroids, with extremely irregular orbits.

  D-Cumbre is—mostly—Man's world. It has three small moons: Fowey, Bodwin, and Kailas. Only the largest and nearest, Fowey, affects D-Cumbre's tides.

  D-Cumbre is about thirteen thousand kilometers in diameter at the equator, and its axial tilt is fourteen degrees, producing a more even climate than Earth's. Unlike on Earth, there are no continental masses, but many, many islands, mostly in the temperate and tropical belt, although two significant landmasses are at the poles. Some of the islands are large and of volcanic origin. Their peaks have been worn into plateaus with an entirely different climate than the lowlands—still wet, but chill and mist-hung, with the vegetation fernlike, from tiny to enormous. The Musth make their headquarters on the largest of these, the Highlands on Dharma Island.

  Man settled at sea level, mostly in the tropics, with his capital, Leggett on the northwestern portion of Dharma and three smaller islets. There are two dozen smaller cities, some not more than villages, on other islands in the temperate or tropical zones.

  The climate is balmy, and there are few weather hazards, although open seas away from the island masses produce enormous globe-circling waves, and the stormy season can be uncomfortable.

  The environment must be considered benign, although there are still-unclassified predators in the jungles and several species of fish, from large sea serpents to marine carnivores to coelenterates, that must be considered hazardous to life.