Blood Contact

by David Sherman

  Claypoole reached into his pocket and cleared his throat when he brought his hand back out. "Ah, Lieutenant Snodgrass, sir?"

  Snodgrass looked up.

  "Mind if I ask you a question, sir?" He accepted the lieutenant's curled lip as a yes. "What rank were you before you got commissioned?"

  Snodgrass blinked and frowned. He was surprised by the question's impertinence. "Midshipman," he said coldly.

  "Ah, yessir, I know that, sir." He nodded toward Snodgrass's ringed hand. "Your ring. You went to the Naval Academy, I know that. What I meant was, what was your enlisted rank?"

  Snodgrass blinked again, then said in an even colder voice, "I was never a mere enlisted man."

  It was Claypoole's turn to act surprised, then realization washed over his face. "Oh, yes, that's right. I'm sorry, Lieutenant Snodgrass, sir, I forgot. The navy lets people without experience get commissioned just because they've got an education."

  "What are you implying?" Snodgrass half rose from his chair.

  Claypoole's shrug was more casual than he felt. "Nothing, sir. No implication at all. It's just the old experience versus theory argument. The Marines believe that experience counts for more than theory, or at least that a man can understand the application of theory better once he has the experience to know what it means. All of our officers are commissioned from the ranks."

  "What are you saying, Private?" Snodgrass stood all the way up and took a threatening step forward.

  "I'm not saying anything, Lieutenant, merely observing a philosophical difference between the Marines and the navy."

  "I don't believe you, Marine." Claypoole could almost hear a lower case m. "I think you're being insubordinate." Snodgrass now stood with his face inches away from Claypoole's.

  "Oh, nossir! Nothing further from my mind. Just a simple observation."

  Snodgrass sneered. "Commissioned from the ranks," he snorted. "Marine officers are little more than glorified sergeants. And this time, they didn't even see fit to send an officer, just a sergeant."

  "Gunnery sergeant, sir," Claypoole said automatically.

  Snodgrass turned red and glared.

  "Uh, a sergeant is a squad leader, sir, a three striper. A gunnery sergeant outranks a sergeant pretty significantly."

  "What's your name?"

  "Lance Corporal Claypoole, sir."

  "Well, ‘Lance Corporal’ Claypoole, I think I will have a little talk with the captain about your insubordination. You Marines need a little lesson in respect." He stormed out of the wardroom.

  Claypoole looked at the hatch through which the navy officer disappeared and put his hand back into his pocket. He withdrew a small recorder and looked at it. It was running. He was glad he recorded that conversation. He was pretty sure he hadn't said anything insubordinate, and the recording could clear him if Snodgrass brought charges.

  Later, in the troop compartment, he got the recorder out and replayed the conversation for some of the other men in the platoon.

  "That Lieutenant Snodgrass sure is snotty," he said into the appalled silence that followed the recording. Thereafter, the men of third platoon referred to Lieutenant Snodgrass as "Snotty."

  As they filed into the wardroom, the Marines of third platoon were cheerful in a way they hadn't been in weeks. They were back into Space-3 and only had to put up with the Fairfax County for a few more days before they reached orbit around Society 437 and made planetfall. Most of them were tired of studying the reports, and believed they could operate and maintain their sensing and monitoring equipment—motion, smell, and other detectors—in their sleep. It didn't matter to them what they'd find planetside, they'd be off the scow and using what they'd learned.

  Gunnery Sergeant Charlie Bass was already in the room, one haunch resting on a table. A holoprojector squatted on the table next to him. He watched his Marines, heard their laughs, listened to their good-natured jibes. He didn't join in their high spirits. As routine as the investigation was likely to be, as likely as it was they'd find nothing more serious than an equipment malfunction at the research station, something ominous was tickling the back of his mind.

  "Listen up, people," he said as soon as everyone found a place to sit. The Marines stopped their joking and looked at him. "We reach Waygone in three days. I don't know what we're going to find planetside, but it won't be a picnic."

  Smiles vanished and all expressions suddenly became serious.

  "Before I bring you up to date on what we've learned since the Fairfax arrived in this system, I have something I want you to see." He touched the control panel of the holoprojector and a quarter-size image of First Sergeant Myer popped into existence above the projector.

  Someone snickered at the sight of the miniature, glowering first sergeant. Bass shot a glare at his men, and anyone else tempted to laugh decided against it.

  As Top Myer's head moved side to side, the three-dimensional image gave the impression he looked each Marine in the eye. Whatever the trick Myer used to create that illusion, it was effective. All the Marines gave the image their full attention. Even the woo seemed riveted by Myer's image and words.

  "I know it's been a few weeks," Myer's recorded voice began. "But you heard what the Skipper said when he gave you this assignment. You most likely got the impression"—the image began pacing side to side, head down—"that this mission is a cakewalk that could be handled by two or three of the girls from Big Barb's. That might be so." Myer's voice was calm, almost uncharacteristically soft-spoken. "Most of the time when Marines are sent to find out why a Behind station missed a report, they find absentminded eggheads who forgot, broken equipment that prevented the report, or that some natural catastrophe wiped out the station's personnel." The image suddenly faced front and shouted loud enough to make many of the Marines jump, "But not always!" Even Bass moved away from the image.

  "When you go planetside, you had damn well best be prepared for anything. Particularly for something unexpected and unpleasant! Because those things happen!

  "Let me give you a few examples." The image resumed pacing, all the while glowering out at the Marines. "Society 408 missed a report and a company of Marines was sent to investigate. A week after they arrived they sent out an emergency drone. Eight months later, when a medical decontamination team arrived, three of those Marines were still alive. The rest of them had been killed by the same flesh-eating bacteria that wiped out the scientific mission.

  "Society 299 missed a report. Marines went to find out why. You think you had a hard time fighting several armored divisions on Diamunde? The company that went to Society 299 had to fight a whole planet's worth of ambulatory, killer trees!

  "The Marines who were sent to Society 74 found the survivors of that station reduced to slavery by semi-intelligent felinoids. The cat creatures who were using the remaining scientists to groom their hides, clean their living areas, and as occasional gourmet snacks outnumbered that Marine company thirty to one. Twenty Marines were killed in rescuing the seventeen surviving scientists and technicians.

  "Camelot 499, the last of that series of human habitability explorations, was raided by pirates. Those pirates weren't content to take slaves and equipment, they wanted modern weapons. So they waited, about a thousand of them, for Marines to come. They were slick, they were. They sent their starship to an empty spot in space about two light-years away, where it wouldn't be noticed by an approaching Confederation Navy ship. Then they manned the control center. When the navy ship carrying a Marine company arrived, they sent a message identifying themselves as the mission. They said their drone launcher had been holed by a meteor. The Marines landed, expecting a warm welcome from a thousand scientists and technicians who hadn't seen anyone else in three years. What they got was a hot welcome from a thousand pirates who wanted to kill them! The pirates had a good ambush set up and killed fifteen Marines before any of the Marines got a shot off in return. That company lost another twelve before the surviving pirates surrendered."

  Myer st
opped pacing and faced front, hands clasped behind his back. "I could go on," he said mildly, "but I'm sure you've got the idea by now." He cocked his head. "Did you notice a common thread throughout that recitation? Something that happened in each of those incidents?" Myer's voice rose to a roar. "In each case there was an entire company of Marines. You are just a platoon!

  "If a whole company could be that badly mauled by something it didn't expect, imagine what can happen to a platoon that isn't prepared. An unsettling thought, isn't it?"

  He jammed his hands onto his hips, leaned forward and did the look-every-man-in-the-eye trick again. "The odds are either everything's all right or you'll arrive too late to do any good. But there have been too many incidents of Marines in one of these missions walking into something nobody expected and getting seriously hurt. So when you go planetside, be prepared for anything." His voice roared out again, "If any man jack in third platoon isn't prepared and gets himself or another Marine killed because of it, his ass is mine!

  "One more detail you should know. The scientific mission is called Society 437. But the scientists and technicians who were assigned to it call the planet ‘Waygone.’ That's because it is way the hell and gone out there. It's ‘way gone’ from the inhabited worlds of the Confederation, and ‘way gone’ off any and all shipping lanes. If you run into trouble, no one is anywhere nearby who can give you any help. You're on your own."

  Myer stood erect, glowered out at the room again, and snarled, "That is all." The image blinked out.

  Bass touched the control panel again to turn off the projector. He gazed out at his men for a long moment. They all looked serious. None of them seemed to have noticed that Myer hadn't said anything about how frequently Marines were sent to find out why a BHHEI mission missed a report, or what percentage ran into an unexpected danger. That was fine with Bass. He'd rather have the adrenaline pumping and not be needed than for his platoon to walk into something and not be ready to fight.

  "You got the idea," he finally said. "We don't know what's down there. It could be something or someone deadly. We go in ready to fight if we have to.

  "Now, what do we know today that we didn't know when we got our orders? Not a lot. The Fairfax's communications center has been trying to make contact with the scientific mission on Waygone since we came back into Space-3. What they've found is most of the scientific satellites are working. They're transmitting their data; atmospheric, topological, geological, biota, etcetera. The kind of data the scientists and technicians planetside need in their work. What the communications center hasn't been able to do is raise any people. That could be a simple matter of the Fairfax's communications gear not being good enough to communicate with the planet at this distance, and that we'll get surface signals tomorrow or the day after. But that's not likely. It could mean the surface communications are down for some reason, but there are too many technicians on the surface for that to be likely. Most probably, something has gone seriously wrong down there.

  "You heard what Top Myer said. When we make planetfall, we have to be ready for anything. The Top said everything about the situation on Waygone that I was going to say. I have nothing more to add." He turned to Hyakowa. "Platoon Sergeant, dismiss the men." Bass left the wardroom from the rear entrance.

  Chapter 12

  "Give me the blaster," Cameron said evenly, holding out his hand. Rhys Apbac continued to hold the weapon firmly across his chest with both hands. He said nothing, just glared down at Cameron. "Rhys," Cameron said patiently, carefully enunciating each word, "you will come with me and Lowboy will stay behind with the other blaster. Or you can stay here with Lowboy. But I am going and I am carrying the blaster. So hand it over. Now."

  The debate about whether someone should try to reach Aquarius Station had been long and heated. The things had everyone so scared, most of the surviving pirates preferred to starve in the cave than take a chance on a foraging party to the abandoned station. They all feared that venturing forth from the safety—problematical as it was—of the cave would draw attention to themselves. Even Cameron admitted that was a possibility. But their clothes were in rags and they were starving. Their only chance of survival was to salvage something from the station. Privately, Cameron suspected those things knew precisely where they were hiding and hadn't finished them off for reasons of their own. Besides, someone would come eventually, and their best chance of rescue would be to leave some indication of their presence.

  Rhys, Minerva, a pirate named Labaya, and his girl, Maya, had volunteered to accompany Cameron. But the whole thing had stalled over who would carry the weapon. Rhys still had it from his tour on guard the night before. Lowboy and the ones who would stay behind eagerly watched the confrontation. Lowboy hoped Rhys would finally put an end to Cameron's tenuous hold on the survivors. As weak as they all were after months of near starvation, Rhys was still an imposing physical presence, and even in good times he had been prone to violence for very little cause—a useful trait in a pirate, providing it could be controlled. He had volunteered to go along with Cameron not because he was a brave man, but because he was too stupid to be afraid, even after what they had all been through. That was also a valuable trait in a pirate, providing it could be channeled. Lowboy was afraid that Cameron might be the man to do that, ending his own chances to be somebody. They were so close to dying that a reasonable person would have asked what difference any of it made, but Lowboy was unreasonably ambitious.

  "Rhys," Cameron repeated, "give me the blaster."

  Rhys knocked Cameron's hand out of the way with the butt of the weapon. "Fuck you, Georgie," he replied. Cameron stepped forward swiftly and buried his knee in Rhys's crotch. He deftly snatched the blaster in midair as Rhys, a look of profound astonishment on his face, doubled over. Cameron slammed the weapon's butt twice into the side of Rhys's head as he collapsed in a heap at his feet. He did not move. "I guess he'll just have to stay behind," Cameron said matter-of-factly. The way he said it outraged Lowboy because it proved Cameron really was a tough sonofabitch, and now he had second thoughts about going up against the man. He'd hoped Rhys would've solved the problem for him.

  "You might've killed him!" Lowboy shouted.

  Cameron whirled on the others. "Yes," he grated, "and I'll kill you, Lowboy, if you don't get out of my way. You bastard, don't think I don't know you'd put a knife into me if you had the guts." He paused. "Okay. We're going. Remember this, Lowboy, the rest of you too." He was addressing those who were going to stay behind. "If we find anything useful and if we make it back here, we all share in it. The four of us are risking our asses to keep all of us alive, and if anybody forgets that, I will personally kill him." He slung the blaster and clambered up the barricade without looking back. The other three followed him.

  "I guess he's right," a skinny pirate named Mouse said. Lowboy whirled and smashed his fist into the man's face.

  Aquarius Station was situated about thirty kilometers north of the pirates' cave, on a large, lush island in the marsh that covered most of the land in equatorial Waygone. To get there they had to negotiate an extensive swamp that began at the base of the mountain and continued northward unbroken for hundreds of kilometers. When they had crossed the morass the year before, they'd been fleeing in terror from the things that had caught them at Aquarius Station. They'd been in better physical shape then; the trek would be far more difficult now. But Cameron knew land navigation, and he was sure he could guide them through the swamp to Aquarius. The whole time they were gone, from when they left the cave to their return, they would be vulnerable to those things. Crossing the swamp was the time of greatest danger, but they were desperate. Almost a full year had passed since their disastrous raid. They had to do something.

  The first day's travel through the swamp was terrible, slogging through the mud and floating vegetation. Except for Cameron, none of them had experienced such physical exhaustion before. And they were constantly fearful that those things might suddenly appear and kill them all. A
fter the first kilometer they were breathing in wheezing gasps and the air burned their lungs; every few meters they had to stop, to rest. Every step was contested by the clinging, viscous mud, and when they wrenched their legs out of the stuff to take the next step, noxious fumes assailed their noses and burned their throats. Soon their sense of smell became accustomed to the fetid swamp gas, but quicksand was a constant hazard, although by far not the worst. Unidentified creatures scraped and slithered against their legs as they waded through the slime, and at every moment they all expected the real terrors to lunge up at them from the mud. The heat and humidity were enervating, and in their weakened physical condition the four pirates succeeded in covering only a few kilometers after struggling all day long.

  They remembered none of those things being quite so bad the first time through the swamp, but back then molten lava wouldn't have stopped them since they were all too terrified to take much notice of the stink, heat, and muck. Around dusk that first day they stumbled upon a hummock of grass big enough to hold all of them. It floated tranquilly in a large, shallow, scum-crusted lake, but they were too tired to object when Cameron declared it would be their campsite for the night. Exhausted, they climbed up onto it and collapsed. Fortunately, they had brought a lot of water with them from the caves—but little to eat.

  The darkness soon grew impenetrable. All around them things thrashed and splashed in the shallow water, and the hissing and screeching of creatures hunting and dying in the forest on the fringes of the lake, not to mention flying creatures of all sizes that swooped upon them out of the darkness, constantly interrupted the fitful naps they were able to snatch. At dawn they were still exhausted.

  Before it was fully light enough to see well, an elongated creature about a meter long and as big around as a man's thigh slithered out of the mud onto the hummock, evidently as surprised to find the humans there as they were to see it. Maya buried her knife in its head.