"But—" Claypoole objected. If Chan hadn't heard and Jente wouldn't say, he had no way of knowing. He thought he should know, because he was pretty sure it had something to do with him—and why Jente was there.
He was right, and Jente wasn't about to repeat to her quarry what Sigfreid said, about how many of Big Barb's girls had married men they'd met on the job—or what she'd replied, that Jente'd become one of Big Barb's girls, if that's what it took to land Claypoole.
Jente wasn't the only woman present who didn't work at Big Barb's. Kona, a widow in her late thirties from Hryggurandlit, sat close to Sergeant Ratliff at the table the squad leaders shared with Corporals Kerr and Dornhofer and Lance Corporal Schultz. Their table wasn't as crowded as the others. The more junior men generally preferred to party away from the sergeants, and most of them were wary of Schultz. No one at their table drank as much or laughed as long or as hard as everybody else; the men and most of the women were older and ruled less by their hormones.
Stulka, who was one of Big Barb's girls, was the youngest and most flirtatious. She was fascinated by the quiet threat that radiated from Schultz no matter how relaxed he was, and her hand flitted from his thigh to his shoulder to his cheek to his back in an endless round of contacts. Schultz didn't seem to notice. Gotta, the brunette from the party, sat primly next to Kerr. Blond Frieda, who had helped Gotta break Kerr's foul mood, was with Dornhofer. Klauda hadn't forgiven Kerr for the way he'd dumped her onto the ground when Big Barb startled him, so she paired off with Sergeant Linsman. Linsman didn't say anything, but he thought there might be something unmilitary—certainly un-Marine—in a sergeant having a girl who'd been dumped by a corporal. But he decided to overcome his scruples in the spirit of the liberty. Sergeant Kelly neither knew nor cared to know the name of the woman who propped her leg over his knee. She was pretty, friendly, and available, which was all he cared about that night. He wasn't even aware that she was one of the "nice girls" Top Myer had warned them about. She certainly wasn't acting like a "nice girl," not the way she levered herself onto his lap and allowed him to kiss her.
Ratliff wasn't known for being reflective—in that group, Kerr was the reflective one, though Schultz sometimes surprised people with his perceptiveness and analytic abilities—but he was the one reflecting.
"Look at them," he said. "They seem so happy, so carefree. No one who didn't know would guess the hell they've just returned from."
Kerr looked up from idly twining a lock of Gotta's hair around his finger. "The return from hell is exactly why they're so happy," he said. "On some level, just about every one of them believes he should be dead. So they celebrate the life they aren't sure they deserve."
Ratliff nodded. "Party hard, just in case the universe realizes it made a mistake and takes them."
"Right."
"Hell of a way to make a living."
Linsman snorted. "Do you think anybody does this to make a living?"
Nobody said anything for a while. Kona almost imperceptibly increased the distance between Ratliff and herself.
Ratliff couldn't let it go for long. "I keep looking and not seeing faces I saw the last time we were here. And I see faces I've never seen here before. It makes me wonder how many faces will be different after our next deployment. If one of the missing faces will be mine."
"Get out," Schultz said.
Ratliff grunted. He knew Schultz wasn't telling him to get out, but had asked if he was thinking about it. Kona lifted a hand to his shoulder and moved a shade closer.
"He can't," Linsman said. "We're quarantined. All transfers, retirements, and resignations have been canceled for the duration."
Kerr laughed bitterly. "Are they going to quarantine 26th FIST? The Grandar Bay? Kingdom?"
Schultz nodded. "A little while."
"And knowledge of the Skinks will still get out," Kerr said.
"Someone will notice," Linsman agreed. "It'll come bit by bit, but it will come."
"Skinks?" Kona asked. "What are you talking about?"
Linsman closed his eyes.
Ratliff shook his head. "Nothing," he told Kona. "Forget we said anything."
"We may have just condemned ourselves to Darkside," Kerr said.
The existence of the Skinks, the sentience they'd fought on Kingdom, was of course a tightly kept state secret. It had been made very clear to the Marines of 34th FIST that any man who let the secret out would be sentenced, without trial, to Darkside, the penal world from which there was no parole. That had been conveyed to them when nobody outside 34th FIST except a few individuals very high in government and the military knew about the Skinks. How few? Not even the Commandant of the Marine Corps was cleared for that information.
"Only if someone tells," Schultz said.
"Tells what?" Kona asked.
"Nothing," Ratliff said. "There's nothing to tell."
Stulka, Frieda, Gotta, and Klauda looked confused. Kelly and his girl were otherwise occupied and hadn't heard a word.
"ATTENTION ON DECK!" a commanding voice boomed out.
Chair legs scraped and falling chairs clattered on the floor as the Marines reflexably rose and stood at attention. Male voices ceased instantly. Only the higher voices of the women continued for a moment as they looked at the entrance to see what was happening.
Staff Sergeant Hyakowa stood just within, sideways to the entrance. Captain Conorado marched past him and through the room to the bar, followed by Top Myer and Gunny Thatcher. Conorado and Myer stood in front of the bar, facing into the room, while Thatcher went behind it. Conorado took a step forward.
"At ease, sit down," he said. "Ladies," with a nod and a smile, "please excuse the military formality. We aren't here to interrupt the party. Thank you," he said to Top Myer, who handed him a filled schooner. Then back to the room, "I want to tell everybody to have a good time. Enjoy yourselves, just don't get into any trouble that will force me to take action. Ladies, these Marines have just been through a very rough time. Be patient, and be nice to them. But!" His voice cut through the whoops at that. "But! Don't take any guff off them either. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. If anyone tries that, he has to answer to me."
"After he answers to me," Myer growled. He looked pointedly at the women he recognized as being from the neighboring towns and villages.
Many of the women tittered, and several playfully slapped at their Marines.
"Now, if everyone will rise for a toast." He waited a moment for everyone to stand, then raised his schooner. "To our fallen comrades, all of them true Marines." He put the schooner to his mouth and took a sip of the Reindeer Ale. "Good stuff," he murmured, and put it on the bar. "That's it. Have a good time. I'll see you at morning formation in one week."
"ATTENTION ON DECK!" Myer roared, and the Marines snapped to attention as the three left the room.
Hyakowa was the last to leave, but had something of his own to say before he left.
"They're off to New Oslo or wherever," he said, "but I'm staying here in Bronnys. Don't make me waste my liberty playing mother hen." Then he waved a hand at them and left.
Chapter 17
"Sir! I lost the Fly!" the surveillance technician shouted.
"You don't just lose a Fly, what are you talking about?" The lieutenant looked up from the RPV console he'd been trying to repair. Everything in the RPV section was breaking down these days. In fact, everything everywhere in the Army of the Lord seemed to be breaking down. He got up and leaned over the technician's shoulder. The screen was blank.
"It just disappeared," the technician confessed. "There was this flash and it was gone. Someone shot it down, that's what I think."
"What sector were you searching?"
"X-Ray Romeo 546371, an abandoned village named New Salem, sir. In support of 2nd Regiment's reconnaissance platoon."
The lieutenant thought for a second and remembered that the platoon was commanded by Lieutenant Ben Loman. His upper lip twitched; he had no use for Loman.
"What is the position of the village relative to the platoon?" he asked.
"It's about forty klicks to the south of the platoon's last reported position, sir. Heh heh, guess New Salem ain't so abandoned after all, eh, sir?" The lieutenant gave him a hard look. "The platoon is preparing to fort-up there for the night," the technician continued quickly. "The lieutenant asked me to use the rest of the daylight to extend my surveillance area."
"Play it back." He turned to his sergeant, who was also busily trying to repair something. "Sword, get Battalion. I think we've found a hot one here. Tell the duty officer to hang on, I'll be with him in a minute. And get a message through to Ben Loman to hold where he is until further orders." He turned to the technician. "Play it back," he said again.
"This is where I first got suspicious," the technician said as the trid played back on the monitor. The remotely piloted vehicle was poised before a window in what looked to be an unoccupied dwelling. "The people who lived here were members of the City of God sect that was wiped out by the demons out by the Sea of Gerizim," the technician volunteered. "Look! I thought I saw movement in there! Can't be sure, the way the light plays tricks on the Fly's optics."
"This equipment is obsolete," the lieutenant muttered behind the technician's shoulder. "Maybe our Glorious Leader will ‘reform’ our procurement system so we can get something that works." Then in a normal voice, "Hmm, yes, something sure moved inside there."
"I thought it was just the optics, sir, so I zoomed off down the main street. That's what you're seeing now. Place looks deserted, doesn't it?"
"Hold it! Back up the image," the officer said. "There! Freeze it." He stared intensely at the image on the monitor. "Look here." He placed a finger on the monitor. The technician looked. The lieutenant removed his finger.
The technician automatically wiped the officer's smudgy fingerprint off the screen. "I don't see anything, sir."
"I think that's a footprint there. Can't tell if it's human or one of them. Look again."
The technician stared hard. He still couldn't recognize a footprint in the dust of the street. But what the heck. "Yessir, maybe it is. Smudged, sort of. I must have missed that. Hmmm. Well," he continued, "I got to thinking, and returned to that house. Now see what happens." The drone was looking back through the window when suddenly there was a bright flash and the screen went dead.
The lieutenant glanced at the bottom of the screen: elapsed time from shootdown, three minutes. He picked up the handset his sergeant was holding for him and briefed the battalion staff duty officer. Lord, wouldn't it be something if his section was the first to find some demons? "Request an Avenging Angel overflight, sir, and prep of the area before I inform my recon platoon. I think we've found them."
There was a slight pause over the communicator, and then, "Roger that. I will have a flight airborne in zero-five. Time-on-target at coords you gave me, twelve plus five. Tell recon to move out now. If they can make it before dark, go in and do a bomb-damage assessment, otherwise first light. Hold this line open." The duty officer contacted his air liaison officer and gave him a verbal frag order to strike New Salem. He came back on the line. "Birds on the way. Uh, Surveillance, problem with tactical troop airlift assets here. Lot of birds down for maintenance. Ground support will have to come overland. I will start them now, but tell Recon he won't be reinforced until late tomorrow at the earliest. Who'd you say was in command? Ben Loman? He's an aggressive one. Tell him don't—repeat, don't—engage the enemy, if anyone's left after the Angels make their passes. Keep me informed. Out."
The lieutenant looked up at his sergeant and grinned, "Yes! Time to rock and roll!"
Charles and Spencer Maynard were the last ones out of the village. They had brought up the rear to make sure nobody was left behind. As they jogged down the path toward the fort, Charles in the rear, they heard the first aircraft approaching from behind them. "Take cover!" Charles shouted to Maynard as he threw himself into some nearby bushes.
They proved to have sharp thorns, but Charles hardly noticed as he crashed to the ground. The aircraft, two of them, roared so low over where they lay that the ground beneath them shook. They circled off to the south and came back a second time, west to east, and on the third pass they unleashed their fury upon the village of New Salem.
Charles was suddenly someone else, somewhere else, no longer clutching the ground, staring through the thorns at Spencer's feet. He shouted at the top of his voice to be heard, "Dupont! Dupont! Get those goddamned pilots on the horn and tell them this is a goddamned friendly position down here!" Despite the danger from the predatory aircraft lazily circling the village, Charles grinned. Something like this had happened to him before! Wonderful!
His last name was Charlie Bass and he'd been in the armed forces of the Confederation of Human Worlds.
"Give me the list." De Tomas held his hand out as his Minister of Justice passed it to him. De Tomas glanced at it briefly and smiled. "Have these people been taken into custody?" He handed the list back to the minister.
"As of three a.m., my leader."
"Good, good. You have some rather talented people on that list. How will you employ them?"
"We require skilled hands in our industries, my leader. I'm sure some of these individuals can be trained to work in our porcelain factories."
Soon after taking power, de Tomas had begun arresting various prominent individuals—churchmen, preachers, theologians, writers, artists—people who for various reasons he felt might oppose his regime. The arrests were not called that. In view of the rampant "corruption" that had "infested" the theocracy, and the arrested persons' alleged involvement in that corruption, de Tomas had been taking those people into custody to "protect" them from the righteous wrath of the people. No specific charges had been preferred. Several hundred were being held in a prison compound in a remote suburb of Haven until the Ministry of Justice felt they could be released. Meanwhile, the prisoners were being subjected to hard labor. Many had already succumbed.
While the man in the street on Kingdom was being encouraged to show his emotions and express his opinion—within limits—the natural leaders of each community were being quietly rounded up and disposed of as insurance against the development of any organized resistance to the new regime.
"Keep developing the lists, Minister. Please excuse me now. I have another engagement." The Minister of Justice bowed and let himself out of the office.
The "other engagement" was with Miss Rauber, the cosmetician. She entered de Tomas's private office wheeling her instruments in a cart, a huge smile on her pretty face. "I am pleased to serve you, my leader." She curtsied. "Massage? Manicure? Pedicure, my leader?"
"Sit down beside me and do my nails, Andrea." De Tomas held out his left hand. Andrea dutifully took it and began cleaning the nails with a small file. They made small talk. Andrea Rauber came from a small village a few kilometers outside of Haven that had been destroyed in the Skink invasion. She was taken in as an apprentice by Gelli Alois and had worked for her for several years before de Tomas seized power on Kingdom.
"I wish I could see you more often," she whispered at last. She was consumed by a religious awe of de Tomas. He was the finest thing ever to come into her short life, a life she would gladly give if he asked her to.
"Alas, my dear, running the world takes up so much of my time."
"Your speeches are divine, my leader," she sighed.
De Tomas smiled. "I believe God has given me the mission of saving this world, Andrea."
Andrea hummed contentedly as she worked. She was not only an intimate of a great man, but a man whom God Himself had recognized as His disciple.
"Running a government is very hard work, Andrea. I feel like Sisyphus."
Andrea looked up at de Tomas. "Do I know him?"
"Sisyphus? No, my dear." De Tomas laughed. "He was a Greek, in ancient times, who never could get his work done."
"Oh, I knew a Greek once!" Andrea crowed. "They never
sit down in church. I'm finished, my leader. May I please have your right hand now?"
"Let's go back into the private room now," de Tomas said, rising abruptly from the chair.
"Oh, yes!" The "private room" was de Tomas's bedchamber. Very few people knew where it was. "But my leader, I haven't even started on your right hand yet!"
"No matter, Andrea. It'll be there when we're done." Poor Andrea, de Tomas thought. If Gorman ever succeeded in finding him a consort worthy of a man of his stature, he would have to do something with Andrea. He had preached to the men of the Special Group many times that hardness was essential to success. A man had to steel himself to do unpleasant things for the greater good of his people. De Tomas was not running a harem, and besides, it was essential the people did not know about Andrea. When the time came, she would just have to be retired—without a pension.
The only complaint Andrea had about her hero was that he liked doing it on the floor while still wearing his boots.
General Lambsblood and Major Devi were sitting in the command post of the 2d Regiment of the 2d Brigade, 2d Division, Army Group B, when the word came through that a reconnaissance patrol had spotted some demons in the abandoned village of New Salem. Lambsblood had been in the field for several days, visiting units and observing operations. The general had also been conferring hastily and in private with his commanders, feeling out their attitude toward the new government and the reforms that had been imposed by it on the army.
"Do you have an aircraft that can get me out to the reconnaissance company CP?" Lambsblood asked the regimental commander.
"I'm afraid, right now, sir, all our Hoppers are down. It's this confounded weather and the incessant dust storms. Been hard on maintenance, and we just don't have the spare parts we need. I've sent a request up to Division for the parts, but, my S4 tells me we won't have them here until tomorrow at the earliest. It's the same for the other units, sir. We're all in need of parts and equipment and the depots are nearly empty." The colonel spread his hands helplessly.
Lazarus Rising Page 18
