The Privateer 2: AN HONEST LIVING

by Zellmann, William

  Again the villagers jumped at the crack! of the rifle. A teenage boy sprinted across the plaza, and when he reached the old shooting line, he shouted, "He hit it!"

  That precipitated an excited gabbling among all the villagers. When he heard "witchcraft" for the third time, he stepped in.

  "NO!" He cried. Heads turned toward him. "This is indeed a wonderful weapon, but it uses no magic or witchcraft." He gestured to Donord's friend. "I will prove it. This man is one of your own, who lives in your village and eats and drinks with you daily. Is there anyone here who would accuse him of wizardry?" There was a low rumble of denial, and a number of shaken heads. "Yet," Cale continued, "With only a few minutes' teaching, he will do nearly as well as me. I do not guarantee he will hit the flower, but he will be close."

  Cale was doing his best to stack the deck. He was unfamiliar with the people of the village, and had no way of knowing which hunters were the best. But Donord's friend had been a guardsman, and the fact that his body was beginning to run to fat testified that he was at least competent as a hunter.

  He handed the man the rifle. "You saw how I held it?" The man nodded. "Very well. Be certain to keep the butt of the stock tightly against your shoulder, or you'll have a nice bruise."

  The man raised the rifle to his shoulder, and then lowered it with an exclamation. "It is witchcraft!" the man exclaimed.

  "No!" Cale exclaimed. He searched for a simple way to explain a telescopic sight. If he could not convince this man, he would never convince the others.

  "You have drunk from a glass, have you not?" he asked. Looking doubtful, the man nodded. "And when you emptied it, did you not notice that things looked very different through its bottom?" The man frowned. "Of course." "And perhaps," Cale continued, "some things looked larger when seen through the bottom of the glass." The man nodded uncomfortably.

  "This is the same thing," Cale said. "There is a special arrangement of glass in the sight, which makes things look closer than they are. Have you ever seen a burning glass?"

  The man nodded. "The glassmaker in Ham's Town showed me a piece of glass that made the grass burn. He swore it was not magic."

  Cale nodded. "And he was right. If you looked through the glass," he added, "things looked larger or smaller, did they not?

  The man's face cleared, and he nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! They did!" He looked at the gathered crowd. "Many here did not believe me, but it was true!" His frown returned. "I went back and tried to get it from the glassmaker, but he denied knowing anything about it."

  "Then believe me," Cale said. "Inside the top tube is only an arrangement of special glasses that make things seem larger. On my honor, there is no magic or witchcraft in this weapon."

  The man looked doubtful. "Do star men have honor?" He paused. "Still, you travel with a man I trust, and he has told me you are no witch." He straightened. "Very well, tell me what to do."

  He raised the rifle to his shoulder and looked through the scope, then lowered it, raised it again, and lowered it again. A smile began to spread over his face. "I could see a woods rat at a hundred paces!" he whispered to Cale. "And you swear it is not witchcraft?"

  Cale nodded, smiling himself.

  The man's smile faded. He turned toward the target, and loaded the rifle as Cale had shown him. He closed the breech, and looked curiously at the piece of paper that had been sliced off the cartridge. Cale reminded him to hold the rifle tight against his shoulder, and to squeeze the trigger gently.

  The man jerked when the recoil slammed his shoulder, but he turned with a wide grin. "It was as though the flower was just across the plaza," he said. He turned back and raised the rifle again. "I did not hit it," he said as he looked through the scope. "But it looks as though I was very close. Let us go see!" His excitement communicated itself to the onlookers, and there was almost a dash for the target.

  By the time Cale and the one-legged Donord arrived, townspeople of both sexes were gathered around, talking excitedly. The shooter had missed the flower by only a handsbreadth, which Donord claimed was still within the 'kill zone' of a dino. "And at more than a hundred paces!" he exclaimed excitedly. Now all the men were clamoring for a chance to shoot the strange weapon, and Donord's friend was begging him to use his influence with Cale to get him to trade him the rifle.

  Cale had had the foresight to pack plenty of ammunition, and all twenty men of the village got to shoot the rifle, and even Donord wore a big smile and a bruise on his shoulder. No one was mentioning 'magic' or 'witchcraft'; and they all wanted to know how to get a rifle.

  As darkness fell and the men gathered around the plaza fire, Cale finally calmed them enough to make his pitch.

  "As I said," he began, "I am here to fight the General and his men. We had these rifles made so that men could conceal themselves, hidden from the fire weapons, and still kill star men. It will take men who can shoot well enough to hit a man where his armor does not cover from far away. It will take men who can kill without fear or regret, men who can conceal themselves and wait patiently for a target.

  "The enemy has less than three hundred men, and he cannot replace them if they are killed. I seek people who have the will and the skill to kill them.

  "But King Rajo and our other forces are far from Nirvana, and are fighting off attacks by the General's men. They have already tried to kill King Rajo, though they failed. They will be back. The point is that our snipers will be on their own. We will be unable to help them if they are caught. I'm sure we will be able to find a way to get more ammunition to you, but until we can fight our way to Nirvana, there will be no help from our forces.

  "I realize that these rifles will make wonderful hunting weapons, and you will be able to keep them after the war is over, but the cartridges are limited, and this is not the only village I must visit. Unless you are actually willing to hunt men, and hunt them in the towns and the countryside, and shoot them like animals, please do not volunteer. We have plenty of the rifles, and after the war they will be available for trade, as will the cartridges. But for now, unless you are a sniper, there will be no cartridges, and your fancy rifle will just hang on the wall, unused.

  "We have been invited to spend the night here, and tomorrow we will practice some more. But for now, I must tell you that I will prefer unmarried men for this job, but I also realize that some of our best men will be married. But please, speak of this with your wife tonight, and consider her fate if you are killed. For this reason, I will not be accepting volunteers until tomorrow."

  They spent the night sharing the one room log cabin of Donord's friend with him, his wife, and six children, ranging in age from toddler to a preteen girl.

  By the time they had breakfasted the next day, all but three of the village's men were clustered around, waiting for the strangers.

  Cale stopped at the cart and picked up the training target it concealed. Donord's friend helped him string it between two trees at the target end of the practice range.

  This was no piece of tree bark. The target created a field that produced a moving hologram image. There was no paper or other material object. A small comp in the long, thin, armored cylinder at its top registered the hits, and displayed them as red or white images superimposed onto the target image.

  Cale assembled the men in front of a frozen image. "This is a soldier in Santiago battledress, with body armor. This is your enemy. The General's people will look exactly like this.

  "Notice the helmet. A rifle bullet will penetrate it, but only if it hits head-on. If it hits a curved area, it will often bounce off. And, of course, most of the helmet is curved, not only over the top, but also on the sides. So, the helmet is a difficult target, and is not recommended.

  "The helmet's face shield, however, is a different matter. It's mainly intended to protect the wearer from thrown rocks, or perhaps gaseous agents. Hit by a rifle bullet, it will normally shatter, and the bullet penetrate the head. Even if it doesn't kill, chances are a shattered face shield will blind
the soldier, and he will be useless to the General until new eyes can be regenerated, which can take more than a month.

  "Notice that the neck and throat are mostly unprotected; and of course, there are many important blood vessels and nerve bundles running through that area. The area at the base of the neck in front, just above the body armor, is probably your best target in that area, though a hit just below the rim of the helmet in the back is very effective.

  "Now, this," he continued, "is the body armor. It will stop a rifle bullet, so there's no sense wasting a shot on it. It comes in three pieces, actually four. There are the back and breast sections that protect from the shoulders to the waist, then there are detachable skirts that protect the groin and lower back areas. These skirts are interesting because they are difficult to put on and take off. They make urination and defecation a slow and uncomfortable process. This means that after awhile, most soldiers leave them off.

  "There are large blood vessels in each thigh in the groin area, and a hit in the lower back can result in lower limb paralysis that may be permanent.

  "So," he continued, "I hope you were listening to all that, because your shooting will be scored based on where you hit, and how effective the hit would be. The target images will be moving. You will each get five shots."

  He grinned as he started back toward the plaza. "So, let's see how good you are!"

  Most of them were very good, and most of them had been listening. Three men found it impossible to pull the trigger on a human target, especially one so lifelike. Two others became sick at the sight of spurting blood from wounds they'd inflicted. And one so obviously enjoyed the carnage that he troubled Cale.

  Still, he eventually had a dozen volunteers. He left an ultracom with Donord's friend. They would contact him about the delivery of weapons and ammunition.

  All the way back to King's Town Donord was cursing his leg, the crutch, and the fact that he could not become a sniper.

  "You couldn't make a fast getaway," Cale told him. "Besides, you have another, much more important job as a spy. Don't forget, I originally came down here to talk to you. The rifle was an afterthought."

  By the time they got back, though, Donord was all business. "You should go to the market tomorrow with your cart. A trader who travels with a cart but never trades is suspicious."

  Donord himself trimmed his beard to a longish stubble. He immediately set his boy to cleaning up the still shed. "Star men like strange drink," he told Cale, "and the stronger the better. The stronger the better for talking, too." He grinned. "Besides, they have lots of metal. If I play this right, I'll be rich by the time this is over!"

  They decided that the trader's cart gave Cale a perfect way to return to Valhalla. "I had planned to make my way to someplace where I could call in the flitter," he said. "But I've decided the cart will let me go all the way across Gorby. Maybe I can see what's happening there."

  He gave Donord the ultracom which included a way to call him directly, as well as Rajo's new 'Intelligence Office' and they decided that he would also enlist some of the surviving guardsmen to report anything interesting they heard. Cale warned him to be careful, but Donord reminded him curtly that these were men he had known for years. No new faces would be considered, of course.

  Cale briefed Dee and the others via ultracom, and asked Zant to try to figure out a way to get weapons and ammunition to his snipers.

  He spent a thoroughly enjoyable next day at the market and a thoroughly uncomfortable night in an inn's barn, since he didn't want to be seen around the Sergeant's Privy too often.

  He had managed to buy a list of market days from another trader for an exorbitant fee, but he reminded himself that the fact that so few traders could read and write enhanced the list's value. It also gave him added cover at Ochoa-Mariden's checkpoints. If he told a checkpoint that he was going to Jarville to trade, and the people at the checkpoint knew that Jarville had an upcoming market day, it simplified his clearance.

  Still, he was planning to walk all the way across both Nirvana and Gorby, almost 1000 Kiloms in all, at 15 to 30 Kiloms per day. He admitted to himself that realistically, there was little chance he would complete the trip, but he was determined to try, especially after Zant told him there was a pool on how soon he'd quit, with the earliest guess being after only two days. He made a point of calling Zant at noon of the third day, just to gloat.

  But the days seemed interminable, the heat sapping his strength. When the seventh day dawned, and he'd covered less than 150 Kiloms, he decided enough was enough. He called Zant to arrange a flitter pickup for that night.

  Luckily, that day was a market day at a nearby town, and he was able to trade his donkey for some Old Time artifacts. He'd have felt guilty simply abandoning the animal he'd come to call "Zant".

  He left the market as soon as he could, though. He had to find a place to meet Zant and the flitter. The local country consisted mostly of rolling hills. Many were wooded, since the land was poor for farming, but there were plenty of woodsmen and woodcutters throughout them. He stayed off the road as much as possible, dragging the heavy cart up and down wooded hills. He'd decided they couldn't do a pickup within sight of a road without risking detection, and they had only one flitter. Afternoon was turning into evening and he was nearly ready to give up and resign himself to another day of pulling that cursed cart when he topped a largish hill and found himself confronting a small valley with a small stream running through it. But the entire valley had been denuded of trees. He smiled tiredly. There would be no woodsmen here. No one to see. There was nothing to bring them. Even the stream was certainly polluted by runoff from the hills.

  He dropped the front of the cart, and staggered alongside it to a massive wheel before sagging back against it.

  When he awoke it was dark, and Tess's voice was ringing in his head. "Cale! Respond please! Are you all right? Are you injured?" The voice was loud in his head. They must be really worried.

  "I'm here, Tess. I'm fine. I just fell asleep. I've been pulling that cart up and down hills most of the day."

  "Key your ultracom. Zant's been trying to raise you for an hour. We were afraid you'd been captured."

  "Sorry," he muttered. He turned on the ultracom he'd accidently powered off. "Zant? It's Cale."

  "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

  "No, I'm fine. I just fell asleep. Where are you?

  "Asleep? Why, you . . . Later. I'm in the southwest corner of Whitan with the flitter. Where are you . . . Oh. I see. I've got you. I can home on your 'com. What's the terrain like?"

  "I've got a small valley surrounded by low hills, with a stream running through it. It's been logged off. Nothing but stumps an inch or two high. Before it got dark I think I saw a flat area along the stream that could work. I'll check it out."

  "I think you've got about two hours," Zant replied. "I've got to come in high and slow to keep from being seen, and hope the General hasn't set up any sensor nets."

  "I'll check it out. I'll keep you posted."

  He struggled to his feet, and found he was stiff as a board. It seemed that every muscle in his body ached. He began feeling his way cautiously down the dark slope toward the stream, stumbling over an endless series of stumps. Finally the ground leveled, and he strained to see anything in the sparse starlight, cursing the fact that Jumbo did not have a moon to reflect light. He tripped and fell half a dozen times before he fell onto a patch of river rocks and one hand slipped into water. He looked around carefully, and finally realized he was on the flat, cleared patch he'd noticed earlier. Pacing around it, he decided the clear area was large enough for both the flitter and the cart. He planned to try to take the cart along. Tess had designed it to be carried disassembled on the flitter, and it could be quite useful for future spy operations. Besides, there was a lot of good stuff on it!

  He struggled back up the hill to the cart, and began maneuvering it toward the stream. It took him more than an hour to maneuver the laden cart down the s
tump-covered ground to the relatively smooth area at the bottom.

  He was busy trying to start disassembling the cart by feel when he was startled by Zant's voice. "I'm just about on top of you," he said. "I should be coming over the last hill about . . . now."

  The darkness was so complete that Cale couldn't see the flitter, though after a moment he heard a quiet humming. Suddenly a darker black blob settled to the ground a few feet away. The soft glow of the flitter's instrument panel was startling in the pervasive blackness. Zant was only a vague black shadow against the instrument panel lights as he raised the canopy and exited the flitter. He walked confidently to Cale, and handed him something that felt like old-fashioned glasses. Cale put the night-vision glasses on gratefully.

  It was literally the difference between night and day. He sighed with relief as Zant's grinning features appeared.

  "Glad you got here," he said. "My blisters have blisters from pushing this cursed cart around."

  Zant' grin was wide. "I almost changed my mind about coming," he said. "You've been getting fat and lazy. A brisk thousand Kilom walk to Valhalla would have done you a world of good."

  Cale answered Zant's grin with one of his own. "If I'd had to walk all the way to Valhalla, it wouldn't have done you any good when I finally got there! C'mon, help me disassemble the cart and get it stowed in the flitter."

  He expected at least a token protest, but Zant just nodded and said, "Sure." Surprised, Cale asked him about it as they set to work.

  Zant shrugged. "Your idea was good. Traders are free to move about more easily than anyone else, and the cart is great cover. It was your action plan that was crazy. You're too civilized. City people don't realize just how far a thousand Kiloms is!"

  Cal shook his head. "Well, I'm convinced now. I'll stick to starships, thank you."

  Zant commented on the amount of trade goods carried by the cart. Cale nodded proudly. "I think I did really well. I didn't have much Old-Time stuff after King's Town, but the furs and wood stuff I got sold well. And I didn't have to worry about steel, so I could plow all the profits back into inventory."