by David Weber
“I’m fascinated to hear this,” the king said. “But I would be even more fascinated to know where you heard it.”
The humans had discussed how to answer that question when it inevitably arose, and had come to the conclusion that there was no good response. Pahner had originally wanted to avoid telling the locals anything which might reveal their intelligence-gathering capabilities or, even more importantly, limitations. Then there’d been the ticklish point that admitting that they’d spied on the Great Houses—and how—would probably start the king wondering whether or not they’d spied on him.
It was O’Casey, backed by Kosutic, who’d put forth the counter argument. By imperial standards, Q’Nkok and its monarch were primitive, but that certainly didn’t mean Xyia Kan was unsophisticated. The likelihood that they’d spied upon him was going to occur to him whatever they said, so there was little point trying to hide the fact that they could. On the other hand, the king’s confidence in them required that they at least make an attempt to convince him that they could gather otherwise unobtainable information reliably, and Julian faced the monarch squarely.
“Your Majesty,” he said, “the information was gathered through what we would call ‘technical means.’ ”
The king considered the sergeant’s toot’s translation effort for a moment, then grunted.
“ ‘The way of pumps’? What in the Nine Halls of Kratchu does that mean?”
“I’m afraid our translations aren’t quite up to explaining that, Your Majesty,” Roger told him, and Pahner hid a smile at his unwontedly diplomatic tone. “Your irrigation systems and their pumps require the services of highly skilled mechanics, so the device which translates for us chose that term to substitute for one of our language’s terms which refers to something which also requires great skill and long training. With all respect, you’ve seen our multitools and other devices. Could your artisans duplicate them? Or explain to another how they function?”
“No.” The king didn’t appear excessively pleased at making the concession, but he made it promptly.
“That’s because our artisans have learned things yours have not yet discovered, Your Majesty,” O’Casey stepped in, once again wearing her diplomat’s hat. “And those same artisans have constructed devices which may be used to . . . observe and listen unobtrusively at a distance.”
“You have mechanical spies?” The king glanced around the meeting room with a suddenly speculative expression, then returned to his attention to O’Casey.
“Ah, yes. That is to say, in a manner of speaking—”
“That must be a marvelous advantage . . . assuming that it’s true. And that your description of what they’ve reported to you is accurate.”
“You’re wise to consider whether or not we might have motives of our own to deceive you, Your Majesty,” Pahner said calmly. “But would it be possible, now that we’ve brought this information together for you, for you to confirm it by other means without allowing any of your enemies to realize you have?”
The king thought about that for a moment, and looked at Grak. The old soldier fluttered his hands, and then, finally, clapped them in agreement and turned to the humans himself.
“Yes,” he answered.
“And if we do confirm it, the method by which you obtained it will be beside the point,” the king told Pahner. “The question is, what shall we do about it if your reports prove accurate?”
“Actually,” Pahner replied with a grim smile, “that’s the easy part, Your Majesty.”
“We kill them all,” Julian said.
“And let the gods sort them out.” Grak snorted. “Yes, I’ve heard that one. But how? Three Houses against the Royal Guard is still a . . . What was that term you used?”
“ ‘An adverse correlation of forces,’ ” the sergeant answered. “Actually, you’d be at just about at parity, with the advantage of a single unified command against a bunch of conspirators who don’t trust anybody—including each other—as far as they can throw them. Of course, they’ve been planning this for quite a while, so at best, you’d have about a fifty-fifty chance of kicking their butts. However, Your Majesty, General Grak, there’s an intersection of needs here. We need equipment, supplies, and transportation across this continent. Frankly, we need funding.”
“And you need a force to crack this conspiracy,” O’Casey cut in, smoothly maintaining the double-team approach. “Our company can supply that force. We’ll break the conspiracy, uncover all the evidence you need to prove the conspirators’ intent to bring in the Kranolta, point out the other Houses that were aware of the woodcutting part of the plot, and force concessions from all of them in your favor. In return, we’ll retain a portion of the seizure and fines, and you’ll lend your weight to the filling of our needs so that we obtain the quality of goods and services we need.”
“Mutual benefit, indeed,” the king murmured. He rubbed his horns. “If, of course, there is such a conspiracy.”
“There is,” Pahner said. “But confirm it, by all means. Please. In the meantime, we’d like to begin cross-training our people in local weaponry with your guard. That will make a good cover for getting integrated with them.
“But we would greatly appreciate it if you could make your inquiries quickly, Your Majesty. We’ve discovered that we have a particular need to strike before the auction we’ve arranged for our goods. It turns out that the Great Houses have also conspired to fix the bidding,” the captain finished sourly.
“Yes, they would.” Xyia Kan gave a grunting chuckle. “Have no fear. I shall make inquiries quickly, and if they are, in fact, conspiring to release the Kranolta upon the city, then we shall act even more quickly.”
“But beyond this,” Roger said, “there’s still the problem of wood. The crisis which the conspirators are busy exploiting isn’t entirely artificial.”
Pahner was a highly trained, superbly disciplined professional. Which explained why he didn’t wheel around to glare at the prince. Roger had done quite well in helping to explain why they couldn’t explain how their “mechanical spies” worked, but that contribution to the meeting had been discussed and agreed upon ahead of time. Given his rank among the human visitors, it had been all but imperative to put the weight of his princely status behind that explanation, and the fact that he had a flair for the local language had also been a factor.
No one, however, had suggested that His Highness had anything else to add. Certainly no one had discussed anything else he might contribute, which meant that whatever he was up to now was going to be ad-lib. So the captain gritted his teeth and reminded himself that he couldn’t rip his royal charge’s head off. At least, not in front of outsiders. All he could do was pray that whatever harebrained idea the young idiot was going to concoct this time wouldn’t queer the deal just when things had been going so satisfactorily.
“No,” Xyia Kan agreed with a hiss of dissatisfaction. “It isn’t artificial. If it were, they wouldn’t be able to use it so effectively. We must have a new source of wood if Q’Nkok is to survive, but we’ve exhausted our supply in the area the X’Intai permit us to cut, and the Kranolta hold the other side of the river. Woodcutters who cross to their side of the river do not return. Some solution to this must be found, for it would be pointless to stop the conspiracy and still have the X’Intai attack.”
“As I understand it,” Roger said, nodding in agreement, “besides building, the majority of the wood cut for Q’Nkok is used for cooking and metalworking. Mostly as charcoal. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Grak answered. “The majority is used in cooking fires.”
“For which coal would work just as well, wouldn’t it?” Roger asked, tugging on his braid.
“Coal?” Xyia Kan produced a Mardukan frown. “Perhaps. It’s used in some other cities, at any rate. But there’s no coal source anywhere nearby.”
“Actually,” Roger said with a grin, “there’s one on the other side of The People’s territory. Just upriver from Cord�
��s village, in the mountains. In fact, I saw indications of several unmined minerals up there, and just down the mountain from the coal, at Cord’s village, the river becomes navigable.”
“So the coal could be packed to the village on flar-ta,” the king said with a pensive expression, “then transferred to boats for the trip to the city. But I’ve heard of this valley. It is filled withyaden. Who would be so foolish as to go there to dig mines?”
“Well,” Roger said with a thin, cold smile, “I was thinking that you might start with the members of the deposed families and their guards.”
This time Pahner did glance at the prince—not in irritation, but in surprise. He hadn’t heard that particular tone of voice from Roger before, and he suspected that the ruthless side the prince had just revealed would have surprised any of his old acquaintances. His tone wasn’t cruel, just very, very cold, and the captain suddenly realized that when the kid had delivered that suggestion he’d looked a good bit like his umpteenth-something grandmother, Miranda I. She’d been famous for a certain lack of pity where enemies were concerned. Of course, such things could be taken too far, but it also might be the first symptom of a spine.
Now if only it could be moderated into decency.
The king, on the other hand, only grunted in laughter and glanced at his general before he looked back at Roger with a handclap of agreement.
“An elegant solution, young prince. You would make an excellent monarch someday. I’ve noticed that if you have only one problem, it is often insoluble, but that if you have many problems, they solve each other. We have a conspiracy to break, a need to fulfill, and hands to fulfill it. Excellent.”
“In order to pull all of this together, we need some of my officers,” Pahner said. “And we need to get down to planning quickly.”
“Agreed,” the king replied. “But we don’t move until I’ve confirmed this.”
“As you say, Your Majesty,” Roger replied for the group. “We exist but to serve,” he finished sardonically.
On the way back to their quarters, Roger found himself nearly alone with Captain Pahner. He glanced around to ensure that no one besides Marines were in the area, then sighed.
“At least Mom doesn’t have to put up with conspiracies like this,” he said. “I’d hate to deal with backstabbing bastards like N’Jaa and Kesselotte all day long.”
Pahner stopped as abruptly as if he’d just taken a round from a bead rifle and stared at the prince, who continued for another step and a half before he realized the Marine was no longer beside him. He turned to the captain.
“What? What did I say this time?” He could tell he’d upset the officer, but for the life of him, he didn’t have a clue how.
Pahner felt breathless. For a moment, he could only shake his head, speechless at the naivete of the statement while he tried to figure out if the prince was trying to feel him out or if the young idiot really was that blind. He finally decided that it could be either, as impossible as that seemed. Which meant the truth was the best answer.
“You—” He stopped himself just before he called the prince an idiot and cleared his throat.
“Your Highness,” he continued then, in a calm and deadly voice, “your Lady Mother deals with plots ten times as Byzantine as this every day of the week, and twice on Sunday. And she comes up with, I guaran-damn-tee you, better answers than this one. She would figure out a way to have all the Houses continue under current leadership on a completely different political track, and I wish to hell that we could do the same.
“However hard we try not to, we are going to kill innocents with this ‘bigger-hammer’ approach, and that doesn’t make me a bit happy. Unfortunately, none of us are as smart as the Empress, so we’ll just have to muddle through and hope she manages to survive all the crap headed her way while we’re trying to get home!”
Roger stared at him, eyes wide, and the Marine snorted bitterly. Whatever the prince might think, Pahner knew only too well just how false the surface serenity of the Empire of Man was, for he’d had access to intelligence reports very few mere captains would ever see.
“You think I’m exaggerating, Your Majesty?” he demanded. “Well I’m not, so for God’s sake wake up and smell the coffee! You think, perhaps, that all of us are here on sunny Marduk because we want to be? You think that DeGlopper just happened to have a few minor technical problems which had nothing at all to do with your presence? Somebody slipped a toombie onto your goddamned ship and marooned us on this God forsaken planet, and I guarantee you it wasn’t N’Jaa!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Julian looked around the rainy midnight square.
His armor’s light-enhancement system made the details as clear as day . . . not that there was a great deal to see at the moment. The tavern had been taken down, and the food vendors had packed up for the evening. Which was normal. The city always more or less rolled up its streets at dusk, but this was still eerie. No people at all were moving on the streets, and the shutters on every house had been closed almost before the square emptied. Clearly, the common folk knew something was going down.
It had taken barely a day for the king to confirm the broad details of the humans’ intelligence. The clincher had been a scouting foray by some of the city’s few skilled woodsmen, who’d found the Kranolta force awaiting word to move on the city exactly where the humans had told them to look. That had been more than sufficient for the king to give his go-ahead.
The Council had been summoned once again, this time at night. Its members were currently at dinner, or so said the latest situation report. Now all three platoons were in position and ready to move.
Julian’s own squad of armor had been spread throughout the company. Since the chameleon suits were going to be effectively useless against the low-speed impacts of swords and spears, Captain Pahner wanted the virtually impregnable armor on point for the entry. Which was why Julian found himself standing in front of the door to House N’Jaa, scanning the surroundings, checking his paltry power levels, and wondering if there was something that could penetrate ChromSten armor on this planet after all.
“Teams check in,” the communicator said. Lieutenant Sawato had that remote, robotic tone down cold; she sounded like a bad AI answering machine.
“N’Jaa team in position,” Sergeant Jin announced. Third Platoon had gotten N’Jaa, since it was the largest and toughest House. Lucky them. They might be the more experienced platoon, but they were also short a squad.
“Kesselotte team, in position,” came the next check, and Julian wondered if the Old Man were listening. God knew that very shortly he was going to be busy enough his own self.
“C’Rtena team, in position.” Lieutenant Jasco’s response was late, and Julian called up the remote plot on his helmet HUD and grimaced. The remote reported that C’Rtena’s backdoor still didn’t have anyone covering it, but just as he thought that, the last few troopers got into position.
Each mansion, unbeknownst to its inhabitants, now had two-thirds of a platoon parked outside its front door under cover. Even worse, two troopers in powered armor were poised to lead the entry, with the rest of the force in support. In Julian’s case, the backup was across the square, ready to jump off instantly when the word came. The unit had moved up in nearly complete silence, which, coupled with the chameleon systems of their uniforms and armor, made it extremely unlikely that anyone had even noticed their passage, despite the narrow, twisting streets.
The third squad of each platoon was on the backdoor of that platoon’s objective, ready to plug the bolt-hole, and each detachment was also accompanied by a squad of Royal Guards. The remainder of the armored suits were at the castle, ready to move as reinforcements if they were needed.
Which they shouldn’t be.
“All right,” the XO said finally. “All the pieces are in position, and the dinner is underway. All teams: Execute.”
Julian drew a deep breath. He shouldn’t be nervous; there ought to be zero danger in t
his for him. And worrying didn’t help matters, anyway. It was time to do the deal, and he raised a hand and knocked on the door, hard.
K’Luss By paused just as he was about to throw the knucklebones. He’d heard that there was some new game going around, one that used pieces of paper, but he was a traditionalist. Knucklebones had been good enough for his father, and they were good enough for him.
“Who the hell is that?” he asked rhetorically, looking around at the other guards in the front room, and T’Sell Cob clapped his false hands and shrugged, then picked up his favored ax as the door boomed again.
“I don’t know. But he’s about to be in pieces.”
“Open in the name of King Xyia Kan!” a voice boomed through the hallway.
“Ah,” By said as he picked up his own spear, “maybe we ought to wait for the others to join us?”
It had always bothered Julian that there was no way to fidget effectively in armor. He wanted to pick at a finger, or bite fingernails. Nope. Pull hair? Nope. The best he could do was to fiddle with his bead cannon as the sensors indicated more and more guards gathering in the front area. A loud boom suddenly racketed through the night like a rogue thunderclap, and his sensors processed the sonics and electromagnetic flux and then announced that a full powered charge from a plasma cannon had just struck something at the facility the HUD designated “House C’Rtena.”
Nice to know the sensors were working.
He nodded at PFC Stickles and stepped to the side of the vast door.
“Gunny, I’d say we’ve got about max participation here,” he said, keying his helmet to darken. It was supposed to do that automatically, but it never hurt to make sure. Regrowing eyeballs would suck on this rock. “Stickles, darken your helmet.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” the PFC shot back just a tad testily. “Already done.”
