Empire of Man

by David Weber

  “Vampire . . . baby?” Roger suggested doubtfully. He wore an odd, introspective expression, and the sergeant major realized he was communing with the software. “I’m beginning to think this language program is making too many assumptions. I think it means larva of whatever the vampires are.”

  “How do we fight it, Sir?” Gunny Lai was beginning to get over her shock, and she turned almost pleadingly to the prince. “Talbert was a good troop. St. John (M.), too. I doubt they were fucking off. And it’s camouflaged to the max. How the fuck do you fight something like that? No motion, no heat, hardly any electrical field?”

  Roger let loose with a stream of liquid syllables and clicks. The scummy knocked his lower hands together and let loose a string back. Then he looked around, knocked his hands together again, and shrugged his cape up to cover his head, shoulders, and neck.

  “Well,” the prince said doubtfully, “he says that you need to start paying attention. He says he’s watched us walking, and we never look ‘hard enough’ or we look at the wrong things. He also says that these worm-things hang out in the trees and are hard to see, so if you put something up to cover your head and shoulders you’re better off.”

  Cord produced another spurt of syllables and gestured around the woods. He pulled the cape back down and clapped his hands again, and Roger nodded and gave a grim snort.

  “He also says that they’re just about the most horrible things in the woods, but not the most dangerous. They can’t move very fast, except to strike, so you can easily kill them with a spear. He said, ‘Wait until you face an atul-grack,’ whatever that is. And these . . . killer caterpillars . . . sometimes come in groups.

  “He’s pretty philosophical about it,” Roger added. “That handclapping gesture is a shrug. Basically, ‘Life’s a bitch—’”

  “‘—and then you die,’” Kosutic finished with a nod. “Got it.”

  Eleanora’s feet slid out from under her on the muddy hillside, and she landed flat on her rump. The jarring impact sent shooting pains all the way up her spine and into her skull, and she started to slip down the hill. She scrambled wildly for some sort of braking grip, but without success until a hand snapped out and caught the light rucksack on her back. She looked over her shoulder and smiled wearily at her savior.

  “Thank you, Kostas,” she said with a sigh.

  She rolled over on her stomach and tried to struggle to her feet, but it was no use. She’d been barely staggering along as it was, and between the mud, and the heat, and the biting flies, and the screaming muscles in her back and legs from the last two days of exertion, it was just too much.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “I just want to die and get it over with.”

  A Mardukan insect, more from curiosity than malice, landed on her ear and started to investigate her ear canal. She summoned a burst of energy to shake her head violently and swat at it, but then she slumped back into the mud.

  “Now, now, Ma’am,” Matsugae said with a smile. “We’re nearly to Cord’s village. You can’t give up now.” The valet hooked a hand in her rucksack’s straps and helped her claw her way to her feet.

  She swayed in exhaustion and leaned on a tree . . . carefully. Her arm was covered in a welter of swollen bites from the defenders of a previous support, and since that incident she’d become much more careful where she put her hands. But this tree, at least, didn’t seem to want to kill her, and she leaned into it gratefully.

  They were below the clouds now, and into the fringe of the planet’s all-encompassing jungle. They’d followed the river out of the valley as it grew larger and larger, until finally the ground around it became too marshy to continue along its banks. The company had turned off to the south, but continued to parallel the watercourse, although the gurgle of its passage could be barely distinguished through the background racket of the jungle.

  The incessant hum of flying insects was everywhere. The Mardukan version was eight-legged and had a six-winged pattern, as opposed to the terrestrial six-limb/four-wing arrangement. The local bugs also used an aramid polymer, similar in some respects to Kevlar, as the hard core of their exoskeletons. Since it was both lighter and stronger than chitin, it allowed the existence of species which would be considered extremely large on Earth—or on most other planets, for that matter.

  There were thousands of different kinds of beetle analogues, some of them huge. Most of them seemed to be turners of the detritus on the forest floor, while a few joined forces with the midge analogues to take turns biting the humans. Dozens of species swarmed on the human intruders, ranging from tiny creatures that looked so much like mosquitoes that the Marines simply named them skeeters, to a slow-flying beetle the size of a blue jay that had the troopers pulling out their multitools and swinging axes during its infrequent attacks. The chameleon suits were impervious to even the local insects’ best efforts and could be sealed up completely, but while the chameleon cloth actively transpired carbon dioxide and oxygen, the rate was too low to support heavy activities. The Marines would occasionally close up their suits to escape the insects, but soon enough they were forced to open their helmets back up and take deep gasping breaths. Then spit out the midges they’d swallowed.

  But the hum of the insects, as up-close and personal as it was, was overwhelmed by the rest of the bedlam.

  The air rang with strange cries—here a shrill whistle, there a grunting roar, in the distance a banshee howl as some beast celebrated a victory or defended its territory, or perhaps simply called longingly for a mate.

  Besides the sounds, the atmosphere was suffused with weird smells. The odor of rot was a near universal on oxygen-nitrogen planets, and overpowering in any jungle, but here there were thousands, millions, of other scents.

  Nor was vision left unassaulted. The entire jungle was a riot of bright colors in the oppressing gloom. The combination of the double layer of cloud cover and triple-canopy jungle made the understory tenebrous to a degree rarely found on Earth, but the depths of that overarching gloom offered beauty of its own.

  A dangling liana near O’Casey’s head was decorated with tiny carmine blossoms. The blossoms released a heavy perfume that had attracted dozens of similarly colored butterflies. That was the tag which came to the sociologist’s mind, at least. The insectoids’ covering was smooth, instead of the furry look of terrestrial butterflies, but they were just as brightly patterned. As she watched the swarm of fluttering beauties, a purple spider/beetle dropped from a branch into their midst and snagged one of their number. The flock of nectar eaters took off in a crimson cloud that briefly surrounded the chief of staff in a fall of gorgeous red, then dispersed.

  O’Casey took a deep whiff of the glorious blossoms’ perfume as the tiny predator finished off its tiny prey, then pried herself back off the tree. A good part of the company had stumbled past as she rested, and now she would have to hurry to catch up to her assigned position.

  Pahner had put the “hangers-on,” as he phrased it, just behind the command group. Beside Eleanora and Kostas, that included the pilots of the four shuttles. If they could retake the port, those pilots would be their only hope of capturing an interstellar ship and escaping the system, so it was nearly as important to keep them alive as it was to keep Roger that way.

  Eleanora had realized, however, that neither she nor Matsugae were as high on Pahner’s list. The Marine captain was determined to reach the port with as few casualties as possible, but if he had to lose the odd academic or valet along the way, then so be it.

  She couldn’t fault his logic, for there was no margin to spare on this operation, but she didn’t have to like it. And she doubted that Roger had made the connection, for the prince would probably object if it ever came down to losing either member of his “staff.”

  The conclusion that the man responsible for keeping all of them alive had earmarked her as, regrettably, expendable was disturbing. Throughout her entire life, she’d always functioned under conditions where she could move at her own
pace. Academically, that pace had been quite fast, and she remembered looking down on those who fell by the educational wayside, but even those unfortunates had simply found less satisfying and successful positions.

  That wouldn’t be the case here. Now she faced a physical challenge that was, literally, life or death, and she knew instinctively that if she asked for some respite, it would be denied. She was unimportant to the mission, and the safety of the entire company couldn’t be jeopardized for her sake. So for her and Matsugae, it was “march or die.”

  She was fairly certain it was going to be both for her, but Matsugae seemed to be taking to the change in conditions fairly well. The fussy little valet carried a pack nearly as large as the armorer’s, but he was keeping up with the company without complaint, and had helped her along the way several times. She was, frankly, astounded.

  She straightened up and started along the muddy track which had been smashed through the undergrowth by the passage of most of the company. The Marines around her were paying as much attention to the back trail as to the sides, so she knew she was dangerously close to the tail of the company. As she picked up the pace to catch back up to the center of the force, she glanced up at the valet, still doggedly tailing her.

  “You don’t seem to be having any troubles with this march at all, Matsugae,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Ma’am,” the valet answered, adjusting the straps of the internal frame rucksack which, along with the chameleon suits they both wore, had come out of the company’s spare stores. He idly slapped a “skeeter” and winked at the academic. “I’m afraid I’ve spent rather a lot of time following Roger through places almost this bad on safari, although, to be fair, never under conditions quite so . . . resource-limited and extreme. But I think this is hard on everyone, even the Marines, whether they show it or not.”

  “At least you don’t have any trouble keeping up,” she said bitterly. The backs of her legs felt as if someone were sticking hot knives into them, and they’d just gotten to the bottom of the hillside. That meant crossing a shallow stream and climbing another hill that looked even taller. Slipping and sliding in the sweltering muck, not being able to hold onto the trees for fear of something eating you, constantly tired and constantly afraid.

  “You just have to put one foot in front of the other, Ma’am,” the valet said reasonably. He planted a foot on the worn path up the hill and offered the chief of staff his hand. “Alley-oop, Ma’am!”

  O’Casey shook her head and took the offered hand.

  “Thank you, Kostas.”

  “Not much further, Ma’am,” the valet said with a smile. “Not much further at all.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The village nestled on a hilltop, surrounded by a log and thorn wall.

  The hill itself sat in an angle where a large stream intersected the river the company had been paralleling. Just upstream from the junction, the river thundered over a cataract, and downstream from the hill, the combined flows created a deep, wide river that was probably navigable by barges. As they’d gotten lower and lower in elevation, however, the signs of frequent floods had become obvious. Clearly, the village was situated atop its hill to avoid this recurring phenomenon, and it was likely that frequent flooding would also interfere with navigation.

  It began to rain as they approached the hill. Not a slight, steady rain as a cloud parked itself and motheringly watered the parched soil. Not even the hard, firm rain of a powerful weather front. This was the pounding, drowning rain of a tropical thunderstorm—rain like a waterfall, hitting so hard that weaker members of the party were actually knocked off their feet by its first rush.

  “Is this normal?” Roger yelled to Cord as the company struggled up the hill.

  “What?” Cord asked, hitching his general-purpose cape up a little higher.

  “This rain!” Roger yelled, gesturing at the sky.

  “Oh,” Cord said. “Of course. Several times a day. Why?”

  “Joy,” Pahner muttered, having monitored the conversation. Roger had fed the language kernel he’d collected during the day’s walk to all of the party’s toots, and the company’s members were now capable of translating the local language on their own. It was expected that they would be able to pick up each dialect quickly as they progressed from area to area, now that they had a local kernel.

  “I should go to the head of your group,” Cord pointed out. “I’m sure I have been watched as we approached, but I should go to the head so that they’re sure I’m not a prisoner or a kractan.”

  “Yeah,” Roger said, and turned to look at Pahner. “Are you coming, Captain?”

  “No,” the Marine said, and triggered his communicator. “Company, hold up. Our local is going up to pass us through.”

  “I’ll stay here,” he continued to Roger, and raised one hand in a beckoning gesture. “Despreaux!”

  “Yes, Sir!” the NCO snapped. She’d been scanning the bushes with a hand-held scanner, and she didn’t like the fact that she’d kept getting twitches but hadn’t been able to lock them down.

  “Take your squad up front with the Prince and Cord.”

  “Roger, Sir.” She gestured at the squad and pointed to the front. “Up and at ‘em, Marines.”

  She put the scanner away and glanced off to the north one more time. There was something out there, she was sure, but what it was eluded her.

  Cord and Roger moved up to the front of the company, surrounded by Despreaux’s squad. The company had spread out in a standard cigar-shaped perimeter, and now most of the Marines were down in the prone, covering against any attack. There was no such thing as “safety” in a combat zone, but a unit temporarily at rest like this was in the worst possible situation. Unless an enemy has had time to prepare an ambush, a moving unit is a hard target to hit. Similarly, a unit which has had time to prepare defenses is a tough nut to crack, but a company which has just stopped can be hit at any moment and isn’t prepared for the attack.

  It makes soldiers who are well trained—like those of The Empress’ Own—very nervous.

  Cord followed a beaten track up to the single opening in the palisade. As he approached, another Mardukan of the same height and general demeanor appeared in the opening. At the sight of Cord, followed by the humans but clearly not threatened by them, the second Mardukan waved his upper arms in welcome.

  “Cord,” he called, “you bring unexpected guests!”

  “Delkra!” the shaman shouted back, waving his spear. “As if you hadn’t been shadowing us these last few hours!”

  “Of course,” the greeter agreed imperturbably as Cord and Roger’s party reached the top of the hill.

  The last portion of the path was so steep that steps had been cut and reinforced with logs and rocks. The top of the hill had been roughly leveled, and now Roger could glimpse the village through the palisade opening. It looked much like other villages on other planets. A large communal fire pit was at its center, surrounded by an open area which was currently deserted. Immediately inside the walls were rude, thatch and wattle huts, open to the inside of the palisaded area. The similarity to villages once found in the Amazon basin and other tropical areas on Earth would have amazed Roger if he hadn’t spent enough time hunting on primitive planets to realize that there was only so much that could be done with mud and sticks.

  “D’Net Delkra, my brother,” Cord said, clapping the greeter on his upper shoulder, “I must introduce you to my new asi-agun.” He turned to Roger. “Roger, Prince of the Empire, this is my brother, D’Net Delkra, Chief of The People.”

  The greeter, Delkra, hissed and clapped all four hands together in agitation.

  “Ayee! Asi-agun? And at your age? Foul news, brother—foul news, indeed! And your quest?”

  Cord clapped right true-hand to left false-hand in a gesture of negation.

  “We met on the way. He saved my life from a flar beast without clear need, without threat to his life, and being not of my tribe.” />
  “Ayee!” Delkra repeated. “Asi debt, indeed!”

  The Mardukan, who was a bit taller than the shaman, turned to the prince, who’d doffed his helmet. The armor was more comfortable than the steamy heat of the jungle, but Roger felt it was more diplomatic to face this Delkra, who was presumably senior in the local hierarchy, without the obscuring head gear.

  “I thank you for my brother’s life,” Delkra said. “But I cannot be happy for either his enslavement or the failure of his quest.”

  “Whoa!” Roger said sharply. “What’s this ‘enslavement’ thing? All I did was shoot a . . . a flar beast!”

  “Asi bond is the tightest of all bonds,” the chief explained. “To save another’s life, without fear or favor, binds him to you through this life and beyond.”

  “What?” Roger was trying to get over the “slave” concept. “You guys never help each other out?”

  “Of course we do,” Cord said, “but we are members of the same clan. To help another is to aid the clan, and the clan, in turn, aids us. But you had no such reason to kill the flar beast. For the life of me, I’m not sure that you should have.”

  “It could have attacked the Company,” Roger pointed out. “That was the real reason I shot. I didn’t even see you.”

  “Fate, then,” Delkra said with a hand clap. “It wasn’t threatening you or your . . .” he glanced over the Marines scattered down the hillside “ . . . clan?”

  “No,” Roger admitted. “Not at the time. But I could tell it was dangerous.”

  “Karma,” Cord said with a double hand clap. “We will complete the binding tonight,” he continued with another gesture. “Delkra, I request shelter for the night. And shelter for my asi’s clan.”

  “Oh, granted,” the chief said, stepping out of the palisade opening and waving into the jungle. “Granted. Come in out of the rain!”