by David Weber
“As soon as we get somewhere that has a decent industry, though,” the captain went on after a moment, “we’re damned well going to see about having some breech-loading percussion rifles made.”
“Is that going to be possible?” Roger asked. “I mean, there are a lot of steps between a matchlock arquebus and a breechloader. Spring steel comes to mind.”
“Like the spring steel in Rastar’s wheel locks?” Pahner asked, smiling faintly. “And have you looked at their pumps?” the Marine went on as the prince’s expression turned suddenly thoughtful.
“Not in any depth,” Roger admitted. “They have quite a few of them, and they seem pretty damned efficient. I noticed that much.”
“Well, I have been noticing them, Your Highness—particularly since Eleanora commented on them back at Voitan. I even took one apart when you were running around in Ran Tai. These people have impeller pumps, and the ones in Deb Tar’s mines were pneumatically driven.”
“You mentioned that before,” Roger agreed. “But what does it mean?”
“An impeller pump requires tight tolerances, Your Highness,” O’Casey replied before Pahner could. “You have to be able to lathe, which they do with foot-pedal lathes. It also requires spring material—spring steel in most cases, here on Marduk, although that corrodes faster than the alloys we would use in the Empire. However, every basic technology you need for advanced black powder weapons is found in their pump industry. For that matter, as the captain just suggested, anyone who can build wheel locks can build more advanced lock mechanisms. What we call a ‘flintlock’ is actually a much less complicated device than a wheel lock. In fact, its advantage, and the thing that made it so important when it was introduced on Earth, was that its simplicity made it cheap enough that armies could afford to convert their infantry to it from the even simpler matchlock. Before that, only cavalry units carried wheel locks for exactly the same reason that Rastar and his troopers do—a matchlock is impractical for a mounted man to manage, and cavalry was considered important and prestigious enough to justify the purchase of specialized and expensive weapons for it.”
“So we need to go where t’ey make tee pumps, Sir?” Poertena asked.
“That or one of the armories where the gunsmiths make wheel locks,” Pahner agreed, then grinned and nodded at O’Casey. “On the other hand, the gunsmiths seem to guard their ‘secrets’ pretty zealously . . . and they make the pumps everywhere. They have to, with their climate. And I’d rather go somewhere where they have some genuine large-scale manufacturing industry. From what Rastar says, the local gunsmiths are both extremely expensive and pretty damned slow. The ones who make wheel locks spend a lot of time and effort on things like inlay work and decoration—just take a look at Rastar’s toys! What we need is someone used to the practical requirements of mass production, or as close to it as anyone on this planet is going to come. When we find him, we’ll give him a design for a rifle for the troops and have it produced in quantity. For Rastar’s people, too.”
“And let me guess,” Roger said with a grimace. “That someone wouldn’t happen to live in this K’Vaern’s Cove, would he?”
“From what I’ve heard, he probably does, Your Highness,” O’Casey said. “Diaspra is a theocracy, and for all that it’s also a trading city, it seems fairly typical of the ‘mañana attitude’ we’ve seen everywhere else but New Voitan. That’s why the Diasprans aren’t going to be able to supply us with what we need. But to hear them tell it, this K’Vaern’s Cove is the secular center of their known universe. I seem to be picking up a lot of respect for the K’Vaernians, even from the large number of people—mostly clerics—who obviously don’t like them. But the Diasprans clearly regard them as not simply heathens, but very peculiar heathens, with all sorts of outrageous notions, including some sort of obsession with more efficient ways to do things, which is absolute anathema to something as inherently conservative as a theocratic priest-king’s government. So, yes, the logical place to look for the sort of person the captain wants would have to be K’Vaern’s Cove.”
“Which means he’s also right in the middle of this invasion,” Roger pointed out. “How are we going to get there to talk to him?”
“Well, first we build us a little army here, then we head upcountry again,” Pahner said. “Quickly.” He grunted a laugh.
“You got anyt’ing more for me, Sir?” Poertena asked.
“No, Sarge. Thanks for your time,” the prince said.
“It’s corporal, Your Highness,” the Pinopan reminded him. “But t’anks.”
“Not any more,” Roger said. “I think between the Captain and me, we probably have the juice to get a promotion approved.”
“T’ank you, Sir,” the armorer said, getting to his feet. “T’anks. I’m gonna turn in.”
“Take off, Poertena,” Pahner replied.
“Good night, Sirs,” the little sergeant said, and headed out the door.
“That was well done, Roger,” the Marine CO said when the door had closed.
“He’s done a good job,” the prince pointed out. “He’s been working every night on getting our gear back in shape, and he and Kostas between them have been keeping track of all our supplies, as well. And now this job, without complaint. Well,” he corrected himself with a smile, “not any serious complaints.”
“Agreed,” the captain said, then leaned back and scratched the tip of his nose thoughtfully.
“Getting back to the subject at hand,” he went on after a moment, “this is a rich city, despite all of the Council’s moaning, and this Laborers of God labor force looks top-notch so far. There’s over four thousand of them, too.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand how any city can just set aside twenty percent of its productive male population as a labor force like this, either. Usually, societies like this use farmers in their off time for any required community labor.”
“Eleanora?” Roger asked. “Got any suggestions?”
“It’s the barleyrice production, of course,” the chief of staff said. “Always look to basic production in societies like this, Roger.”
“But there wasn’t this labor surplus on the far side of the mountains,” the prince replied. “Marshad had a fairly normal ratio, and so did Q’Nkok. And Ran Tai, for that matter.”
“Ah, but Marshad and Q’Nkok didn’t have draft animals like the turom. Aside from caravan use, the flar-ta might as well not exist as beasts of burden, but that’s all they have on the far side of the Tarstens. And Ran Tai—as Poertena pointed out to us at the time—effectively imports all of its barleyrice,” O’Casey reminded him with a smile. “I’d say that this place would probably be the center of a Mardukan Renaissance if it weren’t locked up tight by the local theocracy.”
She glanced at her notes and shook her head.
“The agriculture in this area is phenomenal. The turom gives them a remarkable advantage over Q’Nkok and Marshad, and what with the continuously mild weather, an efficient distribution system for nitrates, and excellent crop rotation, they have five crops of barleyrice every year. Five. And nearly as many crops of nearchicks and taters, not to mention three of apsimons. Each individual farmer is tremendously productive, which is why all those extra laborers are employed by the temple—they’d be out of work otherwise.”
“But that condition has to have existed for some time,” Roger said, shaking his head. “Shouldn’t they have been pulled into other production areas by now? That’s the normal reaction to technological improvement; one group is left performing the original function more efficiently, and within a generation the rest of the labor force is switched to other markets, usually new ones that become possible because of the freed labor.”
“True.” Eleanora smiled. “In fact, I’m delighted to see that you remember my lectures so well. In Diaspra’s case, however, the society clearly reacted by taxing the farmers still on the land to establish a . . . well, call it a welfare system, and putting the out-of-work ones to work on temple projec
ts. I suspect that if we had a time machine, we’d find that that reaction marked the beginning of the growth of the temple’s secular power. And it was probably considered a ‘temporary measure,’ too.”
“Aaargh,” Roger groaned. “The only thing more permanent than a ‘temporary measure’ is ‘stopgap spending.’ But surely even here they must eventually have the labor shift to new technologies?”
“Not necessarily.” The chief of staff waved her hands in a gesture that included the entire planet. “Marduk is a remarkably stable world. There’s very little reason for technological improvement. Frankly, I’m surprised that they ever domesticated animals in the first place.”
“There’s a real lack of wheels,” Pahner said in agreement. “There are wheeled carts near the cities, but that’s about it. They have the concept—there are all sorts of wheels used in their pumping technology—but they don’t use it for transport.”
“It’s all of a piece,” O’Casey said with a quirky smile. “There’s very little to drive improvements in this society, and the late Raj Hoomas notwithstanding, most of the city-states—the inland ones, at least—very rarely have major territorial competitions. Wars, yes—lots of those—but by human standards, those wars are pretty small potatoes. And they’re not really what we’d call wars of conquest, either. Most of the city-states maintain professional armies to handle the fighting—and do the dying—which tends to insulate the general population from the consequences of combat. And the squabbles between cities are usually over caravan routes, mining sites, and that sort of thing, not over what you might call true life-or-death issues or because some local potentate suddenly got bitten by the notion of building himself some sort of empire. Their climate is fairly constant, too, so they don’t have many times when large-scale weather patterns cause big migrations or force technological change. It’s a very static society, so any major change probably gets swallowed up by the stasis. Which is probably a large part of the explanation for how devastating a large migration—like the Kranolta or the Boman—is when it finally comes along.”
“What about the other cities in this area?” Roger asked.
“We’ll have to see,” O’Casey replied. “My guess from inference is that the states of Rastar’s ‘League of the North’ were more or less parasitic defensive states. They protected the southern cities from the Boman and their fellow barbarians, and in return, they drew off the excess production from the city-states behind their shield. The next tier of states to the north, like this Sindi place, appear to have been secular despotisms, where the excess labor was involved in glorification of the leadership. I suppose that sort of mind-set might help fuel a potential Caesar or Alexander’s ambitions, but so far I just don’t know enough to hazard a guess as to whether or not it has, although some of the things Rastar’s said about Sindi itself sound fairly ominous. And I don’t know a thing about the societal types to the south of Diaspra.”
“And K’Vaern’s Cove?” Pahner asked. “That’s the one I’m interested in.”
“Me, too,” the chief of staff admitted. “The more I hear about it, the more fascinated I get. If we think of the K’Vaernian Sea as analogous to Earth’s Mediterranean, then the K’Vaernians themselves appear to be the local Carthaginians, or possibly Venetians. Their city is not only the major seapower in the K’Vaernian, but it’s also the only one which appears to have reacted classically to technological innovation, although even it doesn’t seem to have advanced very far by our standards. But I think we can change that. In fact, I wish we were building this army there.”
“So do I,” Pahner said, chewing his bisti root in deep thought. “As it is, winning this war—putting this force together, for that matter—is going to require everyone in the Company to pitch in. And the additional delay makes me really glad we happened across the apsimon. Anything new from Dobrescu on other substitutes?”
“Not yet,” Kosutic told him, and the captain grunted. The fortuitous discovery of the apsimon had caused Pahner to reconsider their earlier acceptance of the survey report’s insistence that nothing in the local ecosystem could supply their trace nutritional needs. He was still mentally kicking himself for having overlooked the possibility that such a cursory survey, of which they had only fragments, could have been inconclusive, and Warrant Officer Dobrescu had found himself with a new, extra assignment: running every new potential food source through his analyzers with fanatic attention to detail.
“Tell him to keep on it,” the Marine CO said now. “He will, of course, but we’re going to be too busy training Diasprans to look over his shoulder while he does it.”
“And I think I’ll just leave that training in your capable hands,” Roger told him with a smile. “It’s a job for an experienced captain, not a novice colonel.”
“More like a job for Sergeant Whatsisname,” the Marine responded with a laugh, and Roger smiled with sudden, wicked amusement. As far as the prince could tell, he’d managed to keep his mentor from figuring out that he’d been looking up some of the ancient poetry Pahner so commonly quoted.
“Indeed, ‘not a prince, nor an earl nor yet a viscount,’” he said with a butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth expression, and Pahner looked at the prince sideways and cocked his head.
“‘Just a man in khaki kit . . .’” the captain said, ending on a slightly questioning note.
“‘Who could handle men a bit,’” Roger responded with a chuckle. “‘With his kit bag labelled “Sergeant Whatsisname.” ‘ “ His smile grew still broader, then faded a little around the edges. “It doesn’t seem to change much, does it, Captain?” he said quietly.
“No, it doesn’t, Sir,” the Marine agreed, with a faint smile of his own. “It never does seem to change. And whether you intend to sit it out or not, I think we’ll all have to become Sergeant Whatsisname.”
CHAPTER TEN
Krindi Fain wasn’t certain exactly why he was standing at the front of a milling group of Diasprans in the dawn rain while three of the odd-looking humans discussed something at the far edge of the courtyard. He was sure that it had something to do with that nice human in the tavern, and he could vaguely remember shouting about teaching the Boman to respect Diasprans and the God. Or something like that. There’d been a lot of shouting. And a lot of beer.
But now, just thinking about the shouting hurt his head. He felt as if someone had wrapped thorns around his horn sockets, and from the yelling in the distance, he was afraid there was more coming his way.
There hadn’t been any shouting when they were first dragged out into the large square by the chuckling temple guardsmen. They’d been counted off into groups and then given a speech by one of the high priests. The priest had explained that they’d all volunteered for the new forces that were going to be fighting the Boman. That they were the bedrock of the army of the God, and that they would wash over the Boman like a wave. That the barbarians would be as sand before the dreadful tide of their righteous wrath.
Then he’d rattled off the rules under which they would now live. Fortunately for all of the new recruits, keeping track of the punishment for any given offense would be child’s play itself . . . since all of the rules ended in “guilty party shall be put to death.”
The three humans finished their conference, and turned his way. Suddenly, they didn’t look nearly as friendly as they had the night before.
“God save me for a drunkard and a fool,” Julian said, looking at the crowd of Mardukans.
“You qualify on both counts, Adib.” Roger clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’ve got your notes?”
“Macek does,” the squad leader said. “I’m going to give them a few choice words, then turn them over to Gronningen and Mutabi to wear them out.”
“That’ll work,” the prince said, and turned to the crowd of young Mardukans. “Listen up! You men—and I use that term lightly—don’t know why you’re here or what’s coming. Some of you think you do, but you’re wrong. If you listen to Sergeant
Julian here, and the veterans with him, you might just survive the battle with the Boman! If you don’t, I guarantee that you’ll end up in an unmarked grave, unpitied victims of a contemptible struggle! So pay attention! Follow orders! And may the God defend the right!”
He glowered at them for a moment longer, then clapped Julian on the shoulder, nodded briskly in the general direction of the thoroughly wretched and confused recruits, and strode off.
Julian considered the group like a farmer picking out just the right chicken for supper. Then he pointed to four of the largest or, in one case, most intelligent looking, of them.
“You, you, you, and you.” He pointed to marks on the square’s cobblestones. Next to each mark was a thirty-meter line. “Here, here, here, and here,” he said, and propped his hands on his hips, tapping his toe impatiently until he had the four bewildered nascent squad leaders in place. Then he turned to the rest.
“What the hell are you waiting for? Breakfast?! On the lines, now, now, NOW!”
Between them, he and Moseyev’s Alpha Team got the milling crowd lined up. It happened neither easily, quickly, nor neatly, and Julian favored the more or less formation with a ferocious glare.
“When I say, ‘Fall In,’ you will fall in, just like this, on the line, with these four on the marks!” He strode up to the first squad leader and looked him up and down. “Is that any sort of position of attention?!” he screamed.
