by Chris Bunch
“You’re sure you’re not peeking?”
“Maybe … just a little.”
He stepped out of the shower. Poynton was sitting cross-legged on the wooden laundry hamper that opened on a drop from aeons ago, when this building had prosperous tenants, before it’d been divided and divided again into a warren. She wore a loose, blue-velvet jumpsuit whose top wrapped around and tied at her waist. She was barefoot, and smelled of exotic fruits. Looking as she did, rather than the dedicated warrior, Njangu realized that she was probably no more than two, perhaps three years older than he was. He felt his body stir. It’d been a long time since Deira and … he closed his mind off, admired Poynton.
Beside her was her always-present pistol, an open bottle of wine, and two mismatched glasses. She poured a golden wine into each, handed Njangu one. “To victory.”
“To victory,” Njangu replied, honestly.
She picked up the bottle, went out of the ‘fresher into the apartment’s main room. There were still scars from Njangu’s redecoration on the wall.
“You didn’t have to destroy my apparatus quite so thoroughly,” she said.
“Sorry. But I don’t like being spied on.”
Poynton grimaced. “If we don’t know everything, then we are vulnerable.”
Njangu didn’t answer, went to the window, looked out. The streets were full of ’Raum, shouting, singing, and the intermittent, seldom-repaired street lighting was augmented with flaring torches. He heard music from two directions, wildly differing tunes.
“This,” Poynton said, coming up behind him, “is what it was like, before, during our holidays.”
“And will be again.”
“I hope so,” she said, drinking. “But many of us have died.”
“People get over pain,” Njangu said. “That’s one of the things that lets us keep living.”
Poynton considered him thoughtfully. “That’s a fairly profound observation from someone as young as you.”
Njangu lifted his glass to her, drank.
“So,” she said, coming toward him, “shall I turn my back while you get dressed, and we can go out and see what manner of amusements are to be found?”
“If we did,” Njangu said, “it would be with my ‘escorts’ behind me. And your bodyguards.”
“Yes,” Poynton said.
“In here, there aren’t any extraneous people.”
“No.”
“I’m not particularly hungry, are you?”
“No,” she said. “Not … not for food.”
“And we have our wine.”
“Yes.”
Njangu reached out a finger, ran its nail from her throat down the vee of her neckline. Poynton caught her breath. “That feels very good,” she said, her voice low. “Perhaps better than it should.”
“Doesn’t The Movement have rules about fraternizing with low-rankers like me?”
“Why should we?” Poynton said. “We ’Raum are sensible about things. At least about some things.”
She stretched, hands lifting over her head. She was only a few centimeters shorter than he was. Njangu came very close, and she lifted her lips, eyes closing.
He kissed her, and her tongue came to meet his, and her arms dropped around him. Their mouths worked together, becoming more frantic, and his hand found the tie of the jumpsuit, pulled, and it fell away. Her nipples rose against his chest.
The kiss ended, and she whispered, “It was a very long time, out in the jungle, where your own smell disgusted you, and you wouldn’t want anyone to smell your stink.” She untied the knot on his towel, tossed it away, let the jumpsuit slide down her long legs, and pool on the floor. Njangu picked her up, and she was very light, and carried her to the waiting bed.
• • •
Garvin sat, comfortably alone, back to the stone wall of the great church, watching the crowd eddy around him. He was slightly drunk, and quite content. I guess Njangu found something better to pass the time with. Wonder if Poynton … naw. Never the chance. She’s too wound up in revolution to ever think about getting naked with anybody. Pity, because when I think about it, she’s not that bad-looking. Get her to smile more often, and —
“Mister?”
Garvin saw a very young redhead in front of him. Her hair was cut short, and her lips, nails, earlobes and eyelids had been tinted blue. She wore a deep red, loose-fitting pair of pants, matching blouse, with cloud patterns that made her look even younger than she was.
“Heh-lo,” he said, reflexively putting on an ostentatiously lascivious grin.
“You’re one of the people who came over to us from the Force, right? That man over there said you led the raid against those bastards today.” She pointed, and Garvin saw one of his escorts.
I shall do something about that bigmouth, he thought.
The girl caught his expression. “That’s all right, mister. I’m with The Movement, too. I do decoy work, outside. I’ve brought down seven myself,” she said proudly.
Garvin covered his reaction. “So what can I do for you?”
“I saw you, and another man from the Force yesterday, going into one of our houses.”
“Ah?”
“He was a tall man, dark-skinned. Short hair. Good-looking.”
“Maybe I know somebody like that,” Garvin said cautiously.
“He told me his name was Njangu once?”
“That could be my friend.”
“Do you know where he is? I spent a little time with him … before he decided to join us. It was … sort of nice. I wanted to know if he wanted to … get together again.”
“No idea where he’s at,” Garvin said honestly. “No idea at all.”
“Oh,” the girl said disappointedly, then brightened. “Are you with anybody? My name’s Limnea.”
Garvin shook his head.
“Lonely?”
“Not really.”
“Oh,” the girl said. “ ’Kay, as you Force people say.” She turned away. “I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t like being alone.”
Garvin thought of Jasith, far distant in the Heights, looked again at the girl. It was late, and he was alone, senses alert, his mind still not believing he hadn’t been killed in that brief nightmare of blood in the warehouse.
“No,” he said slowly. “No, you’re not the only one.” The girl turned, and he saw hope in her eyes. “So what does a stranger in the Eckmuhl do to celebrate?”
“I’ll show you,” Limnea breathed. She licked her lips. “I’ll show you.”
• • •
Njangu made sure Poynton was sleeping soundly, crawled over her and out of the bed. He dressed hastily, slipped out of the door, and let it close behind him. The door to his escorts’ rooms was shut. He listened, heard someone snoring within. Sure. Why worry when your boss is making sure the subject’s quite firmly in place. He went down the long, worn stairs to the street.
It was only a few hours before dawn, and the celebration was mostly over, although he could still hear a few drunks singing loudly. For straight-laced culters, he thought, these ’Raum sure have an open mind about unwinding.
Two blocks away was one of the few unbroken public corns. He went for it, circling back twice. There was no tail. He fed coins in the slot, grinning at the sudden thought of a spy dooming himself by not having correct change, listened to the dull ringing.
An alert voice came: “Sibyl Monitor.”
“Wake Hedley up,” he ordered.
The voice protested.
“Dammit, wake him up! This is Sibyl Black.”
The voice went away. Njangu waited, back to the com. If anyone came … he wished he’d taken Poynton’s pistol … and then Hedley was there. “Listening. Recording.”
Njangu spoke briefly, a report he’d rehearsed waiting for Poynton to fall into deep sleep. There was silence when he finished.
“That was pretty bold work,” Hedley finally said.
“Seemed like the best plan.”
“N
o way you could have dropped the dime to us? You haven’t checked in since you went over the wall, and we were starting to worry.”
“Goddammit, boss, you want to come in here and play boo with these bastards?”
“Sorry,” Hedley said. “Shouldn’t second-guess. Is this a continuing commo point?”
“Negative. Still looking for some kind of secure way to report regularly, and this ain’t it.”
“What’s going to happen next?”
“More shootings, more bombings,” Njangu said. “They’re building up.”
“That doesn’t take anybody on the inside to tell,” Hedley said. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“Yeh,” Njangu said. “Get that AC of Garvin’s … Dill. And his crew, and the best Grierson the Force has got. With a couple of Zooks. When this thing breaks, we’re gonna want to come home at lightspeed, and we may be a little hot around the edges.”
“ ’Kay,” Hedley said. “Keep us posted.”
“What option do I have?”
• • •
“You know what I want you to do now?” Limnea said. She sprawled across the bed, naked. A candle burned on either side of the bed.
“What?” Garvin said, trying not to sound exhausted. Goddamn that Njangu anyway. Just because he kept himself from getting killed by this decoy by screwing her until she was too shot to signal doesn’t mean I’m up to playing Super stud. Lord, how I’d like to be doing something sensible, like sleeping.
“Open up that drawer,” Limnea said. Garvin found long scarves. “Take four of them,” Limnea ordered. “Tie my hands, my ankles to the bedsteads.”
Garvin did as told, considered her pert buttocks, rearing at him, decided he might not be that tired.
“Now I can’t move,” she said. “Now you can do anything you want to with me, can’t you? You could whip me if you wanted to. Or … or hurt me.”
“I, uh, guess so. But I don’t like — ”
“I like strong men,” she whispered. “I like not being able to stop a man from doing whatever he wants. Lean close, and I’ll tell you what I want you to do to me.”
Garvin did, and she whispered. He blinked, a bit shocked. “You’re sure?”
“Oh yes, oh yes,” she breathed. “Please? Now, oh please do it to me now!”
• • •
As far as Njangu could tell, Poynton hadn’t moved since he left, curled on her side. He slid out of his clothes, and started to climb over her.
She stirred. “Where were you?” she said, voice sleep-sodden.
“I had to use the facilities.”
“Mmmh.” She rolled onto her back, and slid the blanket away.
“As long as we’re both awake,” she said, lifting her legs around his waist and pulling him down toward her warmth. “Tomorrow the war begins again.”
• • •
The last two beards were shot down by police, trying to rob a delivery truck, two days later.
CHAPTER
33
Poynton was right — the war did go on. Nastily, messily, fought in alleys and at night or on sun-drenched streets, beaches and around calm lagoons.
• • •
“Victory is just within our grasp,” Caud Williams said to the assembled journalists. “There will be no more than a few short months of turmoil, lessening as time passes, and if all of us pull together, from Rentier to ’Raum, Cumbre will have the peace it deserves.” The media reps cheered him, the cheering led by Loy Kouro of Matin.
• • •
Three more islands were privately conceded to be under the control of the ’Raum, and a security hold placed on all media regarding the loss.
• • •
Njangu and Garvin were detailed for special assignments by Jord’n Brooks, training recruits in weapons-handling and tactics. They were always accompanied by their escorts, and never left the Eckmuhl.
Twice, Jo Poynton asked Njangu if he wished to spend the night with her. Otherwise, there seemed to be no change in their relationship. When they were alone, Njangu asked as many questions as he dared — and Poynton seemed happy to repeat the legends of Brooks, his invulnerability, and his rapid rise to head The Movement.
Neither Yoshitaro nor Jaansma were able to break free to make contact with the Force.
• • •
A meteorite shot over Dharma Island, lighting the night sky brighter than all three moons at full and disappeared toward the unpopulated, heavily jungled island of Mullion to the west. Many Cumbrians took it as a sign of change, although no one could agree on what the change would be. The ’Raum quickly decided it was a sign from the One who created them, and their day was close at hand.
• • •
“Sir!” Now-Finf Hank Faull snapped a salute.
“Pull up a pew,” Hedley said. “I got a request this morning, for anybody in the company who’s got any experience with the ’Raum. It’ll mean transfer to II Section, a one-grade promo to dec, and maybe a chance to strike for tweg. Warmer, better-fed, and a damned sight safer’n running patrols with us. In case you didn’t notice, we aren’t exactly getting I-A flipping skinny these days, not from prisoners nor from just listening about.”
“No thanks, sir.”
“You didn’t even have to think about it?” Hedley asked.
“Nossir.”
“None of my business, but why not?”
“I’m not a windy-ear,” Faull said, a bit of anger in his voice.
“Which means you won’t spy on the people you used to be with?”
“Nossir. Not a chance, sir.”
“Spying blows goats, eh? But it’s ’kay to shoot?”
Faull didn’t answer.
“Won’t argue,” Hedley said. “Hell, if I were you, I might do the same flipping thing. No hard feelings?”
“No hard feelings, sir.”
“Then get the hell out and do something useful.”
• • •
“I won’t lie to you, sir,” Cent Angara said. “We were just damned lucky.” Caud Williams and Mil Rao scowled at the holo, an overhead shot of a crashed spaceship half-buried in jungle. “We just happened to have an EW ship airborne, slaved to a Zhukov flight, waiting for possible ground targets when that ‘meteor’ entered atmosphere. One of the techs on the Grierson scanned the meteor, found it was a starship, checked with Cumbre Control and found nothing was inbound. The Grierson Commander challenged it, and the ship commenced evasive action.
“He alerted the Zhukovs, and their flight commander … Golan Flight, one Haut Chaka … decided to treat the ship as hostile, and ordered a Shadow launch. They got a strike, and Golan Flight tracked the intruder until it crashed. Again, luck was on our side, and the ship didn’t burn, although all three of its crewmen were killed.”
“Who were they?” Mil Rao asked.
“No idea, officially, sir. Their uniforms, gear were sterile. But I went in on the site after dawn, and checked their supply cabinets. The foods, drinks, were Larix and Kura in origin — I’m familiar with their ways.”
Rao glanced at Caud Williams. His face was flushed with anger, although he forced calm into his voice. “And the hold was full of these?” He indicated the open case. It was plas, padded on the inside, and held five very simply designed projectile rifles.
“About two thousand of them, sir. And ammunition. No manufacturer’s stamp or serial number on any of them,” Angara said.
“Primitive,” Rao offered, picking one up and squinting through its fixed vee-sight.
“Good enough to kill Forcemen,” Williams snapped. “Where was the ship going to land?”
“We’re not sure, sir. I ordered the Grierson to scan all frequencies, and put up two more ships as backup. I picked up a faint signal about ten kilometers from Leggett on the coast, but it cut off when I ordered the EW ship to home on it.”
“Son of a spraddle-legged bitch,” Williams swore. Rao looked at him in considerable surprise — the Force commander almost never u
sed profanity. “We’ve not only got these ’Raum to worry about, but somebody who’s supposed to be on our side is obviously trying to backstab us.”
“Certainly not a total surprise, sir,” Rao said. “Not after the way Protector Redruth was so interested in ‘helping’ us a few months ago.”
“If the ’Raum win,” Angara added, “they’ll have to do business with somebody, and they hate the Musth too much to deal with them … plus they’ll probably drive the Musth off C-Cumbre, then need somebody to protect them. Redruth. And in the long run Redruth’s no doubt thinking that he can smash the ’Raum at leisure — he’s got spaceships and a lot more troops than we do — and end up with the whole system.”
“But how’d he make contact with the ’Raum? Do you have any intel on Redruth having any kind of a liaison man with them?”
“Nossir.”
“What about those men you have on the inside? Have they heard anything?”
“Sir,” Angara protested, “this isn’t a secure location.”
“For the love of Hildegard … my own base not secure … very well,” Williams grumbled. “Sorry for the slipup.” He shook his head. “Extraplanetary economics, trade routes, mineralogy … they never told me I’d need any of this back on Centrum, when I was an aspirant.”
“Nor me, sir,” Rao said. Angara kept silent.
“Did you destroy the rest of these weapons?”
“Nossir,” Angara said. “Had the usable ones put in one of our dumps. Just in case.”
“Probably a wise move,” Williams said. “You can never be too well armed or fit. Come on, Mil. We’re going to make PlanGov Haemer most unhappy … and see about modifying a star-ship or two and putting them out on the fringes of the system. As if we didn’t already have enough enemies.”
• • •
Njangu encountered Jord’n Brooks that afternoon. The man gave him a hard look and stamped past, into Poynton’s office. If I were insecure, which of course I’m not, Njangu thought, I’d think that maybe the Big Man is suspicious of me. But there’s no reason for that. None at all. Something all his very own must’ve gone wrong. Nevertheless, he covered the bug in his and Garvin’s apartment and spent two or three hours diligently working.
