by John Love
They can never do it, Foord kept thinking. There isn’t time. They can’t turn the lowlands into an undefended civilian area!
They could, and they were; not completely, but perhaps just enough.
Foord opened his wristcom, told it to seek the local broadcasts, and listened.
The broadcasts talked of hotels and commercial buildings in the Bowl being requisitioned. Of camps erected on unused land between lowland cities. Of the mobilisation of hospitals and social services and charities to take the sudden—but, as they described it, temporary—influx of people. Of special comm links to enable those who had relatives in the lowlands to contact them and arrange accommodation (the preferred option). Of detailed arrangements for farms to leave one or two people behind to tend crops and animals.
The broadcasts used as much of the truth as humanly possible, but no more than necessary. They said—it was common knowledge anyway—that She may be coming to Horus, and that people in outlying areas were being moved temporarily to the lowland cities where they could be better protected. It was, they repeated, only temporary, until the Charles Manson lifted off from Blentport to engage Her.
They didn’t simply have one official broadcast repeating this message. They got existing presenters to insert it in existing programmes, not merely reading a prepared text but speaking around a summary they’d been given, so they could preserve some spontaneity. Even so, Foord heard similar phrases being repeated by different voices. The most common was We Have To GET You, To Where We Can PROTECT You. Once or twice, though, he actually heard the phrase Drawing The Wagons Into A Circle. He suspected the authorities hadn’t fed them that; their plan might be desperate, but they weren’t stupid.
They mentioned that large military detachments were being deployed to the highlands to prevent looting of evacuated properties. They did not mention that they were also moving defence emplacements to the highlands, or creating the impression (hasty and partial, but maybe just enough) that the lowland cities were undefended. Such an impression could not be other than hasty and partial. They could never move all the military out of the lowlands, even if they wanted to. What they wanted was to move the most visible garrisons. The fixed defence emplacements around the Bowl and especially around Blentport would remain, but would be visibly undermanned.
Foord left the wristcom on speaker. It scrolled up and down all the lowland frequencies, repeating substantially the same material. Foord and Thahl listened in the landchariot as it moved, at walking pace, through Pindar. The web in the window continued to salivate.
“This is their endgame, Thahl. We haven’t even left to engage Her. She hasn’t even appeared in Horus yet. And they’re gambling that if She defeats us and comes to Sakhra, this—this, will keep Her from attacking the lowlands!”
The broadcasts continued to murmur out of Foord’s wristcom. We Have To GET You, To Where We Can PROTECT You.
“It may not work, Commander, but it’s all they’ve got. Their ships can’t fight Her because they’ve been told to stay in the defensive cordon, while we fight Her. If She comes here, it means She’s destroyed us and destroyed their cordon. They have to have an endgame, even one like this.”
Foord did not answer for a while. Then, “You of all people. I thought you’d be outraged at the military going into the highlands.”
“Commander, the way they see it, they’re decoying Her away from the cities. If She comes, those in the highlands know they won’t have a chance against Her.”
We Have To GET You, To Where We Can PROTECT You. Nothing is simple, Foord thought but did not say. He snapped his wristcom shut. Immediately it started buzzing.
“Foord.”
“Cyr, Commander. I’ve just left Director Swann’s offices.”
“And is he still demanding we hand over our people?”
“No, Commander.” She laughed, rather unpleasantly. “He almost disappointed me. Before I could invoke our priority he invoked it for me. Keep them, he said, and just go. He’s desperate to get us off Sakhra.”
“Good. Should I know who did what to who or will it keep?”
“You can guess most of it, Commander. It does happen every time, doesn’t it?”
It was a voice-only channel, but Foord nodded; he knew that Cyr would read the quality of his silence. Outsiders were always treated, especially by regular military forces, like the carriers of a disease. Everyone knew the Department recruited most Outsider crew members from prisons, and psychiatric hospitals, and orphanages; sociopaths and psychopaths who could never work with regular forces. And when one or two of them walked into a bar, or were seen anywhere in public, the results were almost inevitable. Most were not openly aggressive, which made them even more of a provocation; they were loners or depressives who tended to sit in corners, in ones or twos or small groups. On this occasion, two were set upon by four from a Horus Fleet cruiser, also on Blentport for refit.
“Was anybody killed?”
“No, Commander. Our two went immediately back to the ship. I refused to hand them over to Swann, and now he’s given up. The other four were all injured, one of them seriously, but he won’t be permanently scarred or disabled: I checked with the hospital.”
“Alright, Cyr, thank you…No, wait, something’s happening here.”
The traffic jamming the main street of Pindar had been strangely quiet. Now, Foord could hear klaxons and sirens, and soldiers shouting at vehicles to move to one side of the road, further and further to one side until they mounted the pavement. Something huge was coming.
Foord should have realised what it was from the low throb of its engine, or the shape of the shadow it cast, but he didn’t until it was upon them: a tracked lowloader, like those in the clearing earlier, but much larger. There were others behind it. They carried more beam and scanner units, and missiles so tall they towered precariously over Pindar’s buildings, and they moved through the main street in the opposite direction to everything else: in the direction, of course, of the highlands. The lowloader was so long that as it passed the landchariot, and continued and continued to pass, it seemed that its bulk was standing still and they were moving past it. Then it passed by and the illusion ended, but as those behind it followed, each of them equally tall, there was another illusion: that of a city moving through a town.
“What’s that noise, Commander? Are you all right?”
“It’s OK, Cyr, a military convoy is passing through. Stay on, I want to speak again when it’s quieter.”
The lowloaders continued: there were seven of them, followed by groundcars, sixwheels and other vehicles. When they had gone, and their engine-noise had receded, the traffic was ushered back into the centre of the road and continued at walking pace. The sirens stopped. The abnormal quiet returned.
“Cyr.”
“Commander?”
“That convoy gave me an idea. Cyr, I intend to return to the lowlands, and to the ship, in this landchariot. Contact Swann, please. Tell him where we are, and tell him to get a military escort to clear the way for us. Invoke our priority, it seems to work.”
Cyr did not reply immediately.
“Cyr? Do you think that’s pushing him too far?”
“No, Commander.” Foord realised, from the inflexion of her voice, that she had been laughing quietly. “I think he’ll do anything….I’ll call him now. We are heaping insults on him, aren’t we?”
Foord snapped his wristcom shut, and thought, This is like the running joke in ancient movies, where one person gets repeatedly clobbered. He thought also, She never asked why I have to go by landchariot, though she probably thinks it’s self-indulgent. The fact was, he didn’t really know himself. Instinctively, it just felt fitting. He could have rationalised it by saying it was done out of respect for Thahl, but that wasn’t true. Thahl had already told him, firmly but in private, that he thought the idea was unnecessarily risky as well as a provocation to Swann.
Between Foord’s knees, and across the landchariot’s dim interior, T
hahl stayed expressionless and silent, though Foord had known him long enough to know he was amused at the indignities being piled on Swann. Sakhrans’ quiet humour was strangely at odds with their capacity for violence.
Foord looked above Thahl’s head at their driver. He had never seen anyone’s mere neck and shoulders radiate so much repressed anger. The driver had said nothing to Thahl since leaving the clearing, and nothing at all to Foord; his turned back carried far more expression than Thahl’s face.
•
When they finally got out of Pindar the road widened; traffic was heavy but faster. In both directions—toward the lowlands and highlands, the latter now entirely military vehicles—it was an unbroken stream. Cyr called back to report that Swann, although outraged that Foord should enter Blentport by landchariot, had agreed almost gratefully to the suggestion that a military escort would hasten his return and, hence, departure. They would be met, Cyr said, by a specially picked detachment who would escort them at high speed the rest of the way down.
The foothill country opened up and the landchariot clattered on, between fields of dark gold corn stubble where suddenly-empty houses stood alone as if daubed there in anger; fields of waving barley where cloud shadows raced each other across the ground; between fields of naked brown ploughed earth where flocks of white birds, or things like birds, wheeled screaming. And everywhere in the fields were swarms of giant Sakhran butterflies, iridescent violet and purple, looking for the farm animals on whose excrement they fed; they preferred it warm, so they would cluster around anal orifices. The farmers called them Buggerflies.
The sky was still full of freighters going to and from Blentport. As two passed overhead, much too low and much too fast—they were huge ships, and their passing seemed to go on and on, like that of the lowloaders—they encountered their escort. Swann had wasted no time.
Two sleek, low-slung military groundcars, with sirens blaring and lights flashing, came up behind them from the direction of the highlands, overtook them and waved them down. The landchariot juddered to a halt, the chimaeras’ hooves scuttering and kicking up stones and mud. Three soldiers got out of each car. They were from heavy-gravity planets, each one of them bigger than Foord, and they wore dark blue Special Forces uniforms.
“Commander Foord and Officer Thahl?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Kudrow. Major Miles Kudrow.” He was not unlike Foord, even down to the thick dark hair and beard; but younger and larger. The five standing behind him were equally large, and looked impressive even to Foord. “I’ve been ordered by Director Swann to escort you back to your ship.”
“Thank you, Major. We didn’t expect you quite so soon.”
Kudrow nodded, politely. “Commander, my orders were to escort you in this landchariot.”
“That’s correct.”
“Can I suggest you transfer to the cars? We’d make better time.”
“Thank you, Major, but I particularly want to complete the journey by landchariot.”
“Of course, Commander. We’ll get you there as quickly as we can. One car in front, one behind, sirens and lights. We’ve already called ahead so a lane will be cleared when we hit the main highway.”
“Thank you, Major.”
Kudrow opened his wristcom and spoke into it. His wristcom, and Foord’s, buzzed in unison. “Our numbers are stored, Commander. Please call me if we’re going too fast, or too slow. See you in Blentport.”
They moved out into the road, one car in front and one behind, the sirens and flashing lights clearing the way. Generally the traffic moved aside in good time, leaving them free to rush past in the left-hand lane; vehicles which didn’t move quickly enough were made to, diplomatically but efficiently. Kudrow seemed to have got the landchariot’s speed exactly right, and kept it thoughtfully constant. They were making good time, having neither to slow down or to rush beyond the chimaeras’ capacity.
The road was wide, still partly stones and mud, but starting to show patches of proper surfacing. The area was still predominantly agricultural, although crops and livestock had given way to commercial-scale market gardening: huge fields growing the prized Sakhran black tulips and blue roses. It was a more prosperous area: they passed through a couple of market towns and saw several farmhouses, all notably larger and better-kept than Pindar. The towns had fatter names, too: Framsden, Cromer, Meddon.
After twenty minutes, Foord’s wristcom buzzed.
“Kudrow, Commander. We’ll be taking a left turn in half a mile.”
“Trouble?”
“No, Commander. I’ve called ahead and there’s a detour we can take to reach the main highway: a farm road which cuts off a few miles. My people are keeping it open for us.”
It came up in a couple of minutes, a small turnoff guarded by a sixwheel. Kudrow’s car, in front of them, signalled and turned smoothly, flashing its lights at the sixwheel as it did so. The landchariot, and the second car behind, followed.
But it wasn’t a road, or even a track. It was just a clearing. Kudrow’s car skidded round, throwing up stones and mud and turning in almost its own length to face them; and with impressive speed and precision, and before the car stopped moving, Kudrow and his two passengers jumped out and were at Foord’s side of the landchariot, guns levelled. Foord could even read the name-tags of the other two: Lyle and Astin. The guns were pointed unwaveringly in his face—directly at him, with such geometric precision that their muzzles appeared to him as perfect black circles. Not even ovals, but circles.
“Get out, please. Both of you.”
For most of the morning Foord had seen Thahl gazing impassively from the seat opposite, but now the seat was empty, the landchariot’s other door hanging open—when did that happen? Foord had neither seen nor heard him move—and as Foord stepped out he saw the second car, which had stopped behind them, and waved desperately to the three inside it, who wouldn’t meet his gaze.
Time fractured. Foord glimpsed the results of what Thahl did before he saw him do it. Events should have been sequential, but Thahl’s speed broke them into pieces and when Foord tried to put them back together, they no longer followed each other properly. He seemed to remember them before they happened.
The guns were pointed unwaveringly in his face. Kudrow was explaining that they could not allow an Outsider to compromise Sakhra’s defences, and would not rely on an Outsider to defend them against Her, that was unthinkable, and the only way to stop it was this.
Foord looked at the three in the second car, and concluded they’d washed their hands of it. He couldn’t remember if he concluded that before or after Kudrow spoke.
The guns pointed unwaveringly in his face were now on the ground, because Thahl had broken the forearms of Lyle and Astin. Thahl had not used his poison, because they were still alive where they fell, and were screaming. Their screams drowned the sound of Kudrow’s voice, explaining why they had to kill Foord. No, that came earlier. The voice drowned by the screams was Thahl’s. He was saying to Kudrow, Please don’t, You know you don’t have a chance, Don’t make me do this, Just walk away. Just leave the gun.
Kudrow reached for his sidearm. No, Thahl said, Please don’t, his pleading tone ridiculously at odds with what he had done. Thahl snatched Kudrow’s pistol, infinitely quicker than its owner, and tossed it away. Foord noticed that Kudrow’s severed hand was still clutching the grip, and Kudrow was screaming, so maybe it was his screaming now which was drowning out his voice then.
It should all have been sequential—blurringly fast, but still sequential —except that Thahl’s speed splintered it. Foord had seen Thahl in combat before, but not like this. This was a single glimpse, on-off, of things that were impossible; as if Thahl had opened his private jewel-box of impossibilities, flourished it in front of Foord’s face, and snapped it shut.
Time slowed, and the pieces rearranged themselves. Thahl had kicked the guns away from the three on the ground. Kudrow was still screaming. The others were unconscious. Then Kudrow fe
ll silent. Foord tasted brine along the sides of his tongue, the taste that comes before vomiting: a reaction not to the violence, but to its strangeness.
And one last detail: their driver had said and done nothing while it happened. He was sitting where he had been all along, flicking the chimaera with his reins and waiting for the journey to resume.
Finally, when he had recovered, Foord strode over to the second car. Thahl followed him at a distance. The three inside hadn’t had time, from when it started to when it finished, even to open the door.
Somehow, Foord correctly picked out the senior one.
“Did Director Swann know anything of this?”
“No, Commander.”
“And you, you all washed your hands of it.”
“Yes. We told Major Kudrow we wanted no part of it. He said, Look the other way.”
“Your name?”
“Lieutenant Traore, Commander.”
Foord turned to Thahl, and their eyes met. Foord shook his head slightly, then turned back to face those in the car. He could see them all let out a breath; they saw what passed between him and Thahl, and were praying they’d read it correctly.
“Alright. Lieutenant, please call Director Swann, now, and tell him what happened here. And tell him we’re going into Blentport in this landchariot, and he’s to give authority for the roads to be cleared for us. We want to see his fliers and VSTOLs and groundcars ahead of us all the way to Blentport, clearing a path. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“As soon as you’ve arranged that, we’ll leave here. You and your colleagues are to stay put. And please arrange medical help.”
He stood for a while listening to them make the call, then turned to Thahl.
“How did you know they…”
