by Victor Milán
"It's our dream come true," the wide-foreheaded man added. She glared at him.
"Of course it is," Blaylock said, thinking these two had absolutely nothing to do with it. By his reckoning, if their brains were gumball machines, by now they'd be down to one or two gumballs each. Three max.
He looked at the Dracs. Each of the two—there were a lot of people crowded around this stretch of gallery, but only two counted—was watching him with his own brand of expectation. Kusunoki had his big arms crossed across his big chest, his weight cantilevered back and a sneer on his face, as if expecting Blaylock to do something FedCom and decadent. The little old guy was leaning forward almost on the balls of his spat-clad feet, weight resting on the polished brass head of his cane.
"And you three have definitely come to the right place," he said, reaching out to place a comradely hand on Murnice's shoulder. Quinn scowled, then plastered it over with a hail-fellow smile.
Howard Blaylock caught Kusunoki's eye and nodded, barely perceptibly. The General's heavily epicanthic-folded eyes widened, and he barked Japanese. He could be pretty quick on the uptake, where it concerned a matter close to his heart.
"What I want you to do," Blaylock said to the Union Party trio as a squad of soldiers appeared and came jogging toward them, rifles at port arms, "is go with these friends of mine. They'll take you where you can get started understanding exactly what your role is going to be on our brave, new Towne. How about that?"
"A military escort," Professor Schulman said approvingly. "Didn't I always say it? These Draconians know how to do a thing up brown. I've never had a military escort before."
He turned to the two Drac dignitaries. "Bekashita, Kusunoki-sama. Well done!" He bowed.
Gravely, Kusunoki and Kimura bowed back.
As the three were led away by their "military escort," Blaylock sighed and shook his head. "Idiots." He consulted an expensive finger watch. "Well, gentlemen, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with some cameras. It's getting near time for my press conference."
He turned to go. "What about the militias?" Kusunoki said.
Blaylock pivoted back. "What about them? They surrendered, you confirmed Hauptmann-General Marrou in command, Just the way we worked it out in advance. O.K., so a few of them did a bunk with the money-soldiers, but that's no big squeak."
"No. The others, the so-called 'Popular Militia,' for one. We have word that they are gathering their forces in the mountains and that the money-troopers are headed that way. The time has come to crush them."
Blaylock stuck out his long jaw and shook his head. "Sorry, my friend, no can do. The time just isn't ripe."
Kusunoki's dark eyes flashed. He cocked back a hand as if to smash Blaylock to the cement floor.
Blaylock felt his blood chill. Could he have overplayed his hand? That thought hit him harder than the danger, actually nauseated him. He liked to believe himself the Perfect Spiritual Master of brinksmanship. What he didn't like was facing the necessary corollary: the possibility that he might go skating over the brink.
Kimura thrust himself forward. "Wait! Does not Musashi counsel us, 'Be certain of your target before you strike?'"
Then he turned his head slightly so that his right eye was hidden from Kusunoki but visible to Blaylock. The eye winked. Blaylock caught the impression that Musashi may or may not have said any such thing, but that Blaylock should play along if he wanted to keep all his parts. Blaylock was O.K. with that.
Blaylock held his hands out bowed. "I'm sorry, General. Please forgive me, but perhaps we're not used to the way you do business around here. Your humble servant, here, merely wanted to stop you from doing something you might regret later. Just doing my duty. That's a Draconian thing, right?"
Scowling thunderously, Kusunoki crossed his arms. "What do you mean?"
"Merely that you don't want to cross the militias just yet. There's something that has to happen first. Something that'll save you a whole lot of trouble."
"And what might that be?"
Blaylock held up his hands. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you. Wait, now, don't go flying off! Remember what old Musashi said. Please try to trust me on this. You know, trust? You made me Planetary Chairman, so you're going to have to trust me. If you don't trust me—"
Blaylock tapped himself on the neck with the inside of his forefinger. "You don't trust me, just cut my head off right now, right here."
The old man looked as if he were about to have a stroke. Blaylock knew he was running the edge again.
To his exhilaration Kusunoki looked doubtful, then nodded.
"Very well," the Tai-sho said. "I shall trust you. This time."
Blaylock gave him a big smile. "You won't be sorry, Tai-sho Kusunoki. And now, I really have to get motivating. It's time to turn up the heat on our offworld friends, just the way we discussed."
"Are you sure you don't want to stay to see your friends off?" Kimura asked. Blaylock just waved at him, stilting away with long-legged strides.
* * *
"—And so I come before you to say that you have done your jobs. You've done all that could humanly be expected of you. Now, for humanity's sake—for your sakes, for the sake of the people of Towne—I beg you, accept my offer. Surrender, and you will be transported to Outreach, with full military honors." Which, Janice Marrou had coached him, meant they'd be allowed to keep their weapons and equipment.
"Refuse—" He shook his head. "A great many people of Towne feel your actions have caused them grievous hurt, and while the justice of our Draconian friends is fair, it's also inclined to be stern. If you do not accept my sincere offer, I am, in all honesty, unsure how long I can answer for the well-being of those of your people who remain in our custody.
"The choice is yours, Colonel Camacho, men and women of the Seventeenth Recon Regiment. Your fate rests entirely in your hands."
The man set his jaw and looked the holocam squarely in the eye. The image faded from the tank atop the black marble pedestal.
Howard Devore Blaylock smiled at his dissolving image and nodded. "Outstanding," he said. He had always been his own best audience.
He had taped the announcement, of course. He worked very well live. But he clearly perceived its downside potential, and he understood that even if you could do a thing well, it didn't mean you had to do it.
The sound of two hands clapping turned him around. His guest stood behind him with a sardonic expression on her face. She looked stunning in a white evening gown whose top consisted of two broad strips crossed at the sternum and knotted behind the neck. The vestiges of a pink palm print, an artifact of the process of persuading her to don the outfit, still glowed on her right cheek. Blaylock reminded himself to have a few words with Taras and Buster, his bodyguards, who stood discreetly flanking his guest from behind.
"Very impressive, Howie," Captain Kali MacDougall said. "Only problem is, Caballeros don't treat for hostages. They've already said Mass for our departed souls."
Blaylock smiled at her. Then he lashed out backhand, cracked her across the cheek and sent her flying back into the leg-thick arms of his guards.
"You bitch!" he screamed, spittle spraying her from two meters away. "Don't you ever mouth off at me like that. I had to take that outsized faggot's threatening me—me! But I don't have to take anything from you, and never forget it."
His words echo-chased each other around the large, sparsely furnished chamber. To his pleased surprise, his request that he be allowed to occupy the Palace of the Marquis had been granted Tai-sho Kusunoki preferred to stay in the Planetary Government complex downtown, which had been constructed by the inevitable Prince John Davion with barracks inside. Mr. Kimura didn't wish to let Kusunoki out of his sight for any longer than was absolutely necessary, so he had found an apartment in the center as well.
For the moment, Blaylock had appropriated a large office space for his quarters. Jt had originally been partitioned for clerical staff; the partitions had been removed, leaving only a scat
ter of structural pillars of white marble. He'd had a gel bed placed here, a desk with comp and communicator set over there. Otherwise he'd touched it up with a few objets that took his fancy: holotapestries along the walls, a transparent column 200 centimeters thick, in which discreet bodies of colored liquids strove against one another, intermingled and separated again, like living entities trying to get out; a giant spider's web of mirror-mylar strips, strung between two pillars; a tangle of sharp-angled, brightly colored synthetic pipes tipped to an impossible angle; the black marble pedestal for the holotank.
It was beginning, he thought, to look like him.
Kali MacDougall got her feet beneath her, pulled, away from the bodyguards. "You know," she said, looking straight at Blaylock, "it's too bad I'm not likely to be around when the 'lleros do catch up with you—and they will. You ever hear of the Apaches? Used to have quite a reputation back on Terra for what they did to their enemies when they got hold of 'em. We have Apaches in the Seventeenth, too. They're good people—unless you go out of your way to torque 'em off."
Blaylock returned her gaze. "You're right," he said levelly. "You aren't likely to be around for it."
She reached up, touched her lip, glanced down at the blood on her fingertips. "You sure know how to treat a lady," she said.
He smiled. He put a lot of teeth into it. "As the saying goes," he said, "you ain't seen nothin' yet. But you're about to."
Taras and Buster seized her arms with hands like the claws of a Cyclops.
19
Gunderland Mountains
Nemedia Province, Towne
Draconis March, Federated Commonwealth
7 February 3058
With a clomping of boots on hardwood planking, a big man with a big belly stepped into the doorway of the hunting lodge to stand silhouetted against the milky morning light outside. "I'm looking for Lieutenant Suthorn," he said in a deep voice.
The lodge's main hall was a sunken pit with a huge wooden table in the middle and a stone fireplace suitable for roasting a bull slo-mo whole at the far end from the door. A suitably huge fire was lit and roaring. Cassie half-sat with her rump on the square railing that separated the foyer from the drop-off. At either end of the rail, short flight of steps led down into the pit. "That's me," she said.
The man was looking left and right, hawk-nosed, heavy-jawed features resolving out of the glare. He had an iron-gray flat-top, a brown mustache, and blue eyes that were, for the moment, skeptically narrowed. "You're not what I was expecting."
She glanced around over both shoulders. The pit was filling with representatives of the Popular Militia and various citizen's-protective groups. Most but not all were male. They were buzzing with what had been happening on Towne since Jeffrey Kusunoki and the Black Dragons had arrived in force.
"I could glue on a fake beard if that'd make you feel better," she said, on edge for any number of reasons. "Or would strapping a pillow on under the coat do it for you?"
The man laughed, held up his hands. "No need to run up my pants-leg and dig your claws in," he said. "I was just surprised, that's all. I'm Ganz Harter, Gunderland Ranchers' Protective Association."
They shook hands. "You're a scout with the Seventeenth, aren't you?" Cassie nodded. "Figures. You got the scout attitude. Don't I know it? Used to be a 'Mech jock myself once upon a time. I was with the Third Lyran Guard on Vega back in 'twenty-eight, when that sly Snake Teddy Kurita deked Pat Finnan all the way off-planet. So, you're going to be riding herd on this outfit?"
"I'll be acting as liaison."
Harter laughed again. "Save it for those who'll buy it," he said. He turned away to accept a crushing bear-hug from a lumberjack straight from the forested slopes of the Gunderlands.
The lodge was a somewhat haphazard collection of rooms gathered together under a pitched roof of dark-gray slates. Inside as well as out, it appeared to have been built from peeled logs. In fact, so far as Colonel Carlos Camacho could tell, it really was made of logs, not cleverly masked ferrocrete. In spite of this it was well sealed against the weather, quite cozy in the little library where the Colonel and his chief intelligence officer sat watching the resistance leaders gather.
"Carlitos," Baird said gently, "please, listen to me. You should at least consider the Planetary Chairman's offer."
Without taking his eyes from the blurry black-and-white flatscreen monitor, the Colonel frowned. "I know he played us all for fools," Baird said. "But we can't let ego get in the way on this."
Don Carlos looked over at his old friend. He smiled, half-sad, half-grim. "Do you think it's my pride that deafens me?" But his voice was without heat.
"No. No, I don't, and I spoke out of turn. I'm sorry. But the fact remains—"
"The fact remains that we seem fated to disagree on just about everything about this assignment, my friend."
Don Carlos held up a hand to forestall a fresh spate of verbiage. "First, we do not negotiate for hostages. That isn't my only reason, but it's sufficient."
"Listen, Carlos, tradition is a wonderful thing. But there're a lot more lives at stake here than just the hostages'. It's all our lives. The lives of a lot of innocent people who are liable to get ground up because we can't let go of tradition."
"It's not a question of tradition, but of practicality. If we make an exception this time, no matter the circumstances, then next time—and surely there will be a next time, and a time after that—it will become easier to justify treating with hostage-takers. And in time the word will get out that we can be pressured through our children and noncombatants. And that in turn will make targets of them all." He shook his head. "No matter whom we must mourn, we cannot bend."
Baird squeezed his eyes shut. "I pray to God those words don't come back to haunt you," he said hollowly.
"It is in the Virgin's hands," agreed Don Carlos. "Putting aside the hostages, though, we have a job. We took Chandrasekhar Kurita's coin. I gave him my hand and my word. We are bound."
"The job ended the minute we got our posteriors kicked out of Port Howie," Baird said. "Nobody, not even a Drac, can hold us to a contract to fight on hopelessly for a cause that's long lost."
Don Carlos looked at him a long moment. "My word is not given contingent on whether it is convenient for me to keep it or not, Gordon," he said softly.
After a pregnant moment he smiled. "Besides, I'm not convinced the cause is lost."
Baird shook his head. "We still aren't certain of Kusunoki's strength on-planet," he said, "but it's plenty. More than two or even three regiments, plus the Guards, and now the Planetary Navy too. We're one regiment, cut off from supply, not to mention transport out of here. We're not getting any support, either. Not from Teddy Kurita and not from Victor Davion. Neither one dares lift a finger to help us now. Their alliance is a fragile thing, and they don't want to risk it For allies, we've got what's left of the Fusiliers, that aborigine guy from the Davion wet navy—"
Several days after the surprise invasion, Kommandant Trevor Waites, chipper and cheerful as always, had found the Caballeros' mountain camp, suddenly appearing in the circle of light cast by a bonfire built between the feet of Outlaw Leyva's Phoenix Hawk to volunteer his services. The commander of Towne's Planetary Navy had decided to honor Kusunoki's takeover of the planet. That stuck in Waites's craw, but as he said, it was too far to swim back to New Kingston. "—and them." Baird waved a hand at the monitor. The Colonel had accompanied Cassie here to Bear Creek, but he would wait out of sight and speak to the Popular Militia directly, rather than via speech synthesizer, only if the meeting went well. The lodge's design facilitated that plan. Preliminary contacts with the Militia had begun before the Black Dragons arrived so suddenly, but now things had gotten serious.
That Cassie was so indecisive was highly irregular; usually, if she had anything at all to say, she was quite firm in saying it. Her silence might signify she was losing her nerve or her touch, but Don Carlos doubted that. Which meant she sensed danger in the setup. For ye
ars the regiment's survival had depended largely upon her well-honed danger sense. Don Carlos took it seriously.
Baird hadn't wanted him to come at all. Of course. But while the Colonel understood the delegation of authority, he had no stomach for always sitting back in safety and allowing others to take risks. If Cassie thought his presence might be useful, present he would be. The Caballeros were going to need allies, and the Militia was an obvious one.
Onscreen Cassie herself was padding along the catwalk that ran around the dining pit, peering out the windows. "And her," Don Carlos said. "Don't overlook our little Señorita muy bonita. She's a powerful asset."
Baird rolled his eyes.
"A planet is a very large place," the Colonel told him. "And even though Towne is not so very populous a world, a dozen regiments or more could get lost among its people. We learned these things the hard way, trying to build a coalition. Let these culebras learn an even harder way, as they try to conquer."
"The Combine has a lot of experience at conquest."
Don Carlos showed his intelligence office the smile of a man who was much younger and not altogether nice. "And we of the Trinity have long experience at thwarting would-be conquerors. How long did we stand off the Mariks and their misleadingly named Free Worlds League, amigo?"
The Colonel sat back into the metathere-hide covered armchair. "We have suffered a setback. But hasn't it long been said, when you think you've whipped Southwesterners, your troubles have only just begun?"
Baird sighed. "I guess you're right, Colonel," he said. "We'll just have to agree to disagree."
* * *
The room was filling up; there had to be three dozen leading resistance figures already jostling each other for seats around the table or along the catwalk rail. Which piled more wood on the fires of uneasiness Cassie had been trying so hard to bank. Having so many people know about the meet was a horrendous security risk. To a person with the scout mindset—Ganz Harter had been dead-on right about that, swag belly or not—a second person let in on sensitive data was twice too many, and it got exponentially worse after that.
