“Things went well at first. We left our … scoutboat in orbit about six hundred thousand miles out. Any closer and if you had good telescopes—as it turns out you do—you would spot the thing immediately. We landed in the outback of Sfierranyi Province. I won’t go into the gruesome details, but I botched things and Profirio caught on to me. We had quite a fight out there in the hills last spring. I’m a little surprised the pyrotechnics were not observed—but a typhoon was moving inland at the time and I guess everybody was too busy to notice. Our battle destroyed almost all the equipment we had brought down for our survey.
“Our scoutboat is still out there, and the man who communicates with it will be victorious. I have one instrument left—it’s similar to your signalers. But to use it, I must know the exact position of the boat. I need a large telescope to accomplish that. We’ve continued the struggle with local resources.
“We both needed armies. We are persuasive individual—but the natives need some excuse to provoke them to war. Profirio chose to revolt against your central government. I did the logical thing and led the local militia on a campaign against the Rebels. It is blind luck that it worked out this way; that your forces and mine met as allies. But I apologize for using your army this afternoon to trick Profirio’s art’ry into revealing itself.
“Unless you people are hiding something, there are only two large observatories in this part of the world. That’s why we had the battle at Kotta-svo-Picchiu. Profirio got there first and was hoping to hold out until dark. I had to destroy the scope to keep him from using it. With that gone, we are forced to go after the High Eye.”
“Excuse me,” spoke Svir, “but why did you bother with armies? On a good skoat you could have made it to O’rmouth in just a few days. Then you could have applied your powers of persuasion directly to the astronomers.”
Tatja answered that one. “Jolle and Profirio view armies as you might a shirt of armor. If one of them took off alone, the other could grab an army and use it to destroy a single unarmed opponent. It’s a question of balancing the speed with the risk.”
“That’s right,” said Jolle. “Eventually, Profirio may be reduced to personal action, but it will be a sign of desperation. He’ll have to persuade the Doomsdaymen to cooperate with him rather than us, and his identity will be clearly …” Jolle took a deep breath, interrupting his own rushing flow of speech. “One of us will control the High Eye—and the future of this planet will be determined.”
EIGHTEEN
The call to dismount brought Svir back to the present. It was late morning, and they had been on the road five hours. It was time to water the skoats. The place was right, too: Here the road swung close to the Picchiu River. There was a three-hundred-yard stretch where it was easy to bring the animals down to the water.
He and Cor scrambled off their skoats and waited for further directions. Water call was conducted with more precision and ceremony than most supply functions. He had read somewhere that the efficiency of a mounted command could be measured by observing water call. He had to admit that watering a battle group was not simple; they could be here all day if things got out of hand.
Finally it came time for them to go to the river. The art‘ry skoats were released from their gun carriages, and animals and men moved over the rocky ground to the river. Behind them, gun crews loaded their weapons and received fire control directions. Then came the concussive crump, crumpcrump as the battery lofted six-inch shells into the sky. Ten miles downstream, those shells would tear wide the road they had so recently traversed; the enemy’s artillery would not be allowed to catch up. Too bad about the road. The expeditionary force had already stopped five caravans bound for the coast—caravans carrying hundreds of ounces of copper and iron from O’rmouth. Such interference with Doomsday commerce was not going to win the crown any friends, but Tatja intended to stay ahead of the news of her vandalism.
The Picchiu River was one hundred feet wide here. The water foamed and showered as it moved through a rapids; only a canoe could have navigated the torrent. Quartermasters had assembled several hundred watering troughs, since water directly from the river was much too cold for the animals. The skoats had to be urged to the troughs, but when they began drinking, it was with characteristic greediness. Svir examined the animals critically. It was amazing how much they had changed. They were no longer sleek and furry. Now their bodies were covered with superficial cuts and gashes. Though they were fed four times a day, tendons and bones showed clearly through their skin. He commented on this to Cor.
“Yes, I know,” she responded in a subdued voice. “On the fastboats I thought the collars seemed small for the animals. Now I understand. This march burns the flesh from them. Most of the collars are now too big for the creatures. We lost thirty of them in the artillery attack, but three times that many have died from exhaustion. See—” She pointed at a quartermaster veterinarian. The fellow walked slowly down the rank of skoats, lifting their blankets and painting antiseptic on the raw sores and cuts he found. The Loyalists’ animals were in much poorer shape than the crown’s skoats—they had been in the campaign five times as long. Even with all the quartermaster’s care, this was still killing work. By the time he reached the end of the watering line, the vet had marked three skoats to be dropped from the train. Those animals were in no shape to continue with the expedition, even as unburdened reserve. “For no fault of their own and for no gain of their own, they lose their lives.”
For the first time, Svir felt affection for the poor animal that had carried him so far.
This was a rest stop for the humans, too. Behind the skoats, the troops of the battle group lay or sat on the ground. Most of the Provincial Loyalists lay motionless. They had been part-time militiamen, yet they had been on this campaign forty days. Their uniforms were tattered. Their boots were held together with ragged cloth bands. In some cases, blood and pus discolored the cloths. The Crown’s Men had better equipment and were fresh—besides, they were trained for this sort of thing. They kept apart from their unprofessional counterparts. But even among the professionals, there was evidence of strain. There was little of the good-natured talk of earlier rest stops.
The hospital wagon arrived with the last of the battle group. Since they were moving through wild lands, the Crown’s Men were forced to carry their casualties with them, at least so long as those casualties weren’t too numerous. At present there were probably a hundred wounded—and about twelve in this battle group. The wagon had its cloth sides rolled up so that the occupants were exposed to the open air. Svir found it difficult to look away from that wagon. There was nothing repulsive about the interior, no gore. Everything looked clean and comfortable. Some of the patients were even sitting up, and these looked better than most of the “ready” troops. But others in the wagon lay quite still, with only their heads exposed. They might have been corpses except for the trouble the crown was taking to bring them along.
Two medics moved to the back of the wagon and drew one of those long white forms off the platform. They carried it to the far side of the wagon. A colonel and three enlisted men followed the medics into the brush. The enlisted men carried entrenching tools. Svir recalled that a field grade officer was required to participate in the burial of all combat victims.
Cor made a strange laugh. “I used to like stories of fate and the gods. It made Rey so mad. ‘We are no one’s doormat!’ he would say at me so fierce … . Strange, that fantasies should be the greater truth. They use us up like the skoats.” She looked at Svir levelly. “It is wrong.”
“Don’t think fuzzy, Cor.” The voice came from behind them. Svir felt Cor start with surprise. They turned and saw Tatja. Instead of her usual camouflage uniform, she wore a feminine outfit which wouldn’t have been out of place in Bayfast—but which here seemed as appropriate as a jester at an execution. The oppression that clouded everyone’s mind did not touch her. Never before had she seemed quite so callous to the problems of the people she used.
“You seem to think that people would live in peace if left to themselves. That’s rarely true. If you study history you’ll find that most wars occur because the people see some personal advantage in victory. I imagine that most Sfierranyii figure their support of the crown will get them Picehiul lands after the war. Many of these militiamen thought they would win booty in this adventure—though I doubt they feel that way now.”
“Hell, Ta—” The exclamation came out a shout. He lowered his voice and continued with quiet intensity, “So what? We’re not talking about the general case. If it weren’t for your kind, we would have peace.”
Tatja smiled. “It’s true that Jolle and I are manipulating everyone. But don’t forget the reason. Our men and the militia believe they die for a cause that we know is trivial, but in the final analysis, this war is more important and more just than any in the history of this planet. If we fail, the future will be darker than any war could make it.” She had him there. The sacrifices seemed necessary—even if the people who made them were ignorant of the ultimate justification. But he wondered if this argument would appeal if he were one of those who was going to get cut to pieces.
The last skoats were being led from the troughs. Some squads were already being assembled. The art’ry fire had stopped. Soon the next battle group would arrive. No one came near Cor and Svir and Tatja,. Unless the Queen wished otherwise, she had privacy—even when she walked in the open.
Cor spoke. “But Marget, how do you know that you aren’t also being used?”
“What?” Tatja seemed nonplussed, but Svir had the feeling his wife had uncovered a bombshell.
“Why should we believe the story of the monster and the gendarme? Grant the story, how do we know that Jolle, rather than Profirio, is the gendarme?” The bombshell detonated with soundless violence. “Wouldn’t the criminal tell us the same story as the one who tries to save us?”
Tatja shrugged. “I suppose so. But there is no way we can test the story except by sitting tight and watching things develop. Besides—” and now she was smiling again “—I trust my judgment and intuition much more than I trust yours.” She looked around, evidently dismissing the problem. “You’d better get your skoats. This battle group is moving out and I want you to stay with it.” She turned and walked toward the command wagon of the next battle group, which was just creaking into the clearing. In her short skirt and lacy blouse, she might have been at a picnic instead of a war.
What had happened to Tatja? For the first time in four years, they didn’t have a friend who had all the angles figured, who could solve virtually any problem. He looked at Cor, and saw the same thought on her face. They had a life-and-death problem—and if they didn’t solve it, no superior being was going to bail them out. There was a monster loose; somehow they must discover who it was.
NINETEEN
The sun was halfway to the horizon when they made their move. Svir sat up and pushed aside the insect netting which hung over their sleeping cots. The loud, unwavering hum of a three-year cicada was an overpowering soporific. The generals had finally recognized the fact that people need some sleep in the day (or perhaps it was simply that they could move as easily along the Riverside Road by night as by day, so it was possible to permit a reasonable sleep schedule).
No human sounds could be heard: apparently the sentries were in static positions. But all around them were the insect and bat sounds, and the river burbled in the near distance. Pink flowers crowded between the leaf needles of the looproot about them, and the scent was nearly overpowering in such concentration. Through gaps in the branches he could see the walls of the river gorge rise thousands of feet overhead. They had nearly reached the mouth of the glacier. O’rmouth was hidden beyond the northern wall, above the glacier. The gorge was so deep that they couldn’t see He’gate’s summit—their ultimate goal. Near the top of the gorge Svir saw a broadwing daybat soaring lazily back and forth across the updrafts as it scanned the ground with its sharp eyes.
Cor sat up. “Ready?” he whispered. She nodded. “Now remember how we’re going to play this. I think we’ll be safe even if we’re discovered. The key is to have Tatja nearby, so Jolle can’t kill us without her knowing it. You’re going to go to her tent while I take Ancho to Jolle’s wagon. I’ve got a noise bomb. If you hear it, bring Tatja as fast as you can—I may still be in one piece.” This recapitulation was needless, but it put off action for a few more seconds.
She squeezed his arm. “Let’s … let’s have me go to Jolle’s wagon instead. After all, I can now handle Ancho better than you.”
He blushed, shame and courage mixed. “No,” he finally said. “If we need Tatja, you can talk to her better than I. C’mon, Love.” They stood beside their cots and looked about. Svir felt a little faint. They were twelve thousand feet above sea level, and he was learning firsthand the symptoms of hypoxia. The only good thing about the altitude was that even in the middle of the afternoon it was not particularly hot.
As they walked through the looproot grove, Ancho scrambled back and forth across Svir’s shoulders. The little animal was normally most active at this time of day, and for once his large friends weren’t trying to make him keep still so they could sleep.
During the day, security was less strict than at night. Unless they tried to leave the bivouac, they would probably not even be challenged. They parted company near the center of camp. Cor took the path that led to Tatja’s tent, and Svir walked toward the provincial headquarters area. Here the thick arches of the looproot were more closely set. In places the branches and needle leaves reduced the sunlight to a gray-green twilight. The underbrush was shaded out. Tents and cots were scattered at random through darker portions of the grove. The scene was quite different from the display bivouacs he had seen back in Crownesse, where tents and vehicles were set in pretty rectangular formations that looked so neat and military.
The moment he left Cor, he began working on Ancho. It seemed that as the years went by the animal became better and better at responding to the tactile instructions of his masters, and Svir was pretty confident that Ancho would not fail him now. He tried not to think what happened the last time he invaded a godling’s privacy. This was different: get some information and split. With luck, Tatja would protect them later.
The first sentry he passed came to attention and saluted. Good. The sentry probably identified him as Jolle. Fifteen feet ahead, the grove thinned and sunlight flooded a mossy clearing. Parked at the edge of the clearing was the camouflaged hulk of Jolle’s wagon. The wagon’s tent had been pulled out and assembled. If Jolle were in the tent, would it rupture the sentries’ credulity when another Jolle appeared outside the tent? He would know in a moment,.
He walked briskly toward the wagon’s rear entrance. The guards around the wagon saluted. No one attempted to stop him. He had been identified as Jolle again. He walked purposefirlly to the little doorway. The entrance had a standard lever-latch. He pulled at the latch. It didn’t budge. He pulled again, harder. He found himself sweating as he wondered what the sentries thought of his inability to enter “his own” wagon. Perhaps one of the guards had a key, but he didn’t dare ask. Besides, he noticed on closer inspection that no lock mechanism was visible. He had no chance of getting in here.
He leaned against the side of the wagon and pretended to admire the flowers drooping from the branches that sheltered the wagon from snoopers further up the gorge. There was only one other place he could try; the tent entrance. Jolle probably wasn’t there; but if he were, he might react so abruptly that Svir would’t be able to set off the noise bomb.
Well, he had come this far; it seemed ridiculous to back out now. He reflected with some irritation that in general his courage derived from the fear that he might be taken for a coward. He walked to the tent at the other end of the wagon. The vents were open, but it was too dark for him to see anything inside. The guard at the entrance saluted, addresse
d him as Jolle.
He took a deep breath and decided to commit himself, “I’m going to be in and out all afternoon. I don’t wish to be disturbed.” That might help take care of inconsistencies if the sentry later saw Jolle outside the tent.
“Very good, sir,” the woman replied.
Svir pulled back the entrance curtain and stepped into the dimness,. All was quiet, It was warm, but not hot. There was even a faint breeze. Sunlight lay on the carpeted floor, and after a few seconds he could see the interior clearly. No one home. The room was lavishly appointed; Jolle had a penchant for the good life. From one corner came the pleasant odor of burning perfume. Beside the tent mast stood a low couch and a table supporting a coolchest and bottles of drink.
He moved quickly across the room to the wagon’s entrance. The deep carpet made his movements silent: the loudest sounds were the cicadas and the daybats. Even in the dimness, he could see that this entrance was different from the one at the rear. When the troops were in march, the tent was stowed in the front of the wagon, behind a pair of clamshell doors—which now stood open. Beyond those doors, a beautifully painted partition of fine-weave spider silk was stretched taut from one side of the wagon to the other. A doorway was mounted at the center of the partition. The spider silk was so fine that Svir would be clearly visible to anyone behind it.
He pulled at the leverlatch on the little door. This one didn’t move either. Again, there was no evidence of a locking mechanism. The only explanation was that the door was barred from the inside. But this would imply that there was someone in there. What now?
Then he heard Tatja’s voice outside the tent. Jolle was with her. They were coming into the tent. Even now Jolle was telling the sentry at the entrance to move away, that secret matters were to be discussed. Svir stood frozen for a moment, and Ancho echoed his discomfort, whimpering where he crouched on the astronomer’s shoulder. Svir’s only chance was to hide and hope that the dorfox would give him some protection with his I’m-not-here signal. If Jolle were like Tatja it was indeed a slim hope, but Ancho might be able to dull the godlings’ senses to merely human levels. He ducked behind the ornate stand that supported the burning perfume. The stand was directly in front of the door into the wagon.
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