Into the Hinterlands-ARC

by David Drake; John Lambshead

  “When did they leave?” Allenson asked.

  “Three days ago,” Brown replied.

  Getting information from the man was like drawing teeth.

  “Are they overdue?”

  “Yes, I expected them back yesterday.”

  Brown gazed over Allenson’s head at the blank canvas of the command tent.

  “Very well, I want the 12th to dump and destroy all unnecessary material. We will travel light. Lieutenant Stretter will oversee that. He knows what to do. Make sure your own men get some rest, Mister Stretter.”

  “Yes, sir,”

  “I expect to leave within two hours, gentlemen,” Allenson said.

  “Leave? Where would we go?” Brown asked.

  “Back to the ’Stream, of course,” Allenson replied, astonished at the question. “Our mission is a bust. The task now is to save the force from further casualties. I propose to leave the trackway and plot a course through the Continuum.”

  “If speed is of the essence, sir, I should point out that our troop frames will move faster on the trackway,” said Stretter.

  “I know, Mister Stretter, but time is on the side of our enemies. They advance at the speed of their fastest units, the Riders, while we retreat at the speed of our slowest units. That’s a race we cannot win. They will harry us all the way and turn retreat into a route. We don’t have sufficient officers to carry out a fighting withdrawal and I doubt the men’s morale equal to the challenge. I propose to employ concealment instead. We will lose ourselves in the Hinterland.”

  Brown said nothing. Indeed, he did not seem to have heard.

  “Major Brown,” Allenson said, loudly.

  Brown looked at him with blank eyes.

  “No doubt you have much to do to prepare to leave in two hours,” Allenson said, trying to get the man moving

  “We can’t leave,” Brown replied. “My orders are to wait here for Colonel Ravid.”

  “Face facts, man, Ravid is dead. The Riders got him.”

  “Why should I believe you? You’re not a real soldier. You’re just a jumped up colonial peasant in fancy dress. What do you know?”

  Brown shouted at Allenson, red faced and trembling. Allenson looked back at him coldly. He had just about enough of being patronized by these people. It did not occur to him that this was how his class treated the lower orders in the ’Stream. Why would it? The issue was whether Brasilian colonial gentleman were the social equal of their peers from the Home World, not about class distinctions as such.

  “Lieutenant Stretter,” Allenson said, never taking his eyes of Brown. “Do you still consider yourself under my command?”

  “Yes, sir,” Stretter said.

  “Then feed and rest your men. We leave in two hours.”

  Stretter left the tent. Allenson turned to Chernokovsky’s aides.

  “Will you be joining us?”

  The senior captain spoke for them all.

  “We will wait for Colonel Ravid. We take orders from real soldiers,” he said with a sneer.

  “As you wish,” Allenson said, mildly, leaving the tent. There was no point arguing with the dead.

  They would need to send dispatches back to Manzanita with news of the defeat and the current situation, in case no one made it home. Allenson was a lot less confident than he had sounded. Luck, plain luck, would decide their fate. He was sure that he had selected the best strategy but there were no guarantees. All it would take was one Rider scout to stumble across the convoy. He shut the thought down and concentrated on what he could control, not waste emotional energy on what he couldn’t.

  He would entrust the despatches to a ’Streamer patrol. They could outrun the Riders on their two-seater frames. Hawthorn would be the ideal choice to lead the patrol. Allenson checked himself and almost burst out laughing. All the books on the principles of command that he had devoured had agreed on one point. Never, never, give an order that you cannot enforce.

  They left Brown’s command tent. Hawthorn, who had remained silent throughout the discussion, stopped at the entrance flap to look back.

  “Wankers,” he said, dispassionately.

  * * *

  Allenson pushed his right foot down and then his left. He repeated the process. A stupid little advertising jingle went round and round in his brain, the rhythm perfectly matching the rotation of the pedals. The music was so clear that it seemed to be coming from outside, as if the Continuum was singing to him. He knew that it was all in his mind but he lifted his head to look, anyway.

  Todd floated past, playing a grand piano. Linsye sat upon it swinging her legs in time to the music, tapping out the rhythm with her nails on the wood.

  “Time to grow up, Allen,” she said, wagging her finger at him.

  “I’m trying, Linsye, really I am,” Allenson replied.

  She gazed at him in disappointment, lip curling. He hung his head in shame.

  “I knew you would not amount to owt.”

  Linsye had turned into his stepmother.

  “Leave me alone, you raddled old witch,” Allenson yelled.

  He fumbled for his spring gun, intent on killing her, but the piano floated away on a current and vanished before he could cock the weapon. He could still hear the jingle, and realized he was humming it.

  Right foot down, left foot down, keep the pedals turning. There were worse Continuum visions than his stepmother. Sometimes, he saw a figure, dancing in flames. Sometimes it was just rows of faces, of abandoned soldiers. They never spoke. They just stared without hope. There were more of them now. The convoy left a trail of corpses across the Continuum. They had buried the first few with a short ceremony, but eventually they just let them lie on alien worlds. They abandoned frames as well, as the soldier’s numbers dwindled. Allenson stopped taking a roll call. It did nothing for morale.

  They existed on military emergency rations, no time to hunt for food. They stopped only to sleep. Allenson prohibited fires so they eat cold food. He wanted to be inconspicuous. The convoy never saw a Rider, but anxiety gnawed at Allenson. One Rider was all it took to damn them.

  Allenson led, while Hawthorn brought up the rear. Allenson was determined not to allow the convoy to straggle. Nevertheless, a frame disappeared between overnight halts without anyone noticing. It seemed unlikely that all of the passengers decided to desert together. Possibly there had been mechanical failure. Or maybe the men had just stopped pedaling.

  Left foot down, right foot down. Hang on, did that mean he was going backwards? He checked the navigation. He was on course. The analytical part of his mind noticed that Laywant was very close. That was important, he knew that was important but, for the life of him, he could not remember why. He peered forward into the Continuum. There was a shadow—Laywant?

  His frame picked up the city beacon and his hands switched on the auto to guide his frame down. He watched himself do this routine task as a disinterested observer. He had something more important to do. Pedal, that was it, he had to pedal.

  His frame landed in the middle of the business compound. The one a lifetime ago that he had used when surveying the Hinterland for the Harbinger Project. Troop and two-seater frames landed all round him. Men jumped off and kissed the ground. Allenson shut down his frame and stopped pedaling. He closed his eyes, just to rest them for a while.

  A hand shook his shoulder.

  “Allenson, answer me, are you okay?”

  He wished bloody Hawthorn would leave him alone.

  “Sure, I am,” Allenson said, opening his eyes.

  “Well, why didn’t you respond when I called you?” Hawthorn said, sharply.

  “Called me?” Allenson replied, confused.

  Hawthorn gave a quick grin. “You were bloody asleep, and I thought you had died or something. Fancy a beer?

  “I fancy a warm bath and a hot meal, in that order,” Allenson replied. “But a beer is a good start.”

  Duty discharged, Allenson left the officers to shepherd their men back to Manzanita
. He felt emotionally drained and needed some solitude to reflect. His confidence had been badly shaken by the second disaster, and he needed to reflect on his own part in the debacle. The only result of the two Brasilian expeditions was to tighten Terra’s grip on the Hinterland. He was too tired to think.

  Protocol demanded that he make a courtesy visit to Sar Rimmer, the Brasilian Agent, who invited him to enjoy the comforts of his villa. Allenson reluctantly declined. He felt that he had to keep moving or he would collapse, so he left Hawthorn to enjoy the wilder delights of Laywant Town and returned alone to Mowzelle, the Allenson compound on Wagner.

  His stepmother was absent in Manzanita and had taken the steward, Petersen, with her. Mowzelle was a mess. Anything not controlled by the automatics had not been done. He arrived late in the evening to find the servants holding a drunken party in one of the outhouses. No doubt that had been their primary occupation during his stepmother’s absence.

  On the plus side, he did not have to put up with her whining and complaints. He was too tired to deal with the servants. He went to his room and threw himself on the bed but he couldn’t sleep. The mattress was just too soft. Finally, he made a bed up on the floor and dropped straight off.

  * * *

  Allenson waded through corpses and the stink of rotting flesh. The corpses tugged at his legs, slowing him down. Something terrible chased him but he couldn’t run. He daren’t look back or it would have him. A corpse hung by the neck from a blackened tree. It grinned and struck a bell with a bone sticking out of the end of a rotting arm.

  The bong, bong, bong, was his death knell. He sank into corpses with each toll. The thing behind was very close. He could feel its putrid breath. He made one last supreme effort to run and woke thrashing on the floor of his room.

  But the chimes went on. He lay on his back confused panting for breath. The door chime sounded through the house. Where the hell were the servants? Still sleeping it off, he supposed. He was going to have to read the riot act and make a few examples. He had slept fully dressed, so he answered the front door. At first, he thought he must be still dreaming.

  Sarai stood at the head of a deputation of women. She had maids and employees’ wives along as chaperones. Male servants sat on carriages in the compound. Sarai was all done up in a lady’s “visiting the countryside costume”, which was just as impractical as other lady’s outfit, but in a rustic sort of way. He noticed she held a grey parasol. Why the Hell had she bothered to bring that?

  “What?” Allenson asked. He knew he was gaping at the women but they looked like aliens.

  Sarai pouted. “And is that any way to greet a visitor, eh ladies.”

  The women tittered.

  “You do not look your best, Sar Allenson, and I shall not comment on your quality of your toilette this morning. Suffice it to say that you should consider changing your brand of cologne. The current one is a little, shall we say, manly.”

  More tittering. The women sounded like a colony of fleeks.

  Sarai’s voice seemed to come from a long way off and the lady’s brightly colored clothes had greyed.

  “I am forced to visit you because you failed to visit me, despite being back on Wagner for a whole day . . .”

  Everything was grey. His field of vision narrowed to a small disc the exact color of Sarai’s parasol.

  * * *

  When he woke he was in his bed. The sun shone brightly through the window, illuminating motes of dust hanging in the air. For some reason they fascinated him. He remembered watching sunlit dust as a small boy. He used to blow on them to make them dance and sparkle in the sunlight.

  “The domestic arrangements here left something to be desired,” Sarai said. “I have expressed myself firmly on the matter and I fancy things will markedly improve.”

  Sarai sat at his bedside. Her maid sat in the corner of the bedroom, looking out of the window and pointedly ignoring their conversation. Propriety demanded her presence, but equally insisted that she pretend not to be listening.

  “You gave me quite a scare, Allen,” Sarai said, softly.

  The concern in her voice sobered Allenson. Sarai could be infuriating but her emotions were genuine, for all that.

  “Sorry,” he replied.

  Sarai touched an icon on her datapad. Within seconds there was a quiet knock on the door.

  “Enter,” Sarai said, raising her voice.

  One of Mowzelle’s servant girls shot through the door with a tray. The smell of broth and warm bread drifted across the room. The servants must have had continuous shifts cooking so hot food would be immediately ready whenever he should awaken. Sarai must have put the fear of God into them.

  Allenson realized he was ravenously hungry. Sarai took the tray from the girl, who scuttled out.

  “Are you going to sit up or do you want me to feed you?” Sarai asked, reverting to her flirtatious persona.

  He sat up.

  * * *

  Allenson entered the Strangers Gallery of the Lower House as an invited guest to listen to a vote of thanks to him for saving the Cutter Stream Militia. The delegates rose when he entered and clapped. He found himself bowing and waving from the gallery, like some popular entertainer greeting his fans. Fortunately, he was not expected to smile inanely like a politician greeting voters. A military officer was permitted to maintain some gravitas by adopting a stern demeanor. War, after all, was not a light-hearted matter.

  The vote was duly passed without opposition and only a handful of abstentions. Allenson stayed for the minimum time afterwards that could be considered appropriately polite, listening to the delegates score points off each other while supposedly debating restaurant licensing regulations. Fontenoy intercepted him as he left and walked with him across the Plaza.

  “Laudandum adulescentem, ornandum, tollendum,” Fontenoy said.

  “Your pardon?” Allenson asked.

  “It’s an old quote, from Cicero—the young man should be praised, honored and immortalized—or, as we say in the administrative service, you have to be behind someone to properly stab them in the back.”

  Fontenoy gave a shark-like grin.

  “I recall the quote, now,” Allenson replied. “Cicero recommended flattering the young Octavian—to use him, and then discard him when his usefulness was at an end. But, as I recall, Octavian executed Cicero and became the first Emperor of Rome.”

  “So he did,” Fontenoy said. “But that was then and this is now. I merely wanted to warn you that the crowd is fickle. The louder they praise you now, the louder they will call for your head later. Open war between Terra and Brasilia is now inevitable.”

  “Popularity is hardly the goal of a gentleman,” Allenson replied. “It is merely a tool that can be used well or badly.”

  “You’re reputation is high with the ’Streamers, but much less so with the Regular Army” Fontenoy held up his hand. “I know you are going to say that the remnants of the 51st are singing your praises to anyone who will listen, but the opinion of a few lieutenants holds little water among the great and the good. You can hardly expect the Army to blame one of their own for the defeat so some scapegoat must be found. You will fit the frame rather conveniently. Did you know that there have even been suggestions of treachery—that you led the Army into a trap?”

  “No one has had the effrontery to suggest that to my face,” Allenson said, hotly.

  Fontenoy looked Allenson up and down, as if measuring his height and the width of his shoulders. “No, they wouldn’t. I recall you defenestrated the last man to impugn your honor.”

  “What?” Allenson asked.

  “Defenestrated—to assassinate by throwing out of an upstairs window,” Fontenoy explained. “Fortunately, incompetence and naiveté is considered the more likely explanation, given your track record.”

  “Indeed,” Allenson said, coldly.

  “Bolingbrook’s surrender document has been widely distributed by Terra across the Home Worlds, causing Brasilia no end of embarra
ssment. I believe the general opinion is that you are an idiot, if not an outright poltroon.” Fontenoy said, nastily.

  Allenson laughed, genuinely amused, to Fontenoy’s astonishment. The Governor was just an employee, albeit an exalted one. No gentleman would react to gossip among the lower orders. If a gentleman accused Allenson of cowardice then his seconds would call to arrange for a meeting to decide the matter over pistols. Idiocy, of course, was a matter of opinion.

  “I fear I was a little naive in not reading the small print more carefully,” he said. “But you know, governor, I would probably still have signed. My first duty was to ensure the safety of the men who entrusted themselves to my leadership. Their lives were more important than some minor embarrassment in the Home Worlds. Frankly, I am indifferent to other people’s opinions on the matter. Good day, governor.”

  He left Fontenoy standing with his mouth open. Allenson was not quite sure what the governor had been trying to accomplish, but he doubted if Fontenoy would feel satisfied by the turn taken by the conversation.

  * * *

  “I had no idea that I was volunteering to be an office clerk when I agreed to be your aide,” Hawthorn said, staring gloomily at his datapad.

  “Welcome to my world,” Rutchett said, ironically. “Soldiering is nine tenths filing.”

  Rutchett, Mansingh, Hawthorn and Allenson were in conference at the Militia Headquarters. In theory, the meeting could be entirely conducted through datapads, but deep biological programming made face to face meetings essential for the human bonding that produced a functioning team. The Regular Army depended on Allenson’s people for logistical support, whatever they said back in Brasilia.

  “Come, gentlemen, it is not that bad. We tackle this like you eat an elephant—one bite at a time,” Allenson said.

  “Why would he imagine that I want to eat an extinct bioengineered tank,” Hawthorn said, to no one in particular.