Close quarters

by Victor Milán

  Archie followed Cassie to a table, casting uncertain glances back over the shoulder tabs of his bush jacket. "That gentleman whose nose you broke keeps looking after you, Lieutenant Suthorn."

  "He's just watching my butt," Cassie said without looking back. "Forget it. And don't call me 'Lieutenant.' Makes me sound like a tin-man wannabe."

  "Tin man?" he asked as she sat down with her back to the corner.

  "MechWarrior."

  He took a place right around by her left side. "I hope you won't think I'm too forward, sitting this close," he said. "But I prefer to be able to see the room."

  She shrugged and tossed off a shot of Hotei.

  "I'm grateful for your assistance. But haven't you somewhat ... overextended yourself? I mean, those men appear to have a rather rough-and-ready approach to life. And you did break one's nose and threaten the other with that unusual dirk of yours."

  "Blood-drinker? Guru Johann gave her to me on my twelfth birthday." A shadow passed over Cassie's face, summer clouds sliding across the sun. "She's twelve hundred years old. He said not many kris have a female soul, but this one does."

  She shook herself slightly, like a horse twitching a fly off its flank. "Don't worry about those bozos. It's forgotten already. They're good old boys; it's all a game to them—like setting you up to get carved on by Macho. They figured he wouldn't kill you, just cut you up some, add some character to that pretty profile of yours."

  Archie glanced at her. He could not read the expression on that carved-mahogany face. It bothered him. He was used to being able to read women. Especially ones as attractive as his benefactress.

  She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Thing about the Caballeros is, they may go off on you and kill you if they think you've insulted them. Or they may just decide to pound on you for fun, with the understanding that you pound back and let's just see what you got, hombre. But it's like a sun shower. It all goes by quickly, and once it's past, it's gone. We don't hold grudges."

  She poured another shot, stared into it. "Unless you work at it," she said. "Like what's between us and the tigres, the Smoke Jaguars. That's blood vengeance. An Elemental came through the wall in full battle armor right this instant, every man and woman in the room would be crawling all over the puke."

  "And you?"

  A grim half-smile. "Looking for something that burned hot and clung. Maybe see if I could whip up a Cerillos pancake—boiling sugar and lye, kitchen napalm. You can bake a mudhead like a Sierra foxtrot potato, if you catch him right-Archie didn't quite manage to repress a delicate shudder. Quite uncomfortable, the matter-of-fact way this charming creature spoke of such unpleasantries. As if she talked from first-hand experience. "Mudhead?" he asked.

  "Pueblo term. Indio, indigena—Indian. Mudheads're supernatural clowns—a lot more sinister than the clowns you got back home, though. They're products of incest among the gods. Indians think the Clans reproduce by incest. Don't shine it on as prejudice, either; it's one way of looking at it."

  He shook his head. "I don't, believe me. But you can also believe I am bewildered. By the terminology, by the, ah, the ethnic intricacies of your Regiment."

  She laughed. "That's a good name for it. One bit of advice: never, ever use a Southwestern word unless you know stone four-by sure what it means. Like, whatinhell possessed you to say that to Macho?"

  He chewed his underlip. "Lieutenant Payson"—he said it leftenant—"told me it was a comradely greeting that would help me get accepted."

  She leaned forward and patted one of his hands. The contact sent a tingle up his arm like a breeze ruffling the short ginger arm-hairs. "Honey," she said, "they aren't going to accept you. I've served in this outfit nine years, I'm sworn blood-sister to half of everybody in it and have saved the personal butts of every last one of them a dozen times over. And I'm still a gringa. Will be till I die."

  She settled back, and her lovely mouth took on a bitter twist. "Then I'll be one of them. Not before."

  "They surely seem to accept you."

  She shrugged. "I'm family. But still adopted. Abtakha, you know."

  "You're not from one of the Southwestern worlds?"

  "No."

  He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn't, he said, "I confess I find myself at a loss, trying to understand the various groups and their relationships to each other."

  "The groups? Cowboys, norteño s, and Indians. Most of 'em are from the caballero class, landholders and retainers from the big ranches and haciendas, or from free-ranging tribes among the Indians. They look down on the city-dwellers, Urban Cowboys and pochos and Apples, almost as much as gringos."

  "Now, I always thought gringo referred to, ah, a white man."

  She shook her head. "Not with this bunch. Gringo is any outsider—even if his name is Gutierrez and he hails from Mexico City on Terra."

  "I see," Archie said without conviction. "And what about the people Lieutenant Payson called 'Jewboys.' "

  "Jewish Cowboys, of course. Descended from Conservative Israeli refugees who didn't want to go along when many Jews went over to the Catholic Church in protest against certain actions by the state of Israel back on Terra. They didn't want anything to do with Orthodox Jews ever again, blamed 'em for messing up Israel, so they decided to get as far away from them as they could. Turned out to be the Trinity." She sipped her drink. "You don't have to be so hesitant with the word; they use it on themselves."

  "It seems rather hard to discern what's safe to say and what isn't."

  "You got that right. Keep it in mind and you'll pull through just fine."

  "What about the Indians?"

  "Far as I know, most of the Indians in the Trinity are actually Pueblos, but they keep to their settlements and don't go into space much. Ours're mainly Apaches and Navajos, which are almost the same thing but don't tell them that, and a few south Plains types thrown in—like Doc Ten Bears, our curandera. She's Kiowa/Comanche, off Cerillos."

  "And all these types get along?"

  "Depends on what you mean. Back home, they tend to fight a lot—feuds, raids, that kind of thing."

  "As in people getting killed?"

  "All the time. Now, understand, Cowboys are likely to be feuding Cowboys as anybody else, norteño s versus norteño s, that kind of thing. They make a lot of noise about hating each other, the different groups, but they're like as not to marry each other. And set 'em down at a table and get 'em drinking, there's not a gram of difference between them."

  "And out here?"

  She shrugged. "Everybody's butt goes on the firing line together. Stood down like this, some of 'em make faces at each other, other's don't care. It"—she made sinuous intertwining gestures with her hands—"shifts. Glows. Hard to describe."

  He shook his head. "I don't think I'll ever understand."

  "Don't sweat it," Cassie said. "Outsiders aren't meant to."

  She looked up then and smiled. "Hey, Zuma. Got everything squared away?"

  The Mongol-eyed man was walking over, holding a bottle of pale-yellow juice from some local fruit. Behind him came the proprietor, clutching a chip. He popped the cover on the musicbox, slipped the chip inside, turned to Zuma with a startling grin.

  "Ready now!" he said, and walked back to the bar. The hammering strains of Chain Gang, a popular Davion band, came banging out of the box. A couple of Cowboys raised rebel yells, and several Indians got up to head-thrash.

  Cassie laughed. "Don't know how you do it, Zuma."

  Zuma pretended to clean his ear with a little finger. Though he smelled of soap even at this range, his hands were blackened with a mechanic's ground-in grime, the kind no amount of scrubbing could eradicate.

  "You just gotta know how to talk to these dudes," he said. "Whew. The indios may love this stuff, but I can't hardly stand it. Sounds like what'd happen if you threw a drawerful of silverware and a coupla cats into a rock tumbler, y'know?"

  Archie laughed. "That's as good a description of this particular band as I e
ver remember hearing."

  Zuma gestured at the wall to Cassie's left. Set into it were several niches holding small paintings or statuettes before which candles burned. "I was admiring the santos here. Don't recognize any of them."

  "Shrines to the kami," Cassie said. "Spirits."

  "I thought the Combine officially frowned on worship of deities other than the Dragon," Archie said.

  "Typical Davvy way of looking at it," Cassie said without heat, taking a pull from her bottle. "What's prescribed for the Workers is a type of Shinto. Basic animism—they worship everything from their ancestors to the spirits that lived here before they paved this part of the world over to Chinese gods to who knows what."

  Archie was studying the images in their little nooks. "Well, then, what's that blue one there? If that's not Krishna, I'm John the Baptist."

  Zuma laughed. "You'd look pretty funny with your head on a plate."

  "It's Blue Boy, all right. Rabbi Maccabee—that's Force Commander Bar-Kochba—he says the population's mostly East Indians mixed with Japanese. The ISF lets 'em slide Hindu gods in as kami. They're all supposed to be attributes of the Dragon, see."

  At the mention of the letters ISF, the temperature of the bar seemed to dip a few degrees. House Kurita's Internal Security Force was probably the most feared secret police in the known universe. The Liao Maskirovka might be more sadistic, but the ISF was smarter. It was not very propitious to mention the name here in the very belly of the Dragon. Archie flicked his gaze around as if expecting to see metsuke lurking behind the musicbox. He had his own reasons for not wanting to be reminded of the ISF's existence.

  With a start he noticed that Cassie was looking past them at the Repose's front door. Seeing her stiffen, he turned to follow her gaze, wondering if he should be diving for the tatami.

  At first he had no idea what she was looking at through narrowed eyes. Then he realized she was tracking a tall blonde Cowgirl dressed in pale blue jeans and a blue silk blouse with tails knotted to bear her flat midriff. Shifting his mindset out of self-defense mode, he also noticed that the newcomer was well worth tracking.

  The woman bought a bottle of the same stuff Zuma was drinking, paused to slap the shoulders of a couple of people at the bar, pass some easy talk around, then came sauntering over.

  "Evening," she said, in a throaty alto. "Mind if I join y'all?"

  Zuma smiled with evident pleasure. "Lady K. Good to see you."

  She grinned and nodded to him, but she was looking at Cassie. "You can sit where you please, Captain," the scout said without warmth.

  With a start Archie realized the newcomer was wearing a laser pistol in a tie-down holster on her right hip and had a big oval turquoise stuck in her navel. An altogether striking creature, he decided.

  She turned a chair around and sat with her arms folded over the back. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your handsome friend, Cassie?"

  "I don't know his name. Captain MacDougall."

  The blonde turned to Archie and held out a hand. "I'm Kali MacDougall. I drive an Atlas for a living."

  Archie took her hand. Her grip was firm. "Charmed," he said, and raised her hand to his lips. "I'm Archie Westin. Reporter for the Federated Commonwealth News Service."

  She raised her eyebrows appreciatively. "A gentleman, I see."

  "I try my best, Captain."

  "Kali."

  "She's the boss of Bronco Company," Zuma said. "Don't let the fact that she's blonde and an officer fool you, amigo." He tapped his temple with a forefinger. "She's sharp."

  He drained his bottle, set it on the table. "Well, I better go see what the boys and girls managed to shake loose cake-walking their 'Mechs into town. Stay loose, Cassie. Nice to meet you, Mr. Westin."

  Lady K reached out and touched Zuma on the arm. They smiled at each other, warmly, and Zuma went rolling out into the night.

  The MechWarrior looked at Cassie, who seemed to have shrunk down inside the collar of her blouse. "I'm a little surprised to find you here, Cassie," she said in a friendly voice. "You're not usually the type to kick back with the other coyotes and howl."

  Cassie raised her bottle and gestured around at the Permissible Repose. "This place is part of the terrain now. I'm a scout. I'm checking it out."

  MacDougall made a face. "So that's why you aren't back at the Compound stalking the battlements. You're scouting the land here." She shook her head. "You need to learn to take time off, girl, take care of yourself."

  "The Captain really doesn't have to waste her time worrying about me." Cassie stood. "I'd better get back."

  She walked away, leaving her mostly full bottle on the table. Archie half-rose to follow her.

  "Let her go, Mr. Westin," said Lady K. "She doesn't much like to be crowded."

  Archie sat slowly back down. He looked at MacDougall. Some imp made him say, "Then why do you do it?"

  A slow smile started at one side of her mouth and slowly spread across it, revealing brilliant white teeth. "I have my reasons," she said. "Now, why don't you rest your bones a spell and tell me why a big-time FedCom holojournalist is giving the time of day to a bunch of drag-tail mercs like us?"

  * * *

  Cassie walked back down Tai-sho Dalton Way with her hands thrust into the pockets of her baggy khaki trousers and her head sunk low. At sidewalk level the street was brightly lit; overhead the district's office towers soared upward, shadow masses occluding the stars. The streets were full of pedestrians, bicycle cabs with tinkling bells, honking cars. Unlike a lot of Drac worlds—and Larsha, where she'd been raised—the Hachiman police didn't bother trying to enforce a curfew except in times of civil unrest. And HTE, like the even bigger Tanadi Computer plant on the outskirts of town, ran staggered shifts, twenty-four hours a day. Which meant the Workers and Middle-Class sararimen were liable to be spending money around the clock.

  A couple of cops standing at an intersection gave her a hard eye as she passed, playing with the safeties of their riot shotguns as they did so. Cassie ignored them. Even under Coordinator Theodore, gaijin were not a common sight on streets this deep inside the Combine; they had to make her for a merc. And if the Regiment's boss, big Buddha-belly Kurita himself, wasn't smart enough to keep the local police well-bribed ... She dismissed the thought. Kurita or not, if Chandrasekhar wasn't that sharp he'd never have been able to scrape up the ready to hire in a 'Mech regiment to hold his hand. Even one as semi-strapped as the Caballeros.

  Why did she let the bimbo get to her, anyway? MacDougall had been with the unit since before Cassie was "recruited" on the DropShip lifting off from Larsha. She had taken over Bronco when the previous commander decided to retire after New Horizons. Cassie had never had much use for Lady K, to be sure, though she had to admit the Cowgirl was good at her trade. But it was only recently, ever since Captain Silva went home to Cerillos, that the blonde Mech Warrior had begun to crowd the scout.

  It might be getting time to back her off. Normally Cassie did not discriminate between men and women. Though women were sometimes treated like second-class citizens in the dominant cultures of the Trinity worlds, in practice that meant that any female who made it up to Mech Warrior had to be at least as tough as her male counterparts, and generally meaner. Cassie had had her share of run-ins with women as well as men.

  There was something about the taller Mech Warrior that discouraged Cassie from tangling with her, though. What am I worried about? I can take her.

  But it wasn't that. It was something ... else.

  A knot of drunk sararimen with their ties off and their coats hanging open blocked the sidewalk in front of the stairs leading down to a basement strip club. They stared at Cassie with pie-eyed fascination, like so many sheep.

  "Bakayaro!" she snarled at them. "Stupid idiots! Get out of my way!" The explosion of Japanese sent them scattering in all directions. Feeling slightly better, she continued on with head held high.

  Well, okay, Miss High-and-Mighty 'Mech jockey, Cassie thought. I will
go stalk the battlements. I'll just load up my M23, and see what kind of perimeter security these culebras have put together.

  When she waved her way through a discreet lime side door set next to the great bronze gates, Cassie was actually smiling.

  10

  Masamori, Hachiman

  Galedon District, Draconis Combine

  2 September 3056

  Warm, humid air seemed to bounce off the pavement four stories below and back up into Cassie's face as she stood with one foot up on the rampart of the open-sided structure. The fumes from the ethanol mix burned by Drac ICE tended to produce formaldehyde, and it stung her eyes.

  "Hey, Cassie," came the adenoidal whine of Private Absalom Sloat of Scout Platoon from behind Cassie's back. "Why we crawlin' around a parkin' garage, anyway? You ain't even got a car."

  Ignoring him, she pushed her dark mad-dog shades farther up her forehead and scratched where sweat had begun to itch her skin. Fall might be coming to Masamori, but today it was muggy down here two klicks from the river.

  "Just as I damned well thought," she said. "You can see the whole Sierra foxtrot Compound from up here."

  A low dry chuckle rolled out of Scooter Barnes' big chest. "Give me a Zeus Big Twelve-Seven," he said, " 'n' I could sweep the place up pretty as a picture."

  She skinned her lips open and blew air through closed teeth. "Yeah."

  A half-dozen of Scout Platoon's complement had come along and were peering into the primarily boxy vehicles belonging to middle and lower-ranked Middle Class types. Platoon was a unit only by formality; the scouts generally operated lone-wolf or in pairs, rarely in larger groups. Unlike most Inner Sphere military organizations, the Caballeros encouraged their scouts to think small. After all, unless scouts were on ambush deployment, engaging an enemy usually signalled failure of their mission because it meant the enemy had been alerted to their presence. Bulk firepower was seldom much asset to the Seventeenth's scouts, whereas having a lot of people tripping over one another on patrol was a major liability.