Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  Esau pulled his mind away from that, and back to the hills they flew over. Hills not fit for farms, he told himself. Best left to God's livestock, not man's.

  They were getting close now. The floater icon almost touched the X. Down there were folks who'd stayed behind. He wondered how they'd fared the past year, and how they felt now about those who'd left. Not that it matters greatly, he told himself. Leastways it shouldn't. As Speaker Crosby had said: "God made diversity amongst his people for a reason. They will disagree, but He loves them all." Speaker Crosby had stayed, but he'd wished them well. "I'm too old to go flying off to the stars," he'd said. "And my flock needs me."

  Some of that flock had already condemned him for "encouraging desertions."

  Esau called up a quadrangle page, its much larger scale showing considerable detail, including a second, smaller X. He guessed the larger was a camp, and the smaller a hunting party, now about a mile west of it. The smaller X moved slightly while he watched, still westward toward a meadow. "Go to the smaller X first," he told the pilot. "Before they get any more separated than they are."

  "Right," the pilot said. Esau went aft to the open hatch, hooked his safety line, then knelt, leaning out. He'd already keyed the speech output of his helmet comm to the floater's bullhorn. Below, all he could see was treetops.

  "Helloo!" he called. "You down there! An army's come to clean out the Wyzhnyny-the aliens. If you hear me, fire a gun. We can pick you up at that meadow off west."

  He heard no gunshot, and the APF's gravdrive produced only a low hum; if there'd been a shot, he'd have heard it. Maybe, he thought, they've run out of powder. There'd always been folks, a few, who preferred a crossbow or longbow for hunting. They'd have an advantage now.

  "Fine," he called. "We'll go to your camp and wait there."

  The pilot heard, and swinging the floater in an easy curve, headed for the larger X, where the map showed a creek along the foot of a ridge. Trees overhung it, but in places the water was visible from overhead, milky green like the river. Probably, Esau thought, there was a cave there.

  He tried the bullhorn again. "Helloo! You down there! An army's come to clean out the aliens. I'm coming down to talk with you. If you want, we can take you to camp with us. Feed you up proper. Fix you up with shoes, and new clothes."

  He could imagine what they looked like after hiding out in the wilderness all that time. They'd hardly have a shoe between the lot of them. Maybe moccasins. He disconnected from the bullhorn and spoke to his squad.

  "Talbott, I'm leaving you in charge. Turner, you'll come down with me."

  Turner nodded, and Esau turned to the pilot. "Sergeant Pindal," he said to the Indi flyer, "find a place close by, where we can let down."

  The pilot glanced back, nodding. "Right, Sergeant," he answered, and in a few seconds had parked his aircraft over a small blowdown gap. "Will that do?"

  The two Jerries were snapping on letdown harnesses as Esau looked down. "Yup. Good enough." There wasn't much visibility through the gap; branch growth was filling it. But it would do. Two letdown spars had emerged from their housings, one on each side of the floater, above the door. Esau stepped out backward and began his descent, controlling it by voice while signaling with his arms to refine the centering. It was something they'd all done before at Camp Nafziger. Then he was through the gap and into the trunk space. No one was waiting. When his feet touched the ground, he pulled the safety clip and slapped the release. "All clear," he said.

  His harness disappeared upward on its cable; meanwhile Turner had landed beside him. They were about a hundred feet upslope of the stream, and seventy or eighty yards downstream from the X. "We'd better take our helmets off," Esau said. "Otherwise no telling what these folks will think we are."

  Both men tipped their helmets back, letting them rest on their light field packs. Then they went downslope to the creek. From there they could see a young boy waiting a couple hundred feet upstream on the far bank. Esau started toward him, waving. "Howdy!" he called. "I'm Esau Wesley, from Sycamore Parish. This here's Malachi Turner, from Tanner's Run."

  The boy didn't answer, just watched their approach, his eyes feral in a thin face. He wore only a loin cloth; his wide frame all sinew and bone. Too much bone. About ten years old, Esau decided, thinking in New Jerusalem years. Perhaps thirteen in Terran years. Hasn't been eating any too good. Looks like a string of eels hung on a rack.

  Esau stopped. "Malachi," he muttered, "get me a couple rations out of my pack." Turner gave them to him, and they went on. When they reached the boy, they could see he was frightened. Esau reached a hand to him. "My name's Esau," he said. "What's yours?"

  "Zekial. Zekial Butters."

  "That hunting party off west-I talked to them from the, uh, the airboat that brought us. Told them I was coming here. They should be along directly. You're not here alone, are you?"

  A quick headshake.

  "Is your mamma here? Or your grampa?"

  He began to tremble! "My mamma-and my sisters."

  Esau frowned. "What's the matter, Zekial?"

  "We don't have no hunting party out. Some men came here yesterday. They… " He choked, his face writhing like a nest of snakes. "They… " Abruptly, unexpectedly, he burst into tears and fled up the slope, disappearing behind a laurel brake. Esau had backed off a step, glanced thunderstruck at Turner, then looked around. A footpath angled upslope from the stream toward a bluff, and the two troopers strode up it. Soon Esau saw a wide opening in the rock face. Without slowing he called.

  "Helloo! No need to worry! Help's acoming!" From behind him, Malachi could hear what else he said, half under his breath. "This better not be what I'm afraid it is."

  The cave began as a sort of open-sided gallery that narrowed inward. A small mound of embers glowed beneath the overhanging rock shelf. There were sleeping furs, and on the ground, a patch of dried blood three feet across. Esau swore again, and gestured toward the narrow gap that led deeper into the limestone. "They must have gone farther back in, scared spitless." If they're still alive. "Go back in there a little ways and see if you can talk them out. I'm going to call Sergeant Pindal, and find out where those others are."

  He seated his helmet again. He didn't need it to radio the floater-his throat mike would serve-but he wanted its HUD. "Sergeant Pindal," he said, "this is Sergeant Wesley. We've got a situation here, but I'm not entirely sure what it is. Where's that party I talked to first? What way are they going now? Over."

  "They're about a quarter mile west-northwest of where they were before. They're bypassing the meadow, as if they didn't want to be picked up. Over."

  "So they're still headed away from here. All right. Jael, do you read? Over."

  "I read. Over."

  "I may need a woman's help here. I'm not sure, but I'm afraid I do. I want Sergeant Pindal to let you down by the creek, just below the big X. I'll be there to meet you. Pindal, are you still reading? Over."

  "Still reading. Over."

  "After you put Corporal Wesley down, I want you to follow those sons of bitches that took off. Corporal Talbott, do you read? Over."

  "I read. Over."

  "When Sergeant Pindal catches up to them that ran off, talk to them with the bullhorn. Tell them if they don't stop and give themselves up, you're going to blow them to bits from the air. Got that?"

  "Got it, Sarge." He paused. "Do you really want us to kill them?"

  Esau hadn't thought it through. Now he hesitated. "No, but don't let them get away. Tell them twice, and if they keep going, I want Sergeant Pindal to shoot ahead of them. Close as he dares. You still reading, Pindal? Over."

  "I read. But I don't like what you're telling me. Over."

  "Just shoot ahead of them. And if they veer off, do it again. I'm afraid they may be murderers, and worse. Worse than the Wyzhnyny, because they're doing it to their own people. Over."

  "I still don't like it. There's nothing in our orders that covers shooting at locals. Look. I'm just about over
the creek. You down there yet? Over."

  "I'm on my way. Ten seconds will do it. Turner, keep trying to talk them out of the cave. I'm going after Jael."

  It was Jael-her woman's voice-that talked the mother and her two daughters out of the darkness. They pointed out where the renegades had dragged off her husband's body, and her oldest son's. While she talked, the younger son showed up again. He too had seen his father killed, and had fled back into the cave, where his baby sister had gone. The two had spent the night hidden well back in the darkness, but they'd heard the screams and crying. When the renegades had left, their mother and older sister crept back in with them, to huddle there without speaking. But Zekial had heard their attackers say they'd be back when they had meat. Finally he'd crept out, intending to find some other people, and ask for help. He'd barely emerged when Esau had called down on the bullhorn.

  Esau radioed the floater again. Yes, they were still following the hunting party. No, Talbott hadn't hailed them. He'd been afraid it might make them scatter. Esau told him that was good thinking. "Pindal, stay after them, but not close. They'll stop somewhere. When they do, I want the squad to let down a ways off, and move in. Surround them if you can, then use your stunners if you can get close enough. I'm going to radio Division about this. I suspect General Pak will want them alive."

  The floater dropped back a few hundred yards, following the X on the pilot's HUD. Esau called Division and was referred to the senior sergeant major, who was perturbed by a squad leader bypassing the whole divisional chain of command. But when Esau explained the situation, the sergeant major patched him through to General Pak, who ordered out a platoon, to make sure the renegades didn't escape.

  They succeeded in capturing only two. The other two suicided before they could be stunned.

  ***

  That wasn't the only ugly situation that 2nd Platoon, B Company ran into that day. The other three fugitive groups were all extremely glad to be found, and all three reported seeing or hearing about Wyzhnyny soldiers eating humans. One group had found the remains of a feast by a Wyzhnyny patrol. The victims had been neatly dismembered, and some of the bones were charred. The crania had been opened and the brains removed, maybe as a delicacy. Along with the human remains were plastic packages, apparently from Wyzhnyny ration cases.

  Word spread like a grassfire not only through the Jerrie division, but through the Indi armored regiment and air squadrons, and the Burger engineers.

  Pak was concerned that his troops might commit atrocities of their own, as retribution, which would harm morale and discipline. So on his closed command channel, he ordered his company commanders to speak to their troops about it.

  ***

  In camp the troops ate standing up, in company mess tents with high tables. It was in B Company's mess tent that Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh spoke to his four platoons. The rumor was, he was going to brief them on their next action, so there was considerable tension in the mess tent. More than before the battle they'd already fought, because now they knew what to expect. Or thought they did.

  The rumor was wrong. "I suppose you've all heard about the Wyzhnyny having eaten people here," Mulvaney said.

  The reply wasn't loud, but it was ugly.

  "Obviously they're meat eaters, and we look enough different, they may have considered humans to be nothing more than animals. Meat for the larder. I suspect we cured them of that notion the other day, when we killed so many of them."

  His soldiers muttered agreement, sounding not quite as ugly as they had.

  "In combat," he went on, "a soldier-human or Wyzhnyny-is apt to be too busy, or at too much risk, to eat or mutilate dead enemies. Even if he was inclined to, which you and I aren't. His attention is on destroying live enemies and staying alive himself. But at other times some people might be tempted to mutilate an enemy.

  "I can't imagine any of you doing something like that; it's as contrary to your religion as it is to mine." He scanned them again. "So that makes it between you and God. But in this world it's also between you and the army. Because mutilation is strictly against regulations, and the penalties are severe.

  "Any questions?"

  No hand raised. No one spoke.

  "Good. Enough said then. And speaking of eating, Sergeant Ferraro is serving apple pie with brown sugar for dessert at supper. Make sure you save room for it."

  ***

  Returning to his office, Mulvaney looked back at the event. He could understand Pak's concern. But at the same time, he felt that in bringing the matter up, he'd insulted his Jerries, just a little.

  ***

  Jael, on the other hand, wondered about the difference between mutilation with a knife, and mutilation with, say, a grenade in combat. Probably, she decided, it was the difference between meanness of spirit and necessity.

  ***

  Gosthodar Jilchuk scowled at his staff. They'd told him all they knew, and given him their opinions on everything he'd asked about, but he still knew too little for effective planning. There was no real border, no defined front, and he could choose his area of operation. The enemy, on the other hand, knew everything he did above ground as soon as he did it, and responded. They no doubt had reconnaissance buoys, an intelligence staff, and a high-powered AI working up contingency plans twenty-four hours a day.

  Abruptly he slammed a fist on his worktable, making his staff flinch. It was that or shoot the map on his wall screen. The cursed thing was dead as a stone. No movement. No life. It didn't even flinch at his temper the way his staff had. It showed things as they'd been when his surveillance buoys had been destroyed, except for changes made by Intelligence, none of them in real time.

  Most numerous were the approximate locations where he'd lost recon floaters and their escorts to enemy action. The humans responded quickly to invasion of their airspace. Obviously their buoys picked up and monitored his own aircraft as soon as they emerged, and had interceptors up promptly. As if their duty crews waited in their aircraft.

  They seemed willing to lose aircraft, certainly over their own territory, as long as they shot down his. And his scouts were at a disadvantage; their missions required more-or-less predictable flight behavior. He couldn't continue losing aircraft at the rate he had been, and he had no way of knowing what the enemy had left.

  His Intelligence chief had pointed out that the humans seemed more interested in shooting down the escorting fighters than they did the scouts-in bleeding his fighting strength than in denying him information. Though they were doing a good job of that too.

  Seemingly the human commander was leaving the initiative to him. But they were planning something. They hadn't invaded just to lie around.

  He scowled, big jaws chewing on nothing. Back in the forest, his expensive aerial scouting showed a poorly defined "blind area" of something between twelve and twenty square miles. Probably circular. His Tech chief believed the humans had some kind of concealment screen, unlikely as it seemed. At any rate the "blind area" showed nothing at all in the way of humans, or of any mobile life-forms large enough-or in large enough groups-to register. But they were there. Something had to be. Large mobile objects could be detected outside of it, some of it wildlife, some clearly military. And the humans were thinning areas of forest, possibly preparing defensive positions of some sort.

  Jilchuk shook his head. He'd have to settle for a ground reconnaissance in force. Meanwhile, one thing seemed definite: the humans had landed in inferior numbers. Perhaps to be supplied from space, for a war of harassment and attrition.

  Attrition. He could play that game, he told himself, information or not.

  ***

  B Company, 2nd Regiment, had set out on foot through the forest. B Company plus a platoon from C Company, because the mission required five platoons. One augmented infantry company to take out a tank battalion. Sergeant Esau Wesley felt proud that B Company had been chosen. He thought of it as the best in the division.

  His wife looked at it differently: someone had
to get the mission, and B Company was it.

  To carry out their mission, they needed to penetrate twelve miles into what the Jerries were calling Wyz Country. Twelve miles through open country with nearly flat terrain. Twelve straight-line miles from the wilderness edge, but by the meandering Mickle's River, it was more like twenty.

  The tank battalion was parked in the narrow band of floodplain woods that stretched along the Mickle's banks. Actually at a place where the woods were wider than anywhere else for miles. There, according to the buoys, they'd find not only the battalion's tanks, but its headquarters, trucks, repair and overhaul facilities… all of it.

  At each corner of the encampment stood a newly-erected flak tower. The Indi assault pilots knew all they wanted to about those. Enough to guess the specifics: a swivel-based, multi-barreled, look-and-fire trasher on each tower, powerful enough to bring down an armored attack floater with a single burst. Or one pulse suitably placed.

  Though B Company didn't know it, surveillance buoys had observed the tower construction in progress, but hadn't reported it. Regionwide, the buoys saw far more than humans could hope to deal with, so back on Terra, programmers had designed perception sets to notify Intelligence of opportunities and dangers. But inevitably the programs overlooked some things.

  Thus when four thick concrete slabs were poured in a nondescript stand of trees on a minor river, no relevance was perceived. Then four assembly floaters began assembling four tripod towers on the slabs. The buoys registered and tagged this internally, while awaiting further observations. Then some unrecognizable equipment was installed on the towers, and a pseudo-organic data processor, 360 miles out, notified Division that something was going on.

  But it was an Indi scout pilot who said, "Huh! Those are weapons! Gotta be." So he reported it, then left his planned flight path for a closer look. But the Wyzhnyny didn't respond; there was nothing else peculiar about the place, and whatever might be perched atop the towers was concealed in a cab.