by David Drake
"Th' prollem is," the mechanic said, "yer overstrainin' the engines somethin' fierce. Got enough horsepower, right enough-two seventy-five-horsepower saloon-car engines, right enough. But the torque loads more'n they wuz designed to stand."
"Well, we'll have to redesign them, won't we?"
Jeffrey kept his voice neutral. The man was trying his best to do his job; it wasn't his fault that engineering talent was so much thinner on the ground here in the western provinces of Santander. It was yeoman-and-squire country here, and always had been. Outside the eastern uplands, manufacturing was mostly limited to the port cities and focused on maritime trade and textiles. The problem was that this was prime tank country; the provincial militias here were actually interested in the prospect of armored warfare. Nobody but a few dinosaurs like General McWriter thought much of the prospects of horsed cavalry anymore, not after what had happened in the Empire.
Jeffrey felt his skin roughen. The machine guns flickered in his mind, and the long rows of horsemen collapsed in kicking, screaming chaos. .
"Transmission," he said. "We need a more robust transmission."
"What've yer got in mind?"
Jeffrey pulled out a diagram. "Friction plate," he said. "It's not elegant, but I think it won't keep breaking like this chain drive setup. Like you say, these tanks just have too much inertia for a system designed for three-ton touring cars."
"Hmmmm." The mechanic studied the diagram. "Interestin'."
He looked up at Gerty. A couple of his men had gotten the engine grille up and were spraying water on the flames flickering there.
"How'd them Chosen bastids keep theirs going?" he asked. "Heavier'n this, I hears."
"They use steam engines and mostly they don't keep going," Jeffrey said. "We need something reliable enough to do exploitation as well as breakthrough."
The mechanic looked down at the diagram again. "Need some fancy machinin' fer this."
"Hosten Engineering can do you up a model, and jigs," Jeffrey said. "They've got the plans."
* * *
John Hosten leaned back in the chair and sipped his lemonade. Oathtaking was hot, as usual, and sticky-humid, as usual, and the air was thick with coal smoke. The hotel was close by the docks; they'd extended hugely since his last visit, new berths extending further into what had been coastal forest reserve and farmland. In fact, he could see one freighter unloading now from this fourth-floor veranda. It was a smallish ship of fifteen hundred tons, swinging sacks of grain ashore with its own booms and steam winches. As he watched the net fell the last four feet to the granite paving blocks of the wharf. Half the bottom layer split, spraying wheat across the stone and into the harbor. Screams and curses rang faintly as the cable paid out limply on top of the heap. Stevedores scurried about, overseers lashing with their rubber truncheons. Eventually a line formed, trotting off with the undamaged sacks on their backs. Others started sweeping up the remainder with brooms and dumping it in a collection of boxes and barrels.
God, I'm glad I don't have to eat that, he thought silently. In this heat and humidity, they'd be lucky not to get ergot all over it.
He nodded towards the dock. "You'd get less spoilage if you moved to bulk-handling facilities," he said mildly. "Elevators, screw-tube systems, that sort of thing."
Gerta Hosten raised her eyes from the diagrams before her. "We're not short of labor," she said, with a smile that didn't reach the cold, dark eyes.
Meaning they are short of the type of labor that bulk transport would need, Raj said thoughtfully.
An image drew itself at the back of John's consciousness: short, dark-skinned men with iron collars around their necks loading a train-an unbelievably primitive train, with an engine like something out of a museum, an open platform and a tall, thin smokestack topped with sheet-metal petals. Each staggered sweating under a bundle of dried fish secured in netting, heaving it painfully onto the flatcars. Other men watched them, soldiers with single-shot rifles mounted on giant dogs. Occasionally a dog would snap its great jaws with a door-slamming sound and the laborers would shuffle a little faster.
Who needs wheelbarrows when you've got enough slaves? Raj said with ironic distaste. We got over that, eventually. Thanks to Center.
and to you, raj whitehall, Center replied.
John reached into the inner pocket of his light cotton jacket and took out his cigarette case. From what he'd described, the centralized god-king autocracy Raj Whitehall had been born into had been almost as nasty as the Chosen-more desirable only because Center and Raj could put their own man on the throne and use that as the fulcrum to move society off dead center. There seem to be more wrong paths than right, he thought.
correct. high-coercion societies locked in stasis alternating with barbarism are the maximum probability for postneolithic humanity, Center observed dispassionately. the original breakthrough to modernity on earth was the result of multiple low-probability historical accidents, observe-
Later we may have time for lectures, Raj observed. Meanwhile, John has a job of work to do.
Gerta looked up again, stacking the reports neatly on the hotel room's table, and took a long drink of water.
"This. . Whippet?"
"It's a type of racing dog," John said helpfully.
"This Whippet looks like a very useful panzer, if you. . if the Santies can get it working," she observed.
"True enough," John said. "There's a lot of controversy. The western provinces are pushing it, but the easterners want more effort to go into aircraft. And they have most of the internal-combustion manufacturing capacity."
"Yes, I read the speech of this. . Senator Damian? The representative from Ensburg, in any case-you thoughtfully supplied it with the latest reports. 'I put my faith in our mountains'; a very colorful phrase."
Her strong, calloused fingers turned the sheaf of papers over. "Now, this, this Land-Cruiser, it's going to give the Army Council's engineers hives."
The blueprints on the table showed a massive boxy machine, mounting a six-inch gun on its centerline, a two-inch quick-firer in a turret above, and six machine-guns in sponsons on either side.
"What a monstrosity," she went on. "If the Santies are having trouble making the Whippet go, how do they expect this. . this thing to move?"
John leaned forward. A lot of work, mostly Center's, had gone into the Land-Cruiser. It was no easy task to design something beyond Visager's current technological level, but just beyond, close enough that competent engineers would be kept busy on the tantalizing quest for this particular Holy Grail. Disinformation was much more than simple lying.
"Each bogie has its own engine," he pointed out.
The huge machine rested on four bogies on either side, each riding on a pivot with bell-crank springs. "See, there's a drive train run through this flexible shaft coupling, and then through meshed gears to the toothed sprocket here between the load-bearing wheels."
"Porschmidt will love this. Unfortunately."
At John's glance she went on: "The new head of Technical Development. He's brilliant, but he keeps trying to make bad designs good instead of junking them-he'd rather design three force pumps and an auxiliary circulation system into an engine rather than just turn a part over to keep it from leaking. You should see what he did to the heavy field gun. It's enough to make a Test of Life examiner cry. He's the sort who gives engineering a bad name; convinced that just because its his, his shit doesn't stink."
"Well, if the Republic's wasting its time, so much the better," John said with a smile.
"Ya. Only, is the Republic wasting its time, or are you wasting ours?"
John kept the expression on his face genial, as his testicles tried to climb back into his abdomen. It was impossible to have a cold sweat in Oathtaking's climate, but you could feel clammy-nauseated.
"Gerta, min soester, do you think so little of me?"
"Johan, min brueder, I think very highly of you. I think somehow you're fucking Military Intelligence up the bu
tt and making them like it." She grinned, and this time the expression went all the way through. "But you're giving us so much real information to sweeten the pot that I can't convince anyone of it. . yet."
She sighed, relaxed, and put the documents away in her attache case, spinning the combination lock. Then she poured some banana gin from the carafe into her water, and a dollop into his lemonade. "Now I'm officially off-duty."
He sipped; the oily-sweet kick of the distillate seemed to match the surroundings, somehow. And one wouldn't affect his judgement noticeably.
"So, I hear you've adopted a child," Gerta said.
"Yes. See, I am practicing Chosen custom, as far as I can." They both laughed. "How's your youngest?'
"A shapeless lump of protoplasm, the way they all are at that age," Gerta said.
She pulled a picture from her uniform tunic. A baby looked out, with one chubby hand stuffed in its mouth; the fuzzy background was probably a Protege wetnurse, from the linen bodice.
"Young Sigvard. That's four, now; I think I've done my duty by the Chosen, don't you? It's an interesting experience, pregnancy, but I wouldn't want to overindulge."
"And the adoptees?"
"Good children, every one," Gerta said. "The one good thing about desk duty is that I get to see more of them; they've been practically living in Father's house most of the time, the last two years, what with the war."
John produced a snapshot of Pia and Maurice junior; Gerta looked at it critically. "Sound enough stock," she said. . which was a high compliment, by the standards of the Land.
"I hear Heinrich made brigadier?"
"Ya, same dispatch-and-notice list that bumped me to full colonel," Gerta said, leaning back and stretching. "They added another six divisions to the regular roster, lots of new hats to go around. Especially with all the demotions and such after the Campaign Study."
John nodded. The General Staff had high standards; there had been a lot of shaking up after the campaign in the Empire. Mere success wasn't good enough. .
Mark of a good army, lad, Raj said. Anyone can learn from his mistakes. It takes sound doctrine to be able to learn from winning.
"Enough other compensations to go around, I suppose," he said aloud.
Gerta chuckled. "Well, the Council has been handing out estates fairly liberally. Mostly in the west, around Corona, to start with. Too much unrest for it to be safe for us to scatter ourselves around widely, just yet." A shrug. "We'll deal with that in due course."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Christ, how do I git myself inta these things?" one of the Marines behind him in the longboat muttered.
John smiled in the darkness. That was Barrjen. The stocky Marine had managed to volunteer-unofficially, the whole mission was highly off the record-despite his loud relief at making it home last time. In fact, the ones who'd been with him from Ciano to Salini had all volunteered, even Smith with his gimp foot. Some of them had been pretty shamefaced about it, as if they were mentally kicking themselves, but they'd all done it.
It was a moonless night and overcast, typical weather for winter in the Gut. The whaleboat glided silently over the dark water; they might as well have been rowing in a closet, for all that he could see. Water purled under the muffled oars, breath smoked. Only the radium dial of his compass guided them, that and. .
"Down!" he hissed quietly.
The dozen men in the boat shipped oars and turned their cork-blackened faces downward in the same motion. A few seconds later the quiet thumping of a marine steam engine came over the water. A searchlight stabbed out into the darkness, blinding bright, the arc light flicking over the waves. Behind it was a gaggle of other boats. Fishing boats; the Chosen couldn't shut down the Gut fishery, it was too important to the economy, and too many of the important pelagic species were best caught in darkness. They did send out a gunboat to make sure nobody tried to make a break for the Santander or Union shores, and probably kept the families of the fishermen hostage, too.
The light flicked past them. Weaker lights were breaking out among the fishing boats, lure lanterns strung out over bows and sides. John waited tensely until they were surrounded by the other boats, several dozen of them spread out widely.
"Wait for it. ."
A thrashing of whitewater as something big broached and snapped for the dangling lantern of a boat, something with a long head full of white teeth. Yells drifted over the water, and he could see a man poised with a harpoon, backlit against the oil lamp. He struck, and a monstrous three-lobed tail came up out of the water. Other boats were closing in, to help with the first catch and wait for the others that would be drawn by the commotion and the blood in the waters.
"Now! Stroke, stroke!"
The Land gunboat was out further in the Gut, hooting its steam whistle and scanning with the searchlight. . but it was guarding against attempts to get away, not looking for boats making for the ex-Imperial shore. John kept his right hand on the whaleboat's tiller, flicking an occasional glance down at the compass in his left. That was mostly for show; Center kept a ghostly vector arrow floating before his gaze.
there are now echoes from cliffs of the configuration indicated, the machine said. distance one thousand meters and closing.
Thump. John's head whipped around. That was the gunboat's cannon. . ah. "Just a big 'un," he whispered to the crew.
You got an occasional one of those, even in the shallow waters of the Gut. Nothing like the monsters that made sailing the outer seas hazardous, but too much for a harpooner to handle. There had been very little life on land when humans arrived on Visager, but the oceans more than made up for it. The Chosen officer on the gunboat probably thought of it as sport, something to break the dull routine of night escort work. And very good cover for John.
"We'll be coming up on the cliffs soon," he said quietly. "Half-stroke. . half-stroke. ."
The oars shortened their pace, scarcely dipping into the water. He could hear the slow boom of surf now, thudding and hissing on rock. John held up his signal lantern and carefully pressed the shutter: two long, two short, one long.
A flicker answered him, two shorts, repeated-all that they dared use, with the light pointing out to the Gut.
"Yarely now," the lead Marine in the head of the boat said. There was a quiet plop as he swung the lead. "By the mark, six. Six. Five. Six. Four. Four."
Rock loomed up on either hand, just visible as the waves broke and snake-hissed over it. A river broke the cliff near here, cutting a pathway that men or goats could use.
"By the mark, seven. Ten. No bottom at ten."
The pitching of the boat changed, calmer as they moved into the sheltered waters. John felt sweat matting his hair under the black knit stocking cap. The guerillas would be waiting; the guerillas, or a Fourth Bureau reaction squad.
"Rest oars," he said.
The poles came in, noiseless. The boat coasted, slowing. . and the keel crunched on shingle. Four men leapt overboard into thigh-deep water, fanning out with their weapons ready. The rest followed them a second later, putting their shoulders to the whaleboat's sides and running it forward. John drew the revolver from his shoulder rig and ran forward to leap off the bow.
there, Center said, reading input from his ears too faint for his conscious mind to follow.
He walked forward, sliding his feet to avoid tripping on the uneven surface. A match glowed, cupped in a hand, just long enough for him to recognize the face. Arturo Bianci, the cotadini he'd shipped the arms to, back when the war began. Two years looked to have aged the man ten, which wasn't all that surprising.
A hand gripped his. "No lights," John warned.
Bianci made a sound that was half chuckle. "We have learned, signore. Those of us who live, have learned much."
They had; there were ropes strung from sticks to guide up the steep rocky path. Guerillas joined the Marines in unloading the crates and lashing them to their shoulders with rope slings. John swung crates down from the boat, pleased with the sile
nce and speed. . and waiting for the moment when lights would spear down from the clifftop and voices sound in Landisch. At last the boat rode high and empty, rocking against the shingle.
"This way," John said.
Harry Smith nodded, and together they pushed it upstream, under an overhang of wild olive and trailing vines. Smith reached in, rocking it to one side with his weight, and pulled the stopper. Water gurgled into the whaleboat, and it sank rapidly in the chest-deep stream.
"I'll put a few rocks in her," Smith said. "She'll be here when y'all get back. So'll I be. Good luck, sir." He racked a shell into the breech of his pump shotgun.
"Thanks. To you, too-we're all going to need it."
* * *
Heinrich Hosten looked at the thing that twitched and mewled on the table. The Fourth Bureau specialist smiled and patted it on what was left of its scalp.
"Yes, I'd say they're definitely planning on something to do with the train," she said. "Can't tell you exactly where, though-the subject didn't know, that's for certain."
Heinrich nodded thanks as he left. Outside he stood thoughtfully beside his horse for a while, looking around at the buildings of the little town, then pulling a map from the case at his side and tilting it so that the lantern outside the Fourth Bureau regional HQ shone on the paper. When he mounted, he turned towards the barracks, his escort of riflemen clattering behind him through the chill night.
"No, don't wake Major van Pelt," he said to the sentry outside the main door. It had been a monastery before the conquest, perfect for its new use; a series of courtyards with small rooms leading off, and large common kitchens, refectories for mess halls. "Who's the officer of the day?"
That turned out to be a very young captain. Heinrich returned her salute, then smiled as he stuffed tobacco into his big curved pipe.
"Hauptman Neumann, what's a junior officer's worst nightmare?"
"Ah. ." Captain Neumann knotted her brow in thought. "Surprise attack by overwhelming numbers?" she said hopefully.
"Tsk, tsk. That would be an opportunity for an able young officer," Heinrich said genially. "No, a nightmare is what you are about to undergo; an operation conducted with a senior officer along to look over your shoulder and jog your elbow. What forces are stationed here in Campo Fiero?"