by David Weber
As soon as a team could figure out exactly where it was, which took a combination of painstaking mapping and star-fixes, combined with strong backgrounds in the natural sciences—geology and biology in particular—all the team had to do was compare their location here with master charts of Sharona to figure out which areas to reach first. If, for instance, they had emerged near a spot where valuable iron deposits existed on Sharona, they would head straight there and claim them before any other company's teams got word that a new portal had opened at all, let alone where it led.
The team which made it through a portal first could make a great deal of money for the company which employed it. And since survey crews were paid, in part, on a system of shared stocks in the assets of the company, team members could get rich, as well, with just one or two lucky breaks. This was the third virgin universe Shaylar and Jathmar had "pushed" on behalf of of Chalgyn. There wasn't much in the way of value anywhere near the swampy mess just behind them, but they'd mapped some valuable terrain in the one prior to that, which meant they would have quite a nest egg built up for their retirement years. As for what they might yet find in this universe . . .
They'd had to wait for the Portal Authority's garrison to arrive before stepping through into this universe, but they were the only team anywhere near this end of this particular transit chain. The other major consortiums were going to chew nails and spit tacks when word of this lovely little cluster of portals filtered back. Shaylar grinned at the very thought, having been on the other end of the stick all too often. She'd lost track of the number of times they'd jumped through portals somebody else had already opened up, crossing miles and miles of someone else's claim in the hopes of reaching a valuable area nobody else had claimed, or—best of all—finding a new portal of their own.
This time, she told herself happily, we get first choice of what's out here.
But for now, Jathmar's images were coming through steadily as he began a long, leisurely sweep from the eastern edge of his morning's hike, turning toward the south to begin the leg that led him down parallel to the end of the southern transit. By the time he finished the long day's hike, they would have filled in the blanks remaining in the southeastern transit zone. The portal lay behind them, almost due north of their present camp, clearly marked on Shaylar's chart. Once they'd filled in the entire region around their current day-fort, they would compare what they had to the master charts and see if they could come up with a correlation to Sharona. She doubted it, given the immense sweep of land that usually had to be charted before a terrain feature large enough or distinctive enough emerged to make that accurate a determination possible. But a few more days of charting ought to do the trick. Then all they had to do was decide which way to head to secure the best chunks of land for the Chalgyn Consortium.
Shaylar plotted out more terrain features as Jathmar sent new images, with new topographical features—gullies, a deep ravine, another stream that came trickling in from the east of Jathmar's current position. She jotted down a running commentary, as well, on the images flickering through her awareness. She and Jathmar would go over her notes tonight, while the information and both their impressions remained fresh. They would make whatever amendments were necessary before calling it a night, then begin again the next morning.
When Jathmar halted for a rest at midmorning, Shaylar sat back and was almost startled by the sound of voices behind her. They'd gone virtually subliminal during the previous two hours, no more noticeable than the murmuring sound of insects. The noise was startling, now that she'd come up for air, so to speak. From the sound of things, Futhai was trying to talk chan Hagrahyl into letting him hike further along the stream than the team leader thought prudent.
"—if you would just authorize a guard, that wouldn't be a factor!"
"Not until Jathmar and Shaylar complete the basic grid around this camp," chan Hagrahyl rumbled in the tone that most of their team understood as "subject closed; don't bother to debate it." Futhai, however, was a zealous naturalist surrounded by new species—several of them, in fact. He'd also already established a most unusual co-mingling of species from different climatic regions. As far as he was concerned, that clearly confirmed Darcel's belief that they'd found an actual cluster. How else could so many species that didn't belong here have wandered into the area?
He obviously wanted to be out there collecting more specimens, and it appeared he wasn't prepared to take "no" for an answer. Not when his professional standing in the community of scientists was virtually guaranteed by the notes he was making in this camp alone. His enthusiasm for discovery was wreaking havoc with standard protocol, however, and chan Hagrahyl didn't sound amused.
If he hadn't been such an irritant, Shaylar might have felt a sneaking sympathy for Futhai. She knew only too well what it felt like to have something wonderful dangled in front of her, only to be told "no, you can't." Braiheri Futhai was only doing what she herself had done: fight to get what she wanted. Unfortunately for Futhai, chan Hagrahyl was a tougher customer than the combined weight of the Portal Authority's governing board and her own people's conservatism.
She grinned at that thought, then caught a glimpse of blackberry brambles all around Jathmar, along with a hint of deep satisfaction that the birds hadn't gotten all of the berries yet. Shaylar chuckled aloud, then relaxed back from the discipline of prolonged telepathic contact. She rose from her makeshift desk and shook the cramps out of her fingers and shoulders. Her work with Jathmar wasn't difficult, so much as intense. Her concentration needed a breather almost as much as Jathmar's legs—and taste buds—did.
She strolled west along the bank of the creek, casting a sharp woods-wise eye around the entire area, looking for any trace of hostile wildlife. She didn't expect any, given the amount of noise they'd made since setting up camp yesterday, but you could never be certain in a virgin universe. None of the animals in this Sharona had ever even seen a human being. They had no reason to be afraid of humans, which could be delightful, but could also be dangerous, since it meant their reactions to the presence of those humans was often difficult to predict. Personally, however charming she might find it to have wild deer willing to take food from her hand, Shaylar was in favor of having cougars or grizzly bears be wary enough of humans to leave her in peace.
She was also too experienced a field operative to take her safety for granted in the wilderness. All it would take to injure her, possibly fatally, would be a moment's carelessness, and the presence of several armed men in camp did nothing to absolve her of the responsibility for her own safety. This lovely forest doubtless had snakes in it, at the very least, and a rattle-tail's bite would be serious, indeed, even with Tymo Scleppis available. The telempathic Healer could speed the healing of deep cuts or broken bones, or help repair internal injuries, but pharmacological trouble like snake venom was another matter entirely, and their team was a long way from the nearest medical clinic. She scanned the terrain for potential trouble, aware almost peripherally of the weight of the handgun at her hip. She'd never needed it, but it was there, just in case of danger, and she knew how to use it. Very well, as a matter of fact.
Once she was sure of her environs, Shaylar descended the steep bank and crouched down to wash smudges of graphite off her hands. The water was shockingly cold, sending an ache up the bones of her hands to her wrists. Somewhere far upstream, several miles away, from the sound of it, a distant CRACK of rifle fire split the silence. Shaylar grinned, wondering what Falsan had bagged for the cookpot. He'd have plenty of time to clean the carcass, lug it back to camp, and butcher it properly before it was time to throw supper on the fire.
Given the distance, she doubted he'd brought down a deer, since he would've had to dress and haul the carcass all the way back alone. A wild turkey, maybe, she thought, straightening up and shaking excess water from her hands. Then she dried them on her heavy twill pants, and her grin turned into a fond smile as she recalled her father's reaction when he'd learned Shaylar would
be wearing trousers all the time.
"But, my dear! That's—it's—"
"Practical, Papa," she'd said firmly. "That's the word you're looking for: practical. You don't object when Mama swims with her dolphin clients. She wears less in the water than I'll have on anytime I'm outside our sleeping tent."
"Yes, but your mother stays in the water. She doesn't traipse out and about on land dressed that way, and even when she comes out of the water, she's still on our property, after all."
"Oh, Papa, try to understand. The world is changing. Our little corner of Shurkhal isn't the whole multiverse, you know."
Her drollery had coaxed a wan chuckle from her father, which had, of course, been the beginning of the end to his resistance. It hadn't taken much more to convince him that she knew what she was doing, regardless of what her aunts and cousins would think about her running about the universes without a single skirt or tunic in sight.
Shaylar looked around the towering forest giants and shook her head, still bemused by her parents' notions of decorum and still a little mystified by her own determination to be so stubbornly independent. Most of her relatives halfway suspected she was a changeling of some sort, since no other member of Clan Kolmayr had ever evinced a desire to wander as far as Dahdej, the capital city of Shurkhal, let alone through even one portal, never mind the fifteen or twenty-odd between Sharona and this glorious forest.
She peered into one of the deep pools nearby and thought about trying a dip net on the truly immense trout she could see lurking in the dark water, back under the overhanging rocks that jutted out just a little farther along the bank. They would be mighty tasty eating, and she licked her lips as a hunger that matched Jathmar's made itself felt in her midsection. Maybe she could try netting the fish during lunch. Of course, they wouldn't need fish if Falsan brought back something substantial. Shaylar smiled a farewell at the fish, at least for now.
Another day, maybe.
She stood there for several more minutes, just looking at all the incredible beauty around her. The great forest was like a shrine, unlike anything Shaylar had known growing up in the arid Shurkhali peninsula. The motes of sunlight drifting down through the bright foliage danced and shifted on the dappled, dark water of the stream, which flashed an almost painful gold where of light struck ripples and eddies in the swift moving current. The whispering laughter of the water was a hushed and beautiful sound.
This, she sighed, stretching luxuriously, is the way to really live.
Shaylar consulted her pocket watch, which hung from her neck on a sturdy silver chain—steel would rust under most field conditions—and realized her fifteen minutes of break time were up. She climbed the bank, resettled herself at her field desk, and contacted Jathmar. She caught a brief glimpse of the blackberry brambles—greatly denuded, now—then he shook the dust out of his trousers and got busy again.
The ghostly pictures began to flow once more as she and her husband settled back into the familiar routine.
Chapter Three
The sharp cracking sound echoed and faded into a silence that was as unnatural as the sound which had produced it. Not a single bird was singing; even the squirrels ceased their barking chatter for a long, startled moment, and Gadrial Kelbryan looked at Sir Jasak Olderhan.
"What was that?" Her voice was hushed, as though she feared the answer.
"I intend to find out."
The hundred kept his voice to a whisper, too, prompted by an intuition he couldn't explain. But he meant every word of it, and one glance at Fifty Garlath had already told Jasak that he was going to have to be the one who did the finding out. Any officer worth his salt would already have ordered teams out to contact their drag and point men, their flanking screen. Garlath hadn't done that. He simply stood there, gazing thoughtfully at the same stretch of forest canopy he'd been contemplating before the sudden, sharp sound.
If Jasak hadn't been looking at the fifty at exactly the right moment, he might not have seen the way the older officer had jerked. The way his head had snapped around toward the mysterious sound. The flash of fear in those dark eyes before Garlath returned to that pose of studied nonchalance.
But Jasak had seen those things, all too clearly, and his jaw tightened. Unfortunately, he couldn't accuse the platoon leader of the cowardice his current indifference screened. Despite his own sudden, intuitive suspicion that something was wrong—terribly wrong—Jasak had no proof that it was. And a gut feeling wasn't grounds for making a charge as serious as "cowardice in the face of the enemy," despite the fact that both of them knew exactly why Garlath wasn't responding to the crackling danger that sound represented.
Or might represent, Jasak reminded himself. It wasn't easy, but he made himself step back just a little, determined to keep an open mind precisely because he recognized his own hairtrigger willingness to attribute the worst possible motives to Garlath's conduct as an officer of the Second Andaran Scouts.
All the fifty had really done, after all, was to ignore a sound that might be nothing more threatening than an old tree coming down somewhere. Jasak might be willing to bet his next five paychecks that the cause of that sound had been nothing so benign, but until he had more information—
Squad Shield Gaythar Harklan burst suddenly through a screen of brilliantly colored poplars, crushing a patch of toadstool mushrooms underfoot in his wild, headlong rush. He actually shot straight past Fifty Garlath and came to a gasping halt directly in front of Jasak.
"Sir!" His salute was a hasty affair, sketched with a hand that shook violently. "Sir, I beg leave to report a hostile contact—"
"Hostile contact?" Garlath snarled, abandoning his contemplation of the treetops to charge forward like an angry palm-horned bull moose. "Don't play the Hundred for a fool! And how dare you desert your post without orders?"
"S-Sir—" Harklan stuttered, swinging irresolutely between Jasak and the irate Garlath. "It's just that Osmuna—he's dead, Sir!"
"Dead?" Jasak asked sharply, cutting off another vitriolic outburst from Garlath with a brusquely raised hand. "What killed him?"
He'd meant to ask "who," rather than "what," but he had a sudden feeling that his meager Gift must be functioning, because Harklan's answer should have shocked the living daylights out of him.
"That's just it, Sir. I don't know what killed him. None of us know. I-I think he missed the halt order for the rest break, Sir. I was just about to pass the word to our flankers that I was moving forward, trying to catch up with him, when that sound came." He gulped hard. "It was right on the line to Osmuna, whatever it was, but it took me a while to get through the brush and find him. He's dead, Sir. Just fucking dead, and the right-flank patrol caught up to me, and we can't any of us figure out why he's dead or even how—"
"That is quite enough!" Garlath's dark complexion had acquired a nearly wine-purple hue. "You're hysterical, soldier! Place yourself on report and—"
"Fifty Garlath."
The ice-cold voice cut Garlath off in mid-snarl.
"Sir?" The fifty's response was strangled.
"We have a dead soldier, Fifty. I might suggest making that our immediate priority. Discipline can wait."
Garlath's jaw muscles bunched visibly, and the enraged flush spread abruptly down his neck and under the line of his uniform's collar. His furious, frightened eyes snapped to Jasak's face, and for just a moment, it looked as if he might actually explode. But then his eyes fell.
"Of course, Sir," he grated.
If his jaw had been any stiffer, the bone would have shattered like ice, and the glare he turned on Harklan was deadly with a promise of vengeance. Jasak took note of that, too, and made himself a promise of his own where Shevan Garlath and the squad shield were concerned. Then the fifty wheeled away and began barking furious orders of his own.
Despite that, it took him nearly ten minutes to shake First Platoon into anything approaching proper threat-response posture.
Jasak watched the platoon commander with eyes of b
rown ice. At least half of Garlath's snarled orders only contributed to the confusion of the moment, and the fifty's collar was soaked with sweat, despite the morning air's persistent chill.
It was simple fear, Jasak realized. Or perhaps not so simple, given the dynamics at play. It didn't require a major Gift to detect the sources of Garlath's pronounced lack of courage: fear of whatever had killed Osmuna, fear of making a mistake grave enough to finally get him cashiered, fear that he'd already made that fatal mistake. . . .
Well, a man can dream, can't he? Jasak thought sourly, wondering once again how Garlath had managed to outlast every other commander of one hundred assigned to ride herd on him.
"When we move out," he told Gadrial quietly without looking at her, his attention fully focused on the abruptly hostile shadows, "stay close to me."
He glanced at her, and she gave him a choppy nod. She looked tense, but not overtly frightened. Or, rather, on a second and longer look, she was scared spitless, but she wasn't letting the fear dominate her. Fifty Garlath ought to take lessons from this mere civilian—if anything about this particular civilian could be labeled "mere."