The Harriers Book Two: Blood and War

by David Drake

  "True," said the robin's-egg blue one. "Sventur has shown an excellent appreciation of the ratio of risk. This is most reassuring, you may be confident of it." At the end of this he faded to a cloudy grey.

  "Well," she said, a little astonished by such approval, and so clearly explained, "then my instincts and my feet say that we take a three-hour break, soporifics for those who need them. The Bunters can use the time to tend to the injuries." She indicated the hollow again. "We should be able to walk that distance in twenty ES minutes without going too fast for safety. Just remember the slope is slippery."

  The others nodded, and this time none of them appeared to object. For once Ancelott said nothing.

  "All right," said Sventur, and made herself take the first step.

  They were all making their way down the hill, cursing as the treacherous footing skittered and slipped, threatening to send them all toppling. Only the two Bunters made their way without mishap, their stabilizers compensating for the precarious route.

  A little over half-way to the hollow, a number of large, winged shapes began to flicker ahead in the darkness. They rose over the Petit Harriers and circled, giving a strange cry like the sound of a nail scraped over stone.

  "Volants!" exclaimed Sventur, and she began to run, trying to keep her balance as she went, her arms windmilling as much to keep the flying carnivores away as to aid in her remaining upright.

  "They eat meat?" Crozzer shouted.

  "Yes!" Sventur answered, and tripped on a loose rock. She strained, floundered, almost dropped her zap board, but stayed on her feet, her ankles so wrenched that she feared she would have to cut her boots off.

  "How do you stop them?" shouted TeRoumei.

  "You don't. You run," Sventur replied.

  "Volants!" caroled the Mromrosii as they capered over the small cascade of dirt and pebbles that marked the path of the Harriers' run.

  The Petits were in full rout, rushing as fast as they could. Two of them fell and picked themselves up again, but one—Group Chief Takenyi Borisov of Vladimir—was raked on the face and neck by the volants. Zameda Lauy-Rei succeeded in knocking one of the reptilelike creatures out of the air with a fortunate hand-to-hand combat blow.

  The Bunters kept on their way steadily, using one set of arms to flail at the volants as if they were pesky irritations instead of carnivorous predators. They supported their Petit Harrier charges without mishap.

  By the time they reached the shelter of the trees, Kurdy Ancelott had also been badly raked on his head and was swearing in profane and unrepeating determination, mixing Harrier and Hathaway idiom in creative abandon.

  Under the trees Sventur at last gathered all the Petits together once more, and with the help of the Mromrosii was able to establish a make-shift camp. It was little more than a cleared circle in the midst of the trees, but it was protected enough for the remainder of the night.

  "I will observe, and the Bunters will do the rest," the Mromrosii assured Sventur, both of them a coral color. "You may have your needed rest."

  It was an effort for Sventur to keep her eyes open, for she had just taken a two-hour soporific.

  "Thanks," she said, her tongue feeling thick. "Good of you to do it. You must be as tired as we are."

  "Yes, it is, isn't it, good of us. And our fatigue is not as yours," said the Mromrosi standing closer to her, going a beneficent shade of mint green that was wholly lost on Sventur in the darkness. He watched her until he was satisfied she was asleep, then strolled around the perimeter of the camp, his single green eye turned on the Bunters. His fellow-Mromrosi remained in the center of the sleepers, his green eye bright as a direction-finder beacon.

  The sun had just hitched itself over the horizon, casting long beams of light through the branches of the trees and dappling the sleeping Harriers with speckles of brightness where they lay in the protection of their screens. The leaves rustled and there was the distant sound of running water. At another time it would have been idyllic.

  One of the Mromrosi shook Sventur awake, bouncing on his squat little legs and making a series of high squeaks. "Group Line Chief!" he yelped.

  The soporific had worn off enough for Sventur to waken quickly. She sat up, shaking her head, and turned to the Mromrosi, wondering why he had gone all purples. Was she apprehensive because of what had happened so far, or was she responding to a new danger? Not very comforting thoughts first thing in the morning, she told herself as she got to her feet.

  "Come at once," he told her anxiously, prodding at her shoulder with one of his eight chubby feet. "Hurry, hurry, hurry. It is very important."

  Obediently Sventur got up and put her helmet on as she walked, the visor up. She saw that the others were still asleep.

  Except for Group Line Chief Hsuin Xanitan, who lay on his back with a long medical probe protruding from his chest. Crusted blood ran from the wound and formed a puddle beside him, now coagulated to the tackiness of varnish. He had not been dead more than half an hour.

  "Pog it all!" Sventur declared. This was worse than anything she had considered. She had supposed if she had escaped one thing, it was the possibility of the murder of her crew.

  The other Mromrosi toddled over to them, his curls drooping and his color a washed-out olive shade. "It was very late when this occurred, and I was remiss in my task. There was no sound to alert me, and no movement that I could detect. All I saw was the Bunter tending Group Line Chief Hsuin. I paid no notice until it summoned me to see what had happened."

  Sventur hunkered down beside Hsuin, careful not to disturb any detail around him. She drew out her bio-light and ran its beam over the body. The findings were not detailed but sufficient for their circumstances. "Nothing but a stabbing," she said remotely. "No poison, no drugs but painkillers, no organ failure. Just a sharp poke in the chest." She got to her feet, hating herself for what she was thinking.

  "It is fatal to your species, I understand," said one of the Mromrosi quietly. "It is a great sorriness."

  "When I realized something had happened," said the other Mromrosi, now a gorgeous shade of lilac, "I shut down both the Bunters at once, so that if there is anything in their recall files, it cannot be altered or erased." His manner might have been apologetic for he squnched down, rounding out to the side and reducing his usual one meter height by half and increasing his circumference by a third so that he resembled nothing so much as an enormous furry muffin with a large candied green fruit on top. "I hope I do not offend."

  "Thanks," Sventur said without looking away from the body. "You do not offend at all. The recall file is essential. We'll need that."

  "A very unfortunate thing," said the other Mromrosi.

  "That it is," said Sventur. She looked down at Hsuin's tranquil features. Whoever had killed him had not frightened him. There was no sign of a struggle. Though Hsuin had taken a soporific, a jolt of adrenalin would have shaken it off at once, and he would have been able to fight, if there were danger from an enemy. . . .

  "Who got so near him?" Sventur mused aloud. One of the Petits in the ground party must have made it possible for Hsuin to die. That notion was inconceivable, but there was no other explanation.

  The flattened Mromrosi was now a ruddy gold shade, and he said, "There was the Bunter and—"

  Sventur started to wave this away. "Other than the—" She stopped herself, and when she went on, it was in another voice. "Bunter!" She rounded on the two Mromrosii. "Yes. You're right. I want the recall files for last night from those two." Her gesture took in both Bunters. "Right now."

  "I will wake Parkerman—" offered the Mromrosi as he returned to a more Mromrosi-normal shape.

  "No," Sventur countered. "Don't do that. None of the Petits should touch it. Parkerman might be suspect. I want you to do it. If there's any question about the files, I want to be able to show that we Harriers had no chance to interfere with what was on them, and you're the ones who can guarantee that." She also had a sinking feeling that the Bunters might not rel
ease the files to her.

  "There is truth in that," said the other Mromrosi, his color turning to a very fetching apricot. "Very well, we will attend to it at once." He bounced against his fellow. "Pick one," he said, and added a burst of squeaks and clicks.

  The answer sounded like static, but it appeared to satisfy both Mromrosii and they ambled off to do as they had been ordered.

  As she stood near the foot of Group Line Chief Hsuin, Sventur looked around the small clearing where they had made their camp, then, as she assessed their position in the light, she went back toward her cocoon. She wanted to get her zap board out before the rest of the camp was awake.

  There was some underbrush, she noticed, but not enough to make approach impossible or too noisy for a skilled assassin. She frowned. As tired as they were last night, and with the soporifics they had taken, it would have required more than a little noise to pull them awake. And with the tracking devices on the various ships, it would not be difficult to find them now that they were stationary.

  But there were the Mromrosii on guard—and they were as tired as the Harriers, Sventur reminded herself—and the Bunters.

  How could an assassin not alert either the Mromrosii or the Bunters? It niggled at her, that question.

  Then she winced afresh at the idea that had taken hold of her. It was unthinkable, that Bunters should do anything against a Harrier, Petit or Grand. Hastily she entered the coded zap and sent it, hoping that the signal would not be detected by the Bastan'gal or the Grands. She tucked the zap board inside her cocoon then folded her arms, lost in thought, and so did not hear as Urthur Mondragon came up to her from behind until his sleepy "You all right, Group Line Chief?" broke through her concentration.

  "Mondragon," she said, by way of apology as she turned to look at him. "I guess . . . I'm all right, if you mean healthy. My ankles are pretty stiff, but so are everyone else's."

  "Then what is it?" Mondragon asked seriously. "You look sperky, Sventur. Sorry, but you do." He flushed a little, for on Chalot such a personal remark to a superior would earn a stern reprimand.

  Sventur scowled. "You'll find out shortly in any case," she said firmly. "It's Hsuin." She looked away.

  "He died?" Mondragon changed color almost as dramatically as a Mromrosi—from embarrassed pink to shocked white in half a second. "But he wasn't that badly hurt. How could he die?"

  "With a little help," said Sventur. She straightened as she went on, almost as if giving a report. "While the rest of us Harriers were asleep, someone got to him."

  "But who?" Mondragon asked, and his question was seconded by Group Chief Miya Maht, her striking Czardas features making her expression of outrage stronger.

  "Someone," said Sventur doggedly. "We'll know soon enough."

  "You mean someone just came into camp and killed him?" demanded Maht. "Pogger all! How could that happen?"

  "Weren't the Bunters keeping watch? Didn't the Mromrosii take guard duty?" asked Mondragon of the tree branches. "How could anyone get here without being noticed."

  "I'm hoping to find out," said Sventur testily as she noticed the rest of the Harriers were starting to rise from their cocoons.

  "Something's not right," said Maht, and looked toward the closed cocoon where Group Line Chief Hsuin now lay, Protocol Officer Zameda Lauy-Rei standing watch over it.

  "Yes," agreed TeRoumei, who had just joined the cluster of Petits at the center of the clearing.

  It was very difficult for Sventur to say what she had to say next. "I want both Communication Leaders here, and I want you to record everything we discuss. I want it sent on simultaneous zap, so that there will be a record of it no matter what happens. Otherwise I fear we're going to be forgotten." She started to pace in the confined area the Harriers left for her. T don't care who has done it, I don't care what the reason for it was, I just want it over. Is that clear?"

  There were nods of assent and a few muttered expletives.

  "Someone is either after the Harriers in general or the Petits in particular," she said. "So for the time being, everyone stay here, and wait. Have your rations. The Mromrosii will have something for us shortly." It was a promise she hoped the Mromrosii could fulfill.

  "And if they don't?" challenged Godwendo.

  "Then we'll have to think of something else. Before we move again." She let them think about the danger inherent in that last statement, then added, "So we have to have results of some kind, don't we?"

  In less than half an Earth Standard hour the Mromrosii presented Sventur with the tiny spools that constituted the recall files of the two Bunters. One of them was the color of pewter, the other a deep green-bronze.

  "We had to use the Emerging Planet Fairness Court over-ride instructions to get these," said the bronze one. That's why it took longer than we first anticipated it would."

  "Thank you," said Sventur, and added, "I want you to observe everyone in this party when we view the files. Will you do that? And I want anyone detained who attempts to leave. Or arrive, for that matter," she added after a moment.

  "If that is what you think best," said the pewter one, and became bluer, more like steel.

  "I think it's the only way we can deal with this," said Sventur, hoping she was right.

  "Very well," said the bronze one, remaining bronze.

  Sventur lifted her hand. "Parkerman. Set up a replay link. Use that expandable screen so that we can all see it."

  "The screen isn't very big," Parker Parkerman said as he approached her. "No matter what, I can't get it much larger than the Mromrosii are tall. A square meter's about its greatest expansion."

  "Fine," said Sventur grimly. "I want to see these two recall files, the last four days. All right?"

  "You mean, from before we arrived?" Parkerman asked, pausing in taking the tiny spools.

  "That's what I mean. I want to know who's been issuing the orders." She appeared very serious and Parkerman could not bring himself to question her.

  "If that's what you want, Sventur, it's just fine with me." But he cocked his head speculatively as he took custody of the spools as if he did not quite know what to do with them.

  "You aren't going to just play them, are you?" asked TeRoumei. "Aren't you worried what they might reveal?"

  "Of course I am," said Sventur, aware she was answering more of the Petite Harriers than Khirmian TeRoumei. "That's the reason I think we all have to see it at once, or some of you will think that parts were changed or left out or altered." She put her hands together and rested her chin on the tips of her middle fingers. "Whatever is in those files, we'll only find it useful if we see them all at once together."

  TeRoumei certainly did not agree. He made the traditional Shimbue gesture meaning hopelessly crazy, then went to he on top of his cocoon, scorning the protection of its screen.

  The steel-colored Mromrosi frowned at TeRoumei, then hopped over toward Sventur. "We have observed the files already," he said. "We will be able to inform you that they are complete."

  "Thanks," she whispered, and watched Parkerman assembling his equipment.

  In another twenty ES minutes, Parkerman was ready, though he warned that being they were without a full powersource or an auxiliary communications feed they might get poor replay. "We're really tik-tiking here," he reminded all the Harriers. "It's not going to look real good."

  "Just get on with it," said Sventur, and was relieved when she saw that all the Petits were gathering closer to the makeshift screen.

  "This is Navigator Gos-Raidan's Bunter. The record starts four ES days back, as per orders," said Parkerman, to remind everyone that this long period was not his idea. "We're playing out at five accelerations but we can return to real-time play whenever necessary."

  There were more mutters and suggestions, then silence as pictures jerked alive on the screen.

  It was the Bunter-zone of the Yamapunkt, the walls painted in wide swaths of the ships colors: green and purple. A dozen Bunters were hooked up to the main Bunter consoles
to repower, reprogram and debrief, as they did at least once a day when in space. This particular Bunter was absorbing a reinforcement of one of the basic codes of the Bunters: that the Harriers were to be protected at all costs; that Petits were more expendable than Grands; that the rule of the Fleet Commodore and The Twelve over-ruled the orders of the Harriers. And there was the required provision that the Emerging Planet Fairness Court had access at all times to all records of all actions of all Bunters in the Magnicate Alliance, to be surrendered at once upon submission of the Mromrosii codes. That last had been grudgingly put in after a long, polite negotiation with the six-species EPFC, and it was still regarded by many as dangerous and unnecessary.

  Familiar faces and voices flitted by, and the chaos of Line Commander Fayrborn's defection reviewed at high speed except when the Bunters were all forbidden by coding to take no action against Fayrborn—Grands were less expendable than Petits, and Fayrborn had been extended the protective cloak of the Grands—or the Bombard-class ship to which he fled.

  Preparation to land on Lontano began, the Bunter keeping with its assigned Petit. Because Korliss Panmix was from Mere Philomene, the Bunter prepared a set of special underwear for the Navigator, as was traditional for any Fille Philomene undertaking important actions.

  "I wonder if she still has those on?" asked Ancelott.

  Just before the Glavuses left high orbit, there was another dispatch which appeared to be to the Bunters of all the ships.

  "We are convinced that this is significant," announced one of the Mromrosii from the rear of the watchers.

  The dispatch fed into the Bunter consoles, one that specifically required that the Bunters defend the Grands before the Petits, and to regard any action against the Grands by the Petits as treason, therefore requiring execution out of hand because of their battle status. It was also revealed to the Bunters that the Grands were in the middle of very delicate negotiations with the Bastan'gal, and that any actions against the alien invaders of Lontano would compromise the negotiations beyond repair. Therefore it was essential that any action against the Bastan'gal be viewed as an attack on the Grands as well. The Bunters were to be certain there was no disruption of the negotiative process: the Petits were more expendable than Grands. This was locked with a most secret code, and the Bunters returned to duty.