“There is one tiny flaw, however,” the general ended with the statement.
“A flaw, sir?”
“Yes. The B’lugi do not live twenty-six miles across the sea. It’s about eleven thousand miles just to the southwestern tip of their continent, and four thousand miles further to B’Lugi. Their voyage here was an epic journey, fraught with danger; it will likely be even more dangerous going back, because the Tengri are looking for her.”
“Me, sir? Why would she want me? I’m just a student!”
General Biggs smiled. “Students don’t get requests from foreign potentates to award their highest honor to you. Son, Melek has talked to the Arvalan king, Collum, and they want to give you two Chain Breaker tattoos. Take those to B’Lugi and your future is assured.
“Your job would be to learn what you can about the B’Lugi, teach them what you can about America, and do what you can to put a crimp in the Tengri plans to conquer us all.”
“Colonel Levi asked me to go to Israel.”
General Briggs laughed. “She asked me to go to Israel; she has asked Kris, Andie, Kurt and Ezra. You should have felt slighted if she left you out.”
“I really don’t want to go to Israel, but I owe her so much...”
“You can pay her back by becoming a damn fine officer. That would make her day.
“We are talking with the Arvalans. We are going to offer Danei two hundred Arvalans to fill out her crew. She is to teach them about sailing ships, and some of them will teach her people about P90s. She takes them home and promises to send the Arvalans back the first chance she gets. The betting is that even if she wasn’t desperate for a crew, she’d agree. Andie really impressed her with her marksmanship demonstration.”
“Andie impressed me with her marksmanship demonstration,” Charles told his superior dryly.
“Do you understand that a similar demonstration got a two-hundred man warship to surrender, along with another hundred in the fort?”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Ezra said you impressed the Arvalans with a Barrett sniper rifle against the dralka.”
“Yes, sir. It was clear by the end that the dralka weren’t stupid, but the Barrett just reached out further than they could comprehend.”
“Well, Ezra has another for you. He says that you’ve made your chops, and all you have to do is sign on the dotted line and ten cases of ammo is yours. Twenty thousand rounds.”
“I pray, sir, that I never have an occasion to use them.”
“If you wish to accept the assignment, we’ll take you home for a couple of weeks, and you can visit your family, friends and classmates. Then you’ll come back here. The Arvalans would need a few months to be able to muster supplies for this ship here at the rookery; so the B’Lugi will sail north to Arvala. They would pick you up when they come back south in six or eight weeks.”
“Quarantine?”
“I know Jon Bullman, the head of the Office of Off-World Security. You’ll have an exemption.”
“I want to do it then, sir.”
General Briggs nodded. “One last thing, Cadet.” He nodded to four people not so very far away. Andie Schulz and Kris Boyle, who were talking with Melek and Chaba.
“Those two gave us this place and this opportunity. Andie wants to give the Arvalans a fighting chance against the Tengri; now she has another ally. She’ll do her best for them, too, even if they are fifteen thousand miles away. Kris Boyle -- words fail me when I try to describe her.
“She needs time to process this. All of this. One day she will realize what the real task is, as Andie Schultz has come close to understanding. This is, Cadet Evans, about the future. We’ve a chance here to merge our world with another; a world with even more variety than we’re used to.” He gestured west, where the Big Moon was just showing over the horizon. “And there, Cadet! Another challenge just as large as this one!
“Random Far Side doors are iffy. Arvala isn’t iffy. We have a good feel now for what’s here and what we’re up against. We can do this. We are going to do this! This is a future that we can’t afford to mess up!”
* * *
It was late, and sensible people were asleep. Andie Schultz, Linda Walsh, Kris Boyle, Kurt Sandusky, Ezra Lawson and Melek met high in the rookery, in the chamber that led to the emergency exit.
“A thousand dralka,” said Andie despondently. “A dozen men dead, more than that wounded.” She nodded at Melek. “Nine Arvalans, two Americans and an Israeli are dead. How is Colonel Levi going to report to her bosses that she lost someone here?”
“And the B’Lugi losses dwarfed what we experienced,” Kris reminded her.
Kurt homed in on Andie’s question, his voice harsh, “Because this place is dangerous. Andie, I’ve never heard either you or Kris short-change that danger. You warned General Briggs repeatedly that he was making a mistake.”
“They’re dead,” Andie said with finality. “Why would anyone ever work for me again? How can I keep the people I have?”
“Because,” Kurt told her bluntly, “you kept the other two hundred people here from Earth alive.
“You weren’t in charge of defensive dispositions, Andie -- I was. I never imagined an attack from that many dralka. Not only that, the dralka were clever. They hooked around and came at Danei’s ship from the west and it looked they were coming at us on the headland from the west as well. I was unprepared when the real attack at our position came from the south.
“I had only one of my men oriented south and Colonel Levi’s radioman was there to back him up. The dralka swarmed them, killing them both. They used the gap in our lines to try to break us. Colonel Levi’s second in command sacrificed himself to slow that, and Colonel Levi waded into the middle of them without regard for her personal safety. Her second in command his lost his right forearm, but at least he’ll survive.
“I pulled people out of the line facing west, and we got a handle on it. They really don’t like machine guns. I’d like to think that I could have pulled it out if Colonel Levi hadn’t have been there, but I’m dubious.”
Kris spoke up again. “Cadet Evans said that the attack wasn’t something the B’Lugi were prepared for. Their marksmanship is no better than the Tengri’s. A lot of her people were killed with empty weapons -- it just takes forever to reload a musket.
“Cadet Evans pulled her back and gave her time to consider the threat. She went to her gun deck and organized a response from the survivors.”
“A lot of people died,” Andie reiterated.
“But more didn’t,” Kurt told her. “That’s the name of the game.”
Linda Walsh, who rarely spoke at meetings like this, did so then. “I called Helen Boyle after the fight. She’s organized a research party of three zoologists and a paleontologist. They’ll be here in the morning. I remember what Andie said about the dralka that attacked Arvala -- the dralka with chains.”
She reached down to her lap and rolled a piece of gold out onto the table. “One of the Israeli techs saw this around the neck of a dralka, and wanted to know what would happen to him if he tried to take a souvenir home. I hope no one minds, because I told him that we’d applaud.”
Everyone looked at the golden collar.
“That looks more decorative than anything else,” Andie told the others.
“I’d assume that too,” Kris added.
Andie closed her eyes and spoke bitterly, “A two hundred dralka attack on Arvala, right after we reached the city. A five hundred plus dralka attack on Siran-ista shortly after Charles Evans and his classmates arrived. Now, upwards of a thousand dralka attack when the B’Lugi arrive.
“Either we have to believe in gremlins or we have at least one set of spies and more likely two. And the worst thing of all -- they have some way to coordinate with the dralka on when and where to attack.”
Melek had been silent up until then and now he spoke simply. “We have men all along the road, all of the time. I can’t see how a hundred dralka coul
d go past without someone seeing them, much less a thousand. Yet it has happened twice now.
“In Arvala we could probably withstand an attack by a thousand now -- we have half the army camped nearby, nearly twenty thousand men. Had it been a thousand dralka that first time instead of a hundred -- I’m sure we’d have fared far worse than we did.
“It seems unbelievable that someone could be an ally of the dralka. First, you have to believe that the dralka are as intelligent, or nearly so, as we are. Then you would have to believe someone could be a traitor to their people, to their entire species and then you have to believe that the dralka simply wouldn’t eat the traitor. I have already reported back to Collum and he’s contemplating bringing in some of the former Dralka officers for more extensive questioning.”
“It’s a start,” Kurt said, nodding. “But this has put a different complexion on things here. We are going to need more men as guards. We need to be able to do something to shelter from the dralka.”
Andie was brisk. “We’ll bring over some workers and more soldiers from Earth. We’ll start putting up some stone fortifications every few miles, going north along the railroad and probably along the wagon road as well. We can put heavy wooden roofs on them, something the dralka can’t get through.
“It’s going to take a lot of time and effort,” she finished.
“Aye,” Melek replied. “But it is something we can do. The King was already considering building a series of bases near the sites of former towns, along the eastern shores here. We are going to have to do extensive patrolling to keep the dralka from reestablishing themselves here, so we will need those bases, whether or not the Tengri come.
“For a long time there were very few attempts by the dralka to push south of the wall; they had to know that there was nothing to eat south of the wall. Now they’ve found a lot of food.” He sighed. “Before long we’ll have problems along the other two Fingers as well. I don’t know how long we can keep trading each other gold and silver for copper, but this is going to cost a lot of money. We need a much larger army.”
Andie nodded. “Kurt, will it be much trouble to get more guards?”
He grimaced. “It’s going to be iffy unless you are willing to spend buckets of money. Has anyone inquired how the Arvalans manage property rights?”
“Individuals own property, but the King has rules about how much one family can own. There are nothing like estates or latifundia here. You can own about a hundred and sixty acres of cropland, and an acre or so in a city,” Andie told him. “Why?”
“One thing that has been traditional in the past on Earth in many armies is grants of land to the soldiers.” Kurt chuckled and added, “Although the thought of one size of plot fits all will cause conniptions among the officers and senior NCOs.”
“Melek, has any king done anything like that?”
Melek shrugged. “You have to understand that there is still a lot more land available than people. A father may decide which of his sons gets the family land, but the other sons need only to ask the King and they will be able to go to one of several nice places and pick and choose what they want. I am sure that if any of your people wish to settle here, they would be welcome, and subject to the same land rules as one of our people.”
“So we can offer a bonus of land,” Andie told Kurt, “but it’s one size for all. Still, officers and sergeants are better paid then the enlisted men. They will have to console themselves with that. And sign an agreement that they won’t bitch if the Far Side door ever stops working.”
Andie glanced at Kris. “You’ve been quieter than usual.”
“Andie, Melek -- please I don’t want to offend either of you. Arvala is becoming a jig-saw puzzle, and those are something you’ve always loved, Andie. I, on the other hand, haven’t got a clue. I admired what Cadet Evans said about wanting to go into civil affairs. Politics, even. Except here in Arvala they should be very careful who they let participate in their politics. An American emissary or spokesman, that’s one thing.” She paused. “I want my hands on the wheel, though.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be involved with Arvala -- I very much want to be. It’s like everything else in my life just now. I have no idea what it is I want to do. I look at politics in America and I so much want to get involved and make things better. Yet, I’m terribly afraid that the combinations of money, power and influence will corrode anyone’s morals. I couldn’t bear it if I celebrated my sixtieth birthday scheming to become president using any means necessary. Or the scheming of our other senators and representatives who only seem to care about money and re-election.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Kris,” Andie told her. “There is work enough here for a hundred people like you.”
Kris smiled wanly. “I keep hoping for a light to shine down on me and I’ll have a glowing moment where I realize what it is that I really want.”
She looked around, as if suddenly realizing something. “Where’s Pete? We sent him here right after Cadet Evans was abducted.”
Ezra coughed. “He didn’t react as badly as that one guy from the government, but he couldn’t function in the daytime if the Big Moon was up. He said he kept waiting for it to fall on his head. Kris, he resigned and went home. He said he’s always wanted to be a cop; that adventuring was a little rich for his blood.”
“I hope he at least starts at Norwich; he’d get a scholarship to finish if he wants it,” Kris said sadly.
Kris looked at her best friend in the world. “Look, Andie, you have important work to do here; some day I’ll find something that will be as important to me as this is to you. Melek, I’m sorry that I don’t want to make Arvala my life’s work like the rest of you; I think more of you and less of me because of it. But it isn’t what I want to do.”
Melek nodded. “Collum told me that he wouldn’t be surprised if you said something like that. He thinks, and I agree, that you are capable of the grandest things! And that it should be up to your heart what those things will be. None of us care to try to keep you from that.”
Melek gestured around them. “We have many problems besetting us. I talked to the woman soldier; she told me a little about her home...”
“Oh my God!” Andie said with a laugh, “She’s recruiting here, too!” That was good for a laugh from everyone.
“She has some very odd notions; someday I might like to talk to her about them. She has, however, told me that her King will allow her and some of her associates to stay here and test out their flying machines. She has already sent the one used to rescue Charles south again, to spy on Rangar.”
“And the B’Lugi?” Andie asked.
“Collum is more excited about that, than anything else. Our ancestors must have been shielded from the worst effects of the catastrophe the B’Lugi suffered. Now, however, he thinks we can join together to make common cause against the Tengri. I know your King is reluctant to sell us the weapons we’d need, but Collum has asked me if he could meet with your King, and talk to him, face-to-face of our great need.
“In the meantime, the B’Lugi will come to Arvala and show us their marvelous ship and their weapons, such as they are. The King has already found more than sufficient numbers of volunteers among the Sea Fighters who want to go east to fight against the Tengri, as they and their ancestors have vowed to do.
“We have a great many large tasks ahead of us, but we knew that already. True, we didn’t know how many tasks or how great they were, but still, none of them is a task that we can’t handle. We will focus on them as best we can until each is done. As Collum once told me, Arvala is a great nation. We can pat our heads and rub our stomachs at the same time.”
There was a sound of someone ascending to their perch, and all craned to see who it was. Captain Milan nodded to Melek. “Captain Melek! Something strange just happened!”
“Strange how?” Melek asked.
“It is nearly dawn; one of the guards heard something and called his corporal. Then other sounds
were heard inside the fort. Crashing sounds, like rocks hitting the ground. We had no idea what was happening, Captain, none! Still, I roused the garrison of the fort and after about five more minutes, the crashing stopped.
“Afterwards, one of the Tarin fighters reported that he saw something land in a watch fire.”
He pulled a sack off his back and displayed a rock with soot on in.
“A rock,” he told them.
Melek was gentle. “Yes, we see it is a rock, Captain Milan.”
“It fell from the sky. Several soldiers swear they saw dralka flying very high in the night sky, Captain Melek. No one has ever seen dralka flying at night before.”
Andie examined the rock and passed it to Kris, who passed it on to Kurt.
Kurt smiled slightly. “We found out back in the Blitz that high altitude night bombing wasn’t accurate -- and not at all decisive, even when we bombed Germany and Japan to rubble. Welcome to the Blitz, Melek.”
“Blitz?” I don’t know that word.”
“It means lightning,” Andie told him. “An enemy attacked an ally of ours by dropping bombs on their cities. It was a very terrible war, Melek, and millions of people died. It raged all around our world for six years.”
“Each side targeted the common people of the other side; the idea was to drive them to surrender, without having to invade. Instead, it mostly served to stiffen the resolve of those bombed,” Kurt told them.
“And your people did this too?” Melek asked, stunned.
“Yes,” Kris told him. “We didn’t start it, but when your enemy is killing your civilians by the thousands, the millions of survivors demanded revenge. And they got it. War is not a good thing if you can avoid it, Melek.”
“For what it’s worth,” Andie added, “it is likely that if our enemies had won, they would have put the entire world in chains. They were the last major country to use slaves. We crushed them.”
Melek nodded. “Once, we were a peaceful people. To be sure we had soldiers to keep the peace in our towns, but we were the strongest nation of all those we knew. Then the Tengri came. A few at first, then more and more.” He dropped his voice. “The Tengri always talked of their own ‘ancient enemies, the people of the sea.’ That had to have been the B’Lugi.”
The Far Side Page 82