by John Dalmas
A minute later he saw a bright spark—an explosion, he realized—seemingly on the surface miles ahead, followed seconds later by two more. His muscles tightened. The four T'swa seemed as relaxed as before, strong black presences waiting for something more. The troop carrier was rapidly drawing up on the site, and Varlik could feel their craft descending, contributing to the weakness of his jellied knees. He could see in abundance now the tiny flashes of what he assumed was gunfire, or perhaps the hits of rockets. His colon felt extremely nervous.
The sporadic firefights drew nearer as the floater lost altitude, and Varlik lost himself in watching. Suddenly he realized his fear was gone, replaced for the moment by something like the exhilaration the T'swa seemed to feel. Lieutenant Zimsu called the order to belt down and be ready. Varlik moved back to his own place as the troopers fastened buckles, his camera recording T'swa faces, powerful forms, then he too buckled down. Around them somewhere was an entire fleet of assault floaters, with someone coordinating their movements, and it occurred to him to hope that the someone was competent.
Twice in the last half minute, Varlik flinched at the loud frightening bangs of light rockets exploding against the armored hull, and the carrier touched down harder than he'd expected, as if the pilot had been caught unaware by the ground, or felt hurried. The T'swa were striking the instant-release buckles of their seat belts and getting quickly to their feet, he scarcely slower. The troop doors opened and the ranks of troopers double-timed out, their weapons in their hands, Varlik carrying his camera in front of him, recording what he could from within the hurrying ranks. He'd lowered his monitor, but now he peered beneath it for wider vision, to see where he was going, his camera continuing to record.
Then he was on the short ramp and into the night, the T'swa dispersing to the sides, Varlik trying to stay within a couple of steps of Bin as he'd been told to do. The sound of gunfire was loud, sharp, immediate, and Bin was shooting short bursts. It occurred to Varlik that they ought to hit the ground, take cover, but they didn't.
Then the T'swa almost stopped shooting, and he realized that the nearby gunfire had been theirs, that Bin had not been answering it but adding to it. Still they ran, not hard but steadily, a trot. The low dark humps ahead must be the bunkers they were to destroy. Suddenly they came to a shallow ditch, and there Bin hit the dirt, Varlik landing next to him, most of the others running on. Varlik lay panting, wondering what was happening, why they had stopped. It occurred to him that they'd been off the floater for no more than twenty seconds. He raised his camera above the ditch's shoulder, panning, using his monitor now, seeing what he was capturing on his cube.
Gunfire burst out ahead to their right, and the men who'd stopped at the ditch directed concentrated fire in that direction. Except for Bin and himself, the men who'd stopped in the ditch all seemed to carry blast hoses; their racket was terrific, shocking, stunning, and in seconds the enemy fire had stopped.
Then they simply lay there, waiting in what seemed like silence, although less intense gunfire continued, apparently directed elsewhere. He thought to question Bin; why had the two of them stayed here? But he knew without asking: Bin had been told to take care of him; keep him alive.
From somewhere well ahead a rocket rose, followed quickly by another, and another, and more. Varlik knew from night exercises in his army days that the enemy had lobbers. He followed their upward flight, realized they were aimed at this ditch and its hosemen. As they began to descend, he saw others arching overhead in answer from behind. He tucked his camera under an arm and pressed his body hard against the forward ditch slope, waiting, aware of increasing gunfire. Seconds later he heard and felt the exploding rockets, a string of five evenly spaced crashes that threw rocks and dirt on the men prone in the ditch, echoed by a series well ahead, a booming background to the racketing gunfire.
Opening his eyes, he raised to his knees on the hard stony dirt, camera ready again for whatever was offered. The enemy firing seemed directed mainly elsewhere now, but the T'swa in the ditch with him were triggering leisurely bursts in the direction the earlier enemy fire had come from, so he recorded that.
Then massive explosions sounded ahead, a series of them overlapping, and Bin jerked the shoulder of Varlik's shirt. They all leaped up and ran forward, apparently not coming under fire. There were more big explosions somewhere. The bunkers, when they got there, were collapsed. Varlik lay with the others on the sloping heaps that had been bunker walls, in a smell of explosions and settling dust, sweating hard. For the first time Varlik realized how hot it was.
The troops that had charged the bunkers were gone—he hadn't even seen a body—and it seemed for a while that he and the men he was with had been forgotten, overlooked, the gunfire unrelated to them. Bin's attention was to their original right; the T'swa had lined up facing that direction now. Varlik could see muzzle flashes ahead that must be enemy fire, and when this increased in intensity, the men he was with opened up with their blast hoses again, the sound shredding the night while still more heavy explosions sounded, preceded by big flashes that flared and were gone. When they paused, a minute later, Varlik wasn't sure whether it was truly that quiet or if perhaps he'd been deafened.
The next ten or fifteen minutes alternated between relatively quiet inaction, brief outbursts of firing, and sporadic heavy explosions. Twice they came under brief fire from lobbers, and several rounds landed very near. He could smell hot hose barrels. A number of times he wiped at the sweat pooling in his eyebrows, his wet hands gritty with the dirt he crouched on, converting the sweat of his face into mud. He was recording constantly now—even when the lobber rockets arced downward and struck—commenting frequently for the audio pickup.
Then he heard T'swa bugles well behind them, and shrill whistling from several directions: somewhere troops were pulling back, but not those he was with. Instead, the hosemen opened fire again, shooting without benefit of seen targets, spraying covering fire ahead and to their left. From the general direction of the carrier, lobber rockets left bright thin trails that threaded the sky, then stitched the blackness ahead with flashes.
Nearby whistling commanded, and he stood up with the T'swa around him, trotting back in the direction of the carrier, not coming under fire again so far as Varlik knew. There was gunfire, but no sounds of blast slugs striking near or rockets landing. Like the others, he jumped the little ditch, pleased that he was able to, and after a minute could see their floater ahead of them, no lights showing. They slowed to a near-walk, jogging up the ramp past the two platoon lieutenants and their sergeants, who stood by the foot of it peering past them.
Most of the T'swa were already on board, had returned ahead of those who'd stopped at the ditch, and even in the darkness, Varlik was aware of gaps in their seated ranks. The door to the rear compartment—the aid station—stood open, a blackout curtain blocking the light within, and Varlik felt a lump in his stomach.
But the carrier did not lift; the platoons' four leaders were still outside by the ramp. Three troopers were helped in, wounded. They pushed the curtain aside and disappeared into the aid station.
Still the floater sat. Four more T'swa entered, each pair carrying a wounded man, and also went into the aid station. The lieutenants followed, with the platoon sergeants, and the troop doors finally hissed softly shut.
Seconds later the floater began lifting rapidly, pivoting as it rose, then Varlik felt horizontal acceleration as they headed north toward Aromanis. No rockets struck them. When the acceleration had stopped, the compartment lights came on low. Varlik looked around; the gaps were not large or numerous. Soberly, camera in hand, he got up and headed for the aid station.
* * *
It was daylight when they landed, but not by much; the daytime heat was only starting to build. Thick-witted from dozing, Varlik went straight to his old media quarters, showered, then went to the officers' mess for whatever he could get. They were still serving breakfast. When he'd finished, he returned to the air-condi
tioned comfort of his room to begin editing and narrating. He'd been at it only briefly when someone knocked.
"Come in," he said.
It was Konni. She was sweaty, dirty, and he could see she'd been crying. He got to his feet. She simply stood there, her face writhing with the effort not to cry again. Once more Varlik's stomach knotted.
"What?" he asked simply.
"Bertol," she said. It was all she got out before she broke down and began to cry like a little girl, utterly despondent. Oh shit, Varlik thought, and feeling wretched, went to her, wet-eyed himself now, to stand holding her till she'd cried herself out.
18
Bertol Bakkis's body would never again pickle in ethanol; Graves Registration personnel had treated it with something more permanent. At least, though, it had been spared the indignity of being torn up by blast slugs; a fragment of lobber rocket had ripped through his sternum and right ventricle, killing him instantly.
Not that Bertol and Konni had tried anything as strenuous as accompanying a platoon into action; they'd stayed near the carrier, shooting what cubeage they could from there. Several lobber rockets had hit nearby, and he'd been one of the casualties.
It took Varlik and Konni most of the day to edit their cubes and narrative reports. After they'd delivered them to the communications center for the next day's pod, they'd gotten maudlin drunk together in honor of Bertol. Then Varlik had jogged, sweating, through the prairie night to the T'swa camp.
He could have stayed in the air-conditioned media quarters at base camp. But if he had, he'd have ended up in the sack with Konni—she'd seemed to be inviting it—and he wouldn't allow himself that. Mauen, he felt, deserved better than an adulterous husband.
The first mile of jogging had taken him in uncertain wavers along the travelway, but by the time he arrived, he was pretty much sober from the exertion and sweating. And had begun to wonder and worry. Had the T'swa held a memorial of some sort for their killed and he missed it? At the tent of the First Squad, all of whom had returned unscathed, Sergeant Kusu raised his head for a moment as Varlik entered.
"Can I talk with you?" Varlik whispered.
In answer, the T'swi had swung his legs out of bed, and together the two of them went outside.
"I had to work all day, on my reports," Varlik said. "And one of the video team was killed at Kelikut, so the other one and I—got drunk this evening, in his memory. I hope I didn't miss anything you guys did, any memorial you held, for your dead."
"You didn't," Kusu said. "We make our farewells privately, personally."
Varlik nodded and turned on his belt recorder. "At the communications center they told me the regiment had lost twenty-nine killed and sixty-one wounded, but they said there weren't any missing. How could anyone tell the killed from the missing in the dark like that, pulling out the way we did?"
In the moonlight, the black face seemed to smile very slightly. "We have our method."
"Is it—all right to tell me about it?"
"Certainly. But you might prefer not to know."
The answer froze Varlik's mind for a moment. Then, "I see," he said, not seeing at all. "I would like to know."
"The dead come to us as spirits, thus we know who they are. All the rest returned physically. Thus no prisoners, no missing."
The dead tell them. Varlik had nothing to reply and nothing more to ask; he simply nodded. Kusu stood for a moment as if waiting for possible further questions. When none were forthcoming, he said good night and went back to the tent.
Mind spinning in slow motion, Varlik got his towel and walked to the showers where, beneath the stars, he washed away the sweat of his run. Somewhere in the process his mind relaxed, and when he went to bed, he lay awake only briefly. The dead came to them, and the farewells were personal and private. The sort of things—superstitions—that you could expect from gooks. But these "gooks" weren't gooks. And if they said it, he would not gainsay them, even inwardly to himself. Even if he couldn't accept it as truth.
Then he slept, and dreamed, and when the whistles wakened him near dawn, he felt rested and revived, and surprised by it, ready for the day despite all he'd had to drink and his shortness of sleep.
* * *
That day he trained with the T'swa. The day after that he went to the base. There wasn't much to report, although he sent off a letter cube to Mauen, but he wanted to update himself on the Beregesh invasion. He ended up flying south again, in an armored staff floater with Information Office personnel, to see and record the battle site. He hadn't thought to get a cool-suit, and had had the choice of either going later or going without one. He was the only one on the plane who didn't have one bundled beside him.
At Beregesh, he found the battle over, with two full divisions, one Iryalan and one Romblit, securing the surrounding area. Cargo carriers were landing equipment and supplies in quantity, the area resembling some mad and disorderly quartermaster depot. Casualties had been moderate, and yes, a major told him, the T'swa had done a thorough job of neutralizing Bird fortifications.
Occasionally he heard distant firing; some of it couldn't have been much farther than a mile away.
He ran into Konni at the field HQ. She'd arrived the afternoon before, when there'd still been sporadic hard fighting close by. She'd spent one night sleeping in a cool-suit, and was going back to Aromanis later; she'd share her cube with him if he'd like.
Next he caught a ride on a hover truck hauling digging equipment to the perimeter, where fortifications were being built. The driver was a Romblit reservist, a tall ex-farmhand corporal who looked rawboned even in his cool-suit.
"Mate," the Romblit said, "I don't see how you can live without a cool-suit. It's bad enough here with one. I tried to sleep without mine for a while last night and liked to have died. How d'you do it?"
"Not very comfortably. But I thought I'd better give it a try."
The driver steered around a caved-in bunker, then nursed the rig through a shortcut, angling down into a shallow rocky draw and up the other side, to hurry jouncing along a rough track bulldozed through open scrub growth. Mostly the way was slightly downhill. Varlik kept his camera busy.
"You're that news guy that lives with the T'swa, ain't you?" the man asked.
"Right."
"I figured, what with no cool-suit and that funny-lookin' spotty uniform. How come they make 'em like that?"
"They're harder to see in the woods. They call them camouflage suits."
"Huh! I've heard you train with the gooks—run all day through the hot sun like a herd of buck." The man's tone was not disparaging; he sounded impressed.
Varlik understood how things could get exaggerated. What puzzled him was how this man, and presumably therefore many others, had even heard of him. He decided it wasn't worth puzzling over; he'd relax and enjoy his new reputation.
"Yes," he answered, "I train with them."
"How come would anyone do that 'less they had to? I'm glad I'm in the Engineers, so's I don't have to even drill."
Varlik recorded a file of troops trudging along in cool-suits, rifles slung, headed the same direction as the truck.
"I thought I'd like to get an idea of what it's like to be a T'swi," Varlik answered. "Besides, if I'm to go with them in combat, I'd better be able to keep up or the Birds could get me."
The construction site was just ahead along the upper edge of a long declivity. Men with beam saws were felling the larger scrub trees and cutting them into short timbers. Reaction dozers pushed dirt and rock, gouging a broad trench, pushing the spoil into piles. Soldiers manhandled timbers into place, shoveled and tamped dirt, all in cool-suits. It occurred to Varlik that someone had manufactured a lot of cool-suits in the last year or so.
The driver spat brown fluid out the door. "I wish we had time," he said. "I'd like to hear more about them T'swa. They're supposed to be some tough gooks. You with them here night before last?"
"Right."
"Without no cool-suit."
; "Right again."
The Romblit shook his head as he stopped the rig by a group of soldiers. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime," he called as they dismounted out opposite sides. "Maybe when we get this place civilized. I'll buy the beer and you can tell me about it."
Varlik poked around the area, keeping out of the way of equipment, visiting fortifications in different stages of construction. Half an hour was enough. Beregesh would take some getting used to; despite taking mineral tablets and drinking heavily at one of the huge water bags slung from tripods, he felt ready to head back to field HQ, and caught a ride on another truck. Its driver was taciturn, repeatedly eyeing his lack of a cool-suit, or perhaps his T'swa uniform, but saying nothing. The officer in charge at the landing site chatted briefly, commenting on his lack of a cool-suit, then pointed out a staff floater he could board that would be northbound in minutes.
The floater soon was full, and when the last seat had been taken, took off. Excepting Varlik, all the passengers were officers. Most looked tired, and there wasn't much talk. He got some looks at first, or his sweat-soaked T'swa camouflage suit did, but he ignored them and napped much of the way back.
19
The staff car pulled up in front of Colonel Biltong's headquarters tent and Carlis Voker got out. The new camp boasted duckboard sidewalks, and the tent a lumber frame. Although Voker had called ahead, no one was outside to meet him—his visits were frequent and he knew his way—but the two T'swa colonels were waiting when he stepped inside. And Varlik Lormagen was there, sitting back out of the way, recording; that was different.