Into the Maelstrom

by David Drake

  After only a few meters he trod on the hand of the man immediately below. The Canary responded with an imaginative curse that broke several military regulations when addressed to a general.

  “What’s the hold up?” Allenson asked, impatiently.

  “This is a well,” Morton’s voice floated out of the darkness below. “I’ve reached water.”

  “It’s not a well—it’s a karaz,” Allenson replied. “Get into the water. It won’t be deep. Shine some light around to look for a tunnel.”

  There was a splash and the queue on the ladder started moving again. The water was less than half a meter deep but very cold. The men pressed together, leaving just enough room for him by the end of the ladder. Morton produced a pocket lamp. He flipped it on, adjusting the beam so it gave a gentle all round blue-tinted light.

  “Would you look at that,” Morton said, nodding towards an open tunnel leading into blackness.

  “Wrong way,” Allenson said. “We need to walk upstream—towards the mountain ridge. Come on.”

  “And a karaz is . . . ?” Morton asked, falling in beside him.

  “An underground irrigation channel,” Allenson replied. “I bet it only rains in the mountains so the indigs have to get water out onto the alluvial plain to farm.”

  “So why don’t they run channels above ground?” Moron asked. “Look at the work to build something like this by hand, let alone the maintenance required to keep it going.”

  Allenson said, “I guess they have plenty of hands with not so much to do outside of the planting and harvesting times. It’s cool down here so less of the water will evaporate.”

  They walked on in silence.

  “Now I come to think on the problem I suspect there is another good reason for underground channels,” Allenson observed.

  “Oh?” Morton asked with a distinct lack of interest.

  “Irrigation salinity, I seem to recall reading that evaporation concentrates minerals in the water. Over time soil salinity rises until the land is sterile. The karaz system must control that.”

  “Fancy,” Morton said politely.

  Allenson stopped flogging the dead quadruped. He was used to fellow gentlemen not sharing his curiosity about the universe. Destry would have been fascinated. His friend had the true academics’ love of knowledge for its own sake.

  Allenson wouldn’t go quite that far, but understanding how the natural world worked was often useful. No one could have predicted that knowing the difference between a simple well and a karaz would one day save his life. He wondered how Destry was faring back in Brasilia.

  He was still mulling that over when the bomb went off.

  CHAPTER 19

  Intelligence Gathering

  A second, much louder explosion drowned out the first. A mighty hand of water thumped into the small of Allenson’s back and he was thrown into silent darkness.

  Someone hauled on Allenson’s arm. Freezing cold water covered his head. He shook the person off and climbed onto his hands and knees. A voice mumbled into his face. The lamp came back on. Morton was the irritating person. He mouthed something but all Allenson could hear was a blurred murmur like a distant conversation heard while dozing.

  He held his nose and blew hard until his ears popped with a sharp crack.

  “Are you all right, General?” Morton said.

  “Yes, yes.” Allenson waved him off. “What about the men?”

  “A bit shocked but okay, apart from cuts and bruises. The pressure wave from the bomb knocked us over.”

  “What bloody bomb?” Allenson asked.

  “The Brasilians must have worked out where we’d gone and blown the well entrance. They no doubt think we’re dead.”

  Morton paused, thinking.

  “We would be if this really had been just a well. Looks like they don’t know what a karaz is either.”

  Allenson’s head still rang.

  “What the hell did they use, a plasma shell?” he asked.

  He poked at his ears with his little fingers but that didn’t help. He suspected he had impacted wax against the ear drums. He would have to get Trina to look at it. He was damned if he was going anywhere near an army medic.

  Morton shook his head. The motion looked abnormal in the dim light.

  “No, I heard two distinct explosions. I suspect they blew us up with a stereophonic. I’ve used them myself to clear caves and bunker tunnels.”

  “Stereophonic?” Allenson asked.

  “It’s a homemade bodge but it does the biz,” Morton replied, clearly pleased to know something that his general didn’t. “You lower two charges into, say, the well where you suspect insurgents are hiding. The top one is a standard explosive device but a few meters below you have a fuel-air explosive mix.”

  Morton used his hands to outline the shape of the device.

  “A charge taped to a bottle of alcohol will do the trick if you have nothing more sophisticated. The charges are rigged so that the top one explodes first, collapsing the tunnel. The thermobaric goes off a few microseconds later. The blast is directed downwards by the overpressure of the first bomb. Anyone in the well is smashed by blast or incinerated by the flame front. With a bit of luck the whole tunnel collapses. In any case oxygen deprivation usually takes out any survivors.”

  Morton looked thoughtful.

  “I guess we survived because the blast dissipated along the long irrigation tunnel and water spray quenched the flame front before it reached us.”

  “And you’ve been using this out in the Hinterland colonies?” Allenson asked.

  Morton must have detected the disapproval even though Allenson tried to keep his tone neutral. The captain stiffened and his tone became defensive.

  “It’s getting nasty out there in the Hinterlands, General, with neighbor against neighbor. Sometimes we had to smoke Home Worlder guerrillas out of their lairs. Would you have me send in men instead of stereophonics and pay the resulting butcher’s bill?”

  “No, Captain, you’re quite right to think of your men. I just hadn’t realized how far the conflict has spread beyond professional armies.”

  Allenson had focused all his attention on the Cutter Stream Army. He had not given much of a thought to what else was going on but he should have anticipated nasty developments. When civil war broke out people started to choose sides or at least pretend to. Politics is a useful cloak to cover the paying off of old scores. Atrocity begets atrocity in an evil spiral of retaliation until no one can be neutral.

  He had hoped to avoid this by keeping the conflict low key and between professionals. Maybe he had been naïve. He would have to look into this later after they escaped from this bloody place.

  “The Brasilians will think we’re dead so let’s keep it that way. We’ll stay in the karaz until we reach the foothills and then sneak out the way we went in.”

  “Captain Morton returned from Insubra with some excellent news,” Allenson told Ling, shooting a warning glance at Morton.

  Allenson wished to avoid the chiding he would get from his chief of staff if it became common knowledge that he had swanned off into the wild yonder on a mission more suitable for a junior officer. He wished to avoid Trina finding out even more. In his experience wives were inclined to be more forthright when pointing out the errors of their husbands than chiefs of staff were to their generals.

  A brief moment of confusion flicked across the unmarried Morton’s face.

  “Would you like to tell Colonel Ling of your conclusions or shall I?” Allenson asked, unable to resist teasing Morton.

  “Um, why don’t you, sir?” Morton replied.

  Morton clearly didn’t understand how to interpret what he saw on Insubran. That alone justified Allenson’s decision to undertake the reconnaissance personally. At least that was the excuse he used to himself to justify slipping the leash. He voiced his conclusions.

  “Very well, the Brasilians aren’t regrouping but pulling out. Captain Morton observed them moving men and
essential material from the tramps to the assault ships and dumping nonessentials to make room. The ships are rigging for a long voyage, perhaps down to Port Brasilia or maybe even back to the Home World.”

  “But that means . . .” Ling began then trailed off.

  “That we’ve probably won, Colonel,” Allenson said, trying to keep the exultation he really felt out of his voice. “It’s too early to run up victory flags but the loss of Oxford even when garrisoned by regulars will jolt the status quo in Brasilia.”

  Ling looked like a man who had just checked his lottery numbers and found a match to the jackpot prize but couldn’t quite believe it.

  Allenson continued.

  “The enemy now has just two options. They can reintervene in force. That’d cost a fortune in logistics and denude them of troops at home. Brasilia can’t support an army as large as Terra can. It lacks the population. It would hand Terra a golden opportunity if Brasilia sent their army across the Bight.”

  “And their other option is to negotiate our independence,” Ling said with satisfaction.

  Allenson nodded.

  “Exactly! We’ll have to give them a face-saving way out, guarantees of protection to their citizens’ lives and assets and so on, but that’s okay. We’re hardly the maniacs of the Golden Horde trying to set up human hives.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Morton said. “Anyway we’ll need inward investment to grow.”

  Allenson spent the next few weeks rebuilding Oxford, which had taken something of a pounding. He shuddered to think of the damage inflicted by a full-scale urban assault. The city would have been destroyed brick by brick.

  He expanded Morton’s Canary commandos and used them as a fire brigade to damp down trouble in the Hinterland colonies. Morton had carte blanche to act as a police force in crushing terrorists and criminals of all persuasions whomsoever they claimed to be supporting. Allenson wanted to send a firm message that the government, not anarchy, ruled in the Stream. To be more exact, the army ruled until the government finally got its act together.

  The Canaries proved equal to the task, crushing incipient warlords and self-proclaimed freedom fighters. Allenson hammered home a simple message. Freedom from Brasilia didn’t meant freedom from civilization. Morton proved himself admirably flexible and nonideological. Allenson soon developed enough confidence to cease trying to micro-manage the Canaries’ activities.

  That left him time for politics and the delicate task of prodding the Assembly at Paxton into declaring independence. He hoped that the success of the army would embolden the delegates. It didn’t. They found it impossible to make critical decisions.

  Independence wasn’t just a matter of a simple statement of intent. It involved the creation of administrative and legal structures. That implied agreeing on a constitution. And so the debate ran on.

  Allenson used Todd as an emissary. He shuttled backwards and forwards from Nortania with private letters from Allenson to individual delegates and returned with their replies. It would have been easier if Allenson could go himself and steer the discussions to a reasonable conclusion but he hesitated to leave the field army.

  He put it about for official consumption that he was needed in case the Brasilians returned. Actually he thought that unlikely. He was really more concerned at something resembling a coup d’état. Buller had been somewhat cowed by the success of Allenson’s softly-softly strategy. Nevertheless, Trina was convinced that he and Redley were plotting. They certainly were as thick as thieves.

  Now that the crisis was over, various people with a grudge hoped to go back to proper soldiering. By that they meant democratically run militias overseen by good chaps who understood the Trinity way of doing business. People like Masters and Wilson.

  All in all, Allenson was glad when Hawthorn returned.

  “How was your holiday?” Allenson asked when Hawthorn finally made an appearance.

  “Very pleasant, thank you,” Hawthorn replied, without elaborating.

  “Where did you go again?”

  “Nortania, Mogadosh to be precise.”

  Allenson cocked his head as a thought surfaced.

  “I seem to recall Trina noticed something about Mogadosh.” He dug around in his filing system before finding a news record. “Here it is.”

  A brief report flicked on in a hologram above his desk. It reported the death of Sar Falco, a wealthy biochem company owner. A mysterious explosion and fire at his holiday villa in Mogadosh had also killed his wife and a number of employees. Foul play was suspected by the local authorities, who announced their expectation of early arrests.

  Allenson looked at the picture of Falco attached to the news clip.

  “I remember him. He was a delegate to the Assembly. What a shame. He was a useful ally as I recall.”

  “Really?” Hawthorn replied, with a complete lack of interest.

  Allenson looked at the date.

  “This must have happened while you were there?”

  “Did it?”

  Hawthorn used a finger movement to slide the hologram around so he could see it. A small motion detector on Allenson’s desk correctly interpreted the gesture.

  “Can’t say I remember but I was probably busy at the time. I met this interesting woman who—”

  “Yes, yes,” Allenson cut in to forestall a long account of Hawthorn’s amorous adventures. “Trina attached a note at the bottom. I didn’t pay any attention at the time . . .”

  His voice trailed off as he read.

  “Apparently the gossip is that he was killed by Brasilian agents in retaliation for his support for the independence movement. Who would start such a ridiculous rumor.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Hawthorn replied

  “I mean, why would the Brasilian secret service start knocking off individual delegates?” Allenson asked.

  Hawthorn shrugged.

  “Who knows, perhaps it was a private matter that had nothing to do with politics,” he said casually.

  Too casually, in Allenson’s opinion; something about all this smelled fishy. Before he could inquire further, Hawthorn pushed a plastic file across the desk.

  “I have some bad news.”

  Allenson sighed and picked up the file, which unlocked on contact with his DNA.

  “Give me the bottom line.”

  “The Brasilians are recruiting mercenaries in the Home Worlds to launch a full scale invasion of the Stream.”

  Allenson’s jaw dropped. That made no sense at all.

  “What, but why? We’re not worth the aggro—particularly as I’ve let it be known that we’re willing to negotiate.”

  Hawthorn nodded to the plastic chip.

  “They have a good reason. Details in there if you want to look them up.”

  “Summarize,” Allenson said.

  “You remember the whispers of a war-winning wonder weapon?”

  Allenson groaned.

  “Don’t tell me it’s real.”

  “No, not exactly. But the Brasilian Navy has discovered a naturally occurring mineral that will revolutionize engineering and warship design. The only known source is in the Hinterlands.”

  “Oh gawd,” Allenson said. “Strategically that makes us worth fighting for. Brasilia can’t afford to let Terra or some other Home World get control of this stuff, whatever it is. Are you absolutely sure the intelligence is reliable?”

  “The Terran Exoworld Directorate is convinced. So apparently is the Terran Advocate General’s Office.”

  “The Terrans gave you this information?” Allenson asked disbelievingly.

  “Not exactly,” Hawthorn replied blandly. “I stumbled across a Terran spy ring in the colonies while following a trail looking for Brasilian spooks.”

  “Quite embarrassing, really,” he confessed. “The information was in the files. The chief spook had urgent instructions to drop everything and locate the mineral.”

  “So we can expect Terran involvement at some stage,” Allenson said, more to himself
than Hawthorn.

  “Possibly, but first we have to fight off a Brasilian-led mercenary invasion.”

  “Then your softly-softly strategy is a complete bust,” Buller said.

  “So it would seem,” Allenson conceded.

  “I told you it would be,” Buller said, with the air of a hypochondriac finding out he really is terminally ill.

  Allenson allowed Buller his gloomy satisfaction. It would be impolitic to explain why the strategy had failed. The less people knew about a pot of gold at the end of the Hinterland rainbow the better it would be for everyone.

  “Recriminations are pointless,” Ling said. “I am more interested in where we go from here.”

  “I am open to suggestions,” Allenson replied.

  He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of his senior officers one by one. They all looked away except Todd.

  “I have a suggestion.”

  “You!” Buller exclaimed with a snort. “You’re only here to keep the minutes.”

  “I would like to hear your thoughts,” Allenson said, ignoring Buller.

  “They’ll attack Port Trent.”

  “Why do you say that?” Ling asked. “Why won’t they just reinvest Oxford with their new model army?”

  “Because Oxford was a defeat,” Todd replied. “They’ll rationalize of course. They’ll argue that you don’t reinforce failure and that the hostility of the locals contributed to the disaster.”

  “All true,” said Allenson.

  Todd continued. “But the real reason is that soldiers are a superstitious lot. Oxford has bad Karma for Brasilia. They’ll want to try a new approach.”

  “And Port Trent is the most important port in the Stream and also has strong Home World sympathies,” Allenson said.

  “Precisely.”