War World: Jihad!

by John F. Carr

  “Haven is the official name given to the second moon of the fourth planet in the Byers System. It is unusual in every way. Byers IV—generally known as Cat’s Eye—is located far outside the normal habitable zone for a G2 star; but being 1.3 Jupiter masses, the gas giant provides sufficient radiant energy to keep much of Haven marginally tolerable.

  “Haven’s rotation is unusual, since it is locked tidally with Cat’s Eye, but in the synchronized pattern of Mercury rather than always presenting the same face as does Earth’s moon. The moon is somewhat smaller than Earth, and has a much thinner atmosphere. During the period of formation the tidal forces resulted in unusual patterns of vulcanism. The result is that Haven is a jumble of high mountains and deep rift valleys.

  “The only temperate area is in the equatorial zone, which climactically resembles Siberia or Canada. Due to the thin atmosphere the only nearly comfortable area of Haven is a large, single deep rift valley in the equatorial area named Shangri-La Valley.

  “Like all life discovered so far, the indigenous plants and animals of Haven have biochemistries similar to those of Earth, but evolution has produced some unusual proteins. Needless to say, life native to Haven is extremely hardy as indicated by names such as ‘shark’s fin,’ ‘land gator,’ ‘cliff lion’ and ‘muskylope.’ Efforts to reseed Haven with Earth plants and animals have been only partly successful.

  “Unfortunately for the miners, the gallite mother lode is in the high northern latitudes. There they grow some winter wheat and other hardy grains. Other plants like the Siberian pea shrub, Allium victoriale, a northern variety of garlic, Siberian Elm, sugar beets and currants grow modestly in the highlands.

  “Haven could even be a nice place with a little more water. Just enough in the tropics, too little in the desert. That’s why the glacier melts are so important during the summer; the run-off fills the rivers and the locals fill their reservoirs and cisterns so they can last out the summer. That’s where the problems on Haven began.”

  Falkenberg was showing signs of informational overload. Impatience of youth, Lermontov thought. Or maybe I’m rattling on… He’d been averaging less than three hours sleep a night since this crisis began.

  Lermontov brought up a Tri-V image of Haven on his briefing screen that displayed First Continent and the Shangri-La Valley. “Thin atmosphere, too. Did I say? The experts claim that it will become another Mars in forty to fifty million years. High in carbon dioxide and low in oxygen, which means that people who weren’t born there always feel out of breath.

  “Anyway, getting back to the present difficulties, about a decade ago the Bureau of Colonial Government gave Dover Mineral Development permission to ‘land’ an ice planetoid, actually the remnants of a comet at one of Byers’ IV Trojan points, about thirty klicks from the mother lode.”

  He used his laser pointer to show the precise location.

  “Excuse me, Admiral,” Falkenberg interjected, “but why land ice next to the planet’s largest lake?”

  “Calling a swamp a lake does not make it truth. While from space Lake Dire appears to be a large body of water, appearances can be deceptive—enough to fool the initial Survey team who didn’t actually survey the entire moon. Of course, they had several Company spies aboard and a few murders to contend with; Haven’s history is full of these sorts of anomalies and misadventures.

  “Dover Mineral Development’s problem,” Lermontov continued, “was they needed the lake to land their splashships so they could remove the refined gallium. Of course, refining the ore uses up a lot of water. The refineries’ water usage, combined with a planet-wide drought, caused the lake to drop to unacceptable levels for landing their splashships. DMD had their Development Department do a survey of Cat’s Eye’s Trojan points where they found a likely chunk of an ice comet.

  “Apparently no one in the Colonial Office thought that one through. Or perhaps preferred not to; there was evidence of large sums of money changing hands. So DMD was given permission to skip this big ball of ice through the upper atmosphere and let it land—more like slam—into Haven. Also, someone neglected to tell the Colonial Office that the ice ball had a solid heavy metal core.

  “The impact was greater than expected. Half the drifts and scopes in the mother lode collapsed and there weren’t enough uninjured miners left to do much about rescue. Earthquakes and tremors up to three thousand kilometers away from ground zero and every mud or brick house— in other words, all of them—came down.

  “Nobody had bothered to warn the Muslims that the thing was coming so they assumed Allah was punishing them. The proverbial twenty-four days and nights of rain and hail that followed did not disabuse them of that notion.

  “On any other world casualties would have reached over half the population. But Haveners are used to natural disasters and their losses were far less than could be rationally expected. Still, especially to the desert nomads, it appeared as if their god had forsaken them. That’s when the Mahdi was first heard from; only his choice of villain was not Allah. He blamed it all on the Great Satan Company.

  “And the Company is American?”

  “Multinational, actually, with a lot of old Arab oil money in it but that cuts no ice with the Mahdi. Still, after ten years the heat was dying down and he might have dropped back into obscurity if mining were not so water intensive. Between sluicing ore and evaporation the man-made lake dropped so low that the Company had to invest in heavy pumps to divert the Isis River into their crater. There were no large aquifers and the water table was so limited that every well within six hundred klicks of Eureka had to be re-drilled. Most of the oases are dying too.”

  “What’s so important about this crater lake that the Company is investing all this money in drilling? Couldn’t they cover it and stop the evaporation?”

  “It’s a lot cheaper to bring the concentrate up on splashships than shuttles.”

  Falkenberg shook his head. “I should have known! How much latitude am I going to be given?”

  “You’ll have orders relieving the present commandant and putting yourself in total command of the planet’s military force, which at this point includes the Seventy-seventh Marines, two regiments of local militia and the Company Police. You will, of course, be bringing your own Forty-second Marines. That should be sufficient.”

  “That’s good to know. But I was thinking about the regiment. What kind of cooperation can I expect?”

  “Carte blanche, according to Howard Drew, Dover’s Chief of Off-World Operations. He’s sending you one of his top trouble-shooters, a Lester Shirreffs, to help bring the local office under central authority. Company Headquarters now believes the local operations people have lost sight of the forest for the trees. I suspect you’ll have their full cooperation—as long as it doesn’t cost them too much. But as Howard Drew put it to me, ‘Haven has the richest deposits of gallite in the known universe. We are most anxious to get our gallium shipments back on line.’”

  Falkenberg shook his head. “This could turn into another Harley’s World, or another Middle East… Just as long as they don’t expect any miracles.”

  “But they always do, you know. That’s why I brought you into this one.”

  “Thanks. What’s the population breakdown on Haven?”

  Lermontov handed him a folder. “The planet was primarily settled back when the BuReloc was resettling peoples with respect to their nationality and religion. The original settlers, the Church of New Harmony, are centered in the Shangri-La Valley, along with most of the miners—who are comprised of varied nationalities, mostly Euro-americans.”

  “I see,” Falkenberg said.

  “However,” Lermontov added. “It’s different in the northern latitudes where the breakdown is eighty to ninety percent Muslim, mostly Bedouins, Arabs, Palestinians and Turkestani. There’s a decent-sized community of Lebanese Christians running all the mom and pop stores, and catching hell from everyone. And there’s a large community of Cornishmen.”

  �
��Right: the mines,” Falkenberg interjected.

  Lermontov nodded. “Cornishmen. Don’t ever insult one by suggesting he might be English. They were the mainstay of mining in all the western United States. No surprise there since they’d been digging tin in the Scillys several centuries before some enterprising Phoenician conned the Greeks out of their own trade routes and began combining Cornish tin with Cyprus copper to launch the high bronze age.”

  “I’m familiar with them,” Falkenberg said, “Captain Slater used to talk about them. Mine owners throughout the American west were so impressed by them that the constant question was, ‘Do you know anybody else in the Old Country who can handle powder without blowing his fingers off?’ And the reply was invariably, ‘Aweel, there be’s me Cousin Jack.’”

  “I did not know that,” Lermontov said, shaking his head. “The point I’m trying to make is this: We want to put this world back to work—not turn Haven into a permanent garrison planet. We can’t afford that. We already have too many troops stationed there. It’s your job to stabilize the situation, and bring a permanent peace to Haven so we can reassign those troops.”

  “Then I’m going to need a favor or two.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll need one, maybe two troop transports. Can you get those for me?”

  “Dover’s willing to take care of all that.”

  “Fine. Let me tell you what I have in mind…”

  TWO

  Luna Base, 2076

  COLONEL FALKENBERG poured whiskey for Major Jeremy Savage and Captain Lucas Hawes, who had a vaguely horsey look although he was an atmospheric pilot and had never even thought about cavalry. “Silly to send you two to Earth when the regiment’s leaving for Haven,” Falkenberg said, “but if we’re going to be military there’s no other way.”

  Major Savage looked up sharply. “You speak Gurkha, sir?”

  “Only a few stock phrases. That’s why we need you. Major Myer’s told me about your experience organizing the Gurkhas back on Churchill. Have you ever been to Earth?”

  “One weekend, sir.”

  “Everyone should go once,” Falkenberg’s air implied that once was quite enough. “I suppose even Nepal is deep in smog by now.” He sighed. “Major, you and Captain Hawes will proceed to Earth—to Nepal—to recruit and train a regiment to serve as sepoys with the Forty-second. Apart from passage time you’ll have three months on-planet and, in the grand tradition of the Fleet, not quite enough money. Of course, if you can do it sooner….”

  The flight down to Edwards Air Force Base, where they caught a suborbital to Calcutta, was routine, through tiring. Savage was pleased to note that Captain Hawes proved an affable travel companion, who neither complained nor was disgustingly cheerful as they crowded into the too-narrow and not-enough-legroom seats of an ancient Ilyushin to jet from Calcutta to Katmandu.

  In the plane, Hawes said, “I’m new to the Forty-second, but I’ve heard a man’s career can take a real bounce under Colonel Falkenberg.”

  Major Savage nodded. “But the bounce can go down as well as up.”

  “I understand you were a lieutenant when you were transferred into the Forty-second. A lot of people are curious as to how you went up two grades in a year-and-a-half.”

  Savage considered ignoring Hawes’ inquiry, but as the two of them were going to share close quarters and a heavy workload for the foreseeable future he decided to give him the short answer. “My first duty with the Forty-second was on Kennicott, a real Hellhole. In those days, it supplied the CoDominium with about half of its thorium. To keep the mines and refineries going at full speed, Kennicott Metals had been running roughshod over the miners for decades, so nobody should have been surprised when they shot back.

  “Instead of exterminating the strikers and holdouts—as the Company demanded, the commander tried to negotiate with them. They were poorly armed, but willing to face death rather than to return to work without a settlement. The strikers had even formed their own government, claiming the CoDominium governor was just a tool of the Bronson family interests. Falkenberg foresaw a long guerilla action unless a peaceful accommodation was reached.

  “What no one knew was that one radical branch of the strikers had been working on a nuclear bomb. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have enough fuel; the problem was enriching it and turning it into an actual bomb. Given enough time and some scientific help, which the Bureau of Relocation dropped in their lap by exiling a number of radical scientists—whose crime, by the way, had been trying to do original research— to life on Kennicott.

  “When the order came to attack, the radical element hit back with a ten-kiloton dirty bomb that took out Fort Monroe. Unfortunately, the Colonel and half his staff were at the Fort when the bomb went off. Other than two Battalions under then Major Falkenberg, all the men and officers of the Forty-second were killed in ensuing nuclear blast.

  “Whew!” Hawes exclaimed. “Lucky bastard, ain’t he?”

  Jeremy Savage nodded. “Clever, too. Major Falkenberg struck back and hit the rebels hard. He even gained the trust of the largest faction under Tobias and we were able to hunt down the radical strikers and their off-world suppliers. Under these circumstances, as you can understand, there were lots of opportunities for advancement.” Jeremy shrugged his shoulders.

  Hawes nodded. “Falkenberg made Colonel, you and Myers made Major—the hard way. Sure doesn’t sound like the cakewalk scuttlebutt has it.”

  “It wasn’t; we were there for a year cleaning out the stables. Along the way, we encouraged the Kennicott company to make an accommodation with the rebels; Grand Senator Adrian Bronson’s never forgiven the Falkenberg for the ultimatum, nor the fact that he had to accept it or face censure in the Grand Senate.”

  Contrary to all stereotypes, Calcutta had been cold and drizzly and, around the air terminal at least, totally free of beggars. Midway through the fifty minute flight to the Nepalese capital both men felt the preliminary pangs of Delhi belly brought on, no doubt, by curry consumed during the two hour layover in Calcutta. By the time the plane set down—roughly and with several bounces—in the thin mountain air of Katmandu, they were both ready with possessions in hand to sprint, first for the latrine and next to the nearest chemist’s shop. The drizzle in Calcutta had evolved into a Katmandu gully-washer which alternated with spates of sleet and hail.

  “What do you call that sleeveless sheepskin overcoat everybody’s wearing?” Captain Hawes asked.

  “Poshteen,” Major Savage said, and pointed downhill where an arcade, supplemented with cloth and plastic awnings, made a valiant effort to protect exposed merchandise. “Let’s see if we can buy a couple in the sug.”

  “They’re warm enough,” Captain Hawes said next morning as they left the not-good-but-cleaner-than-usual hotel on the far side of the sug. “But somehow I hadn’t anticipated the smell.”

  Major Savage laughed. “Drink your tea with yak butter and you’ll soon outrank the smell of a poshteen.”

  “What are Gurkhas like?” Hawes asked. “I know they’re good fighters but that’s about all I know.”

  Savage shrugged. “They’re a feckless lot. You have to be on them constantly about brushing their teeth and combing their hair but on the whole I like them. They’re not melancholy. No stoics or ascetics like some other Asians. Treat them like human beings; don’t romance their women, and they’ll give you their last drop of blood. It helps to think of them as suntanned Irishmen.”

  The rest of the morning passed in presenting credentials, distributing baksheesh where necessary, and finally the word was out on local FM that the recruiters could be found at the intersection of the Street of Potters and the Street of Cobblers.

  “Wonder how they punch through all the mountains with FM?” Hawes mused as they awaited their first candidate.

  “It’s bounced down from a geosync satellite,” Savage said. He was more concerned with whom to recruit.

  Gurkhas were the dominant race in Nepal, but divided
into innumerable castes. Brahmans at the top of course, but subdivided into Brahmans who eat rice cooked only by their own caste and countless other angels-on-a-pinhead distinctions. The Harijan untouchables, after a lifetime of submission and humiliation, were doubtful material for soldiering. Other middle-of-the-ladder castes were obliged to carry noisemakers and leave the road lest they infect their betters’ eyes. These castes were not allowed to enter temples. Some castes could drink water drawn only by certain other castes. In addition to the infinitude of Gurkha castes, there were forty-one additional castes among the Newars, or conquered people. Then there remained the Bantor, Dannar and Drai tribes originally from the plains and not even the Gurkha knew where they belonged in respect to social precedence.

  Great Britain had recruited only among certain castes but the only thing firm in Savage’s memory was that Brahmans were always rejected for their inability to get along with any lower castes, and their incessant demands for special food and crockery. Here on Earth the so-called timeless east had evolved until he could not even recognize the caste marks on women’s foreheads. Jeremy Savage had not the foggiest idea whom to accept. And Colonel Falkenberg relied on him as the expert.

  There was a knock and the door opened. A slight, grizzled man stepped through and stood before the desk which Hawes and Savage shared. The aged man in threadbare but starched and ironed khakis stamped his feet and presented an open-palmed salute.

  “Sergeant Lobsang Dorji reporting, SAH!” The room reverberated as he stamped again.

  Captain Hawes surveyed the ancient doubtfully. “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Seventy-nine years, SAH!” He tendered a manila envelope to Savage which would undoubtedly contain copies of his service record and discharge.