Firemask

by Chris Bunch

Penwyth took a deep breath.

  "Because I'd feel like I was running out on the others. Goin' back to champagne and all that, while you're sweatin' over here. No, the more I think 'bout it, the less I like it."

  " 'Kay," Hedley said. "We'll try another approach. I'm detaching you to independent service, where I flipping want to put you."

  "Guess, when you put it like that, I haven't much choice. What support will I get?"

  "We'll insert you in the next day or so back on the outskirts of Leggett. We'll give you a standard transceiver, which you're to keep well away from you, and check every two or three days for messages. Also you'll have a coder and compressor, which you'd be advised to keep closer at hand.

  "Your reports'll be coded and blurted back to us. Mostly we'll want to use you as an eye, no more. Until the flipping situation gets worse—worse for the Musth, anyway—I can't see bringing you into the open. We'll keep a channel open and try to extract you if you step in it.

  "Any questions?"

  Penwyth considered.

  "S'pose not. I guess it will be interestin' to have a bath oftener than when it rains, now won't it?"

  "It's occurred to me," Njangu said evenly, switching off the corn's newscast, "that there's a rising going on, and we seem to be getting left out, and that ain't the way it's supposed to work, us being the moral arbiters and that sort of shit for this here system.

  "I think I want to go play."

  "How?" Garvin asked.

  "We tried for that frigging Wlencing once," Njangu said. "I think it's time we try again."

  "What makes you think this time'll be any luckier than the last?"

  "Because I'm going to take this team in myself," Njangu said. "We'll give it a shot without all the su-pertech, and see how he likes playing with the -big boys."

  "As your commanding ossifer," Garvin said, "I give my permission. I assume you're going to clear things with Jon and Angara."

  "But of course, my leader."

  "Which means you'll leave me here in the goddamned jungle with nothing to do but play with my pahdoodle," Garvin said.

  "Oh, I'll bet, given my inspiring example, you'll manage to come up with something obnoxious."

  Four days later, two women and two men showed up at the Seya labor exchange. They considered various possibilities offered, decided against the mines on Sili-tric, opted for common labor jobs on the Highlands of Dharma Island, building the new Musth base.

  They didn't seem much interested in the employment terms or the hours, shouldered their oddly heavy packs, and boarded the cargo lifter that took them across a quarter of the world, onto the mist-covered heights.

  Some of their fellows had never seen a Musth except on the holos, and reacted with fear or anger when their employers materialized on the landing field. But the four didn't seem bothered.

  The workers were told off in teams by human overseers, assigned to rather shoddy barracks, given a list of rules and regulations, told their shift would start at dawn the next day and that work hours were thirteen on, thirteen off, and the extra hour was for transport to and from the work site.

  The four never showed up for their first day on the job. But no one noticed—there'd been a fire that night in the personnel office, and that day was spent chaotically trying to sort out who was supposed to work where, and how much seniority and credits they were owed.

  The four—Njangu Yoshitaro, Monique Lir, Finf Val Heckmyer, and Darod Montagna—had slid out of the camp through the rather casual security into the marshlands after they set the incendiary in the personnel office, and gone to ground.

  They found a burrow against a hill, crawled inside with weapons ready, and found it opened into a respectable room, almost big enough to stand in. They speculated glumly about what sort of creature on this still-unexplored world made the cave, and hoped it had moved on to better locations or at any rate was noncarnivorous.

  Nothing disturbed their sleep, and the next morning they moved closer to the workings and began observing, looking for their target.

  They muttered at the almost-constant fog, but it made their task easier. Very seldom did the Musth sweep with light-enhancing devices, and they never seemed to use heat sensors in their complacency in this distant place.

  They built several hides around the base, and moved from one to another, in pairs, both awake during the day, alternating watches at night.

  Regularly, aksai, wynt, velv swooped overhead, landed at the ever-growing field. The only troops they saw were perimeter-checking aerial patrols and ground crews inside, not interested in anything beyond their tasks.

  After five days, they reconvened at the burrow and allowed themselves the luxury of using heat tabs on their rations.

  "I don't have much of anything," Njangu said. "The Musth keep way too far inside their perimeter. Way too far for me to be able to hit them. I know we got outside of the perimeter without problems, but trying to get back in and get closer might be a bitch. Besides, I didn't see anybody who looked like he had any rank, let alone Wlencing."

  "Same here," Montagna said. "As the team sniper, I was hoping maybe we could get a longarm dropped in, or maybe use a scoped SSW, but that goddam' fog doesn't help that."

  "Same thing with a missile," Heckmyer said. "Assuming we could get a supply drop, who'd lug the bastard around?"

  "Not to mention who'd want to fire it off and hope to haul ass before counterfire leveled his ears a couple of meters or so?" Lir finished.

  "I hate like hell to just quit," Njangu said. "We could chance having an explosive drop, work our way inside their guard, and blow up a bunch of shit, like aircraft, and take any shots we could on the way out."

  "Is that the best use?" Lir asked. "This is sort of a one-time operation, isn't it, boss? I'd hate to set off a bunch of bangs, then figure out next week or next month that we could've done something serious while we were here. Already we've learned a KT and a half about the way these Musth operate up here. Pretty sloppy, as far as I can see. I guess they figure out here in the tules they don't have to worry about goblins like us. I'd sure like to come back with a better idea and a bigger bang."

  "The same thoughts occurred to me," Njangu said.

  "So we just abort?" Montagna said. "I'm just a new-bie, and you guys have all the experience, but that idea really blows stobor."

  "You're telling me?" Njangu said. "Not to mention Garvin'll be all over us. He's probably out there having all kinds of fun and getting medals."

  "There's always another party," Heckmyer said.

  "Yeh," Yoshitaro said. "And that makes me feel a lot better. 'Kay. I'll signal for extraction."

  Two Musth were savaged in an alley, and Wlencing declared a dawn-to-dusk curfew, no exceptions. Anyone seen outside their quarters would be shot.

  Garvin wasn't able to harass Njangu at all. He hadn't been able to come up with any scheme that wasn't either pointless or suicidal.

  I&R troops stayed out of the way while their officers and first tweg alternately sulked and tried to come up with something interesting.

  The window washer had never been a soldier, nor had he served with the 'Raum or been a policeman. He was a quiet, sober, solitary man, whose main pleasure was shooting very small, very fast, very old-fashioned projectiles at very long ranges into very small targets.

  He had no opinion about the Musth one way or another, until the children in the neighborhood had decided it would be fun to throw a few rocks at the next Musth patrol.

  They did, and the Musth opened fire. Two little boys were seriously wounded, one girl killed.

  The window washer became interested in the Musth, and studied them as he worked his solitary job in Leg-gett's main business district.

  No one paid the slightest attention to the man who showed up with his battered lifter, attached lines to a building, then used them as guides to spider up and down in his bosun's chair, equipped with two modified droppers.

  He made an interesting discovery:

  Musth
officials seemed to appear at the PlanGov buildings on the first day of each week, no doubt to give the latest chapter of the law to their Council puppets.

  He took three weeks to verify that was indeed a nice, precise, dangerous schedule, decided he knew enough.

  The next time Wlencing's wynt landed near the still-unfinished PlanGov buildings, no one noticed the little man ten stories up, about five hundred meters away. If they had, they might've found it odd that his chair wasn't at a window, but at a blank stone wall, where no one could notice the little man open up his tool kit, take out two wrapped tubelike objects, and put them together. A third object, a rather large optic sight, went atop the two pieces, and the device set on a bipod. Even then, the object looked so little like a contemporary blaster or laser many wouldn't have found cause for alarm.

  He lay full length on his chair, moving slowly to avoid swaying, positioned himself comfortably, and eased a single round into the chamber of his weapon.

  He swept the sight across the square, across the wynt , across three human policemen, found a knot of Musth.

  The man inhaled, breathed out, held his breath, and pressed the trigger.

  Without waiting to see the results of his shot, he unhurriedly broke his weapon down and moved his chair around the side of the building, then lowered it to the ground. Ten minutes later, his lifter was headed back toward his modest home. He never mentioned what he'd done, returned to his normal work the next day, and no one ever talked about the outrage to him.

  The square outside PlanGov was a scream of rushing cops and Musth.

  Wlencing sat on his tail next to the sprawled body of his aide, Rahfer. The Musth had a small entry hole in one side of his head, and most of his skull was missing on the other.

  Daaf stood next to him.

  "That shot was intended for you."

  "Perhaps," Wlencing said. "Perhaps not. Perhaps the worms merely wanted to kill any Musth."

  "This was not a brave action."

  Wlencing looked at him, then said:

  "So it is appropriate that my response will not be, either."

  Again, the holos were commandeered, and again frightened men and women were murdered by firing squads.

  The Musth announced more hostages would be taken, and the same response made to any other crime against them.

  "I think," Garvin said, "we should think about doing something criminal."

  "Time and past," Njangu agreed. "Have you finally got a plan?"

  "Yeh. Let's go see the old man."

  Chapter 18

  Langnes 65443/Reckoning

  Senza stared at the multicolored figures, data, hanging in midair over his workplace. He swept a hand, studied their replacements, scanned another set of data.

  "This ," he demanded of his assistant, Kenryo, "is the reality of what that rock-brain Paumoto and his crew are calling a triumph?"

  "Yes," his assistant said in a neutral voice.

  "He's either a jelly-thinker, or he plans to keep this information secret. Monstrous, truly monstrous! Aesc killed, somewhere over half of his warriors casualties, more than that in equipment loss.

  "Keffa we know to be a fool. He can't count his paws and get the same figure twice running. But Paumoto! He's not that stupid!

  "Is he?"

  The assistant, one of Senza's own cubs, made no reply.

  "Did you run a projection of how many Common years it would take, given these losses, before the Cum-bre system becomes profitable?"

  "Yes."

  "And?"

  "Somewhere between eight-eights and twice that, depending on whether they merely seize the minerals or whether they're attempting to keep Cumbre a stable, producing system."

  "Someone is mad," Senza proclaimed. "Or else… or else this is a trap, intended to get me to move rashly, and then the real data will be presented, or some better interpretation we have all missed."

  "None of us have seen any alternatives."

  "As I said, something we have all missed." Senza moved his paws in bewilderment.

  "I wish… I want… to do something. To use this as a lever against Paumoto, quiet him, and hopefully trample that imbecile Keffa before he tries to have me slain.

  "But this is too absurd, too unbelievable. I need something better."

  "Something," Senza said again. "But I know not what."

  Chapter 19

  D-Cumbre

  "You know," Ben Dill said to Alikhan, "I feel like one of those old-timey generals, whose R&D people came to him with a new kind of spear or something, and he sat there stewing, staring, not knowing how to use it, and the war got worse and worse for him, and then some frigging barbarian snuck into the back of his. tent and whomped him upside the head with a rock and the war was lost."

  He tossed a pebble out the tent flap at an inoffensive Mullion Island lizard, and growled.

  "That was quite a speech," Alikhan said. "Am I making a jump in logic to assume you're thinking of me as this new kind of spear?"

  "Not even a little bit," Dill said. "You say you want to help end this goddamned war, but we can't do this, can't do that, can't do the other thing."

  "Don't become angry," Alikhan said. "If you were in my position, what would you do?"

  "Dunno," Dill grunted. "Go find a bar and try to get in a fight. Relieve some of the stress."

  "I don't think that's practical," Alikhan said. "First, I do not touch alcohol, which would make it boring for me; second, if we brought along some of my decayed meat, your fellows would find that somewhat disgusting; third, I am not enamoured of the idea of bruising my paws in a melee; and last, if we were in a place where alcohol was served, wouldn't someone grab for a weapon when he saw a Musth, listening to no explanations?

  "That does not sound like an attractive evening to me."

  "Plus," Dill grunted, "I don't see any goddamned drinkin' dives on this goddamned island."

  "I'm sorry I don't seem to have any ideas about my possible deployment," Alikhan said. "Why don't you consult some experts?"

  "Such as?"

  "I'm sure there must be someone who knows something about the Musth here. Isn't it well-known that any army can always produce an expert on any subject?"

  "I have some pleasure in having sight of you," Danfin Froude said in Musth.

  Alikhan waved a paw in negation.

  "And I greet you," he said in the same language, then switched to Basic. "But perhaps we could communicate more readily in your tongue."

  "Is my accent that terrible?"

  Alikhan, politely, chose not to answer him.

  "Your friend here thought I could maybe be of service," the mathematician said, "and he's spent some time with me, trying to remember your conversations as precisely as he could.

  "Something he said did give me a bit of an idea. You once told Alt Dill that your fellow warriors weren't given the opportunity to think otherwise about what they're doing than what war leaders like your father told them."

  "This is true," Alikhan said. "It is taken for granted that we learn to reason for ourselves in the den, with teaching from others and from our parents. Once we leave, become adults, once we take on service with another Musth, it is assumed we have chosen correctly after considerable thought, and henceforth should serve with absolute dedication.

  "Such is the way of honor."

  After a moment of consideration, Alikhan added, and Ben wondered if there was a bit of melancholy in his sibilant voice, "Maybe that is why we keep betraying each other, rather than really working together. It's very hard for any of us to say we made a mistake, that we should do something different."

  "It's easier," Ben asked, "just to shoot someone in the back?"

  "Does it not save explanations?"

  "You obviously don't have the same kind of court system we do," Dill said.

  "If you two trucks would shut the hell up," Froude snapped, "I think my idea can be made to work. Alik-han. You know that a voice can be filtered so no one can identify it?"
<
br />   "Certainly. We make great use of such devices in our ruling bodies."

  "Do you think, if you had the opportunity to sit down with another warrior you could maybe make him come over to our side, or at any rate start questioning his orders?"

  "No," Alikhan said. "Only a great talker,.one like Senza, who I studied with, might be able to do that. And there would have to be the seed of a doubt planted beforehand."

  "Seed of a doubt, eh?" Froude mused. "Ben, why don't you hunt up some nice decayed giptel for Alikhan, and some sort of firewater for me, then make yourself gone. Alikhan and I have some free-associating to do."

  The merchants' associations in Leggett, Aire, Launces-ton, and Seya were surprised—business wasn't quite as awful as they'd anticipated under the Musth, even though most people didn't have many credits, and those who did were reluctant to spend them until the situation clarified itself. But at least no companies had been seized outright, at least not yet.

  Profits were down as anticipated, but there were many new businesses opening. All were small, many seemed a bit improbable, but all were adequately funded, their owners paying for everything in hard currency.

  It was also interesting that the profile of these new businessmen was pretty much the same—young to early middle-aged, mostly single men and women who kept to themselves. Sometimes their store shelves seemed not as fully stocked as they could be, but what of that? Cumbrian manufacturing hadn't even begun to rebuild after the 'Raum uprising.

  These shop owners joined their local merchants associations, minded their own business, and led quiet lives.

  A few merchants theorized that these new retailers were ex-service, and were impressed that the Force had evidently made them put some of their pay away, for times like these.

  It was also interesting that these store owners all seemed interested in electronics, and all put in rather expensive com gear.

  One of the most popular new businesses was the Hammer And Thud Blowout Boys, a fourteen-piece band that began playing in Leggett to great acclaim, then asked for permission from the Musth to tour the cities of D-Cumbre. Musth security searched their gear and possessions thoroughly, found nothing, and approved. It would be good for human morale to be entertained, even though this seemingly arbitrary arrangement of noise did little for the aliens.