Firemask

by Chris Bunch

  The H&T Boys—actually as many young women as men—had quite an entourage on the road, friends, equipment handlers, and so forth as they zigged across the planet, evidently willing to play any venue that wanted them.

  The band leader, a jovial beanstalk of a man named Hedley, was unusual in that he played none of the main instruments, but only banged a tambourine and sang in the chorus.

  The party began a little nervously, and it was noticeable that some of the invited Rentiers didn't materialize, especially those who'd been willing to remain on the Musth Council.

  It was thrown by the enormously rich Rentier, Bampur, somewhat vaguely in honor of Erik Penwyth's successful return from the dead, "or wherever he's been hiding himself," following a banquet by Erik's parents.

  Penwyth seemed little changed by his time in the military, still drawlingly casual, handsome in a rather dissipated way, and taking little if anything seriously.

  No one noticed that he drank a great deal less than he had before, and smilingly refused any drugs offered. He drifted here, there, perhaps a bit quieter, more interested in listening than he'd been before, dancing with anyone who asked.

  Redheaded Karo Lonrod guided him onto the floor, pressed close.

  "I assume," she said breathily, "you have incredible tales of heroism to whisper in my pink shell-like ear."

  "Nary a bit," Penwyth said. "I was sent to some stupid radar station on one of the out-islands, saw nothing, heard nothing, made my way home when I thought the shooting was over."

  She pulled back, looked at him skeptically.

  "I thought you volunteered for something dashing… what did they call it, R&I or something?"

  "Briefly," Penwyth admitted. "But they were too terribly heroic for my tastes. Man can get killed, y'know."

  "No, I don't know," Lonrod said. "But something I do know, is you and I never went home together."

  " 'Sat so?"

  "It is. Are you interested in changing that?"

  "Why certainly," Penwyth said. "A man should never refuse an invitation like that, not and remain a gentleman. Or woman, either."

  She giggled, was about to whisper something, when Jasith Mellusin touched his shoulder.

  "I believe it's my turn with the wandering lad?"

  "We were just getting into an interesting discussion," Lonrod said, but moved out of Erik's embrace. "Can I consider that a promise?"

  "You certainly may," Erik said. "We'll discuss the details in a bit."

  Jasith moved into his arms, and they danced away.

  "I assume Karo was interested in mattress games," Jasith said. "She told me she wanted to see what you'd learned in the army."

  "I'm afeared she'll be disappointed," Erik said. "Nothing but saluting everything that moved, and painting everything else white."

  "Right," Jasith said, disbelievingly. "I remember you from before I got married, before…"

  She broke off, and her smile vanished.

  "And where's your husband tonight," Erik asked, changing the subject.

  "Not here, of course. His lords and furry masters might get angry if he had any association with a soldier."

  "That's Loy," Erik said. "Always very careful."

  They danced silently for a while.

  "Do you know what happened to Garvin?" Jasith asked.

  "I've heard some stories," he said. "I'm fairly sure he's alive, if I don't know where he is."

  "I asked around," Jasith said, "and found out a whole lot of soldiers haven't come home yet."

  "Jasith," Erik said, "I understand it got very nasty with the Musth. Hell, there are men and women from the Force who're still missing after that disaster with the 'Raum."

  "I know that," Jasith said. "But why have so many of the officers not shown up?"

  "I think because they were trained to lead from the front, and that's generally a fairly good way to get killed."

  "Maybe. Or maybe not."

  "Maybe, or maybe not," Erik agreed. "This band's quite good, isn't it?"

  "Erik Penwyth, I think you're fencing with me."

  "Not a chance," he said. "Didn't bring any fence posts, for beginners."

  "You know, I'm not a complete bubblebrain," Jasith said. "I think we can assume some of Daddy's genes got through."

  "Now don't go getting serious on me," Penwyth said. "I've come back with a firm plan to devote myself to nothing but carryin' on relentlessly from now on."

  "No doubt," Jasith said. "But if you happen to run across Garvin in your travels, tell him to call this number," and she gave him a slip of paper. "I'm the only one who'U answer it, I keep the com with me, there's no recorder, and nobody knows about the number. Especially not my husband."

  Penwyth waggled his eyebrows. "Now, that sounds most full of intrigue."

  Jasith looked at him.

  "That word's got a whole bunch of meanings."

  "It does," Penwyth said blandly. "Now, doesn't it."

  Ab Yohns had chanced two trips into Leggett since the fall of Camp Mahan. He made small purchases, visited coffee bars, saloons, and restaurants, listening to people talk. He noticed the wave of new, small businesses, and their owners, tried to chat with them, but found the women and men rather close-mouthed.

  Interesting, he thought, considering whether he ought to involve himself in what was developing, decided not. There would be little profit in it, and he knew well the first to resist generally get killed being noble.

  Besides, his main client was still Protector Redruth.

  He did admire the subtlety of whoever was running Confederation Intelligence, or at least this scheme—he doubted if the Musth were familiar enough with humans to watch businesses as closely as they should.

  But sooner or later he knew their puppets would get curious.

  Wlencing hid a distasteful reaction, turned away from the four vee formations of recruits to Daaf. He spoke in a low tone:

  "Am I showing signs of incorrect emotion, or are these warriors less than those who have joined us before?"

  "Referring to their records, which I did during the in-system flight, no, you are not. Few of these have been properly trained, either by their dens or by the masters they chose to follow. Almost none of them have any fighting experience, beyond acting as guards for their first masters.

  "Also, there was something I found more worrisome, if I may speak freely?"

  "Go ahead," Wlencing said. "It will do these good to wait in the rain at the pleasure of a leader."

  "Few of them come from a respected clan, and the half dozen who do are not impressive. I took the moment to speak to them, ask them about their masters, and they said their clans did not wish them to engage with you."

  "What clans were these?"

  Daaf consulted a handheld panel, named them.

  "Two I know not," Wlencing said angrily, "but three of those are clans that supported our claims to this system when we first met."

  Wlencing thought back to the meeting on The planet, in the building called Gathering. It was two system-years gone, no longer, yet seemed even more distant, buried in the bloodshed and fighting that had gone on since. He thought for an instant of his dead cub Alikhan, shut off that area of thought.

  "I await your words," Daaf said.

  "Never mind," Wlencing growled. "Those three clans who were on our side now are not. That is enough for you to know. Did you ask what their clanmasters or their aides said?"

  "I did. Very carefully," Daaf said. "With each one away from the hearing of the other. They said, and I am choosing my words with exactitude, that their clanmasters were increasingly convinced there was no glory, no honor, no gain to be reached by serving this far from the Musth worlds."

  "Senza's poison," Wlencing hissed. "We should have found a way to deal with him before… never mind. You did not hear what I just spoke.

  "What of the new equipment that arrived with these recruits?"

  "That, at least, is first-rate."

  "Good. How many of this inta
ke have experience as pilots?"

  "No more than forty, and those are barely qualified."

  "That will be the first order. Turn them over to the training masters, with orders to find any that might be capable of flying our attack ships.

  "The others… all the others… are to become warriors, no matter what they thought they would be serving as. We have enough meat cutters, clerks, already.

  "When you have given the orders, I want you to communications. I need to have speech with Senza and Keffa as soon as possible."

  The com shuddered against Jasith's side.

  She stood, and the analyst looked down the long table, startled at the interruption. The half dozen other board members in the meeting were just as surprised.

  "Pardon me," she said, trying to sound apologetic. "But there is a com I must make that I forgot about. Please forgive me for my rudeness."

  Without waiting, she hurried to the door behind her, past her two waiting bodyguards, into the corridor as the com fluttered again.

  She pulled it from her pocket, keyed it on.

  "Jasith Mellusin."

  "Garvin Jaansma."

  "You're alive!"

  "I'm alive." She could find no emotion in his voice.

  "I want to see you."

  There was a silence.

  "I can't. I've got… business I'm involved with."

  "I think maybe your business is mine. And I'm not thinking of, of anything else."

  Again a pause.

  " 'Kay."

  "What about—"

  Garvin interrupted her.

  "No names. What about… where I saw you last. Tomorrow night. When you were about to go to dinner with him. The same time. Go for a walk on the pier."

  "There? But that'll be dangerous. It's close to, close to them."

  "Don't worry about it."

  The connection went dead.

  Jasith stared at the com for a time, then pocketed it, returned to her meeting.

  Chapter 20

  Langnes 889234/Tenacity

  "You are overly worried," Keffa said, a bit of a purr in his voice. "Those who vacillate, those who have fallen away from commitment to your cause, are unworthy, both for their race and to share in any benefits from this undertaking."

  He waited while the transmission bounced around the galaxy, had enough time to watch two more bouts in his private arena and the start of a third before the reply came from the system once known as Cumbre, now Redon.

  "I think I am still correct in my concern," Wlencing said. "Remember I am here on the fringes of nowhere, and by the time an action occurs where you are, and its effects reverberate to me, much time has passed.

  "So this is why I want something to be done now. One thing that would aid immeasurably is if there is some way to silence Senza. I would also be grateful for any help you or your clan might be able to make, particularly in the way of warriors, good trained warriors, or equipment.

  "I attempted to contact Paumoto, but was told that he was not available. I would appreciate it if you would convey my respects, and also my needs, to him."

  Again, the long wait.

  "You may be assured you have my every sinew to assist you," Keffa said. "Even though I must say I am somewhat taken aback at the reports of the cost of this subjugation, in warriors, equipment, money.

  "Still, it is important to we Musth that we are victorious, and I shall personally make it my business.

  "Remember, War Leader Wlencing, you are not alone."

  Keffa nodded to an assistant, and the connection was broken. He tried to return to watching the bout, but other matters kept intruding.

  So Wlencing was not able to contact Paumoto. Keffa wondered—he had communication with the clan leader within the past three days, and Paumoto had said nothing about traveling. Was Paumoto avoiding the war leader?

  As for silencing Senza… that had been tried by many, and, Keffa thought, it would be as impossible to cut off radiation from an exploding sun. He wished he knew of an assassin more competent than the two he'd tried previously.

  Was Paumoto beginning to reconsider his commitment?

  Keffa thought not. He certainly would have contacted Keffa if he thought a change in strategy was worth considering.

  Would he not?

  Perhaps a visit to this strange system that had belonged to Man might be in order, might suggest a better way of dealing with the matter, might even provide a clue to Paumoto's behavior.

  Chapter 21

  D-Cumbre

  Jon Hedley finished reading the translation, lowered it.

  "Seems pretty flipping strong," he said. "But there's a couple words I don't understand. Lert , for instance."

  "I do not think there is an equivalent," Alikhan said.

  "There doesn't seem to be," Danfin Froude said. "Sort of a combination between pride, defiance, an assemblage of what they consider military virtues. Try warrior-thinking. Something you can teach others or, if you're a mystic, inherit as part of a racial thing."

  " 'Kay," Hedley said. "What about krangl"

  "Laws, but more than laws," Alikhan said. "Customs are part of it."

  "Code would maybe come close," Froude added. "Or so Alikhan tells me."

  "Brahda?"

  "Fate, career."

  "Another question," Hedley said. "You didn't make any call for anyone to join us. Why not?"

  "Would you respond to a call for desertion from your enemy, especially if he was an alien?" Froude asked.

  " 'Course not."

  "Well then."

  " 'Kay," Hedley said. "And I like the way you have of disseminating it. I'll make a few mods, to make sure we suddenly don't get a homing missile up our flipping heinies before we go off-air, clear it with the old man.

  "But I'm pretty sure we have a go on this one."

  "I won't bullshit you," Njangu said, his voice echoing across the square. The village of Issus was filled with fishermen from Dharma and a dozen nearby islands. The square was guarded by I&R gunmen, and Shrike and Shadow portable launchers were set up on the village outskirts waiting for a Musth aircraft to show.

  "We're going to fight back, and we're going to need you. We'll need you for courier boats, to smuggle various things. I don't think we'll have to train you for that. We'll need you to move troops back and forth between one place and another, maybe, as things progress, we might want you as gunboats."

  "What's in it for us?" a boat driver asked.

  "Damned little," Njangu said. "Seeing Cumbre out from under the Musth, if you give a stobor's nostril about that. Getting your boat sunk and maybe you dead if you screw up or get unlucky.

  "The infinite gratitude of the government if we win."

  There was laughter, boos. Njangu grinned, and there was more laughter.

  "You see? I said I wasn't gonna try to run anything up your butts you weren't expecting."

  "The Musth sure like fish," another fisherman called. "Good market there."

  "They sure do," Njangu said amiably, relaxing against a porch railing. This wasn't much different than hustling his clique back when he was a gangster into doing something he wanted and they weren't sure about.

  "They like 'em so much they'll probably want you to go back to their worlds and teach 'em how to shoot a net."

  Some laughter, but there were wry mutterings.

  "Or teach 'em how to use someone for bait, eh, Njangu?" a woman called.

  That got laughter—most of them had heard about Yoshitaro being used in exactly that capacity when he came home with Ton Milot, a long time ago, when he was a trainee, and almost becoming dinner for a voracious barraco .

  "Now you know why I'm fighting," Njangu said. "I don't want to go back to being bait. Especially for some aliens. But what about you? You think you'll do just fine, hanging about, throwing your nets, and the Musth'll live and let live?"

  "Never known a government to do that for fishermen," someone called. "Why should we expect a bun-cha furry aliens to do diffe
rent?"

  "I wouldn't, if I were you. But I'm not. My personal call is they're going to get more and more demanding, harder and harder to deal with. And I know it's easier to get rid of a hard-ass master before he gets all his hooks seated in you.

  "The Musth still have got their thumbs up, wandering around on their elbows. But they aren't dumb. Little by little, day by day, they'll get more secure, know us better, and we'll be farther and farther up that creek.

  "Think about it. If you want to join us, there'll be people around. If we need you for a specific job, we'll call you. There won't be any problem from us if you say no.

  "But don't go and sing to the Musth about us, about what I said, about what you maybe'll see your friends and neighbors doing." Njangu's voice changed, became soft, dangerous.

  "If you do that, you and I'll have a chat. And I don't think you want that to happen."

  He slid off the porch, slung his blaster. Someone in the crowd—he thought it was either Ton Milot, who he'd brought along for exactly that service, or Alei, his brother—cheered, and there were some other cheers. Not everyone, but some. Most of the crowd was silent, thinking about what Yoshitaro had said, about what they'd seen already of the Musth, about what the future might bring.

  His tweg , Stef Bassas, came up.

  "Are we pulling out tonight, sir?"

  Njangu glanced at the lowering sun.

  "Negative. I'd just as soon not chance the rust bucket in the air when it's getting dark. Too big a goddamned signature, and I don't like meeting aksai in the dark. Or anywhere else, come to think."

  The team's Grierson was under cam nets about half a kilometer outside Issus. This was the fourth speech Njangu had given that day in as many villages, and he was tired. He'd deliberately chosen Issus as the last stop because he felt it was as much of a home, besides the Force, as he had on Cumbre.

  "We'll set up camp outside the village," he decided.

  "I'll have the men detailed off, sir. And I'll have rations distributed from the Grierson. Maybe we'll be able to get some fruit from the people to supplement them," Bassas said.