The Lotus Eaters cl-3

by Tom Kratman

  "That will be quite enough," Marguerite announced. She released the hand and then turned to one of her Marines. "Call in the troops," she ordered.

  The Marine spoke into his communicator. Almost immediately the air was split with the sonic boom of a dozen or more shuttles. These landed and began disgorging troops to surround the largest and oldest slave market on the Continent. Indeed, it was so old it had actually been established by the long since defunct United States of America.

  Turning back to the vendor, Marguerite said, "Fetch me the owner of this place, and any vendors who wish to make a claim for recompense on their . . . property . . . before I seize it for service to the Fleet by the authority of the Secretary General of the Consensus."

  Chapter Eight

  The perception of a left-right political spectrum has survived for seven centuries and spread across two planets. There are sound reasons for this, despite the fact that it is not perfectly descriptive. One reason is that the core of political differences is the varying perception of the nature of man, at those perceptions' extremes: Perfectible by breeding (right), perfectible by training and education (left), neither perfectible nor even all that changeable by either (center). A second reason is that the existence of one extreme tends to organize people along the other. Perhaps better said, the two extremes tend to organize each other. Moreover, they tend to drag people away from the center, or to make those who remain in the center very quiet . . .

  Take the typical X-Y graph that purports to describe the true nature of the political spectrum, one that, perhaps, posits an X axis that describes the attitude to planned social progress or attitude to human reason, while the Y axis describes the attitude to government or attitude to power. If one plots out a given sample of people one will find that two corners of the graph are uninhabited. There is no one who is both sane and not a moron who has a very positive attitude towards government (except insofar as such a person may be personally dependent upon a government meal ticket) and a very negative attitude to planned social progress, or vice versa. Instead, in plotting a sample, one gets a fairly narrow oval, running from lower left to upper right. Turn that graph clockwise forty-five degrees and look at it again. Yes, it now describes left-right again, with minor up and down differences, which differences are irrelevant when compared to the major right-left differences and which are, again, overcome by the mutual and hostile organization driven by the extremes . . .

  —Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,

  Historia y Filosofia Moral,

  Legionary Press, Balboa,

  Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

  Anno Condita 471 Isla Real, Balboa, Terra Nova

  There were secrets well kept and then there were rumors of secrets not so well kept. One of the latter was that the Legion had captured a UEPF shuttle in Pashtia some years before. The rumor was, in fact, quite true, though never admitted to.

  "Unfortunately, Patricio, we can't get it to so much as hover, let alone fly," Lanza said to Carrera, the both of them deep in the bowels of Hill 287 in a specially constructed hangar.

  "Why not?" Carrera asked.

  Lanza sneered. "It's partly a function of the fact that your ham-fisted ground pounders shot it up. But what little damage that didn't do was done when you had infantrymen—Boss, what the fuck were you thinking? Infantrymen? They can break anvils!—take the goddamned thing apart before you loaded it out."

  "Best we could do on short notice," Carrera shrugged. "Besides, it looks fine."

  "Oh, sure," Lanza agreed. "We got the body put back together. Sortakindamaybealmost. We even got the engines to work. But you know what? You can't fly it without the computer and the right program and the computer was toasted. Just toasted. We can't even make up a simulation to train somebody to fly it."

  "Well don't cry about it," Carrera said. "What do you need to make it work?"

  Lanza shrugged. "A new flight computer? At least the goddamned manual for the wrecked one."

  "No manual in the thing?"

  "No, lots of manuals in the thing. On Old Earth microdisc. Which, admittedly, we have been able to read. But none of them tell us how to fix the blasted flight computer. Apparently it an 'echelons above God' level of maintenance."

  For just a fleeting moment Carrera thought about a UEPF communications device sitting in an electro-magnetic proof safe at the Casa Linda. No, he thought. That UEPF captain with the sexy voice knows about a lot of what I have. But she doesn't, I don't think, know about this. Besides, the only things she'd take in trade are my nukes and those I'm not about to give up. And even if I would, I not only need this thing to fly, I need her not to know about it. Which she would if I asked to trade for a replacement flight comp.

  Carrera looked over the smooth lines of the dead shuttle. It was actually quite a pretty craft, a large wing itself with smaller, variable geometry wings for control when in atmosphere. The repair crew had even repainted the symbol of United Earth, a distorted drawing of the home planet in white, surrounded by a wreath, and with abstract lines superimposed for latitude and longitude.

  "We think the IFF"—Identification, Friend or Foe—"still works," Lanza offered. "Though the codes have got to be out of date."

  "Why do you think so?" Carrera asked.

  "Just that it had no obvious damage and when we took it into the secure vault and powered it up we got a satisfying light display. 'Best we could do,' " he echoed.

  "I asked Fernandez already," Lanza said. "He says his 'special intelligence source' has dried up. At least temporarily. He also said he was doing his best."

  Hmmm, Carrera wondered. What's the best I could do? Hmmm . . . haven't used her in years, but maybe, just maybe, Harriet might be of some help. On the other hand, can I really trust Harriet, even if she can help and is willing to? Have to think about that one.

  "Is there anything the Federated States might have that would help you?' he asked Lanza.

  "A Lob mainframe computer, maybe," the aviator admitted. "Maybe somebody really good at recovering data from a fucked up . . ." Lanza stopped momentarily, plainly puzzled. "I was about to say 'hard drive,' but the fucking thing doesn't have a hard drive, at least not what we generally mean by the term."

  "Keep working on it," Carrera said. "Let me see what I can do."

  BdL Dos Lindas, Naval Harbor, Isla Real

  Aircraft took off and landed in steady streams from the airfield at one end of the arc of land that made up the tail of the tadpole shaped island. A very few ignored the airstrip, landing or taking off from the ship anchored in the harbor that the tail formed.

  The ship was old and, more than any warship afloat on Terra Nova, battle scarred. The worst of the scarring was on her portside rear quarter, where she'd once been the recipient of an anti-shipping missile that had nearly destroyed her . . . and had destroyed many, many of her crew.

  To one side of that scar, enclosed in clear polycarbonate, an ancient sword—at least the core of it was ancient—that had made the trip from Japan on Old Earth to Yamato on New was welded to the hull. Likewise inside the polycarbonate was the shadow of a small man, the hand of the shadow touching the hilt, the tsuka, of the sword.

  That was the holiest spot on a ship that every man of the crew considered generally holy.

  Above the polycarbonate case, welded sword and thin shadow was a flight deck, roughly seven hundred feet in length. Along one side of the flight deck a mix of light attack, reconnaissance, and rotary wing aircraft were lined up. As the ship was under blackout they were only visible at a distance as shadows, back-illuminated by the lights of the fleet base, itself on the northern edge of the island by the bay.

  Above the flight deck, in the superstructure on the port side amidships, Legate Roderigo Fosa, commander of the classis, or fleet, trusted his own eyes more than any technological marvels. Below the bridge crew watched radar and sonar screens, as well as the closed circuit, light amplifying televisions that showed both the surrounding waters and the crew working the flight dec
k.

  Further down in the bowels of the ship a different crew kept track of the movements of the fleet, which fleet consisted of one heavy cruiser, the Barco de la Legion Tadeo Kurita, mounting twelve six inch, long range guns in four triple turrets, three corvettes, equipped for air defense and anti-submarine work, two patrol boats, and several service ships carrying everything from parts to petrol, from beans to bullets.

  It was a nice little fleet and, if it was small compared to some well—

  "It's still the size of the fight in the ship," muttered Fosa, "not the size of the ship—or fleet—in the fight."

  Not that the ship was heading to a fight. Oh, no. It was ostensibly headed to an anti-drug patrol, in support of and in concert with the Federated States Navy and Air Force.

  "And I'll perform that mission," Fosa muttered, even as he contemplated the real mission, the stealth mission.

  * * *

  There are three primary factors that affect an aircraft's radar cross section. These are size, materials, and shape. Although it is the least important factor, if two aircraft have exactly the same materials and shape, but are of different size, the larger will have a greater radar cross section. For shape, the important things are to have no sharp edges, no flat surfaces pointed toward the radar. For materials, there are tricks that can be used. The first trick is, construction wise, the tougher. Radar 'notices' the change in density of an object in the air. To the extent that that difference is tiny, radar is apt not to notice. The second trick is to make the aircraft 'lossy,' a chemical property referring to the conductivity of a material. Lossy materials convert radar energy to heat. In the case of the Condor auxiliary propelled gliders developed by the Legion, lossiness had been achieved by use of a spun carbon fiber and resin shell.

  The heat was, of course, itself a problem and had been on Old Earth for over five centuries. Even on Terra Nova, thermal imagers had made it possible to detect even fairly faint heat differences at considerable distance.

  Without knowing the real capabilities of all their potential enemies, the Legion has assumed the worst, made a virtue of a vice, and created what was probably the stealthiest aircraft, if one of the lowest performing ones, on the planet. Outside of that spun carbon fiber and resin shell, they had built up a thick layer of one of the best insulating materials known to man, polyurethane foam. That foam was fairly dense toward the shell, but became increasingly less dense as one moved outward from the shell. Indeed, the 'dielectric constant' of the things was, where foam met air, no more than 1.01, which is to say one percent more dense than the air surrounding.

  Moreover, since overkill was one of the Legion's core values, within that foam were embedded a very large number of very tiny concave-convex chips. These, arriving at their final position within the aircraft randomly, tended to reflect and diffuse whatever radar energy they met, or collect and then diffuse that energy . . . and in directions as random as their own random placement. Objects on the glider which could not be made of carbon fiber or polyurethane had been more carefully designed—no randomness permitted—to be most likely to direct radar energy away from any transmitter. For propulsion the Condor had a pusher propeller, smoothly polished and made of the same carbon fiber-resin material as its shell. Heat from the engine was further dissipated by being mixed with cold air and released from dozens of small vents on the upper portions of the wings.

  It had been just such a glider—albeit one under self-guidance—that Carrera had used to carry the bomb that destroyed the Yithrabi city of Hajar, effectively closing out the war with the Salafi Ikhwan.

  * * *

  "This is just a recon mission, Montoya. You understand that?"

  Warrant Officer Rafael Montoya, tall, brown and skinny, nodded his answer to Fosa, then added, "Yes, sir, I know that. And the sooner it's over the better."

  "Well, we won't be in position for you to launch for three or four days. Sleep well beforehand."

  Montoya laughed, white teeth shining in his brown face. "Skipper, if you were going to recon someplace, someplace where you had absolutely no idea about the defensive capabilities, the sensors, the weapons, the rules of engagement . . . tell me, sir, how well would you sleep for the few days before?"

  Fosa did not smile, but then he rarely did. "Warrant Officer Montoya," he said, "if you find that you cannot sleep at least eight hours in every twenty-four until you launch, let me know and I will have you drugged to sleep. And the rest of the time, except when eating or defecating, I expect you to be in a flight simulator."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Montoya answered. Fosa wasn't the kind of man to argue with.

  Fosa turned a glaring eye to the warrant. "Mr. Montoya, you have your orders and yet you are still here. Now run along, like a good lad, and follow them, while I continue with the ostensible counter-drug mission that is our excuse to get you to where you can launch."

  Building 59, Fort Muddville, Balboa Transitway

  "No, mon general," said Villepin, the intelligence officer. "I don't think—"

  Janier held up one hand to silence his G-2. The general's eyes tracked a buzzing annoyance, winding low over his desk.

  Someone had let a fly in through an open door. It was an unavoidable incident of life in the tropics, and as annoying as it was unavoidable. Screens on the windows could only keep down the numbers, even as they ensured that those flies that got in couldn't leave. This was what flypaper was for.

  Janier sneered at the fly. He then picked up his telephone and punched in the number for his chief medical officer. "Kouchner, you filthy swine! The flypaper report you showed me said we had the fly problem under control! Why, then, is there a fly in my office?"

  Janier slammed the phone down, apparently without waiting for an answer, and shouted out, "Malcoeur, you toad, get in here."

  When the short, tubby, frog-faced major made his appearance, Janier said, "You are a toad, descended from toads." His finger lanced out at the buzz. "Follow your genes and catch that fly."

  As Malcoeur scurried off to find a flyswatter, Janier said to de Villepin, "Continue."

  The intel officer sighed. "As I was saying, no, mon general, I don't think we can use the drug trade to entice the Federated States into invading Balboa again, joining us in invading, or in supporting our invading Balboa. The ties are too close for that. Worse, the Federated States under its current regime is almost as casualty averse as our political 'masters.' And, if nothing else, the Balboans would make them bleed a great deal. Just as they will make us bleed unless we are very, very clever.

  "We can, however, use the allegations of drug trafficking to confuse the Federated States, to make them ambivalent about both Balboa and the partition they inflicted on us some years ago in the interests of peace."

  The conference room, though large, was empty but for Janier and Villepin . . . and the fly. Air conditioners hummed at two of the windows. It was as well they were working, since Janier was wearing his favorite uniform, the reproduction blue velvet and gold-embroidered informal dress uniform of a marshal of Napoleonic France. Hundreds of golden oak leaves covered the facings, the collar, the shoulders, and ran down each sleeve. But for the air conditioning, the combination of velvet and beastly-uncomfortable, stiff, high collar would have made the thing life threatening in Balboa's tropical clime.

  Idly, Janier tapped his, likewise reproduction, marshal's baton, with its thirty-two gold eagles, on the broad, wooden conference table.

  "Do you think that will work?" Janier asked, "Do you really think it will work when, if anyone is trafficking in drugs, it is our allies in the old government, cowering in fear in their little quarter and desperate for money?"

  Villepin nodded. "Mon general, it is precisely because the rump government is involved in the trade that I am most confident that they can arrange to make it look as if it is Parilla and his government, aided in every particular by the Legion del Cid, that is running the whole enterprise."

  Janier stopped tapping the table with his baton, ra
ising the thing to rest against his shoulder and cheek. "It is elegant, I admit."

  The baton began to tap again, this time against the Gallic general's cheek. He chewed on his lower lip while slowly nodding. Plainly he was weighing the pros and cons of Villepin's plan.

  "All we really need," the general finally said, "is to get the Federated States or one of the TU's high courts to take out drug trafficking charges against either Parilla or Carrera. Both would be nice but either will do. At that point, the FSC's hands are tied while ours will be left free." Tap. Tap. Chew. Chew. Tap. Chew. Mull. Ponder . . .

  "Do it. Set it up. As quickly as possible." Janier mused a bit more. "It would really be a help, you know, if somehow we could split the enemy's ranks, so that it looked as if he were falling apart and we, and our clients of the old government, would have to step in for the sake of law and order."

  Villepin answered, "Well, it's still a bit uncertain but now that you mention it . . ."

  BdL Dos Lindas, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova

  The ship was moving fast enough to cause spray to rise and wet the bronze figurehead that graced the bow under the flight deck. There was a popular theory that the ship's name, "Dos Lindas," came from the figurehead's two perfect breasts. The setting sun, reflected from the waves, danced and played over the bronze of the figurehead, making it seem a thing not merely alive but divine. That an artificial rainbow from the spray framed the bronze only added to the illusion of divinity.

  Higher than the figurehead, and much further back, on and around the rear elevator that connected the hangar deck with the flight deck, a well-rehearsed deck crew worked under an awning preparing an auxiliary-powered glider for flight. Above the deck, on the fenced open space atop the conning tower, Legate Fosa and Warrant Officer Montoya watched final preparations.