The Lotus Eaters cl-3

by Tom Kratman

  Carrera didn't enquire further. Fernandez had his sources. He did say, to Chu, "It was still touch and go for a while. There was a Maracaiban fishing trawler about thirty miles from where the Gallic frigate went down. It heard the automatic distress signal and went in to assist. The Gauls sank it before it could get close. Maybe they thought it was a Q ship. Anyway, big stink around the whole of Colombia Latina."

  "How are they explaining away the lost frigate?" Chu asked.

  "They're not. Their story is that it was an unprovoked attack by us. Our story is that it was an unprovoked attack by them to which our sub responded in self defense."

  "It was," Chu said.

  "I know," Carrera agreed, "but—"

  "—but," Fernandez finished, "since you're the only one who can prove that, and since, officially, you weren't anywhere near there . . ."

  "It doesn't really matter, anyway," said Carrera. "People who want to believe our story would, even if they had proof of the Gauls' version of events. People who want to believe the Gauls would, even if I had you swear to them on a stack of bibles that they fired first. There's so much information these days, and so much of it is conflicting, that people have grown jaded and simply believe whatever their prejudices tell them to. Hell, language itself is losing its ability to inform or persuade . . . or even to communicate."

  Chu scratched his head through long-unwashed hair. "Yeah."

  He then remembered something he'd been wanting to tell Carrera and Fosa for days. "There at the end, sirs, there's something happened you need to know about."

  "What's that?" Fosa asked.

  Chu's voice was full of admiration as he said, "Toward the end, Orca put on a burst of speed to try to evade some of the torpedoes coming for it."

  Fosa shrugged. Yeah? So?

  "Well . . . Quijana apparently turned on his clicker when he upped his speed."

  This time it was Carrera who shrugged, while Fosa's face was lit by a smile.

  Fernandez understood, too, being a man who worked with secrets. "He kept the secret," he explained to Carrera. "He kept it at the cost—certainly the risk—of his life."

  Fernandez ahemed. "Speaking of secrets, Patricio, if you don't mind, I've got to go look into something in Ciudad Balboa."

  Building 59, Fort Muddville, Transitway Area, Balboa

  In theory, Legate Pigna was on leave. In fact, he'd gone into the jungle with a fishing pole and a small pack, come out somewhere else without the pole and in disguise, then been picked up and whisked to Janier's headquarters for final coordination. It was the fourteenth meeting concerning the pressing matter of getting rid of Carrera since Pigna had attended the first at the Hotel Rustico.

  The legate emerged from the unmarked, Tauran Union-owned sedan in the shadows under the arched entrance to the main quadrangle. De Villepin met him there, and hustled him through a door that led to stairs that, in turn, led directly to Janier's office suite, bypassing even the General's secretary. This was to the good as de Villepin was beginning to develop some doubts about that one. That she was passing on information to someone, he had no doubt of. But whether that someone was his opposite number, Fernandez, Wallis, the Ambassador from the Federated States, or someone in the office of Rocaberti, the rump president, he couldn't say and hadn't been able to discover. It was even vaguely possible that the woman was reporting back to some one or another of the unelected bureaucrats who ran the Tauran Union. Worst of all was the possibility that she was reporting to the Gallic Navy, but de Villepin considered this somewhat unlikely.

  A representative of Rocaberti's office was waiting for Pigna, when he arrived, as was Arias, the senior of the policemen that still reported to the old president, and another man he didn't know at all but who was introduced as Janier's Staff Judge Advocate, Commandant Boissieu.

  At Janier's hand wave, de Villepin began, "The worst part of our little program is that everyone is to a greater or lesser extent infiltrated and compromised. Thus, anything we may plan or do beyond the simplest is likely to tip our hand well before we are ready. It goes almost without saying—but I will say it, anyway—that if we are discovered beforehand it could be a disaster for everyone.

  "Fortunately, our opponents are about as well infiltrated as we are and I can say with considerable confidence that none of Carrera's people knows as of yet that we are planning to depose him and Parilla."

  "How do you know that, de Villepin?" Janier asked.

  "I know it," the intelligence officer replied, "because Fernandez's deputy is on our payroll and his secretary cum mistress—Barletta's I mean, not Fernandez's—likewise reports to me. Something of this magnitude, if known, would have sent ripples all through their force. Of ripples, other than those explainable by other events, there has been not a one."

  "Nobody knows about my part, outside of ourselves," Pigna insisted. "And I know this because I have taken no one into my confidence. Every order has been prepared by myself. Except for a couple of close relatives I will inform only at the end, my men will think they are following Carrera's orders, passed on through me . . . for as long as that illusion holds. Speaking of which . . ."

  "I have the team ready to seize Carrera," the policeman said. "All composed of men who hate his very guts, some are veterans of his legions who either left under a cloud or feel cheated in some way. They have been trained by the Gauls as a hostage rescue force. There is little difference between a hostage rescue force and a kidnapping force." The policeman looked directly at Boissieu and asked, "Do you have the warrants?"

  The lawyer nodded, replying, "Not only the old ones from the Cosmopolitan Criminal Court, for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Pashtia and Sumer, but also new ones from the Global Court of Justice for both men for participation in narcotrafficking."

  "That's important," Janier said, "because while the Federated States, even under the Progressives, is fairly unsympathetic to the war crimes issue, they are death on drug running. You will produce evidence of drug running?"

  "The best that can be procured," said Arias, "to include extensive samples which will be found on the grounds of Carrera's home and the new presidential palace."

  "And the Navy of Gaul will prevent reinforcement from the island," said Janier, "and from the south. One battalion will seal off the road from the interior and another force the road from Cristobal. If I am satisfied with the rest of your operational planning" He looked directly at Pigna. "Show me your target list and operational matrix."

  With a grin, Pigna withdrew from his lightly soiled pack a very small portable computer drive.

  * * *

  "I am satisfied," said Janier. In fact, though, he was more than satisfied, he was impressed. Whatever course Pigna had taken in overthrowing a government had obviously been world class. "But there is one other thing I need you to do." He looked directly at Arias as he said so.

  "And that would be, General?"

  "One of my subordinates, the Castilian, Muñoz-Infantes, is intensely disloyal, to me, to this command, and to the Tauran Union. For political reasons I won't bore you with, I can't get rid of him. So I need him kidnapped and killed, and the blame pinned on Carrera's legions."

  "That will leave me shorthanded for the other two grabs we must make," Arias objected.

  "Nonetheless, it is a condition for my support. I will have one or two people from his unit to help."

  "It's pretty dirty, too," said Pigna.

  The Gaul shrugged, "So?"

  Quarters 39, Clementine Road, Fort Williams, Balboa Transitway Area

  Chapayev had become something of a weekly dinner guest at Coronel Muñoz-Infantes' residence. It was even perhaps fair to say that he and the Castilian colonel had become friends.

  I wish, thought Chapayev, that as much could be said for his daughter, Maria. She's barely civil and I really don't understand that. I've heard of love at first sight, even—to my cost—experienced it. But hate at first sight? That seems unfair.

  Is it because t
he coronel and I talk too much shop over dinner? I like to talk shop. So does he. Where would be the harm in that? And she grew up in the Castilian Army. Surely none of this is over her head.

  "So you were too young for Pashtia, Victor?" Muñoz observed. "I'm surprised your Duque didn't bring you over during his campaign there."

  "Standing policy, sir," Chapayev replied. Though he'd never found a really suitable "horizontal dictionary," his Spanish—especially his military Spanish—had gotten quite good through sheer dint of study and practicing with his boys. "The only Volgans from our regiment who were allowed in with the legions were the ones who spoke the language, one of the languages, and had good contacts there. Otherwise . . . well . . . there were a lot of hard feelings still and no love lost between us. The less we saw of each other, generally speaking, the better."

  "And things with your cadets . . ." Muñoz began to ask before Maria interrupted him.

  "If you'll excuse me, father, I need to go lie down."

  Muñoz gave his daughter a half-dirty look, waved one hand dismissively, and said, "Go then." He stared at her back until she had nearly disappeared around the corner. When the colonel took his eyes away he found that Victor was still staring.

  The Volgan coughed with embarrassment. "Sorry, sir, I . . ."

  The Castilian effected not to have noticed Victor's stare. "I apologize for Maria's rudeness. She is a daughter of the regiment, my young friend, but she is also a product of the Tauran Union's educational system. The fact that you are turning young boys into something analogous to soldiers is just beyond the pale to her."

  "Ohhh."

  "Oh."

  Muñoz always took an interest in Victor's job, training the cadets, but was also always very careful to stay far away from his genuine suspicions, that Carrera was training not only future soldiers but current ones, young ones, fanatical ones who would not be counted in the force ratios calculated at Building 59. Even as he avoided that subject, he also took invariable care to drops hints of anything that might be of interest to the legions.

  "I'm afraid I'll have to call it a night, Victor," Muñoz said. "We've got some new people coming in and early tomorrow I've a meeting with my quartermaster as to where we're going to billet them. They'll take up at least half a barracks by themselves, but there aren't so many as to take up a whole one. It's really quite awkward; the men don't even speak Spanish."

  Runnistan, Pashtia, Terra Nova

  "We are going to keep this a secret from his parents, right?" asked Cano of his wife, in Spanish to keep it private. She seemed extraordinarily happy. Cano assumed it was because she was doing something for her Avatar of God.

  The dirt of the Bushkazi field where Cano had won his bride, Alena, had been carefully packed down and smoothed. Ringed by torches, crowded with people wearing anything from legionary battle dress to black native costume to Balboan guayaberas, an oval opening had been left in which danced a dozen of the tribe's most lovely maidens, to the accompaniment of primitive music from equally primitive musical instruments. In the center of one of the long sides of the oval, on a throne of sorts, flanked by more torches, sat Hamilcar Carrera, watching the show. Hamilcar was young, barely eleven years old. The trees from which the wood for the throne had come were older. Some of the fittings and jewels of the throne had come from Old Earth. They were thousands of years old.

  Hamilcar kept his thoughts to himself, though his face said he was enjoying the girls' dance. It was a wedding dance, though it had not, in living memory, ever been performed by a dozen girls at once. To one side of the throne stood his military adjutant, Tribune David Cano, flanked by Cano's wife, the green-eyed Alena. Some local notables stood on the other side. The rear of the throne was ringed by fierce-visaged, armored and armed Pashtun, facing out while standing. In front was a similar ring, though there the guards were on single knees, so as not to interfere with their Iskandr's view.

  Alena turned and tilted her head slightly, her emerald eyes laughing. "If you don't tell them, I won't, husband. But I'd suggest you have a little talk with his tutors, if you want them to be quiet about it."

  Her head tilted the other way. "Still, I don't know why you would bother. The Carreras are going to know, eventually. Say, when he shows up back in Balboa in a few years with a dozen wives in tow."

  Cano's chin sunk on his chest. Ham's mother is going to kill me.

  "Oh, stop worrying, will you?" Alena insisted, poking her husband's ribs with her elbow. "It's years before he'll have to go back. By then, Lourdes and the Duque will be grandparents, probably a dozen times over; one of the factors in our choice for brides for Iskandr is that the girls had to come from highly fertile mothers and, in their day, grandmothers. Not a one of these girls has fewer than sixty first cousins. You think the Duque or Lourdes will object to that?"

  "Maybe not," Cano conceded.

  "There's something else, too," Alena said. "Something the Duque said to me before we left."

  "When he asked to speak with you privately?"

  "Yes, then. He told me the boy was not who I thought he was—of course I scoffed at that!—but that he really was something almost as special. He said he was sending him to us for training, more than anything, and he hoped we would put Iskandr through a regimen to make him grow up very quickly and very well."

  "So?"

  Alena pointed with her chin toward the oval where a dozen beautiful girls danced with hands in graceful pose and fingers subtly beckoning. "Those were also just about the most grown-up girls we could find, even if one of them is no older than Iskandr. Given that females are more mature than males by something like an order of magnitude, how long do you think those girls will allow him to remain a boy? And, no, I'm not just talking about sex."

  "What would you have done," Cano asked, "if Carrera had not, on his own, decided to send the boy here?"

  "I'd have brought the girls to him and presided over a wedding by our custom, myself," Alena answered without a moment's delay. "I picked most of them out when we were still in Balboa."

  "You are a witch, wife."

  "Perhaps," she conceded. "Mostly, though, in this case, I used the Globalnet and had the women here do the leg work."

  "No 'perhaps' about it. You know too much. I shall have cross words with your father for having you taught to read."

  Alena gave her husband a mysterious smile. "I do know something you don't know," she said.

  "Surprise me."

  "I will," she answered, looking up at him, mystery morphing into radiance, "in about seven months."

  Museo Nacional, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Months we've been looking, fumed Fernandez. Everywhere. Through every literary or physical trace. Even arranging to tear down two buildings in the slum by the old city so I could have a crew search through the dirt. And it was here all the time. He reached out one hand to touch the thing, reverently, then shook his head. God, the time wasted!

  The "it" in question was a small black oblong box. Elsewhere, out on the Isla Real, was its twin, though that twin was in much worse condition.

  "It was donated to the Museum," said the curator, "oh, maybe two centuries ago. We've never really had the room, or the funding to expand the room, to put it on display. I'm not even sure what it is, only that it was something that once belonged to Belisario Carrera."

  You don't need to know what it is, old man, thought Fernandez, hand still caressing the thing. It's only important that I know what it is. It's a flight computer for a shuttle and, more importantly, it's the same dimensions, probably the same model, and can probably be fit into the shuttle we captured a few years ago in Pashtia. It looks like it can, anyway.

  We dug through everything. Everything! And then one of my bright boys suggesting checking probate accounts. And that led to a court record of an old estate fight . . . which led to a branch of a family . . . which led to another probate record . . . and to another, and another . . . to a woman who died rich and childless . . . and finally
, to you.

  And you, my lovely little black box, are going to lead us . . .

  Fernandez's eyes turned upward, toward the stars.

  Campo de los Sapos, Cristobal, Balboa, Terra Nova

  The deployment's first wave was leaving at night. Stars shone down, twinkling off the waves of sea and bay that surrounded the Field of the Frogs on three sides. Loudspeakers placed around the field blared out a marching song, occasionally interrupted by commands from the headquarters, 8th Tercio, in charge of the movement.

  Like the commander of the corps to which they belonged, like the population of the area from which they sprang, the 8th Tercio, was mostly black. As such, their marching song was Cara Morena, Dark Face, a glowingly appreciative piece on the girls of the province. They sang it from a dozen departure points, as they boarded a mix of hovercraft, coastal freighters, helicopters and medium cargo aircraft for their deployment to Jaquelina de Coco and Sangre de Dios, down in La Palma Province.

  With much less fanfare, a number of Cazador teams had been shuttled down by submarine, over the past several weeks, from Puerto Lindo, just down the coast. They would land on the coast and infiltrate by foot to take up positions well in advance of the general interdiction line—some, in fact, into Santander, itself—the better to cover the coming relief in place of 2nd Tercio by 8th. Those teams would cross into Santander, if for no other reason than to remind the Santandern guerillas that there was no sanctuary for them, anywhere.

  From loudspeaker and voice the song echoed:

  "The hour of deliverance is nearing;

  The day of liberation's surely coming;

  The era when our Patria is sovereign,

  No longer underneath the Kosmo boot.

  Cara morena, mi chica linda . . ."

  I really don't care for that song, Jimenez thought. Just doesn't grab me. But what the hell does it matter what I think, if the boys like it.