At last, Zechariah Brattle drank cold beer.
"First thing we have to do," Jayben Spears said as he picked his way cautiously around the spilled oil and over the piles of disgusting rubbish littering the floor, "is form an interim government."
"Who, sir?" Brigadier General Banks asked.
"That, Ricardo, is the question, isn't it? I haven't seen anything this bad in more years than I care to remember," Spears mused, taking in the ruin and wrinkling his nose at the smell. "Let's find who's in charge and offer him Confederation's services."
"First thing I want to do is get this army some communications equipment that works," Banks muttered. Ambassador Spears had also lost communication with the attacking force during the most critical phase of the action.
A begrimed officer approached them. It was Major Devi. "Mr. Ambassador! General Banks! Prentiss!" He shook hands all around. "I have good news. Dominic de Tomas and Herten Gorman are dead. I've seen the bodies. And Bass and my sister and that Brattle man and the others who went with him are safe! They're upstairs, ah—" He laughed. "—well, frankly, sobering up! But come over here and let me introduce you to someone." He led them to a makeshift aid station in one relatively undestroyed section of the Great Hall.
"General Lambsblood!" Spears exclaimed. He knelt beside the general's litter.
"We're about to put him into a stasis unit, sir," a medical officer said.
"Doctor, I'm Jayben Spears, the Confederation's ambassador to your world." He extended his hand and they shook. "The entire medical suite available on the CNSS Marne is at your disposal if you need it," Spears said. "General, we thought for sure you were dead!"
Lambsblood grinned. "I didn't tell them anything," he said. "Not a thing. I think Dieter and Ben Loman are still alive too," he added. "They didn't finish us off. How are my men?" A strange expression came over the general's face, as if he were trying to maintain his train of thought, and then he smiled beatifically and said, "I'd like the cream of onion soup for lunch, steward, and—and..." His voice trailed off.
"He's been sedated," the doctor said. "He's sustained severe electrical burns and he's a little out of his head just now. Yes, if you can arrange it, I'd recommend transferring him to the Marne as soon as we've stabilized him."
"I'll see to it at once," Carlisle volunteered.
"I am not out of my head!" General Lambsblood shouted from the floor, "and I am not going anywhere until you get my officers over here. I have something to tell them."
Major Devi ran off to do the general's bidding.
"General, you should listen to the doctor," Spears said.
"Give me a minute." It was clear he was fighting hard to resist the stupefying effects of the painkillers he'd been administered. Soon Devi returned with the armored battalion commander and the commander of the military police battalion.
"Lean close," Lambsblood said. With considerable effort he raised himself on an elbow. "I have time to say this only once. Krishna, Major Devi, I hereby appoint you my deputy and give you the authority to manage our army's affairs while I'm gone. Gentlemen, you will all support him in this. Furthermore, Major, I hereby appoint you to the grade of General and direct that you will cooperate with Ambassador Spears to form an interim government. You are all witnesses to this." He lay back on the litter and sighed. "Never felt better," he muttered, and closed his eyes. The doctor nodded at two medics, who gently lifted him up and placed him into a stasis unit. Before it was sealed he opened his eyes and said in his normal voice, "Would somebody please get me a cheese sandwich?"
Spears and his party stood with now-General Devi and his commanders in a shaft of light shining in through the broken roof. "General, I recommend the first thing you do is get to the media and present your case for the revolution," the ambassador said. "You have the bodies of de Tomas and Gorman. Put them on display with the story of how they died. Don't waste any time. I know, it sounds gruesome, but you have got to act quickly and decisively and then follow up with real reforms."
Devi hesitated. "I don't know, Mr. Ambassador," he answered doubtfully, "propaganda is not my forte."
"Perhaps I may be of assistance?" a voice said from behind them. A pudgy, balding man stepped out of a small knot of prisoners. A hulking military policeman moved to bar his way. "Please," he pleaded, "I can help you."
"Goddamn, it's Oldhouse!" Prentiss Carlisle exclaimed.
"What do you want?" General Devi asked sharply.
"Well, gentlemen, as Minister of Propaganda and Cultural Enlightenment, I created de Tomas's image in the public eye. Very successful I was too, as you all must admit. I would be happy—honored, in fact—to perform the same service for your new and, might I say, enlightened government." He smiled and bowed from the waist.
Devi looked at Spears, who shrugged, obviously leaving the decision to him.
"You were a Judas to your congregation, Oldhouse, and a Judas to the people of Kingdom," Devi said. "And as a Judas, you will stand trial with the other Judases. Take him away," he ordered the grinning military policeman. Then he turned to Spears. "We'll have no one from that old government in the new one, Mr. Ambassador. Since this place is a mess, I'll be needing a temporary seat for our new government. May I establish it at Interstellar City?"
"Consider it done, General," Spears said, coming to attention and saluting.
"My first decree as the head of the interim government," Devi went on, "will be to declare Interstellar City a suburb of Haven and grant free access to everyone."
Later, all of them—Bass, Zechariah, Comfort, Uma, Colleen, Chet, Raipur, and Ambassador Spears, arms linked, walked proudly out of Wayvelsberg together and into the sunlight of the new day.
"Shall I send the message now, Charlie?" Ambassador Spears asked.
"Yessir, tell my Marines I'm coming home."
"I've asked Fleet to let us keep the Marne in orbit here until the new government has its feet on the ground, but I'll book you passage on the first commercial ship that can get you to within walking distance of Thorsfinni's World. How does that suit you?"
"Fine, Mr. Ambassador."
"Is something troubling you, Gunny? You don't look too happy to be leaving us."
"In a way, I'm not."
"Unfinished business?"
Bass sighed and finished his beer. "In a way, yes." He sighed again and nodded. "Yes, definitely unfinished business."
"Well, then, Gunny, finish it," Spears said, and toasted Bass with his glass.
Time for good-byes.
Bass, Raipur, Chet, and Colleen sat in a corner of the officer's club at army headquarters where General Devi had given them honorary memberships, a large collection of empty beer bottles in the center of their table. Bass had insisted they not be removed until the evening was over.
Comfort could not be there, and Uma Devi was off with her fiancé, the former stormleader, Jaimie Mugabe, who'd been temporarily released from confinement to get married. He'd survived the battle at Wayvelsberg Castle and in fact had been one of the first to surrender, thus saving lives on both sides.
In general, the proceedings against the Special Group men and the former members of de Tomas's government were being conducted by the letter of the law. The one exception had been Heeps. After Captain Sepp Dieter had revived enough from his ordeal to describe what had happened to him, a search was initiated to find Heeps, who'd hidden himself in a water closet. He was dragged screaming and weeping to the nearest window and summarily hung. Two days after the fall of the fortress, his rotting body still swung from Wayvelsberg Castle's battlements, a warning to his compatriots of what they might expect after their trials.
The bodies of Dominic de Tomas and his henchman had been put on public display. Every member of de Tomas's government and every party member had been forced to view the corpses, and then the bodies were cremated and the ashes consigned to the sewer system.
Zechariah had returned temporarily to New Salem. General Devi had asked him to help with the civil adm
inistration of his interim government. In parting with Bass, the old Puritan had broken into tears. "I never knew a finer man," he said, shaking Bass's hand. "I wish there was something I could do for you, Charles."
"Well, there is, Zach."
"I'll remember you in every prayer I say for the rest of my life."
"I sort of figured you'd do something like that. But do me one favor?"
"Anything! Anything within my power!"
"Just call me ‘Charlie’ from now on, would you?"
Chet was leaving the next morning for his home and family, and Colleen was determined to refound the Order of St. Sulpicia. She would retake her vows. Besides, she told Bass in private, having lived a little would make her a better servant of God.
"It's getting late," Raipur reminded the others at last. "I have a big day tomorrow."
"One last toast?" Colleen proposed.
"What'll it be to?" Chet asked. "Something to remember all this by. Charles, you propose it and we'll drink to it."
Bass thought for a moment, then stood and raised his glass. "You people are more than just friends, you're comrades. I'm not going to go all weepy on you, but by God, I've never served with a finer bunch, and believe me, I know good people when I see them. So here it is. Are you ready?"
"Shout it out!" Raipur yelled.
A wry grin crossed Bass's face. "Write if you get work," he said, and drank up.
Bass found Comfort in Barracks Number Ten at Castle Hurse, supervising a work crew that was carefully dismantling the wall in the latrine. The barracks was empty. All the politicals had been freed from imprisonment, along with most of the felons sentenced for relatively minor crimes. Only the hard-core criminals were still there, in a remote section of the sprawling grounds, and their sentences were under judicial review. Other work crews were busy tearing down the barbed-wire fences and guard towers and dismantling the unoccupied barracks buildings.
"Who wrote all those names there?" Bass asked as he approached Comfort.
She whirled about in surprise, then threw her arms around his neck. The workmen nodded and smiled knowingly, then continued their work. "Oh, those are the names of all the women who were prisoners in this barracks. I'm having them put into a memorial to be built here, Charles, so we never forget them."
"You're one of a kind, Comfort." Bass smiled. "Can we talk outside?" They walked out into the street. "This is where they put you?" he asked. "Oh, Christ, Comfy, it must have been terrible here."
"It was, Charles, the worst experience of my life. But," she sighed, "these last months, I've learned a lot about myself and other people." She brightened. "You know, General Devi, when he heard my suggestion about a memorial to the martyrs who died here, asked me to chair the commission. That's why I'm having the panels removed."
"He picked the best person for the job. Comfy, I—"
"I know. You have to go back to your Marine Corps."
"Yes. I'm still a Marine, and the Corps is my profession. And I can't take you with me."
"I know."
That was the answer Bass was looking for, but strangely, he was not happy with it. "Comfort, you know, by the time I'm sixty or so and ready to retire and settle down, you'll just be in your prime years."
"I know."
"And, well, you know, life in the Corps for a married woman is pretty hard. I'd be gone on deployments all the time, and company business would keep me busy while in garrison, and, well, you know..." he finished lamely.
"I know."
"And your father needs you. And, well," he gestured, "you have important work to do here."
"Yes, I do."
"Well, goddamnit, Comfort, you really are one of a kind." He laughed. "Would you come to Thorsfinni's World if I asked you to?"
"Yes, I would."
"Leave all this, your home?"
"Yes, I would."
"And marry me?"
"Yes, I would. But Charles, I'd come even if we didn't marry. I'd do your washing, sleep under your bunk in the barracks if I had to, or rent a room in town, get a job as a barmaid. I wouldn't care."
"All right—all right." He was holding her hands now. "I have to go back by myself, report back in. It'll be a while, but I'll send for you. Christ on a crutch, what am I getting myself into?"
"Charles, you shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain like that, but goddamn, I'll come, fucking-A I'll come!"
"Oh, no," Bass groaned, "I've rubbed off on her!"
The Flood boys—now the Brattle boys, because their mother had married Zechariah—Joab, twelve, and Samuel, nine, often spent their free time exploring the banks of the stream that ran by the caves just outside New Salem, chasing the harmless water bugs and amphibians that lived there. It was on one such expedition that they made an astonishing discovery: a toddler. He wasn't a lost babe from any of New Salem's families, and they didn't recognize him as being from any of the other villages they knew. The small child was quietly feeding on a large bug he had captured. He squealed in surprise and fright and dived into the shallow water when he saw the boys. They plunged in after him, and in the course of a wet struggle, subdued the little fellow.
"Who is he?" Samuel asked his brother, who was older and should know the answer to such things. The boys held the gasping, shivering little one by his stubby little legs—he was obviously male.
"What is he?" Joab asked back. He held the toddler up and showed his brother the strange lines on the little one's sides and his pointed teeth.
Samuel scrambled back to the stream bank and retrieved the rest of the water bug the little fellow had been eating. "Here," he said, holding it out to the strange babe. He snapped up the remains of the bug, swallowed it with an audible gulp, then stared at the boys with his liquid black eyes.
"Jedo," he said.
"Whoever he is, he can talk!" Joab exclaimed.
"Jedo," the toddler repeated.
"Let him go and see if he tries to get away," Samuel suggested.
Joab took off his belt and fastened it like a leash around the little one's chest, under his arms.
"Come on, Jedo, we're taking you home to mama!" He turned to Samuel. "Mama will get mad at us if she finds out we found a baby and left him out here alone."
Hannah Brattle was clearly baffled by the toddler her sons called Jedo. "That is the oddest child I've ever seen," she exclaimed. She was more than a little disturbed by the little one's pointed teeth and the strange lines on his sides. He looked at her as if he expected something of her as he stood unsteadily on her lap, looking up at her with a baby's huge eyes. Well, she supposed, a child this small would expect something of a woman. "Why do you call him Jedo?" she asked her sons.
"Because that's what he said," Samuel answered.
"Can we keep him?" Joab asked. "He eats bugs."
"He doesn't seem to have a home," Samuel jumped in.
"I think he's an orphan," Joab added.
"I wonder who you are, little man. Where are your parents?" Hannah asked.
Jedo burbled.
Hannah's boys shrugged.
"I have never seen anything like this," Hannah mused almost to herself. A tiny knot of doubt glowed in her stomach, almost a twinge of fear. The toddler was small and harmless looking, but didn't he resemble those devils that killed Samuel Brattle back in the woods? She had not seen them herself at the time, but Zechariah and the others had described them. And then there were the devils they'd seen at that camp or whatever, on their way back to New Salem. She'd only seen them through the grass and at a distance, and they didn't really look very much like this baby, but...
"Mother, Baby Jedo is one of God's creatures, same as we are!" Samuel reminded her.
"Yes, so was the devil, Samuel"—she wondered why she made that connection—"as you should remember from Paradise Lost, if either of you ever paid attention when we read it last year. Well, all right, for now, until your father gets back from Haven."
Chapter 31
Colonel Israel Ramadan, deputy comm
ander of 34th FIST, read the message summary from the CNSS Vicksburg, a light cruiser that had just arrived in orbit around Thorsfinni's World, then reread "Paragraph 4, Personnel." He linked to "Annex C, Personnel Details," and quickly scanned it before reading it more carefully. Then he reread "Paragraph 1, Navy Transit Order." He quickly tapped out the commands that sent the relevant portions of the summary to Brigadier Sturgeon, then contacted the FIST commander by voice.
"Got a minute, boss?" Ramadan asked.
"Sure, Come on over," Sturgeon replied.
Half a minute later Ramadan swept through Sturgeon's anteroom with barely a nod to the secretary and aide. He hardly paused to knock on the door frame before stepping into the inner office and closing the door behind him. Sturgeon cocked an eyebrow. When his number two closed the door, it meant something important, or something highly unexpected.
"Have a seat, Ram. What do you have for me?" It couldn't possibly be another deployment already, could it? The FIST was still shorthanded from the Kingdom Campaign.
"Take a look at this," Ramadan said. Instead of sitting, he reached over Sturgeon's desk to bring up the Vicksburg message on his console. "And then tell me how the hell you managed to pull it off." Only when he saw the message appear did he sit.
Sturgeon read "Paragraph 4, Personnel." A smile briefly creased his face as he gave "Annex C, Personnel Details" a quick glance.
"It pays to be on first name terms with people in high places," he said, looking at Ramadan.
"Yes?"
"When we stopped at Kingdom on our way back, I sent a back-channel to Andy." Another fleeting smile. "That's Assistant Commandant Aguinaldo, to you. He came through."
Ramadan leaned back and looked at his commander with a mix of disbelief and admiration. "It looks like he rerouted Marines who just graduated from schools and yanked Marines from duty posts on Earth."
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