Hell's Gate m-1

by David Weber

  Jasak had considered making a point of just that. Punishable offenses under the articles of war included one defined as "silent insubordination," which could certainly be stretched to cover Garlath's attitude. He was tempted to trot it out?Garlath was busy creating the very situation Jasak had hoped to avoid by refraining from criticizing him in front of his men?but he resisted the temptation. Whatever else he might be doing, the fifty was complying, however ungraciously, with the specific instructions he'd been given.

  Of course, he was sending out only a single point man, instead of the entire section Jasak himself would have assigned. The hundred recognized that as yet another petty defiance, but Garlath had obviously figured out that Jasak was reluctant to ream him out in front of his men. So the fifty was challenging him to demand that he change his orders, or to simply overrule him and "usurp" command of his platoon. And Jasak had been almost overwhelmingly tempted to do just that.

  But the very strength of the temptation had warned him that it was born at least as much of anger as of professional judgment, and anger was not the best basis for making command decisions. Better to wait until he was certain his own temper wasn't driving him … and until he could bring the hammer down as Garlath deserved without doing any more damage to the platoon's internal discipline while they were in the field. If there'd been any prospect of running into some sort of opposition, or even any dangerous predator, it might have been different. But this was a virgin portal. There wouldn't be even the threat of the frontier brigands or claim jumpers the Army was occasionally called upon to suppress.

  "I'm afraid the Fifty and I don't exactly see eye to eye on the proper conduct of a first survey," he said after a moment, answering the magister with rather more frankness than he'd initially intended.

  "And I'm afraid that that's because the Fifty is a frigging idiot," Magister Kelbryan replied tartly.

  Jasak blinked in surprise, and she giggled. It was an astonishingly bright, silvery sound, almost as unexpected as her earthy language had been.

  "I'm sorry, Sir Jasak!" she said, her tone genuinely contrite despite the laughter still bubbling in the depths of her voice. "It's just that Magister Halathyn and I had to put up with him for almost six full days after your departure, and I've never met a man more invincibly convinced of his own infallibility. Despite, I might add, the overwhelming weight of the evidence to the contrary."

  "I'm afraid it would be quite improper for me to denigrate the abilities of one of my officers, especially in front of a civilian," Jasak said after a moment.

  "And the fact that you feel constrained to say that tells me everything I really need to know, doesn't it, Hundred?" she asked. He said nothing, only looked at her, smiling ever so faintly, and she giggled again. Then she eased the straps of her pack across her shoulders, inhaled hugely, and looked up at the crystal blue patches of autumn sky showing between the dark needles of evergreens and the paint brush glory of seasonal foliage.

  "My, what a magnificent day!" she observed.

  Trooper 2/c Osmuna swore under his breath as the rock shifted under his right heel. His left arm rose, flailing for balance as he teetered in the middle of the broad, shallow stream. The heavy infantry arbalest in his right hand threatened to pull him the rest of the way off center and down, and the prospect of tumbling into the crystal clear, icy water rushing over its stony bed wrung another, more heartfelt obscenity out of him.

  He managed, somehow, not to fall. Which was a damned good thing. Sword Harnak would have had his guts for garters (assuming that Gaythar Harklan, Osmuna's squad shield didn't rip them out first) if he'd fucked up and given Fifty Garlath an excuse to pitch another damned tantrum. Garlath was a piss-poor substitute for Fifty Thaylar, and he was already in a crappy enough mood. Fifty Thaylar would only have laughed it off if his point man fell into a river; Garlath would probably rip everyone involved a new anal orifice just to relieve his own emotional constipation.

  Personally, Osmuna reflected, as he continued on across the stream, stepping more cautiously from stone to stone, he thought the bee the Old Man had obviously gotten into his bonnet was probably a bit on the irrational side. Oh, sure, The Book insisted that point elements and flanking scouts be thrown out and that they maintain visual contact with one another at all times. But despite all of that, it wasn't like they were going to run into hordes of howling savages, and everyone knew it. No one ever had, in two centuries of steady exploration and expansion. Still, between the Old Man and Garlath, Osmuna knew which he preferred. Officers who let themselves get sloppy about one thing tended to get sloppy about other things … and officers who got sloppy, tended to get their troopers killed.

  His thoughts had carried him to the far bank, and he started up a shallow slope. The line of the stream had opened a hole in the forest canopy, which permitted the growth of the sort of dense, tangled brush and undergrowth which had been choked out elsewhere in the virgin mature forest. As he began to force his way through it, a flicker of movement higher up the slope, on the edge of the trees, caught his attention. He looked at it, and froze.

  Faslan chan Salgmun froze in disbelief, staring down at the river.

  The man?and it was, indisputably, a man, however he'd gotten here?looked completely out of place. And not simply because this was a virgin world, which meant, by definition, that no one lived there.

  It wasn't just his uniform, although that pattern of dense green, black, and white would have been far better suited to a tropical rain forest somewhere than to the mixed conifers and deciduous trees towering above him. Nor was it his coloring, which, after all, was nothing extraordinary. It was the totality of his appearance?the peculiar spiked helmet, covered in the same inappropriate camouflage fabric of which his uniform was made; the clubbed braid of bright, golden hair spilling over the back of his collar; the knee-high, tightly laced boots; the short sword at his left hip … and the peculiar looking crossbow carried in his right hand.

  It was like some weird composite image, some insane juxtapositioning of modern textiles and manufactured goods with medieval weaponry, and it couldn't be here. Couldn't exist. In eighty years of exploration under the Portal Authority's auspices, no trace of any other human civilization had ever been discovered.

  Until, chan Salgmun realized, today.

  And what the fuck do I do now?

  * * *

  Trooper Osmuna stared at the impossible apparition. It wore brown trousers, short boots, and a green jacket, and its slouch hat looked like something a Tukorian cattle herder might have worn. It had a puny looking sheath knife at one hip, certainly not anything anyone might have called a proper sword, and something else?something with a handgrip, almost like one of the hand crossbows some hunters used for small game?in an abbreviated scabbard on the other hip. It was also holding something in both hands. Something like an arbalest, but with no bow stave.

  It couldn't be here, he thought. Not after two hundred years! Despite all of his training, all of his experience, Osmuna discovered that he'd been totally unprepared for what had been laughingly dismissed as "the other guy contingency" literally for generations.

  His heart seemed to have stopped out of sheer shock, but then he felt his pulse begin to race and adrenaline flooded his system. He didn't know exactly what the other man was holding, or how it worked, but he knew from the way he held it that it was a weapon of some sort.

  And what the fuck do I do now? he wondered frantically.

  chan Salgmun shook himself. He was only a private employee of the Chalgyn Consortium these days, working for one of the private firms licensed by the Portal Authority to explore the links between the universes. But in his day, he'd served in the Ternathian Army, which considered itself the best on Sharona, with reason, and he recognized the other man's confusion. Confusion that could be dangerous, under the circumstances.

  Here we both stand, armed, and scared as shit, he thought. All we need is for one of us to fuck up. And that damned crossbow of his is cocked and read
y to go. I know I don't intend to do anything stupid … but what about him?

  His thumb moved, very carefully disengaging the safety on his Model 9 rifle.

  Osmuna saw the not-arbalest move slowly, stealthily, and the level of adrenaline flooding his system rocketed upward. Doctrine was clear on this point. In the inconceivable event that another human civilization was encountered, contact was to be made peacefully, if at all possible. But the overriding responsibility was to ensure that news of the encounter got home. Which meant the people who had that news had to be alive?and free?to deliver it.

  And if Osmuna intended to stay alive and uncaptured, it probably wouldn't be a very good idea to let this stranger point an unknown weapon at him.

  He moved his left hand to the forearm of his arbalest and tipped it upward slightly.

  Craaaaccccckkkkk!

  "What the he??"

  Jasak's head snapped up at the sharp, totally unexpected sound. He'd never heard anything like that flat, hard explosion. It was almost like a tiny sliver bitten off a roll of thunder. Or perhaps the sound a frozen branch made shattering under an intolerable weight of winter ice. But it was neither of those things, and whatever it was, it wasn't a natural sound, either. He didn't know how he could be so positive, yet he was, and his first instant flare of astonishment disappeared into a sudden, terrible suspicion.

  Chapter Two

  Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr ducked under the open flap of her tent, stepped out into the early chill, and sucked in a deep double lungful of morning. The crisp autumn air tasted like heaven, and she stretched, closing her eyes to sort out the delightful scents floating on the breeze. Cinnamon-dry leaves underfoot mingled with the soft, green fragrance of moss, and the deep, rich scent of wet earth from the forest floor. She grinned in sheer delight, then opened her eyes to watch the gold-tinted mist that hung in a thick, whisper-soft curtain along the stream they'd been following for three days. She could hear the broad creek?it nearly qualified as a river?gurgling and chuckling its way through the ravine it had cut through the forest.

  Her husband, Jathmar Nargra, emerged from the tent behind her, and slanting sunlight turned his thinning sandy hair into copper fire. The ends curled slightly from the dampness, like the baby curls in the pictures Jathmar's mother had shown her after their marriage. Field equipment festooned his sturdy canvas web gear: metal canteen, waterproofed compass, field glasses, canvas rucksack. He had his rifle slung across one shoulder for greater ease in carrying, and a Halanch and Welnahr revolver rode his belt.

  The lever action rifle and heavy single-action pistol were for protection against inimical wildlife?today, at least. There was literally no chance that they'd run into anything like claim jumpers or a gang of portal pirates in a virgin universe, but that wasn't always the case out here on the leading edge of the frontier. Shaylar was more than a little relieved that he wasn't going to need all that hardware today, but she had to admit he made a brave and dashing figure, standing there in the golden sunlight that filtered down like shafts of molten butter through the gorgeously colored leaves overhead.

  Jathmar's sun-bronzed face broke into a broad grin as her delight sparkled to him through their marriage bond.

  "It is a good morning, isn't it?" he observed. "Even with my unheroic figure squarely in the middle of it."

  "Oh, absolutely!" Shaylar laughed.

  "You wound me, woman." His long face took on a crestfallen tragedy that would have fooled anyone else. "You weren't supposed to agree with me!"

  "My dear, you're armed and dangerous enough to take on any black bears, timber wolves, wild boars, or cougars native to this part of the world." She batted her eyelashes at him. "What more could any delicately reared maiden ask?"

  "Hah! That's more like it!"

  He waggled his eyebrows and swaggered over for his good-morning kiss. Rather, his fifth good-morning kiss since they'd rolled out of their sleeping bags, twenty minutes previously, she thought with an inner laugh as he enfolded her in his arms. Jathmar Nargra was nothing if not an opportunist. And since they'd spent the vast bulk of the past four years in the company of forty unmarried men?give or take the odd one or two security types who'd hired on, then decided to homestead, or gotten eaten by the odd crocodile?Jathmar made the most of whatever opportunities came his way.

  So did Shaylar, for that matter. Since most of the universes explored to date did have cougars in this region, and since?so far as anyone had been able to tell after eighty years of constant exploration?every portal's universe was very nearly identical to every other, Shaylar didn't mind in the least Jathmar's tendency to run about armed like a proper brigand. His various bits and pieces of lethal hardware might get in the way at moments like this, but that was just fine with her.

  When Jathmar finally decided their kiss had been adequate, for now, at least, he stepped back, and she grinned as she noticed the sketchbook peeking out of his rucksack.

  "Planning to loaf today, are we?" she inquired sweetly, and his clear hazel eyes twinkled.

  "Tease me all you like, faithless wench. One of these days, I'll have to beat the art buyers off with a club, and we'll find ourselves retired, rich, and happy."

  "I'm happy now," she smiled. "And with all of this," she swept an expansive arm at the pristine wilderness surrounding them, "who needs to be rich?"

  "Who, indeed?" he echoed, brushing a lock of raven-black hair from her brow. A few strands always escaped the practical braids she wore while in the field. "You really are happy," he said, smiling as he read her emotions through the special bond between married Talents. "I worried about it, you know. When we first started our crusade to place you on a field team."

  "Yes, I know," she said softly. "And I know how hard you pushed the Board to pull it off."

  "Halidar Kinshe turned the tide of opinion, not me," Jathmar demurred. "And you've known the Parliamentary Representative a lot longer than I have, dear heart. Still," he grinned, "if you want to lavish thanks on your husband's humble head, far be it from me to discourage you."

  "You," she said severely, swatting him with her rolled up tube of charts, "are incorrigible!"

  "Not at all. Encouragable, now … "

  She laughed as he waggled his eyebrows again. Then he tipped his head up to peer through the crimson and golden clouds of fall foliage high overhead.

  "It is a grand morning for sketching, isn't it? Not to mention perfect weather for a survey. The mist ought to burn off early, I think."

  "Not that you need a clear day," Shaylar chuckled. Jathmar's Talent was the ability to "see" terrain features in a five-mile circle around him, regardless of weather or ambient light?or the complete lack thereof. "But weather like this should make the hike more exhilarating. I'll give you that. In fact, I think I'm jealous about being stuck in camp while you go gadding about!"

  "You're happy as a pearl in a bed of oysters," he told her, tweaking her nose gently. "Besides, after that last universe, you should be thrilled by any sunshine we can get."

  "I'll say."

  Shaylar's shudder of memory was only half-feigned. The universe they'd mapped prior to entering this one had connected via a portal in the middle of what had to be one of the rainiest spots in any known universe. Back home, it would have been northwest Rokhana, near the mouth of the Yirshan River where it spilled into the immense Western Ocean. They'd been incredibly lucky in that their arrival portal and the portal leading to this universe were less than three hundred miles apart, and they knew it. Portals in such close proximity to one another were almost unheard of, and correspondingly valuable.

  Despite that, and despite the guidance Darcel Kinlafia, their Portal Hound, had been able to give them, it had taken them almost a month and a half to cover the two hundred and sixty-five dripping wet miles between them, and the last three weeks had been horrible. They hadn't seen the sun for twenty-three straight days, and most of their gear had sprouted mold that had required copious amounts of bleach once the rains finally stopped. After six
weeks spent in perpetually soggy clothes, squelching through perpetually soggy wetlands, pushing through perpetually thick undergrowth with machetes, and sleeping under perpetual shrouds of mosquito netting and the smoke of smudge pots, this crisp, clear autumn air was heaven itself.

  "I'm not complaining," she said cheerfully. "At least we could come through the portal and leave the rain behind. Poor Company-Captain Halifu had to build a fort in that mess. I don't think I've ever seen such an abundance of unenthusiastic soldiers in my life."

  Grafin Halifu had favored Jathmar and Shaylar?carefully out of earshot of the men of his command?with a piquant rendition of his opinion of the multiverse's inconsiderate ill manners in placing a portal in that particular godsforsaken spot. And since Uromathians worshiped just about as many deities as there were individual Uromathians, a spot had to be nigh well lost at the back of forever before all the Uromathian gods decided to forsake it.

  For some odd reason, the company-captain had seemed less than amused by Ghartoun chan Hagrahyl's decision to name that universe "New Uromath" in honor of Halifu's homeland.

  "No, Grafin's troops weren't very happy, were they?" Jathmar chuckled. "Of course, I wouldn't have been very happy if Regs had required me to build on the already-mapped side of that particular portal, either. There they sit, sinking slowly into the mud, and right in front of them is all of this."

  It was his turn to wave expansively at the towering forest giants all about them.

  "At least Darcel wasn't bound by the PAAF's policy," Shaylar pointed out.

  "I think some of Grafin's troopers were ready to commit mayhem when they realized he was bugging out for a better spot," Jathmar agreed.