by David Weber
“We’re getting sensor ghosts all along the perimeter,” Lieutenant Sawato had just taken a tour of the company while Captain Pahner kept an eye on the negotiations of the top of the hill. Now she looked around at the curtaining rain and shook her head. “I’ve got that funny feeling. . . .”
“We’re surrounded by the warriors of this tribe,” Pahner said in a distant tone. “They’re good. They move slow, so the motion sensors aren’t sure if they’re really there, and they’re isothermal, so the heat sensors can’t pick anything up. No power sources, no metal except a knife or spearhead, and we don’t have the sensors dialed in for scummy nervous systems.” He pulled out a pack of gum and absentmindedly extracted a stick and popped it into his mouth. He shook the pack a couple of times to get the water out, and put it away, all without looking. “Take a glance over to the left. There’s a big tree with spreading roots. Halfway up, there’s a limb covered in . . . stuff. Go out the limb five meters, just before a red patch. About a half a meter to the right of the red patch. Spear.”
“Damn,” Sawato said softly. The scummy was as hard to spot as any professional sniper she’d ever seen. He appeared to be covered with a blanket that broke up his outline. “So, what do we do about it, long-term?”
“Dial in the nervous system sensors. We’ll have enough data after tonight to do that. After that, any scummy comes within fifty meters of us, we’ll be able to detect them. And warn everybody that they’re out there. We don’t want any accidents.”
“I’ll pass that on then, shall I?” Sawato asked. Pahner seemed awfully detached about the whole thing, she thought.
“Yeah. Might as well. Looks like the negotiations are going all right after all. I was waiting to see if it dropped in the pot.”
“You know,” Julian said, “I’ve been shot, blown up, deep frozen, and vacuum dried. But this is the first time I ever worried about being washed away.”
The rain had yet to let up, and the position the squad leader occupied—a slight depression behind a fallen and rotting tree—was rapidly filling. The combination of rising water and the weight of his combat armor meant he was slowly sinking in quickmud.
“Or drowned,” he added.
“Ah, come on,” Moseyev said as he gently moved aside a bit of fern with the barrel of his bead rifle, “it’s just a little rain.” He was sure there was something watching them, but he wasn’t sure what it was.
“‘A little rain,’ he says.” Julian shook his head. “That’s like saying Sirius is ‘a little hot,’ or that New Bangkok is ‘a little decadent.’”
“It’s not like it’s gonna kill you,” Moseyev said. “The armor has air for nearly two days.” The fire team leader jerked his head to the side as his helmet highlighted another possible contact. But then it faded again. “Damn. I wonder what’s causing that?”
“I’d say it was the wet,” Julian said, lowering his own rifle. “But since we’re all getting the same ghosts, I’d say it’s something in the jungle.”
“All hands.” The radio crackled with Lieutenant Sawato’s calm soprano. “Those sensor ghosts are the local tribesmen. Be calm, though; the natives are friendly. We’re going to be going into the village soon, so they’ll probably make themselves evident. No firing. I say again, no firing.”
“Everybody get that?” Julian called, standing up to make sure he could see all the members of the squad. “Check fire for partisans.”
“Got it, Sarge,” Macek replied from the far end. “‘The natives are friendly.’ Riiight.”
The private’s position was the edge of the squad’s area of responsibility, and Macek was the member with the least time in the unit. If he’d gotten the word, everyone else probably had, but Julian wasn’t in The Empress’ Own because he settled for “probably.”
“Yeah, and ‘The transfer’s in the system,’” the sergeant responded with a laugh. “Give me a thumbs up on that check fire,” he added more seriously, and made sure he saw a thumb from everyone before he resumed his position in the puddle. He might bitch about it, but the depression was still the best location for him. Even if it was turning into a lake.
“‘I’m from the Imperium,’” Moseyev continued with a litany as old as government, “‘I’m here to help you.’” He gave a thumbs up.
“‘Don’t worry, it’s a cold landing zone,’” Cathcart added from behind his plasma gun. Thumbs up.
“‘We’re getting air-trucked to the barracks,’” Mutabi said in an evil tone. Middle finger up.
“Oh, man, you would have to say that one!” Julian chuckled. “My aching feet.”
“Modderpocker,” Poertena said. “Chus what we need. Surrounded by tee cannibals.”
“Chill, Poertena,” Sergeant Despreaux advised. “They’re friendly.”
“Sure they are,” Poertena replied. “Why fight tee roc if you can get it to fly into tee pot.”
Even as he spoke, his helmet registered another contact. Then another. It began popping up icons everywhere, and an entire line of Mardukans materialized magically out of the rain.
“Modderpocker,” Poertena said again, quietly. “Neat trick.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The company barely fitted inside the walls of the village. The Marines and their equipment were packed into every nook and cranny as the women of the village, significantly smaller than the male warriors, came out with hoarded foodstuffs for what was shaping up as an evening of celebration. The company reciprocated in building the menu as best it could. Despite the critical importance of the food supplies they’d brought with them, some of the Marines’ rations were never going to survive conditions on Marduk, and they brought those out to add to the various edibles being produced by the Mardukans.
Platters of grain, similar in texture to rice but tasting more like barley, were scattered about among the residents and visitors, along with carved wooden bowls of fruits. The predominant fruit species appeared to be a large, brown oval with a thick, inedible skin but a ripe red interior that tasted something like a kiwi fruit. Since it grew on palmlike trees, the humans promptly christened it a “kiwi-date” or “kate” fruit. In addition to the grain and fruit, there were steaming platters of unrecognizable charred things. Most of the humans passed those up.
There was also a sort of wine made from fruit juices, but it was obviously distilled and not just fermented. Like humans, the Mardukans metabolized alcohol for pleasure, and after one tentative sip of the potent beverage, the sergeant major growled at the platoon sergeants. Her growls then wandered down the chain of command until even the lowliest private was aware of the penalty for getting plastered in the middle of a potentially hostile jungle. There was also a heavy and bitter beer that some of the Marines relished and others found disgusting.
The Marines followed the custom of their hosts, reaching into the piles to extract handfuls of grain and fruit and brushing away gathering insects, livestock, and pets.
Pride of place was given to a large lizardlike creature roasting on a spit at the center of the camp. The head had been removed, but the bulky body was a meter and a quarter in length, with a longer tail dragging off into the fire. The spit was turned, with serious and dedicated attention to the responsibility, by a Mardukan child—one of several running about the stockaded village.
The Mardukans were viviparous and bore live young, but they had “litters” of four or more. Baby Mardukans were extremely small, barely the size of a Terran squirrel, and mostly stayed glued to their mothers’ backs, mired into the mucous from which they also derived nutrition. Half-grown Mardukans were everywhere underfoot, inextricably mixed with livestock, pets, and, now, Marines.
O’Casey stopped tapping at her pad and shook her head.
“They must have an enormous infant mortality rate,” she said with a yawn.
“Why?” Roger asked.
As one of the stars of the evening, he was seated in a place of honor under the awninglike front section of Delkra’s hut. He took one of the
charred things off the broad leaf that served as a platter and tossed it to a lizardlike creature which had been looking at him with begging eyes. It started to pounce on the morsel, but was pushed aside by a larger version. The larger beast, patterned red and brown with pebbly skin like the flar beast’s, and with the ubiquitous six legs and a short, wide tail, came over to the prince, sniffing at his platter, but Roger shooed it away.
“I mean,” he continued, still looking at the smaller beast, “what makes you say that?”
The little beast was interesting, he thought. The legs, instead of being splayed out like a lizard’s, were directly under the body, like a terrestrial mammal’s. And the eyes looked much more intelligent than any Terran lizard’s.
But it still looked like a six-legged lizard.
“All these children,” O’Casey said, snapping her pad closed. “There are six children below what I would guess to be reproductive age for every adult. Now compare that to humans, and you can see that they must have either a tremendous rate of population growth, or a high infant mortality rate. And there’s no evidence of population growth. So—”
“What would cause it?” Roger asked absently, holding out another charred bit to the lizard. It shuffled forward hesitantly, sniffing at the tidbit and looking around cringingly. Reasonably sure that it was in the clear, it bared two-centimeter long fangs and hissed, then darted forward with the speed of a striking snake to take the offered treat out of Roger’s fingers. It was a precise strike; Roger was left holding a tiny bit of the meat, which had been sheared off cleanly within a millimeter of his fingertips.
“Youch,” he said, wiping off the carbon on his fingers.
“Oh, various things. I suppose barbarism is probably the biggest single factor.” O’Casey leaned back on Matsugae’s rucksack. The valet had left the overstuffed container in her “care” while he went around the camp, examining the cooking methods of the Mardukans. He was currently discussing something with a Mardukan female who’d emerged from one of the huts to lather a substance on the lizard being cooked in the center.
“People evolve to barbarism and usually stop there. Little civilizations rise and fall under the tide of barbarism.” She yawned and thought about the history of Earth and some of the less well-prepared slow-boat colonies. “Sometimes, it seems that barbarism, for all its horrors—and they are many—is the natural state of a sentient species. So many, many times humanity has slid into barbarism in one area or another on one planet or another. In fact, we came within a centimeter of it on an interstellar scale during the Dagger Years; I think only your great-to-the-umpteenth grandmother prevented it. Not that that was what she was thinking about—”
She broke off as a yawn interrupted her, then winced as she stretched.
“God, I hurt,” she observed, and lay back and closed her eyes. “Which, I might add, is a consequence of another mortality factor: living in a jungle ain’t easy. It’s a very competitive environment. Something is always trying to eat you, and finding things you can eat is hard.”
She reopened her eyes looked up at Roger as the rain began to fall once more. The thunder of it on the thatch was lulling, and she yawned again.
“Roger, we’re in a jungle,” she said, and her tone was oddly ambiguous. “Jungles try so hard to kill you. They’re always trying to.” She stopped and smiled at him. “I’ve tried to get you to listen to me so often, but I’m going to try again. You have to check your tongue. You have to keep your temper. Learn from Pahner, don’t piss him off, okay?”
He opened his mouth to protest, but she waved him quiet.
“Just . . . try to bite your tongue from time to time, all right? That’s all I ask.”
The last two days of strain had drained her, and she could feel herself drifting off despite every intention of staying awake. Not only was the social organization of the natives fascinating, but opportunities to catch Roger in a mood to learn anything but sports and hunting tricks were rare. Yet, despite that, she simply couldn’t keep her eyes open.
“Jungles are beautiful,” she continued in a mumble, “until you have to live in them.”
Her eyes closed, and despite the heat, flies, and noise of festive preparation, she slept.
“You’re making me proud, brother,” Cord said, watching the gathering feast. Its lavishness would extract a price from the tribe, but it showed they were of good status. Something that would be important for this “Roger” to remember.
“It’s the least I can do for my brother,” Delkra replied. “Ayah! And for these odd strangers.” He paused for a moment, then gave a grunting laugh. “They look like basik, you know.”
Cord clacked his teeth sourly. “Thank you so much for pointing that out, brother. Yes, I’d made the same connection.”
The small basik were often found around open areas in the jungle. Their mid-legs were foreshortened, and when they were frightened—which was virtually all the time—they ran on their hind legs with their upper limbs flopping loosely about. They were a beast of choice when it came to training young children to hunt, since they were small, harmless, cowardly, and stupid.
Very stupid.
“Get used to it, brother,” Delkra said with another grunt. “Others will make the same connection.”
“I suppose,” Cord conceded. “And, demons know they’re just about as stupid in the jungle. But although I’ve only seen those weapons of theirs used twice, I know to fear them. And rarely is the guard of a lord taken from among the most foolish. I don’t underestimate them.”
Delkra clapped his lower limbs together and changed the subject abruptly.
“Asi, at your age!”
“You keep saying that, brother,” Cord observed. “You’re not that much younger.”
“Tell me a truth unknown,” the chief replied somewhat sourly.
Cord understood, of course. Both of them would soon have to leave the Warrior Path, and although those who’d survived it enjoyed great status, few lived long thereafter. It was a thought neither enjoyed contemplating, and the shaman looked around, searching for a neutral change of subject. His gaze flitted about the familiar village which he soon would leave behind forever, and his eyes narrowed as he noticed a puzzling absence.
“Where is Deltan? Hunting?”
“One with the mists,” Delkra said, rubbing his hands together to drive away bad luck. “An atul.”
“What?” the shaman gasped. “How? He was surprised?”
“No,” the chief snapped. “The spearhead broke.”
“Ayah!” the shaman said, but he refused to show the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d never had children, not even daughters. A single pairing as a youth had resulted in the death of the brood wife from an infection that was, unfortunately, all too common. Since then, he’d never taken another mate, and his brother’s children had become as his own. Delkra certainly had enough to go around; half the females in the tribe had brooded a litter for him at some point. And he ran heavily to males in his broods.
But Deltan had been one of the special ones. He’d shown a flair for the learning of the shaman, and Cord had hoped that someday the fine young warrior might follow in his own footsteps. Now that was done, and it boded poorly for the tribe that he must leave with his asi and there would be no shaman to pass on the traditions. He’d hoped to pass on a few critical pieces of knowledge to Deltan before leaving, or perhaps to have him accompany them on the first leg of the humans’ travels.
“Ayah,” he repeated. “Evil times. The iron?”
“Bad,” the chief spat. “Soft and rotten beneath a brittle exterior. It looked fine, but . . .”
“Aye,” the shaman said, “but—”
“There’s no other choice,” the chieftain interrupted. “It must be war.”
Cord clapped opposite hands in negation.
“If we war with Q’Nkok, the other tribes will pick our bones.”
“And if we don’t,” the chief pointed out, “Q’Nkok will continue
taking our lands and giving feck back! We must have the lands or the tribute. As it is, we have neither.”
Cord clasped all four arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. His brother was correct; the tribe was in a lose/lose situation. They could neither survive a war with the local city-state nor permit the present intolerable trends to continue, yet war was the only way to stop it. There seemed no way out.
“Q’Nkok is to be our first stop,” he observed after a moment. “The humans want to trade for such things as only the shit-sitters can provide. We will discuss this with the humans.”
“But—” his brother started to object.
“The humans aren’t good in the jungle,” Cord overrode the objection, “but they are very wise, nonetheless. I know they’re shit-sitters, but they’re smart and, I think, honorable shit-sitters. If I had my old master here, I would ask him for advice. But I don’t. Far Voitan is fallen, and all its heroes with it. I can’t ask my master; therefore, we will ask the humans.”
“You’re a stubborn flar beast,” Delkra told him.
“But I’m also right,” Cord retorted with a grunting laugh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Eleanora awoke to a high-pitched, atonal chanting and a low-tempo, muffled drum beat. Her eyes flickered open, and she froze in adrenaline shock at the sight of a swaying vampire larva. The perspective was weird as the flickering firelight of full dark combined with the swaying dance of the creature to make it seem a strange hallucination. It seemed to shrink to the size of a caterpillar, and then swelled suddenly up to the size of a . . . Mardukan in a mask.
The dancer swayed in the firelight, and as Eleanora blinked at him the long, dripping fangs of the beast were revealed as a crown about his head, the camouflaged body as a painted wrap. Behind the shuffling figure were more dancers: a giant, pincer-armed beetle, a two-armed snake like the legendary Naga, and a low, writhing, six-armed beast whose maw was filled with sharklike teeth.