I glanced back over my shoulder, and saw that the wronk had paused knee-deep in the river. The beast swung its head side to side, and the gap between me and it had reopened to thirty yards. Twilight had deepened, and the paleo chips say tyrannosaurs, based on brain lobe size estimates, could smell dead meat miles away but couldn’t see well enough to get a driver’s license.
I rolled over and backstroked, wheezing, and catching my breath.
I had lost my pack and gear, but my M-40 was still across my back, and I realized that, if it had come to it, I still had one round, the one that I had pocketed after Casus had spit it out so many days ago. It might come in handy in the survival-mode days to come. Once the wronk wandered off, I’d recall Jeeb, relay word to Ord, and make my way downriver.
Snort.
The wronk sniffed in my direction, then paced out until the water got so deep that ripples lapped its belly. Then the monster flopped into the river, and swam straight for me, eyes and nostrils above water, lashing its tail back and forth like Captain Hook’s crocodile.
Fifty-One
The carnosaur approached so fast that its snout cut a wake like a speedboat. I couldn’t really blame my error on the paleontologists. You wouldn’t think a hunting dog could swim after dead ducks, either, by studying its bones.
I swam, windmilling my arms like a shrub-trim ’Bot, but the race would end in two minutes, tops. I stroked with one hand, and fumbled with my waist seal, under-water, with the other.
If I could get the one bullet out of my pocket, hand-load the round into the M-40’s chamber, and hit the wronk squarely enough to penetrate its brain, I might survive. A fool’s option, but my only one.
The beast was so close now that I saw pupils in its eyes, which were as far apart as my shoulders were wide.
I wedged my hand inside my armor, and my fingers touched the bullet’s Teflite jacket.
I snuck one more glance, and the beast had gotten so close, so fast, that its open upper jaw and teeth showed above the waterline. I seemed to be swimming in glue. Something sloshed, and I realized that, with my hand stuffed through my waist seal, I was flooding my suit, and sinking myself.
Something scraped my boot heel beneath the surface. I kicked, and thumped something soft enough to be the carnosaur’s nose. I rolled over in the water, facing back toward the beast, prepared to go thrashing and screaming, like Rosy had.
The beast’s eye stared into mine, six feet away, softball-sized, black, and impassive. Then the head rotated sideways, so its jaws could open underwater.
After all the firefights and helicopter dust-offs, after amoebic dysentery and pneumonia, after going toe-to-pseudopod with Slugs at bayonet point, six hundred million miles from home, and again here so far from home that I didn’t even know the mileage; after surviving crushed bones, a transit through the very fabric of the universe, and a spaceship crash, I was about to die as reptile candy.
Brown water leaked around my faceplate, as I sank below the surface. I squeezed my eyes shut, clenched my jaw, and waited to feel teeth puncture my armor.
Boom.
I opened my eyes and saw a black rod protruding from the carnosaur’s eyesocket, an explosive-shredded pod swelling from its barb. Blood and black-powder smoke fountained up from the beast’s wound, and then river water exploded in a belch as the carnosaur exhaled, then sagged away from me.
I floated motionless and stunned, then paddled around and looked up.
From the rope basket that dangled below the Royal Barge’s fore spit, the Master Harpooner leaned out and reached his hand down toward me. I grabbed hold, and he clasped my gauntlet and lifted me, dripping, out of the river like I was a child.
As water poured from my armor’s heel vents, he thrust me back up toward the ship. Bassin and a crewman grabbed me, one on each arm, pulled me over the rail and onto the foredeck, then sat me on a rope locker.
I gasped, popped my neck ring, and let Bassin tug my helmet off.
The Master Harpooner stood in front of me, bent with hands on knees, and grinned. “You all right, Sir?”
I nodded, puked muddy water, and said to him as drops trickled down my chin, “Thank you.”
“No, General. Thank you! No other Harpooner’s ever stuck a wronk. I’ll drink free for a year!”
I turned to Bassin. “You were gone—”
“Actually, I disobeyed orders. We overstayed by fifteen hours, until we almost lost the tide. The Lookout thought he heard one shot.”
The Master Harpooner held up his spyglass. “We spotted you, and came about as fast as we could. Fast enough, hey?”
My forearms quivered, and I shivered so hard that my teeth chattered, though my suit heater whirred.
“No,” I said. “Too slow. Me, not you.”
Then I stood, walked to the rail, and stared out into the deepening twilight. A mile distant, as small as a beetle on dung, the big wronk still bent over Rosy, its head twisting side to side as it tore her apart.
My arms stopped shaking, and my teeth ceased chattering. My breath hissed in and out, in precise cadence, as I unslung my M-40.
Bassin touched my elbow. “Jason? Are you all right?”
I wasn’t all right. I shrugged him off, fished the round out of my pocket, and chambered it. Then I screwed the rifle’s optics to night passive, and captured the distant wronk in the green glow of the sight picture. I paused, checked windage, breathed, sighted on the monster’s eye, and squeezed the trigger.
I watched through the night sight for three heartbeats. The bullet sped downrange, an invisible, supersonic Teflite-jacketed assassin, then struck the wronk’s eye. The beast’s head snapped up, he thrashed, staggered, then fell.
Heartbeats later, the carnosaur’s dying bellow echoed back to us across the valley.
Water lapped our ship’s hull.
The Master Harpooner collapsed his spyglass between his palms, then turned to me, his eyes wide, and his mouth agape. “General, that was the finest shot I ever saw. I shall never forget it.”
My forearms trembled again, so violently this time that my rifle slipped from my fingers and clattered on the deck. I staggered back until I felt the solidity of the main mast, then slumped down with my legs sprawled on the deck.
The wronk had been acting out its role in the great play, a dumb, magnificent, living garbage disposal. I had killed it in an explosion of vengeful, cold rage, though the animal’s death came far too late to save Rosy, or even to spare her an eyeblink’s suffering.
I now commanded an army that would grow to a million soldiers, every one as susceptible to inhuman rage as I had just been. It would be my job to stoke that rage, to leash it, to watch it kill too many of them, and then to send the survivors home persuaded that they were still human. It would be even harder to persuade myself that I was.
I said to the Master Harpooner, “I hope I never forget it, either.” Then I cried.
The next morning, Bassin and I stood on deck after the Royal Barge had transited the Locks of the Marin. Jeeb swooped down out of the clouds, returned from his Cruise and Snooze. He buzzed the crow’s nest, looped around the ship like an albatross, then flared his wings and settled on the deck at my feet. He turned his optics up toward me, whined, then pogo’d up and down on all six legs.
Bassin raised his eyebrows. “You and my mother would say your machine is upset.”
Jeeb had reason to be. And his news wasn’t the worst of it.
Fifty-Two
Two days later, the Royal Barge eased alongside the stone quay at the University. Bassin and I, in fresh uniforms, jumped the last two feet between the deck and the quay, already late for the first meeting of Clan heads in three centuries.
Howard, Ord, and Jude sat in a carriage, its duckbills already turned, and pointed up the hill toward a multi-peaked, bannered tent. The tent stood on a broad lawn alongside a marble apparition of onion-shaped domes and sparkling fountains, the Great Library of Marin.
Bassin and I climbed in, Ord po
inted at my lapel, and frowned. I looked down. My Combat Infantryman’s Badge was pinned a finger width too high. I fixed it, and said, “I thought we were meeting in the Library.”
Ord said, “There were complications.”
I stiffened. “Who’s missing?”
Ord raised his palms. “Oh, they’re all under the tent, now, Sir. Her Majesty and four Marshals. With the Colonel here that will make six Marini. Casus brought five sons. Six Headmen representing the Tassini arrived last night.”
Bassin narrowed his eyes. “What happened?”
“The Tassini and the Casuni live in tents. They refused to set foot inside the Library, Sir.”
Bassin’s jaw dropped. “It’s the Third Wonder of the World! They should have been honored.”
“That was Her Majesty’s reaction. Then Casus said it was a stinking rock pile that she rigged to crash around his ears. Things deteriorated from there.”
Ord had resolved Advisee squabbles before. I sighed, then raised my palm. “But we’re good to go, now?”
Ord nodded. “I think so, Sir.”
I ran fingers through my hair, then said to the others as the carriage lurched forward, “Where the hell do we start?” Maybe Eisenhower said something more confident before the Allies invaded Europe, but he was fighting on the same planet he got born on.
Ord pulled a sword and three rifles from a long leather case alongside him. “Sir, we might start with the tools we have available—and those we can make available. Marinus is the nexus of Bren’s arms industry.”
I turned to Bassin. I couldn’t command what I didn’t understand, and I only had a carriage ride left during which to learn. “Why? Fifty words or less.”
Bassin leaned forward. “When the Plains Clans split off and settled the Highlands where the Stones were mined, we traded weapons to the Tassini and Casuni for Stones. For the next three hundred years, we spent a third of our wealth to assure that the Stones flowed. Hardly altruistic. It was good business, and the alternative was the end of the world. The Tassini and Casuni fought one another, and we tolerated it so long as the Stones flowed. Then they thanked us by sacking our border towns, using the weapons we supplied them.”
I raised my eyebrows, and said again, “Why?”
“Because they thought we worshiped the devil.”
“Do you?”
Bassin said, “We hold a pragmatic worldview.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. The Plains Clans killed your people. So you kicked their asses to make them stop.”
Bassin nodded. “Then the Casuni and the Tassini complained that we were arrogant bullies. So they raided even more.”
“Using the weapons you kept supplying.”
“We needed the Stones.”
“Sounds familiar.”
Ord cleared his throat. “Sir, while you were in the field, Jude and Colonel Hibble researched the technologies available in this society. I visited armorers.” Ord lifted the sword, which looked like the saber my Tassini Headman friend was going to pass on to his son. “The cottage industries of Marinus manufacture edged weapons that rival Japanese Koto in quality, as well as personal armor.”
Ord laid the sword down, then Jude hefted it. “Cool!”
“The larger gunsmiths mill steel weapons as well as any gunsmith in America could before the Civil War.” Ord hefted the three rifles, in turn. “The smithies make long-barrel rifles for the Tassini, horse pistols for the Casuni, and short-barreled rifles for their own military.”
“All single-shot?”
Ord nodded. “At least they’ve mastered the one-piece cartridge.”
“Can we make repeaters?”
Ord said, “I expect a working prototype tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Any other rabbits in the hat?”
Howard shook his head. “No infrastructure.” He held up the old Earth lead pencil that he chewed as a cigarette substitute. “We couldn’t even duplicate something this simple, if we wanted to. No graphite mines for pencil lead. Marini housewives are already donating brass pots to melt down, because the forges can’t make enough cartridges. So this ferrule that crimps around the eraser would be impossible. And forget about synthetic rubber for the eraser.”
I sighed, then asked Howard, “Have we got our ten months?”
He waved on the holo gen, and it showed what looked like a bowl full of lumpy minestrone. “Jeeb actually crawled down a ventilator to get these. As you can see, the incubator is up and running. Based on our forensics and experience, I’d guess the Troll will start extruding mature warriors within seven months.”
Three months training and manufacturing lost. My heart sank.
Bassin asked, “How many warriors?”
Howard shrugged. “Fifty thousand.”
Bassin’s eyes widened. “Formidable.”
“Per week.”
Bassin’s jaw dropped. “For how many weeks?”
“Until It runs out of humans to kill.”
We were screwed. But Napoleon wouldn’t admit that if he were sitting in my chair.
I crossed my arms, and looked around at the four of them. “We’ll do the best we can with the equipment and the time we have. I think we can train the Clans to fight together. There’s cultural baggage to deal with. But, when it comes down to it, they’re really a lot like us.”
Howard gave me a sideways look.
If he was right, they were us. But ancient history was inconsequential just now.
Hoooooo-ooo.
The footman clinging to the carriage’s rear platform announced our arrival at the tent with a rhind-horn blast.
The five of us climbed down from the carriage, and two Marini Household Guards saluted, then held open the tent’s flaps.
I checked my gig line of shirt front to belt buckle, then ducked under the flaps, alongside Bassin, and with the others at my shoulder.
I raised my head, looked around, and whispered to Ord, “What the hell?”
Fifty-Three
The three clans’ delegations sat around an equal-sided triangular conference table.
Casus, flanked by five of his sons, all in ceremonial armor, stared straight ahead, his great hands folded in front of him. Two red scratches slashed his face above his beard.
The Queen, in silver, wearing a tiara set with cabochon sapphires the size of walnuts, sat chin-high across from Casus, her palms down on the table. One silver-enameled fingernail was broken, and the Field Marshal next to her sported a fat lip.
The indigo-faced Tassini sat in a row behind the far table edge, as sullen as a half-dozen shelved eggplants. One’s hand was bandaged, and another’s ceremonial shepherd’s crook was roped together, as though he had broken it over somebody’s head.
Ord whispered back, “The Queen hosted a reception last night, but as I said—”
“The Heads of State had a saloon brawl?”
“Their diplomatic skills have atrophied for three hundred years, Sir.”
“But they’re here, now?”
“I explained things, Sir.”
The last thing any trainee in my Basic Platoon had wanted was for Senior Drill Sergeant Ord to explain things to him. But Queens and warlords weren’t trainees. “You threatened them with push-ups?”
Ord shook his head. “I assured them that if they didn’t settle their differences among themselves, you possessed otherworldly means to have them all assassinated, and would take over their nations and conduct this war yourself.”
I rolled my eyes. “They didn’t buy that?”
“They just needed a reason to believe something bigger than themselves was driving events that they knew were in their best interests.”
One rationale for A-bombing Japan instead of invading it had been that the Emperor would have to sacrifice his subjects to the last peasant against a mere gaijin invasion, but could yield to a supernaturally powerful force without losing face.
I sighed. “Whatever. What otherworldly means would you have dreamed up if they asked?
”
“Oh, they asked. I told them Cargo’Bots would rip their limbs off while they slept, Sir.”
I smirked behind my hand. “That’s hilarious.”
“After reprogramming, it’s quite effective, Sir. Just messy.”
“Oh.”
I stepped to the table head, bowed, introduced myself, and got introduced back. Each participant sat like a sword point protruded from each chair back.
I said, “First, please believe that all I want is to help you save your people from a common enemy. I have no ambition to govern, and possess no magic formula for it.”
One Field Marshal rolled his eyes, one of Casus’s sons snorted, and a Tassini looked away, smirking.
But I wasn’t lying about the lack of a formula. Like Churchill said, the best argument against democracy was a five-minute conversation with the average voter. Anyway, Casus and the Queen both relaxed a hair’s width, and we had no time for civics class.
Howard set the holo gen center-table, and waved it on. Every Bren except Bassin, Casus, and the Queen gasped. A couple Tassini Headmen smiled. I suppose a holo looks like what you see if you blow janga for a living.
The Troll’s image squatted on the conference table like a translucent blue watermelon, surrounded by misshapen outbuildings in its clearing.
I said, “The good news for us is that this is the only objective we need to be concerned with. If we had the force and mobility to destroy it tomorrow, the war would be over before it started.”
A Marini Marshal muttered, “Here, here!”
He didn’t know the half of it. If I could have traded Jeeb, who wasn’t equipped to carry a firecracker, for a few last-century jets packing dumb iron bombs, they could fry the Troll like a turkey on a platter. But Bren’s mineralogists hadn’t even discovered bauxite, much less smelted aircraft-quality aluminum.
I sighed.
A turn-of-the-century defense official said you go to war with the army that you have, not the army you want. The army that he had then whipped an oppressive tyranny in six weeks, while suffering minimal casualties. Then the oppressed beat crap out of one another for years, and he lost his job.
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