Carnifex

by Tom Kratman

  DeSmedt saw that the deck was uneven, with pipes showing, hawsers unstowed and a liberal layer of junk scattered about. As the lead chopper passed the stern, he saw the ship's name: Estrella de Castilla. Still, there was no fire. He tapped the pilot and made a downward motion with his thumb.

  The lead pilot guided his aircraft down in an easy descending arc. When he was over a part of the deck that seemed to have slightly less junk about than the others, he pulled the bird up to a low, ground-effect hover. Rotor wash kicked trash around even so; it could become a danger if they kept this altitude and position. The pilot signaled Lieutenant DeSmedt to unass.

  DeSmedt tossed his rucksack and then jumped from a dozen feet over the deck. The jump was a little awkward; he lost his balance and fell, slamming his helmeted head on a hatchway.

  Thank God for aramid fiber, he thought. Then, too, if I didn't have a thick skull would I ever have become a Marine?

  By twos the rest of the Marines followed their lieutenant down until all thirteen men were aboard the derelict and watching for trouble. The chopper pulled up and away, allowing the flying junk, such as had not blown to sea, to settle back on the deck.

  DeSmedt gave the order to the squad leader, "Sergeant, have Charlie Team clear this junk off and fuck environmental regulations. When the platoon sergeant and the rest land, tell them I want them to start clearing the ship from the top down. The rest of you," he pointed at a vertical hatchway into the superstructure, "standard drill; thata way."

  * * *

  Whether the power was off and the batteries dead, the men didn't know. Nor were they going to even think about flicking a light switch on a ship that might have been "wired for sound." Instead, they relied on the flashlights affixed to their rifles' barrels and whatever light made its way in from the scarce portholes.

  It didn't matter anyway; they could find their way to what they were looking for by smells alone. Those—the smell of rotting meat (and meat rotted fast in these climes), the coppery-iron stink of gallons of blood, the stench of shit . . . worst of all, the pervading odor of fear and terror—were sufficient guides.

  * * *

  Hearts were pounding so hard the men might have thought they would burst through their chests as the lead team of two men reached what had to be the hatch from which emanated all the stench. Whatever it was, and all the Marines had a strong feeling they already knew, it was going to be bad.

  DeSmedt was right behind the first two Marines. Before he could see what the flashlights at their muzzles found, he felt them stiffen.

  "Jesus Christ, Ell Tee," one of the men exclaimed.

  The lieutenant pushed passed the men. Inside was an abattoir, he could see, even from the little illuminated by the flashlight. He turned his own rifle against the wall and saw a man, what had been a man, already green tinged and beginning to blacken. The corpse's face was set in a rictus grin, below which, on his throat, was another, newer, grin, red-tinged and gaping. DeSmedt moved his rifle's aim along the wall and saw next a body with a similar dual grin. That one, though, had both eyes gouged out. Next a man hung by the neck from a pipe in the ceiling. His trousers were down around his ankles. When DeSmedt saw that this one had been castrated and his penis likewise removed he couldn't hold his bile any longer.

  The pungent smell of vomit was added to the stench of death.

  Still, DeSmedt was a Marine. Once he'd evacuated his stomach, and despite his dry heaves, he continued to sweep the room. Along one wall he found no bodies. Instead, there was a message painted. He was pretty sure it was painted in the crew's blood.

  The message read, "Thus to the infidel who fails to pay the Jizya."

  "It's in English, Ell Tee," murmured one of the two lead Marines. "Why would they put it in English?"

  "Because they had a pretty good idea who was coming and wanted us to get the word out."

  "What word, sir?"

  "Jizya's a tax, or maybe sometimes a toll, the Moslems levy on non-Moslems. I'd guess that some people . . . some shippers . . . are paying it and the pirates want everyone to."

  1/5/467 AC, BdL Dos Lindas, Marguerita Locks

  The carrier almost filled the lock chamber. They'd had to remove the lighting on one side of the locks to allow space for the angled flight deck. The ship was held fast in position by extremely heavy locomotives called "burros," as water poured out to drop the inside level to match that of the sea. The burros would actually pull the carrier out of the locks before it could proceed under its own power.

  All but a few of the carrier's aircraft sat topside for the transit. Those that were down below, in the hangar deck, were in for routine maintenance.

  The escorts had already formed at Puerto Lindo and would meet the Dos Lindas a few miles out to sea.

  Fosa fumed, and it wasn't because of anything having to do with the locks, the aircraft, the escorts, or his Yamatan supernumery, Commodore (by courtesy bumped up for the duration) Kurita. It had nothing to do with the speed of transit and it had nothing to do with the efficiency of the entire operation. Fosa's mood wasn't based on leaving behind his home, nor even his wife and children.

  No; what had him ready to shit nails was that for the duration of his ship's transit someone else—a Transitway Pilot—was commanding his ship.

  "Roderigo-San," Kurita said, with that same serene smile he almost always showed, "if it makes you feel any better, when I was a real captain I'd have given anything to have taken my ship, Battlecruiser Öishi, though the Transitway, even if I had to put her under someone else's command."

  "Huh? Why is that?"

  The serene smile, as it sometimes did, turned feral. "Because that would have meant my country won the war."

  Fosa immediately recalled that there were worse things, much worse things, than having to let some stranger con one's ship. "It was pretty bad losing, wasn't it?"

  Kurita's smile went from feral to serene to nonexistent. "It was worse than bad. We couldn't surrender; we didn't even know how to surrender, really. We were staking everything on being able to make the Federated States pay an unacceptable price in blood so that they would give up before we did. Then they nuked us and for a brief period of time we thought they would not have to pay that price and so we considered surrender. But then the UEPF nuked them and we knew they could not bomb us into surrender and would have to invade."

  Kurita shook his head, very sadly.

  "We were wrong. Unable to convince us one way, they took a different, and far more brutal, way. They imposed a total blockade and, just as with cities under siege, they refused to let anyone escape. They came in with defoliants and attacked the rice crops. They bombed and burned any food stockpiles they could identify. They attacked the roads and rails so that what food there was could not be moved to the cities."

  Kurita shuddered, as he said, "Over twenty million people, almost all civilians, and mostly the very old and very young, either starved to death or died of starvation-related causes. Then we surrendered."

  "God, you must hate them," Fosa said. "The FSC, I mean."

  The serene smile returned. Kurita shook his old and dignified head. "No . . . no, I actually don't. We'd have done no less. And they tried to give us an easy out by using the atomic bombs. What a bargain it would have been if we had been able to surrender after only losing a couple of hundred thousand instead of twenty million."

  "No, Roderigo-san; if I hate someone over it, I hate those who prevented the FSC from following through and making us surrender when it was possible and cheap. I hate the UEPF."

  Interlude

  Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, 19 April, 2085

  Students are young. Thus, they are subject to the fads and fashions of the young. Perhaps more importantly, they are fickle and generally contrary. If the older generation is traditionalist, patriotic, religious, the students will anti-patriotic, non-traditionalist, and irreligious. If on the other hand . . .

  * * *

  There was snow on the ground. N
ot that this was particularly unusual in Boston in April. But for there to be so much snow on the ground? The students were pretty sure—indeed the consensus of the world's scientific community was—that it was the dread phenomenon of global cooling, caused by failure to create more heavy industry in the Third World, in accordance with the mandates of the Kyoto IV Treaty.

  Nonetheless, that phenomenon of global cooling was not what had the students out in their thousands in protest. Rather, it was the restrictions on free speech explicit in the latest UN Treaty on the subject.

  And so, to show their defiance, as university students are wont to do, some thousands of them crossed over Harvard Bridge on their way to Beacon Hill, bearing banners stating such seditious and anti-progressive sentiments as, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the Freedom of Speech" and "The Declaration of Independence was Hate Speech." Tsk.

  The protestors' intentions were to cross all three-hundred and sixty four point four smoots (and an ear) of the bridge, then proceed up Massachusetts Avenue

  to Commonwealth Avenue

  . From there, they were to march by the site of the Boston Massacre, then go to the Common where they would present their grievances.

  * * *

  Students in Massachusetts came from all over, even the dreaded red states of the deep South. The Governor, however, was a home girl. As such, she, too, was progressive. And the plain and open expression of all those unenlightened banners was anathema to her. Fortuitously, however, she was the commander of the Massachusetts National Guard.

  "The adjutant general says his birds are ready to lift now, Governor," announced an aide. "Flight time about twenty minutes."

  "Tell him to hold," the governor ordered. "We don't want to miss anyone."

  * * *

  There had been a lot of research into non-lethal weapons, over the years. There had been developed rays that caused the skin to suddenly feel painfully hot. Similarly there was ultrasound that stunned and disoriented. Some caused an unbearable itching and still others created nausea. All of those, however, tended to disperse crowds, rather than drop them in their tracks for convenient collection. So there was gas . . .

  * * *

  The choppers came in low, skimming the townhouses of the Back Bay. Dropping to treetop level they skipped over the Public Gardens. At Charles Street

  they began loosing a gas, invisible, tasteless, odorless. Wherever they crossed protestors dropped in their tracks.

  Watching the scene from her office, the governor misrecited:

  "By the rude bridge that ached the flood,

  Their unprogressive flag unfurled,

  Here once the protesting students stood,

  And got gassed and shipped to another world."

  "Where do we send them, Governor," the aide asked.

  "First to jail, then to court and then to Southern Columbia," she answered. "It looks like that's going to be our dumping ground for unenlightened malcontents."

  Chapter Six

  These, I take it, were the characteristic acts of a man whose affections are set on warfare. When it is open to him to enjoy peace with honour, no shame, no injury attached, still he prefers war; when he may live at home at ease, he insists on toil, if only it may end in fighting; when it is given to him to keep his riches without risk, he would rather lessen his fortune by the pastime of battle. To put it briefly, war was his mistress; just as another man will spend his fortune on a favourite, or to gratify some pleasure, so he chose to squander his substance on soldiering.

  —Xenophon

  On the Spartan Clearchus

  The Anabasis

  2/5/467 AC, Quarters #2, Isla Real

  The nightmares had started coming again, since Carrera had returned from Sumer. They'd been bad—horrifying, really—before he'd begun to gather the means of revenge. Then they'd tapered off, even becoming somewhat rare. Whether this was because he was actually doing something to destroy those who had murdered his wife and children or because he was typically so exhausted at the end of the day that he had not even the energy left to dream, he had no clue.

  Then the fighting had begun and the nightmares had gone almost completely. Again, he could not say whether they had stopped because he was advancing the cause of vengeance—he didn't delude himself that he was really in search of justice—or because of exhaustion, of for some other reason or reasons.

  He never told anyone, not even his closest friends and especially not Lourdes, his second wife, but he was a superstitious sort and a part of him really felt the dreams came from the shade of Linda, reminding him not to let the murderers of her children get away.

  Whatever the case, since returning with his troops from Sumer the nightmares had begun coming again with increasing violence and frequency. They were repetitive, as well. Tonight's was one of the worst; the one where he had just met Linda for the very first time and she burst into flames before his eyes. He awakened from that one screaming, as he always had. Lourdes held him tightly until he calmed down.

  It was perhaps one reason that he loved Lourdes as much as he did. She should have been jealous that her husband was still in love with Linda. She probably was jealous that he was still in love with Linda. After all, what woman likes being in second place? But she understood that the world was imperfect and was thankful for what she did have.

  Besides, she took care of him. He needed her, even if he was gone most of the time. He needed her, even though he was more at home in the field with the Legion. He needed her, even though she could never completely replace Linda.

  Perhaps he loved her most because she loved him as much as, perhaps more than, Linda had. And he felt terrible, terrible guilt that he couldn't, not quite, fully reciprocate.

  * * *

  He spent virtually all early mornings out with one or another maniple, joining that ever-so-lucky tribune at daily physical training. That meant he would be able to see every maniple commander at PT about once every two years.

  More often than not he would go directly from PT to his office, shower, grab a quick bite at the Headquarters mess, and then either go look at training or attend one of the meetings that he did his damnedest to limit. This morning, given the performance of the previous night, he thought he probably ought to have breakfast with Lourdes. The eldest boy—little Hamilcar was four years old now and in pre-kindergarten—would be at school. The younger, still just a baby, would likely be asleep.

  As he drove himself to his quarters, he thought, I wonder if it's even a good idea for me to join them at PT. How much stupidity do these kids go through on the off chance I might show up? Maybe it would be better if I do what I do in the field; watch but almost never let them know I'm watching. Something to consider, anyway. And, then, too, what the hell is the point of watching something once every two years? I don't know that there is any. Do I get a picture, or just a false picture?

  As Carrera turned his sedan into the parking lot for Quarters #2, he sighed to himself. This garrison crap is a new playing field and I probably still have things to figure out. I wish . . .

  He didn't finish the thought. Had he, it would have been, I wish I could go back to the war.

  Carrera eased the car under the columned carport to the right side of the white-painted quarters. Once underneath, he stopped the car with a gentle touch on the brakes, turned it off, and exited. Hearing the door close, Jinfeng, the trixie, stuck her brightly feathered head out from a bush and screeched a welcome.

  It was eighteen steps along the side and front of the wraparound porch—like the porte cochere, also columned—to the centrally located front door. He'd not had the Legion skimp on anybody's family quarters, and his was nearly eleven thousand square feet on three floors. He didn't need it. Lourdes didn't need or want it and slightly resented having to have domestic help to keep the place up. But there were social obligations that went with command and some of those social obligations involved space. A full half of the first floor was a ballroom and industrial kitchen. E
ven that was only just big enough to accommodate the occasional dinners he threw for senior legates, their sergeants-major, and their wives.

  The household kitchen was much smaller and cozier. He found Lourdes there, hunched over a computer, ordering supplies from the main commissary. Although Legion pay was generous by local standards, it didn't necessarily permit two cars, or even one, per family. He'd made arrangements for a local company to provide a delivery service. For some it was a necessity. For others, like Lourdes, it was a damned nice to have convenience.

  Carrera's steps were catlike, virtually silent. It wasn't anything he tried to do; in fact, he'd tried to cure himself of it since it tended to give people unpleasant shocks when he materialized behind him. Lourdes didn't know he was even standing behind her until she felt his hands cup her breasts. She immediately inhaled sharply and leaned her head back against his waist, near his groin.

  "Coffee, breakfast, or me?" she asked.

  "You."

  "Good, because coffee would make a real mess on the bed."

  * * *

  She knew he wouldn't be long. Even on those rare mornings when he came home after physical training he was invariably out the door by 08:15. That left her perhaps half an hour to enjoy the post-coital nearness of her man. Over the last two years, ever since she'd turned up pregnant in Sumer with their second child and he'd put his foot down and insisted she go home where she and the children would be safe, opportunities to be together had been all too infrequent.

  Infrequent! She mentally snorted. A couple of weeks twice a year. No, less than that; one year he didn't come home for eight months. Then there was this last Christmas.

  And now? Now he's home for a while. Maybe it will be a long while. But it won't—she felt a tear begin to form; she stifled a sniffle—it won't be forever.