David Sherman & Dan Cragg - [Starfist 14]

by Double Jeopardy (lit)

  * * *

  SRA2 Auperson was coming on duty. He looked over SRA2 Hummfree’s shoulder at the display he was studying and examined it for a long moment.

  “Your eyes getting tired, Hummfree?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess they are.” Hummfree leaned back, stretched, and yawned.

  “I figured. Looks like you missed that.” Auperson pointed at some faint traces.

  “What?” Hummfree lurched back toward his display and looked where Auperson was pointing. A quick calculation told him that a hundred or more Fuzzies were heading toward the burrow that Thirty-fourth FIST’s second recon team was in. “Whoa, shit!” He grabbed the orbit-to-surface comm. “Sneaker Two, this is Sky-Eye. Sneaker Two, Sky-Eye. Over. Come in, Sneaker Two.”

  But Sneaker Two couldn’t hear him. The twig-disguised relay worked, but the transmission was blocked by the turns in the burrow’s entry tunnel.

  An hour’s examination revealed that the cavern was a rough circle more than a kilometer in diameter. The side roads they’d seen when they first entered the cavern wrapped all the way around it. Other streets were laid out in an irregular grid. The cavern held more than three hundred of the house structures, and several larger structures that looked like public buildings of one sort or another. Sergeant Saber wanted to say that many of them were government buildings: city hall, police station, courthouse. But they had been firmly admonished not to anthropomorphize the Fuzzies or anything the Marines discovered in the burrows. So, despite the evidence of his own eyes, Saber refrained from assigning the buildings human functions, even though one gave every evidence of being a temple, complete with idols and obvious ritual objects. The possible government buildings and the temple fronted a large square paved with squared-off slabs of sandstone. They’d already seen smaller squares that formed the centers of what the Marines were already thinking of as neighborhoods.

  Saber grinned to himself. He and his Marines were imaging everything they saw. When they turned their intelligence over to Commander Daana at FIST intelligence, and he shared it with the anthropologists aboard the Grandar Bay, he was certain they’d draw the same conclusions that he had. Then they could have the joy of anthropomorphizing the Fuzzies. He hoped they’d suffer consternation, and that Brigadier Sturgeon and Commodore Borland would land an equal amount of consternation on Sharp Edge; after looking at the interior of this burrow, he was convinced that the involuntary servitude of sentient beings was involved here, not animal helpers. Unless Sharp Edge could change its tune and convince someone that the Fuzzies were contract laborers.

  “All right, time to get out of here.” Saber issued his order at the end of the hour limit he’d put on their recon of the burrow’s interior. “Soldatcu, me, Hagen, Sonj. Move out.”

  He slid his infra into place and watched for the red blob that showed Corporal Sonj was entering the tunnel that led outside, and followed it. He could hear Lance Corporal Hagen and Corporal Soldatcu trailing him.

  They’d only gone up a few meters, Sonj barely past the first turn, when the point man whispered into his comm, “Company’s coming.”

  Saber swore to himself. The transceiver relay had failed!

  “Back up,” he snapped. “Quietly!”

  The four recon Marines backpedaled as quietly as they could, barely staying ahead of the Fuzzies coming down the tunnel toward them.

  “Third street,” Saber ordered. The Marines padded quickly to the third cross street, where they turned and waited. Saber lay on the street with his head around the corner. He used his light-gatherer to watch into the tunnel.

  Two Fuzzies cautiously looked around the last corner. Saber couldn’t be sure at this distance, but it looked like they were sniffing the air. The two Fuzzies advanced and emerged into the town-cavern, looking all around. Out of the tunnel mouth, they turned onto the perimeter street. They carried old-fashioned-looking rifles, and their noses were twitching—they were sniffing. Shortly after they disappeared into the side streets, one, and then the other, let out a brief squeal. More Fuzzies burst out of the tunnel and raced down the street, ducking by twos and threes into house structures. Some turned onto the first cross street; others came closer to the Marines and turned onto the second. They seemed to be following the orders of a few of their kind who were chittering. All of the Fuzzies were armed with rifles—some with flechette rifles—and all of their noses were twitching. It was obvious to Saber that he and his men had left a scent that the Fuzzies recognized as alien, a sign that an intruder had entered the burrow and might still be there.

  The Marines needed to find a way out, and not be discovered getting away. Aside from their instructions to avoid detection, there were far too many Fuzzies for them to expect to win a fight.

  “Admin center,” Saber said. “Go now.”

  They all knew where he meant. If anybody got separated, they all knew where to meet. The methodical way the Fuzzies were searching the cavern told the Marines they had a little bit of time to plan what to do before the locals reached the town hall.

  “Did anybody see anything that looked like a rear entrance to this place?” Saber asked when they were at the large square in front of the town hall, and in position to watch all approaches. Nobody had. But then, they hadn’t completely circumnavigated the perimeter street; there might be another exit that they simply hadn’t gone past. But this was no time to look for a back door that might not be there.

  He looked up, remembering a situation where his team had been trapped inside a town on St. Katusa. They’d escaped by moving from roof to roof. But that was impossible here, with the structures providing support to the overhead. They couldn’t even move from one structure to another via the second levels, because the streets were too wide.

  They were going to have to snoop and poop, trying to stick to streets the Fuzzies had already searched. And then hope that nobody was left in the tunnel guarding it, or sitting in ambush outside.

  The Fuzzies reached the square sooner than the Marines expected, emerging from the streets alongside the supposed temple and police station. They spread out as they came, and all had their rifles pointed ahead, muzzles moving side to side along with their eyes as they searched for targets. As when they first entered the cavern, some of the Fuzzies chittered, and gestured with short-clawed hands, surely giving orders to the others. The Marines were out in the open, but their chameleons kept them hidden from the Fuzzies. Saber was about to tell his men to leave by the side of the courthouse when Fuzzies approached from that street. The only remaining exit was between the town hall and the courthouse.

  “Sonj, check it,” Saber ordered.

  “More Fuzzies coming,” Sonj reported a moment later.

  The advancing Fuzzies had spread out to cover the entire square on three sides and were converging on the front of the town hall; there was no way to get around or through their line. Saber thought about the layout of the interior of the town hall.

  “Everybody inside,” he ordered. Once in, he led the way to the upper level, and to the side where Sonj had reported more Fuzzies approaching. He stuck his head out the window and saw the last of them entering the square.

  “This is what we’re going to do …,” he said on his comm.

  Saber slid over the window and lowered himself to the full extent of his arms, leaving his feet only a meter and a half above the street. He pushed back with his toes, let go, and fell far enough from the wall to bend his knees as he hit, reducing the sound of his landing. He took another step back and looked up. His infra showed Lance Corporal Hagen eeling out of the window. At full length, Hagen pushed out the same as Saber had done and let go. Saber caught him, making his landing even more quiet than his own had been. In another minute, all four Marines were on the pavement and moving away from the square, toward a street that led back to the entrance. They went along the street staggered, two on each side. Halfway to the entry tunnel, they saw five Fuzzies coming toward them. All of them were chittering, as though talking back an
d forth.

  “Inside,” Saber ordered. He and Hagen ducked into the nearest house structure, Sonj and Soldatcu into the one opposite it. They waited tensely, listening to the approaching footsteps and chittering voices. The voices occasionally dimmed and the footsteps stopped; Saber thought the Fuzzies were checking inside the houses.

  He was right. The Fuzzies came closer and the two Marines pressed themselves against the wall on either side of the door opening, waiting. A Fuzzy shot into the center of the room and spun in a circle, pointing his rifle, looking like he expected to see an enemy. When he didn’t, he stood erect, chittered to someone outside, got a chitter back, and quickly left the house.

  Saber breathed a sigh of relief that sounded loud enough inside his helmet that he thought it should be audible through the air, even though he knew his helmet would totally muffle the sound. He turned and looked outside to see the Fuzzies checking the next pair of houses. He waited until they were another house farther, then ordered his team to move out again. They reached the tunnel without further incident.

  They were all past the first turn in the tunnel when Sonj froze and said “Company” into his comm.

  Past him, Saber saw a column of Fuzzies making the turn from the entrance.

  “Into the alcoves,” he ordered. He looked to see that his men did before he stepped into the nearest alcove himself.

  A dozen or more Fuzzies filed past, all armed and looking intent. The last was almost completely past when he suddenly stopped and stepped back to look into Saber’s alcove. He turned to face it with his nose twitching and pointed his rifle into the space. Through Saber’s light-gatherer, the Fuzzy’s large eyes looked so dilated he thought the alien could see as well in the dim light of the tunnel as a human could in full daylight. The Fuzzy made some sounds, in a much lower pitch than Saber had heard before. It abruptly lunged, poking the muzzle of its rifle into the alcove, barely missing Saber’s arm. It withdrew its rifle, still making the low vocalizations, and plunged its rifle in the alcove again. Saber eased to the side and pressed as tightly as he could against the side of the alcove. The Fuzzy lunged a third time, then lowered its rifle and made a head motion that looked like nothing so much as a human shaking his head after thinking he saw something that wasn’t there. The Fuzzy moved on.

  Saber waited, listening for anybody else approaching, before getting on his comm and asking if anybody heard anything. None of the recon Marines heard sounds of approaching footsteps.

  “Let’s go.”

  There didn’t seem to be an ambush set in the heat of the open air. Saber retrieved the camouflaged transceiver and the Marines quickly departed the immediate area of the burrow’s entrance.

  Once they were at a safe distance, Saber climbed a tree and transmitted a brief report to FIST headquarters. The recon team headed for their extraction point, where a hopper picked them up for transit to the base that Thirty-fourth FIST was setting up some twenty-five hundred kilometers south of Sharp Edge’s Base Camp, almost within sight of the main area of mining activities.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Mock Turtle lay on her side, in as tight a ball as she could manage. It was tight enough to warm her, loose enough to allow her to sleep, even if only fitfully between bouts of shivering. From crown to root and tip of tail, she wished the Naked Ones had never come to the World. Life had been good before their arrival. Food was easily grubbed from the good ground, and happy clansmen surrounded her, helped to fight off other clans that dared intrude on the Moon Flower Clan’s territory. Babies were well raised by many aunts, and even an occasional uncle helped. Their industries were in burrows far enough separated from the living burrows that their stenches and poisons never affected the People.

  The living burrows. That was what Mock Turtle missed most of all. The temperatures were even in the burrows. They were cool enough in the day that anyone who felt overheated while grubbing could go home and cool off, warm enough at night that sleeping was a real comfort. On the rare occasions when it was too cold at night for comfortable sleeping, there were blankets to snuggle into in the sleeping chamber. And she could always share body warmth with her mate, unlike here, where the males and females were kept in different enclosures.

  Outside was an unnatural place to spend the night, unless you were in a raiding party on the way for a dawn strike on a foe’s burrow or grubbing farms. Outside there was no shelter from the cold of night. All the People could do was scoop out shallow hollows in the dirt to huddle in. And the Naked Ones perversely didn’t let the People have any of their blankets to snuggle in. Didn’t even let them sleep in groups where they could share body warmth, but kept them mostly one by one in small cages, like food animals awaiting slaughter.

  It was no wonder that so many of the People were sick most of the time, and that so many had died mining for the Naked Ones.

  Mining! The People had proper tools for mining; bronze punches and drills, granite hammers—some hammers were even made from precious iron, which was usually reserved for weapons. But the Naked Ones didn’t let the People get their tools and wouldn’t give them any, either. Instead they had to dig with their hands and with whatever rocks they could pick up. Mock Turtle’s finger still hurt where she had torn a claw slamming a rock into the hard, grainy rock of the mine face two handfuls of days ago.

  And for what was all this mining effort? Less than a bushel of irregularly shaped, cloudy stones in a handful of days. Yet the Naked Ones thought those baubles were precious. Mock Turtle couldn’t understand why. Now, if the Naked Ones wanted to mine the seams of gold, which was worked more easily than bronze but was too soft for tools—that she could understand. The gold was lovely to look at, and even to touch, after it had been cast or worked into beautiful designs.

  Mock Turtle sniffed and shivered. She felt like she was getting sick. If only the rumor she had heard the other day was true, that some of the People had risen up and killed the Naked Ones guarding them and driving them in the mines. The rumor also said the People who had risen up were attacking the guards and overseers at other mines, freeing more and more of the People.

  But Mock Turtle knew the rumor was only that, not a truth worth the air it was written on. It couldn’t be true, because the rumor also said that the first of the People to rise up were from the Bright Sun Clan, and everybody knew that none of the clans in the Brilliant Coalition were bold enough to do such a thing, not like her own Moon Flower Clan, of the Starwarmth Union.

  Mock Turtle’s waking reveries were rudely interrupted by the shouts of the guards and clanging of alarms; it was the beginning of the morning routine. The guards opened several cages and prodded the People out of them, then harried those chosen ones to rush around opening the rest of the cages.

  Mock Turtle had been on the cage-opening detail twice and knew what a simple job it was. Down near the bottom of the cage’s door was a hole into which a person would poke a claw to draw out a simple lever. A turn of the lever raised the locking rod on the cage’s door, displacing the hooks on it from the eyes protruding from the door frame. A person could reach through the bars of a cage and poke a claw into the hole, unlocking herself. Except that the iron plate the hole was in was large, half the length and width of a person’s arm, and bars surrounding the plate were too close together for more than a hand to slip through, making it impossible for a person to reach the hole and stick a claw into it.

  Soon enough, all the cages were open and everyone lined up in ranks and files for the morning tail count, except for those too sick to rouse themselves and the overnight dead—and one other. The Naked Ones didn’t let the Mother out of her cage. The Mother was kept in her cage all of the time. Unless they let her out while the rest of the People were in the mines working. Mock Turtle didn’t know, she’d never been too sick to get up in the morning and go to work. If she had ever been too sick to rise for work, she would probably be dead by now.

  After the tails in the ranks and files were counted, and the sick and overnight de
ad tallied, the People were trooped past the food table. There guards slopped insufficient amounts of barely palatable food, food that had been grubbed long enough in the past to begin to turn bad, into too-small bowls. The People weren’t allowed to grub for fresh food, even though there was a rich grubbing farm a short distance from the enclosures. She knew because she’d seen the land in brief glances while going between the food line and the mines.

  After a length of time hardly long enough for everyone to eat, the guards began yelling and moving among the People, pushing and striking those who didn’t move fast enough to return their small bowls to bins behind the serving table. Then there was more shouting and pushing and striking as the guards chivvied them into line for the short march to the mine.

  The mine entrance was in the side of a hill. It was high and wide, dug to allow two of the Naked Ones to walk side by side without having to duck their heads. At the depth of a few loping strides, the tunnel branched, then branched again and again. Here the shafts were only wide enough for two Naked Ones to pass each other if they stood face-to-face, but they were still high enough that the guards did not have to duck their heads, even though they wore metal hats that made them taller than they were. The sides and overheads of the shafts were shored with some exotic metal that seemed as strong as iron, not as soft as gold, and far lighter than either.

  Some of the branching shafts went level, others sloped downward. Far enough in, some of the level shafts angled upward while the remainder continued level. Whether they went up, level, or down, all of the shafts through the dirt and rock of the hillside reached a wall of stone that could be broken fairly easily with bronze drills and iron hammers and turned into coarse sand when it was beaten enough. But the People weren’t allowed bronze drills and hammers, iron, or even granite. They had to use their claws and whatever loose stones they could find nearby to break through the stone wall. As ready to crumble as the stone wall at the mine face was, it was still almost as hard as most of the stones the People used to hammer at it.