Ice, Iron and Gold

by S. M. Stirling

  He told of the coming of the evil yanquis, who invaded their valley, which was like a paradise. And, being greedy and cruel as the four hundred Southern Warriors who had sought to slay their brother Huitzilopochtl—Left-Handed Hummingbird—they fell upon the people of Cacaxtla and slew the First Speaker of the Sun. Cowards, they hid behind the bulk of their war-machine that was like a mountain. Evil, they would not accept the honored place of a Beloved Son sent as messenger to the gods.

  The children gasped in horror at this part—always—as though their innocent minds could not accept such wickedness.

  Seven-Deer sang on, his voice moving from sadness to the joy of victory as he told of how the exiles descended the mountain and how the Jaguar Knights had fallen upon their enemies like the wrath of the Sun. Thus making a safe place for the people here in the lowland jungles, taking some of their enemies as slaves to serve them, but sending most as messengers to the Sun to plead for aid.

  He spun and leapt and the children's small chests swelled with pride to think of the victories of the valiant Jaguar Knights. Every boy among them dreamed of a place in that ferocious company.

  Then Seven-Deer danced the promise. All who left the Valley of Cacaxtla, the place like paradise, were exiled princes whose time of vengeance would come. All who remained in the valley were traitors whose blood would nourish the gods, food waiting for the harvest.

  It was their duty and privilege to prevent the destruction of the Sixth Sun as the Fifth had been destroyed. For it had been blotted out by indecision and faithlessness as much as by foreign greed.

  He finished his performance on this solemn note and stood straight and tall, his breathing only slightly heavier than normal. Servants wiped the sweat from his face and body, naked save for a loincloth; the heat beat down through the steamy lowland air, making water run over his brown skin. One of the priests brought the feathered cloak and another the elaborate headgear that marked him as First Speaker of the Sun People.

  "Three-Coyote," he intoned. "Bring forth your beloved son."

  A stocky warrior led a bound and naked man to the altar. The prisoner glared defiantly and spit at the people where they knelt around the earth and timber mound. He was an escaped slave, one who had unwisely behaved like a warrior and now would pay the price.

  Behind his impassive face Seven-Deer sneered. It was disgraceful that they should be forced to send a mere slave as a messenger. It smacked of impiety.

  Four priests grasped the prisoner, who had begun to struggle, and slammed him onto the altar, stretching his limbs so that his chest arched upward drum-tight. The man cursed them and spat in Seven-Deer's face as he raised the knife.

  It was with rather more anger than was proper that the First Speaker plunged the knife downward.

  Smack!

  "Jesus! Will ya look at the size of this thing?"

  Gary Sherman thrust the bloody corpse of the insect under Pasqua's nose.

  "Oh, for God's sake!" she snarled, pushing his hand away. "I'm driving, Gary, show some sense."

  The road they were on was muddy, slippery, and narrow. In fact it all but vanished in the thick, steaming greenery that slapped the sides and rollbar of the jeep. The jungle smelled thick, like spilled beer on a hot day, or wet rotting bread.

  Gary glared at his partner, an attractive woman in her late twenties; straight, shoulder-length black hair held back by a yellow scarf, almond-shaped green eyes hidden by dark glasses.

  This woman is not good for my ego. He doubted she'd look at him twice if he was on fire. Not that he was much to look at, he admitted self-pityingly, with his hair creeping towards the back of his neck and a stomach that made it look like he was smuggling kettle-drums.

  He sighed dramatically as he rubbed his hand against his thick khaki-covered thigh to scrape off the squashed mosquito.

  "Will you tell me what the fuck we're doing out here in the green hell?" He watched her from the corner of his eye as she pursed her—luscious, he thought—lips.

  "Language, Gary," she admonished. "In answer to your question, you're here because you wanted to be. If you'll recall, you insisted on coming along. To help."

  "Yeah, to help," he said impatiently.

  Actually, he'd been hoping that the jungle at night, the howling of the monkeys, the roar of the jaguar, the creeping of the jeep-sized insects, might loosen her up a bit. God knew, he could use some cuddling after four days of this shit.

  He should have known better. From what little she'd let drop she'd spent her early years hangin' with the Giacano Family, the Dukes of New Orleans. An old-fashioned bunch whose reputation made the jungle at night seem safer than your own living-room. Pasqua had to have crossed 'em. What else would a beauty like this be doing scraping a living as an arms dealer in darkest Central America? This place made the East Coast baronies look like civilization.

  "I am here pursuing a hot lead that might help us get rid of that damned railgun you bought," she continued.

  "That gun's a beauty," Gary said defensively.

  "That gun's a white elephant," Pasqua sneered.

  "It's also the best weapon we've got," he insisted. "XM-17 Railgun, yessir. That baby'll take out a Bolo. You know that?"

  "Yeah, and I know how common Bolos are in Central America, too. Every piss-ant town's got one in the plaza. It's amazing we haven't sold it yet."

  "Sarcasm doesn't become you, baby."

  Pasqua braked hard, put the car in park, and turned slowly towards him.

  "We've discussed this before, Gary."

  He could almost feel those hidden green eyes melting holes in his face. Her right hand twitched slightly, and he remembered the jefe of the port town. His successor had been perfectly willing to do business on an impersonal level, after Pasqua shot his predecessor.

  "Aw, Pasqua! C'mon, you know I dint mean anything." He looked at her, trying to keep his face innocent. Then he rolled his eyes, looked out his window into the jungle.

  While she waited.

  "Okay," he turned back to her, "I'm sorry that I called you baby and there's a guy behind you with a gun."

  "What?"

  "Behind you. A-guy-with-a-gun."

  She turned in slow, graceful stages to look out her side of the jeep. It was hard to see the man at first. He wore a tight-fitting brown uniform dotted with black splotches. His face had broad black stripes around the eyes and mouth, accented by more dots, his black hair was pulled up into a topknot.

  Very, very slowly, Pasqua took off her sunglasses so that he could see her eyes.

  His own eyes were calm and cold. He stood absolutely still, his M-35 pointed at the center of her chest.

  "Hola," she said, and saw him stiffen. She took a closer look and saw that under the war-paint the man was an indio. Bingo, she thought. If the rumors back in Puerto Zacarta were right. She marshalled her few words of Nahuatl and tried again. "Greeting, warrior. We seek your First Speaker."

  Apparently it was the right move. Now she could see a dozen of the leopard-spotted men as they moved closer.

  There was a brief conference, their eyes never leaving Pasqua and Gary; the language had far too many consonants for her taste.

  "Weapons," the man grunted.

  Not without a pang, Pasqua lifted the PPK from the holster at her belt; it was a Family heirloom. Tradition had it that her great-grandfather had killed a Cajun detective with it, right after the Collapse. The indios took it, and Gary's antique Glock, and the M-35 from the rack behind the driver's seat, and their machetes. Fortunately they missed the switchblade tucked into the back of her pants; that was an heirloom too. A Giacano without a switchblade was naked.

  The . . . soldiers, she supposed . . . arrived at a decision and the others melted into the jungle again, leaving their original captor behind. He motioned them out of their jeep. Pasqua dragged a folder out with her and he raised the gun threateningly.

  "First Speaker," she said, holding it up to show that it could never be, or hide, a weapon.
/>   He jerked his M-35 down the trail and Pasqua and Gary started walking.

  "And why did you not bring this with you," Seven-Deer asked contemptuously, tossing the pictures Pasqua had brought with her into their faces.

  Pasqua and Gary were on their knees, their hands tied before them, broad sticks thrust behind their elbows. "You may not even have such a thing." He stalked like a panther to the low dais where his throne, a wide chair covered with deerskins, sat. "It would not be the first time our enemies, the Ladinos, thought us such fools, too weak in the head to know any better."

  The situation's a little extreme, Gary thought, but I know a bargaining ploy when I hear one. Except for the occasional Nahuatl word, they'd been speaking in Spanish.

  "Pitch!" he whispered to Pasqua who turned to him with frightened eyes. "He's interested. Or we'd be dead. Pitch!"

  "The only reason you are alive," Seven-Deer said as he lounged back, "is that you spoke a few words in a civilized language. Enough to pique my curiosity. And the woman wears the color of the Sun."

  Pasqua blinked. My scarf? she thought.

  This bunch of indigs were crazier than most, but they had a pretty big stretch of territory marked out and a lot of it was farmed. They probably could pay a reasonable price for the XM-17, in goods that would be valuable back in the north, in the Duchy of New Orleans, to the Caquique of Florida, to one of the seven kings of Cuba, or any of the Duchies from Charleston north. Timber, grain, rum, coffee, slaves, you name it.

  "Speak! Why have you not brought this 'tank-killing' gun with you for me to see with my own eyes?"

  "It . . ." Pasqua choked on a dry throat and had to begin again. "It is too big for us to bring, Uetlatoani," Pasqua said obsequiously. "It is as big as a mountain and would take a great truck . . ." She realized these people had nothing like that and hurried over what she feared they might see as an insult: " . . .or many men to move it. Surely you can understand that I would not make such an effort if you were not interested?"

  Seven-Deer, the First Speaker of the Sun People, straightened slowly and rose from his throne, his obsidian eyes gleaming.

  "As big as a mountain," he whispered.

  A smile spread slowly across his face and leapt like a spark to the faces of the Lords and Generals and Ladies around him. The people murmured the words, " . . . as big as a mountain . . ." over and over again, turning it into a chant, clapping their hands and stamping their feet joyously.

  Seven-Deer stabbed a finger at his prisoners like a spear.

  "You will take us to this wonder!" he shouted, and the room erupted in cheers.

  When the yanqui woman had said the words " . . . as big as a mountain" to him, a fire had been lit below Seven-Deer's heart. Now, in the awesome presence of the giant gun he felt elevated, touched with the Sun's own power, mind and heart and soul blazed together with purpose. And that purpose was vengeance!

  "It's called the XM-17 Railgun," Pasqua was saying as she escorted-shooed him to the gunner's seat and urged him to take the control yoke in his hands. "This is a computer-generated holographic magnifying sight." She flipped a couple of switches and the village down the road from their compound sprang into view, hovering before Seven-Deer's astonished eyes in every known shade of bilious green. This red dot," she pointed at a dime-sized red dot in the upper corner of the holo, "shows where the gun is pointing. To move the dot, move the control yoke."

  Seven-Deer cautiously did so and the dot jiggled its way down to the center of the scene in the holo. He laughed like a child.

  "Isn't that neat?" she said, smiling and nodding like this was a perfectly normal presentation.

  "How does it work?" Seven-Deer growled.

  "When it's fired, two charged bars come together to shoot out a rod of depleted uranium sheathed in steel."

  "The rods're only about a foot long," Gary said, moving up to his other side. "But when ya press the firing stud it's like, slam! bam! thank you, ma'am!" He slapped his hands together and laughed heartily. Until he saw the First Speaker's expression.

  "How does it fire?" Seven-Deer asked through gritted teeth.

  Pasqua and Gary looked at each other nervously.

  "We only have twelve rods, and can't afford to waste any, so I'm afraid we can't allow you to test fire it." The First Speaker stared at her disdainfully and she sighed. "When you have the right target in view," she said emphatically, "press the firing studs at the top of the hand grips on the control yoke. Here and here."

  "Eexxcellent," Seven-Deer said like a man being told "yes" by a reluctant lover.

  He centered the sights on the village church, a small stone building at the center of the plaza. He powered up the gun, the bars began to charge with a low hum that quickly escalated to a piercing whine.

  "What are you doing?" Pasqua asked. But she knew and she was numb with horror.

  "Testing your merchandise," Seven-Deer answered. He pressed the firing studs, the bars clanged together with a scream of electronic excitement and the depleted uranium rod emerged with a supersonic crrraaaaccckkk! that numbed their ears.

  In the holo the village church burst apart into a blizzard of gravel. An instant behind, the sound of the explosion reached them and looking up they saw a gray-brown plume boiling into the sky.

  "He fired the bastard," Gary said in disbelief.

  "You . . ." Pasqua began and stopped. Around her Seven-Deer and his followers were cheering and dancing in delight. Instinctively she stepped back, flight on her mind, when Seven-Deer's hand flashed out and caught her wrist.

  "Oh, stay," he said grinning, "you would not wish to miss the ceremony."

  Several of the indios had grabbed Gary and were dragging him to the front of the gun. Seven-Deer dragged her along behind them and when they had Gary spread-eagled at the base of the railgun he flung her into the arms of a group of his followers. Who twisted her arms up behind her and bound her hands, then pushed her to her knees in the dirt.

  "You can't do this," Gary was shouting in panic. The front of his khakis were stained dark. "You want the gun, take it," he said frantically, his eyes bulging as he watched Seven-Deer approach, leisurely drawing a long obsidian knife. "Please don't," Gary said.

  Pasqua was so terrified she couldn't even scream. Her traitorous mind filled with all sorts of babble. I told you not to buy that gun, Gary. And Please don't, no, please!

  Gary's last desperate scream began when the knife went up, but it didn't end for a surprisingly long time after the knife came down.

  She saw Seven-Deer lift a bloody heart high and thought inanely, So you did have one after all, Gary. Then she blacked out.

  When she came to, Seven-Deer's blood-smeared face was smiling into hers, his black eyes dancing with a mad glee. He trailed one blood-wet finger down her face and she whimpered with terror.

  "And when we retake the valley of Cacaxtla," he said, "we will send you back to the Sun. For surely you are his servant. How he will smile to see you again."

  Seven days of chores, James thought. And not a whimper.

  Either Paulo was becoming a stoic, or he'd learned that pouting and complaints would get him nowhere. Probably the latter; the kid was smart—he knew that this was the best way to make his father feel like a heel. It was even working, sort of.

  He snapped the bolt back into the M-35, sipping at a final cup of coffee as he watched his son carefully tamping down the campfire with water and entrenching-tool loads of dirt. The upland forest was chilly in the morning; they were a thousand meters above the valley floor, and it was never really hot here. A clean crisp smell of pine filled the air, and he could see for miles across tumbled blue hills. From what his mother had said, back in the old days—before her time, even—most of these hillsides had been logged off or burnt off and then farmed. He shook his head in wonder, trying to imagine that many people in the world.

  Paulo was frowning seriously as he policed up the campsite, checking that nothing was left or out of place. It gave his face a look of h
is mother. Maria used to say that Paulo could wrap James around his little finger. His smile faded. It had been four years since his wife's death, four years of trying to be mother and father both, trying to anticipate what Maria would have said or done. In a way it helped to keep her close to him.

  Paulo suddenly looked up and grinned at him. James nodded solemnly and slung his rifle, turning to the UATV.

  "You can fix it, can't you?" Paulo stood across from him looking serenely confident.

  "I think so. This time."

  The UATVs were incredibly hardy machines, capable of running on almost anything combustible, with six spun-alloy wheels that never seemed to show wear. Even the engine parts were incredibly durable . . . but when they wore out, you were in trouble. Nobody made things like that anymore; there were machine-shops in the valley, but they worked with metal, not fiber-bound ceramics.

  "This is the compressor," he began.

  Paulo leaned close, and James remembered the same expression on his own face as his mother ran him through the checklist. She'd been a tougher disciplinarian than he ever could be, though. I suppose because she'd spent so long with her life depending on the equipment, he thought. Her life and others. James had drifted into command of the valley militia, but there hadn't been anything more than a skirmish with wandering bandits since he was Paulo's age.

  I try to remember it's not a game, he thought.

  "I don't think she's got much longer though," he concluded.

  Paulo's head came up and he looked around, a puzzled frown on his young face.

  "What?" James said.

  "Listen . . ." After a moment Paulo said, "It sounds like men singing."

  "Or mourning," James murmured. And there were a lot of them.

  He slipped on the helmet, buckled on his equipment belt and the body armor that never quite fit; none of Bethany Martins' original platoon had been quite his size. His M-35 suddenly felt more serious in his hands.

  "Stay here," he said to Paulo. "I'll be right back." Powering up the helmet, he trotted off into the trees.