Fall of Angels

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “That doesn’t make sense, either. It sounded like an offshoot of Anglorat,” said the comm officer.

  Nylan nodded, mostly to himself. He should have recognized it, but he hadn’t expected the demon tongue to show up here. “What was that idiot saying? Where were you, anyway?” asked Ryba. “Where you put me… on the other side.” Ayrlyn gave a slight shiver. “I didn’t get it all, and some of the words didn’t make any sense, but the general idea was that we had to surrender because we were trespassing on his lands-”

  “His lands?”

  “His lands.”

  “Darkness help us,” said Ryba. “We would knock off the local ruler. That can’t be good.”

  “It might be very good,” mused Nylan. “Anyone else might decide to wait a while before taking us on.”

  “Either that, or they’ll all be up here on some sort of holy war against their version of the demons. That’s what we probably look like to them.”

  Nylan laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “We got here because we were fighting the demons, and as soon as we land, we’re fighting more demons.”

  “You think this place was a Rationalist colony?” Ryba’s eyebrows knit together.

  “How could it be? It’s not even in our universe,” snapped Gerlich.

  “Maybe they got here like we did,” suggested Saryn.

  “We don’t even know how we got here, not for sure,” pointed out Nylan. “Or where here even is.”

  “You obviously have some ideas, O Bright One,” snapped Gerlich. “So how do you think we got here?”

  “We were at the focus of a lot of energy, more than enough to blow the boards and the Winterlance right out of existence. We’re still around, even if it’s someplace strange-”

  “Are you sure we’re just not dead, or imagining things?” asked Ayrlyn.

  “The physical sensations seem rather intense for being merely spiritual and mental… and I explained the limitations of a net…”

  “So you did.”

  Nylan turned to look fully at the taller man. “So… listen. I’ll listen to your knowledge. If we don’t listen and save every bit of knowledge we have to share, we’ll be dead-or our descendants will suffer more than they have to:-or both.”

  “That assumes we’ll live that long,” snapped Gerlich.

  Ryba’s blade flickered again, and the cold steel touched Gerlich’s neck. “I’m getting very tired of having to use force to keep you in line, but it seems like that’s all you respect.”

  “Without that blade…”

  Ryba handed the blade to Istril, the small marine. “Hold this.”

  Gerlich looked puzzled.

  “Some people never learn.” Ryba’s foot lashed out across the bigger man’s thigh.

  “Missed, bitch.” Gerlich charged.

  Ryba danced aside, and her hands blurred. Gerlich slammed facefirst into dirt and clover, then scrambled up and took a position, feet wide, hands in guard position.

  Ryba feinted with her shoulder, once, twice.

  Gerlich did not move.

  The captain seemed to duck, then with a sweep kick knocked Gerlich off his feet, although the brown-haired man scrambled and slashed at her arm. Ryba took the arm, and Gerlich went flying into the meadow.

  He rose slowly, holding his arm.

  “It’s only dislocated,” snapped Ryba. “I could have broken your worthless neck. So could most of the marines.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because you have some stud value. But I could break both your arms and keep that.”

  Nylan shivered at the chill in Ryba’s voice. He looked up at the unfamiliar stars. They looked very cold, and very distant.

  Gerlich slumped and slowly walked forward toward the fire.

  “Jaseen, can you snap that back in place?” asked Ryba.

  “Yes, ser.”

  “Do it.”

  Gerlich sat down on a boulder, while Ryba reclaimed her blade and sheathed it. Nylan glanced across the faces of the twenty-two women-all but the two standing in the rocks as sentries-and then at Gerlich. Things were going to be different… very different. He repressed a shudder.

  XI

  NYLAN LAY ON his side of the couch in the darkness listening to Ryba’s soft and even breathing. A faint cold breeze wafted forward from the open lander door, bringing with it the scent of fire smoke and evergreens.

  The engineer closed his eyes, then opened them. Less than six hundred rounds of ammunition-that was what stood between them and being captured or killed by the locals. The battle laser might be good for another skirmish, but it wouldn’t be much good once the fighting reached the hand-to-hand stage, and that meant a cold decision to wipe out the locals before they even charged the angels.

  And after that? The locals wouldn’t go away. It might be a few seasons or years before they attacked again, but given human nature, they would. Then what would the angels have left for defense? Ryba had agreed to build a tower, and that meant he had to design one that was simple and relatively quick to construct, big enough for growth, and proof against a cold, cold winter that probably lasted more than half the local year. Ensuring that the tower could hold off any lengthy attack also meant figuring out a water supply that couldn’t be blocked…

  He sighed.

  “You’re still awake?” asked Ryba.

  “I thought you were asleep,” said Nylan.

  “No. I was thinking.”

  “So was I. What were you thinking about?”

  “You name it, and I was thinking about it,” she answered slowly. “Weapons, the locals, weather, crops, housing, your tower, the next generation, how to feed horses through the winter, how to get to the winter…”

  Nylan nodded, then added, as he realized that, while he could see her, she didn’t seem to have the same night vision he did, “I was thinking about the tower.”

  “I told you that you could use the lasers to cut stone to build the tower. Just make it big enough for three times the numbers we have.”

  “Four,” suggested the engineer.

  “If you can do it. There’s not that much power in the firin cells.” Ryba reached out and squeezed his hand. “It isn’t going to be easy.”

  “No. And the building season won’t be much longer than the growing season. Some of the evergreens look solid enough, and straight enough to provide the timbering we need. But we’ll have to cut green timber, and that’s going to be hard with one axe and one portable grip saw.”

  “You just can’t stack stones on top of each other, though, can you?”

  “Not unless we want to use huge blocks, and we don’t have enough people to move things. We’ll need mortar of some sort, but there has to be clay somewhere around here, and, unless I’m mistaken, there are old lava flows across the way.”

  “What does lava have to do with mortar?”

  “I haven’t found any limestone nearby. So I’m hoping that I can either pulverize some of the lava or that there’s some compressed ash that I can use with the clay. It’s going to take a little experimenting.”

  “What about glass?”

  “Shutters, probably, for the first winter, except for what I can make out of the armaglass screens, but they’re small. There’s one small handsaw besides the grip saw. If the emergency generator holds up for a while… if I can figure out how to make mortar… if…” Nylan took a deep breath. “Too many ifs…”

  “Yes.” She squeezed his hand again, and he squeezed back.

  They lay silently for a time longer.

  “Those swords we got from the locals aren’t much better than iron crowbars,” Ryba finally said into the darkness.

  “That bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  “You can’t forge replacement shells for the slug-throwers, can you? Or make powder?”

  “I could make black powder, if I could find the ingredients, but it would destroy the guns within a season, I think. There’s too much residue. That�
�s even if I could cast shells out of the copper I don’t know even exists.”

  “Better blades ought to be possible…” mused the captain. “Somehow…”

  The silence dropped over the couch again, then lengthened into sleep as the scent of the fire was replaced with the colder late-night air, the stronger smell of the evergreens, and the hint of the oncoming rain.

  XII

  AFTER WIPING HIS forehead, Nylan handed the crude shovel to Huldran. “Keep clearing this rock off, all the way downhill to the stakes there. Make sure the dirt goes way outside the stakes, or you’ll have to move it again.”

  “Yes, ser,” answered the stocky blond.

  Nylan took his makeshift twine - and - weight level and measured the slope of the clear rock shelf. The rock ledge uncovered by the digging sloped enough that the tower foundations would have to be stepped and leveled. With the brush of pine branches, he gently swept the dust and dirt off the rock around one crack that extended the length of the cleared area, bending down and using his hand to gauge the width.

  On a flat expanse of rock to the west of the tower foundation area, two marines took turns using crude stone sledges on the chunks of reddish rocks. Beside them Saryn took a small hammer and pulverized the small pieces into dust, and then swept them into one of the few plastic buckets.

  Kkhhcheww!!! Chhhew!!!

  “Frigging dust!” snapped the former second pilot, shifting her weight and the cast on her injured leg.

  Kkkchew!!!

  Despite the sneezing, Saryn kept pulverizing the reddish rocks.

  Over the hammering came another set of vibrations. The engineer raised his eyes to see Ryba riding up, her eyes surveying the area.

  “Are you still digging holes?”

  Nylan glanced at the captain sharply, then exhaled as he caught the glint in her eye. “Yes. We’re still digging holes.” He gestured, then swallowed, and continued the explanation he felt stupid making. “If I get the foundation and the lower level right, the rest will be easy. If not…”

  “I’m glad you take it seriously.” She wiped her forehead. “We’re going to need it, and a stable or barn as well.”

  “I don’t know how long the laser will last…”

  “It lasts as long as it lasts. Then we try something else.” Ryba’s voice was matter-of-fact.

  “Any signs of the locals?”

  “Isrril thought she saw someone in purple on the far ridge, but whoever it was didn’t stay around. There’s a road down along the bottom of the ridge, more like a trail. I’d say it’s one of the high passes across the mountains, probably more direct, but colder.” Ryba turned in the saddle, studying the fields and the surrounding slopes, then looked back at Nylan. “Gerlich says there aren’t any signs of local hunters in the higher woods. Not much in the way of larger game, either. That cat seems to be the top of the predatory chain. There are some goats, probably escaped domesticated animals or their offshoot, some horned sheep, and a lot of smaller animals, all off the mammal evolutionary tree. The goats and horned sheep run at the first sign of anyone nearing. There are traces of what might be deer, but no one’s seen any.”

  “Goat and mutton are the animal-protein sources, then?”

  “And the deer. Horse meat, possibly, and there have to be cattle, somewhere.”

  “Why?”

  “Where did the leather come from for those saddles and reins? Or those vests?”

  Nylan felt stupid. “Of course.”

  Ryba glanced toward the marines pounding rocks, and toward Saryn, who wore a floppy hat she had scrounged from the plundered goods. Ryba blotted her forehead, then steadied the horse, which sidled away from Huldran. “Sandstone? Why are they crushing that?”

  “Volcanic ash. It’s almost too hard, but if we crush it and mix it with some other stuff, and some of the clay at the base of the ridge, it sets pretty well, maybe too well, sort of like a stone epoxy. We won’t be able to mix much at once, and that’s going to be a problem.”

  “It hardens too quickly?”

  Nylan nodded. “All or nothing. It either sets quickly, or it’s slop.”

  “When will you start actually building?”

  “Not until I get the footings set. Another couple of days probably. The first line of stones-that will really be like a sill-has to be perfect. We’ll do a double wall up to the third-floor level, fill it with stone chips and clay for insulation-”

  “Whatever you think.” Ryba nodded and turned the horse down toward the section of the meadow that resembled a field of sorts.

  As she left, Nylan pondered. Did he really need to cut all the stones? How big, or small, should they be? What pattern would optimize the energy usage and prolong the laser’s useful life?

  He took a deep breath, then laughed. He was taking too many deep breaths.

  “No! I’m no friggin‘ field hand! You take your turn in the fields, too! Your ship’s scrap, and you’re no better than the rest of us now.”

  Nylan looked downhill and to the eastern part of the field from where the voice carried up across the meadow.

  One of the stocky marines, one of the few not only bigger but broader in the shoulders than Ryba-Nylan thought her name was Mran, but he’d never been good with names and hadn’t been concentrating that much-held the crude hoe like a staff, daring the captain to force her to return to work.

  Nylan missed Ryba’s response, but she vaulted out of the saddle and handed the reins to Siret, one of the three marines with silver hair like Nylan, and one of the more quiet marines, though Nylan thought the deep green eyes saw more than most realized.

  “Big trouble, ser,” observed Huldran. “Mran’s tough, and she’s a hothead.”

  The four other marines in the field drew back, slightly, but watched as Ryba carefully slipped off the crossbelts that held her blades and the belt and holstered slug-thrower, then laid them across the roan’s saddle.

  Mran smirked-Nylan could sense the expression as he and Huldran hurried downhill toward the field.

  Then Ryba said something.

  “You and who the frig else?” demanded Mran.

  “Just me.”

  Except for his and Huldran’s steps, and the faint rustling of the wind through the evergreens beyond the meadow, a hush held the meadow. Even the few remaining starflowers seemed held in stasis. Nylan wanted to shake his head, knowing what would happen. Mran didn’t understand what Ryba really was.

  “You afraid or something, Captain? ”

  “No… I’m giving you one last chance to get back to work. If you don’t, some part of your body won’t ever work right again.” The words were like ice. “I didn’t think even you were stupid enough to take on someone raised as a nomad and wired as a ship’s captain.”

  “You don’t scare me, Captain.”

  “That’s your problem, Mran, not mine. Get back to work.”

  “Make me.”

  “All right. You were warned.” With the last word, Ryba blurred, as her hardwired reflexes kicked in.

  Mran tried to slash with the hoe, but dropped it as Ryba’s foot snapped her wrist. The marine used her good hand and reached for the pistol, but the captain followed through with stiffened hands and an elbow. A second crack followed the first, and Mran looked stupidly at the second damaged wrist-but only for a moment before she crumpled into a heap.

  Ryba slowed to normspeed and smiled. “Anyone else think I shouldn’t be in charge of things?”

  “No, ser,” came the ragged chorus.

  Her face hardened. “Surviving in this place isn’t going to be easy, and I don’t want to have to keep doing this sort of thing.” She glanced toward Nylan. “I might add that the engineer, the second, and the comm officer could have done the same thing, except that they don’t have the advanced martial arts training, and they would have had to kill Mran. Disabling is harder.” She smiled again and looked down at Mran.

  The marine’s eyes unglazed, and hatred blazed from them.

  “Nex
t time, I’ll break your neck first. The only reason you’re alive is the same reason Gerlich is alive. There are too few of us for genetic purposes, but you cause one single bit of trouble, and I’ll drop you over that cliff without another thought. Do you understand?”

  “Frig you!”

  Ryba took a deep breath. Then her foot lashed out. Crack!

  Mran’s head snapped back, and the lifeless body slumped onto the field.

  Ryba looked at the marines. “I never want to do this again-ever. But I will if I have to. We won’t survive if everyone thinks she can second-guess me. I’ll listen to ideas, and I have, and I’ve taken them. But there’s no room for this sort of thing.”

  As Ryba belted on the crossbelts, Huldran turned to Nylan. “Hard woman.”

  He nodded. “I’m afraid she’s right. According to our local source, old Narliat, we’re regarded as the evil-doers from the skies, and force of arms and surviving up here in the cold are all that are likely to save us. More democratic systems don’t work well with large egos, and marines and ship’s officers all have large egos.” Nylan snorted.

  “Frigging lousy situation.” Huldran’s green eyes glared momentarily.

  “Let’s try to make it better.” Nylan shrugged, and turned to walk back toward the incomplete tower. He didn’t know what else Ryba could have done, not without creating even more problems in the days ahead, but he didn’t want to talk to her at the moment. Even if some people, like Gerlich and Mran, or Lord Nessil, the dead local leader, seemed to respect only force, Nylan might have to accept it, but he didn’t have to like it.

  He looked back to where Ryba mounted. He suspected Ryba was shaking, inside-high speed took a lot out of a body-but the captain seemed as solid as the stone Nylan labored over as she turned the roan toward the next field.

  XIII

  “WHAT WILL YOU do with the cowardly wizard, dear?” asks the heavyset and gray-haired woman who sits on the padded bench in the alcove.

  The black-bearded young man pulls down his purple vest and walks toward the empty carved chair with the purple cushion, then turns back to face her. “Much as I distrust Hissl, Mother dear, I wouldn’t call him cowardly. According to the handful of troopers who returned, he was attacked, and he used his firebolts. After Father and nearly twoscore troopers were killed, he retreated. If he hadn’t brought them back, we still wouldn’t know what happened for sure. Then I would have had to rely on Terek’s screeing, and I don’t like that, either. He’s even more devious than Hissl.”