Wine of the Gods 05: Spy Wars

by Pam Uphoff

  "With Peace and War, that's more than half that appear to have survived. Find them. We'll need to isolate them, and take them one at a time. I'll send the Action Team to wherever they are, whenever you find them. Go now."

  They all bowed deeply in her direction and withdrew.

  They didn't speak until they were away from the palace.

  Idre started. "Was that Compulsion or Possession, Team Leader?"

  The entire Team glared at him, their feelings so high they were well into battle merge. Edmo took a deep calming breath. "Possession. He thought it was so funny to not let me see what was happening, but to let me feel it. To release me when I was still . . . " He practiced his deep breathing for awhile more.

  "We were also locked up, a straightforward paralysis spell, but it was slipped in through our various shields like they didn't exist. I hate to say this, but we ought to taunt that man enough to try some other sorts of blocks. Find something that works. Because we're going to find him hard to kill when he can handle sixteen of us so . . . casually."

  The Action Leader nodded. "Information Leader, we'll try whatever you think might work. I don't even insist on redeeming my honor personally. I just want that creature dead."

  The Attaché led them to the construction site. The buildings were of a style to match the Fascian standard of plastered walls in pastel colors and red tile roofs with wide overhangs. The usual wall around the whole was finished but for the front, where a large gap for bringing in construction materials would eventually be filled by two gates at each end of a curved driveway, with a wall in between. The main structure looked half done, but the Attaché led them around to the back, where a finished building housed the gate anchor.

  "The Priest for the One is going to want an immediate report." He powered it up, and they waited. No need for an entire train, today a single powered car would be sufficient.

  The Gate Controllers would detect their Anchor's state and connect, but on this end, they had no way of knowing how soon that would, or would not, be. This afternoon it took two hours for the gate operators to open a hole in their schedule. At the first signal feedback, the thirteen of them crowded into the car, and they shot through as soon as they received the clear light.

  The tracked car was shuttled off through a maze, twenty feet above ground level, and stopped before the upper entrance of a mass produced office module bearing the sign "Auralian Affairs."

  The Attaché led them to a large conference room.

  The Priest had no beard, of course. His hair was a dark red. Cut short, it curled close to his scalp. He was wearing Auralian style clothing.

  "Information Team. Action Team. We have not been formally introduced. I am Ygti, Priest of the One. Please sit and tell me what has occurred that could not wait three days."

  Ajha shivered, feeling the flow of power from the Priest. I'd like to see Pax try to possess this man.

  "Possess? Tell me about it."

  They came away with simple instructions. The Information Team was to observe Pax only. The Action Team could attempt to kill him only if a very sure opportunity showed itself. He seconded the Princess' instructions to look for information on the whereabouts of the gods, and gave them three days home leave. "Even I have a budget for gate times. Take advantage of it, it may be years again before you return home."

  They bowed themselves out.

  Idre looked around. "Not enough time to go home. Guess we can do the tourist thing around town."

  Ajha nodded. "I've never been here, other than that fast pass through when we left. I've heard there's a tour of the gate mechanism."

  Wink looked horrified. "I'm going do a proper, civilized bar crawl. Hopefully meet some hot babes."

  Idre and Egto were nodding.

  Idre slanted a look at Ajha. "I understand a lot of the clans keep houses here. I'm sure Alcairo would allow an outside guest."

  Ajha blinked at this hint that Idre had assumed he was an Upcomer. The result of a Halfer mother 'breeding up' and lucking out with her son getting the One X chromosome. He'd found the other students at both University and the Directorate training assumed the same thing.

  His parents had been mortified to have produced a Clostuone child. They were both high percentage Withione. His maternal Grandfather had offered to pay his university tuition on the condition that he would not mention the clan. Ajha had sneered back that he wouldn't dream of using either the clan name or his grandfather's money to educate himself. Ajha smiled as he realized that his self-imposed silence had ended with his graduation, and certainly didn't include the rest of his life. If Idre was going to drop his Alcairo connections . . .

  "Not to worry. If Black Point doesn't have a clan house here, I'll find a hotel. Have a good bar crawl. See you in three days." He marched off to find a map and directory, cherishing the look on Egto's face. Black Point wasn't a large clan, but powerful and influential. The government was so stuffed with Black Pointers with A's and J's in their names that there were jokes about it.

  The public tour of the gate generator was fascinating, even though geared for the non-technical tourist.

  A girl slanted a dubious glance at his clothing. "Are you an Outworlder?" Surprisingly polite, given the amount of money her parents had spent on her clothing.

  "No, I'm a Directorate field agent. Just started. I've been through the gate a few times, but this is the first time I had time to take a tour and see how it all works."

  The mother looked alarmed. "Not an Action Team?"

  Neartuone reputation strikes again.

  "No, ma'am, Information Team."

  She relaxed a bit, but edged the girl off to interest her in something besides a grown man. Wise precaution. For all the One bragged of their superior genes, there were some dangerous combinations, genes that caused hyper-aggression, high sex drive and loosened moral restraints. Rape was almost not a crime among the One. Women beware. Ajha had seen enough growing up at Black Point to be glad that he lacked all three of the implicated genes. One copy of each, plus a hair growth gene and one of the multiple longevity genes would have lifted him to Withione status. He sniffed defensively, hell with them. He ran his hand through his hair, though.

  It's not getting thin.

  Yet.

  He lagged the group a bit, with two other men. The family men tended to stay in between them and their wives and children. It was unspoken behavior he'd heard about, but seldom seen himself. Most of the women he knew were relatives, with strong magical abilities. He wasn't used to being around Multitude or Halfers, like this group.

  Or maybe I just hadn't noticed, until I saw Action Teams in the field. Mother never visited men, even family, at their homes. They always came to her home. And I don't remember any men ever being invited without their wives, except Uncle Ajki and Grandfather.

  After the tour he found a restaurant, watched the sunset from a high tower, and then sought out Black Point Guest house. The house computer recognized his implants and opened the door to him. A matronly Servaone looked up from the control center and blinked at him. "Ajha, isn't it? Goodness, I thought you'd died or something."

  "Kaom? Hey, it's been years, I'm surprised you recognize me." Or want to, the way Mother snubs you.

  "Oh, you haven't changed much since I got fed up and left the Enclave. What do you need? A room? Dinner?"

  "Just a room, tonight and tomorrow night. Laundry services."

  She typed it into the house comp. "Here you go . . . Oh! Info Ajha! You're on a team? Have you gated?"

  "Yeah. I'm on my third World, now. It's great."

  Other people peeked out of offices, and Ajha quickly found himself telling a small audience about his experiences. It was a most satisfactory evening, and dragged on into morning before he got any sleep.

  Two women gave him a private tour of the town the next day, and one lingered long enough for him to get up his nerve and invite her to his room.

  He was yawning and suppressing a grin as he reported to the Aurali
a Nearside Embassy the next afternoon.

  The return train was short, bringing a skeleton crew of army officers and a sampling of the weaponry to demonstrate to the Amma. And a gate anchor for the southern city the Amma had designated as the training ground. Weapons for training the Amma's army would be shipped through the new gate.

  Chapter Twelve

  31 March 3478ce / Early Spring 1361 local

  Gate Camp, Asia, Comet Fall

  Winter on an ice age world had been brutally cold.

  The Army had closed the guard posts in the canyon, and then abandoned the camp at the base of the ramp when a chunk of glacier fell off the cliff and half buried it, killing three men.

  Damien had caught the horses and moved them into a shelter, and put up some rather poor quality hay with the various equipment the army had around for ground clearing and expedient runoff control. Command had decided the horses were a useful training resource and imported grain based feed pellets for them. Damien figured in the spring he could turn them loose south of the Science Camp. Hopefully they'd go far enough south to survive. This winter though, they were unofficial mascots of the science camp. He himself had spent as much of the winter as possible on Earth, finding four pinto harness horses and working with them at his sister's place.

  His sister had informed him that the native horses were genetically engineered. "Got to be Oner work. Extensive genetic engineering on all four of those samples you sent me, and I even managed to find some embryonic cells in two of the blood samples. The sires were chock full of genetic goodies. I used them all in building this embryo. Now I could never bring this foal to term here, but I damn well want to see the results. So I'm impregnating one of your mares, and off she goes to that World and you'd better get me lots of pictures before you terminate the experiment."

  He'd winced a bit, but not argued. There were some things that you simply didn't mention to your superiors. Officers didn't like complications unless they interfered with the mission. A Frankenfoal wasn't mission critical. He could take some pictures and then cut the foal's throat.

  Studying the combination of stolen Oner satellite data and the visitors' street level pictures of the cities were interesting. They were generally well planned cities, with a regular street grid in the central parts, tending to meander as they moved further out. The vids showed pretty typical street scenes for this tech level, with the exceptions of most of the cities being clean. Regular manure removal from the streets, piped in water and a sewage system. The people came in a rainbow of colors, but few African phenotypes and no Northern European type extreme paleness at all. Even the redheads had tanned skins. With grumbling, the lightest and darkest of the potential infiltrators were reassigned. Everyone left had brown hair, naturally tan skins and eyes of any color. He hitched up the native horses and taught everyone how to drive them. All three mares foaled, and he halter trained the babies. The soldiers at the Science Camp spoiled them rotten with attention.

  Damien was a bit dismayed by the inclusion of a female lieutenant into the group. A science expert, who wanted to study the gravity and EM effects of the "magic." He had to admit that the information would be valuable. "How well do you think you'll fit in? Medieval societies tend to be brutal toward women."

  "I think I'll fit very well. We got lots of marketplace chatter, we have kid's interactions with their parents. And each other. Apparently Navy verses Pirates and Witches verses Wizards are popular chase games. Lots of mock sword fights, some bow and arrow action."

  Mike grinned. "You're going to love this place, Damien. You'll be taking Max, Carl and Tony for Bear Team. You'll be in charge of keeping us alive and fed. I'll be minding the techies, and locating the Oners. Allie here, Richie and Joe will be Tiger Team. That's it, for first insertion. We'll take everything we need for building a secure communications bunker."

  Damien nodded. Everyone fit the local profile, not too pale, not too dark, all fairly tall. "I've got two teams of horses, the spooks are working on the wagons, said they'd be done in another week. Now, how are we going to be transported?"

  Chapter Thirteen

  1 May 3478ce / Spring 1361

  Asia and Kingdom of the West

  From the outside, the two wagons were near duplicates of Lefty and Dydit's wagon. On the inside they were electronic masterpieces, powered by solar cells on the top. They had small motors in the hub of each wheel, but to fit in they had horses as well. Trained horses that fit the looks of the native work horses had been difficult to find. His final choices were horribly mismatched in color, but all had splashes of white here and there, or in Sombrero's case, nearly everywhere. Blackie was a pretty black and white, Blue was a blue roan, actually a slate grey salt-and-pepper on the body, and black at the edges, with big white socks and splashes of white on her belly. Macy was bay and white, with a black mane and a two toned tail. Sombrero's 'hat' was palomino, and Damien reminded himself to watch her for sunburn. All of them actually. Their skin lacked pigmentation under the white markings.

  Damien would have preferred geldings, but hadn't been sure of their cultural acceptability. He'd made damn sure the native horses were well away to the south before he'd brought the girls through. The Frankenfoal was bad enough. He didn't need Orange Swirl breeding the other mares.

  He wasn't sure it was necessary for them to all be pintos, neither of the two riding mares had been a pinto, but better safe than sorry.

  When the advancing summer heat finally melted back the ice and snow on the ramp, the trucks hauled them quickly through the canyon in the ice cap. Up the graceful bridge that crossed the river and turned into a ramp up the western canyon wall. They unloaded the trucks forty kilometers from the foot of the mountains. The horses hauled the wagons most of the way there the next day. A needless precaution. No one was there to see how normal they were. Damien looked up at the mountains. The rest of the trip was going to be slow. Last fall the two light infantry companies had camped near a stream to the south. The pictures had shown solid rock. A check of the aerial photographs showed a green spot a few miles north. That looked like a better camping spot for horses. It was a small lake, fed by a frosty cold stream from the mountains. Maybe ten acres of grass and low brush around it. He staked out the horses so they could graze a bit. They got out their authentic looking bedrolls, copied from Dydit and Lefty's, ate an authentic looking dinner and slept on the grass.

  As soon as he stirred in the morning, the horses neighed, demanding breakfast. Amazing how the animals had so quickly figured out he was the one who fed them. He hefted a sack of grain and poured out the right amount for each of them. Horses had amazingly fragile digestive systems. They had carefully prepared feed that looked like straight oats, but contained everything the animals should need. He started a fire, and filled the coffee pot, then walked the horses down to drink, two at a time.

  The lieutenant was up, and manning the equipment. He popped out for coffee, inhaling gratefully.

  "Anything new, Mike?"

  "Nyet. Just static, as usual. We're hiding our burst transmissions in it, and I suspect so are the Oners. Once we're up on top of those monsters we'll have a chance of catching theirs." He stared up at the mountain range. "Those horses pulling these rickety looking wagons . . . Yi!"

  Tony started baco frying. They would have to start buying and eating native products soon. They had a supply of these substitutes, but he was looking forward to real food. Damien wandered back to the stream, poked around a bit, bent and picked up a mangled bit of metal. It glinted bright gold in the morning light.

  Joe Hertz and Richie Covey joined him.

  "Is that gold?" Joe reached down and pulled up a pyrite nodule. "Like this?" his voice rose in excitement.

  "No, that's pyrite, fool's gold they call it." Damien held out the small nugget. "See the difference?"

  "Oh man, I thought I was rich."

  They poked around, took their boots off and wadded a bit deeper. They all found little bits of gold before their numb toes
drove them back to the fire.

  "I should get out my pan and work at it, but it may not be very valuable here, being common." Damien shrugged and wrinkled his nose at the bacos. Nasty stuff, looking like real meat. It drove him back to the stream until everyone was up and fed, then he harnessed the horses and they headed up the first incline.

  The horses were sweating by the time the road leveled out. They turned a corner and found themselves facing uniformed men. The soldiers had obviously seen them coming, and nodded politely. "Gwan true. We've had truble wit zome bandits, combing out of t'dezert. You have any prublems?"

  Damien shook his head and tried for Dydit's accent. "Didn't zee anyone."

  The soldier nodded. "Most of t'gold trains go south now, so it's boring as hell heah. Good traveling." Not a single comment on their clothing. Excellent.

  Damien clucked at his horses and they rolled past. He caught glimpses of other soldiers as they made the slow climb through the canyon. Perfect place to ambush invaders. The next invasion was going to have to fight their way through these mountains from the very start. He resisted the impulse to use the motors to give the horses some help and get them away from the soldiers faster.

  They camped high in the mountains, and Mike took the tiger squad up to the top of the nearest peak for a few hours of listening to static. The second day they stopped before descending into a deep canyon. Bear squad grabbed gear and headed up the mountain. Damien drove the bear wagon, or rather, rode the brake two thirds of the way down the canyon. Allie followed him with the tiger wagon. All eight of them could drive now, but Damien and Allie were the acknowledged best. They all got out and took a good look at the bridge. It was even more impressive up close than in the recordings. Seamless. They made camp on the far side, where a shoulder of rock cut the wind. The third day they climbed out of the canyon, taking it in chunks and resting the horses frequently. On the last climb they used the motors as well, out of pity for the horses. Then they wound downhill and back out of the mountains to the first fortification their satellites had spotted. A mounted troop passed, giving them a frowning look over. The first soldier that came near spat on his wagon.