Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  As for himself, Stoorvol intended to get at least one Wyzhnyny prisoner. Stash him somewhere, properly stunned, safe from rescue or escape. When they'd left Gabrovo Base in the Balkan Autonomy, every one of his commando carried a stunner, a gag, and a fifteen-foot roll of tape in his rucker.

  As if on cue, he heard faint voices in the direction he'd come from, and maxxed his sound sensor. Alien speech, and not via radio. It sent a chill through him. How many times, as a boy, he'd daydreamed that!

  In a perverse way it also irritated him. Their stealth discipline was lousy! They probably thought their quarry was out of reach in warpspace. They were also moving his way. Spotting a strategically situated liana, he tested it, then climbed thirty feet or so to the crotch of a tree.

  Now the Wyzhnyny angled off toward the gorge, perhaps to be picked up and returned to their base. Out of his reach. That would never do. Climbing back down, he trotted after them, blaster ready. Shortly he spotted a Wyzhnyny soldier and shot him in the back, then dropped into a hole left by the uprooting of a mouldering, wind-thrown tree. Blaster pulses hissed, fired blindly into the darkness.

  He stayed where he was for several long minutes, blaster ready. Probably they'd sent a squad back to look for him, and they'd missed his hole. Cautiously he raised his head, then screened by the log, crept toward another large tree a few yards away. A liana had rooted to its trunk, and he climbed it, to fit himself into a crotch forty feet up. It wasn't comfortable, but it mostly hid him. Minutes later a squad of Wyzhnyny appeared-the searchers returning from hunting him. He shrunk behind one half of the fork, hoping the concept of an enemy who could climb trees hadn't occurred to them. As they passed, he got the closest look he'd had at one. Centaurs? Not hardly, he told himself. Leave off the necklike torso with its arms, and it looked like an oversized mastiff.

  But beyond a doubt, they could run a lot faster than he could.

  ***

  The warp jump from the gorge back to the Bering had been quick. Menges had reemerged in F-space above the lunar farside not far from the survey ship, then closed in gravdrive. Olavsdottir and her techs had promptly disembarked with their winged captives.

  Briefly Sergeant Gabaldon told the skipper what he wanted to do. The skipper never blinked. "Go for it," he said. So Gabaldon claimed the pilot's seat, and with Menges as his copilot, moved away from the Bering, generated warpspace, and headed back for Tagus.

  This time he didn't need to grope for the gorge. As sensed from the F-space potentiality, the gravitic coordinate system was blurred, but he had a "sort of" fix on Menges' old hiding place.

  His plan, such as it was, was based on two operational premises: (1) The Wyzhnyny were already alerted; and (2) the mission now demanded quickness, not stealth, aggression, not caution. But not stupidity, either.

  The immediate challenge promised to be finding a place to pull into the forest. He couldn't expect to find Menges' old hiding place; his fix wasn't that good. But his warrior muse smiled on him: he emerged above the gorge at close to rim level, within recognition distance of the gap between trees that Menges had used before. Jockeying the Mei-Li fully into the forest, he set her down.

  His marines were already gathered at the gangway; he keyed it open and they moved out, taking defensive positions nearby. The naval gunners sat tense and ready at their heavy weapons. Gabaldon opened his transmitter and spoke. "Stoorvol, this is Gabaldon. We're parked where Menges hid earlier, but close to the rim. Do you read me? Over."

  ***

  The message took Paul Stoorvol by surprise. "Gunny," he murmured, "there should be a platoon or so of aliens very near you. Maybe just north, if you're where you say. They seem to be waiting for a ride home, or maybe for orders. They've given up hunting for me. I'd about decided I needed to do something more to keep them around. Right now I'm in a tree, a couple of hundred feet from… from the rim."

  He'd stumbled orally because the Wyzhnyny on the ground had opened fire, at either the Mei-Li or the marines. He doubted that anything the Wyzhnyny had on the ground was adequate to breach her hull metal, but if they concentrated on her sensor array… Or if a gunboat was still hanging around…

  From his perch he could make out two Wyzhnyny, eerie gold by night vision. He unslung his blaster and shot them both, not to draw attention-the firefight with the marines held that-but to help the odds. Then he climbed down the liana, unslung his blaster again, and clicked his helmet transmitter.

  One of the Mei-Li's guns began hammering heavy bolts at the Wyzhnyny, bolts crackling and thudding. Stoorvol realized he could be killed by his own people.

  "Gunny," he said, "I'm on the ground now. Their attention is on you. I've killed two more of them, and I'll take out as many more as I can. We need to settle this now. Their command is likely to pour support forces in quickly. Over."

  "Received. Received. This is Miller in charge. Gunny's out of touch; left the ship. Miller out."

  Out of touch? "Got that. Stoorvol out." Gunny knows what he's doing, Stoorvol told himself, and this was no time for discussions. He found himself a new spot, a large tree with a broadly buttressed base. He wished he had a bag of grenades, instead of just the two on his harness. Taking one off, he charged it, then peered around a buttress and chose his next target-three Wyzhnyny thirty yards away, crouching together behind a fallen tree. He threw the grenade to land just behind the one in the middle, then ducked behind the buttress again, heard the explosion and peered out. All three seemed dead.

  The firefight ahead of him went on as if he weren't there, so he darted forward in a low crouch to where his latest victims lay. There he raised up enough to peer over the log. Ahead as well as to the sides, he could see numerous Wyzhnyny kneeling behind trees and the occasional fallen trunk. And he could see casualties. The marines weren't laying down much fire now though, as if there weren't many of them left. The thought flashed: How many? Four? Five? But the Mei-Li's starboard gunner, in his armored bubble, was still pumping out the heavy stuff.

  With bursts of rotten wood, bolts blew through the log within ten feet of Stoorvol. To his right, a Wyzhnyny he'd thought was dead, stood as if to flee, then stopped as if in freeze-frame, staring at the marine officer. Stoorvol shot him down, then turning, began to shoot at every Wyzhnyny he could see.

  It seemed the final straw. All along the Wyzhnyny line, aliens rose to flee. Stoorvol crouched low again, and from his thigh pocket drew his stunner. To his left, a Wyzhnyny cleared the log in a bound, so easily and gracefully it startled the marine. As it landed, Stoorvol thumbed the trigger. The Wyzhnyny stumbled, pitched forward and lay still. Another followed, and it too fell.

  The starboard gun hammered a dozen more trasher bolts after the fleeing Wyzhnyny before it stopped. Then, heart in his mouth, Stoorvol stood and jumped onto the log, waving both arms overhead. The Mei-Li's gangway slid open, its ramp extruding. Three marines rode out on an AG freight sled, followed closely by two crewmen riding another.

  "Over here!" Stoorvol shouted, again as if he didn't have a radio. "I've got two prisoners stunned." The marines veered to the north as if they hadn't heard. It was the crewmen who responded to Stoorvol, quickly setting down where he indicated. He helped them load an unconscious Wyzhnyny on the sled. "Your gunner did good work with that heavy weapon," he said. "He broke them with it."

  "Wasn't that," the older crewman grunted, lifting the second Wyzhnyny's hindquarters.

  "What, then?" It seemed to Stoorvol the man was going to give him the credit, for taking them from behind.

  "Wyzhnyny aircraft are on their way, sir. They'll be laying heavy fire in here." They finished getting the second Wyzhnyny aboard, and as if that was a signal, an alarm horn blared from the Mei-Li.

  "Come aboard, Captain," said the older. "That's Mr. Menges' twenty-tick warning."

  Menges? Where was Gabaldon? And the marines with the other sled? He realized then; it was casualties, not prisoners they were collecting. Instead of getting on the sled, Stoorvol started toward the ma
rines, but the senior crewman drew his stunner and thumbed the trigger. Quickly the two crewmen dumped the inert marine officer onto the sled with the prisoners, then sped to the gangway and inside the Mei-Li.

  The marines, on the other hand, hadn't even looked toward the ship when the gangway slid shut. The senior crewman activated the sled's restraint field, felt it snug around him. "Jesus, Buddha, and Rama!" said the younger. "What's the matter with those marines? They should've come!"

  Another alarm clamored through the boat, warning of imminent takeoff.

  "They wouldn't leave their buds behind," the elder said.

  "They were probably all dead!"

  "Apparently it doesn't make any difference to them."

  They felt the Mei-Li lift, pull backward from the forest edge, then swing about. At once it took flight, for five seconds of acceleration before warpspace generated. After a long moment's stillness, the senior crewman released the restraint field. Two others appeared, and helped transfer the inert prisoners onto AG litters, to be taken to a holding cell.

  When the two Wyzhnyny had been taken away, the younger crewman gestured toward the unconscious Stoorvol, still lying on the sled. "He was going to help them, wasn't he?"

  "Yep. Who knows? Maybe those hyenas eat enemy casualties."

  He said it absently. His mind was on the Mei-Li's last remaining scooter, with Gunnery Sergeant Gabaldon piloting. It had left shortly after the Mei-Li landed. The crewman had heard enough to know the strategy: the sergeant would drop into the depths of the gorge, speed north a couple of miles, then climb a couple, to watch for Wyzhnyny aerial reinforcements. Finally he'd seen some coming: gunboats and APCs. A lot of them.

  Chapter 42

  Moribund

  "They are both moribund."

  The Bering had left Tagus's moon less than two hours earlier, and Christiaan Weygand felt comfortable now about questioning the expedition's scientists working on the alien captives. The two Wyzhnyny lay strapped on examination tables, wires and tubes leading from them to a life support system and a bank of readouts. If everything above the withers had been covered, and you overlooked the feet, they might have passed for some Terran mammal in a large-animal clinic.

  "What actually does `moribund' mean?" Weygand asked.

  Dr. Maria Kalosgouros was a formidable, humorless woman, a vertebrate exobiologist of major professional status. "Captain Stoorvol's stunner had been set to render a two-hundred-fifty-pound human unconscious for a period of one to three hours," she answered wryly. "Unfortunately its effect on Wyzhnyny of similar mass is far more profound. They are dying, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I doubt their own physicians could, working with their own life support system."

  Weygand regarded the two Wyzhnyny glumly. And we paid eighteen marines for them, good men. Valiant Not many, by the standards of war, but they'd been his, in a manner of speaking. "I presume you can still salvage information from them."

  "Valuable information. Subcutaneous injection of minute quantities of African bee venom has resulted in encouraging tissue responses. But unfortunately their capillary circulation is virtually nil." She gestured at the bank of small monitor screens, where thin lines of colored light jittered microscopically, or sparsely, or flowed smooth as oil. Esoteric numbers showed occasional small changes. "I have injected the brain of one," she continued, "but that is not analogous to venom reaching the brain systemically. I could learn far more with studies on specimens functioning at something approaching normal.

  "Still, we are learning far more than we knew before. And through Madchen," she added, referring to the Bering's savant, "I am sharing our results with Dr. Minda Shiue, at the University of Baguio."

  Weygand had heard of Dr. Shiue. The Nobel Committee might meet in Buenos Aires now, instead of Oslo, but its awards continued to shine. "Just now," Kalosgouros went on, "she is at War House, to help interpet our results. I believe they are sufficient that the African Bee Project will be continued."

  "Thank you, Dr. Kalosgouros," Weygand said, bowing slightly. We do what we can, he added silently, recalling the cost.

  Back on the bridge, he buzzed Dr. Clement and asked how the hornet venom chromatography was going. Her answer was gratifying. In important and surprising respects, Tagus hornet venom resembled that of Apis mellifera scutella. She was proceeding optimistically.

  Chapter 43

  Portal to Justice

  The Peace Front's Kunming headquarters occupied the sixth and seventh floors of a building no longer stylish. Paddy Davies' corner office was not large, given his position, but it easily accommodated the five guest chairs with key-pad arms and monitors. Like the rest of the furnishings, they were not new, but in recent centuries, equipment had obsolesced slowly.

  Two of the guest chairs were occupied, while Paddy sat at his modest desk. He and Jaromir Horvath were already familiar with the text on the wall screen. The third person, Perfeta Stolz, was reading it, "flipping pages" with her key-pad. Rapidly. She had a quick and practiced eye and mind. Occasionally she triggered a hypertext link for details.

  The pages bore a header: "Summary of Charges and Evidence Against Joseph Steven Switzer."

  Davies watched Stolz, not the screen. To him, her strongly-built body and broad face suggested Native American lineage. (Actually she was half Igorot on her mother's side, and a quarter Buryat on her father's.) When she'd finished the last page, she looked across at him.

  "He doesn't stand a chance of acquittal," she said. "The best anyone can do for Switzer is enter a guilty plea and ask for the mercy of the court. The government has generally handled Peace Front cases quite moderately." She paused, aware of what these men really wanted. They didn't like what she'd just said, and they'd reject what she'd say next, but it was necessary to say it. "A court-appointed attorney can do that as well as I, at no cost to you."

  It was Horvath who answered, his voice dry and sour. "Leniency is not the objective," he said. "We want maximum mileage from the media."

  "Mr. Horvath, I can guarantee lots of press, but it won't help the defendant, and it won't turn public opinion."

  Paddy answered this time. "We know it won't turn the verdict. As for the public? It will be worthwhile if we can simply touch them. Touch their souls. Keep the shame of this war before their eyes."

  He thinks in cliches, Stolz told herself. They both do. "What you want me to do will aggravate the court," she pointed out, knowing that wouldn't impress them either. "It could even result in a sentence more severe than it might otherwise be."

  Horvath answered again, surlier than before. "There are other legal firms we can hire."

  She locked eyes with him, his challenging, hers steady and unyielding. "And what of Switzer?"

  Paddy stepped into the breach. "An appropriate question, Counselor. But I've talked with Joseph, and he agrees. He wants us to make the most of this. For the Front and for peace. Before we pass the point of no return."

  Stolz examined her broad brown hands, their nails neat and strong but not pampered, then looked back up at Davies. "You realize that it's Mr. Switzer who must ask for the change of attorneys. I can propose it to him, but it is he who must request it of the court."

  "Of course. Of course. And quite as it should be. I cleared it with him before calling you."

  Once more Horvath broke in, drawing a grimace from Davies. "We don't pay your firm a retainer for arguments about what we want."

  "Nor have I given you one," Stolz answered calmly. "You pay a retainer for our prompt attention and our professional opinion. I have given you both." Abruptly she stood. "I will talk with Mr. Switzer. If he agrees, I will represent him, but I will also inform him honestly of the prospects." She returned her gaze to Davies. "You will be paying the fees, and I will get you what you pay for: public attention. With Mr. Switzer's agreement."

  Davies got to his feet and stepped from behind his desk, hand extended for hers. "That's exactly as we want it, Counselor. I have a copy of the cube for you… "<
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  ***

  Stolz reviewed the cube in her office, looking for cracks in the case and finding none. Hmh! she thought. He dreamed up the mission, knew the risks, and volunteered to carry it out. But knowing the risks, and having them crash down on you, are two different things, she reminded herself. He's lucky this isn't a vengeful, reactive government.

  ***

  The next morning, a slump-shouldered Joseph Switzer stepped into a small concrete room. He wore blue prison clothing, faded by many trips through the prison laundry. A guard gripped his arm. In the middle of the room, two chairs were bolted to the floor, facing each other five feet apart. His court-appointed defender stood by one of them. Switzer's gaze dropped to the floor again.

  "Shall I leave now, Counselor?" the guard asked.

  "Yes, thank you," the defender said. Without a word, the guard let go of Switzer's arm and left the room, closing the door behind him, then stood looking in through its thick glass window.

  Switzer simply stood unmoving. The attorney was notably taller than he was. Her kinky brown hair was cut close as a cap. Her professional black pants suit emphasized her slimness, and made her caramel complexion seem light by contrast.

  "Shall we sit down, Joseph?" she asked gesturing. He nodded, stepped to a chair, and they sat down facing each other.

  "I'm told you've asked that I be replaced by another attorney, one hired by the Peace Front. If that's what you wish, I'm required to step aside."

  His voice was low and husky. "That's how I want it."

  "The Peace Front is less interested in minimizing your sentence than in making the Front look good. Do you realize that?"