by George R. R.
There were no forests like this on his home world any longer—not with this towering, primeval canopy, with tree trunks that could be half as broad at the base as a Shongari’s height—yet the woodland around him was surprisingly free of brush and undergrowth. According to the expedition’s botanists, that was only to be expected in a mature forest where so little direct sunlight reached the ground. No doubt they knew what they were talking about, but it still seemed...wrong to Dirak. And, perversely, he liked the saplings and underbrush that did grow along the verge of this narrow trail even less. They probably confirmed the botanists’ theories, since at least some sun did get through where the line of the trail broke the canopy, but they left him feeling cramped and shut in.
Actually, a lot of his anxiety was probably due to the fact that he’d been expressly ordered to leave his assigned recon and communications relay drone well behind his point, anchored to the wheeled transports snorting laboriously along the same trail far behind him. Analysis of what had happened to the last three patrols sent into this area suggested that the “humans” had somehow managed to destroy the drones before they ever engaged the infantry those drones were supporting with surveillance and secure communications to base. No one had any idea how the primitives— only, of course, they weren’t really primitives, were they?—were able to detect and target drones so effectively, but HQ had decided to try a more stealthy approach...and chosen Dirak to carry out the experiment.
Oh, how the gods must have smiled upon me, he reflected morosely. I understand the need to gain experience against these...creatures if we’re going to modify doctrine. But why did I get chosen to poke my head into the hasthar’s den? It wasn’t like—
He heard an explosion behind him and wheeled around. He couldn’t see through the overhead canopy, but he didn’t need to see it to know that the explosion had been his RC drone. How had they even seen it through these damnable leaves and branches!
The question was still ripping through his brain when he heard more explosions—this time on the ground...where his two reserve squads were following along in their APCs.
He didn’t have time to realize what those explosions were before the assault rifles hidden behind trees and under drifts of leaves all along the southern flank of the trail opened fire.
Unfortunately for Platoon Commander Dirak, the men and women behind those assault rifles had figured out how to recognize a Shongari infantry formation’s commanding officer.
* * * *
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Buchevsky bellowed, and the bark and clatter of automatic weapons fire faded abruptly.
He held his own position, AKM still ready, while he surveyed the tumbled Shongari bodies sprawled along the trail. One or two were still writhing, although it didn’t look like they would be for long.
“Good,” a voice said behind him with fierce, obvious satisfaction, and he looked over his shoulder. Mircea Basarab stood in the dense forest shadows, looking out over the ambushed patrol. “Well done, my Stephen.”
“Maybe so, but we’d better be moving,” Buchevsky replied, safeing his weapon and rising from his firing position.
His own expression, he knew, was more anxious than Basarab’s. This was the third hard contact with the Shongari in the six days since he’d placed his people under Basarab’s command, and from what Basarab had said, they were getting close to the enclave he’d established in the mountains around Lake Vidaru. Which meant they really needed to shake this persistent—if inept—pursuit.
“I think we have a short while,” Basarab disagreed, glancing farther down the trail to the columns of smoke rising from what had been armored vehicles until Jonescu’s squad and half of Basarab’s original men dealt with them. “It seems unlikely they got a message out this time, either.”
“Maybe not,” Buchevsky conceded. “But their superiors have to know where they are. When they don’t check in on schedule, someone’s going to come looking for them. Again.”
He might have sounded as if he were disagreeing, but he wasn’t, really. First, because Basarab was probably correct. But secondly, because over the course of the last week or so, he’d come to realize Mircea Basarab was one of the best officers he’d ever served under. Which, he reflected, was high praise for any foreign officer from any Marine...and didn’t keep the Romanian from being one of the scariest men Buchevsky had ever met.
A lot of people might not have realized that. In better light, Basarab’s face had a bony, foxlike handsomeness, and his smile was frequently warm. But there were dark, still places behind those green eyes. Still places that were no stranger to all too many people from the post-Ceauşescu Balkans. Dark places Buchevsky recognized because he’d met so many other scary men in his life...and because there was now a dark, still place labeled “Washington, D.C.” inside him, as well.
Yet whatever lay in Basarab’s past, the man was almost frighteningly competent, and he radiated a sort of effortless charisma Buchevsky had seldom encountered. The sort of charisma that could win the loyalty of even a Stephen Buchevsky, and even on such relatively short acquaintance.
“Your point is well taken, my Stephen,” Basarab said now, smiling almost as if he’d read Buchevsky’s mind and reaching up to place one hand on the towering American’s shoulder. Like the almost possessive way he said “my Stephen,” it could have been patronizing. It wasn’t.
“However,” he continued, his smile fading, “I believe it may be time to send these vermin elsewhere.”
“Sounds great to me.” A trace of skepticism edged Buchevsky’s voice, and Basarab chuckled. It was not a particularly pleasant sound.
“I believe we can accomplish it,” he said, and whistled shrilly.
Moments later, Take Bratianu, a dark-haired, broad-shouldered Romanian, blended out of the forest.
Buchevsky was picking up Romanian quickly, thanks to Elizabeth Cantacuzène, but the exchange that followed was far too rapid for his still rudimentary grasp of the language to sort out. It lasted for a few minutes, then Bratianu nodded, and Basarab turned back to Buchevsky.
“Take speaks no English, I fear,” he said.
That was obvious, Buchevsky thought dryly. On the other hand, Bratianu didn’t need to speak English to communicate the fact that he was one seriously bad-assed individual. None of Basarab’s men did.
There were only about twenty of them, but they moved like ghosts. Buchevsky was no slouch, yet he knew when he was outclassed at pooping and snooping in the shrubbery. These men were far better at it than he’d ever been, and in addition to rifles, pistols, and hand grenades, they were liberally festooned with a ferocious assortment of knives, hatchets, and machetes. Indeed, Buchevsky suspected they would have preferred using cold steel instead of any namby-pamby assault rifles.
Now, as Bratianu and his fellows moved along the trail, knives flashed, and the handful of Shongari wounded stopped writhing.
Buchevsky had no problem with that. Indeed, his eyes were bleakly satisfied. But when some of the Romanians began stripping the alien bodies while others began cutting down several stout young saplings growing along the edge of the trail, he frowned and glanced at Basarab. The Romanian only shook his head.
“Wait,” he said, and Buchevsky turned back to the others.
They worked briskly, wielding their hatchets and machetes with practiced efficiency as they cut the saplings into roughly ten-foot lengths, then shaped points at either end. In a surprisingly short period, they had over a dozen of them, and Buchevsky’s eyes widened in shock as they calmly picked up the dead Shongairi and impaled them.
Blood and other body fluids oozed down the crude, rough-barked stakes, but he said nothing as the stakes’ other ends were sunk into the soft woodland soil. The dead aliens hung there, lining the trail like insects mounted on pins, grotesque in the shadows, and he felt Basarab’s eyes.
“Are you shocked, my Stephen?” the Romanian asked quietly.
“I. . .” Buchevsky inhaled deeply. “Yes, I gu
ess I am. Some,” he admitted. He turned to face the other man. “I think maybe because it’s a little too close to some of the things I’ve seen jihadies do.”
“Indeed?” Basarab’s eyes were cold. “I suppose I should not be surprised by that. We learned the tradition from the Turks ourselves, long ago. But at least these were already dead when they were staked.”
“Would it have made a difference?” Buchevsky asked, and Basarab’s nostrils flared. But then the other man gave himself a little shake.
“Once?” He shrugged. “No. As I say, the practice has long roots in this area. One of Romania’s most famous sons, after all, was known as ‘Vlad the Impaler,’ was he not?” He smiled thinly. “For that matter, I did not, as you Americans say, have a happy childhood, and there was a time when I inflicted cruelty on all those about me. When I enjoyed it. In those days, no doubt, I would have preferred them alive.”
He shook his head, and his expression saddened as he gazed at the impaled alien bodies.
“I fear it took far too many years for me to realize that all the cruelty in the universe cannot avenge a broken childhood or appease an orphaned young man’s rage, my Stephen,” he said. “There was a doctor once, a man I met in Austria, who explained that to me. To my shame, I did not really wish to hear what he was saying, but it was true. And the years it took me to realize that demanded too high a price from those for whom I cared, and who cared for me.” He looked at the bodies for a moment longer, then shook himself. “But this, my friend, has nothing to do with the darkness inside me.”
“No?” Buchevsky raised an eyebrow.
“No. It is obvious to me that these vermin will persist in pursuing us. So, we will give them something to fix their attention upon—something to make any creature, even one of these, hot with hate—and then we will give them someone besides your civilians to pursue. Take and most of my men will head south, leaving a trail so obvious that even these—” He twitched his head at the slaughtered patrol. “—could scarcely miss it. He will lead them aside until they are dozens of kilometers away. Then he will slip away and return to us.”
“Without their being able to follow him?”
“Do not be so skeptical, my friend!” Basarab chuckled and squeezed Buchevsky’s shoulder. “I did not pick these men at random! There are no more skilled woodsmen in all of Romania. Have no fear that they will lead our enemies to us.”
“I hope you’re right,” Buchevsky said, looking back at the impaled bodies and thinking about how he would have reacted in the aliens’ place. “I hope you’re right.”
* * * *
XI
Fleet Commander Thikair pressed the admittance stud, then tipped back in his chair as Shairez stepped through the door into his personal quarters. It closed silently behind her, and he waved at a chair.
“Be seated, Base Commander,” he said, deliberately more formal because of the irregularity of meeting with her here.
“Thank you, Fleet Commander.”
He watched her settle into the chair. She carried herself with almost her usual self-confidence, he thought, yet there was something about the set of her ears. And about her eyes.
She’s changed, he thought. Aged. He snorted mentally. Well, we’ve all done that, haven’t we? But there’s more to it in her case. More than there was yesterday, for that matter.
“What, precisely, did you wish to see me about, Base Commander?” he asked after a moment. And why, he did not ask aloud, did you wish to see me about it in private?
“I have almost completed my initial psychological profile of these humans, sir.” She met his gaze unflinchingly. “I’m afraid our initial hopes for this planet were...rather badly misplaced.”
Thikair sat very still. It was a testimony to her inner strength that she’d spoken so levelly, he thought. Particularly given that they had been not “our initial hopes,” but his initial hopes.
He drew a deep breath, feeling his ears fold back against his skull, and closed his eyes while he considered the price of those hopes. In just three local months, this one, miserable planet had cost the expedition 56 percent of its GEVs, 23 percent of its transports and APCs, and 26 percent of its infantry.
Of course, he reflected grimly, it had cost the humans even more. Yet no matter what he did, the insane creatures refused to submit.
“How badly misplaced?” he asked without opening his eyes.
“The problem, sir,” she replied a bit obliquely, “is that we’ve never before encountered a species like this one. Their psychology is...unlike anything in our previous experience.”
“That much I’d already surmised,” Thikair said with poison-dry humor. “Should I conclude you now have a better grasp of how it differs?”
“Yes, sir.” She drew a deep breath. “First, you must understand that there are huge local variations in their psychologies. That’s inevitable, of course, given that unlike us or any other member race of the Hegemony, they retain so many bewilderingly different cultural and societal templates. There are, however, certain common strands. And one of those, Fleet Commander, is that, essentially, they have no submission mechanism as we understand the term.”
“I beg your pardon?” Thikair’s eyes popped open at the preposterous statement, and she sighed.
“There are a few races of the Hegemony that perhaps approach the humans’ psychology, sir, but I can think of no more than two or three. All of them, like the humans, are omnivores, but none come close to this species’...level of perversity. Frankly, any Shongari psychologist would pronounce all humans insane, sir. Unlike weed-eaters or the majority of omnivores, they have a streak of very Shongari-like ferocity, yet their sense of self is almost invariably far greater than their sense of the pack.”
She was obviously groping for a way to describe something outside any understood racial psychology, Thikair thought.
“Almost all weed-eaters have a very strong herd instinct,” she said. “While they may, under some circumstances, fight ferociously, their first, overwhelming instinct is toavoid conflict, and their basic psychology subordinates the individual’s good, even his very survival, to the good of the ‘herd.’ Most of them now define that ‘herd’ in terms of entire planetary populations or star nations, but it remains the platform from which all of their decisions and policies proceed.
“Most of the Hegemony’s omnivores share that orientation to a greater or a lesser degree, although a handful approach our own psychological stance, which emphasizes not the herd but the pack. Our species evolved as hunters, not prey, with a social structure and psychology oriented around that primary function. Unlike weed-eaters and most omnivores, Shongari’s pride in our personal accomplishments, the proof of our ability, all relate to the ancient, primal importance of the individual hunter’s prowess as the definer of his status within the pack.
“Yet the pack is still greater than the individual. Our sense of self-worth, of accomplishment, is validated only within the context of the pack. And the submission of the weaker to the stronger comes from that same context. It is bred into our very genes to submit to the pack leader, to the individual whose strength dominates all about him. Of course our people, and especially our males, have always challenged our leaders, as well, for that was how the ancient pack ensured that its leadership remained strong. But once a leader has reaffirmed his dominance, his strength, even the challenger submits once more. Our entire philosophy, our honor code, our societal expectations, all proceed from that fundamental starting point.”
“Of course,” Thikair said, just a bit impatiently. “How else could a society such as ours is survive?”
“That’s my point, sir. A society such as ours could not survive among humans. Their instinct to submit is enormously weaker than our own, and it is far superseded by the individual’s drive to defeat threats to his primary loyalty group—which is neither the pack nor the herd.”
“What?” Thikair blinked at her, and she grimaced.
“A human’s primary
loyalty is to his family grouping, sir. Not to the herd, of which the family forms only a small part. And not to the pack, where the emphasis is on strength and valueto the pack. There are exceptions, but that orientation forms the bedrock of human motivation. You might think of them almost as ... as a herd composed of individual packs of predators. Humans are capable of extending that sense of loyalty beyond the family grouping—to organizations, to communities, to nation-states or philosophies—but the fundamental motivating mechanism of the individual family is as hardwired into them as submission to the stronger is hardwired into us. Sir, my research indicates that a very large percentage of humans will attack any foe, regardless of its strength or power, in defense of their mates or young. And they will do it with no regard whatsoever for the implications to the rest of their pack or herd.”
Thikair looked at her, trying to wrap his mind around the bizarre psychology she was trying to explain. Intellectually, he could grasp it, at least imperfectly; emotionally, it made no sense to him at all.