“We prefer the term ‘contractors’,” Kruger drawled. “But I take your point, general. Now, I have a question for you. How many men do you have ready for when we crack the gates?”
“The gates?”
“Of Noötrine,” he said patiently. “The city you are paying us this princely sum to assist you in taking.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I am aware of that. You don’t need to understand, you merely need to have your men established at a forward base sufficiently close to the city to permit them to approach the walls under cover of darkness. I’ll provide you with a staff officer so long as you swear to guard her virtue like your own virgin daughter’s; she’ll let you know when to advance from the base.”
The general stared at him, his eyes narrow with suspicion. But he nodded, slowly, as if he understood, which Kruger very much doubted. He pointed a stubby finger at Kruger, and for the first time since he’d entered Kruger’s makeshift office, he smiled. It was a crafty smile of man who believes he has just drawn a winning hand.
“Ah, you play the cards close to your chest, Colonel. I like that!”
Yeah, I’ll bet you do. “Five thousand of your best men, General. We’ll get the gates open, never you fear about that, but as good as my girls are, all they can do is give you the city. You want to keep it, you’re going to have to take it firmly in hand.”
The general extended his hand, and Kruger removed his boots from the desk, swiveled his chair, and stood up to take it. The man’s hand was pudgy, but his grip was firm. “You have no siege engines, no miners, no ladders, and you make no moves of any kind that I can see. Perhaps you are a magician, Colonel?”
Kruger smiled blandly as the general suggestively brushed his nose in a gesture that indicated cunning. Let him think we managed to smuggle some banned tech in. An anti-gravity generator, or a tractor beam to pull the gates open, explosives to blow them, or chemicals to melt the walls. Anything that would keep him and everyone else looking in the wrong direction.
It was three days before H-hour. They’d been lucky so far, but Kruger couldn’t help thinking that their luck was bound to run out at some point. He now regretted not doing anything to give the rumors some teeth, maybe arranging for a set of fake generators to be set up around the perimeter, or even sending out a trumpeter once a day to circle the walls and sound a magic horn. The infiltrations had proceeded apace, and he held sufficient hostages to bolster the weakest link in the chain, the traffickers, but every soldier inside the enemy city was one more risk piled on top of all the rest. If his experience was any guide, the spark that set the fireworks off would probably be struck at the most inopportune moment.
The problem was that putting his girls into position early could be that very spark. There were Foundation spies all over the city, and while he was confident none of them were privy to the fact of the Battalion’s declining numbers, even a nighttime departure wouldn’t be enough to prevent either their actions or their numbers from being marked. What they needed, he decided, was a distraction, and one that would justify the Battalion exiting both the barracks and the city in as cloaked and confusing a manner as possible.
Then he smiled. The answer was inherent in the question posed. He lifted the silver bell on his desk and shook it, sending a pair of metallic notes echoing off the stone walls. A staff sergeant opened the door and poked her head in.
“Colonel?”
“Get me Captain Tango.”
“Right away, sir!”
It wasn’t long before Tango entered. She was wearing a sleepsuit that looked a size too small and was breathing hard as if she’d just run through the corridors to get there. Her eyes were initially bright and anticipatory, although after he outlined his modified plan for her, she looked downright unsettled.
“Moving up the departure isn’t a problem, Colonel. We can be on the move within five kilosecs. I’m a little more concerned about the idea of setting fire to the city. Won’t that violate our bond?”
“It’s not a violation per se. Although we certainly want to avoid paying any reparations. It only matters if we get caught.” He shrugged. “So don’t get caught. Besides, there have been rumors about Foundation saboteurs floating around since we got here. Might as well put some meat on those bones.”
“Yessir,” she said dubiously. “I’ll give Lieutenant Whitworth the detail. She’s clever enough. What about the hostages?”
“Find a lodging, dose them, lock them in, and tell the proprietor to release them tomorrow morning. This will be over one way or another before they can get any word to Noötrine.”
“Sir!” She saluted and left. Kruger looked around his office. For all the crudities and the candles, it had served him well enough. Still, he was looking forward to getting back to a planet where there were showers and the women weren’t off-limits. Too many of the girls, including several of the officers, had made it clear that they wouldn’t mind a little fraternizing with a superior officer and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.
Unless he missed a beat, that Tango had been wearing freshly applied lipstick tonight. She didn’t look bad, not bad at all. He laughed bitterly. Bloody close quarters and nothing to do could send even an ice princess over the edge.
Dawn was breaking and the weary 11th Special Battalion was within sight of the ridge that overlooked the city beyond when Kruger spotted a rider rushing towards them. It was Corporal Reynolds, one of the battalion’s shorter soldiers, who had been assigned to the overwatch team more than a month ago.
“Colonel, it’s a good thing you’re here. Two of the girls were spotted wearing red ribbons yesterday evening!”
“And you’re just coming to tell me now?”
“The lieutenant said it was too dangerous to ride at night, sir!”
Kruger closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then he counted to ten again. The propensity of his soldiers to prioritize their own safety over the mission never ceased to astonish and enrage him, but he had learned that voicing his opinion on the matter did nothing but provoke waterworks. After counting to ten one more time, he felt calm enough to address her without resorting to expletives.
“Are there any signs of the guard being called out? Are they on alert? Do we know how many were taken?”
“No, no, and no. Sir. As far as we know.”
Kruger nodded. There was nothing for it now but to hope that whoever had been taken would have the sense to keep her mouth shut. The mere act of speech would be sufficient to give any of the women away as off-worlders, and it wasn’t exactly a secret that the Grkese had hired female contractors. Then again, if the Foundation only ID’d one or two of them, they’d assume they were spies or perhaps assassins. As long as the girls had the steel to not spill the only secret that mattered, their capture wouldn’t make a difference as far as the mission was concerned.
He turned to Tango. “Launch the signal at midnight. Tell the girls to get some shut-eye now, we’re going in tonight. And send a rider to the Grkese commander, tell him he’s got to be in within 200 meters of the gates at zero dark fifty.”
Kruger looked back at the column of two hundred fifty exhausted women behind him. They had taken thirty-six kilosecs to cover what would have taken one of the other battalions closer to twenty. Their sisters had been taking all the risks and putting in the hard work laying the foundation for tonight’s action, but would they be up to finishing the mission? He’d done all he could over the last month to prepare them, but now there was only one way to find out.
The transport had come out of hyperwave, and planetfall on Rhysalan was scheduled in just over one ship’s day, when the captain summoned Kruger to his cabin. The Navy man was uncharacteristically respectful when he arrived, which made him suspect that someone important had already taken advantage of the restoration of communications to hail the ship. His suspicions were confirmed when the captain promptly announced that His Grace the Duke of Rhysalan was on the screen and waiting for Kruger bef
ore making himself scarce.
“Lieutenant Colonel Kruger, 11th Special Battalion, your Grace,” he announced himself. He didn’t remember if he still needed to bow when he was only in the virtual presence, rather than the actual presence, of the Duke, so he awkwardly ducked his head in the hopes that the gesture would pass for the deed if he did.
“Well done, Colonel! I wanted to be the first to congratulate you for your spectacular success in completing the contract!” The Duke was a man in his middle forties, handsome in the way that only aristocrats who have married for beauty for several generations can achieve. His voice was so rich and mellifluent that it sounded like a voice-over.
“Thank you, your Grace. It is my honor to serve your noble House.” The bank transfer from the Grkese must have cleared, Kruger thought. The Duke was so cheerful he was almost giddy.
“The Lord General tells me the casualty figures were unusually low. Remarkable, Colonel, simply remarkable!”
“I could not have done it without the 11th Battalion,” Kruger told him honestly. “Their commitment to the mission was... total.”
The Duke beamed. “I’m so very pleased. So is my wife, for as you know, the 11th Special Battalion was her particular brainchild. She wished to congratulate you herself, Colonel, so allow me to convey my sincere appreciation to you and your officers again before I transfer you to her now.”
“Honored, Your Grace,” Kruger said dutifully. A moment later, he found himself facing the flashing eyes of an angry woman in her thirties. The Duchess of Rhysalan was said to have once been the most beautiful woman on the planet, and although her pale cheeks were now bright crimson with rage, she was still breathtakingly lovely.
“Are you the bastard who ruined my battalion?”
Kruger stifled the laughter that threatened to erupt from deep within him and blithely assumed the blank face of the professional soldier who admits to knowing absolutely nothing more than his name, his rank, and his identification number.
“Lieutenant Colonel Alfrix Kruger, Commander, 11th Special Battalion, Your Grace.”
“I heard what you did, Commander! You turned those brave, brave women into whores! How dare you? You’re neither an officer nor a gentleman, you’re nothing but a pimp!”
“Your Grace, with all due respect, would you be happier if we were coming home with 68 women in body bags instead of pregnant? Those brave women risked their lives and put their bodies on the line for the mission, and they got the job done without losing one-tenth as many soldiers as any other battalion would have lost.” He didn’t think it was necessary to mention the 53 troops who had contracted venereal diseases; the medics told him they expected to be able to clear all of the infected women before the battalion made planetfall. “Hell, they’re bringing home future reinforcements!”
He realized he’d gone too far with his last line when the Duchess began to blister his ears with an obscenity-laced rant that would have made his old drill sergeant blush. He took it as impassively as he could manage, allowing himself no more than a faint smile when she finally shrieked incoherently and closed the connection.
The old Greek strategist had it right, he mused to himself. Pleasures capture the passions and corrupt even the most courageous. Hell, correctly harnessed, pleasures could even capture walled cities!
And yet, one thought haunted Kruger. What had they thought, those poor Foundation soldiers, all those officers and guards, at that moment their sweet, compliant lovers had given them le coup de grâce in the place of le petit mort.
He thought of Captain Tango’s eager, lipsticked smile, and he shivered.
ELEGY FOR THE LOCUST
By
Brian Niemeier
When you have the chance to redress the injustice of your birth…
It wasn’t an epiphany; more like the dawning awareness of something that had long subsisted beneath or above notice—an insect on a page that one only sees when it scuttles across a letter. By the time I’d recognized the idea, it had burrowed too deeply under my skin to dislodge.
Since time out of mind I had languished in the grip of a merciless yearning that I resisted with all my strength. When the longing overwhelmed me I would seek potable respite at the Red Crow teahouse. But not even the local burned wine—the sole consolation of living in Iye—could drown my envy of Marthen Lumac.
No. Envy was too mild a word for my loathing of the cosmic farce that I was Janeth and not Marthen.
Shame poured from the hollow of my heart and filled my chest with scarlet fire. Every burst of rowdy laughter was a judgment of the drunken dockhands against my lowliness in light of Lumac’s glory. Every sour glance from a sloe-eyed serving girl scorned my dull brown mop and pale skin in favor of Lumac’s golden hair and bronze complexion. Certainty of my temporal, spiritual, and moral poverty robbed my wine of sweetness.
My very being had become unbearable torture. Yet I never entertained self-murder; not due to any proscription of my lukewarm faith, but because death would forever deny me the answer that waited just beyond reach.
There in the raucous gloom, over a half-empty glass gone cold, the idea revealed itself to my tormented mind. I resisted at the urging of my conscience, but undermined by lethargy it soon succumbed.
In that hour I knew that my pain had but one remedy. I must become Marthen Lumac.
I staggered out into the damp night, leaving a pair of brass coins on the rough, stained table. Little remained of the pittance I earned by translating certain volumes in Lumac’s private library from the native Shianese, but the prospect of reliving my destitution was the least enticement down the irrevocable path I’d chosen.
The air was heavy but clear, and as I passed along the seaside lane I saw the monument looming over the wharf ahead on my right. The pillar of black stone taller than a ship’s mast had been raised when Shianmar had overthrown the last Tral emperor and allegedly marked the site of Almeth Elocine’s landing on the Thysian continent.
More recently the column had been sanded square to honor the first Guild fleet, which had flown over the same shore on its way to conquer Elocine’s home isle of Annon.
The black pillar aroused in me the bitterness of broken hope. The Charter War had coincided with my preparation to enter the College of Augurs in Mizraim—an oversight that proved my blindness to omens. By the time I gained appointment to the priesthood, the Steersmen’s Guild was fully established.
I looked away from the monument and the shadowy sea beyond. But a salt-scented wind recalled the death of my vocation to sail the stars and bring civilized religion to the heathens of Keth. Even before my consecration to Bifron, taking the auspices upon the birth of a child or the eve of a new venture had fallen out of favor among the old nobility. The new merchants who succeeded them despised all priestcraft and placed their faith in Workings.
Wrath and sorrow racked my soul as I remembered how, almost overnight, the cult that had bound an empire which once ruled one quarter of the world had dwindled to a forgotten remnant. A last glimmer of the faith remained in Shianmar, and I was assigned to serve the spiritual needs of a small trading company in Iye. A salt breeze brought me there. And there I languished, merely half a world away, instead of treading the soil of a distant sphere.
Resigned to fate’s decree that I remain on Mithgar, I served as best I could until the company folded; its generations-long line of owners impoverished by the princely fees that Guild Steersmen command. I had thought myself condemned to penury when a friend’s pity obtained for me an introduction to Marthen Lumac and employment in his house.
The cobblestone lane turned away from the shore and curved upward between tight rows of buildings with gabled tile roofs. The sea breeze gave way to a stagnant miasma of old cooking fat, rotting garbage, and urine. Seedy figures crouched on doorsteps, huddled in twos or threes, and cast furtive looks as I passed.
I never stopped to ask directions. It seemed that my feet knew where to go.
On the next street corner I s
aw a red wooden post capped with a golden pyramid—a symbol of the native Atavist faith—which called to mind a familiar artifact.
The sculpture, composed of four gold triangles the size of my palm, resided in Lumac’s third floor gallery. His home was built in the Western style with four stories clad in fine white limestone, as befit the city’s chief liaison to the Guild. Comparing his palace to my rented hovel elicited a sensation like a slap to the face.
A face, I vowed, that would soon disgrace me no more!
I emerged from my grim reverie in front of a building rife with peculiarities but also possessing a strange familiarity. Its design was of the old fashion, with a prominent central structure flanked by two symmetrical wings stretching back beyond sight into the dark. The whole rambling edifice was surmounted by two-tiered fired clay roofs with stone statues of grotesque beasts standing watch at the peaks and corners.
The place was—or had been—the manor house of a distinguished family. I pictured it as the home of a port official built on what had been Iye’s outskirts before the city had overrun his estate. The house had changed hands more than once over the years if the corroded temple bells, the faded signage advertising room rates in four languages, and the crude mural of a slender woman massaging a smiling man were trustworthy auspices.
I could not discern what manner of trade the current householder engaged in. The wind chime depicting Zadok and Thera suggested an outlet for cheap curios. Whether the establishment was open or closed likewise eluded me, since the ornate lanterns bracketing the door were unlit; but light flickered behind the small squares of colored glass that made up the front windows.
How long I stood debating on the threshold, I cannot say. Some reflexive aversion, as if I were facing a trap that had caught me before, prevented me from ringing the doorbell. Yet the certainty that leaving would doom me forever to existence as myself kept me from returning to the street.
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