War World X: Takeover

by John F. Carr

  “We ride trench,” Ishmael said, pulling the rudder hard to port which made the skiff slew starboard. City lights dwindled behind them now. The bottom of Havenhold Lake was shallow in many places, due to sandbars constantly shifting in the confluence of the rivers. There were trenches which went down to unplumbed depths and in them navigation was smoother because the surface-water wasn’t constantly pushed upward by bottom. Tides could even steer barges when drag-anchors and stabilizer fins were lowered. Only wayward sandbars threatened bigger craft, but pilots knew the patterns better than Mark Twain could have imagined, so accidents were few and due mostly to novices.

  In a skiff, however, only exposed sandbars posed a hazard as the boat’s draft was so shallow. Cole hunched a bit nearer the can of smoldering coals and warmed his hands. His hired chauffeur hawked phlegm to port and coughed bubbles from his lungs, but seemed otherwise to thrive in the gathering chill.

  A sentry boat, swift vee-hull cutting water like a blade, intercepted Ishmael’s skiff and Cole rose at once to bellow a code. He almost fell overboard when a random chunk of ice thunked the bow.

  A searchlight from the sentry blinded them. “We have you in our gunsights,” came a bored Marine’s voice through a bullhorn. “Identify and state reason for violating island space.”

  Cole shouted his codes again, and this time the Marines heard him.

  “You’re slightly overdue, sir,” the bullhorn roared. The sentry’s engine revved down, then the boat itself drifted closer and the searchlight flicked off.

  In the sudden dark, afterimages danced. Cole blinked them away. His eyes watered, and the tears felt as if they were freezing solid on his cheeks. He hated the breezes wafting around them as Haven settled in for a long Eyeless night.

  Ishmael caught a line and tethered his craft to the sentry boat. He cut his engine off and locked the rudder-ratchet in neutral. In a few minutes they’d been towed to a concrete quay at the point of the triangular island which pointed almost due west. On the opposite side of Splashdown Island a long, flat cliff overlooking a pebble beach provided perfect line-of-sight for the north-south splashdown zone, which was wide enough to accommodate the equivalent of three separate spaceport runways. Three separate splash-ships could come down at once, or would be able to, once the floating baffles defined the lanes and blocked hull-wave slosh-over.

  Cole hopped up onto the quay, where a grim sergeant in CD Marine uniform glared at him, one hand held out palm up. “ID, sir,” the Sergeant said, his shaved scalp and puckered cauliflower ears red in the cold.

  Handing over an ID chip the size of his thumbnail, Cole said, “I’ve got to meet with your comman—”

  A gunshot broke the air, interrupting the spy.

  Only Cole reacted, by crouching and drawing a weapon. Glancing down at the skiff, he saw Ishmael’s body flopped half over the gunwale. One hand trailed into the water, like a tourist idly testing the temperature. Cole imagined the fingers freezing solid, if one of the imported pike didn’t snap them off first for an appetizer.

  “Tried to escape,” a voice called up, and the grim Sergeant nodded.

  “Friend?” he asked Cole, who quickly straightened the surprise off his face and said, “I’m not familiar with that term.”

  Good, the sergeant’s expression said. They walked in light provided by kerosene lanterns, the mantels of which glowed blue-white, attracting Haven’s few species of moth. “My CO’s been waiting for word from you, sir,” the Sergeant said, as they entered a corrugated tin building and jogged up a short, dark flight of metal steps.

  A door opened, and Cole walked ahead of the Sergeant into a room so overheated and so full of kerosene fumes that he dizzied at once. A tall, rugged man with brown hair, blond eyebrows and flinty black eyes stood and squinted at him, then extended a hand. He wore a plaid lumberman’s shirt and jeans, but Cole knew it must be the island’s garrison commander, so he took a chance and said, “Colonel.”

  “Call me Spike.” The man did not smile, so it was not, apparently, a joke. When Cole looked puzzled, the man said, “Just Spike. Nickname. Got it on Sauron. Killed a berserker. Railroad spike. Weapon of convenience, just grabbed what was there. Worked good, though. Plain old Spike ever since. You settin’ things up for us? Little action be nice, after all this sitting.”

  He rubbed his buttocks as if they were numb and as if the numbness was at least partly Cole’s fault. Glancing at the other three officers, all in uniform, with whom he’d been playing poker, Spike said, “My office,” and inclined his head. “Brief me.”

  Cole followed, his lower lip behind his front teeth and he considered his options and alternatives.

  In a plain room with a GI porta-desk, two folding chairs, a file-cube, screen, battered antique keyboard, jury-rigged voice-activated computer interface system, a single lantern and a map on a wall beside the desk, Spike said, “Best billet available. Pathetic. MWR’s corrupt and I won’t pay, so we get amenities a hermit crab wouldn’t want. We even have a hacker on this pig of a jury-rigged network, can you believe? But fuck ’em. Soldiers, damn it. We can take it, tough’s what you save up to dish out later, huh?” Spike laughed as he sat behind the desk.

  Cole chuckled, then sat in the other chair. It creaked but held. “Okay, first a quick-sketch overview: Pretty soon all hell’s going to break loose, uh, sir,” he began. His hands, still cold, gestured stiffly. “There should be explosions in a few hours from Hell’s-a-Comin’ to Docktown, Cambiston and Castell City proper. I might even have one arranged for the Haven Compound.”

  Spike’s brows rose. He said nothing.

  Cole continued. “Meanwhile, stockpiles of semi-refined ore are being secreted at various Harmony farms and settlements in the outlying area. That’s arranged, and it means that we can catch them with the goods, prove their complicity in what we’re going to call the revolt.”

  “Unrest, violence,” Spike said, smiling. “And my boys get blooded.”

  “At first, but then you call for reinforcements and an official request for an interim governor while CoDominium status for Haven is debated.”

  “Questions,” Spike said, leaning forward, rubbing his hands.

  And for the next hour or so Cole answered ever more detailed questions. He found himself elaborating his plan in more detail than he’d done even for himself. After all, as per Director’s Assistant, CoDominium Bureau of Intelligence Marshall Wainright’s advice, he’d been winging it, applying the Free Hand principle of ad-libbing on the ground. And having been promised Kennicott and Dover help, Cole now found himself grateful for this CD Marine Colonel’s unexpectedly trenchant analysis. Between the two of them, the plan coalesced and became layered, almost intricate, but subtle enough to respond to the inevitable changes first contact with any enemy causes to all battle-plans.

  “Those poor harmless Harmonies,” Spike said.

  And for once, Cole himself almost felt pity. Almost.

  He had no way of knowing that a dozen or so hours before Cole had met with Spike on Splashdown Island to plot against him, but Kev Malcolm concentrated on discords just the same. Walking in the dark on Haven provided interesting challenges, but Kev had long since mastered them all, or so he thought. What he’d never experienced before was the frustration a parent must feel when a child simply scampers off and refuses to remain in hand and in control.

  “Wilgar,” Kev called, pausing on the path, glancing up at the stars in silent beseeching. “Wilgar, come back to me this instant, there are slush swamps and firegrass and all sorts of—”

  “It’s okay, First Deacon,” Wilgar said, materializing out of the dark to one side of the path. “I didn’t see any cliff lions or frenzied muskylopes.”

  His tone mocked. “Besides, nature called.”

  “That’s the seventh time since the last homestead,” Kev said, reaching out to grasp Wilgar’s arm. He pulled the boy close and spoke directly into his face. “You’ll stay strictly with me, do you understand? How many times must I tel
l you? Haven is no place for mindless solos. Try to remember that you’re the alien here, and—”

  “You might be an alien here,” Wilgar said, “but this is where I was born, and it doesn’t frighten me the way it—”

  Kev knew as soon as he did it that he’d broken all manner of precepts and constraints, stepped over a thousand cultural and social bounds, but his hand simply drew back from the boy a few spans, then whooshed back to slap the boy soundly on the side of his face.

  Wilgar fell back, more in surprise than in pain. His hand rose to touch the now-warmed cheek. “You,” his eyes watered. “You struck me.”

  “Dear Universal Harmony, forgive me,” Kev said, distraught and falling to his knees. In the dark, on the thin bare-dirt path, with a hill to the right and trees clumped to the left and a farm somewhere behind them, the man and the boy faced each other like two actors on an otherwise empty stage. Secrecy tempted them. “No one need know,” Kev muttered, thinking of the distances involved, how far away was anyone of authority.

  Looking at the First Deacon kneeling before him, Wilgar sniffed a few times and wiped away the tears. He shivered as a brisk wind found them, touched them, swirled on. “I’ve been hit before,” he muttered. “In the city. I’ve even won fights with new beadles.”

  Kev gaped, his mouth opening as if to scold, but then he closed his mouth and let his head drop. He moaned in emotional pain. “Peace is ours to offer, and if we drop the fragile vessel, it shatters, leaving our hands empty, meaningless.”

  A tiny sound, almost like a bell, jingled in the near distance.

  “First Deacon, please get up. We’ve got a schedule to keep.” Wilgar went to the older man, placed a hand on a shoulder. “It’s nothing.” He smiled and patted the man’s shoulder. “Really, it was me. I tested your patience and I, I failed to harmonize.”

  “You don’t have a feel for things harmonic,” Kev said, quietly. He got to his feet. “You mouth platitudes without conviction. And yet, as the Reverend Castell’s only son, you’ll one day take his place as leader of us Harmonies. Can’t you see how much I’ve tried to help you, bring you along? I know what you’re like, I really do. I was like you, more than you know. I’ve even been reprimanded for war-like, disharmonious thoughts. Can’t you understand how I’ve worried, how I’ve—”

  A muskylope snuffled somewhere close, and again a tiny jingle of metal on metal came to them, and for the first time the sounds registered; someone lurked close by, in the dark. Thuds sounded.

  Kev grabbed Wilgar’s robe and dragged him off the path just as two riders crested the hill and rode down upon them. Making for the trees, Kev shoved Wilgar away, to split the target. The salty smell of muskylope clogged the air.

  One of the riders raised a farm implement of some kind. In the dark, it might have been a hoe or a rake or a shovel. Kev, glancing back, saw the thing swinging down at his head, and moved quickly backwards, toward the attack, into the arc. He came in under, catching the opponent’s weapon hand as it came down.

  Bracing his arms, Kev let inertia and momentum pry the weapon from the opponent’s hand, as it completed its arc. After that, it was a simple matter of changing the hold’s emphasis, and the muskylope’s rider fell from the beast. A grunt of lost breath came just as Kev’s right foot came down with all his weight on the man’s sternum.

  Turning, Kev squinted in the dark. The muskylopes huffed and puffed and pawed the ground. A big silhouette loomed, and Kev fell and rolled from it, then got to his feet and called, “Wilgar?”

  “Over here,” the boy cried, from the fringe of clownfruit trees. A weapon spat fire, and slugs flew.

  Kev ran, zigzagging, and got to the trees. He tumbled into cover and lay as still as possible, covering his panting with both arms. Only infra-red goggles might betray him, and the attackers seemed more the farmer type.

  Kev frowned. Farmers in this region were all Harmonies and Harmonies attacked no one, particularly not their First Deacon and their leader’s son. “Imposters,” Kev said.

  A rustling preceded Wilgar’s arrival. He seemed to have better eyesight in the gloom, for he said, “They’re riding away. Both on one muskylope. The other ’lope wandered off. Maybe we can catch it.”

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “Never had a chance, First Deacon. How can we seek harmony with this? Why did they try to kill us?”

  Kev said nothing, but shrugged in the dark. He said, “If memory serves, these trees should give us cover for most of the trek back to the compound.” They stood to the north of Castell City and the Harmony Compound, where it was mostly the high plains of the Shangri-La Valley, but irregular swaths and stands of Haven’s few species of trees marked arroyos and other low-lying areas, and were thought also to mark underground streams. Some farmers swore on the latter, many settlers swore about the latter being a lie.

  “Do you think there’s an uprising?” Wilgar asked. His voice held neither terror nor despair, just a pragmatic level tone bespeaking maturity beyond his years. “The Harmonies are in minority, and no one much likes us these days. And then there’s that spy, Cole.…”

  Kev heard that tone and, referring to the early days of Harmony founder Garner “Bill” Castell, said, “You know, Wilgar, your name may yet prove your heritage, if your grandfather’s many scraps and battles mean anything to us now.”

  “My grandfather’s one of the mysteries.”

  Kev acknowledged the quoted Writings by a quick gesture, drawing the staff and notes in the air. He rose and began walking. “We must convene the Beads, see if they’ve heard anything. I’m beginning to trust your distrust a bit more.”

  A glow appeared on the horizon before long, showing through the trees. It proved to be the next Harmony farm, still burning even as animals squealed and squawked in terror. Kev and Wilgar checked for people but found only one dead man. “Women and children were taken for the mines,” Wilgar said.

  Kev glanced sharply at the boy, but said only, “Perhaps.” Then, under his breath, he said, “Saloons, more like.”

  Wilgar grinned in the dark for an instant, then looked again at the burned homestead and started to cry. He cried silently, and began walking stiff-jointed and mechanical, the way his father often moved when in the thrall of visions or when riding herd on his own surging emotions.

  Kev found himself following Wilgar back to the compound, even though the boy had never been on this particular circuit route before. And when they arrived, they found the Reverend Charles Castell in his brightest white robes standing atop a watchtower, staff raised as if to direct a sky-symphony, singing in a slip-shod baritone a song about voices joined in concert defeating lone singers in a contest of harmony.

  “What’s going on?” Kev asked.

  Wilgar, glancing at him as he began running the final distance, said, “Father’s sealing the compound.”

  And that’s when Kev noticed the extra light coming from the city, where flames leapt upward in flares dozens of man-heights high. It looked as if Docktown now burned, even as the homestead had burned.

  “Not war,” Kev gasped, dashing forward to catch up with Wilgar.

  Cole lowered the infra-red binoculars as Lieutenant Ibansk said, “But Harmonies are not supposed to fight.”

  Ibansk, infantry, carried Colonel Spike’s blessings and sealed orders, as well as Cole’s need-to-know confidence. Cole said only, “We were supposed to do the roughing-up.”

  Standing, Cole waited until the two men on the remaining muskylope got back to the rally point, a stand of pine-like trees, the resin of which accumulated on the outsides of trunks, giving older trees a lumpy, bloated appearance. The resin could be peeled and used as adhesive, melted and used as glue, or employed in many other useful ways.

  Just then, however, Cole hated the stuff. He said, “We should’ve taken cover in the oak-like trees.” They’d been too far from the ambuscade, however. As the muskylope’s original rider helped his wounded comrade down, he glared at Cole and said, “
They’re sitting ducks with teeth, damn your eyes.”

  At once Ibansk, a slender, gray-eyed man with a slit mouth and the beginnings of jowls, whose eyes peered at the world from the depths of wrinkles, snapped, “Insubordination may be punished in the field with summary execution, Sergeant. And may I remind you that Mister Cole is ranking officer on this mission, despite his lack of overt insignia.”

  “Can I get these damned farmer’s clothes off? They stink of manure and worse,” the healthy ambusher asked. His partner, groaning from a bruised neck and cracked ribs, nodded weary agreement.

  Cole scowled. “We’ve got to follow them. They’ll make their way back to the Compound, of course. If we vector toward the city gate, we should be able to parallel First Deacon Malcolm and the Castell brat without running across their path. They’ll move wary, anyhow.”

  “But please,” Ibansk said, his English carrying both Russian and quasi-British accents, depending upon the words or the tone he used. This betrayed his origins; he’d no doubt been pulled from British Isles garrison duty, probably for some infraction involving politically-unsavory types, or the black market, still the most potent economic force on Earth, “Why did this Kev Malcolm fight?”

  With a shrug, Cole said, “In his eyes, it wasn’t fighting. He was just accepting what life offered with as little harm done to anything as possible. See, in the Harmony philosophy, force can’t be met by opposing force, but it can be misdirected, deflected, absorbed, and, well, other passive things. Use the enemy’s strength against him is their philosophy. The tougher the enemy, the tougher the Harmony. They don’t see things as conflict or competition. In fact, there are no enemies, only melodies. It’s all music metaphor. They seek to harmonize. So if a forceful, dynamic tune comes along, they try to add it to their drone, or weave some harmony onto it or let it come and go without affecting their song much.”