The Texas Front: Salient

by Jonathan Cresswell

  “Colonel,” said Felipe coldly, “this is no place to ask that sort of question.”

  “Of course, Colonel. As I said, I meant no offense. We are all grateful for French help.” The colonel sketched a smile; Henri nodded in acceptance.

  He managed to behave better for the remainder of the meal. There were speeches; they seemed to Henri like a glittering crust over a deeper reality.

  When he rose and left the ballroom, he staggered a little, but felt fine physically. His elan would return; it always did. Better a challenge than this glamour. Perhaps General Mangin was right.

  As he followed Angeles down the hotel’s back stairs, a small man stepped out of the shadows. “Your pardon, sir. Are you a friend of General Mangin?”

  “I do not think he has many friends,” said Henri, then caught himself; he was still very drunk. “But I know him. Who are you, sir?”

  “My name is Manual Palafox. Could I trouble you a moment? Here?” He gestured to one of the archways along the sidewalk.

  Henri glanced at Felipe, who said, “I will wait. I do not wish to burden you.”

  Palafox bowed to him. “No, Colonel Angeles, your reputation is no burden here. But thank you.” He ushered Henri aside.

  “We had expected General Mangin tonight,” he said. “Perhaps you could bring him a message?”

  “We?”

  The man’s face was pocked with scars; it cracked into a smile. “Others were here tonight. Forgive me if I do not identify them... The message is from Mexico City. There is a man there that I serve, who still fights. In the streets, in the rubble, in the sewers. He and his people will never give up. But he is a rebel, and the government will never support him. They would be happy if the Martians killed him... But all humans must fight these devils. If someone from the general’s service could come to Mexico City, I could show him, prove to him. The federal army is beaten. We are not, we shall never be. Give us weapons, and we can take Mexico City back – for all Mexicans.” He glanced over Henri’s shoulder. “I must go. Will you relay this message? I can contact you later.”

  “Yes. Tell me, who is this man?”

  “His name is Emiliano Zapata.” Palafox faded back into the shadows.

  Chapter 4

  September 1911, Laredo, Texas

  “Telegram for you, Ranger Smith,” whispered the desk clerk of the Ross Hotel as Emmet walked through the lobby. He slid the paper across the counter without looking at Emmet, who obligingly sidled up to the counter with the utmost nonchalance. The clandestine style suited the Ross; Emmet was staying there to monitor the efforts of General Bernardo Reyes to organize his takeover of Mexico. Half the hotel guests seemed to be would-be revolutionaries, gunrunners, Mexican exiles, American supporters... and the federal and state agents both countries sent to watch all of them. Emmet slid a dollar back in return, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of his covertness when everyone knew what was going on here. The clerk was taking money from both sides. Business was good. The elderly Reyes seemed to Emmet to be going nowhere, but it was prudent to keep an eye on him.

  The telegram read, ‘2 RANGERS ARV TRAIN 3:35PM SHUT DOWN LA CRONICA’.

  Emmet twiddled the paper thoughtfully. Adjutant-General Hutchings was as thrifty with wired words as he was with anything else that cost money, but the gist was clear. La Cronica, a Laredo newspaper, was run by the Idar family and a thorn in Governor Colquitt’s side. The thorn had become too painful.

  He had a few hours to prepare. Emmet mulled a few ideas while he returned to his hotel room and retrieved his Ranger certificate of authority and his sidearm.

  Shortly after, he walked a few blocks through the afternoon heat to an auto shop and arranged to hire a car. It proved to be a near-wreck 1909 model; there was little choice for civilians with so many requisitioned and no new production. He was becoming more familiar with the machines, but it still took a while to get it moving. It was a century of progress...

  Emmet made it to the train station in time for the arrival of the 3:35 from Eagle Pass. Once the packed crowd of passengers had shoved their way off the platform, the two remaining men in long dusters and hats, carrying weekendeer grips, were obvious. They shook hands and introduced themselves as Stubbins and Hicks.

  “First thing to do,” said Emmet as they walked out of the station, “is take off those coats, roll ’em up, and stuff ’em in the car boot. You’re in town now.”

  They grumbled but obeyed. “Why’d you get a car anyway?” asked Stubbins as he pulled his coat off. “I know Laredo, it’s not more than five minutes walk from here.”

  “We need a getaway vehicle.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just get in. I’ll explain as we go.” Emmet spun the crank, jumped back from the dangerous kick it gave, and climbed up into the driver’s seat.

  The explanations took longer than the drive, but both of the Rangers seemed to grasp what he wanted them to do. Emmet dropped them off a block from the La Cronica building, swung around and drove up in front of it, and deliberately retarded the ignition spark so that the engine backfired noisily. Heads tuned in the street; a curtain moved in the ground-floor office window. Emmet jumped down and swaggered his way to the front door. He hammered on it loudly.

  A woman in her twenties opened it; black hair in a bun, black eyes, upright posture; black skirt and a faded blouse with sleeves rolled up above ink-stained hands. “What do you want?” she said.

  “Texas Rangers, miss. My name’s Emmet Smith. May I come in? This isn’t for them out in the street.” He doffed his hat.

  She gave ground, allowed Emmet to walk into the office, and then closed the door. “I’m Jovita Idar. Let me see your certificate.” He handed it over; she studied it carefully.

  “I’m here on the personal authority of Governor Colquitt. I’ll need to speak to all your staff. Can you gather them here?”

  Her face clouded. “Are you arresting them?”

  “No, miss. This is just a... friendly talk.”

  “I doubt that.” But she left through the inner door, calling, “Eduardo! Come in here and bring the pressmen! It’s the rinche!”

  Idar returned followed by three men. The office grew crowded, but they all fit. Their flatly hostile expressions showed what they thought of the Spanish slang for the Rangers.

  “Now, I’m not arresting anyone,” said Emmet. “So don’t worry about that. I’m just relaying a message from Governor Colquitt. He’d like to appeal to your patriotism, encourage you to support the war effort against the Martians, and basically, well, lay off him.”

  He was greeted with incredulous laughter. “You’ve been out in the sun too long,” said Eduardo. “My father and my sister write what they want.”

  “I’m not saying to praise the governor. He makes mistakes like everyone else. Just be more... supportive.”

  “Should we support his putting Mexican refugees into camps like so many cattle, then?” said Jovita. “The rich have found comfortable places to stay. The poor are in tents – if they’re lucky. Soon there will be disease outbreaks. Why are they not allowed to move freely?”

  “Now that you mention it, I was in Brownsville two weeks ago, enforcing a smallpox quarantine on your fellow American citizens. You see, we don’t want that spreading through cities – or camps. It sure doesn’t care where you’re from. The, uh, sanitary arrangements at the camps, they’re actually pretty good. Better than most would know how to carry out on their own.” He paced to the window, noted that the car was gone, and turned back. “The governor’s main responsibility is to American citizens – Texans – but he’s not neglecting anyone else. We’re all in this war against the Martians together.”

  “And it is this war that makes a free press even more vital!” snapped Jovita. “When frightened people turn to a strongman to save them, they can give up rights that it took centuries of progress to gain. They need to know the truth. Tyrants and dictators cannot bring progress, and we must have it! We must organize – not the pow
erful, but those without power. We must unite society so that it can advance. Why are the Martians so much more powerful than us? Not because each Martian is stronger than a human being. Because they are a more advanced society!”

  “I never thought of cannibalism as advanced,” said Emmet.

  “It isn’t cannibalism, it’s anthropophagy.” Emmet blinked at the term. “Eating of humans. Of course it looks evil from our perspective – and it is. Being advanced doesn’t mean being good. But look how far they've come! All the kings and emperors in our history couldn’t conceive of crossing an ocean for thousands of years, and these creatures can cross between planets! Just as North America was conquered by those who could organize themselves better, more efficiently – who could utilize knowledge gathered by many people – who had overthrown old ideas and beliefs. That is what made them so much stronger! We must do the same against these conquistadors or we are doomed!”

  “Miss Idar, you have a fighting spirit,” said Emmet sincerely.

  “It would not surprise me if the Martian females fight alongside the males. Why not?” she asked as Emmet stared in shock. “They fight with machines, not muscles. I can run a press as well these men can! Twice as many fighters. Perhaps we must learn to do the same.”

  “I don’t disagree at all. Eduardo, do you feel the same?”

  “Of course,” said her brother. “Jovita is the soul of this newspaper. She would bring the same spirit to anything.”

  “Well,” said Emmet slowly, “she may need to, I’m afraid. La Cronica will have to cease publishing. For a few months, anyway. Now, wait,” he held up a hand as they spoke over one another. “Wait! Like I said, no one is being arrested. And you’re all free to move as you wish. But you can’t undermine the governor at this juncture. I’m sorry.”

  “So you’re going to close down our newspaper?” demanded Eduardo.

  “I closed you down five minutes ago,” said Smith gently.

  They all stared at him for a moment; then Jovita’s face drained of color. “The presses! You rinche swine–” She spun on her heel and shoved a pressman aside. “Stop them! They’re wrecking the presses!”

  “Now, that’s not true,” said Emmet as he followed the stampede into the main floor. And, indeed, the staff had pulled up short at the sight of the three intricate masses of sculptured iron, perfectly intact. “Why, that’d be vandalism. And plain mean. No, my confederates have, um, borrowed all your type. And the setting frames.” And they’d spilled a few of the lead type pieces on the floor on their way out, he saw; but they’d done the job. “So you can print all you want, just not with any letters.”

  “That was a filthy trick,” said Eduardo coldly. “But we will get more.”

  “I think you’ll find not many willing to sell to you right now. As I said, it’s just temporary. Sorry, folks, it’s my job.”

  Jovita stalked up to Emmet. He braced for a slap, but she kept her fists at her sides. “I think you enjoy your job too much, to be such a trickster.”

  “You misunderstand. I’ve known pressmen – and Rangers. Tempers can get short in these things, and people can get hurt.” Emmet donned his hat, tipped it. “I just wanted to avoid an argument.”

  He walked back through the office to the door as the angry voices rose again behind him.

  Cycle 597,844.9, Holdfast 31.1, Zacatecas, Central Mexico

  Ulla! Ulla! Ulla!

  Taldarnilis jerked its tendrils away from the controls of the food processor. The general alarm of Holdfast 31.1 was the single loudest sound that could be heard in the entire complex. Taldarnilis mentally discarded all ongoing thought processes, tensed its flaccid body to full strength, and readied itself for action with a focused mind – but where was the threat?

  It touched a single tendril to the control bar and received the neural impulse of: All individuals join to primary neural link. All individuals join to primary neural link. All...

  Taldarnilis touched additional controls and switched to that frequency. Instantly it was assaulted with the background hum of one hundred and forty-four minds located throughout the fortified complex, the processing units, and the nearby fighting machines, all seeking to identify that same threat. Although Taldarnilis was only one-point-four cycles old, it easily filtered the familiar traffic. Here and there a questioning individual’s thought rose momentarily over the background, but none reported contact – all waited to hear.

  “There is a historic change to Group 31,” spoke the mind of Natqarnas, the group’s leader. “As the senior member of Guljarnai Clan, predominant clan in this group’s company-of-three, I shall communicate it to all of you. After extensive scouting and sampling, our group has obtained few elemental resources in our immediate area, beyond the already-processed metals and hydrocarbons retrieved from the formerly populated prey-zone to the southeast. Therefore, we had requested the Conclave to supply an additional seven hundred and fifty-five units of element 92 in the forthcoming third wave of ballistic reinforcements scheduled to arrive in two tenthcycles.

  “That request has been denied. Appeal to the Council has been denied. Negotiation attempts on the Homeworld by all three of our main clans have been denied.”

  Taldarnilis spared a moment’s attention to bring up an aspect of the Race’s stored memories that it had never needed before: the traditional process of power generation. The techniques that had sustained the Race through millennia of scarcity were well established. Heavy atoms were fissioned into fragments, and the released energy was gathered to perform work at the highest efficiency that had been devised. Elements 90 or 92 were preferred. As Taldarnilis continued to listen to the broadcast, it sidebarred data on Holdfast 31.1’s supply of both. The amount shocked it. Group 31’s supply of fissionables, brought from the Homeworld, had depleted to the point that little more than a cycle’s steady use was left. It dug deeper. Access quantity brought on initial launch. Estimated four local cycles’ consumption. Access quantity brought with second wave reinforcement. None.

  Every energy requirement of Group 31’s colony was supplied by the reactor at the holdfast’s core – power to run the base, to charge the fighting and refining machines’ power cells, to energize the defenses. Once that ran out, the base would die, and the members of the Race along with it – most being unable to move any significant distance without their powered mobility chairs. Although Taldarnilis itself could move better under gravity than the Homeworld-origin members, it calculated the odds of its personal survival without technical augmentation as negligible. But, surely, another and more successful group could offer help?

  “Guljarnai Clan has been in contact with Group 30 on the southern continent. They have agreed to subsume Guljarnai into their own clan, in exchange for Group 31 dismantling and transferring its northern Holdfast 31.2 reactor, along with its heavy transport machines, seven hundred telequel south to a region near the isthmus fortifications recently constructed by the prey. There a clanless support base will be constructed, to be operated by Group 31 but available to all clans participating in the assault on the isthmus barrier at such time as that takes place. If the reactor has insufficient supply of fissionables to carry out that mission, more will be supplied by Group 30 to fulfill the needs of the assault.

  “Attempts to negotiate subsuming of other Group 31 clans have been denied by both Groups 32 and 30. We will leave Vantarsilas of Tarqirtat Clan in command of Group 31.”

  Taldarnilis filed that information for later processing; it belonged to the Tarqirtat Clan. Perhaps it would gain influence... in a group rapidly losing status among others on this planet.

  “Elder Dartalnat of the Tarqirtat Clan has recently become deceased due to an unexpected propellant leak in the Tarqirtat launching tube assembly.” Taldarnilis almost released the control bar but controlled itself. An assassination on the Homeworld? Did Dartalnat oppose this defection of a clan? “The elder will not be replaced. Once the waterway has been conquered, and the support base is closed down, the remaining
two clans participating in it, or at the primary holdfast 31.1, will be released to their own goals.”

  At that, Taldarnilis contracted its tentacles in reflexive shock. Without oversight from the Homeworld – and the representation that came with it – Group 31 would certainly receive no shipments of fissionables, nor any other aid. The logic was inevitable. Their most productive machines were to be taken from them, so even if they were to locate a supply, it would take too long to exploit it. The reactor would die. The group would die.

  Taldarnilis would die.

  With stored memories of hundred-thousand-cycle lifespans for contrast, it seemed even worse to perish so rapidly. It could barely keep from emitting a verbal distress call. On the neural link, minds buzzed in similar shock. Natqarnas overrode them. “The Council’s decision is final. Clan leaders, form secondary links to begin planning for the dismantling and transfer. Natqarnas out.”

  The other minds faded from the link. Taldarnilis was left alone, slumped in its chair. Its mind churned frantically, emptily. Then there was a tingle from the link controls – a new connection.

  “Taldarnilis?”

  “Yes, Lantergis.”

  “Guljarnai Clan has acted in its own interest and not the group’s.”

  “That is clear.” Lantergis must be in shock as well. “Bring the other Threeborn into this link.”

  That would require some to communicate while simultaneously performing other tasks. Taldarnilis had found that the Threeborn generation of individuals were comfortable doing so, but not the previous generations which had budded on the Homeworld. Some of its cohort considered this to be due to the heavy sensory input of this world’s chaotic environment, but Taldarnilis was doubtful. There was also the factor of spending so large a fraction of one’s time in travel chairs, with constant access to neural links. Which was itself arguably an environmental factor...