The Texas Front: Salient

by Jonathan Cresswell

  “Well, well,” said Emmet. “Hicks, stop here.” He climbed out and slung his rifle, moving as slowly and deliberately as he would before a nervous horse. The others joined him, and they walked toward the crowd. The babble of voices faded as they approached.

  “Good morning,” called out Emmet in Spanish. “I’m Ranger Smith, these are Rangers Tomlinson and Hicks. What’s the trouble?”

  He was looking at the townsman as he spoke, but he wasn’t surprised when Jovita Idar replied instead of him. “They were promised doctors at this camp. It has been six months now and not one has come! There are sicknesses and injuries that are not being properly treated. Yesterday evening we sent a deputation to the clerks who run this place, and when they were refused, more people came. There was a train waiting, and all those clerks just climbed onto it and left!”

  “I see,” said Emmet. And they went to the mayor, didn’t want to admit they’d panicked and run, so a riot was born. “Although you and that lady over there seem to be wearing uniforms – those caps. Are you nurses?”

  “The Cruz Blanca is here, yes. Trying to do what is not being done by governments. Most are volunteers and not trained in medicine.” People nearby murmured agreement; the crowd had spread slowly in two wings.

  “We don’t need any government at all,” blurted the townsman. “The Martians have ended all that! People are free now.”

  “Have we met?” asked Emmet mildly.

  The man drew himself up. “I am Antonio Targas. I and – and many others here, we follow the Flores Magon brothers. We put the government lackeys to flight!”

  “If by that, you mean you chased away the people working to organize food for you, then yes. Do you have a way to get food for a thousand people, Señor Targas?”

  “Yes! We march on the city, tomorrow.”

  “Laredo is a long walk from here. By the time you get there, the mayor will have troops brought in who will have no hesitation in shooting a bunch of magonistas. You don’t want that. Here’s what we’ll do.” Emmet pitched his voice to the crowd. “Good news, everyone! Señor Targas has agreed to travel to Laredo with us and look to getting some doctors for you!”

  “I will not! Who knows what you’d do once we drive out of sight!”

  “Well, if you’re afraid, we’ll just let these people choose someone else to represent them. I think I know who they will.”

  Targas glared at Emmet, his face working. He’d been outmaneuvered; if he refused, he’d seem weak.

  “And who says you will not arrest him, or worse?” asked Jovita Idar. “I think he is right not to trust you.”

  “Why don’t you come along too, then? This one is a nobody; yes, we could make him disappear if we were that sort. We’re not... but just to make sure, half these people probably know you, and every one of them will see you leaving with us. I think you’re pretty safe, Miss Idar. I know I wasn’t very straight with you the last time we met, but I am now.”

  She considered it, studying him closely. “Very well.”

  “Better tell them to get ready for another food delivery tomorrow. We’ll try to get things back to – well, back to something better than now. Anything you want to bring along?”

  “These people came here with nothing. Why would I have brought baggage?” She turned and spoke rapidly to the man next to her. Others passed the word back; the crowd noise rose. Many individuals moved forward, clustering around Idar to pass messages, or perhaps just bid her farewell. Only a few in comparison were gathering to speak with Targas. It seemed she was well known here...

  The harsh clack of a Winchester being cocked sounded behind him.

  Emmet spun. Tomlinson was clutching the weapon in both hands – not pointing it yet, thank God, but it was a death grip. “Stay back!” he shouted in English. “All of you! Vamos!”

  A corner of Emmet’s mind realized he’d made a bad mistake – he’d assumed Tomlinson spoke Spanish. He walked slowly up to the man, stopped a pace away, and half-turned to him. “Now, Bill,” he said calmly. “Bill. Look at me. We were just talking, that’s all. It’s all been settled, they’re peaceable.”

  Tomlinson’s eyes jerked around the crowd. “Too damn many of ’em–”

  “It’s never about numbers.” Emmet placed his left hand gently on the Winchester. “You’re a Ranger, Bill. Act like one. You’re scaring the kids.”

  “Kids?”

  “There, and there.” Emmet lifted his left hand to point. “You think people bring their kids to a riot? Now, ease up.”

  “Okay. Okay.” He slung the rifle.

  “Now you’re getting it,” said Emmet. He eased his right hand off the holstered Colt. It would have been the best of a bad set of choices to bend it around Tomlinson’s skull. Not a good way to welcome a new man...

  “Come on, folks,” he called out cheerfully. “We’re going to Laredo.”

  Cycle 597,844.9, Holdfast 31.1, Central Mexico

  “Greetings, Group Leader.”

  Vantarsilas returned Taldarnilis’ obeisance. Its flaccid posture indicated receptiveness – or perhaps simply fatigue from gravity. Taldarnilis mentally shifted a few of the points it had prepared, gambling that this was indeed the case. Sometimes dealing with the group leader was like dealing with an alien mind entirely – more so than others of its generation.

  It had discussed this with others of the Threeborn. It seemed that not only were their bodies different from those not bred on this world, their minds were as well. With far fewer links to other minds during the development of full sentience, they had obtained less information directly – although much of that information was irrelevant on a different world – but also absorbed fewer constraints on their thinking. For one, they seemed abler at operating the remote-controlled drones that Group 31 had begun producing. They were designed to root out individual prey from fortifications, but Arctilantar had already begun speculating about other uses. The contrast with tradition-bound practices inherited from the Homeworld was striking.

  Of course, since Elder Dartalnat’s death on the Homeworld, Vantarsilas as well had been granted more freedom of thought by being liberated from its imprinted obedience. The normal practice would have been to establish a new telepathic link and imprint Vantarsilas’ obedience to a new clan elder. Interplanetary distance made that impossible. That left Vantarsilas without a direct superior within the Race. Its thinking might be affected by that. Taldarnilis’ own mind raced as it settled into place.

  “Have you reconstituted after the expedition?” asked Vantarsilas unexpectedly.

  “Yes,” said Taldarnilis without a pause. “The feeding arrangements are working at high efficiency. Goodprey are supplying quadrupeds to fill all our nutritional needs. I have heard some individuals remark that there is an aesthetic difference from nutrition supplied via the prey, but I have not been able to detect any.”

  “Both seem different to me from what was sourced from bipeds on the Homeworld. You would not have this comparison available... Perhaps there are other aesthetic variables to be found on this world.”

  “Perhaps so, Group Leader. Shall I summarize our results?”

  “Yes.”

  “As we reported at the time, the attack from the prey’s floating machines was a powerful one. They seem able to deploy stronger weapons more quickly by this method than by any other. While we were able to avoid further attacks by moving only at night along the shoreline, it adds considerable risk to any operational movement there. This may be a factor in our planning.

  “While there were some findings of energetic residue in three minor watercourses along the way, they were not of a useful level. However, a strong residue was detected beyond the north side of the major watercourse that divides Group 32’s territory from our own.”

  “How far beyond?”

  “One hundred and twenty-four telequel.”

  Vantarsilas recoiled. “You traveled that far into another group’s territory?”

  “There were navigational di
fficulties which made the situation unclear. In any case, Group Leader, that part of Group 32’s territory has been of no interest to them since our initial landing. Not only are there prey forces blocking access from them, they have been able to locate far richer deposits of energetic minerals in the north and central regions of their territory. Not a single fighting machine of Group 32 has set a digit near this region. It might be considered,” Taldarnilis added carefully, “that our activity there, and 32’s lack of it, constitute a legitimate basis for reassignment of the arbitrary territorial border.”

  “That would be a matter for the Conclave!”

  “Of course – at some time. But in the meantime, we have done no harm to Group 32’s efforts. There is really nothing to inform the Conclave about at all.”

  “An undisclosed border violation might invite punishment, Taldarnilis.”

  “Indeed. Perhaps they will withhold all our supply of energetic minerals?”

  Vantarsilas hissed. “Your point is taken. Continue.”

  “We traced the signature inland thirty-five telequel until we were able to measure its rate of increase. Extrapolating from that, we determined it could be no more than one hundred and twenty telequel inland. As any further exploration would likely encounter prey, we withdrew at that point. But I have no doubt that we could locate the source in short order, Group Leader. Arctilantar’s data is excellent.”

  “But what would we do once we had located it? Your proposed method requires transport of large quantities of material back to the holdfast. If the shoreline is too hazardous to traverse, can haulers be expected to travel inland through more difficult terrain?”

  “No, Group Leader. The jungle and mountains we encountered on the return journey would be impassable by heavily loaded haulers.”

  “Then we are doomed,” said Vantarsilas dully. “We must dismantle this holdfast in turn, and–”

  “No.”

  The group leader looked sharply at Taldarnilis. “Your report–”

  “Is incomplete, Group Leader. Raqtinoctil has made an... unusual proposal. Even if passable terrain could be found, the haulers would consume too much energy over the required distance to supply from the holdfast reactor, and our limited number of them would require too many trips. Raqtinoctil proposes instead that we exploit the transport technology of the prey itself.”

  “How is this possible?”

  “Despite the primitive nature of the machinery involved, the process of moving weight on rolling metal discs supported by metal rods is surprisingly efficient. The prey have installed this system across long distances. Raqtinoctil has plotted the path from near the holdfast to many telequel northeast. We know that this system links all of their major habitation zones, and Homeworld telescopic observations of the group – of this general area – allowed Raqtinoctil to plot their locations and project routes further. Logically, the route we can access from the holdfast will continue to the region in which we can mine element 92. Goodprey will be used to obtain and compel skilled prey to operate the necessary machines, escorted by fighting machines.

  “Once there, we must defend the mining operation. The areas it passes through are scarcely inhabited, and the prey in that region are hard-pressed by Group 32 to the north. With our transport needs met by repurposed prey machines, all machines of the Race will be freed for combat or exploitation, and the prey system may be used to transport spare energy cells without consuming any of their charge to do so. It will be as though the fighting machines fight within a quel of the holdfast.”

  “But you are speaking of conquering and defending a tremendously large zone. We are too weak to undertake a major assault on the prey – or withstand one they carry out!”

  “We know that the prey require many tendays to shift large forces, and more still to prepare their strength. If they believe that they face a new holdfast, they may take half a cycle to be ready to assault it. But we will have completed our work and be gone well before then, with three cycles’ worth of element 92.”

  Vantarsilas sat silent for some time. “There are too many variables,” it said slowly. “I cannot estimate the chances of success. Even if we prevail, the Conclave will not look well upon us.”

  “Is it not better to perish gloriously for the Race, than to wither away like Group 39 in the frozen pole region? And if we succeed, we will have drawn off a good part of the prey’s strength in a pointless preparation during a most active period of operations. Group 32 will surely acknowledge that we have aided them, not hindered them. Whatever may happen on the Homeworld, we shall have made our mark on this one.”

  “Very well,” said Vantarsilas. “Undoubtedly you have planned in further detail. Show me.”

  Chapter 8

  December 1911, Houston, Texas

  “Fire in the hole!” shouted Major Palmer.

  Captain Willard Lang ducked his head to the lip of the slit trench he stood in. The improvised fortifications and open landscape made this rocket test site, twenty miles north of Houston, seem like a mock battlefield. He’d been on battlefields, and some of those had been less dangerous than what was going on here...

  A hundred yards away, a prototype four-inch caliber rocket thundered into life, blasting white smoke into a cloud that obscured the launch frame. It roared into the sky, arcing downrange... and drifted to the right... and drifted... and abruptly spun end-for-end and impacted into the ground in a powerful explosion. Which, since it carried no warhead, implied that plenty of the solid fuel hadn’t yet burned up.

  “Number seventeen,” said Major Palmer calmly to the private scribbling notes beside him. “Ah, lateral instability at four-plus seconds, vertical instability at six, course intersected with ground at eight.”

  Palmer turned to his left, straightening upright. “Is that normal, Dr. Goddard?”

  The man he addressed hadn’t bothered to hunch down when the rocket fired. Although a civilian, in the week since his arrival, he’d proven as nonchalant around these erratic tubes of explosives as any artilleryman – maybe more so.

  “Normal for this stage of development,” he answered, making notes of his own. “Really, Major, you’ve done very well in such a short time here.”

  “Yeah,” said Lang. “Now all we have to do is convince the Martians to start using ’em, and blow themselves off our planet... What do you think the trouble is, sir?”

  “Hold the next test,” said Goddard without answering. He climbed out of the trench with a thoughtful expression on his high-domed face and began walking toward number eighteen’s test frame.

  “Hold confirmed!” called out Palmer. “The, uh...” He looked after Goddard’s striding figure. “The range is safed,” he finished by rote. He began to fiddle with the handfuls of wires that terminated in the control trench, switching another pair onto the big switch that would deliver a firing jolt from the battery beside it.

  Lang leaned back against the dirt wall. It was galling to have these rockets faring so badly in front of someone as accomplished as Goddard – and frustrating when Lang himself wanted so badly to have something better than a machine gun to hit the Martians with – but if the man from out east could figure something out they couldn’t, it hardly mattered. Palmer had directed the effort so far by scaling up smaller rockets to something that would land a real punch. ‘Land’, well, that’s the thing... At least one thing they had in this part of Texas was plenty of room. The grandly named Houston Rocket Center was little but shacks so far; the rockets themselves were being built in Dallas.

  He glanced to his right at the other man they’d retrieved from out East. Granville Woods slumped on his folding stool – his one request since, as he put it, “m’legs don’t work so well now” – and scribbled in his own notebook. They’d brought a trunkful of those on the train from Washington, and Woods always seemed to have at least one on the go.

  “Mr. Woods, are you sure you wouldn’t like to set up with a better view?”

  Woods looked up. “No, thank yo
u,” said in his careful, slurred voice. The left side of his face did not move when he spoke. “I can hear th’ rocket’s sound change when it tries to sheer. The vanes, y’see.”

  Lang nodded. Downrange, a series of clangs sounded. He looked over the trench lip and sure enough, Goddard was beating on a fin of the rocket with a hammer. God help us...

  Goddard sprinted back and dropped into the trench. “Try the next one.”

  Palmer repeated his ritual warning and fired the rocket. It curved slowly to the left as it roared upward, rising on its trail of smoke; then the smoke cut off and the roar silenced a moment later, and after a few seconds sinking against the sky, the exhausted rocket plunged gracefully to earth at least a mile downrange.

  “That’s more like it!” exclaimed Palmer. “So, you added a fixed input to overprint the instability?”

  They fell to talking gibberish, but after a few moments, Palmer gestured to Lang. He got out of the trench and waved to the vehicle park a half mile south. Shortly after, a truck pulled out and headed toward them. He dropped back in and nodded to Palmer.

  “Now, Dr. Goddard, I’ve prepared something of a surprise for you,” said Palmer with a distinct glint in his eye. “If you’ll have a look to the south...”

  The vehicle that rumbled up to the firing line was a half-ton Wichita truck adapted from their stock delivery vehicle. Welded atop it were metal launch rails that angled forward over the cab – eight of them, although only one had a four-inch rocket mounted to it. That seemed prudent to Lang until a lot more bugs got worked out.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” said Goddard. The truck squealed to a halt and the two drivers jumped onto the hood, flipped a metal plate down over the windscreen, and then climbed back in behind it. “How quickly can you –”

  The roar of an outgoing rocket cut him off. By some miracle, it actually flew fairly straight, landing almost as far away as the previous attempt.

  “Impressive.” Goddard grinned.

  “We should be able to ripple-fire them,” said Palmer. “We could unload a helluva lot of them if we can get them into position.”