March to the Stars

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Whoooeee, now this is what I call civilization!" Julian laughed as the column of troops wound its way inland from the docks. The area where they were to be sequestered was about halfway between the wharves proper and the beginning of the temple zone.

The local population had been systematically evacuated from their path, but it was clear that the roads normally swarmed with buyers and sellers. Both sides of the route were lined with temporary stalls and carts which had been hastily abandoned, probably at the behest of the staff-wielding guards who "escorted" the humans. This area seemed to be primarily a fishmarket, but the slope gave a fair view of other boulevards, and all of them were packed with crowds.

"Still sheep to be fleece'," Poertena grunted as he shifted his pack for a better fit.

That pack was something of a legend. Its base was a standard Marine field ruck, but it had been "expanded" by a specially formatted multi-tool into about four times its normal volume. No one was quite sure what all it contained. They knew that it did not have a table-top tester for plasma rifles, although it now contained a field expedient replacement for one. And it did not have a sink; several of the Marines had asked. Other than that, it seemed to contain anything and everything normally found in a first-class armory, including—but not limited to—plasma welders, micrometers, parts, field lathes, and even a "tool about town" christened the "pick pocking wrench" that was stuffed sideways through the top flap. The "pick pocking wrench" was Poertena's tool of last resort—a meter-long Stilson adjustable. If a recalcitrant weapon failed to function to specification, or, God forbid, a suit of armor locked up, it was exposed to the "pick pocking wrench." Usually the piece of equipment shaped up immediately. If not, its exposure was increased until it shaped up or shipped out.

"We gonna teach 'em acey-deucy?" Denat asked. Cord's nephew had followed the company across half the world, more out of curiosity than for any other reason. Along the way, he'd proven invaluable as a natural born "intelligence agent"—only impolite people called him a spy. And he'd proven equally valuable, of course, as Poertena's right hand man when it came to introducing people to the new concept of "cards."

"Nah." The Pinopan spat. "For t'ese pockers? We teach them canasta."

"Oooooooo,"Julian laughed. "That's nasty!"

"Canasta what I teach people I don' like," Poertena said. "Next to bridge, t'ere's nothin' worse. An' even t'ese bastards don' deserve to have bridge inflic' on t'em. I don't t'ink I like t'em much, but bridge be too nasty."

"I don't like this, Krindi." Erkum Pol turned the embossed plaque hung around his neck upside down and tried to read it. "I feel like a civan in the market."

"Get used to it," Fain replied, watching the line of Diaspran infantry being issued the amuletlike identification badges. "If we don't have them, we'll get arrested by the local guards for carrying illegal weapons."

"That's another thing—I don't like all these pocking guards." Pol peered suspiciously at the ranks of local Mardukans. The issuing ceremony was taking place in a large warehouse by the waterfront, part of a complex of four, and two walls of the warehouse were lined with Krath guardsmen.

Once everyone had been issued credentials and the area was considered secured, this warehouse and the other three would be turned over to the humans and their allies for their quarters and storage. The facility had very little going for it, but at least it was a roof, and it wasn't rocking. There was a public latrine just outside, and the locals assured them that it was capable of handling all the waste from the K'Vaernian contingent. Other than that, it would be not much better than camping out. All and all, it was in keeping with the unfriendly nature of their reception so far.

Krindi contemplated the ranks of guards for a moment, then made a gesture of negation.

"They're not anything to worry about," he grunted. Among other things, the guards were armed only with long clubs. It was obvious that they spent most of their "fighting" time dealing with robbers and rioters. His Diaspran infantry, by contrast, were armed with their breechloaders and still carried their bayonets. The guns were unloaded, and the bayonets were tied into their sheaths with cords, but that would take only a moment to fix.

Yet weaponry was only a part of it—and not the largest one. The veterans of The Basik's Own were survivors of the titanic clashes around Sindi, where thirty thousand Diaspran, K'Vaernian, and Vashin soldiers had smashed over three times their own number of Boman warriors. Individually, caught in a bar fight by these Krath guards, their experience might not be of any particular consequence. But in a unit, under discipline, it was questionable whether there was another fighting force on all of Marduk that was their equal.

And if there were one, these pocking Krath pussies sure weren't it.

"Not a problem," Fain said with a quiet chuckle. "Basik to the atul."

"This isn't going well," O'Casey said as she slipped down onto one of the pillows and stretched out. Julian followed her into the room, and the intel NCO looked as if he'd bitten a lemon.

"More runaround?" Roger quirked an eyebrow.

"More runaround," O'Casey confirmed.

The meeting was small, composed of just the central command group: O'Casey, Roger, Kosutic, and Pahner, along with Julian for his intel information and Poertena to discuss supply. Even Cord and Pedi Karuse had wandered off somewhere. The difficulties O'Casey had already encountered suggested that they would have to meet again, with a larger group, if they were going to work out plans to deal with those same difficulties. But for now, it seemed wiser to discuss the bad news only with the commanders.

The bottom line was that they needed the Krath. On the K'Vaernian continent, there'd always been "handles" they could use—differing factions they could ally with or manipulate, or alternate routes they could use to go around obstacles. Here, though, the only way to get to their objective was through the Krath, and the Krath were turning out to be not only insular and hostile, but also remarkably lacking in handles.

"There are several things going on on the surface," she said with a sigh, "and who knows how many in the background! Sor Teb, our low-rank greeter, is actually the head of the slave-raiding forces. Technically, that's all he is, but the reality seems to be that he's something between a grand vizier and head of the external intelligence service. He's very much playing his own game, and my guess is that he's angling to succeed the local high priest. Everyone else in the local power structure seems to think he is, as well, and there seem to me to be two camps: one against him, and one neutral."

"No allies at all?" Roger's eyebrow quirked. "And what does this have to do with us?"

"No obvious allies, anyway," O'Casey replied with a headshake. "And what it has to do with us is that he not only has some of the best forces, but he's also the most probable danger to our plans. There's also the fact that, in general, nobody else on the council is willing to make a decision unless he's present, so it might be that what's actually happening is that his plotting is so far along everybody else is just staying out of his way."

"Guards like his troopers would probably make decent assassins," Julian pointed out. "And they are very feared—the Scourge, that is. Far more than the Flail."

"What's the Scourge? Or, for that matter, the Flail?" Pahner asked. "Those are new terms to me."

"We just picked up on them,"Julian admitted. "The names of the three paramilitary groups associated with the Temple are the Sere, the Scourge, and the Flail. The Scourge is Sor Teb's group of slave-catchers, but the Sere is the external guard force, while the Flail is the internal police force. Together, that triumvirate's COs make up a military high council."

"I would surmise that the high priests use these groups to counterbalance each other," O'Casey interrupted. She looked out the window at the trio of volcanoes looming over the city and shrugged. "There is resistance to Sor Teb, mostly from the Sere, the conventional forces whose function is to skirmish with the other satraps. The Sere's leader is Lorak Tral. Of all the High Council, Tral acts the most like a true believer, so he's well liked by the general population, and his appears to be the next most powerful faction. The local satrap, however, is beginning to fail. The jockeying for his position is coming to a boil, and it looks like it may be happening a bit too soon for Tral's plans or prospects. The fact that the last two high priests have been from the Sere is fanning the fire under the pot, too. Apparently, the other interest groups think it would be a Bad Idea to let the Sere build up any more of a 'dynasty' by putting its third CO in a row into the satrap's throne, which is making it very difficult for Tral to rally much support amongst his fellow councilors. It looks like, whatever the general public thinks about it, the Scourge's leader is going to be the next high priest."

"Can't be a popular pick," Roger observed. He scratched Dogzard's spine and shook his head. "A slave trader as a high priest?"

"It's not popular, Your Highness," Julian agreed immediately. "People don't say it outright, but he's not well liked at all. He's feared, but it's not even a respectful fear. Just... fear."

"So what does this succession struggle have to do with us?" Roger asked again, then stiffened as the floor shuddered slightly under them. "Uh-oh!"

The shuddering continued for a moment or two, then stopped, and Julian shook his head.

"You know, Your Highness, if you're going to turn on that earthquake-generator whenever you speak..."

"Damn," Kosutic said. "At least it was light. I hope it wasn't a pre-shock, though."

"Without a good sensor net, it's impossible to know," Roger said, leaning over and patting the hissing beast on her legs. "But I don't think Dogzard likes them."

"She's not the only one, Your Highness," Pahner said. "It would be a hell of a thing to get you this far and lose you to an earthquake!"

"Likewise, Captain." Roger smiled. "But where were we? Ah, yes. This Sor Teb and why he's important to our plans."

"It's starting to look like we're not going anywhere without his okay," O'Casey pointed out. "We haven't even gotten a solid yes or no on permission to leave the city, much less to head into the other satraps. The official position is that the local authorities have to get the permission of the other satraps in advance before letting us enter their territories, but that doesn't hold water."

"No, it doesn't," Julian agreed. "Denat's been talking with Pedi Karuse. It's funny, in a way. Cord is probably the best scholar we have, after Eleanora, of course, but Denat has a much better ear for languages."

Actually, Roger thought, Julian was considerably understating the case. He'd never met anyone, Mardukan or human, who had an ear for language that matched Denat's. Cord's nephew's natural affinity for languages was almost scary. The only native Mardukan who came close to matching it was Rastar, and even he had a much more pronounced accent, however good his grasp of grammar and syntax might be.

"He's picked up enough of the local dialect from her for a decent start," Julian continued, "and he went out doing his 'dumb barb' routine.

"According to what he's managed to overhear, a fairly large portion of the valley to the immediate north is controlled by Kirsti. The next satrap to the north is Wio, and Wio isn't well regarded by the locals. All of the satraps upriver from here—starting with Wio—charge extortionate tolls for goods to move through them, and Kirsti resents hell out of the way that subsidizes the other satrapies' merchant classes. In Wio's case, for example, the Kirsti merchants can either deal exclusively with Wio's... or lose half their value to Wio's tolls before they even get to another market on its other side."

"And, of course, trade can't pass through the tribal vales at all," O'Casey pointed out. "There's not much point trying to pass through the Shadem. Even if they wouldn't raid the caravans blind, they're on the 'outside' of the curve of the river, so there's nobody on their other side to trade with, anyway. And trying to pass through the Shin lands would be... really a bad idea."

"But there's a fair distance between Kirsti and the Wio border," Julian said. "They divide the satraps into districts called 'watches,' and it looks as if each watch is about fifty kilometers across. There are four of them between here and Wio, so we're looking at about two hundred kilometers of travel. And there's another entire major city between here and Wio, as well. They seem to have a pretty good internal transportation system. In fact, it looks to be far and away the best of any we've encountered so far. So there's no real physical bar to our making the trip. They just want to keep us in place."

"How far to the Imperial capital itself?" Roger asked. "And to the spaceport."

"Twenty marches," Julian promptly replied. "And three more satrapies."

"Could they have already sent a message?" the prince asked. "To the capital, or even the port? I know they're independent of the capital, but 'what if'? For that matter, 'what if' the entire reason they're keeping us from leaving Kirsti is to keep us penned up here until a message comes back down the chain to tell them what to do with us?"

"Well," Pahner said. He leaned back, gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling, pulled out a bisti root, and carefully cut off a sliver. Then he slowly and deliberately inserted the sliver into his mouth. So far as they'd been able to discover, the root was unknown on this continent, and his supply was dwindling fast.

"We've been here for ten days," he said finally. "If it's twenty marches to the capital, that means another ten days for any messenger to get there, or to the port. If a message got to the capital, I'd think that there'd be some discussion before it was sent on to the port. So, figure another twelve days or so before it gets to the governor... or whoever is running the port."

"And we could see an assault shuttle here within a day or two afterwards," Roger said with a grimace.

"Yes, Your Highness," the captain agreed evenly. "We could."

"And what do we do about that?"

"One thing is to try to get a better feel for the intentions of this Sor fellow," Pahner replied. "If he's ambitious enough to want to head up the local satrap, he'd probably be even more interested in knocking off the entire valley."

"Try to recruit him?" O'Casey asked dubiously, and grimaced. "He's a slippery little snake, Armand. Reminds me of Grath Chain in Diaspra... only competent."

"I don't like him either," Pahner said. "But he's the most likely to be willing to take a chance. If we back his coup, we use our better position and his raiding forces to move up through the other satraps and take the port."

"And if he balks?" Roger asked.

"Well, if Eleanora's negotiations aren't completed by the end of the week, I suggest we come up with a Plan B and implement it," Pahner said. "At that point, we can assume that the port is aware of our presence."

"And what do we do about that?" Roger asked again.

Pahner let a flash of annoyance cross his face, but the question wasn't really off-point. In fact, it was bang on-point.

"Then we cut our way out of the city, head for the hills, and hope like hell we can disappear in the Shin mountains before the port localizes us."

"I thought you said there was no alternative to being patient," Roger said with a smile, and almost despite himself, Pahner smiled back, ever so slightly.

"And the Shin?" the prince continued after a moment.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Pahner said, his smile fading into a frown. "Getting out of town will be hard enough," he went on, and turned to the intelligence NCO.

"Julian, we need to work up a full order of battle on the local forces. In addition, I want routes from here to the gates, alternate routes, and alternate gates. I want to know where all the guard houses are, what the forces at each guardhouse consist of, probable reaction times, and how they're equipped. I want to know as much as you can find out about the forces outside the city, as well. And we need a better feel for the relative capabilities of the three different forces here in Kirsti. Last, I want to know where the main units of this slaving force are. It's beginning to look like they're both the most effective force, and the one with the most effective commander. I want to know, if we make a move to break out of town, where the majority of them are, and when we can expect their reaction."

"Tall order, Captain," Julian said as he marked up his pad. "But I'll try. We've still got some of our remotes left. I'll get them deployed and then get Poertena and Denat to spread around a little silver, see what sort of HumInt they can shake free."

"Shanghai Despreaux and anyone else you need," the captain said. "You know what to do."

"Yes, Sir," Julian replied. "That I do."

"Poertena," Pahner continued. "Supplies."

"Bad, Cap'n," the Pinopan growled. "T'e price of grain is ou'rageous—worse t'an anyt'ing since Ran Tai! An' t'ese pockers gots no barbarian armies to drive t'em up, either. Food has to be nearly half an annual income. Jus' feeding t'e civan is gettin' expensive. I been laying in supplies for t'e trip, but t'ey low, Sir. Low."

"Julian, figure out what's stored in the area around us. Get with Poertena on that. Make up a list of targets."

"These guys really have you exercised, Captain," Roger said carefully. "You don't normally think in terms of looting."

"They have me nervous, Your Highness," the Marine replied. "Their invariable response has been at least passively hostile. They're very closed, in ways I don't care for, and we're looking at the possibility that they may be in contact with the port. All of those things tend to trip my professional paranoia circuit."

"Mine, too," Kosutic said. "And that's not the only thing making me nervous. Or, rather, one of the ways they're 'closed'... bothers me. I've been trying to keep from stepping on any toes by avoiding the subject of religion, and it's been remarkably easy."

"I can tell from your tone that that does a lot more than just 'bother' you, Smaj," Roger said. "But why does it?"

"You've been to a theocracy, Your Highness," the sergeant major replied. "Think about Diaspra. Or about the Diaspran infantry. They're constantly discussing religion; it's their main topic of conversation. But these people don't talk about their religion at all. That isn't normal by any theocracy's viewpoint. In fact, it's frankly weird. They say that in Armagh, if you ask the price of a loaf of bread, the baker will tell you that His Wickedness proceeds from God. But if you ask the butcher for a steak, he'll tell you that God proceeds from His Wickedness. The best I can determine, these guys worship a fire god. That's it, Sir. The whole enchilada. The sum total of all I've been able to learn about a theocracy's doctrine and dogma, and I got most of that from discussions with Pedi."

She shook her head.

"I don't trust theocrats who won't discuss theology, Your Highness. I have to wonder what they're hiding."

"We'd still be better off with their support," Pahner said. "But in the event that it drops in the pot, that they inform the port of our presence and we have to deal with that, we should have plans in place for how to exit the town and how to obtain the supplies we need. Fortunately, we have a week or two to figure all of that out."

"There's just one thing," O'Casey said, her expression pensive. Pahner looked at her, and she shrugged. "What if they're quicker than that? Quicker than twenty days up?"

"What do you mean?" Roger asked uncomfortably. "They don't have civan, so I don't see how they can move much faster than a turom caravan."

"I'm thinking about the Incas," his chief of staff said with an unhappy grimace. "They used to use teams of runners. You'd be surprised how much distance you can cover when each person is running, oh, twenty kilometers as fast as he can go. Or, rather, how much distance a message can cover in how little time if each relay is by someone who has to run only twenty kilometers as quickly as he can."

"No, I wouldn't be surprised at all," Pahner said with an even unhappier grimace. "That's a lovely thought."

"Yep," Julian agreed. "On that note, I guess I'd better get started on that order of battle," he added. Then he laughed.

"What?" Pahner asked.

"Well, what's the worst case, Sir?" Julian asked with a decidedly manic grin. "I mean, that's what we've got to think about, right?"

"Yes, it is, Sergeant," Pahner agreed tightly. He cut the NCO a certain amount of slack, because pressure brought out two things in Julian: brilliance, and humor. "The worst case? The worst case would be that the starport is fully under the control of the Saints, and that they're able to determine that the humans reported to them are being led by His Highness."

"Yes, Sir. That is the worst case from our perspective," Julian agreed. "But now think about their reaction to the news."

It was the worst tradecraft that Temu Jin had seen in all the thirty-plus years since he'd first left Pinopa.

The small gap in the security wall at the back side of the spaceport required the governor's "secret contact" to cross the entire compound just to meet the native runner. And since the hike required the receiver to break his normal routine—usually with no advance warning to let him build a believable reason for him to be here—anyone investigating the governor's (many) illegal activities would have found it ludicrously easy to identify, analyze, and break the communications chain. All they'd have had to do would be to watch for the idiot marching back and forth at the most ridiculous time of day for the least logical reason.

Short of wearing an illuminated holo-placard saying "Secret Courier!" in meter-high letters, Jin couldn't think of anything else he might have done to make the hypothetical analyst's job any easier.

There were only two saving graces to the incredibly stupid set up. The first was that it had been set up by a previous communications technician, so Jin didn't have to take responsibility for it. The other was that the person on the base responsible for trying to find the link was Jin.

It was also a "hard contact." That was, the people at both ends knew if there was a message to be exchanged. By way of comparison, his own tenuous communications with his control had been a soft-connect, and almost entirely "one-way." His outbound communications method—message chips passed via a dead-drop to well-paid tramp freighter pursers—had been cut out when all three of his contacts became victims of "piracy" in the sector.

Inbound, it was easier. The local garrison received a variety of e-zines and carefully crafted personal ads passed all the information he needed to receive. He occasionally wondered, as he perused them, how many of the other messages were code. He especially did that after the last missive—the message for "Irene" that told her it was over. That she should go on with her life.

The one that told him he was out in the cold.

It had been interesting, from a professional perspective, that there'd been at least twice as many personals as normal in that particular month's e-zines. The memory still brought a certain grim chuckle, and he wondered how many other people there'd been on how many other planets, looking at those messages and going "What the... ?"

The code had been the ultimate disaster message, telling him that "the World" was gone, and he was to sever all contacts, trust no one, respond to nothing but personal contacts. For him, it had simply been one more nail in the coffin. Heck, bad news on Marduk was as expected as rain, right?

He took the leather satchel from the Mardukan and walked back into the bushes at the edge of the field. The entire set-up was just too asinine. So imbecilic. So amateurish he was embarrassed every time he went through the charade. The Mardukan, some unknown "agent" of the Kirsti satrap, would now go back through a cleared passage in the minefields, through a portion of the mono-wire that had been changed out in favor of less lethal materials, and through an area where the sensors had been bypassed. The governor, whose life and limb, in the event of attack, depended on all those defenses, had ordered the changes so that these "secret communiques" could slip through. Ordered it!

Jin shook his head and cracked the seal on the pouch. The governor could not, of course, read Krath, despite having been here for over fifteen years, and despite the fact that "learning" it would require only an upload to his toot and a few minutes of his time. No, the governor had better things to do than learn enough of the language so that the minor messages—like, oh, secret communiques, for an example that just popped to mind—could be read by someone other than his communications technicians. Such as the governor.

Jin shook his head again. Could it be possible that the Empire was truly so short on functional genetic material that they'd had no choice but to send this... this... idiot out to be governor?

No. No, he told himself. The Empire couldn't possibly be that hard up for talent. No, this was a brilliant ploy of the Imperial bureaucracy. They'd found themselves stuck with someone so stupid, so dazzlingly incompetent, that the only possible defense had been to send him someplace so utterly unimportant that even he could do no damage there.

Jin took a deep breath, clearing his mind of the governor and the asininity of whoever had assigned him to Marduk. It actually helped, and he felt marginally more cheerful as he unfolded the message. Then he read the first few words... and closed his eyes.

For just a moment, a remembered whiff of corruption seemed to fill his nostrils and he almost fell out of character. He knew—knew—that if anyone saw him in that moment, his life wouldn't be worth a Mardukan raindrop. He knew he had to get his composure together, that far more than just his life depended upon it, but for a moment it was all he could do not to cry. He wanted to cry. To scream. He wanted to shout for joy and terror. To announce the arrival of the moment he'd spent hours dreaming of as he stared up at the bunk above his. Although, he admitted, his dreamy imagination had never included the possibility that he'd want to throw up when the moment came.

He had a real problem, though. Not one that he hadn't planned for, but a problem nonetheless. Since returning from the aborted "rescue mission," he'd slowly and carefully worked himself into a position where he picked up most of these communications. It was generally shoved off on the low man on the totem pole—not only was it a long way across the port in the heat, but the messages rarely had any significance for the humans. They were generally about the shifting politics of the inter-satrap "wars," and how much was that going to affect the port? Other satraps sent messages to other locations, and he picked up most of those, as well. But this was the one communique that it was absolutely essential the governor never see... and the one he had set up the entire system to ensure that he did see.

Or would have, if Temu Jin had had any intention of ever allowing him to.

Unfortunately, the guv wasn't a complete idiot. He always had at least two people translate any missive from his local contacts, and he would be aware that Jin had gone out to collect this one. Which meant that Jin couldn't simply make this one disappear. There had to be a different one.

He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small package, then flipped through the various messages contained in it until he got to one that he liked. He read over it once more, and smiled thinly. It appeared that the Shin barbarians were contemplating allying with the Wio in return for the Wio's halting their raids. This was, in fact, bullshit. But since it was "unconfirmed" information from the Im Enensu satrap, when it turned out to be incorrect, it would simply be assumed that the Im Enensu satrap, or his intel chief, couldn't find his ass with all four hands.

Somebody might notice that the pickup signal had been the one for Kirsti, not Im Enensu, but that was unlikely. Temu had been the one to receive that as well... exactly as planned.

He heard a voice in his head, as if it were yesterday: "Plan! Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance! Plan for every contingency. And be ready when your plans fail!"

Come to think of it, he really wished someone had told his control that.

He put the new message into the satchel, closed it, and pocketed the original. He could analyze it later. It would be interesting reading.

He looked up at the eternal Mardukan clouds, flared his nostrils wide, and smiled into the first drops of rain.

"What a beautiful pocking day!"