Empire of Man 01 - March Upcountry (59 page)

"Oh."

"The hell of it is, that there are all these rumors that NavInt knows where they are." The NCO sat down on one of the tri-legged tables and hung his head. "If they'd just tell us, we'd go in in an instant. Shit, we've put Raider teams on the planets and
documented
what's going on—that's how we lost our people in the first frigging place! I know we could get at least some of them out!"

"So these are
rumors
? That makes sense. I can't believe that sort of thing is going on in this day and age."

"Oh, get a fucking grip, Kostas!" Julian snapped. "I've seen the damned pictures from Calypso, and they look like one of the internment camps from the Dagger Years! A bunch of skeletons wandering around with wooden tools and digging at
dandelions
, for God's sake!"

The valet regarded him calmly.

"I believe that
you
believe this to be true. Would you mind if I tried to corroborate it?"

"Not at all," the NCO sighed. "Ask any of the senior Marines. Hell, ask O'Casey when we get her back. I'm sure she's up to speed on it. But the point is that, bad as this place is, humans do ten times worse to each other every day."

Poertena watched the Mardukans carefully. He'd long since stopped regretting his "cheating" demonstration. There wasn't much point in regret, since he couldn't put the genie back into the bottle whatever he did, but it turned out that four arms made for hellacious cardsharps.

He'd first noticed the problem shortly after his brief demonstration to his cronies on the march from Voitan. Suddenly, where he'd been winning fairly consistently at poker, he started losing. Since his play hadn't changed, it meant that his companions' play must have gotten better, but it wasn't until Cranla fumbled a transfer that he twigged to what was going on.

Even though the Mardukans' "false-hands" were relatively clumsy, it was easy enough for them to palm one or two critical cards, and then it was a simple matter of switching them off. He caught them once on the basis of an ace that was covered in slime; Denat, the tricky bastard, had figured out that he could embed a card in the mucous on his arm and even show that his "hands were empty."

So now, they played spades. There were still ways to cheat, but with all fifty-two cards in play, it was trickier. Which wasn't much consolation at the moment, he thought, as Tratan dropped an ace onto the current trick and cut the Pinopan's king.

"Be calm, Poertena," the big Mardukan snorted. "Next you'll think these brainless females are giving us tips!" He gestured at the nearest one, who was slowly shuffling along in a squat, sweeping the floor with nothing more than a handful of barleyrice straw while she crooned and murmured tunelessly to herself.

A group of the simpleminded peasant women had been sent in the previous day to clean and had stayed. Not surprisingly; they were treated better among the humans than anywhere else in the city. But in the short time they'd been there, while the company waited for word on what the king intended, the inoffensive little creatures had faded into the background.

Poertena looked up at Tratan's gesture, and snorted.

"I don't t'ink so," he said.

The small, retiring Mardukan noted their regard and ducked her head, raising the volume of her croon slightly, and Poertena grunted a laugh and started to look back at his cards, then paused as his toot's translation program started to cycle. The system had tried to react to his unconscious desire to listen to the words of the song and detected that it was in an unknown dialect. He started to disengage the translation protocol's furious cycling, but decided to let it finish the run when the first phrase to pop out was "stupid man."

He hid a chuckle and picked at the program. The tiny female, very little more than normal human height, was apparently cursing the three Mardukan tribesmen.

 
"O, most stupid of men, am I not singing in
your language?
"Look at me, just a glance is all I ask.
"I dare not call attention, for there may be
spies among my fellows.
"But I am the only one who knows your language,
"You stupid, foolish, gutless, idiotic men.
"Will you not listen to me that your prince
might live?"
 

Poertena wasn't quite certain how he managed to keep a straight face as he shifted from humor to panic, but he was a long-experienced negotiator, and that experience wasn't limited to legal goods and services. Individuals had made clandestine contact with him in public places before, and as soon as he realized the song was an attempt to do just that, he probed the translation program.

The problem was that the female was
not
using language of The People. Nor was she using the dialect of Q'Nkok, which was very similar. Instead, she was using a third dialect which was significantly different, and between those differences and the fact that she was trying to avoid calling anyone
else's
attention to herself, the three tribesmen had been totally oblivious to her.

"The problem is you language, O silly female," Poertena said. The translator, noting who the target of the statement was, automatically used the odd dialect. "They do no' speak it. So, who is tee foolish one, I ask you?"

"Ah," she sang. "I had wondered how any three boys could be so stupid. It is the language of the city you have passed through, a city restored." The song was almost atonal and, sung in a whisper, it could have been a lullaby in an unknown language. No threat. Despite that, the contact shifted to a completely wordless hum as another female passed through carrying a tray of food. She let the other female draw out of earshot, then glanced up discreetly while she continued her aimless sweeping.

"Move it or lose it," Cranla said, thumping on the table, and Poertena jerked out of his reverie and threw a card without even looking at it.

"Hey,
partner
," Denat began with a snarl, "what—"

"No, no, no table talk," Tratan chuckled as he covered the king with a spade. "Gotcha."

"Su', su'," Poertena said quietly. "We jus' stopped playing anyway. We gonna continue to throw cards until t'is hand is done, then
we
done."

"Hey, it's not that bad . . ." Cranla started to say.

"I jus' got word t'at there's a problem," Poertena lied. "So, me, I'm not really pay attention to tee game. We need to stop. Soon."

"I can quit," Tratan said. There was half a hand left, but he flashed his cards. "We just throw them down, tot up the score like it's real, and deal a hand of poker. And pretend to play until you have to move." He looked casually around for any immediate threats. "We need to get our spears?"

"What?" Cranla said. "I don't—"

"Shut up," Denat said mildly. "Just do it."

"Oh." The young Mardukan finally caught the drift and tossed his cards into the middle of the table with a shrug. "Not a great hand, anyway."

"Yeah," Tratan said. "I think it was a lousy hand we were just dealt."

"Okay, Lady," Poertena said. "What you message?" He deliberately kept his eyes on the table and addressed the apparent nonsense syllables to Tratan.

"I think I caught a bit of that," the tribesman said in return, glancing involuntarily at the female and then down at the table. "So it wasn't one of your mystical radio communications?"

"There is one who needs to talk to your leaders," the female sang, dusting the walls beside the table now. "One who must meet with your leaders."

"T'at will be hard," Poertena said, but he glanced up at Cord's nephews. "Cranla, go get tee Sergeant Major?"

"Okay," the Mardukan said, using the actual Standard, and got up and trotted towards the stairs.

"I will meet you near the fireplace downstairs, in a little while," the female sang, sweeping her way towards the door. "In the time a candle takes to burn a finger's breadth."

Poertena thought about it but decided against trying to get her to stay put. She was obviously working to a game plan, and if the humans wanted to use it, they had to have some idea what it was.

"All right," he answered, picking up the poker hand. "A half-hour." He glanced at his cards and grimaced. "A full house on deal. Jus' my luck."

"Not really," Tratan said soothingly. "I just didn't want you to be distracted trying to decide what to draw."

"You're sure about this, Poertena?" Lieutenant Jasco asked dubiously.

The blazing fireplace made the kitchen an inferno which was normally empty, but for Matsugae and the mahout's wives who helped him with meals. Now, however, it was crowded with the sergeant major, the lieutenant, Poertena, and Denat, along with Julian and one of his fire teams. Matsugae and his current assistant continued preparing the evening meal, stepping around the Marines and Mardukans crowding the room, but it wasn't exactly easy.

"T'is is where she said, Sir."

"She's late, then," the lieutenant said.

"The time is ambiguous," Pahner said over the radio. "A 'finger's breadth' on a candle. Human or Mardukan, and what kind of candle?" The captain, Roger, and O'Casey were attending the assembly through the suit cameras from Despreaux's squad.

"But it still should have been about half an hour, Sir," Jasco argued. "This is a fool's errand," he added with a glance at the armorer.

"So you think we should have dismissed it, Sir?" Kosutic asked.

"I think," the lieutenant replied as the wall behind him swung silently open, "that we should all get ready to be hit. We don't know what might be coming at us," he finished as the female menial, moving in a much less menial fashion and accompanied by a familiar face, stepped out of the secret passage.

"Shit," Kosutic said mildly, and flipped her helmet sensors to deep-sonar. The view of the "visitors' quarters" in that frequency was interesting. "Captain, we got us a honeycomb here."

Jasco looked at her very strangely, then noticed where everyone else was staring, looked over his shoulder, and jumped half out of his chameleon suit, then backed hastily over to join the other humans.

Julian wrinkled his nose and chuckled.

"Well, if it isn't the tinker!"

Kheder Bijan nodded as the female, no longer looking either meek or unintelligent, padded across the room to secure the door.

"Please pardon my deception on your approach. It was necessary to prevent your destruction."

"What do you mean?" Jasco's natural suspicions had not been particularly eased by having someone step out of a "solid" wall behind him. "Trust me, nobody would be destroying
us
, bucko!"

"You can be killed," Bijan replied. "You were badly hurt at Voitan. You lost, I believe, some thirty out of your total of ninety."

"Slightly off," Kosutic told him with a thin smile. "You must have had someone counting wounded they assumed would die, but we're tougher than that."

Bijan clapped his hands quietly in agreement.

"Yes, my own count showed that the numbers were off. Thank you for that explanation. Nonetheless, if you hadn't come to Marshad, you would have been destroyed on the road to Pasule. Even if Radj Hoomas had needed his entire army to accomplish it, you would have been destroyed."

"Why?" Jasco demanded. "What the hell did we do?"

"Not what we did, Sir," Julian said. "What we are. We're his ticket to power."

"Exactly." Bijan nodded at the sergeant. "You are his 'ticket' to control of the
Hadur
. Make no mistake, Pasule is but a stepping stone. After Pasule comes Turzan and then Dram. He'll use you until you're used up."

"That's more or less what we figured," Pahner said to Kosutic and Jasco. He was using a discrete frequency to avoid having the rest of the company listening in; this was not a morale-boosting conversation. "And we can't afford the time. He has a plan, so ask him what it is."

"What's the plan?" Kosutic asked, cutting Jasco off.

"Let Kosutic take the lead, Lieutenant," Pahner coached when the lieutenant looked sharply at the noncom. "It's customary to let a lower-level person take point. That way if you decide to hang somebody out to dry, it's the Sergeant Major, not you."

"You have to have a reason to contact us," the sergeant major continued, suppressing a smile. The captain would be hard pressed to ever "hang somebody out to dry," but it certainly made a good excuse to let the grown-ups do the planning.

"You have a schedule to keep," the spy told her with a Mardukan grunt of humor. "Yes, I know even that about you. You have to reach this far distant coast within a set time frame. You can't afford to spend a year here campaigning."

"How in the hell—!" Jasco exclaimed.

"Nice piece of information," Kosutic said. "But you still haven't mentioned the plan."

"There are those who don't look with favor upon Radj Hoomas, obviously," the tinker said. "There are many such in Marshad. Perhaps even more, at least among those with power and funds, in Pasule."

"And you are what? A friend of these people? A believer?"

"Call me a friend," the spy said. "Or a humble servant."

"Uh-huh. Okay, humble servant, what's the plan of this anonymous group of people?"

"They simply wish to change the status quo," the spy said unctuously. "To create a better Marshad for all its inhabitants. And, among those in the group who are from Pasule, to save themselves from conquest by a madman."

"And why should we help them?" Kosutic asked. "Given that we might be 'monarchy: like it or die' types."

"You aren't," Bijan replied calmly. "My conversation with the O'Casey made that clear. She was very interested in the ownership of land, and pleased when I told her Pasule practiced free ownership by the farmers themselves. Furthermore, you're trapped; you must destroy the House of Radj or miss your rendezvous. Nor will your part be difficult. On the day of the battle, you will simply switch your allegiance. With the aid of your lightning weapons and the forces of Pasule, the local rebels will be able to overcome Radj Hoomas' forces, most of whom will be involved in the attack on Pasule in your support."

"And what about our commanders?" Kosutic could see that the plan was as full of holes as Swiss cheese, but she also suspected that those holes were traps for the humans. "How do they survive our 'switch in allegiance'?"