Armor (36 page)

“Siliconite 18,” Shoen explained, “a sand clotter. It keeps the dust out of the air and makes certain the foundation of the bunker is firm enough to hold it.”

Felix nodded, barely listening, entranced by the incredible sight before him. From the back of the machine, a wall was appearing. It was like some bizarre magician’s trick, an optical illusion. The front of the machine sucked in the sand. The back of it emitted that same sand in the form of a five meter tall, perfectly smooth wall.

Shoen chuckled beside him. Can’t have a fort without a wall, can you?”

Felix looked at her. She pointed an armored arm. “The wall will go all the way around the fort in a square, protecting all three sides not covered by the sea. We’ll have blazer cannon mounted on top with crossfire covering a killing area of a million square meters. Something, huh?”

But what he was thinking, what he had been thinking all along, through all of her explanations and enthusiasm, was that none of this had really answered his question. None of it really told him: Why?

He shook himself suddenly, angrily. Why should it, dammit? Why this time instead of any other time? What was the matter with him? The why of it made no more difference than the insanity. This was Banshee! He shook himself again. Banshee! Remember it!

“Felix? Is there something wrong?”

He looked at her. “No.”

She wasn’t satisfied. “Something on your mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is there something about all of this you don’t like? If there is, tell me. I really want to hear your opinion.” “Why?”

She turned away from him. She seemed embarrassed. “I saw what you did with that Ant.” She turned back to him quickly. “Oh, just the last part of it. You were free before we had a chance to do anything. Really!”

He shrugged. “I believe you.”

“Do you really?”

He stared at her. “Of course.”

“Good. I’m glad. Because, well. . . .”

He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to hear any of it. He said something about her being expected inside.

“Oh,” she said, rebutted. “Right.” And the two of them continued on to the bunker in silence.

Felix was grateful for the silence. It was not that he feared her confessing no combat experience, for he knew that already and knew what to say upon hearing it. And if she went further, if she told him she was nervous and uncertain, he would know what to say. Even if she went so far as to tell him, outright, how scared she was, he could handle it. He had heard it before, from many others. He knew the noncommittal mouthings that were required from him in reply and he could give them to her as easily as he had given them to everyone else. But if she went further still, if she took that next step, he was lost. If she asked him to help her. . .

He hated it when they asked him that. He hated it because he always said he would what else could he tell them? What else was there to do but say. Yes, I’ll help you? What else was there to do but lie?

For this was Banshee and the ants were coming for them as they always came and there would be too many as there always were and they would come so quickly too quickly, it would all happen too damn fast for anyone to help anyone else or even think of anything but the horror of it and the desperate all consuming need to escape it. And even if someone wanted to help her, wanted her safety so much that he would turn his back on the rampaging slaughter, would open himself to it for her sake. . . Even if someone cared that much, even if he cared that much, even if he did. . . The Engine did not.

Shoen stopped just before they reached the crowd and stuck out her hand. “My name’s Canada, by the way. Since we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, we might as well introduce ourselves. Canada Shoen.”

He took her armored hand in his. “Felix.”

“Just Felix?” she asked. “No other name?”

Not anymore, he thought, but said only: “Just Felix.” “Oh,” she said, still gripping his hand as though she wanted to say something else but didn’t know what. “Oh,” she said again, dropping his hand a moment later.

Felix said nothing either, though he knew what he wanted to say, knew damned well.

“I can’t help you,” he wanted to say. But he didn’t. He never did.

Everyone seemed to know Shoen, many by her first name. Dozens of voices called out to her when they arrived in front of the bunker. Several of the people wearing the bright orange p-suits engineers, it turned outdropped what they were doing and rushed over to her, blurting out progress reports and enthusiasm. It didn’t seem to Felix that they felt the need to inform her so much as they seemed to need someone to share their excitement.

Shoen was eager to do that, recognizing each and every one of them on sight, and, more importantly, understanding the significance of each breathless announcement. She tried, at first, to keep him up with it all. He was introduced to far too many strangers in the first several seconds. He had little hope of recalling even a third of their names, and no hope whatsoever of understanding their individual functions. After a few moments, he gave up, turning away from Shoen & Co. and simply staring at the bewildering chaos of construction. Shoen barely noticed his absence, becoming caught up in the momentum almost at once. Within seconds, Felix noted absently, no trace of her earlier uncertainty remained.

But he paid little attention to her group. The sheer spectacle of the rising fort enthralled him. There were at least three other wall builders that he could see from where he stood, all in use. The comers of the walls had already been erected in place and atop them, more orange suits swarmed about installing what Felix recognized as blazer cannon. Another team of engineers were working on the walls themselves. Half of them worked their way along the top of the wall behind the machine, carving an indented walkway. The other half worked along the bottom of the walls, running power leads for the cannon and what appeared to be a huge command platform erected entirely of plastifomi just behind the midpoint of the main wall. The platform had room for fifty people, bulky warrior suits and all, with three separate stairways to get them up there and a broad thick open-air roof to shelter them.

Another platform, this one only a meter tall, had been built in the center of the compound. It was circular, perhaps five meters in diameter, and bisected in the middle by a small wall of its own. Two separate Transit Cones shimmered faintly on either side of the wall, from which figures were being constantly dropped and retrieved, respectively. Also in the compound proper were several plastifomi cubes, geometrically aligned, in which were placed a wide variety of equipment. Felix recognized a great deal of it, the Cangren Cells, the emergency all size p-size, the extra blaze rifles, the spare parts for the cannon, some tools. But that left a vast array of paraphernalia Felix had never seen before. He couldn’t even guess their purposes.

Felix glanced at the dial of his drop timer glowing faintly beneath his holos. He was surprised to see he was less than two hours into the drop. Less than two hours since he and the other members of the forward group had touched down at dawn. During that time he had managed to find the Dorm, chart much of the maze of dunes protecting it, scout for, find, and fight an ant, and return, with Shoen at his side. A busy enough morning, to be sure.

But nothing, he thought, next to this. He watched as the engineers connected a cannon bearing corner from each side with simultaneous arrivals of twin wall makers. Amazing. Less than two hours ago there had been nothing here at all and now a walled fort was all but finished would be finished, in fact, in moments, before his very eyes.

All told, there were at least a thousand figures present. And, except for the group of some two hundred warriors formed up to one side, all were busily working engineers.

They were like parts of a single elaborate machine, he thought, gazing at the teeming orange multitudes. “Or ants,” he muttered, “building a hive.”

The excited babble of engineers surrounding Shoen had been replaced by an excited babble of brass, their warrior suits boldly displaying the marks and colorings of their exalted ranks. Felix counted two full colonels and a major in the pack before Shoen turned to him and spoke.

“How long,” she wanted to know, “before that Ant warmed up enough to fight, would you say?”

Felix considered a moment. “Three to four minutes after sighting.”

The row of brass nodded at this, in unison.

Shoen continued, “Any idea how long it had been above ground?”

Felix shook his head. “None.”

The row nodded at this as well. One of the colonels spoke up. “That’s about right, isn’t it? That checks?”

“Right,” said the others, more or less in synch.

Shoen turned back to them. “It looks good to me, Ali. I think you should talk to the Old Man. Tell him you want to try it.”

Ali, the colonel who had spoken before, nodded. “Won’t hurt to ask him I shouldn’t think. And I do think it’s a good opportunity.”

“Of course it is,” Shoen assured him.

“Absolutely,” assured someone else. Perhaps the other Colonel.

“It certainly should be suggested, in any event,” said a third voice Felix couldn’t place with a suit.

Colonel Ali hesitated one last moment, then nodded firmly.

“Very well. I’ll see him now.”

“Good,” declared Shoen. “Let me know what he says.

I’ve got to get inside with my team.”

With that, the group divided, the brass toward the command platform, Shoen and Felix toward the front of the bunker.

“That was Colonel Khuddar,” Shoen offered in explanation. “He’s senior staff officer and he’s come up with something I’d like you to. . .”

She was interrupted by another engineer, this one bearing the same rank as her own, Lt. Colonel.

“Mind sharing the lock, Canada?” he asked brightly, gesturing toward the entrance to the bunker.

“Blackfoot!” she replied happily. She waved an arm toward the constructive frenzy. “It’s beautiful, just like we planned it. You’re a genius.”

Blackfoot grumbled something almost inaudible in reply about everything going wrong that could and how she could only be so optimistic because she didn’t know what she was talking about.

“But you’re getting it done, aren’t you? And on time?” “Oh, yes,” he replied distractedly, as though nothing could be less important.

The two of them continued to discuss the engineer’s problems while they waited for the seal to open for them. Felix understood almost nothing that was said. When the seal parted, the three of them stepped inside the lock, a square featureless chamber with room for a dozen warriors seated and standing. The seal closed behind them. Sensors on the wall of the lock and inside each of their suits told them it was cycling.

Felix felt oddly uneasy. Though he had known about pressure locks and seals since Basic, knew, in fact, how to repair them in case of emergency, he had never been in one before. On Banshee, he had never thought he would.

Beside him, Shoen laughed, drawing his attention back to their conversation.

“But that’s why you used Siliconite in the first place, isn’t it? You wanted the sand more cohesive.”

“Yeah,” the engineer agreed sourly. “But now I’m cut off underneath.”

Shoen shook her head. “What difference does it make, Blackfoot? You’ve already got your soundings. You got them up front.”

“Well, sure, but….”

“And they were positive, were they not?” she insisted.

“Well, yeah, but. . .”

“But nothing. Blackfoot, you’re a hopeless worrier like every other engineer. If soundings showed a firm foundation before the siliconite, what makes you think it’d be any different now? My God, the stuff can only make it firmer and you know it.” She laughed again. “Only you would sound now, anyway.”

He laughed. “Maybe you’re right. Still, I wish I hadn’t used the eighteen. Maybe fifteen. Then I’d still be able to get at least an echo reading of the formations. But this damn eighteen cuts off everything we … “

The opening of the inner seal interrupted the engineer. The three of them stepped through the gap into the bunker itself. Blackfoot left them at once on his own errands, with an over-the-shoulder wave meant for them both. Felix managed a small wave in return before hurrying to catch up with Shoen, already heading off in the opposite direction past a long line of people waiting to get out. Shoen turned around only once, to see that Felix was in step behind her. “Stay close,” she cautioned. “You could get lost in here.” Felix believed her. Though clearly marked, the sheer number of passages was disconcerting. He figured it would take most of a Banshee day to see every nook and cranny, even if someone wanted to stay in there that long, which Felix most certainly did not. He hated the place, had hated it from almost the first moment. He hated it because it was a lie.

He and Shoen moved to the side of the corridor to make room for a man coming down the other way. Felix knew it was a man because he wore nothing more than a jumpsuit. Just that.

No armor.

No p-suit.

Nothing.

And really, there was no need to. The bunker was pressurized. It had air. It had heat. It had walls three meters thick built into it, not to mention the one surrounding it on the outside, with its half dozen blazer cannon and two hundred warriors to man them. Inside such protection, why shouldn’t a man feel protected? Why shouldn’t he feel. . . safe?

Just because this is Banshee, he told himself angrily, is not enough. The bunker exists, after all. It’s here and strong and there is nothing careless about using it. There is no reason at all to feel that something will happen the instant the suit pops open. Popping it open is no signal. It will not bring ants. I will not die. Just because this is Banshee is not enough.

But, of course, it was. For him, for Felix, it was. Each new sight of an unsuited person chilled something deep within him. And he couldn’t avoid the sense of the lie, nearby and malevolent and poised. He searched his mind for a specific cause for the fear but found none. Yet the dread remained, a swirling caress of paranoia and suspicion. He felt. . . lured.