Gordon R. Dickson - Childe Cycle 05 (11 page)

where the same thing's happening. All that's kept them blind this long is the fact it started hitting our people first. If I run, now—"

He broke off His face was lean with weariness, stubbled with beard.

"You go," Amanda said. "That's an order."

"To hell with orders!"

"Cletus is due to land in an hour. You've had three hours in town here during daylight hours. In three more hours we're going to have open war. Get out of here, get up in those hills and get ready to handle casualties."

"The kids…" he swayed a little on his feet. "Kids, kids and guns…"

"Will you go?"

"Yes." His voice was dull. He walked stiffjointedly past her and out the back door. Following him, she saw him climb, still with the awkwardness of exhaustion, on to his skimmer, lift it, and head it out of town.

Amanda went back inside to see whether there was anything she could do for the remains of Marie. But there was nothing. She left and went to the Haugsrud house to see if Marte could be brought to leave town with her, now that Berthe was dead. But the doors were locked and Marte refused to answer, though Amanda could see her through a window, sitting on the living room couch. Amanda tried several ways to force her way in, but time began to grow short. She turned away at last and headed toward the airpad.

She was almost late getting there. By the time she had made contact with Lieutenant Estrange and been allowed to the airpad itself, a shuttleboat, bearing the inlaid sunburst emblem of the Exotics, was landed; and Cletus was stepping out on to the pad. A line of vehicles and an armed escort was already waiting for him.

He was wearing a sidearm, which was taken from him, and led toward the second of the waiting staff cars.

"I've got to speak to him!" said Amanda fiercely to Estrange. "Weren't you given orders I was to be able to speak to him?"

"Yes. Please—wait a minute. Wait here."

The lieutenant went forward and spoke to the colonel in charge of operation. After some little discussion, Estrange came back and got Amanda.

"If you'll come with me?" He brought her to Cletus, who was already seated in the staff car.

"Amanda!" Cletus looked out over the edge of the open window of the staff car. "Is everyone all right?"

"Fine," said Amanda. "I've taken over the post of Mayor from Piers."

"Good," said Cletus, urgently. His cheerful, lean face was a little thinner than when she had seen it last, marked a little more deeply by lines of tension. "I'm glad it's you. Will you tell everyone they must keep calm about all this? I don't want anyone getting excited and trying to do things. These occupying soldiers have behaved themselves, haven't they?"

"Oh, yes," said Amanda.

"Good. I thought they would. I'll leave matters in your hands, then. They're taking me up to Grahame House—to Foralie, I mean. Apparently Dow de-Castries is already there, and I'm sure once I've had a talk with him we can straighten this all out. So all anyone needs to do is just sit tight for a day or two, and everything will be all right. Will you see the district understands that?"

Out of the corners of her eyes, Amanda could see the almost-wondering contempt growing on the faces of the Coalition officers and men within hearing.

"Ill take care of it, Cletus."

"I know you will. Oil-how's Betta?"

"You'll see her when you get to Foralie," said Amanda. "She's due to have her baby any time now."

"Good. Good. Tell her I saw her brother David just a few days ago, and he's fine. No—wait. I'll tell her myself, since I'll be seeing her first. Talk to you shortly, Amanda."

"Yes, Cletus," said Amanda, stepping back from the staff car. The convoy got underway and moved out.

"And that's this military genius of theirs?" she heard one of the enlisted men muttering to another, as she turned away with Estrange.

Five minutes later she was on her way past the cordon of sentries enclosing the town and twelve minutes after that, having stopped only to pickup her handgun, she stood beside Ramon, on his skimmer, looking down from cover on the more slowly-moving convoy as it headed in the direction of Foralie.

"We'll want all the available teams in position around Foralie before they get there," she said. "But when they show up, let them through. We'll want them together with Dew's escort before we hit them."

"Most of the men in that convoy are sick," said

Ramon.

"Yes," said Amanda, half to herself. "But the ones who've been up there with Dow all this time are going to be perfectly healthy. And they're front line troops. If we don't get them in the first few minutes, it's going to cost us—"

"Maybe not," said Ramon. She looked at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, not all of them up at Foralie may be healthy. I haven't had a chance to tell you, but a patrol came up to there early today and stayed for about two hours. They could have switched personnel."

"Not likely." Amanda frowned. "Dew's their prize package. Why would they take the healthy troops they have protecting him; and replace them with cripples, just to get more of their able-bodied down at town?"

"They might have some reason we don't know about."

Amanda shook her head.

"I don't believe it," she said. "In fact, until I hear positively there's been a change of personnel at Foralie, I won't believe it. We'll continue on the assumption that they're all healthy troops there, and the only advantage we've got is surprise. Cletus, bless him, helped us with that, as much as he could. He did everything possible to put their suspicions to sleep, down in town."

"He did?" Ramon stared at her. "What did he do?"

Amanda told him what Cletus had said from the staff car in the hearing of the convoy soldiery.

Ramon's face lengthened.

"But maybe he really means we shouldn't do anything until…"

His voice failed at the look on Amanda's face.

"If a rooster came up to you and quacked," said Amanda, sharply, "would you ignore everything else about it and decide it'd turned into a drake?"

She looked down her nose at him.

"Even if Cletus actually had taken leave of his senses, that wouldn't alter the situation for the rest of us,"

she went on. "We've still got to move in, rescue him, and take deCastries when he reaches Foralie. It's the one chance we've got. But don't concern yourself. Cletus understands the situation here."

She nodded at his skimmer.

"You go get the teams into position. I'll meet you at Foralie before they get there."

"Where will you be?" Ramon's face was a little pale.

"I'll be rounding up any adults capable of using a weapon—except the women with young children—

from the near households. We'll need anyone we can get."

"What about the other patrols?"

"Once we've got deCastries, we shouldn't have much opposition from anyone else who's been in Foralie Town. A good half of them are going to be dead in a week, and the most of the rest won't be able to fight."

"They may fight even
if
they're not able."

"How can they—" she broke off, suddenly seeing the white look in Ramon's eyes. "What's the matter with you? You ought to know that."

"I didn't want to know," he said. "I didn't listen when they told us."

"Didn't you?" said Amanda. "Well, you'd better listen now, then. Carbon monoxide passed over finely divided nickel gives you a liquid—nickel carbonyl, a volatile liquid that melts at twenty-five degrees Centrigrade, boils at forty-three degrees and evaporates at normal temperatures in the open. One part in a million of the vapors can be enough to cause allergic dermatitis and edema of the lungs—irreversible."

His face was stark His mouth was open as if he gasped for breath.

"I don't mind the fighting," he said thickly. "It's just the thought of the casualties among the soldiers. If this war could only be stopped now, before it starts-"

"Casualties? Before it starts?" Amanda held him with her eyes. "What do you think Berthe Haugsrud and Bhak and the others have been, down in town?"

He did not answer.

"They're our casualties," she said, "already counted. The war you want to stop before it starts has been going for two days. Did you think it would all take place with no cost at all?"

"No, I…" He swayed a little on his skimmer; and the momentary gust of anger he had sparked off in her went away, suddenly.

"I know," she said. "There's things that aren't easy for you to think about. They aren't easy for Ekram.

Nor for me, nor any of us. Nor was it easy for those people like Berthe, down in town, who stayed there knowing what was going to happen to them. But do you have any more of it to face or live with than they did, or the boys and girls on the teams will?"

"No," he said. "But I can't help how I feel."

"No," she said. "No, of course you can't. Well, do the best you can, anyway."

He nodded numbly and reached for the power bar of his skimmer. Amanda watched him lift and slide away, gazing for a long moment after his powerful shoulders,
now
slumped and weary. Then she mounted her
awn
skimmer and took off at right angles to his route.

She reproached herself as she went for her outburst at him. He was still young and had not seen what people could do to people. He had no basis of experience from which to imagine what would happen to the dispossessed Dorsai, once they were scattered thinly among the populations of other worlds who had been educated to hold them in detestation and contempt. He could still cling to a hope that somehow an enemy could be defeated with such cleverness that neither friend nor foe need suffer.

She headed toward the Aras homestead to pick up Mene as the first of her adult recruits for the assault on Foralie.

Travelling there, even now, she found the mountains calming her spirit. The rain had stopped, according to the weather predictions Ramon had given her, and a swift wind was tearing the cloud cover to tatters.

The sky revealed was a high, hard blue; and the air, on the wings of a stiff breeze, piping with an invigorating cold. She felt stilled, concentrated and clear of mind.

For better or for worse, they must now move into literal combat. There was no more time to worry whether individuals would measure up. There was no time for her cataloguing of the sort of lacks she had noted in Betta, in Melissa, in Lexy and just now in Ramon. Time had run out on her decision of the name for Betta's child. She must leave word with others before the actual assault on Foralie about what she had decided, one way or another, so that it could be passed on to Betta if necessary. She would do just that. At the last minute she would make up her mind one way or another and have done with it.

Forty-five minutes later, she swung her skimmer up to a fold in the hills, carrying Mene Aras with her. As she topped the rise and dipped down into the hidden hollow beyond, she saw the Ancients of five teams; together with a dozen or so of the team-leaders and runners from them, plus Jer Walker leaning on both his walking canes and a half-rifle slung from the shoulders of his frail, ninety-year old body. Nine of the other women, most of them young, and also armed, were already there. But most welcome of all was the sight of the unusual pair that were Arvid Johnson and Bill Athyer, together with six of the Dorsai they had been able to keep as staff

Amanda slid her skimmer to a stop, stepped off and walked up to Arvid and Bill.

"I was deliberately not counting on you," she said, "but I thought you might be here in time."

"You'll need us," Arvid said. "I take it you knew Swahili is now the officer in charge of Cow's escort? He came up here with replacement troops this morn-ing."

"Swahili?" Amanda frowned, for the name had a familiar ring but eluded identification.

"He's a major with these Coalition troops. But he was one of Eachan Khan's officers," Bill said. "A Dorsai, once—but probably you've never seen him. He didn't like any place where there wasn't any fighting going on. He joined Eachan some years ago, out on one of the off-world contracts and I think he was only here in this district briefly, once or twice. The only things that usually brought him to the Dorsai were short visits to that new training center Cletus set up on the other side of the world."

"The point is, though, he literally is a Dorsai—or was. One of the best we ever had, in fact," said Arvid.

"If anyone's going to catch us moving in before we want them to know we're there, it'll be him."

There was a strange, almost sad note in Arvid's voice.

"Yes, he's that good. Some of us-" Bill glanced for a second at his tall companion, "thought he was the best we had… in some ways. At any rate, that's why Arvid and I'll be going in first, to secure the house."

"You're taking charge, then?" said Amanda.

"We hadn't planned on it," said Arvid, swiftly. "It's your district, of course—"

"Don't talk nonsense," said Amanda. "We'll do anything that works. Did you really think I'd be prickly about my authority?"

"No," said Arvid. "Not really. But I do think you should stay in overall command. These local people know you, not me. Just give us four minutes head start, then move in. We'll take the house. That'll leave you the compound area that was set up for the escort troops, beside the house. How do you plan to handle that?"

"The only way we can," said Amanda. "I'll go in first, with the other adults behind me—openly, like neighbors coming to visit—and I'll try to disarm the sentry. Then we'll take the compound—we adults-building by building. Meanwhile, the teams will lie out around with their weapons and try to see that, whatever happens, none of the soldiers break out of the compound area after we've gone in."

Arvid nodded.

"All right," he said. "Our word is that all the men in the convoy bringing Cletus in are pretty well sick and useless. I suppose you also have the information that most of the well troops that came up originally with Dow were traded back to town for the personnel of the patrol that came up with Swahili—a patrol of sick that were sent up this morning? That should make things easier for you."