It didn’t take long for the groans of the casualties to fade away, blocked by the density of the foliage. Yuri couldn’t get
over how dark this jungle was, very little actual sunlight penetrated down to ground level. When he held his hand up the skin
was tinted a deep green, the cinnamon-coloured jacket they had issued him with to protect him from thorns was jet black. The
jungle around Durringham was nothing like this. It was tame, he realized, with its well-worn paths and tall trees spiralled
with thin colourful vines. Here there were no paths, branches jutted out at all heights, and the vines were slung between
boughs either at ankle height or level with his neck. A sticky kind of fungal mould slimed every leaf for three metres above
the ground.
The scouts paired up, fanning out from the camp. The idea was to familiarize themselves with the immediate area out to five
hundred metres, search for any more survivors from
Nassier
, and verify that no hostiles were near the camp.
“This is stupid,” Mansing said after they had gone fifty metres. He was leading, chopping at the vines and small branches
and bushes with a fission-blade machete. “I couldn’t see you if you were three metres away.”
“Perhaps it thins out up ahead,” Yuri said.
Mansing slashed at another branch. “You’re giving away your age again, son. Only the very young are that hopelessly optimistic.”
They took turns to lead. Even with the fission blade hacking out every metre of path it was tiring work. Randolf loped along
behind, occasionally butting against Yuri’s calves.
According to Mansing’s guidance block they had travelled about three hundred metres when the sayce stood still, head held
up, sniffing the humid air. The species didn’t have quite the sense of smell terrestrial canines possessed, but they were
still excellent hunters in their own territory: the jungle.
“Peeeople,” Randolf grunted.
“Which way?” Yuri asked.
“Here.” The sayce pushed into the severed branches that made up the walls of the path. He turned to look at them. “Here.”
“Is this for real?” Mansing asked sceptically.
“Sure is,” Yuri answered, stung by the doubt. “How far, boy?”
“Sooon.”
“All right,” Mansing said. He started to hack at the jungle where the sayce indicated.
It was another two minutes of sweaty labour before they heard the voices. They were high and light, female. One of them was
singing.
Mansing was so intent on cutting the cloying vegetation away, swinging the heavy machete in endless rhythm, that he nearly
fell head first into the stream when the creepers came to an abrupt end. Yuri grabbed his jacket collar to stop him slipping
down the small grassy slope. Both of them stared ahead in astonishment.
Sunlight poured down through the overhead gap in the trees, hovering above the water like a thin golden mist. The stream widened
out into a rock-lined pool fifteen metres across. Creepers with huge ruffed orange blooms hung like curtains from the trees
on the far side. Tiny turquoise and yellow birds fluttered about through the air. It was a scene lifted from Greek mythology.
Seven naked girls were bathing in the pool, ranging from about fifteen years up to twenty-five. All of them were slender and
long limbed, sunlight glinting on their skin. White robes were strewn over the black rocks at the water’s edge.
“Nooo,” Randolf moaned. “Baddd.”
“Bollocks,” Yuri said.
The girls caught sight of them and shrieked with delight, smiling and waving.
Yuri shouldered his laser rifle, grinning deliriously at the seven pairs of wet breasts bouncing about.
“Bloody hell,” Mansing muttered.
Yuri pushed past him, and scuttled down the slope into the stream. The girls cheered.
“Nooo.”
“Yuri,” Mansing gestured ineffectually.
He turned round, face illuminated with delight. “What? We’ve got to find out where their village is, haven’t we? That’s our
assignment, scout the terrain.”
“Yes. I suppose so.” He couldn’t keep his eyes from the naiads sporting about.
Yuri was plunging on, legs sending up a wave of spray.
“Nooo,” Randolf bayed urgently. “Baddd. Peeeople baddd.”
Mansing watched the girls whooping encouragement to Yuri as the lad ploughed through the water towards them. “Oh, to hell
with dignity,” he said under his breath, and splashed down into the stream.
The first girl Yuri reached was about nineteen, with scarlet flowers tucked into her wet hair. She smiled radiantly up at
him, hands holding his. “I’m Polly,” she laughed.
“All right!” Yuri cried. The water only came halfway up her thighs; she really was completely naked. “I’m Yuri.”
She kissed him, damp body pressing against his sleeveless shirt, leaving a dark imprint. When she broke off another girl slipped
a garland of the orange vine flowers round his neck. “And I’m Samantha,” she said.
“You gonna kiss me too?”
She twined her arms round his neck, tongue slipping hungrily into his mouth. Other girls were circling round, scooping up
handfuls of spray and showering them. Yuri was in the midst of a warm silver rain with raw ecstasy pounding down his nerves.
Here in the middle of nowhere, paradise had come to Lalonde. The droplets fell in slow motion, tinkling sweetly as they went.
He felt hands slip the rifle strap from his shoulder, more hands pulled at his shirt buttons. His trousers were undone, and
his penis stroked lovingly.
Samantha took a pace back looking at him in adoration. She cupped her breasts, lifting them up towards him. “Now, Yuri,” she
pleaded. “Take me now.”
Yuri pulled her roughly against him, his soaking trousers tangling round his knees. He heard an alarmed shout that was cut
off. Three of the girls had pushed Mansing under the water, his legs were thrashing above the surface. The girls were laughing
hysterically, muscles straining with the effort of keeping him down.
“Hey—” Yuri said. He couldn’t move because of his stupid trousers.
“Yuri,” Samantha called.
He turned back to her. She was opening her mouth wider than he would have believed physically possible. Long bands of muscle
writhed around her chin as if fat worms were tunnelling through her veins. Her cheeks started to split, beginning at the corners
of her mouth and tearing back towards her ears. Blood leapt out of the wounds in regular beats, and she was still hinging
her jaw apart.
Yuri stared for one petrified second then let loose a guttural roar of fright that reverberated round the impassive sentinel
trees. His bladder gave out.
Samantha’s grisly head darted forward, carmine teeth clamping solidly round his throat, her blood spraying against his skin.
“Randolf—” he yelled. Then her teeth tore into his throat, and his own blood burst out of his carotid artery to flood his
gullet, quashing any further sounds.
Randolf howled in rage as his master fell into the water with Samantha riding him down. But one of the other girls looked
straight at him and hissed in warning, flecks of saliva spitting out between her bared teeth. The sayce turned tail and sprinted
back into the jungle.
“Power’s going. Losing height. Losing height!” The BK133 pilot’s frantic voice boomed out of the command centre’s AV pillars.
Every sheriff in the room stared at the tactical communication station.
“We’re going down!”
The carrier wave hissed for another couple of seconds, then fell silent. “God Almighty,” Candace Elford whispered. She was
sitting at her desk at the end of the rectangular room. Like most of the capital’s civic buildings, the sheriff’s headquarters
was made of wood. It sat in its own square fortified enclosure a couple of hundred metres from the governor’s dumper, a simplistic
design that any pre-twentieth-century soldier would have felt at home in. The command centre itself formed one side of the
parade ground, a long single-storey building with four grey composite spheres housing the satellite uplinks spaced along the
apex of the roof. Inside, plain wooden benches ran around the walls, supporting an impressive array of modern desktop processor
consoles operated by sheriffs seated in composite chairs. On the wall opposite Candace Elford’s desk a big projection screen
displayed a street map of Durringham (as far as it was possible to map that conglomeration of erratic alleyways and private
passages). Conditioners hummed unobtrusively to keep the temperature down. The atmosphere of technological efficiency was
spoilt slightly by the fans of yellow-grey fungus growing out of the skirting-board underneath the benches.
“Contact lost,” Mitch Verkaik, the sheriff sitting at the tactical communication station reported, stone faced.
Candace turned to the small team she had assigned to monitor the posse’s progress. “What about the sheriffs on the ground?
Did they see it come down?”
Jan Routley was operating the satellite link to the
Swith-land
survivors; she loaded an order into her console. “There is no response from any communicator on the
Swithland
or the
Hycel
. I can’t even raise a transponder identity code.”
Candace studied the situation display projected by her own console’s AV pillar, more out of habit than anything else. She
knew they were all waiting for her to rap out orders, smooth and confident, producing instant perfect solutions like an ambulatory
computer. It wasn’t going to happen. The last week had been a complete nightmare. They couldn’t contact anyone in the Quallheim
Counties or Willow West any more, and communications with villages along the Zamjan were patchy. The reinforcement flights
to Ozark were a stopgap at best; privately she had intended that the fresh men and weapons would simply safeguard an evacuation
of settlers down the river. She had long since abandoned the idea of restoring order to the Quallheim Counties, confinement
was her best hope. Now it looked like Ozark was inside the affected zone. Seventy men and almost a quarter of her armoury.
“Call the second BK133 back to Durringham right away,” she said shortly. “If the invaders can bring down one, they can bring
down another.” And at least ten sheriffs with their heavy-duty weapons would be saved. They might need them badly in the weeks
to come. It was pretty obvious the invaders were intent on complete domination of the planet.
“Yes, ma’am.” Mitch Verkaik turned back to his console.
“How long before the observation satellite makes a pass over the paddle-boats?” Candace asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Jan Routley answered.
“Program it for an infrared overscan fifty kilometres either side of its orbital track, see if it can locate the downed BK133.
It shouldn’t be too hard to spot.” She rested her chin in her hands, staring blankly at her desktop processor. Protecting
Durringham was her priority now, she decided. They must hold on to the city until the LDC sent a combat force capable of regaining
the countryside. She was convinced they were faced with an invasion, the hour-long briefing she’d had with Kelven Solanki
that morning had put paid to any final doubts. Kelven was badly worried, which wasn’t like him at all.
Candace hadn’t told her staff what Kelven had said to her, about the possible use of sequestration and river-boats that might
have already brought a preliminary platoon of invaders to Durringham. It didn’t bear thinking about. There were three chairs
conspicuously empty in the command centre today; even the sheriffs were reverting to a self-protective mentality. She couldn’t
blame them; most had a family in the city, and none had signed on to fight a well-organized military force. But she’d agreed
to cooperate with the Confederation Navy office in reviewing satellite image records of river traffic for the last fortnight.
“We’re receiving the images now,” Jan Routley called out.
Candace stirred herself, and walked over to the woman’s position. Kilometre after kilometre of jungle streamed across the
high-definition holoscreen; the green treetops were overlaid by transparent red shadows to indicate the temperature profile.
The Zamjan leapt into view at the bottom of the screen,
Swithland
’s stern jutting out onto the water from under the bankside canopy of vegetation. Graphics flashed across the holoscreen,
drawing orange circles around a glade close to the water.
“It’s a fire,” Jan Routley said. She datavised an order into the desktop processor to centre on the infrared source. The clearing
expanded on the screen, showing a bonfire burning in its centre. There were blankets and the unmistakable white cargo-pods
of homesteading gear littered about. Several trees had been felled on one side. “Where have all the people gone?” she asked
in a small voice.
“I don’t know,” Candace said. “I really don’t.”
It was midafternoon, and the
Coogan
was twenty-five kilometres downriver from the abandoned paddle-boats when Len Buchannan and Darcy spotted the first pieces
of flotsam bobbing about in the water. Crates of farmsteading gear, lengths of planking, fruit. Five minutes later they saw
the first body: a woman in a one-piece ship-suit, face down, with arms and legs spread wide.
“We’re turning back now,” Len informed him.
“All the way to the mouth of the Quallheim,” Darcy reminded him.
“Shove your money and your contract.” He started turning the wheel. “You think I’m blind to what’s going on? We’re already
in the rebel area. It’s gonna take a miracle to get us downriver if we start now, never mind from another hundred and fifty
kilometres further east.”
“Wait,” Darcy put his hand on the wheel. “How far to Ozark?”
Scowling, Len consulted an ancient guidance block sitting on a shelf in the wheel-house. “Thirty kilometres, maybe thirty-five.”
“Put us ashore five kilometres short of the village.”
“I dunno—”
“Look, the eagles can spot any boat coming down the river ten kilometres ahead of us. If one does come, then we turn round
immediately and sail for Durringham. How does that sound?”
“Why didn’t the eagles spot all this, then? Hardly something you could miss.”