Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series (25 page)

“Yeh,” Yoshitaro said. “And that makes me feel a
lot
better. ‘Kay. I’ll signal for extraction.”

• • •

Two Musth were savaged in an alley, and Wlencing declared a dawn-to-dusk curfew, no exceptions. Anyone seen outside their quarters would be shot.

• • •

Garvin wasn’t able to harass Njangu at all. He hadn’t been able to come up with any scheme that wasn’t either pointless or suicidal.

I&R troops stayed out of the way while their officers and first
tweg
alternately sulked and tried to come up with something interesting.

• • •

The window washer had never been a soldier, nor had he served with the ‘Raum or been a policeman. He was a quiet, sober, solitary man, whose main pleasure was shooting very small, very fast, very old-fashioned projectiles at very long ranges into very small targets.

He had no opinion about the Musth one way or another, until the children in the neighborhood had decided it would be fun to throw a few rocks at the next Musth patrol.

They did, and the Musth opened fire. Two little boys were seriously wounded, one girl killed.

The window washer became interested in the Musth, and studied them as he worked his solitary job in Leggett’s main business district.

No one paid the slightest attention to the man who showed up with his battered lifter, attached lines to a building, then used them as guides to spider up and down in his bosun’s chair, equipped with two modified droppers.

He made an interesting discovery:

Musth officials seemed to appear at the PlanGov buildings on the first day of each week, no doubt to give the latest chapter of the law to their Council puppets.

He took three weeks to verify that was indeed a nice, precise, dangerous schedule, decided he knew enough.

The next time Wlencing’s
wynt
landed near the still-unfinished PlanGov buildings, no one noticed the little man ten stories up, about five hundred meters away. If they had, they might’ve found it odd that his chair wasn’t at a window, but at a blank stone wall, where no one could notice the little man open up his tool kit, take out two wrapped tubelike objects, and put them together. A third object, a rather large optic sight, went atop the two pieces, and the device set on a bipod. Even then, the object looked so little like a contemporary blaster or laser many wouldn’t have found cause for alarm.

He lay full length on his chair, moving slowly to avoid swaying, positioned himself comfortably, and eased a single round into the chamber of his weapon.

He swept the sight across the square, across the
wynt,
across three human policemen, found a knot of Musth.

The man inhaled, breathed out, held his breath, and pressed the trigger.

Without waiting to see the results of his shot, he unhurriedly broke his weapon down and moved his chair around the side of the building, then lowered it to the ground. Ten minutes later, his lifter was headed back toward his modest home. He never mentioned what he’d done, returned to his normal work the next day, and no one ever talked about the outrage to him.

The square outside PlanGov was a scream of rushing cops and Musth.

Wlencing sat on his tail next to the sprawled body of his aide, Rahfer. The Musth had a small entry hole in one side of his head, and most of his skull was missing on the other.

Daaf stood next to him.

“That shot was intended for you.”

“Perhaps,” Wlencing said. “Perhaps not. Perhaps the worms merely wanted to kill any Musth.”

“This was not a brave action.”

Wlencing looked at him, then said:

“So it is appropriate that my response will not be, either.”

• • •

Again, the holos were commandeered, and again frightened men and women were murdered by firing squads.

The Musth announced more hostages would be taken, and the same response made to any other crime against them.

• • •

“I think,” Garvin said, “we should think about doing something criminal.”

“Time and past,” Njangu agreed. “Have you finally got a plan?”

“Yeh. Let’s go see the old man.”

CHAPTER
18

Langnes 65443/Reckoning

Senza stared at the multicolored figures, data, hanging in midair over his workplace. He swept a hand, studied their replacements, scanned another set of data.

“This,”
he demanded of his assistant, Kenryo, “is the reality of what that rock-brain Paumoto and his crew are calling a triumph?”

“Yes,” his assistant said in a neutral voice.

“He’s either a jelly-thinker, or he plans to keep this information secret. Monstrous, truly monstrous! Aesc killed, somewhere over half of his warriors casualties, more than that in equipment loss.

“Keffa we know to be a fool. He can’t count his paws and get the same figure twice running. But Paumoto! He’s not that stupid!

“Is he?”

The assistant, one of Senza’s own cubs, made no reply.

“Did you run a projection of how many Common years it would take, given these losses, before the Cumbre system becomes profitable?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“Somewhere between eight-eights and twice that, depending on whether they merely seize the minerals or whether they’re attempting to keep Cumbre a stable, producing system.”

“Someone is mad,” Senza proclaimed. “Or else … or else this is a trap, intended to get me to move rashly, and then the real data will be presented, or some better interpretation we have all missed.”

“None of us have seen any alternatives.”

“As I said, something we have all missed.” Senza moved his paws in bewilderment.

“I wish … I want … to do something. To use this as a lever against Paumoto, quiet him, and hopefully trample that imbecile Keffa before he tries to have me slain.

“But this is too absurd, too unbelievable. I need something better.”

“Something,” Senza said again. “But I know not what.”

CHAPTER
19

D-Cumbre

“You know,” Ben Dill said to Alikhan, “I feel like one of those old-timey generals, whose R&D people came to him with a new kind of spear or something, and he sat there stewing, staring, not knowing how to use it, and the war got worse and worse for him, and then some frigging barbarian snuck into the back of his tent and whomped him upside the head with a rock and the war was lost.”

He tossed a pebble out the tent flap at an inoffensive Mullion Island lizard, and growled.

“That was quite a speech,” Alikhan said. “Am I making a jump in logic to assume you’re thinking of me as this new kind of spear?”

“Not even a little bit,” Dill said. “You say you want to help end this goddamned war, but we can’t do this, can’t do that, can’t do the other thing.”

“Don’t become angry,” Alikhan said. “If you were in my position, what would you do?”

“Dunno,” Dill grunted. “Go find a bar and try to get in a fight. Relieve some of the stress.”

“I don’t think that’s practical,” Alikhan said. “First, I do not touch alcohol, which would make it boring for me; second, if we brought along some of my decayed meat, your fellows would find that somewhat disgusting; third, I am not enamoured of the idea of bruising my paws in a melee; and last, if we
were
in a place where alcohol was served, wouldn’t someone grab for a weapon when he saw a Musth, listening to no explanations?

“That does not sound like an attractive evening to me.

“Plus,” Dill grunted, “I don’t see any goddamned drinkin’ dives on this goddamned island.”

“I’m sorry I don’t seem to have any ideas about my possible deployment,” Alikhan said. “Why don’t you consult some experts?”

“Such as?”

“I’m sure there must be someone who knows something about the Musth here. Isn’t it well-known that any army can always produce an expert on any subject?”

• • •

“I have some pleasure in having sight of you,” Danfin Froude said in Musth.

Alikhan waved a paw in negation.

“And I greet you,” he said in the same language, then switched to Basic. “But perhaps we could communicate more readily in your tongue.”

“Is my accent
that
terrible?”

Alikhan, politely, chose not to answer him.

“Your friend here thought I could maybe be of service,” the mathematician said, “and he’s spent some time with me, trying to remember your conversations as precisely as he could.

“Something he said did give me a bit of an idea. You once told
Alt
Dill that your fellow warriors weren’t given the opportunity to think otherwise about what they’re doing than what war leaders like your father told them.”

“This is true,” Alikhan said. “It is taken for granted that we learn to reason for ourselves in the den, with teaching from others and from our parents. Once we leave, become adults, once we take on service with another Musth, it is assumed we have chosen correctly after considerable thought, and henceforth should serve with absolute dedication.

“Such is the way of honor.”

After a moment of consideration, Alikhan added, and Ben wondered if there was a bit of melancholy in his sibilant voice, “Maybe that is why we keep betraying each other, rather than really working together. It’s very hard for any of us to say we made a mistake, that we should do something different.”

“It’s easier,” Ben asked, “just to shoot someone in the back?”

“Does it not save explanations?”

“You obviously don’t have the same kind of court system we do,” Dill said.

“If you two trucks would shut the hell up,” Froude snapped, “I think my idea can be made to work. Alikhan. You know that a voice can be filtered so no one can identify it?”

“Certainly. We make great use of such devices in our ruling bodies.”

“Do you think, if you had the opportunity to sit down with another warrior you could maybe make him come over to our side, or at any rate start questioning his orders?”

“No,” Alikhan said. “Only a great talker, one like Senza, who I studied with, might be able to do that. And there would have to be the seed of a doubt planted beforehand.”

“Seed of a doubt, eh?” Froude mused. “Ben, why don’t you hunt up some nice decayed
giptel
for Alikhan, and some sort of firewater for me, then make yourself gone. Alikhan and I have some free-associating to do.”

• • •

The merchants’ associations in Leggett, Aire, Launceston, and Seya were surprised — business wasn’t
quite
as awful as they’d anticipated under the Musth, even though most people didn’t have many credits, and those who did were reluctant to spend them until the situation clarified itself. But at least no companies had been seized outright, at least not yet.

Profits were down as anticipated, but there were many new businesses opening. All were small, many seemed a bit improbable, but all were adequately funded, their owners paying for everything in hard currency.

It was also interesting that the profile of these new businessmen was pretty much the same — young to early middle-aged, mostly single men and women who kept to themselves. Sometimes their store shelves seemed not as fully stocked as they could be, but what of that? Cumbrian manufacturing hadn’t even begun to rebuild after the ‘Raum uprising.

These shop owners joined their local merchants associations, minded their own business, and led quiet lives.

A few merchants theorized that these new retailers were ex-service, and were impressed that the Force had evidently made them put some of their pay away, for times like these.

It was also interesting that these store owners all seemed interested in electronics, and all put in rather expensive com gear.

One of the most popular new businesses was the Hammer And Thud Blowout Boys, a fourteen-piece band that began playing in Leggett to great acclaim, then asked for permission from the Musth to tour the cities of D-Cumbre. Musth security searched their gear and possessions thoroughly, found nothing, and approved. It would be good for human morale to be entertained, even though this seemingly arbitrary arrangement of noise did little for the aliens.

The H&T Boys — actually as many young women as men — had quite an entourage on the road, friends, equipment handlers, and so forth as they zigged across the planet, evidently willing to play any venue that wanted them.

The band leader, a jovial beanstalk of a man named Hedley, was unusual in that he played none of the main instruments, but only banged a tambourine and sang in the chorus.

• • •

The party began a little nervously, and it was noticeable that some of the invited Rentiers didn’t materialize, especially those who’d been willing to remain on the Musth Council.

It was thrown by the enormously rich Rentier, Bampur, somewhat vaguely in honor of Erik Penwyth’s successful return from the dead, “or wherever he’s been hiding himself,” following a banquet by Erik’s parents.

Penwyth seemed little changed by his time in the military, still drawlingly casual, handsome in a rather dissipated way, and taking little if anything seriously.

No one noticed that he drank a great deal less than he had before, and smilingly refused any drugs offered. He drifted here, there, perhaps a bit quieter, more interested in listening than he’d been before, dancing with anyone who asked.

Redheaded Karo Lonrod guided him onto the floor, pressed close.

“I assume,” she said breathily, “you have incredible tales of heroism to whisper in my pink shell-like ear.”

“Nary a bit,” Penwyth said. “I was sent to some stupid radar station on one of the out-islands, saw nothing, heard nothing, made my way home when I thought the shooting was over.”

She pulled back, looked at him skeptically.

“I thought you volunteered for something dashing … what did they call it, R&I or something?”

“Briefly,” Penwyth admitted. “But they were too terribly heroic for my tastes. Man can get killed, y’know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Lonrod said. “But something I do know, is you and I never went home together.”

“ ‘Sat so?”

“It is. Are you interested in changing that?”

“Why certainly,” Penwyth said. “A man should never refuse an invitation like that, not and remain a gentleman. Or woman, either.”

She giggled, was about to whisper something, when Jasith Mellusin touched his shoulder.

“I believe it’s my turn with the wandering lad?”

“We were just getting into an interesting discussion,” Lonrod said, but moved out of Erik’s embrace. “Can I consider that a promise?”

“You certainly may,” Erik said. “We’ll discuss the details in a bit.”

Jasith moved into his arms, and they danced away.

“I assume Karo was interested in mattress games,” Jasith said. “She told me she wanted to see what you’d learned in the army.”

“I’m afeared she’ll be disappointed,” Erik said. “Nothing but saluting everything that moved, and painting everything else white.”

“Right,” Jasith said, disbelievingly. “I remember you from before I got married, before …”

She broke off, and her smile vanished.

“And where’s your husband tonight,” Erik asked, changing the subject.

“Not here, of course. His lords and furry masters might get angry if he had any association with a soldier.”

“That’s Loy,” Erik said. “Always very careful.”

They danced silently for a while.

“Do you know what happened to Garvin?” Jasith asked.

“I’ve heard some stories,” he said. “I’m fairly sure he’s alive, if I don’t know where he is.”

“I asked around,” Jasith said, “and found out a whole lot of soldiers haven’t come home yet.”

“Jasith,” Erik said, “I understand it got very nasty with the Musth. Hell, there are men and women from the Force who’re still missing after that disaster with the ‘Raum.”

“I know that,” Jasith said. “But why have so many of the officers not shown up?”

“I think because they were trained to lead from the front, and that’s generally a fairly good way to get killed.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not.”

“Maybe, or maybe not,” Erik agreed. “This band’s quite good, isn’t it?”

“Erik Penwyth, I think you’re fencing with me.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “Didn’t bring any fence posts, for beginners.”

“You know, I’m not a complete bubblebrain,” Jasith said. “I think we can assume
some
of Daddy’s genes got through.”

“Now don’t go getting serious on me,” Penwyth said. “I’ve come back with a firm plan to devote myself to nothing but carryin’ on relentlessly from now on.”

“No doubt,” Jasith said. “But if you happen to run across Garvin in your travels, tell him to call this number,” and she gave him a slip of paper. “I’m the only one who’ll answer it, I keep the com with me, there’s no recorder, and nobody knows about the number. Especially not my husband.”

Penwyth waggled his eyebrows. “Now, that sounds most full of intrigue.”

Jasith looked at him.

“That word’s got a whole bunch of meanings.”

“It does,” Penwyth said blandly. “Now, doesn’t it.”

• • •

Ab Yohns had chanced two trips into Leggett since the fall of Camp Mahan. He made small purchases, visited coffee bars, saloons, and restaurants, listening to people talk. He noticed the wave of new, small businesses, and their owners, tried to chat with them, but found the women and men rather close-mouthed.

Interesting, he thought, considering whether he ought to involve himself in what was developing, decided not. There would be little profit in it, and he knew well the first to resist generally get killed being noble.

Besides, his main client was still Protector Redruth.

He did admire the subtlety of whoever was running Confederation Intelligence, or at least this scheme — he doubted if the Musth were familiar enough with humans to watch businesses as closely as they should.

But sooner or later he knew their puppets would get curious.

• • •

Wlencing hid a distasteful reaction, turned away from the four vee formations of recruits to Daaf. He spoke in a low tone:

“Am I showing signs of incorrect emotion, or are these warriors less than those who have joined us before?”

“Referring to their records, which I did during the in-system flight, no, you are not. Few of these have been properly trained, either by their dens or by the masters they chose to follow. Almost none of them have any fighting experience, beyond acting as guards for their first masters.

“Also, there was something I found more worrisome, if I may speak freely?”

“Go ahead,” Wlencing said. “It will do these good to wait in the rain at the pleasure of a leader.”

“Few of them come from a respected clan, and the half dozen who do are not impressive. I took the moment to speak to them, ask them about their masters, and they said their clans did not wish them to engage with you.”

“What clans were these?”

Daaf consulted a handheld panel, named them.

“Two I know not,” Wlencing said angrily, “but three of those are clans that supported our claims to this system when we first met.”

Wlencing thought back to the meeting on 4Planet, in the building called Gathering. It was two system-years gone, no longer, yet seemed even more distant, buried in the bloodshed and fighting that had gone on since. He thought for an instant of his dead cub Alikhan, shut off that area of thought.

“I await your words,” Daaf said.

“Never mind,” Wlencing growled. “Those three clans who were on our side now are not. That is enough for you to know. Did you ask what their clanmasters or their aides said?”

“I did. Very carefully,” Daaf said. “With each one away from the hearing of the other. They said, and I am choosing my words with exactitude, that their clanmasters were increasingly convinced there was no glory, no honor, no gain to be reached by serving this far from the Musth worlds.”

“Senza’s poison,” Wlencing hissed. “We should have found a way to deal with him before … never mind. You did not hear what I just spoke.

“What of the new equipment that arrived with these recruits?”