CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

"Clear," Pahner said, nodding his head at the report over the helmet radio. It had nearly killed him to let Lieutenant Sawato take point on managing the company, but he'd had to be at the dinner. And better him on the line than anyone else in the company when that particular bucket of shit hit the rotary air impeller. Except, maybe, Roger. Which still had him floored.

Pahner was not the type to judge anyone by his ability to shoot. He'd known too many consummate bastards who happened to be good combat shooters to do that. But between Roger's surprising ability with weapons and the occasional depths he revealed, the captain was feeling distinctly whipsawed. Ninety percent of the time, he wanted to throttle the spoiled brat, but, lately, there'd been times when he was almost impressed. Almost.

He checked the maps and grunted at the report from Jin.

"Okay, I'll take it up with His Majesty. Make sure you hold the treasury, but don't get involved otherwise."

He looked over to where Xyia Kan was sitting. Most of the blood had been washed off, but the king was still a sight. Bits of dried blood clung to the decorations on his horns and on his face, but he looked up alertly at Pahner's motion.

"Yes? It goes well?"

It had, in fact, gone perfectly in the castle. The ring leaders had been seized, and their crimes had been detailed to the other house-leaders. Those leaders had then been instructed to send orders to their own Houses to stand down their guards on pain of the same sort of assault. Pending the delivery of proof of their crimes, the leaders of N'Jaa, Kesselotte, and C'Rtena had been separated and imprisoned. Those who apparently hadn't had any knowledge of the plot had been released to return to their homes; the others were still being held in the dining room, surrounded by the now rotting blood of the dead guards. The psychological effect was salutary.

"It goes okay," Pahner said. "We took casualties at C'Rtena, which I didn't expect. No one got hurt bad, though, and other than that, we got off clean. But we have fires at C'Rtena and Kesselotte, and the troops need somebody to come put out the flames. And your guards are looting. My people can't get them under control."

"They will," Grak said with a resigned handclap. "How do you stop soldiers from looting?"

Well, you can, for example, kill them until the survivors figure out it's not permitted, Pahner thought with a mental snarl.

"I don't suppose you can," he said aloud, calmly. That shrug-your-shoulders, what-the-hell attitude was the sort of thing he had to ensure didn't happen with Roger, he told himself. There was a fine line between ruthless and evil . . . and another between sloppy and barbaric. At the back of his mind, though, the song called. "I suppose that's what makes the boys get up and shoot."

"I'll send servants to put the fires out," the king said. "And soldiers whose job it will be to make sure they do so," he said pointedly to Grak. "And to prevent them from looting. Is that clear?"

"I'll go myself." Grak hoisted his broad-headed spear and grunted in laughter. "Maybe I can pick up a few pretties myself."

After the general left, Pahner found himself alone with the king. Roger had gone to wash, and the various guards had been dismissed. The situation was irregular, but the captain ignored that as he followed the movement and condition of the company on his pad.

The monarch, for his part, watched the human officer. So somber and serious. So precise.

"You see no difference between us and the barbarians of Cord's tribe, do you?" he asked, wondering what answer he would hear.

Pahner looked up at the king, then tapped a command, sending half the reserve to reinforce First Platoon while he considered the remark.

"Well, Sir, I wouldn't say that. Overall, I think it's better to support civilization. Barbarism's just barbarism. At its best, it's pretty awful. At its worst, it's truly awful. Eventually, civilizations have the ability to pull themselves up to a condition which is better for everyone."

"Would you have assisted me if you didn't need supplies for your journey?" the monarch asked, fingering the decorations on his horns and flicking off a bit of dried blood.

"No, Your Majesty," Pahner shook his head, "we wouldn't have. We have a mission: get Roger to the port. If this operation hadn't advanced that, we wouldn't have done it."

"So," the monarch observed with a grunt of laughter. "Your support for civilization isn't so deep as all that."

"Your Majesty," Pahner said, pulling at a stick of gum and carefully unwrapping it. "I have a mission to complete. I will continue trying to perform that mission, whatever it takes. And so will my Marines. That mission has damned little to do with our individual survival and everything to do with maintaining a degree of continuity in our political environment." Pahner popped in the gum and smiled grimly. "Your Majesty, that is civilization."

Roger watched the Mardukan mahout securing his armor on the giant pack beast. The creature looked very much like the one which had been chasing Cord, but the native insisted they were different. Roger thought Cord was probably right. The Cape buffalo looked very much like the docile water buffalo, and there was no more dangerous beast on Earth. Of course, these looked like giant horned toads, not buffalo. Capetoad. He wondered if he could get the translation system to start substituting the term.

He also wondered, not without some trepidation, if he could master the local mahouts' skills himself. He'd always had a way with animals, and he'd been in the saddle of his first pony almost literally before he could talk and his first polo pony before he was ten, so it seemed possible. Despite that, he found the elephant-sized flar-ta daunting, and he didn't even want to consider how the rest of the company felt about them.

Still, they'd best get over it and learn. They'd been far luckier than they deserved when Portena and Julian turned up with D'Len Pah in tow, and Roger knew it even if the Marines as a whole seemed unaware of their good fortune. Of course, for all their survival training, they were much less accustomed to using animal transport in inhospitable regions than Roger was thanks to his taste for safaris, but the prince had been shocked by Pahner's apparent blithe assumption that they could simply buy their own animals and handle the beasts themselves.

Fortunately, D'Len Pah had made the company a better offer. Flar-ta were scarce in Q'Nkok, and even with the king's strong support, the prices being demanded had been astronomical. Just buying the necessary pack beasts would have come close to bankrupting the humans, despite the hefty slice of Xyia Kan's fines and confiscations which had come their way. They certainly wouldn't have had enough left for the other supplies they needed.

But D'Len Pah had turned up in the nick of time. He and his clan were something like a cross between Old Earth's gypsies and professional caravaneers—semi-nomadic freight carriers who owned and managed their own string of flar-ta. Roger had been astounded when he arrived at the citadel with Julian and Portena to offer his clan's services to the humans, since no one else in Q'Nkok had wanted to go anywhere near the lunatics who thought they could actually get through to Voitan. But D'Len Pah had gone by the Houses the Marines had taken down to make a personal examination of the wreckage, and he'd also talked to survivors who'd seen the humans' weapons in action. Clearly, he calculated that if anyone could get through and reopen the long-closed (and highly profitable) trading routes through Voitan, Bravo Company was that anyone.

Roger had come to suspect that there were other factors at work, as well. For one thing, he was pretty certain Xiya Kan had strongly "suggested" to D'Len Pah that it would be in his best interests to make the offer. For another, the chief mahout clearly hoped to pick up some of the offworlders' marvelous devices and knowledge for himself. And, finally, the scummy had insisted on receiving two-thirds of his payment up front, before leaving Q'Nkok . . . and extracted a promise that he would not be required to hand it back over if—or when—the humans actually encountered the Kranolta and realized they had no choice but to turn back or die.

For all that, though, D'Len Pah and his clansmen looked like tough customers in their own right. They were well armed, by Mardukan standards, and clearly accustomed to looking after themselves. No doubt they had to be, since their entire families, including women and children, traveled with them. They were likely to prove a worthwhile addition to the humans' forces in a great many ways . . . and whatever else, they would at least keep Pahner from losing a dozen or so of his Marines finding out that driving a flar-ta was just a bit more complicated than handling an air lorry!

Roger grinned at the thought and looked around as the company made its final preparations to leave. It was early, barely past dawn, and the heat wasn't really on the day yet. It would be soon—turning the humidity up into the customary steam bath—but for now, it seemed relatively cool.

Everyone was checking his personal gear, making sure that it was just right. A strap out of place would make for a sore day, so it made sense to check ahead of time. Weapons were being serviced, and ports sealed against the conditions. They were down another plasma rifle, and the Old Man had indicated that they might have to put them all away in sealable bags. Roger intended to have a few choice words with whoever had approved the weapons for deployment; they'd only been on the planet for a couple of weeks, and the complicated weapons were failing left and right.

He saw the captain coming up the line of pack beasts, checking the gear. Since the flar-ta were carrying so many items that were absolutely vital, not to mention valuable, the Marine officer had placed a small explosive charge on each of them . . . and demonstrated the devices to the mahouts. If one of the beasts tried, for whatever reason, to run away with the company's gear it wasn't going to get far.

Pahner hadn't even bothered to mention the tracker planted on each of them.

Nor was that the only "precaution" the human castaways had taken. Somewhat against his own better judgment, Pahner had given in to O'Casey's argument and agreed that the chief of staff could brief both Xyia Kan and D'Net Delkra on the true reason for their visit to Marduk. The captain was unhappy at the thought of telling anyone anything he didn't have to, but he'd had to admit that O'Casey had logic on her side when she pointed out that both The People and Q'Nkok already knew they were effectively shipwrecked. Telling their leaders and rulers how and why couldn't increase the risk that one or both of them might have designs upon them, but—like Pahner's radio listening watch—alerting people with reason to wish them well to the fact that their trail might need covering couldn't hurt.

"Your Highness," the captain said as he reached the pack beast Roger was examining. He looked up at the prince's armor, then back at the prince himself, and smiled. "Try not to get yourself killed, Your Highness."

Roger smiled back and hefted his rifle.

"I'll try, Captain. But it's going to be a long march."

"It will that, Your Highness." Pahner fingered his breast pocket, but decided to forego a stick. "A long march." He raised an eyebrow at the item at Roger's feet. "That looks . . ."

"Fairly full?" Roger hefted the rucksack and swung it into place. "Well, I couldn't let Matsugae carry it all, could I?"

"No, I suppose not," and Pahner said, then looked up as Kosutic caught his eye and made the circular hand motion that signaled everything was in order. In the years they'd been together, he'd never had reason to doubt her, and he didn't this time.

"Well, Your Highness, it looks like it's time," he said, looking up and down the line of pack beasts and the last-minute goings-on. O'Casey, still spouting Machiavellianisms from the top of her pack beast as the king said goodbye. Cord, having a last word with the delegation from The People which had arrived to negotiate the mining arrangements. Julian, making motions of kicking down doors to one of the female privates in First Platoon. Poertena, bickering with one last merchant. But, really, they were ready to go.

"Agreed, Captain," the prince said, looking at the hills across the river and shifting a strap of his bulging pack. The bridge had been lowered to let their caravan cross, now all they had to do was find a way through trackless jungles filled with vicious enemies to a fabled lost city. And from there, on into the true unknown. He looked to the northwest and tied the braid dangling from under his helmet into a knot.

"Time to head upcountry," he said.