CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"Wake up."

Julian shook the private by the arm. The bead rifleman dangled limply from the tree, her face gray in the predawn light, and pried one eye open. She looked around at her wet, indescribably muddy surroundings and groaned.

"Please. Kill me," she croaked.

Julian just shook his head with a laugh and moved on. A few moments later, he found himself looking up at the sergeant major, spinning slowly on the end of her rope and snoring. He shook his head again, thought about various humorous possibilities, and decided that they wouldn't be good for his health.

"Wake up, Sergeant Major," he said, touching her boot as it swung into range.

The NCO had her bead pistol out and trained before she was fully awake.

"Julian?" she grunted, and cleared her throat.

"Morning, SMaj," the squad leader chuckled. "Wakee, wakee!"

"Time for another glorious day in the Corps," the sergeant major replied, and pulled an end of the rope to release the knot. She splashed into the water, still holding her bead pistol out of the muck, and came up coated in a fresh covering of mud. "Morning ablutions are complete. Time to rock and roll."

"Sergeant Major, you are too much," Julian laughed.

"Stick with me, kid," the senior NCO told him through her brand new mud. "We're gonna see the galaxy."

"Meet exotic people," Pahner said, untying himself and stretching in the early dawn light.

"And kill them," Julian finished.

After changing socks, the company moved out on cold rations and vague dreams of dryness. Pahner, recognizing the danger to the Marines' feet, started cycling the company up onto the flar-ta two at a time. Even with the company's reduced manpower, however, it would take most of the day to get everyone up for a brief respite. And it would be brief.

As the morning progressed, there was no sign of a break in the swamp, nor of the sort of increasing depth that might signal a river ahead. In fact, the humans could see no change at all in their surroundings, but the pack beasts seemed to be getting less and less happy about continuing.

Finally, when one balked, Pahner slogged up to D'Len Pah.

"What's wrong with the beasts?" he asked.

"I think we might be in the territory of atul-grack," the mahout answered nervously. "They're very frightened."

"Atul-grack?" Pahner repeated as Cord's nephew Tratan waded up, and the young tribesman started waving all four arms in agitation.

"We must go back!"

"What?" Pahner asked. "Why?"

"Yes," the mahout said. "We should turn around. If there are atul-grack around, we are in grave danger."

"Well," the human said, "are there, or aren't there?"

"I don't know," Pah admitted. "But the beasts act as if they're afraid, and the only thing that would frighten flar-ta is atul-grack."

"Would someone please tell me what the hell an atul-grack is?" Pahner demanded in frustration.

His answer was a deafening roar.

The beast that exploded out of the swamp was a nightmare. Solid and low, like a damnbeast, the gray and black-striped monster was at least five times as large—nearly as large as the elephantine flar-ta. Its mouth was wide enough to swallow a human whole and filled with sharklike teeth, and it sprinted across the swamp like a tornado, water fountaining skyward from every impact of its six broad feet, as the company's weapons opened up on all sides and the pack beasts erupted in pandemonium.

Roger rolled off of Patty's back as she hot-footed away from the charging carnivore. He came up sputtering, covered in mud, but he'd managed to keep the rifle out of the swamp.

Dogzard had followed him, spinning through the air out of a sound sleep and splashing into the water beside him. The sauroid planted her amphibian hind feet in the muck and shot her head above water just long enough to determine the problem. Then she promptly ducked back under and swam away at top speed. She was a scavenger, not a fighter. And certainly not a fighter of atul-grack.

The carnivore was intent on pulling down one of the flar-ta as its dinner. It was being bracketed by grenades and hit on either side by dozens of rounds from the bead rifles, but it charged on, ignoring the pinpricks, and Roger realized that it was charging dead at Captain Pahner, who was sliding out of its way as fast as he could while firing a bead pistol at it one-handed.

The prince put the dot of the holographic sight on the beast's temple, led it a little, and let fly.

Sergeant Major Kosutic stood up, coughing and spluttering. One of the pack beasts' tails had hit her hard enough to harden her chameleon armor and throw her ten meters through the air and into a tree. She spun around in place and immediately spotted the bellowing carnivore that had started the ruckus. The friction-sling of her bead rifle was still attached, and she raised the weapon, then froze and checked. A twig frantically inserted into the barrel came out dry, so she switched to armor piercing and took careful aim at the head of the beast.

The two shots sounded as one, somehow echoing clearly in a lull as the rest of the company was reloading. Armand Pahner abandoned dignity and comfort for survival and threw himself into a long, shallow dive out of the way as the beast slid to a halt where he'd been standing in an all-enveloping bow wave of water, muck, and shredded swamp vegetation.

He was back up almost instantly, pistol in a two-handed grip, but the emergency was over. The beast was down and quivering, its tail thumping a slow, splashing tattoo. The back of the tiger-striped beast overtopped the tall Marine by at least half a meter, and he looked over at Roger, who was shakily reloading.

"Thank you, Your Highness," he said, putting his pistol away with a steady hand.

"De nada," Roger said. "Let's just get the fuck out of this swamp."

"Yours or mine?" Kosutic asked. She stepped up to the beast and emptied half a magazine of armor piercing into its armored head.

"Uh." Roger examined what was left of the evidence. It sure looked like his 11-millimeter had done the main damage. "Mine, I think."

"Yeah, well," the NCO said as she carefully inserted another magazine, "you shoot it; you skin it."

The good news about the thing Mardukans called an atul-grack and the humans just called a bigbeast was that they were very solitary, very territorial hunters who required at least one high, dry spot in their territory. It took a while, but Cord's tribesmen found it.

And the river.

The large mound was clearly artificial, part of a dike system which had once contained the Hurtan River within its banks. The artificial island supported the remains of a burned gazebo, just a few charred sticks succumbing to the Mardukan saprophytes, and the barest outlines of a road paralleling the river it overlooked.

The Hurtan wasn't a huge river by any stretch, but it was big enough. And the current was noticeable, which was unusual in the swamp.

"No way," D'Len Pah said. "Flar-ta swim, but not that well."

Their raised elevation also permitted a view of the low mountains or high hills where their intermediate objective lay. They seemed to be within easy reach, no more than one day's march.

If, that was, they could get across the river.

"We could go upriver," Roger suggested. "Look for a crossing point. Was there a ford?" he asked Cord, who shook his head.

"A ferry."

"We could build a raft. . . ." Pah started.

"Huh-uh," Pahner said, cutting everyone else off. He'd been staring at the river and its far bank thoughtfully.

"Bridge it?" Kosutic asked.

"Yep," the company commander replied. "And we'll belay the pack beasts across. Pah," he turned to the mahout, "the beasts can cross on their own, but they have a problem with the current. Is that it?"

"Yes," the mahout said. "They're good swimmers, but we can't ride them while they swim, for if we fall off, we'll drown. Swept downstream, without us to guide them, they might panic and drown as well." He clapped his true-hands in agitation. "You don't want us to lose any, do you?"

"No, no, no," Pahner said soothingly. "But we will cross this river. Right here."

"Why tee pock do I have to do t'is?" Poertena demanded as he took off his boots.

"Because you're from Pinopa," Kosutic told him. "Everyone knows Pinopans swim like fish."

"T'at's stereotyping, t'at is," the armorer snapped. He struggled out of his filthy chameleon suit and stood in his issue underwear. The flexible synthetic material made for an adequate swimsuit. "Just because I'm from Pinopa doesn't mean I can swim!"

"Can't you?" Julian asked in an interested tone. "Because if you can't, it's going to be funny as hell when we throw you in."

Dogzard sniffed at the two of them, then walked down to the water's edge. She sniffed at it in turn, then hissed and walked away. Somebody else could swim that river.

"Well, yes," Poertena admitted.

"Fairly well, right?" Kosutic asked. She did have to admit that it was stereotyping. There could be a Pinopan who couldn't swim. It would be like someone from the planet Sherpa, which was basically one giant mountain chain, being afraid of heights. It could happen, but it would be like being afraid of oxygen.

"Well, yes," the armorer admitted again, sourly. "I was on a swimming team in high school an' you've gotta believe tee competition was pocking pierce. But t'at's not tee point!" he continued in protest.

"Right. Sure. Anything you say," Julian soothed as he tied a rope around the diminutive Pinopan's waist. "One sacrifice to the river gods, coming up!"

Roger shook his head at the good-natured wrangling going on below his tree and took his rifle off safe. The river appeared placid, but no one intended to settle for appearances.

The rifle normally mounted a three-round magazine to save weight, given how heavy the big magnum rounds were, but the manufacturer also offered a ten-round detachable box magazine as an option. Roger had never understood why anyone who could hit what he was aiming at would need ten rounds—unless, of course, he was trying to kill main battle tanks—but two of the ten-round boxes had come with the rifle, and he'd brought them along without really thinking about it.

Now that he was down on Marduk, he'd discovered that his original contemptuous opinion of the option had undergone considerable modification, and he snapped the first, fully loaded ten-round box into place, then slid an eleventh round "up the spout" before he closed the bolt. He also had additional standard magazines laid out on the broad branch in front of him, a box of ammunition opened on his belt, and Matsugae stood ready to reload empties for him on the fly, but even all of that wasn't enough to banish his fear that he might run out of ammo as the day wore on.

Marine sharpshooters were scattered in other trees along the river, but more and more, it was Roger the company depended on when an accurate shot was needed. The time he'd spent big game hunting was coming to the fore, as he invariably placed his big bone-smashing bullets in vulnerable spots.

Julian climbed into the tree next to his and Matsugae's and unlimbered his bead rifle.

"You really ought to have one of these," the NCO noted, gesturing with his chin at the ammunition scattered across the tree limb. "Fifty in a magazine beats three—or even ten—all hollow." The sergeant pulled one of the dual magazines out of the bead rifle and replaced it with one filled with armor piercing. "And now I've got a hundred."

"Tell you what," Roger said good-naturedly as he flipped his "smoke pole's" selector switch from bolt action to semi-auto. "What do you want to bet that I get more of whatever comes along than you do?"

Julian considered himself a fair shot, but he recognized it as a tough bet to win. The prince, for all his other faults, was no slouch with that big-game rifle. The entire company had seen ample proof of that, but the Marine couldn't resist.

"Okay. Fifty credits?"

"Three hundred push-ups," Roger retorted. "Fifty credits doesn't mean a thing here, and it's peanuts to me on Earth. But three hundred push-ups is three hundred push-ups."

"Done," Julian agreed with a smile. Watching as the little Pinopan gingerly lowered himself into the water. "But who's gonna judge?" he asked.

"One hundred and twenty-six," Julian grunted. "One hundred and twenty-seven . . ."

"Come on, Julian," Sergeant Major Kosutic said. "He beat you fair and square."

The sound of bugling flar-ta and the occasional crack of a bead rifle could still be heard in the distance as the elaborate bridge system was disassembled.

After Poertena had taken the lead line across, the company had swung into gear with a vengeance. The first rope bridge was being tautened within twenty minutes, and a security team went swarming across it. In another half hour, two more rope bridges were in place, and the flar-ta were being belayed across.

The first bridge was a simple affair: two taut ropes, one above the other and about a meter and a half apart, strung between trees on either side of the river. The ropes were tightened by tying a metal ring into the side over the river and then running the end of the rope through the ring. A fire team then pulled the rope as taut as possible, and a quick release knot was tied into it. Another rope was run above the first, and then the two lines were lashed together. The resulting bridge was crossed by holding onto the top rope while shuffling across the lower one.

The flar-ta crossing was, inevitably, a bit trickier.

That was what the two additional bridges were for. Unlike the personnel bridge, they were single lines, and the Marines attached metal clips to them, then ran a rope from one clip to a sling around each pack beast's middle. Another rope was run from the pack beast to the far shore, and a third ran from the beast to the near shore.

Even if the entire company had grabbed onto the far rope, there would have been no way they could have managed the beast's crossing with raw muscle power. But as it turned out, a simple trick permitted a single fire team of five to pull the beast across the river.

The rope to the far side was first bent around a tree, then back on itself. The team's members held the doubled up rope in their hands as the beast was coaxed into the water, and as slack came into the rope, they pulled it through. But whenever the big beast balked and tried to draw back, they clamped their hands around the rope. The steadiness of the tree and the friction of the clamped rope prevented even the powerful flar-ta from backing up.

Once they were in the river, the beasts started to swim. The line run to the taut "bridge" kept them from being swept downstream, and the alternate heaving and belaying of the team on the ropes drew them across whether they wanted to cross the river or not.

In the meantime, the expected wave of carnivores arrived. The Mardukan crocodilia were just pleased as pie to have all those big, toothsome flar-ta come into their area, and they decided to welcome them with open jaws. Roger and company, however, had a surprise for them.

Roger was glad he'd brought a couple of cases of ammunition down from DeGlopper. He'd thought it was ludicrous to bring more rounds on the expedition than he'd ever shot in his life, but he and his faithful loader Matsugae shot out all the rounds they had in the tree plus a hundred more Roger had asked Despreaux to get for him before the last flar-ta was out of the water.

Not all of them hit, of course. Even he missed the occasional shot, but at one point there had been fifty carcasses floating in view, more than two-thirds of them with an 11-millimeter entry wound. That had been the worst point—after the smell of the blood had gotten downriver and attracted the fast-swimming swamp beasts.

Roger, followed silently by Cord, walked up as Julian grunted, "One hundred and fifty-seven . . ."

"I think that's adequate, Sergeant Major," the prince said. He stood his rifle up against a tree and sat on the ground.

The far side of the river had turned out to be higher and drier, for which the company was giving elaborate thanks. Already, in the midst of constructing a fortified camp, uniforms and allegedly waterproof rucksacks were being dried out.

"We've all had a tough few days," Roger added. He picked up the rifle again and broke open the action to clean it, but that was as far as he could get. "God, I'm tired."

"Let me clean that for you, Sir," Corporal Hooker offered. The lance corporal held out her hand for the rifle. "I've got mine to clean, anyway."

"Oh, thank you, Corporal, but we're all tired," the prince demurred. "I'll get it."

Dogzard walked over to where he sat and sniffed to make sure he was okay after the river crossing, then spun around and curled up against his side. The lizard was growing like a weed. She'd gained at least fifteen kilos in the last two weeks, and it was all Roger could do to prop up her weight.

"Let her take it, Your Highness," Kosutic said. "You probably need to go coordinate with the Old Man while I finish ensuring that the Sergeant here learns to keep his mouth shut."

Roger had opened his mouth to protest, but shut it with a clop and a laugh.

"Very well, Sergeant Major. They say `Never argue with the Gunny.' I presume that goes double for a sergeant major." He handed the rifle to the lance corporal. "Thank you, Corporal."

He looked at Julian, who gasped: "One hundred and seventy-eight . . . !"

"And to you, Sergeant Julian," the prince said with a twinkle, "good luck."

" . . . can expect an increase in attacks on this side of the river," Lieutenant Gulyas said.

The briefing was taking place in the command tent. The sides were rolled up to let in a bit of breeze, but the troops still kept their distance. Sometimes it was better to get the word through official channels rather than as a rumor.

"Do we stay here and let them concentrate to hit us while we're dug in?" Roger asked, flicking a bug off his pad. "Or do we move on, hoping to cut down on the contacts?" Even with the sun still high, the gray light through the perpetual overcast was dim under the trees. He squinted at the pad, then rolled up the light level. Better. Still not great, but better.

"They can probably figure out that we're headed for Voitan without any difficulty," Pahner said. "And there's something to be said for letting them come to us in a prepared position. But this isn't the sort of location I'd want to defend."

The area was a flat, heavily forested plain, higher than the swamp, but still prone to flooding. The flat plain, however, did not provide anything in the way of terrain features to use in defense. The company could, and had, cut down most of the secondary growth trees to improve their perimeter and fire lanes, but that was about it.

"If we reach Voitan," Cord said, deliberately, "we'll have many places to defend. Not only should there still be walls in places, but the quarries behind the city offer numerous fortifiable spots."

"What do you think, Captain?" Roger asked, yawning. Everyone was exhausted, including him. He just needed to drive on.

"I think that in the morning we pull out carefully, then make the fastest march possible to Voitan. We'll pile the packs on the beasts again and force the pace. I doubt they expected us to cross the swamp here. They probably have a crossing place they use, and if they've begun to assemble to hit us, they'll probably be assembling there. Unfortunately for them, we were too stupid to use the `good' crossing."

"So we make a run for Voitan," Kosutic said.

"Right." Pahner considered the situation for a moment. "If it's as close as Cord thinks, then we should arrive by mid-afternoon." The long Mardukan day would work in their favor for once.

"And if it's not?" Kosutic asked.

"Then we will have exhausted ourselves for nothing," Pahner told her grimly.

Matsugae sampled the stew and gave the mahout who was stirring it a thumbs up. He walked on to where a Mardukan female was turning strips of meat battered with barleyrice meal on a large metal sheet over a fire. He pulled one of the strips off and blew on it to cool it enough to taste without burning his mouth. Again, he smiled and gave the cook a thumbs up.

The captain had backed the camp up against the river, and the company had spent the remainder of the afternoon digging in and cleaning up. Matsugae, for his part, had spent the same time working hard to put together a decent meal for the first time in three days. Many of the swamp beasts had been lassoed or hooked and dragged to shore. Although there was good flesh all over the carcasses, there were three or four particularly good cuts, and with all the bodies floating in the river, the mahouts had ended up taking only the skins and the very best of the meat.

Most of the mahouts were preparing the skins. The swamp beasts were fairly rare, and their skins brought a high price. The company, possibly Roger alone, had shot the cost of two or three pack beasts in one afternoon.

Matsugae grinned. The mahouts had been picking up the skins of all the beasts that the company shot along the way. The captain had nearly offered them to the drovers as a free benefit, but Matsugae had convinced him not to do that. The mahouts were being paid a straight rate, just as they would for any caravan. The skins, however, even after processing, were the property of whoever shot the beasts they came from. Give the mahouts a bonus for their work, certainly, but the skins of those predators were valuable. The beasts that had harassed them would help pay the company's way, and that gave the valet a simple sense of pleasure.

The dog-lizard wandered into the outdoor kitchen and sniffed at the strips on the fire. The Mardukan female tending them shooed her away, so she wandered over to Matsugae, looking pitiful. The beast had grown steadily since Roger adopted it. It was nearly the size of a dalmatian now, and its growth showed no sign of slowing. In addition, its tail was thickening. The flar-ta, which were similar to the dog-lizard in many ways, stored up reserves in their tails, or so the mahouts claimed. Certainly, they were skinnier now than when the company had left Q'Nkok. Apparently, unlike the pack beasts, the journey had been good for the dog-lizard.

Matsugae consulted his toot and smiled as he tossed the dog-lizard the last bit of damncroc tail. Nearly time for dinner.

"Kostas, that was wonderful, as always." A yawn interrupted Roger's compliment, and he grimaced. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, Your Highness," Pahner said. "We're all beat. I hope like hell we don't get hit tonight. I don't think Bravo of the Bronze could hold off a troop of Space Scouts tonight."

"I think you underestimate them, Captain," O'Casey said. The chief of staff had begun to adjust to the brutal regimen of the trip, shedding fat and putting on muscle. When she got back to Imperial City, she intended to recommend shipwreck on a hostile planet full of carnivorous monsters and bloodthirsty barbarians as a sovereign method for attaining physical fitness. Now the former tutor smiled warmly. "Your troops have been just magnificent. Her Majesty will be incredibly proud when we finally get back."

"Well," Pahner said, "we have a long way to go before we find out. But, thank you, Councilor. That means a lot to me, and it will actually mean something to the troopers as well. We don't just fight for pay, you know."

Roger shook his head sleepily.

"I never considered all the little stories around me all the time. Do you know Corporal Hooker's first name?" Roger asked as he fed Dogzard a scrap of gristle from the damncroc.

"Of course, Your Highness. Ima."

"She said her dad had a sick sense of humor," the prince confirmed in a tone of outrage. "I offered to have him thrown out an airlock."

"He's long dead," Kosutic said, taking another fingerstrip of damncroc tail. "Snorted himself to death on dreamwrack."

"Ah," Roger said with a nod. "And Poertena wanted to go to college on a swimming scholarship . . ."

" . . . but he got beat out in the finals," Pahner finished. "There's more to leadership than wearing the right tabs on your collar, Your Highness. Knowing the details of the troops is important, and for knowing the really intimate details . . ."

" . . . you have sergeant majors and gunnery sergeants," Kosutic said with a frown. "Andras' wife was expecting when we left, and I doubt we'll be back before she's due. I don't suppose it will matter one way or the other, though; we're undoubtedly written off as dead."

"That . . . sucks," O'Casey said.

"Being a Marine sucks," Pahner told her with a quiet smile. It was rare for the academic to swear.

"Then why do you do it?" she asked.

"It's something I'm good at. Somebody has to do it, and better someone who's good at it. Not everyone is." The captain looked pensive for a moment. "It's . . . bad, sometimes. When you realize that what you're really good at is either killing other sentients in person or leading others in the killing of them. But everyone in the Regiment is an exceptional Marine. And reasonably presentable. And utterly loyal . . ."

"But there's more," Kosutic said with a grin. "That describes a surprising number of Marines. And even a surprising number that can make it through RIP. It's a big Corps, after all."

"Yes," Pahner said, taking a sip of water, "there is more. Every member of The Empress' Own has some odd skill that the selection board thought might conceivably be of use. You don't get in if the only thing you know is what you've learned since Basic."

"I knew Poertena could swim that river," Kosutic told the prince. "But I wasn't about to tell him that I knew he was an Olympic-class swimmer," she added with a laugh.

"You mentioned Corporal Hooker," Pahner said soberly. "Ima Hooker was an air car thief before a judge gave her a choice between the Marines and a long jail sentence."

"What the hell is she doing in The Empress' Own?" O'Casey asked with a gasp as she choked on a mouthful of wine.

"She can open and be driving an air car she's never seen as fast as you can open your own and drive away with a key," Kosutic said seriously. "If you think that's not a skill the Empress might need someday, you're sadly mistaken."

"She is also utterly loyal to the Empress," Pahner told the chief of staff. "She actually has one of the most stable loyalty indexes I've ever seen. Better than yours, I might add, Ms. O'Casey. The Marines took her out of a hellish existence and gave her back her honor and purpose. She's somehow transferred that . . . redemption to the person of the Empress. She's definitely one of the ones who's going to end up in Gold."

"How strange," the academic murmured. She felt as if she'd stepped through the ancient Alice's looking glass.

"So what's your skill, Captain?" Roger asked.

"Ah, well." The CO smiled as he leaned back in the camp chair. "They make exceptions for captains."

"He's taught himself to be a pretty fair machinist, and he can rebuild an air car from the ground up," Kosutic said with a grin at the captain. "You only thought they made an exception for you. He also does decent interior work."

"Hmph! Better than yours."

"What is yours, Sergeant Major?" O'Casey asked after a moment had passed and it was obvious that the sergeant major wasn't going to be forthcoming.

"Well, the main one is . . ." Kosutic paused and glared balefully at Pahner ". . . knitting."

"Knitting?" Roger looked at the grim-faced warrior, unable to keep the laugh completely out of his voice. "Knitting? Really?"

"Yes. I like it, okay?"

"It just seems so . . ."

"Feminine?" O'Casey suggested.

"Well, yeah," the prince admitted.

"Okay, okay." Pahner grin. "Let me point out that it's not just knitting. The Sergeant Major is from Armagh. She can take a hunk of wool, or anything similar, and make you an entire suit, given time."

"Oh," Roger said. The planet Armagh was a slow-boat colony of primarily Irish descent. Like many slow-boat colonies, it had backslid after reaching its destination and stabilized at a preindustrial technology level before the arrival of the tunnel drive. And unfortunately, also like many, it had broken down into factional warfare. The arrival of the first tunnel drive ships and the subsequent absorption of the planet into the Empire of Man had reduced the blood feuds, but it hadn't eliminated them. It had been suggested that nothing short of carpet bombing the surface with nukes and sowing it with salt would get the residents of Armagh to stop fighting amongst themselves. It was practically a genetic imperative.

"Hey, it's not that bad," Kosutic protested. "You're safer in downtown New Belfast than you are walking around in Imperial City. Just . . . stay out of certain pubs."

"Some other time, I'll ask you what it was like being a priestess of the Fallen One on Armagh. Everywhere I turn there are fascinating stories like this," Roger said. "It's like taking off blinders." He yawned and patted Dogzard on the head. "Get up, you ugly beast." The sauroid lifted her red- and black-striped head off his lap with a disturbed hiss and headed for the tent door. "Folks, I'm exhausted. I'm for bed."

"Yes," Pahner said, standing up. "Long day tomorrow. We should all rest."

"Tomorrow," Roger said, getting up to follow Dogzard.

"Tomorrow," O'Casey said.