Colonel Lynch opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  "Would the colonel care to inspect my specimens?" San­martin asked politely.

  "I seemed to recall in an afteraction report the part played by, what was it, the thick-sided cowrie?" Vereshchagin com­mented.

  "The caurica, sir. While we were waiting for Glowworm to interdict their retreat, the cakes seemed to take my discourse on the species as a personal affront, which exacerbated their prob­lems with fire discipline."

  "Raul, we should like to inspect your unit," Vereshchagin said pleasantly. "You have five minutes to prepare. Colonel Lynch and I are going to take a short walk and have a nice, quiet chat about the nice medal Admiral Nakamura gave you for that bit of inspired lunacy."

  He led the unresisting Colonel Lynch, waving the colonel's entourage to the manor house. "Why don't you all go inside and ask Kasha for a cup of tea?"

  "Well, Hans," Sanmartin said, rubbing his hands together briskly, "shall we prepare for inspection?"

  "Raul, would you please tell Kasha that Colonel Lynch is going to want a nice hot cup of tea when he comes over to check the menu," Vereshchagin added over his shoulder, watching little warning lights go off in Sanmartin's eyes.

  Sanmartin sidled over to Coldewe. "Hans, what are we eat­ing?"

  Coldewe shook his head. Drops of morning rain began to fall.

  "Send Rudi, I'm on my way." Taking advantage of a mo­mentary hesitation, Sanmartin vaulted past the huddle of staff hangers-on, darted inside the farmhouse, and shut the door be­hind him.

  "Kasha! ZdrasteV'

  Kasha laughed, the muscles rippling under her apron. "You do that good, Captain. What do we got?" "What are we eating? I'm supposed to be inspecting."

  "That stuff again. They must think you don't trust me."

  "We got a colonel, and the Variag's going to bring him here as soon as he's off the can."

  "Hokay. We got no fish, and that battalion sergeant, Malinov, says we use local produce because we're short of rations. So bitochki for supper and blinchiki for dinner. Maybe shashlik tomorrow, we got a lot of meat."

  "Wonderful. You ready for inspection?" Sanmartin found himself saying, acutely aware of the presence of Hanna Bruwer, lured from her work station by the commotion.

  Kasha bellowed with mirth.

  "Hokay, there are five staff officers and some aides who'll be here in a minute. Feed them some tea and keep them from mischief." Outside, he grabbed his company sergeant by the arm. "What in hell are bitochki and blinchiki, Rudi?" he whis­pered.

  "I just eat them," Scheel admitted, eyeing the bewildered staff officers, "but bitochki are like meat patties, and blinchiki are pancakes with stuff on them."

  "Well, Colonel Lynch won't know either. Please, get the computer to spit it out and post it."

  "Posted. The Variag eyed it on his way through."

  "Oh."

  Sanmartin watched his brigade commander's flower boys walk past with sidelong looks. "Do you know, Rudi," he said with finality, "after all that time chasing cakes, I forgot what being in the military was like."

  At length, departing with Lynch in tow, Vereshchagin noticed the word "helicoprolite" circumspectly stenciled on to the high split tail of the tilt-prop. He considered it painting the lily.

  that night, vereshchagin heard a respectful knock at

  the door to his quarters. He unlocked and opened.

  Standing at the threshold was Matti Haijalo, bending a piece of wire into a picklock with short, powerful fingers. "Hello, Anton. I figured this would be less messy than breaking down the door," Haijalo said cheerfully in a soft voice.

  "Please, join me. Is this you or a delegation?" Vereshchagin asked.

  "Nobody here but Haerkoennen manning the com, and he's silent as death and snow. The battalion sergeant and I cut cards to see who would have the privilege of stopping by. We used my deck.'' Haijalo sat and took out a bottle and two glasses, pour­ing out some of the raw spirit. He lifted his glass, waiting, as Vereshchagin shut the door.

  Vereshchagin lowered himself slowly into his spider chair. Inclining his head, he tapped the other glass with a thumbnail.

  "Kippis."

  "Skoal!" Haijalo replied with morbid good humor, and downed the liquor. He reached into yet another pocket to extract a small container and shook it.

  "Chicken?"

  The unfortunate chicken in question had been skinned and boned, cut and quick-steamed with spice and vegetables. Ve­reshchagin extended his curled fingers slightly in a gesture of negation. Haijalo shrugged slighdy. He pulled out his pocket- knife and began spearing pieces rapidly with the point. Veresh­chagin absently watched the play of the tendons in his hand. Ashcroft's desert sun had burned away the fat, leaving muscle and tendon sharply defined.

  "That mewling Ivan never uses enough salt," Harjalo com­plained.

  "With salt, as with many things, too much is ultimately as fatal as too little," Vereshchagin observed.

  "Well?" Haijalo asked, setting aside his knife.

  "So it begins."

  "It never changes."

  Vereshchagin sipped the liquor in his glass and made a face. "I sometimes think that we kill men with the same callous in­difference that we chop at trees, a word of regret and it is done.''

  "I won't argue poetry with you, you'll have to get Coldewe," Haijalo said with a smile. "What is it, Anton? Premonitions?"

  "Perhaps. Recruit Private Novelo, today."

  "Novelo deserved it."

  "No one deserves it, Matti. To train a man and send him all this way to put a bullet in his head? I deplore the waste."

  "Waste of five good bullets. Did Raul have trouble putting together a firing squad?"

  "He had to turn away volunteers, I believe. This is the fourth we have had to execute in what, five years?"

  "Four it is. lust relax and talk, tomorrow you can go back to being infallible. Did I tell you that little cretin, Dong, called up to express outrage on behalf of Colonel Lynch? It seems that when we shot him, Novelo was still assigned to brigade."

  "I am aware. What did you say?" "I offered to send Novelo back, only slightly used and almost as good as new. While Dong was puzzling that one over, I had Timo cut the circuit."

  Vereshchagin laughed. He set his glass aside. "Did I mention Claude to you?"

  "Dapper Doctor Devoucoux? He's already telling me this place is 'unutterably' tedious. Labrador without snowshoes."

  Vereshchagin idly reached for his pipe and tapped it against his knee. "Despite appearances, Claude is a sensitive soul." He meditated briefly. "This planet troubles him, as well. He recalled to me a phrase which Jacques Cartier committed to his journal to describe the New Found Land."

  "Which was?"

  " 'This is a land God gave to Cain.' That skirmish with the cowboys, we will have trouble with them."

  Haijalo nodded.

  "Did I ever tell you that I wanted to teach?" Vereshchagin said, settling back into his chair.

  " Yes, several times.''

  "I wanted to teach."

  "You mentioned that."

  "I hate sending them out, Matti. It has barely started, this time. I feel a goose walking across my grave."

  "What's this about a goose? That's one I've never heard be­fore."

  "An English premonition. How little the language changes."

  "Can I offer you more of this?" Haijalo said, shaking the bottle.

  "Like Latin, a language for business and soldiers, belonging to every man and to none. Thank you, no," Vereshchagin an­swered, staring at the tiny light.

  "Your choice. And if you think English doesn't change, go listen to the cowboys."

  ' 'Eddies swirl in and out of the main current; the current runs true. The cowboys, Chalker's cowboys, are going to hit Piotr. I feel it. I demanded fire support from the warships since Lieutenant-Colonel Kimura does not seem inclined to use them. The admiral agreed."

  "Good job. What else?" Haijalo asked.

  ' 'I saw Eva Moore today.''

  "How is she?"

  "Miriam is dead."

  "Her girlfriend? I'm sorry for her. And for you." "She has walled away her grief and set it aside. It has given her a sense of mortality. She was playing matchmaker."

  "The devil! What, is she seeing gooses, too?" Haijalo asked, with a faraway look.

  "Geese. She told me the pigs will be building their nests in trees before we get off this mudball."

  "Gods." Haijalo shook his head. "If this world were normal, we'd have people eating off our fingers. Another Ashcroft?"

  "Worse, perhaps. We have yet to finish with the cowboys and their mercenaries, and Admiral Lee is already formulating plans to rework the Boers."

  "It sounds insane."

  "It might be necessary. What do you know of the Afrikaner Bond? The Brothers."

  "Not one thing."

  "Nor had I."

  "A nucleus for guerrilla resistance?"

  "Possibly. Rettaglia pulled me aside to discuss covert oper­ations. Before they pull themselves together, he intends to snatch them up."

  "So we're collecting documentation."

  "Correct. We should move up weapons collection. Tomor­row?"

  "Can be accomplished. I'll be on it tonight. You were ex­pecting me to show, weren't you?"

  "I would have been astonished if you had not."

  Haijalo laughed. Vereshchagin smiled. "To tomorrow? One day more on the volcano?"

  "Tomorrow!" Haijalo rejoined, touching his glass to Veresh- chagin's.

  Wednesday(2)

  danny meagher squeezed the juices from a lump of delta mud. They ran like warm blood down the side of his hand.

  Meagher was a mere, a real mere, he reflected savagely. Rot­ting in the mud, he had a bare dozen more to stiffen the three bleeding companies the Imperials were chasing. Mercenaries weren't cannon fodder, they trained cannon fodder for little dust- ups. For all that Meagher tried to convince his young charges of their own battle worthiness, it bothered him sometimes that the

  little squirts—and his employers—sometimes thought they were

  real.

  Fools like Whiteman had encouraged that sort of sloppy thinking. Old Tsai had been hotter than a torch with Whiteman at his elbow. The Imps were shooting off-planet mercenaries after Whiteman's stupidity at the filthy riverport. Well, White- man was gone, dropping his mess in Meagher's lap. Shooting him was the best thing the damned Imps had done since they'd hit planet.

  A squirt had actually asked whether they would avenge him, the sorry sot. Meagher had laughed in his face. By all accounts, it was Kolomeitsev's company of the Imp 35th Rifle who did him, and those boyos were nasty. Whiteman's heirs and assigns could have that job. Danny Meagher had problems of his own.

  Fortunately, the lot combing the swamps wasn't Kolomeit- sev's. Kimura's 64th Imp Rifles were parade ground johnnies, and Meagher had run the filthy sons of Allah.

  But the net was closing on Meagher's employer. Tsai's trou­sers were hanging in the breeze, but Danny Meagher had played the game. The old rancher would have a tiny surprise the day he decided to hand over his pet mercenary's head to buy himself a pardon.

  Unfortunately, that wouldn't go far toward resolving whether Meagher would be bringing his skin off this particular ball of mud. Brooding, Meagher caressed his precious assault rifle.

  USS had screwed them, well and truly. They'd hired up meres with the moon and the stars, then they'd lost their nerve and whistled for the Imps. A right bleeding bunch USS were, even in small things.

  What the Imps didn't know is that they'd shot down Chalker's sons when Kolomeitsev ambushed Whiteman. Meagher grinned mirthlessly. Chalker was hiring all the squirts the other ranchers had let go. The rancher lord wasn't very bright, but he ought to manage something for himself with half the Imp army combing the delta for Meagher and Tsai. Having Chalker massacre all the Imps and Boers he could lay hands on would be just the diver­sion Mother Meagher's little son needed, and if Chalker jumped, some of the other ranchers might jump as well.

  Danny Meagher intended a good several innings before he'd be toasting toes in hell, and he was marking himself a little list.

  There was even a bit of a war to keep idle hands busy.

  * * *

  in reading's town square, ulrich ohlrogge spat over the

  right side of his vehicle. Lieutenant Ohlrogge was not pleased.

  He was not pleased at being shunted from a war front on one planet to a war front on another. He was less pleased with his new armored car, which had broken down before it was broken in, or the fair city of Reading, the dump that called itself the capital of the cowboy country. And he was especially not pleased with Colonel Lynch, who was hosting his little soiree in the sun.

  Temporarily embarrassed by a lack of troops, Admiral Lee had accepted the offer Newcombe made as President pro tern of the Reading Council to assist in putting down the Chalker's re­bellion before it spread to the rest of the upland ranchers. Col­onel Lynch was here to muster Newcombe's four hundred into Imperial service, and from his vantage point as an unwilling honor guard, Ohlrogge was having trouble deciding which of the two was the bigger idiot. Between them, they'd kept Ohl­rogge out for an hour while Newcombe's "soldiers" were did­dling themselves.

  To Ohlrogge's right was a section of blacklegs commanded by a lieutenant. A platoon of Kimura's geeks was lined up to his left, mostly in splints. He spat, to his left.

  Kimura had dropped the geeks to seize the Reading runway. Drops can't be practiced shipboard. When the shuttle dutifully slowed to stalling speed to bounce them out, they'd come falling out of the sky like sacks of sand, and the runway itself was soft as concrete. Stupid gesture. Ohlrogge had been waiting there three hours for the geeks to show.

  He cast a surreptitious glance for Hunsley. Hunsley was a slimy civ, but he was the only thing with brains south of the Vaal, except for Janine Joh, who was the only thing with balls. He didn't see either. Another one of Newcombe's uniforms came dancing about, and Ohlrogge used the diversion to steal a glance back at the cowboy barracks.

  Newcombe's cowboys were waving homemade red, blue, and white flags out the windows. Ohlrogge spat, this time to his right.

  As it turned out, Newcombe had a democratic army. After holding a democratic meeting, they had struck for better work­ing conditions. They didn't like the food, saluting, or becoming Imperials, and Ian Chalker was offering double what they were getting. Newcombe democratically spent an hour haranguing diem, and they assuredly didn't like Newcombe. Their officers had "democratically" left the barracks.

  After a few hours, Ohlrogge found himself becoming slightly concerned. Against four hundred of Newcombe's best, there was one Cadillac with a busted engine and a geek platoon- blacklegs didn't count. Kimura had ordered up a company out from the swamps, but it would be hours before they showed, assuming they found the way. In the meantime, Newcombe's four hundred were having a wonderful time shooting out win­dows and singing.

  Of greater moment, Ohlrogge was tired of sitting in the sun. After democratically looking around for Colonel Lynch, he turned to his gunner. "Chicken! You remember anyone actually giving us orders?"

  The gunner, Hicken, shook his head from side to side sol­emnly. "I'd remember a thing like that."

  "Just be sure and remember it when Uwe Eybl asks. Put a 90mm smoke through the front door. I want to see those silly Hags come jumping out the windows.'' He heard the whip-crack of the shell almost before he looked up. Ohlrogge decided it was worth his chance for a pension. Afterward, he was never sure whether it was flags or cowboys who came jumping out first.

  Newcombe^ cowboys formed up pretty well after all. While they were obviously unfit even to take on Chalker, at least they weren't on the other side. Hicken won the vehicle pool, cor­rectly wagering that they'd get a medal without getting court- martialed.

  that night, ian chalker's messengers returned.

  Two days before, they had gone forth to swell the muster at Chalkton, calling for riders and captains of war. Ian Chalker had buried his sons, they said. He had dipped his hands in their blood; their blood cried out for blood.

  It was truth few were eager to raise hand against the Imperi­als. Nine and twenty men of Chalker's own had set out and gone to red ruin with Chalker's sons. Only Henderson answered the plea.

 

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