Cal laughed. “Yeah. Had an old lady like that in Baltimore. Stabbed me one night for messing around with her sister. Where you from, kid?”
“Santa Maria. Part of San-San.”
“I been there once. North San-San, not the part where you come from. Here.” He handed Mark the cigarette and struck a match to light both.
They smoked in silence. It wasn’t all tobacco, Mark found; there was a good shot of borloi in the cigarette. Mark avoided inhaling but spoke as if holding his breath. Cal sucked and packed.
“Good weed,” Cal said. “You should have brought some when you ran off.”
“Had to get out fast.”
“Yeah.” They listened to the sounds of the jungle. “Hell of a life,” Cal said. “Wish I could get back to Earth. Some Welfare Island, anyplace where it’s not so damned hot. I’d like to live in Alaska. You ever been there?”
“No. Isn’t there—don’t you have any plans? Some way to make things better?”
“Well, the boss talks about it, but nothing happens,” Cal said. “Every now and then we go raid a place, get some new women. We got a still in not long ago, that’s something.”
Mark shuddered. “Cal?”
“Yah?”
“Got another cigarette?”
“You’ll owe me for it.”
“Sure.”
“Okay.” Cal took out paper and tobacco and rolled two more smokes. He handed one to Mark. “Been thinking. There ought to be something better’n this, but I sure don’t see what it’ll be.” As Cal struck his match, Mark shut his eyes so he wouldn’t be blinded. Then he lifted the rock he’d found in the darkness and brought it down hard onto Cal’s head. The man slumped, but Mark hit him again. He felt something wet and sticky warming his fingers and shuddered.
Then he was sick, but he had to work fast. He took Cal’s rifle and knife and his matches. There wasn’t anything else useful. Mark moved from the rocks onto the narrow strip of flinty ground. No one challenged him. He ran into the jungle with no idea of where to go.
He tried to think. Hiding out until morning wouldn’t help. They’d find Cal and come looking. And Juanita was back there. Mark ran through the squishy mud. Tears came and he fought them back, but then he was sobbing. Where am I going? Where? And why bother?
He ran on until he felt something moving beside him. He drew in a breath to cry out, but a hand clamped over his mouth. Another grasped his wrist. He felt a knifepoint at his throat. “One sound and you’re dead,” a voice whispered. “Got that?”
Mark nodded.
“Right. Just keep remembering that. Okay, Ardway, let’s go.”
“Roger,” a voice answered.
He was half-carried through the jungle from the camp. There were several men. He did not know how many. They moved silently. “Ready to walk?” someone asked.
“Yes,” Mark whispered. “Who are—”
“Shut up. One more sound and we cut your kidneys out. You’ll take a week dying. Now follow the man ahead of you.”
Mark made more noise than all the others combined, although he tried to walk silently. They went a long way through knee-deep water and thick mud, then over harder ground. He thought they were going slightly uphill. Then he no longer felt the loom of the trees. They were in a clearing.
The night was pitch black. How do they see? Mark wondered. And who are they? He thought he could make out a darker shape ahead of him. It was more a feeling than anything else, but then he touched something soft. “Through that,” one of his captors said.
It was a curtain. Another was brought down behind him as he went through, and still another was lifted ahead of him. Light blinded him. He stood blinking.
He was inside a tent. Half a dozen uniformed men stood around a map table. At the end of the tent opposite Mark was a tall, slender man. Mark could not guess how old he was, but there were thin streaks of gray in his hair. His jungle camouflage uniform was neatly pressed. He looked at Mark without expression. “Well, Sergeant Major?”
“Strange, Colonel. This man was sitting guard with another guy. Neither one of them knew what he was doing. We watched them a couple of hours. Then this one beats the other one’s brains out with a rock and runs right into the jungle.”
Mercenaries, Mark thought. They’ve come to—”I need help,” Mark said. “They’ve got my—my wife in there.”
“Your name?” the colonel asked.
“Mark Fuller.”
The colonel looked to his right. Another officer had a small desk console. He punched Mark’s name into it, and words flashed across the screen. The Colonel read for a moment. “Escaped convict. Juanita Corlee escaped with you. That is your wife?”
“Yes.”
“And you had a falling-out with the Free Staters.”
“No. It wasn’t that way at all.” Mark blurted out his story.
The colonel looked back to the readout screen. “And you are surprised.” He nodded to himself. “I knew the schools on Earth were of little use. It says here that you are an intelligent man, Fuller. So far you haven’t shown many signs of it.”
“No. Lord God, no. Who—who are you? Please.”
“I am Colonel John Christian Falkenberg. This regiment has been retained by the Tanith governor to suppress these so-called Free States. You were captured by Sergeant Major Calvin, and these are my officers. Now, Fuller, what can you tell me about the camp layout? What weapons have they?”
“I don’t know much,” Mark said. “Sir.” Now why did I say that?
“There are other women captives in that camp,” Falkenberg said.
“Here,” one of the other officers said. “Show us what you do know, Fuller. How good is this satellite photo map?”
“Christ, Rottermill,” a third officer said. “Let the lad be for a moment.”
“Major Savage, intelligence is my job.”
“So is human compassion. Ian, do you think you can find this boy a drink?” Major Savage beckoned to Falkenberg and led him to the far corner of the tent. Another officer brought a nylon musette bag from under the table and took out a bottle. He handed the brandy to Mark.
Falkenberg listened to Savage. Then he nodded. “We can only try. Fuller, did you see any signs of power supplies in that camp?”
“No, sir. There was no electricity at all. Only flashlights.”
“Any special armament?”
“Colonel, I only saw rifles and pistols, but I heard talk of machine guns. I don’t know how many.”
“I see. Still, it is unlikely that they have laser weapons. Rottermill, have any target seekers turned up missing from armories? What are the chances that they have air defense missiles?”
“Slim, Colonel. Practically none. None stolen I know of.”
“Check that out, please. Jeremy, you may be right,” Falkenberg said. “I believe we can use the helicopters as fighting vehicles.”
There was a moment of silence; then the officer who’d given Mark the brandy said, “Colonel, that’s damned risky. There’s precious little armor on those things.”
“Machines not much better than ours were major fighting vehicles less than a hundred years ago, Captain Frazer.” Falkenberg studied the map. “You see, Fuller, we could have wiped out this lot any time. The hostages are our real problem. Because of them we have kept Aviation Company back and brought in our troops on foot. We’ve not been able to carry heavy equipment or even much personal body armor across these swamps.”
No, I don’t expect you would, Mark thought. He tried to imagine a large group traveling silently through the swamps. It seemed impossible. What had they done when animals attacked? Certainly no one in the Free State had heard any gunfire. Why would an armed man let himself be killed when he could shoot?
“I expect they will threaten their prisoners when they know we are here,” Falkenberg said. “Of course we will negotiate as long as possible. How long do you think it will take for them to act when they know that we will not actually make any concessions?”
“I don’t know,” Mark said. It was something he could not have imagined two years before: men who’d kill and torture, sometimes for no reason at all. No. Not men. Beasts.
“Well, you’ve precipitated the action,” Falkenberg said. “They’ll find your dead companion within hours. Captain Frazer.”
“Sir.”
“You have been studying this map. If you held this encampment, what defenses would you set up?”
“I’d dig in around this open area and hope someone was fool enough to come at us through it, Colonel.”
“Yes. Sergeant Major.”
“Sir!”
“Show me where they have placed their sentries.” Falkenberg watched as Calvin sketched in outposts. Then he nodded. “It seems this Chambliss has some rudimentary military sense. Rings of sentries. In-depth defense. Can you infiltrate that, Sergeant Major?”
“Not likely, sir.”
“Yes.” Falkenberg stood for a moment. Then he turned to Captain Frazer. “Ian, you will take your scouts and half the infantry. Make preparations for an attack on the open area. We will code that Green A. This is not precisely a feint, Ian. It would be a good thing if you could punch through. However, I do not expect you to succeed, so conserve your men.”