The priest turned his head to scan the half of the horizon not blocked by the bellied-down bulk of the starship. Ant columns of stevedores manhandled cargo from the ship’s rollerway into horse- and ox-drawn wagons in the foreground: like most frontier worlds, Burlage included, self-powered machinery was rare in the back country. Beyond the men and draft animals stretched the fields, studded frequently by orange-golden clumps of native vegetation.
“Nobody knows how little his life’s worth till he’s put it on the line a couple times,” the old man said. “For nothing. Look at it here on Curwin—the seaboard taxed these uplands into revolt, then had to spend what they’d robbed and more to hire an armored regiment. So boys like you from—Scania? Felsen?—”
“Burlage, sir.”
“Sure, a quarryman, should have known from your shoulders. You come in to shoot farmers for a gang of coastal moneymen you don’t know and wouldn’t like if you did.” The priest paused, less for effect than to heave in a quick, angry breath that threatened his shirt buttons. “And maybe you’ll die, too; if the Slammers were immortal, they wouldn’t need recruits. But some that die will die like saints, boy, die martyrs of the Way, for no reason, for no reason . . .
“Your ride’s here, boy.”
The suddenly emotionless words surprised Rob as much as a scream in a silent prayer would have. Hissing like a gun-studded dragon, a gray-metal combat car slid onto the landing field from the west. Light dust puffed from beneath it: although the flatbed trailer behind was supported on standard wheels, the armored vehicle itself hovered a hand’s-breadth above the surface at all points. A dozen powerful fans on the underside of the car kept it floating on an invisible bubble of air, despite the weight of the fusion power unit and the iridium-ceramic armor. Rob had seen combat cars on the entertainment cube occasionally, but those skittering miniatures gave no hint of the awesome power that emanated in reality from the machines. This one was seven meters long and three wide at the base, the armored sides curving up like a turtle’s back to the open fighting compartment in the rear.
From the hatch in front of the powerplant stuck the driver’s head, a black-mirrored ball in a helmet with full face shield down. Road dust drifted away from the man in a barely-visible haze, cleansed from the helmet’s optics by a static charge. Faceless and terrible to the unfamiliar Burlager, the driver guided toward the starship a machine that appeared no more inhuman than did the man himself.
“Undercrewed,” the priest murmured. “Two men on the back deck aren’t enough for a car running single.”
The older man’s jargon was unfamiliar but Rob could follow his gist by looking at the vehicle. The two men standing above the waist-high armor of the rear compartment were clearly fewer than had been contemplated when the combat car was designed. Its visible armament comprised a heavy powergun forward to fire over the head of the driver, and similar weapons, also swivel-mounted, on either side to command the flanks and rear of the vehicle. But with only two men in the compartment there was a dangerous gap in the circle of fire the car could lay down if ambushed. Another vehicle for escort would have eased the danger, but this one was alone save for the trailer it pulled.
Though as the combat car drew closer, Rob began to wonder if the two soldiers present couldn’t handle anything that occurred. Both were in full battle dress, wearing helmets and laminated back and breast armor over their khaki. Their faceplates were clipped open. The one at the forward gun, his eyes as deep-sunken and deadly as the three revolving barrels of his weapon, was in his forties and further aged by the dust sweated into black grime in the creases of his face. His head rotated in tiny jerks, taking in every nuance of the sullen crowd parting for his war-car. The other soldier was huge by comparison with the first and lounged across the back in feigned leisure: feigned, because either hand was within its breadth of a powergun’s trigger, and his limbs were as controlled as spring steel.