* * *
THE PLOWS ARMOR was a tight fit for its crew, the radios, and the central bulk of the main gun with its feed mechanism. The command vehicle rode glass-smooth over the frozen roadway, with none of the jouncing that a rougher surface might bring even through the air cushion. Margritte faced Pritchard over her console, her seat a meter lower than his so that she appeared a suppliant. Her short hair was the lustrous purple-black of a grackles throat in sunlight. Hidden illumination from the instruments brought her face to life.
Gee, Captain, Jenne was saying at Pritchards side, I wish youd a let me pick up that squareheads rifle. I know those groundpounders. Theyre just as apt as not to claim the kill credit themselves, and if I cant prove I stepped on the body they might get away with it. I remember on Paradise, me and Piet de Hagenhe was left wing gunner, I was rightboth shot at a partisan. And then damned if Central didnt decide the slope had blown herself up with a hand grenade after wed wounded her. So neither of us got the credit. Youd think
Lords blood, Sergeant, Pritchard snarled, are you so damned proud of killing one of the poor bastards who hired us to protect them?
Jenne said nothing. Pritchard shrank up inside, realizing what he had said and unable to take the words back. Oh, Lord, Rob, he said without looking up, Im sorry. ItIm shook, thats all.
After a brief silence, the blond sergeant laughed. Never been shot in the head myself, Captain, but I can see it might shake a fellow, yeah. Jenne let the whine of the fans stand for a moment as the only further comment while he decided whether he would go on. Then he said, Captain, for a week after I first saw action I meant to get out of the Slammers, even if I had to sweep floors on Curwin for the rest of my life. Finally I decided Id stick it. I didnt like therules of the game, but I could learn to play by them.
And I did. And one rule is that you get to be as good as you can at killing the people Col. Hammer wants killed. Yeah, Im proud about that one just now. It was a tough snap shot and I made it. I dont care why were on Kobold or who brought us here. But I know Im supposed to kill anybody who shoots at us, and I will.
Well, Im glad you did, Pritchard said evenly as he looked the sergeant in the eyes. You pretty well saved things from getting out of hand by the way you reacted.
As if he had not heard his captain, Jenne went on, I was afraid if I stayed in the Slammers Id turn into an animal, like the dogs we trained back home to kill rats in the quarries. And I was right. But its the way I am now, so I dont seem to mind.
You do care about those villagers, dont you? Margritte asked Pritchard unexpectedly.
The captain looked down and found her eyes on him. They were the rich powder-blue of chicory flowers. Youre probably the only person in the Regiment who thinks that, he said bitterly. Except for me. And maybe Col. Hammer.
Margritte smiled, a quick flash and as quickly gone. Therere rule-book soldiers in the Slammers, she said, captains whod never believe Barthe was passing arms to the Auroran settlements since hed signed a contract that said he wouldnt. You arent that kind. And the Lord knows Col. Hammer isnt, and hes backing you. Ive been around you too long, Danny, to believe you like what you see the French doing.
Pritchard shrugged. His whole face was stiff with bruises and the drugs Margritte had injected to control them. If hed locked the helmets chin strap, the bullets impact would have broken his neck even though the lead itself did not penetrate. No, I dont like it, the brown-haired captain said. It reminds me too much of the way the Combine kept us so poor on Dunstan that a thousand of us signed on for birdseed to fight off-planet. Just because it was off-planet. And if Kobold only gets cop from the worlds who settled her, then the French skim the best of that. Sure, Ill tell the Lord I feel sorry for the Dutch here.
Pritchard held the commo techs eyes with his own as he continued, But its just like Rob said, Margritte: Ill do my job, no matter who gets hurt. We cant do a thing to Barthe or the French until they step over the line in a really obvious way. Thatll mean a lot of people get hurt too. But thats what Im waiting for.
Margritte reached up and touched Pritchards hand where it rested on his knee. Youll do something when you can, she said quietly.
He turned his palm up so that he could grasp the womans fingers. What if she knew he was planning an incident, not just waiting for one? Ill do something, yeah, he said. But its going to be too late for an awful lot of people.
KOWIE KEPT THE Plow at cruising speed until they were actually in the yard of the command post. Then he cocked the fan shafts forward, lifting the bow and bringing the tanks mass around in a curve that killed its velocity and blasted an arc of snow against the building. Someone inside had started to unlatch the door as they heard the vehicle approach. The air spilling from the tanks skirts flung the panel against the inner wall and skidded the man within on his back.
The man was Capt. Riis, Pritchard noted without surprise. Well, the incident wouldnt make the infantry captain any angrier than the rest of the evening had made him already.
Riis had regained his feet by the time Pritchard could jump from the deck of his blower to the fan-cleared ground in front of the building. The Frisians normally pale face was livid now with rage. He was of the same somatotype as Lt. Col. Benoit, his French counterpart in the sector: tall, thin, and proudly erect. Despite the fact that Riis was only 27, he was Pritchards senior in grade by two years. He had kept the rank he held in Frieslands regular army when Col. Hammer recruited him. Many of the Slammers were like Riis, Frisian soldiers who had transferred for the action and pay of a fighting regiment in which their training would be appreciated.
You cowardly filth! the infantryman hissed as Pritchard approached. A squad in battle gear stood within the orderly room beyond Riis. He pursed his fine lips to spit.
Hey Captain! Rob Jenne called. Riis looked up. Pritchard turned, surprised that the big tank commander was not right on his heels. Jenne still smiled from The Plows cupola. He waved at the officers with his left hand. His right was on the butterfly trigger of the tribarrel.
The threat, unspoken as it was, made a professional of Riis again. Come on into my office, he muttered to the tank captain, turning his back on the armored vehicle as if it were only a part of the landscape.
The infantrymen inside parted to pass the captains. Sally Schilling was there. Her eyes were as hard as her porcelain armor as they raked over Pritchard. That didnt matter, he lied to himself tiredly.
Riis office was at the top of the stairs, a narrow cubicle which had once been a childs bedroom. The sloping roof pressed in on the occupants, though a dormer window brightened the room during daylight. One wall was decorated with a regimental battle flagnot Hammers rampant lion but a pattern of seven stars on a white field. It had probably come from the unit in which Riis had served on Friesland. Over the door hung another souvenir, a big-bore musket of local manufacture. Riis threw himself into the padded chair behind his desk. Those bastards were carrying powerguns to Portela! he snarled at Pritchard.
The tanker nodded. He was leaning with his right shoulder against the door jamb. Thats what the folks at Haacin thought, he agreed. If theyll put in a complaint with the Bonding Authority, Ill testify to what I saw.
Testify, testify! Riis shouted. Were not lawyers, were soldiers! You shouldve seized the trucks right then and
No I should not have, Captain! Pritchard shouted back, holding up a mirror to Riis anger. Because if I had, Barthe wouldve complained to the Authority himself, and wed at leastve been fined. At least! The contract says the Slammersll cooperate with the other three units in keeping peace on Kobold. Just because we suspect Barthe is violating the contract doesnt give us a right to violate it ourselves. Especially in a way any simpleton can see is a violation.
If Barthe can get away with it, we can, Riis insisted, but he settled back in his chair. He was physically bigger than Pritchard, but the tanker had spent half his life with the Slammers. Years like those mark men; death is never very far behind their eyes.
I dont think Barthe can get away with it, Pritchard lied quietly, remembering Hammers advice on how to handle Riis and calm the Frisian without telling him the truth. Barthes officers had been in on his plans; and one of them had talked. Any regiment might have one traitor.
The tanker lifted down the musket on the wall behind him and began turning it in his fingers. If the Dutch settlers can prove to the Authority that Barthes been passing out powerguns to the French, the tanker mused aloud, well, theyre responsible for half Barthes pay, remember. Its about as bad a violation as youll find. The Authorityll forfeit his whole bond and pay it over to whoever they decide the injured parties are. Thats about three years gross earnings for Barthe, Id judgehe wont be able to replace it. And without a bond posted, well, he may get jobs, but theyll be the kind nobody elsed touch for the risk and the pay. His best troopsll sign on with other people. In a year or so, Barthe wont have a regiment anymore.
Hes willing to take the chance, said Riis.
Col. Hammer isnt! Pritchard blazed back.
You dont know that. It isnt the sort of thing the colonel could say
Say? Pritchard shouted. He waved the musket at Riis. Its breech was triple-strapped to take the shock of the industrial explosive it used for propellant. Clumsy and large, it was the best that could be produced on a mining colony whose home worlds had forbidden local manufacturing. Say? I bet my life against one of these tonight that the colonel wanted us to obey the contract. Do you have the guts to ask him flat out if he wants us to run guns to the Dutch?
I dont think that would be proper, Captain, said Riis coldly as he stood up again.
Then try not to think it proper to go do some bloody stupid stunt on your ownsir, Pritchard retorted. So much for good intentions. Hammerand Pritchardhad expected Riis support of the Dutch civilians. They had even planned on it. But the man seemed to have lost all his common sense. Pritchard laid the musket on the desk because his hands were trembling too badly to hang it back on the hooks.
If it werent for you, Captain, Riis said, theres not a Slammer in this sector whod object to our helping the only decent people on this planet the way we ought to. Youve made your decision, and it sickens me. But Ive made decisions too.
Pritchard went out without being dismissed. He blundered into the jamb, but he did not try to slam the door. That would have been petty, and there was nothing petty in the tankers rage.
Blank-faced, he clumped down the stairs. His bunk was in a parlor which had its own door to the outside. Pritchards crew was still in The Plow. There they had listened intently to his half of the argument with Riis, transmitted by the implant. If Pritchard had called for help, Kowie would have sent the command vehicle through the front wall buttoned up, with Jenne ready to shoot if he had to, to rescue his CO. A tank looks huge when seen close-up. It is all howling steel and iridium, with black muzzles ready to spew death across a planet. On a battlefield, when the sky is a thousand shrieking colors no god ever made and the earth beneath trembles and gouts in sudden mountains, a tank is a small world indeed for its crew. Their loyalties are to nearer things than an abstraction like The Regiment.
Besides, tankers and infantrymen have never gotten along well together.
No one was in the orderly room except two radiomen. They kept their backs to the stairs. Pritchard glanced at them, then unlatched his door. The room was dark, as he had left it, but there was a presence. Pritchard said, Sal as he stepped within and the club knocked him forward into the arms of the man waiting to catch his body.
The first thing Pritchard thought as his mind slipped toward oblivion was that the cloth rubbing his face was homespun, not the hard synthetic from which uniforms were made. The last thing Pritchard thought was that there could have been no civilians within the headquarters perimeter unless the guards had allowed them; and that Lt. Schilling was officer of the guard tonight.
PRITCHARD COULD NOT be quite certain when he regained consciousness. A heavy felt rug covered and hid his trussed body on the floor of a clattering surface vehicle. He had no memory of being carried to the truck, though presumably it had been parked some distance from the command post. Riis and his confederates would not have been so open as to have civilians drive to the door to take a kidnapped officer, even if Pritchards crew could have been expected to ignore the breach of security.
Kidnapped. Not for later murder, or he would already be dead instead of smothering under the musty rug. Thick as it was, the rug was still inadequate to keep the cold from his shivering body. The only lights Pritchard could see were the washings of icy color from the nights doubled shock to his skull.
That bone-deep ache reminded Pritchard of the transceiver implanted in his mastoid. He said in a husky whisper which he hoped would not penetrate the rug, Michael One to any unit, any unit at all. Come in please, any Slammer.
Nothing. Well, no surprise. The implant had an effective range of less than twenty meters, enough for relaying to and from a base unit, but unlikely to be useful in Kobolds empty darkness. Of course, if the truck happened to be passing one of M Companys night defensive positions. Michael One to any unit, the tanker repeated more urgently.
A boot slammed him in the ribs. A voice in guttural Dutch snarled, Shut up, you, or you get what you gave Henrik.
So hed been shopped to the Dutch, not that there had been much question about it. And not that he might not have been safer in French hands, the way everybody on this cursed planet thought he was a traitor to his real employers. Well, it wasnt fair; but Danny Pritchard had grown up a farmer, and no farmer is ever tricked into believing that life is fair.