Carnifex (67 page)

Oh, God, I'm
so
nervous
, thought Artemisia as she led her party forward along the carpets laid to protect her shoes and dress from the grass.
What if I'm not a good wife? What if he gets tired of me? What if . . . ?

Stop being an idiot, Arti, you and he are
perfect
together. It's going to be wonderful.

But what if my tits sag after the baby comes?

Then you get pregnant again and reinflate them.

But what if he get tired of my cooking?

Then you hire a cook. Lourdes already said that Patricio's gift to us is "impressive and of many parts." Besides, John's salary with the Legion, plus his retired pay from the FS Army, is
huge
by Balboan standards. And I can work, too. And then, too, Uncle Xavier is going to contribute.

But what if—?

"I'm sooo glad t'at's over, sir," McNamara whispered.

Carrera answered, "Men don't not enjoy the ceremony, generally, Top, but endure it because of the state it formalizes. By the way, did you know you're going to be a daddy?"

Mac sighed, embarrassed. "She hasn't told me, but, yeah . . . I kinda figured it out."

Smiling, Carrera chided, "Bad, wicked, naughty sergeant major. Bad, wicked, evil, naughty, bad, bad, bad sergeant major. You should be ashamed. Oh . . . and Lourdes and I would like to stand as godparents, if that's okay with you and Arti."

"We'd be honored, sir."

"You got to be focking shittin' me, sir. I mean . . . well . . . we knew Lourdes had set up the honeymoon but . . . "

Carrera just smiled as there, on the parade field, a smallish airship descended and lowered ropes to half a dozen waiting heavy-duty recovery trucks packed to the brim with sandbags. Chartering the thing had cost a not-inconsiderable fortune but for
his
sergeant major, no expense was too great.

"Shitting you about what, Top?" Carrera asked. "You and I are just simple soldiers. This kind of thing—an airship honeymoon to tour all of Colombia del Norte—seems too much to us. But
she
is . . . was Miss Balboa and she will, by God, have a honeymoon to set the continent wild."

McNamara scoffed. "T'at ain't it, you sneaky bastard. I know you. You ain't t'at nice. What you're doing is sending us on a whirlwind recruitin' tour, ain't you?"

Rather than deny it, exactly, Carrera answered, "Siegel's going with you as a sort of aide de camp. You and he and Arti are going to entertain every goddamned General Staff in Colombia Latina on your trip."

"T'at's nonsense, boss, no offense. T'ose arrogant assholes won't even talk to no non-com. Not even one wit' Miss Balboa on his arm."

"Who says you're a non-com?" Carrera asked. He pointed at Siegel, standing not far away. Siegel came running bearing a carved silverwood box about two feet in length and perhaps four inches on a side. Siegel, wearing a huge smirk, stopped, standing at attention and holding the box out. Carrera opened it and drew from it a baton, about eighteen inches in length and an inch in diameter. The baton was gold colored, as were all sergeants major's batons. This one, however, was encircled by harpy eagles spiraling down its length. They looked like, and were, solid gold. There was a jewelry store in
Ciudad
Balboa that
really
wanted to keep in the Legion's good graces.

The crowd hushed. Rumors had suggested something like this. At the central reviewing stand Tom Christian announced, "Attention to orders."

"You see, Top," Carrera explained, "there
was
such a thing as a praetorian prefect. Then, too, the origin of your rank, back on Old Earth, was "Sergeant Major-
General
 . . . "

What was probably the most finely tuned, spotlessly clean armored vehicle not merely on this world, but on two worlds and in the history of two worlds, pulled up by the gazebo. The band picked up the Wedding March again while Mac and Artemisia, both still in white, walked to it. They were pelted by rice and chorley seed the entire way.

At the tank, McNamara put his hands on Arti's still-narrow waist and lifted her to a cushion thoughtfully placed behind the turret. He then scrambled up to stand atop the tank where he bent to lift his new wife to her feet. Gently—no mean feat given the nature of Volgan-built tanks—the armored vehicle trundled off to just underneath the airship. There, they dismounted in reverse order and began to ascend the gangway the airship had lowered. They stopped twice on the way up, Artemisia with tears in her eyes, to wave to the crowd.

Waving back, crying, Lourdes whispered to her husband, "Weddings do something to me. They make me horny. Take me home and fuck me. Now."

"Orders are orders," Carrera answered, reaching over gently to wipe away the tears flowing from Lourdes' huge brown eyes. "And those orders, my lovely wife, are always a joy to obey."

Hamilcar had inherited the huge size of his mother's eyes, along with a blend of color from both parents. His were a brilliant green with the same dark circles around the iris that gave his father's such a frighteningly penetrating quality. He turned those big green eyes up at his mother and said, "Mama, can I ask you for something?"

Lourdes, puttering in the kitchen, stopped what she was doing, looked down at her eldest and said, "Yes, of course, baby. What is it?"

"When daddy goes back to the war . . . Mama, I want to go with him."

Christ, no, not my baby, too.

"You're too small," she answered. "You're only four. When you're a grown man of five we'll discuss this again."

"Does that mean I can go when I'm five?"

"No, it means we'll discuss it. Then. Not before."

This was not an entirely satisfactory answer so Hamilcar upped the stakes. "Mama, if you don't tell me I can go when I'm five . . . I'll go over your head." He heard someone or another of his daddy's soldiers use that expression. He was pretty sure he understood what it meant.

Lourdes
did
understand what it meant. He'd go to his father to ask permission.
Which Patricio just might give. And what objections will I have? I kept Hamilcar in the war zone for almost two years when he was a baby, just so I could be with my husband. I
can't
object to him being there now that's he's past being a baby.

"Do you want to break your mother's heart, Ham?" she asked.

"No."

"Then please don't 'go over my head.' Wait until you're five and we
will
discuss it."

Five is not so long a wait.
"All right, Mama. But if you don't let me go then, I'll go over your head."

In the thick Balboan night, with monkeys and antaniae and even the occasional trixie filling the air with sound, with the steady drone of mosquitoes in their ears, the Gurkha Rifles and the Sikh Pioneers bivouacked close together and well away from the ad hoc OAU infantry battalion. Frankly, while the Gurkhas and Sikhs got along just fine, neither could stand the undisciplined rabble from the OAU. Less still could Majors Dhan Singh Pandey and Amita Kaur Bhago stand the . . . 

"Overbred, cowardly, stuffed shirt, little boy bunging, limey bastard, Duff-McQueeg," as Amita usually phrased it.

"Please, Amita, be charitable," Dhan chided. "After all, we don't
know
he's a coward. Personally, I think he only stays with the OAU troops for the little boys they keep for him."

"We'll see about that when the fighting starts," the Kaur answered, automatically killing a mosquito that had landed on her wrist.

"I don't know fighting ever start," said Company Sergeant Major Rambahadur Thapa, of Pandey's company. "We are end of supply trail,
sahib
. And jungle boys pretty good at keeping away."

That was true enough; Pandey's shrug admitted it. So far into the jungle and so far from any road was the task force that resupply depended on helicopters and shuttles. But the force was literally at the maximum distance the helicopters available could support. Another kilometer and the excess wear would begin to overwhelm the maintenance staff.

"We could drive twice as far or more without the OAU acting as a dead weight," Amita said. "Though in that case the task force commander would have no little boys. Worse, he'd be with us."

Dhan Singh Pandey opened his mouth to speak when the jungle erupted in heavy automatic fire coming from the direction of the OAU bivouac. He was about to call for his radio bearer when Amita held up her hand.

"I didn't hear anything," she said. "Sergeant Major?"

"Not me."

"Sir, call from the OAU," the radioman announced.

Pandey thought about that for half a second and said, "I'm sure you're mistaken,
Naik
."

Belisario hadn't rushed it. New weapons were fine. New weapons his men didn't know how to use were just expensive clubs. He'd spent a month just in training with the new rifles and machine guns and another two weeks in feeling out the enemy. In the process, he noticed something interesting. The Gurkhas would come running to help the Sikhs, and vice versa. But when he probed the OAU, or someone sniped at them, both Gurkhas and Sikhs indicated a profound disinterest.

This night, he'd decided to risk an attack. A
full
attack.

In the privacy of his tent Duff-McQueeg held a local boy, down on all fours, firmly by the hips while moving his own in a steady, rhythmic stroke. He was suddenly interrupted by the sound of heavy gunfire. He was tempted to ignore it, but then Warrant Officer Bourguet ripped open the tent flap and announced, breathlessly, "Sir . . . sir . . . the enemy . . . "

A large red stain suddenly blossomed on Bourguet's t-shirt, visible through his unbuttoned uniform jacket. Wordlessly, the warrant officer crumpled to the ground. His hands remained gripped to the material of the tent, which followed the heavyset warrant to the ground. Duff-McQueeg, and the boy, were trapped underneath. By the time Duff-McQueeg could extract himself from both the boy and the tent, he emerged to find a smoking muzzle pressed to the side of his head.

"
Señor Carrera, aqui!
"

"Bring him out, Pedro," Belisario said. He was almost embarrassed for the prisoner when he smelt the odor of shit. Then he realized the man had not shat himself and sympathy changed to disgust.

The tent material wriggled and distorted.

"Whoever you are, come out," Pedro ordered.

The boy emerged, pulling his threadbare trousers up.

"
Chico
, Belisario asked, "were you with this man by your own will?"

The boy spat at Duff-McQueeg and said, "They stole me from my village."

Belisario nodded grimly and said, to Pedro, "Get a rope."

The boy, with a look of utter hatred in his eyes asked, "Can I have a gun?"

There is no love untouched by hate
No unity without discord
There is no courage without fear
There is no peace without a war

—Cruxshadows,
Eye of the Storm

Rachman was terrified; Tribune David Cano could see it in his eyes. Yet the fierce Pashtun would rather die in horrible agony than ever admit to feeling the slightest fear.

And why the hell shouldn't he be terrified,
Cano thought.
Poor bastard's never been up in a helicopter before. He's never even flown before. If I were him, I'd be shitting myself. What a
great
people these are. What a formidable people.

It had been this way since he'd first been assigned to the Pashtun scouts.
Everything
about them impressed Cano. Everything about them he liked. Were they rough men? Yes and so was he. Were they crude and uncultured, ignorant and savage?

Well, what was I but an ignorant ridge runner before the Legion picked me up and sent me to school? My only skill was riding a horse. But these people aren't stupid, no more than I was. They're just uneducated . . . and that can be fixed.

Cano had the oddest feeling, in accompanying Rachman and a hundred and nineteen of his fellow tribesman going to their home villages on leave, that
he
was going home as well. He'd fit in so well with these men, enjoyed their company and their comradeship so much, that he just
knew
he was going to belong, and perhaps better than he'd ever belonged anywhere before.

He felt Rachman's fist pounding his shoulder and looked over. The look of fear in Rachman's eyes had disappeared as the Pashtun gestured enthusiastically at what appeared to be a nothing-much village a few thousand feet below.

"Home," Rachman announced over the
thrum
of the Volgan-built IM-71. And again, with a mix of satisfaction and exuberance, "David, we are almost
home
."

The moons Hecate and Eris were high, the former full and the latter in three quarters. The bay of Hajipur was bright under the light of the moons.

In the bay, surrounded by her escorts seaward and her infantry force on the dock, with sailors and Cazadors manning the guns,
Dos Lindas
sang with the ring of the hammers and the rushing crackle of the welding machines. She sang, too, with the sing-song speech of the local shipfitters who still swarmed her like industrious bees.

"She be good as new, soon, Skipper" said the master of the shipfitters. "Better den new."

Fosa knew it was true. Not only had the local boys, and a few girls, patched her up, they'd identified weaknesses and worn spots in the hull, seen a few places that wouldn't be the worse for a little extra bracing, and fixed all that as well. The laser topside, blown off by the near miss of a cruise missile, was replaced, as was every wrecked forty- and twenty-millimeter cannon, and .41-caliber machine gun. Even the lost crew, aviators and Cazadors were up to strength, though there had been an awful price to pay back home to do so.

All that was needed now was the rear elevator. And that was coming soon, this very night, in fact.