The Far Side (58 page)

“That is a fell deed!”

“Right!  My people destroyed two cities like that, cities of an enemy who refused to surrender, even when we had them by the throat.  They changed their minds.

“Another enemy grew up after that, and they had weapons like we had -- and both sides made a very great many of those weapons.  Enough, Collum to destroy all of the large cities everywhere, enough to poison the land, the air and the water forever -- if we’d have used them, we’d have slit our own throats.”

“Why would you possibly do that?”

“Because we could and because the other side was doing the same thing -- building enough weapons to wipe life from our planet.”  She looked at him.  “As weapons go, these are like cannon, in a way, Collum.  They cost like the very devil.  Our enemies stopped to catch their breath and we started building many more.  They tried to match us, but they couldn’t.  Their people were unhappy, and they fell without a climactic battle.

“You don’t want to be in that situation, Collum.  A situation where even a small mistake by a subordinate can bring the whole world to an end.  We survived, but for fifty years we lived with a daily fear of the world ending.”

“And you tell me this why?”

“Because the things I will teach your people, will lead to that same knowledge.  There are fundamental relationships in the universe.  Do this and that happens.  It is just the way it is.  Once you start down this path, you will find yourself there sooner or later.

“You had better tell those who come after you about the risks.  Of course, there are two sorts of risk -- what happens if you have those weapons -- and what happens if you don’t and they do.”

“There will be no good answers,” Collum said sadly.

“Not a one,” Andie told him.  “We’ll talk more on this later, I swear.  You need to start laying long term plans, Collum.

“You are a very long ways from the Tengri homelands.  You will need to build ships and weapons.  They will think it will take you a very long time to do that.  What you need to do is establish ship and weapon building sites far to the west.  You need to do your best without them at first, because you can use that knowledge at some point in the future, perhaps, to completely surprise them.

“Above all, right now you have to throw the bastards back into the sea.  If they get a foothold, it will take more time to remove that foothold the longer they are here.  Kick them off and they will have to plan, to scheme, and try something else.  You’re going to want to put some strong forces on those islands to the east, even though there is a growing risk of the big storms.  Your forces are just a few days away, theirs are months away.  You can reinforce quickly, you can supply them more easily.  You really can’t afford to let them get bases close to you, if you can afford to prevent them.”

“Removing them from the south will be expensive.  Your friends have described that they have moved some of their cannon ashore to defend their fort, and that they have built walls for their men to hide behind.  Their weapons are better than ours.  It will be expensive to attack and destroy them,” Collum reminded her.

“Then don’t attack them at first.  They have to eat, Collum.  You’ve been down there and so have I.  They will be seeking to grow crops.  You have to destroy those crops, if you can.”

Collum sniffed.  “Crops no longer grow in the East Finger.”

“It’s been raining, Collum.  If they are smart, and I’m willing to bet that they are, there are things they can do to hold water back and keep some for their crops.  You are going to want to attack their crops and anything they build to hold water.  If they can’t eat, they can’t stay.  As large as their ships are, they will have trouble hauling enough food and water to keep colonists alive, particularly if you dispute their presence.”

Collum was silent for a while and then he stood quickly.  “I will think on this, Andie.  There is much in what you say.”

“Think on one last thing,” Kris told him.  “You want to break the chains of your ancestors, and you want to kill those who hold those chains.  Dralka was wrong to give up on their oaths -- but you will be equally wrong if you hold those oaths more important in simple fulfillment than a final victory.

“You can’t break chains if you’re dead.  Your army won’t break any chains if it is destroyed.  You will need to be careful that you don’t let that happen, even if means leaving the field to your enemies.  There is always the next time.  To paraphrase one of our great war leaders, your job is to not to die for your king, but to make the other scum die for theirs.  Alive you can come back another day, perhaps with a better plan and better weapons and prevail where before you failed.  If you die with that failure, I can promise you that you will not prevail in any battle in the future.”

The soon-to-be-King bowed his head.  “As I said, I have much to think about.”

* * *

Kris and Andie took turns hugging Ezra when he returned from the south three days later.  After the hugs he handed each of them a radio.  “Jake had a spare and he found two where Kyle was killed.  These are much better than the ones we had before.

“It’ll be dawn shortly in LA and your parents, Kris and Linda for you Andie, will head to the hospital where your father is hanging on.  He got better for a while, but he’s starting to slip again.  Call it in an hour and a half they’ll be ready to talk.”

“I’m ready,” Kris said.

“Me too, but I gotta say, I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to say to my old man.”

“Yeah.  On top of that, the conversation is going to be overheard by the government.  Jake broke the rules, so it’ll be best if we don’t mention him.  He was supposed to grab any of us he found and hotfoot it back to the Far Side door and take whoever through.  Then they were going to close it forever.”

“The hell they are!” Andie said with venom.  “I’ll kill those bastards just as dead as those other fuckers!”

Ezra spoke softly.  “Andie, it’s a serious felony to utter a threat like that against the President, and almost as serious to utter threats like that against congressmen.  They have the wind up, Andie, and they are doing all they can to get people to change their minds and ban off-world travel.

“We’re going to have to spend a month in quarantine, and then we’ll be subject to medical testing the rest of our natural lives.  This isn’t Jake’s field; your mother can probably tell you more about it, Kris, but he said that those tests were going to be thorough.”

“That is so stupid!” Andie vented.  “Jesus
H. Christ on a crutch!  We’ve been here more than two fucking months!  We haven’t had a sniffle, a cough, a wheeze -- we haven’t run a temperature and all of our systems are A-OK.  Further, none of the Arvalans are dying of the flu, colds, mumps, measles, chickenpox or the plague.

“I won’t say it won’t happen, but we can deal with it, just like we’ve dealt with everything else.”

“Yes,” Kris said.  “I read an article a few months ago about how they’re sure that Columbus brought back VD from his trip to the New World.”

“That was a scourge for a long time,” Ezra told her.

“Is was -- but that was then and this is now.  We’ve got a good handle on most diseases, and are doing a lot of research on what’s left.  And, I think, scourge or not, few people think we’d be better off now if Columbus had stayed home,” Kris offered.

“They are going to want to know our plans to return,” Ezra cautioned them.

“So, in two days, Collum’s army is going south.  It’s not going to be the fastest march in the history of the military, but they should be close in three weeks.”  Kris went on to say, “I hope they’ll realize that going south on our own wouldn’t be good.”

“I hope so.  So far the only thing they know about you helping them with is the crossbow.  So far, no one has made an issue of it,” Ezra told Andie.  “I told Jake and he’s going to speak to Linda and your father, Kris, because he’s sure, and so am I, that the government is going to go crazy with the idea that you are feeding these people technology.”

“Tough shit!” Andie told him.  “If I had it to do over again tomorrow, I’d do it just like I did before.

“I don’t care what the government wants, Ezra.  These people have a dream, one that Martin Luther King would have found exemplary.  We can, and we will, use that against the government,” Kris warned.  “A holy crusade to rescue an entire race from slavery.”

“Whites, slaves to blacks,” Ezra noted.  “I’m not sure how far that will fly.  Some will think it’s justified payback.”

“That is so sick,” Andie said, shaking her head.  “It doesn’t even justify a reply.”

“I’m just telling you.”

He looked around.  They were on the city wall, watching soldiers drilling with crossbows.  “And don’t forget one last thing: there’s the little matter of making sure that Collum, Melek and their people don’t lose.  I keep thinking of Cortez and I shiver.”

“We’ve talked to them,” Kris explained.  “Even to quoting Patton to them.  Andie thinks they should go after their crops.”

“That’s a good idea,” Ezra said, facing Andie.  “They are going to be short of supplies.  Screw that up and they are screwed indeed.”

Kris nodded.  “I’m thinking that they’ve bitten off too much to chew,” she told Ezra.  “If they’d put in a base on those islands off the coast, the Arvalans wouldn’t have noticed and might not have responded as quickly and in such numbers.  It would take a couple of months before they can get transports here to haul troops east.  Worse, the other side has ships with cannons and the Arvalans don’t.  The Tengri have control of the sea, and that’s a big plus for them.

“There’s no way to get them to do it, but ideally the Arvalans should leave a trusted general here to deal with the Tengri and return west as fast as they can, and get people working on ships and guns.  To be honest, I’m afraid that if the Arvalans push the Tengri off the mainland they’ll just go to those islands and set up there.  You say they have radio?”

“Yes, not even the NSA can read it, although they haven’t had a lot of time yet -- and no Tengri linguists.”

“Chaba isn’t of much use,” Kris told him.  “She speaks the language, but can’t read or write and knows practically nothing beyond her household duties.”

“Don’t forget screwing,” Andie said darkly.  “Melek says that Rari is one very happy man.  She’s got a good grasp of that, I’d say.”

“I’ve tried to get her to start attending the classes for children,” Kris told Ezra.  “Except the kids teased her at first until the adults lost their tempers -- now those kids just sullenly hate her.  They aren’t old enough to understand just what it means to have been
a slave for generations.  Worse,  this is something we’re going to have to deal with.  Chaba is probably typical, and maybe even braver than most.  They’ve had hundreds of years of slavery and any sign of resistance gets crushed.  In short, Chaba hates school as much as the kids hate her.

“The slaves aren’t taught anything beyond their basic duties and anyone showing any signs of an attitude is culled.  Killed,” Kris said with distaste.  “Educating the ones that are rescued may take a generation or two.”

Ezra looked at the two girls.  “You both sound like you mean to stay.”

“Stay?  No!” Andie told him.  “Come back a lot -- yeah, that I’m going to do.”

“My father travels a couple of times a month, usually,” Kris told him.  “Even my mother travels now and then.  We’re just going to go further.”

“Getting back to the Tengri,” Ezra said, “you might think it a good idea to leave them here, but that fort is too close to the Far Side Door.  It has to go.  But, from Jake’s description, Collum and his soldiers are going to get their clocks cleaned.”

“Why?” Kris asked.  “The crossbows are almost as good as a musket.  Better, in fact.”

“Aye, that’s true enough.  But the Tengri aren’t idiots, according to my cousin.  They’ve brought eight guns ashore.  The have two covering the northern approaches, two covering the southern approaches and four on the eastern side.  Odds are, those ships will seriously mess with anyone coming from the north or south -- in truth it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that coming from the east would screen them from the ship’s guns.

“I’d be willing to bet that two of those four guns pointing north or south can be hustled to the eastern wall and emplaced quickly.  Six guns, firing grapeshot, will make short work of an attack over open ground.”

“You said you were an artilleryman,” Kris responded.  “As an artilleryman, how would you attack that camp?”

“A barrage of RPGs aimed at the cannons, some mortars, 81MM types, dropping rounds inside the walls and trying to hit the ships.  Maybe a couple of recoilless rifles or small cannon.

“Except, we can’t get those, Kris, forget it!  The government is going to pull the plug on us.  Even trying to get more weapons through and they’ll pull the plug on all of us.”

“More weapons?” Andie said, her eyes focusing on Ezra.

“Well, Kurt bought a million rounds for the P90s.  He’s sent a quarter of that through, plus weapons for everyone.  We have a dozen people now, I think, counting Jake and Linda, inside the cave.”

Andie’s eyes lit up with unholy glee.

Ezra shook his head.  “Forget it, Andie.  The P90s are only effective at a few hundred yards.  Those cannon can hit out to a mile or more.  And while their muskets aren’t accurate at that range, there would be a lot of them firing from cover at a dozen of us running around in the open.  You’d just get a lot of guys killed Andie, and it’s not likely you’d do any good.”