The Last Legion: Book One of the Last Legion Series (12 page)

Haemer bowed to the forward Musth, half whistled, half hissed something in the alien’s language.

“And I greet you, Governor General,” the alien replied. “It isss well to face you once more.”

He turned.

“I would like to ssshare with you the knowing of my sssoldier-leader, Wlencing.”

The Musth behind Aesc bobbed his head. “It isss interesssting to sssee your face,” he said.

“Ssshall we go into the building?” Aesc said. “I sssee you mussst be chill.”

“If you have no objectionsss,” Wlencing said, “perhapsss I might view your sssoldiery, for I have encountered Man but ssseldom, and am poor at diplomacccy.”

“Of course not,”
Caud
Williams said. “I’ll be happy to come with you.”

“There isss no need,” Wlencing said. “You have busssiness with Aesssc, I am sssure, and I am content to find my own obssservations.”

Williams frowned, then nodded reluctantly. “Very well. I’m sure you’ll be impressed.”

“I’m sssure,” Wlencing said, and came toward Dill’s Grierson.

“Do I salute him?” Dill whispered in panic.

“You better,” Gorecki said. “We ain’t fightin’ them yet.”

Ben smashed his hand against his forehead, held it there. Wlencing’s neck extended sharply another 30cm in surprise, darted back and forth like a snake’s. “That isss a sssign of recognition?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Dill said. “It’s honor to a superior.”

“I sssee,” and Wlencing brought his forearm up, lowering his head, and stood motionless. “I asssume it is to be anssswered in same, like thisss.”

Both creatures dropped their arms.

“You have large beingsss in thisss crew,” Wlencing said.

Dill wasn’t sure what to reply, so just said, “Yes, sir. Pure chance, sir.”

“Which one isss the gunner?”

“I am,” Jaansma said.

Wlencing walked to Garvin. “Are you good?”

“I’m still learning,” Garvin said.

“But they choossse you, and your crew, to guard your highessst? That is unusssual,” Wlencing said. “Let me asssk you, Gunner. When you practissse, do you ussse machines?”

“Yes, sir,” Garvin said, suddenly at ease. “We call them simulators.”

“Sssimulators,” Wlencing said, tasting the unfamiliar word. “Who are your enemiesss on these sssimulators?”

“Other machines,” Jaansma said. “Spacecraft. Armored ground vehicles. Soldiers.”

“Are the sssoldiers Musssth?”

“Nossir,” Garvin said. “Men. They wear different uniforms, depending on the problem.”

“I wasss told different,” Wlencing said.

Garvin started to argue, kept his mouth shut. The Musth eyed him. “But of courssse you would be told to lie and not embarrasss yourssselves,” he said, and went to Kang.

“Your dutiesss?”

“Electronic countermeasures, sir.”

Wlencing hissed, “Are you good?”

“I am the
best
,” Kang said firmly.

The Musth snorted, a noise Garvin thought might be approval, might be amusement. “That isss a warrior ssspeech,” he said. “Each of usss is the bessst, are we not?”

“But I really am,” Kang said firmly.

“It isss a pity there isss no way of tesssting your boassst,” Wlencing said. “We ssshould play gamesss of war between our two racesss. It would be good for usss, good for you.” He turned away, then his head swiveled. “It will have to passsss another time,” he said. “When the war comesss.”

Wlencing saluted again, walked toward one of the Zhukovs.

Garvin glanced sideways at Dill, found the big man looking at him.

“I hope he’s still learning Common Speech,” Jaansma said, “and didn’t mean what he said.”

“Want to bet you’re wrong?”

“Not a chance.”

• • •

“Can I ask something,” Njangu said, “without pissing you off too bad?”

“You can try,” Hank Faull said amiably. The two sat on Faull’s bedside locker, cleaning field gear.

“You’re a ’Raum, right?”

“Ex-'Raum,” Faull said wryly. “Or so my
soh
would tell you. He’d also call me a backslider, a traitor, an unbeliever … you know, the general sort of thing that makes up a good soldier.”

“Soh?”

“An Elder,” Faull said. “A deacon. Someone who intercedes with the One, and interprets the Task for us.”

“One is like God, right?” Njangu said. “But Task? I can hear capital letters.”

“Task is our mission … all of us and each of us … here on D-Cumbre.”

“What’s the group goal?”

“All of Cumbre,” Faull said precisely, “should belong to us. As should all of space.”

“Nice unambitious ideals,” Yoshitaro said. “What about the rest of us?”

“You can either join us, or else …” Faull drew the back of his thumb across his throat.

“How
very
excellent,” Njangu said. “By what right do you … sorry, the ’Raum who still believe … claim this?”

“Our
sohs
tell us that we are First Men, both in creation and here on Cumbre. We came here hundreds of years before the Rentiers and their cronies, even if archeology tends to suggest we showed up in steerage about a hundred years after the first non-'Raum.

“But the legend says when the men who became Rentiers arrived, they had the guns, and we were forced to do whatever they wanted. Into the mines, which is where most of us work today.”

“How’d you get here first? And from where?”

“That,” Faull said, “is one of those things we’re a little vague about. Our holy writ is called
The Crossing
, and it’s very mystic about that. Our homeworld is never named, just described as a paradise, of course. Some say we came here pre-stardrive.”

“What, in one of those old-timey punt-it-out-with-a-rocket-and-pray?”

“
The Crossing
says the Sail brought us here, on a wind given by the One.”

“A solar sail?” Njangu said.

“I don’t know,” Faull said. “Our
sohs
aren’t real great on us reading
The Crossing
for ourselves. Better we let him or her read it to us, and tell us what it means. Mostly the book is a bunch of lectures that somebody gave to a Fold, a congregation. The guy, or maybe it’s a woman, who’s preaching never gets named. That’s really when I started getting in the shit, when I got a copy of
The Crossing
for myself, read it and had a whole bunch of questions the
soh
didn’t do a real good job of answering.

“My father taught me to make up my own mind from whatever facts I could come up with. Maybe good, maybe bad, but that’s the way I was taught, and that’s why I started having trouble.”

“ ’Kay,” Njangu said slowly, “I understand the programming. But do the
sohs
tell the ’Raum they’ve got to live separately, like I gather they do?”

“If you’re a ’Raum,” Faull said, some bitterness in his voice, “everybody knows it. Knows it by your name, by your address, by where you went to school.”

“With no way out?”

“Except maybe the Force.”

“Which is what you’re doing?”

“Which is what I’m
trying,
” Faull said. “At least you offworlders don’t seem to give a rat’s nose about shit like that.”

“If you’d stayed a ’Raum,” Njangu asked, “you would’ve had to become a miner?”

“Actually, there’s a ton of us who never pick the pick,” Faull said. “We’re merchants, traders … a lot of us are fishermen or live outside the cities, small-farming.

“I’m missing something,” Njangu said. “If you’ve got all those options, why’d you go soldiering?”

“Those options are bullshit,” Faull said sharply. “You can trade … to other ’Raum. Farm … but you better not get too big. Open a store … but it better not compete with the Anciens and their crew.”

“That,” Njangu said, “sort of blows corpses.”

Faull nodded, turned back to his gear.”

“That’s the system the Force is defending?”

Faull nodded again.

“One other question. Everybody calls the rich types Rentiers. What’s that mean? Or was that the name of their ship, or something?”

“That was something I had to look up for myself,” Faull said. “It’s an old Earth word for rich people who get richer by making everybody dance around their money piles.”

“Shit. So much for Truth, Justice, and the Confederation Way,” Njangu said. “It’s the same here as anywhere else. We got the Golden Rule — whoever’s got the gold, rules.”

• • •

Gorecki was teaching Jaansma how to pilot a Cooke. “It’s bone-simple,” he finished. “Now let’s take it out for a field test.”

“Good,” Jaansma said. “Like where?”

“Off post, maybe around the island,” the driver said.

“Even better,” Garvin said, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

The drive was already on. Jaansma fastened his safety straps as Stanislaus clambered in. He eyed the empty gunmount in front of him. “If we had some ammo, I’d chance doing a little cross-country,” he said. “But I guess — ”

“Hoy,” someone shouted, and Garvin saw Ben Dill trotting toward them. Over his shoulder was a belt, and holstered on it was the biggest handgun Jaansma’d ever seen. “You two clowns thinking about going for a ride without me?”

“Never happen,
Dec.
”

“Good,” Dill said, vaulting into the passenger compartment. “Let’s get out of here before somebody finds work for us to do.”

“I was gonna have him do a circumnav,” Gorecki said.

“Sounds good to me,” Dill said. “Let’s go beachcombing. Take it away, Mister Jaansma.”

“Immediately, Mister Dill,” and Garvin pushed the drive pedal, and pulled the upside-down U of the control stick toward him. The Cooke hiccuped, then soared away.

“Didn’t like that sound,” Dill said.

“If you don’t like failure,” Gorecki said, “don’t hook with a Cooke.”

“Funny,” Dill said. “I’m choking with hysterics. Take it low and fast, Garvin. I want to eat some spray.”

“Happy to oblige,” Garvin said, and dived toward the water.

• • •

“Come on children,” Lir shouted, “or we’ll be late for our morning prayers.”

Njangu wanted to curse, but was too out of breath. He thought he heard Gerd wheeze something obscene, but it was probably wishful thinking. Lir seemed determined to make sure none of them survived training, and had started taking the recruits for daily two-kilometer beach runs, with a five-klicker every third day.

“Most important muscle a good rifleman’s got is his legs,” she observed cheerfully, easily running backward along the water’s edge.

“Wrong,” Angie Rada managed. “It’s what’s between them that’s important.”

“You got enough breath for talking,” Lir called, “sing something.”

“Aw shit,” Rada moaned, but obeyed:

“Oh once I was happy, but now I’m forlorn,

Riding in Griersons all tattered and torn

The drivers are daring, all caution they scorn,

And the pay is exactly the same, the same,

The pay is exactly the same.

“We glide through the air in our flying caboose,

Its actions are graceful just like a fat goose,

We hike on the pavement till our joints all come loose,

And the pay is exactly
— ”

She broke off, hearing the whine of an approaching vehicle.

“Straighten up, you hounds,” Lir shouted. “It’s liable to be your mother!”

The five closed into tight formation, and a Cooke flashed around the point ahead. As it closed, the vehicle slowed. Njangu wondered who’d be this far from Camp Mahan.
Probably some officer with his popsy
, he thought wistfully, trying to remember the last time he’d made love to anything other than his hand, and wondered why he’d never tried to see if Angie was serious.

He squinted at the Cooke, saw three men in it. The man in the back stood, and Yoshitaro blinked at how goddamned
big
the bastard was. The man wore the four rank slashes of a
dec.
He threw an elaborate salute, and shouted, “Hyp, heep, hoop, there, brave soldiers! Give us a cheer for the Force!”

Lir: “Crash, you bastards!”

Yoshitaro: “Eat it!”

Milot: “Hope your dick falls off!”

Penwyth: “I screwed your sister!”

Rada: “Your mother gives it away!”

Only Faull stayed silent.

“That’s the spirit I like to see,” the
dec
shouted, just as Njangu spotted Garvin at the controls of the combat car. He managed a feeble wave, thought Garvin recognized him, and the car swept past.

Bastard, bastard, bastard,
he thought.
Knew I joined the wrong branch
, and the Cooke banked back. He was too out of breath for more than a crude gesture, but a couple of the others found lung space for an obscenity.

The Cooke was about a hundred meters past when Yoshitaro heard sudden silence. The combat car’s antigrav went on automatically, and the Cooke bounced to a soft landing on the beach. The I&R runners were in hysterics, hearing the drive starter grind, grind, grind again, then they were even with the car.

“Going anywhere soon?” Lir taunted.

Dill grimaced.

“Hey, Garvin,” Njangu said. “It’s a real interesting walk back. You’ll have time to admire the wildlife.”

Jaansma recognized Yoshitaro and grinned for an instant, then hit the starter again.

Njangu listened to the long grinding as the runners went around a bend, then heard nothing.

“God sort of does paybacks when you’re being a wisebutt, doesn’t he?” Dill observed.

“
I
wasn’t saying anything, at least not much,” Gorecki protested.

“The innocent suffer with the guilty,” Garvin said. “So we’re gonna let
him
carry us back.”

“Awright,” Ben said. “Gimme the com. I’ll snivel for help.”

Garvin passed him the mike and heard the
crack
, saw a bright brass streak paint itself on the Cooke’s hull about a finger length from his left arm, heard the
boom
of some sort of propellant weapon, then the burbling whine as the bullet ricocheted away.

He stared at the mark of the near miss for one instant, then dived over the Cooke’s side. He landed on top of Ben Dill, who was scrabbling for that enormous handgun.