Their Master's War (21 page)

"Okay, everybody calm down. It was just a bunch of grunters." Elmo was moving down the line. For a moment, it looked as if he were going to come down on Dyrkin for taking command, but he must have thought better of it. He simply waved the column forward again.

"Okay, let's keep going."

The trail faded to nothing, and they had to burn their way through virgin jungle. Elmo made no argument when Renchett called up three replacements to do
the
burning, incinerating the fungus with their MEWs set on low-yield heat ray. Eventually they reached a
water

course where a tiny stream danced down the hillside in a series of sparkling waterfalls. As the terrain began to flatten out, the going became more difficult. The ground underfoot, which had previously been dry, turned into semiswamp. The mold now had the consistency of thick, clinging soup, and the men found that they were sinking almost to their knees. Even with the grav in their boots assisting them, progress was exhausting. With each step, swarms of tiny creatures flew up in billowing clouds. They tried to stick to the troopers' suits and helmets. The suits shook them off with spasmodic twitches of their black hides, but the visors had to be constantly wiped, otherwise the displays became distorted and unreadable. There was also another annoyance: The wheezing rasp of Siryn's breathing was audible in everyone's helmet.

"Something should be done about him."

"It looks like the jungle's going to do it."

Siryn had fallen well behind the rest of the column to the point where if he dropped back any farther, he would be out of sight.

"Hey, Elmo, Siryn isn't going to make it."

Everyone in the company heard Hark's voice, and they stopped to see what would happen.

"Shut your mouth, Hark. That fool isn't about to get any preferential treatment. He can hump his pod same as the rest of us."

Siryn chose that moment to give up. He stumbled forward and fell helmet-down in the muck. Elmo slung his weapon over his shoulder and walked back down the line. The column halted, and the recruits stopped burning the fungus.

"You all want to see what happens to cowards in my twenty?" He stood over the fallen rookie.

"Get up, boy."

Renchett was starting back from his front position "Leave him alone, Elmo."

"Stay where you are, Renchett." Elmo bent over Siryn. "Are you going to get up?" The rookie's voice was little more than a gasp. "I

can't."

"Then take off your helmet. You ain't fit to wear it." Renchett was on the move again. "You're crazy Elmo."

"I told you to stay where you are." Dyrkin was also coming down the line. "You can't kill him," Renchett said. "I said take off your helmet." "No!"

Elmo reached down. He was almost gentle as he lifted off the helmet. "Now the mask." Siryn didn't say a word. There was a soft sucking noise as Elmo pulled the mask away from his face. He pushed the rookie down and held his head under the dirty water. It was only a matter of seconds before the boy stopped breathing.

"You're insane!"

Renchett was almost on top of Elmo. The overman straightened up. His MEW was in his hands and pointed at Renchett's stomach.

"It'd give me a lot of pleasure, Renchett."

Renchett halted. His own weapon was unslung but not aimed. Dyrkin caught up with him. Elmo continued to hold his gun level.

"You too, Dyrkin?"

Dyrkin also halted. "You didn't have to kill him. He could have been moved out."

"Sometimes there has to be an example." "We all know what a corpse looks like."

"The new meat have to know that this ain't no picnic."

"Are you just going to leave him there?"

Elmo took a step forward. "You got a better idea?"

Both Renchett and Dyrkin were silent. Elmo smiled.

"Not so brave now? So what's it going to be? Are you going to get back in line or do you want to join this one in the swamp?"

There was a long moment of silent tension, then the two longtimers turned and walked back to their places in the line. Elmo actually laughed.

"Hope the rest of you sorry bastards took a good look at that. There's just one leader in this twenty, and I don't want any of you to forget it."

Hark hefted his MEW. Elmo had made a bad mistake, and sooner or later someone would see that he paid for it.

"Okay, get moving and let's not have any more delays."

The burning started again, and the smoke drifted back down the line. The twenty resumed their slow progress. They moved as if there were an extra weight on them; an ugly sullenness had been added to the heat, humidity, and fear. They continued cutting their way through the jungle for another forty minutes, and then the fungus started to open out a little and there was no longer any need to keep up the continuous burn.

"You can spread out some."

The column, which had bunched up behind the burners, opened up a little. The spaces between the men increased. The resentment seemed to decrease a little as the men became more watchful. This kind of country was a favorite with the chibas. There was enough space for an open order attack but also enough cover for them to lay an ambush. Hark cracked his mask for an instant and breathed out hard. Sweat had started to collect in

the base of the mask, and that was the only way to get rid of the accumulation. If it built up for too long, it would start getting in his mouth. He would be glad when this day was finally over. He was tired and hungry and heartily sick of putting one foot in front of the other. When a trooper felt like that, he was no good to either himself or the twenty; he would fall into a dull semi-trance and never sense the danger until it was too late. Hark was close to that state when Renchett's voice rang in his helmet.

"Hold up there! Everybody stop!"

Hark came back with a start, angry that he'd allowed himself to drift. He held his weapon at the ready and quickly looked around, but there was nothing that he could see.

Renchett's voice was immediately followed by Elmo's. "What are you trying to pull now, Renchett?"

"I ain't trying to pull nothing. You'd better get up here and take a look at this." Twelve

The bodies had been hideously mutilated. Although they were in an advanced state of decay and the mold worms had been at them, it was still all too obvious that they had been skinned by whatever had killed them. It was possible that they had been skinned alive. Their genitals had been cut off and stuffed in their mouths. There was no sign of their suits. They had been arranged in a neat line. It was as if they had been placed there just waiting for someone to discover them. The entire twenty gathered around and stared in silence. Hark sneaked a look at Elmo. He was as green behind his mask as any of the replacements.

"What the hell did this?"

"Chibas?"

"Chibas don't work this way; they just kill." "Miggies don't have the smarts." "Unless it's some new kind of psych war programming."

"Designed to get to us?" "If it is, it's working on me." One of the new men was gulping and pulling off his facemask. He turned away and vomited.

"Don't breathe in!"

The man coughed twice, wiped his mouth, and put the mask back.

Renchett was staring'down at the bodies, shaking his head. "I've done some weird stuff in my time but nothing as weird as this."

Elmo finally found his voice. "Burn them!"

Half the twenty leveled their weapons.

"Stop! Don't fire!"

Dyrkin, who had started walking away from the group, was waving his arms. The troopers hesitated. He started pulling the nearest men away from the bodies.

"Get back! Get away from them!"

Elmo glared at him from behind his visor.

"Have you gone crazy?"

"The goddamn things are quite likely to be booby-trapped. There may even be a proximity fuse. Everybody get back."

Helot was the first to react. He'd been bending over one of the corpses, conducting some kind of morbid inspection. He jumped back as if he'd been scalded.

"Damn! He's probably right."

The longtimers stumbled away from the corpses, pushing the replacements in front of them. This time Elmo didn't argue; he simply moved with the rest. Everyone seemed to be looking to Dyrkin for guidance.

"So what do we do with them?"

"If we're smart, we don't do nothing."

"We can't just leave them."

"That's exactly what we should do. We don't know how the bodies may be gimmicked, and I figure the higher-ups will want to know about this. It's got to be something new."

"We need Rance out here."

Elmo didn't comment on the obvious insult. The troopers-didn't even bother to look at him.

"We won't hook up with Rance until we get down to the river."

"So let's press on to the river."

The longtimers finally turned toward Elmo. They were waiting for him to validate their decision with a formal order.

He looked from face to face, and then he nodded.

"Okay, we take a fix on this place and move on."

Renchett helfted his MEW. "Let's get the fuck out of here." It seemed that Renchett was actually volunteering to go on walking point. "Just don't nobody be talking to me. They pushed on through the forest. A deep gloom had settled over the twenty. They were used to the constant presence of death, and even the idea that any one of them might lose limbs or be blown apart at an given moment. It was part of the function of war, part of their reality. They were so used to bodies twisted into mangled and distorted shapes that the sight of them could even inspire outbreaks of ghoulish humor. This deliberate mutilation, however, was something else. There was a gratuitousness about it that shocked men who thought they were no longer shockable. It wasn't part of the function, it was something extra, and that gave them a chill. This war was no place for extras.

As well as shock and gloom there was a carelessness about the twenty. Men trudged forward with their weapons held loosely at their sides. Some bunched up, and others straggled. The communicators murmured with low-voiced, sullen conversations, but Elmo did nothing to keep them either alert or together. Helot and Dacker caught up with Hark.

"So what did you make of that?" Helot asked.

"I'm trying not to think about it," Hark replied.

"You figure they've built a new kind of chiba?" Dacker suggested. Hark shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know why the Yal should bother. They kill us, we kill them. Why would they need to mess with us after we're dead?"

"If those guys were dead when they messed with them," Dacker said.

"Goddamm it, don't say that. That's what I've really been trying not to think about," Helot said.

"Maybe it is a psych program," Hark suggested.

"If it is, it's like Renchett said. It's sure as hell working," Helot returned.

"Who do you think those guys were?" Helot asked.

Hark shrugged. "Advance patrol, maybe."

"The whole bloody thing gives me the creeps. I mean, that shit that was done with their dicks, sticking them in their mouths like that, somebody really knew how to get to us. How did some alien know about that shit? Huh?" Dacker shook his head.

"You want to hear something really weird?" Hark said.

"How weird can it get?" Helot put in.

"When I first saw those bodies, this thought came straight out of nowhere. I thought, Men have got to have done this. It was so close to home that it had to be men who done it."

"You're crazy. You saying our own people did that?" Dacker sounded incredulous.

"I ain't saying nothing. I just had this thought." "You are crazy." "Who ain't, in all this?" Helot cracked his mask and spit. "I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I'd almost welcome some action. At least it'd be something else to think about."

"And you're calling me crazy?"

Within forty minutes, Helot got his wish. As action went, it was minor. A small gang of miggies erupted out of the ground mold, scrabbling up from where they'd

buried themselves or been buried, digging themselves out with their multiple claw-ended legs and throwing chemical fire from the heaters on the tops of their squat disk-shaped bodies. There were twelve of them in all. Miggies usually came in groups of twelve. It might have been because they had twelve legs. Fortunately, there was only one group. Miggies' fire was singularly unpleasant. It didn't simply destroy—it clung and burned, and the suits were able to offer little or no protection. It spread white flame over a man until the body was completely consumed. As the first ones surfaced, Renchett yelled a warning, but it was too late. The two men immediately behind him, both new meat, were hit. The twenty opened up with a roar, blowing the scuttling machine creatures to flying component fragments. One of the recruits was dying slowly and painfully as the relentless flame spread outward from his left shoulder. His screams echoed in everyone's helmet even after they had stopped firing.

The miggies didn't have the intelligence to take evasive action. Their single strategy was a combination of concealment and surprise. They broke cover and they fired, but after that they were almost totally vulnerable. The firefight was all over in less than three minutes with no further human casualties. The last miggie left intact tried to bury itself back in the mold. Hark stood over it and reduced it to vapor with a single extended blast. As he destroyed it, he felt some of the tension draining out of him. The twenty, now reduced to seventeen, stood white-faced and breathless with their suit-enhanced adrenaline pumping, turning and staring into the shadows beneath the fungus, looking for a follow-up to the first attack. All too often, a burst out of miggies would merely be the preliminary to a major attack by chibas. But the minutes passed and nothing happened; the men relaxed, and the suits cut back on their output of stimulants. The familiar sense of postcombat letdown started to set in. One by one, they lowered their weapons. The miggies must have been nothing more than an isolated irritant, left behind to slow the human advance. When Elmo gave the order to move on, he sounded exhausted. The dead were left behind. They were mainly ash—there wasn't enough of either of them left to bury or to carry to the next temporary base. Hark hadn't even learned their names. Light showed up ahead between the growths of fungus in what had to be the burned area where the dynes had destroyed the Yal firetower. The growing babble of other short-range communication in their helmets confirmed it. This was the twenty's rendezvous point with the rest of the task force. Tired as they were, the troopers quickened their pace. Hot food and sleep were almost in sight. In the burned area, they would eat and make camp for the planet's strange half night. It was unlikely that the enemy would attempt anything more than a probe of the perimeter when the whole Therem battle group was assembled in one spot. Of course, the next day they would press on again, back in the stinking vegetation, but nobody thought about that. Out in the bush, they tried to live strictly in the present. A completed day was a completed day. Each man could take some comfort in his continued survival. As they emerged from the jungle, there was something disorienting about the light and space. The sun was dropping to the horizon, and very soon the huge parent planet would fill the sky. The black charred area was a crowded chaos of activity. Everything was converging on the same point at once. Gunsaucers were coming in to land, throwing up huge clouds of dust like miniature thunderheads. Nohans and human sappers were digging foxholes and bunkers, creating their own dust clouds. Others were rigging the perimeter, the traps and the wire