The Lotus Eaters

mnnbt, mnnbt. Through the torn screen of a glassless window, the diffuse moonlight of Eris and Bellona illuminated the sweat-sheened breasts of a young, sleeping girl.

Comandante Victorio rested his head on one arm, admiring the sleeping form next to him, breasts bare to his gaze in the night's heat and glowing with the moons' light filtering through the windows.

So young, so idealistic, so pretty, thought Victoria. Above all, so easy to convince that even this was for the revolution. He smiled at the remembrance of the first seduction of Elpidia, the sleeping girl.

Victorio had himself been just so naive and idealistic. That, however, had been many years ago. Recruited by FNLS as a university student in Belalcazar, two dozen years before, Victorio had been enthralled by the by then well-established Cienfuegan Revolution, as he had been by the more recent and still tenuous victory for the Cause in Cocibolca, east of Balboa.

At first, before his broader talents were recognized, Victorio had been used as a rabble rouser, leading many student protests. Then, after a period of observation, testing, and review, once it was known that his ideological purity was unquestionable and his leadership ability high, he had been transferred to a field unit of the movement.

Twenty-one years in the bush, Victorio mentally snorted. Twenty-one years and those peasant pigs never rallied to us. Twenty-one wasted years, while the government hunted us like rabbits. Bastards! Using us for little more than training aids for officer cadets. Aiaiai . . . and we had been so close for a while, too.

Victoria tore his eyes from Elpidia's gently rising breasts and lay his own head back on his thin pillow.

And then the Red Tsar was lynched in Saint Nicholasburg. Soon Cienfuegos could afford no more aid. Annam being cozying up to the imperialists. Cocibolca couldn't hold.

We tried to use drugs to continue to finance the revolution. The cartels fought us, and we lost. Well, almost lost. Too many heroes who, it turned out, could be bought. More ruthlessness than the Army showed; the cartels went after families. Finally, at great cost, we have our own little piece of the trade. And, of course, the odd paid mission from the cartels.

Oh, we still spout talk of revolution, ushering in the rule of the people, all that bullshit. Some of the young ones, like this little thing with her breasts so provocatively exposed, still believe. Not me, not any longer. I am happy with enough to be able to eat regularly for a change, and to have a place to sleep out of the rain. Everything else is just icing.

Victorio rolled over to go to sleep. As he did he heard a commotion from beyond the wall. He listened carefully for a moment. The watch was saying something about airplanes. The guerilla chieftain cursed softly, then arose to investigate. The girl, thus awakened, began to rise, herself, before her lover pushed her back gently to the bed.

'It's probably nothing,' he told her. 'Rest.'

At the leather-hinged door Victorio stopped momentarily to listen. He heard no airplanes, precisely, though there was what he thought might be the sound of an unfamiliar engine. Well, they've probably already landed. They? No, more likely one; these mountain walls do odd things to sounds.

Victorio walked briskly, Volgan-designed rifle held in one hand, to the building that in a regular army would have been called something like the 'orderly room.'

The FNLS was short on military formality and didn't feel it was much of a failing. The group leader of the guard simply nodded his head in recognition at the jefe and said, 'One plane, anyway, landed up at the strip. Its engines have never stopped so we can't tell for sure if more followed.'

'The guards?' Victorio asked.

'No answer, but the odds aren't bad they're just doped to the gills . . . or drunk.'

The jefe sighed. Yes, those are the odds.

Man the perimeter or grab what leaf and paste we have and run? I think . . . it's early to run, and we'd lose too much if we left the huanuco behind. To the group leader he said, 'Send a patrol, half a dozen men, to the airfield. For the rest, hundred percent alert; man the perimeter.'

'You think it's serious?'

Victorio shook his head in negation. 'No, I think it's probably someone who landed at the wrong strip by mistake. But it could be the police or it could be something else. Hmmm . . . are the mortars still out?'

'Si, jefe.'

'Tell them to stand by for my call. We may need their support.'

* * *

Technically, the Nabakov gunship was an 'ANA-23,' rather than an 'NA-23.' The extra A was for 'Attack.' It carried, besides one high velocity 40mm automatic cannon, a brace of 23mm Volgan guns and, in its latest configuration, four .50 caliber machine guns in a single quad mount. All fired out the port side. They had a limited traverse controlled from the gunner's station. For greater changes in aiming, the plane had to align itself.

The gunner was actually the crewman with the greatest intelligence collection capability, as he had the main screen to the thermal cameras used in target acquisition and aiming.

As the 15th Company began to move off from the mountain carved airstrip, the gunner called Carrera, now known to be on the ground.

'Duque, we've got major activity down below. I see . . . call it seventy, give or take a few, people running all over the target area. Might be more; it's hard to keep track. They're lining up in groups before moving. I think you've been heard, over.'

'Roger. Figures. We had some unforeseen problems on the strip. Does it look like they're trying to evacuate?'

'Negative, Duque,' the aerial gunner said.