The Lotus Eaters

stripes, sloshed along as quietly as possible, his F-26 rifle held above his head.

The platoon had been choppered in to a spot over the jungle onto which had been dropped a tree landing platform. This platform, basically a hexagon of pipes with six longer pipes leading from it to a larger hexagon, the whole connected by wires the better to catch on the foliage, and topped by chain link fencing, allowed helicopter- borne infantry to land atop the jungle, rather than try to find a large enough landing zone. The men descended from the TLP by ladders hooked to the sides and let down through the thick canopies.

Cruz had had to rush and bully the men to get them off the helicopters and onto the uncertainly swaying platform, then do it all over again to get them moving down the ladders.

Well . . . reservists, most of them. One has to make allowances.

Now they moved as quickly as practical in a race to ambush a trail junction that intelligence insisted was regularly used by the denizens of several guerilla camps.

Chapter Eleven

The closed system problem, itself, consists of two related parts, belief in the practicality of social and technological stasis, even while insisting on material and / or moral betterment, and the unwillingness to accept that there are exterior issues beyond the control of the millennialist, which issues are beyond control precisely because they are exterior.

The easy assumption of social and technological stasis, of course, fails, again precisely, because it is merely an easy and thoughtless assumption. And once it begins to fail, the millennialists, who cannot admit that their sophomoric fantasies are just that, turn to the secret police, the propaganda ministry, and thought control to enforce stasis.

Millennialists also, be they Ayn Rand, from Old Earth, or the Red Tsar, from New, or the Cosmopolitan Progressives, from both, also live under the implicit delusion that the universe stops at the end of their reach. Where was Rand's answer to the problem of national defense or of public health (by which we mean plague prevention, not socialized medicine)? She had none but wishful thinking. How did the Red Tsars imagine they would keep out the ephemeral information that led to the downfall of the Volgan Empire? Oh, yes, they could keep people from leaving the empire, with barbed wire, walls, mines, machine guns, and dogs. But they could not keep information out, however hard they tried. The latter fact, acting on people imprisoned behind those walls and machine guns, was sure to cause an explosion. As for the Kosmos, even leaving aside the majority who appear to be nothing but unutterably corrupt and sanctimonious hypocrites, what is their answer to those who do not accept Cosmopolitan Progressivism and are aggressive about it? They have none. Or none they will admit to.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,

Historia y Filosofia Moral,

Legionary Press, Balboa,

Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

Anno Condita 471 La Palma Province, Balboa, Terra Nova

Throughout the night Cruz's troops had sloshed through the swamp to the distant flash and muffled sounds of artillery. Now, with the water having receded to about ankle level, the sun was up and the damned mosquitoes were feasting. Worse, the platoon couldn't use any repellent; that might drive off the bugs but could also warn off the quarry. No one on Terra Nova had yet come up with an insect repellent that didn't stink. True, they had anti-histamine pills for the swelling and itching. They also had to hope their inoculations and malaria pills were sufficient to ward off disease. Yellow Fever was a disease particularly awful to contemplate.

Cruz didn't have a junior officer to train yet, and perhaps never would. For all the Legion's rapid expansion, they kept to the rule: No more than three percent commissioned. Indeed, by the time he could expect the platoon to have an officer, it would probably have expanded to a maniple, of which he'd be first centurion, with two or three officers and seven or eight more optios and centurions.

On the other hand, not having an officer, in an armed force that didn't have a fetish for paperwork (for which function officers were, admittedly, useful) suited Centurion Cruz just fine.

Oh, all right! I suppose officers have other uses. But I don't need one for this.

Ahead, the point of the platoon, two men from second squad, both raised a single fist overhead as they went to one knee. Water rippled outward in tiny waves from where the knees displaced it. All the rest of the platoon, except for Cruz, did likewise, in a wave running from front to rear. The centurion hunched over and walked forward to the point, perhaps a little awkwardly under his thirty kilogram pack.

At the point, one of the scouts, holding middle and index finger together, pointed down slope to what appeared to be the junction of three trails, two leading east toward Balboa City and the Transitway, one leading west toward the Santander border. Cruz, laying his F-26 down carefully with the rifle's foregrip across his boot, pulled out his GLS receiver and map.

After about thirty seconds' worth of study, Cruz nodded, half to himself and half to men on point. One finger went up which Cruz rotated rapidly in a circle: Squad leaders to me.

While awaiting his immediate subordinates, Cruz cleared away some leaves and began drawing in the damp earth. His finger traced out the three trails, a river the map marked as being a bit further on, and positions for his subordinates. Once those arrived, he began giving instructions in a soft voice.

For most of the men, this was a first combat mission.

Up to me to make sure it isn't a last combat mission, thought the centurion.

* * *

Esteban was the first one out of Camp Twenty-seven. This was more due to the fortuitous accident of being the first to warn the jefe than to any organization on the part of the jefe or his men. Organization was not actually a FNLS strong point anyway.