apologize.'
She just smiled as she gathered his head to her chest. She had him now and she knew it.
'Suck them as hard as you want,' she said in a husky voice. 'Play with them as roughly as you want. I'll tell you if it ever gets too hard or too rough. Bu t… I like it… and they're there for you.'
Ciudad Balboa, 23/5/462 AC
From Hamilton Lourdes and Carrera had flown north to Balboa. After the endless dun color of the Sumeri desert and the mud brick of both city and base, followed by the barren stone of Hamilton, the country that passed beneath the airplane windows looked almost shockingly green.
'I'd almost forgotten…' Lourdes whispered.
'There are reasons green is the more or less sacred color of Islam,' Carrera observed. 'It is very beautiful, though, isn't it? It'll be good to be home for a week.'
The charter jet had landed and taxied to the military terminal on the other side of the airfield from the civilian one. Parilla, Jimenez, most of the staff and Esterhazy were there to greet Carrera and Lourdes. Carrera was unsurprised at being met by a band of pipes and drums. He was more than a little surprised that he was also met by what appeared to be a full infantry cohort, supported by tanks, and with aircraft circling overhead.
'It's the Taurans,' Parilla explained, when Carrera's surprise became obvious. 'Remember, there's a warrant for your arrest from the Cosmopolitan Criminal Court. The government is being openly ambivalent about it, but there's no doubt they'd like to see you and me both gone. And since the Taurans are here the civil government has started to use the police and military police to push us a bit. They've sacked some of our friends in the Civil Force and most of the rest are running scared. I can't go anywhere anymore without an armed guard. Neither can most of our higher commanders. I'll be glad when the base on the Isla Real is finished and we can move our enterprise there completely.'
'The sale is going through then?' Carrera asked. With everything else on his mind in Sumer he hadn't really followed developments in Balboa as closely as he might have wished to.
Esterhazy answered, 'Oh, yes. Ve haff already bought vell ofer half ze island, plus Isla San Juan and Isla Santa Paloma. Ve haff options on most of ze rest.
'Some of the gringos who built houses along the beaches didn't want to sell,' Parilla added with a smile. 'But we opened up about twelve square kilometers as an artillery and mortar impact area and, once their sleep started being interrupted nightly by exploding shells, they dropped their opposition and became, oh, ever so much more cooperative.
'For now,' Parilla continued, 'we have about half the casernes about half built. Sitnikov is over there supervising. In a year, or maybe a year and a half, we'll be able to move most of the enterprise to the island.'
'Speaking of Sitnikov and his projects, how is the boys' school going?' Carrera asked.
'First stop on the tour that begins tomorrow,' Parilla answered. 'For now, we're heading to the Casa Linda where you and Lourdes can rest. We're having a big dinner for you two, the staff, and key commanders.'
Puerto Lindo, Balboa, 24/5/462 AC
Balboa had free and compulsory education. Sort of. Between the need for parents, often poor parents, to buy school uniforms for their children, along with books, paper, writing implements… well, it was actually a fairly expensive proposition. That the country still had, despite this, one of the highest literacy rates on Terra Nova was testament to the value the people placed on education.
Still, it was an expense. So when a new school, the Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, had been created promising not only free uniforms, but free everything including room and board, many parents had jumped at it. The kids even received a small stipend. Not that it was open to everyone. Prospective students had to be male, of the right age, in perfect health, and pass what amounted to an IQ test. Only about one in five of the applicants had been accepted.
The academy was sited at an old stone fortress from the second century after colonization. The fortress looked out over an almost perfectly rectangular bay and had been intended to defend the bay from the Anglian and Gallic pirates that had once infested the Shimmering Sea.
A mix of Volgan, Balboan and FSC instructors and cadre manned the school. These, bright and early, were out with the boys on the fortress' broad green parade ground. The school commandant, Carrera, and Sitnikov stood atop a covered reviewing stand on one side of the parade field.
'They have academics four days a week,' Sitnikov explained, leaning over to speak into Carrera's ear. He'd flown in the night before from the Isla Real expressly to show off his handiwork. 'Two days are devoted to more military subjects. On the last day they rest, as the Bible insists. This summer will be their first. Half of it will be spent in a military course. The other half will be vacation at home… if they want vacation.'
The school's adjutant, a crusty old Volgan, reported to the commandant. Salutes were exchanged and the commandant ordered, 'Pass in review.'
There was no band. Perhaps it could come later. For now, the green- and gray-uniformed boys sang wherever they marched, something they had apparently picked up from their Volgan instructors.
As the first company of about one hundred and fifty boys wheeled and began to march past the reviewing stand, Carrera heard them sing:
Juventud adelante, cantando feliz
Si hay sol o si llueve
Juventud adelante, cantando feliz
A muerte o victoria
Assaltamos el mundo con pasos fuertes…
Carrera looked upon the marching boys' dark faces and bright eyes with a smile. 'Very good,' he judged, nodding slowly. Then, turning slightly to Sitnikov, he asked, 'The other five schools?'
'Next year two more will have been built. This group will be split into three, one for each of the schools. They'll be able to assume some of the leadership responsibilities themselves, which will allow us to use fewer cadre members, per capita. Teachers for civilian subjects are like beans; we'll just buy more. The following year the last three academies will be built. We'll split the student body again. After that, it's just maintenance. It's not particularly cheap, though. Each one of these kids costs about seven thousand drachma a year to keep clothed, fed and educated. When all six schools are filled with their full compliment of eighteen hundred kids it will cost almost eighty million drachma a year.'
'Small change,' Carrera scoffed. 'Eighty million for nearly eleven thousand fanatical potential infantry? A bargain. Besides, we have the money.'
But I have to take that fucking hellhole, Pumbadeta, to keep the money flowing. Bastard, Campos. Shit.
Enroute to Ninewa Airport, 27/5/462 AC
The legion AN-21 was something less than comfortable. Lourdes didn't complain, though, and Carrera hardly noticed. She slept with her head on his shoulder and he with his cheek resting against the top of her head.
Halfway through the flight, he suddenly sat erect, waking her and causing concern among the crew. He cursed himself for an idiot.
'Sorry, Lourdes,' he apologized. Carrera then walked to the cockpit and asked if it was possible to make a telephone call to Hamilton, FD. Assured that it was, he gave the radioman/navigator a number to dial.
'Mr. Secretary? Carrera. I can do it. But it's still going to cost you the extra figure I quoted. And I am going to need those battalions you promised.'
Pumbadeta, Sumer, 35/5/462 AC
The FS Marines never patrolled the streets of the city anymore, Fadeel was pleased to see. Moreover, whoever among the local police had not come over was surely cooperating anyway. Perhaps the entire family hanging by their necks from one of the bridges over the river had something to do with that.
This had not been the first family put to death in the city, of course, merely the first for whose execution Fadeel had been present. It had been a grisly, awful thing, even by Fadeel's atrophied moral standards. The father and mother had been forced to watch first as each of their five children, aged four to eleven, were hoisted up. The ropes were thick and the children light. After watching for a quarter of an hour of slow strangulation, the children's faces slowly purpling and their legs kicking frantically for purchase, Fadeel had told his men to hang onto the legs to
