Carnifex

captain I have never laid eyes on nor even spoken to. And to add to the uncertainty, half my force is on this side of the straits, half on the other.

Worries, worries . . . my life is worries. What if my boats are spotted? What if the conexes with the missiles are spotted? What if the Hoogaboom has a delay. What if; what if, what if?

Al Naquib pulled out a compass and oriented himself toward Makkah al Jedidah. Prostrating himself, he prayed, I have done what I can, Lord, all that is in my power to do. It is in Your hands now. My men will do their duty. They are among the best of the faithful. My machines have been cared for, as the new learning says they must be. So, Beneficent One, I ask . . . I plead . . . I beg for Your favor tomorrow as my men go into battle. And, Lord, even if you withhold your favor from our undertaking, I ask that you see to the souls of my men who serve you.

Interlude

1/8/48 AC, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa Colony, Terra Nova

Warrant Officer Bourguet, seated in a metal folding chair, smiled down at the half-starved, eleven-year-old girl kneeling between his legs. She had tears in her eyes. Bourguet neither knew nor cared whether they were caused by shame or by the little brown wretch choking on his penis. The tears, themselves, pleased him almost as much as the girl's mouth.

There had been a short period of time when the hungry girls had stopped coming to the camp to provide service for food. After a little inquiry, Bourguet had discovered that the bloody Belgian commandos down the road had begun to offer more, to drive up the price. Neo-colonialist bastards.

The solution to the shortage was elegant in its simplicity. Bourguet had simply dispatched two soldiers to lie in wait for one of the colonial girls to approach the Belgian camp. When, the next morning, a small group of different girls had found a head and a pair of hands mounted on a stick beside the trail, they'd immediately turned around and gone to the OAU camp in search of something to eat.

Bourguet laughed aloud. Then he twisted the girl's hair in his fingers, pulled her head away and slapped her face to make sure she was paying attention.

'You,' he said. 'All fours. Like dog.'

5/10/48 AC, Desperation Bay, Lansing Colony, Southern Columbia, Terra Nova

News traveled slowly on the new world. Rather, true news traveled slowly.

'But you can get the UN's lies right away,' said Ollie Rogers to his assembled family and a few guests, over dinner.

Ollie now had five wives. One had died but three more, along with another seven children, five of them from those three wives, had come his way from the survivors of the wintry disaster that gave the bay its name. Of his thirty-one living children, natural and adopted, three had children of their own. Ollie considered it a mark of God's special favor that he had been so blessed with offspring. Though it wasn't as if he would not have been elected as leader of the colony even if he'd been a bachelor.

One of the guests, Benjamin Putnam, asked, 'What do you believe, Ollie? Do you think it's true about the UN troops using or raping little girls up in Balboa?'

That rumor— really that set of rumors, for there were several variants—had become quite widely told over the last few months. The least of the variants told of pre-pubescent prostitutes being dismembered and their bodies put on display near one of the UN's bases, to drive their trade to where the money was less.

Rogers arose from the table and walked to the cabin's sole window, a wavy glass that the colony was just beginning to produce. Looking outside he saw a small cemetery, with a tree growing in the middle of it. They'd named the tree 'the tranzitree,' and the white wooden crosses around its base reminded Rogers that the tranzitree's fruit, with its bright green exterior and poisonous red interior, killed.

'Ben,' Rogers answered slowly and deliberately, 'we've both heard a lot of propaganda in our lives. That one has the ring of truth to me.'

'Disgraceful,' judged Gertie. She'd grown rather plump the last couple of decades but her husband still found her among the best of all women.

'Disgraceful, it may be,' agreed Rogers. 'But what can we do about it?'

'We can help them; the people the UN is trying to suppress, I mean,' said Ollie's oldest son, also called 'Oliver' or just 'Junior.'

'You have children of your own to watch out for,' the patriarch reminded.

'We don't,' said three of the boys, simultaneously.

Sheriff Juan Alvarez's son, too, spoke up, 'And neither do I.' Before the lawman could object, his son added, 'And if we don't stop the UN up there, how long before they come here? Father . . . Mr. Oliver, you both left the homes you had because of them. Where do you . . . where do we . . . go . . . if they come here, too?'

'You'll need better arms than we can provide,' Rogers said. He didn't say it like he thought it would be impossible to get those arms. 'We have, after all, found quite a bit of gold here.'

Chapter Sixteen

The winds of Paradise are blowing. Where are you who hanker after Paradise?

Motto of the Ikhwan

As a soldier I will fulfill my duties brilliantly. I die with a smile on my face with the deep belief that to meet my end on the kamikaze battleship Yamato is the ultimate honor.

Chief Petty Officer Yoshiaki Ogasawara Mikoto

KIA 7 April, 1945 (Old Earth Year)

3/6/468 AC, BdL Dos Lindas, Nicobar Straits

Except for having gone to a much heightened state of alert, and maintaining a lookout for Gallic vessels of war, the election had not much affected the carrier or her escorts. They, like the single legion now deployed on the border between Pashtia and Kashmir, had a contract to fulfill. Now, without the specter of a major war with Taurus in the offing, the classis was able, once again, to concentrate solely on pirate hunting.

Which was . . . disappointing. Since the flotilla had arrived on station piracy in the straits had dropped to, essentially, nothing.

'It's almost as if someone's told them to lay off,' Fosa said, looking enquiringly at Kurita standing on the bridge overlooking the calm waters.

'Someone has,' Kurita answered, cryptically. 'We don't know why. It could be as simple as the hope that if there's no piracy for a while the zaibatsu will curtail your contract and send you home. It could be just fear—well founded fear, too, I might add—of what the classis will do if there are any incidents. It could be . . . ' Kurita's eyes looked skyward.

Fosa's eyes, too, traveled upward. Fucking Earth-pigs.

UEPF Spirit of Peace

High Admiral Robinson (Wallenstein understood perfectly that UE senior officials were always 'High' in order to make clear to the rest of humanity that they were low) and Captain Wallenstein sat comfortably in the silverwood paneled ship's conference room, along with a few others that were in on enough of the secret to trust. None, of course, barring only Wallenstein, knew everything. Ordinarily, Robinson might have enjoyed the show in the privacy of his own quarters, watching it on the big, crystal-clear Kurosawa. Still, in odd little ways the staff had helped quite a bit and were entitled to their reward.

On the wall past the end of the