Carnifex

run a world properly, let alone two of them.'

Reminded, she began to ask, hesitantly, 'Have you . . . '

'Have I put you up for Class One yet?'

'Yes, that.'

'Of course. Speaking of which, Marguerite, I'll want you personally to see to my security down there.' Robinson smiled and continued, 'In the interim, I have other uses for you. Get your uniform off and get on all fours.'

'And get your lovely head over here,' Arbeit ordered, sliding her posterior toward the edge of her seat.

* * *

Afterwards, Wallenstein lay on her side in the High Admiral's bed, sandwiched between the two of them. She kept two knuckles in her mouth on which she bit down. Normally, Robinson was content to use her mouth or vagina. This time he'd wanted her ass and it had hurt. It still hurt.

It will all be worth it, she consoled herself, when he and Lucretia sponsor me for Class One. Everything will be worth it then. All the perks . . . all the lower castes having to kowtow to me rather than me to the high caste. The best living arrangements. Servants. Proles to use as I've been used all my life. Respect.

Arbeit slept silently. The High Admiral snored. He'd fallen asleep as soon as he'd finished using her body, she thought, but the snore meant he was truly asleep. Still naked, she gently slithered out from between them and over to the computer the High Admiral had inadvertently left running while he'd turned his attention to her.

Must see how their recommendation reads.

A captain had access to everything in his or her ship's computer files, ordinarily. She knew the Admiral had sequestered some files concerning the operations to influence the planet below. Hopefully he would not have thought to sequester the report on her.

She typed carefully, quietly. There it was, in the recent files section, a report labeled 'Wallenstein.' She pulled up the file and began to read.

As an officer Marguerite Wallenstein is adequate, but no more than that, she read. Skipping ahead, feeling nauseous, she saw further, While she has a obsession with reaching Class One status, nothing in her background and breeding suggests she would be a suitable candidate. She has too many lower caste and even prole attitudes to entrust any portion of the direction of a world to her marginal capabilities. On the plus side, she uses her mouth well and will gladly and even eagerly do anything in bed her superiors direct her to do. I earnestly recommend a tour as military aid to a high ranking Class One, male or female as the captain does not discriminate, followed by retirement as soon as she becomes tiresome.

The report was countersigned by the IG, Arbeit.

Feeling wounded, as near to raped as she ever had in her life, Wallenstein returned to bed.

* * *

By the next morning Wallenstein had herself under full control. She awakened before either of her partners from the night before, then showered, dressed, and went to her own cabin prior to ascending to the bridge. On the bridge she took the morning report and gave a few orders to the bridge crew. After that, she turned control over to her executive officer and withdrew to her day cabin.

When Robinson showed up, she greeted him with her usual sweet smile and said, 'I have had a complete sensor search done of the Salafi base area and there is nothing unusual to report, Martin. I've also put your personal shuttle into maintenance to make sure it is ready.'

This was all true. It was even the whole truth . . . so far.

6/8/469 AC, The Base, Kashmir Tribal Trust Lands

The truth was that the Salafis were fairly rotten soldiers, as the term 'soldier' was understood over most of the globe. Hopeless marksmen, most of them, their rifles were ordinarily little more than noisemakers. Hopeless, they were too, on the battle line. A culture that values family above all things in this life cannot produce military units where nonblood- related men must generally trust in, even love, one another enough to make them risk death for their comrades. And it took a very rare leader—Mohammad had been one such; to a lesser degree Sada, back in Sumer, was another—to get them to rise above that.

On the other hand, unlike any number of military skills and values, patrolling was something that did come more or less naturally to most of the Salafis. Oh, the softly raised city boys of Kashmir and Yithrab were fairly hopeless, at first (even they could be taught, eventually, though). But the desert Bedu and the hill runners of Pashtia? They grew up with the possibility of having their little encampments raided at any time for livestock and women. They grew up, from earliest boyhood, with the idea of walking around outside their camp's perimeter at night to catch any such raid, or scouts for a raid.

Those Salafis went out every night through gaps in the wire and mines around the camp to make sure there were no unfriendly strangers waiting in the darkness. Some of them even stayed out days at a time, carefully and nervously walking the hills and valleys around the base.

Perhaps they'd grown a little slack, what with all the months and years in the Base and never a sign of the enemy nearby. But a 'little slack,' for a Bedu or a Pashtun securing his immediate home, wasn't really all that slack. It might have been slack enough, for example, to miss a small hide, well camouflaged, on a hillside. To miss men entering and exiting that hide? To miss men exiting that hide every night?

* * *

Sevilla was both furious and frightened. The idiot signifer was out again, having taken three men with him this time. What the young fool expected to find out there was beyond the sergeant. Briefly, he considered sending a burst message to higher to get someone to order the signifer to stay put. This seemed disloyal, though, and the Legion stressed loyalty to immediate higher authority.

The sergeant stiffened when he heard the rustle of rock below. Hands tightening on his rifle, a standard model, he flipped down his monocle and used the rifle to peer out from the hide. He relaxed again, as much as one could relax on a long range detached mission in enemy territory with an idjit for a leader, anyway, when he made out Somoza's familiar shape in the darkness.

Muttering a curse under his breath, Sevilla lifted the overhead net carefully and only enough to allow the patrol to re-enter the hide. In a whisper the signifer passed on what they had found. This was, as the sergeant expected, precisely nothing.

I'm getting too old for this shit, thought the twenty- seven year old Sevilla. Maybe it's time to go back to my home tercio, the Third Infantry. They might—probably would—stick me in the recon platoon and have me doing the same basic shit, but at least I wouldn't be out here eighty fucking miles from help. Besides, line cohort recon platoons are almost always led by centurions. Better, way better, than having my balls in a shavetail's hands.

The overhead net rustled suddenly as something hit it from above. Sevilla looked up for an instant, saw a glowing spark, and pulled his head down under his protecting hands while shouting, 'Grenade!'

* * *

Grenades were fairly high tech items, pricey and of limited shelf life, to boot. There were some in the Base's deep bunkers, of course, even many. But they were rarely issued, the mujahadin preferring to make their own. One typical 'grenade' consisted of a one pound block of TNT, dipped in glue and then rolled in small ball bearings, BBs, repeatedly until a decent amount of shrapnel had been built up. Into the fuse well of the TNT was placed a non-electric blasting cap with a short bit of fuse, the fuse connected to a pull igniter, and the whole thing heavily duct-taped to keep it both together and waterproof. Some of the grenades were fitted with a piece of rope tied around to allow a much longer toss. In a pinch, and much like an industrially made hand grenade, the thing could be turned into a booby trap or mine with minimal effort.

Of course, such an assembly was heavier than a grenade, a lot heavier. On the other hand, what with having many times the explosive and shrapnel it was just the thing for taking out a bunker or trench.

Or a hide.

* * *

The leader of the mujahadin patrol hadn't been certain, at first, that it even was enemy. After so long without a contact he'd begun to believe that the crusaders and their mercenaries had given up on the Base. Who could be out here, then? Probably it was