Carnifex

an observer a further half mile down the road, 'Tauran News Network, yellow van, eye painted on the side.'

Placing a hand, fraternally, on the shoulder of the bomber with the detonating switch, Anwar said, 'On my signal, Brother . . . . and . . . FIRE!'

Infrared, despite sending a signal at the speed of light, activated a mechanism that was much slower. Anwar knew the time it would take between sending that signal and his bomb exploding. He had mentally calculated the time, and done so rather well. The yellow painted van with the TNN eye on the side was only a meter or so past the bomb when it went off.

The explosion came in the form of a fiery dark cloud and the whizzing of hot chunks of steel. The bomb, itself, was of the concave directional type. It was mid-sized, and just perfect for sending a very heavy concentration of metal chunks in a fairly precise direction.

The rear tires of the van were blown off as the rear three fourths of one side disintegrated under the steel hail. The van's tail was forced about ninety degrees from its direction of travel. Forward momentum, however, had not been lost. The van had no option, given the laws of physics, but to begin to spin along its long axis as it tumbled down the street. It crashed, finally, at a store front. Between the bomb and the wildly careening van, some numbers of innocent people were hurt or killed.

No matter; the bomber team was well sheltered and they emerged moments after the bomb went off, ignoring the dead and wounded and racing afoot for the van. Their faces were covered by their keffiyah. Once at the van, rifles went into action, pouring lead into the stunned and bleeding men—oh, and there's one woman, too. Infidel slut!—inside the wrecked vehicle. One or more bullets must have found the gas tank, for the air quickly filled with the stench of gasoline. One terrorist carried a grenade. This he donated into a broken window. The van was soon blazing merrily and, based on the screaming, finishing off whichever of the infidel vultures had survived bomb and bullet.

Nodding satisfaction, Anwar gave the order, 'Leave the rifles; plenty more where they came from. Now go and disperse. We'll meet at my house this evening.'

As the men ran off they heard another bomb, and more rifle fire, coming from what sounded like about a mile in the other direction.

* * *

All three moons were up, Hecate, Eris and Bellona, when Khalid, representing Adnan Sada, met with Bahir in a walled in courtyard in a suburb of Ninewa. 'That was well done,' Khalid congratulated. 'My liwa is pleased.'

'He is pleased even over the twenty-three innocents we killed?' Bahir retorted.

'No . . . no, of course not,' Khalid shook his head. 'But there is always what the Balboan mercenaries call 'collateral damage.' If you had not killed the innocents then it would not have seemed as if it were an attack by the resistance. The question is whether the damage is less than there would be if we did not take the action. He thinks it was worth it, however regrettable it may have been.'

And how am I different, then, from the people who blew up my family? Khalid wondered. In this only: they blew up my family; I only blow up others' families. That is as much moral difference as can be.

From inside his dishdasha Khalid drew several packages of Tauran money which he placed on a low table between himself and Bahir. 'This is for your expenses. There is a bonus in there, as well, for a job—well, two jobs, really—well done.'

'It was three jobs, including getting you the introductions and passes to bring your 'news team' to murder the chiefs.'

'You were already paid for the first,' Khalid insisted.

'I know. That isn't the point. But after three such jobs, is that not enough to earn the release of my father's son?'

Khalid sighed. 'I have told you this before, Bahir. Your brother will be pardoned and released when the war is over, really and finally over. He hasn't been subject to the question since he gave us your name. But until the war is over, you dance to our tune if you do not want your brother to dance to a very different tune.'

Under the shadowless light of the three moons, Bahir scowled even as he raked in the money.

8/3/463 AC (Old Earth Year 2518), UEPF Spirit of Peace

From space, Hecate was up and appeared full as Captain Marguerite Wallenstein's shuttle touched down on the Spirit's hangar deck. Robinson was there to meet her. He waited for the hangar doors to lock, and the air previously pumped out to be released back into the open space, before cycling the airtight doors. Even then, he didn't trust the green light that came on to signal that air pressure was adequate. Rather, he waited for the balloon visible from the port hole in the hatch to collapse.

The fleet needed things like the balloon. The ships were old, irreplaceable, and almost unmaintainable. Things went wrong. Things were wrong that simply could not be repaired without resort to drastic measures. He'd been on station for four Old Earth years and had had to order progressive cannibalization of some of his ships to keep others going.

Clever prole, who thought of the balloon trick, thought the High Admiral, as he walked to the shuttle's hatch. I wonder if I should have had him spaced after all as being too clever a prole. No, I suppose not. After all, it might be me he saves next.

The symbol of United Earth —northern hemisphere at the center and southern exaggerated out of size, the whole surrounded by a laurel wreath—split as the hatch opened to either side. A small walkway emerged and down the walkway strode the blond and leggy Captain Wallenstein, a pistol strapped to her hip and some black cloth held in her arms. Blue eyes flashed angrily. Wallenstein did not look happy.

'Never!' she shouted, throwing the black cloth at Robinson. 'Never will I go down to that stinking cesspool again.'

The High Admiral smiled, letting the burkha fall to the deck. A prole would see to it, later. 'I gather then that Mustafa was his usual warm and friendly self.'

Wallenstein's eyes were flame. 'Warm and frie . . .  arghghgh! Do you know that bastard made me dress in a sack? That he never spoke to me directly but made me talk through a slave? That he . . . ah, what's the use? Of course, you knew.'

'Yes, and isn't he just lovely, my dear Captain? Can you imagine Terra Nova under him and his sort? We could all go home, Marguerite, with never a care that this hellhole could ever become a threat to our people.'

'Yes . . . yes, I suppose so,' the captain agreed. 'Except that they can't win, Martin. It's just as you said, Sumer is lost. I saw that on my sojourn there. Oh, yes; the Ikhwan will likely drag it out. But they can't win.'

Nodding sagely, Robinson said, 'I don't care about Sumer. That's been a lost cause since the Balboan mercenaries showed they were more ruthless than the Salafi Ikhwan. Tell me about Pashtia.'

An underling came up to take charge of Wallenstein's pistol. She unbuckled the weapon and gave it over, then said to Robinson, 'Later, in your quarters.'

* * *

'It's going to be a long, slow struggle to reopen Pashtia fully, Martin,' Wallenstein insisted. 'But Mustafa, the filthy barbarian, is making some strides. In particular they're doing well at rearming, at limiting the degree to which government control can be spread, and at training some of what I think will eventually be very good leaders. It's a race though, between how long they can keep the Federated States occupied in Sumer while building up in Pashtia.'

'How long do you think before the war there kicks off with a bang.'

'I've been thinking of little but that,' Wallenstein said. 'I think . . . five years.'

'So long? Damn!'

'It won't do to hurry,' the Captain insisted.

'I know,' Robinson admitted. 'But I keep thinking about what the engineering officer said. They might have interstellar flight in as little as twenty years . . . and he said that six years ago.'

'It would help, Martin, if you went down and coached Mustafa. He won't listen to me, of course, but maybe you can push him to do the things he needs to in order to win.'

'Which would be?' Robinson asked. In point of fact, he outranked Wallenstein through caste, not through military ability. It was, if anything, her superior military talent that would keep her from ever being raised to the highest caste. She was simply too dangerous in her abilities ever to trust, fully.

'He needs a thorough grounding in the principles of war,' she said. 'He needs to take control of his movement, not just to leave it entirely to individual initiative. He needs to wage a global