There had been nothing remotely threatening, except for one sayce, since they left the
She could hear Dean Folan and Will Danza plodding along behind her, and wondered how they were getting on with their horses. Having the two ESA G66 Division (Tactical Combat) troops backing her up was a dose of comfort stronger than any stimulant program could provide. She had been trained in general covert fieldwork, but they had virtually been bred for it, geneering and nanonic supplements combining to make them formidable fighting machines.
Dean Folan was in his mid-thirties, a quiet ebony-skinned man with the kind of subtle good looks most of the geneered enjoyed. He was only medium height, but his limbs were long and powerful, making his torso look almost stunted by comparison. It was the boosted muscles which did that, Jenny knew; his silicon-fibre-reinforced bones had been lengthened to give him more leverage, and more room for implants.
Will Danza fitted people’s conception of a modern-day soldier; twenty-five, tall, broad, with long, sleek muscles. He was an old Prussian warrior genotype, blond, courteous, and unsmiling. There was an almost psychic essence of danger emanating from him; you didn’t tangle with him in any tavern brawl no matter how drunk you were. Jenny suspected he didn’t have a sense of humour; but then he’d seen action in covert missions three times in the last three years. She’d accessed his file when the jungle mission was being assembled; they had been tough assignments, one had earned him eight months in hospital being rebuilt from cloned organs, and an Emerald Star presented by the Duke of Salion, Alastair II’s first cousin, and chairman of the Kulu Privy Council’s security commission. He had never talked about it on the journey upriver.
The nature of the jungle started to change around them. Tightly packed bushy trees gave way to tall, slender trunks with a plume of feather-fronds thirty metres overhead. A solid blanket of creepers tangled the ground, rising up to hug the lower third of the tree trunks like solid conical encrustations. It increased their visibility dramatically, but the horses had to pick their hoofs up sharply. High above their heads vennals leapt between the trees in incredible bounds, streaking up the slim trunks to hide in the foliage at the top. Jenny couldn’t see how they clung to the smooth bark.
After another forty minutes they came to a small stream. She dismounted in slow tender stages, and let her horse drink. Away in the distance she could see a herd of danderil bounding away from the trickle of softly steaming water. White clouds were rolling in from the east. It would rain in an hour, she knew.
Dean Folan dismounted behind her, leaving Will Danza sitting on his horse, keeping watch from his elevated vantage point. All three of them were dressed identically, wearing a superstrength olive-green one-piece anti-projectile suit, covered with an outer insulation layer to diffuse beam weapons. The lightweight armour fitted perfectly, with an inner sponge layer to protect the skin. Thermal-shunt fibres woven into the fabric kept body temperature to a pre-set norm, which was a real blessing on Lalonde. If they were struck by a projectile slug the micro-valency generators around her waist would activate, solidifying the fabric instantly, distributing the impact, preventing the wearer’s body from being pulped by automatic fire. (Jenny’s only regret was that it didn’t protect her from saddle sores.) The body armour was complemented by a shell-helmet which fitted with the same tight precision as the suit. It gave them all an insect appearance, with its wide goggle lenses and a small central V- shaped air-filter vent. The collar had a ring of optical sensors which could be accessed through neural nanonics, giving them a rear-view capability. They could even survive underwater for half an hour with its oxygen-recycling capacity.
The stream was muddy, its stones slimed with algae, none of which seemed to bother the horses. Jenny watched them lapping it up, and requested a drink from her shell-helmet. She sucked ice-cold orange juice from the nipple as she reviewed their location with help from the inertial guidance block.
When Dean and Will swapped position she datavised the armour suit’s communications block to open a scrambled channel to Murphy Hewlett. The ESA team had split up from the Confederation Navy Marines after leaving the
“We’re eight kilometres from Oconto,” she said. “No hostiles or locals encountered so far.”
“Same with us,” the marine lieutenant answered. “We’re six kilometres south of you, and there’s nobody in this jungle but us chickens. If Oconto’s supervisor did lead fifty people in pursuit of the Ivets, he didn’t come this way. There’s a small savannah which starts about fifteen kilometres away, there are about a hundred homesteads out there. We’ll try them.”
Static warbled down the channel. Jenny automatically checked her electronic warfare suite, which reported zero activity. Must be atmospherics.
“OK. We’re going to keep closing on the village and hope we find someone before we reach it,” she datavised.
“Roger. I suggest we make half-hourly check-ins from now on. There isn’t . . .” His signal dissolved into rowdy static.
“Hell! Dean, Will, we’re being jammed.”
Dean consulted his own electronic warfare block. “No activity detected,” he said.
Jenny steadied her horse and put her foot in the stirrup, swinging a leg over the saddle. Will was mounting hastily beside her. All three of them scanned the surrounding jungle. Dean’s horse snickered nervously. Jenny tugged at the reins to keep hers from twisting about.
“They’re out there,” Will said in a level tone.
“Where?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t know, but they’re watching us. I can feel it. They don’t like us.”
Jenny bit down on the obvious retort. Soldier superstitions were hardly appropriate right now, yet Will had more direct combat experience than her. A quick hardware status check showed that only the communications block was affected so far. Her electronic warfare block remained stubbornly silent.
“All right,” she said. “The one thing we don’t want to do is run into a whole bunch of them. The Edenists said they were most powerful in groups. Let’s move out, and see if we can get outside this jamming zone. We ought to be able to move faster than them.”
“Which way?” Dean asked.
“I still want to try and reach the village. But I don’t think a direct route is advisable now. We’ll head south-west, and curve back towards Oconto. Any questions? No. Lead off then, Dean.”
They splashed over the stream, the horses seemingly eager to be on the move again. Will Danza had pulled his thermal induction pulse carbine from its saddle holster; now it was cradled in the crook of his right arm, pointing upwards. The datavised information from its targeting processor formed a quiet buzz at the back of his mind. He didn’t even notice it at a conscious level, it was as much a part of the moment as the easy rhythm of the horse or the bright sunlight, making him whole.
He made up the rear of the little procession, constantly reviewing the sensors on the back of his shell- helmet. If anyone had asked him how he knew hostiles were nearby he would just have to shrug and say he couldn’t explain. But instinct was pulling at him with the same irresistible impulse that pollen exerted on bees. They were here, and they were close. Whoever, or whatever, they were.
He strained round in the saddle, upping his retinal implants’ resolution to their extreme. All he could see was the long thin black trunks and their verdant cone island bases, outlines wavering in the heat and unstable magnification factor.
A movement.
The TIP carbine was discharging before he even thought about it, blue target graphics sliding across his vision field like neon cell doors as he dropped the barrel in a single smooth arc. A red circle intersected the central grid square and his neural nanonics triggered a five-hundred-shot fan pattern.
The section of jungle in the central blue square sparkled with orange motes as the induction pulses stabbed against the wood and foliage. It lasted for two seconds.
“Down!” Will datavised. “Hostiles four o’clock.”
He was already slithering off the horse, feet landing solidly on the broad triangular creeper leaves. Dean and Jenny obeyed automatically, rolling from their saddles to land crouched, thermal induction pulse carbines held ready. The three of them turned smoothly, each covering a different section of jungle.
“What was it?” Jenny asked.
“Two of them, I think.” Will quickly replayed the memory. It was like a dense black shadow dashing out
