March To The Sea

sense that, apsimons or no, their supply of diet supplements was steadily dwindling, but now it was time to find out if the new companies and regiments would be used as planned, or if it had all been for naught.

For that matter, there still had been no contact from the cabal of the Creator, and the prince wondered if he would ever know whether that was because their interception had prevented the critical message which might have initiated that contact from reaching the Creator, or because follow-up messages suggesting the same thing had gotten through only to be ignored.

He turned from the window and started preparing for the ceremony. There would be a parade to start, then an invocation of the God of Water by the high priest, followed by any number of other ceremonies. The festivities were to continue through the night, and he'd been invited to over sixty separate parties. He would be attending about five; the rest had been farmed out to O'Casey and various Marines.

He buckled on his pistol belt and had just checked the chamber when there was a knock on the door.

'Enter,' he called, holstering the pistol.

PFC Willis stuck her head in the door.

'Sir, Bishop From is out here. He requests a moment of your time.'

Roger frowned and tugged at the front of his tunic. It was one of the dianda outfits Matsugae had had made for him in Marshad, and its light, lustrous saffron complemented his golden hair and the intense tan he'd developed.

'Show him in,' he said, and turned as the artisan-priest entered and looked around the small and spartan room.

'Pardon my intrusion, Your Highness,' Rus said, smiling and gesturing in self-deprecation. 'It was but a small matter. I believe that you wish to have conversation with the Creator?'

Roger froze in shock. Of all the people who might have contacted him from the cabal of the 'Great Plan,' the second or third highest ranking priest in the temple was not who he would have picked as most likely.

'We wish to speak to you, and there is not very much time at all,' the cleric continued. 'You may bring two guards. Or you can continue in blissful ignorance. 'Your choice,' as you would say.'

Roger thought very hard for a moment, then nodded.

'We'll go. Let me get the guards and brief them.'

He stepped out into the hall, and the two Marines guarding his door looked at him in surprise as he pulled his bead pistol back out to check the charge. Roger wasn't sure if the meaning of his action was plain to Rus From, but he knew it would communicate his own seriousness to the Marines. He looked at the power indicator, then nodded, holstered the weapon once more, and looked at the troopers.

'We're going to a surprise meeting. Just me, you two, and the priest. And we're leaving now.'

'Sir,' Georgiadas said, 'shouldn't we inform Captain Pahner?'

'I don't have time to call him, Spyros,' Roger said, with a very slight emphasis on the first-person pronoun. 'We have to go now.'

'Yes, Sir,' the grenadier replied. 'Let's do it, then.'

'After you, Bishop From,' the prince invited, gesturing down the corridor.

'This should be interesting,' Willis muttered as they left their post and accompanied the prince on his latest harebrained excursion.

'Yeah,' Georgiadas whispered back as he used his toot to key his communicator for a subvocal message. 'Like the Chinese curse.'

* * *

'Roger just left for an unspecified location with Rus From!' Pahner snapped, as he slammed open the sergeant major's door.

'Shit,' Kosutic responded, throwing on her tunic. Unlike the prince, the rest of them had to wear their battle-worn chameleon suits, but they'd finally had the time to really attack the stains and tears. There were also spares available from the wounded and the dead, and they'd been put to good use. The final patchwork suits had clearly seen hard usage, but they were no longer the stained rags they had been.

'Not good, Sir,' Julian added from the other side of the camp bed. The intel NCO pulled on his boots and sealed them to his uniform, then picked up his bead rifle and checked the chamber. 'Do we go after him?'

'And does he have any guards at all?' Kosutic demanded harshly.

Pahner looked from one to the other and not quite visibly shook himself. It wasn't that seeing two Marines together was unusual, but the Regs were very specific about relationships between two people in the same direct chain of command. There were, in Pahner's opinion, very good reasons for that regulation, given that Marines were still people and that favoritism—or the need to keep one's loved ones out of harm's way—remained an ineradicable part of the human condition. And whether the captain agreed with them or not, the Regs made any such relationship a 'crash and burn' offense. If two people in the same chain of command wanted to marry or become lovers, that was just fine with The Book . . . as long as one of them transferred out of that chain of command.

But there was nowhere on Marduk for anyone to transfer to, and Pahner felt a moment of absolute fury at Kosutic for allowing such a thing to happen. The sergeant major was his right hand. It was part of her job to make sure that other people weren't in violation of military law, not to go around violating it herself! Besides, she was forty years older than Julian—not, Pahner had to admit, that she looked it.

And Julian . . . Julian was an experienced troop who'd been around the block a few dozen times. He damned well knew as well as Kosutic did just how far out of line they were and what a dilemma their actions were going to create for one Armand Pahner!

But even as those thoughts flashed through his mind, the captain knew it wasn't that simple or cut and dried. What were people supposed to do with themselves, with their emotions and their sex drives? Turn them off? Pretend they didn't exist? The Regs had never envisioned a situation in which a unit this small would be this isolated for so long, and what were two people to do when there was no place either of them could transfer to? And even if that hadn't been so, what was he supposed to do in this specific case? Oh, sure, Kosutic and Julian were both supposed to be setting examples to their subordinates, which meant holding their conduct to a higher standard, but how could he justify lowering the boom on them when he knew that they knew that he knew there were plenty of other similar relationships cooking away out there. Christ, there was even Despreaux and the prince to think about! God only knew where that mess was headed, and what was Pahner supposed to do if the two of them decided that the solution was to give in and do what they both so obviously wanted to do? Order them to behave—like that would do any good at all? Charge a member of the Imperial Family with violation of the Regs? Court-martial just Despreaux?

Besides, he thought as his initial, shock-born fury faded just a bit, he couldn't think of a single person less likely than Kosutic to let anything that was happening in her bed affect her decisions and actions in the field. Or, for that matter, less likely than Julian, despite the intel NCO's well-earned reputation for bending the rules. So if it wasn't going to have any negative side effects on the way they did their jobs, and if making a point out of jumping all over them was only going to unsettle his command structure and force him to take note of other, potentially even stickier relationships, then shouldn't he just keep his mouth shut and pretend he hadn't seen a thing?

'Derail your train of thought there, Armand?' the sergeant major chuckled.

'He has two guards,' Pahner replied somewhat coldly. It was the first time Kosutic had ever addressed him by his given name in front of another member of the company, but the comment had been as effective a way to restart his mental processes as a slap to the face. Which was what the NCO had intended, he was sure. This whole situation was just going to have to wait, he decided firmly. Like maybe for the next ten standard years or so.

'Willis and Georgiadas, Sir?' Julian asked, apparently (and falsely, Pahner felt certain) unaware that there was any particular reason he ought to be sweating bullets. Or maybe he just had his mind totally focused on the job in hand. He was buckled up and ready to go, waiting only to be told where, so maybe that was all he was thinking about.

Yeah. Sure it was.

'Right. Georgiadas called it in,' the captain said after only the briefest of cold-eyed pauses. 'Rus From was the contact from the cabal,' he added.

'Oh, my.' Kosutic sat back down on the camp bed with a thump.

'So, no, we're not going in guns blazing,' the captain continued. 'We need to know what's going on before we make any decisions.'