March To The Stars

drowning, or at least standing in cold water up to their groins. Their army will have no choice but to surrender.'

'Or to charge the walls,' one of the other chieftains said darkly.

'The water is going to rise fast,' Pahner interjected. 'They'll have, at most, two hours to decide what to do and to do it, and all the indications are that they're pretty incapable of reacting to surprise. I'd be astonished if they could even get a decision made in two hours, much less implement it.'

'But if they realize what we're planning,' Roger said, 'and the preparations will of necessity take place in plain sight, they'll have ample time to plan a response. So we'll have to have a deception plan. We'll make it look as if the forces emplacing the charges are actually building a fortress to threaten their logistics line.'

'What if we can't get the explosives?' Despreaux prompted.

'In that case, we'll use gunpowder,' Roger said. 'There's a powder mill here; Mudh Hemh is a primary supplier. It will take longer, and more materials, but it'll still work.'

'I could make some nitro,' she mused. 'They have everything I need.'

'I'd prefer you in one piece,' Roger told her with a grin. 'Nitroglycerin is far too volatile. If we can get the octocellulose, let's go with that.'

'You said a temporary dam,' the Gastan said. 'How 'temporary'?'

'It will last at least two days,' Roger said confidently. 'It may last for years, depending on how the material falls.'

'It could be made semi-permanent, if you wish,' Fain interjected. 'We Diasprans are quite familiar with such structures; with a few days' work, we could insure that it stays up for weeks. With a few weeks, we could make it permanent. That assumes that the subgrade is good—I'd need to look at that. But I concur on the couple of days, minimum. The material of the mountain appears to be a mixture of this black rock—'

'Basalt,' Roger said.

'This 'basalt,' and the fine ash. The basalt will create the structure, and the ash—which is notably nonporous—will fill the gaps. I suspect that it will make an excellent dam all by itself.'

'I have seen dams like this,' one of the highland chiefs offered. 'They're scattered throughout the mountains. This ... this could work. If you can 'drop' enough of the mountain.'

'If we can get the octocellulose, that's not a problem,' Roger said with a shrug. 'A piece of octocellulose the size of your thumb has the explosive power of a keg of gunpowder. The material is hard to describe, but it's a very tight packing of eight carbon molecules associated with nitrates, such as your saltpeter that goes in gunpowder. It's a common explosive among my people.'

'We can't just lay it on the surface, Your Highness,' Doc Dobrescu interjected. 'We'll have to dig the charges in. Dig 'em in deep, if you want the sort of material movement you're talking about.'

'That will be a challenge,' Roger said. 'I spoke with Krindi about it, and we can either blow out a sort of mining cavity by hammering in a spike and then blasting out the cavity, or we can try to produce very long steel drills that can be hammered in over time.'

'Nah,' Julian said. 'Despreaux, can you make a shaped charge?'

'Sure,' the sergeant replied, then grimaced. 'Well, supervise,' she amended, shrugging her arm. 'There are field expedient shaped charges you can make out of hammered iron. Why?'

'I had a buddy who was an engineer,' Julian said with a thoughtful expression. 'He said that when they were in school, they made craters by first blowing a hole with shaped charges, then filling the cavity with explosives. I don't know the size of the shaped charges, though, or how much to put in.'

'Well, if we blow a series of holes, then pack them with a combination of octocellulose and gunpowder, not having the materials for a decent ANFO slurry, it should work,' Despreaux said, her face lighting up.

'I think that your paramour likes explosives more than you, Prince Roger,' the Gastan commented dryly, and Roger shrugged as grunting Mardukan laughter filled the room. His relationship with Despreaux had become widely known.

'She likes it hot, what can I say?'

'We still have to assume that the Krath will become aware of our plans,' the Gastan said.

'Even if they do, they'll find it difficult to attack the workings,' Roger responded. 'Your forces—and ours— fight better on the heights.'

'Still, I think they'll try,' the Gastan said. 'And when they fail to take them, they'll come here, instead.'

'They've come before!' one of the chieftains protested, dipping into the sulfurous water and coming back up blowing bubbles. 'We'll stop them as we have before!'

'If they all come at once?' the Gastan asked. 'Desperate in their fear of the rising waters?'

'You'll have to be prepared to offer them a truce, you realize,' Roger said. This, too, was something he and the Gastan—and O'Casey—had discussed, and so he was prepared to look around mildly as the bellows of protest arose. One serendipitous advantage of having the conference in the bath chamber was that the chieftains were unarmed. Of course, it still looked as if they were willing to tear him limb from limb with their bare hands.

'No quarter for the Burners of the Shin!' 'Death to the Krath!' 'Blood! Blood! '

'What?' Roger shouted back, waving his hands at them. O'Casey had helped the Gastan set this part up, and the prince could see her trying not to smile.

'You can't kill them all!' he continued. 'I don't mean 'you shall not'; I mean you can not! You'd have to cut throats until your arms fell off! And that assumes they lined up to have them cut! No, you're going to have to feed them, instead, which means bringing in food from the upper Krath and across the Shesul Pass, so the first thing to do is put them to work repairing that road. You do realize that you're going to be disarming them all, right? And that all their weapons and armor are going to be spoils?'

He looked around at the suddenly silent chieftains and saw the credit signs dancing in their eyes.

'Yep. For that matter, you can probably squeeze the Krath for tribute. This is Kirsti's primary field army. If they don't have it, the next satrap up the line can take all the territory he wants—they're probably holding him back by an agreement to refrain while they crush you. If you crush them, instead, they're going to be between a rock and a hard place. Tributes galore. Control of Queicuf again, control of all the trade routes, tribute—hell, an end to the slave raids and sacrifices. 'When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.' '

'You make it sound so easy,' one of the chieftains complained.

'Ah, well, that's my job,' Roger said with a grin. They laughed again, but then he allowed his grin to fade. 'Easy? No. They'll probably hit Nopet Nujam hard. They might hit Nopet Vusof. But they won't have much time to do anything, unless someone goes tattling from this meeting. If we use cratering charges—and that sounds like the best plan—we can drop the mountainside the day after we reach the heights. Two hours after it goes down, the water will be up to their tents.'

'We must be ready to face a heavy attack, though,' the Gastan said. 'We will need every warrior ready, either on the walls or resting for their time. With the aid of our human allies, we may yet win the day—win it fully, and for all time. But there is hard battle ahead of us still, and we must steel ourselves for it. The Shin! Death to the Krath!'

'DEATH TO THE KRATH!'

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Roger sank into the water and sighed as the chieftains filed out.

'That went well,' he said, hooking an arm around Despreaux.

'Perhaps,' the Gastan said. 'Perhaps.'

'What's wrong?' Roger asked. 'I think the plan will work. Things will go wrong, but we should be able to implement the basics, no matter what.'

'My father fears for our people,' Pedi said. She and Cord had remained silent throughout the meeting, but