March Upcountry

“There’s a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica in my personal database. Why we didn’t bring it with us, I don’t know.”

“But . . .” Bann said, thinking about the problems of connecting to the ship. Even if there were surviving antennae, he’d have to use a whisker laser, and with the Saints attached to the hull, there was a good chance that they would detect it, which would give away the shuttle’s location.

“I know there’s hardly anything on Marduk in it,” O’Casey said quickly, anticipating part of his objection, “but there is data on early cultures and technologies. How to make flintlocks, how to make better iron and steel. . . .”

“Oh.” The warrant officer nodded in his helmet. “Good point. But if I try to connect with the ship, we might be detected. And then what?”

“Oh.” It was O’Casey’s turn to pause in thought. “We’ll have to take the chance,” she said after a moment, her voice firm. “This data could make or break the expedition.”

Bann thought about it as he warmed up the laser system. He saw her argument—it could be vital data— and there certainly wasn’t much time to kick the idea around. If he tried to find Captain Pahner’s blacked-out shuttle first to ask for permission, DeGlopper would almost certainly be gone before they could get anything. Which meant that he had to decide if it was worth endangering the entire mission to get some possibly useless data.

On the whole, he decided, it was.

“Whisker laser!” The lieutenant at Ship Defense Control turned towards her superior. “It appears to be sending a data request to the Empie assault ship. From . . . two-two-three by zero-zero-nine!”

“The shuttles,” Delaney said. “It’s the shuttles, trying to sneak away to the planet.”

“We’re too far out,” the chaplain objected. “You said so yourself. They can’t brake and make a reentry. And even if they could, we’d still be here to control the planet.”

“True.” Delany nodded. “But they could hide on the surface for a time.”

“Only until the carrier detected them,” Panella said dismissively. “They’d be mad to try to sneak down to the surface. Besides, we can still run them down, and we would’ve detected them soon after they started their deceleration.”

“Maybe,” the captain said dubiously. “But those shuttles use a hydrogen reaction jet that’s fairly hard to detect much beyond a light-minute.” He scratched his beard in thought about it for a moment. “Still, you’re right. They must have expected to be detected.”

He thought for a moment more, and in his eyes flew open wide.

“Unless they know we won’t be here to detect them!” He wheeled to his bridge crew.

“Detach the ship! Detach now!”

“What to download?” O’Casey asked the empty compartment. “What? What, what? Come on, load!” she snapped.

Warrant Officer Bann had experienced great difficulty finding a connection, but Eleanora was in now, and waited as the final connects were made. When the screen finally came up, she sent the command through her toot.

“Search ‘survival,’ ” she whispered, watching the results of the query come up. “Scroll down, scroll down, ‘hostile flora and fauna’ download, ‘medicine’ download. Search ‘fuels, shuttle.’ Scroll down. ‘Expedient’ download. Search, ‘military, primitive.’ Refine, ‘arquebus.’ Scroll down, scroll.” She kept one eye on the loading diagram. The whisker laser was a relatively small bandwidth system, and the first download on hostile flora and fauna survival wasn’t complete yet. She hissed, and then shook her head as a default message came up. “Four thousand three hundred eighty-three articles. Damn.” She didn’t have time for this.

“Refine . . . ‘generals.’ Refine, ‘greatest.’ ” She viewed the results. There was only one name she recognized offhand, despite her doctorate in history. She’d been more interested in societal developments than in military destructiveness, and arquebuses were as distant as ancient Rome and its fabled legions. But one name stood out in both the military and societal continuum.

“Download, ‘Adolphus, Gustavus.’ ”

* * *

“Damn,” Pahner snarled.

Roger nodded, more comfortable with the information now. “Disconnection.”

“Yes,” the captain replied in a quiet voice, watching the simple text “TOS” which had replaced the data feed from DeGlopper. Termination of Signal. Such a . . . sanitary acronym. The letters held his eye, and then the sensor readouts on the Saint cruiser disappeared, as well.

“Ah,” he said sadly, and Roger nodded again.

“Well,” the prince said after a moment, trying to lighten the atmosphere, “at least they got them.”

Without even turning around, he felt the temperature in the compartment drop, and swore at himself for putting his foot into his mouth yet again. He’d been wrong about the Marine’s lack of feeling, he realized.

“Yes, I suppose they did. Your Highness,” Pahner said flatly.

“Damn!” Eleanora shouted, slamming her hand down on the panel. The transmission had shut off in mid-line, and she’d only gotten part of the way through the entry on Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden.

She’d hunted for other data after entering that article, and as she had, she’d realized the incredible reach of the information available. The Marines could use data on improved metallurgy, agriculture, irrigation, and engineering. On chemistry, biology, and physics. It had all been sitting there the whole time, available for translation to pads or even toots. They could’ve loaded the whole thing into individual toots and had a walking encyclopedia!

But only if she’d thought of it in time.

“What’s wrong?” Sergeant Major Kosutic asked, coming back into the compartment. She glanced at the monitors and nodded. “Oh. The DeGlopper’s gone. But they got the Saint.”

“No, no, no. That’s not it!” O’Casey snapped, banging the workstation again. “I realized after you’d gone that I had the whole universe in my hand. I had a copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica in my personal system on the ship. I hardly used it, because it was only outline information. But there were all sorts of things that we could’ve downloaded if we’d only thought of it in time. I started grabbing articles, but the signal terminated on me.”

“Oh? Did you get anything?”

“Yeah,” O’Casey replied as she brought up the data. “I think I got the most critical stuff. Survival and hostile environments, survival first-aid, something on expedient shuttle fuels and the beginning of a download on a general from Earth when they used arquebuses.” She frowned and looked at the files. “The one on shuttle fuels looks a little slender.”

Kosutic’s mouth worked as she tried not to smile while the academic brought up the data on shuttle fuels.

“Oh. According to this, the field expedient shuttle fuel can be made by using electricity to break down water and—”

“And there’s a system on the shuttle that can do it,” Kosutic interrupted. “They get the power from solar cells . . . and it takes about four years to fill a shuttle’s tanks.”

“Right.” O’Casey turned from the monitor. “You already knew that?”

“Yep,” Kosutic admitted, still fighting back a grim chuckle. “And before anyone joins the Regiment, she goes through a Satan-Be-Damned course that includes combat survival skills. In fact, Captain Pahner is a survival instructor.”

“Oh,” O’Casey said. “Damn.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kosutic advised her, and this time the sergeant major allowed her chuckle to