March Upcountry

recommend shipwreck on a hostile planet full of carnivorous monsters and bloodthirsty barbarians as a sovereign method for attaining physical fitness. Now the former tutor smiled warmly. “Your troops have been just magnificent. Her Majesty will be incredibly proud when we finally get back.”

“Well,” Pahner said, “we have a long way to go before we find out. But, thank you, Councilor. That means a lot to me, and it will actually mean something to the troopers as well. We don’t just fight for pay, you know.”

Roger shook his head sleepily.

“I never considered all the little stories around me all the time. Do you know Corporal Hooker’s first name?” Roger asked as he fed Dogzard a scrap of gristle from the damncroc.

“Of course, Your Highness. Ima.”

“She said her dad had a sick sense of humor,” the prince confirmed in a tone of outrage. “I offered to have him thrown out an airlock.”

“He’s long dead,” Kosutic said, taking another fingerstrip of damncroc tail. “Snorted himself to death on dreamwrack.”

“Ah,” Roger said with a nod. “And Poertena wanted to go to college on a swimming scholarship . . .”

“ . . . but he got beat out in the finals,” Pahner finished. “There’s more to leadership than wearing the right tabs on your collar, Your Highness. Knowing the details of the troops is important, and for knowing the really intimate details . . .”

“ . . . you have sergeant majors and gunnery sergeants,” Kosutic said with a frown. “Andras’ wife was expecting when we left, and I doubt we’ll be back before she’s due. I don’t suppose it will matter one way or the other, though; we’re undoubtedly written off as dead.”

“That . . . sucks,” O’Casey said.

“Being a Marine sucks,” Pahner told her with a quiet smile. It was rare for the academic to swear.

“Then why do you do it?” she asked.

“It’s something I’m good at. Somebody has to do it, and better someone who’s good at it. Not everyone is.” The captain looked pensive for a moment. “It’s . . . bad, sometimes. When you realize that what you’re really good at is either killing other sentients in person or leading others in the killing of them. But everyone in the Regiment is an exceptional Marine. And reasonably presentable. And utterly loyal . . .”

“But there’s more,” Kosutic said with a grin. “That describes a surprising number of Marines. And even a surprising number that can make it through RIP. It’s a big Corps, after all.”

“Yes,” Pahner said, taking a sip of water, “there is more. Every member of The Empress’ Own has some odd skill that the selection board thought might conceivably be of use. You don’t get in if the only thing you know is what you’ve learned since Basic.”

“I knew Poertena could swim that river,” Kosutic told the prince. “But I wasn’t about to tell him that I knew he was an Olympic-class swimmer,” she added with a laugh.

“You mentioned Corporal Hooker,” Pahner said soberly. “Ima Hooker was an air car thief before a judge gave her a choice between the Marines and a long jail sentence.”

“What the hell is she doing in The Empress’ Own?” O’Casey asked with a gasp as she choked on a mouthful of wine.

“She can open and be driving an air car she’s never seen as fast as you can open your own and drive away with a key,” Kosutic said seriously. “If you think that’s not a skill the Empress might need someday, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“She is also utterly loyal to the Empress,” Pahner told the chief of staff. “She actually has one of the most stable loyalty indexes I’ve ever seen. Better than yours, I might add, Ms. O’Casey. The Marines took her out of a hellish existence and gave her back her honor and purpose. She’s somehow transferred that . . . redemption to the person of the Empress. She’s definitely one of the ones who’s going to end up in Gold.”

“How strange,” the academic murmured. She felt as if she’d stepped through the ancient Alice’s looking glass.

“So what’s your skill, Captain?” Roger asked.

“Ah, well.” The CO smiled as he leaned back in the camp chair. “They make exceptions for captains.”

“He’s taught himself to be a pretty fair machinist, and he can rebuild an air car from the ground up,” Kosutic said with a grin at the captain. “You only thought they made an exception for you. He also does decent interior work.”

“Hmph! Better than yours.”

“What is yours, Sergeant Major?” O’Casey asked after a moment had passed and it was obvious that the sergeant major wasn’t going to be forthcoming.

“Well, the main one is . . .” Kosutic paused and glared balefully at Pahner “. . . knitting.”

“Knitting?” Roger looked at the grim-faced warrior, unable to keep the laugh completely out of his voice. “Knitting? Really?”

“Yes. I like it, okay?”

“It just seems so . . .”

“Feminine?” O’Casey suggested.

“Well, yeah,” the prince admitted.

“Okay, okay.” Pahner grin. “Let me point out that it’s not just knitting. The Sergeant Major is from Armagh. She can take a hunk of wool, or anything similar, and make you an entire suit, given time.”

“Oh,” Roger said. The planet Armagh was a slow-boat colony of primarily Irish descent. Like many slow- boat colonies, it had backslid after reaching its destination and stabilized at a preindustrial technology level before the arrival of the tunnel drive. And unfortunately, also like many, it had broken down into factional warfare. The arrival of the first tunnel drive ships and the subsequent absorption of the planet into the Empire of Man had reduced the blood feuds, but it hadn’t eliminated them. It had been suggested that nothing short of carpet bombing the surface with nukes and sowing it with salt would get the residents of Armagh to stop fighting amongst themselves. It was practically a genetic imperative.

“Hey, it’s not that bad,” Kosutic protested. “You’re safer in downtown New Belfast than you are walking around in Imperial City. Just . . . stay out of certain pubs.”

“Some other time, I’ll ask you what it was like being a priestess of the Fallen One on Armagh. Everywhere I turn there are fascinating stories like this,” Roger said. “It’s like taking off blinders.” He yawned and patted Dogzard on the head. “Get up, you ugly beast.” The sauroid lifted her red– and black-striped head off his lap with a disturbed hiss and headed for the tent door. “Folks, I’m exhausted. I’m for bed.”

“Yes,” Pahner said, standing up. “Long day tomorrow. We should all rest.”

“Tomorrow,” Roger said, getting up to follow Dogzard.

“Tomorrow,” O’Casey said.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

“We have found the nest of the basik outlanders!” Danal Far shouted. “Tomorrow we shall sweep down upon them and rid our lands of them forever! This land is ours!”

The shaman clan-chief of the Kranolta raised his spear in triumph, and the horns of defeated enemies clattered against the steel shaft. It had been long years since the Kranolta gathered in anything like the numbers in this valley. The crushing of the invasion by these “humans” would be the high point of his time as clan-chief.

“This land is ours!” the clan gathering echoed with a blare of horns. Many of them dated from the fall of Voitan, when the horns of champions had been common.

“I wish to speak!”

The statement took no one by surprise, and Danal Far grunted silently in laughter as the limping warrior stepped to the front. Let the young fool say his piece.

Puvin Eske was now the “chief” of the Vum Dee tribe of the Kranolta. As such, he was the representative of the tribe which had supplied the majority of the mercenaries to the N’Jaa of Q’Nkok. But now his tribe consisted