The Chosen

The light flicked past them. Weaker lights were breaking out among the fishing boats, lure lanterns strung out over bows and sides. John waited tensely until they were surrounded by the other boats, several dozen of them spread out widely.

'Wait for it. .'

A thrashing of whitewater as something big broached and snapped for the dangling lantern of a boat, something with a long head full of white teeth. Yells drifted over the water, and he could see a man poised with a harpoon, backlit against the oil lamp. He struck, and a monstrous three-lobed tail came up out of the water. Other boats were closing in, to help with the first catch and wait for the others that would be drawn by the commotion and the blood in the waters.

'Now! Stroke, stroke!'

The Land gunboat was out further in the Gut, hooting its steam whistle and scanning with the searchlight. . but it was guarding against attempts to get away, not looking for boats making for the ex-Imperial shore. John kept his right hand on the whaleboat's tiller, flicking an occasional glance down at the compass in his left. That was mostly for show; Center kept a ghostly vector arrow floating before his gaze.

there are now echoes from cliffs of the configuration indicated, the machine said. distance one thousand meters and closing.

Thump. John's head whipped around. That was the gunboat's cannon. . ah. 'Just a big 'un,' he whispered to the crew.

You got an occasional one of those, even in the shallow waters of the Gut. Nothing like the monsters that made sailing the outer seas hazardous, but too much for a harpooner to handle. There had been very little life on land when humans arrived on Visager, but the oceans more than made up for it. The Chosen officer on the gunboat probably thought of it as sport, something to break the dull routine of night escort work. And very good cover for John.

'We'll be coming up on the cliffs soon,' he said quietly. 'Half-stroke. . half-stroke. .'

The oars shortened their pace, scarcely dipping into the water. He could hear the slow boom of surf now, thudding and hissing on rock. John held up his signal lantern and carefully pressed the shutter: two long, two short, one long.

A flicker answered him, two shorts, repeated-all that they dared use, with the light pointing out to the Gut.

'Yarely now,' the lead Marine in the head of the boat said. There was a quiet plop as he swung the lead. 'By the mark, six. Six. Five. Six. Four. Four.'

Rock loomed up on either hand, just visible as the waves broke and snake-hissed over it. A river broke the cliff near here, cutting a pathway that men or goats could use.

'By the mark, seven. Ten. No bottom at ten.'

The pitching of the boat changed, calmer as they moved into the sheltered waters. John felt sweat matting his hair under the black knit stocking cap. The guerillas would be waiting; the guerillas, or a Fourth Bureau reaction squad.

'Rest oars,' he said.

The poles came in, noiseless. The boat coasted, slowing. . and the keel crunched on shingle. Four men leapt overboard into thigh-deep water, fanning out with their weapons ready. The rest followed them a second later, putting their shoulders to the whaleboat's sides and running it forward. John drew the revolver from his shoulder rig and ran forward to leap off the bow.

there, Center said, reading input from his ears too faint for his conscious mind to follow.

He walked forward, sliding his feet to avoid tripping on the uneven surface. A match glowed, cupped in a hand, just long enough for him to recognize the face. Arturo Bianci, the cotadini he'd shipped the arms to, back when the war began. Two years looked to have aged the man ten, which wasn't all that surprising.

A hand gripped his. 'No lights,' John warned.

Bianci made a sound that was half chuckle. 'We have learned, signore. Those of us who live, have learned much.'

They had; there were ropes strung from sticks to guide up the steep rocky path. Guerillas joined the Marines in unloading the crates and lashing them to their shoulders with rope slings. John swung crates down from the boat, pleased with the silence and speed. . and waiting for the moment when lights would spear down from the clifftop and voices sound in Landisch. At last the boat rode high and empty, rocking against the shingle.

'This way,' John said.

Harry Smith nodded, and together they pushed it upstream, under an overhang of wild olive and trailing vines. Smith reached in, rocking it to one side with his weight, and pulled the stopper. Water gurgled into the whaleboat, and it sank rapidly in the chest-deep stream.

'I'll put a few rocks in her,' Smith said. 'She'll be here when y'all get back. So'll I be. Good luck, sir.' He racked a shell into the breech of his pump shotgun.

'Thanks. To you, too-we're all going to need it.'

* * *

Heinrich Hosten looked at the thing that twitched and mewled on the table. The Fourth Bureau specialist smiled and patted it on what was left of its scalp.

'Yes, I'd say they're definitely planning on something to do with the train,' she said. 'Can't tell you exactly where, though-the subject didn't know, that's for certain.'

Heinrich nodded thanks as he left. Outside he stood thoughtfully beside his horse for a while, looking around at the buildings of the little town, then pulling a map from the case at his side and tilting it so that the lantern outside the Fourth Bureau regional HQ shone on the paper. When he mounted, he turned towards the barracks, his escort of riflemen clattering behind him through the chill night.

'No, don't wake Major van Pelt,' he said to the sentry outside the main door. It had been a monastery before the conquest, perfect for its new use; a series of courtyards with small rooms leading off, and large common kitchens, refectories for mess halls. 'Who's the officer of the day?'

That turned out to be a very young captain. Heinrich returned her salute, then smiled as he stuffed tobacco into his big curved pipe.

'Hauptman Neumann, what's a junior officer's worst nightmare?'

'Ah. .' Captain Neumann knotted her brow in thought. 'Surprise attack by overwhelming numbers?' she said hopefully.

'Tsk, tsk. That would be an opportunity for an able young officer,' Heinrich said genially. 'No, a nightmare is what you are about to undergo; an operation conducted with a senior officer along to look over your shoulder and jog your elbow. What forces are stationed here in Campo Fiero?'

'One battalion of the Third Protege Infantry, currently at ninety-eight percent of full strength, and a squadron of armored cars-five currently ready, three undergoing serious maintenance. That is not counting,' she added with an unconscious sniff, 'police troops. Plus the usual support elements.'

'Troops so-called,' Heinrich said, nodding agreement. He turned to the map table that filled one corner of the ready room. 'Ah, yes. Now, find me a train schedule. While you're at it-I presume your company is on reaction status? Good. While you're at it, get your troops ready to move, full field kit, but no noise. Nobody to enter or leave the barracks area.'

He stared at the map, puffing with the pewter lid of the pipe turned back. Now, he thought happily, if I were a rebellious animal, where would I be?

* * *

'Good choice,' John said.

Bianci grunted beside him. 'The bridge would have been better, but there are blockhouses there now-a section of infantry and a couple of their accursed machine guns at each end. With signal rockets always at the ready.'

John nodded. Oto was up; the smallest of Visager's three moons also moved the fastest, and although it was little more than a bright spark across the sky, it did give some light. Enough to see how the railway track curved around a steep rocky hill here, falling away to a stretch of marsh and then a small creek on