The Chosen

Jeffrey Farr nodded. 'Damned right.'

Both men twisted sharply at the sound of aircraft engine. The planes coming up the valley from the west were Hawk III's, over a dozen of them. They relaxed.

'Most of the aircraft will be crossing further north,' Gerard said. 'All the troops that are going to make it out here will be across by tomorrow. Except for the rearguard.'

John nodded with silent grimness. Those would have to fight where they were until overrun, to let the civilians and what was left of the Brigades and the Loyalist armies break contact and retreat over the border.

'The perimeter around Borreaux's holding for now,' he said. 'We've got ships shuttling continuously from there to Dubuk with refugees. Navy ships, too. My father created a precedent for that at Salini.'

Gerard smiled wryly. 'Wars are not won by evacuations, however heroic,' he said.

John nodded. 'I assume Jeffrey's filled you in on the deployments for your troops?'

'Oui. Rather far forward.'

Jeffrey spread his hands in embarrassment. 'If-when-the enemy attack, we'll need men who can be relied on not to break,' he said. 'The Brigades won't, and neither will your men.'

Gerard nodded. 'The civilians, though?'

'We're setting up temporary camps around Alai, Ensburg, and Dubuk,' John said. 'From there we'll try to move people where there's housing and jobs.'

Gerard looked down on the mass of humanity filling the great pass below and the roads to the east. 'We come as beggars, but we can fight, and work. Everyone but the children and cripples will. We have a debt to collect, from Libert and his allies.' He spat the last word. 'Does Libert know he's a puppet, yet?'

John shook his head. 'There's an old saying,' he replied. 'If you owe the bank a thousand and can't pay, you're in trouble. If you owe a million and can't pay, the bank is in trouble. Libert and his army are saving the Chosen a great deal of trouble and expense, just by existing. I'm sure he'll use that leverage.'

Jeffrey nodded. 'I think that's why the pursuit hasn't been pressed more vigorously,' he said thoughtfully. 'Libert wants us to get enough men over the border to be a standing menace. That means that the Chosen have to keep him on, or risk having the whole population go over to the Loyalist side who're waiting to return. They don't have enough troops in the Union to hold it down by themselves, not and keep an offensive capacity. Not yet, at least.'

Gerard shrugged and saluted. 'I must get back to my men.'

John shook his head again. 'Visit my home soon,' he said. 'You won't do your people any good by collapsing.'

The shrewd brown eyes studied him. 'You will not be there?' he said.

'No. There's. . trouble brewing. Exactly what I can't say, but I can say that the board's going to be reshuffled thoroughly, and soon.'

* * *

'Citizens!'

The sixth of the twelve-man Executive Council of the Sierra Democratica y Populara stood to address the seven hundred members of the Board of Cantonal Delegates. One of his colleagues passed him a ceremonial spear, the mark of the speaker, and pushed the button on top of a very modern timer clock.

I do not believe this, Gerta Hosten thought to herself. She and the Land delegation were sitting in the visitors' seats to one side of the Executive Council. An extremely ancient oak in the middle of the beaten dirt of the circle hid many of the delegates from her, and from each other. This was where the first representatives of the people-in-arms had met four hundred years ago to proclaim the Sierra, probably under the parent of this very tree, and so here they still met, where the city of Nueva Madrid had grown up. And met, and met, and met; the speeches had been going on for a week and looked good for another two.

Every one of them carried a rifle and wore a bandolier. That was about the only uniformity. Dress ranged from fringed leather to Santander-style business suits, with a predominance of berets and ferocious waxed mustaches. There were no women, since females didn't have the vote in any of the Sierran cantons, although they weren't badly treated otherwise.

Every adult male did have the vote, and every delegate here could be recalled at any time by the cantonal voters meeting in open assembly. Any hundred men could call an assembly. The delegates chose the twelve-man executive, but the voters could recall them at any time, and often did.

I do not believe anything this absurd has survived this long, she thought. Whenever I think our councils are cumbersome, I should remind myself of this.

The speaker shouted in an untrained bellow, with a strong up-country peasant accent to his Ispanyol: 'Citizens! For four hundred years, no enemy has gotten anything but disaster from attacking us. We drove out the Imperials!'

Well, that's no particular accomplishment, she thought. Then: To be fair, that was when the Empire was a real power. They drove us into the ocean back then.

'We drove out the Union! We threw the Errife back into the sea when their ships ranged every coast! We made the Republic withdraw from our island of Trois! In the Sierra, every one of us is a fighting man, every one!'

Funny, in most places half the population are women, Gerta thought as the delegates cheered wildly.

'So let the cunt-whipped Chosen perverts fuck themselves!' The speaker's mountain-peasant accent grew thicker. 'Let the dirty money-grubbing Santanders fuck themselves! The Sierra pisses on all of them!'

Eventually the timer rang, loud and insistent. The president pro tem of the Executive Council-each member held the office in rotation for a week-cleared his throat as he took back the spear.

'We must, in courtesy, listen to the arguments of the honorable Thomas Beemer, Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Sierra from the Republic of the Santander.'

Assistant head of the Research Department of the Foreign Ministry, Gerta reminded herself. That made him the equivalent of the second-in-command of the Fourth Bureau back home, although the Research Department didn't have the internal security functions the Fourth Bureau did. A very high- powered spook. A rabbity-looking little man, bald and peering out through thick glasses. Important not to underestimate him because of that.

'Honorable delegates,' Beemer said. 'The Chosen took the Empire fifteen years ago. Over the last five they have conquered the Union. Only you Sierrans and we in the Republic remain independent.

'The Republic does not intend to let the Chosen eat the world, not all in one gulp or one nibble at a time. I am here to announce that from this midnight, the Republic of the Santander declares a total naval blockade of the Union. This blockade will be maintained until all foreign troops are withdrawn and a legitimate government chosen by free elections under Santander supervision. The Republic will regard it as a grave breach of friendly relations if the Democratic and Popular Sierra allows overland transit to evade this blockade.'

Johnny was telling the truth, Gerta thought, still mildly surprised. First a blockade, and then the seizure of the Sierra in cooperation with pro-Santander and anti-Chosen factions among the cantons. Those slightly outnumbered the neutralists, which wasn't surprising considering the position the Sierra found itself in. Nobody here was actually pro-Chosen, of course. That would be like expecting a pig to be pro-leopard.

This time the roar went on for twenty minutes. Delegates milled, shouted into each others faces, shook their fists or used them and were clubbed down by their neighbors. Occasionally someone would fire his rifle, into the air, thankfully, although the bullet had to come down somewhere. The Chosen embassy sat in stolid silence, upright and expressionless, their round uniform caps resting on their knees. When the noise eventually died down, Ebert Meitzerhagen stood, walked forward three precise steps and stood at parade rest.

He was a vivid contrast to Beemer, one reason he'd been chosen for the role. His cropped pale hair and light eyes stood out the more vividly for the deep mahogany tan of his skin; his face and bull-neck were seamed with scar tissue, and the massive shoulders strained at his uniform jacket. The great hands dangling at his sides were equally worn and battered, huge spatulate things that looked capable of ripping apart oxen without bothering with tools. All in all, he looked to be exactly what he was: a brutal, methodical, merciless killer. The Sierrans wouldn't necessarily be intimidated, but they weren't fools enough to believe all their own bombast, either.

'Sierrans,' Meitzerhagen said. 'We wish no war with you. We have no territorial demands on you.'