Eric Flint's Blog, page 243

The Seer – Snippet 29

The Seer – Snippet 29

She stopped, holding her breath. The future was struggling to unfold itself, like a map. She could not stop it from its motion any more than she could stop the moments from coming toward her. But she could decide not to look.

Resolutely she walked forward. Whatever it was, she would be surprised. Like anyone else.

Rounding the rise, heart speeding, she expected a dark figure. He would jump out. He would have a bow. An arrow in her chest.

Instead, shafts of sunlight cut through tall trees, patches of light finding their way to fallen piles of leaves. Bird calls echoed through branches. A high breeze made the treetops sigh.

There was no one there.

In the distance she could make out the strand of trees past which was the road that would take her to the farmhouse. She exhaled relief, laughed a little to find that she was not anything more than a girl returning home from market. She shifted the bag to her other shoulder and hurried forward.

A squirrel poked its head around a tree trunk and stared at her, body and head frozen. Then it twisted, scampered up the tree, and was gone.

Behind her came the sounds of footsteps.

#

Vision came upon her like a huge stove fire: close, heavy, hot. Too strong to press away.

It shouted at her to drop, and she obeyed, bending her knees as instructed, barely missing the arm that swept over her head.

Again, vision barked direction and she thrust the bag that had come off her shoulders in the last motion behind, pushing hard. The bag pressed into leather-clad legs, slowed them only slightly. She struggled to her feet, turned.

For a moment she took him in: dark hair, hands open, empty, a pack and a bow slung across his shoulder.

He stepped lightly over the spilled bag at his feet and toward her. She turned and ran.

“Amarta,” he called.

With part of her mind she realized that it was the first time she had heard his voice. She half remembered hearing it before. Vision or dream?

The tone was friendly, somewhere between a greeting and bemusement that she was running away. At this she herself might have been confused enough to pause, but vision was not. It told her to run, so she did, and his steps were hard on the dirt behind her.

The arm came across her face again, and she bit it, or tried to; it was covered in hard leather and pulled her tight against him, wrapping tightly around her head.

Strange, really, that she had time to think about the taste of leather, that it must be awfully hot to wear that much leather over your arms and legs, here in late summer. Serious, quite serious. About what he was doing. Which was —

She screamed, howled her rage and resistance. His wrap tightened, burying her face in the leather arm, muffling the cry. Not that it would matter — there was no one nearby to hear.

Then the arm was gone. Before she could blink, a wad of cloth was stuffed in her mouth, soaked in something sticky and bitter. She began to inhale then realized vision was saying spit. She did, but even so the stink of it burned her lungs and made her eyes water. Her next cry came out as a croak. It hurt to breathe.

Now he had her arms and was pulling her off the path into the brush. She struggled, kicking backwards, but fruitlessly. He twisted one arm behind her back, another around her neck. Pain shot up her shoulder as he yanked her backwards, stumbling across the uneven underbrush. She was slammed to the ground on her back, he on top, pinning her arms with his legs, a hand on her neck.

Above her, dark hair and face was framed by a thick green and golden canopy of leaves. In the air between them she could smell leather and the sticky stuff that still made her eyes water.

While she gasped for breath, they looked at each other.

Light brown eyes. Her hunter had light brown eyes.

She struggled, and he held her without any seeming effort, expression nearly blank. With his free hand he reached into his sleeve and pulled out a knife, put the tip at her face. A pinpoint of pain on the underside of her eye stopped her moving.

“You are Amarta al Botaros,” he said. “The seer.” There was no hint of question now, no pretense of friendliness.

How could he have found them, after all this time? They had hidden, changed their names, pretended to be other than they were. She hadn’t foreseen for anyone, not since they had left Botaros. Not once.

“Answer,” he said.

Vision had warned her, despite that she had pushed it away for so long; it had come when she needed it. If only she had listened sooner… But no, she had thought to be like everyone else.

Fear washed over her, pushed away reason.

“Please,” she heard herself croak. “Please don’t hurt me…” Once started, she could not seem to stop. “I’ll do anything. Please don’t hurt me.”

“You’ve no cause to fear,” he said gently, pulling the knife back a bit. “I know who you are. I just want to hear you say it.”

If she lied and gave him the false name she had been using — if she said it as though she meant it — would he believe it? Would he let her go?

An answer tried to form within. From determined practice these last months she pushed it away, then struggled to reverse and pull it back. Sluggishly, like an atrophied muscle, it began to unfold.

Slowly. Too slowly.

With a quick, fluid flip of the blade, his knife went blunt-side along his forearm and he leaned forward, the sharp edge now up under her chin. The move was so fast that it spoke of skill far beyond anything she had ever seen.

Vision gave her an answer: he would know a lie, but the truth would not serve better; the future promised capture, pain, blood, and darkness.

The blade would cut her throat. She would struggle. He would keep her pinned, gaze locked on hers as she lost consciousness.

It was near, that future, very near.

And would that be so bad? If she were gone, if he sent her to the Beyond, Dirina and Pas might finally be safe from the hunter and the ill-fortune that seemed to follow her.

Sounds and flashes, nothing certain. The future shifted like spray from a spun waterbag. She could not follow the drops, nor tell one from the next.

He tightened his grip on her throat, shook her a little. Her head swam.

“I only want to ask you some questions.” His tone was soft, reluctant, as if to say that he hated to be this hard on her, that if she answered him he would certainly let her go. The grip on her neck loosened a little. The pounding in her head eased. “Who have you spoken to about your visions since you left Botaros?”

She thought the tone a lie. She searched her visions, frustrated at the fog-filled traces that led out of this moment. She should never have stopped practicing. A bit late for that understanding.

For all the half-seen flashes and muttering voices the future revealed now that she had opened the door again, as she peered along the dim paths that led forward, she saw only darkness.

There must be a way, a thread that led through the next handful of heartbeats, that would take her past the approaching wall.

She struggled harder. A cacophony of sounds grew, each crowing about what might yet be, a tumbling and turning, a thousand voices muttering, talking, screaming. Then a pinpoint of light. She hurled herself forward toward it, fear propelling her. She overshot her destination, went far distant.

A familiar scent of breath. A smile on a face that didn’t smile.

She opened her eyes. He stared down at her.

“You are foreseeing,” he said, watching her.

“Yes.”

“Tell me what.”

Relief flooded her, pouring over the many layers of vision, the myriad of noisy futures.

This — his curiosity — was the thread she had been searching for. She held tight to it while she opened herself to the dictates of foresight. Under his grip and weight she went limp, not fighting, letting herself sink into this moment and the very next.

The way he watched her, somehow he could tell her plans.

No plans. No thought.

 

The Seer – Snippet 28

The Seer – Snippet 28

Chapter Nine

“I like this, Diri. I want to stay,” Amarta said softly to Dirina as they lay together on blankets by the fire, Pas between them.

Warm. Fed. The smell of woodsmoke. Spices in the air from the stew, surely the best stew she had ever eaten.

“We’ll have to prove we’re worth it,” Dirina whispered back.

Amarta rolled onto her back and stared at the rafters overhead and wondered what made a person valuable enough to feed and shelter them.

Not her visions, certainly. As she looked at her sister and nephew, she realized that this morning on the raft, but for a few inches of luck, they would have had arrows through them. Because of her.

In memory she saw the hunter’s eyes watching her, bow raised.

There was no reason for anyone to come after Dirina and Pas, except for her.

With that, she made a decision: she would do no more foreseeing. Her visions were why they had been forced to leave every place they ever might have called home. It was what made people hate and fear them. Here they had a chance, with Enana and her sons, whom Amarta already liked enough that the thought of staying was a fullness of hope, filling her chest the way the stew filled her belly.

They would prove themselves. They would work hard. And Amarta would not speak of her visions. Not to anyone.

Another look at her sister, who had drifted off to sleep in exhaustion, and Pas, with his mouth open, his beautiful face sweet in the peace of sleep.

This was what she wanted for her family: food, warmth, and a safe place to sleep.

Better, she thought, would be to not have the visions at all, ever again.

So, she resolved, she would bury them. Deep in the ground, like some bit of rotten meat, where they would not be able to hurt anyone.

#

In the months that followed they threw themselves into the work, doing everything possible to help the family. Washing, mending, cooking. Planting seeds. Weeding.

Dirina made sure Pas was never a burden, always keeping him close by, warning him not to bother anyone, until it became clear that he had already charmed Enana and her sons, who were happy to supply him a lap or a hug and tell him stories at night.

When they left the farmhouse with Enana to go to the market, Amarta wore clothes as loose and baggy as possible, hair cut short and ragged the way the boys did here. She talked little, kept her head down, pitched her voice as deep as she could, and called herself by another name.

But mostly she kept to the farm. There was a lot of work, but it seemed easy, and she realized that it was the company that made it so; she had never before met people so willing to laugh, to make light of any difficulty, and to give each other a gentle brush or squeeze as they went through the day.

Spring became summer, longer days letting them do more in the fields, collect wild herbs, stack wood for winter. Harvest promised a good yield, if the rains came when they should.

But no — she pushed that thought firmly away. The rains would come when they did. She did not know any more about the rains than anyone else.

Bit by bit, Enana trusted them, giving them work to do without her, meals to prepare, even sending one or the other of them to market with a few coins for the grains and fruits and nuts they did not grow themselves.

Best of all, the whispers of the future grew fainter and fainter until Amarta could barely hear them at all. She had nearly forgotten how much a part of her life they had once been.

One dawn morning as the soft light of the sun promised another warm day that she felt eager to begin, it finally occurred to Amarta that she was happy.

She worked even harder.

#

Amarta adjusted the pack on her back as she hiked the forest road. She’d found everything Enana wanted except pickled nut paste. Next week, the vendor promised, repeating how sorry he was, despite Amarta’s assurances. By way of apology he had given her a bread roll shot through with thick berry jam.

She was speechless at this generosity. Perhaps this was what people did when they weren’t busy hating you for knowing too much about them.

It wasn’t that she was hungry — she ate better now than she could remember — but the roll was special. A sweet gift, something that was hers and only hers. She had forced herself to wait to eat it, wait until she was out of the village market, past the houses, over the brook, and near the halfway point back to the farmhouse, by a hollowed-out cedar. There she paused a moment, took it from her pocket, unwrapped the cloth, and took a bite.

The buttery bread and tart jam was delicious. Before she knew it, she’d eaten half. Save some for Dirina and Pas, she told herself sternly. She wrapped the rest, put it in a pocket.

Birdsong and squirrel complaints accompanied a distant hum of flies and bees contentedly going about their summer business. Her bare feet fell comfortably against the packed dirt of the road, calloused from months of barefoot walking made more attractive by her turnshoes having grown tight this last year as she got older.

A glance up to where pine and oak and maple met thickly overhead told her it was nearly noon, which meant plenty of day left to work the fields or help wherever Enana needed. And to share the rest of the bread roll.

Around her the underbrush was thick with ferns and flowers. Having learned their names and what they were good for, she was tempted to stay awhile and pick red and white bleeding hearts or blue sour tangle. Even stinging nettles, now that she knew how to harvest them without getting stung. More likely, Enana would appreciate getting the bag of groceries sooner.

What a change, this life of such pleasurable choices. Living with Enana and her family, she nearly felt she had a home. Indeed, she was now willing to admit, in the privacy of her own heart, Enana reminded her a little of her own mother, so many years gone.

And all this gladness because she had silenced her visions. It had taken work, but in a way it was also easy: if she didn’t ask herself any questions — not even half-questions or sort-of questions — the visions would not try to answer her.

Which meant her life was her own. Foreseeing a possible future seemed to draw her onto that path, making her a part of it, no matter what she wanted or intended.

Two squirrels furiously and noisily chased each other up a tree, over a branch, and leapt across to another trunk. There, she thought; just so: knowing which branch they would take would make no difference. It did not make her bag of groceries lighter. It did not make Enana’s stew taste better.

The only thing her years of foreseeing had done was cause her and those she loved pain, put their lives in danger. That part of her life was over. Now she was like everyone else. Now she saw only what was in front of her.

For a brief moment, memory of a dark figure on a horse at the edge of a river.

No, that was the past. She pushed it away.

It brushed her, then, the barest chill of vision, like a sharp winter breeze stabbing through this thick, hot summer day. Images tried to form in her mind.

“No,” she said fiercely, waving her hands as if to brush away flies.

A deep breath. She inhaled the smells of grass and earth around her, felt the light breeze that brushed her skin.

She thought of Pas. He would smile when she got back home, dash over to her, reached up to be lifted. She imagined his small fingers. Imagined, not foresaw.

No visions.

A nagging feeling came over her. The road before her curved around a blind rise.

Vision was trying to tell her something. She pushed it away.

After supper she would play games with Pas. She would teach him new words. Maybe Enana would tell them a story.

Her steps slowed.

He couldn’t have tracked them here, not after so long. Could he?

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 22

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 22

Montrose took a deep breath and began reciting. “His Majesty is principally concerned that his subjects granted leave to fight abroad remain in the service of the king of Sweden, not the United States of Europe, with which there exists a state of hostility, short of outright war but nevertheless unfriendly. He is further concerned that in as much as they bear arms in Sweden’s cause, Sweden is closely aligned with the United States of Europe and as such His Majesty’s subjects are bearing arms in support of a nation that espouses the heretical and anarchical doctrine of freedom of religion. In so doing they are in peril of their souls and he is much exercised as head of the church to which they are properly adherent that they remove themselves from the said peril as soon as may be. He requires, in the first instance, that they give undertaking and surety that they serve the king of Sweden only and that only in conflict with avowedly Catholic arms in the Germanies. He also requires that all of the rank of major and above resign their commissions and return to their estates in Scotland to the great benefit of that nation.”

He took another breath. “My charge continues in the same vein for some time, with many places and means whereby delay and obfuscation may occur, but the essence of it is that they should be at home and at peace lest His Majesty take to the notion that they are preparing to levy war against him either here or abroad.”

“Put thus, it seems like a fair command, as commands go,” Mackay said, “although I’ve no means of knowing how any man to whom it may come will see it. His Majesty says as he will of the notion of freedom of religion, but how is it seen by those living with it? There was a time when the reformed religion was declared by kings to be heretical and anarchical, after all, but it was found good in Geneva.”

Montrose answered that with a level stare. “I’m not minded to debate that matter at all, neither with His Majesty nor any of his subjects. I want peace, but when all’s said and done, if His Majesty’s subjects wish to reside in His Majesty’s realm under His Majesty’s peace, the price is obedience to His Majesty. North of the Tweed, through me. I believe it was His Majesty’s father who said all he desired was an outward obedience to the law, and that I am content with also. Those that can’t obey, well, they may sell their lands and settle where obedience is easier, and I mean to make that easy. But those are the choices. You, among others, I ask to present those choices to the men that must make them so they may mull them before anything is said ex officio, and persuade them that, by command of His Majesty I cannot be moved beyond tolerance of mere delay.”

“I’ll send to those I know, my lord. It’s not for me to dictate their answers.”

Montrose nodded acknowledgement of the point. “Nor do I ask it. I merely wish to be sure that I only give the command to those that will obey it, and ensure that those whose conscience bids them remain abroad not find themselves ruined thereby. Conveyed privately, by friends, I hope that that will be clearer than it might be by official letter.”

Mackay nodded. “In this much, then, I am my lord’s servant.”

“Aye, and in perhaps one other thing. You’ve a son out of wedlock who’s been back in the country, do I understand correctly?”

Mackay noted the wording. He had his own suspicions about what Alex and Julie had been up to in London, dark suspicions indeed. But he was sure they’d not left Edinburgh with any provable intent to take part in that, and if their part in it, if any, had been witnessed the Montrose would not be half so cordial today. Indeed, there’d be warrants, summonses and questions to answer, and likely he’d be accused of being an accessory to felony rescue. How a bench of Scots judges would try that Mackay had no idea, but there was plenty of precedent for them taking on such matters whether or not there was strictly any law covering it.

“Aye, for all he’s from the wrong side of the blanket, he’s a fine boy who’s done well for himself.”

“His wife, too.” Montrose was giving nothing away with that remark, but Mackay felt he was justified in assuming the worst.

“A bonny wee lass, and a fair hand with a rifle,” Mackay said. All true facts, not open to debate.

“Aye, and possessed of a barony of Sweden,” Montrose added, also a fact not open to debate. “I’ve no notion of where your boy is, Mackay, but if it turns out he or his wife had anything to do with the prison-breaking at the Tower of London, and you’ve any influence with him, see he doesn’t show his face where I might have to turn my attention to him. I can wink at much, but when a man takes open warlike actions against one of the king’s own fortresses, well, that strikes me as a bit much. What’s more, I don’t want it coming to anybody’s attention that you’re in communication with him if such turns out to be the case. I need your services as intermediary with the veterans abroad far more than I need to hang a crippled man as accessory to treason and felony.”

Mackay glared. “If my lord cares to accuse me publicly of misprision of treason, he is welcome to do that, and be damned to him.”

Montrose growled back. “That’s not what I want, and you know it, man. Strafford did the stupidest thing a man could do by those arrests in England, and while I’ve little use for Campbell the man, Argyll the politician did righter than he knew when he made it known he’d take it ill if there were proscriptions of that kind in Scotland. His Majesty’s father did ill enough proscribing the MacGregor, broken men and outlaw brutes though they were. To have that against decent folk would be more than could be borne. Now, if your boy took a hand in correcting that stupid mistake, I for one care not a whit for it. So long as I don’t have to take official notice of it as Lord Lieutenant of Scotland, and none of the consequences come within this kingdom, I’ll carry on not caring. It is to my benefit, your benefit, your son’s benefit, and Scotland’s benefit if I can keep to not caring. See to it, as well as you may.”

With that, and the most perfunctory of pleasantries to contrive that he did not wish to be unfriendly but had been put out of sorts by their conversation, Montrose took his leave.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 34

Come The Revolution – Snippet 34

Chapter Twenty-One

Twenty minutes later, after most of the excitement was over and I crouched beside a stalled ground car catching my breath, I heard Moshe call out to me.

“Hey, Boss. What are you doing this far forward?”

I turned and saw him emerge from the shadow of a building corner in a low crouch and stop. Four more reinforcements sprinted forward past him and then me to thicken the firing line, although the Varoki seemed to have lost all their fight for now.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s pretty clear.”

“Fuck that. You come here.”

A single round zipped overhead and knocked foamstone chips from a wall. It wasn’t anywhere near either of us, but it did remind me that I was pretty far forward for an unarmed logistics chief with one broken wing. I used my good left arm to help duck-walk back to Moshe. We got around the corner and out of the line of fire. Moshe moved the worst of the trash out of the way with his foot and then we both sat with our backs to the metal wall of the shipping container building. Moshe lit a cigarette.

“Looks like the guys held,” he said. “How’d it go?”

“Like an Albanian town council meeting,” I answered. “Two of them, actually. Fortunately, the one on the other side was even more confused than the one on ours. Much more. But this so-called ammo distribution system we have just isn’t going to work. Jesus! Half the guys ended up back off the line rummaging through the bags, trying to find something they could shoot.”

I stopped and took a long, shuddering breath. I’d been really scared through the firefight. That wasn’t unusual; I’m always scared when there’s shooting, especially if I’m unarmed. I keep doing what I need to do, never freeze up, but that doesn’t make the experience any more fun. Moshe handed me a glass bottle, about a half-liter. The cap was off and I took a drink with trembling hand. Slivovitz–plum brandy–probably home-made, and pretty stiff.

“Moshe, you are a man of unexpected resourcefulness,” I said.

“Is that you, Naradnyo?” I recognized the voice as Zdravkova’s and saw her first as movement in the shadows, keeping to the side of the street near our wall. When she got closer I saw she was packing an old Mark 14 RAG, which stands for Rifle, Assault, Gauss.

“Hey, it’s the Dragon Lady! Thanks for getting the alert squad up here so quick. Your kids did real good up on the barricade, once they settled down. They had it mostly under control but the bad guys really packed it in when your reserves showed up.

“What are you doing up here?”

I held up the bottle. “You know, having a nightcap, enjoying the evening. Think it’s going to rain some more?”

Without a word she stalked past us and dropped into a crouch as she went around the corner.

“If you were a little older and wiser,” Moshe said, “you’d appreciate mature women more.”

“I appreciate ’em fine,” I said and passed him the bottle, “especially when they’re packing military-grade firepower.” I thought about that for a moment. It was an odd thing to say, given my current elective non-violent state, but old habits die hard.

“I’m married, though — and never had much of a wandering eye. Wish I was home right now.”

“Who doesn’t wish they were someplace other than here?” Moshe said. “I got an ex-wife on Bronstein’s World. Right now even I wish I was there. Your wife, she’s rich or something, ain’t she? Good looking, too?”

“Yup, and a lot smarter than me. Not a bad combination. But we never laugh any more. We never go dancing, either. We’ve never danced, do you believe it? You know I can do a pretty mean samba.”

“That I’m having a hard time imaging,” he said and passed me back the bottle.

“It’s true. But all we do is plan and scheme and try to stay ahead of the bad guys, whoever they are today. Saving the galaxy, that’s us. Not always sure what we’re saving it from, or who for, but by God we’re savin’ the hell out of it.”

I took another drink.

“We’re so focused, so single-minded, day in, day out. Everyone needs a laugh once in a while. We used to laugh, until everything got so goddamned serious all the time. Some day some guy’s gonna come along and make her laugh again. Then what?”

I took another pull of brandy and handed it to Moshe. The evening had become so quiet I could hear Zdravkova talking to the perimeter guards, maybe a block away, but I couldn’t quite make out her words.

“Well, I remembered another physics joke,” Moshe said after a while. “This one’s great! Einstein, Newton, and Pascal are playing hide-and-seek. Einstein’s ‘it,’ so he closes his eyes and starts counting. Pascal runs off to hide but Newton just stands there and takes out a piece of chalk. He draws a line a meter long on the street, then another one at right angles to it, then another and another until he’s made a box. He stands in it and waits. Einstein gets done counting, opens his eyes, and says, ‘Newton, I found you!’ ‘No,’ Newton says, ‘I am a Newton over a meter squared. You found Pascal!'”

Moshe laughed.

“What the hell kind of joke it that?” I said. “It doesn’t even make sense.”

“It does if you know physics.”

But I obviously didn’t. Overhead I saw stars and one of Hazz’Akatu’s smaller moons. No clouds so maybe we were going to get some sunshine the next morning after all. We needed it.

What was keeping Zdravkova? I needed to talk to her before I turned in.

“Okay, you know physics,” I said. “This is the three hundredth anniversary of the invention of the jump drive. Did you know that? I went to a reception for it a few days ago in Katammu-Arc. I guess you could say we crashed the party.”

He offered the bottle but I shook my head. I was already about half-plowed.

“So what’s the deal with that?” I asked.

“With the slivovitz? A friend made it over . . . oh, you mean the jump drive. The deal is it’s the only way from star to star and the Varoki own it, nu?”

“Yeah, but how does it work? I mean, in general. No equations or my head will explode.”

Moshe laughed. “No danger of a head explosion tonight, Boss. I don’t have any idea how it works. Nobody outside the research departments of the big Varoki trading houses knows. It’s called a proprietary trade secret. It’s not even part of the patent description, is what I hear.”

“How do you maintain it on a star ship if you don’t know how it works?”

“The components are black boxes: one jump cortex and from one to ten jump actuator units, depending on how big a ship. You fly with one duplicate of each component. If the component’s performance goes sub-nominal, you install the back-up and replace the defective one at your next stop.”

“You never look inside?”

“Never, and I mean never. They’re factory sealed, and they better still be factory sealed when you turn them in. You know, you don’t own those components, you just lease them. Mess around with the seals, you violate the lease, get blackballed, and you’re done flying. Besides which, its anti-tamper device is listed as a level five biohazard, which is as bad as it gets.

“Biohazard?”

“Yeah, you never heard the story of the Rawalpindi? This was about thirty years ago, before I was flying. A Newton tug coming in to dock at Boreandris Highstation had a malfunction. One of the lateral ACTs — that’s attitude control thruster — froze in the full thrust position, started yawing the tug. Before they could get it unfrozen, or the pilot thought to just fire the opposing thruster, they hit a maintenance gig and then plowed it right into the side of a Human star freighter, the Rawalpindi. Drove that gig through the hull of the freighter like a spike, right into the engineering spaces, and cracked open the jump cortex.

“Two of Rawalpindi’s engineering crew survived the initial impact, foamed the hull around the breach and got the pressure stabilized enough for the rest of the crew to crack the access hatch and get them out of there. Should have left them sealed in. Whatever was inside that cortex, some sort of neurotoxin they say, once it got out into the air it killed everyone else on the ship, something like twenty passengers and crew, including some rich Varoki who must have been out slumming. Couple of crew suited up but the bug ate through the seals, got ’em anyway.

“No rescue or recovery attempt once the bug was out — not allowed to board it or even take a remote sample afterwards. The Cottohazz ordered Rawalpindi hauled into a parking orbit nearby and waited ’til everyone died, then had a Newton tug give it a good hard shove toward the local sun. R-I-P.”

“Damn,” I said.

He nodded and took another sip.

“There was another accident like that, a freak meteor strike, I forget when. Bottom line: nobody outside their labs has looked inside a jump cortex and lived to tell about it.”

He screwed the cap on the bottle and stood up.

“I gotta get back to the clinic, look at the wiring on two of the auto-docs. You coming?”

“Nah, I need to get this ammo thing worked out and, much as I hate to say it, the Dragon Lady and I need to put our heads together on it.”

“Why you call her that?” he said, hands on his hips. I got the idea he felt a little protective about her.

“I don’t know. It’s a nickname for a capable and dangerous woman.”

“Well, try her real one: Dezi Oobiyets. See you later.”

Now that was an interesting nickname. Dezi was obviously short for Desislava, her first name. Oobivtsya meant killer in Ukrainian. I was willing to bet oobiyets meant the same thing in Bulgarian.

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 33

Come The Revolution – Snippet 33

Chapter Twenty

“People of Bakaa and the entire Cottohazz: I am Captain Arkerro Prayzaat, acting commandant of the Sakkatto Municipal Police. I am communicating from a secret and secure police facility. To the best of my knowledge I am the highest ranking police official who has not been taken into custody or executed by the Army mutineers who violently seized control of the government two days ago.”

Prayzaat sat behind a desk backed by a smart wall which was programmed to show a detailed map of the city. We’d put a bunch of arcane and important-looking symbols on it: geometric shapes in different colors and with a four-digit number below each of them. They were randomly placed and didn’t actually mean anything. Hopefully a bunch of Army intelligence officers would spend a few sleepless nights trying to decode them, rather than working on something important.

“The mutineers have told the Cottohazz they have restored order in Sakkatto City,” Prayzaat continued. “There is no order in the city. Aside from a few small areas in some of the arcologies there is only violence and anarchy.

“Hundreds of police officers have been executed by the mutineers and almost all of the survivors of the force have been arrested and are being held at secret locations. Their so-called crime was to use force to protect the lives of non-uBakai citizens of the Cottohazz against rampaging mobs. I call on the mutineers to disclose the location and identity of all police in their custody and release them to neutral parties immediately.

“Sakkatto City has been denuded of police and plunged into chaos. The citizen associations of Sakkatto must step into the breach and establish order in their own neighborhoods. To that end, and under my authority as commandant of the Sakkatto Municipal Police, I hereby officially deputize all members of the citizen associations whose names follow this address, and I empower them not only to take all steps necessary to protect the lives and property of their people, but also to resist the illegal gang of thugs who have overthrown our rightful government.

“We face a daunting task, but I call upon all loyal citizens of the Commonwealth of Bakaa to band together and forget whatever differences divided us before. What we fight for now is nothing less than the rule of law. I also call upon the Cottohazz itself to recall the pluralistic principles upon which it is based and to aid us in our struggle. This military coup cannot succeed unless the Cottohazz so allows it. If you will not stand against this shameful act, what will you stand for?”

“That’s a wrap,” the video tech said after two or three seconds of silence. The seven others of us in the room, who stood outside the arc of the holovid recorder, started moving and talking again. The list of community groups, which we’d culled from the comm lists of Katranjiev’s office, included a lot of Varoki groups as well as some of the ethnic community associations. It would scroll on the vid after Prayzaat finished, probably over a frozen ghosted image of him at his desk. That was up to the editor. The citizen groups were listed alphabetically so the Sookagrad Citizen’s League was well down the list, nice and inconspicuous — but it was still official.

As calls to arms go, I thought it was okay but nothing special: a bit wordy and long-winded, but that’s what a lot of the Varoki are like. I figured it was more important that the speech sound sincere than eloquent, and it did. Those were Prayzaat’s words, and he meant them.

The three members of the troika — Katranjiev, Zdravkova, and Stal — clustered around Prayzaat to shake his hand and work out our next move. I slipped out the door and headed toward the clinic, my temporary headquarters. I figured I was going to have to move somewhere else soon, probably into one of the ammo fabrication sites. The clinic was starting to get busy, and things were only going to get crazier there. I already felt like my admin folks were in the way.

I blinked as I came out the basement freight door into the darkness of the empty street, irregularly lit by distant fires and an occasional aerial flare. I heard a lot more small arms fire now, all over the city, but not much near us for the moment. From far off in the distance came the muffled thud of an explosion. So much for the Army restoring order.

In the last twenty-four hours the Varoki gangs had tested our perimeter in three places, tried to bluff or bully their way past the barricades, but so far the fighters had stood their ground and driven them off with a lot of noise but not many casualties. At some point soon that was all going to change, one way or another, and then we’d see.

Someone walked down the narrow street a dozen yards ahead of me, a woman, keeping close by the buildings to her right. People were already learning to stay out of the center of the street, where stray rounds were more likely to fall. Rain earlier had left the pavement wet and shining in the occasional flicker of light, but the clouds were clearing I thought. Maybe we’d have some sunshine tomorrow. I wondered what the weather was like at The’On’s place over in uKootrin territory. I wondered if they’d gotten rain, if Marr would feel sunshine on her face tomorrow. I wondered what she was thinking.

At least she knew I was alive. Once Greenwald spliced into the uBakai national data pipe, I’d been able to flash a single message to The’On’s residence there: “I am alive. Sasha.” No indication of where I was, of course, and no way for them to comm back — too dangerous to everyone else here if anyone figured out where I was in Sakkatto City.

I leaned against the street corner and yawned. I hadn’t slept in about two days, near as I could remember, but I’d gone a lot longer than that without sleep before. Of course, I’d been younger then, and the last two days I’d been on my feet almost the whole time. Too much standing around on foamstone pavement was starting to get to me in the joints, especially my knees. I ought to get a little rest, but first I had to get the ammo distribution points reorganized.

Ivanov had placed them where his ammo carriers could get to them, but too far from the perimeter. He was doing fine with fabrication so I let him concentrate on that and I took over ammo distribution myself until I could find some eager beaver to delegate it to. I’d half-figured I’d have to step in there anyway so it wasn’t a big surprise. Better to get it squared away now than try to shift everything around when the fighting got heavy.

And I needed to get the soup kitchen better organized, with some volunteers to haul hot chow up close to the fighting line. And we still didn’t have enough dormitory space for the Sookagrad folks who’d been displaced, let alone for the Human refugees we’d been getting, a trickle at first but more in the last twelve hours.

And I had to convince the perimeter fighters to get a lot more serious about recovering and taking care of the spent magazines from their weapons. Almost every weapon we had was a gauss rifle or pistol of one sort or another. The gauss in their name meant they magnetically accelerated a composite metallic flechette faster than the speed of sound, but they needed electricity to do it. The batteries that provided the juice for the system were embedded in the magazines. We could fabricate all the flechettes in the world but if we didn’t have magazines to load them into, and recharge with power, we were out of business.

Where to start?

Ammunition distribution. Right. Make the pitch to the perimeter fighters about magazine recovery when I go around with word on the new ammo points. They’d like not having to go as far to get it, so they’d be more disposed to help us on the other thing. I stretched my left arm over my head, twisted from side to side to loosen up my back, and headed on to the clinic. Maybe Doc Mahajan could give me a shot or something for the joint pain.

I heard small arms fire in the distance. I’d gotten used to it lately, but suddenly I realized this sounded like a lot more than usual. The fog of my fatigue cleared and I started trotting. By the time I got to the clinic a couple sets of stretcher bearers were moving through the big double doorway to the trauma receiving station and Moshe Greenwald was yelling at a crowd of guys. trying to get them to do something.

“What’s going on?” I said as soon as I got to them. Moshe turned and his face showed relief.

“Boss! Boy, am I glad to see you! Big push at the southwest barricade. Don’t know what’s happening except our guys took some casualties and they need ammo and reinforcements.”

I looked at the half-dozen guys he had together. “You guys ammo haulers?”

“Yeah, but Zhang here is the runner for barricade four. We got our own guys to haul for, if they get in trouble.”

“If the mob breaks through the southwest, we’re all going to have a really bad night. Everyone grab one sack of magazines and follow me. Moshe, you stay here. Alert whoever’s running the perimeter — I think it’s Zdravkova. She might not be back at headquarters yet. We were at that studio you rigged up. But find her and get some reinforcements to barricade four. Then get a work party together and get ready to push ammo wherever it’s needed. These guys are now the first echelon reinforcements,” I said, pointing to the ammo party. I could see the whites of Moshe’s eyes in the flickering flare light. He was excited, keyed up, but his head was still screwed on straight.

“Got it, Boss. Good luck!” Then he was gone, running toward the HQ buildings.

“Saddle up, folks,” I said to the other six. “You’re all about to become heroes. Do what I tell you and you’ll stay live heroes.”

“How do we know which bags are which caliber?” the one called Zhang asked. “We need forty-four-thirty pistol, forty-five-forty carbine, and some forty-five-fifty RAG.”

“Just grab a bag and haul ass,” I answered. I did exactly that and hoped like hell they’d follow me.

 

The Seer – Snippet 27

The Seer – Snippet 27

Across the room Kadla leaned against the door to the kitchen, the bowl of stew in her hands forgotten.

Another stream of notes flowed from the harp and Dalea began to sing, smiling at the audience as if they were friends, as if they all shared a secret. It was an effective trick, her sincerity and vulnerability, irresistible to these people, who would be guarded with family and neighbors they knew too well. To a warm and attractive stranger, they would gladly give their hearts. Their coins would follow easily enough.

When she finished the last song, the crowd hit their thighs and made the trilling sounds that Tayre knew originally came from the tribes before the Arunkin took over. Quarter-nals and some half-nals landed at her feet and on her side table. A crowd surged to talk to her, the men ducking their heads like awkward boys.

Tayre ate another bowl of stew and waited until the room had emptied.

She was wrapping her harp, tying it into a pack.

“Beautiful,” he said, giving her the uncertain smile he knew she would most expect.

“Thank you.”

“I played a bit,” he said, looking at the wrapped instrument, letting a conflicted expression flicker across his face for her to see. “Never any good at it. I studied with Melet al Kelerre.”

“Melet?” she asked, surprised. Impressed.

“A little,” he said, modestly. It was, entirely coincidentally, true, though he’d actually been better at it than he was implying. “My father was trying to figure out what to do with me. See what I might be good for.”

“And?”

“And it wasn’t music.”

“Ah.” Her curiosity was piqued. “What was it, then?”

“Oh, selling things. Jars and jewels, spices and extracts. A few books. Whatever’s easy to carry on horseback. I do all right. And you?”

She gave a forced smile. “Tonight I’ll eat. Sometimes I’m not so lucky.”

Tayre dug into his pocket and put a falcon on the table.

“You’re very kind, ser,” she said in a tone clearly reserved for those who overpaid.

“Good fortune to you, Harper.”

“And you.”

He turned to go, then back to face her, as though something had only now occurred to him. “I don’t suppose — did you come from downriver?”

“I did. Why?”

“Have you seen a young woman and a girl? A yearling baby, perhaps walking now?

Dalea frowned thoughtfully.

“Cousins,” he said, putting pain into his tone and eyes. “They had a falling out with my father. Took things that weren’t theirs. Ran. They were scared.”

“Hard times,” the harper said sympathetically.

“Yes, but there’s forgiveness for them if they want it. I have to find them to tell them so, but I don’t know where to look. The woman is slender, the girl has sort of –” He held out a hand as if sketching in the air, “a roundish face. A cloak with blue trim.” He smiled fondly. “She was always so clever with needle and thread. Sky blue. A distinctive touch. Hard to miss.”

“Oh,” she said slowly. “I think so. Downriver. A small village. I remember now. The girl is trying to seem a boy, but she’s…” she shook her head to convey the extent of the failure of that attempt. The grin faded. “She seemed fragile, somehow. Afraid.”

“That’s her. Do you remember where?”

“A tenday downriver. On foot, that is,” she added with a nod at his riding boots.

“May fortune bring you a horse,” he said.

She laughed the rich, deep tone of a singer. “How would I afford to feed it?”

“A least a new pair of shoes, then.”

“That is at least possible. I hope you find your people.”

“Oh, I will.”

#

In a corner of a nearly empty village greathouse that doubled as an eatery, Tayre fished the last bite of cold stew out of his bowl with a hunk of bread. The greathouse’s windows were open to the evening’s warm summer night. Moths flickered around room’s lamps.

The woman who had brought him the goods smoothed her dress as she brushed by his table. She stopped, turned, glanced around to see who might be watching, and sat down across from him, her elbows on the table and her chin on her fists.

“Want some dirt ale with that?” she asked.

“No.”

“It’s better than it sounds. We keep it in the cellar so it’s cool. You’ll like it.”

“No again. What are you really offering?”

“I heard you asking around, about a girl and a woman and a baby. You’re not the only one asking, you know.”

“I do know that. And?”

“I’m wondering what I would get if I knew something about it.”

“Depends on what you know.” He tapped his bowl. “More of this.”

She stood. “I’d want you to pay me first.”

“I’m sure you would.”

She pressed her lips together and left, returning with another bowl of the cold mix of meats, which she put in front of him. She sat again. “How do I know that you’ll pay me if I tell you?”

“Because I said I would.”

“Well, words don’t mean much, now, do they –”

He leaned forward suddenly, took her hands gently in his. At his intense look, she fell silent.

“Mine do,” he said mildly.

Her eyes widened slightly. She pulled her hands out of his light hold.

“Come now, pretty one; tell me what you know.” He mixed a seductive smile with a commanding tone, a mix that usually worked on this sort.

“Some new folks. Arrived in spring. Don’t see them much. A woman and baby and a boy. Farm outside the village.” She leaned forward again, lowered her voice. “Except it isn’t a boy.”

Tayre tore off a piece of bread. “Go on.”

“I can tell what people are about, you know. Not like some who only see what you show them. I’m not so easy to fool.”

Tayre made an encouraging sound and gestured for her to continue.

“So there he is,” she said, “and I think, that’s not a boy. Must be a reason he’s pretending then and wouldn’t that be interesting to know.” She nodded decisively, looked to see if he was listening, then nodded again.

“Where?”

“Well, now,” she said, tracing a greasy circle on the tabletop with a fingertip, “if I told you, it wouldn’t be worth much for me to know it, would it?”

He chuckled. “It’s not worth anything, otherwise.”

“How much will you give me?”

“If it leads me to what I’m searching for, you’ll see silver.”

Her finger stopped. “Falcons?”

“If.”

“I’m sure it’s not a boy. Voice high. Too soft. Some people think they can fool anyone. Not me.”

“Not you. Tell me where I can find them.”

The finger resumed its circuit. “I don’t want to be left with nothing,” she said. “How about you give me something now, the rest after I tell you?”

Tayre leaned forward, grinning. “When I’m finished eating, your chance at silver ends as well.”

She lifted her chin. “Maybe I should tell someone else.”

“That wouldn’t be wise,” he said. “You can either tell me everything now, for the possibility of silver later, or tell me everything in an hour or so, for no money at all.”

An uncertain look crossed her face.

He added, “I really do advise you to tell me now.”

“Are you — Wait. Are you threatening me?”

“Silver,” he said again. “I wouldn’t want you to forget that part.”

“Mmm.” She exhaled. Then: “There’s a small village. Nesmar.” She shifted in her chair. “There’s a farm east of there…”

 

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 21

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 21

“Aye? I’d heard you were made Lord Lieutenant over us, but from the sounds, you’ve all but been made viceroy.”

Montrose rocked a hand back and forth. “Ye might call it that, ye might not. Certain sure I am that I could govern as one right up until the rebellion it created.”

“There’s always that,” Mackay answered. He’d felt a mounting sense of unease, and not simply from the pain he was in. He himself was none of the movers and shakers of Clan Mackay, still less now he was a cripple. He was personally acquainted with Lord Reay, was a cousin four times removed or something on the close order of that, and had a number of closer kin in the Mackay regiment in the Germanies. So why was His Lordship the Earl of Montrose, Chief of Clan Graham, whom he had met perhaps twice before, treating him with such friendly familiarity?

“Aye, that,” Montrose sighed. “And ye needn’t fear for me on that score. I’ve no intention of creating mair trouble than the nation truly needs. We’ve had and signed the National Covenant in my grandfather’s time and the less said about that the better. England’s misfortunes will be to Scotland’s benefit in at least that much. His Majesty won’t be trying to press the matter of the liturgy or the power of the prelates any further, he having larger matters to occupy him. There’s a smaller matter he’s paid mind to, though, and it’s the reason I came first to you, for on it hangs much else.”

“Aye? I can do little but advise, crippled as I am.”

Montrose fixed him with a stare. “There’s a lot more you can do, Mackay of the Mackays. Father-in-law of Baroness Bornholm. Cousin to Lord Reay, however distant. Old drinking companion of Robert Leslie. And others I might list, but choose not to for the moment.”

“You mean those gone for soldiers in the Germanies, of course. I take it His Majesty means for them to come home peacefully or not at all?”

“Somewhat more, in which regard I want your help in the persuading of those men. You among others, of course, you’re not the only man with kin and companions currently serving the king of Sweden. His Majesty Charles has already made shift to see that some of those who stood against him on the other history cannot do it in this. Cromwell, for one, some others in England the names of which I can’t recall. There would have been more in Scotland, save that Leslie was in Germany, and others it was not … practical to take captive.”

Mackay laughed at that. “You mean Argyll let it be known, beyond any manner o’ doubt, that if any man north of the border was so much as touched for his part in that other history, he being at the top of the list, the Bishops’ War would start ten years early and wouldn’t stop at Newcastle? You know he already has a fine body of men about him that would answer such a call, beyond even the usual clans he can call on at need?”

Mackay had only learned the full extent of that particular correspondence days before. At the time it actually happened, he’d missed much of the detail. When he’d heard the full story he’d pissed the bed laughing and not regretted a drop. He knew Argyll was a peppery wee bastard, but the likely reaction of Strafford and His Majesty to such a naked defiance, however privately expressed, would have been a sight to see. It was Mackay’s guess, supported by a few other fellows he’d written to, that the only thing that was stopping him for now was that he wasn’t yet Earl of Argyll in his own right, at least until his father died in his self-imposed exile in London. For every worthwhile purpose, though, he was Chief of the Campbells and his Lordship of Lorne sufficed to give him lawful authority in that matter.

“If I was to put my hand on my heart, I’d agree with him,” Montrose said, “and it’s exactly that manner of thing I mean not to have with the German veterans. Ye ken Leslie would have been arrested if he’d been in the country, and Argyll had not spoken as he did? I was a mite troubled my name was on the list when I heard, too, though it seems His Majesty cares for the end result rather than the first thoughts. As matters stand, I’ve been given the Lord Lieutenancy only after Strafford, Laud and the like have heated it to a red glow for me, and I mean to have the matter of the veterans be the least of my troubles. I can delay and delay and delay the sending of letters patent to those men demanding their return, allegiance and good behavior on pain of forfeiture, but there’ll come a day when His Majesty must take notice of my doing nothing in the matter. I mean by then to have a solution all, or at least most, are content with, that they may return home or have their affairs in order for exile. I’ll chafe as I may at some of His Majesty’s charges, Mister Mackay, but he and I are of one mind that Scotland is to be peaceful. There’ll be no lamentations of Scotland to match the same in Germany, if at all it can be helped. Heaping up a pan of fresh embers from the smouldering of Germany to tip them into the bedding of Scotland strikes me as no help at all in that regard.”

“I have every warmest sentiment toward your aims, my lord,” Mackay said, temporising while he thought. How much had Reay been in communication with Montrose? Argyll? How much were the Scots officers in Gustavus Adolphus’ service in agreement on the matter? Nothing suggested itself as a way forward. “What would His Majesty have, precisely, of the Scots abroad?” he asked, hoping to buy time to think.

Montrose’s face brightened a little. Perhaps he had been expecting an immediate refusal. Mackay had a clear idea of what perhaps a dozen of those lords and gentlemen thought, and some of their followers besides, what the king’s spies might have told him was a closed book. There was also the possibility that Charles Stuart, being Charles Stuart, had got hold of some other notion of his own about what the veterans abroad thought.

 

Eric Flint Newsletter – 25 NOVEMBER 2015

I just turned in the manuscript for RING OF FIRE IV, the next 1632 series anthology. It’s coming out in May. I’m cutting it a wee bit close on the deadline for this one, although nothing compared to a few thrill rides of the past. The hang-up was finishing my story for it, which is a short novel titled “Scarface.” I’m pleased with the story, although it was tricky to write. It’s basically a romance pretending to be an action story.

The action story disguise is admittedly a bit skimpy, seeing as how no humans and only one cranky critter were killed in the course of the story. And now, back to work on THE GODS OF SAGITTARIUS.

I got my publication schedule from Baen for the next year or so (fourteen months, to be precise). Here it is:

January, 2016: 1636: A Parcel of Rogues (new title, hardcover)

February, 2016: Castaway Planet (reissue, mass market paperback)

March: nothing

April, 2016: Grantville Gazette VII (reissue, mass market paperback)

May, 2016: Ring of Fire IV (new title, hardcover). I have a short novel in this

Anthology titled “Scarface”

June, 2016: Black Tide Rising (new title, hardcover). This is an anthology set in

John Ringo’s zombie apocalypse universe. I have a novella in it

titled “Up on the Roof.”

July: nothing

August: 1636: The Chronicles of Doctor Gribbleflotz (new title, hardcover). I didn’t write

this, Kerryn Offord and Rick Boatright did. But I’m including it since it’s

part of the 1632 series.

September, 1636: The Span of Empire (new title, hardcover). This is the sequel to

The Course of Empire and The Crucible of Empire.

October 1636: Castaway Odyssey (new title, hardcover). This is the sequel to

Castaway Planet.

November, 2016: nothing

December, 2016: 1636: A Parcel of Rogues (reissue, mass market paperback)

January, 2017: 1636: The Ottoman Onslaught

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 20

1635: A Parcel of Rogues – Snippet 20

PART III

August, 1634

What force or guile could not subdue,

                                  Thro’ many warlike ages,

                                  Is wrought now by a coward few,

                                  For hireling traitor’s wages.

Chapter 11

“I hope my Lord Montrose will forgive me not rising,” Mackay said, indicating with a gesture the uselessness of the legs under the blanket. He’d had a couple of footmen, with Meg fussing, lift him and move him into a chair. Sitting up for any length of time hurt damnably, and he could all but feel it wearing his life away like a blade on a grindstone, but he was determined that the last of him to go would be his manners with guests. Besides, the pain made him sharp in his mind, and he’d need that.

Montrose, polite himself, waved it aside as of no matter. “A broken back’s excuse enough for any man,” he said, “and if it would serve you better to lay down, I’ll not hear it said I made a man suffer for formality.”

“I have comfort enough as I am, my Lord,” Mackay lied. It would not do to admit any more weakness than he absolutely had to until he knew which part Montrose had taken. He’d known of the Graham clan chief’s summons to London, and word of his elevation to the Lord Lieutenancy had preceded him back. Was he talking to Charles Stuart’s bought-and-paid-for man, or simply the nearest the king could find? Scotland’s peerage was stacked to the rafters with men no more constant than the nation’s weather. “Will you have a drink? I find a brandy at this hour helps.”

“Wine, if it’s to hand,” Montrose said. “I’ve mair folk to see the day, I’ll save the brandy for when I’m done. Don’t let me stop you with the brandy, though, I’d want one myself were I afflicted as you are.”

That was a common reaction. A fall from a horse could happen to any man, and it was a rare and skilled horseman who never had so much as a bruise, and not many more who hadn’t at least broken a bone or two. A broken back, well, anyone could look on a man damaged as Mackay was and shudder that there but for the grace of God went he.

Mackay let Meg put the brandy in reach of his hand and a decanter of good wine by Montrose and leave them. The afternoon was a pleasant one, the rain outside soft on the streets of Edinburgh but otherwise it was warm. The faint smell of wet wool was about the place, not strong as the showers were stopping and starting, and there was promise of a fine fresh day in the later afternoon.

“I’ll be blunt, my Lord,” he said after they’d taken a moment to have a small drink, glasses raised to each other in a polite, if silent health. “I’m more than a little mithered as to what His Majesty’s about with yon Earl of Cork, who I’ve long thought an equivocator of the worst kind, which is to say the kind that comes out on the winning side every time. Did he not spend time imprisoned over the Irish business all those years ago? I was but a young boy myself and not minding matters in the plantations overmuch, but I recall he was a rebel for a time with his people in Munster.”

Montrose shrugged. “He stood acquitted of all the charges and Her Majesty of England granted him high office, after. That much I have from some of my older people; it was before I was born. If it’s between us two here and now, I’ll not gainsay you on the man being devious, unprincipled and after naught but his own advancement.” He held up a hand. “If you think that’s the beginning of me saying he’s an evil counsellor, as the saying has it, think again. The sense I have of the man is he has a wildcat by the tail and dare not let go. If anything, the man regrets his move against Strafford, who’s in all likelihood Wentworth again now. They were drawing up attainder and impeachment when I left London. But Cork? If he’s a lying, back-stabbing, unprincipled snake of a man, and I do rich insult to snakes with that, he’s exactly the man His Majesty needs in England these days. And now, without His Majesty on a secure throne, Cork is, and pardon my crudeness, fucked.”

As such things went, that was as good a dissection of the cadaver of English politics as Mackay expected to hear from anyone. And it came from this sharp young man, of an age to be his own son, who’d met all concerned, and that recently. He nodded. “A sorry state for the state of England, I’d say,” he said.

Montrose’s expression was distasteful. “No more would I want the like here in Scotland, if I can help it.”

“Aye, I’ll raise my glass to that notion,” Mackay said, doing so.

Montrose answered him likewise. “His Majesty has charged me to secure silence north of the Tweed, among other things,” he said, after taking a sip. “I’m to ensure that there’s no reversal for the episcopal party, although, and here I sense Cork’s hand, there’s no charge on me to advance the swine either.”

Mackay raised an eyebrow. “The king’s ain party in the kirk? Swine?”

Montrose chuckled. “I’ll swear any oath you care to name I said no such word. Concerning those swine nor any other lot. I’ve no time for prelates, we had well rid of them in my grandfather’s time, but added to that I’ve not much patience with presbyters neither. Their place is in the pulpit, not in the governance of the realm.”

“That would sound awfully like the separation of church and state, My Lord, and I should be much obliged if you could explain to me the reason it is not so?”

“Well, as His Majesty is the head of the Kirk in Scotland, is it not the case that he may command the presbyters thereof to leave off the secular governance? As he guarantees their establishment, is it not reasonable that they — “Montrose gestured vaguely, looking for a phrase.

“Render unto Caesar?” Mackay suggested, suddenly taken by the imp of the perverse.

Montrose grinned. “Aye, or words to like effect. I shall have to remember that one.”

“The presbyters will call it a short step from freedom of religion,” Mackay said, sure they’d call it worse than that if given the least liberty.

“If it’s a lack of freedom they desire, I’m empowered, and on one reading charged, to administer it them, and that right harshly. I’ve charges from His Majesty, but as long as they hear nothing south of the border, how I undertake them is a matter for me.”

 

Come The Revolution – Snippet 32

Come The Revolution – Snippet 32

Damn. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but figured I may as well get all the bad news at once.

“Okay, how come?”

“Encryption,” he said and then lit his cigarette with a pocket lighter, drew in and exhaled. “The municipal and national data pipes are encrypted five ways to Sunday, and nobody can hack into that stuff from the outside except in bad adventure holovids. If someone slipped you the security code we could do it, but otherwise you’ll never be able to read their feed.”

“No, I’m not talking about reading their transmissions,” I said. “I’m talking about piggy-backing onto their fiber network and sending ours.”

Moshe shrugged. “Oh. Well that’s easy. I mean, it’s illegal as hell, but these days what ain’t? The utility tunnel with the main data pipe from e-Kruaan-Arc to the capital nexus at Katammu-Arc runs right under Sookagrad.” Then he thought for a moment and his eyes got wider. “Hey, that’s some idea, Boss! We can get word out about what’s going on here. I’m not sure what good it will do us, but if the Army’s jamming the comms, it must be for a reason, right? Of course, you know that once broadcasts from Sookagrad start showing up, it could motivate the Army to wipe us out.”

“Walk with me. We have to talk to Stal. He’s the one with the fiber network we may need to borrow. And I think I have a way around the reprisal thing.”

We started walking toward the dry goods store that had Stal’s office on the second floor.

“So you crewed on a starship, huh? Why’d you stop?”

He spat out a piece of loose tobacco before answering. “Economy got shitty and the carrier I was crewing for cut back. I ended up on the beach for a year and a half, stuck here. Then a week ago I got an offer. In-system shuttle, back and forth to the gas giant, but better than nothing right? All set to ship out when all this crap hit.” He spat again. “Talk about pissed off.”

“Yeah, I bet. You know any physics?”

“Bissel,” Moshe answered. “You know how it is. You work engineering on a starship, you pick some up. You have to or you don’t get any of the jokes.”

He assured me there were actually a lot of physics jokes, and so I asked him to tell me one. He said I wouldn’t get it but I wanted to hear one anyway. He thought for a moment and then nodded.

“Okay, here goes. Heisenberg is driving down the highway and a Munie pulls him over. Munie walks up to the side of his ground car and says, ‘Do you know how fast you were going?’ Heisenberg says, ‘No, but I know where I am!'”

Moshe stared at me and grinned. When I didn’t laugh he said, “I told you so.”

“So explain it to me.”

He shook his head. “Nah, it’s stupid to explain a joke. Either you get it when it’s told or you don’t. If I explain it, it still won’t be funny.”

I started to argue when we heard the sound of automatic weapon fire. We both stopped and listened, and so did everyone else on the street. The sound came from the north, out on our perimeter, but the intervening buildings made it sound far away and harmless, at least to us.

Moshe dropped his cigarette and ground it out. “So it begins, nu?”

I looked around at everyone frozen on the street, their faces made ugly by fear. The hardest thing to get used to in Sookagrad was the unbroken sea of Human faces. Everywhere else we were the exception. We had a reputation for playing poorly by other people’s rules. I started wondering how well we could play by our own, how this experiment in cooperative effort was going to work.

I took a deep breath and shouted to everyone who could hear me. “Okay, it’s gunfire. Get used to it. It’ll get a lot louder soon enough. Anyone with a job to do, get back to it. Anyone without a job, find one.”

We started walking again and then everyone did. The firing stuttered, paused, started again, and then faded out. Someone had probably gotten trigger-happy. If there had been a serious push on the perimeter, a few bursts of automatic fire wouldn’t have been enough to turn it away.

I realized I didn’t know beans about where the defensive perimeter was, and I’d need to if I was going to push ammo forward. It might be a better idea to set up ammo resupply points and have the fighting groups on the perimeter send ammo runners back. I’d still need to know the main concentrations, and what they were armed with. Ivanov might be a software wiz and the right guy to honcho ammunition production, but I had a feeling I was going to have to get personally involved in distribution.

Upstairs from the store, Stal’s admin assistant buzzed us into his office. Stal sat behind his desk looking at the smart wall panorama of the northern approaches, smoking another one of my imported cigars. I could smell the cigar: the rich tobacco and just a hint of spice, the scent of the Caribbean. He better be enjoying it.

I glanced at the smart wall. There was a burning ground car down there in a broad street which ran under the maglev tracks high above. A dozen people poked around it — Humans, so they were our guys.

It occurred to me that smart walls in some half-assed poured foamstone building in the middle of all this squalor seemed as out of place as a crystal chandelier in a chemical toilet stall. Speaking of which, I needed to get Billy Conklin to work on setting up a bunch more chemical toilets, and quick.

“Enjoying the cigar?” I asked.

He looked at the ash on the end and smiled. “Da,” he said slowly. “Kuba Maduro? Always wanted know how Cuban cigar taste.”

I decided not to tell him they were from Nicaragua. If you need something from someone, don’t start by spilling his soup.

He looked as if he’d been deep in a thought trance and was coming out of it slowly. He turned to face us and frowned. “Who this guy?” he asked, pointing his cigar at Moshe.

“Greenwald, my head of power, and an electrical genius. I got an idea.”

“Da? As good as letting four Munie fugitives hang around in exchange for toy badges?”

So he must already have heard about that deal. Given his line of work I could understand his ambivalence. Well, I was going to have to tell him about it anyway for this whole thing to make sense.

“It’s related to the Munies. In fact, it’s essential, so if you want to scotch the Munie deal, say no to this, and the whole package goes out the window.”

I stopped and felt myself shiver involuntarily. The expression “out the window” suddenly had more significance for me than it used to and I didn’t think I’d be using it as much.

“Those Munies aren’t anything but a liability,” I continued, “unless we have the ability to communicate to the outside world.”

“Da,” he agreed. “And?”

“Earlier I noticed you’ve got a hard-fiber comm/data network. I got an idea how we can use it to get around the jamming.”

He sat for a moment thinking. “Is why electrical genius is here?” he said, nodding at Moshe. He said “genius” the way you’d call someone a “smart guy” and not mean it as a compliment.

I just nodded.

He looked back at the smart wall, at the Humans down around the burning ground car, looking like bugs from this distance. He took a long drag on the cigar and blew a slow funnel of smoke toward the wall, watched it curl and rise toward the ceiling, just like the thicker, blacker smoke from the groundcar curled up around the maglev tracks above it.

It wasn’t tough to figure what he was thinking. We could play armadillo: curl up, lay low and do the absolute minimum to stay alive, make the fewest enemies possible, and hope things just blew over, got back to normal. Then we could all go about our business same as before.

Or we could play tiger, make something happen to save ourselves, even if that made us a bigger target.

One plan required faith in things just running down of their own accord; the other required faith in the active agency of people and institutions outside of Sakkatto City which had never gone to bat for Humans before. Tough call, and I wasn’t positive my idea was the best way to go.

He turned back to us and sighed. “Okay. Explain plan.”