Never Sound Retreat Part 2

If Schuder had created a problem, it was that he was now forced to launch his war too soon.

He motioned for Jurak and Bakkth to join him, and together they left the yurt. As they stepped out into the evening air he took a deep breath, glad to be free of the noise and the stench of the moon feast. To try and carry on any rational conversation, while humans were slowly being roasted alive, was all but impossible.

He could see the look of displeasure on Jurak's face.

"Barbaric," Jurak growled. "I wouldn't mind it so much if they simply cut their throats first."

Ha'ark chuckled and shook his head.

"But then the shamans could not divine the future."

"Seeing the future by interpreting the howls of a creature as he's slowly cooked and his brains devoured while he's still alive is beyond belief."

"It's their way, and it serves our purpose."

Even as Jurak voiced his protest a wild piercing scream erupted from the yurt, the hysterical screams greeted seconds later by roars of approval as the shaman undoubtedly declared some favorable sign from the insane howls of the human whose legs were being plunged repeatedly into a caldron of boiling water until the flesh and muscle finally sloughed off the bones.

The night of the moon feast was young, yet from the thousands of yurts spread across the steppe, from that of the most lowly caste to the golden yurt of the Redeemer, the ritual was being repeated so that the air was alive with shrieks of agony, the cries for mercy, the anguished gasping out of life. It was considered a bad omen if the subject of the feast died too quickly, and those who could make the torment linger till the coming of dawn believed that their luck would be good for the coming month.

It was always a strange sight, in the early-morning light, when the flaps of the yurts were pulled back so that the rising light of dawn would fill the tent. The human cattle who had survived would then be brought out and those still strong enough made to stand while their skulls were cracked open and their brains devoured. The auguries were held to be especially good if the last sight of the human had was of the rising sun, for as his world went dark his spirit, primitive as it was, would wing to the everlasting sky, where he would serve forever as a slave of the departed ancestors.

And even as he died, they would tear the boiled and roasted flesh from his limbs in a frenzy of feeding, their pa.s.sions aroused by the long night of ritual. A hundred thousand humans would die this night to feed the belly of his Horde. He was told that the Chin were numberless, but after four years encamped in this one region such feasting was taking its toll on their numbers. It was good that the war had started; otherwise, his subjects would have grown restless.

"You saw the destruction of the airship?" Ha'ark asked, his icy gaze fixed on Bakkth.

"Yes."

Ha'ark growled angrily.

"Part of the reason I allowed you to command the airships was so that discipline would be instilled. The pilots should all be taken out and impaled for their stupidity. The orders were to prevent it from flying too low, to attack if necessary but ensure that it escaped."

Bakkth nervously shook his head.

"If I execute the pilots, who will we get to fly, Ha'ark? It takes months to train these primitives. I was there, and I tell you that the one who placed the shot that hit the human airship was shot down as well."

"A likely story. You're protecting someone, perhaps even yourself."

"Let is rest, Ha'ark," Jurak interjected. "Anyhow, I think we can all agree that it was remarkable luck that they had parachutes. Letting them see the maneuver, then shooting them down afterward will convince Keane that the report is true and not just a feigned movement."

Ha'ark waved aside Jurak's defense of his friend even though it was true. The elaborate deception he had conceived did have that one flaw-Keane might see it as nothing but a trick. The shooting down might be the final factor that convinced Keane to believe the report of the redeployment as true and thus set him up for the trap. If so, then the G.o.ds were yet again showing their favor. Tomorrow his own airships would push across the sea to ensure that the Yankees had no new ships ready to fly, for already the trains had been turned about, the tens of thousands of troops were returning to their barracks in Xi'an.

"Are you certain you saw them picked up?" he asked.

"I flew down personally."

Bakkth did not add that he had actually felt admiration for the human pilot who had so masterfully fought them for nearly two hours. His orders had been to direct the attack on the ship, but to do it in such a manner as to let them escape, but he could not blame his pilots too much for wanting to close with their new flying machines and test them against the human ship which had flown for months, with impunity, above them. Nor would he ever admit to the friendly wave he had offered to a skillful foe.

"And the trains?"

"As we planned. The human would have had to be blind not to see them moving east. He flew above the rail line leading back here, even dipping beneath the cloud cover for a closer look before finally turning back."

"And the concealment in Xi'an?"

"The camouflage was in place. The umens well hidden, the monitors concealed in sheds as were the land cruisers and special craft for moving them."

Ha'ark nodded as he absently fished in the pouch by his hip, pulled out a plug of tobacco, and took a chew. It reminded him yet again of Hans. What would the old sergeant say of his plan, he wondered. There would have to be, at the very least, a certain professional admiration for it all.

Hans . . . would Hans see through the elaborate deception? The trick was to convince them that the main thrust was coming to the north and east, out of the territory of the Nippon. In truth, that could very well be the place where victory would be won anyhow; twenty-five of his umens were committed to this opening move which Jurak would lead. But it had to be done slowly, to draw more and yet more of their troops into the vulnerable forward position. At the same time he wanted them to maintain a presence on the western sh.o.r.e of the ocean. To ensure that, eighteen umens had made the long march around the sea, crossing at the narrows hundreds of leagues to the south, and were just now moving into position to hold the Second Army of the humans between the two seas.

He could picture the two fronts as two points on the base of a triangle. All that was left was to strike the blow at the point of the triangle, thus cutting the two fronts off. That was the purpose of the strike force a.s.sembling in Xi'an, to close the trap. There, at the point of decision, would be the best of his modern weapons, his a.s.sault troops armed with breechloaders, and the precious land cruisers.

He turned away from his companions and began to pace the wooden deck in front of his yurt. Yet it was too soon, far too soon. There were only enough ships to transport three umens, thirty batteries of artillery, and twenty land cruisers. His plan had been to shatter the Yankee fleet in one surprise blow, then spring out and strike the land forces. He had toyed with the idea of delaying everything till next spring, but his fear was that in that time the Yankees could match, and perhaps even exceed, what he had already created.

With the limited transport only half his force could be moved in the first strike, and then it would be at least ten days before the second wave could be brought up. The timing of it all was so crucial. He looked back over his shoulder at Jurak. Attacking now was something Jurak had not approved of, urging that they wait till spring, when fifteen more umens could be fully armed with modern weapons, the additional transports readied, and the rail line run all the way up past Nippon so that the eastern army could be fully supplied.

Jurak could not see that audacity was needed. If they could cut off the two wings of Keane's army, the campaign might press as far as Roum before the autumn rains stopped them. Then, no matter how much the Yankees produced, come spring it would be over.

He stopped in his pacing, tormented yet again by the one key question.

"Bakkth, are you certain they landed alive and were picked up?"

"I saw their ironclad come alongside them and haul them aboard."

Ha'ark nodded and spit a stream of tobacco juice.

"Perhaps for the best then, we won't have to worry about the ship coming back, but regardless of that, I want a constant air patrol. Especially at dawn, that's usually when they came in."

"I've already ordered it, Ha'ark."

Ha'ark nodded. Of late he was becoming uncomfortable with the fact that his companions, those who had crossed through the Tunnel with him, still addressed him by his name rather than as Qar Qarth or the Redeemer. It was a familiarity that he would have to put an end to.

"Surprising they thought up the idea of parachutes," Jurak said. "Perhaps we should consider the same."

Ha'ark shook his head.

"A waste of precious silk and weight. Our machines still do not have enough power or lift, and two parachutes mean on less bomb. Besides, it is good for the pilots to realize that they either return victorious or not at all."

"A waste of good training."

"There are a thousand more volunteers waiting to replace them. Finding more pilots is not my worry, making more machines is."

That was something Jurak still did not seem to grasp fully, and that was the core of his problem. More than half a million Chin slaves labored in his mines, factories, armories. A hundred thousand worked just on the rail line he was pushing north into the territory of the Nippon, so that his supply head would be close to the front. It was the wringing of this transformation out of a barbarian world that was the real challenge. The lives of the cattle, or for that matter his own warriors, were secondary if it meant that one more airship could be created, or one more artillery piece or land cruiser, or the locomotive or ship to haul them to the place of battle.

That was the true genius of what he was creating, the dragging of a primitive fallen race into the modern age, though compared to the war he had known on the world of his birth, what he was creating here was but one step removed from barbarity. If not for the human slaves, the task would be hopeless, for no rider of the Horde would ever deem to lower himself to the task of labor. Only those of the lowest caste could be compelled to be the guards in the factories or to run the locomotives or work in the engine room of the ships. It would take a generation at least to transform that thinking. The Tugars never understood that, the Merki were just beginning to grasp it even as they went down to defeat. This would have to be different.

It would be war itself, the very reason for their own existence, that would serve as the catalyst of change. He could promise them that once the Republic was defeated, things could be as they once were, that again they could go with bow and lance on the everlasting ride about the world, harvesting the human slaves who waited to feed them. But he knew the lie of that.

The Yankees had brought an infection to this world, the disease of knowledge, bow and horse giving way to rifle and locomotive, and once the change was started it would never stop. When this war was done he would indulge them in their ritual of the eastward ride for a while, but the rail lines would follow them, linking back to the factories. Only those humans who were trained to labor would then be kept alive, all others would be put to the sword. For the secret of technology had been unlocked, and nothing could ever change it back again. Even if the Republic was completely shattered, its cities leveled, all its populace put to the sword, still the infection was there and would spread. Some humans would manage to escape, fleeing into the great northern forests, there to labor in secret. If he should ever let down his guard and allow his people to revert, twenty years hence, when they returned, it would be to face a disaster.

He knew with a grim certainty that this was a racialwar for control of this world, and the only alternative to total victory was annihilation.

"I still think we should wait," Jurak said, while pensively gazing at the twilight sky.

"Why?"

"It won't be until next season that the rail line up to Nippon and on into the forest where their rail line is located is completed. Even then, there's the difference in gauges-we'll have to convert their line as we advance. Well have a logistical nightmare trying to keep our northern army supplied without that rail link. If we wait till spring, we could have another dozen monitors, a hundred landing ships, fifty or more airships, at least another ten umens converted and trained with rifles and modern artillery. Supplies to the north with a completed rail line would be ensured as well."

"And what of the humans in that time, Jurak? They adapt faster than we do. Their own railhead running down along the western sh.o.r.e is still vulnerable, but it won't be by next spring. They have no airships at the moment, but we can be a.s.sured that if we wait till spring, we will see dozens, with wings like ours. Remember it is an old maxim of the master Hunaga, 'If surprise is lost retreat or strike, to do neither is death.' We cannot retreat; therefore, we must strike. As it is, I fear this four-month delay; it gives us but a month, two at most, before the winter storms."

"So it begins then."

"It has to. I expect you to be at the front in the north in five days' time. Remember, you are to draw them in. I do not want a breakthrough, for if you do achieve one, they will fall back on their own rail line and retreat faster than you can advance.

"Bakkth, send airships over their base tomorrow to make sure they have no new airships ready to probe our secrets. Make sure no one flies near our point of attack, we must not let them know of our interest there."

He gazed appraisingly at his companion. Jurak's and Bakkth's personalities were ideally suited for this campaign. Unlike the umen commanders and clan Qarths, they could grasp the fact that victory could be achieved by more than a simple headlong rush.

"Draw them in. I will do the rest."

"So, you liked my umbrella idea."

Jack tried to conceal his shock at Ferguson's drawn and pale appearance as he stood up from his drafting table. Jack could see that his friend had lost weight, his cheeks were sunken, his eyes looked like two coals of darkness sinking into Chuck's skull-like visage. His skin had that almost translucent ghostly white glow typical of those in the advanced stages of consumption. Wrestling down his fear of the tuberculosis that was slowly draining the life from the Republic's master inventor, Jack came across the room, grasped Chuck's hand, and then, to his own surprise, gave him an affectionate embrace.

"You saved my b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.s with the idea." Jack laughed, patting his friend on the shoulder, then motioning for him to sit down.

"And you said you'd never use it."

"Well, when it was that or burn to death, there really wasn't much choice. Death by fire is one h.e.l.l of a good argument for jumping."

"Too bad about Stefan."

Jack nodded. In the small circle of men who wore the sky-blue uniform of the Air Corps of the Republic it was an unwritten rule never to get attached to anyone. One of the boys, whose ship never returned during the rescue effort for Hans, had calculated that from the time a pilot got his wings until he turned up missing or dead was a little less than six months-and that was during the period of semi-peace leading up to the start of the war. He had tried not to like Stefan, but the boyish enthusiasm, and his uncanny ability to nail Bantag airships, had won Jack over. And now he was dead.

Before coming to visit Chuck he had gone to see the boy's mother and given the usual lie that her son had died instantly. There was no sense in tormenting her with the truth, that her youngest child had fallen from twelve thousand feet wrapped in flames. She had given her other two boys and a husband in the last war and now all she had as comfort, and which she proudly displayed with tears in her eyes, was the personal letter from Andrew, offering his condolences.

"How's Feyodor?"

"He'll fly again."

"Bad?"

Jack nodded. "Hands, arms. Pretty shaken up as well. Swears he'll never go up again, but he will, it's in his blood."

Chuck nodded. Feyodor's brother had served as Chuck's a.s.sistant in the last war, and now headed the ordnance department back at Port Lincoln. It was the burns, as well, that drew his sympathy. His own wife had been horrifically scarred by fire.

Even as they chatted the door behind Chuck opened and Olivia Varinna Ferguson came in, carrying a steaming pot of tea and two mugs. She smiled at Jack and in spite of the scars Jack could still see her beauty radiating through.

As she poured Chuck's tea she chatted with Jack, pointing out the front page ofGates's Ill.u.s.trated Weeklyon Chuck's desk, which showed the last fight ofFlying Cloud.It was embellished, of course, with four enemy ships going down in flames, along with a small sidebar portrait of Stefan manning his position as fire blazed up around him.

Jack looked around the room. The walls were covered with drawings of Chuck's creations, some of them from Chuck's own hand, others fromGates-airships, ironclads, breechloading artillery, field ambulances with coiled spring suspension, locomotives, telegraphs, and drilling rigs for oil. The office was bright, the north wall made of gla.s.s to provide Chuck with natural light for his drawings. Behind his office were the beginnings of the college which Congress had voted to fund, half a dozen clapboard buildings housing cla.s.srooms, drafting rooms, and research labs. Many of the young men were gone now, up with the army, serving in the engineering, ordnance, and technical units, but Jack could see one cla.s.s at least was in session, Theodore, his copilot's brother, teaching a small group made up primarily of women.

Another coughing spasm hit, and Olivia motioned for the pilot to leave the room. Standing up, Jack walked out onto the porch of the clapboard building and gazed across the reservoir, which provided power and water for the factories below. The surface of the lake was mirror-smooth, except for the ripples caused by a flock of brightly colored geese drifting lazily along the sh.o.r.e. The geese kicked up, honking, as a blast of fire erupted to the west, beyond the dam, as a fresh batch of iron was poured. Jack looked to the west and the valley of the Vina River, leading down to the old town of Suzdal. Both banks of the dark stream were lined with factories, rail track, and hundreds of new homes for the workers who came from across the Republic to work in the new industries. So much of this had sprung from Chuck's mind, Jack realized. Their very survival dependent on this lonely Leonardo.

"Jack, please don't take too much of his time, he needs to sleep," Chuck's wife whispered, joining him on the porch.

"How is he? Truthfully."

She lowered her head.

"Not good," she whispered, "not good. Sometimes he's too exhausted even to cough. He has to sleep sitting up now. He needs rest Jack, months, maybe a year away from all this." She motioned back to the office and from there down toward the factories.

"He slips out of here, goes down to the factories to check on the work, the buildings filled with blast furnaces, steam, dust, and smoke. It's killing him. He has to go away."

Jack nodded, unable to say what was in his heart, that Chuck was his friend, but the republic was on the edge of a disaster, another war far more brutal than the previous two. Victory was dependent on Chuck's outthinking Ha'ark. He was taking the same risks as Andrew, Hans, right down to the lowest private on the firing line. But Chuck . . . Chuck would never be replaced.

"Hey, Jack, get back in here."

Jack looked at her, unable to say anything.

"It's Dr. Weiss's orders. He's supposed to rest during the afternoon." "The h.e.l.l with Weiss, there's work to be done," Chuck announced.

Shaking her head, she walked off the porch and back to the simple whitewashed house next to the office.

Jack went back into the office and settled down in the chair by Chuck's desk.

"So how are you really feeling?"

Chuck sighed and looked over at the grandfather clock ticking in the corner of the room.

"They say somebody with what I've got can last ten, even twenty years if they take it easy and move to a cool dry climate."

He chuckled sadly. "Rus is blazing hot in the summer, cold and damp in the winter. Great place for someone with consumption."

"But you can at least rest some more."

Chuck shook his head and laughed, then pointed at Gates's ill.u.s.tration.

"He got the wings on their ships, but I take it that it's all wrong."

Jack examined the engraving and nodded.

"The wings were larger and not at the center of gravity but somewhat forward. The small tail wings were farther aft. The ship was sleeker, and the ones that brought me down had a curious arrangement underneath."

"What was that?"

"Wheels, one under each wing and one astern."

Chuck nodded.