Starfishers Triology - Shadowline Part 33

"He doesn't know? Don't let him find out."

"Ceislak's here now. I'm taking over at this end. I can squeeze him..."

"Keep Ceislak at Edgeward. Protect the city. Don't let Dee hold it hostage. And get your ships off the ground. Don't give Dee any way out. Make him stand and fight. But let me take care of that part. I'll make the wasting of the Legion useful."

Mouse had never seen Ca.s.sius's face so expressive. His grief and hatred were primal.

"As you wish. I'll make my dispositions right away."

"Did your father...say anything?"

"Not much. He did it on purpose, Ca.s.sius. To give me a chance to get the Dees from behind. He left a letter. He wrote it before he went up. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I have a feeling he knew he wasn't coming back."

"Let me know what he had to say. Soon. We'll be jumping off in a few hours."

"Right."

Blake, with his wife's help, arrived. The head of the Corporation seemed to have shrunk into a tiny old cripple. Before he could begin condolences that would only aggravate, despite their sincerity. Mouse told him, "It'll be over soon, Mr. Blake. We'll start clearing the Whitlandsund in a few hours. I'll be holding Ceislak's battalion in reserve in case Dee turns on Edgeward."

Blake started to say something. Grace touched his hand lightly.

"Pollyanna's in the hospital, Mr. Blake. I expect she'd appreciate a friendly face. I think her heart has been hurt worse than her body. She lost Lucifer and Korando both, and she was very fond of my father." He turned away from Blake. "Ceislak. I want a screen of pickets around the crater. I want all the listening devices out there doublechecked. If Dee turns on us, we'll need all the warning we can get. Donnerman. Where's Donnerman? Donnerman, I want your ships off planet as soon as possible. Gentlemen, I'll be in my father's apartment if I'm needed." He pushed out of the war room and went to Storm's quarters.

Geri and Freki whined pathetically. They rushed into the hall, ran back and forth anxiously, searching for their master. Finally, they turned on him with sorrowful eyes.

"He won't be coming back," Mouse whispered. "I'm sorry."

They seemed to understand. The whining grew louder. One let out what sounded like a low moan.

Mouse looked at the ravenshrikes. They had retreated into their little nest, into a tight, intertwined tangle from which they refused to be drawn. They knew. He tried coaxing them with canned meat from the store of delicacies his father had kept. They would not open their devil eyes.

He sighed, looked for the letter.

It lay on his father's desk, page after page of hasty scrawl beneath a plain sheet bearing nothing but the name Masato. Storm's Bible and clarinet weighted them down. The Bible lay open at Ecclesiastes, the clarinet book-marking.

"I should've guessed when he didn't take them with him," he whispered.

The letter, though addressed to him, sounded like an ecclesiastical missive from Gneaus Storm. It began: "Today I hazard the Plain of Armageddon, the blood-drenched field of Ragnarok, to play my part in a destined Gotterdamerung..."

Mouse read it three times before he returned to the war room, the Sirian warhounds tagging his heels apathetically. Their tails were between their legs and their noses were down, and they made strange snuffling sounds in their throats, but they stayed with him.

A whisper ran around the room. Technicians turned to watch his entrance. The Legionnaires took the behavior of the dogs as somehow symbolic, as a seal on the transfer of the mantle of power.

"Ca.s.sius," Mouse said, "he knew he was going to die. He planned it. So there wouldn't be any reason for the rest of us to coddle Michael Dee anymore. It was the only way he could keep from breaking his word."

Ca.s.sius's laugh was both harsh and sad. "He always found a way to slide around that promise. Too bad he couldn't find it in him to go back on it." Walters's mad humor faded. "Don't let Michael find out. That's got to be our most important secret." Walters's face became dreadful, something inhuman, something demiG.o.dly. Something archetypal. "It's time to jump off. Take care, Mouse." He switched off before Mouse could question him as to his intentions.

What is he going to do? Mouse wondered. He knew Ca.s.sius. It would be something unusual, something n.o.body would expect. Quite possibly something impossible...He settled into the chair his father had been wont to occupy. His gaze seldom strayed from the situation boards. Mouse wondered. He knew Ca.s.sius. It would be something unusual, something n.o.body would expect. Quite possibly something impossible...He settled into the chair his father had been wont to occupy. His gaze seldom strayed from the situation boards.

At times one or another of the technicians would glance his way and shudder. A slim, oriental youth of small stature filled the Colonel's chair, yet...Yet there was an aura about him, as if a ghost sat in the chair with him. The body of Gneaus Julius Storm had perished, but the spirit lived on in his youngest son.

Fifty-Four: 3032 AD

The man called Ca.s.sius, through holonet exposure in Michael Dee's merc war doc.u.mentaries, was more widely known than Confederation's Premier. Yet he was a figure of mystery, an unknown even to his intimates. What made him tick? What made him laugh or cry? No one really knew.

He surveyed the Legion. He considered his public image, and reflected that he probably knew Ca.s.sius less well than did all those billions who watched the holocasts. They had an image of Thaddeus Immanuel Walters, and the tape editors maintained its consistency. But the Walters self-image rambled around centuries, and he had not had time to discover who and what he was.

The ma.s.sed crawlers showed up well on infrared. There were thirty-five of them, in two long lines, idling, awaiting his commands. The longer line of twenty-five, led by eight captured battle crawlers, would run for the Whitlandsund. They would do so without benefit of shade, which would warn Dee that they were coming.

The remaining ten units would follow Ca.s.sius himself.

No point in delaying any longer, Walters thought. He picked up a mike, said, "White Knight, White Knight, this is Charlemagne. Go. I say again, go. Over."

"Charlemagne, Charlemagne, this is White Knight. Acknowledge go. Out."

"Charlemagne, out."

The larger force began rolling.

Ca.s.sius's group consisted of six long-range charters, three pumpers, and his own command combat crawler. The charters, carrying minimum crews, were expendable. They would find the way. The four big rigs were crammed with men and equipment.

Ca.s.sius shifted comm nets. "Babylon, Babylon, this is Starfire. Signals follow. Stray Dog One, go. Stray Dog One, go. Over."

A charter rumbled into sunlight.

The formations Ca.s.sius used crossing uncharted territory, once he entered it a few hours north-northeast of the Shadowline, he adapted from those of ancient surface navies. The charters ran in a broad screen ahead of the four important crawlers, ready to relay warning of any danger.

They ran far faster than was customary for explorers. The run Ca.s.sius was making was dangerously long. If the crawlers escaped sunlight at all, it would be with screens severely weakened.

He kept the crawlers rolling, knowing his chances were grim.

Maximum computation capacity and power in each vehicle was devoted to keeping in touch with Walters. He wanted to know what was happening every instant, hoping he could keep up speed and still not lose two crawlers to the same trap. Like a spider in hiding, waiting for something to disturb her web, he sat amid his comm gear, listening. Hour upon hour pa.s.sed. He said not a word. His crewmen began checking to see if he was all right.

The bad part of warmaking, he thought, is the 'tween-battles. There's too much time to think, to remember is the 'tween-battles. There's too much time to think, to remember.

He could do nothing but endure the pain, the care, the fear. He tried to banish the ghosts that came to haunt him, and could not. He discovered that he had acquired a new squad. His wife and daughter. The Fortress of Iron. Gneaus, Wulf. Helmut. Big, dull Thurston, who may have been the only happy man in the Legion. Richard Hawksblood, the ancient enemy, with whom he had felt a bond of spirit. He had not seen Hawksblood in so long he could not remember the man's face. Homer. Benjamin. Lucifer. The younger Dees, long might they burn in torment. Doskal Mennike, who had been his protege at Academy. Someday he would have to explain to Mennike's father. What could he tell the old man? Only that, one and all, they had been played for p.a.w.ns and fools by Sangaree. It was not an admission that would come easily.

A long-ago ghost came. Tamara Walters, a favorite niece whose ship had vanished without trace during the Ulantonid War. Why was he remembering that far back?

Hadn't he made his peace with the elder terrors? Were all his losses, injuries, and sins going to return and parade?

"Starfire, Starfire, this is Stray Dog Four. I've hit heat erosion. Can't back free." The voice was tight and rigid. The man talking knew there would be no rescue attempt. There was not enough time. To try would seal the fate of everyone else. But he had accepted the risks when he had volunteered. "My instruments show a streak running zero five seven relative, eighty meters wide at least six meters deep. Good luck, Starfire. Stray Dog Four, out."

Ca.s.sius did not respond to the signal, merely pa.s.sed the warning to the other crawlers, each of which slowed to skirt the danger. What could he say to a man he was leaving to die? He could do nothing but add a face and name to the list of men he had, through his own doing, outlived.

The media and his colleagues called him the ultimate commander. None but he realized that the ultimate commander was a pose, an image behind which Thaddeus Immanuel Walters concealed himself. Sometimes he managed to delude himself with the illusion.

Life, it would seem on remote observation, was something Ca.s.sius held no more holy than did the universe itself. Yet, like certain forgotten G.o.ds, he noted the fall of every sparrow, and put himself through silent, private purgatories for each. And still he went on, from battle to battle, without thought of becoming anything but what he was. Like Gneaus Storm, like so many mercenaries, he was a fatalist, moved by convictions of personal predestination. Unlike Storm, he did not fight and mock Fate, merely accepted it and sailed dispiritedly toward his final encounter with it.

At least a touch of solipsist madness was a must at every level of the freecorps.

Once past the heat erosion he redistributed his screen to fill the gap left by the lost crawler.

He lost another charter before he reached the Thunder Mountains three hundred kilometers north of the Whitlandsund, and yet another, through screen failure, while searching for a shadowed valley where the unit could hide from the demon sun. The crucial four heavy crawlers remained unharmed.

As soon as the charters had cooled down and loaded some gas snow, he sent them out again. Somewhere up here, according to the surveys done before the orbitals burned out, there was a possibility of slipping over the Edge of the World. A way to sweep around and beat Michael's game of Thermopylae. The pa.s.s had shown as a small, dark trace on a few photo printouts...

It was a long shot. The darkness might not be a pa.s.s at all...

While he waited on the charters Ca.s.sius played with the command nets, hoping to intercept something from the war zone. He got nothing but static, which was all he really expected in that cove of darkness on the sh.o.r.es of the sea of fire.

He thought Brightside was what the old Christians had had in mind for h.e.l.l. With the Legion here Blackworld certainly was a planet of the d.a.m.ned.

The charters returned two days later. They had found the way across the mountains, but did not know if the larger units could manage it.

"We'll give it a try," Ca.s.sius said. He had spent too much time with his thoughts and away from his command. He had to be moving, to be involved, soon, or he would go mad reliving his losses.

The pa.s.s was a tight, tortuous canyon, and the going was slow, but there were few real problems till they had crossed the Edge of the World. Then, after they had pa.s.sed the limit of the original survey, they encountered a crack in the mountain which crossed and blocked the way. The creva.s.se threatened Ca.s.sius's entire scheme.

He refused to turn back. "We're going over these mountains here," he growled, "or we'll die here. One or the other. Let's find out how deep the son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h is."

His driver idled down. Ca.s.sius clambered out his escape hatch, approached the obstacle. The lead crawler had put lights on it, but they did nothing to illuminate its depths. He stared down into darkness. After a minute he fired his lasegun downward. The flash revealed a bottom much nearer than he expected.

He returned to his crawler. "Stray Dog One, this is Starfire. Maneuver your unit around parallel to the creva.s.se. Over."

It took two hours for the charter to wriggle into a position that suited him. "Stray Dog One, abandon your unit. Stray Dog Three, Stray Dog Six, push it over. Over."

The two surviving charters groaned and strained. The vibration of their effort shook the stone of the Thunder Mountains, made the big crawlers shudder. Their engines growled and whined, their tracks ripped at the earth. They injured themselves badly, but managed to topple the crawler into the creva.s.se.

Ca.s.sius offloaded his troops and had them gather loose rock. They dumped the detritus around the fallen charter. Hours crept away. The bridge grew, became level. Ca.s.sius sent a charter over to test and tamp, then an empty pumper. The fill held both times. One by one, the remaining units rolled.

That creva.s.se was the last serious obstacle. Abandoning the surviving charters because they could no longer keep pace, Ca.s.sius swung the big units onto the route between Twilight and Edgeward. He sped southward, maintaining radio silence. Near Edgeward he swung west, toward Michael Dee and the Whitlandsund.

His troops were exhausted. They had been cramped in their crawlers for days, racked by tension, constantly haunted by the fear that the next minute would be the one when a track went into heat erosion, or the mountain slid away beneath them. Even so, Ca.s.sius offloaded them at the eastern mouth of the Whitlandsund and sent them in. They made contact quickly.

Walters broke radio silence at last. "Andiron, Andiron, this is Wormdoom, do you read, over."

Mouse came on net only minutes later. "Wormdoom, this is Andiron. Shift to the scrambled trunk, over."

Ca.s.sius shifted. Mouse squeaked, "Ca.s.sius, where the h.e.l.l are you? We've been trying to get ahold of you for six days."

"I'm right outside your door, Mouse. Moving into the Whitlandsund. I need Ceislak's men."

"You're on this side of the Edge of the World?"

"That's right. How soon can you get those men here?"

"How did you manage that?"

"Never mind. I did it. Send me those men. We can talk after we finish Dee."

"All right. They're on their way. I don't know how you did it..."

Ca.s.sius cut him off, turned to listen to the tactical nets once more.

He had been listening in since returning to Darkside, trying to a.s.sess the situation back in the Shadowline. It did not look good for those he had left behind.

Fifty-Five: 3032 AD

It was a very grim, very sour Masato Storm who watched the big board in the war room. It looked terrible.

Someone moved a chair into place beside him. He glanced up at at a commtech. He was holding the chair for Pollyanna.

Mouse smiled weakly. "How are you? Any better?"

"Ready for anything. Except I limp a little. They say it'll go away. How is it going?"

"Not good. I haven't heard from Ca.s.sius for days. I'm scared for him. And up there..." He indicated the board showing the Whitlandsund. "We made some gains when the first wave came over, but it's slowed down. Way down. We're still pushing them back, but not fast enough."

"But you outnumber them."

"We've lost too many tractors. We can't bring our people over fast enough. It looks like we've only got two chances. Either Ca.s.sius turns up or my uncle runs out of ammunition."

"Sir!" one of the commtechs yelled. "Sir, I've got Colonel Walters on Tac One."

"Put him on over here. Pollyanna, you're a good-luck charm. Maybe I'll strap you into that chair."

She smiled wanly. "I wasn't too lucky for Frog. Or Lucifer. Or..."

"Can it." Ca.s.sius's grim face came on screen. They argued back and forth about Ceislak's battalion, and Mouse tried to discover how Walters had gotten to Darkside. Ca.s.sius broke off.

"He's in a foul mood, isn't he?" Pollyanna asked.