Menace Under Marswood, Page 2

  The gate gunnery sergeant, Brown, his face now a normal color, came up and saluted again. "Sorry about the guns, sir. That smoke blotted everything out in split seconds and then they fired through it at close range." In grudging professional respect he added, "It was a nice bit of work for those wood rats." Slater wondered what had been in the smoke. The Ruckers were always finding new uses for the mutated plant life of their beloved jungle. Still odder was the fact that he seemed unaffected.

  Chapter Two – Post Mortem and Mystery

  AS HE HAD expected, the aftermath in the post commandant's office was anything but pleasant. Two hours of frenzied work by everyone on the post who could be spared from the warning net or the guns had cleared up most of the mess. The wounded were in the hospital and the dead were laid away decently. A scorched pile of earth was all that marked the place where the armor had been so cleverly ambushed. As the officers, tired and stinking of smoke, sat in the commandant's office, they could hear the whine of distant jets looking for the two ore carriers or anything else to bomb. No one expected them to find anything. The operation had been too well planned.

  It was still very neat. Crawling under mats of grass which had been woven into an aluminum mesh, a large party of Rucker warmen had patiently wormed its way to the wall during the previous night. Then they dug into the ground at the base of the wall, somehow disarming the mines buried there. The metal in their grass shields blocked the heat seekers on the walls. They were so close that it would have taken a genius to even think of looking for them there. They were in the one place no one could plant an ambush. Neat!

  Major van Schouten, in command of Fort Agnew while Colonel Muller was away, was cordially detested by all of his juniors and knew it. A pink-faced, white-haired Hollander, he was fussy, excitable, and largely incompetent. He owed his rank to very strong political connections, but even they could take him no further in the service and he knew that also. Two review boards had recommended against his promotion. In three months a third would meet, and his compulsory retirement inevitably would follow. Enraged and frightened by the attack, van Schouten was still looking for a scapegoat.

  "You're supposed to be a veteran, a trained man, Slater!" he yapped, his voice rising in shrillness as he sensed the unspoken disapproval of the others. "Taken in by a child's trick, by God, and causing the loss of seven vehicles! Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't have you brought before a court? You too, Nakamura? What in Hell were you doing to let all your men get shot down? Wait till the press hears about this, wait till—"

  "Major, anyone could have been taken in by this one." The heavy voice of Captain George M'kembe cut in. M'kembe was justly famous for having killed three warmen in unarmed combat, an almost incredible feat and the reason for one of his promotions. A solid, silent, black giant, he usually kept quiet save for rhapsodizing to anyone who would listen about his family in Lesotho. Van Schouten hated his guts, since he was everything the major was not.

  "All right, Captain M'kembe, we've heard your opinion. Which is not mine! What are we to do now, eh? Now that these idiots have lost an armored company for us? Tell me that, will you?" The pink face and the small pig eyes made the cropped white hair look false, as if they had been moved from another man, thought Slater.

  A look almost of disbelief came over the unattractive face. It seemed finally to occur to van Schouten that no one could absolve him, the commanding officer, of the blame for the mishap. All of the officers present could see it happen. He's just realized that a lifetime of excuses has come to an end. No hiding place up here. But he'll get me to slide down with him, or die trying. Slater kept his face a rigid mask.

  "The primary fault is those money-grubbing leeches over it Universal Mining." The acid tones of Captain Nasiban, the lean, balding adjutant, penetrated the room. "They have such lousy labor problems they won't let us garrison their cruddy mine. Afraid we'd see too much. Yet we have to take their mother ore and trek it through the Ruck and take full responsibility for it."

  "That's enough!" The major's pudgy hand slammed down on the table, the gesture as ineffectual as his other mannerisms. "The government makes these decisions, I'll remind you. No criticism of higher authority under my command, please! And I'll also remind you that the big corporations pay a lot of taxes, including much of your pay. You all might show a little gratitude." He ran a finger around his sweating neck.

  We all might remember you have a cousin on the board of Universal. Slater struggled to betray none of the contempt he felt. What a ripe piece of flea dirt you are, Major dear.

  There was a pause, hesitantly broken by Ensign Rivera. He was the most junior present, a boy from the Altiplano of Peru, just out of the UN Academy.

  "Why can't we, ah, attempt to trade some prisoners for the captured armor? We have four or five in the fort's cells."

  It was typical that van Schouten was cheap enough to laugh at the boy, his usual sneering bark, reserved for those unable to answer back.

  "Ruckers don't trade prisoners, son," M'kembe said gently. "They don't trade anything, except on Truce Days. If we didn't have those prisoners pretty well hog-tied, they'd commit suicide or kill some of us trying."

  "You should have learned all that back at the Academy," the major added. "Well, let's have some real ideas! Can't any of you think of something that might delay the Committee of Inquiry?" Despite his attempt to be sarcastic, the despair in van Schouten's tone was mirrored in his face.

  A sound from the waiting room behind Slater caught their attention. The orderly sergeant's "glad to have you back, sir!" made all the heads turn to the door in welcome surprise.

  It opened and two figures walked in, one behind the other. The first one brought every man to his feet at rigid attention. At sight of the second, hands clawed for the holstered sidearm worn with every uniform while on Mars duty.

  "Easy! Stand at ease, I said!" Colonel Louis Muller, the commanding officer of Fort Agnew, whom all had thought to be on an Earthbound rocket a week earlier, walked around to where Major van Schouten stood spellbound. Amazed as they were to see the colonel, it was the other man who kept them all staring. Meeting glance for glance, arms folded across his barrel chest, rifle slung behind his olive-dyed leather tunic, fur hood thrown back, there stood before them a Rucker warman in full battle panoply. The pale-brown vees incised in his forehead proclaimed him a veteran warrior, while the short cloak of black feathers slung across one shoulder showed that he was also a konsel, an elected ruler. No such person had ever been inside the walls of an uncaptured Terran fort in the memory of anyone living. Indeed, it was rare enough to see a man of such rank even at the semi-annual Truce Fairs. The flicker of grim humor in the dark eyes told Slater that the irony of the situation was not lost on their strange visitor. Otherwise the Rucker stood quietly, his natural dignity a shield against the vengeful glances of his assembled enemies.

  "I am reassuming command." Colonel Muller's quiet voice broke the silence. "This is Thau Lang, a chief and konsel of the Rat Clan of the True People. He understands Unit and is the official guest of the government, subject to certain limitations, which I will explain. He is to be treated with the respect due his rank. Is that clear?" Muller waved van Schouten out of his chair and seated himself at the head of the table while his officers stared at the Rucker.

  Louis Muller was a squat little man with a pug nose and soft-brown eyes. His undress green uniform was usually wrinkled and he paid small attention to form, somehow always managing to escape parades, receptions, and official ceremonies. He looked rather dumpy and soft and his thinning brown hair, parted in the middle, lent him the look of a retired bookkeeper. He was fifty-five years old and had twice refused promotion to general. He never wore his decorations. He was the finest soldier on Mars, a man whom younger officers regarded as their ideal. His subtlety matched the Ruckers' at their best, and his bushcraft was their equal as well. He was about as soft physically as a ferkat and he could move so fast that he appeared to float away as
one watched. Frequently he took his leaves in the Ruck, alone and without even a tent, as another might tour an Earthside forest reserve. To Slater, Muller's return meant the difference between night and day. Whatever happened now, all knew who commanded; the officers knew, too, that no one would be sacrificed as a burnt offering to those on high. Muller was merciless to laziness, stupidity, corruption, and anything that smacked of tale-bearing or political influence. But he was utterly fair. Now his quiet presence dominated the room as always, a thing that never ceased to amaze Slater since it was so effortless.

  At Muller's command a chair was brought in by the sergeant and the Rucker chief was seated at the end of the table, next to Slater. Thau Lang's odor came to him sharply; it was not unpleasant, but pungent, a mixture of woodsmoke and herbs, leather and oil.

  When the sergeant had closed the door behind him, Muller looked at his officers, his gaze slowly sweeping the table.

  "All leave is canceled herewith, no exceptions whatsoever." Muller took out a pack of gum and selected a piece before continuing. Beside Slater, Thau Lang grunted once, as if clearing his throat. Muller quickly threw a piece of gum to him. The Rucker caught it with a flick of his wrist, opened it, and sat back chewing contentedly.

  "There will be no inquiry into today's tragedy," he went on. "It is an incident, nothing more. No one is considered to be at fault. I have the plenary authority to dismiss the matter as a simple tribal action. Universal will make no complaint. Is this clear?"

  "But the ambush—someone is to blame. Whose responsibility? ..." The major's voice died away under the level gaze of his commander. He, van Schouten, had been in command during the attack; to any committee of inquiry he would be the chief culprit, and Muller's words had given the major an unexpected reprieve. He sat back in silence, his eyes glassy from the realization that he had a second chance.

  "As of this exact moment, Fort Agnew is the headquarters for a new campaign," the colonel went on. "It is an enormous secret that a new campaign is even starting. Therefore, I impose the highest classification of military security. All mail will be censored from now on and letters will be completely rewritten if any hint of what we are doing appears." He paused, rose from his seat, and unrolled the big map of their operational hemisphere of the planet that hung on the wall behind him. All the forts were marked upon it, as well as the larger craters, now mostly lakes or marshes, the higher ranges of hills, the great gorges, the desert tundra areas, and the roads. There were few of the latter. Much of the map was utterly featureless, as unknown as it had been when the first scouts landed two centuries and more before.

  "What concerns us is our own south half of the planet." The colonel's pointer flicked the map. "Here at the South Pole is Mainbase, Ares. The campaign will be coordinated from there, of course. The northern hemisphere will not be neglected. But all the signs seem to indicate that here we are of most importance. Look at our position. We are the center, or rather the south center of the ring of forts. The cryolite mines we guard are the farthest advanced of any concession granted in the unknown area.

  "The first stage of the campaign will be an urgent search for information. We have far too little. Tragically little. We must seek new methods of getting it. And we have very little time." Muller's quiet voice was without emphasis, but a thrill ran down Slater's spine. No one had ever heard Louis Muller refer to anything as being urgent before. "We have half Earth's land surface in our charge," he added.

  "Pardon, sir." It was Captain Nasiban. "What about this ... uh, our guest here? I assume he plays a part in this."

  "Correct. A major part. He is our ally, subject to certain limits that he and I have worked out and to which Supreme Command has agreed.

  "Someone, some group perhaps, but someone or some persons inimical to us is known to be coordinating the tribes. They are being formed into an army for a concerted attack. The planetary defenses—and I repeat, this is Top Secret—are not geared to withstand such a thing. There is evidence, which I will discuss in due course, that the plans do not originate in the Ruck at all. However, the areas that seem to be the heartland of the coming attack are being sealed off. And not by us—by them, whoever 'they' are. Even low-flying aircraft are sometimes being downed in these areas. It took over a year for our base and Earth's computers to analyze a thousand apparently random incidents. What emerged was a pattern of great subtlety, but a pattern nonetheless—one of slowly and cautiously denying us access of any kind to large areas that seem to be strong points. The computers predict these areas can be nothing but centers for the development of massive arms buildups, arms and men too, of course."

  "What about our satellites? Do they report nothing, Colonel Muller?"

  "Nothing, Ensign Rivera. But why would they if the enemy was careful? I must repeat, at the risk of overemphasis, that we have encountered nothing like this threat before. This is clever. You know the Rucker facility for digging. You know the subsoil of the planet is riddled with volcanic bores and other kinds of natural caverns. A chain of the latter connected by tunnels would render the satellites useless. Then there is the fog, the clouds, the rain, the snow. And the great canyons. For a better understanding, you should discuss the details with Captain Feng, the post intelligence officer."

  "What do you mean, sir, about plans not originating in the Ruck? Surely they could hardly originate off-planet? Who would gain?" Van Schouten looked incredulous but he met the colonel's gaze without flinching.

  "Well, Major, the United Nations does have a few dissidents, or so I have heard. There are lots of people back home who think that the World Government is not opening this place up to settlers fast enough. Plenty of worthless politicians get elected solely by promising a looser quota, by telling their voters that the Rucker problem is 'exaggerated'. Maybe some of them have a new source of muscle behind them, neen?" A few Afrikaans words clung to Muller's tongue. Van Schouten had once implied that he and the colonel might have some common ancestors: Smiling politely, Muller had asked if he meant the Boers or the Hottentots. The subject was not raised again and the tale went all over the post in minutes.

  "It is not our business to speculate about anything off-planet, particularly in the political area," Muller went on. "There are agencies that handle such things for the government. Our business is to find out who is arming the tribes here then squash the whole business. Now I will answer the next question before it is asked perhaps. What is a Rucker konsel doing in a UN fort, being given access to our innermost secrets? Is the government mad? Am I? I will let Thau Lang do the answering this time. I will say one thing before he starts. He is an old personal friend of mine." Muller sat back, his eyes twinkling.

  They all turned to stare at the silent man in the oiled leather. The three vees cut neatly into his forehead below the black bangs told them all that he had killed many times. Though the clans warred among themselves often enough, it was a ritual warfare, using complex rules and conducted with as little loss of life as possible. Most warmen kills were of UN troops. The long, two-edged dagger he wore had probably been whetted in Terran blood. He met their glances with one as cold as any, his iron, clean-shaven face betraying nothing. Then he spoke.

  "Let us make things plain, so that no one makes mistakes." His Unit was slow and rather harsh, but a child could have understood perfectly.

  "I am here because my people are threatened. The True People, or as you say, the Ruckers, want no more offplanet settlers. This is our planet, and we have paid for it with our blood." His gaze seemed to grow remote, and they waited in silence for him to continue.

  "But not all of us think like little children, and some of us have grown worried in the last few years. New weapons are appearing from the South, from down here. Chiefs who do not agree with the new thoughts are sometimes not heard of again. There is the continual talk of uniting, of becoming one, of thus gaining great strength and driving you Greenies out entirely.

  "We became a people to cease being 'one'! All our laws were framed to let us
each be different. We have the personal records of the men and women who fled from the first settlements. They wanted freedom to be themselves, and they established the loosest set of rules by which people could still live together and yet be alone, in their own minds and spirits. If you do not understand me, I will go back to the beginning and say it again. Because you must understand, as Louis understands, or the whole planet will die. And my people will die first and most. They will all die."

  The chief's voice had been rising in emphasis. No one else spoke. Even van Schouten realized that he was hearing something unique, a Rucker leader expounding their basic philosophy. Slater was awestruck but sufficiently self-possessed to realize the Rucker was an old man. Despite his sturdy form and deceptive movements, a fine mat of wrinkles appeared under the beige skin when Thau Lang spoke.

  "I went to my friend Louis. He knows I speak for others as well as myself. The movement out of the southern area is bad. The True People are being used. The young men are being trained in ways which are against all that we have sought for ourselves. The Wise Women are being ignored. Two konsels have vanished in my clan area, which is far north of here, near your Fort Peron. They were of the group which thinks as I do. I have been threatened. Messages have threatened my life. Poison has been used in my food. I am a Taster and detected it. A man of the True People may use poison after he sends formal word of a feud. Or woman. They have their own rules, the women. But I am too old to have a woman try to poison me. And I have no feuds. So." He looked about, his face impassive.