Mercenary (15 page)

My options were limited since my superior had rejected my petition. I could not take any official action.

But I did act unofficially. I informed my platoon sergeant that I had gone to Commander Hastings with my concern about a possible outbreak of violence and had been put in my place. “I do not necessarily regard this as a private matter,” I concluded.

“Yes, sir,” he said. I had just provided him with some hot gossip, and signaled that he could spread it freely. In fact, I had hinted that he should do so. He was one Saxon who had quickly learned how to get along with a Hispanic officer.

“Inform the men that I will be available for personal dialogue in the rec room,” I said. That meant that my enlisted men could come and talk to me informally.

News travels at close to C (lightspeed) in a unit. I had hardly sat down at a table and set up the dominoes before several of my Hispanic troops appeared. “Sir,” one said in Spanish. “What are you up to this time?”

“I am up to nothing,” I replied innocently in the same language. “I have been instructed to leave significant matters to those equipped to comprehend them, and to concentrate on my floor-scrubbing. I would not presume to do otherwise.”

They grinned knowingly. “Everyone knows how stupid Hispanics are,” one said. “Scrubbing is all they understand.”

“Only a very stupid man would believe that a program of riot and possibly assassination could be in the offing,” I agreed. “Or that interplanetary peace-force troops and officers could be the target. Far better to scrub floors!”

The grins faded. “What do we do, sir—off the record?”

“I believe we should try to ingratiate ourselves further with the natives,” I said. “To treat them well and try to get to know them as friends. Entertain their children. Study their cultures. Listen to their concerns with real interest and help to what extent we can, as fast as we can.”

“But we are not supposed to get social with them!”

“No sex with their women,” I said. "But other favors, other forms of social interaction are permitted.

Off-duty personnel should be friendly, like brothers. We want them to like us.“ I paused. ”And if any of them mention things in confidence, such as the secret movement of weapons, we must protect their secret. We must never betray them in any way. But I want to know, off the record, immediately."

Now they understood. “Spy work,” one said.

“Social work,” I clarified. “Commander Chicken has forbidden spy work to floor-scrubbers. But we want the local Chironiotes to be concerned if anything should threaten us.”

“You really think something might, sir?”

I nodded grimly. “My evidence is thin, but I am very much afraid it might. We need to be careful.”

“We shall spread the word, sir.”

“I realize this is not very dramatic,” I said. “But it's all I can think of. I'm not expert in intrigue. Let's hope my concern is groundless.”

“Yes, sir.” They departed, ready to spread the word.

Naturally, for a week thereafter, things were perfectly quiet on Chiron. But my men, showing more faith in me than I felt in myself, labored diligently to be Good Guys. They found a number of ways. They arranged little parties for the children, giving out token prizes and singing songs. They helped old ladies do their shopping. They even filled in for ill men, doing work in their off-duty hours. They chipped in to help a poor family make an overdue payment on a mortgage. They spread cheer.

News of this foolishness spread through the other units. Jokes abounded. We were the loco platoon. But my men merely shrugged and continued. They had never tried being Nice Guys this way before, and they found they liked it. And the natives, originally diffident or even covertly hostile, became friendly very quickly. They began inviting favored soldiers to meals and parties. All it took was our genuine effort to relate.

Ten days after my alert, one of my men brought me a slip of paper. “A little Greek boy,” he said almost apologetically. “I helped him carve a sailboat. He gave me this. Sir, I don't know if it means anything—”

I unfolded the paper. One word was crudely printed on it in Spanish: hoy .

“Did the child speak Spanish?” I asked.

“No, sir.”

The word was today . Innocent, by itself; it could mean anything. “We'll find out,” I said. “We must continue as usual, so as not to betray our informant. But watch it, and be ready.”

“Yes, sir,” he said doubtfully, perhaps thinking I was being kind to take the note seriously. Perhaps I was.

We proceeded as usual, though the word spread throughout my unit and no one slept. Nothing happened.

But during the night shift, most of hell tore loose.

Firearms were forbidden in the domes because of the danger they posed to the environment. One small hole in the seal meant a pressure leak, and a large hole could mean explosive decompression. A city of a hundred thousand people could be suffocated in seconds. But now there was the sound of guns firing.

I knew when I heard the first shot that this was serious. “Full alert, all shifts!” I barked into the unit intercom. “Double the present duty shift. The rest form a section with me—Hispanic.” Because neither the Greeks nor the Turks understood Spanish well; it was a code language.

My sergeant saw to the disposition of men. I took my Hispanic squad—ten men and a corporal—directly toward the sound of shooting.

Men were in the streets, tough-looking Greeks, but they were not rioting. “Lieutenant,” one called as I approached. “Do not go abroad.”

“It is my duty to keep order,” I said, pausing.

“There is no disturbance,” he said. “See, our streets are quiet.”

“Yes? But there is gunfire in the next section.”

“Lieutenant, you have been good to us. We forbade the terrorists to come here. But in the other sections you are not safe.”

So my policy had paid off! These were our friends. But I couldn't stand idly by while a riot or insurrection proceeded. “I have a job to do.”

“Please—you do not understand. Foreign officers are being executed!”

“Then I must get there immediately!” I broke into a run, my squad double-timing behind me.

The Greeks kept pace. “Lieutenant, you force our hand! We do not wish harm to come to you!”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I am here to keep the peace. I must do it. Please return to your homes.”

“No. We must come with you. There is great danger!”

I sensed the mood of these people. They knew more than they were telling, but they were uncertain.

They had assumed that I would stay at my post and not interfere with what occurred elsewhere.

Ordinarily, I would have. “Come if you wish, but do not interfere with my men.”

We jogged to the next section. I saw I was already too late; two uniformed men lay in blood. A wild-looking Greek stood over them, waving a pistol, haranguing the crowd in Greek. Here was a terrorist leader!

“Halt!” I cried. “You are under arrest!”

The terrorist whirled, bringing his gun to bear. I carried only my billy club, and my men were no better off. We had been keeping the peace without power weapons, not even stunners. I realized that I had indeed been foolish to charge here, knowing we would face firearms. My life might well be forfeit. Yet this policy had been necessary to assure the folk of our region that we were basically men of peace.

The terrorist aimed at me. I threw myself to the side. “Take cover!” I yelled.

Then something flew through the air and struck the terrorist in the chest. He cried out and staggered and fell. The handle of a knife protruded from his body. I knew one of the Greeks from my sector had thrown it, for my men did not carry knives on duty either, here.

I reached the bodies. One was a corporal, part of the office staff of our company. He was dead; he had been shot through the head. The other was Lieutenant Commander Hastings. He was dead, too.

I faced the Greeks. “The other officers?”

“I fear all are dead,” the Greek leader said. “The terrorists, the leaders—”

“Well, I'm not dead!” I snapped. “Until I verify who survives, I'm assuming charge of this sector. I hereby declare martial law. All citizens will confine themselves to their homes until further notice. Only international troops will remain on the streets. Any Greek found abroad fifteen minutes from now will be subject to immediate arrest.”

The Greeks exchanged glances. “Yes, sir.” They dispersed.

It would have been awkward if they had balked! But they trusted me, and my decisiveness. I turned to my corporal. “Take five men,” I said in Spanish. “Check the whereabouts and condition of all company officers and NCO's, and report to me at my office in the ship. Be on guard against gunfire.”

“Yes, sir!” Quickly he chose five, and hurried away.

I picked up the fallen pistol, checked it, and tucked it into my belt. “Now we return to the ship,” I said to the five remaining men. “Form a cordon around me; I believe I am now the prime terrorist target.”

They did, and we proceeded to the ship without further event. We heard distant shots but none in this region.

At the ship I used the intercom to clarify that one officer survived: Commander Waterman. He had barricaded himself in his office instead of going out on the street. He was, in fact, a coward. He had done nothing to stop the violence.

I went to his office, and he let me in. “Commander, I believe all the other officers of the battalion have been assassinated,” I said briskly. “I suggest you appoint me Battalion Executive Officer and let me carry on from there.”

He stared at me, trying to fathom my motive, so I spelled it out for him. "Commander, when I was fifteen I saw my father and friends slaughtered by pirates, and my sister raped. I swore vengeance and have been taking it. I had more blood on my hands before I entered the Navy than most careerists ever see.

These terrorists are in the same class as pirates. I can handle this; it's not new to me, it doesn't touch me the way it does others.“ Actually, I never liked killing, but I had learned to function amidst it. ”But I need authority to act. I'm not trying to usurp your authority; I'm trying to salvage the situation. Support me, and I will support you."

Waterman considered. He remained severely shaken, but now he realized how his inaction would be interpreted. “Scuttlebutt has it you forced an officer to retire—when you were a sergeant.”

“There was no blemish on his record, sir.”

“I retire in ten months.”

“Retire with honor, sir.”

He nodded. We had an understanding. Even in an institution as wedded to spelled-out formality as the Jupiter Navy, much of the real business is done by unwritten understanding. He activated the intercom, and it was answered by the private filling in for a slain sergeant. “Cut the orders for Lieutenant Hubris to be Battalion Executive,“ he said. ”Temporary field promotion to O3 and complete authority to act for me for the duration of the crisis.”

“Yes, sir,” the private said.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, saluting.

I deputized my trusted men to fill the vacant offices, and we cleaned up the mess, extended our area of control, and got things restored to a facsimile of normal until reinforcements arrived. As it turned out, the violence had largely passed. Evidently the terrorists had intended to precipitate a riot and revolution by assassinating the officers of the peace force and haranguing the populace, but when the segment controlled by our battalion remained orderly, the effort lacked sufficient momentum to continue. I was able to track down and arrest the inciters, thanks to the cooperation of our Greek friends, and that looked very good on my record. Things settled down.

Commander Waterman was permitted to retire in due course, without prejudice, and my promotion was confirmed. I received a commendation, a ribbon, and a medal for heroism. It was more than I deserved, but I did not protest. For one thing, I had issued a number of emergency promotions, putting privates into NCO spots and granting a field promotion to an ensign to fill my own vacated position as Platoon Commander. I kept my mouth shut, sparing the Navy embarrassment, and every one of those promotions was confirmed. The Navy had tacitly paid me off.

When notice came that our battalion was relieved of peace duty, we flung a party like none the Greeks had seen before. The Greeks who had helped us were given special attention, and our stores were raided for presents for them all. This wasn't strictly Standard Operating Procedure, but no protest was heard.

Again, I must plead dullness as the pretext to skim over much of the ensuing eight years. Military life is not generally filled with excitement; tedium is its ordinary nature, except for fleeting periods of devastation, as happened on Chiron. I organized the company I commanded as well as I could, given the restrictions of the Book; it became a haven for ambitious Hispanics. Perhaps this amounts to segregation; well, there is more of that than the Navy admits. Other units were generally glad not to have to deal with aggressive Spanish-speaking men and officers; as long as neither they nor we protested, the Navy went along. There is a lot of live-and-let-live in the military.

My sister Spirit abruptly transferred to another base, one orbiting closer to Jupiter, and entered into a term marriage with Lieutenant Commander Phist, the whistle-blower. How she managed that on either practical or social levels I hesitate to conjecture; she was always more clever than I at manipulating her circumstances. I still tended to think of her as the twelve-year-old child I had left among pirates; at eighteen she was a long way from that, but even at twelve she had been nervy and tough in a crisis, always ready and able to do what had to be done. Her restored presence was enormously gratifying to me, and her renewed absence was hard for me, though I knew she would return. She and I could never truly be separated again.

I attended their housewarming, and Commander Phist, a handsome man in his mid-thirties, informed me politely that he would be happy to oblige his wife in any legitimate way within his power.

I explained about Lieutenant Repro's model staff, and Phist said he considered himself honored to be included in that roster. That was all; since my command did not warrant any such staff, it remained only theoretical. Spirit had delivered; the most competent logistics officer in the Navy had elected not to resign and was now in our orbit. I pondered the ethics of this, and concluded that since no deception was involved, and Commander Phist understood why Spirit had come to him and was satisfied, that was satisfactory. The truth was, Spirit had an extraordinary amount to offer any man; I was in a position to know.

Now Lieutenant Repro presented me with the next name on his list: that of the most brilliant unrecognized military strategist to be seen in this century. “The test scores are virtually unbelievable,” he confided. "I thought there was a typo or computer glitch, so I double-checked it and found it was true.

This person by rights should be put immediately in charge of the entire Jupiter strategic initiative. But that will never happen."

“Why not?” I inquired innocently.

“Three reasons. First, no connections. You have to come from the right family and the right political spectrum to have any reasonable prospect of achieving anything approaching policy-making status.”

All too true. I, as a young Hispanic officer, understood that well. “And?”

“Second, you have to be of the proper race. This one has a visible percentage of black ancestry.”

That, too, I knew. The Navy was an equal-opportunity employer, but there were few black officers and very few ranking ones. Two strikes.

“Third, you had better be male.”

I was startled. “A black woman of the wrong political persuasion?” Three strikes indeed!

“Lieutenant j.g. Emerald Sheller,” he concluded. “Age twenty-two. Go get her, Hubris; your sister has shown how.”

“But she's young!” I protested. Young: my exact age now.

“That, too, is a liability,” he agreed. “But genius knows no age. Be warned, Hubris: She's brilliant, aggressive, and bitter. It will be a significant exercise of your talent.”

“I've got to have her?” I asked dispiritedly.

“You've got to have her. One day you'll tackle the pirates on the field of battle, and you will have a reasonable chance of success if Sheller is on your team, and little chance otherwise. She's a wild one, but believe me, Emerald is a jewel.”

He was serious, despite the pun, and this was his life's hobby. The ravages of his addiction were more prominent now, but I trusted his competence in this. I had to have wild Emerald Sheller. I nerved myself to get on it.

Locating her was no problem. They had her supervising the filing department of the Base Records Division. Their tests showed her to be the most promising strategic genius available, yet this was the use they put it to! She had a right to be bitter.

I sent her a message: Lt. Hope Hubris Requests Date with Lt. Emerald Sheller. That's an Approved Navy approach. She responded promptly: 1800, this date. A pun, perhaps, on the social and calendar aspects of the word, but nevertheless an acceptance.

I presented myself in my dress uniform at her residence at the appointed hour. I had thought she might dress civilian, as was customary for women in this circumstance, but she met me in her own formal uniform. She was a small, angular woman with short jet-black hair and brown skin, no beauty by the standards of her race or mine, but fit and brisk. Every inch the efficient, virtually sexless clerk. I anticipated a dull evening, but a challenging one intellectually. I was half right.

We shook hands, as it was our first meeting. “I thought we might go to a restaurant and talk,” I said.

“I have made arrangements,” she announced briskly.

So she had. She conducted me to one of the licensed private shops on the post where we bought two bean sandwiches in bags. Then we went to the capsule tower, which was a mild form of entertainment.

Opaque small bubbles were released to be drawn in by Leda's trace gravity. The descent was not far, but the bubbles moved slowly and could take an hour to land, or longer if jostled out of the direct line of fall. They were known as love capsules, for they were commonly used for brief dates. I had never used one before, being already familiar with free-fall and preferring more comfortable settings for my romantic engagements and was surprised Emerald had chosen this. But I said nothing, letting her play it her way. I had, after all, been warned about her aggressive nature and sought no quarrel.

Thus we found ourselves floating down, isolated. We ate our sandwiches, catching stray beans out of the air. And the woman tore into me verbally as if I were a pirate.

“So the lordly Hispanic Lieutenant Senior Grade, hero of Chiron, craves some black nookie. What possessed you to seek out this particular stranger? Surely not my voluptuous ass!” She patted her petite military flank.

My talent works best when there is interaction. I can gather a sense of a person's character in minutes that others might not discover in years. But this woman was complex, and as yet I had no grasp of her. “I am informed that I need you with me,” I said.

“You are informed , Lieutenant?” she demanded, in a parody of the martinet. “Don't you have a mind of your own?”

I smiled, refusing to be baited. “Sometimes that is in doubt. You see, I have one ambition, but other people are formulating its realization, and they know more than I do. Thus I am supposed to enlist you in my cause.”

“Why do I get the feeling this is not a simple sex-liaison?” she inquired, frowning as if in doubt. She was good at her mannerisms, and I found myself liking her.

“Because it isn't,” I said. “I have no particular interest in your body, no offense intended. I need your service as a strategist. You may be the best of this century.”

“Let's leave it at the sex. You aren't turned on by my body?”

She remained hostile and difficult to read. There were so may complex currents in her that I still could get no firm sense of the whole. “I asked you for a date because I wanted to talk with you,” I said. “It is your mind, your ability I am interested in. I prefer not to advertise my real purpose. No one need know what passes between us here.”

“They'll figure sex. And that's what it's going to be.”

“I need your strategic genius, not your body,” I insisted doggedly. “This isn't any ploy for sex! I won't lay a hand on you. I'm simply asking you to join my mission, because it should represent an excellent challenge for you, and its success may hinge on your ability.”

“Well, I still figure sex,” she said. “So get your clothes off, spic.”

I had not heard that term in some time. It was a hostile reference to a person of Latin descent, specifically Hispanic; its precise application and interpretation had changed in the course of centuries, but it was generally considered grounds for combat when addressed to a person of my background by a Saxon. This woman was only half Saxon but was prickly indeed! Combat was what I did not want. “I only want to talk to you,” I insisted. “I have no designs upon your—”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “Get 'em off, Lieutenant Loco, or I'll take 'em off for you.”

I was irritated by her perversity but was aware that this was her intent and refused to be baited into open anger. So I removed my clothing and folded and bound it carefully in the null-gee, and floated naked before her. I experienced déjà vu , the feeling of having been here before; it was my memory of my first encounter in the Tail. I would handle this woman as I had the Tail-girl, June, if I had to.

She looked me over. “You're in pretty good health. Well, so am I, We'll wrestle.”

“I don't wish to—”

But quickly she divested herself of her own uniform and floated nude before me. It is a peculiarity of the English language that a man unclothed is naked, while a woman unclothed is nude. I have never fully understood the distinction and tend to ignore it, but in this case I appreciated it. Nakedness is embarrassing; nudity is intriguing. Emerald was slender rather than lush, but she was indeed in good health, and her form was well assembled. Sometimes clothing diminishes blemishes or malformity; in this instance it had rendered severe a form that was in fact esthetic. My lost love, Helse, had masqueraded as a boy by strapping down her breasts and wearing boy's clothing; Emerald had in effect done much the same. I had not seen a brown girl completely exposed before and was interested. Her midsection was very small, and her breasts and buttocks quite well rounded.

But I had no intention of indulging in sex with her, because that had never been my intent and because I needed to prove to her that it was her strategic ability I valued. I must confess it had become a certain challenge for me to demonstrate my lack of sexual interest in her, though her body was in no way repulsive to me. Quite the opposite; the overly soft, fleshy women of the Tail were not strongly conducive, while the taut, vibrant, artistically molded flesh of this one—

“Try for a fall,” she said, taking hold of me.

A fall—in free-fall? It was impossible! I simply fended her off. But she went for a pain hold, and that sort of thing can be effective in free-fall, so I had to counter. I was stronger than she, and I had had excellent training in several species of martial arts, but most importantly I was increasingly able to fathom her physical strategies. Her mind remained largely unfathomable, but not her body. One might argue that bodily action is a product of the mind behind it, but in practice this is severely limited by the physical chemistry of that body, and its signals are much more evident. So I understood her body, using my talent, and she could not make headway against me.

“One fall for you,” she said when this was apparent. “But I can make you perform sexually.”

“I've been trying to tell you—”

She grasped my private anatomy and kneaded it. I was surprised, but I remembered the Tail and let her proceed without reacting. This was a considerable challenge, for she had a flair for this sort of stimulation.

Then she put her face down and used her tongue in a manner that caught me quite unprepared, and caused me to react despite my intent. In moments I converted, as the saying goes, from rubber to iron.

Then she grasped me about the hips and drew me in close to her as we both floated in the sphere, and spread her legs to take me in. She had a kind of internal muscular control that amazed me, and in that manner she had her will of me. I gave up the struggle and clasped her body tightly and thrust urgently within her. “One fall for you!” I gasped as I shuddered to conclusion. She acknowledged by coming further alive against me. Juana, though more luxuriantly endowed, had never reacted like this. Emerald had shown me a new level of sexual experience.

But she wasn't through with me. “You figure you're a leader,” she said as she separated from me. "That business with the Hidden Flower —you were just lucky they blundered worse than you did. If you had planned and executed it properly, you could have saved your sister without risking your Navy ship. And the episode in Chiron—blind luck was sixty percent of that, and again your own life was on the line.

Those were Pyrrhic victories; too many of them and you'll be finished."

“That's why I need you, to plan and execute my strategy,” I said humbly.

She considered momentarily. “Very well, Hubris. I'll marry you.”

I had not, of course, proposed marriage to her. But in the Navy, term marriages were the norm for officers, just as heterosexual rooming was for enlisted folk. Emerald Sheller had concluded that she could achieve her own ambition more readily by being with me than on her own, and marriage was the most expedient way to get her reassigned to my unit.

We signed the forms that evening, for a one-year term, renewable, and next day she was transferred to my unit. For the second time in the Service, I had a liaison with a woman in which convenience was the motivating force, rather than emotion. But Emerald took her wifely perquisites seriously, and I must confess that I liked it. She was motivated to succeed at anything she tried, and her definition of success was demanding. She saw marriage as a legitimization of both sex and common interest, and she was quite good as both sexual partner and intellectual partner. I think I could have loved Emerald, had she wanted to be loved, and had I wanted to love. Certainly I respected her. She was indeed a kind of genius. When our year was up, we renewed without question, and again the following year. Each time I told her: “I married you for your mind, but you conquered me with your body.” And each time she said: “I know it.”