March to the Stars

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Macek spat over the edge of the ridge and shook his head.

"You look into the abyss, and the abyss looks back," he muttered.

"Less philosophy, more climb," Gronningen growled back from where he'd paused on a wide spot at the base of the second peak.

The squad was strung out along a knife-edged ridge, the top of the saddle between two mountains. The "flat" surface was no more than a meter wide, with sheer drops on both sides. And the assault team would have to cross a nearly vertical shoulder of the second peak to get into position above the citadel.

"There was a shelf," Julian said, puffing slightly. The ridge was nearly five thousand meters above Mardukan sea level, which meant that even with the slightly thicker atmosphere, oxygen was in short supply. More than that, Julian had let Gronningen set the pace, knowing the indomitable Asgardian would push them to the limits... and he had. "About another hundred meters up and to the northwest," the NCO added with another pant.

"I think I see it," Gronningen agreed. He dialed up the zoom on his helmet and studied the terrain feature. "Narrow," he opined, then removed his helmet and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. The night had gotten downright cool, and there was a strong wind blowing up from the valley, but the pace had everyone sweating as if they were still in Marduk's jungles. "Really narrow."

"Best His Nibs could spot before sundown," Julian replied, checking his toot for the time. "Four more hours until we need to be on the walls."

"We can make that easily," Gronningen said, replacing his helmet and picking up his pack. "If we keep going, that is."

"Lead on, Mule," Julian said. "Onward and upward."

Julian leaned out from the narrow ledge and sent a laser sweep across the top of the fortress far below.

"Two thousand meters."

"Right at The Book's outside drop limit," Macek said with a dubious headshake. "Long way to fall."

"It is that," Julian agreed unhappily.

The ledge was, indeed, narrow—a thin shelf of slightly harder granite intruded into the surrounding matrix. Some latter-day earth movement had shifted and folded the mountain, thrusting the horizontal dike outwards, exposing it to erosion. Over time, the remnants had become a half-meter wide section of granite, suspended over a two thousand-meter drop.

"It's the only choice we have, though," the squad leader added. "I want everyone to spread out. It looks like we're right over the inner battlements. Watch your distribution, and for God's sake, don't get entangled—this damned spider-wire'll slit you in half if you give it a chance."

"Yeah, but it works," Gronningen said as he surreptitiously attached a clip to the sergeant's descent harness. The combination of his voice and the night wind concealed the tiny sound it made as it clicked home... and then he pushed Julian off the cliff.

There wasn't a thing Julian could do—the blow to his back was too unexpected. He was thrown well out from the cliff, and found himself almost automatically shifting into a delta-track, a sky-diving position for maneuvering. His brain ran frantically through a list of ways to survive the drop, but nothing came to mind, nor could he understand why one of his best friends had just succeeded in killing him.

Macek spun in place, his bead rifle level, but Gronningen held up one hand with a screaming spider reel in it. It was obvious that the other end of the wire was attached to Julian.

"What the pock are you doing, Gron?" the corporal snarled. "You've got about two seconds to explain!"

"Just this," Gronningen said, with a rare smile. He attached the reel to the wall with a mag-clamp and laid on the tension. "I mean, now we know it works, right?"

Julian gazed down at the battlements, a hundred meters below him. He'd been observing them fairly carefully for the last several minutes, since the spider-line had slowed him to a halt. There wasn't much else he could do; the line had him suspended almost head-down.

He heard a faint rattle of rock, and then Gronningen appeared next to him, fully inverted.

"Gronningen, what are you dicking around at?" Julian asked with deadly menace.

" 'I love you, too, man,' " the Asgardian quoted. "You remember in Voitan, I said 'You gonna pay'?"

"Oh, you son-of-a—"

"Ah-ah!" The Asgardian grinned. "I pull this clamp, and it's really gonna smart when you hit the top of that thing."

"Oh, you son-of-a..." Julian stopped and sighed. "Okay. You got me. Jesus, did you get me. I promise, no more jokes. Just... don't do something like that again, okay?"

"You should have seen Geno," Gronningen said with another grin, as he handed a fresh spider-spool across to the squad leader. "I think he nearly burst a blood vessel."

"Well, I'm proof positive that you don't die of fright on the way down," Julian said. "Jesus. This isn't a truce, though. I'm gonna get you. Just you wait."

"I tingle with anticipation," the Asgardian told him with a chuckle. "You got a good grip on that reel?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Good," Gronningen said, and flicked off the clamp that was holding the sergeant suspended.

Julian tried not to scream as he dropped into empty air again.

Macek looked around the top of the battlements with an expression of disbelief. Except for the eternal sighing of the wind, there wasn't a sound to be heard, and there was no one in sight.

"Okay, I'll bite," he whispered. "Where's the guards?"

"I don't know," Julian said. "Not here."

The top of the gatehouse was about thirty meters across, with a trap door at either end. The gate filled the pass from side to side. On the southeast side, a narrower walkway led to the top of the secondary keep, apparently a barracks or headquarters. Gronningen walked back from there, shaking his head, while Macek grimaced.

"Don't tell me they don't post sentries," he said. "That's... insane."

"It's freezing," Julian pointed out. "I mean, it's only about ten degrees out here. If they were out in this, they'd be catatonic, maybe dead."

Gronningen consulted his toot, then nodded with a remote expression.

"Fifty or so, Fahrenheit, yes?" he said. "Not cold, but brisk."

"More than just brisk for scummies, man," Julian said.

"So they just don't guard at all?" Macek asked. "Still not too smart."

"They're used to fighting Shin," the squad leader replied, "and I don't think they can move in this, either. Look at the Vashin. They're all huddled around fires being torpid. This kind of cold can kill Mardukans."

"So they're all inside waiting to hit us on the heads as soon as we stick 'em in there?" Macek asked. "It's a clever plot to lure us to our deaths?"

"No, that was the recruiter who got us to join the Marines," Gronningen said. He walked over to the nearer trap door and pulled at the handle. The door was outsized, designed for Mardukans, and Gronningen was probably the only man in the company who could have lifted it. It didn't even quiver, though, and he knelt down to examine it more closely. Light seeped up around the edges, and he grunted as he found the darker shadow where a latching bar cut across the light.

"Not a problem," Julian said, kneeling beside him. The sergeant slipped a device from his belt and slid the incredibly sharp, flexible ribbon-blade into the crack. It sliced through the half-meter ironwood bar as if it hadn't even been there.

Gronningen was ready, and air hissed in his nostrils as he heaved upward. The door rose a few centimeters, and Julian got under it and threw his own weight against it. Between them, they raised it shoulder high, and Macek propped it up with a piece of wood.

There was no ladder, but it was a simple enough proposition—after climbing the mountain—to lower themselves into the room below. The chamber was about fifteen meters on a side, with a high, domed ceiling, and a stairway in the west corner. It, too, was deserted, with a dead coal fire in a hibachilike affair in the middle of the room.

"That's a quick way to asphyxiate," Macek observed in a whisper.

"Out?" Gronningen murmured, pointing to a door on the east side. "Or down?"

"Down," Julian whispered back promptly, although his expression was puzzled.

The spiral stairs led to a passageway—high for the humans, but low and narrow for Mardukans—that went both right and left, towards the gates and the barracks, respectively.

"Right," Julian said, and led the way.

The passageway turned, apparently following the shoulder of the hill, and opened onto a large room with barred windows through which a cold wind blew. The room was at the base of the gates, and stairs disappeared upward into the gloom where the gate controls were presumably located.

Other than some litter in one corner, the room was empty.

"This is getting silly." This time, Macek didn't bother to whisper.

"We'll try the barracks," Julian said. "There has to be somebody around here."

They followed the same passage back in the opposite direction, towards the barracks. They had to deal with two more barred doors along the way, but finally they entered the main hall of the keep. It was a vaulted monstrosity, with a huge fire pit in the middle and the ubiquitous cushions that served Mardukans for chairs scattered around the pit.

No one was using any of the cushions, however. Instead, the middle of the pit was filled by a group of Mardukans, arranged in a fairly neat pile. Half-burned logs and ash had been dragged out of the center and pushed to the side. Obviously, the Mardukans had set a fire in the pit during the day so that they could sleep on the warmed rock underneath at night.

And every one of them was in the semi-hibernation torpidity that extreme cold induced in their species.

"Oh, puhleeease! " Macek exclaimed in disgust. "This is it?I rode all the way up here, played mountain goat, and then jumped off a damned cliff for this?"

"I think these guys must've taken the shortairbus to school," Julian said. "The Vashin at least try to keep one guy per squad awake. This is idiotic. Geno, get up to the roof and signal the prince. Tell him we've taken the 'fortress.' "

"Will do," Macek said with a sigh. "But this really bites."

"What? You wanted a fight?" Gronningen asked, looking at the heaped Mardukans. The entire garrison's weapons were stacked neatly along one wall, and all of their armor was laid out in ranks. Obviously, they were ready to get up in a few hours, when things warmed up, and start banging horn with the best of them. "I think this is great," the Asgardian announced.

"Whatever," Macek grumped. "It just offends my sense of professionalism."

"And Gomer here pushing me off the cliff didn't?" Julian asked.

"Nah," the corporal replied with a grin. "In fact, that was about the most professional payback I've ever seen!"

The column rounded the last corner of the interminable track just after dawn. It had started to rain again, but with the increased elevation, it was a cold, miserable rain that ate into the Marines' uniforms like acid. The chameleon uniform was, technically, all-environment—capable of handling anything from jungle to arctic. But the Marines had been slogging across a hostile world for nearly six months, and it showed.

The uniforms were a tattered patchwork of different cloths. There were whole sleeves and legs of dianda—the silklike flax of distant Marshad—as mute testimony to the terrible battle at Voitan. The dianda, in turn, was patched with the fine sedgelike cloth of K'Vaern's Cove and Diaspra. All of the patches were of faded dark cloth, which had the virtue of low visibility but blended poorly with the changeable chameleon cloth.

The Marines looked as faded as their uniforms. Their faces were drawn and pale, from the ascent into the mountains, from the cold, from the ongoing low-level vitamin deficiencies of their coll-oil supplements substitute, and from the omnipresence of war. All in all, Roger thought, the company looked on its last legs.

He walked to the front of the column and waved an ironic salute at Captain Pahner.

"I make you a gift of the Fortress of Shesul Pass, with fifty turom, one hundred and twenty rather questionable soldiers, and a rich booty of small arms," he announced, and Pahner chuckled.

"I think you're getting too into this, Your Highness."

"Just trying to make like a Roman, Captain," Roger replied with a grin. "Seriously, we should probably rest up for a day or two before we move on."

"We can't discount pursuit," Pahner pointed out.

"No," the prince agreed. "But when you get a good look at this place, I think you'll agree we can also leave a nonexpendable rearguard to hold any pursuit off." He waved to O'Casey as she joined them.

"Ms. O'Casey." He greeted her with a nod. "The mountain air appears to agree with you," he said, and it was true. In many ways, the academic looked better than the Marines about her.

"That's a long walk to force on an old woman," his chief of staff replied.

"Well, the captain has almost convinced me to let you take a break," Roger joked. "The Krath must've had plans for this pass; the facility's area is far larger than necessary for the garrison. There are sufficient quarters to house all of us in relative comfort, although they don't appear to have discovered the chimney, so the fires fill the rooms with smoke."

"If you don't mind, Captain," Doc Dobrescu said, dropping down from one of the passing carts, "I have to agree. We've got a lot of wounded and injured, and these carts are pure hell on them. Give them a couple of days under a roof and warm, and they'll be able to heal much faster."

"All right," Pahner said. "We'll stay. Two days. Your Highness, I assume the Vashin are down from the cold as well?"

"They're not doing well," Roger agreed. "Actually, they're more used to it than I expected, probably from being from the northern plains, but the most they can do is to maintain sentries."

"We'll let them rest as well," Pahner decided. "We should be able to go down to about ten percent security. I'd really prefer to put out a sentry group down the valley, but we'll settle for putting them up on the walls. Sergeant Major!"

"Yes, Sir," Kosutic replied. The carts had reached the open bailey of the fortress and were now stopped in a line. Roger noticed that most of them were being driven by Marines, and the handful of native teamsters driving the rest had small charcoal braziers burning under their seats.

"We're stopping here for a day or two," Pahner told Kosutic. "Leave the carts mostly packed; there should be stores in the castle, and we'll live off of them. Ten percent security, Marines only. Get everybody bunked down and working on gear."

"Yes, Sir," Kosutic repeated, making no effort to conceal her obvious relief. The sergeant major was like iron, but she knew when a unit was on its last legs. Now she looked up and shook her head.

"Speak of the devil," she said, and grinned as Julian walked towards the command group. But the intelligence sergeant didn't grin back, and her own smile faded as she absorbed his expression.

"Sirs," he said, nodding at the officers, then held up a small device. "I found this in the commander's quarters."

Pahner accepted it, turned it over in his hands, and frowned at the maker's mark.

"A Zuiko tri-cam?" he mused.

"I think they must have been in contact with the port," Julian said darkly. "We may have a real problem, Sir."

"Maybe," Roger said. "And maybe not. We need to find out where it came from. Get some of the locals functional and find out."

"Yes, Sir," the sergeant said. He turned towards the fortress' main entrance, then stopped. "Or, maybe not."

One of Rastar's Vashin was walking slowly towards them, trailing a plume of smoke. One of the ways the cavalry coped with the cold was by toting small braziers of charcoal around with them like incense censors.

"Captain Pahner," the cavalryman said slowly when he finally reached the group, and saluted. "Marine. Gronningen. Has. Found. A human." The sentence seemed to have taken everything he had, and he dropped his salute and stood like a statue.

"We have got to get lower. Soon," Kosutic said to fill the gap in the conversation.

They'd all known that this moment would come, but this was the first "new" human they'd had contact with since crashing on the planet. And while the Mardukans might have stopped them from getting off-planet at any time, the humans could stop them if they realized what they faced. How to handle the local humans had been considered and debated at vast and exhausting length, but it had been impossible to make any clear plans without more information than they had. Now the moment of reckoning was upon them.

"Well, I guess we'd better go meet him," Pahner said finally.

Harvard Mansul wished he had his camera. Of course, he might as well have wished he were back at Society headquarters on Old Earth, while he was at it. As a matter of fact, he did wish that, too, but he was a realist. He would have settled for getting the tri-cam back intact. The Zuiko was tough—it had to be, to survive around him—but it wasn't invulnerable, and sooner or later they would open it up to find out how it worked.

At which point, it would stop. Working, that was.

When he wasn't worrying about his tri-cam, he passed the time in his rather dank cell by wondering how long it would take the Society to mount a rescue. If they ever bothered. He'd reached the point of regretting his habit of disappearing for years at a time. Considering his stint on Scheherazade, the Society might not start looking for decades.

He sighed and banged on the door again. Usually the horned-ones roused before now, and he looked forward to the morning exercise time. But so far, there'd been virtually no sound filtering down to his little stone cube today.

"Hellooo! It's morning!Would you kind gentlemen mind letting me out?"

"I felt it was best to let you handle it, Sir," the private said. "I didn't know how you wanted to play it, or even if you wanted him to know we were here, so I sent one of the Vashin down to check on him. He's been... kind of loud."

"Okay, come on," Roger said. "Let's find out what they caught."

"I wonder if they were keeping him tucked away in the larder for munchies later?" Kosutic mused.

"I doubt it," O'Casey said. "I haven't seen a trace of any religious items here in the fortress. I think they probably just picked him up somewhere and stashed him until they were told what to do with him."

"Given our own experience, I can guess what that would have been," Roger snorted, leading the way down the flight of stone steps and along the narrow—for a Mardukan—passageway. They reached the cell door, and he threw back the bolt and pulled it open.

"And who might you be, Sir?" he asked cheerfully.

Mansul looked up at the human confronting him and frowned in puzzlement. Judging by the remains of the uniform, the person was an Imperial Marine. Given the rest of his appearance, he was probably also a deserter, because no Marine of Mansul's acquaintance who wasn't a deserter would ever have allowed his uniform to get into such a state.

The man in the cell door was not just a full head taller than Mansul. He was also either very clean-shaven, or had almost no facial hair. Good bone structure, a hint of pre-Diaspora Asian around the eyes, but otherwise very classically Northern European. Great hair falling in a golden mass, too. He'd make a wonderful picture all around, the photographer decided. Then there was the odd rifle—chemical propellant, by the look of it—and the long sword tossed over his back. Quite the neobarb. Absolutely perfect. Even the lighting was good.

It really made him wish those horned barbarians hadn't taken his camera.

Mansul took another look, and it was actually the family resemblance that caught him first. One of his last assignments before Marduk had been to cover the Imperial Family when Her Majesty had celebrated the Heir's birthday. Mansul couldn't remember having seen a shaggy, broad-shouldered, sword-toting barbarian standing around to help cut the cake or pour the punch, yet the young man before him had the distinctive MacClintock brow. So who—?

"Good God!" he heard himself exclaim. "I thought you were dead!"

Roger couldn't help himself. The astonishment in the prisoner's expression and voice was simply too great, and a trace of his own recent classical reading came to mind. Despite the response he knew it would elicit from O'Casey, he simply couldn't resist.

"I am happy to say that the news of my demise was exceedingly exaggerated." He waited for the groans to stop behind him, then held out his hand. "I'm His Highness Prince Roger Ramius Alexander Chiang MacClintock. And you are?"

"Harvard Mansul," the man replied in a voice which was still half stunned. "Imperial Astrographic Society. You've been here the whole time?"

"I've been on Marduk, yes," Roger said. "The rest is a somewhat long story. And I believe we've gotten hold of some of your property." He held out a hand to Pahner for the tri-cam, then passed it over.

Mansul gave the item for which he had so passionately longed for more than a week barely a glance, then flicked the lenses open.

"Smile."

Roger knocked on the door, waited for the quiet voice from the other side to respond, then opened it, looked around, and grinned.

"Private room, I see," he observed. "Very nice."

"Quite the little love nest," Despreaux replied. She was propped up on a pile of cushions on the floor, her arm immobilized in the force-cast. Her face was slightly gray, she was still covered in mud from the trek, and bits of leaf and dirt were caught in her hair and on her pants. Any other woman would've looked like hell, Roger thought, but Nimashet Despreaux managed to come across like a tri-dee star made up to look like a maiden in distress.

"I'm really upset with you," Roger said, sitting down and taking her good hand. "You're supposed to take care of yourself better than this."

"I tried," she said, and leaned against him. "God, I'm tired of this."

"Me, too," Roger said as he wrapped an arm carefully around her.

"Liar. You're dreading getting back to court, aren't you?"

Roger paused for a moment, then shrugged.

"Yes," he admitted. "Marduk is... uncomplicated. We make friends, or we don't. We negotiate, or we kick ass. It's black and white, most of the time. Court is... all negotiation. It's all gray. It's all who you pissed off last, and people jockeying for position. There's nobody to..."

"To watch your back?" she finished for him, leaning into him. "I will."

"You've never had to deal with the court ladies as a 'person,' " he replied. "You were just a Marine; you didn't count." He shook his head, eyes troubled. "It'll be different now, and their knives go right through armor."

"So do mine, love," she said, twisting carefully around until she could look him in the eye. "And, Roger, the Marines see everything, they hear everything. And you're going to be supported in a way that I doubt even another MacClintock ever was. We're going to be at your back."

He picked a bit of leaf gently out of her hair.

"I love you," he said.

"I look like hell," she snorted. "You're just trying to make me feel better."

"You look great," he said huskily. "Absolutely beautiful."

She looked at him for a moment, then pulled his head down to hers. The kiss lasted a long time, while Roger ran his fingers up and down her back. But finally she drew back with a snort.

"So that's it," she said. "You just like me when I'm immobilized!"

"I always like you. I was in love the first time I saw you out of armor, although I'll admit I was a bit..."

"Intimidated?" Despreaux supplied.

"Yes," he admitted. "Intimidated is probably the right word. You're a bit overpowering, and I really didn't want to get into a relationship. But... you're as good as it gets."

"Your mother is going to go spastic," Despreaux said. "I mean, completely ballistic."

"I don't really care about Mother's reaction," he replied. "Frankly, after what we've gone through, Mother is going to owe me, big time. And it's not as if I were the heir, so I'm not exactly a great dynastic match. Mother can kiss my ass before I'll give you up."

"I love it when you talk dirty," she said, and pulled him down for another kiss.

Roger ran his hands up her sides, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. After a moment, the hands migrated around to the front, as if by their own accord, and ran across her midriff in subtle fingertip touches. She writhed to the side, pushing up her T-shirt, and—

There was a discreet knock on the door.

"Shit," Roger muttered with intense feeling. Then he sighed, sat up, and raised his voice. "Yes?"

"Your Highness," Corporal Bebi said from the far side of the door, "Captain Pahner wants a command conference in seven minutes in the fortress commander's office. Sergeant Despreaux is excused on account of her injury."

Roger didn't have to see the private's face. His tone alone made it eloquently clear that butter would never melt in his mouth.

"I told you the Marines know everything," Despreaux whispered, pulling her top down with a moue of disappointment.

"Seven minutes?" Roger asked.

"It... took a few minutes to find you, Your Highness," Bebi explained, and Despreaux took the opportunity to run her hands up Roger's back.

"I'll—" Roger cleared his throat. "I'll be right there."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Two minutes to run from here to the commander's office," Despreaux said. "Now, where were we?"

"If I turn up out of breath and rearranging my clothes, everyone will know where I was," Roger said.

"Rogerrr," Despreaux said dangerously.

"On the other hand," he said, leaning back down towards her, "they can kiss my ass, too."

She smiled in delight as he ran his hands up her back once more. He leaned even closer, her lips parted, and—

There was a discreet knock on the door.

"Bloody... what?"

"Your Highness," Dobrescu said diplomatically, "I know you have a conference in a minute, but I'd like to talk to you about Cord."

Roger shoved himself to his feet, shaking his head and breathing heavily, as Despreaux rearranged her clothes again.

"Come!" the Heir Tertiary to the Throne of Man said grimly.

"What now?" Sergeant Despreaux whispered.

Most of the supplies the Krath had laid in were stored in boxes of boiled turom leather. At first, going over the collection in the citadel's storerooms had been a bit like a very leathery Christmas. But after a few hours of opening boxes and cataloging contents, Poertena and Denat were getting worn out.

"Dried and salted fish." Denat slammed the top of the box closed and resealed it. "More damned dried and salted fish! I'm surprised these Krath didn't grow gills."

"T'ey needed to grow some damned brains," Poertena said. The company was still chuckling about Julian's find. "You scummies are frigging weird when it gets cold."

"Well, at least we don't go around bitching about a decently warm day," Denat snapped back. "How many times have I seen one of you Marines writhing on the ground over a little heat?!"

"Hey, I t'ink t'at was Pentzikis, and heatstroke's no joke!" Poertena protested. "I was only kidding! Get a pocking grip—we're almost done here."

"Well, pock you, you shrimp!" the Mardukan snarled. "I'm done. You finish. If you can even lift the boxes!"

"Denat, what's eating you?" Poertena asked, and there was genuine alarm in his tone. The Mardukan was trembling, as if he were having a fit. "We can quit t'is if we need to. You don' look so good."

"I'm fine!" Denat bellowed. He grasped his horns and yanked furiously at them. "I'm fine. I'll... aaaarh!"

Poertena thought very hard about keeping his mouth shut, but he'd just noticed something, and it was really bothering him.

"Uh, Denat?" the armor asked carefully. "Did you know t'at t'e bases of your horns were swelling?"

Roger smiled and accepted the candied apsimon from O'Casey.

"Ah, for the days of kate fruit!" he sighed.

The main command group had gathered, and he turned to the newest member of their party.

"So, Harvard. What in hell are you doing here?"

The IAS journalist set down his basik leg and wiped his hands fastidiously.

"It was a routine assignment, Your Highness. Not much has been done on Marduk, since there's not a regular passenger line that stops here. There was an IAS piece back in your grandfather's time, when they were first planning on opening the planet to colonization, but since then, nothing. And that piece just covered the Krath capital. At the time, the Shin were more or less at peace with the Krath, and a sidebar about the Shin in the article caught my editor's eye. He sent me out to get a story about the 'mountain tribes.' "

He took a sip of wine and shook his head.

"I knew as soon as I landed that things had changed. The only information on the planet available was the earlier IAS article and two studies of Mardukan sociology and planetography. They didn't say much, but there were obvious sociological changes in the Krath capital. Among other things, when I tried to get updated photos of their religious celebrations, I was barred from their temples."

"Updated?" O'Casey asked. "The previous IAS team had gotten pictures? And included them in its article?"

"Yes, the Krath were very open about their ceremonies," Mansul said. "It was a highly ascetic religion, similar in some ways to Buddhism, stressing personal restraint and meditation. The ceremonies involved small sacrifices of grain and meat to the God of Fire. Most of the contributions actually went to the priests, who were also the primary researchers and archivists, to pay for their upkeep. I don't know what they're doing now, but the rate of sacrifices has certainly gone up, if the smoke from the fires is any indication."

"You might say there have been a few... liturgical changes," Roger said darkly. "I wonder what bright person introduced them to the concept of human sacrifice?"

Mansul choked on his wine.

"Human sacrifice?"

"Well, Mardukan, mostly," Roger said. "Cannibalism, too." He took another bite of apsimon and grimaced at the taste.

"I take it you find their transition... unusual?" O'Casey asked Mansul.

"To put it mildly." The IAS photographer wiped daintily at the spilled wine. "All of the source material on the Krath religion insists that it's an ascetic faith, similar in some respects to Taoism in ancient China. Or, at least, that was the case when the original IAS team came through. Its sacrificial aspects were personal: meditation, and acts of generosity. They didn't even sacrifice turom!"

"Well, they sacrifice their slaves, now," the chief of staff said flatly. "And then they eat them. We saw the inside of the temples. And the kitchens and the bone pits."

"Are all the slaves from the Shin?" the journalist asked.

"I don't know," O'Casey admitted, "and our local Shin guide seems to be missing."

"She's tending to Cord," Roger said. He glanced at Mansul. "It's a long story."

"I like long stories," Mansul admitted. "Once they're boiled down, they make excellent articles. Why don't you tell it to me?"

"Where to start?" Roger asked.

"Start at the beginning," Pahner advised. "Go to the end—"

"—and fill in all the stuff in the middle." Roger nodded. "Okay."

"But maybe later," the Marine added. "We need to determine what happens next. Mr. Mansul, you came from the port?"

"Yes, and there are problems there, too."

"Saints," Roger said.

"Really? That I hadn't noticed. What I did notice was that the governor did not want any humans drifting out of the compound. He hadn't been apprised of my visit, and he acted like I was an Imperial spy. Frankly, I was starting to wonder if I was going to be an 'accidental death' when one of the locals offered to smuggle me out. I fell in with the Shin, and I was with a village south of Mudh Hemh when a Krath raiding party fell on the group I was filming. They took the Shin with them to Kirsti, but left me here, presumably for repatriation. Or maybe to wait for the governor to recover me. And then you happened along."

"How were you 'smuggled out'?" Pahner asked.

"There are breaks in the defenses," Mansul replied. "Contraband moves in and out." He shrugged. "I was just one more package."

"Now that's interesting," Roger said.

"Isn't it, just?" the captain agreed.

"Oh, there's more," Mansul said. "There's a small... colony, might be the right word... of humans living among the Shin. Others who have run afoul of the governor's bully boys. There's about fifteen or twenty of them, and supplies are funneled to them from somewhere."

"From where?" Julian asked.

"That I don't know, although I think the local chieftain does. These people aren't given to charity. He'd only be supporting the refugees if there was a reason."

"Satan," Kosutic sighed. "Complicateder and complicateder."

"Yeah," Roger said. "And no. The basics are the same, maybe even easier, if their security is so lax smugglers can move in and out at will. We need to get to Mudh Hemh and make contact with this Shin leader."

"Pedi Gastan," Mansul inserted.

"Pedi Gastan?" Pahner repeated sharply.

"Why, yes." Mansul looked surprised. "You've heard of him?"

"You might say that." Roger's expression was a cross between a grimace and a smile. "Truth being stranger than fiction, we rescued his daughter from pirates." Mansul blinked, and the prince chuckled. "But what I don't quite understand," he went on, "is why we didn't hear anything about this 'colony' of humans from her." He gazed at the photographer with just an edge of suspicion. "She's been very open with us, as far as we can tell, and she's never even heard of humans, much less anything about any refugees her father might be shielding."

"I don't know why she wouldn't have," Mansul said slowly. "I only met the Gastan briefly, and my understanding is that the refugees' existence is kept very secret. In fact, none of us are allowed in Mudh Hemh at all. Instead, he keeps the 'colony' hidden away in one of the really remote vales under the eye of a very small clan. I was on my way there when my escorts and I ran into the Krath. I suppose it's possible that even his daughter might not know what he was up to."

"I guess anything is possible," Roger allowed slowly. Then he snorted. "Of course, some things are more possible than others, and keeping a secret from Pedi strikes me as one of life's more difficult endeavors!"

"But it is possible," O'Casey said. "And if the Krath are in contact with the port, and if the Gastan knows it, then he'd have every imaginable reason to keep the Krath from finding out that he was, too."

"But could he really keep it so secret that Pedi hadn't even heard about humans at all?" Roger asked a bit skeptically.

"Probably he could," O'Casey replied. "Don't forget that this is a pre-technic society, Roger. I know there's a trading interface between the Krath and the Shin, but every bit of information has to be passed by word-of-mouth, and I doubt very much the there's anything like a true information flow between the Shin and the people who keep slaughtering them as religious sacrifices. So even if the Krath know about the human presence here on Marduk, they probably don't discuss it with the Shin. Anyway, it's obvious from the way most of the Kirsti population have reacted to us that the existence of humans isn't general knowledge even among them."

She shook her head.

"I'd say that it's entirely possible that the very existence of humans is restricted to the uppermost levels of Krath society this far from the port itself. In which case, it's probably entirely possible that the Gastan could keep the secret even from his own people. Of course," she frowned thoughtfully, "I'd love to know how this human managed to contact him in the first place."

"You may have a point," Roger conceded, and nodded to Mansul. "You were saying before we interrupted?" he invited.

"Well, if you've rescued the Gastan's daughter, that should work out well," the reporter said, trying not to show his relief as the hard light of suspicion dimmed just a bit in the prince's dangerous green eyes. "I think he's on our side, anyway, but—"

There was a knock at the door, and then Poertena stuck his head in without waiting for permission.

"Beggin' you pardon, You Highness, but I need Doc Dobrescu right pocking now! Somet'ing's wrong with Denat. I t'ink he going nuts!"

"Go," Pahner and Roger said simultaneously. Then they looked at each other for a moment before Roger gestured at Pahner.

"I think we're about done here," the captain continued smoothly. "Doc, you go. Julian, wring everything you can out of the prisoners about the rest of the route to the Shin lands. Sergeant Major, everyone else is on full rest and refit. I want us to be in good condition when we leave. Let's get to it."

"And I'll go find out what's wrong with Denat," Dobrescu said.

"Any ideas?" Roger asked.

"I haven't even looked at him yet, Your Highness," the medic protested. "And I'm a shuttle pilot, not a psychologist. I'll keep you posted, though."

Warrant Dobrescu followed Poertena into the small supply office that the Pinopan and Denat had taken over and shook his head at the Mardukan.

"What have you been sniffing, Denat?"

"I'm fine," the Mardukan said. He was shivering, his body sliming heavily, and a reddish bulge had appeared around the base of each of his horns. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, Poertena. But I'll be fine. This will pass."

"What is it?" Dobrescu asked, setting down and laying out his med-scanner. The scanner could pick up a lot even from a distance, and it showed Denat's heart and metabolic rate off the scale. The Mardukan was actually at an elevated temperature compared to ambient, which was very unusual. "Poertena said you'd been grouchy lately, and he told me about what just happened. I need to know what's going on."

"It's... a Mardukan thing," Denat said. A shudder ran through his massive body.

"I kind of need to know a little more than that," the medic persisted. "I have to tell Captain Pahner something. That's a human thing."

"It's nothing!" Denat shouted, banging all four fists on the massive, ironwood desk so furiously that the eight-hundred-kilo piece of furniture leapt into the air.

"Denat, according to my instruments, you're coming apart at the seams," Dobrescu said mildly. "Why not tell me what's wrong?"

"Because nothing's wrong," the Mardukan ground out. "This is perfectly normal."

"Then what is it?" the warrant officer asked reasonably.

Denat looked at him, rubbing his hands together in distress. Then he sighed, and told him.

Pedi removed the rags from around the injury and dropped them into the solution the healer had given her, then reached for fresh dressings. She and the two other released slaves had been caring for Cord ever since the injury. The wound itself was mostly healed, but he still wouldn't awaken, and he was getting even more restless and warmer. Lately, though, she'd at least been able to get him to take a little food, and he'd been muttering under his breath. She'd picked up a few words of his home language before he was wounded, but not enough to recognize much of what he was saying, although the word "banan" was close to "benan," so perhaps he was talking to her.

She opened a jar of lotion and began smoothing it on the dry patches in his skin. She'd picked up some of his background, more from talking to the humans and Denat than from him, and she realized what a valued person he must have been in his home country. To come to such knowledge as he had developed was hard for the sort of backcountry village from which he'd sprung, and men—warriors especially—who gathered that much training and understanding were extremely valuable to any tribe. She suspected that the human prince, surrounded as he was by a plethora of warriors and scholars, didn't know what a wrench it must have been for both Cord and his people to lose him.

And she had to admit that it would be a wrench for the human to lose him. And for her. The old shaman was one of the finest men she'd ever met; strong, yet gentle and wise. Knowledgeable, but physically brave, and often humble to a fault. It was hard to find such qualities anywhere, and she had to admit that they were even harder to find amongst the Shin than most places.

Because the medic didn't know if the increased body heat might cause mental damage—surely a horrible thought!—they had been wrapping the shaman's head in cool cloths. She started to replace the current cloths, then stopped with a gasp.

She laid her hands on the swellings at the base of the shaman's horns and felt a shudder pass through her body. She had to fight conflicting emotions, but finally she drew a deep breath, pulled back the light sheet that covered him, and took a peek before she quickly dropped it back again.

She sat back, thinking hard, and many things fell abruptly into place. She remembered what Light O'Casey had said about the language similarity, and she thought about the ramifications of the situation. She thought about them very carefully, and then, last of all, she thought of the sight of Cord coming over the railing of the pirate ship.

"Oh, Pedi, this is such a bad idea," she whispered as she pulled the sheet all the way back.

"What we have here is a failure to communicate," Dobrescu said with a chuckle.

He'd asked Captain Pahner, the sergeant major, and the prince to meet him in the stores office. They had—and they'd also reacted predictably to the sight of Denat's trembling body and bulging forehead.

"What the hell does that mean?" Roger demanded. "Denat, are you okay?"

"Aside from wanting to kill you, I'm fine," the Mardukan grated. "And that has nothing to do with your being a prince. You just spoke to me, is all."

"Is it a good idea to do this here?" Pahner asked.

"He should be fine," Dobrescu said soothingly. "And we'll leave in just a second. But the actual problem is fairly simple: he's in heat."

"In what?" Kosutic asked. "That's a... Oh, yeah."

"That's right. Mardukan 'males' are functionally and technically females, by our standards," Dobrescu said. "And vice versa. Denat's sex produces the eggs, the other sex produces the sperm. When the time comes, and the two, ahem, 'get together,' Denat's sex use their... notable organs to implant their eggs in the other sex.

"He's currently ovulating. Which means, evolutionarily speaking, that he should be battling other 'males' for a chance to mate. Thus the horn prominences and other signs. Unfortunately..."

"I have no mate here," Denat growled. "And I won't simply wander around, howling into the wilderness while I look for anything to couple with."

"In a way, he ought to," Dobrescu said. "Mate, that is. From a population standpoint, it's a bad idea to take one of these guys out of the equation."

"The problem of conservation you were talking about a while back," Kosutic said.

"Yes, because the sex that produces the eggs only does so twice per year. If they don't implant the other sex, they lose the chance for a long period, statistically speaking," Dobrescu said. "The reason the Kranolta took such a beating after they overwhelmed Voitan was that their egg-producers were scattered all over hell and gone."

"Can the—I have to think of them as females," Pahner said. "Can the females accept the eggs at any time?"

"Yes. They maintain a sort of 'sperm sac,' equivalent to the vans in humans," Dobrescu said with a slight smile for the captain's obvious discomfort. "The eggs are implanted by... well, we've all seen the ovipositors. Once implanted, they're joined by the sperm in the region, and become fetuses. I've been looking forward to watching the development, but we've always missed that stage. There were some in development in Marshad, but I didn't get much of a look at them."

"I didn't see them at all," Kosutic said. "Pregnant Mardukan females?"

"Yeah," the medic said. "The fetus sacs form what look like blisters on their backs."

"So..." Pahner began, then paused. "I just discovered that I don't want to know the details. Or, at least, while I'll be interested in reading your report, I don't want to discuss it at the moment. Is this important to the mission?"

"Just from a medical perspective," Dobrescu said. "The only military consideration I see is that I wouldn't expect them to be much use from a military point of view during their heat."

"Are all of them going to start acting like this?" Kosutic asked. "Denat is a fairly controlled fellow, but if the Vashin and Diasprans get hit, we're going to have some big-time fights. I don't want to even try to imagine what Erkum Pol would be like, for example."

"I don't know what their season is," Dobrescu admitted. "The Vashin and Diasprans, I mean. It could happen, and when it does, it will probably happen all at once. Denat's from a different area, and it seems to be seasonally affiliated. Which is probably all to the good at the moment. He's the only Mardukan from that area with us."

"Wrong, Doc," Roger said. "Cord and Denat come from the same village."

"Ouch!" Dobrescu grimaced and shook his head. "Good point, Your Highness. I need to check him out and find out if he's got the same condition. If he does, it might explain some of the strange stuff that's been going on with him since he was hurt."

"Please do," Roger said, and stood up. "Denat, sorry, man. Wish there was something we could do."

"It's all right," the Mardukan said. "Now that I know what's going on, I can focus on controlling it." He gave a gesture of rueful humor. "I wish that I were in Marshad, though."

"What was her name?" Roger asked. "The spy girl in Marshad?"

"Sena," Denat whispered.

"Well, if you're still..." the prince paused, looking for the right term.

" 'In season,' is probably the easiest way to refer to it," Dobrescu said with a grin.

"If you're still 'in season' when we take the port, we'll see what we can do," Roger said with a sigh. "Otherwise, I guess you'll just have to grit your teeth."

"I've always recommended cold showers, myself," Kosutic said with a grin. "But that's probably contraindicated for a Mardukan, huh?"

"We need to consider the ramifications of this long-term," Pahner said. "Doc, as soon as you check Shaman Cord out, I want you to try to determine how soon the rest will go... into 'season.' We need to be able to plan around that."

"Yes, Sir," the warrant officer said. "Personally, though, I plan on taking that week off. These guys can be downright touchy."