March Upcountry

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The jungle wore mist like a shroud. This was a cloud forest more than a rain forest—a condition of eternal damp and fog rather than a place of rain.

But it was also a transition zone. Soon the company would pass out of it into the enveloping green hell of the jungle below. Soon their vision would be blocked by lianas and underbrush, not mist. Soon they would be in the cloaking darkness of the rain forest understory, but for now there were only tall trees, very similar in many respects to the trees on the desert side of the mountains, and the omnipresent mist.

"This sucks," said Lance Corporal St. John, (M.). Sergeant Major Kosutic required him to respond that way—"St. John, M."—because he had an identical twin in Third Platoon, St. John, (J.) She also required each of them to have a distinguishing mark at all times. In St. John (M.)'s case, it was that one side of his head was shaved bald, and he reached up to scratch under his helmet as he looked around at the steamy twilight.

The temperature was over 46 degrees, 115 Fahrenheit, and the fog was dense and hot, like being in a steam bath, and nearly impenetrable. Visibility was no more than ten meters, and the helmets' sensors were overwhelmed by the conditions. Even the sonics were defeated by the swirling, choking steam. St. John (M.) turned to bitch some more to the plasma gunner behind him... just in time to be hit by a high-pitched squeal in his right ear.

"Eyow!"

"What?" PFC Talbert asked as the lance yanked off his helmet. The two of them were covering the right flank of the company, slightly out of line with the point man and fifty meters back.

"Ow!" the grenadier said, banging the helmet into a convenient tree trunk. "Goddamn feedback! I think this damned steam blew out a circuit."

Talbert laughed and let her plasma rifle dangle on its sling as she slapped a stingfly on her neck and fished in her jacket with the other hand. She extracted a brown tube.

"Smoke?"

"Nah," St. John (M.) snarled. He put the helmet on his head and yanked it off again. "Shit." He reached into the depths and pulled a harness plug, then held it up to his ear again. "Ah, that got it. But I just lost half my sensors."

Talbert popped the brown tube into her mouth and tapped the end to light it, then paused and looked around at the mists.

"Did you hear something?" she asked, hitching up her plasma rifle cautiously.

"I can't hear shit," St. John (M.) said. The big lance corporal rubbed his ear. "Nothing but chirping crickets!"

"Doesn't matter," Talbert said around the nicstick. The mild derivative of tobacco had a low-level of pseudonicotine and was otherwise harmless. It was, however, just about as addictive as regular tobacco. "Sensors can't do shit in this cra—"

St. John (M.) spun in place like a snake as the scream began behind him.

Talbert, shrieking like a soul in hell, was connected to one of the trees by a short, wiggling worm. The worm stretched down from perhaps a meter over head height and was connected to the curve where shoulder met neck. Even as the corporal watched, frozen, the juncture spurted bright red arterial blood, and the worm snatched Talbert up into the air.

St. John (M.) was shocked out of coherent thought, but he was also a veteran, and his hands jacked the belt of high explosive rounds out of his grenade launcher without any conscious order from his brain. They were reaching for a shotgun shell when Gunnery Sergeant Lai appeared out of the mist. The senior NCO paused for no more than a heartbeat to take in the situation, then blew the worm off the tree with her bead rifle.

The plasma gunner hit the ground like a sack of wet cement, then broke into convulsions. The ululating shrieks never stopped as her arms and legs spasmed on the ground, tearing up handfuls of dark, wet soil.

Lai dropped the bead rifle and ripped the first-aid kit off her combat harness. She threw herself onto the writhing plasma gunner and covered the spurting wound on her neck with a self-sealing bandage. But even as she did so, the wound erupted with red, streaming jelly. The smart bandage expanded to cover the bleeding areas, looking for clear undamaged tissue to bond to, but the damage spread faster than the bandage as flesh-eating poisons began dissolving the proteins under the skin that bound the private's flesh together.

Lai cut the gunner's camouflage jacket open with a combat knife as the subcutaneous hemorrhaging spread. She whipped out another bandage, but it was obviously useless as black-and-red pools of destruction crossed the private's tanned torso. The skin around the initial puncture broke, and a slit ripped open down Talbert's ribs as blood, fats, and dissolved muscle poured out onto the forest floor.

The plasma gunner went into fresh paroxysms as the blackness spread and both of her exercise-flattened breasts melted into pools and washed out through the slash in her chest.

Lai backed away in horror as the black blood spread up the Marine's neck and the skin and muscles of her face fell flaccid against the bones of her skull.

Final dissolution didn't take all that long. It only seemed like hours until the private stopped thrashing and screaming.

"What the fuck is this, a picnic?" Sergeant Major Kosutic snarled. She shoved one private towards the perimeter and looked the platoon sergeant in the eye. "We need a perimeter, not a cluster fuck!"

The group around the incident broke up, scattering towards guard positions, as she strode through them.

"Okay, what happened?" She looked down at the skeleton at her feet and blanched. "Satan! What did that? And who is it?"

"It was jus'... it was..." St. John (M.) said incoherently. He was swinging from side to side, training his grenade launcher up into the treetops of the surrounding forest. He was obviously still in shock, so Kosutic looked at Lai.

"Gunny?"

Lai hefted her bead rifle and looked around at the trees, wide-eyed.

"It was some sort of worm." She kicked what was left of the invertebrate where it had fallen at the base of the tree. "It bit her, or stung her, or something. When I got here, it was pulling her up into the tree. I shot it off of her, but she just... she just..." The sergeant stopped and retched, still searching the enveloping mists for more of the worms.

"She just... that," she finished, gesturing to but not looking at the partial skeleton at her feet.

Kosutic pulled out her combat knife and prodded the alien carcass. It was darkly patterned, with noticeable blue patches along its back. All that was left after Lai's bead rifle had blown it apart was ten centimeters or so of the base. What appeared to be the back end had several pod-feet with hooks. One of them still had a bit of bark attached, indicating where it hung out. Literally. And the business end apparently... dissolved people. She stood up, stuck the knife back into her combat harness, and wiped her hands.

"Nasty."

Captain Pahner appeared out of the mist, trailed by Prince Roger and his pet scummy. The captain padded up and looked down at the casualty.

"Problems, Sergeant Major?"

"Well," she said grimly, pulling at an earlobe, "point's not going to be a favorite spot."

Cord walked over to the group gathered around the skeleton and snapped his lower fingers.

"Yaden cuol," he said, and Kosutic raised an eyebrow at Roger.

"'Vampire' what, Your Highness?" Her toot had picked up the "yaden," but the second word wasn't yet in its vocabulary.

"Vampire... baby?" Roger suggested doubtfully. He wore an odd, introspective expression, and the sergeant major realized he was communing with the software. "I'm beginning to think this language program is making too many assumptions. I think it means larva of whatever the vampires are."

"How do we fight it, Sir?" Gunny Lai was beginning to get over her shock, and she turned almost pleadingly to the prince. "Talbert was a good troop. St. John (M.), too. I doubt they were fucking off. And it's camouflaged to the max. How the fuck do you fight something like that? No motion, no heat, hardly any electrical field?"

Roger let loose with a stream of liquid syllables and clicks. The scummy knocked his lower hands together and let loose a string back. Then he looked around, knocked his hands together again, and shrugged his cape up to cover his head, shoulders, and neck.

"Well," the prince said doubtfully, "he says that you need to start paying attention. He says he's watched us walking, and we never look 'hard enough' or we look at the wrong things. He also says that these worm-things hang out in the trees and are hard to see, so if you put something up to cover your head and shoulders you're better off."

Cord produced another spurt of syllables and gestured around the woods. He pulled the cape back down and clapped his hands again, and Roger nodded and gave a grim snort.

"He also says that they're just about the most horrible things in the woods, but not the most dangerous. They can't move very fast, except to strike, so you can easily kill them with a spear. He said, 'Wait until you face an atul-grack,' whatever that is. And these... killer caterpillars... sometimes come in groups.

"He's pretty philosophical about it," Roger added. "That handclapping gesture is a shrug. Basically, 'Life's a bitch—' "

" '—and then you die,' " Kosutic finished with a nod. "Got it."

Eleanora's feet slid out from under her on the muddy hillside, and she landed flat on her rump. The jarring impact sent shooting pains all the way up her spine and into her skull, and she started to slip down the hill. She scrambled wildly for some sort of braking grip, but without success until a hand snapped out and caught the light rucksack on her back. She looked over her shoulder and smiled wearily at her savior.

"Thank you, Kostas," she said with a sigh.

She rolled over on her stomach and tried to struggle to her feet, but it was no use. She'd been barely staggering along as it was, and between the mud, and the heat, and the biting flies, and the screaming muscles in her back and legs from the last two days of exertion, it was just too much.

"Oh, God," she whispered. "I just want to die and get it over with."

A Mardukan insect, more from curiosity than malice, landed on her ear and started to investigate her ear canal. She summoned a burst of energy to shake her head violently and swat at it, but then she slumped back into the mud.

"Now, now, Ma'am," Matsugae said with a smile. "We're nearly to Cord's village. You can't give up now." The valet hooked a hand in her rucksack's straps and helped her claw her way to her feet.

She swayed in exhaustion and leaned on a tree... carefully. Her arm was covered in a welter of swollen bites from the defenders of a previous support, and since that incident she'd become much more careful where she put her hands. But this tree, at least, didn't seem to want to kill her, and she leaned into it gratefully.

They were below the clouds now, and into the fringe of the planet's all-encompassing jungle. They'd followed the river out of the valley as it grew larger and larger, until finally the ground around it became too marshy to continue along its banks. The company had turned off to the south, but continued to parallel the watercourse, although the gurgle of its passage could be barely distinguished through the background racket of the jungle.

The incessant hum of flying insects was everywhere. The Mardukan version was eight-legged and had a six-winged pattern, as opposed to the terrestrial six-limb/four-wing arrangement. The local bugs also used an aramid polymer, similar in some respects to Kevlar, as the hard core of their exoskeletons. Since it was both lighter and stronger than chitin, it allowed the existence of species which would be considered extremely large on Earth—or on most other planets, for that matter.

There were thousands of different kinds of beetle analogues, some of them huge. Most of them seemed to be turners of the detritus on the forest floor, while a few joined forces with the midge analogues to take turns biting the humans. Dozens of species swarmed on the human intruders, ranging from tiny creatures that looked so much like mosquitoes that the Marines simply named them skeeters, to a slow-flying beetle the size of a blue jay that had the troopers pulling out their multitools and swinging axes during its infrequent attacks. The chameleon suits were impervious to even the local insects' best efforts and could be sealed up completely, but while the chameleon cloth actively transpired carbon dioxide and oxygen, the rate was too low to support heavy activities. The Marines would occasionally close up their suits to escape the insects, but soon enough they were forced to open their helmets back up and take deep gasping breaths. Then spit out the midges they'd swallowed.

But the hum of the insects, as up-close and personal as it was, was overwhelmed by the rest of the bedlam.

The air rang with strange cries—here a shrill whistle, there a grunting roar, in the distance a banshee howl as some beast celebrated a victory or defended its territory, or perhaps simply called longingly for a mate.

Besides the sounds, the atmosphere was suffused with weird smells. The odor of rot was a near universal on oxygen-nitrogen planets, and overpowering in any jungle, but here there were thousands, millions, of other scents.

Nor was vision left unassaulted. The entire jungle was a riot of bright colors in the oppressing gloom. The combination of the double layer of cloud cover and triple-canopy jungle made the understory tenebrous to a degree rarely found on Earth, but the depths of that overarching gloom offered beauty of its own.

A dangling liana near O'Casey's head was decorated with tiny carmine blossoms. The blossoms released a heavy perfume that had attracted dozens of similarly colored butterflies. That was the tag which came to the sociologist's mind, at least. The insectoids' covering was smooth, instead of the furry look of terrestrial butterflies, but they were just as brightly patterned. As she watched the swarm of fluttering beauties, a purple spider/beetle dropped from a branch into their midst and snagged one of their number. The flock of nectar eaters took off in a crimson cloud that briefly surrounded the chief of staff in a fall of gorgeous red, then dispersed.

O'Casey took a deep whiff of the glorious blossoms' perfume as the tiny predator finished off its tiny prey, then pried herself back off the tree. A good part of the company had stumbled past as she rested, and now she would have to hurry to catch up to her assigned position.

Pahner had put the "hangers-on," as he phrased it, just behind the command group. Beside Eleanora and Kostas, that included the pilots of the four shuttles. If they could retake the port, those pilots would be their only hope of capturing an interstellar ship and escaping the system, so it was nearly as important to keep them alive as it was to keep Roger that way.

Eleanora had realized, however, that neither she nor Matsugae were as high on Pahner's list. The Marine captain was determined to reach the port with as few casualties as possible, but if he had to lose the odd academic or valet along the way, then so be it.

She couldn't fault his logic, for there was no margin to spare on this operation, but she didn't have to like it. And she doubted that Roger had made the connection, for the prince would probably object if it ever came down to losing either member of his "staff."

The conclusion that the man responsible for keeping all of them alive had earmarked her as, regrettably, expendable was disturbing. Throughout her entire life, she'd always functioned under conditions where she could move at her own pace. Academically, that pace had been quite fast, and she remembered looking down on those who fell by the educational wayside, but even those unfortunates had simply found less satisfying and successful positions.

That wouldn't be the case here. Now she faced a physical challenge that was, literally, life or death, and she knew instinctively that if she asked for some respite, it would be denied. She was unimportant to the mission, and the safety of the entire company couldn't be jeopardized for her sake. So for her and Matsugae, it was "march or die."

She was fairly certain it was going to be both for her, but Matsugae seemed to be taking to the change in conditions fairly well. The fussy little valet carried a pack nearly as large as the armorer's, but he was keeping up with the company without complaint, and had helped her along the way several times. She was, frankly, astounded.

She straightened up and started along the muddy track which had been smashed through the undergrowth by the passage of most of the company. The Marines around her were paying as much attention to the back trail as to the sides, so she knew she was dangerously close to the tail of the company. As she picked up the pace to catch back up to the center of the force, she glanced up at the valet, still doggedly tailing her.

"You don't seem to be having any troubles with this march at all, Matsugae," she said quietly.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Ma'am," the valet answered, adjusting the straps of the internal frame rucksack which, along with the chameleon suits they both wore, had come out of the company's spare stores. He idly slapped a "skeeter" and winked at the academic. "I'm afraid I've spent rather a lot of time following Roger through places almost this bad on safari, although, to be fair, never under conditions quite so... resource-limited and extreme. But I think this is hard on everyone, even the Marines, whether they show it or not."

"At least you don't have any trouble keeping up," she said bitterly. The backs of her legs felt as if someone were sticking hot knives into them, and they'd just gotten to the bottom of the hillside. That meant crossing a shallow stream and climbing another hill that looked even taller. Slipping and sliding in the sweltering muck, not being able to hold onto the trees for fear of something eating you, constantly tired and constantly afraid.

"You just have to put one foot in front of the other, Ma'am," the valet said reasonably. He planted a foot on the worn path up the hill and offered the chief of staff his hand. "Alley-oop, Ma'am!"

O'Casey shook her head and took the offered hand.

"Thank you, Kostas."

"Not much further, Ma'am," the valet said with a smile. "Not much further at all."