The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 5 —

... whine dying. An exclamatory ping!

Jo Klass drew a frigid breath of medicine and machine, opened her eyes. She felt eager, curious, a touch of trepidation. What would it be? Warming was like wakening to a day guaranteed to be exciting.

How long had she slept?

Not that it mattered. Nothing changed.

As always there was a moth flutter of panic as the air grew hot and humid. The cell walls pressed in. Its lid opaqued with moisture. She scrawled an obscenity in the condensation.

The lid opened. Beyond lay the familiar white overhead of the warming room. How many times had she wakened thus, staring up at that sky of pipe and cable? Too often to recall.

Air swirled in, chilled her.

What was it? Another Enherrenraat? Fear stroked her. She had died that time. It haunted her, though the bud had detoured her around it.

Sometimes she thought she dreamed about dying while she was in the cell, but she remembered no dreams once she wakened.

A face drifted into view. "Off and on, soldier." No relief at finding her alive instead of a shriveled blue-black mummy. No expression at all. Just on to the next cell and next check.

Jo bounced out as filled with vitality as anyone in perfect health could be. Her squad tumbled out of neighboring cells, as naked as she. Shaigon eyed her, thoughts obvious. "Watch it, soldier."

"I am, Sarge. I am." He lifted one shaggy eyebrow.

"Later. Maybe. If you're a good boy." She counted ears and divided by two. All present. "Let's move." Their cells had returned to stowage. The team followed her, mouthing the usual gibes and wisecracks. Clary and Squat grabbed hands. A sleep in the ice had not changed their relationship. Eyes roved old comrades, seeking remembered scars. Unmarked skin could say a lot about last time out.

They dressed in loose black shipboards and retrieved personals. Clad and inspected, Jo led them toward the briefing center. News of the day drifted back from earlier squads.

"Hanaver Strate is WarAvocat now."

"Wasn't he Chief of Staff? What year is it?"

"Year forty-three of the Deified Kole Marmigus. Strate got elected Dictat, too."

"One of the living? I thought the first requirement was you had to be Deified."

Colorless laughter.

Marmigus Deified? It had been a long time. He'd just become OpsAvocat last time they were out. "Must have been slow times."

"Bet it's a routine cleanup, Sarge. Ain't nobody in a hurry."

"Ship is Red One, Hake."

"Ain't breaking out nobody but infantry. Somebody dropped a condiment tray."

Jo paused at the theater hatchway. "Can it, troops."

They entered a space where thirty thousand could be seated. They nodded to soldiers they knew, found seats, stared at their officers, waited. Above the stage, in large but unpretentious letters, was the motto, "I Am A Soldier." It was posted over every exit from WarCrew country. It emblazoned a patch worn by WarCrew, encircling a numeral VII superimposed upon a caricature of the tutelary, a naked woman running that did not seem warlike to Jo.

How about a wide, muscular thug like her, short, ratty hair and a bloody ax in hand? Be more like the truth.

People did not shy away when Jo Klass walked past, but she could not be convinced that she was not unattractive.

The lander grounded. Jo trudged out into P. Jaksonica 3's reddish daylight. Hake had it right. They were cleaning up a spill. A krekelen shapechanger, for Tawn's sake!

She glared at Cholot Varagona. It looked like every outport city on every House-dominated world in Canon. The houses were so damned conservative they would not stray from one standard prefab design. If you wanted something different, you had to hunt up a non-House world.

The High City floated a thousand meters up, connected to UpTown by a flexible tube containing passenger and freight lifts. The proconsuls of the House, the very rich and their hangers-on, remained safely isolated there.

The legs of UpTown lifted it, too, above the perils of a world poorly tamed and, especially, above the taint of the tamers. Administrators and functionaries; Canon garrison if there was one; House dependent, cadet, and allied merchants; contract operators; these lived UpTown.

DownTown was the base of the social pyramid. Its own gradient declined toward the deepest shadow beneath the belly of UpTown.

Some were big, some were small, but that basic structure formed the capital on ten thousand worlds.

Jo activated her suit and bounced to her right. Her squad followed. Sensors systems came up, displaying in color on the sensitized inner surface of her face plate, defining her surroundings. She could breathe the air. It was not too cold out there. But the info she cared about was that there were no unfriendly weapons nearby.

Data from VII Gemina, relayed from the lander, interrupted once a minute for five seconds, mapping the city as Probe saw it. The krekelen remained stationary near the heart of DownTown.

City work. Jo hated it. Cities were treacherous. You never knew who would hit you with what from where. The system was not great at detecting non-energy weapons.

Linkup. Circle complete. Nothing would get out. Came the order to advance.

Jo glanced up at the High City, at the flaming star of VII Gemina, which seemed tangled among fairy spires. How frightened they must be, those Cholot lordlings, wondering if the landing party had come to end the Ban by toppling UpTown and killing the High City's gravs.

There was no resistance. The few beings Jo saw stood rigidly immobile, staring with terrified eyes. Seldom had she seen so many sports, discards, and bizarre aliens. And this world had been allowed no outside contact for centuries. The creepy-crawlies were taking over.

The target did not move till the circle was under a kilometer in diameter. Jo's faceplate began displaying Gemina track in five second alternates with suit local. Up on battalion net, for all officers and NCOs: "A reminder from up top, people. We will take it alive." No commentary, of course. That was there only in tone.

I Am A Soldier.

Corollary: I Obey.

On platoon net: "It's headed our way, people."

Jo matched Gemina-feed with a suit-local heat trace a hundred meters out. She outlocked Gemina, fixed the track, switched on squad tac. "Coming right down our throats, guys."

"Why can't we see it? You see it, Sarge? Anybody see it?"

No one did. But it ought to be visible. It was on top of them.

Top! She looked up, adjusted to max enhancement. There. Something scuttling along a beam.

Her bolt edged it perfectly. It went into nerve lock, clung to a stress lattice branching from a pylon, slowly changed into what looked like a black plastic film. Jo switched to platoon tac. "Platoon, Second Squad. We got it."