Their Master's war

Ten

"You Rance?"

Rance groaned inwardly. A shore patrol squad leader was marching smartly across the topmen's lounge, heading directly for his table.

"Yeah, I'm Rance."

The woman who was with him-she'd said her name was Amansa-looked at him questioningly. "Are you in trouble?"

"Not me, but my men probably are."

The squad leader was typical shore patrol. Her white uniform was crisp and starched, her harness and boots were polished to a high gloss, and she wore a holstered sidearm, complete with lanyard, on her left hip.

"Rance from the Anah 5?"

"That's me."

"Some of your men are trying to break into the dauquoi facility."

"I didn't know that this base had a dauquoi facility."

Amansa looked from the squad leader to Rance. "Do you have to go?"

While Rance scowled, the squad leader answered for him. "He can help us sort this out or we can open fire on his men. They're past reasonable restraint, and I can't risk them breaching the dauquoi environment. The Therem would shut us down."

Rance shrugged. Why the hell had Elmo stayed on the ship? This should be his job.

"I'll come with you. I should be able to talk them out of it."

"It'll take some talking. They're crazy drunk, and they got hold of some chemical explosive." "What?"

"You know, some of the women make it."

"To give out to drunken troopers on a rampage?"

"Some old girls got a funny idea of subversion."

Rance downed his drink in one gulp. He grimaced at Amansa. What could he do? "Maybe I'll catch up with you later."

"You never know."

The squad leader laughed. "There's plenty more where she came from." "Let's go."

A servo suit was parked in the corridor outside the topmen's lounge. All its lights were flashing. As the squad leader climbed into it, she glanced down at Rance.

"Are you checked out on one of these?"

Rance shook his head.

"That's okay. We don't have a spare, anyway."

Rance had never liked the shore patrol. They demonstrated the same two traits on every recstar: arrogance and attitude.

"Do I follow you?" he asked.

"We can take the emergency chute."

The servo suit ground into action. Jogging to keep up with the hulking metal humanoid, Rance felt like a child who was forced to trot alongside a striding adult. It did nothing for his dignity. The emergency chute brought them to a rough-hewn axial tunnel. The squad leader's suit took a few moments to regain its equilibrium after the jolt of backgrav, but when she had it under control, she gestured with one of the giant pincers.

"The entrance to the dauquoi section that your men are trying to break through is up ahead at the next intersection. It's a secondary air lock."

"Why didn't you gas them down and be done with it?"

"Because I don't want the stuff hanging around in the atmosphere for ten standards or more. It'd be easier to blast them."

"You're all heart."

"I look after my own."

"Then you can't blame me if I do, too."

The area around the air lock was like the aftermath of a small battle. Six troopers were backed up against the air lock, glaring defiance at the same number of shore patrol who surrounded them in a half circle. Back in the corridor, a dozen or more troopers were penned up in mobile holding cages. They were bruised and bloody. The line of shore patrol moved aside to let Rance and the squad leader through. Rance noted, not without a certain pride, that two servo suits had been knocked out of commission. They lay flat on their backs, completely immobilized.

"Your boys have had quite a time at the expense of my women."

Rance did his best not to smile. "So it would seem."

"You've got one shot at getting them to give up. Then I have my people open fire."

Rance took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. Summoning all of his authority, he marched smartly toward the air lock.

"What the hell is going on here?"

"That's far enough, Rance!"

"We bad, Rance!"

Renchett and a trooper whom Rance didn't recognize were in front of the group. They were both holding metal tubes that were obviously homemade bombs. Renchett also had his knife in his hand. Rance halted.

"What are you going to do, blow me up?"

"We ain't going to be taken," Renchett told him.

"You ain't going to get out of here alive if you don't stop this stupidity. You ain't bad, you're out of control."

"We know what we're doing." Renchett's voice was decidedly slurred.

Rance folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. "Yeah? So what are you doing?"

This seemed to confuse the drunken troopers. Renchett and the one Rance didn't recognize looked at each other blankly. Finally Renchett staggered slightly and made a sweeping gesture with his bomb.

"We jus' wanted to take a look at the worms."

"They seem all ready to cut you in half."

"Wha'?"

"Look behind you."

On the other side of a transparent panel in the air lock, there was a line of dauquoi. They all wore silver projector helmets. Since they had no arms or legs, just highly developed telekinetic powers, the caplike projector helmet was the worms' favorite weapon.

"Slimy suckers can' stan' up to us."

"And you can't stand up to a projector helmet. Besides, if you don't give up right now, the shore patrol's going to grease the whole lot of you."

"These shores ain't going to open up on us."

The squad leader's voice came from behind Rance. "Oh, yes, we are. You can count on it."

There was a sullen silence. Even in their condition, it had to be clear to the troopers that they had painted themselves into a corner. Rance relaxed slightly. It was not just a question of giving them a way out. Renchett, at least, seemed to sense this.

"So what happens to us if we give up? What punishment do we pull?"

Rance glanced back at the squad leader. "Can I set the punishment on this, or do you want to turn it into a major beef?"

The squad leader wasn't immediately ready to play the game. "They've got explosives, and they messed up two of my women."

"No real harm's been done. You'll take them in and mess them up a bit and then I'll have them back on the ship in a pod. You don't want to lose me a bunch of my best fighters."

The squad leader was wavering. "I don't know. You know how many times I heard that?"

Rance sighed. "If it goes to superiors, nobody looks good."

"Listen, just get them out of here. We'll pick up the women who sold them the explosives." "You know who they are?"

"We've got an idea. A cross figure on the thumbprints will confirm it."

¦The idea that women subversives were manufacturing crude bombs on a recstar was a shock. Even that they were able to manufacture bombs at all. It was also a bad sign. Things had to be deteriorating.

"What will happen to them?" Rance asked.

"They'll be termed."

"It's a mess."

Rance turned back to the troopers. "Okay, here's the deal. Five standards in a pod, even if we jump."

Anyone in a punishment pod during a jump didn't live through it. Renchett was outraged.

"Five standards for getting drunk?"

"Five standards for being an asshole. You can proba bly assume that the shore patrol will bust you up into the bargain before you get off this rock."

The squad leader allowed herself a grim smile. "You can count on that, too."

Renchett scowled. "I've been in recstar brigs."

"It's better than being greased, isn't it?"

Renchett turned to his companions. There was a muttered discussion.

"So what's it to be?" Rance asked briskly.

"We ain't sure. How do we know you're on the level?"

"Damn it. Renchett, you've had all the chances you're getting. You've got ten seconds to ground those charges and your weapons or I'll let the shore patrol open fire."

He turned on his heel and strolled slowly back to where the squad leader was waiting in her servo suit. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he appeared to have given up on the whole business.

"Fire on a ten count. I can't do anything with these morons."

Renchett quickly called after him. "Hold it, Rance. We'll take the five standards."

Rance looked up at the squad leader and jerked his thumb in the direction of the troopers. "You can take them down."

The men were quickly manacled and led off to the mobile cages. Rance gestured to the shore who had custody of Renchett.

"I want to speak to that one."

Up close, Renchett looked bleary-eyed and confused. Rance shook his head.

"Why do you have to always pull this shit?"

Renchett raised his chained hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know. I just get drunk."

Rance leaned close so the shore patrol couldn't hear.

"Tell me something. How did you manage to knock over the two servos?"

Renchett winked. "It's easy if there's enough of you."

The cages slammed, and the shore patrol moved out with its prisoners. Rance remembered the one time, as a raw and very drunk recruit, that he'd been in a recstar brig. Those women could be vicious. He'd only been punched around a bit and then left to sleep it off on the hard floor, but one particular troublemaker had been strung up by his wrists in front of the other prisoners and beaten semiconscious with a fiber knout. Rance walked over to the air lock. A shore was collecting the bombs and weapons. She was bending down, reaching for Renchett's knife.

"Mind if I have that?" Rance asked.

The woman straightened up with the knife in her hand. She looked at it.

"I don't know. I don't see why not."

She handed him the knife, hilt first. Rance took it and slid it into his belt. Renchett would be impossible if he lost that knife.

Back at the topmen's lounge, Rance found that Amansa was no longer there. There was, however, a woman sitting on her own at a table. Nobody else seemed to be laying a claim to her, so he approached her.

"Do you know a woman named Amansa?"

The woman, who had very black hair and large, slightly moist eyes, nodded.

"Yes, I know her. She left a while ago with one of you topmen."

"Mind if I sit down?"

"Go right ahead."

Before he sat, Rance pulled the knife from his belt and tossed it onto the table. The woman raised an eyebrow.

"And what's that for?"

Rance realized what the gesture must have looked like, and he smiled a little awkwardly.

"It's nothing. It belongs to one of my men. He was just taken off to the brig, and he'd be lost without it."

"Were yours the bunch that tried to break in on the worms?"

"You heard about that?"

"We've got the best grapevine in the galaxy. Did they really want to see how the dauquoi do it?"

"They were skunk drunk. I doubt they really knew what they wanted. You want a drink?"

"Sure."

Rance took a longer look at the woman. She was no great beauty, but she wasn't as teasingly undressed or as gaudily painted as the regular corridor whores. There was a certain aura of class about her. That pleased him, although he was aware that class was something regularly cultivated by the women who worked the places where the overmen and topmen hung out. It wasn't only a matter of status. There was also an unfortunate reality that an air of distance, mystery, or dark experience could be worn like a perfume to disguise the fact that they were at the wrong end of their youth. Rance considered it only right that this kind were the topmen's women. You didn't make topman in the first year out, either. Of course, there were topmen, and others besides, who compulsively chased the very young, or the illusion of very young. Fortunately, that was confined to another section of the rock.

"What's your name?" he asked her.

"Herma."

Herma drank small, fast shots of clear frozen spirit. She seemed to feel no need to instigate conversation. They sat for a long time just drinking and half smiling at each other.

"You're a very relaxed man, or maybe just detached."

"Either's good when you never know what's going to happen next."

"We always know what's going to happen next."

"Intuition?"

"Inevitability."

Rance laughed. "You've got to keep a loose mind."

Herma peered at him soulfully from under very long eyelashes. "I keep a very loose mind, believe me."

Rance decided that he liked her. "I rented a cubicle. Maybe we should take the conversation over there."

"That sounds like a delightful idea."

There were only two more interruptions by the shore patrol before the recall sounded the end of liberty. Both were minor skirmishes. It was always easier after the major troublemakers were out of the way. Without them, the others, who didn't have the same flair for destruction, were only able to keep up a dull roar. When Rance ran out of time with Herma, who fell victim to the built-in boredom factor, he moved on to Syua. He was just taking his leave of a woman called Mariette and going off in search of a drink when the alarms started howling. Rance was surprised. He had expected the liberty to last at least another standard. The men were surprised, too. There was an angry roar that almost drowned the recall sirens. In that first instant, it seemed that the men would kill before they'd go back to the ships. And then, almost unbelievably, the anger seemed to run out of energy. The roar died away, and a crushing despondency filled the environment like a physical force. The action folded in on itself, and the fun froze and withered in the cold moan of the sirens. It was over. The women were like puppets with their strings cut. The men were zombies, mesmerized by the sirens; they picked themselves up and shambled out into the corridors. Their shoulders were bp wed, and they seemed completely defeated. The women sim ply stood back and let them go. No words or gestures were exchanged.

Rance had quickly inserted a pair of ear filters when the sirens first sounded. The howl was so loaded with control psych that it was only a little shy of weapon level. There was plenty for a topman to do during the pullout from a recstar, and he didn't need to be head-locked by the sirens. Not every man in the environment was completely put under. There were the ones who were too feisty, the ones who were too drunk, and some veteran longtimers who had been through it so many times that they'd built up a tolerance. The shore patrol moved systematically along the corridors, herding the stragglers out of booths and knocking shops. A belligerent few had to be incapacitated before they would go quietly.

The horns were now alternating the control howl with a full-load authority voice reciting assembly areas, departure gates, and shuttle codes. The men were glumly forming ranks. Rance made his way to the gates where his twenties would form up. It should all run fairly smoothly with his worst assholes already gone. He just hoped there wouldn't be too many unconscious. Those had to be carried by the ones who could walk, and in headlock, the ones who could walk were very badly coordinated and tended to drop the stiffs. The stiffs, in their turn, tended to throw up directly they hit free-fall, and the whole outfit had to be hosed down in the blue room. Fortunately, the liberty tans were disposable.

The last thing that anyone expected was an explosion. Just as Rance had started watching the elevator sequencer with growing impatience, there was a roar from somewhere over on the other side of the environment. For an instant, the lights dimmed. Inside the hollowed-out cavern, the concussion was stunning, but although the men staggered and some would probably be deaf for the next thirty minutes, the majority took hardly any notice of either the blast or the dusty smoke that billowed down the corridors a moment later. They simply wandered in confused circles. At the other extreme, the top-men and the shore patrol hit the ground. Protected by their ear filters, they fell into ingrained battle patterns, even reaching for weapons that they didn't have.

"What was that?"

"Are we under attack?"

Rance got to his feet again. All his men were still standing. He yelled and waved his arms. "Get down, you idiots! Get down!"

They responded sluggishly, but eventually they were all down flat. Instinctively Rance moved to cover behind a shore patrol's servo suit. Immediately after the explosion, there was an instant of silence. It was followed by a long ripping hiss, as if a pressure pipe had ruptured.

"Are we losing the atmosphere?"

"We don't have no helmets!"

"Then we'll find out soon enough."

Shore patrol sirens started up all over the environment. The servo behind which Rance was sheltering started moving forward. Rance moved with it, holding on to one of its legs and peering cautiously around the machine's bulk. There had been no second explosion, and it was looking less and less likely that they were under attack. More likely the blast was an accident or an act of sabotage. The servo's communicator crackled into life and gave him some minimal information.

"We are not under attack. Repeat, the facility is not under attack. The explosion was caused by a homemade bomb, and there are a number of fatalities. There appears to be no follow-up action, but all shore patrol units will stand to."

The communicator ran through the message for a sec ond time. Rance straightened up. The shore looked down at him.

"You hearthatr

"I heard it."

"So I guess you can get back to moving your men out."

The full story didn't come out until they were back on the ship. Some of the old-timers, the sweetgassers, had made a pact. Just like Renchett, they had bought a homemade bomb from one of the women subversives. Unlike Renchett, they hadn't used it to try to blast their way into worm territory. One of them, probably a sapper-there were a couple of sappers among the dead- had rigged a situation fuse. After exactly seven minutes of the recall siren, the bomb had blown them all to an afterlife or none, depending on their beliefs. The women in the area must have been in on the plan. There were no women casualties at all. The suicide plot had overshadowed all other messdeck tales of the liberty.

"They must have had earplugs."

"That, or they were gassed out of their minds."

"Had to be gassed out of their minds."

"I wouldn't mind going that way, if the time was right."

"And when exactly is the time right, smartass?" "They must have known."

Rance, when he heard that, looked around at his men. The topman in him knew that suicide talk had to be squashed, but somehow he just didn't have the strength. He wondered how many of the men around him would even make it to the light-year stare. Would he make it there himself?

The aftermath of a liberty was a topman's nightmare. The men were hung over and sullen. They'd tasted a little of what could be, and they now resented what was with a slit-eyed poison. The suicides and the fact that the liberty had been cut short had wiped out any benefit to morale that might have come from the break. If there needed to be any other reason for resentment, it was the general assumption that a jump was coming up, even though there had been no official announcement as yet. Rance had made a mental note to get Renchett and the others out of the pods if a jump was called. Despite what he'd said, he didn't want to lose them.

He knew that the liberty had done no good, when the time-honored suit-superstition came to the surface. Even though the men were bleary and out of shape when Rance ran them through the first shakedown drill, they blamed everything on the suits. The suits were acting up. The suits were jealous because their men had been with women. Rance had never really made up his mind about the legend. He could remember, as a trooper, how his suit had seemed stiff and unyielding after a liberty. His best idea was that the suits got pissed off at the assortment of poisons that were being sweated out of the troopers wearing them. Rance was ever the realist.