Viewpoints critical, p.22
Viewpoints Critical, page 22
Vynhal doubted that the crafters and residents of Wesrigg would be pleased with any solution imposed by the alectors, especially not when it would involve the logging of all or most of the water oaks planted over years, if not generations, and the further reduction in cutting quotas for oaks and other slower-growing hardwoods. And that was likely just to be the beginning.
"I'm having one of my men draft a copy of my report for you, for your records. I apologize for my harshness yesterday, and you will find that there is nothing untoward in my report about you or Fifty-fourth Company." Vynhal looked at the captain. "You could do better, Captain, but I leave that to you. We will leave on the next scheduled sandox coach. The best of fortune to you, Captain."
Murch's eyes widened, just enough that Vynhal knew the too-old junior captain understood enough of what he had been told.
With a polite smile, Vynhal turned and departed.
XV
Vynhal walked toward the sandoxen and the coach behind them. With each step, the swirling thoughts and confusion inside his head rose. Abruptly, he stopped and motioned to Kiram."You take them back. There are loose ends I need to tie up. No need for the rest of the squad to stay."
"Sir?"
"You heard me. Take them back to Ludar." "Yes, sir."
Vynhal walked back toward the headquarters building, then turned. He watched the coach's doors shut, forcing a smile to remain on his face.
Only when the coach turned south, heading toward the center of Iron Stem, and the road to Elcien, did Vynhal turn and walk to the stable. There he saddled a mount that was not his. He supposed he'd have to return it. . .
or pay for it. . . somehow. And he'd have to submit a letter of resignation . . . later.
He fastened his gear behind the saddle and led the gelding out into the courtyard. Then he mounted and headed north on the high road. After five vingts, he'd turn northeast through the pillars that led to Calistar's holding. From there, he knew, although he couldn't say how, he'd find his way to where his unnamed love—what else could he call her—was waiting.
The wind sings, even when there is no wind. There are winds, all kinds of winds, and those that sing belong to the soarers. I hear them in the night most of all, long after I've finished with all that has to be done on the stead . . . after our time together when she has just left me . . . and Aliora.
As most of my readers know, I deal often with the questions of belief, faith, truth, and perception. So must Captain Bellemer. . .
ALWAYSOUTSIDE
THE
LINES:
FOUR BATTLES
LetheThe tourmaline tambourine trembles, and the singer's voice settles like the mist of foxfire on the four hills that surround the dell. At the base of the hills is a boxwood hedge. Inside the hedge is the board, sixty-four alternating squares of black marble and pale green marble, a shade so light it is almost white. Almost.
The game is in progress. There is always a game being played.
The black bishop raises his crosier and slides time-diagonally toward the woman without a name. She does not know she has no name, for she believes she is Gaia. Her identity is not valid under the now, and the bishop's crosier snakes anglewise toward the blue flame that is her spirit.
"Repent ye of your sins, for ye have allowed the earth and all that is above it and under it, to be despoiled, now and forever, world without end."
The Queen-woman slides right-anglewise clear of the bishop, throwing her head back. "I have not despoiled the world. That is your doing, creature of blind faith and irrationality."
"There is nothing mightier than the True God."
"Life is mightier than blind belief, short as life may be." The Queen-woman-spirit without a name winces as the black crosier and the words it bears touch the edge of the flame that may be her shoulder, but her head remains high as she traverses the squares to avoid the bishop's thrusts and his angled track. "Believing does not make anything so."
The black snake of the bishop's crosier stretches after her. "Repent ye of your sins, for ye have allowed the people of the Lord to revel in what is physical and to forget their creator and their sinfulness, and such is a mighty sin in the eyes of the Lord."
"Thought and creativity, beauty and joy, ethics and morality, all rise from what is, from the physical." She angles to the center of the chessboard. "The universe is itself, and it requires neither god nor believers. Those who understand neither themselves nor the universe require a god."
Old Earth
Outside the dasher, I could sense the vibrations building as the scramjets labored, coming down into the heavier lower atmosphere. Inside, everything was dark. The dropship had just severed the powerlink.
Stand by for drop.
Standing by.
Coyote alpha . . . away . . . . . . beta . . . away . . . . . . gamma . . .
Even before the "away" came, the direct link snapped, and the dasher was screaming earthward, somewhere close to Mach 8. The shroud was full-stealth and emissions inert, both active and passive. That was, if the Saints hadn't come up with something new on their southern line.
Ablation at seventy, pulsed the system, sixty . . . fifty . . . thirty . . .
As the last of the shroud dissolved into mist, I air-started the turbines. They kicked in at less than five hundred meters above Beaver Dam—farther to the southwest than was healthy. With the residual velocity from the drop, and the direct turbine thrust we still had lift, although it would bleed off before we reached the Gorge mouth.
Four hundred meters AGL . . . three hundred . . . two hundred ... At one hundred, I flared, killed the excess vee, deployed the rotors, and engaged them. Then, nose down, we angled into the narrow mouth of the Gorge. The Virgin River Gorge was tight, narrow, and twisty most of the way north to St. George. Most important, it was below the Saint scanners and almost suicidal to attempt to follow. Almost.
Energy emissions . . . scratch beta, came the system pulses.
Stet. Even with the direct-terrain linkages, I was having trouble staying below the scanner net—an unseen curtain of white-blue less than a hundred meters above the dasher.
The mission idea was simple. Use the Gorge to get inside the southern defense perimeter, and loft scramblers into the Saint Southern Command
Center buried under Dixie Mesa. Then turn and bat-ass back down the Gorge for pickup once the Southern Line was compromised and our heavy scram-mers pounded the complexes there. The Mexicans had agreed to look the other way—anything to weaken the coming Saint drive to retake Las Vegas.
The secondary target in St. George was the Temple—the oldest original Saint Temple. High Command felt its destruction would weaken the Saints' sense of divine protection. So we carried four rockets—three scramblers and one slam-smasher for the Temple. I had my doubts, but no one asks CAF captains piloting dashers.
Scratch epsilon . . .
Three dashers left, so far, and we were only halfway up the Gorge, and what we'd covered was the part hardest for the Saints to detect us or do anything. The critical area was where the Gorge flattened out, some eleven klicks south of St. George. We needed to get within four klicks of the Santa Clara River channel before releasing the scrambler rockets. The top of the Dixie Mesa was a dasher base, but the heavies were another twenty klicks to the north, and the really heavy Saint scrammers were stationed at the Iron Mission Air Station.
Energy flared against the Navaho sandstone less than half a klick to the right, but it was a good fifty meters high. I dropped the dasher another twenty meters, the most I could do, and angled left, closer to the higher cliffs.
Five to release.
Full coverage ahead, came the pulses. Shift all shields forward once you clear the river channel.
I was going to have my hands—and everything else—very busy. A gout of rock and dust showered down just behind us. Boosted HE.
We were running out of time and river.
I flipped the dasher right and lower, barely above the muddy water. After less than half a klick, barely time to blink, our departure point was ahead, and I cranked the turbines full. The tail barely cleared the creosote bushes on the ridge line as we popped into view of every scanner on the Southern Line.
I plugged in the randomizer, just hoped that my harness was tight enough, as the system slammed us to the left. I dumped the nose to gain vee, then held us in a ground-dusting sprint to the release point.
One turbine began to hum—more dust and sand than it liked.
Stand by for release. One away, two away . . . three away.
The scramblers were gone. I readjusted, got a quick read, locked, and released. Smash-slam away.
Took the dasher almost at ninety to the low sandy hills, tight turn, and nose down, this time toward the east dry channel.
Just cleared the rim, when light sheeted all around us, just a brief flash, but the implants picked up the energy and radiation. Even before the turbines quit, I dumped the collective. With the pitch I'd been carrying, we'd have cartwheeled down into junk.
Coyote gamma, interrogative status.
We'd just been hammer-jammed, and power was bleeding down to zilch, and Coyote satellite control wanted to know status? Idiots. Their board would show it.
Going down . . . packages away.
Didn't know if they'd gotten it before my electronics finished frying. Mech linkage was shit, but at least there was backup to wire-fly.
The dasher was dead. Oh . . . there was fuel still in the stub tanks, and the turbines were intact, and the gearbox, transmission, and rotors were fine. So was the tail diverter. There just wasn't any way to restart the turbines, not with all the electrical systems wave-pulsed into junk. Kept the rotors turning just long enough to spot a flat spot—sort of—and flared.
We hit. Hard. Dasher plowed into dirt and stone. Instafoam solidified around everything. Could feel us going head over ass, head over ass. Finally came to a stop.
I waited—just long enough to make sure we weren't hanging somewhere and about to fall off a cliff before I punched the dissolver. Cockpit smelled like stuff I didn't want to think about.
The exit panels had already blown, and I could see Lyana dashing out. How had she gotten there? No time to question that. I grabbed the survival pak and the miniature inflatable and stumbled out after her. There was so much dust it was hard to see. Didn't mean that the Saints' scanners weren't already zeroing in on us.
"Over the hill and down the slope!"
"Which way?" came from Lyana.
I'd thought. . . there was something . . . but now wasn't the time to think about it. Not in the open where the Saints could mow us down. "Straight ahead."
We barely got to the edge of the slope, just out of the dust swirled up by the winds, when my implants registered all sorts of energy.
"Down!" At the red wink and the energy surge, I threw myself flat behind a chunk of sandstone, hoping that Lyana had as well.
Something exploded, and shards and fragments of stone went everywhere. My back was a mass of fire, and Lyana had been thrown against a chunk of black rock—old lava, I guessed. Her eyes blinked, not registering much of anything. There was a hole in her shoulder, the kind that came from projectile weapons, and blood across her flight suit.
The first-aid kit was in the bottom of the survival kit. I kept low as I ripped open the closures.
"Don't. . . Daffyd ... be all right. . ."
"You'll be all right? With that?"
Lyana smiled, wanly.
I watched as the gaping hole in Lyana's shoulder slowly closed. My mouth opened. "What. . ."
"It's easier these days. Lead bullets, ceramic bullets, depleted uranium, composite armor ... no cold iron." She sat up slowly, her back against the rock. "Takes a lot out of you. Rather not have to do that often."
"Can you move?"
"Slowly."
"We need to get down this slope and out of range. The river's down there, and I've got the inflatable." I also still had the slug-thrower. Nothing like powder and lead when the electronics fail, although, after watching Lyana, maybe cold iron would have been better.
Crumpt! Behind us, what had been left of the dasher exploded into a ball of flame, sending waves of heat around and past us. I almost screamed at the pain of the additional heat on my back.
Instead, I extended a hand to Lyana, and we began the descent, sliding, running slowly where the footing was half-secure. We had to get down to the river . . . somehow.
Tory
Sean owns the only pub in Trawley's Cross. He also runs it, and I've never seen anyone but Sean behind the bar. Oh, there are serving maids and lads, but no one stands behind the bar but Sean. So far as I know, no one ever has.
Now, Trawley's Cross is as far away from the ISNet as you can get, a good three-hour drive up Aillen Canyon, and that's just to get into the valley, and the road's so narrow and the turnouts so infrequent that all too often someone has to back up close to half a klick. Trawleymen don't like to back up, and there's been many an altercation about precedence over the years, the most famous being that of the time when Lugh blinded Balor with his own reflection . . . but that's another story for another time.
The pub looks like it came out of old Ireland, back on ancient earth before the disaster. Dark wood, white plaster walls, carved wooden bar, brass fixtures for the wall lamps, with dark green glass shades. The stools at the bar are dark wood with carved backs, but no padding, not quite authentic, but looking so. There are exactly thirteen booths—also dark wood with no cushions—six on one side and seven on the other, with a dark oak floor between them.
I'd been going to the pub on Fridays ever since the company sent me to Trawley's Cross, and that had been a year earlier. ReFor wasn't much of a company, but jobs have always been scarce on Tory, and I'd been lucky enough to be named as a supervisor of the foresting effort in the Espagne Mountains. So I spent all week tramping somewhere, either getting the data for the next segment, or surveying and evaluating ... if it wasn't one thing, it was another, and I was more than thirsty, not to mention tired of my own company, by Friday night.
I'd gotten the black lager from the bar and carried it back to the fourth booth—the middle one of the longer row. I'd always taken that one when I could. Started out that way because it was always the last one taken. Now, it's mine. I don't mind admitting that I'm a big man. It helped in that, especially since I can't abide sitting at the bar along with all the other lonely souls. Don't know as I'm lonely so much as alone. Lyana helped. She'd stop and chat. She didn't talk to most folks, not that I'd noticed.
Sean passed, carrying a small tray with two glasses of dark stout.
"How old is the pub, Sean?" I asked, wanting to say something. Could have been that I'd asked him before. If I had, I didn't recall the answer.
"Don't know. Been here longer than I have. That's all I know." He stopped, impatiently.
"That's absurd. You're listed as the first settler, and they only finished the road through the canyon ten years ago. Mountains are too high for an airlift."
"Was the first." He walked away and drew another lager for Mac Herris. When he headed back toward the bar, his tray empty, I asked, "Why don't you serve any fish here? Trout in the lake, salmon took to the river." "Don't like fish," Sean replied. "Don't serve it." "Everyone likes salmon. You don't have to like it, just serve it." "Doesn't work that way." "Where's Lyana?"
"Lyana? Don't know what you're talking about." He walked away to refill someone else's glass.
How could he not know Lyana? How many times had she appeared and sat with me? Why would he pretend not to know her? Or at least, know about her?
Sipping on the black lager, because I've never liked amber chewy brews, I really looked at the pub. Most people didn't. They were just thankful it was there.
The first thing that struck me was that all the dark wood in the pub was walnut. It's a good wood. Nothing wrong with walnut. But I'd never seen any walnut on Tory. We'd planted oaks on the lower hills east of the lower mouth of Aillen Canyon, and plenty of spruce, and pine, and fir on the higher slopes, below the tree line. It'd be years before any of them could be harvested. So far as I knew, there hadn't been any formulators in the valley either, and the cost of interstellar shipping was more than prohibitive.
Then, there were the carved swans. On the top of the seat back where the walnut top piece joins the two seat backs—at the front looking out across to the other row of booths is a carving of a swan, just the neck and head, mind you. There are twelve of them. Not eleven, not thirteen, just twelve.
The other carving, the one in the booth I always took, is that of a woman— or rather it had been, because it had vanished. I hadn't even noticed, not at first. I looked up and studied the end of the walnut crosspiece, smooth as satin, and old, as if the carved woman had never been. I knew better.
Nursing the lager, I had to ask another question. Why hadn't I noticed the walnut before? And how long had the carved woman been missing?
Old Earth
Sweat was pouring off my forehead by the time we reached the reddish sandy mud at the edge of the Virgin River—if you can call a stream six me-
ters wide a river. In places, it might have been three meters deep. But from where I stood, most of it looked less than a meter deep, cold reddish water swirling over stones, with a narrow and deeper channel in the middle.
Still ... it was the only way out. It had taken close to half an hour to cover less than a klick, and the nearest pickup spot was something like sixty klicks to the southwest. There had been talk of a road paralleling the river, but the cost would have been prohibitive—and once the border skirmishes between Deseret and Mexico heated up, neither side wanted easy access for the other. Now with Deseret claiming Columbian territory, all bets were off.
