Well, may God have mercy on any redskin you catch, Heinrich, because I don’t think you’re in the mood for it.
The officer was probably thinking about his children-to-come; it was a bit shocking to have an incident like this happen so close to the settled zone. Silently, she picked up the rifle the dead Indian had been using and pulled back the bolt, holding the weapon up so that light ran down the barrel. It wasn’t new, but it was well cared for, the metal bright and gleaming. She ran a finger over the inside of the action and brought it to her nose; the unmistakable nutty odor of fresh Break Free gun oil. She worked the operating rod again, very slowly; the resistance was smooth and easy, without any feeling of grit from dirt or sand, and no loose parts rattled when she shook it. And the woodwork of butt and forestock had been lovingly cared for as well, buffed and polished and oiled.
Hmmmm, she thought, noting a filed patch where the serial number should be on the receiver. I’ll have to check with Nostradamus about any missing weapons. If nothing was stolen in the past day or two, then whoever this Indian was, somebody taught him how to shoot and how to maintain a weapon.
That was very, very, very illegal—hanging illegal.
“I need some help and transport, Heinrich,” she said pointedly to the militia officer. “I still have my mission to complete. It would be pretty silly to let the hostiles interfere with that.”
“Oh! Oh, sorry, Adri. Yes, of course, Cuz. There’s another helicopter coming to our campsite to lift you and those damned vultures out, along with one for the wounded; no expense spared.”
Getting the condors into the cages proved to be even more unpleasant than she had anticipated; Jim hadn’t been exaggerating about their using projectile vomiting as a defense mechanism, and these had been very well fed on rancid camel, now half-digested. With malice aforethought, she called Schalk van der Merwe in to help her; if he was going to let his bloodlust cost her a potential lead on this ratfuck, he could at least suffer a bit for the error. It meant she had to smell him as they sat in the Hummer on the way back to the campsite, but at least it was mutual.
As they rolled and jounced over the plain of dried grass, four aircraft passed by in the other direction, swooping down from above the Coast Range and passing at barely a thousand feet, close enough to see the grinning shark-mouth markings. They were twin-engine prop planes, sleek Mosquito fighter-bombers built new locally to a classic World War II design and modernized with fancy electronics. Each mounted eight .50-caliber machine guns in the nose and rockets beneath the wings, and the internal weapons bay carried a ton of cluster bombs and napalm.
These hostiles are going to learn there’s something much worse than being chased into a swamp and ignored, she thought.
INTERLUDE
Salvatore Colletta smiled and spread his hands. “Hey, Cap’n,” he said. “It’s just a bit of an accident, eh?”
John Rolfe reined in his temper. That shouldn’t have been particularly difficult; he’d been brought up with the belief that self-control was the first mark of a gentleman. There were several open scowls down the long table, and some of the fine china coffee cups clanked back into their saucers with dangerous force. The heads of all the Families were here, and many of them had their heirs by their sides as Rolfe did, acting as assistants or simply to learn the procedure. It struck him with a sudden shock that four of the Primes were the sons of the men he’d brought in at the founding of New Virginia.
I’m forty-six. Charles is twenty-one, and a father himself. Christ, where did the years go?
“So, no need to get upset,” the Colletta said, still imperturbable.
Although if self-control makes a gentleman, that would mean Salvo was one, too. I doubt he ever says or does anything without thinking twice. He was like that even as a young man, and he’s gotten colder as he gets older. Right now, I feel like pounding the table and yelling.
Rolfe looked out the tall windows and over the green tree-lined streets of the young city named for him, and calmed himself for a moment by watching the distant whitecaps on the indigo waters. Unfortunately, that also reminded him of the reason for this meeting of the committee. When he turned back, his face was a polite mask.
“Mr. Colletta, introducing smallpox to the Hawaiian islands is not a minor matter,” he said, his voice deceptively mild.
The Colletta’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as they met the deceptive calmness of Rolfe’s leaf-green gaze. There was not the slightest trace of fear in them; Rolfe knew from half a lifetime’s experience that there was nothing on earth that could terrify Salvo, from land mines to a political dogfight. There was plenty of respect there, though. Salvatore Colletta fought to win, not to make points.
“Hey, it’s not like I did it deliberately,” he said, spreading his hands. “Giovanni, tell the Old Man.”
Rolfe’s eyes turned to the Colletta’s eldest son, hiding a trace of sympathy behind a quirked eyebrow. Growing up with Salvo as your father would be enough to drive anyone crazy. Young Giovanni—equivalent to John, and John Rolfe was the boy’s godfather—was taller and fairer than his father, a legacy of his Prussian mother. He spoke with stolid earnestness that could have concealed anything.
“Sir, we loaded a full cargo of Selang-Arsi wares in Toushan.”
That was this world’s equivalent of northeast China, near FirstSide’s Yingkou, inhabited by a weird mixed people the scholars said spoke Tocharian, whatever that was.
He’d never found the time to look into it further; the trans-Pacific trade had never been very important, until now, and he’d let the Collettas handle it. He’d been prepared to let them have Hawaii, too—if it proved possible to take it over without much effort. He’d made it clear that he would not approve annexation if it took a big garrison to hold the place; the Commonwealth still had less than sixty thousand people. Australia had seemed more important in the long run, thinly inhabited and rich in gold.
Giovanni went on: “The cargo included several hundred tons of assorted textiles—silks, cotton, wool and wool-and-silk rugs. We used some as presents with the Hawaiian chiefs. I’m told that’s probably how the disease spread.”
Rolfe nodded noncommittally and looked over at Solomon Pearlmutter. The Pearlmutter looked in turn at his son, who’d studied medicine on FirstSide and worked with the University of New Virginia’s medical department.
“Abraham?” the Pearlmutter said.
“Sir,” the younger man replied. He leaned forward to look at Rolfe. “Yes, that’s probably what happened. I’ve examined the cloth. There are scab fragments containing live virus in some of the wool blankets and rugs. Unless it’s exposed to bright sunlight, high heat or extreme cold, the smallpox virus can last indefinitely on something like that. The moderate temperatures and high humidity in a ship’s hold would be ideal.”
The Colletta shrugged again. “Hey, we didn’t cry when all the local Injuns dropped dead of flu and measles and menin-whatsis, did we? This is just another accident, only from China instead of FirstSide.”