I could hear firing in the distance and a jet thundered by and was gone, but after this it was very quiet. The invasion had fanned out from the spaceport leaving a pocket of silence in its wake. Nor was anyone in sight when I walked, unexamined, through the customs area and, with reflex skill, found the bar. The first thing I did was to drain a flask of beer, then poured a small Antarean ladevandet to hold it down. There were ranked bottles behind the bar, new friends and old ones, and I made a good selection. I needed something to carry them in and opened one of the sliding doors beneath, looking for a box or a bag, and found myself staring into the frightened eyes of a young man.
“Ne mortigu min!” he cried. I speak Esperanto like a native and answered in the same tongue.
“We are here to liberate you so mean you no harm.” Word of this conversation might get to the authorities and I wanted to make the right impression. “What is your name?”
“Pire.”
“And the name of this world?” This seemed sort of a dim question for an arrogant invader to ask, but he was too frightened to question it.
“Burada.”
“That’s fine. I’m glad you decided to be truthful. And what can you tell me about Burada?”
Badly phrased, admittedly, and he was too stunned to answer. He gaped for a moment, then climbed out of the cabinet and turned to root about in it. He came up with a booklet that he passed over in silence. It had a 3D cover of an ocean with graceful trees on the bordering shore, that sprang to life as soon as the heat of my hand touched it; the waves crashed silently on the golden sands and the trees moved to the touch of unfelt breezes. Letters formed of clouds moved across the sky and I read BEAUTIFUL BURADA… HOLIDAY WORLD OF THE WESTERN WARP…
“Looting and consorting with the enemy,” a familiar, and detested, voice said from the doorway. I turned slowly to see my friend the colonel from our ship standing there fingering his gauss-rifle with what can only be termed a filthy grin on his face.
“And 10 G landing too,” he added, undoubtedly the real cause of his unhappiness. “Which is not a shooting offense although the other two are.”
Chapter 12
Pire shrieked in a muffled manner and drew back, not understanding the colonel’s words but recognizing his manner and his weapon. I smiled, as coldly as I could, as I saw that my hands were out of sight below the bar. Turning to the youth I pointed to the far end of the room and ordered him there. He scuttled nicely and while this bit of mis-direction was going on I slipped the tourist book into my pocket and eased my gausspistol out of its holster. When I turned back to the colonel I saw that he had half raised his rifle.
“You are wrong,” I said, “and insulting as well to a fellow officer who recently was a flight-major. I am aiding our invading forces by securing this drinking establishment to prevent any of your troops from becoming drunk on duty and therefore injuring our all-out efforts. And while in this place I took a prisoner who was hiding here. That is what happened and it is my word against yours, colonel.”
He raised his gun barrel towards me and said, “It is only my word that I caught you looting and was forced to shoot you when you resisted arrest.”
“I am a hard one to shoot,” I said, letting the muzzle of my pistol slide up over the edge of the bar until it was centered between his eyes. “I am an expert shot and one of these explosive slugs will take the top of your head off.”
Apparently he had not expected this kind of instant response from a flying officer and he hesitated for a moment. Pire squealed faintly and there was a thud. I assumed he had fainted but was too busy to look. This murderous tableau held for a moment and there was no way of knowing how it might have ended if a soldier had not rushed into view with a field radio. The colonel took the phone and went back to the war while I stuffed two bottles into the back of my jacket and went out the other exit, stepping over Pire who was unconscious on the floor and undoubtedly better off that way. I was gone before the colonel realized it and I took the drink back to the ship and sent it up the service lift to Otrov. “And don’t drink more than one,” I ordered and his voice responded with a happy cry over the intercom.
I was on my own now and I meant to make the most of the opportunity. With the battle still being waged my movements would not be watched and I could make my observations. Of course I might also be killed, but that is one of the occupational hazards of the service. Once the invasion had succeeded movement would be sharply restricted and I would probably be on my way back to Cliaand. The guide booklet was still in my pocket, the heat of my hip keeping the action going on the cover. I opened it and flipped through the pages which were heavy on pictures and short on copy. This was the hard sell all right with low music coming from the illustration of the floating orchestra on beautiful Sabun Bay and the scent of flowers from the Kanape fields. I expected some snow to fall out of the picture of skiing in the Kar mountains, but the technology of advertising did not extend this far. There was a map showing the airport and the city, diagrammatic and worthless for the most part, though it did tell me I was standing in Sucuk Spaceport close by Sucuk City. I threw away the book and went to see the sights.
Depressing. It would be a long time before the tourists came back to these sunny shores. I walked through the empty streets, peeked by explosions and charred by fire, and wondered what the purpose of this could possibly be. War, always a foolish business, seemed even more infantile at this moment. Horrible might be a better word; I saw my first corpses. There was the sound of dragging feet and a horde of prisoners appeared in the street ahead, guarded on all sides by alert Cliaandian troops. Many of the prisoners were wounded and few bandaged. The sergeant in charge saluted when they went by and gave a wave of victory. I smiled in return but it took an effort. What I had to do now was to find some responsible citizen of Sucuk City who was not yet a prisoner or dead and get the answers to some questions.
The citizen found me first. I left the main road and turned down a narrow winding street ominously labeled Matbaacilik-sasurtmek—any street with a name like that could not be all good. My suspicions had some justification in fact. I discovered this when I turned a sharp corner and found myself facing a young woman who was pointing a large bore hunting rifle at me. I was waving my little fingers in the air even before she spoke.
“Surrender or die!”
“I’ve surrendered—can’t you see! Long live Burada, rah-rah…” “None of your sickening jokes, you foul war-mongering male, or I’ll shoot you on the spot.”
“I’m on your side, believe me. Peace on Burada, good will to men—and women too of course.”
She snorted at this and waved me towards a dark doorway with the gun. Even in anger she was a handsome woman, wide-faced with flaring nostrils and black hair hanging straight to her shoulders. She wore a dark green uniform, high boots, leather straps and all, with some kind of insignia on the sleeve. She was feminine despite this; no uniform could be made to disguise the magnificent swell of that bosom. I entered the doorway as she demanded and she reached to take my pistol as I passed. I could have done some quick business then with her arm and the gun barrel and ended up with both weapons, but I restrained myself. As long as she felt she was in charge she might talk more easily. We entered a dark inner room with a single window, an office of some kind, where another girl in uniform was stretched out on the desk. Her eyes were closed and the leg of her uniform had been cut away to disclose an ugly wound now bound with clumsy bandages. Blood had seeped through them and pooled upon the desk top.
“You have medicine?” my captress asked.
“I do,” I said, opening the medpack at my waist. “But I don’t think it will do much good. She appears to have lost a lot of blood and needs medical attention.”