"Sir!" he barked. "Returning as ordered. Permission to report to my command, sir?"
"Nothing to report, Major?" Raj asked.
"No, sir."
"Dismissed."
He heeled his dog around with unnecessary violence; the slave-girl squeaked and clutched at the pommel of her saddle as her mount followed his. Suzette dismounted and handed Harbie's reins to a groom.
"What, no presents for me?" Raj said softly, with a stark grin.
There were spots of red on her cheeks, but her eyes met his steadily as she offered a sheaf of paper. Raj took it and looked down at the first page. Then he grunted as if belly-punched.
* * *
"Fellow soldiers," Raj began.
A long slow roar built up through the crowd, a huge semicircle of blue jackets and brown faces, spotted with the green-and-gold of Poplanich's Own, the gorgets of the 17th Hemmar Valley Cuirassiers, and the multicolored blaze of the barbarian mercenaries. A corner of the berm and the gentle slope leading up to it gave seating sufficient that most of the army could see him and the Companions seated on the improvised dais. The officers of the force were down in front where they could hear him; many of the men could too, and there was a rippling murmur as his words were relayed back to the rear ranks. Only the officers could see the map on the easel behind him, but that was not much of a drawback.
The cheer had started with the men who'd served under him in the east, then spread to the others. Da Cruz had told him-with an innocent expression-that the story of the hardtack had gotten out.
Spirit damn it, shut up, he thought. I may be leading you all to death, for Spirit's sake.
"Fellow soldiers," he continued, when the noise had died down. "You all know that we're embarked on a dangerous mission. Well, I'm glad to say I have some good news for you; it's still dangerous, but it's not suicide. The Squadrones-I have this on the best of authorities-the Squadron still has its head tucked up its behind-they don't know we're coming!"
This time the cheer was a roar.
"The Squadron's Admiral thinks everything he's heard about us is just smoke and mirrors, rumors like the ones that come up every couple of years since the last expedition failed." Raj leaned forward, grinning like a sauroid and tapping one fist into a palm. "Isn't he going to be surprised?"
The soldiers howled laughter. "In fact, the pick of the Squadron levy, ten thousand men, sailed three weeks ago for Sadler Island, to put down a revolt." His swagger-stick traced the course, from Port Murchison away around the western coast of the north-pointing peninsula. "Under Commodore Curds Auburn, the Admiral's brother and his best general. With all their fleet, every war-galley they have in commission. The biggest threat to this force was being intercepted at sea-and now it's gone. The Spirit has put its protecting hands over us."
He spread his hands for silence. "Wait! Cheer when we've won, not before!" More grimly. "This means we've got a better chance, not a walkover. There'll be hard fighting yet.
"Now, here are the general orders. We'll take the shortest sea route from here"-he tapped their position on Stern Island-"to here." The stick traced a line directly south, landing on the indented coast south and east of Port Murchison. "We'll land and concentrate in this bay and establish a base.
"Nobody," he went on, tapping the stick into his palm, "is to leave the landing site without orders; nobody under any circumstances whatsoever is to enter the Port Murchison harbor. We're going to land close enough to panic them, then grind up what they send out."
He paused. "Any questions?"
Gharderini shot to his feet. "You say there won't be any interception at sea," he said furiously. "How can you be so sure? Did the Admiral send word, or the Spirit of Man of the Stars inform you personally?"
Raj stood and let his hand fall on Suzette's shoulder. "The information," he said slowly, "is from a source I trust absolutely."
as you should, raj whitehall, Center said, as you must.
* * *
"Hear us, O Spirit of Man of the Stars," the priest intoned.
"Hear us," the massed troops answered. Everything was aboard except the men; the tide was making, and a breeze blowing down from the hills and out to sea.
The priest lifted his hands to the last of the stars, vanishing as night faded under the spear-rays of the sun.
"Code not our sins; let them be erased and not ROMed in Thy disks."
"Forgive us, O Star Spirit!"
As Raj led the response, another voice spoke in the back of his mind:
observe Center said.
* * *
— and a high surf beat on a rocky beach under a gray sky. Dinghy-loads of troops and the light transports drove in regardless, men leaping into head-deep water and wading ashore with their rifles over their heads or clinging to the saddles of swimming dogs. The first of them were just forming up when the Squadron troops rose from behind the dunes, their double-barreled muskets blasting at point-blank range-
— and viewpoint-Raj was clinging to a rope-line, on the deck of a ship lost in sea and spray. The sound of the storm was beyond belief, a solid roar in all the frequencies a human ear could perceive. Walls of water rose higher than the masts, but the wind tore off their tops and flung them as a horizontal sheet of spray like low cloud, until there was no telling where air began and sea stopped. The ship rose as a wave belled out beneath it, and for a moment they could see the rocks ahead. Then they struck, and the hull exploded into fragments beneath their feet-
— and the fleet was crowding into the bay, the beach black with men and the sea with dinghies and swimming dogs. Everyone's head came up at the first cannon shot. The Squadron warships came around the headland in a surge of gilded beaks and vermilion oars, the first flying the sword-and-comet banner of Commodore Curtis. Its bow-guns cut loose, the roundshot skipping over the low waves and into the side of the first Civil Government warship. Timbers smashed over the paddle wheel, and then the deck came apart in a shower of splinters and white smoke as the boiler ruptured. Behind the galleys came the transports, their rigging thick with the elite troops of the Squadron roaring out their war cries. .
* * *
"The Spirit of Man is of the Stars and all the Universe; this we believe."
"Witness our belief, O Star Spirit!"
"As we believe and act in righteousness, so shall we be boosted into the Orbit of Fulfillment."
"Raise us up, O Star Spirit!"
"Deliver us from the Crash; from the Meltdown; from the Hard Rads; spare us."
"Spare us, O Star Spirit!"
"We receive diligently the Input from Thy Holy Terminal, now and forever."
"Forever, O Star Spirit."
"As we believe, so let Thy Holy Federation be restored in our time, O Spirit of Man of the Stars; and if the burden of a faithless generation's sin be too great, may our souls be received into the Net. Endfile."
"Endfile!"
Raj looked out over the sea of bared heads. "Right, lads. Enter your sins at the Terminal, and fight with the Spirit at your side."
The priest lowered his hands. "The Spirit be with you."
"And in thy soul."
Chapter Seven
The longboat cut through the darkening purple of the waves toward the shore of the bay. Senior Lieutenant Antin M'lewis crouched in the bows, his eyes flickering restlessly as the muffled oars beat behind him. No way of telling if the barbs were waiting for them. . probably not. He looked up for a second; low scudding clouds, and a wet breeze from the east, overland. Rustler's weather, they called it at home in Bufford Parish. Home to the only men in Descott County, or so his Pa had told him the first time he took him out to try for some of Squire Rahmirez's sheep. It had been Squire Rahmirez got him into the Army, too, after the little matter of those two riding dogs he'd sold him. Well, good Spirit bless, did the man think he'd bought them, to be selling them at that price? Good-hearted of him to sponsor M'lewis's enlistment, though. "The Army will be the making of you, me lad," he'd said.