It was the four hundred and nineteenth day of the siege, and still there was no sign that Tunis would fall. Not this •year, Karr thought, amazed by its resilience, by the sheer stubbornness of its defenders.
The image on the screen was a familiar one. It showed Tunis from a distance, sitting like a giant mile-tall rock upon the plain, the sea beyond it: an imposing block of part-melted ice, its surface dark, like rough pitch. They had cleared the surrounding stacks long ago with ice-destroying chemicals, but the defenders had coated the rest with a special diamond-tough bonding: a bonding that seemed to resist all but their most destructive weapons. Close up it had a blistered, burned appearance, like the toughened hide of some deep-sea creature.
They had spent the best part of a year chipping away at it, to little real effect. And what inroads they made were generally short lived. Nor had their blockade—the keystone of Rheinhardt's plan—been totally effective. Ting Ju-ch'ang, the local Warlord, had the backing of the Mountain Lords, and despite Karr's best efforts, their ships had managed many times to slip through and supply the City-fortress.
Even so, things had to be bad inside. The defending force was more than three million strong. Add to that a further fifty million—all of them crammed into a space designed for a tenth their number—and it took no genius to imagine the problems they faced. If rumors were true, they were eating one another in there.
The thought made Karr shudder; made him question once again the sense of Rheinhardt's strategy. There had been a good reason for hitting Tunis. For a long time Ting Ju-ch'ang—as front man for the Mountain Lords—had used Tunis as a base from which to attack the southern coast of Li Yuan's City, and there was no question they had needed to do something about it. That said, there had been no need to capture it. As Karr had argued several times in Rheinhardt's presence, they had merely to contain Ting's activities. To capture a well-defended City was—as he knew from experience—almost an impossibility, especially when, as here, he found himself in hostile territory, outnumbered, his supply lines stretched, and harried at his back all the time.
The truth was Rheinhardt knew they couldn't win, yet he'd become obsessed with it. To withdraw would be a severe loss of face. After all, he had promised Li Yuan he would take it, and to go back on that promise was—for him—unthinkable.
And so here we are, Karr thought, crouched in a tunnel beneath the City, waiting for the signal to attack. While back in City Europe a far greater threat to our security grows and grows, like a fat white grub, feeding upon its fellow grubs.
Lehmann. Lehmann was the problem, not Ting Ju-ch'ang. Karr stretched his neck, then turned, smiling at the men closest to him reassuringly. He glanced down at the timer inset into his wrist, then raised his hand. It was almost time.
He heard the whisper go back into the darkness, then turned back, feeling the familiar tension in his guts. Up ahead his teams were in position. In less than a minute, as his cruisers mounted a diversionary missile attack on the western gate, they would begin.
He lifted his helmet and secured it, making sure the seal was airtight, the oxygen supply satisfactory, then reached for his gun. Behind him he could hear the scrape and click of hundreds of helmets being secured, the clatter as a gun fell, then was retrieved. Fourteen seconds . . .
He waited, counting in his head, seeing the first wave of cruisers flash across the screen, their missiles streaking toward the rocklike wall of the City-fortress. Even as they hit—even as he felt the judder from above—there was the whummpf'whumpff of mortars being fired farther down the tunnel, followed immediately by the piercing, banshee whirr of the shells as they spiraled toward their targets.
He turned, looking down the line, noting face after familiar face, underlit by their helmet lights. These were good men. His best. They'd been with him a long time now and knew exactly what to do.
Who this time? he wondered, seeing how each one met his eyes and smiled. Whose widow will I be speaking to tonight? Whose grieving mother?
But there was no more time for that. Scrambling up, Karr began to run, half crouching, following his lieutenant toward the gap, his men close behind.
In his head he had been counting. Now, at fifteen, he stopped and crouched again, as the blast came back down the tunnel at them. Behind him, he knew, his men would have done the same.
Instinct. It was all instinct now. They'd been fighting this war so long now that there was nothing he could tell them they didn't already know.
He stood, then ran on, making for the breach his guns had made in the City's underbelly.
Up ahead, preprogrammed remotes were picking off most of the defending mechanicals, their lasers raking the sides of the great shaft they were about to infiltrate, exploding any mines. They would clear a path. But it would take men—with their heightened instincts—to get any farther.
Karr passed the mortar positions. Some ten ch'i farther on, just above them and to the right, was the breach. He went through the jagged opening and stepped out into the base of a huge service shaft, looking up into a haze of mist and light. The mortar shells had contained a mixture of strong hallucinogenics and tiny pellets which, when they exploded, burned with a searing, blinding light. Right now Ting's forces were in temporary disarray—the watch guard blind and half out of its collective skulls—but that advantage wouldn't last long. They had two minutes, maybe four at the outside, before fresh forces were drafted in. And after that . . .
Karr stood beside the breach, waving his men through, urging them on, watching them fan out around the edge of the shaft, and begin to climb, proud—proud with a father's pride—of their professionalism.
Wasted, he thought, angry suddenly that all of their talent, all of their hard-won knowledge, should be squandered for so little reward. We should be dealing with Lehmann. Clearing the levels of the scum who thrive under his patronage.
Yes. But so long as Rheinhardt had Li Yuan's backing there would be no change. Tunis . . . Tunis would be the rock upon which a million mothers' hearts would be broken.
He swallowed, then, knowing there was a job to be done, turned, and, clipping his gun to his back, began to climb.
PEI k'ung, wife of Li Yuan and Empress of City Europe, snapped her fingers. At once the servant standing beside the great studded doors hurried across, his head bowed. Two paces from her desk he stopped, falling to his knees.
"Mistress!"
"Tsung Ye," she said, not looking up from the document she was reading, "tell Master Nan I'd like a word with him. Meanwhile, send in the maid. And have the doctor standing by. I want his full report on the new intake of girls."
Tsung Ye hesitated, in case there was anything else, then backed away, hurrying from the room.
Pei K'ung looked up, bracing herself for the interview ahead. Her husband had seemed particularly happy this morning. She had heard him whistling below her window, and when she had gone out onto her balcony to look, it was to find him walking among the flower beds, sniffing the dew-heavy roses, more like a lovesick boy than a great T'ang. Of course, it was possible that the beauty of the morning had made him so, but she suspected it was more to do with the company in his bed last night.
She sighed. Last night they had argued, for the first time since they had wed, two and a half years ago. He had turned on her and shouted her down, his face burning with anger, then stormed from the room. And later, when she had gone to him, he had refused point blank to see her.