“Frozen stiff,” Connors answered. “I sent out a patrol forward and they report that there are thousands of them… maybe as many as fifty thousand, lined up and frozen for thirty kilometers to the west.
“I’ve got my men blasting out some fortifications for your people,” Connors finished. “It’s the best I can do.”
Interlude
Chile was not exactly what most of the Posleen would consider to be prime real estate. Narrow, bounded by ocean and mountain, the Posleen clan which took it — assuming one did, and this was not necessarily the way to bet — would be naturally constrained from expanding against other clans after the final extermination of the local thresh.
On the other hand, for some lesser clans this sort of patch of ground was ideal. If they could not easily expand neither could other clans easily expand against them. Indeed, within the Posleen “ecology,” there were numerous clans who adopted this as a general survival technique. While they never became dominant, and rarely even particularly prosperous, within the Posleen system, they were usually able to hang on while the worlds around them came apart during orna’adar. Then, neither more nor less well off than when they had first landed, they escaped more or less intact.
Panama, bounded by sea on both sides, had a similar appeal to the clan of Binastarion. There, with difficult-to-pass jungle to the east and a narrow frontier to the west, that clan could settle, grow food, live and defend themselves when, as eventually they must, population pressures caused interclan war, eventually descending into nuclear and antimatter holocaust.
Moreover, in the case of Panama, there was a special appeal. From the command deck of his mini-globe, Binastarion observed on his screen that the waist of the country was not only extremely narrow but had a major body of water right in the middle of that waist. Better still the body of water, his screen called it “Gatun Lake,” was itself flanked by bridged but otherwise impassable canals.
This meant that, when orna’adar began, bringing with it the usual mad scramble for living space, Binastarion’s clan could trade space for either alliance or time. In the case of attack from the east, they could fall behind that lake and canal and hang on in the west. Alternatively, in the case of attack from the west, they could resettle to the east.
Of course, should attack come from both quarters they were just screwed, but life was never fair, as Binastarion had good reason to know.
“Sometimes you get the abat, sometimes the abat get you,” the clan chief muttered as he played a claw over the screen, selecting the initial landing areas.
Chapter 11
Bella, detesta matribus. (War, the horror of mothers.)
Digna could read a map even before going to OCS at Fort Espinar. She sat on the front porch of her house, a building that also did double duty as the local militia headquarters, rocking in her old chair and intently studying a map of Central America and northern Colombia in an atlas.
Idly, she wondered why Panama hadn’t yet been included on the aliens’ menu. Less idly, she gave thanks to God that it hadn’t been.
“Every day He grants us is one more day to prepare,” she whispered.
Omar beat frantically on the door to his grandmother’s bedroom. “Mamita, Mamita, wake up!”
The door sprang open under Omar’s pounding fist.
“What is it, boy?” Digna demanded.
Breathless, he answered, “The enemy, the Posleen… they’re here!”
“ ‘Here’? Where? Bring me the maps, boy, quickly. And light a lantern.”
Pulling on a robe, Digna emerged into the darkened main room of the house to discover some dozens of her descendants, old and young, as well as Tomas Herrera, waiting.
A kerosene lantern already burned in the room, casting shifting shadows across the walls. There could have been electricity, of course, except that having power lines run in to an out-of-the-way private establishment was, under Panama’s system, a matter of private, and not small private, expense. Her husband, wealthy or not, had never seen the point of paying to run in power lines when kerosene did well enough.
Neither had Digna.
The lack of electric power did not mean the house was entirely without power. A radio, crank powered, blared out the horrible news: landings northwest of the City of San Jose y David, David for short, and southwest of the town of Santiago, in the province of Veraguas. Thus, to both sides of Chiriqui the Inter-American highway was cut.
Escape was still possible for Digna and her clan, over the mountains to the north but…
“Not yet,” she said aloud. “First we fight… for our land… and our honor.”
She looked down at the table where Omar spread the national and local maps. As he struck a match and touched it to the wick of another lantern the shadows on walls softened, flickered and mostly disappeared.
Digna contemplated the maps, eyes flitting from one to the other as her mind raced, calculating.
A huge-eyed great-great-granddaughter, Gigi, offered a cup of the strong and excellent local coffee. Digna blew on the scalding brew then sipped absently, still contemplating the maps.
Word of the attack spread fast. As Digna contemplated, more of her children and grandchildren entered the room until it grew hot, stuffy and very crowded. At length she looked up and did a mental roll call. Seeing that the elders of her clan were now fully assembled she began to give orders.
“We’ve been over this before,” she explained, “but just so there’s no confusion, there is only one way for the enemy to get to the core of our land, here,” she pointed to a spot on the lesser map, “at the bridge.”
She pointed to a son and ordered, “Roderigo, take your cavalry and screen forward between here and the outskirts of David. Report on enemy movements and call for fire on any groups that seem determined to use the road that leads to us.”
Roderigo nodded but, in shock, did not move immediately.
“Did I raise a dolt? Go! Now!”
“Si, Mama,” and the old man left to gather his sons and grandsons.
Digna turned her eyes to Tomas. “Señor Herrera, take your group to the positions we have dug covering the bridge. Cavalry will screen your flanks. Do final preparations to blow the bridge but, until I give the word, we hold it.”
Before Herrera could leave Digna said, “Wait a moment, Tomas. Edilze, I want the guns to take up Firing Position D. You will fire in support of your uncle Roderigo until the enemy is within your minimum range. After that, I want you to displace forward and add your guns to Señor Herrera’s force at the bridge.”
Edilze just nodded, as confidently as the circumstances called for, and then turned to go.
As Edilze and Herrera passed through the door they heard Digna continuing to issue orders, over the drumbeat of horses’ hooves. The horses were those of Roderigo and company heading for the front.
“Belisario, you screen the river north of the bridge. Vladimiro, your boys have the south and west. Pay particular attention to the ford by the Sanchez place.
“All the rest of you, gather our people and goods at the training field. Now!”
One thing Panama had in abundance was young labor. This had been used to raise a rammed earth wall around the core of the city of David. The wall was a bit uneven but averaged five meters above the ground and nearly ten above the floor of the forward-facing ditch, a “fosse,” from which the earth of the wall had been excavated.