March Upcountry

"Knowledge of geology is useful," Roger said sullenly.

"How? How is it useful to a chief? Should you not study the nature of your enemies? Of your allies?"

"Do you know what that is?" Roger demanded, gesturing at the coal seam, and Cord snapped his fingers again in a Mardukan sign of agreement.

"The rock that burns. Another reason to avoid these demon-spawn hills. Light a fire on that, and you'll have a hot time!"

"But it's a good material economically," Roger pointed out. "It can be mined and sold."

"Good for Farstok Shit-Sitters, I suppose," Cord said with another snort of laughter. "But not for The People."

"And you trade nothing with these 'Farstok Shit-Sitters'?" Roger asked, and Cord was silent for a moment.

"Some, yes. But The People don't need their trade. They don't require their goods or gold."

"Are you sure?" Roger looked up at the towering alien and cocked his head. There was something about the Mardukan's body language that spoke of doubt.

"Yes," Cord said definitely. "The People are free of all bonds. No tribe binds them, nor do they bind any tribe. We are whole." But he still seemed ambivalent to the human.

"Uh-huh." Roger put his helmet back on, carefully. That tap had hurt. "Physician, heal thyself."

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The jungle wore mist like a shroud. This was a cloud forest more than a rain forest—a condition of eternal damp and fog rather than a place of rain.

But it was also a transition zone. Soon the company would pass out of it into the enveloping green hell of the jungle below. Soon their vision would be blocked by lianas and underbrush, not mist. Soon they would be in the cloaking darkness of the rain forest understory, but for now there were only tall trees, very similar in many respects to the trees on the desert side of the mountains, and the omnipresent mist.

"This sucks," said Lance Corporal St. John, (M.). Sergeant Major Kosutic required him to respond that way—"St. John, M."—because he had an identical twin in Third Platoon, St. John, (J.) She also required each of them to have a distinguishing mark at all times. In St. John (M.)'s case, it was that one side of his head was shaved bald, and he reached up to scratch under his helmet as he looked around at the steamy twilight.

The temperature was over 46 degrees, 115 Fahrenheit, and the fog was dense and hot, like being in a steam bath, and nearly impenetrable. Visibility was no more than ten meters, and the helmets' sensors were overwhelmed by the conditions. Even the sonics were defeated by the swirling, choking steam. St. John (M.) turned to bitch some more to the plasma gu

"Eyow!"

"What?" PFC Talbert asked as the lance yanked off his helmet. The two of them were covering the right flank of the company, slightly out of line with the point man and fifty meters back.

"Ow!" the grenadier said, banging the helmet into a convenient tree trunk. "Goddamn feedback! I think this damned steam blew out a circuit."

Talbert laughed and let her plasma rifle dangle on its sling as she slapped a stingfly on her neck and fished in her jacket with the other hand. She extracted a brown tube.

"Smoke?"

"Nah," St. John (M.) snarled. He put the helmet on his head and yanked it off again. "Shit." He reached into the depths and pulled a harness plug, then held it up to his ear again. "Ah, that got it. But I just lost half my sensors."

Talbert popped the brown tube into her mouth and tapped the end to light it, then paused and looked around at the mists.

"Did you hear something?" she asked, hitching up her plasma rifle cautiously.

"I can't hear shit," St. John (M.) said. The big lance corporal rubbed his ear. "Nothing but chirping crickets!"

"Doesn't matter," Talbert said around the nicstick. The mild derivative of tobacco had a low-level of pseudonicotine and was otherwise harmless. It was, however, just about as addictive as regular tobacco. "Sensors can't do shit in this cra—"

St. John (M.) spun in place like a snake as the scream began behind him.

Talbert, shrieking like a soul in hell, was co

St. John (M.) was shocked out of coherent thought, but he was also a veteran, and his hands jacked the belt of high explosive rounds out of his grenade launcher without any conscious order from his brain. They were reaching for a shotgun shell when Gu

The plasma gu

Lai dropped the bead rifle and ripped the first-aid kit off her combat harness. She threw herself onto the writhing plasma gu

Lai cut the gu

The plasma gu

Lai backed away in horror as the black blood spread up the Marine's neck and the skin and muscles of her face fell flaccid against the bones of her skull.

Final dissolution didn't take all that long. It only seemed like hours until the private stopped thrashing and screaming.

"What the fuck is this, a picnic?" Sergeant Major Kosutic snarled. She shoved one private towards the perimeter and looked the platoon sergeant in the eye. "We need a perimeter, not a cluster fuck!"

The group around the incident broke up, scattering towards guard positions, as she strode through them.

"Okay, what happened?" She looked down at the skeleton at her feet and blanched. "Satan! What did that? And who is it?"

"It was jus'... it was..." St. John (M.) said incoherently. He was swinging from side to side, training his grenade launcher up into the treetops of the surrounding forest. He was obviously still in shock, so Kosutic looked at Lai.

"Gu

Lai hefted her bead rifle and looked around at the trees, wide-eyed.

"It was some sort of worm." She kicked what was left of the invertebrate where it had fallen at the base of the tree. "It bit her, or stung her, or something. When I got here, it was pulling her up into the tree. I shot it off of her, but she just... she just..." The sergeant stopped and retched, still searching the enveloping mists for more of the worms.

"She just... that," she finished, gesturing to but not looking at the partial skeleton at her feet.