March Upcountry

"Agreed," he said. "We're going to have to stop somewhere."

"And we need to unload the packs," the mahout said. "The flar-ta will sleep standing up, but we must unload them. Otherwise, they will be useless tomorrow."

Pahner looked around and shook his head in resignation. It was the same wet, weird vista as it had been for the last few hours, so he supposed here was as good as anywhere.

"Okay, hold up here. I'll go get started on unloading them."

"We can't just dump the stuff in the swamp," Roger said. It was meant as an observation, but his tone made it sound like a protest.

"I know that, Your Highness," Pahner said testily. Just when the prince started to get a grip, he said the wrong thing at the wrong time. "We're not going to dump it in the swamp."

"Going vertical?" Lieutenant Gulyas asked. Because he was a couple of months senior to Jasco, he'd taken over as XO when Sawato was killed, turning his platoon over to Staff Sergeant Hazheir, its senior surviving NCO. It didn't really require more. Second Platoon had been hit hard, both in the ambush and before, and was already down to half its original complement.

"Yep," Pahner responded, looking up. The trees in the area weren't the giants of the rain forest they'd traveled under for weeks. They were lower, more like large cypresses, with branches that spread out to choke the light and red vinelike projections that reached up from their roots to search for oxygen.

"Start setting up slings. We'll sling the armor off one piece at a time, then sling the rest of the gear in bundles." The company had plenty of issue climbing-rope. The lines were rated to support an eighty-ton tank, but the forty-meter length that each team leader carried weighed less than a kilo. There was more than enough to lift all the gear.

"What about the troops?" Roger asked. "Where are they going to sleep?"

"Well, that's the tough part, Your Highness," Kosutic told him with a grin. "This is how you separate the Marines from the goats."

"Besides the usual method—with a crowbar," Gulyas said, completing a joke as old as armies.

"T'is really suck." Poertena didn't even bother to try to get comfortable.

"Oh, it's not all that bad," Julian said as he adjusted the strap across his chest. The ebullient NCO was coated from head to toe in black, stinking mud, and exhausted from the day's travel, so his manic grin had to be false. "It could be worse."

"How?" Poertena demanded, adjusting his own rope. The two Marines, along with the rest of the company, were tied with their backs to trees. Since they had no choice but to sleep on their feet, the ropes around them were designed to keep them from slipping down into the chest-deep muck. As tired as they were, there was a distinct possibility that they wouldn't wake up if they did.

"Well," Julian replied thoughtfully as the skies opened up in a typical Mardukan deluge, "something could be trying to eat us."

Pahner had the sentries walking the perimeter and shining red flashlights on each individual. It was hoped that a combination of the movement and the light would drive off the vampire moths. Of course, there were also the swamp beasts to worry about, and it was always possible that movement and light would attract them, but there wasn't a great deal he could do about that.

All in all, it looked like being a very bad night for the Marines.

"No, Kostas," Roger said, shaking his head at the item Matsugae had produced. "You use it."

"I'm fine, Your Highness," the valet said with a tired smile. The normally dapper servant was covered in black slime. "Really. You shouldn't sleep in this muck, Sir. It's not right."

"Kostas," Roger said, adjusting his chest rope so that he could keep his rifle out of the muck but still get to it quickly, "this is an order. You will take that hammock and sling it somewhere and then climb into it. You will sleep the entire night in it. And you will get some goddamned rest. I'm going to be on the back on that damned pack beast again tomorrow, and you won't, so I can damned well spend a night sitting up. God knows I've seen enough 'white nights' carousing. One more won't kill me."

Matsugae touched Roger on the shoulder and turned away so that the prince wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. Without even realizing it, Roger had started to grow up. Finally.

"Now that was something I never thought I'd see," Kosutic said quietly.

The sergeant major had managed to rig a line so that she was out of the water, dangling in her combat harness. She didn't know how long she could manage it, but for the time being at least she was off her legs. If she did sleep, she figured she was going to look like something from a bad horror holovid: a dead body dangling on a meat hook.

"Yep," Pahner said, just as quietly. He'd slung himself against a tree like the rest of the company. He had a hammock packed as well, but he'd bundled O'Casey into it. There was no way he was going to use it unless every member of the company had one. And Roger, apparently without prompting, had come to the same decision.

Amazing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"Wake up."

Julian shook the private by the arm. The bead rifleman dangled limply from the tree, her face gray in the predawn light, and pried one eye open. She looked around at her wet, indescribably muddy surroundings and groaned.

"Please. Kill me," she croaked.

Julian just shook his head with a laugh and moved on. A few moments later, he found himself looking up at the sergeant major, spi

"Wake up, Sergeant Major," he said, touching her boot as it swung into range.

The NCO had her bead pistol out and trained before she was fully awake.

"Julian?" she grunted, and cleared her throat.

"Morning, SMaj," the squad leader chuckled. "Wakee, wakee!"

"Time for another glorious day in the Corps," the sergeant major replied, and pulled an end of the rope to release the knot. She splashed into the water, still holding her bead pistol out of the muck, and came up coated in a fresh covering of mud. "Morning ablutions are complete. Time to rock and roll."

"Sergeant Major, you are too much," Julian laughed.

"Stick with me, kid," the senior NCO told him through her brand new mud. "We're go

"Meet exotic people," Pahner said, untying himself and stretching in the early dawn light.

"And kill them," Julian finished.

After changing socks, the company moved out on cold rations and vague dreams of dryness. Pahner, recognizing the danger to the Marines' feet, started cycling the company up onto the flar-ta two at a time. Even with the company's reduced manpower, however, it would take most of the day to get everyone up for a brief respite. And it would be brief.

As the morning progressed, there was no sign of a break in the swamp, nor of the sort of increasing depth that might signal a river ahead. In fact, the humans could see no change at all in their surroundings, but the pack beasts seemed to be getting less and less happy about continuing.

Finally, when one balked, Pahner slogged up to D'Len Pah.

"What's wrong with the beasts?" he asked.

"I think we might be in the territory of atul-grack," the mahout answered nervously. "They're very frightened."

"Atul-grack?" Pahner repeated as Cord's nephew Tratan waded up, and the young tribesman started waving all four arms in agitation.