Soldiers

"I couldn't believe I was hearing them. I felt… betrayed. Killed. Stabbed in the heart. Then Jael… " He described what she'd said, and what Lieutenant Zenawi had said. "And Lieutenant Bremer just sort of… caved in. Then I realized he'd lost his mind, and that he knew it. But I still felt… dirty, from what he'd said."

Hawkins nodded soberly. "Lieutenant Bremer's body wasn't wounded. His soul was, by all the killing. It was more than he could deal with. That's how some people are. He's in convalescence now. Major Ranavati is his doctor-a psychiatrist and Gopal Singh healer. The rumor is, when the lieutenant returns to duty, he'll be assigned to General Pak's staff, as assistant to Major Pelletier. Where he won't have responsibility for men in combat."

He gri

Esau nodded. "We could see that, Jael and me. No ride home probably."

Hawkins got casually to his feet, as if nothing heavier had been talked about than 2nd Platoon's fishing trip. "Well, I've got more wounded to visit. You two get well quick. Especially you, Esau, because a platoon leader's nothing without a good platoon sergeant to pass all the hard work to."

Then he was gone. Jael got up from her inflatable chair, knelt beside her husband and kissed him. "I'm proud of you, Esau," she said. Then she too gri

He half gri

Before supper, Isaiah Vernon stopped to visit. He was wearing a new servo. The old one's cooling system had needed work, and they'd decided to install his bottle in an improved model.

"Division got hundreds of them before we left Luneburger's," he said. "In case enough people signed agreements and were injured badly enough to qualify. And for replacements like mine.

"From the begi

"It made it more real to us-to me, anyway-that bot or not, you can get hurt or killed in those fights. But none of us did. We killed one hundred nineteen Wyzhnyny, by count, but none of us died. These servos are really good."

Briefly then they talked of other things, mainly things that had happened on Luneburger's World. They said nothing at all about their families or where they'd grown up. Maybe later. Meanwhile, those places, those people, didn't exist anymore.

In adjacent cots after lights out, Esau whispered to his wife. "I've been thinking."

"What about?" she murmured sleepily

"About Isaiah, and what Tom Clark said to the medic on the medivac. I think maybe I will sign a bot agreement. If it's all right with you."

She didn't answer at once. Then, "That's up to you, not me," she said.

But she didn't sound as if she really meant it. More as if she thought it was what she should say. And at any rate, in the morning he had other things on his mind.

Chapter 53

Petition to Kulikov

It was late afternoon. General Pak was reading staff reports when his Intelligence chief rang. "General, the buoys have something you need to see. Corporal Chen has it framed for you."

Frowning, Pak looked at his screen and touched a key. He recognized at once what he was looking at: a column of tanks, or perhaps artillery, moving out of a forested, hilly area. Limestone hills. Magnification was set low, allowing him to see the column's full length. He zoomed in to examine a single vehicle-an armored, self-propelled howitzer-then backed off a bit. A whole unit of howitzers. Judging by Wyzhnyny standing in open hatches, they were heavy stuff-perhaps eight-inchers.

Zooming back, he counted. A battalion of three batteries, each battery with sixteen howitzers, three squad APCs, an armored battery command wagon, a heavy salvage vehicle, and two ugly-looking flakwagons. He whistled silently. Forty-eight heavy howitzers in all! There was also a battalion command and support company with, among other vehicles, six flakwagons, and four of what could only be large, heavily armored caissons to replenish the ammunition carried by the howitzers themselves.

All of it loaded with bad intentions.

A total of twelve flakwagons! To send attack squadrons… He shook his head, thinking of the floaters lost against the flak towers.

He also thought of the Dragon parked 300 miles overhead, unavailable to him.

"Thank you, Captain," Pak said, and disco

Request the Dragon, he told himself. The worst they can do is say no. He touched another switch, and in a second had Commodore Kereenyaga's yeoman on the radio, some hundred thousand miles out. "This is General Pak. I need to speak with the commodore at once."

In twenty seconds the commodore was on.

"Commodore, I'm afraid you have all the heavy ground bombardment capacity in the system. Except for the heavy artillery the Wyzhnyny commander down here is moving against us. I need a visit from a friendly Dragon."

He listened to the commodore's reply, then answered, "I'm aware of that. I was on the pla

"I understand. But the pla

"Thank you. Tell them to call me if they have questions. And keep in mind that the clock is ru

He disco

The artillery that had shelled his line in the Battle of the First Days had been organic to the Wyzhnyny infantry units. This appeared to be additional. It was hard to imagine the Wyzhnyny leaving so much artillery on a world whose land surface was 99.9 percent wilderness and had no military at all, or any weapons beyond single-shot hunting arms.

He called the column's speed onto the screen. If it kept on that road, it could deploy for firing in under three hours. And surely they'd have tanks and infantry on hand to protect it, more than his forces could deal with in the open.

He touched a key that would boom his voice into every headquarters and orderly room in the base. "Urgent! Urgent! All units," he said. "This is your general. Evacuate base on Plan C. Evacuate base on Plan C. Begi

He disco