“They’re gonna hang. Hang ’em now,” spat the widow with cold anger as Benjork approached.

“You hang convicted murderers on Alkalurops, quiaff?”

“Yes, sir,” the young man at her elbow answered.

“These men are my prisoners,” Benjork said, “taken under the rules of war. I cannot allow you to be judge, jury and executioner, ma’am.”

“You think you’re better then me—better than us,” the woman said, her eyes cold slits.

“I am no better than you, ma’am. I just follow the laws laid down for me. If these men have violated those laws, they will be so charged, tried, and punished. It is not our place.”

“Ma, there’s been enough blood today. Let it go to a judge. Nothing’s gonna bring Pa or Brother back,” the young man said.

Finally the woman wept, leaned on her son, and turned away.

Benjork eyed the prisoners. “Who are they, Hicks?”

“A mixed bag, sir. Some punks from around here. Others who somehow managed to buy ’Mechs off-world and get Santorini to hire them. That Black Hawk you burned was the boss man of this crew. Field Marshal of Special Police by the name of Pillow.”

“Field Marshal, quineg?”

“I swear it. Santorini is easy on promotions.”

Benjork shook his head and changed the subject. “Where is our guide?”

“He lit out in his pickup. Said Nazareth needed to hear about this fast. I think I can follow our tracks back.”

So the gun trucks led the withdrawal. One of the Black and Red trucks had a complete suite for hijacking ’Mechs, so ten poorly done ’Mech MODs crewed by the next-best militia pilots grouped themselves as a cover for the exhausted fugitives. Benjork led his ’Mechs as rear guard. If they met more Black and Reds, it would be a hard fight. Their rocket launchers were empty and the magazines of their Gatling guns were not that far from it.

Nazareth was empty except for their old guide. “Most folks lit out north as soon as you went through here the first time. Them that stayed left plenty fast when I told them what happened out by the old Harlingen place. I figured I’d hang around to catch anyone who missed out on getting the word.”

They gassed the rigs, then headed north, the old rancher showing them a faster way. Benjork suspected they’d need it.

L. J. knew his client was mad; these days Santorini called only when he was screaming hot. It was also the only time the Net came up, so it was easy to respond when his ’puter blinked red and beeped. Santorini always seemed to pick the worst times to call.

L. J.’s last platoon was just motoring through the gate—dusty, bullet-holed and straggling. Scrawled in tall letters on each of its trucks was “Please ignore us. Save your ammo for the Black and Reds chasing us.” L. J. really wanted to get that story. Instead he activated his ’puter and said, “Yes, Mr. Santorini. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Can you do anything for me?” came like a slap of cold iron.

“I am concentrating my battalion, sir. Several more platoons came in today. They were pretty beat up on the drive in, lots of sniping going on out there.”

“A lot of lawlessness. If you’d apply the same procedures my Special Police do, you might have less trouble.”

Or more, L. J. didn’t say. “Sir, I am not a police force. I operate within the rules of war.”

“Well, that damn woman up the Gleann Mor Valley is waging war against me. She has sent her troops to aid insurrection and to shoot down my police.”

“Oh, is it that bad out there?” L. J. said, keeping a solid grip on his tone. The mayor’s wife had made another trip out and given him their side of what took place outside a small town called Nazareth. The town had been burned to the ground by the Special Police, she reported. Fortunately, everyone had fled into the valley. Damn, but that valley must be getting crowded.

“You will move out as soon as you consider your battalion capable of offensive action. You will seal off the Gleann Mor Valley and conduct search-and-destroy through it. All arms, all commercial facilities capable of dual use, are to be destroyed. All people taking up arms against their lawful government will be turned over to the Special Police I assign to interrogating such prisoners, their wives and families. Understood?”

L. J. could almost hear the recording being made. Nothing in his military training applied to this. How do you keep your fighting honor when given orders for mass murder? Guess the academy needs some new courses. “I have recorded your orders, sir. I acknowledge them and will be ready to move out in two days, sir. Where will I rendezvous with your Special Police?”

“Amarillo.”

“I assume they will be outside my chain of command.”

“Of course. They are my Special Police.”

L. J. wanted that clearly on the record. “Understood, sir.”

“Good-bye then, Major.”

“Good-bye, sir,” L. J. said. He closed the com unit with a firm click, watched until the Net died, then turned to Mallary. “Now let’s find out who came up with the idea of writing messages to the locals on the sides of that platoon’s trucks.”

14

Outside Amarillo, Alkalurops

Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere

24 August 3134; local summer

Grace studied the sun-seared rolling land before her. As her mind switched from miner’s to soldier’s thoughts, she could almost hear a click. Beside her, Ben eyed the defenses thrown up ten klicks south of Amarillo where the main road made a series of hairpin curves through a deep wash. A culvert covered a trickle of a river, but a gully-washer anywhere in the valley would have water pouring over the riverbed’s five-meter-high banks. Regularly washed out, the road was mostly potholes this summer. Few folks were feeling motivated toward their civic duty to repair the road.

Chato’s Navajos had taken a good three hundred riflemen from the south valley and shown them how to vanish. Even ’Mech MODs were either in cover, in fighting positions or hidden behind rocks. The command post was a small cattle shed, its roof falling in, lined with a double wall of sand bags. It smelled of heat and shade and cows.

“We have the main road blocked here,” Grace said. “East and west of here, the riverbank is deep and nasty. Bliven’s the only other good crossing,” she said, pointing to a map and the town a hundred and fifty kilometers east. “Syn and Wilson are down there setting up ambushes. West is your territory, Ben.”

“Any other defense in front of Amarillo?” the albino asked, his pink eyes squinting as he studied the potential battleground.

“None. Everything from here to town is too flat.”

“So we give up the town when this falls, quiaff?”

“We’ll have to. Most folks have already fled. Everyone’s heard stories of the Black and Reds. Nobody wants to be here when they show up. ’Course there are always stragglers, but with luck they’ll be too few for the mercs to notice.”

Ben eyed the land for a long time. Below them a rickety, overloaded truck chugged through the potholes at the bottom of the wash, then began its slow climb out. Once at the top, it halted and a woman in a huge straw hat and shapeless dress struggled down from the packed flatbed. She shouted her thanks, then plodded toward the barn as the truck drove off, its people, bedding and boxes swaying. One of the passengers began to sing, and others joined in.

“Nice people, those,” the woman said, setting down a box in the shade of the barn and sitting on it.

“Excuse me,” Grace said. “We’re kind of busy here. Don’t you belong somewhere else?”

The woman lifted the sleeve of her sweat-drenched smock, sniffed, and made a face. “Three days on the road, and I think a barn’s the only place that’ll take me.”