CHAPTER FIFTEEN

October, Year 1 A.E.

The natives are restless," Alston said, listening to the drums as they echoed under the sound of the engines. Beside her Swindapa nodded gravely. Lieutenant Hendriksson cast a quick uncertain glance her way, then smiled wryly. Somebody farther back in the boat snickered.

Good for morale, Alston thought. Let her people see that the skipper wasn't oppressed by the alien weirdness of the surroundings. Much, she added to herself in blunt honesty. Besides, it had come to her spontaneously.

The boats from the Eagle were advanced up the twisting river in a broad wedge, with the motor launches to the fore acting as scouts. Behind them came the twoscore big inflatable lifeboats; their powerful outboard engines let some of them tow long whaleboats brought along for this voyage. On either side the jungle reared, a medley of greens and great gaudy slashes of flowers, flights of birds like living jewels with their long tails dangling behind them in streaming banners of blue and turquoise, showers of rainbow-hued butterflies. Birdcalls echoed, raucous or sweet. Now and then an alligator, now and then a cluster of tapirs on the bank snorting away in crashing, noisy panic. Once the unmistakable scream of a jaguar. Always the muggy, clinging heat; always the faraway stutter of the drums.

Sweat trickled down into the padding under her armor; a certain percentage were wearing theirs, the others keeping it near to hand, and the sets switching over at two-hour intervals. Practice and sound design meant that they could scramble into it in short order, even in the cramped quarters of the boats. Wearing it courted heat exhaustion, though; and anyone who went overside in forty pounds of steel… well, it was a long wet walk along the bottom to the edge. She blinked at the huge red disk of the sun, sinking ahead of them. Not always directly ahead; the river wound considerably.

What really worries me is how vulnerable these rubber boats are to flung weapons, she thought. And they were laden enough that the outboard engines gave them only a little edge of speed against a well-crewed canoe.

A buzzing came from the radio. "GHU, this is Eagle, over."

"Eagle, the village is just around the next bend in the river," Toffler said. His ultralight was circling at the edge of vision, perhaps a mile and a half ahead. "The sunken hulk is definitely the Bentley. Burned at her moorings, looks like."

"Sure they've cleared out, GHU?"

"Ma'am, they ran like hell. Over."

"Rendezvous there, then. Over and out."

For a moment the craziness of it struck her. An aerial scout, a flotilla of inflated boats of complex synthetics driven by engines, the whole coordinated by radio, and each boat filled with Nintendo-generation warriors in steel armor armed with swords, spears, and crossbows. And the real irony is that this medieval metalwork is almost as far-future compared to the locals as the solid-state electronics in this radio. That reminded her to make yet another mental note to be careful with that equipment. Nantucket wouldn't be making microchips in her lifetime.

She had a Colt Python.357 Magnum at her side, but less than thirty rounds for it-twenty-seven, to be precise, counting the six in the chamber. The machine shop back on Nantucket could make more, in limited quantities, but there was nothing to charge them with, nor fulminate for the primers. There were three other handguns with the expeditionary force, and another back on Eagle, and that was it. The Bentley had, or had had, more in the way of firearms, and it hadn't seemed to have done them much good. What Alston did have was two hundred trained, disciplined people. She hoped that would make the difference.

They sailed into gathering murk; it was quieter as the day's wildlife sought its lairs and roosts, and the nocturnal versions weren't out. A long looping curve and suddenly there were cleared fields, then buildings and canoes drawn up on the bank.

And the schooner's grave. The tip of one mast still stuck forlornly out of the water, not far from where Toffler's ultralight bobbed on its floats. She could see how fast it must have sunk by the relative lack of damage; it just looked like something had taken big black-fringed bites out of the sides. They'd brought an Aqua-Lung, but she didn't think the diver would find much useful. On the north bank the village waited, smoke still trailing up into the darkening sky but eerily quiet, not even a dog barking.

"We'd better get set up," she said, and switched the radio to the general frequency. "Smith, Bulosan, take first picket." Those were the motor launches; they also had the diver. "Group A, all personnel in battle order, and follow me. Mr. Ortiz, you'll maintain station with Group B until I give the signal."

She put on her helmet and clipped a small walkie-talkie to the belt about her waist; it still felt rather odd to have no specific sensation of pressure or weight there, but the armor took all that. The lifeboat rocked under her as crew scrambled into their armor. A dozen boats turned inward for the shore, cut their engines, and grounded. The Americans leaped over the sides, hauled their craft up, and fanned out to make a perimeter. Alston was with them, eyes peering into the gathering murk. Nothing moved, except the rustling of scrubby-looking cornstalks and the buzz of insects. She raised the radio to her lips. "Lieutenant Ortiz, bring Group B in and take over here."

The others followed her as she walked down the single street of the village. The huts were laid out with some precision, and were bigger than she might have expected. Her followers inspected each, prodding at the recesses with blades to make sure nobody was hiding. She entered one herself, clicking on her flashlight. Bedding and tools lay tumbled, as if the locals had simply snatched up whatever was at hand when they fled the apparition in the sky. They must have been three-quarters terrified already, after the brush with the Bentley. The solid wattle-and-daub walls came only to waist height, leaving the hut relatively cool and airy with the woven mats rolled up under the eaves. Possessions were few: flat-bottomed pottery that looked hand-formed, not thrown on a wheel, and bigger globular jugs, both decorated with incised designs. One end of the hut held a terra-cotta figurine of a babylike figure with flat features and fangs; probably a shrine. Hooks, lines, barbed fishing spears, and stone hoes and adzes were in corners. A metate and grindstone lay abandoned, surrounded by corn and maize meal; beside it was a clay platter with a mound of oozing grated cassava.

"Captain!"

She dropped a hand to the pistol; that voice was urgent. A cadet dashed up. "Ma'am, Section Leader Trudeau says there's something you ought to see right away."

He led her and the others up the village street to the earth platform. It was about five feet high, a rectangle thirty feet by fifty, made of the same clay loam as the earth around. The sides sloped inward, smoothed and coated with colored stucco in patterns that looked abstract until she saw past the alien iconography to the shapes of men, animals, and birds. They went up turf steps to a platform that held buildings larger and more ornate than the village, but of the same basic style. The exposed wood was carved and painted in a floridly baroque style. Damn, but those animals look like something out of Dr. Seuss, she thought. Cooking hearths stood beneath gazebo-like roofs. Stone gutters led water away, keeping the surface dry; there were ornamental plantings.

Ruling-class housing, she thought. Or possibly the equivalent of a church. A place where power resided, at least. "Ma'am."