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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

Jorff stood on the edge of the clear area a few hundred yards up from the huts and watched as Lanserm adjusted the grip of the trainee dropped on one knee in a firing position. The Kronian shifted the rifle stock a fraction to fit more snugly against the native's shoulder, and stepped back, at the same time nodding to Enka with the missing teeth.

"Five shots, slow and aimed," Enka ordered. Rakki had appointed Enka to oversee the proceedings, and was standing watching, a few yards back, his arms folded. Jorff's orders were to keep Rakki sweet. Behind Enka, the other recruits in the squad waited for their next turn. Yesterday they had been through a starter on handguns and knew the basics. Today was the single-shot primer on rifles. Automatic fire would come later.

The one who was firing sent off five careful rounds at measured intervals. Two of the five ration tins placed on a flat rock fifty feet away flew back, while one jumped a few inches from a grazing hit. Rakki glanced at Jorff for a verdict. Jorff gave an almost imperceptible nod. "Good," Rakki pronounced.

"Next, Bakka," Enka said. The one who had fired stood up, set the safety on his weapon as he had been shown, and returned to the line. Custom did not permit a change of expression, but there was pride in his eyes. Enka signaled, and a young girl ran in from the side to reposition the targets.

"Carry on, Lanserm," Jorff directed.

"Sir."

Gralth, the other trooper with the party from Serengeti, who had been standing a short distance back, moved forward to assist. Jorff turned and began walking back down the slope to the settlement. The children and several others who had been watching from behind a line ceremoniously drawn across the ground to mark off the shooting range drew back, giving him plenty of room to pass. A lot of the "god" image was still there. Jorff strode by them commandingly. It felt good to breathe wind-driven air again, and feel his boots crunching into the soil of a living world. They might not rebuild it in his lifetime. But he would see the beginnings.

He was of Swiss and Malay parentage in Java, one of the major Indonesian islands, and had come to Kronia at age eighteen. One of his brothers and a cousin had been chemists, and the family business had revolved around complicated dealings in variously priced substances and preparations, not all of which were approved by the lawmakers of the state. Besides illegal trafficking of the kind that thrives on prohibition universally, there was also a vigorous local trade in cheap and effective but banned medicinal drugs. Having fallen out of favor with both the underworld and the law enforcement agencies, Jorff's father decided that a change of scene would be beneficial for the health and probable longevity of self and immediate family, and organized a hasty move to the Central Americas. However, his work habits and penchant for falling foul of local politics soon got him into trouble again, and a sudden revelation to find new horizons and spiritual rebirth via a shuttle from Guatemala to a Kronia-bound orbiting transporter quickly followed.

But, truth was, young Jorff had missed the excitement, perceived glamor, and the adrenaline kick that came with the riskiness of the life he'd known in those years. Compared to the images that memory furnished him with—and who was he to say what kind of selection and editing might be at work, even if he'd thought about it?—Kronian life seemed dull and stultifying. He saw a lot of hyping of abilities he didn't have, recognition of people he didn't particularly want to be like, and heard endless talk about how all the trouble with Earth had stemmed from the upside-down way of apportioning the rewards among makers, traders, and takers. Somehow the assumption seemed to be that the providers had a moral superiority that entitled them to make the rules for everyone else, and anyone who thought differently just needed some friendly tutoring to see the error of their ways.

The problem was, Jorff had seen the tedium, thanklessness, and plain hard work that came with the socially responsible life style, and he didn't find anything particularly redeeming about it at all. To him, it all came across very much like the sheep solemnly agreeing to observe vegeterianism and deploring the aberrance of any other taste. But in his experience, it had been the takers who drove the big cars, wore the stylish clothes, and pulled the sexiest chicks. It was too bad that the Kronian boss had to go and get himself shot, but as Jorff's uncle Siggi, who ran the "heavy" side of the family business used to say, "You have to let people know who's in charge." There was nothing he could see to find any error in or feel remorse about. He liked being a wolf.

The flyer they had arrived in was parked a short distance above the huts, guarded by two natives with spears that Rakki had posted, more to keep inquisitive children away than from any serious risk of interference. Rakki's people took notice of his orders. Between some boulders to one side, Sims was directing a group, mainly women, who were building an armory from rocks and mud for the weapons and ammunition to be stored in. Sims had some firearms background too. Jorff was toying with the idea of training him to be the Tribe's resident instructor and quartermaster, but hadn't decided yet about some of his personal qualities. He reminded Jorff of too many types he'd known in Jakarta who would squeal to either side for another hundred dollars.

He found Leisha with Yobu in the porch extension to Rakki's hut, working to make cleaned-up copies of the maps. Nobody went through to the two inner rooms, which were Rakki's personal space. Rakki's woman, Calina, with the strange, light-colored eyes, was sitting on a rug of skins at the rear, tending to her baby. Jorff cast an approving eye over Leisha as he stepped up under the reed roof. Nicely built, with the kind of cute face and come-on eyes that would have made her a natural as a hostess or dancer in the bars. With all the tension back at Serengeti, it wouldn't have been very smart to try anything that might have provoked Zeigler's displeasure just at the present time. But there could be some good chances out here, away from all that, where he was in charge, he told himself.

The sounds came of another series of shots commencing outside. "Working hard out there," Leisha commented. "You've been at it all morning."

"That's the only way it's going to get done."

"How are they shaping up?"

"They're doing okay. Enka's cutting a good figure as sergeant." Jorff came over to the folding table where they were working, which was from the items brought with the flyer. "You're right. We're working too hard. If we're going to be here for days, there needs to be some relaxation to break it up. You want to schedule some free time later?"

Leisha gave him the kind of look that was calculated to keep men guessing. "Let's see how it goes," she replied.

Jorff looked over the papers strewn on the table. An imaged version of the main map was showing on the extended screen of the compad on one side. "So how is it going?" he asked.

She pointed her pen at a contour representation of an area in Raphta's east-central region, reconstructed from orbital radar scans. "It's looking like somewhere around here, three to three-fifty miles southeast, on the other side of the Spine. It's amazing that they were able to make from there on foot. They had to cross a whole new uplift zone."

"Do we have enough information to schedule a recce with probes?" Jorff asked.

"Well . . . this is about as good as it's going to get."

"Then package it up so I can get it off to Zeigler. He's waiting to get started."

Leisha pointed at the compad. "Working on that right now."

Jorff moved closer, making a pretense of looking over her shoulder. "Talking about recce probes, there's that one still out there somewhere that needs to be located for recovery," he murmured, twining a finger in a curl of hair at the back of her neck.

"One still out where?" Leisha kept on working, but she didn't pull away.

"The day that Scout first got here. I was part of the crew. There was an incident that involved a probe coming down low, and Enka put a stone-headed arrow up its intake in a freak shot." Leisha snickered. Jorff went on, "It probably didn't harm anything, but the thing was making unhealthy noises, so we put it down until it can be checked out. It's still up there somewhere, over the ridge."

"Oh. I see." Leisha's tone said that she saw several things.

Jorff toyed lightly with the curl of hair. "So . . . what say you and I take a walk up that way and see if we can find it? Nice and peaceful, away from all these people . . ."

"As I said, we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

Behind them, Calina said something to Yobu from where she was sitting by the wall of the inner hut. He spoke, and Leisha turned her head. Jorff looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

"She asks why people from the sky who can do anything need our young men to fight for them," Leisha said.

Jorff wasn't going to get into any of that. He wasn't sure he could have explained it if he'd wanted to. "We'll make Rakki a great chief," he replied, thinking that should suffice.

Leisha conveyed it back. "Rakki brought Jemmo to the caves and made him a great chief too," was the gist of Calina's answer.

"What does that mean?" Jorff asked Leisha.

"I'm not sure."

"No great chief will ever stay second to another," Yobu supplied. "Even the gods fight already in their city to the north. She wants to know, when their chief has made Rakki like themselves, how long will it be before they and he turn on each other? And when the power of the gods turns into anger, what will become of her people then?"

 

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