The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.—Ecclesiastes 1:9
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.—Galatians, 6:7
Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest.—Ecclesiastes 9:10
Though the sun was long set, still heat emanated in choking, stultifying waves from the tarmac of the airfield. Under a double- roofed hangar a Nabakov-21 transport waited for its load. With the Nabakov likewise waited a profusely sweating Omar Fernandez, along with a section of utterly reliable guards and a score of dripping men of the Tercio Jan Sobieski, seconded to Fernandez's department, who would be accompanying him on the upcoming flight.
Fernandez had reason to sweat, and it wasn't just the heat. What Patricio told me to do? My God, does he understand the risks? This is the genie in the bottle. That . . . or perhaps he is right and it is that cap that seals the genie into its bottle. Even so . . .
A three-ton tactical truck stopped behind the hangar and began disgorging troops who raced to surround the half of the hangar nearest the airfield. Two more trucks, hauling forty-foot conexes, pulled up to the hangar on the side away from the airfield, the side toward which the Nabakov's loading ramp faced. The trucks' air brakes squealed loudly as they shuddered to a stop. A fourth truck stopped, this one, like the first, carrying security men. Those men took up positions around the far side of the hangar from the airfield, completing the circle. Inside that perimeter, the first of the heavier trucks began to back up to the Nabakov's ramp to transfer its cargo.
Fernandez watched the transfer closely. I hope dearly that Patricio is right and we can keep this part of the secret secret. Obras Zorilleras worked hard on these. And we will need them still to be a surprise if . . . no, not "if," when it comes to open war with Taurus.
Open war? I'm preparing for that well enough. Whoever is in charge—we can only hope it's that Frog bastard, Janier—when the war starts he will be very surprised at the loyalty of some of the people working for him. That's for the future, though, and a lot may change. Be nice if we could ensure Muñoz-Infantes were in command on that day. We could just relax; war over and won. He won't be though. It'll be a Frog, Janier or some other one. I mean, it has to be a Frog or the mistress's quarters in Building 95 on Fort Muddville will be totally wasted.
Fernandez smiled at his own silent jest. It would never have done for him to make an open joke. And it was hard enough for him to smile at all. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open to a small picture, that of his young daughter, murdered by Salafi terrorists years prior.
Baby, he thought to his daughter's image. Baby, by now you know everything your father has done and does. Do you still look up to me, even as you gaze down upon me? I can hope so. What I do, I do for la Patria. And I rarely take any joy in it.
The crew chief of the Nabakov found Fernandez deep in his reveries. "Legate," the chief said, "we're ready to board you now. The crews for the cargo are already loaded."
Carrera, Hamilcar standing beside, met Fernandez at the airport. "You have them?" he asked. "They really work?"
"Tested against the best radar we could find to test them against, Patricio. They work. Mitchell and Soult came along, too. The package?" Fernandez asked.
"It flew in with me, along with my son. I didn't have all of the things in hand when I sent you the other shipment. One we took later. We'll marry up the package and the drone, here, then do the launches."
"I have a man watching the compound," Fernandez said. "He's a Sumeri, one of those who've been herding the targets for us. He's a good man, a tremendous asset. I'd like to pull him out before it's too late. I don't have to be explicit; I can tell him we think someone's on to him and to be prepared to flee at a moment's notice. Then we give the notice, maybe two hours before H Hour."
Loyalty to one's subordinates is . . . proper, Carrera thought. "You can pull him out but not more than one hour before time."
Fernandez shrugged. He'd split the difference. Whatever it takes to keep Khalid in play.
He'll split the difference, Carrera thought. Fernandez is nothing if not loyal.
"We're really not going to be able to keep this secret, you know?" Fernandez said. "Too many people are too much in the know about too many parts. At best we might have plausible deniability."
"At some point in time," Carrera pointed out, "we're going to want the word to get out. For now, only your people know. Obras Zorilleras only knows they had to give up two models of Condor. The aircrew that brought the Condors here only know they brought conexes. The crew that brought me and the package knew they're carrying something odd, but no more than that. And they're used to me traveling with some baggage, at least sometimes. The crew of the Qamra that will take me out to the Mises won't know anything. And if I can't trust your people to keep quiet then we're fucked anyway."
"You're really sure about this, Patricio? This is . . ." Fernandez struggled for words and found none.
"Horrible?" Carrera supplied. "Monstrous? Inhuman? It's all those things, Omar. Are you worried for my soul? Despite reassurances otherwise, I'm rather certain that that's forfeit anyway. And I can think of no other way to end this. We have to raise the stakes to a level the other side can't handle.
"And besides, Omar," Carrera continued, "our mercenary days are almost ended. We have another war to fight and for that we must have all the force at our disposal in Balboa. This war must end, now."
Hamilcar had hardly said a word in weeks. It wasn't so much that he was in shock over what the Pashtian witch-girl had told him, though there was some of that. Nor even had he been too shocked when over a hundred of the Pashtun, apparently from the witch-girl Alena's tribe, had lined up along the road leading to Camp San Lorenzo's airfield to go on their faces as his father's staff car passed to bring them to their plane. He'd known it was Alena's tribe because she had been there, too, standing in from of them to lead them in their devotions.
His father had had the car stop and beckoned Alena and someone Ham thought was probably her bother over.
He'd spoken to them very briefly. "Upon our return, and until you are or he is dead, you are all hired to be bodyguards to my son. Is this acceptable?
The tears of gratitude and religious devotion had been answer enough.
The problem was, I don't feel like a god. I don't believe I am a god. I don't want to be a god. I'm just a little boy.
"Remember: easy now, boys," said the warrant officer in charge of the detachment. "Take her out gently."
The conex had room, more than enough room, for the Condor frame, motor, propeller, control station, a load of fuel, three sets of wings, lifting-launch system, or LLS, all the other parts required, and a tool kit for assembly. Unpacking and assembly presented no problem to the crews; they were the same ones that had disassembled and packed them back on the Isla Real.
The conex doors were unlocked and opened. Inside was the body, mounted on a wheeled framework. These, the crews pulled out onto the concrete floor of a stifling hangar, then proceeded to remove the fastening straps that had held the body and wings securely during shipment. There were also a dozen cots inside, secured around the control station at the far end.
While one part of each crew went to work checking the engine, another lifted and then rotated the wings into position. These were secured in place with carbon fiber pins. A third team for each moved the lifting-launch system from the conex and trudged it out of the hangar where they checked tank pressure and began laying out the two balloons that would provide initial lift. Likewise, they unfurled the lifting and restraining lines that would, in the first case, attach to a jettisonable ring atop the Condor and, in the second case, hold the balloons to the heavy steel frameworks on which the birds rested. Still a fourth pair of teams moved out the cots and prepared the control stations inside the conexes.
The sun was up, and the air above the tarmac of the airstrip shimmering, by the time the Condors were ready to be wheeled out and hooked to the LLS. They were left under cover for the nonce, however.
The warrant officer in charge inspected both Condors from nose to tail, along with the ancillary gear. Eventually satisfied with his inspection, he sent the men to sleep in one corner of the hangar, then stood guard himself. There would be several nights of rehearsals before the night of launch.
In a cloth-hung room—cloth-hung the better to simulate the tents of the Bedouin ancestors—a tray of kibsa, lamb over rice with a yogurt based sauce, sat barely touched on the floor between the three brothers. Each man wore traditional robes, their heads covered with keffiyahs held in place by beaded cords. The keffiyahs were traditional white. The robes, however, varied, Bakr in white, Abdullah in blue, and Yeslam in red.
"This is like being in prison," said Yeslam ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana, "like prison with a sentence of death on our heads!"
Bakr sighed. They'd all heard about the sentences of death, and the manner of death, of Mustafa and his followers. While the mercenaries had not advertised it, word had leaked out from the Pashtian scouts that had actually carried out the crucifixions and bore the blame, or took the credit, for them. Khadijah, inconsolable, had taken to her rooms, shrieking and weeping at the indignity presumably inflicted on her beloved stepson Mustafa. The truth was much worse than she suspected.
"I am thinking," Bakr said, "that we'd all have been better off if someone had strangled Mustafa in the cradle. Yes, I believed we should support him, early on, but who could have suspected the kind of terror he would bring upon us."
"I suspected it," answered Abdullah. "You have not lived among those people. I have. There is a touch of vindictive madness about them. They keep it hidden, most of the time. But it was always there."
Yeslam shook his head. "Cursed be the day we sent Mustafa off on his grand adventure. Cursed be the money we gave him to start his project."
"I gave him no money," Abdullah insisted. "That was all the doing of you and Bakr. I counseled against it."
Both Bakr and Yeslam shrugged, eloquently. Spilled milk.
"Then counsel us now, brother mine. What do we do now?" Bakr asked. "How do we keep our clan's life blood from spilling now?"
"I would suggest a bribe," Abdullah answered, "except that we do not have enough money—no, not if we turned over everything we own—to buy our way out of this. Our enemy is implacable, inconsolable, and inhuman. He will keep us locked up here—nor would we be safe anywhere else in the world—until the judgment day."
"You mean, he's just like us," Yeslam said. He closed his eyes, hung his head, and said in despair, "Allah help us."
The recon bird would go first. This was both to test Yithrabi air defense and warning radars, as well as to ensure that the secret was still secret, that nothing had tipped off the target and caused a mass evacuation. The other Condor, the drone, would follow in the trail cleared by the first.
For speed's sake, both crews got together to wheel out the first Condor. Just past the edge of the hangar they stopped and hooked up all five straps plus two electric wires. Four of the five straps that came from the balloon were attached to the steel frame. The fifth went to the jettisonable lifting ring atop the bird. The wires were hooked, one into a heavy duty control that would cause the balloon to cut itself away from the four restraining straps, on command, the other to the top of the Condor next to the ring.
These tasks completed, the crew began to fill the balloon with hydrogen. This was much cheaper than helium and, because the balloon was a throwaway that had only one mission, was not noticeably unsafe nor tactically unsound.
Gradually, the balloon filled until it had just positive buoyancy. At that point the crew stopped the filling and let it gently float to just above the Condor. They then resumed filling, until the restraining straps were taut.
The warrant officer in charge, holding the control box, looked over at Carrera and Fernandez. The latter nodded and the warrant pushed a green button. Instantly, all four restraining straps, plus the cable, were cut loose, falling to the ground around the Condor. At the same time, the balloon lurched upward, dragging the Condor with it, forcing its wings to bend slightly under the force of the acceleration and the resistance of the air.
The pilot sitting in the control station at one end of the conex watched the altimeter and global locating system readings on his screen carefully. Sometimes, prevailing winds could help a Condor out, carrying it nearer to its target without having to expend fuel or hunt for updrafts. This was not one of those cases; the winds were crosswise to the planned line of flight. In the long run, this would cost fuel. The pilot nodded to himself, then typed in a code and pressed a button.
By the time the Condor received the signal it was several miles away from and above the pilot. It sent a further signal to the ring and the wire atop itself, which caused both to detach. Simultaneously it initiated a timer in the balloon that would cause the hydrogen to burn some hours later, after it had drifted well away from the release point and line of flight.
Freed of the balloon, the Condor initially dropped. Its wings, however, were wide and its chord nearly perfect for gliding. They immediately bit into the air, obtaining lift as the bird glided forward. Later, the pilot would use the engine to rise again, before he resumed the very fuel-efficient gliding that was really the Condor's main means of propulsion.
Back in the hangar, the pilot breathed a sigh of relief. It had happened, during development and testing, that the balloon release mechanism had failed. Thank God it worked properly this time.
Some distance from the conex wherein the pilot sat, Carrera and Fernandez stood and watched the package being armed and loaded into the second Condor by Fernandez's people. Fernandez noted, Patricio's face is just a stone mask, like he's shut himself down inside. I cannot even imagine what he's feeling. Freedom, finally, from the burden of avenging his family? Wondering what to do with the rest of his life? Or perhaps he's thinking that he has no more reason to live after this. Suicide? Fernandez reconsidered that last. No . . . he has a new family and he loves them. That much at least, I am confident of; he will live for them. Which is important, as la Patria will need him soon.
Pier Seventeen, Port Xamar, BdL Qamra, 32/9/469 AC
It was almost midnight, with only Hecate—and she in her first quarter—showing. The boat was darkened to normal observation, though Chu knew that he was under satellite observation by the FSN, if anyone happened to be looking. Fosa had wanted them to observe the fleet, if only to get early warning of any attack. He could hardly tell them to look the other way now, even though he had stressed to Chu that he wanted this cargo moved as secretly as possible.
Chu was almost unsurprised when a four-wheel-drive vehicle, escorted by two others bearing military police, showed up at the pier and Duque Carrera stepped out, accompanied by several others. One of those other was, apparently, a child. Oh, yes, that would explain the need for secrecy, he thought.
Marta had the wheel, though the boat was tied up and stationary. Chu had been training her as a backup. The girl seemed to have an affinity for boats, perhaps because life ashore had been so seedy and degrading for her. Since the loss of Jaquelina, the larger woman had taken little interest in anything else.
Leaving her with the con, Chu hurried to the bow to greet his guest.
He saluted, of course, which salute Carrera returned. Yet Carrera didn't salute either the small standard fluttering at the stern nor the bridge. Landlubbers, Chu thought, with a mental harrumph. They know nothing of naval protocol. Then again, since he owns this boat, the fleet, the entire legion, I suppose I'd best just shut up about it.
"Captain," Carrera greeted at he stepped over the gangplank onto the deck.
"Duque," Chu answered, with a head nod. At least he knows the proper form or address. "A cabin had been prepared below. We're past dinner but I've had the cook put a meal in your cabin." Which is my cabin, actually, but let's not go there. "If you would like a drink, there's scotch in a drawer in the desk. I can arrange a woman . . ."
"That won't be necessary; the woman, I mean. I appreciate the scotch, too, but I've bought my own. My son will stay with me. Billet the others. And then just take me to the Mises, Captain."
He looks much the worse for wear, thought Carrera, looking at the emaciated body of Mustafa ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana. On him, it's plain on the outside. With me? It's all on the inside.
Mustafa's beard, once long and flowing and rich in dignity, was shaved off. This was only fitting as he was soon to be changed into a woman. His hands were bandaged and bound. Had he not been given a robe, there would have been visible burn marks on his torso. Both of his feet looked deformed now; the guards had had to carry him into the interview room. He had his arms wrapped about his torso, holding broken ribs as if terrified of any movement. This, too, was understandable. Skevington's Daughter, among her other talents, also broke ribs. Even had none of this been so, still Mustafa would not have smiled. He'd been to the dentist once too often for that.
For all that, he's still in better mental shape than Robinson or Arbeit, Carrera thought. Those two have totally collapsed.
"You gave up everything you knew you had to give, I think, old friend," Carrera said to him. His voice was gentle, as if he were somehow detached from his surroundings, even as if he were somehow detached from life. "Still, I wonder what more you might give up."
At a nod from Carrera, the two screens, neither of them Kurosawas, sprang to life. The screen on the left showed little but a rapidly passing desert below, with the occasional camel or goat visible only as a greenish pixilation of a slightly different shade from the sand beneath. The other screen likewise showed a night scene, taken from above. The latter scene, however, was much more brightly lit, the features much more easily distinguished. It showed a walled compound, minaret rising above the wall, and armed guards patrolling it. The images on the screens were being recorded, as was the scene on the Mises of Carrera chatting with Mustafa.
"Recognize it?" Carrera asked.
"Go to Hell, pig," Mustafa responded through drilled and temporarily patched teeth. One of the guards pulled the former prince of the Ikhwan to his feet by his hair. Two brutally quick punches to the kidney left the ex-terrorist sobbing on the floor.
It must take tremendous courage, courage passing that of men, to still remain defiant after all he's been through. I could admire him were circumstances otherwise.
"I really do insist that you look at the screen," Carrera said. "I don't want to have to have your eyelids sewn open." A shift of Carrera's chin caused the same guard who had kidney punched Mustafa to haul him back onto his chair, again by his hair. "Now watch. This is important . . . to you. Do you recognize the view on the right?"
Mustafa looked, this time; anything to avoid another set of blows to his already abused kidneys. The surrounding wall . . . the minaret . . . the small mosque below . . . that's my family compound in Hajar!
"Why are you showing me this?" Mustafa asked.
"You do recognize it then?"
"Yes . . . yes, of course I do. I grew up there."
"Indeed," Carrera agreed. "Did you know that nearly every child, grandchild, and great grandchild of your father is likewise growing up there? Did you know that all your brothers and cousins, all their husbands and wives, are likewise in that compound? Oh, sure . . . maybe a few distant relatives might be elsewhere. But I am pretty confident"—his tone held the very platonic essence of confidence as he said it—"that at least ninety-eight percent of your blood relatives are there in that compound. We spent . . . I spent much effort at making life impossible for them anywhere else."
Mustafa said nothing to that. He'd known that his family had been hunted like animals all over the planet. It was not much of a surprise that this vicious, filthy, crusading swine had wielded the guiding hand of murder.
Carrera lit a cigarette. He saw Mustafa's eyes widen with barely repressed desire. Why not? Isn't everyone entitled to a last cigarette? He handed the lighter and pack to one of the guards and said, "Give him one."
Mustafa took the cigarette in his bandaged and bound hands and held it to his mouth while the guard flicked the lighter for him. One it was lit, he puffed frantically, eyes closing in unaccustomed bliss.
Carrera waited patiently for Mustafa to finish the cigarette. He had time.
"You were going to use nuclear weapons on both of my homelands," Carrera said. It wasn't a question and so Mustafa didn't answer. "Did you know I've had nuclear weapons since 461? Those were small things, though. Nothing like the citybusters I captured at your base. The ones I had had other defects, too, mainly that a clever man might trace them to me and my people."
Mustafa's eyed darted to the screens. Carrera caught the movement.
"Oh, yes. One of those captured, a true citybuster, is headed toward your family compound. That's the screen on the left. It's rated at seven hundred and eighty kilotons. I am informed that we can expect one hundred percent deaths at your family compound, and anything from half a million to a million in the city of Hajar."
His face a study in horror, Mustafa shook his head in denial. "You can't . . ."
"Sure I can," Carrera said. "Moreover, why should I not? I mean, think about it. Here you are, the greatest—known—terrorist in the history of this world. You've been trying to get nukes for decades. Your chief assistant, Nur al Deen, even insisted you had them. He quoted the price you paid, did he not? And then a nuke goes off at ground zero, right inside your family compound, a place you conceivably might have stored one. That, alone, will make your movement very unappealing to the bulk of even young, idiot, male Salafis.
"But there will be doubts, too. 'Maybe,' people will say, 'just maybe it was a deliberate attack.' Now if that attack were to be from someone identifiable, then there would be a great cry for vengeance. But when the attack seems to come from nowhere? When they can't even identify a target for vengeance? No, old friend, that will be truly effective terror. That will have no focus for revenge. That will have your people shitting themselves at the thought of retaliation and beating their sons the first time the little bastards shout 'Allahu Akbar' a bit too enthusiastically. It's perfect; don't you see? And you gave me the means. That's perfect, too.
"Lastly, I think that when the king of Yithrab—whoever ends up as king, the day after tomorrow—has to spend money to rebuild his capital, he'll find he can't afford both a capital city and madrassas all over the planet."
Carrera went silent then, leaving Mustafa in torment as the clock displayed on the left-hand screen ticked down.
After that long silence, with the clock down to under five minutes and Mustafa's face showing mental agony beyond agony, Carrera said, "I could change the target now, I suppose. Tell me, would you rather your family die en masse or would you prefer that I obliterate Makkah al Jedidah and the New Kaaba?"
Mustafa cringed, both inside and out. "Devil!" he spat. "Spawn of Shaitan!"
"Which really doesn't answer the question," Carrera observed, still genially. "Would you rather I obliterate your family, your entire family, or that one stone building, which includes but a single stone from the original on Old Earth, should go up in smoke? I remind you that the number of civilian dead will be about the same."
Deprivation, stress, physical torture, and now this. Mustafa felt his heart begin to crack even as it had not cracked previously. To lose my entire family . . . to destroy the sacred Kaaba? He sank; physically, as he slumped and drew in on himself, mentally, as the weight Carrera had laid upon his soul bore him Hellward.
"Destroy . . . Makkah," Mustafa forced out. "Spare . . . my . . . family."
"No."
"But . . ."
"I said I could," Carrera's genial tone changed to one of pure cruelty. "I didn't say I would. Your family dies, as you murdered mine. I would kill them anyway, if only to terrorize any in the future who might contemplate going down the road you traveled. I just wanted both God and yourself to know that your faith, your personal faith, was a fraud. I may join you in Hell, someday, Mustafa. Indeed, after this, I probably will. But at least, if I do, it won't be because I betrayed my God as you have just tried to betray yours."
Mustafa's jaw went slack, his eyes wild. As the clock on the screen wound down, he began a wordless moan. When it reached zero, and the image on the screen changed to a single enormous flash, the terrorist in the cabin aboard the Mises began a horrible keening. It was the sound of a man who has lost everything, in this world and the next.
Carrera arose to leave. "Cheer up, old man," he said. "You still have one son left. Me." To Mahamda he gave the order. "Turn him into what he despises, a woman. Then crucify him . . . her . . . it."
"And the Earthpigs?"
"Let's save them for a while and see what use we might make of them."
Bridge, UEPF Spirit of Peace, 33/9/469 AC
Life is looking up, Wallenstein thought, as she lounged in her command chair. Robinson is gone. I am in command here, now, so it seems very likely that I shall be raised to Class One. All in all . . .
A crewwoman at a sensing panel started back as if the panel were passing electricity through her body. "Captain, I've got a nuclear detonation on the planet's surface!"
Wallenstein's eyes grew wide in horror. Policy, long established, was that the fleet would retaliate for any use of nuclear weapons. But that would mean nuclear war with the FSC. Oh, Annan, I don't want to die, not now, not when I'm so close to my dreams.
"Where? Who?" she demanded, lurching straight upright.
"Yithrab, Captain. City of Hajar. Devastation is near total. There must be a half million dead. Hell . . . maybe two million. As for who . . ."
"Yes?"
"Unknown. The analysis is different from any we have a record of. All I can say is it wasn't one of ours."
"Get me a line to the president of the Federated States," Wallenstein ordered. That son of a bitch, she thought. He promised he wouldn't tell the FSC that Robinson was trying to give nukes to the Ikhwan. And, so far as I can tell, he didn't. But he never said he wouldn't use one. And he just did. And I thought I was ruthless . . .
Except for a couple of men who sat a bench near the superstructure of the ship, the small party accompanying Carrera stood in a group by its port side. In the distance, they could see Qamra approaching. A ladder had already been let over the side to allow them to climb down.
While waiting for the Qamra to come alongside to pick them up, Soult and Mitchell watched Carrera as he stood on the deck. Carrera looked, to say the least, unwell. Soult worried about the "old man's" trembling hands. To Mitchell, the major concern was the glassy, mindless stare.
If the boss said it was right to nuke a major city and kill upwards of half a million people, that was enough for them. Still, though they, themselves, had no particular problem with the nuking of Hajar, perhaps it was bothering him.
Whatever he was feeling inside, though, could not be good. And then . . .
Ah, Jesus," Mitchell thought, he's crying.
It was true, not some fluke of the light nor even some bits of detritus in his eyes. Trembling, staring down at the sea; tears coursed down Carrera's face. He didn't seem to notice.
"Other side of the ship," Soult said to the other guards and seamen standing around. "Now! We'll take care of him." He looked at the boy, Hamilcar, and appended, "Stay here, son. Maybe it will help your father."
Hamilcar nodded but thought, I don't think anything much that I can do will help.
"He's just relieved that it's finally over," Mitchell insisted to the soldiers and sailors scurrying away. He called to their backs, "And if you mention a word of this to anyone, your grandchildren will have nightmares."
Both men moved in to stand close to either side. It was as well that they did; Carrera's knees buckled and he began to fall to the deck. They caught him and half carried him backwards to the bench.
"Boss? Sir? Pat?" There was no reaction, except that the tears were joined by sobs.
"What do we do, Jamey?" Mitchell asked, desperately.
"Get him to a doctor? Get him home? Hell, I don't know. We've seen him in bad shape before, but this?"
"I think we'd better call the sergeant major."
"And my mother," Hamilcar added.
Herrera International Airport, Ciudad Balboa, 2/10/469 AC
Carrera, Hamilcar, Mitchell, and Soult came in by chartered jet. The plane landed on the military side of the airport and was immediately surrounded by troops of the First Tercio, Principio Eugenio. Lourdes, Parilla and McNamara boarded, along with a dozen others. Inside they found Carrera stretched out on a medical litter, either asleep or comatose. Lourdes knelt before her son and hugged him tight, then turned and placed one hand against Carrera's face before bending to kiss his forehead.
"Home now, my love," she said. "Home now . . . forever."
If Carrera heard he gave no sign, but continued to stare straight up as if he were someplace else entirely.
"Doctor, what's wrong with him?" Parilla asked of the medico in attendance.
"Bare minimum, complete exhaustion," the doctor answered. "What other problems he may have will take a while to figure out and treat. A nervous breakdown is possible."
At McNamara's order, four of the men escorting picked up the litter and carried it first to the exit way, then down the long flight of debarkation steps to the tarmac below. There the litter was placed in an ambulance, which drove slowly and carefully to a legion NA-23, parked nearby.
The NA-23 cargo plane, in the colors of the legion and with a picture of Jan Sobieski's Winged Hussars painted on the side, landed on the airstrip on the Isla Real, then turned and taxied to the terminal. There it stopped and lowered its ramp.
Virtually the entire population of the island—over thirty-five thousand soldiers, plus their wives and children—lined the fence at the edge of the airfield or found a spot along the road that led from there to the rest of the island.
Four of the people waiting were Jorge Mendoza, his lovely wife, Marqueli, and their two children. Another child was on the way; Marqueli's belly was impressively swollen.
Jorge's thesis was now the text for a course he taught at Signifer and Centurion Candidate Schools. The basis of the thesis and of the course was an Old Earth bit of science fiction written by a man known to Terra Novans only as RAH, a translation of which Carrera had had printed. Both thesis and course were entitled, "History and Moral Philosophy."
"This doesn't look good, Jorge," Marqueli said after the plane had lowered its rear ramp falling into her old habit of describing what he could now see for himself. "He can't walk . . . or isn't, anyway. They're carrying him on a litter, with my cousin walking beside. It looks like a funeral procession." The woman began to sniffle.
"It'll be okay," Mendoza said. "Old bastard is too tough to die on us . . . especially when we need him so badly now."
Carrera was carried down the ramp and placed on the back of a flatbed truck. Lourdes and Parilla had wanted another closed ambulance but the sergeant major had insisted, "No . . . rumors are flying everywhere. Let t'em see he's . . . basically . . . all right . . . t'at he just needs a long rest. He would want t'at."
Marqueli wasn't the only one beginning to tear up. Jorge whispered, "He was my commander. I can't say I liked him, or that many of us did. But we did love him."
Women began to weep as the flatbed moved away. What would happen to them and their husbands and families now? Carrera had given employment and care, had given meaning to lives. What did the future hold for them? What about the coming war? Children cried as their mothers did.
With their women and children, the men, too, began to shed tears. This was their commander, the man who had led them to victory upon victory. Would he return to them, return to continue the great war on which they had all embarked? If not, would his like ever be found again? A hard man and a harsh one they knew him to be. Did not the times themselves demand hardness and harshness?
The flatbed moved to the guarded gate to the airfield. Now they could truly see him and the weeping redoubled. Guards lining both sides of the road kept the surging crowd back. The cries grew:
"Give us our commander! Give us our Duque!"
Something touched Carrera. Where wife and family had not moved him, or not enough, the tears of his men and their women did. From under a draping sheet a single arm emerged and was held straight up.
At the end of the arm was a clenched fist.