Far Country Read online

  He was aware, vaguely at first and then more acutely, of a man standing directly in front of the LAM. There were others behind him, crouching and peering, but the man had obviously come to open communications. The man began to speak, mumbling indecipherable words at first, and then speaking more clearly. Or perhaps it was that Seagroves was listening more acutely. The words were spoken with a thick accent, but the pilot recognized it as his own tongue. He looked intently at the man.

  "We welcome you to our homes. We see that you have come for us. We bless your presence."

  "What was that?" asked Seagroves. "Where did you say I am?"

  There was a cry from the crowd, followed by distant chatter. It was like a pebble sending out ripples across a pond when Seagroves spoke. The wave of comment and response swept away from the center. Someone called out to the spokesman from the rear, and he raised his hand in response. The chatter stilled in the same wave pattern. "This is Usugumo," the man said, speaking the word more clearly. He bowed deeply and looked up at Seagroves. "We are here to serve you in all that you desire."

  Two hours later the LAM rose from the streets of Usugumo. Seagroves still couldn't really grasp what had happened. It was a dream. But it wasn't. The cockpit stowage boxes were filled with bits of gold he had been urged to collect from Usugumo. He must have picked up three hundred kilos of the stuff. Three hundred kilos. It was a fortune. He'd be able to buy anything he wanted. Another couple of hauls like this and he could retire. In two hours he'd made as much as a very successful 'Mech lance could make in a year. And he didn't have to share it with anyone.

  That brought him back to reality. He would have to report on the mission to both Takuda and Vost, which meant having to explain a two-hour gap in his flight recorder. Engine malfunction would serve. Just to add face value to his tale, he set the LAM down in some open ground and stomped around for a while. That would serve to show that the 'Mech had actually gone down somewhere. Then he flew back to the DropShip crash site.

  The report to Takuda, along with the flight record that had been preserved, was straight and to the point. There was not much Seagroves could add to the data that had been stored in the visual and sensor portions of the log. There was a printout of the possible number of heat sources and their supposed type. Lots of fossil fuel burners in all three locations as well. Takuda retired to study the log and contemplate the situation.

  The report to Vost was quite different. Seagroves had only one enclave to tell about. The engine malfunction provided an excuse for the lack of information on the other areas. He tried to contain himself, but it was impossible. "They're so rich," he blurted out. "You wouldn't believe how rich they are. They just gave me this stuff." He thrust out a handful of the gold trinkets he'd taken.

  Vost stared down at the cluster of gold objects. What Seagroves said made some sense. The Usugumo were certainly rich, but what about the others? They had to be equally rich. There was no need to commit the lance just yet. "Did you make a deal?' he asked Seagroves.

  The LAM pilot gulped. No, he thought, I don't think I did. But I may have. I can't remember. "Certainly not," he said with emphasis. "I wouldn't do that." He wasn't nearly as sure as he sounded.

  "Don't lie to me, Seagroves," said Vost, his mouth a thin line and his eyes on fire. "If I find out different, I'll skin you alive."

  You'll never find out if I'm careful, thought Seagroves. He looked the mercenary commander in the eyes. "It's the truth," he said.

  * * *

  The meeting that night between Takuda and Vost was attended by all. Even those who should have been on watch had moved quietly to the outer edge of the circle marked by the firelight. The news of the enclaves and the gold was too important to keep quiet. It started with the mercenaries, but it spread quickly to the DEST team. The JumpShip and DropShip crews saw no reason why * any of this should be secret, and by the time the two leaders met, it was common knowledge that Seagroves had landed in or near at least one of the enclaves. Takuda had heard the report, or at least bits of it, and he was fuming under his composed exterior by the time Vost made his appearance in answer to a polite, but firm, summons.

  Takuda wasted no time explaining what he knew about the day's activity. There was no way for the DEST commander to know that Seagroves had disobeyed his orders based on Vost's command, nor could he know that Seagroves had exceeded even what the mercenary leader had asked. Both men were walking stiff-legged and tense when they met.

  "We need to make contact with all the enclaves," concluded Takuda after summing up what he knew of the situation. "From the pictures I've seen of the defensive works around each, the three enclaves seem hostile toward one another. It's very puzzling to me. They are obviously from an ancient Draconis Combine ship—either a military expedition or a colonization mission that was lost some five hundred years ago. How could they have gone so wrong? How could they have spent five hundred years fighting? They had the chance to found the perfect bu-shido society."

  "Who cares what they've been doing?" countered Vost. He was frustrated by the DEST commander's philosophical maunderings. "This is our chance. We can get in there and take over everything."

  "Or we can help make peace. From what I've seen in the report, these people are quite primitive. We could make them come to terms with each other. We could be their teachers."

  "Teachers? You're hopeless, Takuda. I don't want to be their teacher in a peaceful society. I want to run things! I say we should sell to the highest bidder, then go and stomp on the rest of them. That's what soldiers do!"

  "That's what mercenaries do," said Takuda in a level voice. "That is not what soldiers do. Soldiers serve the Coordinator and the Draconis Combine. We fight when it is required, and we are prepared to die for the Dragon, but fighting is not our reason for being. Service is the reason we exist. Into our hands has been delivered the fighting power of the state, and we should not abuse that power."

  "Are we going to make contact with the enclaves?" Vost was standing now, his hands on his hips. He was almost nose-to-nose with Takuda.

  The DEST commander didn't budge. "Of course we are, Pilot Vost. It has been my intention ever since your pilot returned that we should make contact. According to him the enclaves are less than a hundred kilometers from here. We can send out ground patrols. They can make contact and be back in less than a week."

  "And what are we supposed to do while all that's going on? Sit on our hands? Twiddle our thumbs?" Vost, unable to make Takuda wince, turned his back on the DEST commander. "I call for a vote right now. I say we break out the 'Mechs and make the best deal. Who's with me?"

  There was a noticeable tensing among those gathered around the central fire. This conflict could result in the fracturing of their little society. But even the most insensitive members of the organization could hear the sibilant whisper of laser rifles being taken off safe. It was the DEST members who'd been assigned the watch, standing now just outside the rim of light thrown by the fire.

  "Uhha," said Jacobs, clearing his throat and standing. "Perhaps the problem has more than one solution. What Sho-sa Takuda says about contact is quite correct. We need to do that. On the other hand, perhaps Pilot Vost is right and we should break out the 'Mechs." He nodded to both leaders in turn. "But it will take at least a week to free the 'Mechs, and if what Sho-sa Takuda has said is true, we can have the information by then."

  'That's fine with me," snarled Vost. "Just as long as we have something going on while Takuda and his troops are fiddle-farting around."

  "We will not be fiddle-farting around, Pilot Vost." It was as close as the DEST commander had come to visible anger. "Mr. Jacobs has a good idea. I will organize a patrol for tomorrow. You and Mr. Jacobs can prepare a plan to free the 'Mechs."

  "We'll do more than just prepare a plan, Takuda. We'll have the 'Mechs out and ready by the time your little patrol is back."

  17

  Both Takuda and Vost were wrong in their estimations of the time needed for their respectiv
e tasks. The section contact patrol, headed by Gun-so Arsenault, was back in six days rather than the seven that had been allotted. That event had opposite effects on Takuda and Vost; one was happy, the other decidedly was not.

  Vost's unhappy reaction had more to do with the difficulties in breaking out the other 'Mechs from the DropShip than the DEST patrol returning too soon, however. When they'd pried the LAM out, it had been with the single thought of freeing it from the strained hull of the DropShip. They'd paid little heed to the relative position of the rest of the 'Mechs in relation to the breach. Most of the cutting of the hull had been at the top along the main dorsal spar. The dross produced by the cutting, and the subsequent wrenching of the hull, had made an opening for the LAM, but it had pinned the other 'Mechs behind the slag. In the excitement of the original extraction, no one had thought to plan for the future.

  The second problem had to do with the LAM's actual exit. Because they hadn't been able to cut an opening big enough for the LAM, which had been transported in the air configuration, to walk out of the DropShip, Seagroves had been forced to take it out as an air vehicle. The exhaust gases from the Allied AVRTech 125 jet propulsion system had vented straight into the hull of the DropShip, where they had played havoc with the interior. It would have been better if they had cut gas-escape ports into the opposite side of the hull, but there'd been no time for that.

  The other 'Mech pilots had managed, in varying degrees, to protect their machines from the gases, but other equipment had suffered considerable damage.

  The blast of the exhaust had been deflected downward onto the cargo deck by the opposite side of the hull, the force and heat annealing the portside cargo access doors. They wouldn't be doing any cutting on that side of the DropShip. The blast had continued into the base of the cargo bay, warping and melting part of the decking. Some of the gases had escaped into the lower holding compartments; the rest had penetrated into the open space of the main bay. The velocity and force of the jet propulsion exhaust had scattered anything not secured, as well as some things that were, against the starboard skin and braces.

  Thus, it was not a matter of simply freeing up the 'Mechs and letting them climb out the opening cut for the LAM. Before they could release the 'Mechs, the work parties had to repair the damage done by the blast and cut free the refuse that was stuck to various portions of the interior. Vost's Panther was the 'Mech most buried. It had suffered some damage from the fiery exhaust, and all the systems would have to be checked and repaired before it could be activated. Vost insisted, however, that his 'Mech receive first priority for extraction.

  For three days, Vost spent all his time in the Panther's command seat. The hot gases had scored the cockpit glass, and Michelle Guardine had spent the whole time spread-eagled across the bubble using a grinding wheel to smooth the crazing and polish the surface. The ogive of the glass was made of high-low surface tension material that was both extremely tough and extremely fragile. The high surface tension of the wind screen made it virtually impervious to all but a direct hit, while the low surface tension of the interior of the glass would act as a shock absorber. The brittle outer surface would break up the incoming round, but the softer inside would flex ever so slightly to distribute the force of the hit over the entire surface. If the outer skin, a mere two millimeters thick, were scratched, the inner surface would lose its structural integrity and collapse. Guardine had to be very careful to use only the finest grit to polish away the marks on the outside.

  The work of clearing would have gone faster except that the other 'Mech pilots spent the time on their own vehicles. In a mercenary unit like Vost's, each warrior was the actual owner of the 'Mech he piloted, even though the group was under the nominal military command of the leader. It was very difficult, except in a tactical situation, for Vost to get all his people to work toward a common goal. He tried to persuade, and then order, the other pilots and their techs to help out with the Panther, but his efforts came to naught. Holly Goodall was the first to tell him where to get off, and the other pilots quickly followed suit. Only Pesht, the Javelin pilot, was willing to help, and even that was done more with an eye to getting his Javelin free.

  By the sixth day the Panther was almost out, and Vost estimated that it would be only a few hours more before the Javelin was also up and operational. As the work neared completion, a plan began to solidify in his mind. Until now, he'd been unable to doing anything about getting rid of the DEST team because his 'Mechs had been inaccessible. Now, his first move was to mention to Seagroves that one blast from the LAM's heavy lasers could blow the DEST command bunker, by now a significant structure, into oblivion. Seagroves had demurred on the grounds that attacking the headquarters would not do any good. The heavy weapons section, commanded by Ariake Sanae, would react and dismember his 'Mech with a few well-aimed shots. Vost had nodded and smiled. Things would be different, he said, when all the 'Mechs were out. The conversation rested there, but the seed had been planted.

  Late on the afternoon of the sixth day, Arsenault and his section patrol returned to camp, their appearance a surprise to all but Takuda, who had maintained contact with them through the secure-voice communicator in his headset. Before the patrol had set out, he and Arsenault had coordinated on time and frequency for transmissions. Most were carried out by laser line-of-sight light wave carrier. Radio, an archaic system, was only used as back-up. Takuda and Arsenault had decided on the older system because the mercenary unit's commlinks were laser primary. They would probably never think to use the radio back-up—and even if they did, the possibility of them finding the correct frequency was slight. In addition, all voice transmissions were scrambled so that even if someone located the transmission, he or she would have no idea what was being said. The line had remained secure.

  Arsenault went immediately to report to Takuda, but he'd barely begun before members of the mercenary unit began to filter into the headquarters bunker. Takuda could have stopped the ingress, but decided against it. He knew that the information would get out soon enough, and he wanted to maintain an open relationship with the mercenaries. He let them in as Arsenault continued to talk.

  The first part of Arsenault's report consisted of an overview of the patrol, the routes taken, and the terrain traversed. All of this was interesting to Takuda, who would have to plan any movement to the west, but it was deadly dull to the mercenaries. All they would need do was hop into their 'Mechs and travel like the wind. The mercenary technicians, on the other hand, took some interest because they would have to walk out.

  Then came the part that Vost especially wanted to hear: the report on the enclaves and the possibility of making a deal with one of them. The report was short, sweet, and to the point. Arsenault said he'd obtained the information by observation from a distance and via limited contact with humans who had ventured away from the immediate vicinity of the walled towns. Arsenault had done most of the talking, acquiring some, but not very detailed, information.

  There were three enclaves, he said. The one to the north was called Osio, and seemed to be under complete centralized control of a dictator. This was much like the old Von Rohrs dynasty taken to the extreme. They were a recognizable group, but they had all of the human attitudes of that long-dead dynasty. They hadn't had the experience, or did not assimilate the experience, of the McAllister years. They hadn't learned anything.

  The second was Amatukaze, a religious enclave that had fallen back on the pure Shinto/Buddhist philosophy. They were fundamentalists who regarded the other enclaves as heretical in the extreme. Where Osio wanted to dominate, the Amatukaze would like to exterminate. This was religion taken to the extreme.

  The third was Usugumo, an enclave controlled by a merchant oligarchy that had subverted everything to the god of profit. They had the most money, but were dominated by a group of families who exploited everything they touched.

  Arsenault's listeners received the information with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Vost was ecstatic. Takuda
was depressed. Vost now had a base from which to deal. The militarists of Osio would be more than willing to buy a weapons system that would make their dictatorship supreme. The fact that they were the Von Rohrs personified made little difference to him. The only fly in that ointment might be their possible desire to swallow up the mercenaries into their rigid hierarchy. Definitely not an appealing prospect.

  The Amatukaze's hatred of the other two enclaves would make them more than willing to see the others crushed, and they would probably pay well to see it done. But Vost had dealt with religious fanatics before, and knew that once the mission was accomplished, they would expect him to continue to embrace their cause. That was fine with Vost, as long as the cause aligned with his interests, which, in this case, did not sound very likely.

  The Usugumo group was a real possibility. They sounded amoral, willing to pay in cash for what they wanted. And Vost could use offers from the others as a base line for his dealings with them. The negotiations would be sweet. He rubbed his hands with prospective delight.

  Takuda did not see it that way. He'd been thinking about the matter ever since hearing about the other humans from Dakodo. Here had been the perfect opportunity for a group of warriors to build the perfect bushido-based society far from the hurly burly of the Inner Sphere. They could have established the traditional samurai society of warriors and workers, taking all the traditions to their natural conclusion. But that was not what they had done. No, they had fractured their small society into hostile groups. He and the others would have to act as spiritual guides for the original humans, showing them back to the true way, the path of harmony.