Human Legion: Marine Cadet Part 24

"Step forward, 106," ordered Tawfiq.

A ragged human figure detached itself from the roll-call lineup and stood, head bowed, before Tawfiq and Hen.

"Step forward, 109."

A second figure emerged, equally cowed but distinguishable from the first by a blonde ponytail sneaking out the back of a standard Aux hat.

Tawfiq glanced across at Hen, rubbing tails as she did. "This one with long hair is an attractive female," she explained in the growling Hardit tongue but keeping her translator on automatic to give the humans the full benefit of their humiliation. "The other is male. He understands consequences of defiance. Amusing query. Can he control his protective urge toward her?"

Tawfiq appeared to expect a reply, but Hen stayed silent. "He couldn't help himself yesterday," Tawfiq continued, "so I give him level 3 pain. Today I will use level 4 if he intervenes. Do you understand, human?"

106 gave a nod.

"Stupid though these human animals are, surely even they aren't that stupid," argued Hen.

"Query? Shall we wager?"

"Agreed. Ten credits."

"Done."

The two entwined tails.

"If you understood these creatures as I do," said Tawfiq, "you would realize that the male has marked out this female as one of his harem. This means she has exchanged mating rights in return for his protection. His hormones will drive him to protect his female or die trying."

"I'd like to see one of our males claim mating rights over me!" said Hen.

"Hah! Hah! Hah!"

Both Hardits doubled over and made retching sounds. Laughter, Arun a.s.sumed, because Tawfiq's translator system accompanied the sounds with 'hah's. Hen's translator was better than Tawfiq's with normal speech. With laughter, it kept silent.

"Let us see," said Tawfiq when she'd recovered. "Stand closer, 106 and 109."

They obeyed.

"Stop staring at ground. I wish you look into each other's eyes."

They complied. There was the faintest of reactions from the crowd, but the Hardits showed no sign of noticing anything wrong.

Even Adrienne kept quiet, persuaded to keep that way by Springer and Hortez who were flicking threatening glances her way.

Tawfiq began to smack the female with her tail, while watching the male's face, daring him to react.

What the humans all saw was the results of the newcomers' activity the night before, the first part of Arun's plan not that he'd fully worked out the rest just yet.

Arun and Madge had swapped overalls. They'd used the secreted las-blades to cut off Madge's blonde ponytail. Hortez's expert needlework reattached the hair so that it hung down from Arun's hat.

To the humans the disguise was farcically bad.

But their overseers were the products of a very different chain of evolution. Humans all looked the same to them. They suspected nothing.

Under the gaze of Madge and the Hardits, Arun endured a very mild beating that was more than made up for by knowing he was putting one over on the stupid, skangat monkey-b.i.t.c.h Hardits who thought they were beating Madge.

Best of all, Arun was showing them up in full view of every human there.

Eventually Hen grabbed Tawfiq's tail in hers, bringing the beating to an end. "That's enough," she told Tawfiq. "You lose upon this occasion. Time to get to work."

Tawfiq pressed some tokens into Hen's hand, and watched as Hen walked off.

After glaring at the humans for a while, Tawfiq darted into the line-up and brought out Springer and Hortez. "I have a task for new ones and" she tapped Hortez on his head "this one who I know is your friend. You will go up top surface. Hen Beddes-Stolarz has a delivery waiting in Bay 32 to make to the fields sc.u.m in Alabama." She paused, lips curling high about her teeth. "In fact that will be your task for rest of the week. You go to Alabama every day whether there is a delivery to make or not."

She grabbed Springer's face, squas.h.i.+ng her cheeks together. "You do realize why, don't you?"

"Yes, mistress. We will burn."

"Correct. You will burn."

Tawfiq increased the pressure on Springer's cheeks until she winced. Satisfied, the overseer a.s.signed the tasks to the other workers, and then stormed off.

As soon as she was out of sight, Adrienne was in Madge's face, hands on hips and a sneer across her face. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't run after Tawfiq and tell her the stunt you just pulled?"

"Because you keep your life." Madge didn't put any aggression in to her voice, but she spoke with absolute conviction as if Adrienne's death would be as certain as night follows day.

Adrienne gave a bitter laugh. "My life isn't worth drent. Have you forgotten last night? Do I have to spell it out?"

"Yes," said Arun.

Springer sighed. "I think what Adrienne means is that she"

"Stop calling me Adrienne!"

Arun watched in silence as a tear came to Adrienne's eye. She wiped it away.

"For a moment you reminded me of who I once was," the Aux girl snarled, beaming hatred at Springer through slitted eyes. "You veck. Your touch reminded me. Once... once there was someone special. But now he's dead and so is Adrienne. I'm Number 87 now."

"That's only what the Hardits call you," said Springer.

"No, it's what they have made me."

"Well," said Madge, "if your life has no value, how would you like more food instead?"

Adrienne pursed her lips, holding back her initial retort. "All right. How?"

"By taking it from Cliffie," said Madge.

Adrienne snorted. "That didn't work out too well last time, did it?"

"No?" Madge smiled. "Trust me. That was just reconnoitering."

"Consider this," said Hortez. "If we put Cliffie out of the picture permanently, what then?"

"Nothing," spat Adrienne. "One of his gang will take his place."

"Eventually," said Hortez, "if left to their own devices. But they will be off balance. Destabilized. Vulnerable while they fought for succession. If there was a strong man" he looked Adrienne in the eye "or strong woman waiting to seize the initiative, to take Cliffie's place, to stand up to them... What then? Don't forget we outnumber Gamma by 3 to 2."

Adrienne shrugged. "Perhaps. But we would need to get rid of Cliffie. I don't see how."

"Leave it to me," said Arun. "I have powerful friends and I'm just only getting started here."

Arun watched the changes come over Adrienne's face. She wasn't convinced, but just for a moment she looked away, her eyes glazing as she thought through possible futures. Better futures.

They'd given her hope.

Bay 32 was on Level 9 in an industrial zone of workshops and production lines where the throb and hum of motors and conveyor belts made the floor shake.

Arun's face lit up when he saw their cargo was waiting for them packed into wooden crates and already loaded onto hover-trolleys.

Hover-trolleys! Carrying their load would be easy.

Once they had swung the trolleys out of the corner of the bay on hover power, Hortez spoiled the mood by explaining that the fuel for the hover motors wouldn't be enough to get them topside, let alone all the way to Alabama, which was 17 klicks away through the Trollstigen mountain pa.s.s and out into the western plateau.

So they saved the hover capability for more difficult terrain, and had made their way up two levels of the nearest spine ramp before Madge called a rest halt.

Hortez was already tiring.

Let's crack open the crates," Madge suggested. "We'll take out some of your load, Hortez, and redistribute between the three of us."

"No," said Hortez. "We keep going as we are."

"C'mon, man," said Arun. "We're stronger than you. Don't be a dumbchuck."

"It's not pride making me say no, it's self-preservation. I don't know what's in these crates and don't want to."

"Why?" Arun asked. "What do you think we're carrying?"

"I a.s.sumed they were machine parts," said Springer.

Hortez shrugged. "They might be."

"And they might not," Arun finished for him. "Spill!"

"It's just rumors," said Hortez reluctantly. "Talk of black market smuggling."

"Smuggling? Smuggling what?" Arun said. "We get everything we need. Don't the Hardits?"

"Arun, Arun." Springer slapped him on the back. She was laughing, the sound a balm for Arun's bruised spirits. "It's not that we have everything we need so much as you lack the imagination to want for anything."

When Arun showed no sign of understanding, she added: "How did you think the corporal's hair got to be that shade of blonde? There aren't any hair salons in the hab-disks, you know."

"There's always a favor that can be done," added Madge. "A little surplus to be creamed off, help to be given. A thousand ways to make life a little more bearable. And all of that is tradable."

"The Hardits are at the heart of it all," said Hortez. "It's in their nature. They're natural traders. You gotta see it from their point of view. They were here for a very long time before the Jotuns and we humans showed up. We're like unwelcome guests to them."

"I kinda picked up on the unwelcome part already," said Arun.

"Right," said Hortez. "And guests don't go nosing around in the hidden corners of someone else's home. Not if they know what's good for them."

"All right, we'll do it your way for now," said Madge. "Now get off your b.u.t.ts and start moving. If we're to keep down to Hortez's pace, we can't afford to hang around."

* Chapter 34 *

On the far side of Trollstigen Pa.s.s, they came to a crossroads. To right and left the road hugged the foothills of the towering mountains. A simple track ran before them as straight as an energy beam, a gravel and dirt causeway leading to Agri-Facility 21, known by most of the humans as the Alabama Depot.

Although they were still in deep shadow, they could see the landscape opening up before them, the sides of the track sloping down into fields of wheat, maize and barley that waved in the gentle breeze like a golden greeting.

Indeed, it did feel as if the land were welcoming their return, even the fresh outdoor smells were inviting. All of them had been here before in happier times, as novices hiking with heavy packs or running in powered suits or unenc.u.mbered, running in nothing more than fatigues and peaked caps.

Arun knew the track carried on far beyond Alabama, as far as the timber plantations. The soil was richer there or at least different, suitable for growing crops for Detroit's non-human residents. There was Gloigas, long-haired, twisting brown columns crowned with lush purple leaves. And the lurid green, but apparently nutritious, roots of the Tarngrip, which snaked through the undergrowth, trying to ensnare slow-moving limbs, trapping them before slowly crus.h.i.+ng the life out of them through hydraulic pressure. The Tarngrips were far too slow to trap a human, at least while you were awake. The carnivorous plants were native to the same homeworld as the Hardits, a planet that had little oxygen in its thin atmosphere, which meant most things moved in slow motion.

Tarngrips were on the Universal Food list. Which meant everyone in the White Knight logistical supply system had their digestions adapted to consume them, human Marines included. The times when he'd seen the contorted faces of other novices forced to eat boiled Tarngrip was all Arun needed to understand why Universal Foods were more usually called Ugly Foods.

Arun knew all these crops well because he'd run through them, armored boots trampling great swathes through the crops to the consternation of any Agri-Aux nearby.

Instructor Rekka had once told them: "Get to know every culvert, every bank, ridge and irrigation ditch. One day you might be in them, SA-71 braced on their lip, waiting for the enemy a.s.sault to draw nearer before opening fire."

Emerging from the shadows, the bright sun swiftly warmed their spirits, despite following Hortez's advice to pull their stretchy woven hats so far over their faces that the fabric covered their eyes. As they counted down the klicks to Alabama, they peered at the world through gaps in the weave.

"In your hab-disks you go through the shower block every day," Hortez explained. "It's for decontamination and protection as much as hygiene. The spray you're given at the end is more than a dumb protective s.h.i.+eld. Embedded into the spray oils are scavenger nanites that suck the ionizing radiation out of the air. Neutralizes it so it doesn't screw with your cells. I had no idea, but the Hardits are eager to explain that to us."

"If it works so well," said Springer, "surely it wouldn't take too much to give you Aux the spray too."

Hortez took a minute to bring himself to reply. "Sushantat told us once. You've yet to meet her. She's effectively in charge of the Aux on Level 5. She explained that the effects of the radiation take around a decade to take a hold of your body. Tumors, organ failure, deformed children. They don't want to send you lot off to war, only to have you riddled with cancer by the time you get to fight. So they give you the scavenger nanites. But the Aux? Why bother? The oldest Aux I ever heard of was 29 Terran standard years. Giving us the protective spray would not be difficult or expensive. But our lives have such little value that they're worth even less than the spray."

"Sorry, man," mumbled Arun, his sentiments echoed by Springer and Madge.

Except the girls don't feel the same as me, thought Arun. They aren't responsible for putting Hortez here.