CALIPHATE(97)

"Anyway, Ling, if you don't want to shoot you can load magazines."

Matheson and Hamilton loaded their own, while Hamilton and Hans loaded half a dozen submachine gun magazines for Petra. She was not a natural, a half dozen magazines were not enough.

After Matheson was satisfied that he had the measure of his pistol, he moved off to one side and broke it down to clean and oil it. Meanwhile, Hans and Hamilton took turns working with Petra while Ling kept reloading. After perhaps a thousand rounds, they'd gotten Petra to the point where she could hit a man-sized target at twenty- five meters, with at least one round of a three-round burst, about six times in ten. At that level she stuck, though, so much so that neither thought there would be much benefit in keeping at it.

"And besides," said Hans, "the sun is going down soon. It may be that no one can hear us shooting; but they may still see the muzzle flash if we keep it up."

"Right," Bernie agreed.

"He's . . . going to . . . fucking . . . kill . . . us," grunted one janissary to another as Hans led all but one platoon of the company through the ninth mile of a twelve-mile run. The troops' feet and knees shrieked in protest. Air heated by exertion formed little frosted cones in front of their faces. It was too dark to see that, of course.

The run had led over hill and dale, which is to say up sheer-sided mountain and down again, for over an hour so far. From the open area in front of Castle Honsvang, he'd led them down to and around the town, then up to Castle Noisvastei and back down again, over the bridge to the town of af-Füss, to Walnhov, and with many a twist and turn thrown in for good measure. And the young commander showed no signs of flagging, still.

Behind the formation, cursing the fate that had delivered him into the hands of an outright lunatic of an odabasi, the baseski, or first sergeant, pushed from behind to ensure that none of the older or weaker men fell out. Hans had left the idiot bayraktar behind, responsible for security in his absence.

Finally, Hans pulled up in front of Castle Honsvang and ordered a halt.

"Baseski!" he called, at which command the senior noncom marched up to report.

"Take charge of the company. All except the alert platoon: breakfast, showers, full marching packs, weapons, basic load of ammunition, here, in one hour."

"Sir!"

What an asshole.

While his baseski ran the troops through their paces, Hans walked briskly to his own quarters. On his way, he passed one of the American renegades, the one he remembered as Meara. The grossly fat bastard was leading a nine-year-old brown-skinned boy, presumably his bed partner of the night before, by a leash, in the direction of the experimental slave pens. The child was crying.

Hans kept his face a mask, nodding no more than politely. Even so, he vowed inside, You will be punished for this, swine. He wondered why the filth didn't recognize him from the resemblance to his sister, then decided that the fat bastard was so self-centered he was incapable of recognizing most other people as human beings, let alone seeing familial relations by facial features.

Claude O. Meara removed the leash and pushed the boy into the pen with the rest of the experimental animals. A girl of perhaps eleven met the boy with open arms, glaring her hatred at Meara from over the boy's shoulder. Meara sneered and locked the heavy door, turning away to walk to the main lab.

There he found Guillaume Sands busily at work at his desk, manipulating a diagram of the true VA5H virus shown on a computer screen.

"Morning, Will," said Meara. "Any progress?"

Sands shook his head. "A little, not much."

"How soon before we're ready for more live tests?"

"Maybe ten days," Sands shrugged. "Maybe a little less."

"We're down to just the new batch, you know," Meara said, pointing generally at the crematorium and the pens.

Sands shrugged. Unlike Meara, he had no sexual use for children. Also unlike Meara, he took no particular joy in watching the victims die slowly. At least, unlike Meara, Sands never pulled up a chair to enjoy the sight of their suffering and death through the viewport. He didn't care that they did, either, of course. If a few people had to die so that that construct of utter evil, the American Empire, died as well . . . well, so be it.





Honsvang, Province of Baya, 19 Muharram,

1538 AH (30 October, 2113)


Hans looked half dead.

"This isn't going to work," said Matheson. "Your idea of wearing the troops out to make our way easier is a good one. Unfortunately, it's also wearing you out, so badly that you're not going to be much use to either of us when the time comes. And if you take a break a couple of days before, so will the troops. Worse, you're wearing yourself out faster than you are them because you are, so to speak, working two jobs."