Redliners(106)

The lead section of civilians had paused while the strikers dealt with the tree. Now they started moving again. Abbado expected them to skirt the sputtering flame as widely as possible, but instead they pretty much ignored it. They'd already learned that worrying about a danger avoided made you more vulnerable to the one on its way toward you.

"Sergeant," a thirtyish woman said to Abbado. "Can you tell me why we've changed direction?"

"Ma'am?" said Abbado. "We're going straight, more or less. As the big trees allow, is all."

"Sergeant," she said, obviously irritated. "I'm Certified Engineer Schwartzchild. I've been mapping the terrain as we proceed. From the point at which we left the landing site we've been marching at a course of two hundred thirty-nine degrees. We've now shifted to a course of two-sixty-eight—with, as you say, corrections for major obstacles."

She waggled a small case covered in gray sharkskin, obviously a navigation and cartographic device of some sort. "I asked do you have an explanation."

"No ma'am," Abbado said. He decided not to reload his stinger. He'd only fired seventy pellets. He shrugged. "You're right, but I hadn't noticed it till you said so. I'm afraid you'll have to check with the major. Or God. Probably God."

He nodded and started forward. Abbado liked to stay about forty feet behind the bulldozer, close enough to judge whatever situation the blade might uncover without being in the middle of it.

Schwartzchild fell into step to his left, a little closer than he liked. "But Sergeant?" she said. "Don't you care? Something must have happened to cause the change, don't you see?"

"Yes ma'am," he said. "But I don't much care, no. Talk to the major about it, why don't you?"

He turned his head. "Hey Ace?"

"That vine up there?" Matushek said, raising his chest-slung grenade launcher.

"Yeah," Abbado agreed. "Pop it, will you?"

You didn't need helmet electronics for communication if you'd worked with people long enough. A vine six inches thick laced through the tops of at least a dozen trees in an arc ahead of the column. It wasn't doing any obvious harm, but Abbado didn't like the look of it.

The dozer poked its blade into the bole of one of the trees. Matushek put a single grenade where the vine spanned the gap between that crown and the next tree.

The tree shivered, starting to go over. Ace fired again, blowing the other half loose. As the tree fell, it carried the vine fragment wrapped in its branches. Broken ends writhed like snakes.

"Ma'am," Abbado said, returning his attention briefly to Schwartzchild. She wasn't bad-looking, not if you liked your women solid. "I trust the major to do the best he can for us. And I trust God to know what he's doing, though that's about all. But even if I didn't trust them, I know I couldn't do a better job of planning myself. Best I leave them do what they do so I can get on with my end. Do you see what I mean?"

The tree hit with the ragged popping of wood fibers stressed beyond their breaking point. The ground gave a hollow boom. The tractor backed slightly to clear the pit the roots had pulled open, then started forward again.

"I don't see how you can live that way," Schwartzchild said. "We could be going into anything and you don't know."

"Ma'am," Abbado said. "Nobody ever tells strikers anything. If they do it's mostly a lie. I'm sorry it's happening to you guys, you don't deserve it. But we're used to it. Go talk to the major, why don't you?"

He noticed a swelling like a giant beehive stuck on the side of a tree ahead. Caldwell was already extending the blast tube of a rocket to deal with it.

"Ma'am," he added to the woman still walking beside him. "You got to keep your mind on your job and hope the people in charge are doing the same."



The bank of clouds to the east was bright with sunlight streaming through a pair of holes in the similar array on the western horizon. The sky above the freshly-cut campsite was as clear as tap water, but it wouldn't be long before the evening rains hit.

Meyer sat leaning back on her hands. Sighing, she reached for the clamps locking her thigh guards onto the torso apron of her hard suit.

"Sit," Lock repeated sharply. "I'll get to them in good time. Just sit."

He lifted away the breastplate. As usual the clearing's humid air felt cool and fresh.

"God damn," Meyer said, closing her eyes. "I think I sweated out ten pounds today. One of these days you're going to open the suit and all that's left of me's going to dribble out onto the ground."

Matt handed her a drinking bottle and started on the leg pieces. "You shouldn't have to wear the suit all day," he said without looking at her. "Another striker could spell you."