When the Devil Dances Read online

  "The sky fire," Tulo'stenaloor said with a snarl. "This small battle."

  "There was no battle, estanaar," the God King admitted. "There was only the sky-fire . . ."

  "Artillery," Staraquon interjected. Tulo'stenaloor's intelligence officer flapped his crest in derision. "Start learning the words."

  "I am not a nestling," snarled Cholosta'an. "I do not have to take this from you, Kenstain!" The term was a terrible insult, the equivalent of calling someone a eunuch. Kenstain were God Kings who had been removed for all time from the Battle Rolls, either by their own choice or by the decisions of the Posleen Data-net. Some were God Kings that had chosen not to engage in battle, but most were those unlucky in battle or who were unable to garner riches through either fighting or deceit.

  Kenstain were useful on a certain level, they provided the minimal "administration" that could not be provided by the Net. But since they were unrecognized by the Net, they could not engage in legitimate trade and had to survive at the whim of their luckier or more courageous brethren.

  No one liked Kenstain.

  Tulo'stenaloor leaned forward and raised his crest. "If you say that one more time I will have you killed. You agreed to obey my orders if I led you to victory. Learn now that I was serious. I want your information, but not so much as to have my intelligence officer called such. Do . . . you . . . understand?"

  "I . . ." The young God King slumped. "No . . . estanaar, I do not understand. I do not understand why it matters and I do not understand why I must be put through this. It is not the way of the Path."

  "Do not speak to me of the Path," spat the older God King. He fingered the symbol dangling from one ear and snarled. "The Path is what has led us to this impasse. It is the Path which has hurled us into defeat on Aradan and Kerlan. We will use the Path when it is the way to victory, but the only Path in my encampment, the only mission," he said, using the human word, "is to defeat the humans, utterly. It goes beyond this small ball of mud, it goes to the survival of the Po'oslena'ar as a race. If we do not destroy these humans, they will destroy us. And I will destroy them, root and branch, here and on Aradan and Kerlan and anywhere else they exist. Not for the Path, but for the Race. And you will either aid me in that, without question, or you may go. But if you say you will aid me and you question me or the officers I appoint to you then you will die. Do you understand me now?"

  The young God King had been born on Earth in the heat of battle and since leaving the slaughter of the pens had heard nothing but the stories of defeat at human hands. Not for him the riches of the initial landing when vast stretches of land fell before the onslaught of the Race. Not for him the easy way to pay his edas debts, the crushing weight of the cost of outfitting his oolt. Until that was paid there was no way he could do anything but be a servant to more capable or lucky Kessentai. Thus, his first battle had been like all the others, a blindsided slaughter in these hills, shredded by artillery that they could never reach and he and his fellow Kessentai pecked at by snipers that were impossible to distinguish through the mass of fire. There was no glory, and certainly no loot, to be gained from those pitiful assaults. Not even by picking over their own dead.

  He had seen the weakness of the Path, the Path of War that called for berserk assaults no matter what the target, and he knew there must be a better way. It was because of this that he had responded to the messages filtering through the Net. There was a new Way, a new Path, and a new messiah that would lead them beyond these trackless wastes into the promised land of the interior. It was a new Way and it was a hard Way, but he had never expected how hard.

  "I . . . will obey, estanaar," the scoutmaster said. "I do not understand but I will obey." He paused and thought back. "The sky-fire . . . the artillery . . . fell without warning. Rather our tenaral told us it was coming, but only when it was on top of us. Then Ramsardal fell and when I saw the damage I began weaving; I knew it was the human 'snipers' but with the sky . . . artillery fire the tenaral were unable to find them. I bonded as many of the oolt'os as I could on the way past and moved as quickly out of the fire as I could."

  "Can you read a map?" asked Staraquon.

  "I . . ." The young Kessentai fluffed his crest nervously but finally laid it flat. "I do not know what a map is . . ."

  "Call me 'Esstu,' " Staraquon said calmly. "I gather information about the humans. You will be given a lesson in maps later by the Kessentai of Essthree, but a map is basically a picture of the ground from in the air. I would like to know where the encounter was. Since there was sniper fire, it was from a reconnaissance team, one of the human 'lurp' teams, rather than fire directed from their sensors. If there is a reconnaissance team out there, it is probably coming to see what we are doing. We don't want that; we don't want the humans seeing what we are doing. Therefore we want to know where the encounter was and when."

  The God King fluffed his crest again and clacked his teeth. "It was last night and it was closer to the human lines. I . . . knew a way to this area but it passed close to the human lines. It was the only way I knew so I took it. I could show you where it is, but I cannot tell you."

  "All right," Staraquon said with a flap of his crest. "It would have been good but not necessary." He turned to Tulo'stenaloor. "I wish to send out more patrols and I want some of my esstu Kessentai included. There are detectors we have been working on that might help us find these pesky lurps."

  "Was there a transmission from the area?" Tulo'stenaloor asked. He admitted that he did not have the expertise in figuring out how to gather information that Staraquon did. But that was why he had recruited him as his 'esstu.'

  "No," the intelligence officer said. "It would appear that they are using some nontransmissive form of communication. Probably these laser retransmitters that they have scattered around the hills."

  "Is there some way to gather the information from them?" the older Kessentai mused. "Or some way to feed it in?"

  "Both," Staraquon said with a bark of humor. "But shouldn't we wait on that for when the attack takes place? I want these humans to suspect nothing until then."

  "Agreed," Tulo'stenaloor said. "Very well, do what you need to, you may even draw on the Kessentai force if you think it can be kept secret. But find this recon team and kill it."

  * * *

  Jake took another look through the binoculars and scratched his chin in thought. The Tallulah River drained the northeast Georgia mountains, joined by numerous smaller tributaries until it became a substantial stream. At that point, however, humans had taken a hand and the river was repeatedly used for hydroelectric power generation. Currently he was observing the bit of it that flowed out of the Lake Burton Dam and, in very short order, became Lake Seed. Between the two lakes was a short stretch that, according to the map and their intel report, was supposed to be fordable. Only about thirty meters from side to side and knee deep at worst. What was even better about this point for a crossing was that there were steep, heavily wooded slopes on either side of the river. All the team would have to do was move down through the woods, pass through a blessedly small open area, cross the river and move back into the sheltering woods.

  Unfortunately, the intel reports neglected to take into account the sumptuous rains of the previous few months and the power plant on the dam.

  The plant was old, possibly as much as a century passed since its construction, the large multi-pane windows and antique lights scattered around made that clear. The generators inside would probably be signed by Thomas Edison himself, but the plant still functioned and it was evident that the Posleen were using it to supplement their fusion plants.

  Which, by itself, was no skin off of Jake Mosovich's nose. But the problem was the generation had raised the level of the river to nearly chest height and the power of it would make any white-water kayaker happy. But the objective was on the far side. Which created a number of unpalatable options. They could turn around and cross Lake Burton on the north end. But if they did that it would make more sense to
extract to behind the lines, drive around to the Highway 76 defenses and start all over again.

  Alternatively, they could move closer to Toccoa and make a crossing. The problem with that was that the most dangerous point of the insertion would take place practically on the target. A landing zone for a globe was commonly almost ten miles in radius. It would be expected that landers were at least as far out as Toccoa although telemetry had indicated this landing was remarkably tight. Whichever was the case, crossing further down would be much more dangerous. If anything went wrong on the crossing, they might find upwards of four million Posleen chasing their asses. And while Jake had developed a fond affection for Posleen stupidity, he had also gained a strong appreciation for their tenacity and speed. There was no way they would survive a globe-force on their ass.

  That left one option.

  "The bridge is up," he whispered.

  "Yeah," Mueller said. "And by that you are suggesting what?"

  He and Mueller had been together a long time. Along with Sergeant Major Ersin they were the only survivors of the first, disastrous human encounter with the Posleen on Barwhon when a hand-picked team of the best the U.S. Special Operations Command had to offer was sent out to learn about this amazing and unlikely reported extraterrestrial threat.

  All went relatively well until the small team was ordered to retrieve some live Posleen for study. It was then that the team learned, to its cost, about the efficiency of God King sensors and how very fast the "dumb" Posleen could react to a direct and recognizable threat. He had completed the mission, but at the cost of six legends in the SpecOps community. And he had never again underestimated the Posleen.

  But there was a difference between underestimation and necessary risk.

  "I don't see a choice," Mosovich pointed out. "And there's not much traffic. We've seen, what? One group cross it in the last few hours? We move down to right on top of it, make sure there aren't any bad guys around and then sneak across. What's so tough?"

  "Getting killed is what's so tough," Nichols interjected. "What happens if a God King wanders by? I guarantee you that if we're 'on top' of the bridge, their sensors are going to scream, even if we don't get spotted by sentries on the dam!"

  "What sentries?" Mosovich said. "Posleen don't post sentries. They never do."

  "They never send out patrols, either," Mueller pointed out. "And it sure as hell looks like that's what's going on here. How many of these damn groups have we seen, just milling around. Usually they're constructing something or farming or working. These guys are acting like . . . soldiers."

  "You spooked?" Mosovich asked seriously. Mueller had been at the Posleen killing business as long as the sergeant major; it made sense to listen to his hunches.

  "Yeah," Mueller answered. "Something ain't right. Why land a globe out here in the middle of nowhere? Why're all these guys doin' what look like patrols? For that matter, how many times have you seen one of these dams generating?"

  "And then there's why we're here," Sister Mary added quietly.

  Much of the intelligence that humans gathered on the Posleen was from one of three sources: the sensor net scattered through the woods, high-intensity telescopes scattered across the face of the moon and special scatterable, short-lived mobile "bots" that could be fired from artillery shells.

  Since this latest globe landing, all of the sensors in line of sight of Clarkesville had been systematically eliminated, every set of bots sent in had been localized and destroyed and the Posleen had put up a blanket of smoke over most of the area they were organizing in. It bespoke something very unusual. And now they seemed to be actively patrolling.

  "We gotta get into the area," Jake pointed out. "To get there we gotta cross the stream."

  "Next time, we're humping in SCUBA gear," Mueller grumbled. "Then we swim across the lake."

  "I don't know how to SCUBA," Sister Mary whispered.

  "I don't know how to swim," Nichols admitted.

  "Babies," Mueller grumped. "We're taking out babies. Don't they teach you anything in Recondo?"

  "Sure," Nichols said. "How to do a repulsion jump. I think I've used it as much as you have SCUBA training."

  "Tonight," Mosovich said. "We'll move out at two ohmygodhundred. Standard formation. If we make contact, follow SOP, rally here. Sister Mary, call up the arty and make sure they're awake for our crossing."

  "Gotcha."

  "Chill until then. Tonight's going to be busy."

  * * *

  "You have had a busy day, eson'sora."

  Cholosta'an laid his crest down and bobbed his head to the older Kessentai, uncomfortable with the unusual term. Like many others it had been ferreted out of the Data Net by acolytes of the unusual master of this Globe-force, but it was unfamiliar to the majority of Posleen. It had echoes of a genetic relationship, father to son or sibling to sibling. But they were overtones only; the term meant neither father nor master but something similar to both. Defining the relationship, however, was an ongoing process.

  "It has been . . . interesting." The ever-present smoke of the main camp stung his eyes but at least now he understood the reason for it. The humans, too, had maps, and ways of seeing from the sky. Most of those had been destroyed automatically, the reason, apparently, that the Alldn't equipment engaged what appeared to be harmless targets. But there were other ways; communications had been . . . intercepted from the orbital body. The humans even had eyes there.

  Orostan fingered his harness in thought as he idly drifted his command saucer back and forth. The continuous movement of the tenar was a habit the smarter God Kings learned. On this benighted ball the less smart didn't last long. "You understand maps now?"

  The young Kessentai looked around at the purposeful activity of the encampment and flapped his crest. "I believe so. They are similar to the graphics of a construction survey. Once I connected the two it got much easier, but thinking of them flat rather than raised was tricky. And learning is one thing, but it takes experience to set a skill." He had been born with many inherently transferred skills, not least the skills of battle but also a large nonviolent skill set ranging from how to construct a polymer extrusion machine to how to build a pyramid made of nothing but one foot blanks of steel. However, gaining new skills was harder, it required both time and materials to repeat the processes over and over again. Map reading at a "skill" level would take some time.

  The oolt'ondai clacked his teeth and pulled out a roll of paper. "Well, for today you need to send half your oolt out on patrol. The rest will move to an outlying camp that is being prepared. Can your cosslain handle the patrol?"

  "What is the nature of this 'patrol' . . . thing?" the young Kessentai asked.

  "Another of Tulo'stenaloor's human practices. Oolt'os are sent out to walk on the roads and in the hills looking for humans that might be spying on us. We lose a few to their damned artillery, but it keeps prying eyes away."

  "But . . ." The Kessentai fluttered his crest in agitation. "I can send them forth and tell them to keep an eye out for humans. But it sounds like you have something else in mind."

  "Indeed," the oolt'ondai said with a clack of humor. "Other groups already go forth. Send them to the attention of Drasanar. He will have them follow a patrol group on their path. After they know it they will be set to follow it until told to stop. Can they be trusted out of your sight?"

  "Oh, yes," Cholosta'an admitted. "My cosslain are actually quite bright and I have three in my oolt. Any of them will be capable of following those directions."

  "Good, send one half of the oolt to the attention of Drasanar, he is the patrolmaster. Then send the other half to the," the oolt'ondai paused as he tried to get his mouth around "Midway." Finally he got out a map and pointed to it. "Take them to the camp here. Turn them over to one of the Kessentai in charge of constructing the camp and return. We've many things to do and not much time to do it in."

  "What is all the rush?" Cholosta'an asked. "I thought the battle was not to take plac
e so soon."

  "Ask Tulo'stenaloor," Orostan said with another clack of humor; while the leader of the force was always glad to answer questions, he rarely had time. "He wishes us to be spread out in 'well defended camps.' He is having them expand the production caverns, as well, to hold the entire host and shield it from this human artillery." The older God King flapped his crest and snorted. "He is in love with the humans I think."

  Cholosta'an looked at him sideways, swinging his long neck around nervously. The oolt'ondai was far older than he, with tremendously more experience. It showed in the outfitting of his tenar and the weapons of the cosslain that surrounded him. While Cholosta'an understood the draw of Tulo'stenaloor for himself, he had to wonder what drew the old ones, the long time warriors like Orostan.

  The oolt'ondai noted his regard and flapped his crest until the wind raised a small dust cloud. "Don't get me wrong, I follow Tulo'stenaloor and I believe."

  "Why?" Cholosta'an asked. "I know why I'm here; I was born on this mudball and I intend to get off of it. But every battle I've been drawn to has been a slaughter. I've replaced most of my oolt twice over to no gain. Three times I've had to return to my chorho, bowl in hand, asking for a resupply. If I return again I will be denied. But you don't need a chance. You don't even have to be on this Alldn't cursed planet."

  Orostan considered his answer for a moment then flapped his crest again. "If you have actual needs, for thresh or ammunition, even replacements for damaged equipment, tell me and it will be made good; you shall not go into battle with the Host of Tulo'stenaloor underequipped. There will be a bill if we succeed, otherwise it will be charged to the Host. To the rest of the question, call it another way, The Way of the Race. The humans are the first race to challenge the Po'oslena'ar in many long years. For the Po'oslena'ar there is only the Way. If we do not defeat the humans, if we do not continue on our Way, the tide of orna'adar will sweep over us and we will perish as a race. This is the homeworld of the Humans, the queen of the grat's nest. We must seize her and destroy her or we shall be destroyed in turn."