The Jupiter War Page 16

  Still, the quartermaster general was due at the end of the week, the first interesting thing to happen since the volcano erupted and those geologists from Resource Planning came out on a boondoggle. Maybe I could let the inspection team get taken prisoner. Might serve them right, too, for being on McAllister’s side when I got booted. But these probably weren’t the same guys, and I could at least see their point. Guerrilla warfare does tend to rely heavily on what is at hand, and doesn’t have a well-developed theory of supply.

  I pulled the readout on my screens. The ice field was calm, a perfect flat bed of pristine white between me and them. They were set up on solid rock three kilometers straight across the ice. Not dug in yet, and they wouldn’t be for a while, not unless they had better tools and motivation than the smugglers who built this bunker had, and I seriously doubt that. Tools haven’t changed all that much, and the bush-runners out here had more motivation than one lousy old strategist on their heels. No, they were going to be camped upside for a long time.

  According to classical theory there were a lot of things I could do. First and most common was run. Only out on Io there isn’t a whole lot to run to. Their cannon could vaporize our scout before we ever cleared the blackout horizon, and if I didn’t think they’d have someone monitoring who’d spot my trail I was even more stupid than McAllister. There was Greenway Camp on the Jupiter side, but the idea of getting there without the scout was even crazier.

  I could always go in and try to blow their main battery. In theory that was an excellent alternative. I even considered it. After all, I have nothing against classical theory, except when it’s wrong.

  One person alone could do it. Several primitive tribes prided themselves on their skill at sneaking in and out of camps unnoticed. A well-placed explosive maybe, for a diversion. Cut the perimeter line, jump in, and go for the battery. Not impossible. Only that left the full armed complement of some thirty troops or so (my estimates were a little lower than the computer’s), who were fully alerted to an enemy presence and madder than a stung wolverine. I decided that was not fun.

  No, there had to be some way to get rid of them and leave the supplies standing. And present them to the quartermaster on the next inspection round. That would be amusing. It might also get me off this godforsaken rock to somewhere where there was still some action, something I could do. Not exiled alone with Jimmy out in the backwater, further from mind than the lowest dungeon of France. I read The Man in the Iron Mask when I was a child and it scared me half to death. I thought that a French dungeon was the worst place a person could ever be sent. And then I got posted to Io.

  I just had to remain flexible. The military’s greatest problem is rigid thinking. On the one hand you want troops who will run at people who are shooting at them, which is counter-intuitive at best. You want people deconditioned, ready to obey orders without question, and creating that requires sacrificing a certain amount of critical thinking. Say a very large amount, when it comes to running at enemy fire. So you end up with some people wearing blinders, who aren’t aware of the options outside the approved square.

  That was what I’d been trying to teach, that creative, reactive thinking. Permitting the Tao, if you will, to flow. Even the Chinese have forgotten that one. Witness the kids up on the rise. They aren’t aware of the environment out here. They aren’t aware of me. But Sitting Bull would have known. He would have become one with the Earth, flown over with Eagle, been blessed by the Sun. Sitting Bull would have been aware of some anomaly in the current of Io. Would have recognized the closet monster for what it was, the projection of force, and not the childlike nonsense it appears.

  For all I have studied of the old ways, the ways that have died, that have been crushed by numbers and firepower, I still don’t have the control that the old masters did. I can feel the Tao but I can’t merge with the force and let it take over, winning by doing nothing. It is the doing-ness that creates failure. All very well and good, but that doesn’t solve my problem. Numbers. And firepower.

  There were only two weapons available to me. Surprise, which is included in classical thinking, and creativity. A chance to prove that I was inadequate, as McAllister would no doubt tell me. I banished him from my mind. McAllister would get me killed faster than the thirty Confederate troops out across the ice. McAllister would make me angry, make me act out of emotion rather than out of reason. And that would kill me more surely than the ice itself.

  So instead I abandoned my post in front of the screens and crossed the fifteen meters to my bunk. Narrow, metal, and made up with a scratchy wool blanket, it was the nearest to comfort I could get on Io. I sat on the covers, which would have gotten me seven punishment details at OCS, crossed my legs, and began to breathe very steadily. Long, deep breaths, and with each one I imagined my mind becoming clearer, cleaner. With each one anger and fear and ambition faded. There was only the puzzle, the question to be answered.

  Every problem contains its solution. Every situation holds the key to its opposite. There is always a way that no one has seen, that no one has followed. Cool and detached, not at all involved in the outcome, I studied the problem presented. I imagined the enemy camp as I had seen it depicted on the screens.

  The Confederate soldiers were restricted to three domes. Otherwise they wore hardsuits, and while suits are utilitarian no one likes to wear them. They are also impregnable, or at least so the literature says. A very useful thing for battle, sealed into a personal shield. They are also terribly clumsy even for the most experienced wearer.

  When I was first learning to use the suit it was all I could do to walk. Jetpack training took weeks, and I had to practice longer yet again when I reached Io. There was no way around it. The jet is attached to the back of the suit and the gloves are stiff and bulky. Once I thought that the jets should be part of the suit, with the controls inside the gloves, but I was told there was too much danger of setting them off by mistake. Later I realized that the real reason was that the jets were terribly expensive and every suit doesn’t need one, nor did anyone need one all the time. So Supply could purchase fewer and pass them around. That reinforced my trust in the basic nature of man.

  Wearing that stiff, unyielding suit and trying to control a jetpad in those gauntlets, I often thought of the knights in armor. Theirs wasn’t so different from ours, pound for pound of protective mass. They didn’t have environmental controls and additional oxygen, but they could take off the helm when not directly under attack. Thinking about knights and calling myself “Sir Eleanor” (I did debate proper usage) paled very quickly when I actually had to use the thing regularly.

  The softsuits are protection enough as long as there is no danger of enemy fire. If the only adversaries are cold and vacuum then the softsuit is not only more comfortable, but more given to free movement. Come to think of it, all Jimmy’s shooting was done in the softsuit. But I didn’t think that the gang across the ice was going to go for it. Can’t use a jet on a softsuit, can’t mount it and can’t land. And they were too hidebound, too rigid, to see that freedom of movement might make up for protection.

  So I saw them in my mind’s eye, two by two around the perimeter in hardsuits, three domes shining gently against the rise. One for supplies, innermost. The second living quarters, and the third for the battery and power lines. Their transport between the domes and the perimeter, an armored line of attack complete with cannon (low-charge; has to be, even with the link in to the battery) and drive. It probably functioned as the command center, too.

  And between us, quivering, the ice. Perfectly innocent, even in the readings, it had been all I could do to train Jimmy not to walk out on that tempting flat. No matter what the geothermal readings, it couldn’t be trusted. The magma of Io is too volatile and the ice on the field is far too shallow to withstand any serious change. Jimmy didn’t understand any of that. All he knew was that his orders were to keep off the ice and that he got punishment det
ails (cleaning out the galley, scrubbing the spotless floor) when he disobeyed.

  So all I had to do was entice the entire marine column onto the flats. And since they hadn’t landed there and had done only fly-over patrols, I had to assume they were at least aware of the possibility of danger.

  “Look at what I got, boss.” Jimmy interrupted my meditation. I wanted to strangle him. I had told him a million times not to bother me when I was thinking, but obviously, since he never thought, he couldn’t tell when someone else was doing so.

  He was holding out a pistol like it was a treasure. Another was strapped around his leg, something out of a collective fantasy. I shook my head.

  “No, Jimmy. These aren’t going to be effective. They’re in hardsuits, and it takes more power to penetrate the shell. These are toys.”

  He looked terribly disappointed. “But boss,” he pleaded. “I could take out the jetpack. That isn’t hard. Or hit the control pad. That’s harder, but at the right angle I could manage. The jetpack’s easier, though.”

  But I didn’t want to discourage him too badly. “Wouldn’t you prefer a rifle for that?” I asked, carefully supportive. “Why don’t we put the idea on hold until you find better equipment, and we can consider it from there.”

  Jimmy brightened noticeably and ran off. I hoped that finding a rifle would take longer than his interrupted inventory (how easily he gets sidetracked and forgets what he’s supposed to be doing) while I worked on a diversion that would in fact bring all those Marines onto the ice.

  One alone in a hardsuit wouldn’t do it. But enough of them, enough . . . Enough to make me think of the Russians, who historically have let their terrain and climate defeat their enemies. Like my own ancestors, they had a respect, even a love for the land, that gave them an advantage that killed others.

  The scout, maybe. That could be an answer. If we won I could simply use their transport to get out, and besides the inspection team was coming. They might not be thrilled to waste another scout on the backside of Io, but in return for an entire Confederate marine column I didn’t think they would put up too much fuss. Booby-trap it, scoot it out onto the ice as if it had landed. And then when there were enough of them around, explode it. If not the weight then the impact of the explosion should shatter the ice field and swallow them.

  And what if their lieutenant was cautious, the way they are taught to be? I wondered about that. I would have to get him to send enough grunts that at least the majority of them would be eliminated in the one single attack. So the trap had to be radio-controlled. I would have to pack it carefully and watch the screens. Let them send out one or two patrols to investigate. Maybe I could even hook up a readout that would look like a wounded pilot, alone. That would surely get them out. And would save me from having them take out the scout at a distance with their transport cannon.

  Even the greenest officer probably wouldn’t waste a wounded pilot. Too much information to gain, and restrained by bad enough injuries the prisoner couldn’t pose much threat. No, I congratulated myself on devising the perfect trap.

  Now I just had to do the labor. Jimmy still hadn’t returned from his hunt for the rifles, and I wasn’t sure whether to get him to pack explosives while I wrote the emergency code or leave well enough alone. Since space was cramped and I craved the absence of idle (and boring) chatter, I opted to leave him down in stores while I did the job myself.

  I grumbled a little, went out to inventory and pull the stocks I needed, when something caught my attention. Something not quite right. I had to look twice before I saw it. One of the softsuits was missing. The big one. Jimmy’s.

  I swore under my breath. That idiot was going to destroy my work, and all for nothing. He couldn’t do a damned thing and there he was, out taking potshots and calling attention to our presence. A presence that I hoped very much to hide:

  Stupid kid. I’d always known that he was useless, that all my lessons were wasted. Well, at least trying to teach him something useful had passed the time for me. But it had been no profit to him, none at all. And now he’d gone and disobeyed orders and was headed out to play hero and pick off enemy marines. A quartermaster’s clerk.

  As I struggled into my own hardsuit I cursed Jimmy all over again. The suit ideally needed a second person to check the mountings, which was one of his jobs. So he was running me out and making me take the risk of securing the suit alone. He would be lucky if the enemy blew his head off before I did. I double-checked the seals and then clanked through the airlock and onto the surface of Io.

  The surface here is impressive. More than any of the other moons (none of which I’ve ever visited, but I’ve seen the pictures), more than the Mars concession cities or the Lunar Enclave. Io is brilliant, one of the brightest things in the system, its ice reflecting even the feeble thin sunlight that comes this far. Jupiter light on the other side is even dimmer and multicolored, but I preferred the stark contrasts of the “dark.” With so little atmosphere to muddy the view, every angle and shadow is crisply defined. It is surreal, disorienting in its absolutes.

  I searched for Jimmy. In the white suit he was hard to find. He seemed to be keeping to the brights, just one more white in the glare. So good so far. And there were no footprints, none of the famous marks scuffed all over the surface of the Moon and Mars. No, Io is frozen hard. It would take more than a boot to mar that surface.

  I studied the surroundings methodically, first studying the area nearest the bunker entrance and the surround. Nothing moved at all. I couldn’t trust my eyes to make out a man-shape in the brilliance. Movement was the only thing that would give him away. My eyes scanned further, out onto the blank ice field.

  But the field was no longer so blank. Steam rose from fissures as the magma rose, turning the whole thing into a white take on hell. Yellow-red molten core rose and dyed the crevasses pink and gold, shadows of the threat they represented. A singular figure strode through the steaming mist, shadowed in outline like a demon coming to claim the souls of the damned.

  He walked upright and tall, not hiding his presence in the least. In fact, his whole walk across the ice was a challenge. His hands were at his sides and his power-rifle was slung casually across his back.

  He was crazy. There was no other way to explain it. Those lines, when I studied them more carefully, were too regular and straight to be the work of nature. I’d seen enough of the vents to know that they generally never followed a set pattern, yet here one was. Artificial then. Jimmy must have done it, used up the full charge in the rifle. And now he was walking into an enemy encampment completely vulnerable.

  They were standing at the perimeter staring at him. The two who had been assigned to patrol were joined by two more, and then by three others. The marines didn’t unhook a single weapon. I suppose at first they were facing their own monsters, nightmares that were made of imagination and vapor and would laugh at them and never break the insubstantial stride. Fear coming for them, the past and legends all combined.

  I know the South Americans, many of them, still practice macumba. They deny it, but it’s there, just like the old magic of Africa and Asia. The Chinese, much as they are a logical and pragmatic race, have never completely abandoned their superstitions of the spirit world. Perhaps no people ever do. Even I saw what I had been taught to see before I saw what was really there.

  And what was really there was nothing but Jimmy, too stupid to do anything but confront them head-on, and the natural ice of Io, doctored a little by the power rifle. All very simple and clear, even if it did look like something from a nightmare made flesh.

  And then Jimmy stopped walking. He was maybe two thirds of the way across the ice, although the field is deceptive and distances are impossible to eyeball.

  The patrol should have shot there and then. Maybe he really was out of range, but they should have tried. Not that they knew Io well enough, that it has the highest albedo in the sol
ar system, that distance here cannot be perceived on any planet or shipbound basis. They should have shot. Even if it was hopeless they should have put up a show of arms, warnings, proof that they were serious. Jimmy was only in a softsuit, after all. A white softsuit that rose from the steam, yes, but penetrable by real bullets all the same.

  Instead the two marines in their bulky hardsuits stood as if they had been frozen in place. Six more appeared, two descending by jetpack. Jimmy remained, eerie in the reddish glow of magma, visible heat surging to the surface. And then he took one step back.

  That did nothing to reassure them. People should be easy to identify, friend or foe. This was nothing of the sort. It approached and retreated without any regard to Confederate proprieties. And they couldn’t see the new fissure that was growing in the ice, the reason Jimmy had moved. He had to be on this side when it split or he might never get back. For all one can jump forever in the low gravity, it isn’t advisable on the ice field. Flaws created by tensions between surface and mantle, between hot and cold, between fluid and rigid, were disguised under the level surface.

  I wanted to ask him exactly what he was doing out on the ice. He wasn’t smart enough to plan it, of that I was certain. He wasn’t able to predict or control the surface as it tore raggedly, fighting and yielding to the molten core. I wanted to tell him that he had destroyed my plans (now that the ice field was both destroyed and exposed in a single action), made our situation hopeless.

  I didn’t dare. Opening communications would tip off the enemy now, and our only hope was that they were startled enough, shaken enough, that they wouldn’t simply fire at the invader like decent perimeter guards and go on about their rounds. If they overheard our conversation, and there was every reason to believe they would, they would know that the apparition that seemed to float in the mist was simply a low-ranking inventory clerk in mega-shit.

  They moved forward, eight awkward figures groping in the mist. They knew better, weapons at the ready, but they were still in the grip of primitive truth and so they held on to their rifles more like talismans than for assault. Where the hell were their officers, I wondered. Why wasn’t anyone ordering them to break up, go in groups of two, shoot the invader, do any of the things that make sense.