05. Children of Flux and Anchor (35 page)

It was blunt, but it made its point. Even the roughest of those who watched, the most insular and suspicious, were impressed by the stranger's cool, professional manner that dripped not only with authority but with confidence. They might not give their total trust, but it became somehow easy to believe that if everyone followed instructions, drilled, drilled, drilled, and pushed themselves to the limit, wizard and nonwizard alike, they might just win this thing.

For the original troops, the family who led the rest, Matson had another shock. "I want you all to look exactly like Fluxgirls," they were told. They protested vehemently, and it took a while before the explanation could come.

"In war, you exploit your own strengths and your enemy's weaknesses. The fact is, we're not very strong in a relative sense and the enemy doesn't have many weaknesses. They're tough, battle-hardened, and driven by a religious fever. They firmly believe that if they die in battle they will go immediately to one of the highest heavens. They're not above losing an engagement, or even a battle, and remaining all right—but to show cowardice, to surrender as opposed to withdrawal, to show a lack of will in battle, is to condemn yourself in this life and send you to Hell in the next. That's a pretty tough enemy, and they have a million like that. Fortunately, with so large a country to guard, we won't see a fraction of that, but we will see troops who are that way."

A map was spread out on the ground showing the northern and some of the eastern New Eden border. "Now, being good tacticians, they'll come out along here in a broad front. Probably committing half or less of their men, wizards, and projectors, keeping the rest in reserve just behind in well-protected Anchor."

Gillian frowned when looking at the map. "How can you be sure they'll come out there? Their border is over fifty-six hundred kilometers. They could come out
anywhere.
Play it safe, come out down in the southeast or southwest and consolidate. It's what
I
would do."

"Me, too," Matson agreed, "but we are going to insure that they come out between Liberty's eastern border and Logh District. We are going to move down to this position when we're ready and we won't be secretive about it. In fact, we'll be a rolling tide, and there might even be some battles in between. We will have to have more troops and we have the power to get them, by battle or, hopefully, extortion, from the smaller Fluxlands in the way. The key border districts are the old Anchor areas—Logh here and Nantzee to the west—their science and technology center, and the original old industrial base. The land is still developing inward; the rest of the prime targets are in near the Gate, in the New Canaan district. They know if we take Logh we'll have a big prize, and we'll also have a way to send nasty little things through the Gate that might go
boom.
There's also pride. New Eden started in Anchor Logh, and it was Tilghman's home and the old capital. They'll defend it, and that's what we want. We want
them
always on the defensive. That forces a fight here, in a region you know well. The Logh area is heavily fortified, but the Liberty border area is hardly defended at all. That gives everybody some running room."

"Yes, but why Fluxgirls?" several wanted to know.

"Their strength is also their weakness. Pride and ego. As good military commanders, if we manage to pull off an initial battle victory, they won't want to commit their reserves and their remaining wizards and projectors. Conventional wisdom would be to hold off, since there's no immediate threat to the interior, to pull back to Logh, and find out what went wrong and fix it. We can't allow them to do it, and our wildest dreams of troop additions wouldn't permit a successful assault on Logh Center if all their forces are concentrated there. That means forcing them into a tactical mistake. Doing something stupid. The only means of doing that is to put ego and career on the line. Think about it. You're one of those men in the army, born and bred in New Eden and a true believer. Now the survivors of the first assault who get back into Anchor tell you that you've been defeated, not just by an army of militant women, which is bad enough, but by
Fluxgirls in rebellion.
What do you do?"

"If they're smart, nothing," Gillian responded. "Surely they'll know it's a trick, that it's exactly what it is—a way to draw them back out."

"Maybe. Probably. The officers and senior noncoms, at least. But the troops won't be that reasonable. They will be humiliated, threatened, and angry. I'm betting that this, and one other thing, will force the officers into a second breakout. With their troops demanding it, to order a withdrawal would mean official protests up the ass, and all the reports would say that the officers refused to let them fight a horde of armed Fluxgirls. Even if their political chiefs know they did the right thing, that kind of news would mean ruin at the least for the officers in charge, maybe show court-martials. Public sentiment would demand it. They might smooth over being beaten by a bunch of women, because it's Flux and the people understand Flux power and fear it, but by a bunch of
Fluxgirls?
It'll drive 'em nuts even though they will
know
they're being had."

They were impressed. They were more than impressed, in fact.

"Now, I said you had to
look
like Fluxgirls, and that's not the same thing as being one. Anything that doesn't obviously show is all right. I have very strong arms and I keep them that way, not just with spell but with weights." The stringer rolled up a sleeve and flexed the muscles. The arm had looked smooth and normal until then, but now it showed raw power. "See? There lots of tricks like that. Still, I want you all changed as quickly as possible. I want you to feel that Fluxgirl-like body, know what it can do, and be natural with it. I don't want anybody forgetting that they're not quite as tall as they were, or misjudging a leap, or pausing to doubt whether or not they can pick up something or punch someone out. Although I'll be directing from the rear, when the time comes I, too, will take on a Fluxgirl body. Not only will I share your situation, but I don't want to stand out for some bright New Eden sharpshooter in case I have to come in close."

And that settled that.

The building up of forces proved easier as time went on. Ecksreh was in a shambles, and there was widespread lawlessness and starvation in many areas. Gorgh had also been ravaged, and, while stable now, you couldn't grow food and raise new livestock overnight, particularly in Anchor. The wizards of what Suzl now called New Harmony could manage a ghoulish but mutually profitable trade: surplus human beings who could not be fed and whose livelihoods had been destroyed in the wars and revolutions in exchange for massive quantities of fruits, vegetables, and developed food plants created out of Flux.

Also, Gillian and others visited smaller Fluxlands, ones still run in the old ways by single Fluxlords and none too secure. Extortion, Matson had predicted, would win cooperation. A slice of your army, or we might come and take your Fluxland down and take it all.

They spread the word of the army they were raising and for what purpose, and to their surprise got some major volunteers. A number of female wizards volunteered their own services and those of their people in the cause, although they were not willing to take on Suzl's spells for themselves. Their armies, however, were easily modified and integrated into the main body.

At Suzl's suggestion, New Harmony agents still posing as Fluxgirls inside New Eden used their own places and the corrupt male officials long ago bought by Borg Habib to run record checks on known former female wizards who were now Fluxgirls. A number of those, including most without small children or enormous in-home families, were abducted, smuggled out, and then deprogrammed by Krita and her devices. These proved to include both of Jodi's old Sister-wives, Giml and Honnah.

The army swelled to the largest number of female troops in World's history, perhaps forty thousand, all made equal in Flux and given, through Flux spells, the latest in modern weaponry and what training they needed to be coordinated units.

Suzl's own personal ranks of Ayesha-like wizards pledged to her swelled, with the Fluxgirl additions and the actual commitment of some former Fluxgirl wizards who caught the dream, to thirty-four. In addition, counting Chua and Ming, there were another twenty allied wizards. Other than not allowing the outsiders on or near the projectors, they had the same rank and duties as other wizards.

Under Matson's skilled direction, they formed the most powerful unified army since the Invasion, and in wizard power were stronger than the armies of the Reformation. It was not, however, a one-person job. Many of the newcomers had some sort of military backgrounds, mostly in Fluxlands or in the Anchor civil wars, and knew how to do things.

What had been accomplished in a mere ninety-three days stunned them all. It also stunned Matson, but that wasn't for anyone else to know. The amount of fear and resentment against New Eden had been badly underestimated by them all, that much was clear.

Matson used the allied wizards to survey New Eden, and used the internal network of New Harmony spies and corrupt officials within the country to keep track of progress. The numbers didn't look good, and it was time to move.

"I would prefer another six months," the stringer told the general staff of New Harmony. "At this rate, we would have a hundred wizards and an army of a quarter of a million. With that, I might try taking part of New Eden itself. The fact is, though, we don't have it. We must close down here and move south as an advancing wave. We'll put into practice what we've learned here as we go, against targets of opportunity. New Eden has its own allies and spies, and we must assume they know what we have and why we're doing it. If we don't move on them now, those projectors and forces will come out at a time and place
they
decide instead of where we want it to be. We need them all together, bunched up in one predictable spot."

"It seems to me that we're the bait in our own trap," Morgaine noted nervously. "If they don't take the bait, all this is for nothing."

"They'll take it," Matson assured her. "They
have
to take it." But the confidence in the old stringer's tone belied deep-down fears. The fact was, they not only
didn't
have to take it, they
shouldn't.
The only thing that would make them take it was their pride and their ego. It had to be enough.

Even as they started to move, all but the Eves and a few holding personnel abandoning their beautiful new land, Matson sought out Gabaye and Tokiabi.

"I understand you plan to shoot yourselves up into orbit and find the old master builder computers," the stringer said. "I assume you haven't yet successfully sent a human being up?"

"Only some inanimate matter and a few small animals, darling," Chua responded. "The tests so far have been prototypes only. After all, we're not going to get in until we're
positive
it's safe and it'll work and we can bring it back if need be."

"But you have the proper file programs and machines to guide the things now?"

"Oh, yes, dear. Of course!"

"We're going to need them down here. Guidance and programming experts and whatever is necessary to create and launch the things." Quickly the plan to reduce New Eden's industrial and transportation network to rubble and force an accommodation was outlined, and the rationale behind it.

Chua was entranced. "
Darling
!
What a positively
diabolical
concept! We simply never
thought
of it that way! You know, making a woman out of you was a fine touch. Stripped of your male orientation, one could almost get to
like
you!"

"I pretty well doubt that I'm the first one who ever thought of it or used it. If there was any alternative, I wouldn't use it now."

"Ah! Compassion! Such a
womanly
value. One of the reasons New Eden made such doormats out of them."

"Your group created New Eden," the stringer reminded her. "Coydt van Haas created it, and you and Haldayne and Ivan and the others helped shape and direct it because you needed it to open the Gates. Now your monster's turned on you, like in the old children's stories, but it's your monster all the same."

Chua smiled, but made no reply.

Matson could see her mind working, and knew what implications had just been planted in that twisted mind of hers. With the projectors for protection and for Flux use, and guided projectiles for Anchor, World was theirs for the asking. What these two would do with it if they got it was something the stringer didn't like to think about. Both Gabaye and the almost-totally-withdrawn Tokiabi were insane in a sense beyond any he had experienced before. Normal standards and expectations just did not apply. At one time they, or particularly Gabaye, could be reasonable and normal and just seem eccentric; the next minute, her reactions would be totally incomprehensible. For example, there was no question that they genuinely hated Matson for beating the
Samish,
even though the
Samish
had been about to incorporate them into their mass computer-organic mind. They were eager to leave World for the stars, yet they relished the idea of controlling it completely.

Matson directed that they avoid trouble with the stringers and they moved south. The Guild was a third force, able to mobilize huge forces, and it would do so if attacked, even at the cost of a New Eden victory. The Guild had compromised with New Eden before. Best to leave that force neutral. This was a chancy enough operation as it was.

Anyone else was not so lucky. Although Matson didn't like to do it, there were priorities involved, and the mind sets of those at the top would overrule any moral qualms anyway. Weaker Fluxlands were simply punched through with the force of fifty-four wizards, at least half world-class: they were hardly even a problem, more a mild training exercise. Unable to even escape from such power, the wizards, faced with death, took the binding spells and became part of the force. Their populations, having no choice in the matter, were quickly converted and added to the ranks, although as reserves because of the lack of real opportunity for training. Still, it was another twelve thousand, and the force stretched back for kilometers across a broad front. Any New Eden man would have blanched at the sight of fifty-two thousand apparent Fluxgirls, armed to the teeth and riding and marching in disciplined columns, backed by fifty-four female wizards.