Starfist: Hangfire (17 page)

"The ‘skinks,’ as some of your Marines called them, and the Avionians aren't the only alien sentiences out there. There are at least a half-dozen others within or near Human Space. None of them seem to be technologically superior to us. Most of them are relatively primitive, like the Avionians. It's pure happenstance that it was an element of 34th FIST that was the first military unit to encounter hostile aliens. Or at least the first to live to tell the tale." He solemnly shook his head. "It's not positive, but fairly certain, that a few small military units or other groups of humans have encountered hostile aliens and been wiped out."

"That's startling," Sturgeon said in what he knew was a gross understatement, "sentient aliens. But what does it have to do with my Marines not getting routine rotation orders?"

"Your Marines were the first military unit to survive what was once called a ‘close encounter of the third kind,’ one where actual face-to-whatever contact is made between humans and aliens. Because of that, 34th FIST has been designated as the official alien-encounter force."

Sturgeon's eyes widened. "Why haven't I been told?"

Aguinaldo shrugged. "Because the existence of sentient aliens is a state secret. Nobody's supposed to know about the existence of sentient aliens—including you and everyone else in your command who hasn't personally encountered them. In order to hold the secret as close as possible, no one from 34th FIST is to be transferred to another unit. Everyone has been involuntarily extended for ‘the duration.’

Nobody in 34th FlST will be transferred, released from active duty, or placed on the retired roster until further notice." He grimaced. "Or until the politicians stop being so scared of little green men and change their policy."

He sighed. "On the bright side for you, you're going to remain in the most coveted position in the Marine Corps—in command of a FIST. And, bluntly, you weren't going to be promoted anyway." He gave the brigadier a gentle smile. "You've made more enemies than friends along the way, my friend. And I'm sorry to say I made some of them for you on Diamunde." He shook his head ruefully. "All my talk of making friends."

"I made some powerful enemies for myself on Diamunde when Admiral Wimbush relieved General Han and replaced him with me. Then I made even more enemies when I replaced his Corps commanders with Marines." He looked Sturgeon in the eye. "Do you know that the army high command mounted a campaign to block my appointment as ACMC? They did. But they took too long to get organized and I was already in the billet by the time they fired their first salvo." He shrugged. "In my case, it doesn't matter. This is a terminal assignment; ACMC never gets promoted to Commandant, so the only place up for me is Chairman of the Combined Chiefs, and you know the army and navy will never accept a Marine as chairman." He snorted and shook his head again, remembering his wife's concern about his

"career advancement" the day before.

Then he sighed. "Even though they were too late to block my appointment, the army high command made it quite clear that they would take it very badly if any of the Marines placed in command of higher ranking army generals on Diamunde were subsequently promoted. I'm truly sorry, Ted."

Sturgeon shook it off; just now he was dealing with bigger problems than when or whether he'd next be promoted.

"Anyway, that's the big secret," Aguinaldo continued. "Thirty-fourth FIST is the designated alien encounter force. Everyone in it is there for the duration. Death or permanently crippling injury is the only way out." His expression turned angry. "There's even talk of quarantining Thorsfinni's World just in case any of your Marines leaks the word out to the civilians."

"Quarantine Thorsfinni's World? That's unconscionable!"

"People have used many terms to describe the Confederation in the generations since it was founded.

‘Benevolent’ has rarely been one of them."

"But to hold secret the knowledge of sentient aliens, and quarantine an entire civilized world to keep the knowledge secret..."

"‘Humane’ is also a term seldom used to describe government policymakers."

"To think we serve them," Sturgeon said, momentarily disgusted with himself and what he'd spent his life doing.

"We don't only serve the government, we help people too. Sometimes we even protect them from the government."

Sturgeon looked away.

"Look at what your FIST has done in the past few years. You defeated a murderous power structure on Elneal and helped destroy a rapacious government on Diamunde. And how you changed the government on Wanderjahr was nothing short of splendid. One of your companies even prevented the disruption of the development of an alien sentience, which disruption would have had unimaginable consequences. Yes, we do the Confederation's bidding—and we do good wherever the opportunity arises along the way."

"But—"

"No buts. We are Marines. It's our job to fight and to kill. It's in our nature to protect and to help. We do both."

For long moments they sat in silence broken only by the river running past. Then Sturgeon said, "I have to tell my Marines what's being done to them."

"Not yet." Aguinaldo shook his head.

"Some of my Marines are a year overdue for rotation. I have to tell them."

"I'm still owed favors and still have influence—despite my enemies," Aguinaldo said. "I agree with you that the policy is wrong. Tell your Marines that you've got the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps working on the problem and that he'll get it fixed"

Sturgeon looked intently at him. "You can fix it?"

"I'll do my absolute best." There was another moment of silence, then Aguinaldo said, "One more thing. There's a corporal, a clerk, name of Doyle. You shipped him out when he returned from Avionia."

"Doyle. Oh, yes. It was part of a settlement. General Cazombi wanted to give him a medal for coming up with the way to make the Tweed Hull Breecher work. His company first sergeant wanted to court-martial him for insubordination. No medal, no court-martial, and a transfer. His tour was almost up anyway."

"He's been interdicted; he falls under the no-transfer policy. He's being held in solitary confinement at HQMC. You have to take him back with you."

After that there wasn't anything else to say on the subject. They went back into the river and caught enough fish for dinner and the next morning's breakfast, after which they returned to Fargo. Corporal Doyle was handed over to Brigadier Sturgeon and they caught a ride on a navy starship headed in the general direction of Thorsfinni's World. But one thing kept nagging at 34th FIST's commander: General Aguinaldo had said he'd do his best to change the policy. The Marines lived by an ancient adage: Don't try it. Don't do your best. Do it.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was raining in Placetas when the three Marines smoothly departed the
Ben Gay
. All arrivals in the capital city were required to process through Havanagas Intourist, an official travel agency and customs service. Over six hundred passengers got off the
Ben Gay
, and while they were waiting to have their reservations and baggage checked, two more ships landed, with another thousand tourists each.

"This is not a busy day for us," a customs inspector remarked casually as he conducted a perfunctory scan of their luggage. The Intourist operation was very efficient. Each arrival's ticket was checked and he was booked onto a suborbital flight to whatever theme city was reserved for him. Since the Marines were scheduled to spend their stay in Placetas, hotel reservations had been made for them in advance.

The Intourist reception area was enormous, almost the size of a small city. The departure areas were also crowded with hundreds of happy tourists lugging bags of mementos and souvenirs, waiting patiently for flights home. The air was charged with the exciting sound of announcements for flights, people being paged, the muted roar of several thousand persons all talking at once.

Claypoole glanced at the dome a hundred meters over their heads. "Look at the rain," he muttered.

"Does it rain like this often?"

"You bet," the customs agent responded. "In this hemisphere in this season it rains all the time. Most of the people who come here this time of the year get reservations for an onward flight to one of the theme cities where the weather is better."

"We didn't know," Pasquin said.

"Well, according to your tickets, you have that option if you would like to go somewhere else before your week is up. Just contact the reservations desk over there if you'd like to visit another city on Havanagas. Shame to spend all that money and then just stick around here for a week."

"Ugh. I hate rain." Claypoole made a face.

The customs agent looked up from his scanner as Dean's luggage went through. "I would think you boys'd be used to rain, after your time in the Corps."

For some reason Claypoole saw this remark as a criticism. "Hey, buddy," he almost shouted, "I got more time in the rain than you got—"

"Okay, okay, Rachman, let's get moving," Pasquin interrupted. "We gotta a lot of beer to drink and ladies to visit."

"—on the shitter," Claypoole muttered as Pasquin guided him toward the reservations desk.

The ticket agent was very young and very pretty. Claypoole's attitude improved instantly. "You gentlemen don't want to visit one of our theme cities?" she asked as she checked their tickets and made entries on her computer.

"No, ma'am, we're planning on spending our time right here, rain or not."

"As you wish. But you can change your venue anytime you like. You have a special option that gives you free choice of any of our theme cities. You can fly out anytime until your stay is up. Here, take these crystals and see if any of our other facilities interest you." She looked at them speculatively. "That's a very expensive option. You must've saved for a long time to make this trip." She smiled.

"We sure did," Dean answered. "I saved my whole enlistment. Of course, if you knew some of the places the Corps has sent us, you'd know we didn't have much opportunity to spend our pay." They all laughed.

"Miss, we'd like to change into civvies," Pasquin said. "How do we get to our hotel?"

"Go down the red ramp to Concourse A for ground transportation. You're booked into a double room at the Royal Frogmore, a five-star hotel, gentlemen. Just wait at the Frogmore platform, it's clearly marked, and a landcar will take you there. Enjoy your stay." She returned their tickets.

The Royal Frogmore was indeed a posh hotel. "I could live like this all the time," Claypoole exclaimed as he tested the bed.

"We got one week, Rachman, so better enjoy all this while you can," Dean said.

"Let's take a look at these crystals the lady gave us, get an idea of what's available. Hey, who knows?

Maybe we'll up and visit one of them theme cities," Pasquin suggested.

"Not me, Raoul," Dean said from his bed where he was stretched out comfortably. "All I want to do is get some first-class booze, play some cards, and hire me a fine lady for a night or two."

There were a dozen theme cities on Havanagas. The ones that interested the Marines the most were the Polynesian and Ancient Roman venues, but there was also the theme city of the ancient Greeks, where the battle of Marathon was reenacted once a week; and Europe in the Middle Ages, with sword fights in the streets and monumental royal feasts. "I wonder if they have the Black Plague too," Dean mused sourly.

"I sorta like this Raratonga, with them little brown women dancing hulas and everyone down to his drawers and eating roast pig on the seashore," Pasquin said.

"Rome's the place for me," Claypoole said. "Gladiators, Roman legionnaires and senators, pizza, Chianti, and all that stuff."

"Yeah," Dean said sourly, "and that's where—" He almost said Agent Woods was murdered, but caught himself at the last instant. "—they feed Christians to the lions every Sunday." Pasquin looked at him sharply and shook his head briefly. Dean resolved to be more careful in the future.

They reviewed the crystals on their readers. Placetas had a permanent population of about thirty thousand. During the tourist season this increased to over 100,000, but it was an off season, as the customs man had told them. Few people lived permanently in the downtown area. Small suburban enclaves dotted around the outskirts of the city contained housing areas where the residents conducted their private lives in relative comfort. Nast had told them that the majority of permanent residents on Havanagas was quite happy there; the mob took care of its own. The only dissatisfied elements in the population were the descendants of the original settlers, but even they were forced to make their living off the tourists, and if it weren't for the mob, there'd be no tourism on Havanagas.

Placetas abounded with good restaurants, casinos, bordellos, theaters, every other form of amusement known to man, but it had no exotic theme parks. Its places of entertainment were just straightforward business enterprises that catered to every human desire in its infinite variety.

"There's this casino right down the street from the Frogmore," Dean said. "I'm heading on down there, see if I can find an honest game of blackjack, Raoul." He winked at Claypoole.

"Well, shouldn't we stick together? At least have dinner together before we split up? Hell, I thought we was buddies," Claypoole said.

"We've been stuck together for years in the Corps and on the trip out here," Dean answered. "I want one freakin' night to myself, if you don't mind."

"Okay," Pasquin said, "whatever. Let's meet back here tomorrow morning for breakfast and then we can plan the rest of our time." He nodded knowingly at the other two, tacitly reminding them that they had three days on their own before they were to make contact with Culloden.

The name of the casino was The Suicide King, and its logo was a huge king of hearts, the king with the sword thrust behind his head, thus the sobriquet "suicide." The restaurant there was excellent, even Reindeer Ale was available on tap. Wanderjahrian thule was also available, and Dean smoked several cigarettes with his after dinner steak—steak from real cows, the first he'd had since leaving Earth to join the Corps. The steak was huge and juicy, fully as savory as the reindeer steaks served on Thorsfinni's World. Puffing on a huge Fidel, he wandered over to the blackjack table.