His gunner couldn’t see anything to acquire. Then his viewfinder fried white, dazzling him.
It was just as well. They would not have liked at all to see what came next.
It took the Warriors a minute to clear the tank. It took the War Rats another fifteen to strip it. They weren’t as efficient as Miner’s Helpers.
They flashed clear. The Side leader sent in a Mining and Accounts team. There was a lot that the Miners did not understand, but they understood the laser weapons components in principle. They were like cutting beacons. There was the collector, and there was the charger, and there was the pump, and there was the fuser-cutter generator. It was odd that they had modified the assembly to serve as a weapon. This would not enhance ar.
They extracted the crystal. Judging from its affect when reflected back onto its source, this was quite valuable. This was what the vermin produced in the dirty smelters that reduced ar. Their own vitrifying fusers worked just as well, but not in so small a space. They required a team of three, but this seemed to require only one operator. The miner assessed a temporary bowl value. The Accountant issued orders to the Warriors. The Miner began calculating net ar required for production, but had to stop until they could consult a Farmer. A Runner streaked past, carrying a crystal sample to Enheduanna. Porters departed. Work finished, Warriors exterminated War Rats, except for a few personal pets. It was kinder. They could not survive out here. There was no ar.
With no one there, the Gathering camp was high, windy, and desolate. Gone was the eerie chanting; gone the fires and smells of cooking. Gone were picket lines and tents. The space was cleared as if never inhabited: rocks re-distributed at random; tracks brushed clean; manure burned and ashes scattered. Asach marveled at how the mind worked: how emotions waxed nostalgic over something that was so recently so strange. Stars punctured the evening air, twinkling in the distant lake.
Enheduanna made to leave, leaving Asach alarmed at the emptiness. Laurel was unconcerned. “Another island will come,” she said. “Tomorrow—maybe the day after that. It depends on the rains.” Asach huddled within the cloak, the night breeze chill after their days of sun-soaked confinement, imagining a coming misery of muddy damp.
They heard the edge-of-hearing chitter they now associated with Runners. One materialized as from the air itself, with a small package and a message for Enheduanna, who called for light. It appeared, from a distant, unseen point. The Runner everted an iridescent ruff of hair around its head that settled into a mirror-silver cowl focused on the packet. Enheduanna extracted three crystalline disks, and rolled one in each hand. The first was clear as a window pane. The second was the warm, fading lavender of sunsets. The third glinted with the bright, clear aquamarine of Laurel’s eyes. Enheduanna explained. “These are from the sand mines, and from—conveyances, hardened with ceramic covers, carrying weapons. The weapons flash green, like the Beacon.” Enheduanna proffered the hand-sized lavender gem, sides and back dulled silver by the ceramic reflective jacket in which it was cradled. “Then they cut with light.” With the gripping hand, Enheduanna extended the transparent crystal, almost invisible in the near-dark. “This is what they mine. This is what they make.”
“Weapons?” asked Laurel. She grasped the thing. It dwarfed her hand. “Like tool and dye cutters?”
Asach marveled at one so young, and from a farmstead so remote, that the rolling fire of mercenary gunners had never swept her life. “Good God. How many did they find?”
“A Grasp at least, maybe an Accountant’s Hand, of each.”
Asach struggled to remember the collective nouns of Mesolimeran commodity accounting, and gave up. “Show me, please.”
Enheduanna flashed fingers: six times six times three times six times three times six—somewhere between two and four thousand. Asach made a low whistle. It didn’t take an officer’s commission to figure out that there were enough military-grade laser cores stockpiled there to equip an army.
With the slowness of the utterly unexpected, Enheduanna’s words soaked in. Were explained. Were received with an involuntary shudder and closed eyes. Asach could taste the actinic blood and cold bile of fear that had welled in those poor sods who’d had nothing more than a day’s work on their mind before they’d died at the, for want of a better word, hands of aliens. The likelihood that Sargon’s attack had been communicated to—someone—was now overwhelming. They were out of time.
“Enheduanna, how long until the children arrive?”
Voices chattered. Lights twinkled. Time passed. Clouds scudded past, blocking shreds of stars. “Soon,” was the only reply. They waited.
Enheduanna peered intently at Laurel. “You have pledged your Swenson’s people as allies. Their assistance is now required.”
Laurel shrugged. “Here? Tonight?”
Asach’s skin crawled with foreboding. “Laurel, we have to get back. I must communicate with Bonneville. You must talk to Collie.”
She shook her head. “And where would I do that? On foot? At night?” She shrugged. “The nearest ‘optic jack is at the old OLaM strip on the other side of the mountain. That’s a full day, even with mules, in daylight. Unless there’s some other way you know of.” She stared meaningfully at the point where the cloak’s clasp lurked in the shadow below Asach’s chin.
Then conversation stopped, as opaline ghosts flickered across the underside of scudding clouds. For a few moments, both Laurel and Enheduanna followed the iridescent play, then instinctively averted their eyes. Asach was nearly blinded by the sudden emerald dazzle that shot up through the hazy sky. The overcast was thickening. The Eye’s reflection cast the valley in an eerie greenish glow, made the more ghastly as its pale shine caught and released the upward-falling snow of thousands of fluttering wings that spiraled heavenward, searching for true starlight.
Enheduanna picked up the thread of conversation, gesturing at a line of dark shapes disappearing into the night. “The rains have begun. The Protector’s Army is on the move. It will reach The Barrens tomorrow, marching from the south. Others will follow you, over the passes to the western slopes. To prepare, a Grip of Miners and Farmers is moving forward now.”
Laurel shook her head again. “Why now?”
“Because they will come,” said Enheduanna, one hand still clutching a laser core, gesturing westward. “Won’t they? Won’t the Masters of these come now?” With the gripping hand, Enheduanna waved east and south. “And when they do, they will be destroyed by Sargon’s Army. So, we will need all our allies. To make clear who is friend and who is foe. To prevent them being reinforced. To prevent fear within your cities. To help hold passes through the mountains.”
Asach shuddered. Or to be cannon fodder for Friedlander armor. “I can send a message to colleagues in Saint George. Maybe they can get through to Bonneville, and from there to Collie. It may take all night.”
Enheduanna showed interest, but did not question this statement, instead speaking again to Laurel. “Perhaps it would be faster if you ride? Runners could accompany you to relay messages. As we did with the children.”
“Ride? Ride what?” Laurel’s head swiveled side to side.
“Your Porter. We attempted to bring it to you, but it does not like us. It shies away. It strikes out and bites. So we left manna every night for that beast and three others. They seem all right.” Enheduanna gestured toward the distant lake. Several dark shapes stood like boulders against the dark shore, distinguished only by the absence of reflections in the water where their bodies blocked the light.
Then Laurel heard a distant whhooo, like a giant blowing warming breath into cold, cupped palms. The wind shifted slightly, accentuating the ripples that blew away from them across the water, and by contrast, the silhouettes at the shore.