Barrjen pounded him on the back. "We won, eh, sir? Goddam."
John shook his head. "We won some time." He looked at the celebrating crowd. "Let's see if we can get the snail-eaters to make some use of it."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There were no Land dirigibles in the air over the city of Skinrit. Commander Horst Raske felt a little uneasy without the quiver of stamped-aluminum deckplates beneath his feet. Several of the other Air Service captains around him looked as if they felt the same, and everyone in the Chosen party looked unnatural out of uniform-still more as they were in something resembling Unionaise civil dress. Raske kept his horse to a quick walk and spent the time looking around.
"Bad air currents here," he muttered.
Several of his companions nodded. Skinrit itself was nothing remarkable, a little port about three steps up from a fishing village, smelling of stale water inside the breakwater, and strong stinks from the packing and canning plants that were its main industries-the cold currents down here below the main continent were heavy with sea life. Hundreds of trawlers crowded the quays, and battered-looking tramp steamers to take their cargoes of salted and frozen and canned fish to the north. The area around the town was hilly farmland and pasture; most of the buildings were in the whitewashed Unionaise style and quite new-built since their predecessors were burnt in the Errifean Revolt ten years ago. Around them reared real mountains, ten thousand feet and more, their peaks gleaming salt-white with year-round snow, their sides dark with forests of oak, maple, birch, and pine.
Vicious, he thought. Convection currents, crosswinds, unpredictable gusts. Oathtaking is bad, but this will be worse.
None of the crowds in the street seemed to be taking much notice of them, which was all to the good. Most were Unionaise themselves, sailors or settlers here; the remainder Errife in long robes, striped or checked or splotched in the patterns of their clans. Occasionally soldiers would come through, usually walking in pairs with their rifles slung, and always surrounded by an empty bubble of fear-inspired space. They wore the khaki battledress of the Union Legion, and its fore-and-aft peaked cap with a tassel. Raske thought that last a little silly, but there was nothing laughable about the troops themselves; quite respectable, about as tough-looking as Protege infantry, looking straight ahead as they swung through the crowd.
They moved out of the street into the main plaza of Skinrit, past the legion HQ with its motto in black stone above the door: Vive le Mart-Long Live Death. A couple of Errife skulls were nailed to the lintel, with scraps of weathered flesh and their long braided hair still clinging to them. It was a reassuring sight, rather homelike, in fact. .
The governor's palace was large and lumpy, in a Unionaise style long obsolete. Errif had been a Unionaise possession in theory for some time, although they'd held little of the ten thousand square miles of rock, mountain, and forest until a few decades ago. Just enough to stop the pirate raids that had once been the terror of the whole southern coast of the continent; a few Errife corsairs had gotten as far north as the Land, although they'd seldom returned to the islands alive.
Servants showed them into a square room with benches, probably some sort of guard chamber.
"Masquerade's over," Raske said.
"Good!" one of his officers said.
She stripped off the Unionaise clothing with venom; back in the Land, only Protege women wore skirts. They switched into the plain gray uniforms in their packs and holstered their weapons. The lack of those had made them feel considerably more unnatural than the foreign clothing. Gerta Hosten gave him a bland smile.
"You do the talking, Horst," she said.
He nodded stiffly. It wasn't his specialty, airships were. On the other hand, a Unionaise general would probably be more comfortable talking to a man, and they needed this Libert. . for the moment.
"Why on earth didn't they send an infantry officer?" he asked plaintively.
"Behfel ist Behfel, Horst. This is the transport phase. They are going to send an infantry officer, once Libert's on the ground and we start sending in our own people. "'Volunteers,' you know. ."
"Who's the lucky man?"
"Heinrich Hosten."
* * *
Horst Raske smiled blandly at the Unionaise officer. General Libert was a short, swarthy, tubby little man with a big nose. He looked slightly ridiculous in the khaki battledress of the Union Legion, down to the scarlet sash around his ample waist under the leather belt and the little tassel on his peaked cap.
The Chosen airman reminded himself that the same tubby little man had restored Union rule here when the Errife war-bands were burning and killing in the outskirts of Skingest itself, and then taken the war into their own mountains and pacified the whole island for the first time. The way he'd put down the miners' revolt on the mainland had been almost Chosen-like.
Libert abruptly sat behind the broad polished table, signaling to the staff officers and aides behind him. Raske saluted and took the seat opposite; Errife servants in white kaftans laid out coffee. He recognized the taste: Kotenberg blend, relatives of his owned land there.
"We agree," Libert said after a moments silence.
Raske raised an eyebrow. "That simple?"
"You charge a high price, but after the fiasco at Bassin du Sud, time is pressing." He frowned. "You would have done better to be more generous; the Land's interests are not served by an unfriendly government in Unionvil."
"Nor by a premature war with Santander, which is a distinct risk if we back you fully," Raske pointed out. "That requires compensation, besides your gratitude."
Libert allowed himself a small frosty smile, an echo of Raske's own. They both knew what gratitude was worth in the affairs of nations.
"Very well," Libert said. He held a hand up, and one of the aides put a pen in it. "Here." He signed the documents before him.
Raske did likewise when they'd been pushed across the mahogany to him.
"When can we begin loading?" Libert said. "And how quickly?"
"I have twenty-seven Tiger-class transports waiting." Raske said. "One fully equipped infantry battalion each; say, seven hundred infantry with their personal weapons and the organic crew-served machine guns and mortars. Ten hours to Bassin du Sud or vicinity, an hour at each end for turnaround, and an hour for fueling. Say, just under two flights a day; minus the freightage for artillery, ammunition, immediate rations, and ten percent for downtime-which there will be. Call it four days to land the thirty thousand troops."
Libert nodded in satisfaction. "Good. This is crucial; my Legionnaires and Errife regulars are the only reliable force we have in the southern Union. We should be able to get the first flight underway by sundown, don't you think?"
Raske blinked slightly. Beside him, Gerta Hosten was smiling. It looked as if they'd picked the right mule for this particular journey.
* * *
Jeffrey Farr closed his eyes. Everyone else in the room might think it was fatigue-he'd been working for ten hours straight-and he was tired. What he wanted, though, was reconnaissance.
As always, the view through his brother's eyes was a little disconcerting, even after nearly twenty years of practice. The colors were all a little off, from the difference in perceptions. And the way the view moved under someone else's control was difficult, too. Your own kept trying to linger, or to focus on something different.
At least most of the time. Right now they both had their eyes glued to the view of the dirigible through the binoculars John was holding. A few sprays of pine bough hid a little of it, but the rest was all too plain. Hundreds of soldiers in Union Legion khaki were clinging to ropes that ran to loops along its lower sides, holding it a few yards from the stretch of country road ten miles west of Bassin du Sud. It bobbled and jerked against their hold; he could see the valves on the top centerline opening and closing as it vented hydrogen. The men leaping out of the cargo doors were not in khaki. They wore the long striped and hooded kaftans of Errife warriors. Over each robe was Unionaise standard field harness and pack with canteen, entrenching tool, bayonet and cartridge pouches, but the barbarian mercenaries also tucked the sheaths of their long curved knives through the waistbelts. John swung the glasses to catch a grinning brown hawk-face as one stumbled on landing and picked himself up.