From RIDING THE RED HORSE

INTRO TO HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON

If Robert Heinlein, with his Starship Troopers, is the father of military science fiction, then Jerry Pournelle is surely the godfather.

When I think of the authors in this volume I think of Napoleon’s Guard: The Young Guard, the Middle Guard, and—elite among the elite—the Old Guard. The Young Guard includes people like Brad Torgerson, Steve Rzasa, Wolfgang Diehr, Rolf Nelson, Giuseppe Filloto, and Chris Nuttall. The Middle Guard? I suppose that would be Vox and me, Chris Kennedy and Tom Mays, along with Tedd Roberts and ESR. But the Old Guard, the grognards? It is in the nature of the thing that there can’t be that many of them, but at the head of those ranks, flanked by John Carr and Jim Dunnigan, marches Dr. Jerry Pournelle.

Jerry has packed more than a single full life into his eighty-one years. He is a man of remarkable accomplishment. From the aerospace industry to the Reagan administration, from Avalon Hill to the SFWA, he has left his indelible mark on a wide array of industries, organizations, and individuals. He served his country in the US Army during the Korean War, after which he racked up an impressive number of advanced degrees, though I’ve never had the impression that they impress him all that much.

He is the author of more works of fiction and non-fiction than most of the other contributors combined. He’s been an advisor to the Office of the President, and is entitled, along with that great President, to his share of the glory attendant on overcoming the Soviet Union.

He is also the author of a military science fiction series that appeared in the 1980s and made a lasting impression on more than a few of the contributors to this anthology. Without the nine volumes of There Will Be War, the original anthology of military strategy and science fiction, it is doubtful that you would be reading this book now. And that is why it is a distinct privilege to be able to present to you one of Jerry’s justly more famous stories, “His Truth Goes Marching On”, a tale from the CoDominium universe of Falkenberg’s Legion that harks back to one of Earth’s more savage internecine conflicts.

For some older readers, and younger ones with a better education than most get today, there will be hauntingly familiar elements in this story, for it is derived from incidents that took place in a conflict of the past. Nearly every incident in this story actually happened to people much like those Jerry paints here.

The Spanish Civil War was, to a generation of American liberals, a matter of good vs. evil. The Republicans were good, the Falangists were evil, and there was no compromising between them. Hemingway tried to show that it wasn’t that stark, although his sympathies remained with the Republicans. George Orwell went into more detail and showed the naked cynicism of the Communist elements of the Republic, but no one wanted to hear his message; to this day most believe that his largely unread Homage To Catalonia condemns only Franco.

The world was never permitted to forget Guernica, as Pablo Picasso’s masterpiece was hung in the Museum of Modern Art. Guernica was a Basque fishing village bombed by units of the Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion. The town was largely destroyed, and the incident was seen as one more illustration of the utter moral worthlessness of Spain and Germany alike. Picasso’s violent painting, showing men and animals disjointed and scattered, was tremendously effective in stirring up sympathy for the Republicans and hatred for both the Germans and Franco.

Only later did it come out that the town had been occupied by Republican military units, that at least part of the destruction resulted from the detonation of Republican munitions stored there, and there was a strong suggestion that retreating Republican engineers had dynamited other structures not damaged by the air raid.

Jerry himself notes: “Those who wonder why I sometimes use historical models for stories are referred to Mr. Santayana. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’”

HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON
by Jerry Pournelle

“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free…”

The song echoed through the ship, along gray corridors stained with the greasy handprints of the thousands who had traveled in her before; through the stench of the thousands aboard, and the remembered smells of previous shiploads of convicts. Those smells were etched into the steel despite strong disinfectants which had only added their acrimony to the odor of too much humanity with too little water.

The male voices carried past crew work parties, who ignored them, or made sarcastic remarks, and into a tiny stateroom no larger than the bunk bed now hoisted vertical to the bulkhead to make room for a desk and chair.

Peter Owensford looked up to blank gray and beyond it to visions within his own mind. The men weren’t singing very well, but they sang from their hearts. There was a faint buzzing discord from a loose rivet vibrating to a strong base. Owensford nodded to himself. The singer was Allan Roach, one-time professional wrestler, and Peter had marked him for promotion to noncom once they reached Santiago.

The trip from Earth to Thurstone takes three months in a Bureau of Relocation transport ship, and it had been wasted time for all of them. It was obvious to Peter that the CoDominium authorities aboard the ship knew that they were volunteers for the war. Why else would ninety-seven men voluntarily ship out for Santiago? It didn’t matter, though. Political Officer Stromand was afraid of a trap. Stromand was always suspecting traps, and was desperate to “maintain secrecy”; as if there were any secrets to keep.

In all the three months Peter Owensford had held only a dozen classes. He’d found an empty compartment near the garbage disposal and assembled the men there; but Stromand had caught them. There had been a scene, with Stromand insisting that Peter call him “Commissar” and the men address him as “Sir.” Instead, Peter addressed him as “Mister” and the men made it come out like “Comics-star.” Stromand had become speechless with anger; but he’d stopped the meetings.

And Peter had ninety-six men who knew nothing of war; most had never fired a weapon in their lives. They were educated men, intelligent for the most part, students, workers, idealists; but it might have been better if they’d been ninety-six freakouts with a long history of juvenile gangsterism.

He went back to his papers, jotting notes on what must be done when they reached dirtside. At least he’d have some time to train them before they got into combat.

He’d need it.

Thurstone is usually described as a hot, dry copy of Earth and Peter found no reason to dispute that. The CoDominium Island is legally part of Earth, but Thurstone is thirty parsecs away, and travelers go through customs to land. The ragged group packed away whatever military equipment they had bought privately, and dressed in the knee breeches and tunics popular with businessmen in New York. Peter found himself just behind Allan Roach in the line to debark.

Roach was laughing.

“What’s the joke?” Peter asked.

Roach turned and waved expressively at the men behind him. All ninety-six were scattered through the first two hundred passengers leaving the BuRelock ship, and they were all dressed identically. “Humanity League decided to save some money,” Roach said. “What you reckon the CD makes of our comic-opera army?”

Whatever the CoDominium inspectors thought, they did nothing, hardly glancing inside the baggage, and the volunteers were hustled out of the CD building to the docks. A small Russian in baggy pants sidled up to them.

“Freedom,” he said. He had a thick accent.

“No pasaran!” Commissar Stromand answered.

“I have tickets for you,” the Russian said. “You will go on the boat.” He pointed to an excursion ship with peeling paint and faded gilt handrails.

“Man, he looks like he’s lettin’ go his last credit,” Allan Roach muttered to Owensford.

Peter nodded. “At that, I’d rather pay for the tickets than ride the boat. Must have been built when Thurstone was first settled.”

Roach shrugged and lifted his bags. Then, as an afterthought, he lifted Peter’s as well.

“You don’t have to carry my goddam baggage,” Peter protested.

“That’s why I’m doing it, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t carry Stromand’s.” They went aboard the boat, and lined the rails, looking out at Thurstone’s bright skies. The volunteers were the only passengers, and the ship left the docks to lumber across shallow seas. It was less than fifty kilometers to the mainland, and before the men really believed they were out of space and onto a planet again, they were in Free Santiago.

They marched through the streets from the docks. People cheered, but a lot of volunteers had come through those streets and they didn’t cheer very loud. Owensford’s men were no good at marching, and they had no weapons; so Stromand ordered them to sing war songs.

They didn’t know very many songs, so they always ended up singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It said all their feelings, anyway.

The ragged group straggled to the local parish church. Someone had broken the cross and spire off the building, and turned the altar into a lecture desk. It was becoming dark when Owensford’s troops were bedded down in the pews.

“Lieutenant?”

Peter looked up from the dark reverie that had overtaken him. Allan Roach and another volunteer stood in front of him. “Yes?”

“Some of the men don’t like bein’ in here, Lieutenant. We got church members in the outfit.”

“I see. What do you expect me to do about it?” Peter asked. “This is where we were sent.” And why didn’t someone meet us instead of having a kid hand me a note down at the docks? he wondered. But it wouldn’t do to upset the men.

“We could bed down outside,” Roach suggested.

“Nonsense. Superstitious garbage.” The strident, bookish voice came from behind him, but Peter didn’t need to look around to know who was speaking. “Free men have no need of that kind of belief. Tell me who is disturbed.”

Allan Roach set his lips tightly together.

“I insist,” Stromand demanded. “Those men need education, and I will provide it. We cannot have superstition within our company.”

“Superstition be damned,” Peter protested. “It’s dark and gloomy and uncomfortable in here, and if the men want to sleep outside, let them.”

“No,” Stromand said.

“I remind you that I am in command here,” Peter said. His voice was rising slightly and he fought to control it. He was only twenty-three standard years old, while Stromand was forty; and Peter had no experience of command. Yet he knew that this was an important issue, and the men were all listening.

“I remind you that political education is totally up to me,” Stromand said. “It is good indoctrination for the men to stay in here.”

“Crap.” Peter stood abruptly. “All right, everybody outside. Camp in the churchyard. Roach, set up a night guard around the camp.”

“Yes, sir,” Allan Roach grinned.

Commissar Stromand found his men melting away rapidly; after a few minutes he followed them outside.

They were awakened early by an officer in synthi-leather trousers and tunic. He wore no badges of rank, but it was obvious to Peter that the man was a professional soldier. Someday, Peter thought, someday I’ll look like that. The thought was cheering for some reason.

“Who’s in charge here?” the man demanded.

Stromand and Owensford answered simultaneously. The officer looked at both for a moment, then turned to Peter. “Name?”

“Lieutenant Peter Owensford.”

“Lieutenant. And why might you be a lieutenant?”

“I’m a graduate of West Point, sir. And your rank?”

“Captain, sonny. Captain Anselm Barton, at your service, God help you. The lot of you have been posted to the Twelfth Brigade, second battalion, of which battalion I have the misfortune to be adjutant. Any more questions?” He glared at both Peter and the commissar, but before either could answer there was a roar and the wind whipped them with red dust; a fleet of trucks rounded the corner and stopped in front of the church.

“Okay,” Barton shouted. “Into the trucks. You too, Mister Comics-Star. Lieutenant, you will ride in the cab with me…come on, come on, we haven’t all day. Can’t you get them to hop it, Owensford?”

No two trucks were alike. One Cadillac stood out proudly from the lesser breeds, and Barton went to it. After a moment Stromand took the unoccupied seat in the cab of the second truck, an old Fiat. Despite the early hour, the sun was already hot and bright, and it was a relief to get inside the air-conditioned compartment.

The Cadillac ran smoothly, but had to halt frequently while the drivers worked on the others of the convoy. The Fiat could only get two or three centimeters above the road. Peter noted in wonder that there were ruts in the dirt track, and remarked on them.

“Sure,” Barton said. “We’ve got wheeled transport. Lots of it. Animal-drawn wagons too. Tracked railroads. How much do you know about this place?”

“Not very much,” Peter admitted.

“Least you know that,” Barton said. He gunned the engine to get the Cadillac over a deeply pitted section of the road, and the convoy climped up onto a ridge. Peter could look back and see the tiny port town, with its almost empty streets, and the blowing red dust.

“See that ridge over there?” Barton asked. He pointed to a thin blue line beyond the far lip of the saucer on the other side of the ridge. The air was so clear that Peter could see for sixty kilometers or more, and he had never seen farther than twenty; it was hard to judge distances.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s it. Dons’ territory beyond that line.”

“We’re not going straight there, are we? The men need training.”

“You might as well be going to the lines for all the training they’ll get. They teach you anything at the Point?”

“I learned something, I think.” Peter didn’t know what to answer. The Point had been “humanized” and he knew he hadn’t had the military instruction that graduates had once received. “What I was taught, and a lot from books.”

“We’ll see.” Barton took a plastic toothpick out of one pocket and stuck it into his mouth. Later, Peter would learn that many men developed that habit. “No hay tobacco” was a common notice on stores in Santiago. The first time he saw it, Allan Roach said that if they made their tobacco out of hay he didn’t want any. “Long out of the Point?” Barton asked.

“Class of ’93.”

“Just out. U.S. Army didn’t want you?”

“That’s pretty personal,” Peter said. The toothpick danced across smiling lips. Peter stared out at the rivers of dust blowing around them. “There’s a new rule, now. You have to opt for CoDominium in your junior year. I did. But they didn’t have any room for me in the CD services.”

Barton grunted. “And the U.S. Army doesn’t want any commie-coddling officers who’d take the CD over their own country.”

“That’s about it.”

“Hadn’t thought it was that bad yet. Sounds like things are coming apart back home.”

Peter nodded to himself. “I think the U.S. will pull out of the CoDominium pretty soon.”

The toothpick stopped its movement while Barton thought about that. “So meanwhile they’re doing their best to gut the Fleet, eh? What do the damned fools think will happen to the colonies when there’s no CD forces to keep order?”

Peter shrugged. They drove on in silence, with Barton humming something under his breath, a tune that Peter thought he would recognize if only Barton would make it loud enough to hear. Then he caught a murmured refrain. “Let’s hope he brings our godson up, to don the Armay blue…”

Barton looked around at his passenger and grinned. “How many lights in Cullem Hall, Mister Dumbjohn?”

“Three hundred and forty lights, sir,” Peter answered automatically. He looked for the ring, but Barton wore none. “What was your class, sir?”

“Seventy-two. Okay, the U.S. didn’t want you, and the CD’s disbanding regiments. There’s other outfits. Falkenberg is recruiting.”

“I’m not a mercenary for hire.” Peter’s voice was stiffly formal.

“Oh, Lord. So you’re here to help the downtrodden masses throw off the yoke of oppression. I might have known.”

“But of course I’m here to fight slavery!” Peter protested. “Everyone knows about Santiago.”

“Everybody knows about other places, too.” The toothpick danced again. “Okay, you’re a liberator of suffering humanity if that makes you feel better. God knows, anything makes a man feel better out here is okay. But to help me feel better, remember that you’re a professional officer.”

“I won’t forget.” They drove over another ridge. The valley beyond was no different from the one behind them, and there was another ridge at its end.

“What do you think those people out there want?” Barton said. He waved expressively.

“Freedom.”

“Maybe to be left alone. Maybe they’d be happy if the lot of us went away.”

“They’d be slaves. Somebody’s got to help them—” Peter caught himself. There was no point to this, and he thought Barton was laughing at him.

Instead, the older man wore a curious expression. He kept the sardonic grin, but it was softened almost into a smile. “Nothing to be ashamed of, Pete. Most of us read those books about knighthood and all that. We wouldn’t be in the services if we didn’t have that streak in us. Just remember this, if you don’t get over most of that, you won’t last.”

“Without something like that, I wouldn’t want to last.”

“Just don’t let it break your heart when you find out different.”

What is he talking about? Peter wondered. “If you feel that way about everything, why are you here? Why aren’t you in one of the mercenary outfits?”

“Commissars ask that kind of question,” Barton said. He gunned the motor viciously and the Cadillac screamed in protest.

It was late afternoon when they got to Tarazona. The town was an architectural melange, as if a dozen amateurs had designed it. The church, now a hospital; was Elizabeth HI modern, the post office was American Gothic, and most of the houses were white stucco. The volunteers were unloaded at a plastisteel barracks that looked like a bad copy of the quad at West Point. It had sally ports, phony portcullis and all, and there were plastic medieval shields pressed into the cornices.

Inside there was trash in the corridors and blood on the floors. Peter set the men to cleaning up.

“About that blood,” Captain Barton said. “Your men seem interested.”

“First blood some of ’em have seen,” Peter told him. Barton was still watching him closely. “All right. For me too.”

Barton nodded. “Two stories about that blood. The Dons had a garrison here, made a stand when the Revolutionaries took the town. Some say the Dons slaughtered their prisoners here. Others say when the Republic took the barracks, our troops slaughtered the garrison.”

Peter looked across the dusty courtyard and beyond the hills where the fighting was. It seemed a long way off. There was no sound, and the afternoon sun seemed unbearably hot. “Which do you think is true?”

“Both.” Barton turned away toward the town. Then he stopped for a moment. “I’ll be in the bistro after dinner. Join me if you get a chance.” He walked on, his feet kicking up little clods of dust that blew across the road.

Peter stood a long time in the courtyard, staring across fields stretching fifty kilometers to the hills. The soil was red, and a hot wind blew dust into every crevice and hollow. The country seemed far too barren to be a focal point of the struggle for freedom in the known galaxy.

Thurstone was colonized early in the CoDominium period but it was too poor to attract wealthy corporations. The third Thurstone expedition was financed by the Carlist branch of the Spanish monarchy, and eventually Carlos XII brought a group of supporters to found Santiago. They were all of them malcontents.

This was hardly unusual. Space is colonized with malcontents or convicts; no one else wants to leave Earth. The Santiago colonists were protesting the Bourbon restoration in Spain, or John XXVI’s reunification of Christendom, or the cruel fates, or, perhaps, unhappy love affairs. They got the smallest and poorest of Thurstone’s three continents, but they did well with what little they received.

For thirty years Santiago received no one who was not a voluntary immigrant from Spanish Catholic cultures. The Carlists were careful of those they let in, and there was plenty of good land for everyone. The Kingdom of St. James had little modern technology, and no one was very rich, but there were few who were very poor either.

Eventually the Population Control Commission designated Thurstone as a recipient planet, and the Bureau of Relocation began moving people there. All three governments on Thurstone protested, but unlike Xanadu or Danube, Thurstone had never developed a navy; a single frigate from the CoDominium Fleet convinced them they had no choice.

Two million involuntary colonists came in BuRelock ships to Thurstone. Convicts, welfare frauds, criminals, revolutionaries, rioters, street gangsters, men who’d offended a BuRelock clerk, men with the wrong color eyes, and some who were just plain unlucky; all of them bundled into unsanitary transport ships and hustled away from Earth. The other nations on Thurstone had friends in BuRelock and money to pay for favors; Santiago got the bulk of the new immigrants.

The Carlists tried. They provided transportation to unclaimed lands for all who wanted it and most who did not. The original Santiago settlers had fled from industry and had built very little; and now, suddenly, they were swamped with citydwellers of a different culture who had no thought of the land and less love for it. Suddenly, they had large cities.

In less than a decade the capital grew from a sleepy town to a sprawling heap of tenement shacks. The Carlists abolished part of the city; the shacks appeared on the other side of town. New cities grew from small towns. There was a desperate need for industry.

When the industries were built, the original settlers revolted. They had fled from industrialized life, and wanted no more of it. A king was deposed and an infant prince placed on his father’s throne. The Cortez took government into its own hands. They enslaved everyone who did not pay his own way.

It was not called slavery, but “indebtedness for welfare service”; but debts were inheritable and transferable. Debts could be bought and sold on speculation, and everyone had to work off his debts.

In a generation half the population was in debt. In another the slaves outnumbered the free men. Finally the slaves revolted, and Santiago became a cause overnight: at least to those who’d ever heard of the place.

In the CoDominium Grand Senate, the U.S., listening to the other governments on Thurstone and the corporations who brought agricultural products from Santiago, supported the Carlists, but not strongly. The Soviet senators supported the Republic, but not strongly. The CD Navy was ordered to quarantine the war area.

The fleet had few ships for such a task. The Navy grounded all military aircraft in Santiago, and prohibited importation of any kind of heavy weapon. Otherwise they left the place alone to undergo years of indecisive warfare.

It was never difficult for the Humanity League to send volunteers to Santiago as long as they brought no weapons. As the men were not experienced in war, the League also sought trained officers to send with them.

They rejected mercenaries, of course. Volunteers must have the proper spirit to fight for freedom in Santiago.

Peter Owensford sat in the pleasant cool of the evening at a scarred table that might have been oak, but wasn’t. Captain Anselm “Ace” Barton sat across from him, and a pitcher of dark red wine stood on the table.

“I thought they’d put me in the technical corps,” Peter said.

“Speak Mandarin?” When Peter looked up in surprise, Barton continued, “Republic hired Xanadu techs. They don’t have much equipment, what with the quarantine. Plenty of techs for what they do have.”

“I see. So I’m infantry?”

Barton shrugged. “You fight, Pete. Just like me. They’ll give you a company. The ones you brought, and maybe another hundred recruits. All yours. I guess you’ll get that Stromand for political officer, too.”

Peter grimaced. “What use is that?”

Barton looked around in an exaggerated manner. “Careful,” he said. He wore a grin but his voice was serious. “Political officers are a lot more popular with the high command than we are. Don’t forget that.”

“From what I’ve seen the high command isn’t very competent….”

“Jesus,” Barton said. “Look, Pete, they can have you shot for talking like that. This isn’t any mercenary outfit with its own codes, you know. This is a patriotic war, and you’d better not forget it.”

Peter stared at the packed clay floor of the patio, his lips set in a tight, thin line. He’d sat in this bistro, at this table, every night for a week now, and he was beginning to understand Barton’s cynicism; but why was the man here at all? “There’s not enough body armor for my men. The ones I’ve got. You say they’ll give me more?”

“New group coming in tomorrow. No officer with them. Sure, they’ll put ’em with you. Where else? Troops have to be trained.”

“Trained!” Peter snorted in disgust. “We have enough Nemourlon to make armor for about half the troops, only I’m the only one in the company who knows how to do it. We’ve got no weapons, no optics, no communications—”

“Yeah, things are tough all over.” Barton poured another glass of wine. “What’d you expect in a nonindustrial society quarantined by the CD?”

Peter slumped back into the hard wooden chair. “Yeah, I know. But—I can’t even train them with what I have. Whenever I get the men assembled, Stromand interrupts to make speeches.”

Barton smiled. “Colonel Cermak, our esteemed International Brigade Commander, thinks the American troops have poor morale. Obviously, the way to deal with that is to make speeches.”

“They’ve got poor morale because they don’t know how to fight.”

“Another of Cermak’s solutions to poor morale is to shoot people for defeatism,” Barton said softly. “I’ve warned you, kid. I won’t again.”

“The only damn thing my men have learned in the last week is how to sing and which red-light houses are safe.”

“More’n some do. Have another drink.”

Peter nodded in dejection. “That’s not bad wine.”

“Right. Pretty good, but not good enough to export,” Barton said. “Whole goddam country’s that way, you know. Pretty good, but not quite good enough.”

The next day they gave Peter Owensford 107 new men fresh from the U.S. and Earth. There was talk of adding another political officer to the company, but there wasn’t one Cermak trusted.

Each night Ace Barton sat at the table in the bistro, but he didn’t see Owensford all week. Then, as he was having his third glass of wine, Peter came in and sat across from him. The proprietor brought a glass, and Barton poured from the pitcher. “You look like you need that. Thought you were ordered to stay on, nights, to train the troops.”

Peter drank. “Same story, Ace. Speeches. More speeches. I walked out. It was obvious I wasn’t going to have anything to do.”

“Risky,” Barton said. They sat in silence as the older man seemed to decide something. “Ever think you’re not needed, Pete?”

“They act that way, but I’m still the only man with any military training at all in the company….”

“So what? The Republic doesn’t need your troops. Not the way you think, anyway. Main purpose of the volunteers is to see the right party stays in control here.”

Peter sat stiffly silent. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t react quickly to anything Barton said. There was no one else Peter felt comfortable with, despite the cynicism that Peter detested. “I can’t believe that,” he said finally. “The volunteers come from everywhere. They’re not fighting to help any political party, they’re here to set people free.”

Barton said nothing. A red toothpick danced across his face, twirling up and about, and a sly grin broke across the square features.

“See, you don’t even believe it yourself,” Peter said.

“Could be. Pete, you ever think how much money they raise back in the States? Money from people who feel guilty about not volunteerin’ ?”

“No. There’s no money here. You’ve seen that.”

“There’s money, but it goes to the techs,” Barton said. “That, at least, makes sense. Xanadu isn’t sending their sharp boys for nothing, and without them, what’s the use of mudcrawlers like us?”

Peter leaned back in his chair. It made sense. “Then we’ve got pretty good technical support…”

“About as good as the Dons have. Which means neither side has a goddam thing. Either group gets a real edge that way, the war’s over, right? But for the moment nobody’s got a way past the CD quarantine, so the best way the Dons and the Republicans have to kill each other is with rifles and knives and grenades. Not very damn many of the latter, either.”

“We don’t even have the rifles.”

“You’ll get those. Meantime, relax. You’ve told Brigade your men aren’t ready to fight. You’ve asked for weapons and more Nemourlon. You’ve complained about Stromand. You’ve done it all, now shut up before you get yourself shot as a defeatist. That’s an order, Pete.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ll get your war soon enough.”

The trucks came back to Tarazona a week later. They carried coffin-shaped boxes full of rifles and bayonets from New Aberdeen, Thurstone’s largest city. The rifles were covered with grease, and there wasn’t any solvent to clean them with. Most were copies of Remington 2045 model automatic, but there were some Krupps and Skodas. Most of the men didn’t know which ammunition fit their rifles.

“Not bad gear,” Barton remarked. He turned one of the rifles over and over in his hands. “We’ve had worse.”

“But I don’t have much training in rifle tactics,” Peter said.

Barton shrugged. “No power supplies, no maintenance ships, no base to support anything more complicated than chemical slug-throwers, Peter. Forget the rest of the crap you learned and remember that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Whistles blew, and someone shouted from the trucks. “Get your gear and get aboard!”

“But—” Owensford turned helplessly to Barton. “Get aboard for where?”

Barton shrugged. “I’d better get back to my area. Maybe they’re moving the whole battalion up while we’ve got the trucks.”

They were. The men who had armor put it on, and everyone dressed in combat synthileather. Most had helmets, ugly hemispheric models with a stiff spine over the most vulnerable areas. A few men had lost theirs, and they boarded the trucks without them.

The convoy rolled across the plains and into a greener farm area; then it got dark, and the night air chilled fast under clear, cloudless skies. The drivers pushed on, too fast without lights, and Peter sat in the back of the lead truck, his knees clamped tightly together, his teeth unconsciously beating out a rhythm he’d learned years before. No one talked.

At dawn they were in another valley. Trampled crops lay all around them, drying dead plants with green stalks.

“Good land,” Private Lunster said. He lifted a clod and crumbled it between his fingers. “Very good land.”

Somehow that made Peter feel better. He formed the men into ranks and made sure each knew how to load his weapon. Then he had each fire at a crumbling adobe wall, choosing a large target so that they wouldn’t fail to hit it. More trucks pulled in and unloaded heavy generators and antitank lasers. When Owensford’s men tried to get close to the heavy weapons the gunners shouted them away. It seemed to Peter that the gunners were familiar with the gear, and that was encouraging.

Everyone spoke softly, and when anyone raised his voice it was like a shout. Stromand tried to get the men to sing, but they wouldn’t.

“Not long now, eh?” Sergeant Roach asked.

“I expect you’re right,” Peter told him, but he didn’t know, and went oft to find the commissary truck. He wanted to be sure the men got a good meal that evening.

They moved them up during the night. A guide came to Peter and whispered to follow him, and they moved out across the unfamiliar land. Somewhere out there were the Dons with their army of peasant conscripts and mercenaries and family retainers. When they had gone fifty meters, they passed an old tree and someone whispered to them.

“Everything will be fine,” Stromand’s voice said from the shadows under the tree. “All of the enemy are politically immature. Their vacqueros will run away, and their peasant conscripts will throw away their weapons. They have no reason to be loyal.”

“Why the hell has the war gone on three years?” someone whispered behind Peter.

He waited until they were long past the tree. “Roach, that wasn’t smart. Stromand will have you shot for defeatism.”

“He’ll play hell doing it, Lieutenant. You, man, pick up your feet. Want to fall down that gully?”

“Quiet,” the guide whispered urgently. They went on through the dark night, down a slope, then up another, past men dug into the hillside. They didn’t speak to them.

Peter found himself walking along the remains of a railroad, with the ties partly gone and all the rails removed. Eventually the guide halted. “Dig in here,” he whispered. “Long live freedom.”

“No pasarán!” Stromand answered loudly.

“Please be quiet,” the guide urged. “We are within earshot of the enemy.”

“Ah,” Stromand answered. The guide turned away and the political officer began to follow him.

“Where are you going?” Corporal Grant asked in a loud whisper.

“To report to Major Harris,” Stromand answered.

“The battalion commander ought to know where we are.”

“So should we,” a voice said.

“Who was that?” Stromand demanded. The only answer with a juicy raspberry.

“That bastard’s got no right,” a voice said close to Peter.

“Who’s there?”

“Rotwasser, sir.” Rotwasser was company runner. The job gave him the nominal rank of monitor but he had no maniple to command. Instead he carried complaints from the men to Owensford.

“I can spare the PO better than anyone else,” Peter whispered. “I’ll need you here, not back at battalion. Now start digging us in.”

It was cold on the hillside, but digging kept the men warm enough. Dawn came slowly at first, a gradually brightening light without warmth. Peter took out his light-amplifying binoculars and cautiously looked out ahead. The binoculars were a present from his mother and the only good optical equipment in the company.

The countryside was cut into small, steep-sided ridges and valley. Allan Roach lay beside Owensford and when it became light enough to see, the sergeant whistled softly. “We take that ridge in front of us, there’s another just like it after that. And another. Nobody’s goin’ to win this war that way….”

Owensford nodded silently. There were trees in the valley below, oranges and dates imported from Earth mixed in with native fruit trees as if a giant had spilled seeds across the ground. A whitewashed adobe peasant house stood gutted by fire, the roof gone.

Zing! Something that might have been a hornet but wasn’t buzzed angrily over Peter’s head. There was a flat crack from across the valley, then more of the angry buzzes. Dust puffs sprouted from the earthworks they’d thrown up during the night.

“Down!” Peter ordered.

“What are they trying to do, kill us?” Allan Roach shouted. There was a chorus of laughs. “Sir, why didn’t they use IR on us in the dark? We should have stood out in this cold—”

Peter shrugged. “Maybe they don’t have any. We don’t.”

The men who’d skimped on their holes dug in deeper, throwing the dirt out onto the ramparts in front of them, laughing as they did. It was very poor technique, and Peter worried about artillery, but nothing happened. The enemy was about four hundred meters away, across the valley and stretched out along a ridge identical to the one Peter held. No infantry that ever lived could have taken a position by charging across that valley. Both sides were safe until something heavier was brought up.

One large-caliber gun was trained on their position. It fired on anything that moved. There was also a laser, with several mirrors that could be moved about between flashes. The laser itself was safe, and the mirrors probably were also because the monarchists never fired twice from the same position.

The men shot at the guns and at where they thought the mirror was anyway until Peter made them quit wasting ammunition. It wasn’t good for morale to lie there and not fight back, though.

“I bet I can locate that goddam gun,” Corporal Bassinger told Peter. “I got the best eyesight in the company.”

Peter mentally called up Bassinger’s records. Two ex-wives and an acknowledged child by each. Volunteered after being an insurance man in Brooklyn for years. “You can’t spot that thing.”

“Sure I can, Lieutenant. Loan me your glasses, I’ll spot it sure.”

“All right. Be careful, they’re shooting at anything they can see.”

“I’m careful.”

“Let me see, man!” somebody shouted. Three men clustered in the trench around Bassinger. “Let us look!” “Don’t be a hog, we want to see too.” “Comrade, let us look—”

“Get away from here,” Bassinger shouted. “You heard the lieutenant, it’s dangerous to look over the ramparts.”

“What about you?”

“I’m an observer. Besides, I’m careful.” He crawled into position and looked out through a little slot he’d cut away in the dirt in front of him. “See, it’s safe enough. I think I see—”

Bassinger was thrown back into the trench. The shattered glasses fell on top of him, and he had already ceased breathing when they heard the shot that hit him in the eye.

By the next morning two men had toes shot off and had to be evacuated.

They lay on the hill for a week. Each night they lost a few more men to minor casualties that could not possibly have been inflicted by the enemy; then Stromand had two men with foot injuries shot by a squad of military police he brought up from staff headquarters.

The injuries ceased, and the men lay sullenly in the trenches until the company was relieved.

They had two days in a small town near the front, then the officers were called to a meeting. The briefing officer had a thick accent, but it was German, not Spanish. The briefing was for the Americans and it was held in English.

“Ve vill have a full assault, vith all International volunteers to move out at once. Ve vill use infiltration tactics.”

“What does that mean?” Captain Barton demanded.

The staff officer looked pained. “Ven you break through their lines, go straight to their technical areas and disrupt them. Ven that is done, the var is over.”

“Where are their technical corpsmen?”

“You vill be told after you have broken through their lines.”

The rest of the briefing made no more sense to Peter. He walked out with Barton after they were dismissed. “Looked at your section of the line?” Barton asked.

“As much as I can,” Peter answered. “Do you have a decent map?”

“No. Old CD orbital photographs, and some sketches. No better than what you have.”

“What I did see looks bad,” Peter said. “There’s an olive grove, then a hollow I can’t see into. Is there cover in there?”

“You better patrol and find out.”

“You will ask the battalion commander for permission to conduct patrols,” a stern voice said from behind them.

“You better watch that habit of walking up on people, Stromand,” Barton said. “One of these days somebody’s not going to realize it’s you.” He gave Peter a pained looked. “Better ask.”

Major Harris told Peter that Brigade had forbidden patrols. They might alert the enemy of the coming attack and surprise was needed.

As he walked back to his company area, Peter reflected that Harris had been an attorney for the Liberation Party before he volunteered to go to Santiago. They were to move out the next morning.

The night was long. The men were very quiet, polishing weapons and talking in whispers, drawing meaningless diagrams in the mud of the dugouts. About halfway through the night forty new volunteers joined the company. They had no equipment beyond rifles, and they had left the port city only two days before. Most came from Churchill, but because they spoke English and the trucks were coming to this section, they had been sent along.

Major Harris called the officers together at dawn. “The Xanadu techs have managed to assemble some rockets,” he told them. “They’ll drop them on the Dons before we move out. Owensford, you will move out last. You will shoot any man who hasn’t gone before you do.”

“That’s my job,” Stromand protested.

“You will be needed to lead the men,” Harris said. “The bombardment will come at 0815 hours. Do you all have proper timepieces?”

“No, sir,” Peter said. “I’ve only got a watch that counts Earth time.”

“Hell,” Harris muttered. “Okay, Thurstone’s hours are 1.08 Earth hours long. You’ll have to work it out from that….” He looked confused.

“No problem,” Peter assured him.

“Oh, good. Back to your areas, then.”

Zero hour went past with no signals. Another hour passed. Then a Republican brigade to the north began firing, and a few moved out of their dugouts and across the valley floor.

A ripple of fire and flashing mirrors colored the ridge beyond as the enemy began firing. The Republican troops were cut down, and the few not hit scurried back into their shelters.

“Fire support!” Harris shouted. Owensford’s squawk box made unintelligible sounds, effectively jammed as were all electronics Peter had seen on Santiago, but he heard the order passed down the line. His company fired at the enemy, and the monarchists returned it.

Within minutes it was clear that the enemy had total dominance in the area. A few large rockets rose from somewhere behind the enemy lines and crashed randomly into the Republican positions. There were more flashes across the sky as the Xanadu technicians backtracked the enemy rockets and returned counterfire. Eventually the shooting stopped for lack of targets.

It was 1100 by Peter’s watch when a series of explosions lit the lip of the monarchist ramparts. Another wave of rockets fell among the enemy, and the Republicans to the north began to charge forward.

“Ready to move out!” Peter shouted. He waited for orders.

There was nearly a minute of silence. No more rockets fell on the enemy. Then the ridge opposite rippled with fire again, and the Republicans began to go down or scramble back to their positions.

The alert tone sounded on Peter’s squawk box and he lifted it to his ear. Amazingly, he could hear intelligible speech. Someone at headquarters was speaking to Major Harris.

“The Republicans have already advanced half a kilometer. They are being slaughtered because you have not moved your precious Americans in support.”

“Bullshit!” Harris’s voice had no tones in the tiny speaker. “The Republicans are already back in their dugouts. The attack has failed.”

“It has not failed. You must show what high morale can do. Your men are all volunteers. Many Republicans are conscripts. Set an example for them.”

“But I tell you the attack has failed.”

“Major Harris, if your men have not moved out in five minutes I will send the military police to arrest you as a traitor.”

The box went back to random squeals and growls; then the whistles blew and orders were passed down the line. “Move out.”

Peter went from dugout to dugout. “Up and at them. Jarvis, if you don’t get out of there I’ll shoot you. You three, get going.” He saw that Allan Roach was doing the same thing.

When they reached the end of the line. Roach grinned at Peter. “We’re all that’s left, now what?”

“Now we move out too.” They crawled forward, past the lip of the hollow that had sheltered them. Ten meters beyond that they saw Major Harris lying very still.

“Captain Barton’s in command of the battalion,” Peter said.

“Wonder if he knows it? I’ll take the left side, sir, and keep ’em going, shall I?”

“Yes.” Now he was more alone than ever. He went on through the olive groves, finding men and keeping them moving ahead of him. There was very little fire from the enemy. They advanced fifty meters, a hundred, and reached the slope down into the hollow beyond. It was an old vineyard, and the stumps of the vines reached out of the ground like old women’s hands.

They were well into the hollow when the Dons fired.

Four of the newcomers from Churchill were just ahead of Owensford. When the volley lashed their hollow they hit the dirt in perfect formation. Peter crawled forward to compliment them on how well they’d learned the training-book exercises. All four were dead.

He was thirty meters into the hollow. In front of him was a network of red stripes weaving through the air a meter above the ground. He’d seen it at the Point, an interlocking network of crossfire guided by laser beams. Theoretically the Xanadu technicians should be able to locate the mirrors, or even the power plants, but the network hung there, unmoving.

Some of the men didn’t know what it was and charged into it. After a while there was a little wall of dead men and boys at its edge. No one could advance, and snipers began to pick off any of the still figures that tried to move. Peter lay there, wondering if any of the other companies were making progress. His men lay behind bodies for the tiny shelter a dead comrade might give. One by one his troops died as they lay there in the open, in the bright sunshine of a dying vineyard.

In late afternoon it began to rain, first a few drops, then harder, finally a storm that cut off all visibility. The men could crawl back to their dugouts and they did. There were no orders for a retreat.

Peter found small groups of men and sent them out for wounded. It was hard to get men to go back into the hollow, even in the driving rainstorm, and he had to go with them or they would melt away to vanish in the mud and gloom. Eventually there were no more wounded to find.

The scene in the trenches was a shambled hell of bloody mud. Men fell into the dugouts and lay where they fell, too tired and scared to move. Some were wounded and died there in the mud, and others fell on top of them, trampling the bodies down and out of sight because no one had energy to move them. Peter was the only officer in the battalion until late afternoon. The company was his now and the men were calling him “Captain.”

Then Stromand came into the trenches carrying a bundle.

Incredibly, Allan Roach was unwounded. The huge wrestler stood in Stromand’s path. “What is that?” he demanded.

“Leaflets. To boost morale,” Stromand said nervously.

Roach stood immobile. “While we were out there you were off printing leaflets?”

“I had orders,” Stromand said. He backed nervously away from the big sergeant. His hand rested on a pistol butt.

“Roach,” Peter said calmly. “Help me with the wounded, please.”

Roach stood in indecision. Finally he turned to Peter. “Yes, sir.”

At dawn Peter had eighty effectives to hold the lines. The Dons could have walked through during the night if they’d tried, but they were strangely quiet. Peter went from dugout to dugout, trying to get a count of his men. Two hundred wounded sent to rear areas. He could count a hundred thirteen dead. That left ninety-four vanished. Died, deserted, ground into the mud; he didn’t know.

There hadn’t been any general attack. The International volunteer commander had thought that even though the general attack was called off, this would be a splendid opportunity to show what morale could do. It had done that, all right.

The Republican command was frantic. The war was stalemated; which meant the superior forces of the Dons were slowly grinding them down. The war for freedom would soon be lost.

In desperation they sent a large group to the south where the front was stable. The last attack had been planned to the last detail; this one was to depend entirely, on surprise. Peter’s remnants were reinforced with pieces of other outfits and fresh volunteers, and sent against the enemy. They were on their own.

The objective was an agricultural center called Zara-goza, a small town amid olive groves and vineyards. Peter’s column moved through the groves to the edge of town. Surprise was complete.

The battle did not last long. A flurry of firing, quick advances, and the enemy retreated, leaving Peter’s company with a clear victory. From the little communications he could arrange, his group had advanced further than any other. They were the spearhead of freedom in the south.

They marched in to cheering crowds. His army looked like scarecrows, but women held their children up to see their liberators. It made it all worthwhile: the stupidity of the generals, the heat and mud and cold and dirt and lice, all of it forgotten in triumph.

More troops came in behind them, but Peter’s company camped at the edge of their town, their place of freedom. The next day the army would advance again; if the war could be made fluid, fought in quick battles of fast-moving men, it might yet be won. Certainly, Peter thought, certainly the people of Santiago were waiting for them. They’d have support from the population. How long could the Dons hold?

Just before dark they heard shots in the town.

He brought his duty squad on the run, dashing through the dusty streets, past the pockmarked adobe walls to the town square. The military police were there.

“Never saw such pretty soldiers,” Allan Roach said.

Peter nodded.

“Captain, where do you think they got those shiny boots? And the new rifles? Seems we never have good equipment for the troops, but the police always have more than enough….”

A small group of bodies lay like broken dolls at the foot of the churchyard wall. The priest, the mayor, and three young men. “Monarchists. Carlists,” someone whispered. Some of the townspeople spat on the bodies.

An old man was crouched beside one of the dead. He held the youthful head cradled in his hands and blood poured through his fingers. He looked at Peter with dull eyes. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Are there not richer worlds for you to conquer?”

Peter turned away without answering. He could think of nothing to say.

“Captain!”

Peter woke to Allan Roach’s urgent whisper.

“Cap’n, there’s something moving down by the stream. Not the Dons. Mister Stromand’s with ’em, above five men. Officers, I think, from headquarters.”

Peter sat upright. He hadn’t seen Stromand since the disastrous attack three hundred kilometers to the north. The man wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in combat among his former comrades. “Anyone else know?”

“Albers, nobody else. He called me.”

“Let’s go find out what they want. Quietly, Allan.” As they walked silently in the hot night, Peter frowned to himself. What were staff officers doing in his company area, near the vanguard of the advancing Republican forces? And why hadn’t they called him?

They followed the small group down the nearly dry creekbed to the town wall. When their quarry halted, they stole closer until they could hear.

“About here,” Stromand’s bookish voice said. “This will be perfect.”

“How long do we have?” Peter recognized the German accent of the staff officer who’d briefed them. The next voice was even more of a shock.

“Two hours. Enough time, but we must go quickly.” It was Cermak, second in command of the volunteer forces. “It is set?”

“Yes.”

“Hold it.” Peter stepped out from the shadows, his rifle held to cover the small group. Allan Roach moved quickly away from him so that he also threatened them. “Identify yourselves.”

“You know who we are, Owensford,” Stromand snapped.

“Yes. What are you doing here?”

“That is none of your business, Captain,” Cermak answered. “I order you to return to your company area and say nothing about seeing us.”

“In a minute. Major, if you continue moving your hand toward your pistol, Sergeant Roach will cut you in half. Allan, I’m going to have a look at what they were carrying. Cover me.”

“Right.”

“You can’t!” The German staff officer moved toward Peter.

Owensford reacted automatically, the rifle swinging upward in an uppercut that caught the German under the chin. The man fell with a strangled cry and lay still in the dirt. Everyone stood frozen; it was obvious that Cermak and Stromand were more worried about being heard than Peter was.

“Interesting,” Peter said. He squatted over the device they’d set by the wall. “A bomb of some kind, from the timers—Jesus!”

“What is it, Cap’n?”

“A fission bomb,” Peter said slowly. “They were going to leave a fission bomb here. To detonate in two hours, did you say?” he asked conversationally. His thoughts whirled, but he could find no explanation; and he was very surprised at how calm he was acting. “Why?”

No one answered.

“Why blow up the only advancing force in the Republican army?” Peter asked wonderingly. “They can’t be traitors. The Dons wouldn’t have these on a platter—but—Stromand, is there a new CD warship in orbit here? New fleet forces to stop this war?”

More silence.

“What does it mean?” Allan Roach asked. His rifle was steady, and there was an edge to his voice. “Why use an atom bomb on their own men?”

“The ban,” Peter said. “One thing the CD does enforce. No nukes.” He was hardly aware that he spoke aloud. “The CD inspectors will see the spearhead of the Republican army destroyed by nukes, and think the Dons did it. They’re the only ones who could benefit from it. So the CD cleans up on the Carlists, and these bastards end up in charge when the fleet pulls out. That’s it, isn’t it? Cermark? Stromand?”

“Of course,” Stromand said. “You fool, come with us, then. Leave the weapons in place. We’re sorry we didn’t think we could trust you with the plan, but it was just too important… it means winning the war.”

“At what price?”

“A low price. A few battalions of soldiers and one village. Far more are killed every week. A comparatively bloodless victory.”

Allan Roach spat viciously. “If that’s freedom, I don’t want any. You ask any of them?” He waved toward the village.

Peter remembered the cheering crowds. He stooped down to the weapon and examined it closely. “Any secret to disarming this? If there is, you’re standing as close to it as I am.”

“Wait,” Stromand shouted. “Don’t touch it, leave it, come with us. You’ll be promoted, you’ll be a hero of the movement—”

“Disarm it or I’ll have a try,” Peter said. He retrieved his rifle and waited.

After a moment Stromand bent down to the bomb. It was no larger than a small suitcase. He took a key from his pocket and inserted it, then turned dials. “It is safe now.”

“I’ll have another look,” Peter said. He bent over the weapon. Yes, a large iron bar had been moved through the center of the device, and the fissionables couldn’t come together. As he examined it there was a flurry of activity.

“Hold it!” Roach commanded. He raised his rifle; but Political Officer Stromand had already vanished into the darkness. “I’ll go after him, Cap’n.” They could hear thrashing among the olive trees nearby.

“No. You’d never catch him. Not without making a big stir. And if this story gets out, the whole Republican cause is finished.”

“You are growing more intelligent,” Cermak said. “Why not let us carry out our plan now?”

“I’ll be damned,” Peter said. “Get out of here, Cermak. Take your staff carrion with you. And if you send the military police after me or Sergeant Roach, just be damned sure this story—and the bomb—will get to the CD inspectors. Don’t think I can’t arrange it.”

Cermak shook his head. “You are making a mistake—”

“The mistake is lettin’ you go,” Roach said. “Why don’t I shoot him? Or cut his throat?”

“There’d be no point in it,” Peter said. “If Cermak doesn’t stop him, Stromand will be back with the MP’s. No, let them go.”

They advanced thirty kilometers in the next three days, crossing the valley with its dry river of sand at the bottom, moving swiftly into the low brush on the other side, up to the top of the ridge: and they were halted. Artillery and rockets exploded all around them. There was no one to fight, only unseen enemies on the next ridge, and the fire poured into their positions for three days.

The enemy fire was holding them, while the glare and heat of Thurstone’s sun punished them. Men became snowblind, and wherever they looked there was only one color, fiery yellow. When grass and trees caught fire they could hardly notice the difference.

When the water was gone they retreated. There was nothing else to do. Back across the valley, past the positions they’d won, halting to let other units get past while they held the road; and on the seventh day after they left it, they were back on the road where they’d jumped off into the valley.

There was no organization. Peter was the only officer among 172 men of a battalion that had neither command nor staff; just 172 men too tired to care.

“We’ve the night, anyway,” Roach said. He sat next to Peter and took out a cigarette. “Last tobacco in the battalion, Cap’n. Share?”

“No, thanks. Keep it all.”

“One night to rest,” Roach said again. “Seems like forever, a whole night without anybody shooting at us.”

Fifteen minutes later Peter’s radio squawked. He listened, hearing the commands over static and jamming. “Call the men together,” Peter ordered when he’d heard it out.

“It’s this way,” he told them. “We still hold Zaragoza.

There’s a narrow corridor into the town, and unless somebody gets down there to hold it open, we’ll lose the village. If that goes, the whole position in the valley’s lost.”

“Cap’n, you can’t ask it!” The men were incredulous. “Go back down into there? You can’t make us do that!”

“No. I can’t make you. But remember Zaragoza? Remember how the people cheered us when we marched in? It’s our town. Nobody else set those people free. We did. And there’s nobody else who can go help keep them free, either. No other reinforcements. Will we let them down?”

“We can’t,” Allan Roach said. “It needs doing. I’ll come with you, Cap’n.”

One by one the others got to their feet. The ragged column marched down the side of the ridge, out of the cool heights where their water was assured, down into the valley of the river of sand.

They were half a kilometer from the town at dawn. Troops were streaming down the road toward them, others running through the olive groves on both sides.

“Tanks!” someone shouted. “Tanks are coming!”

It was too late. The enemy armor had passed around Zaragoza and was closing on them fast. Other troops followed behind. Peter felt a bitter taste and prepared to dig into the olive groves. It would be their last battle.

An hour later they were surrounded. Two hours passed as they fought to hold the useless olive groves. The tanks had long since passed their position and gone but the enemy was still all around them. The shooting stopped, and silence lay through the grove.

Peter crawled across the perimeter of his command: a hundred meters, no more. He had fewer than fifty men.

Allan Roach lay in a shallow hole at one edge. Ripe olives shaken from the trees fell into it with him, partially covering him, and when Peter came close, the sergeant laughed. “Makes you feel like a salad,” he said, brushing away more olives. “What do we do, Cap’n? Why you think they quit-shooting?”

“Wait and see.”

It didn’t take long. “Will you surrender?” a voice called.

“To whom?” Peter demanded.

“Captain Hans Ort, Second Friedland Armored Infantry.”

“Mercenaries,” Peter hissed. “How did they get here? The CD was supposed to have a quarantine….”

“Your position is hopeless, and you are not helping your comrades by holding it,” the voice shouted.

“We’re keeping you from entering the town!” Peter answered.

“For a while. We can go in any time, from the other side. Will you surrender?”

Peter looked helplessly at Roach. He could hear the silence among the men. They didn’tsay anything, and Peter was proud of them. But, he thought, I don’t have any choice. “Yes,” he shouted.

The Friedlanders wore dark green uniforms, and looked very military compared to Peter’s scarecrows. “Mercenaries?” Captain Ort asked.

Peter opened his mouth to answer defiance. A voice interrupted him. “Of course they’re mercenaries.” Ace Barton limped up to them.

Ort looked at them suspiciously. “Very well. You wish to speak with them, Captain Barton?”

“Sure. I’ll get some of ’em out of your hair,” Barton said. He waited until the Friedlander was gone. “Pete, you almost blew it. If you’d said you were volunteers, Ort would have turned you over to the Dons. This way, he keeps you. And believe me, you’d rather be with him.”

“What are you doing here?” Peter demanded.

“Captured up north,” Barton said. “By these guys. There’s a recruiter for Falkenberg’s outfit back in the rear area. I signed up, and they’ve got me out hunting good men for Falkenberg. You want to join, you can. We get off this planet next week; and of course you won’t fight here.”

“I told you, I’m not a mercenary—”

“What are you?” Barton asked. “Nothing you can go back to. Best you can look forward to is being interned. Here, come on to town. You don’t have to make up your mind just yet.” They walked through the olive groves toward the Zaragoza town wall. “You opted for CD service,” Barton said.

“Yes. Not to be one of Falkenberg’s—”

“You think everything’s going to be peaceful out here when the CoDominium fleet pulls out?”

“No. But I like to choose my wars.”

“You want a cause. So did I, once. Now I’ll settle for what I’ve got. Two things to remember, Pete. In an outfit like Falkenberg’s, you don’t choose your enemies, but you’ll never have to break your word. And just what will you do for a living now?”

He had no answer to that. They walked on in silence.

“Somebody’s got to keep order out here,” Barton said. “Think about it.”

They had reached the town. The Friedland mercenaries hadn’t entered it; now a column of monarchist soldiers approached. Their boots were dusty and their uniforms torn, so that they looked little different from the remnants of Peter’s command.

As the monarchists reached the town gates, the village people ran out of their houses. They lined both sides of the streets, and as the Carlists entered the public square, there was a loud cheer.

HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON…

HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON
by Jerry Pournelle

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HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON by Jerry Pournelle

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HIS TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON
by Jerry Pournelle