Vortex (40 page)

"Solidarity," Venloe said.

"In what way?"

"First, peasants love a dumb show, as you said in your essay, 'The Revolution's Need to Understand the Soul of the People.' "

"Correct."

"Secondly, there have been some stories about certain offworld events involving both the military and the Special Duty Corps."

"Idle talk should be punished."

"It is," Venloe said. "Your Special Duty units are especially effective in that area. But we now have the opportunity to provide a positive image. How could anyone seeing the noble soldiery of Jochi parade past imagine them culpable in what these rumors hint."

"Ah."

"Plus such a parade is a magnificent opportunity for you to show that your government is solidly supported by everyone, including the Torks, when livie viewers see the Torks' leader near you on the reviewing stand."

"Menynder will not attend."

"Yes, he will," Venloe disagreed. "Because the alternatives that will be presented to him won't be to his liking."

Iskra considered. "Yes. Yes, Venloe, I see your thinking. And it has been too long since I showed myself to my people. As I pointed out, as part of my analysis of the Kha—that forgotten monster's tyranny, how he was planting the seeds to his downfall in many ways, not the least of which was hiding, invisible, in this palace. It was in the second volume."

"I am sorry," Venloe said. "I have been too busy for any off-duty reading. One other thing," he went on. "The Imperial ambassador should be invited."

"Sten? I have requested his relief," Iskra said. "Yet another necessity that's not been responded to by that
man
on Prime. Why should he be invited? And why would he attend, anyway?"

Venloe did not quite roll his eyes, but he wanted to. Iskra, for all of his millions of words and speeches about politics and ruling, knew less than nothing about it.

"He should be invited because that will show the populace you are supported by the highest. And that their worries about this new AM2 shortage must be pointless.

"And Sten will attend for one reason: He is a professional."

* * *

Sten looked out the window at the weather, listening to Kilgour filter through the incoming messages behind him. The weather continued to fulfill Sten's expectations, alternating from humid, overcast, and oppressive, to humid, overcast, and raining, cloud-bursts passing so rapidly that no one knew how to dress when going out.

"Clottin' kilt maker. Ah dinnae know th' clot'd hae th' brains t' track me doon. He'll whistle 'Bonnie Bells' throo hi' fundament ere he gies credits frae Laird Kilgour.

"Gie'in me ae kilt thae's th' ancien' Campbell sheep-futterin' pattern, an' claimin't he c'd nae tell th' difference tween thae ae' th' tartan ae th' Kilgours.

"Hah.

"Noo, whae hae we here. Mmmph. Mmmph." A chortle. "Hah. Boss. Noo thae's int'restin'."

Sten turned back around. "Whatcher got, myte?"

"Y' rec'lect wee Petey Lake? Th' navy weatherman w' hae assigned, way back, i' Mantis?"

"Not really."

"I' wae th' time we were t' be blowin't thae dams ae thae planet wi' the bein's thae lookit ae weasels an' smell th' same? We were suppos't t' bring thae boom jus' when th' rainy season broke, so's t' nae cause max damage, but jus' enow t' topple th' gov'mint an' send i' th' Imperial peacekeepers?"

"Oh yeah. Wait a minute. The weatherman? Human type? The guy we called Mr. Lizard?"

"Aye. Thae's th' lad."

"How the
hell
did he stay out of jail? Let alone beat the court-martial?"

"Ah hae noo idea. P'raps we w're wrong, an' th' lasses an' their ridin' hacks were enjoyin't whae he wae doin't, an' were just hollerin' frae their clothes. Ah dinnae ken. Anyway, Ah've hae letters frae him e'er noo an' then.

"He's doin't quite well. Runnin't a stables wi' real Earth horses f'r rich little girls noo. At any rate, Ah wrote an' asked why this clottin' weather's so clottin' clotted ae Rurik. He's tellin't me thae any big planet wi' fast rotation, braw seas, small landmass, tall bens, an' multiple moons'll most likely always be bloody."

"Sure," Sten said, not having thought about the weather much beyond just watching it—it was just another part of the general sewer that was Rurik.

"He hae a wee warnin't. Aboot thae cyclones Ah, at any rate, hae been takin't wi' a grain ae haggis. Here. P'ruse f'r y'self."

Alex passed the long, handwritten letter across Sten's desk. Sten scanned it, until he hit the section Alex had referred to, then read hastily—he
did
remember Mr. Lizard, and he wanted to get his hands off the document and into a sterile bath as quickly as possible.

… so it's going to be miserable on Jochi—miserable cold in the winter, miserable hot in the summer, and, oh yeah, capable of being either one out of season.

Serves you right, you clot, for sticking with the uniform drakh.

One thing you want to be careful of—and you can push that clot Sten in front of one for me—is tornadoes. Tornadoes are trick little circular winds that'll blast you straight out of your shorts if you aren't either underground or out of the way.

Take these suckers real serious—the whirlwinds'll get up to 4-800 kph rotational wind speed in the vortex, and will honk right along anywhere up to 112 klicks an hour. About here is where the measuring instruments break, so don't assume any of those numbers are maximum. You
can't
run, so you'd better hide.

I got a whole bunch of statistics in my files that I can ship along if you're morbidly curious as to what a tornado can do—kill a thousand people in forty minutes, punch a blade of straw through an anvil, throw five tacships weighing a few hundred kilotons each a quarter klick, without bothering the crews inside by the way, and so on.

The best example I've got is on Altair III, and the clots there who were dumb enough to build their capital city right in a tornado belt (sounds just like this Rurik place you're in)—and yeah, tornadoes have patterns. Anyway, summer afternoon, and the city, est. pop. of around five million, gets hit with seventy-two twisters in one afternoon. Killed one-fifth of the city's population—guess they didn't believe in storm cellars.

Just to show you what a good guy I am, I'll even give you a couple clues as to what to look out for, before the funnel lifts you into low orbit.

First, you get convection currents that overcome the usual inversion layers. The air will lift to up to 10,000 meters or so altitude, and will be affected by any jet stream you've got running overhead. This is gonna lift air from all over the region, and it'll destabilize the inversion layers.

The air from the jet stream is like a giant tube, rotating at altitude, and when the tops of cumulus clouds encounter that tube, it bends in the middle from the rising air, due to the rotational wind increasing with the height.

As the tube becomes more vertical, the winds increase with altitude, but more importantly veer from the southwest… right now you have a giant, rotating tube, embedded in one big mother thunderstorm…

… if you've got anything as primitive as a radar set, about now you can see this tube, which will look like an extended cat's-paw. Sometimes it's called a figure six or a hook echo.

This is the wall cloud… think of it as a horizontal tornado, usually black, but sometimes even green… wall cloud tilts…

Down on the ground you're gonna be sweating bullets, getting cranky if you believe in positive ions and getting wet, because there's almost certainly going to be a helluva thunderstorm going on.

You ought to be getting a little scared, too.

Sten scanned on.

… hail and storm… downdraft ahead of the updraft… an overhanging cloud… all of a sudden funnel clouds drop out of the wall cloud and rotate around the mesocyclone—the southernmost tube—don't remember right off the top how many tubes you get.

But only a crazy clot would stick around to count them, because right now, your basic vortex is about to ruin your entire week…

* * *

The letter went on and became a gibberish of equations—evidently Mr. Lizard had gotten tired of ghosting it and looked the subject up.

Sten flipped the letter back. "Thank you, Mr. Kilgour, for giving me yet something else on this clottin' world that will try to kill us."

"Nae prob, wee Sten."

A screen dinged, and Alex scanned the scrolling letters. "Noo, here's e'en better'n Lizard's wee whirlwind. Doc Isky's throwin't a review. Ae th' troops. An' he'd appreciate th' pleasure ae one Ambassador Sten, on th' stand. Th' intent i' plain. T'bore y' to death wi' his bootskies, bootskies, movin' up an' doonsky…"

Alex spun the screen around for Sten to look at. Nobody except a circus throws a parade just for drill. Why this one? He considered. To build the morale of the civilians, first. Second, to give Iskra a chance to pose nobly—all dictators liked that.

Not enough.

There was a tap at the door. A secretary entered and gave Kilgour an envelope. Alex opened it.

"Ah hae here th' confirmation ae th' review. Handwrote, i' Isky's braw scrawl, i' is. An' on real paper, Ah reck.

"Ah do wonder," Alex mused, "jus' whae villainy th' good quack's plannin' t' hatch?

"D' y' pass, lad?"

"No. I go."

"Ah dinnae think thae's wise. Cannae y' d'velop a case ae clap, or aught?"

Sten just shook his head—both of them knew better. This was part of being an ambassador—even one that was not held in the highest regard by the current government he represented Imperial interests to. Sten would have to appear and lend authenticity to whatever Iskra's scheme was.

"I' y' go," Alex announced with finality, "y' dinnae do i' wearin't nae but y'r new spring frock, flowers i' y'r hair, an' ae doofus smile. An' noo Ah'm speakin't ae y'r security adviser. I' y' hae t' play that clot's games, y' dinnae hae t' play by his rules."

Sten grinned. What Alex was evidently proposing was a fairly severe violation of protocol—for an honored diplomat to consider going armed, with backup, to a celebration of the host government.

But considering how events in the Altaic Cluster had been, and the honorable, upright beings Sten had encountered, he thought it very reasonable to consider double-armoring his own privy.

Kilgour's large, horned fist slammed down on the metal bench. Being intended for use as an engine stand for gravlighters' McLean generators, the bench's legs bulged but did not give way.

"If Ah c'n hae y' attention," he bellowed, and the murmur of conversation died away. Kilgour stood in front of an assemblage of Gurkhas and Bhor, in one of the embassy's garages.

"Ah wan' y'r eyeballs hooked t' thae chart ae the wall, there.

"Ah'll keep this brief," he went on. "Y' c'n find y'r own duty assignments up ae they're listed. Thae garage's swept, no more'n an hour ago, by myself an' Cap'n Cind, and it's unbugged. So we dinnae hae t' use circumlocutions.

"Th' skinny is like so—th' boss is goin't twa thae review t'mor-row. I' th' square ae th' late Khookoos. An' we dinnae think the deal's square-up.

"So we'll be i' position, aye?

"Ah wan' you Gurk's i' squad format. Two squads per grav-lighter. Otho, y're pr'moted sarg'nt, an' i' charge ae th' Bhor. Four per gravlighter, plus two heavy-weapons teams. Aye?"

"As you say," Otho rumbled. "But what of our captain?"

"Cap'n Cind hae th' countersniping detail. She's tucked e'er sniper-rated an' expert-qualified rifle shot under her wing. We'll be saltin' them, twa by twa, ae th' rooftops afore dawn.

"Now. Here's th' orders. I' there's aught attempt made ae Sten—Ah wan' thae hitter dead. Dead 'fore he can think ae violence, an' we'll nae consider gie'in th' lad th' chance t' touch th' trigger.

"We'll hae all coms open, so i' there's an attempt, Ah wan' all a' y' t' swarm th' reviewin't stand. Dinnae be worryin't aboot prisoners or such."

"Question?"

"Aye, lad?"

"By my mother's beard," the young Bhor growled, "but you send in the lances just on the suspicion there will be danger."

"Aye?"

"I am not arguing, sir. But what would you do if there was a confirmed threat to the ambassador?''

Alex's face went still, and his eyes glittered. After a pause, he said, "In thae case, Ah'd hae Sten lock't i' th' cellar, an' th' reviewin' stand'd be a nuke ground zero afore th' ceremony'd begin.

"Noo. Thae's all. Y' ken y'r duties, y'r weapons, y'r gear. See to it. Stand-to is one hour before dawn."

"Kilgour, this isn't my tailcoat."

"Aye. Shut y'r lip an' be puttin' i' on. Th' piss i' review'll be nae more'n twa hours away."

"Fits lousy," Sten growled, frowning at his reflection. "Who tailored this? Omarth' Tent Maker?"

"Th' coat's 'flatable, an' thae's inserts t' be put i' place."

"For what? If somebody shoots at me with a cannon?"

"Ah." Kilgour smiled. "Ah always ken y'r noo ae stupid't ae Cind keep't sayin't. Cannon i' th' watchword.

"Noo. Bolt y'self up.

"I' y' rec'lect, all a' thae silliness Ah been doin't since yesterday's i' y'r cause. C'mon, lad. Ah hae t' put on m' own wee drag. I' y're braw, Ah'll buy y' a pint a'terward."

If, Kilgour thought, there is an afterward…

Sten evaluated the thick crowds on either side of the wide boulevard as his gravlighter approached the palace.

If this is supposed to be a holiday, Dr. Iskra has miscalled it, he thought. The faces were angry, sullen as the darkling skies overhead. At first Sten thought the hostility was pointed at the two Imperial flags fluttering from the gravlighter's stanchions, then corrected himself. The rage was free-form and unprejudiced—Sten saw a man look up as one of the constantly patrolling military gravsleds slid overhead, then spit into the gutter.

Otho grounded the embassy's ceremonial stretch gravlighter just behind the huge reviewing stand that had been special-built to one side of the Square of the Khaqans. The gravlighter looked even worse now—the weapons mounts and most of the jury-rigged armor had been cut away, but there had been no time to refinish the body or repaint. The craft looked as if it had failed to qualify in a demolition derby.