Wine of the Gods 4: Explorers (31 page)

Comet Fall. No question about which world that was, was there?

Bec gave him a worried look. "I heard the Command Staff has been to the Hague to get orders directly from the President. They got back this morning. That
is
our prospect, isn't it?"

"Don't even hint about that Bec. Bad for the stock prices." He checked the gate schedule.

Comet Fall was scheduled for a military gate in four hours. Over there they'd have more than rumors.

All he had to do was not report in person on a project that w
as making every Dallas stockholder filthy rich.

He grabbed an office at the Dallas warehouse and recorded a report to the Board, sent it to Gerald McCamey. Sent all the equipment and personnel request forms, ordered a few small items that were within his authority, then scrambled for the
gate.

Chapter Twenty-three

30 September 3477

Comet Fall/Dallas
Twelve fifty-three

The military people were apparently resigned to the Dallas piggybacking and he rode through with a pair of curious officers, who quizzed him about Lefty and Dydit as the driver waited through the last minutes then followed the convoy through.

"The problem was treating them like escaping prisoners. They weren't. They simply went home and reported."

"Which we couldn't allow."

"If they were Oners, they no doubt had already reported electronically. If they weren't, we turned a moderately friendly first contact into an attack."

"What else could they be, with the genetic engineering?"

"The descendants of the early diaspora, which would have been about the time the Earth somehow got rid of millions of engineered people. Look at the timing.
Thirteen hundred years ago they got rid of several million genetically engineered people in a horrible genocide—except they never found any physical evidence of the deaths, no eye witnesses. These natives are a genetic match for North America of the time. They do not have the heavy Arabic influence, nor the radiation damage that all our definite One samples have had. I suspect the genetically engineered people were dumped on several worlds, and that the One world had a native population, where this one didn't." He gritted his teeth through the gate transit. The Camp had grown enormously in a few weeks. This was looking like the preparation for a full up invasion.
Why? Is the One so important? Do they know about Hygiea? Does the Army?

Lon eyed the lines of armored gyps. "Umm, are you aware of the Company astronomers' findings?"

"Which ones?"

"
Thirteen thousand years ago something collided with Hygiea, the fourth largest asteroid, breaking it into chunks that have been hitting this world ever since. They've spotted eighteen chunks still up there, with one likely hit in just over seven years, large enough to cause regional damage. And eight years later a possible large strike. Dinosaur killer size or larger."

"Likely is different than 'will' so why does it matter to us?"

"Because either the Oners are here temporarily, or they don't realize what's happening."

The driver smiled nastily. "Wouldn't that just be a pity if they got squashed? However we can't leave it to chance."

"A population of half a billion only sounds small in comparison to other planetary populations. Are you actually going to attack them? There's no point in conquering this world
now
.  Might as well wait seven years and see if the Oners abandon the world."

"For better or worse, we have orders to crop the Oners back sharply. That means we need to move quickly and snatch the capital of this 'Kingdom of the West' before the Oners move on it. We know from their transmissions that they are already cozy with one of the other countries."

Lon felt faint. "You're going to attack a city?"

"We're pushing through quickly to secure the sole northern pass through the Rockies equivalent. The rest of the division will be on our tail, just in case we have trouble keeping the pass open all winter."

"Have you tried diplomacy? Spying?"

They ignored him
and pulled up beside Colonel Elton.

Elt
on didn't ignore him. "From your Company I have already requisitioned your geologist, the sociologists and the linguists. That lady physicist is coming along to take measurements. If you wish to observe, you'd better go pack. We're leaving in an hour." The Colonel dismissed him from his attention, turning to the two officers.

Lon headed for the company mess box. He gave orders while he loaded a pack with food.

George, left in charge of no one but himself and the astronomers was still sputtering as Lon hefted his backpack and walked out to the line of gyps, trucks and tankers.

He was directed to one of the trucks, and found the other company people.

Johnny nodded glumly. "I win. I thought they'd bring you along so the camp was defenseless."

"I'm a middle-
aged field bureaucrat. Hardly the great defender."

Julianne Prescott snorted. "Yeah, right. We've all seen your credentials.
And Roxy told some tall tales. What I want to know is, do they really think they can
drive
across the Ice Cap? Didn't they read our report?"

Scott snorted. "They probably decided we were complete fruitcakes."

"Apparently there is a canyon full of hot springs all the way across." Johnny said. "A rift, probably started after the crust fractured when the comet hit. They wouldn't let me near it."

"Across the ice cap?"
Farr looked skeptical.

"Probably the other way around. The comet hits, the crust cracks, the shockwave through the whole planet must have caused compressive heating all through the mantle, changed the mantle circulation pattern, sped it up maybe. Anyway, I'll bet there's a line of rising mantle material right under that canyon, the heat causes uplift, swelling
, so it's all high, and any ice forming there is going to flow away. Condensing snow from the humidity of those hot springs, starts building up, and with all the dust thrown up by the strike, you can bet it got cold. Probably started their current ice age."

"This is an ice age?" Scott Meyers sounded surprised.

"Glaciers down to 45 south? Yeah, this is an ice age. You'll notice if you stay through the winter."

"Are you saying this isn't winter?" The truck jolted into motion, and they shifted their gear and the truck's other contents to get as comfortable as possible on the fold down benches along either side of the truck body.

Lon shook his head. "Late fall. Don't look so worried, Julianne. If we're going all the way across the ice cap, we won't be attacking the city you guys explored. It must be down a side canyon, just five days away."

Julianne
rested her forehead on her fists. "Lon, I hate using the term magic, but teleportation isn't much better, is it? These people are not normal, and this invasion is likely to be a disaster."

Lon eyed her. "Teleportation?"

"Yes. We keep telling people and they keep rolling their eyes. You'll see, soon enough." She settled huffily and closed her eyes.

Lon turned to the more rational people.

Kia Farr had a lot of electronic equipment along. She muttered at it getting shaken around. "I suppose there's no chance of getting them to stop every hundred kilometers for a gravity reading, is there?"

"Not a hope. What are you doing here?"

"When Julianne and Rae brought Dee the biological samples they'd collected in that native City, they told us all about what had been going on. I figured I'd better come tell the military about the weird gravity effects." The physicist shrugged. "I came back yesterday, to try and talk to the Army's science team. If they really are doing something akin to teleportation, that might affect gravity, and be the explanation for the constant small scale fluctuations."

Can we go back to orbiting neutronium?
That's almost credible.

It w
as nearly impossible to get the Army convoy to stop for anything, and the three women found even the brief potty breaks . . . lacking in privacy.

The road at the start of the canyon was sporadic, with long stretches of untouched rock. But the side streams all had graceful arcs of bridges,
occasional rubble had been melted for a good surface, landslides cleared . . .  with teams of drivers trading off, they drove across the top of the world in twelve days.

The canyon walls were higher on the far side, and they followed the road through its depths. The river
—a new one, this one ran, err, south, was to their right, and the road curved between geysers and the pools and the streams running down to the river all steamed. They probably smelled of sulfur, but after nearly two weeks it wasn't registering any more.

A day's drive to the south, the road ended at a bridge, a soaring creation that leaped the river and swooped up the west side.

The Colonel sent scouts out, and gave his troops a break from the road.

"I am going to wash everything I own, and my body too, there are more than enough ponds of hot water around here for the women to have their own." Julianne declared. The women had both complained about fifteen minute breaks every three hours as insufficient. A one hour break for a hot dinner, outrageous. The men all agreed, but let the women do the complaining.

A laughing group of soldiers with the same idea were testing the waters.

"Whoo, nice for a swim. Not hot enough to soak!"

"Sounds great." Clothes were flying, not just there, but at ponds all around.

"Arg!" Julianne ducked her head. "Bloody damn men no modes . . . "

She broke off at the first scream, her head jerking around with all of them. They saw it briefly as it retreated into the water. It was large, scaly and had a soldier in its long jaws. There were more screams, then a few shots. Very few. Most of them had left their weapons in the gyps.

"Crocodiles," Lon croaked. "There are crocodiles in the warm water."

Gunfire picked up quickly, but too late for five soldiers. Dinner was a sober affair, and the Colonel led a brief ceremony as the five men were sealed in cold bags, to be returned Home for burial. The mobile medical unit had three badly injured, twelve were treated and released for light duty, AKA riding in a truck.

They relocated up to the plains, but the careful check of the nearest lake proved wise. Crocs.

The most detailed of the satellite maps, with patches from the drone aerial photographs, were consulted. The east-west road showed up at the edges of a couple of the high altitude pictures. "At a guess, it goes from Scoone in the East to this city in the west, which the natives just happened to not mention, and which just happens to be closest to the rift canyon." Colonel Elton tapped the map. "We just caught the road going through the mountains, and across this plain. That's enough to show this fort, here. We'll be planning on there being at least one on this side. We'll try to take it quickly and quietly, with no messengers getting out.

"Then we
'll cross the mountains and acquire the fort on the other side, again not allowing messengers out. Then it looks like we'll have close to a six hundred mile clear run to the first town of any size. After that, towns and villages regularly for the last six hundred miles to this city, 'Karista'. That part, however isn't our job. We will hold the pass and the road well out onto the plains. There's only a single village that shows on the satellite maps within the area that we will be securing. Questions? Right. Tomorrow we'll head across the desert, the scouts will be out and checking for a nearside fortification."

13
60 Fall

Ash, Foothills Provence, Kingdom of the West

Never and Dydit were finishing pancakes over a discussion of road building in the Tavern. There was a fair sized breakfast crowd.
Dydit, Nil and Justice had ridden in with all their kids, who had been herded off to school. The conversations around the room were all drifting back to the subject of Earth.

"If they'll just stay over there, no one will even notice whether they're mining or not." Answer sniffed. "And the way they reacted to Never's use of magic, they obviously had no idea of what they were getting into." She glowered a bit at Dydit, who oozed a bit further from Never.

"I wonder about that One World they were so sure I came from. I don't think they were actually at war with them, but they certainly over-reacted at every opportunity." Never tried to ignore the witches' opinion of Dydit. She was a witch, and witches used whomever they damn well wanted.
Just because I'm using but failing to discard is no reason to nag.

"I think I'll go take a look at these Earth people." The Auld Wulf stood up abruptly.

Nil nodded "I'll go too."

Dydit nodded and straightened.

Nil stuck his index finger in Dydit's face. "Must have been about ten years ago I told you that you were not allowed to kill anyone. It shouldn't have stuck so badly, damnit, I was chained. So let me make this perfectly clear. If someone needs killing you have my permission to do so. It is entirely up to your judgment, all right?"

Dydit snapped his sagging mouth closed. "It never occurred to me to just fry those nasties when they first attacked us. I didn't even think of it!"

"Well," Nil sighed. "Don't be so damn
nice
next time." He turned away shaking his head.  ". . . not believe I said that . . ."

"I'd better come too. You'll be wanting to
travel." Never smiled blandly at Dydit's glower.

Gisele lifted her head, and looked at the Aulf Wulf. "Take some of that wine. In case you need it. I'll stay here unless you need help."

Coo shifted. "I'll go. About time a mage took a look at these hot springs and geysers that all of you've been talking about.

Harry thumped his spear a bit uncertainly. He looked around the Tavern and nodded. "I'll stay here. If you need me, send me a Location. I'll bring everything and anyone else who wants to party."

The Auld Wulf nodded, "I will, and I expect Dydit could give you a Location as well."

Dydit looked at him in surprise.

"You're good, boy. Don't doubt yourself so. You're too strong for her to ever kill, accidentally or on purpose."

"Perhaps I should go see about some horses," Dydit growled, and stalked out.

Never kept a straight face with difficulty. Gods were hideously hard to keep thoughts away from. Occasionally they replied to them as if you'd said something out loud, which could be a bit disconcerting.

"Grab anything in the stable, no visitors today," Harry said.

"Food," Never muttered. Harry grinned and pointed toward the kitchen.

They were mounted in half an hour, and headed for the hot springs.
Three young mages had joined Coo, and a Half Moon Triad had decided the witches needed more orthodox representation.

They circled up and held hands. "This will take about ten jumps, even from hotsprings. I'm going to start about fives miles into the ice cap. Everyone keep your eyes open, in case they're exploring." Dydit said.

Never felt him recalling the Location, and the smooth power of the god taking it. The horses spooked and danced as everything changed around them. Never steadied her mare and mentally apologized to Storm, who'd taken traveling in stride. They circled up again and jumped further. And again. And again. Brief sights of places where they'd camped, bridges they'd built.

The sixth jump, she turned the upset mare toward the road and stopped. Even over the sulfur of the springs it was obvious.

"Never?"

"It smells to me like a couple of hundred people all stopped at once to take dumps or pee."

"Oh crap!" Dydit snorted. "You made me say that. They can't have got so many people here so fast."

"There were guards and soldiers all over the other side of the
gate. So, where shall we start looking for them?" she said.

"Where they can do the most damage," the Auld Wulf said. "Let's check where your road crosses the Rip."

"They can't have gotten that far!" Dydit argued. "This stuff is two weeks old, maximum."

Never shook her head. "Remember the gyps? They aren't like horses. On this surface, they'll be fast, they can go all day. All night. They have lights."

"And they can trade off drivers," Dydit held out his hands. "But I still think . . . Well."

This time the Auld Wulf took Dydit's Location and made a single jump.
Never could feel the deep power draw as he moved them thousands of miles. Traded mass, location, orientation, momentum . . .

Vultures flapped away from dead lizards. Lots of dead lizards.

"They don't smell too bad yet. Must have happened yesterday." Coo slipped off his horse and examined the nearest carcass. "No charring. Just holes. Little ones going in and blowing out big holes on the other side." He pulled out a knife and efficiently ripped into the lizard, slicing from a small hole into the beast.

"You're tracking the wound?" Dydit joined him on the ground.

"This one didn't have a big hole opposite it. Made quite a mess of the lungs." He reached in and pulled out a small chunk of metal tossed it up on the rocks and dug further. Sat back. "That little thing can't have done all that damage."

"It's as big around as an arrow," the Auld Wulf pointed out. "All it needs is speed." His forehead was furrowed. Never couldn't tell if it was thought or headache. Perhaps it was both.

"Wolf, can you take us home? I think we need to warn the soldiers at Fort Stag and get ourselves over to where we can stop them in the mountains." Nil was looking worried. "If they can come this far in less than two weeks, they'll be in the mountains in a few days."

The God stiffened
, dressed suddenly in mail and armor, a black horse almost visible before they both disappeared.