Digging for Roots
The weather had been pleasant for the Muhlbach maneuvers, with mostly sunny days, and temperatures reaching into the 60s. The nights had been near 40, with brilliant starscapes. The trainees might have enjoyed their five-day test, if they'd had enough to eat and at least a few hours a day of sleep. But the maneuvers were more than a test of tactics, leadership, and readiness. Their commanding general wanted them to discover their tenacity, and endurance of privation, so he'd cranked up the hardship factor.
They'd handled it well.
Maneuvers were the heart of unit training, and at least as vital for General Pyong Pak Singh as for his troops. Pak had never experienced actual combat, never directed a battle except in electronic games. So he lived maneuvers as realistically as he could. He directed his division from a floater; camped in the field, was often on the move, ate field rations, and caught catnaps when the situation allowed. Though he slept more than his men. His alertness, or lack thereof, was important to every man in his "corps," his expanded division-Jerries, Indi Armored, air wings, and Luneburger Engineers.
He'd delighted in the competition with his opposing counterpart, Major General Pauli Nachtigal of the Luneburger 4th Infantry Division, and found strong satisfaction in his troops, who'd performed well-even E Company, 2nd Regiment which, with fifteen men in the stockade, was shorthanded, and perhaps a bit demoralized by the defections-while the opposing Burger infantry division was really good, Masadan trained.
Now that the Muhlbach maneuvers were over, and everyone had had a long night's sleep, the troops were enjoying a day off. In camp, for there'd be no passes till the matter of defections was sorted out. A day off with naps and base food: all the roast pork, the barley with pork gravy, freshly baked still-warm bread with butter and jam, pie with good cheese from Luneburger's Mennonite dairies… and all the ice cream they could eat! Few if any of his Jerries had seen ice cream before they'd joined the army. Few had even heard of it. It had become their favorite, if infrequent, dessert.
If the troops had the day off, their general didn't. He was at his desk at 0730, working his way through his In basket. At 0930 he met with his division provost marshal, Captain Raymond Coyote Singh, and the CO of 2nd Regiment's 2nd Battalion, Major Amar Kalnins Singh. Of urgent necessity, the subject was the defections-the refusal by fifteen members of E Company to serve. Briefly the three officers reviewed the basic known facts, without speculating on the roots. Then Captain Coyote reported on E Company's Private Thomas Crisp, and his clumsy attempt to spread disaffection in the field hospital's morgue. He had his own cubes and those recorded by the hospital's provost marshal, with accounts provided by Sergeant Sinisalo, and by Wesley, Justice, and the bystanders. And by Crisp.
The meeting was interrupted by chirping from Pak's intercom. His monitor told him it was Administrative Sergeant Major Watanabe. Frowning, Pak spoke to his pickup. "What is it?" he asked.
The answer came via the pickup in his right ear. "General, Corporal Isaiah Vernon is here, with information that may be important to the defections matter. Vernon's a bot attached to 2nd Regiment, 1st Battalion. Would you like to see him now?"
Pak knew the name. "Bring him in, Sergeant," Pak said, then broke the connection and looked at Coyote. "Captain, record this. Apparently it's information on our problem."
The sergeant major opened the door. A seven-foot warbot stood behind him. "General," said Watanabe, "this is Corporal Vernon."
Vernon stepped inside and stopped. "Thank you, Sergeant Major," Pak said in dismissal, and the door closed. "What do you have for us, Corporal?"
"General, the night before we went on maneuvers, Private Jeremiah Spieler, Speaker Spieler, came to my hut and told me a story. He and I were friends. We'd been in B Company together, and back home I was a student speaker. He told me that the evening before, after lights out, some men came to his tent and woke him up. They told him they needed his advice. So he went outside with them. It turned out they didn't want advice. They wanted him to help them spread a message in B Company. Quietly, to men he trusted.
"The one that did the talking said the Wyzhnyny were sent by God," Vernon went on, "to overthrow a corrupt and Godless Commonwealth government. And that God wants his people-all colonists and Terrans who follow his commandments and the leadership of Christ-to turn against the government. Refuse orders and stand against evil, even at the risk of their lives."
The Peace Front line all the way, Pak thought. "Why isn't Spieler telling me this himself?" he asked.
If there was a way of reading a warbot's reactions, comparable to reading an organic's face, Pak didn't know it. But the two or three-second lag suggested surprise. "Why, General, sir, Speaker Spieler was killed in the maneuvers. Someone shot him in the back with a hard pulse. From a slammer, I'm told."
The statement stunned Pak. He'd heard there'd been an accidental death, a shooting. This story made it seem deliberate. "Did they-the men who talked with Spieler-did they say who told them all that?"
"Jeremiah didn't say. They did tell him they were part of a group headed by speakers, but he was sure the man who did the talking wasn't one. Because when he tried to quote scripture, he got it all wrong."
"Hmm. This was-what then? A week ago?"
"Six nights ago he told me about it, sir."
"Why didn't Spieler, or you, inform your sergeants?"
"The speaker said he was afraid of them, sir. And he didn't know who they were. I asked. He couldn't see their names in the dark, nor their faces well enough. All he could say was, the one who did the talking sounded like us-like someone from New Jerusalem-but taller than just about any of us gets. As tall as Captain Mulvaney, he said."
Hmm. That would be more than six feet, Pak thought. "Afraid. Did they threaten him?"
"Not exactly. They told him to be careful not to say anything about it to anyone he didn't trust. They'd tell him when it was time. But Jeremy said it sounded like a warning."
"But Spieler told you."
"Yessir. I guess he needed to tell someone, and knew he could trust me."
"Why didn't you tell someone? Your sergeant."
"I should have. But we had breakfast at 0630 the next morning and left on maneuvers. And it seemed like just talk; I didn't suppose anything would come of it. Surely nothing like someone shooting Jeremiah. Or that anyone would quit the army. And we'll be leaving for home in another month; I told myself that when we got there, the facts would speak for themselves."
Pak nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you, Corporal. You've been very helpful. Say nothing to anyone about talking to us. And if you see anything, or remember anything that may help us identify the traitors, report it to your battalion commander promptly.
"You may go now."
A gentle giant, Pak thought as he watched the warbot leave. I wonder how he'll do in combat.
Well enough, he decided. Major Somphavanh Ruiz Singh, CO of the division's bot contingent, was an excellent officer who'd given special attention to selecting his noncoms. But he'd ask him about Vernon and see what he said.
After Pak closed the meeting, Captain Coyote went to his computer and checked on several things. Near the end of advanced training, the various company commanders, in conference with their platoon leaders and platoon sergeants, had evaluated their troops for promotion. And Spieler had not made lance corporal. His platoon sergeant had characterized him as very conscientious, and hard-working, but passive. He'd probably make lance corporal at the end of unit training, and go no further.
He already knew that all fifteen men who'd "resigned" were in E Company, as Private Crisp was. The tallest man in E Company was a Private Moses Wheeler, who at five feet eleven was one of the tallest Jerries in the division. He was one of only four in his squad who hadn't defected. He was also 4th Squad's slammer man, and a troublemaker from the start. He'd done nothing extreme, at least not till now, but he led 2nd Battalion in the number of times on company punishment.
Coyote then called up the information on Spieler's death. The pulse had struck him in the left side of the left buttock, below the flak jacket, destroying the left pelvis. Overall the damage indicated an impact vector diagonally upward, out through the ribs on the right side, shattering the right humerus. The overall damage could only have been done by a slammer. It must have been after the troops had hit the dirt in response to the air attack, but the angle practically guaranteed it had not been fired by a killer craft. So. Something else then.
Coyote asked his computer for the regimental formation during the advance across the fields of Muller's Settlement. Spieler had been in B Company, 1st Platoon, 4th Squad. E Company had been about 30 yards behind B Company, and one position to its left. Wheeler had been in 4th Squad, 4th Platoon, but with almost all his squad locked in the stockade, he'd probably… Yes. He'd been attached as an augmentation to-2nd Squad, and from his position there, could easily have fired the pulse that killed Spieler. Judging by the angle, the only one else who could have, given the high-powered weapon used, was 2nd Squad's slammer man. The provost marshal saw no clear way, yet, to prove that Wheeler was the murderer, but this established opportunity, and greatly reduced the apparent alternatives.
His next step, Coyote decided, would be to have Wheeler brought to him for questioning, and meanwhile have his belongings searched. If they were lucky enough to find an M-6 power slug… Then talk with E Company's 4th Platoon sergeant, and learn who were Wheeler's close associates. They were probably in the stockade, he thought. I'll have them wired before I question them. See how they read. Maybe that'll lead somewhere.
He was reaching for his comm switch when it occurred to him: What was the source of this Peace Front line? Could some Jerrie have come up with it independently? It seemed doubtful.
The good weather had broken near midday. Then Joseph Switzer had worked in the rain, piling slabs. The rain had turned to thick wet snow-a rarity at Sagenwerk-as wet as the rain but colder. Switzer's blanket-lined jacket had soaked up about five pounds of ice water, or so it seemed. At the end of the shift he headed home without stopping at the tavern. His nose had begun to run. His heavy work shoes were saturated. He'd have to dry them by the stove, and grease them in the morning. He'd stay home tomorrow, sleep, and nurse whatever he was coming down with.
He looked around him and grimaced. He had never, he'd decided, hated any place as much. Sagenwerk was a backwater without any backwater charms. In general, Mennonites liked flowers, liked to grow things, kept their buildings and yard fences painted. But Sagenwerk-ugly, weedy, and filled with truculent, narrow-minded people-Sagenwerk, he told himself, was where the mean and spiteful were reincarnated as punishment. Even sunny and warm he didn't like it. And in weather like this…
He shut out the surroundings he slopped through-rain, slush, weed-edged streets, slab fences… A chill shook him, and he wiped his runny nose on a sleeve. But as much as he'd like to, he didn't feel free to leave. Not yet. Private Moses Wheeler had arrived at their third meeting not only with his mind made up, he'd arrived with a plan! His own plan, and therefore the only plan he'd consider: work through the speakers. They had influence, and authority in religious matters.
Actually it made sense-except that Wheeler had telescoped it. He wanted to build Rome in a day.
Maybe he could. Joseph Switzer hoped devoutly that he could. If confidence-positive thinking-meant much, he might. For Moses Wheeler was a maverick, and a bomb waiting to go off. The problem was his fuse. Once lit, there was no way that he, Switzer, could do anything about it-control, guide, or even advise. If he'd realized, when they'd first met, what an arrogant asshole Wheeler was, he'd have made his pitch to someone else. But Wheeler made a good first impression. He was big, fearless, and had an aura of power. And he'd seen what Switzer was leading up to while Switzer was still feeling him out. Had taken over and made the mission his own.
In a way, Switzer told himself, he'd suffered from Wheeler's problem-one of Wheeler's problems-overconfidence. Now, though, he wasn't confident at all. Wheeler, on the other hand-he couldn't imagine Wheeler losing confidence. And if Wheeler showed more patience than seemed probable-if he let the speakers do their thing in their own time-the Jerrie army might be compromised enough that War House would be unwilling to send it to New Jerusalem. That was the theory. It was what he'd intended, and what the Front had financed him to do.
The only reason he was hanging around was to learn the results. The Front would expect him to. Word might well never get to North Fork, and almost certainly wouldn't surface on Terra except through him. And quite a few civilian workers at Camp Nafziger came into Sagenwerk on their days off, full of gossip.
Through gray rain and gray introspection, Switzer reached his shack near the tracks at the east edge of town. Stepping onto the rough stoop, he dug his house key from a pocket. With red trembling hands, he got it into the keyhole and turned it. Pushed the door open, then closed and locked it behind him. That was another thing about Sagenwerk: there were thefts.
Inside it was half warm. The single room was small enough to heat with the cookstove, which he'd banked with coal before work, then closed both damper and draft to hold fire. After stripping off his sodden jacket, he dug coal from a sack and put it on the embers.
Someone knocked on the door. Switzer's guts knotted; he had no friends here. "Who is it?" he asked.
"Nockey Brant."
Brant? The constable? "What do you want?"
"You. You going to let me in, or do I kick the door down?"
Switzer thought of the pistol in his bag. But if he shot Brant, and they caught him… Maybe it was about that tool theft at the sawmill. He was an outsider; maybe they thought he'd done it. Brant would search the place, and when he didn't find the tools, that would be the end of it. Then he could fix his supper, eat and go to bed.
"Just a minute."
He stepped to the door, turned the key, then the knob, and pushed. As it opened, Nockey Brant grabbed and held it. He was broad and extremely strong, a veteran of the green chain. Behind him were two MPs from Camp Nafziger. Brant grinned a stained, spade-toothed grin. "Couple of soldiers want to talk to you," he said. "About conspiracy, and being an accomplice before the fact of murder."
With his other hand, the constable gripped Joseph Switzer by his wet shirt and pulled him out onto the stoop. One of the MPs brought forth a pair of handcuffs and secured Switzer's wrists behind his back. Then they pushed him ahead of them in the direction of the depot. No one locked his door. He supposed his stuff would be stolen before the night was over.
Not, he realized, that it would make any difference.