Passage at Arms Read Online Free PDF Page B

more to it than this."
    "Well, sure. Trees, mountains, some busted-up cities. Big deal. Look, at those bastards. Hunking around on horses. And they're the lucky ones. They don't live in caves. No boomer drops on cows."
    "I fought too hard to get here. I'll see it through."
    "Fool." He grinned. "Climbers, yet. Here it comes." He pointed. A skimmer wove a sinuous path across the green, a small, dark boat chopping through a breezy sea.
    It rumbled up to us, down wash whipping torn grass against our legs. "Still not too late, Lieutenant. Go hide in the boat."
    I smiled my holo-hero smile. "Let's go."
    It's easy to grin when the fiercest monster in sight is a cow. I'd ridden the killer bulls of Tregorgarth. I was ready fpi anything.
    The skimmer driver waved impatiently. "Not the wide-open-spaces type," the courier guessed.
    We boarded. Our steed surged forward, arcing past the herd, leaving a long, dull snail track of smashed grass. Cows and cowboys watched with equally indifferent eyes. Our driver had little to say. She was the surly type. You know, "My feelings are hurt just by being here with you."
    The subLieutenant stage-whispered, "You're an offworlder, they figure you're a High Command spy.
    They hate High Command."
    "Can't blame them." Canaan had been under soft blockade for years. It made life difficult.
    Back when, the other side hadn't thought Canaan worth occupation. Big mistake. It was a tough nut now. The senior officer in the region, Admiral Tannian, had assembled scattered, defeated, ragtag units for a dramatic last stand. The Ulantonids disappointed him. So he dug in and began gnawing on their supply lines. Now they are too heavily committed elsewhere to give him the squashing he wanted.
    Great stuff, Fortress Canaan, High Command decided. They sent Tannian the first Climber squadron into service. He saw their potential instantly. He created his own industrial base.
    You couldn't question the Admiral's energy, dedication, or tenacity. Canaan, an agricultural world sparsely settled, overnight became a feisty fortress and shipbuilding center. A loose frontier society became a tight warfare state with a solitary purpose: the construction and manning of Climbers. All Tannian demanded of the Inner Worlds was a trickle of trained personnel to cadre his locally raised legions. A bargain. High Command gladly obliged. To the sorrow of many ranking officers with ambitions or personal axes to grind.
    Admiral Frederick Minh-Tannian became proconsul of Canaan's system and absolute master of humanity's last bastion in this end of space. Down the line, on the Inner Worlds, he was considered one of the great heroes of the war.
    It was an hour's run to the nearest Guards' outpost. The place fit the Wild West image. Adobe walls surrounded scores of hump-backed bunkers. Most of those boasted obsolete but effective detection antennae. There were barracks for several hundred soldiers, and a dozen armed floaters.
    My companion said, "I usually put down here. One company. It patrols more area than France on Old Earth. Six regular soldiers. The Captain, a Lieutenant, and four sergeants. The rest are locals.
    Serve three months a year and chase cows the rest. Or dig turnips. They bring their families if they have them."
    "I was wondering about the kids." It was the most unmilitary installation I'd ever seen. Looked like a way station three years into a Volkerwanderung. It would've given Marine sergeants apoplexy.
    The Captain wasted little time on us. He spoke with the courier briefly. The courier opened that huge case and passed over a kilo canister. The Captain handed him some greasy Conmarks. They were old bills, pre-war pink instead of today's lilac gray. The courier shoved them inside his tunic, grinned at me, and went outside.
    "Coffee," he explained. And, "A man has to make hay while the sun shines. A local proverb."
    My glimpse inside the case had shown me maybe forty more canisters.
    It was an old, old game with Fleet couriers.