Frays In The Weave

Heinrich stared into the holo. It didn"t lie. No, that wasn"t entirely true. Unless someone waited on them, someone with those brain twisting powers he"d been forced to accept as true, his readings told the truth. He didn"t care for those readings. More cavalry and therefore more problems.

The strange thing was that they seemed to be heading in a south westerly direction. That didn"t make much sense. A patrol, yes, but a patrol with hundreds of riders?

He turned to Arthur. "What do you think?"

Arthur relayed the question to Ken who stared into Heinrich"s helmet for a few moments. A long tirade of words later and Arthur translated back.

"Possibly De Vhatic. That means ours. He doesn"t know why though." Arthur smirked. "I"m just the tourist here. You decide," he added for his own benefit.

There it was. From creepy and barely something to believe he had to upgrade magic to a measurable military threat. The problem was that he had to make all the estimates himself. The link back to Verd provided some help, but by now he accepted that Verd was hardly the centre of expertise on the subject. Well, apart from killing any pract.i.tioner they could lay their hands on.

He juggled the possibilities. Effectively out of ammo, body walkers in immediate need of repair and only three survivors out of what had been one of the best trained TADAT units in the entire solar system. He couldn"t go on alone any longer. Just getting food each day proved an unacceptable risk.

If he chose wrong they"d be dead in less than half an hour.

He exchanged looks with Arthur who nodded in response. It was decided then.

"We go out in the open. Make sure they see us!"

Hesitantly, more like a scared flock of birds than members of the Federation Finest three body walkers buzzed into motion and entered the fields.

Heinrich took point with Panopilis guarding their left flank. Chang held the right, where they knew soldiers to be. If he could trust the information Ken had given, and Arthur had confirmed, the fog should be gone like magic in minutes.

As it was he could.

They had covered less than a third of a field in what looked like a pastoral idyll when they were apprehended by several riders. Ken was right again. Yellow and brown. Cloth rather than leather. And most important of all, they all carried the crossbow he"d grown to expect was part of every rider"s armament on Otherworld. He"d been wrong, but that hardly mattered now.

He met the commander"s gaze with what he hoped was a level look. Then he remembered he was still visored. Heinrich grinned at himself and mentally wiped the expression of consternation from his face before sliding the visor back into his helmet.

They stared at each other. For once Heinrich only felt grat.i.tude at meeting the eyes of a fellow professional. The officer represented what the federation army ought to have been.

He received a question in the language he started to regret he had never learned well enough to use. Answering was out of the question so he waved to the other to wait until Arthur could catch up with them.

The surprised and angry shout caught him off guard and he had his weapons ready to fire just as Arthur roared at him to hold his fire. That didn"t prevent the soldiers he faced to lose three quarrels squarely in his face. The only thing that saved his life was his body walker automatically shutting his visor when he went into full combat stance.

Arthur shouted something in the Otherworld language and all riders immediately relaxed. Heinrich dared opening his visor once again.

"What the h.e.l.l was that all about?"

"Idiot!" Arthur barked. "Think first! Everyone tells me to think before I act."

Heinrich understood nothing, and it must have shown in his face.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, I wasn"t close enough to hear what he said, but that wave of yours was a flat denial from your side. d.a.m.n, you must have seen the people here wave their hands the way we shake our heads."

What? Oh s.h.i.t, how incredibly stupid! "Yes, yes I have. Never gave it much thought."

"If you"re going to tell armed people no in their faces with no way to explain yourself you"d better stay in that moving cage of yours," Arthur grumbled and turned to the officer who"d started to make impatient sounds.

Heinrich waited for the two men to finish their conversation, and when they were finally done Arthur was laughing loud with a mixture of relief and mirth. He sat down and clearly waited for the others to gather before he told them what he"d learned. One by one they arrived. Panopilis and Chang first, and then Granita with her surviving crew members on their dirty and buckled hover. Last Ken arrived on horseback.

"We"re welcome to join them," Arthur began. "In fact we have an invitation to dine with a General de Markand," he pointed due west to show them where the dinner was supposed to take place, "and lastly the gentleman here wondered what the bleeding h.e.l.l took us so d.a.m.n long," he said and laughed again.