“That’s right. I encoded it and sent it. And that was that.”

  “And just what does that word mean?” Kerk asked.

  “Stop,” Jason said, “just plain stop.”

  “I would have done the same thing myself,” Kerk said, nodding in agreement. “Let us collect the money and go home.”

  COMMANDO RAID

  Private Truscoe and the captain had left the truck, parked out of sight in the jungle, then had walked a good hundred yards farther down the road. They were crouched now in the dense shadows of the trees, with the silver light of the full moon picking out every rut and hollow of the dirt track before them.

  “Be quiet!” the captain whispered, putting a restraining hand on the soldier’s arm, listening. Truscoe held his breath and struggled to keep absolutely still. Captain Carter was a legendary jungle fighter, with the scars and medals to prove it. If he thought there was something dangerous, creeping closer in the darkness …Truscoe suppressed an involuntary shudder.

  “It’s all right,” the captain said, this time in a normal speaking tone. “Something big out there, buffalo or deer. But it’s downwind and it took off as soon as it caught our smell. You can smoke if you want to.”

  The soldier hesitated, not sure how to answer. Finally, he said, “Sir, aren’t we supposed … I mean someone could see the flame?”

  “We’re not hiding, Private Truscoe. William—do they call you Billy?”

  “Why, yes sir.”

  “We picked this spot, Billy, because none of the locals normally come this way at night. Light up. The smoke will let all the wildlife know that we’re here and they’ll keep their distance. They are a lot more afraid of us than you are of them. Not only that, but our informant can find us by the smell too. One whiff and he’ll know that it’s not the local leaf. That trail over here leads to the village and he’ll probably come that way.”

  Billy looked but could see neither trail nor opening in the jungle wall where the officer pointed. But if the captain said so, it had to be true. He clutched his M16 rifle tightly and looked around at the buzzing, clattering darkness.

  “It’s not so much the critters out there, sir. I’ve done plenty of hunting in Alabama and I know this gun can stop anything around. Except maybe another gun. I mean, this geek, sir, the one that’s coming. Isn’t he kind of a traitor? You know, if he finks on his own people how can we know he won’t do the same to us?”

  Carter’s voice was patient and gave no indication how much he loathed the word geek.

  “The man’s an informant, not a traitor, and he is more eager than we are for this deal to go through. He was originally a refugee from a village in the south, one that was wiped out by that earthquake some years back. You have to understand that these people are very provincial and he’ll be a ‘foreigner’ in this village—as long as he lives. His wife is dead, he has nothing to stay here for. When we approached him for information he jumped at the chance. We’ll pay him enough so that he won’t ever have to work again. He’ll retire to a village close to the one where he was raised. It’s a good deal.”

  Billy was emboldened by the darkness and the presence of the solitary officer. “Still, seems sort of raw for the people he lived with. Selling them out.”

  “No one is being sold out.” The captain was much more

  positive now. “What we are doing for them is for their own good. They may not see it that way now, but it is. It is the long-term results that count.”

  The captain sounded a little peeved. Billy shifted uneasily and did not answer. He should have remembered you don’t talk to officers like they were real people or something.

  “Stand up, here he comes,” Carter said.

  Billy had the feeling that maybe the captain could have outhunted him even in his own stand of woods back in Alabama. He neither saw nor heard a thing. Only when the short, turbaned figure appeared at their sides did he know that the informant had arrived.

  “Tuan?” the man whispered, and Carter spoke to him quietly in his own tongue. It was so much geek talk to Billy: they had had lectures on the language, but he had never bothered to listen. When they stepped out into the flood of moonlight he saw that the man was a typical geek, too. Scrawny and little and old. There was more cloth in the turban than in his loincloth. All of his possessions, the accumulation of a lifetime, were rolled in a straw mat that he carried in one hand. He sounded very frightened.

  “Let’s get back to the truck,” Captain Carter ordered. “He won’t talk here. Too afraid the villagers will find him.”

  He’s got cause to worry, Billy thought, following the disproportionate pair back down the road. The captain was half bent over as he talked to the little man.

  Once the truck had coughed to life and the driver was tooling her back to camp, the informant relaxed. He talked steadily in a high, birdlike voice, and the captain put a sheet of paper on his map case and sketched in the details of the village and the surrounding area. Billy nodded, bored, with his rifle between his legs, looking forward to some chow and hitting the sack. There was an all-night cook in the MP mess who would fry up steak and eggs for you if you were on late duty. The voice twittered on and the map grew.

  “Don’t want to drop government property, do you, Billy?” Carter asked, and Billy realized that he had dozed off and the M16 had fallen from his fingers. But the captain had caught it and held it safe for him. The sharp blue illumination of the mercury vapor lights of the camp poured into the open back of the truck. Billy opened his mouth, but did not know what to say. Then the officer was gone, with the tiny native scrambling after him, and Billy was alone. He jumped down, boots squelching in the mud, and stretched. Even though the captain had saved his neck rather than report him, he still wasn’t sure whether he liked him or not.

  Less than three hours after he had fallen asleep the light came on above him in the tent, and the recorded notes of reveille sawed out of the speaker mounted next to it. Billy blinked at his watch and saw that it was just after two.

  “What the hell is all this about?” someone shouted “Another damn night maneuver?”

  Billy knew, but before he could open his mouth the CO came on the speaker and told them first.

  “We’re going in, men. This is it. The first units jump off in two hours’ time. H Hour will be at first light, at exactly 0515. Your unit commanders will give you complete and detailed instructions before we roll. Full field packs. This is what you have been training for—and this is the moment that you have been waiting for. Don’t get rattled, do your job, and don’t believe all the latrine rumors that you hear. I’m talking particularly to you new men. I know you have been chewed out a lot, and you have been called ‘combat virgins’ and a lot worse. Forget it. You’re a team now—and after tomorrow you won’t even be virgins.”

  The men laughed at that, but not Billy. He recognized the old bushwa when it was being fed to him. At home, at school, it was the same old crap. Do or die for our dear old High. Crap.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” the sergeant shouted, throwing open the flap of the tent. “We don’t have all night and you guys are creeping around like wrinklies in a geriatric sack race. Move it!”

  That was more like it. The sergeant didn’t horse around. With him you knew just where you stood, all the time.

  “Roll the packs tighter, they look like they’re stuffed full of turds.” The sergeant had never really taken the orders on use of purified language to heart.

  It was still hot, dark and hot and muggy, and Billy could feel the sweat already soaking into his clean dungarees. They double-timed to chow, stuffed it down, and double-timed back. Then, packs on backs, they lined up at the QM stores for field issue. A tired and yellowish corporal signed in Billy’s Ml6, checked the serial number, then handed him a Mark-13 and a sack of reloads. The cool metal slipped through Billy’s hands and he almost dropped it.

  “Keep that flitgun out of the mud or you’ll be signing statements of charges for life,” the corporal growled, by reflex, and was already turning to the next man.

  Billy gave him the finger—as soon as his back was turned— and went out into the company street. Under a light he looked at the riot gun, turning it over and over. It was new, right out of the Cosmoline, smooth and shining, with a wide stock, a thick barrel, and a thicker receiver. Heavy, too, eighteen pounds. But he didn’t mind.

  “Fall in, fall in—snap shit!” The sergeant was still in good voice.

  They fell into ranks and waited at ease for a long time. Hurry up and wait, it was always like this, and Billy slipped a piece of gum into his mouth when all the noncoms had their backs turned, then chewed it slowly. His squad was finally called out and dogtrotted off to the copters, where Captain Carter was waiting.

  “Just one thing before we board,” the captain said. “You men here are in the shock squad and you have the dirty work to do. I want you to stay behind me at all times, in loose order, and watch on all sides and still watch me at the same time. We can expect trouble. But no matter what happens, do not and I repeat that—do not act upon your own initiative. Look to me for orders. We want this to be a model operation and we don’t want any losses.”

  He unrolled a big, diagrammatic map, then pointed to the front rank. “You two men, hold this up so the others can see it. Look close now, all of you. This is the target we are going to hit. The village is on the river, with the rice fields between it and the houses. The hovercraft will come in right over the fields, so no one will get out that way. There is a single dirt road in through the jungle, and that will be plugged. There will be squads on every trail out of the place. The villagers can dive into the jungle if they want, but they won’t get far. They’ll have to cut their way through and we can follow them easily and bring them back. There are men assigned to all these duties and they will all be in position at H Hour. Then we hit. We come in low and fast so we can sit down in the center of the houses. Here, in this open spot, before anyone even knows that we are on the way. If we do it right the only resistance will be the dogs and chickens.”

  “Shoot the dogs and eat the chickens,” someone shouted from the back, and everyone laughed. The captain smiled slightly to show that he appreciated the joke, but disapproved of chatter while they were fallen in. He tapped the map.

  “As we touch down the other units will move in. The headman in the village, this is his house here, is an old rogue with military service and a bad temper. Everyone will be too shocked to provide much resistance unless he orders it. I’ll

  take care of him. Now, are there any questions?” He looked around at the silent men. “All right then, let’s load up.”

  The big, double-rotored copters squatted low, their wide doors close to the ground. As soon as the men were aboard, the starters whined and the long blades began to turn slowly. The operation had begun.

  When they rose above the trees they could see the lightening of the eastern horizon. They stayed low, their wheels almost brushing the leaves, like a flock of ungainly birds of prey. It wasn’t a long flight, but the sudden tropical dawn was on them almost before they realized it.

  The ready light flashed on and the captain came down from the cockpit and gave them the thumbs-up signal. They went in.

  It was a hard landing, almost a drop, and the doors banged open as they touched. The shock squad hit the ground and Captain Carter went first.

  The pounded dirt compound was empty. The squad formed on the captain and watched the doorways of the rattan-walled buildings where people were beginning to appear. The surprise had been absolute. There was the grumble of truck engines from the direction of the road and a roar of sound from the river. Billy glanced that way and saw the hovercraft moving over the paddies in a cloud of spray. Then he jumped, raising the riot gun, as a shrill warbling ripped at his ears.

  It was the captain. He had a voice gun with a built-in siren. The sound wailed, shriller and shriller, then died away as he flipped the switch. He raised it and spoke into the microphone, and his voice filled the village.

  Billy couldn’t understand the geek talk, but it sounded impressive. For the first time he realized that the captain was unarmed—and even wore a garrison cap instead of his helmet. That was taking a big chance. Billy raised the flitgun to the ready and glanced around at the people who were slowly emerging from the houses.

  Then the captain pointed toward the road and his echoing voice stopped. All of the watching heads, as though worked by a single string, turned to look where he indicated. A half-track appeared, engine bellowing, trailing a thick column of dust. It braked, sliding to a stop, and a corporal jumped from the back and ran the few paces to the town well. He had a bulky object in his arms, which he dropped into the well—then dived aside.

  With a sharp explosion the well blew up. Dirt flew and mud and water spattered down. The walls collapsed. Where the well had once been there remained only a shallow, smoking pit. The captain’s voice cut through the shocked silence that followed.

  Yet, even as his first amplified words swept the compound, a hoarse shout interrupted them. A gray-haired man had emerged from the headman’s house. He was shouting, pointing at the captain, who waited until the other had finished, then answered back. He was interrupted before he was done. The captain tried to argue, but the headman ran back inside the building.

  He was fast. A moment later he came out with an archaic steel helmet on his head, waving a long-bladed sword over his head. There hadn’t been a helmet made like that in forty years. And a sword. Billy almost laughed out loud until he realized that the headman was playing it for real. He ran at the captain, sword raised, ignoring the captain’s voice completely. It was like watching a play, being in a play, with no one moving and only the captain and the old man playing their roles.

  The headman wasn’t listening. He attacked, screeching, and brought the sword down and around in a wicked, decapitating cut. The captain blocked the blow with the voice gun, which coughed and died. He was still trying to reason with the old man, but his voice sounded smaller and different now—and the headman wasn’t listening.

  Twice he struck, and a third time, and each time the captain backed away a bit and parried with the voice gun, which was rapidly being reduced to battered junk. As the sword came up again, the captain called back over his shoulder.

  “Private Truscoe, take this man out. This has gone far enough.”

  Billy was well trained and knew what to do without even thinking about it. A step forward, the flitgun raised to his shoulder and aimed, the safety off, and when the man’s head filled the sight he squeezed off the shot.

  With a throat-clearing cough the cloud of compressed gas blasted out and struck the headman full in the face.

  “Masks on,” Captain Carter ordered, and once more the movement was automatic.

  Small of the stock in his left hand, right hand free, grasp the handle (gas mask, actuating) under the brim of his helmet, and pull. The transparent plastic reeled down and he hooked it under his chin. All by the numbers.

  But then something went wrong. The Mace-IV that the flitgun expelled was supposed to take anyone out. Down and out. But the headman was not going down. He was retching, his belly working in and out uncontrollably while the vomit ran down his chin and onto his bare chest. He still clutched the long sword and, with his free hand, he threw his helmet to the ground and pried open one streaming eye. He must have made out Billy’s face through his tears, because he turned from the captain and came on, sword raised, staggering.

  Billy brought the flitgun up, but it was in his left hand and he couldn’t fire. He changed the grip, fumbling with it, but the man was still coming on. The sword glistened as the rising sun struck it.

  Billy swung the gun around like a club and caught the headman across the temple with the thick barrel. The headman pitched face forward to the ground and was still.

  Billy pointed the gun down at him and pulled the trigger, again and again, the gas streaming out and covering the sprawled figure …

  Until the captain knocked the gun from his hand and pulled him about, almost throwing him to the ground.

  “Medic!” the captain shouted; then, almost a whisper through his clenched teeth, “You fool, you fool.”

  Billy just stood, dazed, trying to understand what had happened, as the ambulance pulled up. There were injections, cream on the man’s face, oxygen from a tank; then he was loaded onto a stretcher and the doctor came over.

  “It’s touch and go, Captain. Possible skull fracture, and he breathed in a lot of your junk. How did it happen?”

  “It will be in my report,” Captain Carter answered in a toneless voice.

  The doctor started to speak, thought better of it, and turned and climbed into the ambulance. It pulled away, dodging around the big trucks that were coming into the village. The people were out of the houses now, huddled in knots, talking under their breaths. There would be no more resistance.

  Billy was aware that the captain was looking at him, looking as if he wanted to kill. The gas mask was suddenly hot on Billy’s face and he pulled it free.

  “It wasn’t my fault, sir,” Billy explained. “He just came at me.”

  “He came at me too. I didn’t fracture his skull. It was your fault.”

  “No, it’s not. Not when some old geek swings a rusty damn pig-sticker at me.”

  “He is not a geek, Private, but a citizen of this country and a man of stature in this village. He was defending his home and was within his rights.”

  Billy was angry now. He knew it was all up with him and the Corps and his plans, and he didn’t give a damn. He turned to the officer, fists clenched.

  “He’s a crummy geek from Geeksville, and if he got rights what are we doing here, just tell me that?”

  The captain was coldly quiet now. “We were invited here by

  the country’s president and the Parliament, you know that as well as I do.” His voice was drowned out as a truck passed close by and the exhaust blatted out at them. It stopped and men jumped down and began to unload lengths of plastic piping. Billy looked the captain square in the eye and told him off, what he had always wanted to say.