The Complete Hammer's Slammers, Vol. 1

Below Lamartiere, most of the residents were trudging toward the orchard. Parties of the healthiest refugees were loading two-man cradles with blocks crumbled from the cliff face. Ordinary wheelbarrows would be useless on this terrain of sand and irregular stone. Human beings were more adaptable than even the simplest of machines.

Rasile was on the winch, somewhat to Lamartiere's surprise, but Marie sat nearby. She was embellishing a piece of canvas with a Maltese cross in needlepoint, holding the frame against her thighs with her left wrist and using her good right hand to direct the needle. The pattern of tight, small stitches was flawless so far as Lamartiere could tell.

"Will you lower Mr. Rasile to the ground?" Marie said to Lamartiere. "Or are you still—"

"I'm healthy enough," Lamartiere said. "Tired, is all."

And so frustrated that he felt like kicking a hole in the battlements, but neither fact would prevent him from turning a crank.

Children played within the courtyard, their voices shrilly cheerful. Lamartiere saw a pair of them momentarily, chasing one another among the rows of pole beans. The shrine wasn't really the Garden of Eden; but it was closer to that, and to Paradise, than most of the refugees could have hoped to find.

"I'm not going down," Rasile said. "I have permission from Father Blenis to read my scriptures here today."

He reached into the knapsack at his feet and brought out a fabric-bound volume. It was probably the Revelations of Moses, though Lamartiere couldn't see the title. Despite the book in his hand, Rasile looked even more like a pimp—or a rat—than usual.

"What?" Marie said, both angry and amazed.

"I have permission!" Rasile said. "I'm not shirking. It's hard work to bring people up in the basket!"

"I wouldn't know that?" said the woman. "Father Blenis's so gentle he'd give you permission to carry off all the communion dishes, but we're not all of us such innocent saints here, Rasile!"

Lamartiere turned his head away as he would have done if he'd stumbled into someone else's family quarrel. Only then did he see the six-wheeled truck driving up from the south. It had an open cab and cargo of some sort in the bed under a reflective tarp, but there were no signs of weapons. The driver was alone.

"What's that?" Lamartiere said sharply. Marie and Rasile instantly stopped bickering to stare over the battlements. Fear made the woman look drawn and a decade older than she'd been a moment before; Rasile's expression was harder to judge, but fear was a large part of it also.

"It's just the provisions truck," Marie said. She sighed in relief. "It's a day early, but it seems . . ."

The driver parked near the wall and pulled the tarp back to uncover his cargo. He was carrying several hundred-kilo burlap grain sacks and a number of less-definable bags and boxes. It all looked perfectly innocent.

The residents who were still close to the shrine gathered around the truck. Others, including a pair of black-robed Brothers, were on their way back from the orchard.

Lamartiere noticed with approval that Dr. Clargue had closed the tank's hatches and was even aiming his tribarrel at the truck. Some of the shrine's residents sprawled away in panic when the weapon moved, but the driver didn't seem to care. If the fellow made this trip across the Boukasset regularly, he must be used to having guns pointed at him.

Rasile said, "Ah!" with a shudder. He'd dropped the book in his haste, but he'd grabbed the knapsack itself and was holding it in front of him. It was a sturdy piece of equipment and apparently quite new.

"I was hoping to wash up before we go," Lamartiere said quietly to the woman. "We'll be leaving soon. And I'd like to thank Father Blenis for his hospitality."

"He's usually in the chapel till midday," Marie said with a nod. "I'll get you some breakfast. You can draw the water yourself now, can't you?"

"Yes, I—" Lamartiere said.

Hoodoo's siren began to wind. Lamartiere looked down. The tank's turret gimbaled southward, pointing the guns at the line of vehicles racing toward the shrine.

Maury was returning.

"Let me down!" Lamartiere said. He stepped toward the basket, wondering if he could reach the tank before the armed band arrived.

Rasile backed away, fumbling inside his knapsack. His right hand came out holding a bell-mouthed mob gun. The weapon fired sheaves of aerofoils that spread enough to hit everyone in a normal-sized room with a single shot. As close as Lamartiere was to the muzzle, the charge would cut him in half.

"Don't either of you try to move!" Rasile screamed.