When the Devil Dances

“You’re right. I don’t want to be a fucking fireman. I don’t want to pull hoses and run up and down stairs all day. I want to kill fucking Posleen. I hate them. I hate them passionately. You think you hate fire, but you love it at the same time; most firemen do. Well, I don’t love Posleen at all. I take it back, I don’t even hate Posleen. I despise them. I don’t respect them, I don’t think they are fascinating, I just want them to cease to exist.”

She’d stripped out of the bunker gear by then and she stood in the coverall tall and stone faced. “You’re right, I’m playing at firefighting. Because compared to killing Posleen, firefighting ain’t shit. So. Fuck you. Fuck your tests. And fuck this department. I’m done.”

“You’re right,” said Connolly. “You are. I’ll keep you on the reserve rolls, but don’t bother turning up for drills. Not until you can keep it together.”

“Oh, I’ve got it together,” Wendy said, turning away. “Never better.”

“Cummings,” the chief called.

“What?” Wendy asked, pausing, but not bothering to turn around.

“Don’t do anything… stupid. I don’t want to be cleaning you up from someplace.”

“Oh, you won’t be cleaning me up,” Wendy said, walking away. “But if anybody gives me any shit, you might as well bring the toe-tags.”

CHAPTER 15 Franklin Sub-Urb, Franklin, NC, United States, Sol III 1048 EDT Thursday September 24, 2009 ad

They do not preach that their God will rouse them
a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them
to drop their job when they dam’-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways,
so in the dark and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s day
may be long in the land.

— Rudyard Kipling

“The Sons of Martha” (1907)

“Look, buddy, do you have a problem with the concept of ‘written orders’?” Mosovich asked.

The security guard behind the armored glass looked at the piece of paper again, then gestured for them to wait. “Let me call somebody. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with this.”

“I hate these fucking holes,” Mueller grumped. And Mosovich had to agree. Mansfield was going to owe him. Big time.

The “request” to go check out this crazy bitch came at a good time, anyway. After the last reconnaissance debacle, the corps commander had ordered a halt to long-range patrols for the time being. The gap was being taken up by increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles and scout crawlers. The former were small aircraft, most of them not much larger than a red-tailed hawk, that hovered along in the trees, probing forward against the Posleen lines. The problem with them was that the Posleen automated systems identified and destroyed them with remarkable ease. So they would only get a brief view of any Posleen activity. Crawlers — which looked like foot-long mechanical ants — did a little bit better. But even they had not been able to penetrate very far; whoever was commanding the Posleen had the main encampment screened tighter than a tick.

Mosovich had heard rumor that Bernard had requested permission to nuke the encampment with SheVa antimatter rounds. It had been denied of course — the President was death on nuclear weapons — but the fact that the question might have been asked was comforting. It meant that somebody was taking the landing seriously.

However, until they figured out a way to probe the Posleen, Mosovich, Mueller and Sister Mary didn’t have a job. Since sooner or later somebody was going to notice and figure out something stupid for them to do, Mosovich was just as glad to have this “request” forwarded through corps. It had ensured a written pass from headquarters, without which getting in would have been nearly impossible. And it got them away from corps and the various idiotic projects that the staff would be coming up with.

The flip side to it was that they had to go into the Sub-Urb. He’d been in a couple in the last five years and they were depressing as hell. The sight of all those people shoved underground was somehow obscene. Especially since ten years before, ninety percent of them had been living in comfortable neighborhoods. On the lines there were times when you could almost imagine that, yeah, there was a really big war. But, fundamentally the United States was still there, still functioning. And once the off-planet forces returned, everything could go back to being more or less normal.

Then you went to a Sub-Urb and realized that you were kidding yourself.