Pournelle, Jerry - 01 - Janissaries

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JANISSARIES

Text copyright c 1979 by Jerry Pournelle

Illustrations copyright C 1979 by Bermejo

means, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without

permission in writing from the publisher.

All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons,

living or dead, is purely coincidental.

An ACE Book

Cover art by Enrich

First Ace printing: June 1979

Printed in U.S.A.

CONTENTS

Part One: The Mercenaries 6

Part Two: The Ship 66

Part Three: Tylara 109

Part Four: The Crossroads 153

Part Five: Tamaerthon 181

Part Six: War Leader 206

Part Seven: Scholars 254

Part Eight: Janissaries 290

Epilogue 333

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JANISSARIES

PART ONE:

THE

MERCENARIES

The mortar fire was nearer.

Rick Galloway heard the sharp crump! of at least five mortars. Then there was

silence for a moment. It was just twilight, and twilight does not last in the tropics.

Night came fast, and with it the sound of the African tropic highlands: birds,

crickets, unidenti-fiable creatures calling each other in the sudden dark. A warm

breeze rustled the dry grass on the hilltop.

There was a rattle of distant machine-gun fire. It sounded much too close.

“I think the roadblock has gone,” Lieutenant Parsons said. His voice was

surprisingly calm. “They will be here within the hour.”

“Yeah.” Captain Galloway swept his night glasses along the southern slope of the

hill, down toward the crossroad where he had left Major Hendrix with the

wounded. There was nothing to see. He turned carefully, letting the glasses sweep

the perimeter of the hill that for the moment was his entire world. He saw nothing

at all except the tiny remnant of his command. The men were digging in and had

done a good job with the little they had.

“Where the hell are those choppers?” Galloway demanded. He felt sweat drip

from his forehead despite the cooling breeze that sprang up after sun-down.

“Elliot.”

“Sir.” Sergeant Elliot was at the other end of the trench where Galloway stood.

The trench had not been bunkered, but there was no time to construct better

defenses for the command post.

“Can’t you raise headquarters?” Galloway de-manded.

“No, sir. Warner’s trying.” The big sergeant turned back to the radio.

“Perhaps we should let the men run for it,” Par-sons suggested. “Some may

escape.”

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JANISSARIES

Rick shook his head. “What’s to run to?” he asked. Parsons shrugged. “We sell

our lives to no purpose—”

“We’re giving our employers another hour,” Gal-loway said. His voice was as

bitter as he felt, al-though he had tried to hide his feelings. “There’s no point,

André,” Galloway said. “We don’t speak the language, we’re the wrong color,

and we’re sur-rounded. I expect half the troops have run anyway. They know the

score. Elliot!”

“Sir.”

“How many effectives do we have?”

“Maybe fifty, Captain.”

“So there you are,” Rick said. “About half the number we brought up this silly

hill. The rest have run.” He knew he was talking too much, saying too many

words; but he was young and inexperienced and afraid.

Parsons nodded in the darkness. He took a plastic bottle from his belt. “Wine?”

“Sure.” Rick took the liter bottle and drank a couple of swallows of the cheap

local wine. Parsons always carried a bottle. Rick was certain that “Par-sons”

wasn’t the lieutenant’s real name. Parsons spoke French and German and

sometimes let slip a few words about Legion experience.

It hardly mattered. Rick wasn’t a real captain, either. The operation was CIA, and

the Agency had borrowed men from anywhere they could get them.

Galloway handed the bottle back to Parsons, who raised it in a mock toast.

“Here’s to us. There are damned few left.”

“They’re taking their own sweet time about com-ing,” Rick said.

“Afraid of us.” Parson’s voice was a mocking lilt in the dark.

“Sure,” Galloway said. But they well might be, he thought. We’ve broken more

than one Cuban mercenary outfit. With any help at all from the politicians who

put us out here in Sainte Marie, we’d have won. At that it was a near thing. What

was it Wellington said about Waterloo? A near-run thing—as near a thing as

you’d ever hope to see. Well so was this, but the difference is it’s us who lost it.

Officially they were volunteers, and received no direct support from the United

States at all; but most of the men were veterans of the US Army, and the CIA had

brought them in. The Cubans and Rus-sians had made no secret at all of their aid

to the other side.

“I got headquarters,” Sergeant Elliot announced.

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JANISSARIES

“Mirabile dictu” Parsons muttered.

Rick crawled over to the radio. Perhaps prayers are answered after all, he thought.

There was more automatic weapon fire from the south, and a mortar bomb

dropped in fifty yards downhill. Rick estimated the enemy at less than a mile. It

wouldn’t be long now.

“Galloway here,” he told the microphone. “Can you get us the hell out of here?”

“Negative.”

The single word was a death sentence. Rick started to say that, then thought better

of it. They knew. “Why not?”

“I’m sorry, Rick.” Galloway recognized Colonel Blumfeld’s voice. Blumfeld was

one of the men who’d talked him into volunteering for this mission. “Washington

has canceled all support. Highest level. I’d send the choppers anyway and to hell

with my career, but I don’t have any to send. They came and took them away.”

“They?”

“Higher command.” Blumfeld sounded unhappy. Rick thought he damned well

ought to be unhappy. “Your orders are to surrender,” Blumfeld said.

“Bat puckey. The Cubans will have us in a show trial as mercenaries,” Rick said.

“Then they’ll shoot us.”

“They say they won’t.”

“Sure. Colonel, are you sending me any support? Anything at all?”

“No.”

“Then go to hell.” Galloway handed the mike to Sergeant Elliot, then went back

to where Parsons stood.

Parsons listened with a half-smile that barely showed in starlight. Then he took

out his wine bot-tle. “We had a good run,” he said.

Rick reached for the bottle. “I’ll drink to that.”

“And now what?”

Rick shrugged. There were few choices. They were white men in a black country.

Rick had always been quick to learn languages, but even he hadn’t enough of the

local patois to do more than buy groceries. They would be spotted easily

wherever they went.

Major Jefferson had taken all the black troops on an infiltration raid. Rick hoped

they’d escape, but without the black troops, there wasn’t even the pre-tense of an

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JANISSARIES

integrated army. No blacks to speak and front for them. Rick wondered if that

would matter. It might, depending on who captured them.

It was his first command, and very likely the only one he’d ever have. He wasn’t

experienced. He’d begun as a junior lieutenant, just out of ROTC from the state

university, and his promotion to brevet captain was due to being in the right place

and time; he knew better than to think it meant more.

Rick thought it didn’t mean very much at all. Par-sons was a career man, but the

military wasn’t Gal-loway’s career. ROTC had been an easy way to pay for the

college education he couldn’t afford.

The other alternative was football. Rick was quick and wiry. Had he gone out for

football, he could have got a scholarship, with all the other perquisites of a star.

But he didn’t like the game. It required too much commitment.

Instead, he had joined the track team and won his letter. Track didn’t have the

glamour of football; the football jocks got first choice of the girls. On the other

hand, they often couldn’t enjoy their oppor-tunities because of injuries or training

rules. Being a runner was definitely superior in Rick Galloway’s view. He told

himself that quite often. But track hadn’t been important enough to the alumni;

there weren’t all those easy jobs available. ROTC had pro-vided Rick’s spending

money.

When he graduated, Rick realized that he’d never committed himself to anything.

He had neither joined a fraternity nor opposed them. He had few political

opinions. He was a professional neutral, and he wasn’t sure he liked the image.

A classmate, John Henry Carter, had been a career military man and had

volunteered for the CIA oper-ation in Africa. He had talked Rick into coming

along; an adventure, something to do while he was young before he settled into a

dull job and duller life. He’d known there was a possibility of being killed, but

he’d never been seriously threatened in his life. He could outrun any danger.

Carter was the only black man Rick had ever known well, and the only friend

he’d had in the outfit. Now Carter was off with Major Jefferson. Major Hendrix

was missing a leg and had stayed behind to hold the roadblock south of them.

Parsons and Galloway were the only officers left.

The plan had been for Galloway to take the hilltop and hold it until the helicopters

came; then they could go back for the wounded. Rick hadn’t like the idea, but

Hendrix made it an order. Someone had to hold the roadblock and someone else

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摘要：

JANISSARIESJANISSARIESTextcopyrightc1979byJerryPournelleIllustrationscopyrightC1979byBermejoAllrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyanymeans,exceptfortheinclusionofbriefquotationsinareview,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.Allcharactersinthisbookarefictitious.Anyrese...

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