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  Besma's face was a study in pure hatred. She waited, that bitch, until I loved you like a sister to use you to get to me. And now what can I do? Have father sell you somewhere else? I couldn't bear it and you couldn't bear being where you would end up. And so now I am a slave, because I cannot bear for you to be hurt. Because of that . . . that . . . that . . . stinking-vile-foul-slimy-filthy woman owns me.

  Her face softened, looking down at the sleeping doll-like figure on her bed. Besma bent and kissed the slave girl's cheek. But if I must be owned, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that the price is fair.

  Orderly Room, Co-B, 2nd Battalion, 19th Infantry, Camp Stotsenberg, Philippine Islands, 30 May, 2107

  "There's a price for everything in life, Lieutenant Hamilton, and the price is always fair when it isn't exorbitant."

  Thus spoke "that asshole, Captain Thompson." Hamilton hadn't the first clue what the captain was talking about. The Old Man had ordered him to his office without explanation. "Sit," he'd said, once Hamilton had reported. "We need to have a chat."

  Having said that, though, Thompson just stared at Hamilton, studying him, with his left eyebrow lifted and head cocked to the right. The captain's studying made the lieutenant distinctly uncomfortable and did so very quickly. He had a scary look about him anyway and the extended silence only made it worse.

  After several long minutes, and having made his lieutenant nervous enough to climb walls, Thompson spoke again. His voice was something between conversational and prosecutorial as he said, "There are no secrets in an infantry company. Have you ever asked yourself, Lieutenant, what the effect on your troops will be if you ever have to order them into a bad situation to save Hodge's ass? If you weren't fucking her, it would be no problem. But since you are fucking her, that will be the reason they think you're risking their lives, to save your little honey-buns. The same holds true for her."

  "Sir, I—"

  "Shut up."

  "Yes, sir."

  "In a country," Thompson continued, "where many civil rights once thought normal and above infringement have slipped away, you are in the least privileged class of all, Lieutenant Hamilton. You're an infantry officer. You have no rights. You have no personal interests that cannot be classified as trivial. You exist for the sole purpose of supporting the interests of the Empire through violence. Anything you do that undermines your ability to support the Empire through violence is ethically and morally wrong. Do you understand me?"

  "Sir, I have the right to have sex with anyone I want not in my chain of command," Hamilton objected.

  Thompson, for once, smiled. "Lieutenant, wherever did you hear that?"

  "The bastard said he'd transfer me to 3rd of the 19th in Second Brigade, John. I don't want to give up my platoon. I don't want to be in a different unit from you."

  Hodge lay naked with her head on Hamilton's chest and one arm draped over his torso. His chest was wet with the tears she'd shed when she'd told him they had to revert to just being friends.

  "He was pretty specific, too, John, the foul-mouthed, tactless son of a bitch. 'No fucking, no sucking, no kissing, no cuddling, no anything, Lieutenant Hodge, that so much as suggests he is anything to you but a brother officer.' I had to give my word or he'd have shipped me out—well, one of us out, anyway—without even the chance to say goodbye. I was lucky I was able to talk him into turning a blind eye for one last night."

  Hamilton nodded. "Hard-assed bastard isn't he?" Sighing, he continued, "Well . . . if he had shipped one of us out, we'd never have seen each other at all, not with the way they're going to rotate us and Second Brigade in and out of the field in sequence. At least this way we can be close, if not as close as we'd like. I'd never get a moment's sleep if I had to worry about you all the time without being able to watch out for you."

  "Why, John, I'd almost think you cared."

  "Silly bitch. I love you. Didn't you know?"

  In answer, she gasped, hugged him tightly, and threw one leg over both of his. She then began moving downwards along his chest. While she still could, she whispered, just loudly enough for him to hear, "I love you, too, you bastard. I have since we were plebs."

  * * *

  Jungle insects swarmed, buzzing in ears and feasting on the exposed faces of three very uncomfortable lieutenants.

  "Moose cock," Captain Thompson said, to his three line platoon leaders. "You all suck moose cock. Where the fuck did you people learn that drills were a substitute for brains?"

  The line lieutenants stood at attention, suit helmets off and held under their left arms. The weapons platoon leader and the exec were both old Thompson hands, first lieutenants. Thus they hadn't fucked up; they weren't at attention; and they both wore amused smirks at the other lieutenants' discomfiture. Miles' smile, in particular, shone against his black skin.

  "Hodge, what the fuck did you think you were doing leading my boys and girls into a goddamned minefield? Didn't anyone ever tell you mines are deadly to us?"

  The captain's evil eyes swiveled to Hamilton. "Dipshit," he sneered, "when the terrain doesn't suit bounding overwatch then don't do bounding overwatch. I don't give a flying fuck what the book says; you're paid to use your mind. Use it."

  At third platoon leader Thompson didn't swear, nor even sneer. Instead he said, "Even very large directional mines can be fired from quite close to the troop line provided you sandbag behind them. Failure to so use them is an indicator of cowardice. That is something beyond my power to fix. You're relieved. Get out of my sight and send your platoon sergeant up. Then turn in your suit to the company armorer and report to battalion headquarters. Maybe Woody can find a use for you that fits your lack of talent."

  "Where did he ever learn to be such a bastard?" Hodge asked, over a cold meal from a pouch. She, all fastidious, was trying very hard to eat the meal without at the same time eating the bugs that swarmed it.

  Both Miles and the XO, Fitzgerald, laughed. Miles added, "A bastard? You think so? You ain't seen nothin' yet."

  "Look, Laurie," Fitzgerald added. "He's got another three weeks to prep us for combat. It wouldn't be so bad if we'd kept our old platoons, Miles with First and me in Third, with the adjutant leading Second. But the personnel shuffle before we deployed wrecked all that. In point of fact the Army might need you someday, but the company doesn't. It would do as well or better with the platoon sergeants running the show and no lieutenants rather than still wet-behind-the-ears ones.

  But Thompson's stuck with you and making the best of it in the time he has."

  "Is that why he dumped Ken Parker?" Hamilton asked. "Is he going to try to get rid of Laurie and me, too?"

  "No," Miles said. "Or at least I don't think so. Parker was incompetent, an embarrassment to me as an American, and a worse one because we're both black. If the CO had wanted to get rid of you, he would have, but Parker had to go."

  "But he's just so mean about it," Hodge said.

  Fitzgerald shrugged. "The man's short on tact, I'll grant you. Hell, the last battalion commander was actually afraid of him, he's such a tactless bastard. But he's long on tactics and that matters more."

  "Pretty good loggie, too," Miles added.

  Al Harv Kaserne, Province of Affrankon, 8 Jumahdi II, 1531 AH (31 May, 2107)

  Hans was heartily sick of the religious instruction. Sure, they provided some snacks to supplement the otherwise bland diet. Sure, the bearded imam—a Sunni—in charge was an interesting, at least an enthusiastic, speaker and teacher. Sure, and best of all, no one was torturing his body to prepare it for future use as a janissary.

  None of that made up for the consistent, and concerted attacks on Hans' most cherished beliefs, learned from earliest age at his mother's knee, and in school.

  "To say that man is born into a state of original sin," said the imam scornfully, "means that the very handiwork of Allah Himself must be flawed. Yet this cannot be; Allah is perfect, in all he does. We do not worship mere power, boys, but perfection. Indeed, every chi
ld born is born into a state without sin, a state of purity."

  Hans was pretty certain, based on his dealings with other children, that they were no such thing.

  "Thus, there cannot have been a need for Jesus, Peace be upon Him, who was a prophet and no son of Allah except in the sense that all of mankind are His sons and daughters . . . there was no need for him to die on the cross to redeem that which Allah had—in His infinite mercy—already long since forgiven. This is perhaps the greatest of lies the Nazrani tell."

  It was tempting to think and yet . . .

  If Christ suffered and died for our sins, it is greater proof of His love for us than if he merely forgave us those sins.

  "Now there are some who think," the imam—no slouch as either a theologian or a teacher of young boys—continued, "that this alleged crucifixion of Christ is greater proof of Allah's love for man. Nothing could be further from the truth; for Allah's forgiveness alone is perfect and sufficient. The alleged crucifixion is superfluous."

  The imam must have noticed Hans' facial expression.

  "Yes, young eagle," he said, with a warm and friendly smile, "I can read your thoughts." The imam laughed. "No, I can't. But I've seen young reverted boys like you balk at that statement so many times I've come to expect it, and to note the signs of it. You have a question; I can see."

  Hans bowed his head respectfully. "Yes, sir. How do we know Allah did not have a son, as the Nazrani teach? He can, after all, do whatever he wishes."

  "Ah, but why would He want to?" the imam answered. "We have sons to carry on after us, because we all must grow old and die. But Allah is eternal and unchanging. He needs no son and His having one would be, again, superfluous. Worse, it is a form of polytheism, no different, in principle, from the beliefs of the old pagans. Even the accursed Jews never fell into this trap, though they fell into or created many others."

  "But Jesus, in both texts, performed miracles," Hans objected.

  The imam nodded, his face serious. "In both texts, indeed. Note, though, that even the Nazrani texts tend to agree that Jesus made few or no miracles on his own word, but always invoked the name of Allah. A son, one who was begotten by a father and thus like unto the father, would have needed no help."

  Hans nodded, not as if he agreed but as if he had no counter- argument. The imam saw this.

  "I know it is hard to give up the beliefs in which you were raised," he said, still smiling. The smile, if anything, grew self-deprecating. "Instant miracles are Allah's purview, not mine. There is time for you to come to the truth, boy. And the longer and harder the road, the more forcefully will you hold on to the truth once you reach it."

  Interlude

  Kitzingen, Federal Republic of Germany,

  16 January, 2004

  Gabrielle shook all the way home from the mosque. She'd torn her burka off and thrown it in the gutter scant steps after passing the mosque door. "They hate us that much? I can't believe it," she said, over and over.

  "Believe it, Gabi," Mahmoud said. "They despise everything about you . . . and about me, since I love you."

  She missed that admission. Hands waving widely, she said, "But surely those . . . those . . . lunatics are a tiny minority. Mahmoud, I know Muslim people who are nothing like that."

  "You think you know them," he corrected. "But you do not know that you know them. We have no problem lying to or hiding our beliefs from the 'infidels' when necessary . . . or just useful."

  Gabi shook her head. "But most of our Moslems come from Turkey, which is secular. A lot of them, too, come from the Balkans which didn't take religion seriously anyway."

  "And why do you suppose they left, then, some of them? Maybe because secularism and indifference to religion were not very comfortable to them, hmmm?"

  "But we're even more secular than Turkey and more indifferent than Bosnians."

  "That's true," he admitted, slowly shaking his head in quasi- agreement. "For now, it's true. Yet the Turkish army stands as a bulwark against mixing church and state, if only to preserve its own power. Does your army? As for the Bosnians . . . well, being Moslem there was a decidedly dangerous thing. Little wonder some of them left. And then, too, several thousand Germans convert to Islam annually."

  Gabrielle stopped walking and turned to face him. "You keep speaking as if religion mattered. I don't understand that. It doesn't matter to you."

  "Just because I'm not devout doesn't mean I'm an atheist, Gabi." He held his hands up defensively. "Yes, yes, I know you claim to be— something I hope to talk you out of, someday, by the way. Yet I've seen you clasp your hands sometimes in what looks to the casual outside observer to be much like prayer. You say things like, 'God help us,' and 'God damn them'—usually with regards to the Americans, of course."

  "Childhood conditioning with no faith behind it," she insisted.

  "Of course," Mahmoud said dryly.

  Ignoring the sarcasm, Gabi turned and began walking again, quietly at first. When she resumed speaking, she said, "It's all because we treat them as second class people here. No wonder they hate us when they see the fat and idle rich drive by in their Benzes. No wonder they hate us when we relegate them to jobs we think are beneath us. They have a right to hate us when we deprive them of the vote, even though they pay taxes, and refuse to let them become full citizens."

  "Well," Mahmoud said, in a deliberately neutral voice, "you've changed the law to do that."

  "Yes," she hissed, "but with such unfair restrictions that only a few can qualify. What? Fifty-six thousand Turks allowed to join our blessed Reich last year? Fewer, so they say, this year. Out of almost three million?"

  "Ah, so you would prefer to be more like the Americans," he chided.

  She started to answer and then stopped, mouth half open. When she did speak it was only to say, "Fuck you, Mahmoud."

  At that he nodded vigorously. "Excellent idea. Your apartment or mine? And while we're on the subject, why are we still paying for two apartments?"

  It was only at that point that she realized what he had said earlier: "since I love you."

  Chapter Five

  I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now!

  —Mark Twain, Incident in the Philippines

  Mindanao, Philippine Islands, 29 June, 2107

  The mosque burned with a greasy, sooty smoke. No wonder in that; there were bodies still inside. Around the mosque, likewise burned houses, stores, government buildings. From many of those, too, the smoke carried the savor of long pig.

  Hamilton watched Captain Thompson with interest. The captain himself watched several attached Filipino Military Police sweeping the clothing of the prisoners with chemical-sensitive wands. Those who failed the test were pushed off by Suited Heavy Infantry troopers to where others like them were engaged in digging a great ditch with hands and hand tools. Thompson raised a hand as the troopers began herding off a group of children, aged perhaps eight through eleven.

  "Put them with the other group, the monks' group," the captain ordered, causing Hamilton to breathe a sigh of relief.

  "But, Captain—" one of the MPs began to protest, a protest cut short by a snarl and a flash of eye.

  "They are just children, not responsible for being used as they were. Put them in the other group."

  "I don't see the frigging point," one of the MPs muttered under his breath. "What will the kids do with their parents dead? Besides, nits make lice."

  Hodge escorted a film group from IDI, the Imperial Department of Information, as they recorded scenes of the village. The group was arranging corpses. Rather, Hodge's platoon did the arranging, under IDI direction.

  IDI had, of course, closely monitored the approach to and fighting for the place, all recorded by satellite and lower-flying recon drones. They had some pretty good shots, she knew, of the few casualties taken in the assault: one man's suit utterly destroyed by a large, command-detonated mine, two more killed by shaped-charge grenades carried on rockets, one man whose suit was
disabled and whom the Moros had de-suited and then hacked to bits. There had also been several each killed and wounded by large caliber rifle fire.

  Where the heavy caliber rifles had come from was a matter of some conjecture. The likeliest possibility, likely enough to call it a "probability," was that they had been smuggled across the sea by sympathizers in Moslem Malaysia and Indonesia. Already, airships were being loaded with massive quantities of aerial ordnance to level the coastal Malaysian and Indonesian cities from which the rifles had probably come. At other fields, fighter escorts and electronic warfare planes were likewise being readied to support and protect the airships. For that matter, given their size and carrying capacity, the airships packed an impressive defensive suite of their own, to include four fighters each.

  In a way, it was a waste. The ruins of the cities of the Caliphate of Islam, Triumphant, produced no technology able to stand up to the Empire's aerial juggernaut. What little they had was purchased, at ruinous expense, from the Chinese of the Celestial Kingdom of the Han.

  And if the Malaysians and Indonesians hadn't shipped the arms? Well, so what? It wasn't as if the Malaysians and Indonesians weren't numbered among the enemy, after all.

  Imperial casualties the locals would never be permitted to see, lest it give them hope, in the case of the Moros, or doubt in the case of the Christian Filipinos. Instead, they would see the results of the assault on the Moros themselves, a one-sided slaughter.

  Folks back home, on the other hand, would see the full story. It would just be highly edited to show the iniquity of the enemy; that, and the dire punishment meted out to him. IDI had had decades to perfect the art of the propaganda film, the masterful skill of the consummate liar. Michael Moore (despite his having been hanged in 2020) and Leni Riefenstahl were the unofficial heroes of the department.