Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [216]
Jackie waited for that to sink in.
"Army? Aw, shit," Alim Nassor said.
"Funny thing about them mothers," Jackie said. "They got Army uniforms and little mean-looking rifles, but they don't act Army. And there's others in civvies."
Alim frowned. Jackie went on: "They got more than the rifles, Alim. They got machine guns, and things like stovepipes—"
"Bazookas," Alim said.
"Yeah. And a thing about as big as a cannon except two men carry it. They can blow a house apart with those things, I think. I saw 'em on TV once. And I think they're headin' north."
Alim digested that. It meant this group had to have come from the east, since they'd never seen them before. They certainly hadn't come from the west, out of the lake that covered the San Joaquin.
"Maybe we better follow them," Swan said. He'd been listening. "They sound like tough mothers."
"And everything's picked clean before we get to it," Alim said. He didn't want to say much. He didn't know what to do; it would be better to hear what the others thought before he said anything at all. "I best go up there and have a look."
He left Swan in charge, with instructions on where to run if the Army outfit moved toward them, and let Jackie lead him up the hill. Shit, he thought he'd had troubles before! Just what he always wanted, to go up against Army guns with a dozen Saturday-night specials and some shotguns. "Now we know," he said. Jackie looked at him. "Why everybody been hidin'," Alim said.
No food anywhere. Two days ago they'd taken a raft out to a half-sunken supermarket, and it was already looted. All they could find was weird stuff like canned salmon and anchovies, and not much of that. That Army outfit must have picked it clean.
It was getting lighter when he reached the top of the hill. Jackie motioned and Alim went to his belly and crawled forward through the bushes until he found Gay. Alim's fur coat was covered with mud from crawling, but those Army guys had to have binoculars too, and they had to be keeping watch or they wouldn't have lived this long.
The stranger camp was more than a mile away, right down by the shore. There were foxholes and low fortifications around it. Organized. It looked organized. And there were a lot of people, and they sat around fires they didn't bother to hide, and they had food. Alim counted seven women.
"The women do most of the work," Gay said. "Them and the rabbit stud in the blue suit. And a lot of them are white, but I counted ten blood, and one's the sergeant."
"The sergeant." Alim digested this, too. "And they do what he tells 'em?"
"They jump when he waves his arms," Gay said.
"Officers?"
"None I saw. I think the sergeant's in charge."
"They done it. Alim, they made it," Jackie said. "Shit. They really did."
Alim didn't say anything. Jackie would explain. After a moment he did. "What we were talking about last night," Jackie said. His voice was full of excitement. "Not black power, just power. And there's a lot of 'em, Alim."
"Not all that many."
"Maybe they want recruits," Jackie said.
"You crazy?" Gay snorted. "Join the fuckin' Army?"
"Shut up." Alim continued to study the camp through the binoculars. There was orderly activity down there. Garbage carried outside the camp and dumped into holes. Sentries and outposts. Tubs of water over the fire, and everybody washed out their mess kits in hot water. That camp was run like an army, but there was something wrong. It wasn't all the same, something just wasn't the way it ought to be.
"Alim, they got what we want," Jackie said. "Power. Enough guns to do whatever they want. We could join up with them, we could hold anyplace we wanted. Shit, we could do better. That many people, we could take over this whole goddam valley, shit, keep growing, keep recruitin', we could own the whole fucking state."
"You been sniffing?" Gay asked.
"Shut up," Alim said