Triumph of the Darksword - Margaret Weis [77]
His hands clenched on the desk top. He looked around it carefully, taking in everything from a green teapot with a bright orange lid that he couldn’t recall having ordered—tea was the last thing James Boris wanted to drink right now—to the papers stacked neatly in a pile next to his standard-issue field computer. Nervously, unaware of what he was doing, the Major began to drum his knuckles softly on the metal, his gaze switching to a small transparent plastic window set into the side of the plastic dome.
It was night, dark as hyperspace, with no moon or stars visible. James Boris wondered, his gloom deepening, if this was real night or one of those terrifying, magic nights that had been dropped over him and his men like some huge, smothering blanket. A quick glance at his watch reassured him of the time, however: 2400. They’d been here only forty-eight hours.
Forty-eight hours. That was the length of time the brass had figured it would take to intimidate the population of this world. A populace that, according to reports, was living somewhere just south of the Middle Ages. Forty-eight hours and Major Boris was to have sent back word that the situation was well under control, his forces were occupying the major capitals, negotiations for peaceful coexistence could begin.
Forty-eight hours. Half his men dead, over half his tanks destroyed or out of commission. Of those men surviving, probably a third were in little better shape than the shivering captain. Major Boris made a weary, mental note to turn the man over to the medics and declare him unfit for command.
Forty-eight hours. They were safe enough here, he supposed, hidden in the mountains, but he kept having the eerie feeling he was being watched, unseen eyes observing him.
Staring out the window, Major Boris heard his captains talking. They were going over the incidents of the last forty-eight hours, describing them for the hundredth time in tight, tense voices, as though daring anyone to dispute what they had seen. James Boris floated on top of their sea of words, seeing occasionally in his mind the fragment of a rule or a regulation drift by. Floundering, he sought to grasp it, to hang onto it. But it always sank, and he was left helpless, drowning.
So lost in this dark sea was the Major that he never noticed the silent entrance of another man.
Neither did any of the others. This was due, perhaps, to the fact that the man did not enter through the headquarters’ door, but simply materialized inside the dome. A tall, broad-shouldered, handsome man, he was dressed in an expensive cashmere suit, a silk tie at his throat. It was odd apparel for a battlefield and, if his dress was odd, his demeanor was odder. He might have been lounging at the bar, waiting for a table in a fine restaurant. Calmly, he straightened the cuffs of his white shirt, a jeweled cufflink sparkled at his wrist. Calmly,he regarded Major James Boris. A plastic laminated identity card adorned with his picture was tucked carefully into his suit pocket. Stamped across it in red was his name, Menju, and the single word: Advisor.
Although the man made no sound to draw attention to himself, he did nothing to try to conceal his presence either. The captains sat with their backs to him Major Boris, wrapped in his own problems, was still staring at his desk. The newly arrived man listened to the captains’ reports with interest, occasionally stroking the identity card he wore with the tips of fingers remarkable for their length and delicacy of touch. When he toyed with this placard with the single word, Advisor, he smiled, as though he found it all highly amusing.
“It was when we were attacking that stone fortress where we had, so we were told”—Captain Collins tone was bitter and ironic—“the creeps trapped. One of my tank crews had one of them, a woman, a