David Weber - Hell's Gate

The boat drifted gently and silently through the reeds in the shallower water, then nosed into the mud with a soft slosh of swamp water and a muddy slurp. Its occupants sat very still, their hands in plain sight. Even the man at the rudder was very careful to make no sudden moves as he released the tiller bar and placed his open hands palm-down on his thighs, and chan Tesh smiled humorlessly at the sight. He'd be doing exactly the same thing if twenty Model 10 rifles and at least one machine-gun (that he could see) was aimed at him.

The older of the two civilians had busy eyes, chan Tesh observed. They swept back and forth across the waiting Sharonians, and the company-captain had the distinct impression that they weren't missing much. Then the moving eyes seemed to narrow slightly as they settled on chan Tesh himself.

"Hello!" the stranger said, in oddly accented but perfectly intelligible Ternathian. "We come talk?"

chan Tesh stiffened. Despite everything, he was shocked to be addressed in his native tongue, and he hoped his astonishment didn't show. Nor was he the only one who reacted strongly. He heard someone inhale sharply behind him, and then someone else snarled in what he obviously thought was a whisper, "Those bastards have a live prisoner!"

The talkative civilian started to stand up in the boat, then froze as half a dozen rifles tracked him. He obviously knew what the weapons were, and he swallowed hard, sweating more heavily than the swampy heat alone could explain. But he didn't panic; chan Tesh had to give him that much.

"No shoot," he said in a commendably level voice. "We talk, please? Much killing mistake. You send word? Say we talk. Important."

"You think they really want to parley, Sir?" chan Dersal said softly behind chan Tesh.

"I'd sooner parley with a fucking cobra!" Platoon-Captain chan Talmarha half-snarled, and the Marine grunted.

"We hit them hard, Morek," chan Dersal pointed out to chan Tesh's mortar commander. "Twice. In their shoes, I'd think about talking truce. Hard."

chan Tesh made a very slight gesture with his right hand, and the two platoon-captains shut up instantly. The company-captain gazed back at the Arcanan in silence for several seconds. Although he'd cut off the conversation behind him, he realized that he found himself favoring chan Talmarha's position. Unfortunately …

"Master-Armsman chan Kormai," he said quietly.

"Yes, Sir?" his senior noncommissioned officer replied from behind his right shoulder. Frai chan Kormai was a typical Ternathian, unlike chan Tesh. He was a good foot taller than the company-captain, with shoulders broader than an icebox, and if he carried more than two ounces of excess weight anywhere about his person, chan Tesh had never noticed them. The master-armsman had enlisted in the Imperial Ternathian Army when he was sixteen, and he would be celebrating his forty-sixth birthday in two months. Over those thirty years he'd seen just about everything, and chan Tesh found his unflappable professionalism more comforting than he cared to admit. Especially at this moment.

"I think we need to make certain these … gentlemen aren't carrying anything we'd prefer for them not to be carrying, Master-Armsman."

"Understood, Sir." chan Kormai's cool green eyes surveyed the boat. "You want it polite, or thorough, Sir?"

"After what they've already done, I think I can stand it if their feelings get a little bruised, Master Armsman," chan Tesh said dryly. "Let's just try not to leave too many physical bruises, shall we?"

"I think we can handle that, Sir."

"Good." chan Tesh looked back at the man in the boat. "We'll talk," he said, speaking slowly and carefully and wondering how much the other fellow actually understood. "First, though, we're going to take a few precautions."

"'Pre-cautions?'" the civilian repeated, obviously not understanding the word.

"First we search you," chan Tesh told him, and pantomimed slapping his own pockets with his hands. The civilian cocked his head to one side for a moment, then grimaced.

"Understand," he said in less than enthralled tones. "You?" He paused again, obviously trying to find the word he wanted, then used one in his own language. chan Tesh looked politely blank, and the civilian puffed out his cheeks in apparent frustration. Then he twitched his shoulders in an obvious shrug and said something to his companions. chan Tesh recognized the language their prisoners had spoken, but he hadn't had the opportunity to learn to understand it, and so he simply waited until the civilian turned back to him.

"Understand 'precautions,'" he said, speaking the new word carefully.

"Good," chan Tesh said, and nodded to chan Kormai.

The master-armsman had been quietly picking his assistants while the company-captain explained to the ignorant foreigner. Now he moved forward, followed by four more men. All of them were Marines, chan Tesh noted, and they were also older, more experienced men.

"Get out of the boat," chan Kormai told the talkative civilian, speaking as slowly and carefully as chan Tesh had. "Slowly. Put your hands like this."

He demonstrated lacing his fingers together behind his head, and this time a flash of anger showed in the civilian's eyes. That was fine with chan Tesh. Frankly, he didn't give a damn how angry they got.

The younger civilian said something sharp in their own language, but his superior shook his head. Then, as chan Kormai had instructed him, he stepped slowly and carefully ashore. His boots sank to the ankle in the mud, and he grimaced in obvious distaste as suction tried to pull them off his feet. He managed to reach solider ground without losing them, then put his hands behind his head as chan Kormai had demonstrated.

The master-armsman stepped around behind him, and the civilian's jaw set hard as the noncom proceeded to search him very thoroughly, indeed. chan Tesh was impressed as the master-armsman demonstrated a previously unsuspected talent. The company-captain had seen very few police?civilian or military?who could have frisked a man so competently … and thoroughly. chan Kormai wasn't especially gentle about it, either, although it was obvious to chan Tesh that he wasn't being deliberately rougher than he had to be, and the civilian winced once or twice. By the time the master-armsman was through, however, it was quite obvious that the civilian couldn't have anything hidden away outside a body cavity.

chan Tesh was tempted to insist that those be searched, as well, given the bizarre things of which these people appeared to be capable. There were limits to even his paranoia, however, he decided. If these people were equipped with some sort of super weapon so small that it could be hidden someplace like that, then they had no need to send anyone out to talk to them in the first place. Besides, if this really was an effort to establish some sort of diplomatic contact, there was probably some professional code of conduct which ought to be followed. He didn't have a clue what it might insist that he do, but he was pretty sure it existed and that ordering a foreign envoy to bend over and spread his cheeks wasn't very high on the list of approved greetings.

chan Kormai finished and stood back. The civilian turned to face him with what struck chan Tesh as commendable aplomb, and raised his eyebrows.

"Finished," the master-armsman told him, and pantomimed lowering his hands.

"Are satisfied?"

"For now … sir," chan Kormai replied, and gestured for the man to move further away from the water. Two of the master-armsman's Marines kept a careful eye on the civilian without being particularly unobtrusive about it, and chan Kormai turned to the second civilian.

His search was just as thorough this time, and the younger man lacked his older companion's self-control. His face flushed with anger, and his jaw muscles bunched in obvious humiliation as he was searched. chan Kormai was no rougher than he'd been with the first man, but neither was he any gentler, and it was obvious that the ire in the younger civilian's eye left him totally unmoved.