Ben Bova - Test of Fire

“So?”

“So his plan is to follow the advance of springtime right up the countryside. He’s already started to move northward, out of Florida and into some lovely swamplands the natives call Georgia. As the warm weather advances northward, Kobol plans to advance his men along with it, adding new recruits along the way.”

“More men?”

“That’s right,” Jameson said. “He says that nothing succeeds like excess.”

“He stole that. It’s a quotation from history.”

Jameson’s stern face showed surprise. “Really? He’s been strutting around like he thought of it himself. But no matter who said it first, I think he’s right. The more men we have, the more raiders and barbarians will want to join us. And the bigger the army we have to face Douglas, the easier it’ll be to beat him.”

Alec scuffed a toe on the snowbank where they stood. “It won’t be easy to keep an army like that together. Those people aren’t going to march more than a thousand klicks and maintain discipline. Why should they?”

“Some of them will. Maybe a lot of them will. Kobol’s promised them all the loot and women they can carry, once they’ve beaten Douglas.”

Alec finally understood. And thought of Angela.

“So we can expect Kobol’s army to reach here just about the time the spring mud’s dried and it’s easy to move across country,” Alec summarized.

“That’s his plan.”

“The timing’s going to be important. He’s got to arrive here just as the travelling turns good again. We’ve been able to survive so far because it’s been more trouble for Douglas to hunt us down than we’re worth to him. But when the travelling gets easy again, I don’t think we can last very long. If Kobol waits a week or so too long, we could be dead when he gets here.”

“I know.”

Alec asked, “But does he?”

For a moment Jameson did not answer. His bird-of-prey expression was as emotionless as he could make it. Finally he said, slowly, “He understands your situation, and he’ll get here in time. He wants to marry your mother and gain full control of the Council through her. He won’t let you get killed. Not that way, at least.”

Strangely, his words neither surprised Alec nor upset him. He hasn’t told me anything I didn’t already suspect.

“All right,” Alec said quietly. “It’s vital that Kobol and I meet face to face before his troops get here. I’ve got a nearly complete picture of Douglas’s defenses. In another two weeks I’ll fill in the few gaps in the information. Even with a big army, he’ll need that intelligence.”

“I know,” Jameson said, a bit stiffly. “He sent me to get that information from you.”

Alec shook his head. “No. I’ll talk to Kobol and no one else.”

Jameson said nothing, gave no hint of what he felt.

“It’s more than relaying information on the defenses,” Alec tried to explain. “There’s the entire question of strategy… how we’re going to attack Douglas. If you carry back the data I’ve amassed, Kobol will set up his battle plan before he gets here. That could be disastrous.”

“Should I tell him that?”

Alec grinned. “Tell him whatever you like. But I must see him before his army reaches this far north. I’ll leave it to you to arrange a time and place.”

Jameson looked away from Alec, out across the snowy landscape, the bare patches of ground, the brilliant blue sky. “He won’t try to kill you,” he said softly, almost to himself. “But he might try to keep you under his eye… a prisoner.”

“You mean that a meeting with him might be a trap?”

Jameson said, “It could be.”

“Can I depend on you to prevent that from happening?”

Swinging around to fix his hawk-like gaze on Alec, Jameson replied, “I’m only one man. He’ll have plenty of others with him.”

“I know,” Alec said. “But if it comes to trouble, will you stand with me?”

For almost a minute, Jameson did not reply. At last he said, “You’re still the officially-appointed commander of this expedition, and he’s your deputy—by order of the Council.” Then he relaxed enough to smile tightly. “I’ve served under him and I’ve served under you. If it comes to trouble — I’ll stand with you.”

Alec breathed out a sigh of relief and put his hand out to the bigger man. Jameson took it in his grip and let his smile broaden. It was like a glacier melting.

“We’re both insane, you know,” he said.

“I know,” Alec answered. “I know.”

The meeting was arranged, after several tedious discussions by radio. They agreed to meet on a boat in the upper Delaware River at a spot identified on the map as the Delaware Water Gap.

The term puzzled Alec until he saw the place.

The snow was melting fast under the early spring Sun and the ground was muddy and slow for travelling. Alec and four picked men made their way on horseback southward, following the maps. It took a week of hard travel.

On the fifth day, as they picked up the uppermost stream of the Delaware, they were joined by a fifth rider: Ferret. He trotted up alongside Alec’s horse, an enormous gap-toothed grin on his pinched, wizened face. He was mud-spattered and filthy, but across the rump of his stringy mount were laid out a brace of game birds.

“Ferret!” Alec called to him, genuinely pleased to see him again. “Where have you been all winter?”

The scrawny young man shrugged. “Around. Huntin’. Mountains, mostly.” He waved vaguely south-southwesterly.

“And how did you find us?”

Ferret scratched his jaw, grinned some more, mumbled something unintelligible. Alec didn’t care. The strange character had ways of his own, and Alec felt better with him by his side. Ferret carried no gun; as far as Alec could tell he would be useless in a fight. But he could somehow snare game. They would eat better with him along.

The tiny group of horsemen made their way down the valley of the river, where the going was much easier. And once they reached the Water Gap, Alec saw at a glance what the name meant.

The Delaware cut between two high-shouldered mountains, slicing through layers of striated rock that had been laid bare by millions of years of the river’s erosion.

There was a passable road along the base of the mountains, by the river’s bank, the remains of an old paved highway. The cement was broken and covered with rubble, but the horses stepped over the litter easily enough and clopped along, making good time. It was an enormous relief after the rough going of the muddy countryside. Alec and his men kept wary eyes on the slopes rising above them and across the river. Good spots for ambush.

The trees and brush had not leafed out yet, however, so the ground was bare and difficult to hide in.

Ferret would disappear for most of the day, and then come back grinning happily with enough game to keep their stomachs full.

At the Gap’s narrowest point they found a surprise: the graceful arch of a bridge that still stood, spanning the river with steel and concrete that did not even look particularly begrimed or weathered until they got quite close to it. Anchored at the base of one of the bridge’s supporting pillars was a small power boat.

There can’t be more than four or five men aboard a boat that size, Alec thought to himself as they nosed their horses down a trail that led to the water’s edge. We won’t be badly outnumbered — unless Kobol has other boats hidden further down the river.

The boat was close enough to the shore for Alec and two of his men to wade to its boarding ladder.

The rest of Alec’s men, and two of Kobol’s crew, stayed on the shore with the horses.

“Good to see you,” Kobol said tonelessly as Alec climbed aboard. He looked thinner than the last time Alec had seen him: harder and leaner, with more lines in his face. He shifted a wooden cane to his left hand and put out his right. The hand felt leathery when Alec shook it. Kobol’s eyes were still hooded, masked.