Face of the Enemy by Richard Fawkes

Author:Richard Fawkes [Fawkes, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-196772-6
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1999-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Personally, Shanholz had agreed with Burke’s objection to having him accompany the two highbrows into the jungle. Nothing anyone had seen suggested that there was any local wildlife big enough to worry a human. Of course, that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything dangerous in the bush; plenty of worlds had exotic small things that could do for a man. But even highbrows could handle small things if they paid attention. Of course they weren’t any good at paying attention to anything but whatever they had their noses in, leaving Shanholz to keep his eyes open for danger.

That, he supposed, was the reason behind Lockhart’s order. For a Concordat civvie, she was pretty smart. Of course, that didn’t mean she was always right. Extra eyes weren’t being of special use out here. So far they hadn’t encountered anything that couldn’t be stepped over or kicked out of the way. And all of it bugs. Every time he looked up into the canopy, expecting to see a tremonkey or a squirrel or a novopposum or some other tree rodent, all he saw was bugs. Every rustling in the brush turned out to be not a bushdog or falsefox, but another kind of weird, overgrown bug. The damned jungle was infested with them.

The day’s hike made him wonder if he’d made the right decision in agreeing to go along. Sure, the way sweat made Zandowski’s coveralls hug her body was worth seeing, but the show that a sweaty Tindal could put on back in the village was nearly as good. And with a lot less bugs.

And back in the village he could keep a closer eye on Tindal for other reasons. The Pansie was hiding something. Almost every day he caught her sneaking off with her perscomp for a private session. Now, if she was going off with Ellicot, for whom she obviously had the hots, he could understand. But who needed a computer for that kind of job? She was doing something on the sly that she didn’t want shared even with her fellow nationals.

Spy stuff, Shanholz guessed. Definite bad news.

What was he supposed to do about it? He wished he knew. Why did Mostel have to go and get himself killed? He would have known what to do. He was an officer, after all. Could you get a guy for posthumous dereliction of duty?

He’d figure something out. He had time.

But nothing came to him by the time they decided to set up camp. The night went easy enough, except for the fact that Zandowski decided to lay out her bedroll nearer to Burke than to him.

They weren’t able to use Burke’s powered bug screen—Lockhart had declared the batteries a strategic reserve—but the pylene netting and the smoker from the survival canister did almost as good a job. Shanholz had only a couple of bug bites in the morning, and a few dabs of medicated salve put them out of his mind.

It was midday, and the rare breaks in the canopy were shafting down near solid columns of light, when they approached the river.

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