Mutant Story (opening fragment)

BOOK ONE

BEGINNINGS

In the flickering glow of the campfire seven tired faces watched the
flames in silence and keen ears listened through the surrounding
darkness whilst time ticked slowly by. They'd all seen him go. No one
had seen or heard anything of him since. "How long before Anton's
listed as missing?" Wilhem mumbled.

"He's missing right now" Ben Ludz answered.

"I mean officially"

"He's that right now as well!" Ben growled angrily. "You're a fuckin'
tart, Wil, d'ya know that?" Wilhem looked at Ben Ludz and then looked
away. Johnathan looked as well, but he held his fellow Patrolman's
gaze. "What you lookin' at, Grey?" he snapped.

Ben Ludz was a mountain of a man, but he kept his feelings too close to
the surface for Roman Talien's liking. It wasn't a good trait in a
soldier, and he'd told him so many times. "Ben" he said, trying to calm
things down "if Anton's out there the Leader'll find him"

"Sarge is right," Francis Goram said, looking up from the flames.
Francis was an able patrolman, but in Roman's view he was one of the
worst medics he'd had the misfortune to work with. He'd been with the
patrol good few years, though - in fact, the current Border Patrol was
the best they'd had insofar as its longevity was concerned. Apart from
Wil they'd each put a number of years service in, which was unusual. A
patrolman's life was often a short one.

"And if he's not out there it means the moots've had their supper and
Anton's past caring" Johnathan Grey piped up.

"You always had a way with words, didn't you Johnathan?" Roman said
quietly, voicing his disapproval. Wilhem was a fresher, only just into
full training, and had yet to 'blood' his rifle. Loose talk about
mutants with one of their comrades missing wasn't very funny and they
all knew it. Johnathan held up his hands and then turned to Wilhem, who
was watching Roman with wide, fearful eyes.

"Cavlan reckons moot numbers are falling and have been for a long time.
At this rate we'll all be out of a job come the Spring" he said

"Why? Are they dying, or something?" Wilhem asked

"Course they're dying - we're shooting their fuckin' heads off every
chance we get!" Ben grunted, but Wil's gaze stayed with the Sergeant as
he lit his old pipe with a lighted branch from the fire.

"More than 350 years of 'shooting their fuckin' heads off' hasn't made
much of a difference up to now, and they must've been at their weakest
when the Wars ended" he told them. None could argue the truth of that;
the mutant tally was growing less and less with every passing year and
no one could work out why.

"So they're probably stronger now than they've ever been, but their
numbers are falling. Work that one out, freshman" Johnathan said with a
grin.
Time passed slowly and dawn was brightening the eastern sky when Luke
Cavlan sent a signal that he was close to the camp. He arrived back
among them with grim features; he'd returned alone. "Nothing?" Roman
asked for them all.

He shook his head and took a long swig of water from his bottle. "Not a
fuckin' sign...he's gone" he answered quietly.

"Did you search East?" Ben asked.

Roman stirred angrily and glared at the patrolman; eyes blazing; but
Luke Cavlan's gaze was set and cold. "Well, I suppose that depends on
your point of view" he said. "How far to the East did you want me to
go, Ben? Stentor Glen? The Border?"

"He only went for a shit, for Terran's sakes!" Roman grumbled, watching
Ben.

Ben Ludz held his Leader's gaze for a moment and then lapsed into
silence. The senior finally walked back to the fire and sat down beside
the flickering embers, but Luke knew exactly how he felt. They all
shared Ben's anger at the apparent impotency of the patrol to protect
its own. It was something they'd never had to consider much before, but
they were all considering it now. Luke turned to Roman for a moment and
then addressed the whole patrol. "Anton's nowhere within a mile radius
of this camp - North, South, West or East - he's gone and we'd better
all get used to the idea" he said. "What's bothering me is that none of
us saw or heard a fuckin' thing. Moots don't normally attack alone; we
should've heard 'em at least!"

"Poor sod didn't even get one shot off..." somebody mumbled, more than
likely Johnathan.

Later, when a proper guard had been set all around the camp, Luke and
Roman talked the matter over whilst they watched the continuing dawn
swell in the East. There was a lot on their minds that morning; Anton's
loss had really gotten to them both. The Patrol were close to the
Northern Path, little more than 48 hours from home, and they'd lost
their scout to a mutant presence no one had even realised was there.
"It's weird, Roman..." Luke said at last, frowning, "...whatever moot
it was that took Anton's weapon left his cartridge on the ground. What
good's a rifle without the ammo?"

"I dunno" he answered "but it's not the first time this has happened.
Maybe they're collecting trophies as well as bodies"

"But they didn't use their damned 'trophy' to kill Anton, so what the
hell are they playing at?"

Good question, he wanted to say. The Sergeant took a deep lungful of
morning air and turned his gaze North towards the mountains, scanning
the distant grey monoliths with tired, world-weary eyes. "We'd better
face it, Luke - lasers could be finding their way out here" he
murmured. "I know it's incredible but..."

"Moots can't have that kind of technology - even GC's workshops can't
get the design right!" Luke said, but his tone was unconvincing. Roman
nodded with some sympathy for his Leader's viewpoint, but stayed
silent. "It'll be light proper in a few hours, Roman. Call the Patrol
in, let's get some kip"

"Usual watch?"

Luke was about to assent to that but then changed his mind. "No...put
Ben Ludz on first four" he said. Roman smiled, gave him a brief salute,
and walked away to find Ben.

In the cold, watery light of early dawn the patrol finally reached the
Inner City; the only home any of them knew. Inner City, the one bright
jewel in the Northern Sect crown. Following the calamitous Fission Wars
the worst of its ruins had been cleared, thanks mainly to mutant labour
and expertise, but as the City's newly-formed government became
stronger, the politicians - fearful of what the mutants represented -
ostracised their kind, and their many skills were lost, never to be
replaced. Since then the City, and indeed the Northern Sect as a whole;
governed by successions of frightened politicians and elderly judges;
had struggled to find its way and had gradually stagnated.

Three hundred and fifty years in all had passed since the Fission Wars,
and during that time the Sect Leaders (un-elected politicians) and the
Elders (hereditary judges) marked their land's boundaries, declaring
their territory an independent Sect, and bestowed themselves with
absolute power over the nation. When the mutant population - faced with
starvation and worse - stormed Government Centre, the very icon of Sect
power, making outrageous demands, the authorities of the day acted
swiftly. A well-armed Inner City Patrol crushed the rebellion and
chased the mutants out into open country, where the government intended
they should stay. Ancient documents and vital records were burned or
otherwise destroyed; from that time on was where the history of the
Sect people started, and there was no one to challenge it. The
government set up other patrols to keep track of the mutant hordes
outside the City and regulate their numbers: out of the shambles grew
what was now called the Border Patrol. In the fullness of time the
mutant rebellion was pretty much forgotten inside the City. Only the
mutants remembered, and nobody who mattered ever listened to anything
they had to say.

Early morning wasn't Luke Cavlan's idea of a good time to come home;
not while the City slept and the mutants were above ground. In his view
the patrol would have been safer staying outside the City on the
Northern Path where they could prepare better against any attack, but
he owed Roman Talien a favour and it had been his pleading that had
finally made up Luke's mind to bend his own rules. Normally, as far as
he was concerned, other people's rules were the ones for bending - not
his own - but Roman was a mate and his wife was expecting a kid any day
and, well...with any luck the Inner City Patrol would be out doing
their jobs for once, he'd reasoned. Happily they were, or so he
assumed, because they didn't see hide nor hair of them or any mutants
all the way to the Patrol Hall.

Sited next door to Government Centre, the seat of Northern Sect power,
the Hall was a plain single-storeyed building where everyone concerned
ate, slept and filed their reports for the denizens of Patrol Command.
With a rotation system of shifts in operation all three activities
tended to go on at once, which made sleeping difficult for many of the
freshmen, but everyone got used to it eventually. It was a basic
building, serving basic needs, but the Border Patrol was relieved to
finally get there. They hadn't been able to relax at all for over six
weeks, which was the average tour length those days, and even though
Roman hadn't wanted to hang around long he seemed to change his mind
when we saw one of Johann Rico's office boys heading in his Leader's
direction. Luke was tucking into his breakfast of suachi (a kind of
bread) and soup when the clerk arrived at his elbow and gave him a
hand-scripted memo from Patrol Command.
"There's quite a collection of mail in your post-hole, sir - they've
asked me to remind you? Er, this one's an urgent from the man himself"
he said with the kind of nervous formality Luke might have found
amusing had he been in a better mood. As it was, he glanced up,
snatched the memo off him and slapped it down on the table. Roman
nudged Johnathan when it became apparent that the clerk was staying
right where he was. Luke was busily munching through a second hunk of
suachi bread when he noticed their interested looks, and it was only
then that he noticed the clerk still waiting behind him.

"You still here?" he said, frowning curiously.

"I'm sorry, Sir, the Patrol Commander wants confirmation you've read
his memo," the clerk said.

Luke smiled a thin smile and fingered the memo lazily before passing it
to Roman. "In that case, you sorry piece of shit, how much time have
you got?" he breathed nastily. The clerk didn't answer, but he watched
in silence as the memo went to each of the patrol in turn and then they
passed on to the next table, where the Middle Sector Patrol was
preparing to move out. Each of them read it, including their Leader who
(having plenty of experience of Patrol Command and its memos himself)
handed the crumpled document to a kitchen attendant, who also read it
before passing it on again.

As the memo slowly wound its way around the Hall the Border Patrol
finished their breakfast, and Luke - making quite sure that the
wretched clerk stayed at full attention throughout - began writing his
report of their latest tour. About an hour or so later the memo arrived
back on its original table where Luke and several more of them were
dozing. Nobody knew where it'd been for all that time - most shuddered
to even think!

"Memo for you, Leader!" Johnathan pronounced loudly, jolting everyone
out of their sleep.

Luke Cavlan eyed the stained, crumpled leaf of paper for a moment and
then glared at the clerk, who was still standing to attention at his
side. "You expect me to read that?" he asked. The memo hung in tatters
between his finger and thumb, and it looked suspiciously like someone
had wiped their backside on it. "Get it written out again, pal, or the
next fuckin' memo Rico sees'll have your name all over it." The clerk
swiped the memo out of Luke's hand with a few mumbled curses and strode
away to the sound of smaning. By the time he got back with his
re-scripted offering Luke had dismissed the patrol and they'd all gone
home.

.