Pandora's Legions

by Christopher Anvil Narrated by Wayne Mitchell

Overview

After peacefully and complacently expanding for centuries, the Centran Empire comes face to face with their first major obstacle, the stubborn and warlike inhabitants of Earth, and decides to use Earth warriors to pacify difficult planets throughout the galaxy, but they soon discover a new problem-the humans could end up running the Central Empire itself.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177431598
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	01/31/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Pandora's Legions

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By Christopher Anvil

Baen Books

ISBN: 0-671-31861-6

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Chapter One

Pandora's Planet

Klide Horsip, Planetary Integrator, prided himself on being much more than a jailer. Each advance of the Integral Union meant more occupied planets, and each one of these planets, like a single tiny component in a giant magnet, must be brought into line with the rest. This was Klide Horsip's job, and he settled to it now with relish.

"Phase I is complete?" he insisted, emphasizing the word.

Brak Moffis, the Military Overseer, smiled ruefully, "Not quite as complete as it often is on these humanoid planets."

"Then give me a brief summary of the details," said Horsip. He cast a quick glance out the landing-boat's window at the curve of the blue and green world below. "Looks promising enough."

"Well," said Moffis, "as far as that goes, it is. It's a Centra-type planet, mean diameter about 0.8, with gravity, oxygen, and temperature ideally suited to human and humanoid life. The percentage of water surface is higher than on Centra-about seventy-five per cent-but it's well distributed, and helps moderate the climate. There are plenty of minerals, including massive quantities of deep nickel-iron that hasn't yet been touched."

Horsip nodded. "And the inhabitants?"

"The usual types of plant and animal life-and, the humanoids."

"Ah, we come to the main point. What stage were the humanoids in when you landed?"

Brak Moffis looked at Horsip and gave a wry smile. "Technologically," said Moffis, "they were very near Centra 0.9, and in some areas higher."

"You aren't serious?"

The Military Overseer shook his head and looked away. "You wouldn't ask me that if you'd been in on the invasion. Perhaps you've heard of Centralis II?"

"The hell-planet! Who hasn't heard of it?" Horsip let his voice show impatience. "What of it?"

"Well," said Moffis, "that gives us ground for comparison. This was worse. Thirty per cent of the Initial Landing Parties were vaporized the first day. Another fifty per cent had their sites eliminated by the second day, and were pinned to the earth that day or the day after. The whole second wave had to funnel through the remaining twenty per cent of sites in isolated regions, and of course that meant the natives retained effective control of the situation everywhere it counted. If you'll imagine yourself wrestling one of the giant snakes of Goa, you'll have a good idea of our position." He raised a hand as Horsip, frowning, started to speak. "Let me summarize. Thirty per cent of our selected sites were eliminated, fifty per cent were in desperate straits, and the remaining twenty per cent were jampacked, overloaded, and only meant for secondary purposes in the first place. All this, mind you, despite the fact that the natives let off a couple of incomplete attacks on each other during the initial stages."

"Hysteria?" scowled Horsip.

"Regional rivalries," said Moffis.

"Well," said Horsip, "give the censorship another silver nova for efficiency. All I ever heard of this was that it was proceeding 'according to schedule.' "

"It was," said Moffis, "but it wasn't our schedule."

"I see," said Horsip, his face disapproving. "Well, what did you do?"

"Organized our established sites as fast as possible, and improvised new ones in chosen locations connecting the outer sites to form a defensive perimeter."

"Defensive!"

"That was what it boiled down to."

"What about the other sites-the fifty per cent under attack?"

"We supplied them as well as we could. When we were built up enough, we started a heavy thrust to split the enemy-I mean, native forces-and at the same time ordered a simultaneous break-out of the surrounded units toward common centers. The idea was to build up strong enough groups so they could fight their way to the perimeter."

"You were actually giving up the original sites?" Horsip looked at the Military Overseer with an expression of offended disbelief.

Moffis looked back coldly. "I'm telling you all this in detail so you'll understand it wasn't the usual matter of slaughtering a molk in a stall, and so you'll be ready in case you run into anything. I'm telling you we had a rough tossing around in the beginning. Maybe you'll have a better idea when I tell you one of our northern groups of Initial Landing Parties ran into this routine:

"The natives vaporized the center of each site with a nuclear bomb, contained the troops remaining in each site with minimum forces, then switched a heavy reserve from one Landing Party to the next, slaughtering them one-after-the-other, in succession. This wasn't brilliance on their part; this was their usual level of performance."

Horsip swallowed and looked serious.

Moffis noted Horsip's reaction and nodded. "I'm no more used to being on the defensive than you are, and I can assure you I didn't enjoy a minute of it. But that's what we were up against. We managed to recover just one large group-about eighteen per cent-of the original Landing Parties, then we pulled back into our perimeter under heavy attack. We had to bring the Fleet down into the atmosphere to get at their communications. At that the ships took losses of better than one-in-five despite the meteor guards. It was touch-and-go for three weeks, then we got the edge, and by the end of the month we had them hamstrung. Then we had some terrific fighting when we broke out of the defensive perimeter. But we won. At the end, we crushed them piecemeal."

"How long did this take?" asked Horsip.

"A hundred and twenty-seven of the planet's days," said Moffis. "Their day is roughly the same length as a day on Centra."

"I see," said Horsip, "and ten to twelve days is considered average."

"Averages don't count with something worse than Centralis II."

* * *

Horsip looked out at the planet, growing big as the landing-boat swung closer. As he watched, he saw a region of pits and craters, a part of the globe that looked as if an angry giant had beat on it with a sledge hammer. He turned away, as if to change the subject.

"What," he asked, "do these humanoid natives look like?"

"A lot like us. They have a pair of anterior and a pair of posterior appendages, one head, eyes, ears, and nose. They walk upright, and have opposable thumbs on the anterior appendages."

"Any significant marking-differences?"

Moffis swallowed. "A few."

"Good," said Horsip, relaxing a bit. "That will save us the trouble of marking them." When Moffis remained quiet, Horsip turned impatiently. "Well, don't just sit there. Enumerate them. What are the differences?"

"A bigger skull," said Moffis, "with a larger brow and a less prominent nose. The females are practically hairless over the greater portion of their bodies, and so are the males, though in less degree."

"Very good," said Horsip, nodding approval. "What else?"

"The vestigial tail is almost completely absorbed. There's no visible stump at all. And the head is set more nearly erect on the body."

"Splendid! Yes, very good indeed." Horsip looked vastly pleased. "You realize the implications?"

"I don't see anything good about it," said Moffis.

"Oh, come, man," said Horsip. "You've had a difficult experience, but don't let it distort your values. This is a propitious start for Planetary Integration. These folk are self-marked, by nature. We'll have no mixed-race trouble here, nor any of the usual marking difficulties, either."

Horsip paused in thought, snapped his fingers and added, "For instance, look at the words that apply to these natives: big-headed, hairless, flat-nosed-"

"But they aren't flat-nosed."

"What does that matter? Didn't you say their noses were smaller?"

"Well, yes. But not flat."

Horsip waved his hand. "Never mind that. We'll call them flat-nosed. Now let's see. Big-headed, hairless, flat-nosed. Wasn't there another-"

"Tailless," supplied Moffis, without enthusiasm.

"Yes, tailless. Well-" Horsip leaned back, and a smile of creative enjoyment crossed his face-"we'll call them 'Puff-skulled, hairless, flat-nosed, lop-tails.' Let's see any of our rowdy young bloods try to mate with them after that."

"They will," said Moffis tonelessly.

"But not officially," said Horsip. "And that's what counts." He looked down with pleasurable anticipation at the planet grown large beneath them. He rubbed his hands. "Well," he said, "this is going to be pleasant work. A treat, Moffis."

Moffis shut his eyes as if to ease a pain.

"I hope so," he said.

* * *

A strong guard of heavily-armed soldiers awaited them in the landing area, itself ringed by several formidable lines of spike-bar barriers, thickly sown with leaping-mine trip wires, and covered by deeply dug-in splat-gun emplacements.

Horsip looked the defenses over curiously as he walked with Moffis to a heavily-armored ground-car. He noted that the soldiers carried out their orders readily enough, but without a certain verve usual on newly-conquered planets. "Trouble?" he asked.

Moffis glanced around uneasily. "Roving bands," he said. "You think you've got them wiped out, and they pop up again somewhere else."

They got into the ground-car, an order was shouted outside, and the convoy began to move off. It wound out onto the road like a giant chuffing snake, moving jerkily as gaps opened and closed between vehicles. The going was bumpy till they got out onto the main road, then the cars moved smoothly along. At this stage, Horsip raised up to peer out a shuttered slit in the side of his vehicle. For a hundred yards back from the side of the road, the vegetation was a burnt black. He scowled.

Moffis read his thoughts. "Yes, clearing the roadside is an unusual precaution. But it's either that or get plastered with a can of inflammable liquid when you go by in the car."

"Such an unnecessary width might indicate fear to the natives."

Moffis suppressed a snort.

Horsip looked at him coldly. "Isn't that so?"

"Maybe," said Moffis. "And maybe it indicates fear to a molk when you put heavier bars on his stall. But the main idea is, not to get gored."

"We've already conquered these lop-tails."

"Some of them don't know it yet. That's the trouble."

"We won't convince them by being frightened."

"We won't convince them by being dead, either."

Horsip looked at Moffis coldly. His heavy brows came together and he opened his mouth.

There was a dull boom from somewhere up ahead. Their car slowed suddenly, swerved, and then rolled forward so fast they were thrown hard back against the cushions. Something spanged against the side of the car. The snapping whack of a splat-gun sounded up ahead, was joined by others, and rose to a crescendo as they raced forward and passed to one side of the uproar. Acrid fumes momentarily filled the car, making Horsip cough and his eyes run. Somewhere in the background there was an unfamiliar hammering thud that jarred Horsip's nerves. There was another explosion, and another, now well to the rear. Then the car slowed with a loud squeal from the machinery. Horsip was thrown forward, then slammed back hard as the car raced ahead again. As they settled into a fast steady run, he turned to Moffis with a thoughtful frown. "How much farther do we have to go?"

"We should be about a quarter of the way."

Horsip sat, pale and thoughtful, beside Moffis, who sat, pale and gloomy, all the way to Horsip's new headquarters.

* * *

The site of the new headquarters was not well chosen to convey the effect of untouchable superiority. The site consisted of a large, blackened mountain with a concrete tunnel entrance at the base. The mountain bristled with air-defense cannon, was pocked and lined with shell holes, trenches, bunkers, and spike-bar barriers. Around the tunnel entrance at the base, the barriers, cannon, and splat-gun emplacements were so thick as to excite ridicule. Horsip was about to comment on it when he noted a huge thing like a monster turtle some hundred-and-fifty yards from the entrance. He felt the hair on his neck, back, and shoulders bristle.

"What's that?"

Moffis peered out the slit. "One of the humanoids' traveling forts."

Horsip stared at the long thick cannon that pointed straight at the tunnel entrance. He swallowed. "Ah ... is it disarmed?" The ground-car's armor plating suddenly seemed very thin. "It is, isn't it?"

Moffis said, "Not exactly. Our engineers are studying it."

"You don't mean the humanoids are still in control of it?"

"Oh, no," said Moffis. "The concussion from our bombardment apparently killed them. Our experts are inside it, trying to figure out the mechanism."

"Oh." Horsip, as his angle of view changed, saw an armored ground-car gradually come into sight, parked near the alien fort. He damned himself for his scare. Of course, the thing was disarmed. But he could not help noticing how ineffectual the ground-car looked beside it. He cleared his throat.

"How many of those, ah, 'moving forts' did the humanoids have?"

"Hundreds of them," said Moffis.

They rode in silence through the massive concrete entrance, and Horsip felt an unexpected sense of relief as the thick layer of earth, rock, and cement intervened between himself and the alien world. They rode downward for a long distance, then got out of the ground-car. Moffis showed Horsip around his new headquarters, which consisted of a large suite of rooms comfortably fitted-out; several outer offices with files, clerks, and thick bound volumes of maps and data; and a private inner office paneled in dark wood, with Horsip's desk and chair on a raised dais, and a huge flag of Centra hanging behind it.

Horsip looked everything over in complete silence. Then he looked again around the private office at the desk, dais, and flag. He cleared his throat.

"Let's go into my suite. Do you have the time?"

"I suppose so," said Moffis gloomily. "There isn't a great deal I can do, anyway."

Horsip looked at him sharply, then led the way back to his suite. They sat down in a small study, then Horsip got up, scowling intently, and began to pace the floor. Moffis looked at him curiously.

"Moffis," said Horsip suddenly, "you haven't told me the whole story."

Moffis looked startled.

"Go on," said Horsip. "Let's have it."

"I've summarized-"

"You've left out pieces. Perhaps you've told me the facts and left out interpretations. We need it all." He faced Moffis and pinned him with his gaze.

"Well-" said Moffis, looking uncomfortable.

"You're my military deputy," said Horsip, his eyes never leaving Moffis. "You and I must work together, each supplying the other's lacks. The first rule of planetary integration is to apply the maximum available force, in line with itself. If you apply force in one direction, and I apply force in another direction, the result will be less than if we both apply force in the same direction. That can be proved.

"Now," he said, "you have had a difficult time.

Continues...

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Excerpted from Pandora's Legions by Christopher Anvil Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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