Part 5 (1/2)

I nodded. I'd been sent there because the platoon had reportedly lost most of its zoms in a minefield less than a week before. It was prob-ably just bad luck, or maybe incompetence, but I had to make sure it wasn't sabotage. There'd been a case a few weeks before of somebody poisoning zombis' food with salt; they'd gone berserk as they began to die, and half a company had been wiped out, dead and alive alike.

I tried hard to suppress a s.h.i.+ver as I watched the zoms shambling quietly through the pampas gra.s.s and thorn bushes towards the village. Everyone knew that zoms were as loyal as dogs and slightly better at obeying simple commands; they were strong, d.a.m.n near invulnerable, didn't complain about their food or their quarters, and didn't need entertaining. They would walk across a minefield, through fire or gas, over razorwire, into the paths of tanks (a.s.suming the Domingues had had any) ... just what the General ordered. Of course, they'd be all but useless against a well-equipped modern army, but the UN was keeping everyone out ofthis fight, and the arms embargo was affecting both sides.

I stared through my borrowed binoculars again. ”Who's the old man under the mapou?” I asked.

Legrand glanced in his direction, though without binoculars, he could barely have seen the tree, much less the man. ”Jacques? Zombi-master.” There was something curiously like respect in his voice. ”Isn't a man alive who hates me more.”

I continued to watch the old man for a few minutes; it was easier than looking at the zoms. Yes, I knew that most zoms were convicts; the General liked to boast that he hadn't restored the death penalty or conscription, boasting to the world that inhis Haitia”the Haiti of the twenty-first century, free of foreign influences and religionsa”all criminals did useful work. It was intended as a deterrent, and maybe it worked.

Maybe I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned; my father was a soldier, like his father before him, and they drummed their ideas of honor into me thoroughly and efficiently. They taught me loyalty to the army, whoever it served at the time, and they told me how they thought war should be fought, as well as how itwas fought. I was prepared to see men being killed for no reason that they understood, and I knew that zombis couldn't understand anything more complicated than a direct order. But no one had ever told me that most of the zoms we recruit were women, and seeing them stumbling into that village like that made me sick to my stomach.

”Why does he hate you?” I asked. I could see Jacques barking orders into a megaphone, but at this distancea”supposedly safe from snipersa”I couldn't hear a word.

”You see the zom near him, hanging back? Mulatto woman?”

”Yes.”

”His wife,” replied Legrand, softly. I lowered the binoculars, and stared at him. ”Truth,” he said. ”I didn't know at the time, just been a.s.signed here. Jacques probably wants to see me dead,” he grinned savagely, ”or worse. But he won't do anything about it; too scared of what'll happen if he does.”

I nodded. There's nothing new about soldiers hating their com-manders, or despising civilians, and Legrand was both.

”Look at them,”said Legrand, softly, and I reluctantly peered through the binoculars at the advancing zombis. ”Life and death rolled up into a ball; what could be scarier than that? All the civilians in the village will start running like h.e.l.l, soon, so we can send the soldiers in. The zoms have their orders; they're not to shoot anybody who runs away.”

I grunted. We gave zombis cheap, obsolete semi-automatic weapons with the largest magazines we could, because most of them weren't smart enough to reload. The one who killed my father had an old M-14 set to autofire, and he emptied the entire clip into him and was advancing with bayonet fixed before a live guard shot him through both eyes.There's an art to fighting zoms; you can't kill them without a handful of salt, you can't hurt or stun them, they're like marionettes with monowire strings and the best thing you can do is aim for the knees and elbows.

I glanced at Legrand. He was smiling when the zoms entered the village; he was still smiling when the soldiers left at sunset, reporting that they'd found nothing, no weapons, no signs of sedition or foreign influence, not even enough food to count as evidence of h.o.a.rding; the villagers out here probably hadn't heard of the last coup, or the embargo, or the war against the Domingues. Legrand continued to smile, as though he knew a joke he couldn't share with mere mortals. Maybe he did, at that.

MAJOR DUPRE WAS easily twice my age, which meant that he'd survived more loyalty checks than I'd had pay parades, so I wasn't expecting much cooperation. Fortunately, he'd known my father, so he treated me with more respect than I probably deserved. He was a competent officer, spoke French fluently as well as Creole, and though he was loyal to the army rather than the General he hadn't made any major political errors that I knew of. I was soon wondering why he and Legrand were stationed out here; it seemed a strange sort of reward for years of good service...

Or so I thought, until I overheard four soldiers talking in the mess tent on my second day there. They were swapping stories about wo-men, in the way soldiers probably have since the Trojan War; only the names change. Or so I thought, until one of them wished for a woman who still had a tongue. Legrand, sitting opposite me, drew two cards from his tarot decka”Death, and then the Lovers, which he lay across it.

I sat there silently, and listened to the soldiers, and tried to tell myself that it didn't matter. It may have been necrophilia, but at least it wasn't rape ... well, maybe it was, but zoms don't complain. The zom woman serving food merely stood there, her face blank, as though she were deaf as well as dead.

”Sure,” said the corporal, while the others laughed.”But then you'd have to make sure you didn't eat too much salt, in case youa”” More laughter.

”Me,” said another, ”I prefer that new b.i.t.c.h with the legs. Remember the way she used to walk? Jesus, the way she moans when youa”” The men opposite him suddenly sat up, and the speaker stopped abruptly. I turned around, and saw Jacques walk in. The conversation turned to football as the zombi master poured himself a cup of terrible coffee, then sat down at the other end of my table, not looking at any of us. I finished eating what little I could stomach, then walked out. Legrand collected his cards and followed me.

”Going to tell Dupre?” he asked, as I stomped in the direction of the latrine and the zombi corral.

”You mean he doesn't know?” I replied, sourly.

”Of course he knows. You knew too, Lieutenant; you just didn't want to think about it. Don't waste your time putting it in your report, hey? What would you want the army to do about it, anyway? Bury them all?”

I shrugged, then stopped and turned to face him. He held up his hands like a music hall minstrel. ”Don't be blaming me, lieutenant.”

”You make the zombis.”

”Yeah, but I don't f.u.c.k *em; I do havesome pride. Besides, the soldiers here love their work,there's no point in questioningtheir loyaltya””

”And Dupre lets them do ita”or does he join in?”

Legrand shrugged. His face looked like so much petrified wood, almost as though he were a zombi himself. ”I never saw him, and he doesn't boast about it.”

I sighed. Legrand looked up at the sky. ”Rain in a minute. You want to get under cover?”

My tent leaked slightly but insistently, and I stared out at the mud and wished I were back in the city. Any city. The empty-eyed zombi guards stood at their posts, immobile, silent, and very wet. ”The Major told me about your father,” said Legrand, quietly, as he sat on my sag-ging cot. ”Do you know who did ita”and don't be blaming the zom; somebody live had to give him that gun and those orders.”

”n.o.body seems to know,” I replied. ”n.o.body's claimed credit for it, so I suspect it was a screw-up, maybe they got the wrong colonel ... My mother and sister didn't believe that, but I guess I can...” It wasn't exactly a lie. Sometimes I did believe it, and the urge to kill the man or men responsible became bearable. Other times, it was like the pain of a broken bone or a bullet wound. ”My mother committed suicide; Sophie escaped to Jamaica.”

”It's a s.h.i.+tter, not knowing who to hate,” said Legrand. ”But it's no good hating the zoms. They just do what slaves and idiots used to do, or what machines do in the rich countries. We use zoms to walk across minefields, clear the way for the soldiers and the jeeps; in the Middle East, they use little boys, tell *em they're going to go to sit on G.o.d's right handa”I always used to think that meant G.o.d liked to fondle little boys' bottoms, but maybe that's something that didn't get translated too wella”and the UN has robots to do that sort of s.h.i.+t. We might use *em too, if it weren't for the blockade.” He didn't sound convinced; the drugs needed to make a zombi are expensive, but much cheaper than even Korean-made robots. ”You know about the pyramids? They were probably built by zomsa”climate like Egypt's, hot and dry, mummifies bodies naturally, zoms'd last for fifty years or more, and a lot of the Art's supposed to come from Egypt. Same with the Inca pyramids, and Easter Island ... It'd be nice to look at them and think n.o.body died making them, n.o.body suffered...”

”You think zoms don't suffer?”

”Nah. They're dead, or nearer to dead than I ever want to be; no soul, nogros bon ange . I've seen them try to walk with legs that bend both ways, carry on after being set alight by white phosphorus or napalm, stare into the sun *til those big blank eyes just burn out, they never even blink ... and I know all those Pyramids were built, anyway, whether it was by zoms or slaves. I know that thousands of Africans died lying in their own blood and s.h.i.+t in slaves.h.i.+ps. I know that bayonet charges used to be done with non-coms standing behind the foot-soldiers ready to shoot anyone who broke ranks, and cannon behind the non-coms for the same reason ... Is that what humans are for?” He shook his head. ”Sure, we might've been better off without the pyramids and without the wars, but you know who to blame forthem .”

That was too close to sedition for me to even acknowledge. ”Why are you out here?” I asked. ”You used to have a good job at Head-quartersa””

”Dessalines Barracks,” he replied, nodding, and then grinned horribly. ”But I talk too much sometimes, even when I'm sober, so they sent me out here where n.o.body would listena”well, n.o.body who matters, anyhow.” He was looking straight at me as he said it. ”As for Dupre, he goes where they send him, believes what they tell him. Good soldier.”

”What about Jacques?”

The Artist grinned insincerely. ”Born near here.” I raised an eyebrow. ”Marie-Claire, his wife, was arrested by the macoutes a few years ago, while he was stationed near Les Cayes. Second anniversary of the last coup. She was h.o.a.rding food; made a full confession.” He removed his Raybans to let me see his eyes, to show that he was serious. The tonton macoutes have a reputation for being able to inflict the maximum amount of pain on a person without rendering them useless as zombis, but they rarely waste time torturing somebody who's already confessed. h.o.a.rding food is an act of sedition, the least offence punishable by premature burial, but there's something petty about h.o.a.rding; as long as the food can be retrieved, it doesn't inspire the macoutes to revenge in the way that, say, graffiti would. ”By the time anyone had told Jacques, she was already in the ground and out of it again. The old fool begged to be rea.s.signed here, and the Major said yes, even promoted him to zombi master a few months later. He's good at it, too; very careful of the zoms, but nottoo careful, won't spare them if it means risking a soldier.” It was still raining heavily, but he stomped out of the tent and through the steaming mud towards the corral, and like a fool, I followed. ”That's her,” he said. There were enough women in there that he had to point with his raybans before I could tell who he meant.

She must have been handsome, back when she was alive, and she seemed much younger than Jacquesa”maybe not young enough to be his daughter, but young enough to make me stare at the other women there. Most of them were younger than she was, and though it was difficult to see past their empty eyes and empty mouths and their shambling movement, they were all notably voluptuous, and they might have been selected for a type of physical attractiveness. I mentioned this to Legrand, who merely shrugged.

”Arethey selected?”

”I don't pick them,” he replied, turning around and heading for his tent, which was also the camp's hounfor.

”Then who does?” I yelled. Legrand didn't answer; maybe he hadn't heard me over the drumming of the rain. I slogged my way through the mud as quickly as I could, and caught up with him just outside his tent. ”Who chooses them?”

Legrand glared at me though his Raybans, then ducked inside the tent. ”Who?” I repeated, as he sprawled on his cot.

”They pick themselves,” he replied. ”They're criminals, aren't they?”

I snorted. ”You can't treatevery criminal; half the people in these towns are probably h.o.a.rding food, if not weapons, and the drugs you need aren't cheap, the ceremonies take time ... who decides?”

”Depends what you mean,” he replied, sullenly. ”The soldiers and the macoutes pick out suspects for interrogation: maybe they're more likely to pick out the pretty women sometimes, as well as some strong backs. And maybe Jacques sends the men into danger first, because he doesn't like to see women die.” He shrugged. ”Maybe that's why he hasn't killed his wife. I would, if I were him.”

”Why? You said that zoms don't suffer,” I reminded him.

”Yeah? Well, that's because I'm full of s.h.i.+t. I don't know whether they suffer or not, and I don't give a f.u.c.k so long as I'm not one of them. It's the way the old man suffers that scares me.”

”Why? Because he wants revenge?”

”Who doesn't?” snapped Legrand. ”You want revenge for your father, right? Jacques wants revenge for his wife. The rest of the world wants revenge for the foreigners killed in the last coup. But revenge isn't worth s.h.i.+t; it always looks back, never forward. It's the dead telling the living how to live.” He looked past me to the corral. ”That's why none of the coups ever change anything; the new bosses waste too much time getting revenge on the people who were loyal to thelast bosses. Stupid. Don't f.u.c.k up your life going after the person who killed your father; get the f.u.c.ker who's going to kill your children.”