Not For Glory Read Free Page A

the other two to your west and east. There won't be any trouble here, but set out a full guard, just for practice."
    "I'll set my people to it now, rest of the regiment as soon as they disembark." Davis nodded. "Speaking of practice, though . . ." He bounced on the balls of his feet, experimenting. "We're running a little under nine-tenths of a g here."
    "So?"
    "So, nobody around here has loosed an arrow under this grav, not recently. You want me to set up some targets, get some practice shooting down?"
    "No." Shimon Bar-El turned away.
    "Wait just a moment, General." Davis reached for his arm, clearly thought better of it, let his hand drop. "They have to get some practice—better here than in combat."
    Shimon sighed. "They won't need practice. We're not supposed to win this one." He jerked a thumb at me. "Ask Tetsuo, when we get back. In the meantime, Colonel, just follow orders."
    Davis turned away, wordless. I trotted after Shimon.
    "What the hell was that for?" I kept my voice calm, with just a touch of tremor for effect.
    He snickered. "That's not supposed to be common knowledge, eh? We're supposed to be able to storm a walled city—population about fifteen thousand, three thousand effectives maybe, with two thousand men? While there're horsemen harassing our flanks?"
    In fact we weren't supposed to. And we weren't going to. "That's what the contract says."
    He patted his hip pocket. "I've got a copy right here. It's handy when you run out of bumwad. Tetsuo, I have no intention of just going through the motions. I'm supposed to fail. Damned if I'm going to play wargames just to keep you happy."
    He looked up at me, a smile quirking across his lips. "But I'll do it to keep our employer happy."
    At the edge of the field, he stopped a blue-suited Commerce Department stevedore. "How do I go about finding Senhor Felize Regato?"

    Regato's mansion was clear evidence that little except military tech was on the proscribed list for Indess. The floors looked to be real Italian marble; among the paintings I spotted a Picasso and a Bartolucci—and the glows overhead made me smile: their light was the same color as the glows at home.
    A linen-clad servitor led us into Regato's study, a high-ceilinged room with enough space for a family of twelve, back home. The fur that covered the couch where we sat wasn't oal. That would have been too easy. It was the pelt of some coal-black animal, glossy and soft.
    After the requisite wait—Regato was a busy man, and wanted us to know it—he sauntered in, a tall, slim man with a broad smile creasing his dark face. We stood.
    "General Bar-El, it is a pleasure." He clasped Shimon's hand with both of his own. "And this is your aide, Colonel. . .?"
    "Hanavi, Senhor."
    He smiled vaguely, then dropped into an overstuffed chair, idly smoothing the legs of his suit "General," he said, "I believe we share a hobby."
    Shimon Bar-El didn't return the smile. "I don't have hobbies."
    I glared at my uncle, but he ignored it. This was playing along to keep the employer happy? Contradicting the First Senhor of the Assembly didn't seem to quite fit the bill.
    Regato's brow furrowed, but he kept his tone light. Perhaps too light. "Oh? I thought we were both devotees of military history." He waved a hand at the bookshelves behind him. "I've studied from Thucydides, to," he said, half-ducking his head, "Bar-El."
    Shimon chuckled. "Thank you. But Thucydides was a historian, as you know, not a soldier. And for me, the history of my profession isn't a hobby, it's a matter of business."
    "Point well taken. Your second point, that is. Not your dismissal of Thucydides." Regato raised a finger. "He was, after all, the first to recount battles to preserve them for future generations. I only wish that he had been around later, when Cincinnatus was alive."
    "Well, he would have had to live an extra few hundred years. And have been a Roman, instead of a Greek." Shimon Bar-El cocked his head to one side. "Why