“We ought to do that anyhow, for the sake of truth,” Betvoss said. “Imagine believing some sort of oversized Big Ugly up above the sky manufactured the whole universe. Can you think of anything more preposterous?”

“No. But then, I am not a Tosevite,” Gorppet said, speaking the last phrase with considerable relief. In an effort to be charitable, he added, “Of course, up till now, they have not known of the Emperors, and so have been forming their beliefs in ignorance rather than in truth.”

“But they cling to their false notions with such persistence-we would not be going from one city to another like this if they did not,” Betvoss said. “And if I never hear ‘Allahu akbar!’ again, I shall not be sorry for it.”

“Truth!” Every male in the rear compartment of the mechanized combat vehicle said that. Several of them added emphatic coughs, to show how strongly they felt about it.

“Truth indeed,” Gorppet said. “Any male who has served where they say such things knows what a truth it is. Because it is a truth, we must stay especially alert. Remember, too many of the local Tosevites will give up their own lives if they can take us with them. They believe this will assure them of a happy afterlife.”

“As you said, they know not the Emperors.” Betvoss’ voice dripped scorn.

Gorppet scorned the Big Uglies for their foolish beliefs, too. That didn’t mean he failed to respect them as fighters, and especially as guerrilla fighters. He pressed an eye turret to the viewing prism above a firing port and looked out of the combat vehicle.

He sat on the left side of the vehicle, the one that faced away from the river, so he could see not only the farmland-worked by Big Uglies in long, flowing robes-but also the drier country where irrigation stopped. The landscape, in fact, put him in mind of Home. It was no wonder the colonists were running up so many new towns in the interior of this region, towns watered with pipes from desalination plants by the edge of the nearest sea.

Even the weather in this part of Tosev 3 was decent. The mechanized combat vehicle didn’t have its heater going full blast, as it would have on most of the planet. Gorppet had fought through one winter in the SSSR. He’d told some stories about that when he went into one of the new towns. None of the newly revived colonists believed him. He’d stopped telling those stories. For that matter, he’d stopped going into the new towns. He disliked the colonists almost as much as he disliked the Big Uglies. He disliked everyone except his comrades from the conquest fleet, and, with Betvoss beside him, he was forcibly reminded he didn’t much care for some of them, either.

Before it should have, the vehicle came to a halt, tracks rattling. “Oh, by the Emperor, what now?” Gorppet demanded. None of his fellow infantrymales knew, of course-they were as cooped up as he. He picked up the intercom and put the question to the driver. If he didn’t know, everybody was in trouble.

He had an answer, all right, but not one Gorppet cared to hear: “The accursed Tosevites managed to sabotage the bridge we are supposed to pass over.”

“What do you mean, sabotage?” Gorppet asked irritably. “I am in this metal box back here, remember? I cannot see straight ahead. If I do not look out a viewing prism, I cannot see out at all.”

“They bombed the span. It fell into the river. Is that plain enough for you, Exalted Squadlord?” The driver also sounded irritable.

“How did they manage to bomb it?” Gorppet exclaimed, which made the males in his squad exclaim, too. He went on, “Whoever let that happen ought to have green bands painted on him”-the mark of someone undergoing punishment-“and spend about the next ten years-the next ten Tosevite years, mind you-cleaning out the Big Uglies’ stinking latrines with his tongue.”

His squadmates laughed. He was too furious to find it funny. The driver said, “I agree with you, but I cannot do anything about it.”

“How is this column of vehicles to proceed on to Baghdad, then, if we cannot use the bridge?” Gorppet asked.

“We shall have to go on to As Samawan and cross the river there,” the driver replied. “While it is not the route originally planned, it should not delay us too much.”

“That is good,” Gorppet said. Then he paused in sudden sharp suspicion. “Why would the Big Uglies blow up a bridge if doing so causes us no great harm?”

“Who knows why Tosevites act as they do?” the driver said.

“I know this: they act as they do to cause us the greatest possible harm,” Gorppet said with great conviction. “Either they have an ambush waiting for us on the road to this As Samawan place or they are going to-”

The founder of the superstition in which the local Big Uglies believed so passionately, a certain Muhammad, was said to be a prophet, a male who could see the future. The notion, like so many on Tosev 3, was alien to the way the Race thought. But Gorppet, though not pausing even for a moment, proved a prophet in his own right. He hadn’t finished his sentence before bullets started slamming into the mechanized combat vehicle.

A lot of bullets were slamming into the vehicle. “They must have a machine gun out there, may the purple itch get under their scales!” he exclaimed, grabbing for his own automatic weapon.

As he spoke, the light cannon mounted atop the combat vehicle barked into life. He peered out through the vision prism. He couldn’t see much. Because they were close by the river-the Tosevite name for it was the Tigris-plant life grew exuberantly, providing excellent cover for the Big Ugly raiders. Someone should have thought to trim the vegetation farther back from the roadway, but no one had. He didn’t like that. How many Big Uglies were sneaking through the rank, noxiously green foliage toward the column?

There was the muzzle flash of the Tosevites’ machine gun. That being the only sure target he had, Gorppet started shooting at it. If the machine gun fell silent, he would know he was doing some good. The rest of the males in his squad were also blazing away. He didn’t know what the males on the far side of the combat vehicle were shooting at, but they seemed to have found something.

Before he could ask, a Big Ugly burst from the greenery and rushed toward the vehicle. He was, inevitably, shouting “Allahu akbar!” He carried in his right hand a bottle with a flaming wick. Gorppet had seen those in the SSSR. They were full of petroleum distillates, and could easily set even a landcruiser afire.

Gorppet sprayed the Tosevite with bullets. One of them struck the bottle. It burst and exploded into flame, which caught on the Big Ugly’s robes and his flesh. He would have been in greater torment still had Gorppet’s bullets-and probably those of other males as well-not toppled him and sent him quickly on the road to death.

Then a grenade flew out of the plants and exploded not far from Gorppet’s vehicle. He fired in the direction from which it had come, but couldn’t tell whether he’d hit the thrower. Another grenade burst on the far side of the vehicle. “We are surrounded!” Betvoss shouted in alarm.

If Betvoss could see it, it should have been obvious to anyone. Gorppet yelled into the intercom: “We had better get out of here while we still can!”

“I have no orders,” the driver answered, which struck Gorppet as not being nearly reason enough to stay. Before he could say as much, the other male added, “And I will not abandon my comrades without orders.”

That, unfortunately, did make sense to Gorppet. He spotted a shape moving in among the greenery and fired at it. Even through the mechanized combat vehicle’s armor, he heard the shriek the Big Ugly let out. He snarled in savage satisfaction.

The vehicle did begin to back away then, which presumably meant the ones behind it in the column had already started retreating. The machine didn’t have to go around any burning hulks, for which Gorppet let out a sigh of relief. Smoke dischargers helped shield the column from the Tosevites’ eyes. Before long, all the combat vehicles were speeding northwest along the road to As Samawan. Gorppet wasn’t the least bit unhappy to leave that marauding band of Big Uglies behind.