SIMON BARBER                                Triple Point Four


	"It is being an Interesting place," is what I am saying as we bump over the icy road towards the front line, in the early morning mist, "It is a place, the Triple Point, where nothing seems to FIT. Which is why strange things might feel at Home here."
	Our transporter is moving slowly, the covered flatbed lorry picking its way through the snowdrifts, steam from the turbines wafting past us as I look out of the back hatch. It is a canvas cave on wheels, my unit and three of the Engineers still running tests on our armour. The suits are new - which is an Interesting fact, and one that is not encouraging me. It will be an interesting sensation, trusting my life to something without a single experienced nut or bolt - at least, I console myself, the metal is seasoned.  Here in the Gross Liechtenstein Reich, we use four grades of steel, two of iron, and three aluminium alloys, every scrap clearly marked for recycling. Necessity is the bank manager of invention.
	Natya gives a grunt, the big equine centaur turning to face me in the dim light. "Ha. You got THAT right. What was it they used to say, back last century, slagging off all the Elder Ones' architecture ? Something about The Angles Being All Wrong. Look, Grimsley, here's a map." She reaches into the saddlebag and pulls out one of the laminated plastic sheets. "Take a look, this is how WE see things. You see the front line ? All the way to Novy Mineralysk, this is our territory, the big salient slanting North-East." She is silent a minute, and waves out into the darkness. "Population, nil. Agriculture, nil. Minerals, sand and granite. Resources, snow and pinecones. Value ..... " she snorts.  "Guess. But look on the Russian and Scandian maps, and they claim it's Theirs.  Not worth fighting for - if that was the point."
	"Eh, an' it's t' Triple Point, though but," the mouse grins, pulling his fragment-proof jacket round him for warmth. "Nobbut rock and trees an' squaddies, burning up ammo an' fuel tha' can't afford. Sounds daft, like."
	Natya strokes him motheringly, and I turn away, almost embarrassed. At least the big draft mare is over her Season, for another month. Exactly what she sees in the English mouse, I still find hard to imagine ..... he might be "exotic" to her, but in the GLR we have almost a world monopoly of Exotics. I look down at my own four walking legs, legacy of some Very involved Genemeld techniques that crossed bloodlines many folk still think should have remained inviolate. And I grin. Natya, I know, is from one of the Open herds, where a full range of species live together without distinction, in a development of non-sapient Equine herds. It truly shocks tourists, to find out that every now and again, the herd leader is not one genetically equipped to give interviews with, despite  the prowess of his other abilities ...
	There is a silence, only broken by the crunching of snow under the wheels, the faint whine of the turbine and the occasional brief word as the rodent engineers run their equipment tests. Normally, we would have a week of running-in, well behind the lines. I am not liking this mission, before they even tell us what it is, and confide as much to Vaclav, the heartland deer centaur.
	Vaclav is fully armoured right now, as the air feeds are clipped onto the outside lugs by one of the engineering rodents. He nods, his breath a silver cloud in the cone of the inspection lights as his port engine is installed on the blow-clear lug. As with everything else on the outside of the armour, fuel, ammunition nd the rest, this is designed to get shot to pieces and fail-safe for its user by throwing itself clear when smashed by a direct hit."Well. At least, the condemned get to have a hearty breakfast." He grins suddenly. "The lorry's full of some Very nice stuff. Look !" He opens one of the big, rough-hewn pinewood boxes that will end up in the lorry's boiler on the return trip. "Tins of meat ! Real coffee, not that acorn stuff ! If we were Russians travelling like this, the Security police would have us for Black marketeers." 
		Natya gives a grunt, the big mare looking at a spread-out map of the Front, its broadly shaded area spreading from near where we are, out to the nominal mark of the Point itself. She holds the plastic-laminated sheet up to the light, her deep-set eyes tracing its every mark and feature.
	Grimsley is looking over her shoulder, memorising it with a practiced eye. "Eh, tha's a right mess. It's that simple, like, from up top. Nowt but blue skies and clouds .... tha' looks at the curve of the Earth, and all this looks plain as a pikestaff."
	He subsides, huddling in the padded protection of his tank-rider's armour, seeming smaller than ever. I nod approvingly at him, watching as he fixes the map in his memory. The bend of a valley or the shape of a forest's edge is the kind of thing he needs to know now, not the frequency of a navigational beacon or the siting of a Stealth radar. And like the rest of us, I am feeling happier to know we have a competent, though small, addition to our pack.
	Suddenly we feel the transporter slowing, its wide-tyred wheels crunching resolutely in the hard-packed snow. One of the rodent technicians sticks his head out of the side-window into the darkness, and winces in the ice-stinging chill. He grimaces as he pulls back into shelter.
	"There's a Conmmand carrier pulled up at the side of the road, waving us in," he looks around us, picking up his tools. "Are we expecting anyone ?"
	I see Natya and Vaclav glancing at each other. Suddenly Vaclav smiles, a worried grin.
	"Nobody's yet told us what the mission IS - " he suggests mildly. "It'd be nice if they got round to doing it ...."

	Though Vaclav is tested negative on psionics,  he has predicted this one uncanniny - and the officer waiting at the crossroads for us is of a more Accomplished rank. I can see the subdued Eye-Rune on her collar as she flashes her torch at us, her centaur shape lithe and unarmoured, and definitely deer-based. Vaclav's tail is unconsciously twitching as he catches scent of her.
	"Hanna Rittler, Intelligence Corps," she nodds to us, scrambling up onto our flatbed, and we see the rank badge of OverLieutenant on her other shoulder. "How are you doing ? Like the new suits ?"
	I eye her up and down, warily. I have just finished reading the manuals, and discover the supercharger is designed to explode outwards if hit, protecting the engine beneath - and indeed, half the book is full of fail-safe systems, explaining in metallurgically gory detail how it is designed to keep fighting with most of the pieces shot away.
	But I nod, slowly. "We're grateful - if they perform as well as they claim to. But we want a week of practice, before we head in there." I wave vaguely forward, and watch her wince.  We shall be going in soonish, in new equipment, for some very good reason, evidently. There will be no week's training, but I would have bet on that anyway.
	Hanna Rittler's ears droop. "We need you in there NOW - and my orders are to go with you. " She looks out of the window: the Command vehicle is parked on flat snow by the crossroads, and a faint whisp of steam is rising from its louvred chimney: birchwood smoke scents the wind. "But for this briefing - mission personnell ONLY."

	We troop across the snow, leaving our mechanics behind to fine-tune the few pieces of electronics we carry. Torm and Eric follow us: not that they will understand anything of the briefing, but they are of us, and where we go, they follow. 
	The Intelligence Officer trots ahead of us, her long, fine hoofed legs sinking into the snow. She is mostly unclad on her quad portion, like most centaurs who have been engineered with a healthy-sized dose of Ancestral stock. Even in this snow, she wears only a loosely-wrapped throw-rug, neatly fastened to her uniform tunic. But, I reflect, it is probably expensive imported Kevlar - there are too few psykers amongst us, to risk losing for want of a few hundred Marks' worth of protection.
	"Nice place ," Vaclav comments, as we squeeze in. The trailer is certainly a military template-construction, its every nut and bolt one of the standard sizes. I know for a fact that the bolts holding the tables and fittings together will work in our armour and vehicles - but occupants as well as designers make a habitat, and this as clean and well-managed a home on wheels as we have seen.
	Hanna's ears dip, as she looks at us, perhaps wondering how many of us are going to be coming back, and if she will be there to make the tally. "Danke," she nods, motioning us to sit, or park ourselves as best we can. Then, she flashes us a wry smile. 
	"Please, make yourselves comfortable. I'm to brief you, fully and completely ..... this might take some time."
	Hedley's own ears twitch, as he looks around the trailer, and edges a little closer to the wood burning stove, on which a Samovar scenting of lemon tea is bubbling. The mouse looks up at her, small in his borrowed armour, bereft of Insignia. "'Scuse me, Ma'm - you're letting ME hear this ? " He waves around at the computer screens and comms links. "I'm not even IN your forces, like .... happen I'm aklong for the ride."
	Hannah unzips her padded body-throw from the hem of her tunic, and hangs it up: from the label, I see I was right about it being Kevlar. She looks at us, searchingly, one by one. I feel a strange tingling sensation: psykers in the Intelligence Corps are not constrained by social restraint when using their Talents. What exact talents she has, we may find out - but right now, our question is what has brought us all here.
	She nodds towards one of the computers, and it obligingly projects a far more comprehensive map than the one Natya was straining her eyes over a few minutes before. "Here we are. And, for the sake of our Guest, I'll put things in perspective. I'm going to tell you all, some very sensitive details - because this mission is one we'll have to go through with, as best we can. Meaning if I, or any or all but one of us, don't survive, the last one will have to go in alone. And that one will need all the help he or she can get."
	She looks around, checking the doors are closed. Her white-tipped tail twitches charmingly, and the narrow hooves tap nervously on the chipboard floor of the trailer.  "As you know, we're trying to keep things stable here. Us, the Russians and the S.U.N, find it cheap and convenient to have a low-intensity conflict - our troops are volunteers, and nobody heads out towards the Point unless they're looking for trouble. Though on paper, we've eight Divisions along this frontier, they're only held at ten percent strength ..... most of the troops are at home, in the fields and factories. The same's true of our Opposition."
	The deer centaur gives us a bleak smile. "If we have a Mission here, it's to see that it's never worthwhile for them to throw their Real strength against us - a bloody nose, militarily speaking, every know and then, to stop the long knives coming out. Oh, you can get yourself killed out there in a second - we all know that. But till now, things have been kept pretty much  self-limiting."
	Natya nods, the mare's deep-set eyes glittering. "You wouldn't believe it, Grimsley - we've got two official "Tourist Regiments" - if you see a mixed bunch of Japanese carrying experimental weaponry, with some Very nervous-looking Minders, that's them. Billed as the Ultimate in big-game Hunting experiences ....  healthy winter sport, and bag a tank or two ..... probably get their Companies to pay to send them."
	Grimsley nods. "Happen it were Paintball, fifty years back. Aye, I get the picture, like. And Matsushita, Mitsubishi an'  companies wi' latest hardware, get to test it fer real."
	"Exactly. I take it, you've had some Experience ? You've heard of the folk who find our part of the world ..... of Interest ?"
	The mouse looks up at her, hus whiskers twitching. "I have that. I were with STALT, tha'knows, Independent unit ..... half a country, half a Corporation ..... and we got all sorts.  " He gives a wry chuckle. "There's folk who'd turned up at regular army recruitin' bases, tha' knows, with knives taped to their leg fur, an' wire saws threaded in their clothin, just to show Initiative, like. They'd be chucked out in no time ..... but some found their way to us, and if they weren't TOO unhinged, we might try them on a mission."  The English mouse shakes his head slowly. "A lot of them lot didn't come back, and regular troops laughed thesselves sick at some of the things what happened to 'em ..."
	Hanna raises an ear, half smiling. "I think I've got "The 999 silliest ways to Die" online somehere..... yes, I've read a few of their, ah, Unrepeatable exploits. But then, you know, a lot of folk  DO end up here, as a matter of Convenience. The Siberians, for instance .... "
	Grimsley nods. What would be obvious propaganda about most people, is probably true of the Siberians - who have some long-established customs they proudly maintain,  even in this, the middle of the twenty-first century. No siberian hut is complete without a pile of skulls and skins of sentient foes taken in battle - and although we eat the occasional prisoner ourself, we at least don't eat them alive.  Well, I remind myself, at least our fully sentient troops don't; for Torm and Eric, the Half-wolves, it's different.
	"Anyway .... " Hanna starts again, tapping at the projected map. "We have two disturbing sets of events, in the last six weeks. Someone is wiping out patrols of Russians and S.U.N. forces - and leaving our troops severely alone. Which, in itself, I'd heartily approve of ....."
	Vaclav's hooves tap nervously as he shifts position. "But, if they decide to pull out all the stops, and retalliate .....  this whole thing could turn into a full-scale War. We get the picture. An we've no idea who it is ?"
	She turns to look at us, and with a shiver we all recognise that even here, in the warmth of her own armoured trailer, she is SCARED, enough to scent the air with the acrid smell of it. "We've seen nothing - satellites, Remote-Piloted Vehicles, ground troops - all draw a blank. But there's something we should be able to see ..... if it can do THIS."  She concentrates briefly at whatever interface card her psionics uses, and from the computer speakers comes a crackling burst of speech: my Russian isn't good enough to make out the words, but the voice sounds neutral, unafraid.
	"This, we picked up last week, from the location - here.," she points to a river bend on the map, not forty kilometres West of us. "As you can imagine, it's routinely coded, and we generally don't  bother with small-unit radio decodes. When it takes a day or two to break their encryption key - why bother using all those computing resources, if it's just the usual scouting reports, long obsolete by the time we read it ? This one, though, we sent away to have broken Privately - I'm sure you know the kind of place I mean, Grimsley, and what they charge us."
	He winces. "I do, that. Tha' must have had a reet good reason, for this one."
	Hanna's smile tautens as she stares at the mouse, looking uncomfortable even in the warmth of the stove. "We're listening to the Commissar of a thirty-strong patrol of armoured infantry; they're riding light hover-sleds, the RBM-25 model. It's just after dusk, and they're fanned out, picking their way cautiously, the Commissar at the back ..... he's just contacting base, asking if they've any updates ..... and luckily for us, he drops the radio. Because it's still transmitting, and he wouldn't have TIME to call anyone, when it starts."
	She is silent, and our ears strain to pick out what we can from the hissing, distorted signal - which suddenly becomes very clear: evidently this part has been processed and enhanced. But all I hear is the same Muscovite accent, evidently arguing tiredly with an unheard voice somewhere far from dark woods and snowdrifts.
	There is a distant scream ahead. Three or four voices call questioningly,  controlled barks of orders into the night. And then in a rising chorus, one after another starts screaming, and opens fire ..... we hear the awfully familiar ripping sound of a 30mm ShPKK cannon, fired fully automatic .... then more, in a wall of sound that still can't drown out the sound of the screams ......  not of agony, but sheer, abject terror, of brave soldiers suddenly confronted with something of horror past their ability to withstand .....
	"They're firing everything they've got, full auto .... rocket pods, cannon,  needle rifles .... and in that terrain, that time of night ..... you can't see a hundred metres .... fifty, more likely ..." Vaclav whispers, his tail rigid. "And we know they're pretty good shots ...... "
	"But it isn't doing them any good at all." I finish, suddenly dry-mouthed. There is less noise now, and one of the voices is shrieking with bursts of insane howling laughter more terrible than any scream could be, before it is rather suddenly silenced. Then we hear the Commissar, gasping for breath, as he gabbles out a long string of numbers .... and he stops. We hear him pant a couple of times, then very firmly and clearly, he starts again - this is unmistakably different, a long string of numbers and letters,  each one repeated. By the time he seems to have finished,  there are no more shots or screams left - but somehow there is a deliberate silence. Even on this crackling recording, made over a backpack radio and pasted back together by some cyberwork chop-shop in Japan, Korea or Greenland, we feel it - a looming wall of silence,  rising like the wall of a tsunami wave crashing towards some doomed shore. We jump at one last crack of  sound, and there the recording ends.
	Hanna looks at us, searching from one face to the other. "Well, then. We'd heard the noise, a long way off - and one of the Japanese tourist units loaned us an infra-red detector that spotted the heat plume rising twelve kilometres away above the forest. So we went in - and then sent this recording off to be cracked, regardless of cost. What we found ...."
	She gives us another searching look. "We knew it wasn't going to be pretty. You've all seen what modern artillery can do, or what happens if Siberians catch you alive .... and have a few days  to get inventive. But this was .... rather worse. We don't even know how it happened, but ....  for example, one of the soldiers had been literally turned inside out .... and that wasn't the worst one, either. Two bodies were ..... well, I won't say more-or-less intact, because one mink female trooper had aparently thrown herself onto her own chainsword, and the Commisar .... he'd 	kept a grenade for himself. But whatever happened to the others, happened while they were still alive.."
	She briefs us on the locations, times, and what we know of the other eighteen such events, and we try and look for a pattern, knowing that folk who do this for a living have failed to spot one. From the pictures, we see that this had been a well-equipped team, in the latest ceramic armour - which in places has been bent into impossible shapes, that ceramics should break rather than buckle into .... bizarrely, I recall the spoon-bending craze I read of from sixty years ago, where the earliest applied psykers could bend glass and brittle alloys.
	None of us are looking at all happy by now, but Vaclav is looking distinctly sick. He motions to me, and while Hanna and the rest are poring over the computer display, as well as certain ..... disturbing pictures, he pulls me over towards the door.
	"She isn't telling us Everything," he whispers urgently, my keen fox ears pricked up. "And she's good reason not to. But, you know, I was in Signals, and ...... everyone picks things up, more than they're meant to hear. Do you know what the Commissar was saying, when he saw what was there ?"
	I shake my head. "Strings of numbers .....  giving his location ? But no, Base would know that anyway......   you know how Centralised they are still. I'd say he was calling for backup ....  whatever attacked them, they couldn't do a thing about it."
	The deer gives me a look, such as I imagine his hunted ancestors might have had when spotting a wolf-pack breaking cover towards them. "Oh, you don't know the half of it. He was calling in Artillery ..... then he stopped. Remember ? Then he changed his mind ..... and started to call out that second series. I know what he was doing, you see."
	Vaclav looks out of the plexiglass window, towards our own flatbed, its driver and the mecha technicians snug inside, brewing up coffee and the eternal Rations of instant lemon tea. He gives me a speculative glance, one eyebrow raised.
	"Do you know, in Russian, some letters became Extinct ? When they rationalised the spelling in 1917,  a couple of characters were simply dropped from the alphabet ? Apart from a few emigre communities, I suppose, they haven't been in use for a hundred and twenty years. You won't find a keyboard in their whole empire with them on - or so you'd think. You couldn't possibly say them by accident .... and no codebreaking program would ever crack a string with them in, unless it was expecting them to be there ."
	I swallow, feeling my tail bush out in alarm. Not because I have any idea what he's talking about, but by his expression - and I have never seen him looking so deadly serious. On top of the horrors we've been shown, there is something else - that Hanna has thought we would be better off not knowing.
	My friend nods, his ears drooping. "The Commissar gave his full name, and an authorisation code," he whispersed. "He gave where he was standing, as co-ordinates, and then he gave that long and very special string, with symbols most folk don't even recognise these days. I only saw them once before ..... on some Very secure documents we only cracked after their use-by date was up. "
	Vaclav fixes me with that haunted look again. "Whatever was out there - the last survivor made a last request, which obviously Higher Command didn't follow through with. Before he pulled the pin on the grenade, the Commissar called for Help - a city-buster sized H-bomb, to home in on right where he was standing. Because he obviously didn't think anything smaller would do the job."
	

			End Chapter 4