ANCESTRAL VOICES S. M. Stirling quotShall I provide a map display of the tactical situationquot The Mark III Bolo sounded slightlyhopeful. quotWho needs mapsquot Lieutenant Martins said. quotTake a goddamn piece of paper crumple it up andyouve got a map of this goddamn country and the towns are worse.quot quotMy optical storage capacity extends to 1:1 mapping of this entire hemispherequot the tank said.It didnt add that the street-maps of this particular Central American city were hopelesslyobsolete. Unchecked fires and squatters almost as destructive had altered it beyond recognitionover the past decade. The Mark III Bolo still used the sultry-sweet female voice poor Vinatelli had programmed inMartins told herself that the hint of injured pride was her imagination. The plump newbiesbones were pushing up the daisies—or bougainvillea—back in the Companys old firebase in thenow-defunct Republic of San Gabriel a few hundred miles to the south but the Mark III wasstill with them. Being sent a giant state-of-the-art tank had seemed right on schedule with thegeneral madness and decay a couple of months ago. Theyd been virtually cut off from evenroutine resupply and then the Pentagon had delivered a mobile automated firebase instead ofammunition or replacements. Now . . . If the Company had any chance of getting back to what wasleft of the USA the Bolo would be the key. It was also much more comfortable than sittingoutside in a UATV a Utility All-Terrain Vehicle. A nice soft crash-couch surrounded bydisplay screen that could register data in any format she chose there was even a port-a-pottyand a cooler although the supply of Jolt had given out. You could fight a major battle in thisthing without even cracking a sweat—and with 150 tons of density-enchanced durachrome