IZZY WAS BEGINNING to enjoy these meetings between her division heads and the yard foreman overseeing the overhaul work. Even a veteran meeting-hater could enjoy ones where everything went smoothly and everyone liked what was happening and who was doing it. Yes, I can take meetings like these more often.
Except then, the work wouldn’t get done.
“So, Engineering, any problems?”
If Buddha could be bothered, that was the look on Vu’s face as he leaned forward in his chair. “Regretfully, yes.”
Quickly, the chief engineer went over the basic problem with all the cruisers converted from prewar merchant ships. The ships had two fusion reactors—the original ship’s and a second one, which was a slightly modified version of a surface-based power plant. On planets, the reactors were installed in groups of four. The Navy had quickly discovered that power production from a single unit tended occasionally, for only nanoseconds, to be unstable. No matter how brief the instabilities, they tended to create very spectacular explosions. “As we told you, Captain, both I and Mr. Oberstein believed we had a way around it.”
“We also converted cargo ships during the last war,” the yard man said, taking up the report. “Out on the rim, our power needs were smaller, so our converts had three small reactors to your one big one. However, it appeared to me that the real problem was in the installation and calibration.”
Izzy wished they’d get to the point. She and Guns had agreed that it would be great if they could draw on both reactors for whatever they needed—more guns, more speed, more whatever. As it was, the original reactor was limited to propulsion and maintaining the fusion containment fields. Weapons and general ship’s services took some spectacular power hits in the normal course of business. “I take it that your ideas aren’t working out,” she cut them off.
“It appears that the new software will not do what we had hoped,” Vu agreed.
“So we fall back on the original software,” Izzy concluded.
Mr. Oberstein cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, the new hardware will not work with the old software configuration.”
“Can we reinstall the old hardware?” Izzy asked hopefully.
“No, ma’am,” Vu answered. “The old equipment was close to failure as it was. I am afraid just the act of removing it reduced it to scrap.”
Izzy drummed her fingers on the table, then forced herself to immobility. “Gentlemen, I agree we have a problem. How did you solve this with that other cruiser, the Sheffield?”
“The chief engineer of the Second Chance refused to let us do anything but medium-level maintenance. He liked the configuration he had,” Oberstein assured her.
“Chips, can you help these people with their software?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Vu, Oberstein, if you need anything, let me know. The Patton’s going nowhere without its engines. You are now the critical path. I don’t want to tell Trouble when he gets back here that we’ve got to delay going after the girl he’s sweet on and who is somebody’s slave just because your upgrade turned into a downgrade. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am”s came quickly from around the table.
“I sure as hell don’t want to tell a marine that he’s got to sit on his hands cause the Navy can’t get off theirs. All right, folks, let’s get back to work.” Izzy sent them on their way. It would be another week before Trouble got back. He’d have two weeks to convert his recon into a full assault plan. As soon as he found out Ruth was down there, she’d probably have to weld his boots to the deck to keep him from immediately charging off after her. She’d about had to get the welding arc out to keep Joe under control. No, the Patton had to be ready to lift on time. It had to be.
• • •
The truck screeched to a halt. The locked plastic hood covering its bed was flung open, turning oppressive hot darkness into sweltering heat under a muddy gray sky. “Okay, out of the truck,” shouted the shorter of two guards who looked to be in a lousy mood. The erstwhile crew of the Loki struggled on unsteady legs to follow orders. Ken helped Trouble.
He stood in a muddy compound with prefab barracks to his right and a rough collection of workshops, barns, and other buildings to his left. Behind him, five or six freshly painted houses formed a small court next to the one road out.
Ahead of Trouble, separated from him by a chain-link fence, were endless fields planted with row upon row of bushy vegetation. Scattered clumps of men were bent over, hoeing around plants ranging from small as twigs to chest-high. Others harvested several rows as tall as themselves.
“Take a good look. That’s what you’re here for. Now, over to the sheds with you.” A whip of rawhide got their attention. It flicked across Hub’s back; the poor man cringed. For a second, Trouble feared Hub would just collapse in place, but he managed to move with the rest toward the pointed-out shed. Legions of insects, most of them species unknown to Trouble, joined them in the trudge; the slaves swatted more than they walked. The whip cracked, hustling them on.
In the steaming shadows of the shed, the smell of raw plastic and hot metal replaced the stench of raw sewage and standing water. A man greeted them with a half-toothless smile and handfuls of animal control pods. “Some of you may recognize these goodies. Some people put them around folks’ waists where they can get your attention in a lot of different ways, from stomachaches to knocking you out. We figure we got your attention.” He stepped forward and slipped two around Ken’s neck, tightened a thin collar, then reached for Trouble. “You feel a tingle, listen real good. Cause you won’t feel nothing next. You’ll be dead.”
Trouble gulped as two pods nestled down beside his spine. “Understood,” he said.
“All you better understand,” the short man snapped his whip. “You make us any trouble, there’s plenty more where you came from. Work and you live. Become a problem, and we’ll solve you real quick.”
Once everyone was necklaced, their next stop was a barracks. Tiers of green plastic bunks, three high, stretched in rows on both sides of an aisle. There were no mattresses, no blankets, no cloth of any kind. Muddy plastic bunks stood on muddy brown floors. The windows were open; insects were everywhere.
“Can we have bug netting, or something?” Ken asked.
“Don’t worry nothing about the bugs. They don’t carry nothing that can kill you. Just make sure your bug bites don’t get infected from the muck.” The taller guard looked them over. “Some of you look like you tripped over your own feet a lot. Check with the medic once she comes in off the fields. An open sore can make you too sick to work. No work, no food. You don’t want to miss one of our delicious meals.”
Both guards laughed at that, then left.
“Hey, we got showers!” Hub shouted from the back of the barracks. Trouble knew Unity prefabs had a latrine in the rear. The crew crowded around the entrance to the latrine as Hub turned on the water. It came out weak and brown. He twisted the hot water handle as far as it would go and stuck his hand under the resulting trickle. “Cold.”
“Cold!” Ken started for the water stream.
“Not cold, puke warm,” Hub answered. He washed his hands in the lazy flow, then shook them. “Dirtier than when I started.”
They returned to the open bay and collapsed into bunks. “Wonder how long the work day is?” Hub asked the torrid air.
“I suspect we better enjoy this rest,” Trouble muttered. “I doubt we get much time off.”
“What made you such a bloody optimist?” Hub whined. “Maybe it won’t be so bad. I mean, we ain’t slaves. We ain’t prisoners. We ain’t been convicted of nothing.”
Trouble lay back on the plastic bunk, leaving it to someone else to set Hub straight. Nobody did. Like a good soldier, Trouble took the opportunity to take a nap.
“Hey, if you new guys want something to eat, you better get out here quick,” came from a nearly naked man standing in the doorway of the barracks, a bowl in one hand, a biscuit in the other. Quickly the Loki’s crew emptied the barracks; with his muscles cramped and screaming, Trouble hobbled up to the end of the line. Slowly, the line moved to where a stack of bowls waited. A dispenser on the side of the barracks sloshed a thin gruel into the bowl, and a biscuit dropped from the box next to it. One per customer.
“You’re new guys.” A big hulk of a man confronted the eight from the Loki. “You ain’t hungry. Gimme your biscuits.”
Hub was about to hand his over. Trouble gave his bowl and bread to Ken. “Hold these for a moment. There must be one of these in every crowd.” He turned to the big guy. “Sorry, but they didn’t feed us at all where we came from.”
“No work, no eat,” the guy growled. He stuffed his biscuit in his mouth, followed it with the last of his gruel, then flung the bowl hard at Trouble’s head. The marine bent to the left, and the heavy dish flew past him. He sidestepped to the right as the big jerk charged; Trouble gave him enough gentle encouragement to send him sprawling into a muddy puddle. Seeing no point in prolonging the fight, Trouble stepped in with a blow to the man’s spine, then a chop to his neck. The jerk went limp with a groan. Since his nose was out of the water, Trouble left him where he fell, retrieved his meal, and started eating it slowly.
“Thanks,” Ken said. Even Hub muttered something.
“Oh-oh, you’re in trouble now, slick.”
Trouble looked at the speaker. A scarecrow of a man, he pointed toward the good housing at the other end of the compound. A woman stood on the balcony of the largest house, dressed in something slinky, more appropriate for a ball than the end of the work day. She said something to the man next to her. He nodded and left.
“Who’s she?”
“The boss woman. New gal, just been here a couple of days. She figures she owns us, body and soul,” another man in a breechcloth answered. This one was more filled out and carried himself like he still wore a three-piece suit. He set his bowl into the washer and turned to Trouble. “I’m Tom Gabon.”
“Know your brother,” the marine said, offering his hand.
“Stan? You Navy?” The guy’s eyes lit up.
“Not at the moment.” The marine shrugged. “They call me Trouble.”
“Looks like you’ve been in a lot of it. You better have someone take care of those open wounds. Our new medic should be done eating by now. I’ll show you the dispensary.”
“Stan said you were due to testify for something. Then you left.” Is this the man who knew too much?
“Yeah, who wants to talk to a Senate hearing when you have a job offer too good to be true?” Tom glanced around. “Didn’t quite work out like I expected.”
Tom led Trouble to the clinic, such as it was, among the work sheds. The door was ajar. “Is the doctor in?” Tom called softly.
“No doctor in sight, but the witch has got her cauldron boiling,” came a familiar voice.
“Ruth,” Trouble breathed.
The door flew open. “Trouble! What are you doing here?”
“Trying not to track mud into your hospital.” He gave her one of his crooked smiles. It hurt.
“Better you don’t drip blood all over the place.” She pulled him into her aid station, grabbed a wad of cotton, dabbed alcohol on it, and started working over his face.
“I saw you on the station,” Trouble said, trying not to wince. “Did you see me?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t show it. They catch you because of me?” Ruth turned pale under the mud that seemed to cake everyone.
“No. Someone else from Hurtford. A woman.”
“Zylon. That bitch. I saw her on the ship out to here. A lot of people wanted to talk to her back home, but she got away and took about forty of us with her, just to make her point. Whatever that is. She even bragged to us before their ship picked us up. Damn, that woman’s crazy.” Ruth glanced out the door. “She’s also our new boss.”
“I thought the woman on the balcony looked familiar.”
“Yeah.” Ruth started working down from his face. He opened his jumpsuit. “Trouble, who beat you up this time?”
“Some of the best. Got anything to help?”
“Nothing for the aches. The guards have their own painkillers, though I sew them up after their nightly brawls.”
“How do we get out of here?” The raw whisper of the words that had been clawing to get out of his throat escaped him.
“You don’t.” Ruth tapped his control pods. “That necklace is ceramic composite. Nothing here is going to cut it. You wander beyond the planted area, and you’re dead.”
“There are things out there big and nasty,” Tom added. “When they bring the bodies back, they’ve been chewed and clawed up something horrible.”
“I didn’t think we could eat the local stuff, or it eat us,” Ruth said.
“Most of it, we can’t,” Tom answered. “But that doesn’t keep some of them from trying.”
“How do we get off a message?” Trouble tossed out the fallback option.
“We can’t do that either,” Ruth answered.
Tom nodded in agreement. “Guards have the only radios, and they’re very short-ranged. One of the guys in my work group was the network manager who laid this whole planet out. They used fiber optics for everything. Kept radios to the minimum.”
Trouble scowled. “Explains why this planet was so silent when I tried listening to it. There’s got to be some spare transmitters besides the guards. Tractors, trucks?”
“My tractor has a GPS receiver, but no transmitter. There are no trucks on the compound.”
“Zylon has spare wrist systems,” Tom added after a pause. “She didn’t like the way a silver one looked with her red ensemble last night. She switched to gold. There must have been a dozen units, made up to look like jewelry.”
“How can we get our hands on them?” the marine asked.
Tom turned away. “They’re in her bedroom. Gida, the overseer before her, had kind of adopted me. She wanted to get ahead in this business. I was her teacher, sort of a MBA bed-warmer. I guess she passed that along to Zylon. She had me in the last two nights. Business and pleasure in one neat package.” He glanced back to them, a helpless twist to his empty smile.
“Before Gida, I never thought a woman could rape a man. Zylon…” He shook his head. His back was raked with long claw marks. “There’s something wrong with that woman.”
“Think you could lift one of her wrist units for a day?” Trouble asked. “We could modify it, use Ruth’s tractor to power it up, jack up its range.”
“For what?” Ruth asked as Trouble zipped up his suit now that she was done dabbing sealant on all his abrasions and contusions. “Where would we send the message?”
“Security is never perfect, or so a friend of mine insists. Tom, you get me the guy who designed the system and a transmitter, and we’ll figure out a place to patch into it.”
“You are Navy.” Tom eyed him hard, maybe almost hopefully.
“And the Navy looks after its own,” Ruth quoted.
“Hey, you in there!” A rough voice from the outside cut them off.
“Damn, it that time already?” Tom muttered as he opened the door. “You hunting for me?”
“Naw. She wants the new guy. Tordon, you in there?”
In the cramped quarters of the clinic, Trouble was face to face with Ruth. Her nostrils flared as she took an involuntary step back from him. Without thought, he reached for her and pulled her close. In her ear he whispered, “Hang together. I’ll have something for you when I get back.”
She nodded as he turned. Her arm held his, trailing out to fall only when he was out of reach. “Be careful” was the last he heard from her.
“I’m Tordon,” he said, stepping past Tom.
“Come with me.” The fellow leered. Trouble followed him through the compound to the largest of the houses on the square. An open showerhead sprouted from one side. Trouble was ordered to “Strip, and get the mud off ya.”
He did. The warm spray washed the aches from his abused muscles, the oil and dirt from his hair and body. Except for where he knew he was headed, he might have enjoyed it. The power of the spray wore away the ointment Ruth had put on his cuts; several began to bleed again. At the order to “Hurry up,” he switched to cold water and felt cool for the first time in a week. He turned from the shower to find no towel…and his jumpsuit and boots had been kicked aside.
“Follow me.” Trouble did, padding along, dripping and naked. On the veranda of several of the smaller houses, guards lounged, bottles in hand. “New meat for the old lady” was the least of the catcalls he got. “Maybe this one’ll be good enough to live through the night” didn’t match with Tom’s claim to being a regular. The strategist in Trouble evaluated the prospects and options available to him, even as the man in him was hit hard by humiliation and degradation.
His options were few. Be stubborn and die, or do what was wanted of him, exactly as it was wanted, no matter what the cost, and maybe he’d live. Maybe he’d walk out of here with a transmitter. The tough combat marine in Trouble wanted to fight. The man in him wanted to kill someone, wipe out this shame. The officer in him knew payback time would come later, but only if he did this right. The man who loved Ruth would do anything he had to to save her from a night like this with the guards. As the guard led Trouble up the central stairs of the big house, he bowed his head, took a deep breath, and swore to do whatever he had to do—for Ruth, and for revenge.
• • •
Zylon Plovdic liked what she saw in the mirror. No more of Hurtford’s make-do. She was making it her way. Removing the wrist unit that had matched today’s outfit, she searched in her jewelry box for one to match tonight’s ensemble. The jet-black “living leather” pants and mesh top needed something chrome and black. As befitted a station director, she had plenty to choose from. She smiled; a station director managing four subordinate supervisors, thirty-two employees, and almost two hundred “volunteers.” Big Al said it was just a start. The last woman had been boss here over a year. Zylon wouldn’t need that long; what was her name, Ruth, right, she knew how to run a farm. Zylon would double production in a lot less than a year.
With a happy smile, she strapped an ebony-and-silver comm unit onto her left wrist, then found a matching holder and slipped it around her right hand. Kick should be here any moment with the controller. There was a knock at her door.
“Yes?” she answered sharply.
“I got what you asked for.”
“Come in.”
Kick opened the door. He handed her the control pod; she quickly slipped it into her palm holder. The naked man entered, his head low, his eyes darting like those of some cornered animal—or some virgin girl. Zylon tapped the unit in her hand. A tremor shook the man from head to toe. “Everything is working fine, Kick. Thank you.” She smiled at her deputy.
With a curt nod, he closed the door.
Zylon studied the man. Tall, light skinned, close-cropped hair. He had everything a man should have, though disappointingly limp at the moment.
“You’re Tordon. You were on Hurtford Corner a while back.”
Head bowed, his eyes came up to meet hers. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You caused me a lot of trouble.”
“I imagine from your perspective, I did.”
Zylon tapped the controller, held it. The man fell to his knees, his hands helplessly grasping at the pods on his neck. Zylon wondered how long it would take it to kill a man, what he would look like, how he would scream. She might find out tonight. But not yet. This guy had disrupted too much of her life to die quickly. “Is there any other perspective? Besides mine?”
Tordon collapsed on the floor, like a naked savage worshiping his goddess. Zylon liked that image; she let it play in her mind while he groaned. With a well-manicured toe, she tapped him. “Is there?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Stand up.” He struggled to his feet.
“Hold me.” There was fright in his eyes as he put his arms around her. She rested her body against him. There was blood on his chest from a cut; she nuzzled closer, licked him. The coppery taste pleased her. She began stroking his back; he followed suit. She raked him with her nails. He flinched but kept up a slow, gentle massage that left her wanting to purr. She didn’t want to purr tonight. She wanted to scream in ecstacy, watch him scream in agony.
She stepped away from him, sat on the edge of the bed, enjoying the feel of silk sheets through the skintight slacks. “Come, take off my boots,” she ordered.
He came, knelt before her. So submissive, she wanted to kick him. She did. He started to dodge, then froze. The spikes of her high heels caught his arm. More blood. The night was getting better.
“Take my boots off slowly. Gently. Pleasurably,” she whispered. There was fire behind his eyes, but he nodded submissively. What’s driving this man? My controller? His fear of death? The thoughts excited her as he reached for her boots. His fingers played along her legs, pleasurably. She moaned softly as his fingers massaged and delighted.
Yes, this one knows his place. She’d had another who thought her outfit was a come-on. That she was here for him. It had been a joy, using the controller over and over, until he got the message who was boss here. He hadn’t been much use by that time. This one was a fast learner.
“Now take my pants off.”
His hands slowly flowed up her flanks, gently undid each fastener that held them in place. His fingers wandered, the living leather transmitting their touch wide over her body. Her inner thighs warmed when a wandering hand passed quickly over them as they searched for her belt. Damn, I may keep this guy around.
She reached for him. He was still small in her hand. “What’s the matter with you? You like boys or something? Maybe I should have a couple of the foremen in here.”
That brought fear to his eyes when the controller had only brought pain. “I’m not wasting it until you want it,” he answered her, maybe a tad too quickly. She’d have to consider keeping Kick here the next time she had this one in. Kick did have a way of getting his kicks.
Her pants were off; she leaned back on the bed. “Kiss me,” she ordered, tapping the controller. He didn’t flinch this time. He also didn’t ask where she wanted his kisses. He guessed right.
Much later, she came slowly awake. His slow ministrations to her afterglow had ceased. She rolled over. He was halfway to the door. His night vision must be bad; he was headed for the wall next to her dresser, not the door. “Leaving so soon?” she snapped. His back dripped blood; she’d gotten him good. Without a word, he turned back. Bite marks on his shoulders and chest showed red against his pale skin. Yep, it had been a fun night.
He returned to the bed, and the slow, long, strokes that had soothed and relaxed her for sleep. She rolled over, away from him. “I’m cold. Pull up a sheet.”
He obeyed. This was good. This was what a woman like her deserved. She kept her finger on the controller as she slowly fell asleep.
• • •
Back and forth, slowly, slowly, Trouble worked his hand along her back, trying to relax her, not wanting to excite her again tonight. Dear God, no! He struggled to slow his heart, slow his breathing, become nothing but a hand. He’d already been nothing but a slab of meat. His fingers twitched, wanting to grab the sleeping woman’s neck. Choke the life out of her. The sensitivity trainer had said abused women went through these feelings. He never thought a man could.
Used, degraded, nothing but meat on demand. He wanted to shake her, scream “I’m me. I’m a man.”
Slowly the hand worked its way down the back covered by the silk sheet. Her breath slowed; he slowed his with her. He had to put her to sleep before he fell asleep himself. Whatever happened, he did not want to be here tomorrow when she awoke.
If he fell asleep, he’d miss his chance to rummage through her jewelry box, lift a comm unit. He bit his lip and used the pain to keep himself awake as she drowsed. The taste of blood came again. She’d bit his lips. He’d been scared she would bite his tongue. How did you have sex with someone who scared you to death? How could a woman do it? He’d heard women could fake it. He couldn’t, but somehow he’d dredged up enough to satisfy her.
This time he was sure she was asleep, well asleep, before he risked rising from her bed. Listening to each slow breath, he walked toward the dresser—freezing in place when she moved in her sleep. It was too dark to make out any colors in the jewelry box; he selected a bracelet from the back. Holding it close to his eyes, he made sure it had a vid and speaker. Palming his prize, he sidestepped to the door. As he let himself out, he gave her one more glance. In the light from the court, she slept.
Between the houses and the barracks a guard sat, half or more asleep. The comm unit was in Trouble’s left hand; he edged to the right of the guard. The guard came awake as he passed.
“She kept you a while. Let me see your collar.”
Trouble stood while the man ran a scanner over his control pods. “She marked you up good. Better check into the clinic afore you get what little sleep you can.” Half asleep, the guard almost sounded human. Then, as Trouble passed him, the guard kicked him. Trouble held tight to his prize as he stumbled, but held his balance. The guard laughed, watching Trouble as he headed for Ruth and meds.
There was a dim light on in the clinic. He tapped on the door; it opened to his touch. Ruth sat on the one bunk; Tom and a short, wiry man squatted on the floor.
Both men were in breechcloths; Trouble was swept by a wave of shame and revulsion at his own nakedness, vulnerability.
“Did you get it?” Tom whispered. Trouble held up his hand and let his prize dangle.
“Bought and paid for.”
“You look like you’ve been through a meat grinder,” Ruth said, coming forward with a tray of cotton, cleansers and ointment.
“Not a bad way of putting it,” Trouble agreed as the stranger took the comm unit to study under a covered lamp and Ruth directed him to a small stool.
“What do you make of it, Steve?” Tom asked the short guy.
“We can jack it into the tractor’s receiver, use its antenna. The GPS satellite will accept a message. Every satellite’s got to send and receive maintenance checks, updates, and the likes. The Surveyor 2000+ series is no different from the rest…if I remember the codes for that puppy.” Steve headed for the clinic’s tiny diagnostic unit.
“You mean we could have sent a message out anytime?” Tom was incredulous.
“You got anybody you want to send a letter to? ‘Help, I’m being held hostage on a drug farm.’ Right; who do we know who’d pay attention to you or me? Now, Trouble here…”
“Who do we send to?” Tom asked.
“Wardhaven, Minister of Science and Technology. Copy to HSS Patton.”
“I can do that,” Steve mumbled as he typed. “What do we say?”
“That I’ll be a bit late for dinner,” Trouble suggested.
“She really tore you up,” Ruth whispered through teeth gritted almost as tightly as Trouble’s.
“I’m the one getting alcohol poured in his claw marks. Why are you gritting your teeth?” Trouble hissed at the pain.
“’Cause it hurts me to hurt you. I mean, if you feel anything, you’ve got to feel with people. How she can do this and that at the same time? How you fellows can…and…”
Ruth looked close to tears.
He reached for her, held her at arm’s length. “I tried not to think of where I was or her. I thought of someone I’d rather be with.”
“Who?” came at him so fast he forgot to dodge.
“You.” She had refused to meet his eyes. She’d been staring straight down. Now, what had been so quiet was stirring straight back at her. She looked up at him, a hint of her old smile on her face.
“I think I believe you.”
“Guys, can I get something to wear?”
“Turn around. Let me get your back,” Ruth ordered.
“We’ll get you something at the bunkhouse,” Tom answered distractedly.
“Trouble, you notice any defense blisters on the station?” Steve was typing away. “It was ordered as a standard T-3-a.”
The marine closed his eyes, tried to remember the approach to the station. “Couple of bumps that didn’t belong. Say five or six to a side. Probably four times that, all told.”
“Okay. Standard set of three Meteorology 6112 weather satellites, Global Positioning System had twenty-four Surveyor 2000+ satellites in low orbit, and there are four repeaters in high stationary orbit to keep the station and Richman City in contact. We bought them straight off the shelf from TRW, but there were suggestions of adding encoders to them before I got the boot,” Steve answered. “Bet you didn’t get past the firewall or crack the encryption.”
“You can tell them that,” Trouble growled. “I also didn’t get anything on the ground layout.”
“Don’t worry.” Steve smiled. “Couple of us have been here almost from the get-go. I knew they were using the farms for a dumping ground for folks who knew too much and couldn’t be trusted close to high-tech gear. I just never figured I’d end up here.”
“Pass that along, Steve. If they drop teams on these farms, we could put together a good map of our target even if we can’t get into the central map for this shit hole.”
“Got it. Message is three K. Ruth, you should be able to send it to a couple dozen satellites. Where’s your tractor?”
“In the shed. Tom knows where it is.”
The two slipped out into the night, leaving Trouble alone with Ruth. “You okay?” he asked her.
“I’m fine. They need me. Can you imagine? They’re trying to run a farm with a bunch of fools that never even held a hoe before they got here. Not just you poor volunteers, but the guards. They know how to crack a whip or thumb a controller button, but they don’t know a thing about growing things.”
“I remember career development trainers telling me anyone who can manage something can manage anything.” Trouble snorted. “Like they pulled Izzy out of commanding defense brigades and gave her a ship. She is managing it okay.”
“Well, these folks aren’t. They’d never done a soil analysis. They were dumping processed sewage from the city’s system and calling that soil preparation. I demanded a soil analysis kit. They had them in the warehouse, but nobody knew how to use one, so they just sat there taking up space. This soil is weak on iron, calcium, phosphates, and a dozen other nutrients. I told them to let me spray the fields, and I’ll double the crop yield.”
Trouble didn’t tell her what she was growing. “You aren’t wearing a collar.” He fingered his own.
She gave him a look of wounded pride. “I’m no volunteer. I’m an employee. I get paid. Got a labor contract with a signature on it that almost looks like mine. In six years I can go home.” Suddenly she got very serious. “That worries me, Trouble. These crooks think they’ll have Hurtford Corner working just like this before my contract is up. Could they do that?”
Trouble thought about that while Ruth put sealant on him again, something to keep nasty microbes out and his blood in. “Farms can’t afford to lose too many hands. Then there’s the problem with the mining contracts. I wouldn’t swear they couldn’t, but I’ll damn sure do what I can to see they don’t.”
A few moments later, she finished. “You better get some sleep,” she suggested.
He stood. She was so close. He reached for her, brought her into his arms and kissed her, first tentatively, gently. Her response was fire on his lips. He let himself sink into the kiss, and the love beneath it. His lips were bleeding again, but it didn’t matter. Ruth’s kiss cleansed him of the foulness he’d struggled to swim against that night.
Maybe he could have had more. Maybe he should have. But he stank of Zylon sex. Ruth had only washed his back and chest. He broke from the kiss. “I’ll try to get some sleep.”
“What do you mean, you can’t stabilize the plasma?” Izzy wasn’t shouting. Not quite.
“It’s a software problem,” Vu assured her. “There is nothing wrong with the engines.”
“But we don’t leave the pier without stable plasma, do we, Lieutenant Commander?”
“No, Captain. We do not.” The quiet man wilted under her heated gaze.
“Surely the Patton is not the first ship to stabilize plasma,” she said, turning on the yard man.
“Yes, ma’am. However, there are slight variations between systems. Software handles those problems. Humanity software and Unity software handled it differently.”
“You worked on a Humanity cruiser before,” she shot back.
“Yes, ma’am, but the chief engineer limited us to low-level maintenance.”
“Surely you made a backup of his operating system files.”
“We did, ma’am.”
“Then load it.”
“I cannot recommend that. We suspect there may have been a bomb buried somewhere in that software. The ship vanished on its first jump.”
“Oh, shit!” Such language was not expected of a captain. However, there was a limit to how much a captain could take. The crew better know their captain was way past that. At least, that’s what Izzy told herself. She sat back in her chair, rubbed her eyes, took twenty or thirty deep breaths, then came back at the problem from another direction.
“The Patton is not the only ship in her class. Call the nearest Navy yard for a set of the standard software.”
“We can’t do that, ma’am.”
Izzy shot to her feet. “And why not?”
The yard man gulped, then started his explanation slowly. “The power control system you brought in on the Patton was near failure. We reduced it to junk by the simple process of removing it. The system we installed is similar to that we found on the Sheffield; however, it had been modified by its crew outside the standard Navy configuration. We have a call in to Pitt’s Hope, where the actual work was done. They are checking their records, but there was a war on, and people were more interested in operational warships than taking time to document how they got operational.”
Izzy sat back down. “Chips, is there anything more we can do to support engineering?”
“No, ma’am. They’ve got three-quarters of my analysts and code writers.”
“And Wardhaven has sent us up almost a hundred specialists to help,” the yard man assured her. “We are doing all we can.”
“You better, ’cause a marine’s going to come charging in here any minute. And he won’t take this nearly as nicely as I am.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
• • •
Trouble rejoined the living when a guard whacked him on the soles of his feet well before the sun was up. Tom tossed him a breechcloth, and he pulled it on. In the weak predawn light, he gobbled down a breakfast no different from supper. Still hungry, he joined a line of men at the end of the compound taking hoes from racks. He found himself next to Tom and Steve, or maybe they collected him like a stray puppy. Anyway, he ended up assigned to work with them.
“Is it like this every day?” Trouble asked, sweat dripping into his eyes after only five minutes of hoeing weeds.
“Is it like this every day?” Tom repeated to Steve. “You’ve been here longer than I have.”
“Naw.” Steve nodded his head. “Some days it’s a lot worse. I mean, it’s not hailing. There’s no hurricane blowing through. Hell, the guard stayed up all night playing poker and must have won. He just wants to find some shade to nap in, not take his losses out on us. Nope, guys, today is a good day.”
“You leave me seeds for hope.” Trouble scowled, and swatted at a bug only slightly smaller than a destroyer. “Do these things ever leave you alone?”
“Depends,” Steve informed him. Picking an ugly green worm from one of the drug bushes, he smashed it on his left elbow and smeared the sickening fluids along his arm. “Stinks to high heaven, but the stuff that passes for insects don’t like the smell either. The little beggars don’t really benefit from sucking your blood. Well, maybe they like the salt. But the sores they make can get infected from the shit we’re walking in. Smell or die. Which you want?”
Trouble plucked a ugly thing from the bush next to him and put it on his arm.
“No, don’t squash it. That’s one we eat.”
“Eat?”
“Not too many of them, or they’ll tear your stomach apart. But a few.”
“Eat it.” Trouble studied the thing. It was darker than the first, and it left a trail of slime as it flowed up his arm.
“Breakfast, you remember that pause that didn’t refresh?” Tom took over from Steve. “There’s not enough in the two meals they feed us to keep us alive. If you don’t live off the land, you don’t live.”
“Anybody try eating the plants?” Trouble put the slug in his mouth and swallowed it fast. He choked, but got it down.
“You don’t want to go there. Chew the leaves, and they take away your hunger; then they take away your mind and your will to live. Don’t touch the plants—and that’s not just because the whip gets applied if they catch you. Don’t start chewing leaf until you’re ready to die.”
“Has anybody gotten out of here?” Trouble had to ask the question. Hopefully that message would get them out. Then again, a good marine always had a fallback position.
“I’ve been here for six months,” Steve answered. “Never saw anybody leave any way but feet first. They bury us where they’re going to put in a new field.” He paused. “We’re probably working somebody’s grave today.”
“Who are we? How did they get us? Slave labor is stupid. Paid workers are always more productive. History shows it.” Trouble knew he was sounding like some ivory-tower professor, but damn it, it was true.
“Some are the crews of the freighters captured by pirates. Can’t exactly turn them loose to write home. Some are ex-Unity troopers who didn’t read their new employment contract very well, though lots of them end up as guards. Some are street people they lifted off one of the developed planets like Earth, though they don’t survive too long. Some are like Tom here, a manager who knew too much and is the whispered rumor that will keep others in line. Me, I knew I was working for some bad actors, but I figured I could get my money and run. What I didn’t count on was a hostile takeover by an even worse bunch. The pirating, the slaving, all started after the war. We have some really bad hombres calling the shots now.”
Trouble found another green bug and smeared it over his face and neck. It stank, but the insects did leave him alone. He kept on hoeing weeds. They were mostly Earth weeds, and they were growing…like weeds. “How’d you get here, Tom? Stan’s worried sick about you.”
“He always was too damn straight to make a living,” Tom sighed. “Navy’s probably best for him. Me, I got just far enough up the ladder to know too much, and not far enough to know what was really happening. Some senator got my name and thought I knew how corporations were running Unity during the war. Hell, we weren’t running them.” He paused, picked up a slug, and ate it. “I don’t know. Maybe some people thought we were. Maybe they were. Hell, from where I sat, you couldn’t tell. Maybe we did have more contacts across the battle lines than a general or admiral would want, but, damn it, the war wasn’t going on forever. You have to position yourself for the next economic wave. That’s all we were doing.”
“You look pretty well positioned.” Trouble gave him a toothsome grin.
“Tell me about it. I was coming out here to run an agricultural implements line, production, distribution, sales and service. Our company was one of the thirteen that had a seat on the planetary governing council. It was a big promotion. So I left a week before my scheduled hearing appearance. Let them come out here and find me.”
“Doubt they’d find you here.” Steve laughed bitterly.
“Yeah, I walked off the ship to a welcoming committee of the other council members. First elevator I come to, I’m stuffed in it, drugged, and I wake up naked in the barracks.”
“Quite a comedown” was all Trouble could think to say, punctuated with “God, it’s hot.”
Steve eyed the sky. “Not even noon, laddie. Better get used to it.”
Tom snorted. “Now let me talk to those senators and I’ll have a story for them. You know, with this happening, I’m starting to think the worst rumors were right. Maybe we were running Unity.”
“We’ll just have to get you there” was Trouble’s promise.
The guards herded them in maybe an hour before sunset. After they’d finished their slop, Tom took Trouble over to the dispensary, ostensibly to have cuts checked for infection.
As Ruth worked on his wounds, she reported on her day. “Every time I checked in with the GPS, I sent the message. Every satellite up there must have it in its buffer. How long will it take to get where it’s going?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Trouble shrugged, and winced as he shrugged right into Ruth’s finger. “Depends on whether Steve knows as much about the inner workings of the surveyor system as the comm system at the station.” Trouble stood in silence while Ruth finished tending to him. “How we going to get this thing back in Ms. de Sade’s jewelry box?”
“That depends on who gets called in tonight.”
“You in there?” came Kick’s growl from outside.
“I am,” Tom said.
“She wants to talk to you. She’s excited about some damn fool idea to get more work out of you guys.”
Tom dropped the bracelet into the back of his breechcloth. “I’m always happy to talk with the boss,” he said as he swung out the door and closed it behind him.
Ruth and Trouble both kept silent until Tom and Kick’s attempt at easy banter disappeared. “Can we really get out of here?” Ruth asked again.
“I think so. A lot depends on that message getting to Wardhaven. And then some gutsy folks being willing to launch a major invasion on a shoestring and a hunch.”
“Would you do it?”
“If I knew you were down here, yes.”
“But you’re here. Who’s out there who cares?”
“Captain Izzy Umboto, Ruth. And she doesn’t leave until the whole crew is aboard. You can bet your life on that.”
• • •
The tiny 3K message on Surveyor 14 was the first to be tapped. It rode a routine report on reaction mass remaining up to Repeater 2 and then into the buffer of Satellite Maintenance. There, it hitchhiked a ride to Main Communications when a routine status check was made of the system that kept links open to the rest of human space. There, the message waited. Its next command was to attach itself to any mail going to Wardhaven. A last command would pull it off there and rush it to its final destination. There was no traffic heading for Wardhaven, so the message waited. It had no way of noticing that other copies of itself were collecting in the buffer, duplicates waiting patiently…and tying up buffer space for no reason apparent to the technicians running the system. That wasn’t unusual; packets were always being lost in transit. When it got too bad, the techs would flush the buffer. Of course messages would be lost, but what the heck, that was what backups were for.
If Steve hadn’t been so tired last night, he might have realized Wardhaven was not a popular destination for mail from this corner of hell. He might have given the message alternate initial destinations, from which it could reroute itself to Wardhaven. He didn’t, so the messages sat, collecting as more of the Surveyors were queried, taking up more of the large, but not unlimited, buffer.
• • •
Sleep refused to come to Izzy. Usually, she slept like the dead, but that was before she killed several hundred people she’d sworn her oath to protect. During the day, she stayed busy. God knows, the overhaul had enough going on…and going wrong…to keep her centered. But at night the ghosts came.
Izzy saw them. Dragged into a strange ship. Told nothing about what was happening. Heavy gees without the proper gear. Then wild maneuvering, and wilder fears. Then they were nothing, with no hint of warning. Not to know. Not to know until there was nothing to know.
Their helplessness brought back memories of a helpless kid. The little Izzy bewildered by the slums, the bosses, the drug merchants. Someone was supposed to protect kids, but not there. There, a kid never knew where today’s shootout would be, never knew when a street game would turn deadly because somebody was shooting three blocks away and bullets don’t stop just because they’d gone past their intended targets. Joie, Angie, little Toby…how long was the list that Izzy could still remember? Once in a long while, when Momma was sober, she’d tell Izzy she had to get out. School was a way out, not the run-down building called PS-921, but a real education. Somehow Momma found a way to send her to the school with the nuns. They’d opened up a whole new world for a wide-eyed kid. She’d taken in as much as she could, not nearly enough, but as much as a kid could, holding down a part-time job and cooking for Momma when she came home.
Izzy hiked straight from graduation to the Navy recruiter. The Navy was wonderful. They fed her. They clothed her. They had a job for her that left her wonderful hours of free time to study. And Lieutenant Manon had given her a chance for a real education and a commission. Izzy knew she wasn’t as good as the other officers. They came from families, and had real educations. She knew what the Navy had taught her, and what she’d taught herself. They got ship duty; Izzy got the defense brigades, the last choice on the wish list.
And when she finally got her ship—she killed a couple hundred innocent civilians. She was no better than a drug lord.
“Come on, Trouble. Get back here. I need some new faces, grateful faces of people we’ve set free. I can’t take these faces much longer.”
• • •
Every day was like the last on the farms. Get up, work the fields, go to bed exhausted and hungry. Every day it rained. Trouble’s wounds healed; only one got infected. His visits to Ruth no longer lit up the day. Tom was the boss’s regular. He managed to get the bracelet back without its absence being noticed. Unfortunately, Zylon Plovdic was learning from him.
With Ruth’s promise of doubling the crop, Zylon looked at improving the end product. Her orders were to strip the leaves off the plants and drop the stalks in the field to rot and support the next crop. That left the field hands with more work. Since only a dozen new hands had arrived, and six others had given up and died, it meant everyone had to speed up. Zylon didn’t think to increase the rations, just the work pace.
Trouble went to bed each night wondering where the damn invasion was.
• • •
“Walt, the main message buffer is acting flaky. Take it down and reload it.”
“Boss, there’s only a half hour left on the shift. You want my status report today or tomorrow? Can’t the swing or midnight shift do it?”
“Swing’s got backups to do, and midnight’s too thin to do more than keep the shop up and running. Tomorrow morning, first thing, you reload the buffer.”
“Will do, boss.”
• • •
Ruth was discovering that the reward for a job well done was getting screwed. She’d tested the soil in every field, treated them, and worked herself out of a job. These crops got no pesticide or herbicide, for reasons no one would explain to her, so there was nothing she could do with her tractor there.
Helping your neighbor here was some kind of a joke. Her foreman laughed when she suggested loaning her out to the other farms to do similar tests and treatments. No, he figured, she was about due to be rotated to the vats.
That meant a collar and more attention from management than she cared for. Ruth countered with a suggestion to retest the fields, this time doing four tests to a hectare. “After all, we’re terraforming this place pretty unevenly.”
“That ought to keep you busy until we get the first crop in that you treated. If it really is double, maybe we can find a permanent place for you.” His grin had a twist to it, suggesting that if it was anything less than double, he had a place for her.
Trouble, where’s that invasion fleet?
• • •
“Art, I told you this place was great,” he said, waving his drink at the golf course outside the club’s windows.
“That you did, that you did. But damn, the overtime is killing me. When am I gonna have time for a game or a swim?”
“They’ve posted vacancy notices galore, Art. We just got to recruit some folks to lighten our load. Know any good analysts back on Wardhaven? I could use a construction boss as well as a dozen composite stringers.”
“I know a few good-looking ones.”
“Be nice to have more women around here, Art.”
Art turned the menu into a message pad, called up his address book, and composed a cover note to the vacancy notices.
“Throw in a picture of the condo I built, Art.”
“With all that rain?”
“It’s not raining today. I told you the rain wouldn’t last forever. Six months of rain, six months of blue sky.”
“Yeah.” Art finished his first message, copied it to another file, put a new name on it, and sent the first.
The message was large, with all its attachments. It almost overflowed the main comm buffer. However, it was addressed to Wardhaven. Several tiny packages that had been waiting for that address to appear attached themselves to Art’s message. They went out with it, leaving the buffer with more room for the next job offer he sent. None of this mattered to Art. He was a manager. So long as his mail went where he wanted it to go, buffers and lost packets meant nothing to him.
They meant a lot to other people.