A WEEK LATER, Ambassador Ray Longknife relaxed into his seat, contemplating the night. Stuffed—in far too many ways.
He’d been wined and dined from one circle to another as he moved from village to county to state and finally to Lander’s Refuge. Local after local had shaken his hand, kissed his cheeks, and done their damnedest to pick his pocket—in the nicest way. Every step of the way he’d been offered undying friendship and kind words. As he got farther up, smiling officials had thrown in huge land grants, personal bribes, beautiful women, and a seat among the powerful with a growing panic that made Ray feel right at home. “Damn, humans are all the same.”
“What’d you say, sir?” Mary asked from the front seat. She was driving a mule, a four-wheel, go-anywhere vehicle; its efficient solar cells and storage system made it the envy of everyone here. Mary was his aide, bodyguard, driver…and nurse as much as he let her. Ray was traveling light among the natives. So far, he did not regret it.
“Take us back to the residence,” Ray said automatically, then rethought. “No. I’ve got to talk to Matt tonight, and I trust my room is well bugged. Take us somewhere I can have a little privacy.”
“How about that beach we saw yesterday?”
Ray grinned. Their visit to the fishing fleet and North Beach had been Mary’s first encounter with more water than she could drink. Water, free and playing with beach and sand and wind and sky had enthralled her. Ray suspected the woman was in love. “Do it.”
“I’ll head for the north end, sir. This mule can take us where these people only dream of going.”
Ray settled deep into his seat. That was the problem. These people had dreams, and Second Chance was opening some and threatening others. Ray had known that the moment he set foot on this place it would never be the same. If Matt reconnected them with humanity, all options were possible. But what if he didn’t? That was Ray’s quandary.
In his present bargaining, should he assume in a few months Matt would be back, grinning from ear to ear and tailed by six boatloads of eager entrepreneurs? Or would a smarter choice be to hold his cards and his technology close until Matt decided it was time and past time to start home-steading? At the moment, holding tight looked best. But the local powers that be were not interested in waiting, for someone else to decide their fate.
People like Vicky Sterling didn’t get their hands on power by waiting for others to give it. Victoria got what she had by being there first and grabbing all she could. Ray was familiar with people like Vicky. Powerful people had damn near gotten him killed in their last war. This brought Ray up short. Was all this the fearful ruminations of a spooked veteran who just wanted to be a husband and a dad? “What do you think about the last few days?” he asked Mary.
“Some pretty nice folks,” Mary answered, then quickly added, “and a few not so nice. Would be fun working with them, living here. Don’t get me wrong, Colonel, I appreciate this job, and I’ll ramble around the stars as long as you want me, but settling down here sure is attractive. These folks could use some cheap metals. I know Vicky Sterling’s type. Worked for her on the asteroid mines. She loves being the only show in town. Thinks she shits gold. I’d love to take a brand-new rod of hot gold and stick it up her…well, you know.”
“Ah, Colonel, you invite anyone back to the Residency for a nightcap?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Well, we got a tail.”
“Damn! People never change. Lose ’em, Mary.”
“Oh, boy,” she laughed. They still weren’t to the beach road; Refuge was a big city. The turn to the beach was ten blocks away when Mary did a hard right, gunned the mule, and did a series of zigzags that took them across the beach road but kept them parallel to it. Ray hoped she knew what she was doing.
“The sky eyes surveyed this burg and downloaded a city map to my inertial system,” Mary answered Ray’s unasked question. “Bet I know this town better than most of the folks raised here.”
Ray didn’t doubt that. They zipped down a street lined with small shops and warehouses. When they ran out of town, Mary did a quick zig to get them back on the beach road. Ray edged around in his seat; no lights behind. There still weren’t any when the road took a slow turn to follow higher ground through tidal marshes. “Boy, did I lose ’em,” Mary chortled.
This left Ray wondering which factions they had eluded and what they were up to. He shrugged off the unanswerable.
A gentle breeze came from offshore, laden with smells of salt and damp and coastal grasses. They turned north, off the road and away from the inlet that sheltered the fishing fleet and soon came to the end of the dirt track a hundred meters short of the sand dunes. Ray braced himself, protecting his back as Mary took the rig into a narrow wash, gunning the mule through soft sand. Wheels spun wildly, but kept enough traction to swing them onto the wide stretch of sand between the dunes and the distant ocean. Mary steered for the hard, damp sand that the retreating tide had left. Two moons were just rising, casting sparking diamonds on the gentle sea swells from beach to horizon.
Relaxing again into the seat, Ray took several deep breaths as Mary cruised north, away from civilization as it named itself here. His mind ordered his thoughts for his call to Matt. The captain was eager to be away. There were several theories of how they might find their way home; the only proof of the pudding was going out and nibbling at it. Was Ray ready to declare his tiny downside command fit to stand on its own two feet?
Mary eased the mule to a halt, midway between waves and dune. “We’re far enough up the coast to miss any search our trailer is doing. Besides, we’ll see them coming.” Ray nodded. “Mind if I take a walk, sir?” Mary’s eyes were fixed on the lapping waves, mesmerized by them.
“Take care. You don’t know where the drop-off is out there. You can’t swim, and I sure can’t come in after you.”
“Don’t worry, sir. Space ain’t killed me in twenty years. A little bit of water ain’t gonna get me now.”
“That’s not a little bit.”
“Yes, sir.” Mary got out and started a slow, pensive walk to the ocean. She wore a dress, a gift from Henrietta San Paulo, the Chair of the Great Circle of Lander’s Refuge. Made of cotton so fine and tightly woven it might as well have been silk, Mary had spun around in delight, a girl-woman in her first formal. Then she’d lifted it far higher than their relationship on Wardhaven would have allowed to show him her sidearm. The asteroid mines had taught Mary none of the modesty and delicacy that Wardhaven inculcated in its women. Then, Rita had been Wardhaven’s most instructed of debutantes…and gone on to skipper an attack transport. And her courtship of Ray had been far from delicate. Ray suspected few men ever understood women.
“God, I miss you, wife.” Sighing, Ray tapped his communit. “Communications, Longknife here. The captain available?”
“He’s expecting you, sir. Wait one, please.”
Mary had about reached the water. The dress came up and over her head to flutter down on the sand. Her body was in moon shadow; he could not tell if she’d worn anything more. The male part of Ray’s mind decided she hadn’t; it made the view more enticing. Her silhouette was trim and sleek, no bulge for a bra, panties…or sidearm. A glance in the front showed automatic and holster on the seat. Ray reached for it, checked the safety, then set it down beside him. Mary reached the water; she stooped to touch the lapping waves. Ray wished for about the millionth time that Rita was here. Or, more correctly, he was there.
“Ray, how are things?” the captain asked.
“I’m surviving down among the natives. And you?”
“Nothing’s changed. We’ve completed the planet survey. Enough irregularities to keep the scanning team happy, but nothing to raise a red flag. Some interesting electromagnetic anomalies. We sent the database down. An interesting planet.”
“Full of interesting people,” Ray added dryly.
“Want to tell me about them?”
“You know, Matt, I always thought if you marooned three hundred hard-headed, rational people on a planet, you’d have a hard-headed, rational population when you got done.”
“Gosh, Ray, I never knew you were such a dreamer.”
“Take the Covenanters up north, those dozen or so medium-size towns that Kat couldn’t figure out why they were in such a crazy pattern. Blame it on the Bible.”
“Somebody brought that book!”
“It was in their database. More about that database in a minute. Anyway, during the worst of the times after landing, some folks found religion. Later, after things got better, their kids decided the rest were all going to hell and moved off to keep their ‘purity.’”
“Let me guess,” Matt broke in. “They couldn’t agree among themselves on how to read the book, so…”
“You got it—split and split again. Most of them want to just ignore us. Hope we’ll go away. But one of them, the guy I met the first night down here, thinks we’re the Antichrist and wants us destroyed.”
“I guess you stay to the south side of south continent.”
“Not that easy. There’re almost eight million people here. Most Covenanters may be up north, but they got churches in Lander’s Refuge. They’re not the worst problems. Refuge and New Haven split over something the original captain did early on. I’ve got six different versions of what that was, and none agree. But there’s a pro-captain and an anti-captain faction to this day, and a big chunk of the antis moved south to New Haven about two hundred years ago. Now, if one says it’s day, the other insists it’s night. I think the pro faction is a bit more in favor of exploiting the planet’s resources, but I can’t swear to that.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Yeah,” Ray answered. Mary was up to her knees now, meeting each wave as it came in with a jump and a happy giggle. Ray had never seen Mary as anything but a hard-driving marine officer. This was a whole new side of her.
For a moment, the question flitted across his mind. How many sides are there to the people I’m dealing with? He’d have to remember that. “The farmers we started with are interesting. You meet a girl with flaming red hair, a diction straight out of Joyce, and a name like Nulia Anne Moira Chang. Tells you why her brogue is a bit off.”
“Chang?”
“Don’t ask me how the Irish took over and the Chinese didn’t. Such history is oral, and I don’t trust it. There’s even a legend that St. Patrick showed them how to plant potatoes.”
“Sounds like a nuthouse. Sure you’ll be okay while I duck in and out of system? Once we’ve got acceleration on, it’ll take me a while to get down here.” Matt had his work cut out for him, too. Speaking of.
“Matt, I’m trying to get my hands on the log of the old Santa Maria, but no luck yet. Refuge, New Haven, Richland, that’s the Sterlings’ mining town, Vicky owns it lock, stock, and barrel, and even some of the Covenant towns had copies of the original database. But original media last only so long. First- and second-generation local manufacturing wasn’t all that good, so the data got corrupted. Ship’s log was low priority, so it got cut to save space. Vicky claims she’s got a complete copy, but she’s only handing out vague samples. Wants mining equipment and technology before she’ll share the good stuff.”
“How’s that going over with the rest?”
“Poorly. The Sterlings have had these people by the short hairs for two hundred years. A lot of people would like them taken down a peg.”
“You going to do that?”
“I’d like to stay on everybody’s good side.”
“Never had much success at that myself,” Matt chuckled.
“Probably a bit late in life for me to be trying it, too. How you coming with those survival canisters?”
“Last two go dirtside tomorrow morning. Have you seen what’s in them?”
“I approved everything Andy and Elie recommended. Didn’t expect to be using them. Glad for them now.”
“Yeah. Make sure you open the right one. They sent you everything from a chip fabricator to a bomb factory.”
“Andy wanted all the bases covered.”
“I’m leaving you a shuttle. I’ll be in system every few days. A week at the longest.”
“I’ll try not to holler wolf. Could you drop that shuttle down here tomorrow at the blimp base? Say, tenish. I don’t want to beg a ride back to my base on anyone’s blimp.”
“And it’ll show these folks the power they’re dealing with.”
“Something like that.
“Good by me. I’ll see you when I see you. Out.”
Ray leaned back in his seat. The moons were above Mary. The luminous waves rose and fell, casting dim light on her. Ray could see the joy on her face. He could see everything else, too. “Oh, Rita, I miss you.”
“You lost them!” Victoria Sterling shrieked. She had deigned to receive her security chief in her gilded coach and four. Grandpa Jason had included six horse embryos in his personal effects. The Landers who squirreled away survival gear among their private goods made it big here. The kids of those who brought trinkets were her servants. “That mule has lights all over.” Victoria very much wanted her lab to take it apart and see what made it tick.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, trying to soothe.
Victoria would like it better if he’d grovel. But we Santa Marians are so democratic. She sniffed at that; some things took so long to change. “How did your trusty spies lose them?”
“We expected them to go back to the Residency. We’ve checked their rooms. The bugs are active. We gave them plenty of space on the road. Didn’t want them to notice us. They took a wrong turn. By the time we got to the corner, that damn driver had turned again. We couldn’t find them. We’ll reconnect when they get back to the Residency.”
“If they go back. If someone hasn’t offered them something better. Unless their shuttle drops out of the sky and hauls them off to heaven knows where. I want to know where they are and what they’re doing every moment of their day. I want to know what they’re going to do before they know.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Go. Find them, or I will find someone who can.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ray Longknife, humanity’s ambassador to Santa Maria, Wardhaven’s misplaced Minister for Science and Technology, retired colonel of infantry, devoted husband and future father, watched Mary dance naked with the luminous waves and the moonlight. He wished it was Rita. “Maybe she wouldn’t, with the baby coming.” He sighed, then shook his head. No, Rita might be beginning to show a bit, but she’d be out there jumping and prancing with Mary just the same. That was the sprite he’d married. All work, when she was working. All play otherwise.
With a final splash, Mary strode from the water. She retrieved her dress, swung it over her shoulder, and backed toward the mule, eyes on the ocean. “It’s so free. No boss telling it what to do,” she whispered when she bumped into the rig.
“It just goes on and on.” Ray nodded.
“Yes.” She turned to him. Excitement was in her eyes. Probably in other places. She was his for the taking if he wanted her. And he wanted her.
He choked on the wanting and swallowed it. Nothing facing them would be made easier by losing themselves in each other tonight. He returned her gaze, trying to reflect the happiness he felt watching her…and no more.
She slipped back into her dress. “That was fun,” she said, settling it around herself. “I see you’ve got my sidearm back there with you.”
“If some big, slimy thing had slithered out of the sea to dance with you, I wanted to make it keep a gentlemanly distance.”
“Locals didn’t say anything about sea monsters,” Mary said.
“Lot of things the locals ain’t got around to saying.”
Mary settled into the driver’s seat. “Sorry, sir, if my…uh…”
“Nothing to be sorry for, Captain. You were a joy to watch, and any worrying I did came to nothing. Tomorrow, Matt’s dropping a shuttle for us about ten. Make our trip back faster. No need to mention it to anyone. After our tail tonight, I’d rather keep our friends guessing.”
The return to the Residency was uneventful; Ray was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Ray lay on the operating table, looking up into the bright light. Waves of pain washed over him. The doctor stood above him in surgical scrubs, a shining laser scalpel in his hands. As the surgeon reached for Ray, the scalpel changed into a hoe, the medic into a grubbily clad gardener. Ray screamed.
He lay on the ground, the smell of recently turned earth in his nostrils. A huge field hand wielding pruning shears grabbed him and began cutting. Dead branches fell away; fresh green ones were grafted on. Ray screamed.
And came awake, shivering and desperately in need of a trip to the bathroom. Head throbbing, whole body shaking in night chills and sweats, Ray struggled to his feet and moved as quickly as his canes permitted to the facilities. His body trembled in a pain he didn’t understand. Done, he worked his way back to collapse in bed. Mary had laid out pain meds; he swallowed a pill. Better to make a second trip tonight than lie awake in the grips of this agony. Ray settled back, centering his thoughts on Rita, and a girl-child as beautiful as her mother.
Three months’ fieldwork had gotten Jeff Sterling used to rising with the sun. At Fairview, however, he usually slept in. With Vicky running the business, sleeping was the most exciting thing he got to do around the family estate.
This morning, Millard woke him at dawn. “Miss Sterling requires your presence at her breakfast, sir.” Since Vicky had sent the downstairs butler who taught hand-to-hand combat as well as proper deportment and etiquette to the staff, Jeff tied on his robe and went. Once in the solarium, however, Jeff pointedly ignored Vicky and puttered over the breakfast bar, filling his plate slowly with eggs, brown bread, and bacon. “Do we have any strawberry jam?” he asked, knowing Vicky had sent the staff away for this private meeting and would have to answer herself.
“How should I know?” she snapped. “Buzz the kitchen. And be quick about it. We need to talk.”
So Vicky was in one of her moods. This could be even more fun than usual. Jeff buzzed the kitchen. “This place I was staying at, out on the front range,” he rambled, “had this really delicious strawberry jam. Do we have any?”
They didn’t. Orange marmalade would have to do. Very expensive stuff. The Swensons had held on to their monopoly on orange trees as tightly as the Sterlings held on to their metal claims. Vicky hated the Swensons but loved orange marmalade.
“Now sit down, Jeffrey. I want a word with you.”
“Yes, Victoria.” To her face, not even Jeff called her Vicky.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the damn spaceship?” Vicky snapped, rubbing her eyes with both fists.
They’d been over this before. “Because I didn’t know about them until they landed. Besides, that village didn’t have access to the net. How could I have told you?”
“Those cheap dirt farmers. They ought to be required to have net hookups. For their brats’ education, at least.”
“More might, if we lowered the price on fiber cable.” Jeff was the family advocate for lowering profit margins and making it up in volume. Christ, fiber optic was only silicon! Vicky was for all the market would bear. With Dad dead and Mom in a convent, Vicky was in charge.
Vicky broke off a small portion of her croissant, buttered it, and munched it slowly, her gaze out the window on the distant woods. Jeff was being ignored…again. He ate, waiting for her next announcement.
“They’re hiding something.” The “they” could only be the spacemen. For Vicky to conclude they were hiding something was no big news. Vicky always hid half her cards; she assumed everyone else did. It made for tough bargaining even when the other side was hiding nothing.
Jeff, however, was pretty sure the spacemen were hiding something. He would not, however, admit that to Vicky. “I don’t know, they seem pretty up front,” he said with his mouth full.
“Don’t speak with your mouth full,” Vicky shot back in irritation, making Jeff’s morning. “Why won’t they share their data files with us?”
“Chu Lyn is pretty dead set against them dumping all kinds of new tech on us. She’s afraid of what that would do to the economy.” Chu led the Green Party in the Great Circle. Normally she didn’t have the votes to stop Vicky. Recent nose counts had not been “normal.”
Vicky flipped her hand up disparagingly. “Lyn is afraid of her own shadow.” Still, Vicky said nothing about forcing a vote. The rumors Jeff had picked up were right. Votes were changing. It was fun watching Vicky sweat.
“Why are you sitting in the circles anyway? I’m senior for the metalworkers.”
Jeff had been expecting that. “I’m just sitting in on the meetings, Sis. I haven’t voted.” Open meetings had been a golden rule since the Landers. Anyone could attend a circle, although only representatives for recognized interest groups or locals actually voted. Nobody questioned Jeff’s right to sit in, both because he was a Sterling and because he always took the seat next to the starwoman Rodrigo. He liked the questions that raised. Was he in the star group, or the Sterlings? Only Vicky had the gumption to ask.
Vicky mulled that answer as she chewed another piece of croissant. “Good idea. Hike the way you’re making up to that starwoman. In her pants yet?”
Jeff had half a dozen answers to that question. First in line was “None of your business.” Unfortunately, Vicky saw everything with a potential value in it as her business. Jeff swallowed and fed her the line she’d want. “Mary’s a tough woman. Doesn’t let anyone get close to her easily.”
“Smart woman. Don’t let that stop you, kid. I want to know what makes her tick. All of them. Keep working on it. You have anything else to work on?”
She knew the answer to that. As junior Sterling, Vicky made sure he had nothing to do and did nothing worth doing. “Nothing on my schedule,” he answered.
“Good. Stay close to her. She’ll come around. And let me know what you learn as soon as you do.” She pushed away from the table, half her breakfast untouched. “And don’t dawdle over breakfast. There’s work to do. Get yourself over to the Residency and see what they’re up to.”
Since Vicky had bugged the Residency, as well as most other places where important things were talked about, if she didn’t know what was happening, somebody was keeping her in the dark. Jeff really liked these star people.
Jeff continued eating with slow purpose until Vicky stalked from the solarium. Only after she left did he lean back in his chair. Damn! Vicky had given him the order he would have begged for. She would never have given it to him if he asked. Vicky’s distrust of everyone inevitably sent people where they didn’t want to go to do things they were poorly suited to do. Thank God the woman could be manipulated.
Jeff hustled for his room. He was curious what Ray and Mary would do today. They’d fulfilled the circles’ social requirements; now they were on their own. No doubt it would be fun watching. He dressed quickly and had an electrocycle brought around to the front.
It had been a very bad night, full of shivering and sweats. Ray gulped a pain pill before starting his morning stretches. Showered and shaved, he almost felt human.
Mary met him at the stairs and went down, one step at a time. Her conversation rambled over the morning’s weather and last night’s drive, totally ignoring that she was there to catch him if he stumbled. He liked her nonchalant way of playing safety as much as he enjoyed her morning chatter. It reminded him of Rita before her second cup of coffee.
Their hostess, Henrietta San Paulo, Chair of the Great Circle, was already seated at the head of the table. Her daughter, a wisp of a nine-year-old, was missing.
“Where’s the White Rose?” Ray asked, using the nickname Henrietta’s albino daughter enjoyed.
“She had headaches in the night. I hope her noise did not disturb you. The nurse could not keep her quiet.”
“Do all albinos have migraines?” Mary asked.
“Apparently.” The mother concentrated on her breakfast. “Rose has visited every doctor and specialist we have, They just shake their heads.”
“We met a child with migraines on our first day down,” Ray said, not reaching for his oatmeal. “A County Clair Circle member also had a child like Rose. We’ve landed a medical team. One thing they’re looking at is how to help these children.”
“Could you send Rose these medicines?”
Without a thought, Ray nodded, then stopped himself. “No, I can’t promise that. Some meds require a patient be under observation while taking them.” He swept his hands out, then down his broken back. “I’ve had personal experience with our docs. I can’t promise a pill Rose can take three times a day and not worry about.”
San Paulo pursed her lips. “If she and her nurse went with you, would that meet your requirements?”
“I don’t doubt it. I’ve ordered a shuttle to pick us up around ten. There will be room for her.”
Henrietta nodded slowly. “I will have to discuss this with Chu. Her party can’t oppose your helping a poor child. This would be a nice way to get them used to the good that will come from our involvement again with humanity.”
Ray nodded while cringing inside. Would he ever become so much of a politician that helping his child took second place to policy? On second reflection, he realized that his own policy of limited technological transition had just taken a major hit. He was using his tech. But it’s to help a little girl. Oh, Rita, if only you were here.
Was it an accident that Chu Lyn was announced as breakfast ended? Henrietta had the nurse bring Rose down to join her and Ray in a sitting room. Chu, a tall, dark-skinned woman with no visible evidence of her Asian namesake, and San Paulo chatted for half an hour before San Paulo invited Rose into her lap and told Lyn of Ray’s offer.
Rose’s bloodshot eyes grew wide; she said nothing, but the look she gave Ray was heartrending. Lyn talked in platitudes for several minutes, of her party’s support for rational change and growth, but their long experience of mad, irrational action. Then she shrugged. “Of course, no one could possibly object.” Rose and her nurse left to pack. Ray excused himself.
Fifteen minutes later, a small crowd collected on the steps of the Residency as everyone gathered for their good-byes. While Mary and the nurse loaded suitcases, Rose went through the tortures of a nine-year-old…excited to ride in something new like the mule, reluctant to leave Mom and the familiar.
“Would you like to talk to your mommy whenever you want?” Ray asked. The shy child nodded. Ray took off his wrist unit, made a few adjustments so it would only be a commlink, and offered it to San Paulo.
“When we get back to base, I’ll get Rose one. That way, you can talk to each other whenever you want.”
San Paulo and Chu eyed the offered gift. “It doesn’t plug into the net? It has no fiber cables?” the mother said.
“It’s wireless,” Ray explained.
“We know of radio technology,” Chu answered. “We never redeveloped it. Our power cells are so big. If you could plug into a power line, you might as well plug into a data cable.”
More local data to pass to Kat for analysis. Ray took his leave, strolling to the far side of the mule as Mary bent to help Rose and her nurse into the near side.
A young man with wild eyes and a long, shiny knife stepped from the crowd and dashed for Ray.
Mary must have seen the glint of knife. She took two quick steps back. Ray raised a cane in defense, falling against the mule. Part of him analyzed the attack. Piss poor. Idiot’s holding the knife overhand. That would not help Ray.
“Die, you—” the man shouted as Mary kicked out, caught him in the gut, then spun to chop at his knife arm. The knife flew past Ray’s ear to land in the mule with a clatter.
The attacker rolled away, screaming.
Mary stood to her full height; her sidearm materialized in her hand as her eyes did a quick look around for more attackers. Ray did the same; he saw none. By the time Ray could spare a moment for his assailant, the guy had bolted back into the crowd; shocked bystanders made way for him. Mary started to take a shot, then raised her pistol high as the crowd closed behind her target. Ray caught a hint of the man’s head as he vanished behind the Residence.
For a moment, everyone stood in shocked silence. Then San Paulo and Chu descended on Ray. “Are you hurt?” “Where did he come from?” “We’ve never had anything like that.” “No, nothing at all.”
All Ray saw was a crowd moving closer, giving another assailant a shorter run.
Mary grabbed his elbow. “Out of the car,” she ordered Rose and the nurse. “Into the front seat.”
Rose scrambled over the seat, eyes wide and locked on the knife. “What’s cook’s knife doing here?”
“Not now, Rose,” Mary snapped. Rose frowned, accepting the answer as a familiar one. Mary shoved Ray into the backseat just as Jeff rode up on some kind of motorcycle.
“You!” Mary shouted. “Can you drive this mule?”
“Always wanted to try,” Jeff grinned, taking in the scene and not sure what to make of it.
“You’re driving,” Mary shot at Jeff, and pushed Ray across the backseat to make room for her. Ray moved, using more hip motion than he had since Mary nailed him. If he’d had the time, he would have marveled at it. At the moment, he just scooted.
“Drive, Jeff,” Mary ordered.
Under Mary’s instruction, Jeff put the mule in gear and hit the accelerator; the mule took off with a leap. Mary kept her eyes roving right; Ray covered the left. No one trailed them. “What was that all about?” Jeff asked.
“Somebody tried to knife me. That happen often?”
The nurse shook her head dumbly. “Never,” Jeff said. Ray had a hard time believing that.
“Where we going?” Jeff asked.
“The blimpfield,” Ray answered.
“Be there in no time,” Jeff assured them. However, Rose’s brave front began to crack around the edges. Without lowering her vigilance, Mary got Rose chattering about the farms near their base with chickens and ducks. The promise of a donkey to ride caught Rose’s young attention and didn’t let go, leaving Ray wondering where his marine officer learned so much about distracting children. He suspected it was a gal thing that he’d never master.
The news of an impending shuttle landing apparently had passed through Lander’s Refuge at the speed of light. As the mule approached the field, it seemed like half the city’s million inhabitants were somewhere in the crowd around the port. Mary checked in with Second Chance.
“Yeah, we spotted the crowd last orbit and did a check on the marked-out area. It’s plenty long, and we’ve added that runway to the lander’s navigation map. Trust us, Ray, we won’t fry anybody. Any problems?” Mary raised an eyebrow to Ray. He shook his head. She punched off.
Jeff caught up with the shuttle as it finished its landing roll, driving right up its open ramp. Even as they dismounted, the crew chief and loadmaster were tying down the mule.
Jeff stood, hands shoved in his pockets. “Mind if I hitch a ride? I’ve had about as much of my sis as I can take for a year or ten. I’d like to get back to some field prospecting, and you look like the fastest way there.”
Ray glanced in Mary’s direction. She studied the local as she might an asteroid that could be solid gold but might be total dross. “No problem, sir,” Mary said slowly. “He came out with us. Might as well go back with us.”
As Ray and Mary settled into seats, she chewed on her lower lip. “Wonder who that knife guy was.”
“We might know if you’d let him finish what he was shouting,” Ray said dryly.
“At the moment, sir, it looked like he was ready to drill you a new belly button, but next time,” she assured him, “I’ll let the guy finish his manifesto.”
An hour later, Ray surveyed the base from the shuttle’s top step. A long swath of field had been sprayed with emulsifier, giving the lander a solid temporary runway. The same technique had created roads that were now lined with buildings. Though prefab balloons, once blown up and sprayed with epoxy, the structures were as permanent as stone. By their shapes, as much as by the signs in front, Ray could name them.
The chip fabricator was long and low. The equipment factory was wide and tall. Around them squatted housing and office buildings, including one that proudly proclaimed itself the “Santa Maria Center for Research and Delight.”
“I won the contest for naming that one,” Kat Zappa proudly crowed. She seemed to have appointed herself Ray’s tour guide, meeting him at the stairs when he paused, blinking, for his eyes to adjust to the bright sunlight. One by one, she pointed them out. To the right of the manufacturing center a number of sealed containers sat where they’d been dumped. Kat said nothing about them; she didn’t have to. Ray’d been too many years in uniform not to recognize his bomb farm and weapons factory. With luck, that gear would stay packed.
“Where’s the hospital?” he interrupted Kat. Rose was peeking shyly around the door of the lander, the only one behind Ray except for the crew.
“Hi. What’s your name?” Kat asked, hurrying to the little girl’s side and giving Ray a chance to start down the stairs, Mary two steps ahead of him.
“Rose,” came in a trembling whisper.
“Is that your bag? It’s pretty. Do you have a kitten? I had one when I was your age. Can I carry your bag?”
Ray left Kat to prattle as he worked from one step to the next. What was it with estrogen that turned every female into a mother to every child? When his own son or daughter arrived, would he be rattling on like a twittering bird? After years of barking orders, Ray could not picture himself cooing and aahing over some tiny fragment of humanity. But, God, I want to be home with Rita to find out.
A mule waited at the bottom of the stairs for Ray. Jeff loitered near it. As Ray stepped off from the last step, his commlink buzzed. “Matt here. You all set?”
“Looks like it. How do things look on your end?”
“Couldn’t be better. We’re breaking orbit this trip around. See you when we’ve found a way home.”
“Outstanding. Ray out,” he said to Jeff’s raised eyebrows. “You hang around me long enough and you’re bound to find out something you shouldn’t.”
“I had a hunch you were holding back. Call me a suspicious bastard. It runs in my family. So, you’re as lost as we are.”
“Nope. The skipper of that ship made a bad jump last year. Took them six weeks, but they came home.”
Jeff pulled thoughtfully at his eyebrow for a moment. “But you’re not sure.”
“There was sabotage involved in this jump. Matt’s got a tougher problem this time around.”
“Sounds like humanity hasn’t changed much.” Jeff paused. “But then, living on Santa Maria hasn’t made us saints either. Here’s my deal. You cut me in on your mineral extraction technology and I won’t breathe a word about your problems to anyone until you’re ready to announce it.” He ended grinning like a thief with a permanent pardon.
Mary slipped up silently beside him. “I could just break your neck. Tell your sister you fell down the lander’s stairs in a rush to meet a nice local girl. What’s her name?”
“Ah, yes. I suspect Vicky would grieve all of two seconds.” Jeff took a quick step back from Mary. “However, if it served her, she could turn my death into quite a cause célèbre. You still haven’t told me how that really neat knife ended up on the backseat.”
“And what do you know about that?” Mary closed the distance to Jeff again. The only threat was in her closeness…and the death in her eyes.
Jeff didn’t retreat this time. “I don’t know anything more than you do. But I have sources here you don’t. I can get answers you can’t. You can work with me, or you can keep playing the Lone Ranger. Do they still have stories about him?”
“Yes,” Ray scowled and settled himself into the backseat of the mule. “Mary, I think we ought to let him live. At least for a while.”
“If you say so, Colonel,” Mary said doubtfully.
Ray turned in his seat to face Jeff. “As you’ve probably noted, until recently, I was a colonel, commanding infantry. Mary was a marine officer in our most recent war. You can take the uniform off, but old habits die hard. You strike me as a very smart businessman. Don’t outsmart yourself.”
Jeff slowly nodded as Ray spoke. The pause at the end grew long. Finally, licking his lips, Jeff said, “All my life, I’ve been the baby. The kid. Vicky knew she’d inherit. Mark was out hustling before I even knew the rules of the game. He found the bauxite deposits up among the Bible thumpers and managed to get the aluminum mill going. Pissed Vicky off big time. Me, I’m the spare, the nothing, the one everybody tells what to do. You’re my one chance to be something. Please, give me that chance.”
Ray studied the man. Were his eyes actually misting up? Was this for real or just show? Ray had no idea. Surely this planet had a need for everyone. Then again, growing up in the shadow of the woman who had the whole place by the throat might be pretty hard on a kid. Maybe Jeff was desperate to get out of that shadow. Then again, maybe he’d learned enough from Victoria and just wanted his own place in the sun to do to her and others what he’d seen her do. Tough call. Ray turned to Mary, “You need an extra hand in your mining operations?”
“Don’t look like the factories are up,” she said.
“No,” Kat cut in, now down the stairs with Rose in hand. “No mineral feed stock. Couple of marines said they’d start things up as soon as you got back.”
“Nice of them to wait,” Mary snorted, then turned on Jeff. “You’re welcome to work for the Ours, by Damn, Mining Consortium. You may save our start-up a few wrong turns. But”—Mary made the word explosive as she rested a pointing finger on Jeff’s chest—“you swindle us, we’ll get you. We worked the asteroids before the war. We worked our butts off surviving that damn war. You help us, you’re our buddy. You get crosswise with us, and so help me, your sister won’t find enough pieces of you to know you’re dead. Understood?”
The man returned Mary’s hard stare, head nodding. “Yes, Captain. I understand. Maybe better than you know. I suspect I’ve just met someone as desperate as me.”
“Where’s the doctor?” Rose interjected. “The sun is hurting my eyes.”
Mary metamorphosed from line beast to mother in the time it took her to kneel next to Rose. “Then we’ll pop the top on this mule and get you some shade. Kat, where’s the hospital?”
“Over there,” she pointed, “but it’s not set up yet.”
Ray sighed for the good old days when he gave an order and it happened. “I’ll just have to ask the doctor why.”
Kat looked ready to go elsewhere, but Ray signaled her into the backseat with Rose. Mary took the driver’s seat, and Jeff settled into the front seat as far from her as he could and still get the door closed. Ray tried not to grin. By all rights, he ought to be ready to explode with anger. Three hot potatoes dropped in his lap. Jeff, who might or might not stab him or someone else in the back over sibling rivalry. Rose and her headaches and now gear that wasn’t up for some reason Kat was not eager to explain. Instead of mad, he found it funny. Keep your sense of humor and you might survive this mess.
The hospital was a short drive. Matt had sent down the younger of the ship’s two doctors, Dr. Jerry Isaacs. Ray found him at the end of a long line of locals, apparently doing a public relations sick call.
“I brought you another child with headaches,” Ray said by way of introduction. The next woman in line held a coughing seven-year-old. Still, she took two quick steps back. Ray had yet to figure out the local attitude toward the albino children. It seemed to be one part fear, another part awe.
Dr. Jerry smiled at Rose, who was suddenly so attached to Kat that surgery seemed required to separate them. Kat came forward and held Rose while Jerry did the usual medical once-over. Rose took it stoically, except for one exclamation of pain when he shined a bright light in her eyes.
“They look healthy enough. I can’t tell you more until I get my diagnostic center back.”
“When’s that?” Ray asked, puzzled.
“You’ll have to ask Kat and company,” the doctor growled.
“We started using it for specimen analysis, sir.” Kat eyed the floor, as if hunting for a crack to fall through.
“Doctor, you haven’t started working on these children’s problems?”
“I’ve only been down two days. I will not use diagnostic gear someone just used to dissect the latest stray something these midshipmen”—his nod indicated Kat—“dragged in.”
“Colonel, it’s really important, what we’re finding out.”
“More important than helping these kids?” Ray made it clear that would be hard to do.
“Sir, there’s something weird with the evolution on this planet. We’ve been chasing it the week you’ve been gone, sir, and we still can’t figure it out.” Kat ran out of words in the face of Ray’s scowl.
“Please, Colonel, Doc, we can’t stop now. Come and see.”
“Show me,” Ray said.