"A different kind of architecture from what I'm used to," Councillor Suares said with a faint smile as he viewed the settlement plan projected over al-Ibrahimi's desk. He glanced toward Farrell and explained, "I've been in industrial design, you see. I suppose the challenge will be good for me. I don't suppose anyone has computed moduli of strength for the local woods?"
"Not in that precise form, Mr. Suares," said Tamara Lundie. She was operating the hologram projector at a console folded down from the end of the desk. "I can compute approximations based on the span and thickness of branches, if you like."
"Oh, that would be excellent!" Suares said. "Of course initially we'll be limited to walls of stabilized clay with sheet-stock floors and roofs. But we'll move on."
The colonists had reacted remarkably well to their enforced circumstances. Farrell supposed that was an advantage to drafting an elite group—as the residents of Horizon Towers clearly were. It seemed a waste of talented people, but a soldier gets used to that sort of thing.
"Not the sort of law I'm used to either, Jafar," Matthew Lock said, "but I'll go over the proposed codes tonight and make a recommendation tomorrow. I'd advise you to create a proper committee for the purpose, though, to avoid recriminations afterwards. You realize that there are at least thirty attorneys in the vessel, don't you?"
Farrell wasn't sure whether Lock had calmed down since the two of them first met, or if the apparent shouting anger had been merely a ploy the lawyer had dropped when it failed to have a useful effect. He was clearly an ambitious man. A raw colony was probably a small pond compared to the scope of Lock's ambitions back on Earth, but he was making the best—the most, at any rate—of his present circumstances.
"There are fifty-four persons aboard who hold law degrees," Lundie said. "Not all of them were licensed or in active practice."
Even Lock looked surprised. It struck Farrell that there was exactly one lawyer per striker with the colony. Given the situation on the ground on Bezant, Farrell would've recommended more guns and fewer mouths.
"Your peers elected you to represent them, Mr. Lock," al-Ibrahimi said. The contrast with Lock's appropriation of the project manager's first name was evident and therefore, from a man like al-Ibrahimi, pointed. "Based on that election, I'm delegating to you the task of making a recommendation in your field of expertise. The decision will be mine."
Al-Ibrahimi smiled the way a striker might when talking about dismemberment. "If necessary," he added, "I'll handle any complaints that arise from your fifty-three fellows."
"It seems to me that we're a small enough group for true democracy to apply," President Reitz said. "Even for matters like trials. A thousand people can run themselves without an institutional structure."
Tamara Lundie looked up sharply from her console. Al-Ibrahimi nodded minusculy to his aide.
"Ms. Reitz," Lundie said, "for the next six months and subject to extension, the structure of Colony BZ 459 is that of a Population Authority project under the sole control of the project manager which the Authority has appointed. We are not a democracy."
"Technically yes—" Reitz began, her argument cloaked as agreement by the use of the limiting adverb.
"And in practice as well, madam," al-Ibrahimi said. "A colony at its inception is too delicate for any government but tyranny. That's more true of this colony than most, perhaps more than any other before it. And I am that tyrant."
Reitz gave the manager a level glance and spread her hands on her lap. "I see," she said.
Farrell was impressed by the president's calm. He'd gathered that Susannah Reitz's wealth came from inherited investments. She'd taken the presidency of Horizon Towers to occupy her time, and the changed circumstances might have left her completely out of her depth.
That hadn't happened. Reitz had a cool appreciation of the realities of power. She might or might not use wisely what she had, but she didn't bluster when the authority was elsewhere.
"Major Farrell, do you have any concerns about your company's role that you'd like to raise here?" the project manager asked.
"I have one thing, sir," Farrell said, a little surprised to hear himself speak. "I don't worry about my people being able to operate on Bezant. Also we understand that our mission, our sole mission, is to protect your colonists."
He looked around the room. The three colonists watched the striker with concern, more or less well concealed. Al-Ibrahimi was calm; Farrell had never seen him any other way. Lundie kept her eyes on her console, but a hint of stiffness in her shoulders indicated she was intent on what he was going to say.
"C41 will do its best," Farrell said. "I've never known my strikers to do anything else on an operation. But I want to be clear this is on-the-job training for us and there's going to be a learning curve. We've never had to protect civilians before."
Suares blinked; Lock grimaced; and President Reitz's expression had a hard stillness to it that Farrell had seen all too often on the face of a wounded striker.
"I appreciate your concern, Major," al-Ibrahimi said. "There will be problems because this is new for all of us. There will be mistakes, and there will very likely be deaths that could have been prevented if we were all inhumanly perfect. That is understood."
The project manager glanced from one colonist to the next to focus their attention, then looked back at Farrell. "Before I end this meeting, Major, I need to correct one misstatement," he said. "You and your strikers have been protecting civilians throughout your military careers. The only difference on Bezant is that for the first time we civilians will be watching as that occurs."
Meyer entered the armory to check the plasma cannon and its ten cases of ammunition. In a manner of speaking it didn't matter: either the cargo locker had the correct contents or it didn't. The ship wasn't going back to Earth for a replacement if there'd been a screw-up during loading. Meyer had decided to look for want of anything better to do.
C41's weaponry didn't fill the compartment, so the strikers had shifted much of their personal gear here from the sleeping compartments. Strikers accumulated a surprising amount of entertainment electronics, souvenirs, and just plain junk. C41's deployment was categorized as a permanent change of base, so the clutter moved with the unit in 3-cubic foot shipping containers.
Professionals at Emigration Port 10 had struck the lockers of weapons and munitions neatly down around the bulkheads. Meyer climbed over a waist-high wall of containers stowed more haphazardly in the center of the compartment.
Nobody else was in the armory. That both bothered and calmed her.
Since Active Cloak Meyer was uncomfortable being around other people, even strikers. It was as though there was one-way glass between her and everybody else. They didn't see her, and she had no contact with them. She was afraid to be alone, but it made things worse to be in the presence of others and still be alone.
Meyer's boots hit the deck. There was a gasp and a muffled curse from beside the cannon locker. Nessman's head and shoulders rose from behind another stack of containers.
"What the hell—" he started.
"Is somebody there?" a female—a girl's—voice trilled. "Steve, is—"
An elfin face framed by blonde hair in a perfect halo appeared beside the striker's. "Omigod, Steve! Omigod, Momma will kill me!"
The blonde ducked down. Her elbows knocked against containers as she scrabbled to put clothes on in the tight space.
"Hey, it's okay, sweetheart, nobody's going to tell Momma," Nessman soothed. He looked up at Meyer again.
"I was going to check the gun," Meyer said. "Ah, I didn't know anybody was here."
"Steve, please, make her go away so I can get dressed," the concealed voice pleaded. Meyer's first thought had been that the girl was barely sixteen, but she guessed that was wrong by a few years. Civilians looked younger than the people Meyer was used to being around.
"Look, Essie, give us five, okay?" Nessman said. A bare knee lifted beside him. He put his hand on the girl's hands to prevent her from tugging up panties of rose-pink lace. "Now, sweetheart, don't worry about that just yet." He forced a smile at Meyer again. "Okay, Essie?"
"Yeah, sure," Meyer said, backing away. "I wasn't—hell, there's no need to look at the stuff. I won't, I won't be back, you know."
As she reached the armory door, she heard Nessman saying, "Now, sweetheart, it's okay. Nothing's going to happen, you see? I told you I'd take care—"
Meyer closed the door.
Christ!
There was absolutely no reason Nessman shouldn't be doing exactly what he was. The kid's mother might go off like a bomb—would go off, from what the kid had said—but that was no concern for Meyer or Major Farrell. There wasn't any regulation against contact with the civilians.
Actually, there'd never been regs against contact with civilians. For all practical purposes strikers didn't come in contact with real civilians except on leave—if then. If God up on Deck 25 had a problem with Steve Nessman doing what came naturally, he should have said so earlier.
Meyer walked down the corridor to her compartment. Some strikers had started going down to the civilian decks for a change of scenery. Nessman probably wasn't alone.
Good for you, Nessman, she thought. At least one member of Heavy Weapons was fitting in.
Deck 8 was only partly filled with cargo. Parents had turned the empty remainder of the volume into a playground, creating slides and a jungle gym with construction materials from the cargo. Glasebrook stood arms akimbo, staring with satisfaction as kids crossed the horizontal ladder the rest of 3-3 had helped him build.
"Wish we could build a decent rope swing," Glasebrook said. "The ceilings just aren't high enough."
Adult civilians, not only parents, and a dozen or more strikers stood around the edges of the common space watching. Star travel—the mass version common to troopships and colony vessels, at any rate—was dead boring. You could only study your destination for so long at a time. Besides, Abbado wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the civilians refused to look into the database again once they'd gotten a taste of how bad Bezant was going to be.
"We might be able to rig something in the lift shafts," Abbado said after thinking about the problem. "Disconnect two cages, drop them to the bottom, and take out the partition between shafts."
Glasebrook frowned. "Jeez, Sarge, I dunno," he said. "I think that'd be pretty dangerous."
"Have you taken a good look at Bezant, Flea?" Abbado said. "But yeah, I know what you mean. Well, it's just another week anyway."
A heavy-set man of forty with coarse, intensely black hair walked over to the strikers. He looked vaguely familiar.
Glasebrook took his hands off his hips; Abbado changed his stance slightly. The civilian had something on his mind. Until the strikers were sure what it was, they remained wary.
"Gentleman," the fellow said, "I am Dr. Ahmed Ciler."
He held out his hand. Abbado shook it, then Glasebrook. "I believe you were the soldiers who guided us to our deck, were you not? I'd like to thank you for your support when we were being mistreated."
"Yeah, us and Ace Matushek," Abbado said. "Sure, I thought I'd seen you before. And no big deal with the cops. We've had our own problems with cops."
Most strikers had. In not a few cases, that was the reason they'd enlisted in the first place.
"This is enough of an injustice," Ciler said. "They didn't need to add pointless brutality. I—all of us—appreciate it very much."
"If they want to knock somebody around so bad," Flea said, "there's plenty of Spooks out there they can go after before they get down to old ladies."
"Can I ask you about the place we're going?" Ciler said. "BZ 459. Do you know of any military reason a colony should be sent there?"
Children at the top of the slide started pushing their fellows in front of them. Parents called nervously and stepped over to intervene.
Abbado looked at Ciler. He wondered if "doctor" meant Ciler was a medic. Seemed like half the adults on this ship were a doctor of one kind or another, though not many were the sort you'd want around to sew up the after-action damage.
"Look, doc," he said, "we're just strikers. You probably know more about this business than we do. Even the major, he just does what he's told. We stopped being subject to the Pop Authority when we enlisted."
"I thought as much," Ciler said. "Still, I hoped someone might have some insight. Manager al-Ibrahimi merely says that it's his duty to set up a viable colony, and the reasons behind the decision are no proper concern for him or us."
The doctor shook his head. "There are eighty-four children under the age of twelve on this vessel," he said. "I'm a pediatrician, you see. And that pig on Deck 25 tells me that I shouldn't be concerned about why those children are being sent to Hell."
Ciler glared at the strikers, his dark eyes full of grim fury. "This is not a normal Population Authority initiative. The team that surveyed the planet listed it as Wholly unsuited for colonization, did you know? Officially it's BZ 459, but if you look into the Survey Team's notes you'll find that among themselves they called it Hell. And that's where these children are going!"
"Now, doc," Abbado said. He'd had the same thought, but it wouldn't do any good to say so. "Don't let what some jerk-off who never got out of orbit says get to you."
"Yeah, I figure the sarge is right," Glasebrook said. "I mean, they wouldn't really put civilians on a place that bad."
Abbado nodded with false enthusiasm. "I guess there's about a hundred planets somebody or other called Hell," he said. "It's about as common as Paradise and I tell you, I've been on some of both. There's not that much to choose between them once you been there a while. It's not going to be Hell."
Caius Blohm was standing a few feet away from the other strikers, apparently watching the playing children. He turned to Abbado and said, "You got that right, sarge. Hell isn't a planet."
Blohm saluted with a wry smile and walked off toward the lifts.
Sergeant Gabrilovitch got up from the poker game with Second Platoon strikers when Blohm reentered the compartment. "I'm out," he said, putting the remainder of his stake in his pocket. "Maybe I ought to check out the civvie decks and see if I'm lucky in love."
They were playing for military scrip. Since C41 wouldn't be near a place where scrip (or for that matter, Unity Credit Chips) bought anything for at least six months, the plastic bills were just easier to count than toothpicks or beans.
"Want to sit in, Blohm?" a striker asked.
"Naw," Blohm said. "Maybe tonight. You'll still be playing."
"Hey, you got something better to do?" said the striker who was shuffling the deck.
"You been below?" Gabrilovitch asked. "Have any luck?"
Blohm shrugged. "I was just looking around," he said. His helmet hung from the end of his bunk. He held it, working the visor up and down a couple times.
He looked at his sergeant. "It's funny being around civilians like this, you know?"
Gabrilovitch nodded. The poker game resumed behind the two scouts. It would continue until the ship was in the final stages of landing.
The game didn't keep the others in the compartment awake. If anybody cared he could crawl into his null sack and cut himself off completely from the outside world, card games and all. That wasn't really necessary, though, because for a striker in the field sleeping was something you did when you got a chance. "The right conditions" might include shellfire, four inches of water where you lay, and drenching rain—all at the same time.
"I was thinking about that," Gabrilovitch said. "You and me, we've been a lot of exotic places, right? We all have."
Blohm blinked. "Yeah, I guess," he said. "You mean like Glove White, where the plants were clear till they caught the sun and then it was like you never saw so many colors?"
"Yeah, that sort of thing," Gabe agreed, nodding his bullet-shaped head. A wedge of white hair marked a scar along the suture line on the top of his skull. "Or on Case Lion, where those bugs hung in the air and sang sweet as sweet?"
"The hummers," Blohm said. "The size of my finger. They'd come around like they liked having us to sing to."
"I brought a branch back from Glove White. It turned gray and went to dust in a couple weeks," Gabrilovitch said. He grimaced. "Don't know what I thought I was going to do with it anyway."
"That's not where they put base camps, though," Blohm said. "Remember Kaunitz?"
Gabrilovitch nodded vigorously. "And Stalleybrass," he said. "Or any other damn place, mud or dust, that's the choice. Sometimes I think there's a Directorate of Mud on Earth to make sure military bases never run out. But you know, snake?"
He turned his gaze directly onto Blohm. "If they'd built a base on Case Lion, it'd have been all mud in no time. And Glove White would have got just as dusty as Stalleybrass."
"Might be," Blohm said. The thought made him uncomfortable, though he didn't see why it should. It wasn't any of his doing, it was just nature. A hundred thousand troops in one place gave you a mud pit or a dust bowl, take your choice.
"The places that're kind of neat to look back at," Gabrilovitch said, "there wasn't time to think about it when we were there. They pulled us out of Case Lion as soon as we'd cleared the Spook command and control unit. What, six hours?"
"I sure didn't want to stay longer," Blohm agreed. "That tunnel complex went thirty miles in every direction, and that's just as far as we could trust the echo mapper. There might have been a million Spooks down there. It wasn't going to be long before they got their shit together and came for us."
"Sure, I know," Gabrilovitch said. "But sometimes I think it's a shame that we got to shoot first and ask questions later, so to speak."
Blohm's expression froze. He stared toward his reflection in his visor's outer surface, but his mind was on the children playing on Deck 8.
"Just shoot first, Gabe," he said. "Better not to ask questions at all. The answers'll confuse you."