Jackson seemed to be slightly drunk, but not loud or obnoxious. Newton thought he was still on his first beer, but some folks tolerated it better than others, he knew that. He’d just never seen it in Jackson. The man was so separate, so distinct from all the others that Newton had it figured that the guy must have it all together. Jackson was grizzled where the others were just soft.
“Well. The town is about two kilometres long, half to a quarter wide, and it stretches maybe a half to one kilometre out that north-east line from this position. There are what, four hundred souls?” Newton figured one day to patrol the town, hit a couple of other trails, one or two villages and hamlets nearby, and then start heading back. “A half a dozen blocks, a few side-streets. Paths running out into the hills to the south.”
“What about the surrounding areas?” Ensign Spaulding didn’t really care if they caught any deserters or not.
She liked to know what came next. It was a lot more comfortable with some planning and forethought. Otherwise things got balled up in a hurry, and consulting with all these people could be frustrating.
“I was thinking three patrols, and this time we’ll keep a watch in a vehicle—maybe two or three people.”
She nodded, thinking.
“Do it all in a day?”
“Yes. In this muck foot patrolling will definitely be quicker.” Newton took a small sip of foam, noting the grains of salt on the upper lip as they went by. “Being out of contact changes nothing, and it changes everything.”
“Yes. We’re three days at least from the shuttle.” Beth had nailed his unspoken thoughts.
There was silence. Two troopers, Hernandez and Ozawa, came down the stairs immediately to their left in their sock feet and headed around to the tables in the far front corner. Ozawa in particular had a lean and hungry look as he snatched at the menu. Hatcher and Grimaldi showed up next, dropping into their seats with a furtive look at their seniors.
“Ozawa.”
The young man turned.
“Sir?”
“These people were just going to bed when we got here. Keep it simple, okay?’
Ozawa gave him a thumbs-up.
Newton turned back to Spaulding and Jackson, who was clearly listening well enough.
“How do you see it, Lieutenant?” Jackson was still nursing that last half-inch.
“What? Oh. Most likely water, the equipment is probably soaking wet. All that steam and condensation in the cab, is what I’m thinking. Faber says he’s heard of it happening before somewhere, I don’t know how accurate that is.”
“The suit radios still work.” Beth raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, but they’re battle-tested, and heavily cushioned. They have frequency-buffering. The portable field set is maybe not so well designed for smashing and bumping around. It may be the encoding. It may even be equipment failure at their end.”
She nodded, working away at the significance of it. It would have to be a serious event if that was the case.
“Burp.” Jackson seemed in no hurry to move on to the next beer.
Maybe he wasn’t a drunk, who knew.
Newton was glad to have Beth along, Jackson was all right but he was kind of a loner, an excellent soldier in the old-fashioned sense. He seemed to do well around camp, while others were a pain in the ass, and Trooper Sims a veritable pest. He didn’t have anything in common with Jackson. Jackson was sufficient unto himself, and he wasn’t even an officer, he was a in a specialist technical trade. He was neither officer nor trooper, and so he held himself aloof in some ways and Newton just had to live with it because Jackson sure as hell didn’t care one way or the other.
***
Early the next morning Ensign Spaulding and Faber took six troopers up the northwest road, which petered out in a hamlet called Concord. That took care of them for the day, and in the evening the squad could take some time off. According to their reports, the road was little better than a game trail beyond that point. The map showed it leading another hundred and fifty kilometres. Newton shuddered at the implications of that. Imagine living up there year-round.
Jackson and Semanko took five troopers and began tramping the paths and laneways, seeking out the small farms and homesteads in the immediately surrounding area. They also would be off duty that evening, and Newton was left in town with the least able crew. His taking them was a disciplinary thing, more implied than real. They could loaf around under his jaundiced eye.
The trouble with these folks wasn’t in their intentions, neither was it in their intelligence. Somehow or other they were hard to work with. He could find little good to put in the report as to their abilities and usefulness. They weren’t particularly flawed characters, in fact a dose of anger or pride or defiance might have been a little better to work with. They were amiable and apathetic. With this bunch he didn’t know where to start, and so they would be on duty this evening. Apparently there was a dance, and all the other troopers could go if they wished.
In the meantime, they lazed about the hotel, officially off-duty but under his eye and politely asked to stick around the building and its outbuildings, of which there were several. The only place off-limits was the pony shed, which Newt shared with aforesaid pony, a small black female named Lady. In that sense, Newton was the only one with any privacy, but command had its perquisites. His sleep of seven hours had been a big help.
If the bed of rose petals could be the most uncomfortable one of all, hay covered with heavy burlap tarps was perfection as far as he was concerned.
It wasn’t lonely at the top at all. He’d taken quite a shine to the horse, and thought he would miss her when they left. It was just one of many slightly surreal memories to take home from this trip.
Left on his own, Newton studied the map, and decided to leave a few places out of the schedule.
He had a few soldiers and the town was just so small. Judging by the number of folks coming and going, they were the talk of the town. So far, being accessible meant people would come up and tell him all sorts of things. When they left, he had no doubts everyone in the surrounding area would show up to see them off. They could have an impromptu parade. He’d tell Burke all about it. The Commander would be thrilled.
Everyone was expressly forbidden to mention the word deserters.
Other than that, they didn’t have a hope in hell of catching any, and in most respects Lieutenant Newton Shapiro was all right with it.
The night before there was quiet talk in all the rooms, and people coming and going from the outhouse in the yard behind. But essentially, they had been pretty good, packed in like sardines as they were.
If only they could get out of there without any trouble.
The only other thing bothering Newton was the lack of communication with the ship.
It was strange how he’d been relying on the short evening report to the duty officer, on some sort of emotional basis, like an umbilical cord home to his mother, or something to that effect.
Chapter Thirteen
Hank Puttered About
Hank puttered about for half a day in the kitchen it seemed, as he trimmed his hair and his eyebrows, clipped his finger and toenails, and shaved, endlessly checking for missed whiskers and having another go.
His guts felt heavy inside and yet this should have been a wonderful day. Hank was petrified, of Polly seeing him for what he really was, a lecherous old gomer who had seen better days, not the least in terms of hairline.
It felt damned odd to heat up pot after pot of water, filling up a galvanized tub that wasn’t half big enough for a man, and soaping up and lathering up and then stumbling around the house looking for a clean towel that didn’t smell a bit musty, what with the unusually damp season and all. It was a lot more trouble than just jumping into the pond buck-naked and holding a bar of soap and a wash-cloth, which he did from time to time.
He knew on some factual level, an objective level, that everything he and every other person on the planet owned must smell like smoke—from
the hearth, or the lamps, or getting rid of the trash. After a while, you didn’t even realize it.
Imagine that. A planet where the people went out back and burned the trash, but of course there just weren’t enough people to go around and there was plenty of atmosphere for everyone. The atmosphere back on Earth was the reason for all the state-sponsored colonization programs in the first place.
Every kid knew that and so he could see the irony.
The most terrible thoughts were the most analytical. Why would a girl like Polly ever want to like or love Hank Beveridge? Was he stark, raving mad to even consider it?
It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and so it must be too good to be true. And yet Polly was the only one that seriously interested Hank.
He didn’t know, exactly, for how could one ever know? For surely some things must be tried in order to be properly understood. For all he knew, for Polly it might be all superficial—some fellow taking her out of the house for a pleasant evening of music, dance, maybe a drink or two.
For her that’s all it might be.
Looked at through her eyes, the picture might be very different from what he was seeing, no, imagining. For surely it was all in his head. With few distractions, especially in the evenings, there was always a little too much time to think.
Hank had no idea of how to act around a whole bunch of other people, not after being kind of isolated for some years now, and all he could do was to play it straight and hope for some kind of an opening. The sheer quiet around there was something he had treasured for his very own for so long. Having a woman around might not work out, but he thought it would. He could always build a couple of more rooms, and hopefully he would have to anyways. The thoughts of having a child were bewildering, but he supposed that was why he was doing this. It was just some kind of a crazy dream. He couldn’t help but notice the fact that pretty much everyone in the world did it except for him. It was not like he didn’t dream sometimes—and those dreams could get pretty detailed when the nights were long and the darkness closed in and you were all alone with your thoughts.
He already wanted to put a glazed side room on the barn. Hank had been thinking about that for a while. He’d have a stove out there and some kindling, a good chair, and he could at least have some other place to go when the walls closed in and you’d already read every book in the place twenty-five times.
There were so many things he could say, so many things he wanted to say. So many things he would sort of have to explain about himself. Hank eventually went on to amuse himself with thoughts of who else might be there. Realistically, if Polly wasn’t for him then surely someone around these here parts might be interested. All they really had to do was to be healthy and look all right. She would have her own mount and she could go to town and be with her folks and friends and shop and everything. They’d get used to each other’s ways, given a little time.
He spent the last three hours waiting on the porch, wearing the bare minimum, trousers and shirt only until it was time to go. With the awful feel of gobs of sweat occasionally drooling down his ribcage, although it wasn’t that warm out, Hank reckoned that he actually had time for a second bath. He might need one, if this kept up. They were getting a few hours of brightness this afternoon, enough so that he had to put his hat on to cover his eyes from the glare. Hopefully it was some kind of an omen. He’d already forced himself to eat something. The hair-gel had a kind of smell to it.
It was all he could do not to think. The wind gusted and died, coming out of the southwest as it did in early summer.
Hank idly watched the big, long-tailed flyers as they soared and drifted on the wind, sensitive nostrils seeking food, always food. They were pretty much scavengers, as far as he’d observed, but maybe they hunted as well if they got desperate. There were a lot fewer of them in the cold weather, and so he figured they migrated to a certain extent.
Up at the barn, his animals nickered and snorted, and he could hear one of them taking a drink from the trough. The critters were notoriously silent, although people said when they were killed by a predator they carried on something awful.
Polly expected him about seven-thirty, and it would take no more than an hour and twenty minutes to ride into town at a walk, unless the horse broke a leg or something. He’d be dogging it all the way.
In front of Hank’s porch and all around, the vast and empty plains echoed with an infinite number of bugs, and critters, and flyers, and it seemed they were all looking for a mate too.
That was a kind of a disturbing thought.
Finally the sun began to approach the perpetual line of purple-grey clouds on the horizon.
It would only take a few minutes to saddle up, and if he rode slow and stopped in for a pee in a thicket he knew just on the outskirts of Oak River, he could time it right down to the minute.
To say his guts fluttered and rumbled a bit as he put on his boots and jacket would be an understatement—and an afterthought.
Hank had no one to blame but himself. On that thought, he stuck his foot in the stirrup and mounted up.
“Come on, Boy.”
The dappled grey creature’s eyes lit up at the thought of going somewhere.
One of these days he’d have to find a better name for the animal, but his mind was always on other things and this was just not the time.
***
Lieutenant Shapiro seemed to dominate the household, for it was more that than an actual hotel.
“All right, people. Listen up.” By adopting a manner more closely akin to a high school volleyball coach, he was having an easier time of managing the crew under his command. “There is only one bathroom and only one tub. There is no shower. We all know this. Our hosts are in the kitchen heating water like mad.”
They had a second fire out back and had borrowed half the pots and kettles in town, according to Mrs. Gregory.
“All set!” Bellowing from the top of the stairs, Mister Gregory indicated that the first bath was ready.
Newton picked a slip of paper out of a bowl thoughtfully provided by their hostess.
“Cornell!”
“Here, sir.” The trooper slid with a dramatic flourish out of the billiards room, poised like a dancer on the waxed and polished tiles.
He was already stripped down to skivvies and white socks. There were giggles and comments, but Newton just grinned. Cornell might have a streak of exhibitionism in him. A little comic relief would help considerably.
“You’ve got six minutes in the tub. Waste your own time, nobody else’s.” Newton looked at his watch. “Next person will be sitting in your lap at…four-fifty-two p.m.”
“Ah…yes, sir!” Cornell grinned and headed off up the stairs and past a beaming Jim Gregory.
“I thought he was about to spit out a name just then.” Semanko’s remark made Newton laugh out loud, but he couldn’t think of anything to add.
Newton fought to urge to glance at Trooper Barnes.
With a big dance in town tonight, bath time was at a premium, but after the last few days, it was a luxury and a Godsend.
The sound of a door closing up there came and Jim Gregory came down stairs to check on the kitchen and the guests.
“Are you going to the dance, Mister Gregory?” Ensign Spaulding was bored and tired and her number might not come up for another hour or so.
“Oh, well. I was thinking I might just sit home tonight. I think my wife and daughter might be going, though, with some friends.”
Beth Spaulding nodded thoughtfully. The daughter seemed kind of young, but she was definitely something of a fresh-faced beauty, and not shy at all as far as the young male troopers were concerned. That came from working in a hotel, she supposed. It would be wise to keep an eye on all concerned, and she sighed with the necessity of it all. Still, it was what she had signed up for, and if she was ever going to command even the smallest detachment on her own, she’d better pay attention, not just to Shapiro’s mistakes, but to his small wonders of t
act and patience.
How the hell he did it sometimes, she just didn’t know.
Six minutes in the bathtub. One way or another, they would manage it. In spite of the sheer vast number of behinds going through there in some industrial production-line process, she was really looking forward to hers.
Three more days on the road, where it was all hills and swamps, rivers and bush, and then they could go back to the shuttle. A few hours later, they’d be back aboard the ship.
Four more nights at the most, and she would be sleeping in her own berth.
The thought was all that kept her sane by this point.
***
Hank picked up Polly at her place. He was a bit disturbed, even saddened by the fact that her mother was still abed and not feeling well these days.
It put the whole thing in perspective, in that her mother wouldn’t be around forever and Polly would have to have a life of her own, on her own. The house represented an inheritance, one of the few things people really had to look forward to when he thought about it.
He wondered how she thought about that, for he knew little of women other than what he read in books and magazines, few and far between as the latter admittedly were.
With Boy hitched to the porch railing in their back yard, with a trough of water right there and a blanket thrown over him to ward off the evening chill, Polly closed the door and took his arm.
The hall was only a few blocks away. The sunset, with all the tops of the clouds glowing in a golden salmon colour, was glorious. As they walked, other folks, couples mostly, and nicely dressed for the most part, all seemed to be going the same way.
It had never even occurred to Hank to inquire about the music or who was playing. With only one place to go in town, it hardly mattered.
She hadn’t noticed or didn’t remark upon it. From talk he’d heard they had Bev Jones on accordion and Jeff Snow did a mighty mean fiddle. There were one or two others, but it was by no means certain what he was letting himself in for.
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