The people over there undid the biggest cable from the tree trunk, clearing the hazard, and waved that all was ready. With the troops disconnecting this end, ready hands pulled the end of it across again.
With their own cable firmly attached to Unit Two, paying it out as Unit One crossed the creek, much reduced in size now but still very dangerous, he tapped the switch for the outdoor speaker on the roof.
“Okay, people, mount up and hang on.”
The machine sagged and jounced on its springs as the last few soldiers climbed up the back. Suited up in full armour, visors down, they could float a long ways if they fell off. It was just one of the hazards of doing business. Two bodies on the far side stood downstream in case they had to make a rescue.
“Ready when you are.” The voices came in his headset.
“Just keep it taut, okay, people?” If they gave it a good yank, they all agreed the winch would just come off the bumper of Unit Two.
Cornell acknowledged the instructions.
Newton Shapiro, with Faber in the driver’s seat, watched in a wretched sort of fascination as the sag began to go out of the cable and then it was taut. Unit One paused, and they were ready to go.
“All righty then. Here we go now.”
No one said a word.
Faber spoke into the microphone.
“Unit One, move out.”
Smoke belched from the stacks of Unit One. Unit Two lurched under the force as the wire rope lifted off the ground and up out of the water. Faber was holding the clutch, and then he let it out, watching the tachometer as their own truck advanced down the slope into the water, the tow cable as tight as a bowstring, waves curling and foaming still. Since last night it had changed to a sort of tea with a lot of cream in it colour. With bright sun again today, highlights glinted off the surface and belied the cold temperature.
Faber was holding the handbrake lever the whole time, and voices came in Shapiro’s ears as the water began rising up the sides. The sight of the water’s surface breaking up over the hood of the vehicle was deadly fascinating, and then the light faltered and waves broke against the windshield.
“Argh.” Shapiro turned and looked at those in the back. “I’ve never done this before.”
They laughed in spite of the suspense, peering out the windows and the nervous tension went up considerably. The engine kept running, as Shapiro saw, and Faber seemed confident enough as he gently sawed the wheel to the right against the current and feathered the throttle as they plunged deeper into the hole.
The interior went very dark.
“Check for leaks!”
There were mutters and comments, but no one saw anything.
Then the light got brighter again and there was a sudden force lifting the nose.
“Uh! Damn.” Everything bounced around and Shapiro took a quick look over his shoulder.
“Everybody all right?”
The voices came from those in the back. Shapiro almost thought he heard Mister Beveridge say something.
“Keep going, sir.”
A lopsided grin came across Newton’s face.
They were slammed against the seatbacks. Someone cursed.
“Cornell! Ease up!” Faber was cursing and swearing as Unit One on the other end of the towline accelerated on some massive whim, but then they were up and out of the water as the vehicle ahead bounced to a halt at the foot of what looked like a very steep incline.
The water gushed out of the nooks and crannies of the undercarriage, but the machine was still running and everything looked good.
“Did we lose anybody?” Shapiro held his breath.
“Nope.” He wondered who that was, but it was sufficient.
“Lieutenant?” It was Cornell in Unit One.
“Yes?”
“Shall we pull you guys on up the hill?”
He could imagine the grins up there.
“Ah, negative. Make a reconnaissance on foot, please.”
There was a long silence.
“Roger that.”
Faber looked over.
“Want me to go?”
“It would take a load off my shoulders.”
Faber put the parking brake on and left her idling to dry off the motor.
A couple of young bucks dropped out of the door of Unit One, and Faber just had time to catch up.
***
Two and a half days later, they were just cresting a ridge when Hatcher pointed out the front window.
“Look sir.” His face lit up. “Lights!”
“Yay!” The people were all sitting up now, although they’d been half asleep a minute ago.
They’d been driving for hours since sunset, under the wan light of the stars and the planet’s one small moon.
Their nightmarish journey, crossing flooded creek after flooded creek, one constant round of cutting trees, bridging small rivulets, winching the big machines up and down shelf after shelf of gently-curving, weather-smoothed rock, had left them aching and exhausted.
The lead vehicle stopped. Newton listened to the talk back and forth.
“How far is that?”
“GPS says forty-four kilometres.”
Newton groaned inwardly. Not another night on the trail.
“There are lights to the left.”
Newton lifted up in his seat as it was all downhill on that side.
“Holy, shit, Lieutenant. That might be an actual road down there.” Hatcher licked his cracked lips.
The unusually hot and sunny spell of the last several days had taken their physical toll on troops who had lived much of their adult lives in climate-controlled conditions.
Third World had relentlessly moderate conditions, and they were finding that still left plenty of leeway for extremes of temperature, wind, sun and rain, and more than anything, muck.
After a long and disbelieving silence, all of them spoke up at once.
“One at a time, people. I need volunteers for a foot recon.” But if that was indeed a road down there, their problems might be over—or almost.
The light had to be a house, and a house implied a road.
***
It was the middle of the night when the trucks, filthy with mud and dirt and dust and the leaves from a thousand branches came to that point, and every town in the galaxy has one, where the yellow light beckons and the first streetlight of home stands, the first of many or at least several.
Capital City was like that—a beacon in the night, an amber glow on the bottom of a cloud.
The streets this far out were deserted, although Newton saw with surprise that there were motels, even a few lit-up windows with cars parked out front.
They navigated five stoplights and then Unit One slowed down. They slowly cruised past the entrance.
“Stop here!” Newton snorted and Hernandez, driving in the last two hours, laughed outright as Unit One kept going up the block.
“This is a police station?”
It didn’t look like much. It was just a small, pastel-blue cinder block building with a sign hanging off the wall that would have been dwarfed by the typical family barber shop of fable and song on almost any respectable planet. Up under the eaves the blocks were perforated with floral designs.
The insect life on the planet was relatively innocuous, but even so, thought Newton. They must be insane.
A larger building, sided in corrugated metal, revealed itself for a jail in a sudden wash of light, for they could see feet and bodies inside, as the bottom eighteen inches of the wall was just fence wire stapled or otherwise somehow fastened to the concrete pad it rested on.
“Oh, boy.” Shapiro looked over his shoulder. “Okay, people. I need two pairs to secure the area. You will remain in contact and not go more than a two hundred and fifty metre radius.”
Ensign Spaulding, sensing his tiredness and knowing it wasn’t over yet, took over in a quiet voice and began organizing it. He reached up and turned the volume down. Like him, she had taken to just gra
bbing people.
Undoing his straps, he stood up, a little woozy after the inactivity of the last hours. With each step, the noise in his inner ears went up and down in volume and pitch…
Physical exhaustion brought mental and spiritual exhaustion. He was learning exactly what that entailed.
It was hard to make good decisions when all you craved was the blessed relief of sleep.
He sought the rungs of the side ladder in the darkness and was grateful when he found them. The hot tarmac of the street, a real street after all this time, was reassuring to his feet. He moved towards the door and it was like the ground was rolling. His pulse pounded in his ears.
The door was locked, and there were only a couple of small lights on inside. It didn’t look much like a cop station, but then he was pretty sure it wasn’t a fish shop…his mind was going.
Gasping in his tiredness, he found a com device hanging on a piece of chain. A number was on it, in big, bold, white-painted numerals.
911. What a homely feeling that was!
Pushing the one and only button that wasn’t grey, a red one, the thing lit up and he dialed the number.
Hopefully, somebody was home.
He turned and regarded the vehicles as he waited for someone to pick up.
God, what a mess.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Local Constabulary
When the local constabulary arrived, it was in a vehicle little better than a golf-cart, although it was black and white with a flasher on top and Capital City P.D. painted importantly on the low sides.
A man got out, wearing a generic police uniform.
Tired eyes took in the troops, some lounging around the back end of Unit One, the vehicles, and Lieutenant Newton Shapiro waiting patiently on the step.
“So. What’s all this then?” Not bothering with a hat, the man’s habitual gesture merely reinforced an impression of a fuzzy brush-cut and a heavily-lined forehead.
Shapiro introduced himself properly, showing the bench warrant which was stored in his data-device.
“I’m Alfred Markovitz, duty officer.”
They shook hands, the conventional greetings mundane but important.
“I have a prisoner. I need a fingerprint reader to properly identify him.”
“Very well, then.”
Taking a bunch of keys from a deep side pocket, the officer unlocked the door. Stepping in, he turned and switched on the lights.
“Bring on aforesaid prisoner.”
Heaving a sigh of something, Newton turned and beckoned at the side window of Unit Two.
“Kane and Marlowe. Bring in the prisoner.”
He stood there in the doorway until they were safely at the first step and then he led the small parade.
They stepped up to the front counter where the officer waited. With his overcoat off now, they could see he was a sergeant.
He reached under the counter and drew out a flat plastic device with a shiny front screen and a curling cord going back down under the desk.
“Place your right hand on the pad.”
Hank complied humbly.
The sergeant pushed on a coloured square on the screen and then nodded at Beveridge to take his hand off.
The sergeant raised his eyebrows. Wordlessly, he showed Newton the results.
“Subject Unknown.”
“Aw, for…” Shapiro bit it back.
His data-pad didn’t have the palm reader. Inside the data pad were full briefing notes, including all biometrics at time of desertion or going absent without leave.
Beveridge grunted, and looked at the cop, standing there with raised eyebrows.
“What do we do now?” Marlowe’s question was a good one, as she looked up at Hank Beveridge a little fearfully.
“What about a DNA sample?”
“We’d most likely get the same results. Anyhow, there aren’t any on Third World.”
Hank seemed perfectly calm, just like an innocent man would or should…
“What about a patch cord?” Newton brought out his own pad.
The sergeant raised his hands helplessly.
“I don’t know…I guess I could have a look.” His face implied that he really didn’t have one or know of one.
“Ah…” Newton keyed up the microphone. “All troops. See if you can find any patch cords, wireless adapters, anything like that on the trucks or in our equipment bags.”
There were inevitable questions, and he answered them as well as he could and then ignored the griping and the chatter. It seemed, according to Faber, that the military operating code and the civilian operating codes were different for obvious reasons, and there wasn’t much chance anyway. But only by actually making the connection could he be certain.
After twenty minutes, during which their police sergeant went though drawers and cupboards looking for anything that might fit, and not having any luck, Newton finally gave up.
Hank Beveridge, Kane and Marlowe were seated by this time on a bench by the longest wall, the soldiers obviously bored and Beveridge becoming a little red in the face as he was taking quite an interest in the goings-on.
Shapiro wasn’t giving up that easily.
They put their heads together, huddled over the desk as Newton brought up the fingerprints first, and then the palm print, simple and ubiquitous security data these days all over the galaxy.
“My eyes just aren’t that good.”
The sergeant tended to agree. He stared at the tiny pictures, shaking his head.
Newton’s eyes were tired and aching as well.
“Honestly, sir, in the old days—centuries ago, it would take a specialist, going over a fingerprint with a fine-tooth comb, and comparing…I don’t know, seventeen points or something like that…”
“So what are you saying?” Newton wasn’t disputing the problem, the one on his screen was barely a hundred millimetres tall and the one they had just recorded on the cop’s screen was only two or three times the size.
They weren’t getting anywhere.
“It takes the computer comparison to have any hope of accuracy at all.”
The man thought for a moment.
“Do you have any other evidence? What’s the charge, incidentally?”
“Desertion.” There was an incoherent outburst from Beveridge, but Newton didn’t turn to look. “Facial recognition is a ninety-five percent probability.”
He explained how it had been over twenty years since the subject had either gone AWOL or deserted in the proper sense, and that artificial aging had made the match.
Beveridge was clearly seething now.
“I’m afraid we’re not going to be much help to you. That’s not even listed under the Planetary Code.” The man was washing his hands in typical bureaucratic fashion: not my job in other words. “I couldn’t hold him even if I wanted to.”
There was some unspoken implication there that he didn’t much want to hold anybody. Newton couldn’t afford to take it too personal.
Newton sighed deeply.
“Yeah. I appreciate your position.” Always be diplomatic, even when you don’t really mean it. “What if I commandeer a cell?”
The man just looked at him.
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Your prisoner has constitutional rights.” Now the cop was standing on the prisoner’s rights!
“Yes, and I understand that. However, civil rights under the aegis of a military tribunal, for service personnel, is somewhat different, although the principles are the same.” He looked earnestly at the sergeant. “Look, I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll commandeer the cell, and I’ll agree to pay for meals, supervision, janitorial services and any other thing that comes up.”
“Ah…I’d better call the captain.” Passing the buck was standard operating procedure.
Newton grinned ruefully. He was hoping he would, actually. He would have liked to do it himself.
“Yes, please do.”
After going into the back room and
closing the door and speaking in hushed tones to somebody, the sergeant returned. Looking at his watch, Newton saw that another fifteen minutes had passed.
He’d already killed all the troop’s microphone pickups due to incessant talk and not a few complaints and grudging comments of one sort or another.
“All right.” The man paused. “Only with the understanding that you acknowledge in writing that this may be a violation of the civil and human rights of a citizen of Third World. Only with your guarantee in writing that you will appear in court, which is right next door, at nine-thirty a.m. tomorrow morning, and show just cause as to why you should have this man in custody at all.”
“So you will hold him overnight?”
“Yes. And I will abide by the decision of the court, whichever way it goes. I would suggest that you do so as well, sir.”
“Very well, then.”
The sergeant went to his desk, typed it up and printed it off, then came back and shoved a piece of paper at him and Newton signed it with a flourish.
The sergeant looked at Marlowe and Kane. Giving them a wave, Newton pointed at the back and they led with prisoner in with more haste than was truly dignified, but he imagined that like him, they wanted a shower and their beds above all else.
What a hellacious trip.
***
Due to their unexpected return—the original plan was to go directly to the spaceport and take the shuttle directly back to Hermes, troops were scattered all over the hotel, and because of a rare influx of travelers, five soldiers had to be put up at a smaller place just down the block.
Newton had a hard night, tossing and turning and unable to turn off his thoughts. This was Fate’s revenge, he decided. All kinds of scenarios went through his head, not least of which was having the thing tossed, with all kinds of liabilities coming back on him and the Fleet, and being stuck on the planet for the foreseeable future as legal technicalities worked themselves out. As someone once said, the wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Now he had gotten caught up in it, and all for the lack of sleep, perspective, and any relevant previous experience.
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