Grabbing her wrist, Marshall asked, “What will they do?”
“The usual. Water cannon, arrest the ringleaders, put them to work on one of the collective farms for a few months. I spent some time in one myself when I was young and stupid.”
Racing over to Mason, he said, “Call off the guards.”
“This is a matter of internal security, Captain, and none of your affair.”
“Call off your guards or every Triplanetary citizen will be off this planet before dawn, and you can use your precious police force to try and stop the not-men conquering this city.”
“I don’t think you know…”
“I don’t think you have the first idea who you are dealing with. I represent the Triplanetary Confederation, and we are not in the business of supporting tyranny, no matter what it claims to be or what flimsy justification it uses.” Turning to Caine, he said, “Contact Alamo. Have them get the shuttles warmed up for an emergency evacuation, and to prepare for additional passengers.”
Stepping forward, Hammond said, “Kirk, we’ve argued about this many times in the past. This time I think the Captain has the day. We need his help, or everything we have worked and fought for is finished. You know that just as well as I.”
“This is not over, Captain,” Mason said. “Encouraging radical factions such as that will bring about the ruin of our society.” He turned to the trooper, issuing an order under his breath, and then said, “This time I will go along with your request, but I will hold you personally liable for any damage to public property or civil order.” He stalked off with the guardsman, Richardson mock-clapping him as he left.
“Bravo, Captain,” she said. “That’s the first time I’ve seen anyone pull his fangs quite so comprehensively.” Turning to Hammond, she said, “If you don’t mind, I’d better go down and talk to them. I think they’ve made their point, better than they could have thought.”
“If you can disperse them without bloodshed, then I am very much in favor,” the Governor replied. “Go.”
“We will talk again, Captain,” Richardson said as she made for the door.
Shaking his head, Hammond said, “None of this is what any of us wanted.”
“Your Secretary of State is downright dangerous,” Caine said, bluntly. “I thought freedom of speech…”
“Sedition laws were introduced during the martial law period, and we’ve never managed a majority in a referendum to revoke them. Perhaps I should issue an executive order.”
“I think that would be an excellent idea,” Marshall said. Hammond nodded, took another glass of wine, then made his way over to the window to watch the crowd below, roaring cheers as Richardson spoke to them.
“What do you think?” Caine asked Marshall, quietly.
“I think the Mayor arranged to put on a little show for our benefit, but I don’t think it had quite the ending she was expecting.”
“Would you have gone ahead with it? Knowing the cost?”
Shaking his head, Marshall replied, “It would never have come to that. For tonight, at least, they need our help and they know it.” With a sigh, he said, “Damn it, there has to be a better way. Better than any of this. We’ve got to get a look at what the Neander think, what they really think. What the prospects are of some sort of settlement here.”
“We’ve got the carrot of Triplanetary membership to offer them.”
“With the alternative ceding this planet to the not-men? We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, Deadeye. We’ve got to settle this, and we’ve got to do it soon.” He looked at his watch, then said, “Let’s get back to the shuttle. I’m finding the company here a little stifling.”
Chapter 7
It was a cold night, the wind sweeping down from the plateau and shrouding New Jamestown like a blanket. The city, barely worthy of the name, was a collection of prefabricated structures, battered and bruised by the elements, and mud-brick buildings thrown together out of local material. The technological was mixed with the primitive, neon signs advertising a local blacksmith’s wares, a horse trough outside a car park.
Salazar walked down the street, Foster by his side, quietly trying to take in the sense of the place. The streets were quiet, the crowds that had been protesting dispersed into the night. When the Territorial Guard had first appeared, he’d drawn back, not wanting to risk a diplomatic incident, but now he cursed his caution as he feared he had missed a chance to get in with the rebels.
He peered into the window of a seedy bar, a group of people singing some old ballads while the crowd cheered them on, but there was no sign of any of the demonstrators. Shaking his head, he turned, walking back into the night. A couple of Neander were walking down the street, but at their sight of the Triplanetary officers, they hurried off down a side street.
“How long are we going to go on with this?” Foster asked.
“Until we find what we’re looking for. They’ll have a base somewhere.”
“With a flashing sign advertising their presence, no doubt.”
Turning to look at her, he said, “Use your head. We don’t have to find them, we just have to make it possible for them to find us. There’s an excellent chance that we’re under surveillance already. Their leader will want to speak to someone from the Confederation, and we’re giving them that chance. And if we don’t manage it tonight, we’ll try again tomorrow.”
“When I joined the Academy I dreamed of flying starships, of space adventure. Wandering around a hick town in the middle of the night wasn’t what I had in mind.”
On the far side of the street was the largest building they had yet seen, an unfamiliar flag wrapped around a pole in front of the door. Forty feet high, and obviously made with a lot more care than most of the buildings in town, though with local materials. A pair of Territorial Guardsmen in their rust-red uniforms stood on guard at the door, eyes locked forward.
“Company’s coming,” Foster said, pointing ahead. A column of Guardsmen were marching towards them, striding down the middle of the road, almost robotically in time with an officer leading them. Once they saw the two Triplanetary officers, they paused, and one of the guards in the front rank walked forward towards them.
“Identify yourselves,” he barked.
“You first,” Salazar said.
Raising an eyebrow, the guard replied, “I ask the questions, not you.”
Turning to Salazar, Foster said, “Midshipman Valerie Foster and Sub-Lieutenant Pavel Salazar, of the Triplanetary Fleet.”
“Section Leader McDonald, First Company, Territorial Guard. What are you doing out on the streets at night? Don’t you know there’s a curfew?”
“No, actually.”
“I could place you under arrest, lock you in a cell and forget both of you exist.”
“Until a platoon of Espatiers marches down to release us in the morning,” Salazar replied, matter-of-factly. “You might want to adapt to the idea that I don’t concede that you have any authority or power over me, and that your costume does not impress me in the slightest.”
“Your activities tonight will be reported to your commanding officer, and I shall personally urge that he takes the strongest disciplinary action against your willful refusal to comply with our laws.”
“I am literally quaking in my boots,” Salazar said, walking down the road. Foster paused for a second, then sprinted after him, while the column continued its march down the street as though nothing had happened.
“That was crazy,” she said. “When the Captain hears about this…”
“He won’t. And even if he does, I had good reasons.”
“You might have just caused a major diplomatic incident.”
He paused, turned, and said, “You talked about joining the Fleet to see some adventure. Let me tell you why I joined up. To fight precisely the sort of tyranny that jackbooted bastards like
that symbolize. Your mother was a General, a high-blown hotshot. Mine was a Corporal, who lost both her legs at Second Vesta, and she wasn’t even meant to be on the front line. My father spent the war as a prospector in the battle zones, riding in and out in his rinky-dink scoutship trying to find critical materials before the enemy could get to him, and he had his ship shot out from under him three times.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They knew what they were doing, and so do I. If someone gives me an order to kowtow to people like that, then I’m afraid that is one order I will never accept. Fortunately, I know that the Captain would never give such an order, and I can’t see any other officer in the Fleet doing that either. This uniform means something. People died to make it mean something. I’m not going to let them down.”
She looked across at him, shaking her head, and said, “I never had any idea you felt so strongly about it.”
“Everyone has their own reasons for joining the service. Perhaps mine are a little closer to the surface.”
“Interesting,” a voice whispered from the shadows. “Do the rest of your people think as you do, Sub-Lieutenant. Is your Fleet really tasked to ward off tyranny?”
“We went to war to free ourselves from the United Nations,” Foster said.
Turning to face the voice, Salazar peered into the gloom, barely about to make out a short figure, curls of hair running down his back, who took another step into the shadows.
“Best that you don’t know who I am until I know that I can trust you. Why are you here?”
“Looking for you,” Salazar said.
With a faint chuckle, the voice replied, “Accurate, yet uninformative. What is your Fleet’s purpose on this planet? And please spare us all the tedium of a diplomatic lie.”
“We’ve been fighting the not-men, and we learned that one of their ships was marooned on this planet. Our mission was to investigate. We didn’t have any idea that the world was inhabited, or even inhabitable for that matter. To the best of our knowledge, no ship from Earth had ever visited this system before.”
“And now that you are here? Are you going to permit the Secretary to continue his reign of tyranny over the people?”
“Not if I can help it,” Salazar said, earning himself a look from Foster.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you are a junior officer, not in a position to make such a bold statement.”
“I think I speak for the Captain, but all I can be certain of is that I speak for myself.”
“Well said.” The figure stepped out of the shadows, and Salazar saw an old Neander, gray-haired and wrinkle-faced, looking at him with golden eyes. “Your Captain has claimed that your Confederation has no interest in territorial acquisition.”
“We would offer Thule membership, and given the deteriorating condition of this would, I’d suggest that you give serious consideration to such an offer, but if you decided to remain independent, to banish us from this world, then we would honor that.” He paused, looking at the Neander again, and asked, “Who are you?”
“I am Astris, though the Terrans would refer to me as John. They gave us all names, you see, better to distance us from the past they want us to forget. We had a culture of our own, a society, but all of that is a fading memory that some of us cling onto. Even the integrationists forget that.”
“There are Neander worlds all across this part of space,” Foster said.
“That gladdens my heart, but our culture developed over ten thousand years. Who sings our stories now, who honors our ancestors? We toil in the farms and factories, where once we roamed free on the fields and the plains.”
“And you would have died,” Salazar said. “In the long term, this planet is not viable.”
Astris smiled, and said, “Our bodies might have died, but our souls would have lived on, and I would not sacrifice one to save the other. Sub-Lieutenant…”
“Pavel.”
“Pavel, not all on this world is as it first appears.”
“That’s true of most planets.”
“Maybe so,” he nodded. “I presume that your commander has sent you to make contact with the resistance to the human government.”
Glancing at Foster, he said, “My job is to find out what the government isn’t telling us. I’m not going to promise anything.”
“I understand. You have at least some wisdom. If I speak, will you listen to what I say?”
“I will use my judgment to determine the truth.”
“For the present, I will settle for that. Come with me, both of you.”
Astris stepped back into the shadows, walking down a narrow alley between two prefabricated buildings. The town had been built to no particular plan, by all appearances, and streets were scattered about almost at will. He paused at a half-derelict house, the roof gone and the bricks tumbled down, and shook his head.
“Once this was the site where our children were taught the wisdom of the ancestors. Then it was seized, and all that your people did was let their ruins crumble into dust. Look well. That will be the fate of all your works, in enough time.”
“What happened here was wrong,” Salazar said. “I will freely admit to that, but there is nothing we can do to change the past.”
“Nevertheless, my heart still weeps.” The old Neander pointed at a building up ahead, a mud-brick house with a horse tied up outside, lapping water from a trough. “That is our destination.”
Foster glanced at Salazar, and said, “We should contact Captain Marshall, tell them where we are going.”
“Any signals would be intercepted,” Astris said.
“Not with the technology you are using down here, they won’t,” Foster replied, but Salazar nodded.
“The not-men, Midshipman. He might have a point.”
“We can’t just…”
“You can go back if you want.”
She looked at the house again, and said, “I think we’d better stick together.”
“I agree. So let’s get on with it.”
Astris led the way, pushing open the door, and the two of them followed him in. The house had obviously been abandoned for years, dust and decay over everything, some ruined furniture on the floor. Anything worth taking had gone long ago. Salazar’s eye was drawn to a picture on the wall, hanging lopsidedly over the fireplace, a photograph of a green field, covered in flowers, with a mountain range behind it.
“Earth,” Astris said. “As it once was, in any case.”
“And is again,” Foster said. “Much of the damage from the Third World War has been repaired.”
Shaking his head, the Neander replied, “Such tyrannies do all men visit on the things they love. It was not like that here. We preserved our land, keeping it healthy and prosperous down the centuries. Most of the game that we cared for is gone, now, except that which was able to adapt to life on the plateau. Soon it will all vanish into time.”
“There we might be able to help you,” Salazar said. “Preservation programs, transplanting breeding populations to other planets.”
“And what of this world?” Shaking his head, Astris added. “I’m afraid there is only one thing left to do.” With surprising speed, he pulled a pistol out from under his robes, leveled it at Foster, and fired. The midshipman slumped back to the floor as Salazar leapt forward, his hand reaching to draw the pistol at his belt. Before he could get his fingers to the trigger, the Neander fired again, sending him collapsing to the ground, next to Foster.
Looking down at him, the Neander cautiously kicked the pistol away, and said, “Do not think badly of us, Sub-Lieutenant. The toxin I used is not fatal, and will have no permanent effects. Nor will you lose consciousness at any point. It is refined from a local herb, one of the secrets we have maintained from your countrymen.”
Salazar struggled to move, but while he could see the Neander
walking to the door, his arms and legs wouldn’t respond. He wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come, his mouth struggling merely to gulp for air. Glancing across at Foster, he caught a look of fury in her eyes, silent confirmation that she was suffering from the same effect.
Time seemed to drag as he tried to fight the effects of the drug. With a herculean effort, he managed to wiggle one of his fingers, but the effort exhausted him, as though something was leeching all of the energy from his body. Foster kicked out with her foot, stabbing it into the wall. Perhaps they might be able to get away, but as the door opened again, it was obvious they would not be given the opportunity.
Stepping inside, his boots rattling the floorboards, was a not-man, wearing the same armor that had cloaked them in the fighting on Yeager Station. He glanced across at Astris, who nodded, and then looked down at the two officers on the floor.
“You wanted to learn the secret at the heart of Thule,” the figure said. “I intend to see that you have that opportunity.” Turning to Astris again, he said, “Take them. Go quickly, and go quietly.”
“I will, my lord.” The Neander looked down at Salazar, and said, “Remember. Nothing here is as it appears.”
Chapter 8
Cooper peered across the plateau from his vantage point, picking out individual spots with his goggles, relaying them down to the troopers waiting for his orders down below. Some sort of briefing was going on, instructions on the battle that was being planned for the morning, the battle he was hoping to forestall. The dialect was proto-Indo, a language they had been exposed to before, and he cursed the problems with Alamo’s translation systems that was preventing him from understanding what they were saying.
Not that it mattered. They might as well be discussing Titanian folk ballads. In a couple of moments, he’d be breaking up this party. He looked left and right at the force he had assembled. Corporal Max, heading the local force, the three best shots with the tranq guns during the afternoon’s practice, and Private Martinez to back him up. He had the only plasma weapon, strapped to his back.
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