by John Bowers
The boy was in serious pain, moaning from the beating he’d taken; his eyes were swollen and one ear was smashed, but he’d lost no teeth and there were no obvious broken bones.
Suzanne approached and looked down at him, then turned to one of her waitresses.
“Get Dr. Taylor!” she ordered, then turned to Mrs. Green. “Let him lie down here. The doctor should be here in a few minutes.”
Dr. Taylor was there in three minutes flat, and after examining the boy pronounced him fit to live, though he would be sore for several days and might have a couple of scars.
“Right now he just needs bed rest,” she said.
Suzanne helped the Greens get the boy to his feet, an arm around each parent. Before he left, Suzanne spoke to him softly.
“Nathan, that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Thank you for helping Kristina.”
He tried to grin, but winced in pain as Kristina kissed him full on the lips. “I love you, Nathan!” the girl declared solemnly, and then his parents led him out, to the standing applause of the other patrons.
“Okay, everyone,” Suzanne said when things had quieted down. “The show’s over. I’m sorry your dinner was disturbed. Dessert is on the house.” She turned to the band. “Back to work, fellows.”
Mother and daughter retreated toward the kitchen as the music started again and the other girls cleaned up the mess. Suzanne hugged the girl frantically and Kristina, now overwhelmed by all the adrenaline, burst into tears. It took ten minutes for them to both calm down.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“I’m fine, Mom. I just…it all happened so fast!”
“I know. If Willis ever touches you again, I’ll kill him!”
“Nathan saved me, Mother.”
Suzanne backed off and studied her daughter’s face for a minute. “You really do love him, don’t you?”
“Yes. And he loves me, too.”
“I think that’s obvious. He damn near gave his life for you in there. Only a fool would attack Willis Kline like that—or a man who loves a woman more than his own life.”
“You were wrong about him, Mother.” Kristina’s clear green eyes stared holes through Suzanne’s. “He’s not a bad person.”
“I never thought he was a bad person. I just thought he was bad for you. You’re both so young.”
“Willis Kline isn’t young, and look what he did to me.”
“I know. Nathan is more of a man at seventeen than Kline will ever be.”
“So can I see Nathan now?”
Suzanne stared at the girl—correction, the young woman—facing her and slowly nodded her head.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I guess you can. But don’t let yourself get carried away.”
Kristina’s somber expression disappeared and a smile came out. She threw her arms around her mother and hugged her.
“Thank you, Mom! I love you!”
“I love you, too, honey. All I want is for you to be safe and happy. Now, why don’t you take the rest of the night off? Go see that boy and let him know that he can eat here free for the next year.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Now go!”
Kristina was gone like a shot, and when she had disappeared out the door Suzanne leaned against a wall and closed her eyes with dread. It wasn’t over. She knew that for a fact. Willis Kline would never forgive Nathan Green for attacking him, especially in public. He would get even, somehow. Maybe not openly—he wouldn’t likely shoot him down in the street—but he would do something.
Suzanne had a desperate feeling that Nathan Green was as good as dead.
Chapter 9
If posted to a frontier world, you will work largely alone. Other U.F. Marshals may be hundreds or thousands of miles from you, but you should try to keep in contact with them. Their knowledge of the area may prove valuable, and you should respect their perspective, even if you don’t immediately understand it.
Page 166, U.F. Marshal Handbook
Saturday, July 18, 0442 (CC) – The Outback, Sirius 1
The weather had cooled some during the night, but was still in the high 80s when Sirius B rose over the horizon and cast its harsh glare over the landscape. Nick had been driving most of the night, cruising at a leisurely 150 knots and fifty feet of altitude. He’d rented the car from Green’s Garage in mid afternoon, loaded his space bag with a change of clothes, and headed out. The Outback was nine hours away at full speed, but he was in no hurry.
For the first few hours he’d been amazed at the variety of crops on Kline’s ranch. He passed mile upon square mile of irrigated fields, everything from cotton to vegetables; he saw vast pastures, also irrigated, populated by tens of thousands of beef animals, including a native cow larger than anything on Terra; finally he passed several miles of orchards, mostly nut trees that looked like almonds and pistachios. He saw two serf villages, several processing plants, and a monorail freight station.
All in the first three hours.
Willard Kline hadn’t been kidding about the size of his “spread”.
After another three hours, Nick had passed into some of the most desolate country he’d ever seen in his life. It reminded him of California’s Mojave Desert, but compared to this the Mojave looked like an urban paradise. Low hills, ridges, gullies, dry washes, volcanic craters; once he passed what looked like a mine, but it had long been abandoned. Later he breezed through a ghost town, dusty and windblown, just a few scattered buildings that had been left to the wind and tripod rats.
Nathan’s father, Dennis Green, had warned him about running out of fuel; if one didn’t know where to find a depot, one would be stranded and helpless. Green had given him a map with the depots clearly marked, and Nick found the first one just minutes before his tank ran dry. He filled his tank and two spare containers, squinting against the gusting dust, and climbed back into the car.
He was tired. He debated parking for awhile to sleep, but decided to push on. Once he reached his destination he could grab a few winks if he needed them.
He wasn’t sure when he actually reached the Outback itself; the Outback was a region, not a clearly defined cartographical entity. But he knew he’d found it when he hit the first settlement, ironically called Dusty Springs. It was on the map he’d pulled up on the car’s computer, one of nearly a hundred clusters of life scattered across the map like the pattern from a shotgun blast. Nick saw the reflection of sunlight off glass and metal and began slowing. Seconds later he rounded an outcrop of volcanic rock and the settlement lay before him, spread across a small, narrow valley.
There was nothing elegant about Dusty Springs. It wasn’t a city, not even a town. The description that fit best was camp. Fewer than a dozen buildings were in evidence; everything else that might be considered a habitation consisted of tents, mobile campers, a few converted cargo crates, and a couple of caves up on the rim above the valley.
Nick settled the hovercar amid a cloud of dust that boiled over the street and shut down the turbine. Popping the clamshell, he stepped out of the air-conditioned cockpit and sucked in his breath at the blast of heat that seemed to suck the air out of his lungs. For just a moment he stood disoriented, then shaded his eyes and looked around.
The whole place had a disorganized look about it, but a closer inspection revealed a certain order. There was actually a street here, all the buildings lining one side of it. Everything else appeared to have landed wherever it happened to drop out of the sky. Nick saw people, mostly dirty children, but also a few women. Laundry was pinned to strips of wire, smoke rose from primitive burners, and he smelled food cooking. Everything was dirty, or rusted, or both. The decade-old hovercar he’d arrived in looked expensive compared to everything else.
Nick stuck his hat on his head, strapped on his gun belt, and crossed the street. The buildings were all built of something resembling adobe, but none sported any signage to proclaim what they were used for.
Nick stepped into the first one and fo
und himself in what might have passed for a general store; he saw textiles and groceries on the shelves, but also pumps, drills, explosives, and all manner of hardware. The store had no customers at the moment, but an ancient woman watched him from a chair behind the counter. She looked at least a hundred, but was so shriveled and dehydrated she might have been twenty.
“Howdy,” he said.
The woman’s narrow eyes narrowed further. “Yew ain’t from around here, are ye?”
He grinned. “How’d you know that?”
“Nobody says ‘Howdy’ down here.”
“Really? What do they say?”
“Don’t say much to strangers. Yew a lawman?”
Nick glanced at the badge on his shirt and nodded.
“I guess I am.”
“I guess I am,” she mimicked. “Yew either is or yew ain’t. Yew wearin’ a badge, so you must be a lawman.”
Nick dipped his head in surrender. “Guess I can’t fool you. You’re quick.”
Her eyes glinted with suspicion. “What yew want here?”
“Actually I’m looking for another lawman. I hear there’s a U.F. Marshal’s office here. I don’t see any signs outside, so I thought you might tell me where to find it.”
The woman rubbed her nose, still peering at him.
“What business yew have with the Marshal?”
“Well—I thought I might tell him that when I find him.” He waited, but she didn’t speak. “If I ever find him.”
The woman said nothing for another long moment, then finally hooked a thumb over her shoulder.
“Down the street,” she said. “But don’t tell no one I said so.”
Nick stared at her, not sure whether to laugh or swear. He nodded.
“It’ll be our secret.”
He stepped out into the street and turned left, shaking his head. He’d thought Kline Corners was eccentric! He tried two more buildings; the first was a repair shop—broken equipment of all kinds littered the dirt floor—and the second was the marshal’s office. Nick stepped inside and found himself facing a man wearing a badge like his own.
“You Marshal Walker?” the man asked.
“I am. You must be Marshal Colwell.”
They shook hands, and Colwell invited Nick to sit. Colwell was in his fifties, lean and leathery, and sun-burned. His clothing looked threadbare, his badge tarnished, his boots scuffed. His office was a royal mess, books and boxes and printouts stacked everywhere, but the computer and comm equipment looked new.
Nick removed his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve. Colwell also looked moist, but didn’t seem to notice.
“I was wondering if they would replace Gates,” he said. “You want something cold to drink?”
“If you have something, I’d love it. Thanks.”
Colwell dug into a battered nitro-cooler and pulled out a frosty soft drink. Nick popped the cap and sucked half of it down. It was thick with sugar, but refreshing all the same. Colwell grinned at him.
“Not used to our heat, are you? When did you make planetfall?”
“Two days ago. I thought it was Sirian Summer when I got here, but I’m told I haven’t had that pleasure yet.”
“Won’t be long. You’ll know when it hits.”
They chatted aimlessly for a few minutes. Nick was aware that a second marshal had been assigned to the region, but Colwell was alone, and made no mention of a partner. Nick finished his cold drink and Colwell threw the container into a trash bin.
“When you called yesterday, you said something about a missing girl?”
“That’s right. I found a reference in Gates’s files about several missing girls. When I asked around, I heard something about a slave trade. The source indicated that there might be a market for slaves in this region.”
Colwell shrugged. “Ain’t no secret,” he said. “There’s a quarter million white men down here and not more than ten thousand of them have wives. Most of ‘em have a little money from their claims and they can afford to pay. Slavers haul women down here by the busload, sell ‘em off in minutes.”
Nick frowned, his irritation rising a little at Colwell’s casual tone.
“You know about this?”
“I just told you, didn’t I?”
“And what are you doing about it?”
Colwell shifted in his chair, irritated. His eyes narrowed. “You been on the planet two days, Walker, and you’re an expert already? I been here twenty years! This is a frontier world. Men live hard here, work hard, and die hard. They want to fuck, they’re gonna fuck. No power in the universe is gonna stop ‘em. Not me, not you, not even the goddamn Star Marines. There’s whores here, but they charge money, and some men don’t want to pay. Besides, there ain’t nearly enough of ‘em. The only other option is rape, and we can’t allow that. Slave women take up the slack. It ain’t pretty, but it works.”
Nick blinked at the rebuke. He had imagined that he was telling Colwell something he didn’t know, that he would be as outraged at the discovery as Nick had been. Clearly that wasn’t the case.
“Well…I’m not trying to be self-righteous,” he said slowly, “but there is still the matter of Federation law. I’ve been told that slavery is legal up in the states, but down here it’s not. It’s our job to enforce the law in Federation territory.”
A muscle twitched in Colwell’s jaw, but he didn’t break eye contact.
“How long you been a marshal?” he asked.
“Four years, including the academy.”
“And before that?”
“Star Marines for four years.”
“Well, you’ve been around some then. I understand your idealism, the old patriotic do-or-die for the Federation. Yeah, technically this part of the planet is still in the Federation, but the rest of the planet isn’t. The hard reality is that we’re not much more than a symbol here. I take care of what I can, but I’m not an idiot. You start interfering with a man’s love life, or whatever you want to call it, and you can get yourself killed in a hurry. I don’t approve of slavery any more than you do, but if I try to be a hero, I won’t last very long.”
He pointed at Nick’s chest.
“And neither will you.”
Nick sat silent, with no idea what to say.
“So,” he said finally, “you’re not going to help me?”
“Help you do what? You think you’re going to single-handedly put an end to slavery on the entire planet? All by your lonesome?”
“Well, no, not the entire planet, but…” He stopped. What exactly did he expect to accomplish? “I’m headquartered in Kline Corners,” he said slowly, thinking it through as he spoke. “That’s also Federation territory. If women are being stolen from Federation territory, I might be able to put a dent in that part of the trade. But I need more information.”
Colwell sighed and massaged his eyes with his fingers.
“What do you need from me?”
“Tell me whatever you know about the slave shipments. Where they come from, where they terminate. How they arrive, who is involved. Anything you know that might help.”
Colwell sighed again.
“You really think you can stop it?”
“I can try. And maybe, just maybe, I can find out who killed Ron Gates.”
“You think this had something to do with that?”
“I don’t know, but it’s the only thing I found in his files that might be related.”
Colwell sat thinking for some moments, his fingers drumming on his leg.
“You notify London about this yet?” he asked presently. London, on Terra, was U.F. Marshal headquarters.
“Not yet. As I said, I need more information.”
“Well, just for the record, London knows about it. I’ve filed several reports over the years, and I know of at least one other Marshal who has. They haven’t given us any direction on it, so I don’t think they’re expecting any heroics.”
Nick grimaced. “I’m not trying to win
a medal here. I want to find the girls from Kline Corners. Based on everything you said, that’s probably all I can accomplish, but at the moment I’ll settle for that.”
Colwell’s expression suggested that Nick was a fool, but he didn’t say so.
“How many girls you looking for?”
“Thirteen.”
“Got names?”
“The first one is Constanza Valenzuela…”
“A serf girl!”
“A Spanic.”
“You never told me that. If it was a white girl, you’d get a lot more cooperation down here.”
“I figured you knew she was a serf. I was told that only serfs are used as slaves.”
“For the most part, that’s true. But some of these slavers are greedy bastards. If they can catch a white girl they can sell her for ten times the regular price. They’ll run the risk of execution for that kind of money.”
“Execution?”
Colwell nodded. “In the states, white women are sacred. You bother one, you’re dead. They don’t fuck around.”
Nick grimaced. “But if she’s not white…”
“It’s open season.”
Nick realized he was getting annoyed with Colwell. The man might be right in his assessment of the problem, but his cavalier attitude was irritating.
“The girl’s name,” he repeated, “is Constanza Valenzuela. She’s fourteen years old. All the girls are in their early teens.”
Colwell turned to his computer and pulled up a screen. He spent several minutes typing and scrolling. Finally he sat back.
“She’s not in the database,” he said.
Nick leaned forward. “You have a database?”
“Yeah. Some of the slavers are legit. Up in the states, anyway. They are licensed businesses who don’t want to go to prison, so they keep records just to cover their ass. When they bring a shipment down here they give us the data and we maintain our own log of the women they sell. Makes it a lot easier if one of the states makes an inquiry.”
Nick was appalled. The U.F. Marshal cooperating with slavers? He was too stunned to comment.
Colwell turned to face him, unaware of Nick’s befuddlement.
