"Of course we care; that's why I'm callin'. Can I talk to the teacher, please?"
"Puttin' chillen in the care of a woman like that. Boys too. Downright disgustin'. No, you cain't talk to her; she's doin' what she's tol', keeping them chillen quiet."
"But they're all right? I mean, you know kids, they need the bathroom, and they get hungry and thirsty—you got enough snacks for 'em?"
Another voice, this one older and angrier. "No, we don't got food for kids. Your kid down here, mister?"
Cavallo had considered trying to impersonate a parent, but kids that age couldn't be fooled easily. If he claimed to be some boy's father and the boy said "That's not my dad!" they'd be worse off than they were now.
"No," he said. "Not mine—but it might's well be. Children are everyone's responsibility, where I come from."
"And where's that?"
"Irene." They might or might not know anything about Irene, but if they did, that would fit—Irenians had a Familias-wide reputation for idealistic child care.
"Oh." A pause; Cavallo wished he'd been able to get a vid tap in; facial expressions would tell him a lot. But the vid pickup was still snaking its way through the utility lines, a good seventy meters from Heavy Cargo Two. "Well . . . it's too bad about the kids, but—"
"I can get you supplies for them," Cavallo interrupted. "Food and water. For you, too," he added as if this were a new thought rather than an orchestrated tactic.
"Listen, you, whoever you are—"
"Fred," Cavallo said, choosing an uncle's name at random. "Fred Vallo."
"Well, Fred, thing is, these chillen are dead if we want 'em to be."
"I understand that," Cavallo said.
"So you better give us what we want—"
"If the children die," Cavallo said, letting the steel into his voice, "none of you will get off this station alive."
"If you want 'em alive, you do what we tell you," the voice said. Behind it, another younger voice protested, "But we can't kill children."
Cavallo smiled to himself. Trouble in the enemy camp, and talking to a negotiator . . . they had already lost. If only small children hadn't been involved.
"I need to speak to someone who can assure me that the children are unharmed," he said. "If not the teacher, one of the other adults on the tram."
"Wait," said the older voice.
Cavallo muted his mike and turned to the major. "You heard, sir? There's at least one who's going to cause their leader trouble if he hurts the children, and so far they're willing to talk."
"Yeah . . . but how long will it last? Wonder if he'll really let you talk to one of the adults?"
"I—" The light blinked on his set, and he turned the mike back on.
"Go on—" said the voice he was used to. "Tell them the chillen aren't hurt."
"But they want to use the toilet—" came another voice, a man's.
"Tell 'em."
"Uh . . . this is Parkop Kindisson . . . with the Little Lambs field trip? . . . you know about that?"
"Yes, Ser Kindisson," Cavallo said. "Are the children unharmed?"
"Well, they aren't hurt, but they're scared, especially Bri because he saw his father get hit, and they need to use the toilets, and they won't let us, and they're getting hungry, and they won't let us get them anything at the tram station snack bar, and—"
"Enough!" The angry voice was back; Cavallo could just hear the distant protest of the other man. "You know this Kindisson fellow?"
"Not personally, no," Cavallo said. He had skimmed a file on all the adults with the field trip, and knew that Kindisson was a single parent, taking a day off his job as a coater for the housing authority to help chaperone the children.
"Seems kinda excitable, not like a normal man—"
"He's worried about the children. So am I. How about if we arrange some snacks for 'em? Or carry-pots, so they can use the toilet right on the tram?"
"The tram has toilets?"
"No—that's why I said carry-pots. Families have them here, to take along with a small child, if there's not a toilet around."
"There's toilets in the tram station, though, aren't there?"
"Sure, but if you don't want to let them off the train. Little children—I'm sure you know about them, and how they run around getting into things—it's smart of you to keep them safe, in one place."
Flattery couldn't hurt, he was sure.
"We want to talk to our women," the voice said.
Cavallo felt his eyebrows going up. "Your women?" he asked cautiously.
"Don't pretend you don't know. Those Rangers' wives you stole, and their chillen—we want to tell 'em to get theirselves home."
"Just a second—" Cavallo blanked the mike and called to the stationmaster. "Are there any of those NewTex women at this station?"
"No, they left awhile back. Why?"
"Because these fellows came to take them home, that's why. Do you know where they went?"
"No. I can look on the passenger lists, but that'll only tell me which ship."
"Which we don't want to tell these lads," Cavallo said. He flipped the mike back on and spoke into it. "I just asked the stationmaster, and he says they aren't here. They were, but they left awhile back."
"Yer lying! You git us our chillen, or we'll take yours."
"I can get you a list—" Cavallo waved, and the stationmaster came back over. "We need a list or something, so these men know those women aren't here—"
"There's a directory accessible from the public dataports in Heavy Cargo, but we cut the lines—"
"Well, put in a shielded line."
"We're gonna blow up this whole place if you don't give us our women and chillen!" That was another voice, one that sounded entirely too excited. He heard a confused scuffle in the background, and a yelp. He hoped it was from an adult.
"Now just a minute," Cavallo said. "We don't none of us want children hurt. Let's see what we can figure out here—" Someone held a display screen in front of him, with the message DATA DISPLAY AT TRAM STATION ACTIVE FOR OUR USE. "It's true your children aren't here anymore—and it's true I don't know where they are. You—what'd you say your name was?"
"Dan," said the older voice. "You kin call me Dan."
"Dan, I reckon you think children should be with their parents—"
"Yeah, that's right. So if our chillen ain't here, we wanta know where they've gone."
The vid scan was in, though distorted by the wide-angle lens. Scan specialists ran tests, converting the image to a corrected 3-D version. Cavallo made himself ignore that, until they were done, and someone moved a screen close to him so he could see it.
Now when Dan spoke, he could see the computer's best guess at the face—middle-aged, as he'd guessed, the face of someone who had taken difficult responsibility before.
"How'd you plan to get 'em away?"
"Steal a ship. We done it before."
"Good plan," Cavallo said, mentally crossing his fingers. He scribbled Find a small, cheap, simple ship on the pad and handed it to the major.
"We kin just take these chillen instead, if ours is really gone."
"But it's not the same," Cavallo said. "And these children should be with their families."
"You offerin' to let us go?"
"Would you?"
"Might."
Cavallo watched the man put down the mike and turn away, talking to the others. He boosted the audio pickup.
"You said they was here!" he heard one man say; he couldn't pick out features from the fish-eye view.
"That's the best word we had."
"I tell you, I'm gettin' sick of this. We come all the way from home, workin' like dogs on that damn ship, because you didn't want to spend the money for tickets, which would've been worth it if we'd killed the old buzzard, but we didn't, on account of somebody else beat us to the draw."
"It wasn't supposed to take that long—"
"And who picked out that ship? Then you say let's go get those ki
ds back—and they're not even our kids—and we have to work our passage again, comin' here, and when we get here they ain't. I don't know's I believe they ever have been."
"Ever'body in that bar said they was!"
"Ever'body in that bar was drunk, Dan. They ain't here, and they ain't been here, and what in Sam Hill are we gonna do now?"
"I'll think of sumpin'—just give me a minute, will you?"
"We could take these kids—"
"Hell, Arnett, I don't want these kids. These ain't our kids, or Ranger kids. And what'd we take 'em in, anyway?"
"Well, what d'you want to do, give up and let them kill us like they did them Rangers?"
"We ain't done nothin' yet they'd kill us for."
"I ain't surrenderin' nothin'." That was Arnett, Cavallo could tell by his voice.
"Well, I'm not killin' any chillen." That was the one who had protested in the beginning. "Why don't we trade 'em for a ship out of here?"
"A whole ship? You think godless heathen would give us a whole ship for just a bunch of chillen? They don't care about chillen."
"How's it going?" the major asked. Cavallo sat back, still watching the vid.
"They're fighting over whose fault it is. If I understand them right, this bunch wanted to assassinate Lord Thornbuckle, and when they found out someone else had, they decided to hunt up the women and children and capture them. I don't think they're NewTex Rangers; I think they're a bunch of idealistic fools that went off by themselves." He tapped the mike, and heads turned in the vid. Dan came over, almost reluctantly, to pick it up.
"Dan! Dan . . . listen. Are the children still all right?"
"Yeah, yeah, they're fine for now."
"Dan, the stationmaster tells me the women and children left eleven days ago on a passenger ship, the Dolphin Rider."
On the vid, two of the other men threw up their hands, and one spat on the deck.
"Now I can't change that, Dan, but here's what I could do."
"What?"
"I don't know if you'd—but if you'd—I mean, if we could get you a ship, Dan . . . and then the children wouldn't get hurt—"
"You mean trade the chillens for a ship? You'd do that?"
"Yeah, of course. It's children we're talkin' about."
"A whole ship—a ship that actually works?"
"Of course." Cavallo glanced up as someone leaned over and handed him a pad with Mindy Cricket II scrawled on it.
"I dunno. We'd need supplies."
Cavallo dared a grin at the major, as he flicked the mike off. "They're gonna take it," he said. "Now if they don't cross us—and there's some of them I'm pretty sure won't—where's that ship docked?"
It had taken another twelve hours of ticklish negotiation before the children were reunited with frantic parents, the NewTex terrorists were finally aboard the Mindy Cricket II, and the little ship lurched away from the station with her usual grace.
"You didn't really have to do anything," Sarknon said. "She's not goin' to get 'em anyplace real fast."
"Especially not now," Cavallo said. He had applied the bricks of LUB to best advantage. Mindy Cricket II wouldn't make it to jump distance in one piece. Two hours out, a safe distance from the station, and she'd blow. "We don't need that kind of scum wandering around causing trouble." He stretched, and grinned at the major. "Guess I'll go finish the shopping now, if it's all the same to you."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
R.S.S. GYRFALCON
"Jig Serrano to the captain's office . . ." Barin tapped his code into the wall-hung unit to signal his receipt of the message, and turned to the sergeant of the compartment.
"I'll finish this inspection later," he said. "And I expect you'll have done something about those lockers." The lockers had been unlocked, and Barin had already found three major discrepancies.
"Yes, sir!"
All the way upship, he wondered what he'd done. He couldn't think of anything, and Major Conway had actually complimented him the day before.
Captain Escobar's clerk gave him no warning glances, just smiled and waved him through. Barin came to attention and waited.
"Ah . . . I thought you'd like to know you have pay." Escobar handed a data cube across to him.
"Sir?"
"Apparently your . . . dependents . . . have found honest work somewhere. They're off Fleet's hands."
"Where are they?"
"Some colony world. Apparently Professor Meyerson and that Lone Star Confederation diplomat found them a place, and someone paid their colony shares. Also paid off at least part of what Fleet spent on them, and HQ has forgiven the rest. So you have pay again. I suppose this means you'll be marrying?"
Barin felt himself go hot. "I—hope so, sir."
"From one fire into another. Better give your family time to get used to it. Have your parents ever met Lieutenant Suiza?"
"No, sir. But now that I'm getting pay again, if I could get a little leave—"
"You'd get married."
"No, sir, not right away. I'd get her together with my parents, though."
Escobar considered. "You have plenty of leave stacked up. Tell you what—figure out a time that will work for your parents and her, and I'll do my best."
"Thank you, sir."
R.S.S. NAVARINO
"You have mail, Lieutenant." Esmay wondered what it was this time. Her last mail had been a stiff notice from Personnel advising her that she should have informed them before accepting appointment as a Landbride, and that any request for a variance would have to work its way through the chain of command in her sector, then at Headquarters.
A cube from Barin. That had to be better than something from Personnel.
Her heart soared as she read it. Out from under the responsibility for all those women and children. Getting paid again. He'd talked to his parents; they wanted to meet her. He could get leave—what about her? He was sure he could enlist the senior Serranos to aid in bending the restrictions about Landbrides. . . .
She, too, had accumulated leave time. Surely it would be possible to meet for a few days, even a week. Somewhere private—she didn't mind meeting his parents, but she wanted at least some hours alone with Barin.
COPPER MOUNTAIN
Although Fleet's Copper Mountain Training Base, named for the red-rock formation of the original landfall, had become the generic term for the entire planet, Fleet had other bases where neither mountains nor red dust were in view. Most NCO training courses, though reached by shuttle from Copper Mountain, were actually dispersed to other facilities on the same continent: Drylands, in the northern plains, Camp Engleton in the coastal swamp, Big Trees far to the west. Permanantly assigned school staff had their own recreational areas which students never saw: the long sand beaches far east of Copper Mountain where the carnivorous hunters of the deep had been carefully fenced away. Eight Peaks Mountain District, which offered far more than eight peaks, though the rest of them weren't quite eight thousand meters.
Among these lesser-known bases were the Stack Islands facilities. Rising almost vertically from the cold waters of what someone had unimaginatively called Big Ocean, the old volcanic plugs of the Stacks had been engineered into even more forbidding shapes than time, wind, and water had created. The Stack Islands group had three Fleet bases altogether, two for research (biomedical and weapons) and one to supervise the confinement of its most dangerous criminals.
That proximity was no accident; although the Grand Council knew nothing about it, research into neurobiology used prisoner subjects, some of whom emerged from the program with new identities. But the proximity was on a planetary, not local, scale: though less than an hour by aircar to either of the other Stack Islands bases, the prison was distant enough to keep its prisoners secure. The research bases were only a few kilometers apart, on neighboring stacks, but the prison base lay at the east end of the group, out of sight from either and far beyond swimming distance, even if water temperature and sealife had not intervened.
The secu
rity personnel at Three Stack, as the prison base was colloquially called, made no attempt to prevent prisoners from committing suicide; it was the general feeling that suicides saved everyone a lot of trouble. So little attention was paid to preventing escape attempts that were certain to be fatal. Prisoners could jump off the cliffs into the cold water if they felt like it; if they survived the fall, and the numbing cold, they were easy prey for the native sealife, which in these latitudes was toothy and voracious. Although guards patrolled the corridors and exercise courts, and the base's aircars were carefully guarded, no regular watch was kept on the cliffs.
Commanding such a base did nothing to advance an officer's career, and most loathed brig duty. For a few, however, Stack Islands Base Three offered exactly the milieu in which they flourished.
Corporal Gelan Meharry, second-shift guard at Three Stack, wondered what it was about his new commander that bothered him. Prison COs were invariably bent in some way—Tolin had been soft, slovenly, entirely too fond of his own comfort, and easily handled by the senior NCOs—but this Bacarion person was clearly not bent that way. What had she done, to get sent here? A tour at a high-security brig was no disgrace to the enlisted security force, rather the contrary, if nothing went wrong, but . . . he had an uneasy feeling about her.
After the change-of-command ceremony, his immediate superior, Sergeant Copans, dismissed the second shift to eat and prepare for their shift. Gelan racked his ceremonial staff, and changed from his dress to his duty uniform. As always, he made sure that his gear was perfectly aligned in his locker before heading for the mess hall. Then he checked his bay in the barracks. Sure as vacuum, that new commander would pull an inspection, and he intended his unit to pass.
On the way to mess, he stopped by the base data center, and called up the Officers' List. At least he could find out about his new commander's official biography. Her image on the screen showed her with the insignia of a lieutenant commander—she hadn't had her image updated since her last promotion. He scanned the notes below. Top quartile in the Academy, so she wasn't stupid. Command Track with her junior duty on a series of front-line craft. As a major she'd done the usual rotation in staff, this time on a flagship, the Dominion. There she'd seen combat, though from the staff viewpoint.
Change of Command Page 25
