War World: Discovery

by Discovery v2 lit

  “A good earful,” Bronstein said quietly. “It cost me a half pint of genuine whiskey, but I got one of the guards to talk. The ship isn’t Bureau of Correction; it’s owned by Kennicott Metals.”

  Jablonski paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth. “I knew that,” was all he said.

  “We need to share more,” Bronstein noted.

  Suddenly Jablonski went into spasms, dropping his spoon and splattering gunk all over the table. He began to beat on his leg with both fists, as if it were a slab of beef he was trying to tenderize. “Jesus H. Christ, Mother Humpin’ Mary!” he sputtered as he continued to beat on the muscle of his upper left leg and thigh.

  “What’s wrong?” Is the food poisoned?, he wondered.

  “No, it’s my damn spine.”

  “Let’s get out of here!” Bronstein said, standing up. They were already attracting too much attention.

  Jablonski continued to beat on his leg as he limped out of the Mess. A few of the transportees stared in curiosity, but most were too busy slurping up the synthetic paste on their plates to pay attention to anything else. They had less than fifteen minutes to eat and that meant getting as much down as they could shove into their gullets.

  Jablonski weaved through the corridors as if he had a GPS implant in his head. He reached a crew section, usually off limits, and opened up a small door to a storage compartment. It was full of supplies and chemicals with barely enough room for the two of them to squeeze in. Get in.

  Bronstein followed him, watching as Jablonski removed a small cigarette-like rod from his orange transportee jumpsuit. He paused to look up and make sure the fan was on before lighting his contraband, all the while continuing to pound on his leg with his fists.

  He lit up and the room filled with the stench of wet jungle.

  “That’s the worst stink weed I’ve ever smelled,” Bronstein said.

  Jablonski sputtered and said, “It’s not marijuana; it’s borloi.”

  Bronstein jumped up. “What are you trying to do? Get us both spaced.” Borloi was the most addictive and dangerous drug known to man. It was what the U.S. government used to keep Citizens in the Welfare Islands sedated. A resin from a Tanith plant; it was not only addictive but illegal aboard a BuCorrect transport.

  Jablonski’s leg began to stop trembling. “It’s the only drug strong enough to cut through the pain in my leg. I’ve taken enough morphine and opiates to kill ten ordinary men and they barely touch it.”

  “What the Hell is wrong with you?” Bronstein said, beginning to wish he’d never joined forces with the man.

  “I was organizing a union of diamond miners at the Kimberly Mines in South Africa. The Company hired a bunch of thugs from Johannesburg and there was a tussle.” He paused to draw in another lungful of borloi. “What I got out of it was two broken knees and a spinal fracture from some ex-Chicago cop. We didn’t get the best hospital treatment in Cape Town. They did okay with my artificial knees, but they didn’t do a very good job on my spine. They tried to fix it back in the States, but the damage was already done. I didn’t have the credits for a regen tank. Every once in a while, I get the sensation that someone has tossed a pot of boiling water onto my left thigh.”

  Bronstein winced.

  “It feels like the real thing, don’t doubt that. But I’ve learned to live with it.

  Sure, thought Bronstein, by smoking the most addictive drug in the universe. And what happens when the borloi runs out?

  “Where do you think this ship is heading?”

  “Tanith, of course. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Kennicott owns most of the mines on Tanith. When I got word they had an illegal transport spacin’ out, I made sure I was on it.

  “How did you learn this news?” Bronstein asked.

  Jablonski set down his spoon. “I was a shop steward with the UMWA,” he said.

  “I...see,” Bronstein said. Of course, the old American miners’ union; they’d have good reason to know. But in this case they may have been purposely misled.

  “The scuttlebutt I heard, from one of the guards, was that Kennicott Metals got the go-ahead to dig for hafnium ore on a frozen hell-hole named Haven. Bet you anything that’s where we’re going.”

  Jablonski reared back as if he’d been struck. “Christ on a crutch! You’ve got to be kiddin.”‘

  “That’s the inside word.”

  “Then I’m well and truly fucked.”

  “If you’re looking for borloi, then you’re right.” Bronstein, who’d read all the files his notebook computer held about the new colony worlds, struggled to remember Tanith. It was another hell-hole for convicts and transportees no one wanted. “Tanith’s the only place in the known universe where borloi will grow.”

  “How’d you hear that one?” Jablonski asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Uh-huh.” Jablonski eyed him keenly. “I know, you got a bug-out kit complete with notebook-comp; you’re an organizer, too. Who were you with?”

  “An older bunch,” Bronstein said carefully. “Don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them, but they’ve got experience centuries long.”

  Jablonski raised his eyebrows to his hairline. “Not the ILG?” he marveled.

  “Nope,” Bronstein dropped the bomb. “IWW.”

  Jablonski’s eyes went very wide. “Jesus!” he whispered. “We thought you guys were all dead!”

  “We’ve been hearing that for a hundred years,” Bronstein laughed, “But we keep wobbling along.”

  “Uh-huh...” said Jablonski, still staring.

  “Okay,” Bronstein pushed on, “So what’ve you found out?”

  “Uh...” Jablonski shook himself like a wet dog, then recovered. “Watchin’ the deportees, all two hundred of ‘em. They’re from all over, but most of ‘em speak English. A few of ‘em were strikers swept up in the Chicago, like us. Others, were just jail-sweepings or nationals they wanted to deport.”

  “I noticed. Asians, Arabs, Indians--The Hindu kind, I mean. Blacks, Latinos, whites: the usual U.S. of A. mongrel mix.”

  “Uh-huh, and they’re forming groups already.” Jablonski grimaced, then began hitting his leg again, even harder. “It’ll be a few minutes before the borloi takes hold.”

  When he could talk again, he added, “First, there’s the dames. A lot of ‘em have kids with ‘em. They organized fast, just for protection. They’ve got two leaders: the old American babe with the muscles and the Latino dame with all the blades hidden under her clothes.”

  Bronstein frowned in thought. He’d seen something of the women’s gang, from a safe distance. “Are you talking about the big black woman, who calls herself Big Mama; the one that’s always telling people what to do?”

  “Nah.” Jablonski shoved his bowl aside. “She’s loud, but she’s all mouth. She’s only out for herself and her kids. Old Muscles and Blades take care of the others.”

  “Good start. What about the men? Who else is organizing?”

  “More like just gathering,” Jablonski shook his head. “Not the Arabs or the Hindu-boys. They’re more inclined to whine at anybody above ‘em and bully anyone below ‘em. As of now, the Arabs are bullying on the Hindu-boys and keeping away from everybody else. Hmm, you seen that Arab guy, Hassan?”

  “Yeah. He likes to beat up on that little Hindu guy, Rajnamurti. I’d look out for him.”

  “Got it. Now the Americans pretty much stick together. The Latinos hang together, but they mostly squabble over who’s El Supremo.”

  “I know,” Bronstein muttered glumly. “I’ve seen a couple knife-fights between them. Two of them in my compartment died of cuts, and the guards were really pissed off.”

  “We’ll have to give ‘em a better Top Dog, then. There’s three Asian families-mama-san, papa-san and lots of kids--and they hold apart from the other bunches, but they stay away from each other, too. Beats the heck out of me.”

  “Bet you anything, one’s Chinese, one’s Japanese, and one’s Korean.”
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br />   “Oh, great. They won’t talk to each other until they have to.” Jablonski stopped smacking his leg. “That’s better, borloi really does the job. So that’s what we’ve got. How the hell do we organize a mob like this?”

  “It’s been done,” Bronstein smiled, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin on them. “Let me tell you a funny story.

  “Back at the end of the nineteenth century, when industry in the U.S. was revving up big-time, the bosses wanted lots and lots of cheap labor--with the emphasis on cheap. But where were they to get it? Slavery was done with, and god help anybody who tried to bring it back. They didn’t want to hire all the freed blacks coming north to the cities, because working factory machines might give them Ideas Above Their Station.”

  “Heard that before,” Jablonski chuckled.

  “They didn’t want to hire the Irish immigrants, because a lot of those had gotten land of their own under the Homesteading Act and weren’t about to give it up for factory jobs. Besides, the Irish knew how to organize, and they’d done it before. Ever hear of the Molly Maguires?”

  “Oh yeah. Legendary.”

  “They couldn’t use the native-born whites because, in those days, ninety percent of them lived on farms, or at least had small businesses of their own out in the farming country. That meant that any young guy who came to the big city looking for money and adventure could always go home to the family farm or family business if he didn’t like the wages. So who did that leave?”

  Jablonski only shrugged and waited.

  “So they sent out agents, mostly to Europe, some to Asia, telling tales about Come To America Where The Streets Are Paved With Gold, promising cheap or even free transport. They brought in millions, and I do mean millions, of immigrants--all speaking different languages, all stuck there with no way of going home, all faced with no choice but to work in the factories at whatever wages, whatever hours, whatever conditions the bosses wanted. Don’t you know that story?”

  “My name’s Jablonski, and yours is Bronstein. I know where those names came from.”

  “Right. And do you think it’s an accident that that’s when the Labor Movement started?”

  Jablonski stared at him for a long moment. “You IWW guys really do have long memories, don’tcha?”

  “That’s what they say.” Bronstein gave him a toothy smile. “What worked then will work now. We start with a core of reliables who’ve got a common language. We show them how to make things better for themselves. When the others see the benefits, they’ll bother to learn the language and come on in.”

  “Uh, about making things better...” Jablonski glanced around, automatically checking for listening ears. “It might be awhile before we’re in any condition to make demands on the Company.”

  “How do you mean?” Bronstein asked.

  “What do you know about this Haven place?”

  “It’s cold and it’s got a weird day-cycle. Thin air, too. I know that much. The place is supposed to be owned by a religious bunch, the Church of Universal Harmony or something like that. They’re very big on Simplicity, and all that stuff. I can’t see them renting out half their world to Kennicott Metals, not for any money. And there’s the little fact that this is a Kennicott ship, not the damn Bureau of Correction.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I think Kennicott greased a lot of palms and got land on Haven without the Harmonies agreeing. That’s big-time illegal, if the Harmonies could complain to the right ears. My guess is that they can’t, or don’t know about this.”

  Bronstein pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. “So... If there’s trouble Kennicott can’t handle, they don’t dare go crying to the CoDo for help, or the whole thing blows up in a big political scandal. Nice to know!”

  “It also means their own troops can get away with anything that doesn’t get told about off-planet.” Jablonski gave an unlovely smile. “Did you bring any... tools?”

  Bronstein only nodded. “Not enough to protect a whole union local, though. I think this bit of organizing is going to have to take a...well, more basic direction, at least, at first.”

  “Well, think fast. I heard we land in four Terran-weeks. What should my people expect?”

  “According to my calculations,” Bronstein answered, “it’s spring--or what passes for it--on this iceball they call Haven. Tell your people to beg, borrow or steal any warm clothing, jackets, overcoats and anything else they can find. They’re going to need them!”

  2044 a.d., Haven

  The first chopper landed in front of the ballooned tents, and the guards unceremoniously shoved the deportees out the doors. Bronstein, who’d been expecting something like this, jumped before he could be pushed and landed evenly on his feet. Jablonski was shoved, fell to his hands and knees and came up cursing. Rajnamurti was pushed, fell, and stayed where he was, shivering. Hassan, next, fell on top of him.

  The light was dull orange, the ground was hard and the air was bitterly cold.

  Bronstein sighed, helped Jablonski up and led him to the others. “Come on,” he said wearily, “Let’s get them on their feet and out of the way.”

  Jablonski swore further, but complied. They hauled their fallen fellow deportees away from the chopper and somewhat upright, then went back for the next lot. Most of the other deportees now saw how it was done, and managed to land on their feet. A few still fell.

  When the last of the deportees were clear of the chopper, the guards began tossing out their luggage with a nice lack of discrimination. Various deportees yelped in outrage, but Jablonski and Bronstein held them back until the helicopter emptied, closed its doors and departed. The two of them also kept the deportees moving in an orderly line toward the pile of luggage, let them pick out their bags in full view of the crowd and dragged them aside. The Euro-American gang caught on fast and hauled their luggage efficiently. There were no accusations of anyone taking the wrong bag. With the baggage sorted, the crowd looked about for a clue to their next step.

  Another chopper was coming in for a landing, and a guard was gesturing impatiently toward a large nearby tent. Bronstein sighed again, and wordlessly hauled his duffelbag toward it. First Jablonski, then the rest of the crowd, made haste to follow him. Bronstein hoped the tents included heaters. The air was thin and the wind was cold, very cold.

  The interior of the big tent was floored with sheet plastic, strung with half a dozen simple ceiling lights and centered with a 360-degree radiant heater, around which the rest of the crowd gratefully settled. Jablonski looked around until he found the doorway at the back of the tent, flaps open to reveal another, bigger, attached tent with a food-hopper and dispenser filling it. Bronstein also noted the row of porta-johns along a side wall near the front door.

  Jablonski purposefully walked to the food-dispenser door, and set down his luggage beside it. Bronstein smiled to himself, and dragged his luggage to the other side.

  “So, what happens next?” Jablonski ventured, publicly displaying the cautious politeness of one hard-ass encountering another.

  Bronstein was pleased with how this was playing out. They didn’t want the other deportees to know they knew each other. “If Kennicott doesn’t start us off making prefab housing, we organize a simple strike. That’ll mean guarding the heater and the food-supply, and grabbing tools wherever we can get them.”

  “My guess would be the smaller tent on the other side of this one. It has the lumpy look of a tool-shed.”

  Just then the next batch of transportees stumbled into the big tent, dragging their gear. The sound of helicopter rotors sounded loud overhead. Bronstein waited until it stopped before he spoke again.

  “Anyway, if the Kennicott bosses have the sense to start us off building housing, we go along with it. We organize anyway, but slower--purely social contacts, and help each other build. We also start scouting for places to dig underground housing, stuff the bosses won’t know about. We’ll need, uh, tools for that.”

  “Uh-huh,�
� Jablonski nodded quickly. “And we damn-well study the food-dispenser so we can repair it, or unlock it ourselves.”

  Bronstein looked about quickly, checking for prying eyes, before he pulled a satchel out of his duffelbag and slid next to Jablonski. “We also check out the local wildlife for anything edible,” he almost whispered, opening the satchel where only Jablonski could see, revealing a small notebook computer. “We learn, and we teach, as fast as possible. This one’s got a plutonium battery with a solar assist, but even that won’t last forever.”

  “Hide that sucker!” Jablonski whispered, appalled. “If anyone sees--”

  “I know damn-well what it’s worth here,” said Bronstein, shoving it back in the satchel. “Now let’s start making ourselves known.”

  Right then the guards rolled in a big flat cart carrying a couple hundred deep clay bowls and a big carton of plastic spoons. A distorted voice from the overhead loudspeakers told everyone within hearing to take one bowl and spoon apiece just as a third batch of transportees stumbled in.

  “I’ll get ours,” said Bronstein, shoving his satchel back into his duffel. He darted to the cart and picked up two bowls and spoons before anyone else could think to move. The moment he turned away from the cart, several other transportees started toward it. They weren’t stupid, at least.

  He handed Jablonski a spoon and bowl, slipped back to his place on the other side of the doorway, and casually leaned on the wall. After a moment’s thought, Jablonski did the same on his side. He also, Bronstein noted, pulled something fairly long and slender out of his own bag, then kept it concealed behind his leg.

  Soon enough, one of the other deportees came toward the food-dispenser, spotted its two unofficial guards, and hesitated. Bronstein nodded pleasantly to him, and Jablonski did likewise. The man, reassured and hungry, hurried to the Protocarb dispenser, shoved his bowl under the nozzle and pressed the obvious button. In a moment the nozzle filled the bowl with semi-liquid tan paste, which was comprised of the processed remains of local non-poisonous wildlife. The man took the bowl, grimaced at the contents, but hurried away.