The fleet of Samoa was ensconced within the shelter of a great, curving, cup-shaped cloud of debris from a defunct comet or fragment of an ancient supernova. They had mined the cloud, using a camouflaged variety of mine that looked exactly like space refuse; it was impossible to tell with the equipment available in the field which chunks of rock were natural and which were mines. Any ship attempting to pass through this region would contact a mine; if the explosion did not hole it, the attention attracted by the detonation would set it up for a shot from the battleship at the fringe of the cloud. A ship inside the cloud would be practically invisible; the dust and debris interfered with radar. But an explosion emitted radiation that penetrated the rocks and was readily detectable from nearby. Thus the cloud was considered impassable, and the ships in the cup were secure from any flank or rear attack.
With that protection, the Samoans needed only to cover the region of space in front of their fleet. It was like the pincushion defense without any planetoid for the pins to anchor to; thus it was more versatile. Since this was the only feasible channel through the Belt leading to their main base, they seemed secure. The Solomons fleet could not occupy the Samoan base without traveling this channel, and the cloud-backed Samoan fleet guarded it. But the Solomons could not afford to ignore the base; Samoa was far from the Solomons' home region, and the moment Straight departed for home, as he had to do before long, the Samoans would come out and take over whatever they wanted. More frustrating to us, they would continue their drug trade, the worst of the pirate activities in the Belt.
Oh, I realize that some people would question that, suggesting that the slave trade was worse. But slavery was limited, with very specialized markets, while drugs penetrated to the heart of the leading governments of the Solar System, corrupting them—as our present situation showed. The power of the drug trade was much greater than showed in the Belt; the Samoans were only the visible projection of it. Only now was I coming to appreciate the sinister magnitude of that business. Even the Jupiter Navy danced to its tune!
So now we watched, hoping Straight could do what we could not. Oh, there would be an outcry in private circles if he managed it, but what could they do? Court-martial him? He was technically a pirate, beyond their jurisdiction. No, they would have to deal with him, his way; a new power was forming in the Belt. Straight would probably obtain the legitimacy he craved. Provided he took out Samoa.
Would Emerald's strategy work without Emerald there to oversee it? A battle was not something one set up and let fall, like a row of dominoes; proper implementation was critical. Could Straight provide the proper tactics? I was not at all easy.
The Solomons fleet came straight down the channel, decelerated, and drifted just beyond combat range. It seemed that Straight was hoping the Samoans would come forward to fight, deserting their cloud-cup rear protection. That, of course, was foolish. The Samoans had an excellent defensive position, their guns covering the full breadth of the channel, and they were surely stocked for a siege. Straight, with his makeshift fleet and skeletal crews, could not wait them out; he had to win quickly, or give it up. He could not even restock at the Jupiter base, for the alliance was off and the commander there was no longer permitted to associate with pirates.
There they waited for a day in seeming indecision. Straight made some feints, but these were unsuccessful. The Samoans, though their fleet was as strong as Straight's, were too canny to budge. They were forcing him to attack their prepared position and suffer ruinous losses, or to retreat and suffer similarly.
Then news of another fleet came. The remnants of the other pirate bands were sending their ships to support the Samoans, and in two days these would come down the channel behind the Solomons' fleet. That was trouble indeed; Straight would have to commence withdrawal immediately if he was to avoid being caught in the middle. Obviously things had started to go wrong the moment Emerald was disassociated from the effort.
Our fleet's night came, and I slept, holding Rue's hand. I still had much joy in her final gift to me—the gift of her tears, her unrestrained emotion—but I feared for her father, and for her if she lost him to battle just when she was losing me to Navy discipline. She had given herself at last, to me, but. at what cost to herself and her band?
I dreamed, in that special fashion I sometimes do when under stress. Rue and I were in space, in the Belt—an impossibly crowded section. We were perched on boulders, carrying pugil sticks. All around us were other members of our crew, each person riding a rock and bearing a pugil stick. Sergeant Smith, and Shrapnel, and Juana, and Brinker, and all the other Hispanics and Saxons and just plain, good people. We waved cheerily to each other, but no one deserted his rock.
Then something floated toward us, huge and cylindrical. It was a spaceship—a cruiser! There is no good reason for spaceships to be rounded or cylindrical, apart from the convenience of construction, since there is no atmospheric friction in space, but the Navy somehow never felt free to deviate far from the streamlined form. The cruiser nudged so close to my rock I could touch it, and, indeed, I did touch it, reaching out with the padded end of my pugil stick to shove the huge hull away. Of course, the mass of the cruiser was much greater than mine, even including the rock I perched on and braced against; all I accomplished was to shove my platform away. I retreated from the cruiser, waving my stick, and now I saw that on the hull were hundreds of other people, each with a similar stick, and all of them waved cheerily back at me. We seemed to be having one big, crazy party in space, the rockworms and the hullnuts pushing each other away. Odd game!
But now I was drifting away also from Rue. She stood on her stone, gesturing helplessly, proffering respect and love but unable to reach me or draw me back. I knew, with the certainty that only a dream provides, that neither of us could leave our rocks, lest some horrendous disaster occur. We were bound to go with our pieces of real estate, wherever that might be.
"Rue!" I cried.
"Hope!" she cried back. The vacuum of space was all about us, yet our voices carried.
"I'm worried about you!" I called.
"My garden is waste!" she replied.
"Thank you for your tears!" I cried. But our boulders were rotating, and hers had turned to face her away from me, or maybe mine had spun, and we were lost to each other. And now I cried, inheriting her tears.
I woke, and she woke, and we hugged each other. We were together after all! But still I felt the premonition of the dream, and the chill of outer space seeped through my bones. This lovely girl, not yet out of her teens, would surely be lost to me, and I could do nothing to prevent it. There was a knock. I recognized the touch of my sister and called her in. "It's happening," she said. "Turn on your vid." But she did it for me, then sat down on the edge of the bunk. There was plenty of room, this being the outsize nuptial bed. Now it reminded me of a space boulder. A Jupiter-Network news spot was in progress. Of course, reception was poor, this being several light-minutes distant from the source, but we were used to that. "...activity behind the Samoan battleship," the announcer was saying.
Emerald arrived. "Hear that, Worry? They did it!"
"Did what?" Rue demanded, not bothering to cover herself.
"Sneaked through that cloud with a cruiser," Emerald explained. "Fired point-blank into the Samoan battleship, taking it out. Now the cruiser commands the field. Those lesser Samoan ships are pointed the wrong way; they're sitting ducks!"
"Through the cloud?" I asked. "Your plan, did it include setting men on space boulders with pugil sticks?"
"Oh, you found out!" she said, annoyed.
"I think I was there," I said.
"Where?" Rue asked.
"You were there, too."
"That's nice. Does this mean my father's all right?"
"He's in control," Emerald assured her. "My plan was to infiltrate the mined cloud by moving very slowly, matching the velocity of its internal currents and posting men on every rock in the path of the ship. It didn't matter whether any
given rock was natural or a mine; none were allowed to touch. So the cruiser did what the enemy thought was impossible: It ambushed their battleship from behind."
"God, I'm glad to hear that!" Rue said. "But what will the drug merchandisers do now?"
"First they'll have Hope's head," Spirit said, taking my free hand. "Then they'll set about developing other avenues of supply. But it will be much harder for them to operate now."
Rue pulled me back down with her and enfolded my head in a bosomy embrace. "They can't have his head," she said. "It's mine!"
I liked this new mannerism of hers very well. But I suspected the colder vision of my dreams was closer to reality. Powerful external forces were bearing us apart, and we could not resist them.
Commander Phist brought the fleet safely back to the Jupiter System and duly turned us all over to the military authorities. It was a measure of his integrity that he had never met privately with Spirit since the directive came, though she was his wife and he loved her. In this respect his ordeal was harsher than ours, but it would have been an abuse of his position to socialize with any of those who were under arrest, and this he would not do.
We were separately interned; there was no more camaraderie in captivity. I had a good month in virtual solitary confinement while they prepared their case against me. Here I was denied access to external news, and that was almost as painful as the separation from my staff and friends.
I put that time to use: I commenced writing this narrative of my military career. There is nothing like solitary confinement to sharpen one's appreciation for past experience! I have written this in Spanish, to refresh my skill in my native language and to protect its privacy at least somewhat from my English-speaking jailors. They don't care what I do, but they do peer over my shoulder, As it were.
I fear I have focused too much on personal aspects, neglecting the technical ones, but in this time of isolation and loneliness, it is these personal experiences that assume the greatest meaning. The officers of the prosecution will surely be assembling many volumes of technical data; I cannot do better than they in that respect. But when I write of Juana, Emerald, and Rue, they seem to be with me again, and I can almost believe that I loved them each. Yes, surely I did!
Before I completed my narrative, I was interrupted. Without explanation I was conducted to a mortuary section. For a moment I feared I was to be summarily executed without hearing or trial; but, of course, that is not the way the Navy works.
The reality was almost as bad. I was here for the stark private funeral service for Lieutenant Commander Repro, who had suffered a circulatory failure. Ha! I knew what had killed him: deprivation of the drug to which he was addicted. Naturally they had not provided him with it in prison. Whether there was specific malice in this I cannot be sure, but they must have realized that he, more than any other person, was responsible for the campaign that cut off the major source of supply for most of the illicit drugs, and there were those in the anonymous echelons who were angry and perhaps hurting privately. The fact that Repro had been slowly dying, anyway, did not much alleviate the ugly shock; he had been the guiding genius behind the unit I had formed and commanded. It was his vision, more than my own, that I had implemented. Now Beautiful Dreamer was gone. What was his reward? An anonymous extinction. No mention was made in the spoken service of his addiction, for theoretically no officer of the Jupiter Navy indulged in drugs. At least they had had the grace to see him out with the honor befitting his rank. Poor Repro! He had wrought so well, from the depths of his own captivity by the drug, and had so effectively struck back at it. He had had the immense courage to dream and to shape reality to that dream, all the while slowly dying. He was truly a great man, doomed to be unrecognized for his most singular accomplishment.
The other officers of my staff were there. I stood beside them for the somber service, glad for their company, sad that this had to be the occasion for it. I knew they shared my emotion, and that they were crying, too.
Afterward, we were permitted a brief grace period of reacquaintance. First to come to me was Captain Phist, at long last promoted for his sterling service to the Navy, who had the privilege of rank, though he seemed almost ashamed of it. Gravely he shook my hand. "Your work will continue, sir," he said. "And his." His eyes flicked toward the coffin. "If we can just preserve the liaison with Straight, on whatever basis..."
Yes—here was an important element. Straight now controlled the Belt, and if Phist retained command of the unit, as seemed to be the case, he could preserve what remained of our nucleus unit and hold the loyal lower officers and enlisted men. He was not Hispanic, but they knew him and trusted him, knowing that he had done what he had done because he had had to. But only my marriage to Straight's daughter had secured our uncertain and unwritten treaty of alliance; without that, the cooperation would be lost. I knew, now, that the Navy would never let me resume command, of this unit or anything. The Navy never forgave a transgression of this nature. Only Phist, who had obeyed their directive so perfectly, could retain his power. How could he relate to Straight?
Next came Mondy. "But there is a way," he murmured as if reading my thoughts. "You know they will never let your sister return, any more than you, sir. So Phist loses his wife, too. He loves her, but he is a realist. If Rue is willing..."
I understood him. Trust Mondy to see the vital connection!
Roulette came next, her eyes brimming with those tears she reserved for me. "They are making you the scapegoat this time, Hope," she said. "Everyone else gets off, except The Dear, if you—"
"Yes, of course," I agreed gently. "My sister and I are finished in the Navy. But you need not be. Rue, for the sake of the unit and the mission, will you let Old King Cole tend the garden?" Naturally the Navy guards did not grasp the significance of what I was saying; our songs became our code.
She looked startled. "Him? After what he—?"
"He obeyed orders," I reminded her. "By so doing, he made it possible to complete our mission, help your father, and preserve the unit. King Cole had loved The Dear, he could love the Ravished. If your father accedes to the connection—"
Her chin lifted. "Yes, of course. Now I understand. I will... facilitate the alliance. But I won't cry for Cole."
"Don't expect him to lay waste the garden, either," I said. "He is a gentle man."
She smiled wanly. "I know the type. Don't worry, Hope; you tamed me. I can play the game. I will serve the post."
"Thank you. I believe you will find the game worthwhile, for yourself and your father. You are the only way this alliance can be held. I wish I could have been the one..."
Her tears began to spill. Slowly I leaned toward her, and we kissed a chaste kiss. That was all we could get away with here.
Before we separated, she whispered: "Hope, would you—would you—one last time?"
I glanced around. The guards weren't watching us at the moment. I brought my right fist up in a short, concealed uppercut and clipped her on the chin. Somehow she bit her lip in the process, and blood welled out. She backed away, her eyes shining with more than tears.
Emerald came up, blocking the view of the nearest guard who had thought he had seen something. "That was a nice thing you did, Hope," she murmured.
"She won't cry for any other man," I said. "I won't strike any other woman." No one outside this unit would grasp the significance. If I had tamed Rue, she had taught me her way, too.
"Your tactical position is better than you might think, sir," Emerald continued. "The news had been full of the Hero of the Belt, the Hispanic Scourge of Piracy. The Navy has been stalling, waiting to bring you to trial until the notoriety dies down; they don't want to make a martyr of you. But it hasn't died down; you're becoming a cult figure. In fact, there are growing rumblings about their failure to give you a medal and promote you to admiral."
"Admiral!" I stifled a laugh.
"Just don't give in, Hope; you can win the final battle."
I hadn't thought
of it as a battle, but perhaps it was. "Thanks, Rising Moon," I said with feeling.
"And I bring a message from Used Maiden," she said. She took my head in both hands, set her mouth against mine, and gave me a kiss that sent me right back to that first session in the Tail. That was from Juana, all right, who was not privileged to attend this officer's funeral. Sweet Juana!
Last came Spirit, who had just completed an impassioned parting with Captain Phist, the severance of their marriage. I held her and she held me, and we did not speak.
As I started back to my cell, an anonymous officer gave me a box. "The Deceased bequeathed this to you," he said curtly.
Back in my cell, I opened the box. It was the structure with the five steel balls. I put my head down and cried.
In due course I resumed my narrative manuscript, feeling somewhat better. Between bouts of writing I knocked the balls about, grateful to Beautiful Dreamer for this remembrance. He had made of his life a better thing than others knew. He had understood force and counterforce.
Perhaps a week later I had a visitor: Reba Ward of QYV. "The forces are finely balanced at the moment, Captain," she said, setting on the table a device I knew was there to guarantee security from electronic surveillance. "A small nudge at the correct nexus can change history. Will you deal now?"
"You!" I exclaimed with angry revelation. "You had me deposed and recalled, just when victory was at hand!"
She shook her head in negation. "A natural suspicion, Hubris, but unfounded. We oppose the drug trade as strongly as you do."
"You tried to addict me!"
"I do not condone my predecessor's acts. The end does not justify the means. Otherwise I would have had your item long ago."
Anthony, Piers - Tyrant 2 - Mercenary Page 39
