Homefall

by Chris Bunch

  The suited figure looked up, around.

  "You could be right," the voice said, sounding almost human. "However, I don't think you should attempt any deception."

  "What you see is what there is," Garvin said, and opened another channel. "Dill, Montagna, Froude, Lir, report to the hold's main lock area immediately." He went back to the general channel.

  "If you and your men want to unsuit, it'll be a lot more comfortable."

  There was a pause, then the figure reached up, touched seals around its neck, and lifted the helmet clear. The figure became a woman, close-cropped brown hair, a not unattractive face that was very businesslike.

  The other men and women did the same.

  "We'll not unsuit completely," she said. "It's safer like that."

  "As you wish," Garvin said. "By the way, I'm Gar-vin Jaansma. Gaffer's my title, if you want one."

  "Commander Betna Israfel, Thirty-fourth Division, Eighth Confederation Guard," she said.

  Garvin introduced Erik and Njangu, as the summoned men and women of the Legion arrived, then went off with the Mais.

  "Would you care to visit our bridge?" he asked.

  Israfel considered, then nodded.

  "Surely. You don't appear to be anyone with anything to hide, I must say."

  "The only secrets we have are those of the midway, those of strange worlds and stranger games and magics," Garvin intoned.

  Israfel looked at him closely, decided Garvin was being humorous, granted him a smile. Garvin thought she didn't seem to have much of a sense of humor.

  On the bridge, Israfel was offered refreshments, refused them, looked about the large room, its gleaming equipment and neatly dressed watch.

  "You keep a very taut ship, sir," she told Garvin.

  "Thank you. My parents taught me any fool can be a pig," Garvin said, hoping to be thought a trifle simplistic.

  "I had to look up what a circus was, before I came aboard," Israfel said. "Are there many like you?"

  "There were many circus ships, even convoys," Garvin said. "But that was before the Confederation, meaning no offense, vanished."

  "Frankly, for you, and us as well," Israfel asked.

  "But you're Confederation!"

  "We are a detachment," she said. "Charged with providing security for the Mais system, no more. As far as what lies beyond the system… you know far more than we do, although that's something we of the garrison here don't like to broadcast, although you'd certainly find that out by yourself before long. It doesn't exactly increase the faith the locals have in us."

  Garvin chanced a comment, feeling a sudden warmth for these soldiers, no different than the Strike Force, even though they were far closer to the heart of the vanished Empire.

  "In the Sabyn system, we were told they'd had raw materials and manufactured goods seized, on a regular basis, by ships claiming to be from the Confederation."

  "Yes," Israfel said. "Those pirates have tried three times to attack us. Each time, they've been driven off. But—" she broke off.

  She didn't need to finish. Garvin could imagine trying to maintain a highly technological unit in a system without heavy manufacturing.

  The Force had been lucky, even though cast to the frontiers, that Cumbre was as developed as it was.

  "Do you have any idea where these self-styled Confederation troops are based from?"

  Israfel shook her head, looked away, and Garvin realized he'd found out as much as he could from her.

  But it was quite enough.

  He regretted the week's commitment to playing Mais, because there didn't appear to be that much more to learn.

  Mais/Mais II

  Six days later, his opinion was confirmed. No one knew where these false Confederation units were from, only that they'd come three times, and been driven off, with fairly heavy casualties. The wounded and dead had been replaced by local recruits from Mais I and II, and a factory had been tooled up to replace the expended missiles. But the ships that had been lost were irreplaceable.

  That was also why they'd only made one attempt to reach Centrum. The cruiser and its two destroyer escorts had simply vanished, and the Guard was reluctant to waste any more starships.

  "Were we not required to keep the law in spirit as well as letter," Commander Israfel told Penwyth, "I'd surely like to commandeer those patrol boats and light survey ships you have."

  "It would take a while to learn to pilot an aksai," Penwyth said truthfully. "But we appreciate your honesty."

  Erik and Israfel had become a twosome, although Penwyth swore that nothing more than light handhold-ing was going on.

  The circus was a raving success, and the Confederation garrison had Garvin, Njangu, and other officers to dinner twice. Garvin made a point of inviting Dill, not so much to awe the soldiers as to his strength, but because he'd bring Kekri along.

  The younger male, and a couple of the female, officers fell in love with her, to Garvin's amusement. But she clung to Dill as she had ever since the ship had left Cayle IV. He also brought along some of the showgirls and a scattering of performers.

  Garvin was mightily impressed with the detachment's commander. She kept rigid discipline in the unit, and never let on to anyone that she was the only authority known. Rather, her orders were always signed for the confederation, and her dealings with the civilians were as if she was reporting daily to Centrum, with the stern Parliament vetting her every decision.

  Garvin almost took notes, thinking that one of these years he might be in the same place himself, and need to know how to handle matters. But after due consideration, he decided he didn't have the woman's basic moral courage, and if he ever got stuck in a situation like this, the first thing he'd do would be to tuck for the tall timber.

  One nice thing that happened to Garvin—Darod Montagna had been closely watching the relationship, if that was what it was, between Kekri Katun and Ben Dill. One night she tapped at Garvin's compartment, asked if he was interested in company. Mightily thrilled, he invited her in, and she stayed the night. Garvin figured, or hoped, anyway, he was forgiven for his indiscretion.

  A bit cheered after the week on Mais that at least they weren't the only fools in the universe interested in keeping the Confederation alive, they made another jump.

  This one was into Paradise.

  Or so it appeared for a time.

  Chapter 14

  Nelumbo/Nelumbo II

  Nelumbo II was a beautiful planet, with small, moun-tained continents, mostly in the higher and lower temperate zones.

  There was no information available whether or nor Nelumbo had been colonized, yet the first aksai in-system picked up radiation on the standard bands of a populated planet.

  The recon sweep gave no reason for alarm, and so Big Bertha closed for a landing.

  Garvin was beginning to enjoy the landing control dialogue: reporting presence of Big Bertha, then a few moments of rather stunned silence while someone found out what the blazes a circus ship might be. Then a frenzy.

  They were given landing clearance, and, as usual, settled down on the outskirts of the planet's capital. This was a smallish city, built on the hills of a narrow peninsula, extending from a forested continent.

  The promotional sweeps reported there didn't seem to be any slums in the city, only light industrial areas, and most of the housing looked palatial, great estates carefully built to give maximum privacy.

  A crowd had assembled by the time Garvin ordered Big Bertha's ramp dropped.

  "Nice-lookin' folks," Sopi Midt observed, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "Healthy sorts, look to be the type with credits.

  "Heh," he added, possibly inadvertently.

  Midt was right—the people were nice-looking, of many colors, and well dressed. The lifters they arrived in were all of ten- to twenty-year-old Confederation design, and none was ramshackle.

  Here and there Njangu spotted light blue uniformed men and women, but only a scattering.

  Again, G
arvin ordered the show out under canvas, and Fleam's roustabouts set to work.

  By now, the troupe had fallen into its routine, the acts moving smoothly into the three rings, doing their acts, then off, and the performers helping other acts if they had time and no animals to feed.

  Here they had their first real fright: a child, only three, wandered away from his mother. The hue and cry went out, and they finally found the boy. He'd managed to open the cage of Muldoon, the killer black leopard, and was sitting just inside, watching Muldoon watch him.

  Sir Douglas went in before anyone had time to decide if Muldoon was being friendly, or if he was calculating how many mouthfuls the boy would provide.

  Everyone involved got an enormous ass-chewing from Jaansma, and Njangu was ordered to put two of his security thugs on safety patrol, making sure nothing like that would ever, could ever, happen again.

  But that was the only problem.

  Sort of.

  Njangu found out why Nelumbo wasn't in any of the data banks. Before the Collapse, it had been the chosen vacation home for the Confederation higher-ups, which was why the mansions, why the ecological sensitivity, why the carefully scattered population. Of course Confederation officials wouldn't particularly care to let the outside world know where their nearest and dearest could be found.

  When the Confederation collapsed, it left more than two million vacationing men, women, and children abandoned on Nelumbo, plus the planet's necessary technicians and workers, and, of course, the families' blue-uniformed security teams.

  Some of the people mourned their missing, but more began new lives. Women outnumbered the men about six to four.

  "An easy damned life," Garvin said. "Not enough people to have screwed the world up, and lots of money so almost everything's automated."

  "Yeh," Njangu said. "Heaven itself."

  "What's the matter with that?" Garvin said. "Isn't there someplace that's got to be perfect?"

  "Probably," Yoshitaro agreed. "But I'll give you odds that we'll never be the bastards to run across it."

  The show went on for a week. Garvin made no signs of wanting to make the next jump toward Centrum, but spent his time in his office, working up new routines, or exploring the nearby city.

  Njangu thought Garvin was maybe running some kind of investigation he wasn't ready to talk about, also thought Jaansma was being more than somewhat of a flake.

  Garvin stood outside Big Bertha, listening to the rope caller as the crew guyed out the big tent, taking up the slack in the canvas:

  "Speak your latin, speak it now."

  The ten men and women pulling on the rope chanted: "Ah, heebie, hebby, hobby, hole, golong" once, then again in unison, then the crew moved to the next guyline.

  He smelled the evening air, and the wonderful scents from the pop-up buildings around the big tent: lion piss, manure, cooking steak from the dukey; other smells from the midway: corn popping, vehatna coming off the grill, real sawdust.

  He dreamed of this life being all time, not a moment away from the fine art of killing people, seeing strange constellations overhead he couldn't identify. He thought of naming them as the circus roamed the gal-axy—"The Big Tent."

  "Horsedancer."

  "Strongman," which brought him abruptly back to something resembling reality as the idea came of Ben Dill actually having stars named after him.

  Fleam, boss canvas man, the unpromotable combat thug and knot expert, saw the first mote.

  He was steering a small lifter, a gilly wagon loaded with freshly painted splashboards down the midway, and he moved aside for a young, but very well-dressed mother, her twin girls about twelve, and two of the blue-clad bodyguards.

  For some unknown reason, he looked back, and saw one of the bodyguards slide his hand down into the waistband of one little girl's shorts caressingly. The girl's shoulders twitched, but she didn't pull away or say anything.

  He gaped, then wider as the mother turned, obviously saw what the guard was doing, and quickly looked away.

  Fleam, whose only soft spot might have been for little girls, felt his stomach roil, wondered if he should tell anybody about this, decided maybe it was none of his, or anybody else with the circus's business, then thought Njangu might find it interesting.

  "Sometimes," Garvin said, staring out at the lights over the ocean, "sometimes, Njangu my friend, when we find a place like this, I really want to tell everybody to shove it.

  "Sideways."

  "Which would accomplish what?" Njangu asked.

  They sat, both a little drunk, on the balcony of a mansion they'd been invited to after a performance, a half-empty bottle of extraordinary brandy between them.

  "Just going on," Garvin said dreamily. "We've got the circus going strong, and we could go until we die of old age, ducking baddies and playing places like this."

  "You don't think we'd hear from Froude, or Dill, or, God with a wooden leg forbid, Monique Lir?" Njangu asked. "She's got a damned strong sense of duty and might want us to get our asses back in tune with the mission."

  Garvin muttered, drank brandy.

  "Still," he said. "I remember, when we first joined up, the whole idea was to stick with the uniform bit until we got a good running shot at freedom and then the Confederation, the Force, and working for somebody else could pack their ass with salt and piddle up a rope.

  "Now we've got it, and what're we going to do?"

  "Go on to Centrum and get our asses shot off, because we are gods-fearing patriotic morons," Njangu said.

  "Yeh. I suppose so," Garvin said heavily. "But still, be thinking about living on a world like this… worlds like this.

  "And how we could sweet-talk Lir into deserting."

  Darod saw the second sign. She was outside, after a show, cooling off, and saw a rather luxurious lim ground, and a pair of women start to get in, assisted by their blue-clad driver.

  One said something to him, and Darod saw him frown. The second woman said something else. Darod couldn't tell what it was, but her voice was angry.

  The driver backhanded the second woman, pushed both of them into the lim, slammed the door down. He started toward the driver's compartment, saw Montagna watching, and hard-eyed her.

  Montagna, feeling the adrenaline rise, stepped toward him, automatically in a combat stance.

  The driver hesitated, got in the lim, and took off.

  Darod thought about what she'd seen, decided she'd tell it to Garvin. Garvin also found the behavior of the security man more than slightly odd, passed the word to Yoshitaro.

  "We're certainly delighted to have you people visit us," the man who'd introduced himself to Njangu as Chauda said. He was middle-aged, hard-faced, and wore light blue, but with golden emblems on his epaulettes. Njangu had spotted him as a top cop even before Chauda said he was the head of Nelumbo's security.

  "Thank you," Njangu said, wondering why he still felt a little nervous around a policeman, any policeman.

  "It's a bit of a pity that you couldn't be persuaded to stay on for, oh, an E-year or thereabouts," Chauda said.

  "I think you'd get bored with us before then, and we'd be losing credits."

  "Maybe, or maybe not," Chauda said. "One problem we have here is a certain airlessness. You've given us fresh air."

  "People lived for a lot of centuries on just one world," Yoshitaro said. "They seemed to get along all right."

  "Did they? I remember reading about things like wars, riots, civil uprisings, and such," Chauda said. "But even so, that was in the days when they didn't know there was anything different.

  "Show the flock a nice, new valley, let 'em feed and water in it, then tell them they can't go back there anymore…" Chauda shook his head. "That might cause problems."

  "I still don't see how us staying a year would do any good, and, by the way, I haven't noticed space travel seeming to have cut down the amount of head-banging that goes on."

  "Well," Chauda said, "first, you've got a lot of talents in your circus
that could train interested people to perform after you've gone on. For pay, I mean.

  Then, since you're experienced voyagers, we could possibly hire you to visit other worlds, and perhaps bring back other talents to keep us entertained."

  "Interesting idea," Njangu said. "I'll talk to the gaffer about it. If we were interested, what sort of officials would we be talking to? We've had some of your politicians come to the circus, but we haven't really made friends with them."

  "Don't worry about it," Chauda said easily. "I can handle everything on our end. There wouldn't be any problems."

  That, too, was reported to Garvin.

  Emton's house cats were the great hit on Nelumbo. They now had a whole new bag of tricks, from rolling balls while standing atop them, to doing a wire act (a meter above the ground, wearing specially sewn slippers), to letting birds land on their backs and preen.

  Garvin had asked Emton about that one, and he said it'd only taken two or three brace of birds for the cats to learn what was and wasn't dinner.

  The big cats had their own fans—there was always a knot of the security men around their cages, quietly admiring.

  Sir Douglas complained quietly to Garvin that he really didn't like rozzers hanging about. "Their faces, gaffer, are too much like my cats when they feed.

  "No, I insult my animals. There is greater intelligence on Muldoon's face when he eats than on theirs at any time at all."

  Alikhan saw the next sign. He was out with an aksai, flying along the coast, when, about two kilometers ahead, he saw moving dots along the cliffs. For some reason, he climbed, and put a screen on them.

  The dots were a dozen or so men, light chains around their waists. In front and behind were four blue-clad guards, carrying blasters.

  He banked back to sea, cutting his drive, not wanting to be heard or seen. This, too, was reported to Garvin.

  "Perhaps," Sunya Thanon said, most sadly, "we have been fooling ourselves all these years, and there is no such place as Coando, and we, and our families before us, have created this lie so we do not give up hope, surrounded by evil and blood."