by Chris Bunch
The six obeyed, some moving with some familiarity of the wild, others more slowly and clumsily. Brien listened to them move away noisily, shook his head, remembered he, too, had once been that unpromising.
He went to the edge of the clearing, looked down the sweep of jungle toward the distant ocean. To the east, he could barely see the outskirts of Leggett. One day, Brien thought, one day. He heard a slight noise, turned, about to reprimand whoever’d given up on the exercise, saw Brooks crouched. He held the last air gun aimed at the center of Brien’s chest.
“Brother, this isn’t — ”
There was a pop, and a pellet thwacked into Brien’s stomach. It hurt. Brien jumped.
“I said — ”
“Be so good as to lie down as if you were dead,” Brooks said. “Or I’ll be forced to shoot you again.”
Brien stared, then obeyed.
“You were right,” Brooks said. “There is no fairness in battle.”
He crouched behind a tree, waiting in ambush for the others to return.
CHAPTER
10
“You had no trouble before this?” Wilth Haemer, Governer General, asked, his voice worried.
“None, sir,” the communications tech said. “I was making the normal commo check with my opposite number on Capella Nine, and discovered the channel was down. The autolog said it had been down for seventy-three E-minutes, to be precise.”
“You attempted to reestablish communication with the Confederation?”
“Immediately, sir. I’ve been trying constantly for the last three hours, without any result.”
“Nothing at all?” Haemer said. “No static or whatever you call it?”
“I’ve never heard of any problem with a subspace com, sir,” the technician said. “Especially a constantly open channel like this one is … was.”
Haemer fumed. “You’re the senior technician? Or is there someone at the station with more experience?”
“I’m the ranking operator, sir,” the man said. “Trained on Centrum, seven years’ field experience, all ratings AA-Plus.”
“Don’t get huffy,” Haemer said. “I just wanted to make sure.”
The technician didn’t reply. Haemer gnawed his upper lip. “Very well. Stand by to record. Message in Q-code, personal, to Alena Redruth, Protector of Larix and Kura. Message follows: I have been unable to contact Capella. Are your channels still intact?”
“There’ll be a problem with your message,” the tech said. “I tried to send a query to Larix/Kura myself, to their Com Division, about an hour ago, and got a negative response. Nothing at all, sir.”
“Try again. Redruth won’t fail to answer me.”
“Yessir.”
Haemer turned to his aide. “Contact all Council members and Caud Williams. I want them at PlanGov headquarters within an hour!”
“Very well, Governor,” the woman said.
Haemer started for the door, stopped. “Technician, you’re aware of the gravity, correction, potential gravity of this situation, I assume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do not inform anyone, and that means anyone, of this incident.”
“My superior’s already been notified.”
“I’ll take care of him myself,” Haemer said.
“She’s a her,” the tech said.
“Regardless, dammit! Don’t tell anyone anything, and that’s a direct order!”
“Yes — ” The governor general was gone before the technician could add “sir.”
He whistled soundlessly, touched a sensor, and a microphone dropped from the ceiling. “Scramble IX-N-8.” A speaker blatted, then cleared. “Ybar, Qual, 23. Balar, Balar, this is PlanGov Central, over.”
“PlanGov Central, this is Balar, over,” a voice answered from C-Cumbre’s single moon.
“Keren?”
“Me,” the voice said.
“The fewmets’re in the centrifuge,” the technician said, “and this time it’s a real jewel.”
CHAPTER
11
Njangu was company runner. The duty wasn’t much — sit in the company outer office, field the com, get whatever the Charge of Quarters, one or another of the company noncoms, wanted. It gave the recruits a chance to clean their gear and relax a bit.
This night was different. The CQ, Dec Alyce Quant, told Yoshitaro Alt Hedley was still in his office, and had been making calls on the secure com for the last three hours. He’d had a plate brought in from the mess hall instead of going to dinner. Something was up, and Njangu decided this perhaps wasn’t the best time to be shining boots, and stayed in the background.
Aspirant Vauxhall and Senior Tweg Gonzales went into Hedley’s office, followed by three officers wearing regimental staff tabs. All of them looked worried. Njangu wondered what was going wrong. He hadn’t seen this many officers since his swearing-in.
Hedley opened the door. “Dec Quant, find Finf Kipchak and have him report to me.” Njangu noted the use of titles. This was serious.
“Yessir.”
The door closed. “Recruit, you heard the man,” Quant said. “Kipchak’s in” — she glanced at the company TO&E board — “Gamma Team, First Troop. Hipe!”
Njangu found Petr in Gamma Team’s squad bay. He had a combat vest hung on pegs and was examining it carefully. He undipped a holster, moved it from high under the right shoulder to a canted position on the right side, frowned, shook his head, and put it back where it’d been.
“The old man wants you,” Yoshitaro said.
“Uh-oh. What about?”
“Dunno. He just said get you.”
“Uh-oh twice,” Petr said, found his cap, checked his uniform, and went out the door. Njangu hurried to keep up. “How’ve you been?” Kipchak asked. “Haven’t seen you since the giant group grope on the parade ground.”
“Keeping busy,” Yoshitaro said.
“I’ve heard Lir’s good at that. You staying above water?”
“I dunno,” Njangu said. “Don’t think so. I’d settle for drowning a little.”
“Who wouldn’t?” They dropped down the lift to the first level, hurried into the company office.
“Go on in,” Quant said, and Kipchak obeyed.
“I’m going for caff,” Quant said. “They’ll be wanting something to drink, the way officers jawjacknjive.”
She left. Njangu considered, went to the first tweg’s desk, and turned on the intercom into the company commander’s office.
“… nossir,” Kipchak’s voice came. “I hadn’t heard. We were out on the range all day.”
“You’re the only one who’s been in-Confederation in the last year we know of, let alone on Centrum,” a voice came. “Tweg Gonzales thought you might be able to give us some skinny.”
“I can’t really say, sir,” Petr said reluctantly. “I’m not an analyst. And it’d probably be best for me to keep my tongue.”
“Why?” That was Hedley.
“Because … because what I think probably isn’t going to sit well.”
“Try us,” another voice came.
“Go ahead, Petr,” Hedley said. “My compatriots are more interested in facts than what fits.”
“ ’Kay, sir,” Kipchak said, and said, coldly, “I think the Confederation’s falling apart. Maybe that’s what’s happened now.
“Sir, I spent a year on civ-street after I got out the last time, and things were really screwed. I know sorta-careerists like me’re supposed to think the world’s going to hell in a helmet, but this time it was different.
“I never got my proper mustering-out bonus, kept going back for it, and the paperwork was there, there and never here. Every time I went near GovRow, there were more people like me in lines, people needing things, and nobody helping them, or some lardass bureacrap just saying no.
“I started noticing things that were wrong, things that I remembered from before, and nobody seemed to care about, at least nobody in authority. The Met didn’t run on schedule … someti
mes didn’t run at all. The liftways’d be busted, or cracked, and people just shrugged. Crime was way up, but weird crime. People killing each other just to be doing it, not robbing, not getting anything of advantage I could see. Pols got indicted it seemed like every day, and people shrugged and said that figured. Maybe I was just sensitive, but it felt like the rich were really rich this time, and the poor were jack-busted. You never saw the rich much — they stuck to their own districts, to their own enclaves. They came outside, they came with bodyguards or maybe got a brick through the windscreen. Everybody thought that was pretty funny.
“There were riots,” he went on. “Like there’s been for the last dozen years off and on, like Tweg Gonzales and I had helped put down, back when we served together.
“But these were different, at least on Centrum. They weren’t just the slummies and poor folk burning for the sake of burning, or because the food shipment hadn’t come in. Now it seemed like everybody had some kind of grievance they couldn’t get taken care of.
“For a while the holos talked about the same things happening on other worlds, but then that kind of reporting stopped like the government’d pulled the plug on honesty. There were a lot of rumors, rumors about systems dropping out of contact, about some sectors talking about going independent and quitting the Confederation. I heard a couple of stories about shootings on the floor of the Confederation Parliament, but I didn’t believe them. Maybe I should’ve.
“I don’t know, sir. Maybe it’s all in my head. I read a lot, and what I saw reminded me of what I’ve read about other empires when they started tottering. Rome, England, Second Mars, Capella. I’m not real surprised at this loss of contact.
“Anyway, sir. You asked me, and that’s what I think.”
“Thank you, Petr,” Hedley said. “You can carry on. Thank you.”
“Yessir. Thank you, sir.”
Njangu had barely time to shut the intercom off before Kipchak came out. He was a little pale. “Damn, damn,” he muttered. “I don’t like talking to officers. ‘Specially when there’s more’n two of them.” He hurried out, and Yoshitaro went back to the intercom.
“ … hardly inconceivable,” a voice said.
“But to collapse after all this time? I mean, how long has the Confederation been around?”
“A thousand years, more.”
“But when things fall apart,” Hedley said, “they can fall apart really fast.”
“Especially,” Gonzales said, “if the whole thing’s been a façade for years, and everybody’s been running around propping things up and slapping fresh paint on every crack. The whole thing can be dead, and never show any signs until …” his voice trailed off.
“The real question,” another voice said, “is what about us? If there’s some problem with the Confederation, if there’s a break in the chain of supply, communication, whatever, where does that leave us?”
“Define us,” Hedley said. “The Force? The Cumbre system? Mankind?”
“Screw mankind,” the other voice said. “Start with the Force.”
“Well,” another officer said, “we’re unquestionably the big bang in Cumbre. I can’t see the ’Raum in the hills getting any worse, can you?”
“I sure can,” Hedley said. “The minute they hear PlanGov doesn’t have the Confederation behind it, doesn’t that make it a lot easier to listen to their dissidents and say screw the Rentiers and PlanGov, too. If you were a poor goddamned ’Raum miner, who’d you be taking seriously?”
“I don’t think we need to discuss that, since it’s obvious,” someone said. “And does the loss of the Malvern fit somewhere into this?”
“Pirates,” someone said harshly. “Does Caud Williams really believe that shit?”
“He’s got to,” Hedley said. “Otherwise, he’ll have to start wondering what the hell Redruth is getting up to.”
“I don’t like the way this conversation is going,” an officer said. “We’re getting a little close to dissension, so I think we’d better end it. But I can’t stop myself from adding this — could Redruth have known about the Confederation’s troubles — I’m assuming your man Kipchak isn’t an empty doomcrier — and started taking care of himself?”
“That’s another question we’d better not answer, and we don’t have to, as far as I’m concerned,” Hedley said. “And yes, let’s change the subject. Angara, you’re married to a local. When it sinks in there’s no more flipping Big Momma, are people going to go apeshit? Like Petr said they’re evidently doing on Centrum?”
“Don’t think my love life makes me any kind of an expert,” another voice said dryly. “But as a wild-ass guess, I’d think not. Cumbre’s always been on the farside of nowhere, so there never was that much contact with the Confederation. The Rentiers have their own little empire carved out, so they could give a rat’s nostril about the Homeworlds. The ’Raum carry their own Nirvana with them.
“Maybe there’ll be trouble down the pike, when things we can’t produce here start running dry. But even those are mostly luxuries, and nobody’s going to tear down the state because they can’t get Vegan champagne.”
“What about the Musth?” Hedley asked. “What happens when they find out we humans ain’t got no flipping Big Stick to call on if things get rowdy?”
Njangu heard footsteps, hastily turned the intercom off, and helped Dec Quant with the tray laden with drinks and snacks. When he’d finished, he asked if he could go outside for some air.
He stared up, at two of the three moons, one hanging in the sky, the other racing across the stars, then at the stars beyond, here on the fringes of empire, the coldly glittering stars.
What would happen if the Confederation was gone, had torn itself apart? If he was stranded in nowhere for the rest of his life?
Njangu Yoshitaro felt real fear for the first time since childhood, fear of something he could not see, could not attack, could not run from.
CHAPTER
12
Jord’n Brooks listened to the roar of the crowd inside the giant arena. Good. The pigs are at the trough, watching their brothers hammer at each other.
He nodded to the other two, and they got out of the lifter they’d stolen the day before and walked toward the auditorium’s entrance. All three wore knee-length raincoats against the drizzle whipping in from the bay.
The two private guards at the entrance noticed them, stopped their chat.
“Sorry, boys,” one said. “We’re halfway through the match, and they’ve closed the gate.”
“Boys my ass,” the other said. “They’re friggin’ ’Raum, and — ”
Brooks flipped his raincoat open, brought the blaster up, and shot the guard first in the gut, then in the head as he folded. The other guard had an instant to see death, then went down in the spat of another blaster.
None of the crowd inside the arena’s rotunda noticed the shots.
The three ’Raum dragged the bodies to the side, behind some ferns, pulled the main door open, went unhurriedly inside, past the crowded wine stand, up stairs to a door labeled EMPLOYEES ONLY.
A ’Raum shot the lock open; Brooks kicked the door open, and the three burst in, flattening against the wall on either side of the opening.
There were four people inside the office, two men, two women, and piles of credits being loaded into a counting machine, whispering out the other side neatly baled and marked.
A woman looked up, saw the guns, opened her mouth to scream.
“Don’t!” Brooks said flatly, and her mouth banged shut.
“The credits,” he said. “In those sacks. Now.”
A man looked worriedly at the men.
“We’ll do it,” he said hastily. “Just don’t get upset. No money’s worth dying for. Just let us go.”
Brooks nodded, and the four hastily dumped bills into the sacks. The other two ’Raum picked up the bags when they were full, shouldered them.
“There,” the man said. “We promise we won’t call anyone
‘til you’re well gone.”
“Yes,” a woman said. “Just let us live. We never did anything to anybody, and we won’t remember any faces.”
Brooks nodded the two ’Raum out the door, backed toward it as they went out.
“Thanks,” the other woman said. “Thanks for not killing us.”
Brooks, face blank, lifted his blaster, touched the firing stud.
• • •
“Your Brooks is quite the hot wire,” Comstock Brien observed. “Four appropriations this cycle, without any casualties. The last one netted close to a quarter million.”
“We should have had him go active years ago,” Jo Poynton agreed. “For the first time, I don’t have to worry about finding credits for my agents, or for other tasks we have. But hasn’t he about run his string in Leggett? Shouldn’t we be thinking about getting him out? Isn’t it possible our brother Brooks has even greater talents than robbery?”
“Perhaps,” Brien said.
“We are short-handed in the Planning Group after T’arg and Miram’s deaths,” she said.
“I know.”
Poynton looked intently at Brien.
“You don’t like him.”
“No,” Brien agreed. “I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“He … he burns a little too brightly for my tastes.”
“Do any of us have the luxury of tastes?” Poynton asked.
Brien gnawed at a lower lip.
“No,” he said reluctantly. “No, we don’t. And maybe we need a brighter fire, and maybe we can end this in our lifetimes.
“Maybe Brooks is someone we need.
“Bring him out of Leggett,” Brien said. “We’ll see what happens when he’s thrown into deeper water.”
CHAPTER
13
“Take it, Mister Jaansma.”
“Thank you, I shall, Mister Dill.” Garvin’s smile got a little fixed as he slid into the Aerial Combat Vehicle commander’s seat. “Tell me when you’re strapped in, Mister Dill.”
