Into the Hinterlands-ARC

by David Drake; John Lambshead

  “I understand that kali plants are native to Kalimanta,” Destry said.

  “Yes, but the wild ones grow around streams and ponds and are usually smaller than this. There are independents who harvest them. Some servants run with the intention of wildcatting but they have no way of getting the fibers off-planet. Food is also a problem. The native plants and animals lack stuff that people need. Your teeth and nails fall out if you don’t get proper food.”

  “Do you have much problem with servants running?” Allenson asked.

  “Not at KPS19,” the guide replied. “Runners are easily tracked by the identity tags and Sar Fullbrite prefers to use a reward rather than a punishment system. He sells the contracts of servants who run to other compounds that have rougher ways of making people work.”

  “I see,” said Allenson, quietly.

  “Enough, sars?” asked the guide, starting the tractor.

  The station was a larger clearing around one of the ubiquitous derricks. It had half a dozen shelters made from orange plastic sheeting. A dispensing machine in one offered a selection of sticky flavored waters and food bars filled with glucose. Allenson opted for a simple mug of water.

  * * *

  He took a stroll around the shelters to stretch his legs. They contained various sacks and drums of chemicals but mostly they were filled with machinery. He stopped to examine a mechanical harvesting machine that had clippers on long vertical arms. It looked functional but its moving parts were covered in a thick layer of dust.

  In one shelter, there were so many automatic sprayers that they were piled one on top of the other and there were stacks of other machines that he did not recognize. At the back of this shelter were three tractor units. Scorch marks indicated that each had one of its wheel hub motors burnt out. The roof had leaked down the side on one and it had started to corrode. It occurred to Allenson that this was not so much an equipment store as a junk yard.

  Allenson signalled for the guide to join him.

  “Are these machines beyond repair?” Allenson asked.

  The guide shrugged. “Suppose so, sar.”

  “But these tractors seem to have minor faults in single drive unit. Don’t you have spares?”

  “I guess not, sar.”

  “Could you not cannibalize one tractor to obtain spares for the other?”

  The guide shrugged again. He seemed puzzled by the question.

  Their guide drove them through the farm on their way back to the compound. Allenson was astonished by how small it was. It was divided into rectangular gardens by hedges creating green rooms, sheltered from the wind but open to the sun.

  The smell of spice filled a garden full of herbs. Another was filled with flowering plants. Allenson recognized many of them as Brasilian. A lady carefully cut selected flowers and passed them to a servant who walked behind with a basket. She wore a fashionable casual dress and a wide brimmed white hat held on by a blue ribbon tied under her chin. A second servant carried a spray gun which he deployed as the lady directed.

  A raucous cry drew Allenson’s attention to a male bird perched on the roof of a shed. It spread its tail into a fan of iridescent green eye spots. Allenson realized that the small brown birds running around were the females of the species, not some sort of free range fowl as he had assumed. There were vegetable plots and orchards but they could not have fed many people. Allenson was intrigued. He leaned over and tapped the guide on the shoulder. The man stopped the tractor.

  “Sar Allenson?” the guide asked politely.

  “What is this farm for?” Allenson asked. “It could not possibly feed the staff of a facility the size of KPS19.”

  “Oh no,” the guide replied. “The kitchen gardens are for the management and their wives. Some of the ladies like to grow fresh herbs and vegetables or flowers for their apartments.”

  “Flowers from home,” Allenson said quietly.

  “Sar?” the guide asked.

  Allenson indicated that he should continue.

  “There are also walks and summer houses and suchlike.”

  “So do you grow food elsewhere on the site?” Allenson asked.

  “Not at all,” the guide said astonished. “All available growing soil has kali plants. We import food from other worlds in the hinterland.”

  “I see,” Allenson said, thoughtfully.

  * * *

  Dinner with Fullbrite and his senior managers was pleasant but Allenson was disappointed that the Kalimantans were uninterested in discussing the colony. He made several attempts to steer the conversation but desisted when it would have been ill-mannered to persist.

  The Kalimantans wanted to hear the latest society gossip from Brasilia, or at least the latest that had reached the Cutter Stream. Destry was far better at that type of conversation than Allenson. The locals also talked endlessly about their plans for the future when they returned home.

  Destry and Allenson retired early after brandy, leaving Hawthorn dancing with the bored young wife of a middle aged manager who was on night duty. They discussed the colony in the quiet of their guest apartment.

  “I don’t understand your reservations,” Destry said. “This colony is a great success.”

  “You think so?” Allenson asked. “They don’t even grow their own food.”

  “Fullbrite explained that,” Destry replied. “It’s not in anyone’s interests to grow food when kali fibers are so much more profitable.”

  “They use complex equipment but lack the infrastructure to maintain it,” Allenson said.

  “Fullbrite explained that as well,” Destry said. “Servants don’t have the skills and technicians earn too much in Brasilia to want to bury themselves out here. The company would have to pay them so much that it is cheaper to scrap failed equipment and bring in replacements.”

  “Kali fibers are a fashionable health fad,” Allenson said. “How long does the average health fad last, Destry?”

  “Who knows,” Destry replied.

  “But it will end and then the companies and wildcatters will abandon the world. In a few hundred years there will be no sign that once human beings lived here. Kalimanta will be another failed colony, like Mudball.”

  “But it won’t have been a failure,” Destry said, puzzled. “It will simply have served its purpose.”

  “Its purpose for the home world,” Allenson said.

  Allenson smiled at his friend. He was a good chap and there was no point in arguing. Destry saw things from a certain viewpoint. Allenson had once shared that viewpoint, without thinking too much about it, but lately events had challenged his complacency. He sipped his drink and contemplated his conversations with Todd, and with Linsye. He had much to think about. His thoughts kept returning to one point. Kalimanta served Brasilia’s purpose well enough but what use was it to the Cutter Stream?

  CHAPTER 6

  Laywant

  The Continuum was in a forgiving mood. It was one of those times where one could see deep into violet. The frequency of light in the Continuum varied according to distance. Photons absorbed energy with distance travelled. This manifested itself in shortened wavelengths, as light stubbornly insisted on moving only at its set speed.

  The Survey Team made it straight through to Laywant in a single trip, stopping only once at an uninhabited world for rest and refreshment. Laywant was in the grip of an ice age with most of the land area of the single continental mass under ice at the North Pole. An archipelago on the equator enjoyed a cool temperate climate perfect for agriculture so a semi-self sufficient farming society had spread over the islands.

  Laywant Town was a market center built on a medium sized island exceptional only in that it was the first place colonized. It boasted the beacon of a Brasilian Agent. This luminary was not exactly a governor, as Laywant was not officially part of the Cutter Stream, but he was the nearest thing. The Team followed the beacon’s signal down to the surface, arriving about noon local time. They emerged in a compound that served as the business
center and port.

  Allenson broke and packed his frame. A tan-colored mongrel wandered over and sat down to watch. It scratched its neck reflectively with a back leg. Nobody else took the slightest interest in the arrival of the survey team. Nearby, three men loaded a transport frame with wooden cases from a flatbed trailer.

  The laborers moved with painful indolence, two lifting and one supervising, a duty that involved lying on the flatbed and smoking a fag. The laborers dropped a case and started a squabble over who was to blame. They exchanged feeble blows without much enthusiasm. The supervisor ignored them and the quarrel ran down quickly. The men gave the impression of jobbing actors who were bored with their roles.

  A laborer examined the case and discovered a crack so he called to the supervisor. That worthy made a great show of rising, stretching and scratching before climbing off the flatbed. He examined the case then kicked it, staving in the damaged plank. Olive green vegetable matter spilled out. The supervisor chalked a large red cross on the top and gestured wordlessly to the laborers. They placed the damaged case in the foot-well of the flatbed’s tractor unit and pulled a tarpaulin over it.

  Allenson tightened his lips in disapproval at the pantomime. Everyone in the Cutter Stream’s economic system took a top slice off the movement of goods or services as a perk of the job. The pervasive low-level corruption made the system horribly inefficient but the rich and powerful took the largest slice of all so there was no incentive for change.

  The loading team stopped work and ambled towards the perimeter fence. Theoretically the compound was sealed off by a three meters high fence but it was in such a poor state of repair that it served more as a boundary marker. The trio wandered off and disappeared down an alley between two of the low syncrete buildings that surrounded the compound. The mongrel, worn out by all the excitement, rolled over on his side and went to sleep.

  Allenson kicked the compound floor, dislodging a fragment of stabilized earth. The plasticized layer was so thin that the wheels of loaded flatbeds had broken through the surface. Some desultory attempts had been made to fill in the worst potholes with spoil.

  “What a dump,” Destry said.

  “I suppose we ought to report to the Agent as a matter of courtesy,” said Allenson.

  “Yah,” Hawthorn said, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  Allenson looked around in an effort to locate an office. Wooden sheds and barns were scattered around the compound without any noticeable logic or pattern. One otherwise undistinguished hut boasted a sign above the door whose message had long since faded but might have once read “office”.

  A thin man in tatty clothes sat asleep on the ground with his back against the hut wall. Allenson could smell him three meters away. Hearing their footsteps, the beggar held out an empty cupped hand, palm up. He did not bother to look at them or even open his eyes.

  Destry spun a silver threepenny coin onto the ground. The polygonal coin bounced from side to side. The beggar was startled into frantic activity by the ching of metal. He clearly had not really expected alms.

  “Thankee, sars, thankee kindly,” the beggar said, retrieving the coin.

  He hobbled off with a shaky but determined gait towards the fence.

  “Buy some food,” Destry said, to his retreating back.

  “Yes, sar,” came the reply.

  “He will convert that straight into a bottle of tonk,” Hawthorn said, sourly.

  Destry shrugged, “His choice.”

  The hut was no better on the inside. There was a single room half separated into a public and private area by a counter. Faded notices tacked to the walls announced customs duties and other local regulations. One poster invited clients to experience the delights of the Rooster Gentlemens Club where “yure plesure is are plesure”. Silhouettes of girls with cat’s ears, whiskers and tails illustrated the pleasures to be had. Another poster advertised the delights of Taproot’s Tavern. A handwritten notice offered a bounty of a half-crown for each pair of Rider hands brought in. It was signed by a Sar Rimmer, Agent.

  The ambience of the hut was brown. The wooden floor and walls were brown. The counter was decorated in brown cup rings. Even the light filtering through the stained window was brown.

  A fly made half-hearted to butt through the glass before settling on a pile of desiccated bodies on the ledge. They were brown as well.

  A man dozed in a chair on the public side of the counter. His soiled T-shirt almost covered a prominent belly. He had the wooden chair rocked back on its rear legs, leaning against the hut wall. An empty bottle of Tonk lay on the counter. The man snored raspingly, stomach quivering with the effort of drawing air through a broken nose.

  Allenson slapped his hand on the counter top. He regretted this immediately as the surface was sticky with something organic.

  The man woke with a start at the noise, emitting a final nasal splutter. He looked at the Survey Team with incurious eyes.

  “Where would we find the Cutter Agent, my good man,” Destry asked.

  The man looked Destry up and down, sneered, and shrugged his shoulders. He raised a buttock to emit a thunderous fart. Closing his eyes, he settled back in his seat. Pink spots formed on Destry’s cheeks. He was not used to such incivility and was clearly unsure what to do. After all, he could hardly call the man out without compromising his dignity.

  Hawthorn was less inclined to stand on ceremony. He kicked out the chair legs depositing the man on the floor with a crash that made Allenson wince. Hawthorn pulled the man up by the grubby shirt and slammed him against the counter so hard that its retaining brackets ripped from the hut wall, exposing corroded screws.

  “Listen scum. When Sar Destry deigns to ask you a question you will reply promptly and civilly. Do you understand or do I have to reinforce the lesson?” asked Hawthorn.

  “No sar,” the man replied.

  “Well, where is the Agent?” Hawthorn asked.

  “Sar Rimmer will be in his villa. It’s by Southgate,” the man said. He pointed, indicating the direction, his finger shaking.

  Hawthorn dropped him without further comment.

  “Thank you my man,” Destry said, politely.

  Allenson approved of the civility. Just because an oik had no manners was no excuse for gentlemen not to behave properly. Conversely, he also approved of Hawthorn’s reaction. Lines must be drawn or society would descend into anarchy. The oik in question frantically pumped the lever on a ’phone as they left.

  * * *

  Southgate was more of a concept than an actual structure. Twisted pieces scattered beside a hole in the wire fence indicated where a gate had once stood. Something very heavy had crushed it into scrap metal, and not recently either, judging from the state of corrosion of the wreckage.

  On the other side of the dirt road, a syncrete building stood out from its fellows, partly because it was two stories high, and partly because it was painted shocking pink.

  “Somehow, I fancy we have found our quarry,” Hawthorn said, dryly.

  The front door opened straight onto the street. Allenson was about to knock on the paneling when it flew open. He had to check the motion or he would have struck the nose of the short rotund man in middle age, who shot out like a hamster from its bedding. The man was preoccupied with adjusting an official-looking scarlet sash that passed over his right shoulder and under his left arm. Somehow he had tangled his right wrist in the folds.

  The man hopped up and down, struggling with the recalcitrant item of clothing. His face turned a shade of beetroot purple that contrived to clash horribly with both the scarlet sash and the pink walls.

  “Allow me to assist you, sar,” Allenson said. He unhooked the sash where it had caught on a large ceremonial gold cufflinks that the man sported on the cuffs of an immaculate cream shirt. The effect was slightly spoilt by the buttons being done up in the wrong holes so that one of the stiff collar wings jutted higher than the other.

  “Sar Rimmer?” Allenson asked.
<
br />   “I apologize for being late to meet you, Sar Destry,” Rimmer said to Allenson. That idle fool Ruget only just informed me of your arrival.”

  Allenson made the correct introductions and Rimmer invited them into his villa. The front door opened into a corridor with a cobbled floor that ran to an exit at the far end. Rimmer ushered them through a door half way down the corridor. It opened into a large sitting room which occupied one whole wing of the property. It was tastefully furnished in modern colonial minimalist style. Allenson revised his opinion of their host.

  “What a comfortable spot,” Destry said, approvingly. “You indulge yourself most shamefully, Sar Rimmer.”

  Rimmer wriggled in embarrassment, adding to his comic appearance.

  “No doubt you assumed that the interior design would mirror the vulgarity of the exterior,” Rimmer said, ruefully. “The locals demand a show, unfortunately.”

  The furniture was a good copy of classical Brasilian red shinewood antiques. One end was dominated by a dining table and chairs. The other was set up as a lounge. Leather reclining chairs were arranged in a semicircle facing a master chair that concealed office interfaces. A hand-painted artwork depicting a stylized meeting of the Council of Brasilia hung behind. Allenson walked over to examine the painting more closely. A paterfamilias in traditional dress was depicted in the act of hurling a datapad onto the assembly floor.

  “You are familiar with the scene, Sar Allenson?” asked Rimmer.

  “Possibly,” Allenson replied. “Is the paterfamilias not dressed in the colors of Gens Rodrigez? If so, this painting records the Ovidean Declaration.”

  “The—what?” Hawthorn asked.

  “It is little remembered now but it was an important event in the early days of the Republic. Terra made unreasonable financial demands but The Rodrigez persuaded the Council to reject them. Terra backed down. Historians dated Brasilia’s rise as an independent power from the event.”

  “Indeed,” said Rimmer, clearly pleased. “My family are clients of Gens Rodrigez. Of course, the gens is not quite so prominent as it once was.”