There Will Be War Volume III

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Got to it pretty fast,” Dugan said. “Come on.” They followed the others out and through a long corridor until they reached another large room. There were tables at the end, and trusties sat at each table. Eventually Mark and Dugan got to one.

  The trusty barely looked at them. When they gave their names, he punched them into a console on the table. The printer made tiny clicking noises and two sheets of paper fell out. “Any choice?” the trusty asked.

  “What’s open, shipmate?” Dugan asked.

  “I’m no shipmate of yours,” the trusty sneered. “Tanith, Sparta, and Fulson’s World.”

  Dugan shuddered. “Well, we sure don’t want Fulson’s World.” He reached into Mark’s pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes, then laid them on the table. They vanished into the trusty’s coveralls.

  “Not Fulson’s,” the trusty said. “Now, I hear they’re lettin’ the convicts run loose on Sparta.” He said nothing more but looked at them closely.

  Mark remembered that Sparta was founded by a group of intellectuals. They were trying some kind of social experiment. Unlike Tanith with its CoDominium governor, Sparta was more or less independent. They’d have a better chance there. “We’ll take Sparta,” Mark said.

  “Sparta’s pretty popular,” the trusty said. He waited expectantly for a moment. “Well, too bad.” He scrawled “Tanith” across their papers and handed them over. “Move along.” A petty officer waved them through a door behind the table.

  “But we wanted Sparta,” Mark protested.

  “Get your ass out of here,” the CD petty officer said. “Move it.” Then it was too late and they were through the door.

  “Wish I’d had some credits,” Dugan muttered. “We bought off Fulson’s though. That’s something.”

  “But—I have some money. I didn’t know—”

  Dugan gave him a curious look. “Kid, they didn’t teach you much in that school of yours. Well, come on, we’ll make out. But you better let me take care of that money.”

  CDSS Vladivostok hurtled toward the orbit of Jupiter. The converted assault troop carrier was crammed with thousands of men jammed into temporary berths welded into the troop bays. There were more men than bunks; many of the convicts had to trade off half the time.

  Dugan took over a corner. Corners were desirable territory, and two men disputed his choice. After they were carried away, no one else thought it worth trying. Biff used Mark’s money to finance a crap game in the area near their berths, and in a few days he had trebled their capital.

  “Too bad,” Dugan said. “If we’d had this much back on Luna, we’d be headed for Sparta. Anyway, we bought our way into this ship, and that’s worth something.” He grinned at Mark’s lack of response. “Hey, kid, it could be worse. We could be with BuReloc. You think this Navy ship’s bad, try a BuReloc hellhole.”

  Mark wondered how Bureau of Relocation ships could be worse, but he didn’t want to find out. The newscasters back on Earth had documentary specials about BuReloc. They all said that conditions were tough but bearable. They also told of the glory: mankind settling other worlds circling other stars. Mark felt none of the glory now.

  Back home Zower would be making an appeal. Or at least he’d be billing Mark’s father for one. And so what? Mark thought. Nothing would come of it. But something might! Jason Fuller had some political favors coming. He might pull a few strings. Mark could be headed back home within a year…

  He knew better, but he had no other hope. He lived in misery, brooding about the low spin gravity, starchy food, the constant stench of the other convicts; all that was bad, but the water was the worst thing. He knew it was recycled. Water on Earth was recycled too, but there you didn’t think how it had been used to bathe the foul sores of the man two bays to starboard.

  Sometimes a convict would rush screaming through the compartment, smashing at bunks and flinging his fellow prisoners about like matchsticks, until a dozen men would beat him to the deck. Eventually the guards would take him away. None ever came back.

  The ship reached the orbit of Jupiter and took on fuel from the scoopship tankers that waited for her. Then she moved to the featureless point in space that marked the Alderson jump tramline. Alarms rang; then everything blurred. They sat on their bunks in confusion, unable to move or even think. That lasted long after the instantaneous Jump. The ship had covered light-years in a single instant; now they had to cross another star’s gravity well to reach the next Jump point.

  Two weeks later a petty officer entered the compartment. “Two men needed for cleanup in the crew area. Chance for Navy chow. Volunteers?”

  “Sure,” Dugan said. “My buddy and me. Anybody object?”

  No one did. The petty officer grinned. “Looks like you’re elected.” He led them through corridors and passageways to the forward end of the ship, where they were put to scrubbing the bulkheads. A bored Marine watched idly.

  “I thought you said never volunteer,” Mark told Dugan.

  “Good general rule. But what else we got to do? Gets us better chow. Always take a chance on something when it can’t be no worse than what you’ve got.”

  The lunch was good and the work was not hard. Even the smell of disinfectant was a relief, and scrubbing off the bulkheads and decks got their hands clean for the first time since they’d been put aboard. In mid-afternoon a crewman came by. He stopped and stared at them for a moment.

  “Dugan! Biff Dugan, by God!”

  “Horrigan, you slut. When’d you join up?”

  “Aw, you know how it is, Biff, they moved in on the racket and what could I do? I see they got you–”

  “Clean got me. Sarah blew the whistle on me.”

  “Told you she wouldn’t put up with you messing around. Who’s your chum?”

  “Name’s Mark. He’s learning. Hey, Goober, what can you do for me?”

  “Funny you ask. Maybe I got something. Want to enlist?”

  “Hell, they don’t want me. I tried back on Luna. Too old.”

  Horrigan nodded. “Yeah, but the Purser’s gang needs men. Freakie killed twenty crewmen yesterday. Recruits. This geek opened an air lock and nobody stopped him. That’s why you’re out here swabbing. Look. Biff, we’re headed for a long patrol after we drop you guys on Tanith. Maybe I can fix it.”

  “No harm in trying. Mark, you lost anything on Tanith?”

  “No.” But I don’t want to join the CD Navy, either. Only why not? He tried to copy his friend’s easy indifference. “Can’t be worse than where we are.”

  “Right,” Horrigan said. “We’ll go see the Purser’s middie. That okay, mate?” he asked the Marine.

  The Marine shrugged. “Okay by me.”

  Horrigan led the way forward. Mark felt sick excitement. Getting out of the prison compartment suddenly became the most important thing in his life.

  Midshipman Greschin was not surprised to find two prisoners ready to join the Navy. He questioned them for a few minutes. Then he studied Dugan’s records on the readout screen. “You have been in space before, but there is nothing on your record–

  “I never said I’ve been out.”

  “No, but you have. Are you a deserter?”

  “No,” Dugan said.

  Greschin shrugged. “If you are, we will find out. If not, we do not care. I see no reason why you cannot be enlisted. I will call Lieutenant Breslov.”

  Breslov was fifteen years older than his midshipman. He looked over Dugan’s print-out. Then he examined Mark’s. “I can take Dugan,” he said. “Not you, Fuller.”

  “But why?” Mark asked.

  Breslov shrugged. “You are a rebel, and you have high intelligence. So it says here. There are officers who will take the risk of recruiting those like you, but I am not one of them. We cannot use you in this ship.”

  “Oh.” Mark turned to go.

  “Wait a minute, kid.” Dugan looked at the officer. “Thanks, Lieutenant, but maybe I better stick with my buddy–”

  “No,
don’t do that,” Mark said. He felt a wave of gratitude toward the older man. Dugan’s offer seemed the finest thing anyone had ever tried to do for him.

  “Who’ll look out for ya? You’ll get your throat cut.”

  “Maybe not. I’ve learned a lot.”

  Breslov stood. “Your sentiment for your friend is admirable, but you are wasting my time. Are you enlisting?”

  “He is,” Mark said. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” He followed the Marine guard back to the corridor and began washing the bulkhead, scrubbing savagely, trying to forget his misery and despair. It was all so unfair!

  III

  Tanith was hot steaming jungle under a perpetual gray cloud cover. The gravity was too high and the humidity was almost unbearable. Yet it was a relief to be there after the crowded ship, and Mark waited to see what would happen to him. He was surprised to find that he cared.

  He was herded through medical processing, immunization, identification, a meaningless classification interview, and both psychological and aptitude tests. They ran from one task to the next, then stood in long lines or simply waited around. On the fourth day he was taken from the detention pen to an empty adobe-walled room with rough wooden furniture. The guards left him there. The sensation of being alone was exhilarating.

  He looked up warily when the door opened. “Biff!”

  “Hi, kid. Got something for you.” Dugan was dressed in the blue coveralls of the CD Navy. He glanced around guiltily. “You left this with me and I run it up a bit.” He held out a fistful of CoDominium scrip. “Go on, take it, I can get more and you can’t. Look, we’re pullin’ out pretty soon, and…”

  “It’s all right,” Mark said. But it wasn’t all right. He hadn’t known how much friendship meant to him until he’d been separated from Dugan; now, seeing him in the Navy uniform and knowing that Dugan was headed away from this horrible place, Mark hated his former friend. “I’ll get along.”

  “Damned right you will! Stop sniffing about how unfair everything is and wait your chance. You’ll get one. Look, you’re a young kid and everything seems like it’s forever, but—” Dugan fell silent and shook his head ruefully. “Not that you need fatherly advice from me. Or that it’d do any good. But things end, Mark. The day ends. So do weeks and months.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” They said more meaningless things, and Dugan left. Now I’m completely alone, Mark thought. It was a crushing thought. Some of the speeches he’d heard in his few days in college kept rising up to haunt him. “Die Gedanken, Sie sind frei.” Yeah. Sure. A man’s thoughts were always free, and no one could enslave a free man, and the heaviest chains and darkest dungeons could never cage the spirit of man. Bullshit. I’m a slave. If I don’t do what they tell me, they’ll hurt me until I do. And I’m too damn scared of them. But something else he’d heard was more comforting. “Slaves have no rights, and thus have no obligations.”

  That, by God, fits, he thought. I don’t owe anybody a thing. Nobody here, and none of those bastards on Earth. I do what I have to do and I look out for number-one and rape the rest of ‘em.

  There was no prison, or rather the entire planet was a prison; but the main CD building was intended only for classification and assignment. The prisoners were sold off to wealthy planters. There were a lot of rumors about the different places you might be sent to: big company farms run like factories, where it was said that few convicts ever lived to finish out their terms; industrial plants near big cities, which was supposed to be soft duty because as soon as you got trusty status, you could get passes into town; lonely plantations out in the sticks where owners could do anything they wanted and generally did.

  The pen began to empty as the men were shipped out. Then came Mark’s turn. He was escorted into an interview room and given a seat. It was the second time in months that he’d been alone, and he enjoyed the solitude. There were voices from the next room.

  “Why do you not keep him, hein?”

  “Immature. No reason to be loyal to the CD.”

  “Or to me.”

  “Or to you. And too smart to be a dumb cop. You might make a foreman out of him. The governor’s interested in this one, Ludwig. He keeps track of all the high-IQ types. Look, you take this one, I owe you. I’ll see you get good hands.”

  “Okay. Ja. Just remember that when you get in some with muscles and no brains, hein? Okay, we look at your genius.”

  Who the hell were they talking about? Mark wondered. Me? Compared to most of the others in the ship, I guess you could call me a genius, but–

  The door opened. Mark stood quickly. The guards liked you to do that.

  “Fuller,” the captain said. “This is Herr Ewigfeuer. You’ll work for him. His place is a country club.”

  The planter was heavy-set, with thick jowls. He needed a shave, and his shorts and khaki shirt were stained with sweat. “So you are the new convict I take to my nice farm.” He eyed Mark coldly. “He will do, he will do. Okay, we go now, ja?”

  “Now?” Mark said.

  “Now, ja, you think all day I have? I can stay in Whiskeytown while my foreman lets the hands eat everything and lay around not working? Give me the papers, Captain.”

  The captain took a sheaf of papers from a folder. He scrawled across the bottom, then handed Mark a pen. “Sign here.”

  Mark started to read the documents. The captain laughed. “Sign it, goddamnit. We don’t have all day.”

  Mark shrugged and scribbled his name. The captain handed Ewigfeuer two copies and indicated a door. They went through adobe corridors to a guardroom at the end. The planter .handed the guards a copy of the contract and the door was opened.

  The heat outside struck Mark like a physical blow. It had been hot enough inside, but the thick earthen walls had protected him from the worst; now it was almost unbearable. There was no sun, but the clouds were bright enough to hurt his eyes. Ewigfeuer put on dark glasses. He led the way to a shop across from the prison and bought Mark a pair. “Put these on,” he commanded. “You are no use if you are blind. Now come.”

  They walked through busy streets. The sky hung dull orange, an eternal sunset. Sweat sprang from Mark’s brow and trickled down inside his coveralls. He wished he had shorts. Nearly everyone in the town wore them.

  They passed grimy shops and open stalls. There were sidewalk displays of goods for sale, nearly all crudely made or Navy surplus or black-market goods stolen from CD storerooms. Strange animals pulled carts through the streets and there were no automobiles at all.

  A team of horses splashed mud on Ewigfeuer’s legs. The fat planter shook his fist at the driver. The teamster ignored him. “Have you owned horses’?” Ewigfeuer demanded.

  “No,” Mark said. “I hadn’t expected to see any here.”

  “Horses make more horses. Tractors do not,” the planter said. “Also with horses and jackasses you get mules. Better than tractors. Better than the damned stormand beasts. Stormands do not like men.” He pointed to one of the unlikely animals. It looked like a cross between a mule and a moose, with wide, splayed feet and a sad look that turned vicious whenever anyone got near it. It was tied to a rail outside one of the shops.

  There were more people than Mark had expected. They seemed to divide into three classes. There were those who tended the shops and stalls and who smiled unctuously when the planter passed; there were others who strode purposefully through the muddy streets; and there were those who wandered aimlessly or sat on the street corners staring vacantly.

  “What are they waiting for?” Mark said. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but Ewigfeuer heard him.

  “They wait to die,” the planter said. “Ja, they think something else will come to save them. They will find something to steal, maybe, so they live another week, another month, a year even; but they are waiting to die. And they are white men!” This seemed their ultimate crime to Ewigfeuer.

  “You might expect this of the blacks,” the planter said. “But no, the blacks work, or they go to the bush and liv
e there—not like civilized men perhaps, but they live. Not these. They wait to die. It was a cruel day when their sentences ended.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Mark said, but he made certain the planter had not heard him. There was another group sitting on benches near a small open square. They looked as if they had not moved since morning, since the day before, or ever; that when the orange sky fell dark, they would still be there, and when dawn came with its heat and humidity, they would be there yet. Mark mopped his brow with his sleeve. Heat lay across Whiskeytown so that it was an effort to move, but the planter hustled him along the street, his short legs moving rapidly through the mud patches.

  “And what happens if I just run?” Mark asked.

  Ewigfeuer laughed. “Go ahead. You think they will not catch you? Where will you go? You have no papers. Perhaps you buy some if you have money. Perhaps what you buy is not good enough. And when they catch you, it is not to my nice farm they send you. It will be to some awful place. Run, I will not chase you. I am too old and too fat.”

  Mark shrugged and walked along with Ewigfeuer. He noticed that for all his careless manner, the fat man did not let Mark get behind him.

  They rounded a corner and came to a large empty space. A helicopter stood at the near edge. There were others in the lot. A man with a rifle sat under an umbrella watching them. Ewigfeuer threw the man some money and climbed into the nearest chopper. He gunned the engines twice, then let it lift them above the city.

  Whiskeytown was an ugly sprawl across a plateau. The hill rose directly up from jungle. When they were higher, Mark could see that the plateau was part of a ridge on a peninsula; the sea around it was green with yellow streaks. The concrete CoDominium administration building was the largest structure in Whiskeytown. There was no other air traffic, and they flew across the town without making contact with any traffic controllers.

  Beyond the town were brown hills rising above ugly green jungles. And hours later there was no change—jungle to the left and the green and yellow sea to the right. Mark had seen no roads and only a few houses; all of those were in clusters, low adobe buildings atop the brown hills. “Is the whole planet jungle?” he asked.