Revolt on War World c-3

by Jerry Pournelle

  He grinned again, pulled a handful of crumpled leaves out of his pocket. With these for proof, he could recruit an army a half thousand strong out of Docktown.

  Van Damm heard the ZAP ahead and below him, and dropped to a crouch. He waited a moment, then slipped forward, quiet in the thick forest, not nearly fast enough to suit him. So there was a Simba left in the wood-belt, maybe Jomo. Now was he moving or holed up somewhere? There was no further sound. .

  Damn, but this was going to take time.

  Brodski crouched behind a boulder on the beach, held his aim on the top of the Black Bitch. Where the hell was that damned Simba? When would he break cover?

  Mary Harp squatted beside him, trying to match her shotgun's aim to his rifle, making no sound. Good girl, that. "Don't fire unless I miss," he whispered. Mary nodded, waiting.

  So much for her, and Makhno-and Van Damm was somewhere uphill, coming down through the woods. Dammit, where was Easter?

  He heard the sound of light but clumsy footsteps sneaking away through the woods beyond the hedge, heading toward the point.

  Brodski swore under his breath. The girl's tactical sense was good, but she was making too damned much noise. Whoever it was had to hear her coming, and what then?

  Jomo heard the approaching footsteps below, and smiled. So, Makhno did have a backup, one of the women, no doubt. This part would be enjoyable.

  He waited until he could hear the steps directly downhill from him, then fired. A thump and a sound of crackling brush answered him. Got her.

  Jomo slipped out of hiding and made his way downhill. A moment's searching found the girl sprawled in a tangle of eggtree fronds.

  Why, surprise: she was white, a blonde in fact, quite young and good-looking. She'd make an excellent incentive for recruiting fresh troops, worth dragging along on the trip downriver. Jomo scooped up the limp body, settled the girl on his shoulder and continued on down the slope.

  Van Damm heard the footsteps in the forest below him, and crept forward with care. There: the target came into sight ahead. It looked like Jomo, all right-and, dammit, he was carrying one of the girls on his shoulder. No clear shot, not at this range, not that he could guarantee to take Jomo without hitting the girl; nothing to do but follow, hoping to get closer.

  And who was that now, flitting down the slope behind him? Whoever it was knew how to move both fast and quietly in this forest. . Flaming hells, it was Jane!

  Jomo reached the riverside greenthorn hedge and paused a moment to wonder how he was going to do this. The hedge was thick, and he'd have to lift the branches. Best to put the girl down, drag her through behind him. He dumped her on the ground and bent over to shove his stunner under the hedge.

  Then he heard running footsteps behind him. Before he could yank his stunner out of the hedge and whip it around, a booted foot caught him square in the rump and kicked him head-first into the greenthorn hedge.

  Jomo flailed wildly in the thorns, trying to ignore the deep scratches. The stunner was snagged in the branches below; he abandoned it to scrabble for his pistol.

  Jane, get out of the line of fire!" yelled a voice from upslope.

  Jane?! Jomo wondered, then thought to roll over.

  For an instant he saw the big, stocky, blond-braided woman standing over him. In an instant's flash of memory, Jomo recognized her.

  — A year ago, Docktown, just off the ship, walking away with all those slits in tow. The one who-

  And then her shotgun blast stopped his mind forever.

  DeCastro was sitting in the front room of The Simba, considering fate. His plan of consolidation had worked as well as anything else had on this planet, but now he was down to all of fourteen men, which was not enough to hold Docktown thoroughly in control. He had entrenched at his Golden Parrot Cantina and here at the ill-named Simba, but neither establishment had enough supplies to entertain customers. Business was not merely poor; it was dead. Jomo would not be pleased when he returned, and the object of his wrath was most likely to be one Tomas DeCastro. At least the elimination of the Reynolds agent was a plus.

  Try as he might, he could see no way out of this. There was nowhere he could hide in Docktown. The next ship wasn't due in for seven or eight months. There was always the run to the wilderness, but survival required serious supplies, and there were no supplies to be had. DeCastro remembered the good days in his then-profitable little cantina, and hoped that Jomo might be eaten by a Tamerlane.

  There was a distant but growing sound of boat-engines out on the lake. The engines grew louder. .

  In fact, much too high-pitched for the Last Resort. DeCastro held his breath. The engines cut to silence.

  There came a shout from the dockside, then nothing. The three Simbas in the bar looked at each other, nervously fingering their rifles, but DeCastro kept perfectly still. He would wait patiently: it would not serve to appear excited.

  He didn't have long to wait. The front door flew back on its hinges, and the man who'd been watching the dock came flying through it, on his back. He hit the floor, skidded, bounced, and lay still.

  DeCastro and the three guards stared at the sight for a few seconds, but when they looked back toward the door it was too late; five unexpected guests had already entered. They were carrying shotguns, all of which were aimed at each of the guards, two at DeCastro.

  DeCastro had better sense than to move, save to raise an eyebrow. He recognized the man in the lead with the sack on his shoulder-Makhno, owner of the Black Bitch-and the CoDo "Specialist" Van Damm, but who was the gray-haired one with the cane? And who were those arrayed beside them, the black woman and the stocky blonde? He might have seen those men in Dock-town, but never those women.

  "Ah, Capitan Makhno," DeCastro ventured, "to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"

  Makhno grinned. "To an encounter with Jomo," he said. "I have a message from him: move out of this place, right now."

  DeCastro set his empty hands on the table. He asked, "And how shall I know, se?ors, that this message is from my employer?"

  "He can tell you himself," said Makhno, stepping forward. He put the sack down on the table, then stepped back.

  Suppressing a mad hope, DeCastro opened the sack. Jomo's head grinned up at him from its depths. It took effort for DeCastro not to grin back.

  "A wise guest knows when it is best to depart," he said, smiling. "I shall retire to my beloved cantina and former status."

  He got up from the table, not too quickly, and started toward the door. An impulse of generosity seized him. He turned to the nearest Simba and offered: "Se?ores, if you are seeking employment. ."

  The Simbas made haste to follow him, the latter two remembering to pick up their fellow from the floor and carry him with them.

  "That," said Jane, "was almost too easy. Let's bring the girls in."

  But the girls needed no summoning; they came in, shotguns ready, eyes wide with hope. "Did it work?" they yelped. "Are we safe now?"

  "Safe, and in full ownership of Harp's Place again," Jane smiled. "You'd better repaint the sign soon. . and perhaps you'd best put that on a stake outside the door, at least for a few shifts." She pointed toward the sack on the table. "It'll be good news."

  The office of Harp's Place wasn't in bad state; DeCastro had left a sizable amount of cash behind, and had not messed the files. The stock was down to nearly zero, of course, but Makhno's announcement of the end of the boycott and Brodski's trade share would solve that problem.

  "The girls own the place, fair and square. You run it with them, and protect them, and in return you and Van Damm share half the profits."

  "No complaints, Jane," Brodski smiled. "A nice little retirement business for me and Van. . "

  "I can imagine," said Jane, through pursed lips.

  ". . Uhmm, you know, sooner or later CoDo will come. . "

  "I know. With any luck, they won't bother me and mine."

  "True, but remember, with CoDo comes the Fleet, and they'll favor old Sarge
Brodski with their business. 'Trust in the thirst of the Fleet, and you'll die rich,' as the old saying goes."

  "Perhaps they'll like to sample the local euphleaf, too-" Jane smiled, getting up. "Take care of yourself, Mister Brodski."

  "No fear of that," Brodski replied, watching her go. Yes, he could predict a profitable future for Jane and Docktown-and himself.

  One way or another the Fleet took care of its own.

  From the closed hearing by the Interior Subcommittee of the United States Senate, 1 September 2073. Mr. Bendicks: Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the various Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain? Sec. Pendleton: Seventeen years of free movement between national entities, ending in 2065, resulted in thirty-seven million foreigners, uh, extranationals, holding permanent residency permits within the United States. Fewer than six million of those persons have applied for citizenship, and according to figures of the INS, fewer than eleven million are competent in the use of the English language. There are twenty-eight different newsfax publishing one or more times a day in the United States, in eleven different languages. Throughout the several states, there are innumerable enclaves in which the principal languages spoken are other than English, notably Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic. Mr. Bendicks: Mr. Secretary, one of us has obviously misunderstood the other. Let me repeat my question. Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the various Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain? Sec. Pendleton: If the Senator will be patient, I'm coming to that. Mr. Bendicks: Please do. Sec. Pendleton: Not only the United States of America, but almost every other developed, industrialized nation on Earth, has such enclaves of unrepentent extranationals making their social and economic demands but unwilling to naturalize. This administration has gone to considerable effort and expense to absorb these non-American populations that make up more than eight percent of our total population.

  Yet we have other un-Americanized enclaves of much longer standing. I refer to a number of the Indian tribes. In the first seventy years of the twentieth century, major progress was made in Americanizing these people. Some tribes lost their languages entirely. In most of the others, many of the younger people had limited or no ability to speak their tribal language. Then, in the last one hundred years, and particularly in the last seventy years, this healthy trend has been reversed. The children are taught the tribal language from infancy. Most tribes have modernized their languages for twenty-first century use by developing new words from old roots, or "adapting" American words by adding native prefixes or suffixes.

  If we are to exert legal pressures on these recent immigrants to adopt the American language and culture, we must first eradicate these cultural regressions by the Indian tribes, who, after all, have been recalcitrant for a much longer time.

  Mr. Bendicks: It's reassuring to know, Mr. Secretary, that we have you in there fighting to Americanize the American Indian. Now, let me ask one more time: Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain? I'd like you to state it explicitly, if possible, for the record. Sec. Pendleton: Senator, the unfortunate cultural recalcitrance of these Indian tribes is rooted in the reservations. The administration has no argument with Indians as a whole. The number who live away from the reservations is five times the number who live on the reservations. Twelve times if we include those who identify themselves as Indian or part Indian and as having more than one-eighth Indian blood, so to speak. The majority of these are from mixed tribal stocks-Cherokee and Kiowa for example, or Jemez and Acoma. They speak only English, and essentially have been assimilated into the mainstream of American culture. To remove the Indian populations from the reservations would result in the completion of Indian assimilation. Mr. Bendicks: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I presume you're aware of the proposals by the Bureau of Reclamation for the large scale pumping of desalinized water to a number of the western reservations, and the establishment of urbanization projects on them. No doubt reservation land would become very valuable then. Who do you suppose would profit from this, if the land was first taken from the tribes and then made available for purchase from the public domain by developers?. .

  The coming of the dinneh

  John Dalmas

  The army landed at Lukachukai on February 6, 2075. Also at fifteen or twenty other places on the Navajo Reservation. It was a Wednesday. Not that February or Wednesday mean anything now; the calendar is more complicated here. But I remember those things because I am an old man. I forget yesterday, but I remember well what happened long ago.

  My wife and I lived at Mescalero, New Mexico, then, but sometimes we did consulting, mostly on Apache reservations. Strictly speaking, the Navajo are Apaches. Were Apaches. The Spaniards got the name Apache from the Zunis, who used it for all the Athapaskan-speaking tribes that raided them. The Spaniards called the biggest of those tribes "Apache de Navajo," Apaches of the Fields, because they cultivated corn and squash. The Spaniards never did conquer them.

  If you know much about Indians, you might guess from my name, Carl Boulet, that I didn't start out as Dinneh, as Apache or Navajo. I'm a Chippewa-Sioux mixed blood. My great grandmother told me that the French last name came from one of Louis Riel's m?tis refugees from the Manitoba Insurrection in the 1860s.

  But that's not what you want to hear about. You want to know what it was like to come in exile to this world, and what it was like here in the old days. I will tell you the best I can. I did not talk English for many Earth-years till you came here. Once it was my best language; I had three university degrees, and talked it like you do, better than Chippewa. Better than Mescalero. Now it comes forth differently, even though my words are English. That's because I have come to think differently, living as we do here.

  The September before the army came to Lukachukai, my wife and I-her name was Marilyn-established a program in applied domestic ecology in several Navajo schools, on a trial basis. It is strange to remember things like that. I was a different person in those days. At the end of January, we went back to see how it was going. On February 6, she was at Window Rock while I'd driven up to Lukachukai the day before.

  It was noon. I'd eaten lunch, and was in the gym shooting baskets with a couple of teachers. I have not remembered shooting baskets for a very long time. Then the principal hurried in. The army, he said, had just landed at Window Rock, and federal marshals had arrested the tribal government. Troops had landed at Tuba City and Dinnehotso, too; they'd probably land at every town on the reservation that day.

  Just then it was snowing hard at Lukachukai, which may have been why they hadn't landed there yet. The men I'd been shooting baskets with didn't even look at each other. They started for the door. Lemmi Yazzi paused long enough to call back to me, "Maybe you better come too."

  I hesitated for maybe a second, then grabbed my parka where it hung in the teachers' lounge and followed them outdoors. They scattered; I stayed with Lemmi and we trotted to his pickup; we got in, he lifted it on its air cushion, and we left the parking lot in a hurry.

  "Where are we going? I asked him.

  "A place we've set up in the Chuskas," he said. "One of the places."

  Instead of going northeast into the Chuska Mountains on the maintained road, he drove west a little way, then turned north on a small dirt road, not made by engineers but cleared through junipers and pinyons by stockmen, for their trucks. You couldn't see very far through the snow, which was fine with us. The snowfall thinned and thickened but never stopped. As we got farther north, the land grew higher, and the pinyon and juniper began to be displaced by ponderosa pine. And there the snow wasn't just today's new fall. There was snow left from before.

  I worried about Marilyn. It sounded as if, at Window Rock, there'd been no warning. I wondered if I was doing the right thing to go with Lemmi Yazzi. But if she was interned at Window Rock and I was
interned fifty miles away at Lukachukai. . I turned the radio on in the pickup and got the tribal station out of Window Rock. It was playing "America the Beautiful." In English. That made it real to me; the government had taken over.

  We'd been warned, kind of. The summer before, a rumor swept the reservations all over the United States, that the government was going to start taking over and selling Indian lands and relocating reservation Indians.

  Ten years earlier, hardly anyone would have taken a rumor like that seriously. But in '72, the Soviets had begun rounding up some of the Turkic and Mongol peoples in Asia and relocating them by force to a world called Haven. It was scary to read about.

  Countries had been sending volunteer immigrants to Haven for years, and once, out of curiosity, I'd read up on the planet. Not in the newsfax, but in technical journals. Haven sounded like a bad place.

  Some tribes, the Mescaleros and Navajos among others, had set up unofficial committees of resistance. Not that we thought it would really happen, but just in case. Hideouts were built or dug in, in hidden places in canyons and forests, and supplies were hidden in them. It was to one of those that Lemmi was driving us.

  We were the first ones to reach it. It was two hogans topped with a foot of dirt and twenty inches of snow, on one side of a shallow draw, shaded by pines and firs. The hogans would be hard to see from the air, with the naked eyes. Maybe an instrument search would show them.

  Until that day there'd only been a rumor, and the Navajo Reservation hadn't seemed like the place where the government would start. The Navajos were the strongest and most populous tribe, and most of their land was poor. The White Mountain and Mescalero reservations had much better land. And the Nez Perce; even the Pine Ridge. I suppose the government decided that if they took the strongest first, and relocated its people, the other tribes would lose heart and do what they were told. I used to wonder if that's how it worked out.