Revolt on War World c-3

by Jerry Pournelle

  He sighed with pleasure as he went inside and walked over to the fireplace to warm his hands. Konstantin stood beside him, soaking up heat like a tamerlane basking on a rock. The kettle hung over the fire. P?ts peered down into it, smiled at what he saw: barely, carrots, and pork shanks all bubbling together. "It's almost ready," his wife Eva called from the kitchen.

  "Good," he boomed. "I'm starved."

  Eva came bustling in: a small, fine-boned woman gracefully going from gold hair toward silver. She tilted up her face so Pits could kiss her, but she was more concerned with the soup. She dipped in a hand-carved wooden spoon, tasted, frowned. She went back to the kitchen, returned with salt. When she tasted again, she nodded. "Sarah! Ana! Blow out the candles in there and put away your knitting. It's ready."

  Pits' daughters hurried into the front room. They were younger versions of their mother, and reminded him of now lovely she'd been when he won her. Was Sarah a touch paler than usual? In the ruddy firelight, it was hard to tell.

  Eva ladled soup into bowls. "Let's eat here by the fire," P?ts said. "Too cold to go back to the kitchen." No one argued with him. When they had all sat down, they bent their heads as he said grace. Sometimes he wondered why he should thank God for marooning them on Haven. It was, he supposed, preferable to the bullet in the back of the neck he might have earned for what the CoDominium called attempted subversion of the state.

  "This soup is wonderful, mother of my wife," Konstantin Laidoner mumbled around a pork bone. He tossed the bone into his bowl, went back to the kettle to fill the bowl once more. When he sat down again, he said, "You should eat more, Sarah, put strength on yourself." Eva nodded vigorously. She knew, then.

  Sara said, "I try to eat, Konstantin, truly I do. But I Have no appetite. I-" She broke off abruptly and ran for the front door. Pits heard her retching outside. Eva had been sick too, all the way through both pregnancies.

  When Sarah came back in, she was shamefaced and white as a ghost. P?ts got up and enfolded her in a bearhug. "Don't you worry, my little girl. Soon enough all this will be done and we will have a new child in the house. Everything will be fine." If Tallinn Town is not in ruins by the time the birth comes due, he thought but did not say.

  Ana said, "Let me put on some water to make you herb tea, Sarah. It will help settle your stomach." She made a face at her sister. "You're going to have everyone waiting on you now. I'm jealous. Maybe I should-" Without finishing, she went into the kitchen for a pot, then outside to get the water.

  Maybe I should-what? Pits wondered. Get pregnant, too? He was sure Sergei Izvekov would be happy to help her. If Ana could halfway talk about it, she might want him to help her. Pits scowled. Before he let that happen, he would break the Russian over his knee like a stick.

  "Why so glum, Anton?" Eva said. "You should be happy-you don't learn of the coming of your first grandchild every day."

  "It's nothing," Pits said. Eva looked at him shrewdly. It was not nothing, and she knew it. He knew she knew, too. After they'd lived with each other for more than twenty T-years, keeping secrets was next to impossible. But she did not press him. Sooner or later, it would come out, and he knew she also knew that.

  Maybe, he thought, the trouble with the Russians would blow over. It had before, more than once. Then he would not have to tell Eva anything. But he did not believe it. The Russians hadn't tried beating up Estonians for the sport of it before. From there to fires and murders and civil war in the valley was only a short step.

  He yawned. Whatever the Russians were going to do, he hoped they wouldn't do until he'd had another sleep. By the time he woke up, Byers' Star should be in the sky. Things never looked as bad in daylight as they did toward the end of the long dark.

  "I'm going to bed," he announced, hoping Eva might join him there.

  But she said, "I'm not sleepy yet. I was the last one up. There are always things to do, too, light or no light."

  Living on a world with patterns of light and dark so different from those of Earth made people take wildly differing sleep patterns. As he rather grumpily tramped toward the bedroom, Pits hoped he and Eva could come back into synch before too lone. Sarah and Konstantin never seemed to have any trouble with that, but then, they hadn't been married long. He chuckled to himself. Once the baby came, they'd spend less time in bed.

  He pulled off his boots and cap, buried himself in covers. Aside from saving space and making a house easier to build for people who hadn't been carpenters till they were forced to be, the major advantage of a communal bed on Haven was that the people in it kept one another warm. Now he was by himself, and chilly as well as lonely.

  Konstantin came in just as he was dropping off. The youngster wasn't the person with whom he'd hoped to share the bed, but warmth was never unwelcome, not here. The two men snuggled close together and slept.

  Sunlight stealing through gaps in the shutters woke Pits. It was not the brilliant sunlight he remembered from his younger days on Earth, not with Byers' Star so far away. But it was incomparably brighter than lamps or candles. P?ts found himself smiling as he got out of bed. Just leaving the house and being sure where one was going had a bracing effect on a man.

  The soup was still in the kettle. P?ts fed the fire to heat it up, had himself a bowl as big as the one he'd enjoyed before he slept. As he did every so often, as he doubtless would till the day the minister prayed over his grave, he wished for a cup of coffee to get him moving quicker. They imported such luxuries in the Shangri-La Valley, but the Shangri-La Valley was a quarter of a way around the moon. BuReloc transportees in the hinterlands made do with what they could turn out for themselves.

  As he ate the last few spoonsful of soup, he thought about what he would have to do once he got outside. The pigs first, he decided. Pretty soon he would have to decide which of this latest litter to keep for breeding and which to turn into hams and bacon and pork roasts and pickled pigs' feet and. . Just thinking about it made him hungry again.

  He pulled his cap down over his ears. Byers' Star was still low on the horizon, and would not yet have brought any warming to speak of. For that matter, speaking of warmth and Haven in the same breath was a waste of a good breath.

  P?ts headed outside to salute the Estonian flag. No sooner had he opened the door than something went craack! past his ear and buried itself in the far wall of the front room. He stood gaping for a split second, then threw himself flat.

  No second shot came. He needed two tries to get to his hands and knees; he was shaking in every limb. Adrenaline brought a stronger waking rush than he'd ever dreamed of from caffeine. Not far from the doorway was a stick. Pits put one end inside his cap, held it high. Only after the silence continued did he climb to his feet.

  He heard his son-in-law running inside the house. The young man did not step into the doorway, for which P?ts gave him credit. He said, "Are you all right, father of my wife? I have the rifle."

  "Good lad," Pits said. "I think the skulking son of a whore shot once and fled." He drew himself to attention before the Estonian colors. The salute he made was not the casual gesture of greeting he sometimes made, but one of soldierly precision. "By God, I will have a reckoning for this, Kostantin." He tramped toward the Russian half of Tallinn Town.

  "Where are you going?" Laidoner called after him.

  "To see Iosef Mladenov," P?ts answered grimly. "Either we will have a stop to this game or we will have war. One way or the other, you will know when I come back-if I come back. If I am not back in three hours, avenge me."

  "I will come with you," Konstantin said.

  Pits shook his head. "You are younger than I am, and your wife is pregnant. We can't afford to lose you. And if the Pamyat maniacs mean fighting, we can't afford to lose two finding out."

  When he entered the Russian section, in which he set foot but rarely, P?ts felt he had stepped into another world. The very shape of the houses changed, as did their look: they were brightly painted, and roofed with wood shingles. The thick smell
of cooked cabbage huge in the air. The streets were dirtier than in the Estonian part of Tallinn Town, with dogs here and there digging through piles of refuse for scraps. One raised its head and growled at P?ts. He growled back.

  The few Russians about stared at him as he tramped grimly along. He ignored them. He had never called on Iosef Mladenov before, but he had no trouble finding the man's home. That imperial banner might as well have been a beacon, just as his own Estonian flag was. He wanted to spit at the flagpole in front of Mladenov's house as he walked past it, but held in his temper by main force.

  He released some of it by pounding on the door. It shook under the weight of his fist. No one answered. He pounded again, harder, leaned his face up to the peep-hole. Another eye was looking back at him. "Mladenov?" he growled.

  "He's sleeping," the man on the other side of the door said.

  "Get him."

  "He's sleeping," the Russian repeated.

  "Get him, metyeryebyets, or his house and this whole God-damned town will come down round his ears while he lies there snoring."

  "Don't threaten me," the Russian said.

  "I do not threaten. I promise. If I walk away without seeing him, we fight. It he tries to hold me, we fight, too. The war starts unless I am back safe with my people in three hours-no, nearer two and a half now. Now get him."

  He felt the Russian move back from the door. "Wait," the fellow said.

  "I will wait. But remember, the more time you waste, the more likely you waste lives with it."

  He stood outside Mladenov's front door, blowing out steam at every long, furious exhalation. In less than five minutes, the door opened. Iosef Mladenov glowered out at him. "What do you want, Pits?" he said, making his voice rough and deep to show he was not afraid of the taller Estonian.

  "A reckoning, Mladenov, and past time." P?ts gave back rudeness for rudeness, disdaining to use the Russian's first name and patronymic. "Someone took a shot at me from hiding. If you aim to fight, we will give you all the fight you want. If you want to play the assassin's game, you will find we can play that, too. But God help Tallinn Valley if it starts."

  Mladenov did not back up, but some of the fierceness left his face. "You'd better come in," he said grudgingly.

  Pits went in. Mladenov waved him to a chair. He sat. Mladenov sat too, on a couch against the opposite wall. He did not offer the Estonian food or drink. The fellow who had argued with P?ts was not visible. Small shuffling noises from around the corner said he probably lurked in the hallway there. P?ts was willing to bet he'd be armed. It didn't matter. He wasn't going to start fighting here-he hoped.

  "It is only from the goodness of my heart that I speak to you," Mladenov said. "After you set on Gleb and Boris Suslov-"

  "After I what?" P?ts roared, his good intentions blown away in a blast of fury. "Those two lying bastards thought they'd have some sport with my son-in-law. I saw and heard the whole thing, and stopped them from doing worse than they did." He rapidly told the Russian leader what had happened. "Let them deny it to my face, if they dare."

  "That is not the tale they tell," Mladenov said, but he sounded oddly hesitant. He might not like P?ts, but he knew the Estonian was not a man to lie.

  "I don't care what tale they tell," Pits said. "I think, Iosef Trofimovich, that if you Russians listen to tales without checking, and if you go shooting from ambush, we will have war to the knife, and maybe none of us will live through it. Do you want that? You will not find my people such easy meat here as back on Earth."

  "We would win that war, Anton Avgustovich." Mladenov's words were still harsh and threatening, but now he addressed P?ts in the polite fashion. "Still, as you say, it might cripple winners as well as losers. And I agree, shooting from ambush is a coward's sport. I will speak further with Gleb and Boris as well. But if you think you Estonians will keep forever all the best land in the valley and that closest to town, you had best think again."

  "We were here first, and we were the ones who made those lands into what they are today. If you think we will throw away all the labor we have invested in them, you are the one making the mistake," P?ts said.

  "Then war will come," Mladenov said flatly. "One day I will burn that flagpole of yours, Anton Avgustovich, and the flag of what you wrongly reckon to be a nation. Nations are groups of people strong enough to survive. You do not qualify. It is up to you, Estonian. If you want to fight now, we shall fight now. If not, we will fight later. Nichevo."

  It can't be helped; there's nothing to be done about it. The Russian word could mean either. Both filled P?ts with fury and despair, for he was pretty sure he held a losing hand. Behind what he hoped was an impassive mask, he calculated furiously. The odds of BuReloc's dumping more Estonians into Tallinn Valley were slim to the point of vanishing. The CoDominium's apparatus of control and repression was all too likely, though, to haul out more Russians. The longer till the conflict, the worse his own people's chances. As he took a deep breath, he wondered if Mladenov would let him leave once he chose war.

  Before he could speak, someone pounded furiously on Mladenov's door. The Russian who had stayed discreetly in the hallway leaped into the front room. As P?ts had guessed, he held a Kalashnikov. The change lever was set on full automatic. A burst from less than two meters would turn a man into blood pudding.

  But the pounder was no Estonian intent on rescue or revenge. He spoke pure Russian, with a broad peasant accent like Mladenov's own: "Iosef Trofimovich, come quick! Some fucking horsemen just rode in, down from the plains. You'd better come to talk to them."

  Mladenov bounced to his feet. "Tatars!" he snarled, as if it were a curse. To a Russian, it was; back on Earth, their wars with the steppe nomads had gone on for centuries. Mladenov turned to the fellow with the Kalashnikov. "You come with me, Yevgeny, and bring the assault rifle. I want them to see we nave it." He suddenly seemed to remember Pits. "You'd better come too, Anton Avgustovich. The Tatars won't care whether your people are Estonians or Russians-they'll only know you're farmers, and farmers are prey."

  He and Yevgeny hurried out of his house without waiting to see whether P?ts would follow. Glumly, P?ts did. His mind whirled as he struggled to adjust. For the past twenty T-years and more, BuReloc had been dumping disaffected Soviet Asiatics onto Haven along with everyone else. He'd thought the nomads would have taken longer to reach the steppe north of Tallinn Valley, but here they were. And Iosef Mladenov, curse him, was right about one thing-the nomads were a worse danger than the Russians.

  Half a dozen of them-four on ponies, two on muskylopes-waited in the center of town. They wore round fur hats, sheepskin jackets, and shiny black boots. Every one of them had a rifle on his back and a big showy knife on his belt. Cartridge-filled bandoliers crisscrossed three chests.

  One of the Tatars, a fellow with a great beak of a nose and a sweeping black mustache, stared down from horseback at the townsmen who hurried up to meet him. "You are leader?" he demanded of Mladenov. His Russian was fair.

  "I am Iosef Trofimovich Mladenov. I and Anton Avgustovich lead, da," Mladenov answered, pointing at Pits. The Estonian wondered whether Mladenov wanted him to share the trouble or was really including him. The latter, he decided reluctantly. Whatever else he was, Mladenov was no fool. If Estonians and nomads made common cause, the Russians in the valley were doomed.

  Did he want to lead his people in that direction? He looked at the Tatar. The fellow was studying Tallinn Town the way a fox-or on Haven, a tamerlane-studied a chicken coop. He said, "I am Isa Bektashi, son to Suleiman Bektashi, chieftain of the clan of Aydin. He intends to take you under his protection, to keep you safe from other, less kindly clans that are coming to roam the steppes."

  "To protect us? To keep us safe?" Pits repeated. Estonia had heard those words so many times back on Earth, usually from Russians, sometimes from Germans. "Isa Suleimanovich, tell your father we have no quarrel with him, but we can protect ourselves."

  "That is so, by God," Mladenov said. He look
ed back and forth between the nomad and P?ts. P?ts wondered if he resented being upstaged. The Estonian bared his teeth in a humorless grin. Mladenov had named him a town leader-this was what he got.

  Isa Bektashi said, "Think again. You would not do well to anger my father."

  "We do not want to anger him," Mladenov said. "We do not want to serve him, either. Let us five at peace with one another."

  "Not so simple," the nomad said. "Our women, they need the valley to give birth."

  That was always a problem on Haven. Only in the lowlands was there enough oxygen to let a woman bring a baby to term and to undergo labor with a decent chance of living through it. Pits said, "Your women will be welcome here, Isa Suleimanovich. We shall not molest them. We are civilized men, not savages."

  Bektashi shook his head. "You say welcome now. What if, one fine day, you say not welcome? What happens to clan of Aydin then? How can we leave selves open to wounding by infidels? You come under our protection, let our riders into valley to make sure all goes well."

  "Nyet." Mladenov and Pits said it in the same breath. The Russian went on, "This is our valley, our land. We will protect it ourselves-from you, if need be."

  One of the Tatars behind Isa Bektashi made as if to unsling his rifle. The Russian named Yevgeny brought his own weapon up to his shoulder. Mladenov glanced around to the houses by the square, as if to check warriors hidden in them. So far as Pits knew, there were no warriors. He admired Mladenov's quick thinking.

  Bektashi barked something at his follower in his own language. The fellow took his hand off the rifle. Yevgeny relaxed, fractionally. Bektashi glared at Mladenov and P?ts. "This is your final word?"

  They looked at each other. They both nodded.

  "You will regret it," said the nomad chief's son. He made his horse rear and spin round on its hind legs, then trotted north out of Tallinn Town. The other riders followed him.