Exiled to the Stars (24 page)

She nodded. "Good. That'll give me three of them to relieve those military thugs, and a couple for reliefs. Keep looking, though. We need to be covered 24 hours a day." She looked up and grinned. "Hey, are there 24 hours in a day, here?"

Cesar grinned. "I have no idea. I feel like I've been working for about 36. Computer; how many hours in a local day?"

"Local sidereal day is 23.2 hours long," said the mechanical voice.

A real smile finally broke through on Tara's face. "Well!" she said, "It's obvious the computer isn't
your
fantasy object."

Cesar looked surprised. "You mean…"

She nodded, the smile widening. "Of course! You should
see
some of the avatars available! On second thought, maybe you shouldn't. I kinda thought you'd be interested in tall, blue-eyed blondes with big boobs."

"Cesar," she continued, her expression turning serious, "You really need to come outside with me. I have something important to show you."

Cesar frowned. "Is that really necessary? I'm very busy."

Both Boyet and Tara nodded. "I think I know what she wants to show you, Cesar," Boyet said, "and it's important enough to drag you away from your center of power, here."

Cesar looked irritated. "Oh, very well. You two go gather your lethal toys, and I'll try to make time. You know, of course," he added, "that I've never worn a space suit."

Tara actually grinned. "Don't worry, it's so easy even a child or a Nawlins hooker can do it!"

Cesar gave the pair directions to the armory and instructions for entry. "Boyet," he finished, "While you're down there, look for ways to enhance security, will you?"

Boyet nodded, and the two left. Cesar sighed. More of his time committed. He wondered when he'd be able to get some sleep.

There was a knock, and at his shouted "Come in!" Tom Abbot and Crewman Cordes came in, breathing masks hanging around their necks. Their shipsuits were stained with dirt, grease, and blood.

"Some of the hatches are warped," Tom began without preamble. "But I'm pretty sure we can handle those with torches and muscle. But there are hundreds of places where seams have sprung, or rivets popped, or something, and there are small air leaks. Those will be the hardest to deal with." He shook his head. "There will be some we just can't reach, regardless. George, here, thinks we might be able to get to some of them with long nozzles and fire or insulation foam. But we'll never seal the whole ship airtight."

Cesar nodded. "I understand. All we can do is the possible. But there is no estimate as to how long the odors might last. Perhaps we can raise the air pressure another point or two…"

George chuckled. "I'd say the first thing you'd better do is get those people out of Dorm 25, unless you want to just seal them in."

Cesar's eyes widened. "I'd completely forgotten them! I promised to visit them within the next few days, but it seems I don't have a few days!" He paused. "I have to go outside with Tara, but as soon as I get back, I'll visit them." He shook his head. "There just isn't enough time…"

"Time for what?" Vlad said as he came in. He greeted Tom and George before continuing. "Hasn't anyone ever told you that dictators don't have to do
everything
themselves? They have minions and co-conspirators to do the actual skullduggery."

Cesar glared at him in mock ferocity. "They also have firing squads. If I really
were
a dictator, I'd be tempted…" He shook his head, his face relaxed into a smile. "All right,
minion
, get busy and find out if that census is complete. We need to know how many people we have left. And find out about the Council elections. Maybe a larger Council won't shanghai me!" The smile faded into wistfulness. "It would be nice to be just a Council Member again."

Vlad snorted. "Nonsense! You just keep doing what you're doing. People will let you know if you're not doing it right. As it happens, Messer Sun is gathering the census and election data right now. You'll have it in, oh, half an hour."

Cesar nodded w a satisfied expression. "Excellent. As I was telling Tom and George, here, I have to go outside with Tara for a little while. When I get back, I have to visit Dorm 25."

Vlad snapped his fingers. "Dorm 25! I'd forgotten about them! What are we going to do with them?"

Cesar shrugged. "That's up to the Council, thank heaven. But maybe I can tell Mistress Shourd when she can talk to them. Once the Council is in place, I can retire as dictator. I think I'll go to bed for about a week."

Vlad snorted again, but made no other comment.

"By the way," Cesar continued with massive dignity, "in your spare time you can get that census broken down by dorm. We're going to have to relocate the Dorm 25 people, and I'm afraid we're going to be crowded, with Dorms 9 and 10 sealed."

Vlad shrugged. "Make those fools set up a dome outside. You could have their food delivered. They're the ones that wanted to be out there so badly."

"If I were a dictator, I'd be tempted to do that," Cesar said, "but as only an interim Council Chairman, I have no right to expose those people to additional unknown hazards. "He paused. "I wish I could be sure this quarantine wasn't going to be an exercise in futility."

Tara and Boyet returned. Tara was cradling a long, beautifully wood-stocked rifle with a large telescopic sight and wearing a large grin. "It's a Mannlicher-Schoenauer Model 1950 in 6.5mm," she said proudly, "Isn't it a beauty? I
love
bolt actions!"

It
was
a beauty. The carved, highly polished walnut stock framed the deep satin blackness of the floridly engraved metal to perfection. Cesar could recognize a work of art, even if it happened to be a weapon. He wondered how it came to be in the armory of a colony ship.

Boyet followed, carrying three much plainer shoulder-stocked lasers and a blaster, as well as several powerpacks for each. He wore a hand laser in a holster on his hip. "It's a good thing I was the only one with her," he commented. "She'd have practically cleaned the place out."

Vlad had come over, and was admiring the butter-smoothness of the bolt action when Cesar cleared his throat. "I hate to break this up, but I really have little time. If we must go on this, uh, 'expedition', then we must be going."

Boyet chuckled. "I almost wish I could go. It would be worth it to watch Tara try to suit up without putting that rifle down!"

Tara flushed with embarrassment. Cesar grinned and followed Tara from the room.

Tara
was
obviously unwilling to put the rifle down, even long enough to suit up, but finally, reluctantly, she did. Cesar hid a smile. If a rifle could help her over the trauma of Ron's death, then he wouldn't complain.

They made the rounds of the sentry posts so Tara could pass out the weapons and tell her volunteers that they would be relieved soon. Cesar had to agree with her. The sentries were three of the most villainous-looking individuals he'd ever seen. The "rover," however, was a different story. A cheerful man with a small pot belly, he greeted them with a wide smile, and admired her rifle with enthusiasm, almost ignoring the laser he was being given to replace his hand laser. He reported a lot of rustling and shaking of grass, but no sightings of any creatures, large or small.

In its final descent, the ship had struck hard and at a sharp angle. At first it simply skidded on its top, crushing the upper decks and digging a huge gouge in the soft earth. Then it had apparently hit something that turned its skid into a roll; but the gouge continued, the ship pushing a huge "bow wave" of dirt in front of it. In the "front," the ship was almost completely buried in loose dirt. In the "back," though, the groove scoured by the ship's passing was actually slightly deeper than the bottom of the ship itself; its roll had apparently caused it to press down some of the loose dirt it had been pushing. The gouge was over a klick long, and Cesar estimated it by eye to be as much as fifteen meters deep.

"This is what I wanted to show you," Tara said. "If I just explained it, you'd never get a feel for the
size
of that groove."

"It
is
huge," he said in a puzzled tone. "But it looks to me as though it will simplify unloading all the equipment and vehicles on the lower decks."

Tara shook her head. "Yes," she replied, "it will. Until the first heavy rain, when that groove becomes a lake, and all the lower decks flood because of the leaks."

Cesar looked startled. "Good heavens," he said. "You're right!" He threw a glance at the bright, cloudless sky, and then gauged the level of the top of the gouge against the ship. "We've got to get everything unloaded and out of the 'groove'!" He frowned. "And we have no idea how much time we have. That means that instead of housing, we're going to have to build shelters for the machines and vehicles first. The people aren't going to like that."

Tara nodded. "Or else build some kind of wall or dike to keep the water out while letting us move the machines in and out."

Cesar's frown hadn't budged. "I'm not qualified to decide," he said. "But we probably have the human and computer resources to figure it out." He turned to Tara, his face falling into a smile. "Thanks for bringing me out here, Tara," he said. "You were right. I needed to see it for myself."

By the time he got back to his training room headquarters, Vlad and Sun were waiting. "We have three thousand, five hundred and twelve survivors," Sun reported, "including those injured but expected to survive. We already have complaints of crowding from six dorms."

Cesar shrugged. "We'll soon have a lot more. We have 12 dorms for 3512 people. That's almost 300 per dorm in dorms designed for 200."

Vlad shook his head. "It's worse than that. Ten dorms. Dorms 9 and 10 are quarantined, remember?"

Cesar rolled his eyes. "I do now." He straightened. "All right,
minion
, start minioning. Figure out how to house 3512 people with the facilities available."

Vlad grinned smugly. "I already have. I've got working parties cleaning out every store room, void, and unused space on this deck. The computer needs your authorization to release all the remaining spare mattresses and bedding. We all have to
eat
in the dorms, but we don't have to sleep there." He shrugged. "It won't be deluxe accommodations, but we should be all right until we can move off the ship."

Cesar shook his head. "That may not be as soon as you think." He described the huge gouge dug by the crash, and the threat of flooding and loss of all their equipment and vehicles.

Vlad's expression turned grim. "Cesar, I'm not sure we can hold it together long enough for major construction projects, whether it's dikes or machinery sheds. People want to get
off
! Hell,
I
want to get off! Unless we can start moving people off the ship, we're going to start having a lot more Dorm 10's. What's that old joke? 'There go my people, and I must catch up to them, because I am their leader!' We can't just sit on them very long."

Cesar shook his head. "I know. But we can't take a chance of losing the machines we need to build the colony, just because we get cabin fever." Suddenly he grinned. "Now tell me about the new Council."

Vlad's expression relaxed into a smile. "I had a feeling you'd get to that. Well, we have one, but there seems to be some confusion about how many members it has. Your broadcast was ship-wide, so obviously, it also went to Dorm 25. A woman named Helen Shourd is claiming to represent them. I reminded her that Dorm 25 had been stripped of membership on the Council after the attack, but she's insisting that was the
ship's
Council, not the Colony Council."

Cesar smiled ruefully. "Cute. Of course, Dorm 25 can't
stay
Dorm 25, since we'll be sealing off Deck 5. But for the present, she has a point. And if we start putting people in storerooms, she'll be able to claim the Dorm still exists, since 'her people' won't be represented by any other Dorm. It should be an interesting discussion for the Council."

Vlad looked surprised. "You mean you're going to let her get away with this?"

Cesar shrugged. "As I said, she has a point, at least for the present. For now, there
is
a Dorm 25, and she has apparently been elected to represent it on the Council. Actually, the only question is whether she'll attend the meetings by computer, or in person under guard. What about Dorm 10?"

Vlad's smile resurfaced. "Ah, yes, our other problem child. Arheed is claiming he was reelected, but he won't let us talk to anyone else in there. He says if you can lock them up illegally, then he can insist on being the sole contact within the dorm. He insists on being allowed to attend the meetings by computer."

Cesar shrugged again. "That's what I'd planned for Dorm 10, no matter who was elected. I find it hard to believe that fool was reelected, especially after all the shouting Boyet overheard. But there's nothing we can do about it. Once the quarantine is lifted, I'm sure we'll find out. So, when is the first meeting?"

"Whenever it is called by our Glorious Dictator."

Cesar threw him a glare, and then frowned. "I'll let you know when I get back from Dorm 25," he said. "Would you ask Boyet to have his people break the seal?"

Vlad nodded. "Your wish is my command, O fearless leader."

Cesar rolled his eyes. "Thank heavens that is almost over!"

Vlad chuckled. "I wouldn't count on that."

Boyet was waiting for him with two militiamen at the hatch to Dorm 25. "Do you want an escort, sir? Or a weapon? I could loan you a stunner."

Cesar smiled and shook his head. "No, thank you, Boyet. There's no sense risking two of us, and if they actually attacked, one stunner wouldn't help much. Besides, I don't expect anything but talk." One of the militiamen swung the heavy hatch open.

In person, Helen Shourd was much smaller than she'd seemed on the computer. She was a plain, rather husky woman slightly shorter than his own 5 feet 4 inches. Her face was lined, and her black hair was flecked with gray. But her face was pleasant and open, her smile broad and welcoming. Her handshake was firm, but not challenging.