Go Tell the Spartans (5 page)

"These good
Citizens
wouldn't listen when the Helots came calling," Skida continued. "No, they wouldn't listen to such rabble as us. Wouldn't listen to the workers' friends about the low pay and the bad
con
ditions. Wouldn't pay their taxes for the people's cause." She shook her head, making
tsk, tsk,
sounds. "Thought the kings off in Sparta City would help them against such riffraff as us. Thought the Really Shitty Mounted Pimps would protect them."

The guerrillas laughed at the nickname of the Royal Spartan Mounted Police; a few of the farmhands joined in ingratiatingly.

"But then, why should they lift a finger for you?" Skida continued. She freed one hand to wave backward at the house. "Why should the
haciendado
listen to the friends of the poor? Isn't it always the way? They get the big houses and the fancy cars. They ride by and watch while you sweat in the fields? And if you object, if you stand up for your rights—"

She grinned, a glint of white teeth against the matt brown of her skin "—why, they call in the RSMP to beat you down. You aren't
Citizens,
you haven't
earned
the vote." A scornful laugh. "Learn how to pass their exams and tests—" There was a stir; most Welfare Island dwellers were not only illiterate but had what amounted to a cultural taboo against everything about the written word. "—while you're working for a living and they're living off you! Your kids can spend their lives shoveling shit, while the children of the noble
Brotherhoods
get their special schools and fancy—"

"You lying bitch!" It was the older man who had volunteered to stand with the rancher. "Mr. Velysen built this place up from nothing, and anyone can—"

Thunk.
The carbon-fiber stock of Two-knife's machine gun caught him at the base of the skull.
Silly mon,
she thought as he sank to his knees and shook his head dazedly.
Skilly is giving a speech, not arguing.

"—fancy tutors. But tonight, everyone's equal! Tonight, you see how the rich live."

A working party had been setting out tables. Now they stepped back, showing trestle tables covered with bottles and casks and heaped plates; whatever had been available in the wine cellar and the kitchens. The farm-workers moved hesitantly forward, but most of them snatched at the liquor eagerly enough. Doubly eager from fear, but they would have drunk anyway; Skida watched with carefully hidden contempt. You did not get out of the gutters on booze-dreams, or on cocaine or smack or borloi; those were for fools, like God or the lotteries or the Tri-V with its lying dreams.

Skida waited until the liquor had a little time to work, then rapped on the table with her rifle butt.

"You see who your real friends are," she said, as the guerrillas went up and down the table; they distributed handfuls of cash and jewelry. Most of the workers snatched greedily at the plunder. A few had the sense to think ahead, but nobody wanted to be a holdout.

"The Helots is your friend. The kings and the RSMP couldn't protect their friends, but the Helots can protect and punish. The Helots have its eyes and ears everywhere; here and in Sparta City, in the government, in the police, we know everything. The government is blind, it strikes at the air but it can't catch us; we cut it and turn away, cut it and turn away, and soon it will bleed to death and we be the government. Look around you! We didn't harm a hair on your heads. We didn't touch the tools or workstock or barns . . . because all this will belong to
you
when the people rules."

She smiled broadly.
And if you gallows bait believe all that, Skilly has this card game she could teach you.
"And look what else the Helots gives you!" she said, signaling. Guerrillas pushed the rancher's wife forward, and the two other women who had come to stand with her. The rancher began to shout and struggle as they were stripped and thrown down on the rough planks of the trestles.

Skida signaled to Two-knife as the screaming began, from the women and the men. "The other women, house servants and the workers, give them a shotgun and put them in a room with a lock," she said. "It is
muy importante,
understand. Just before we leave, we lock the other workers back in their barracks."

Two-knife blinked at her. "
Sí,
Skilly, if you say so. The gringo Croser, he say that?"

Skida sighed. "No, my loyal fool, he has taught Skilly much of the way of fighting the guerrillero, the little war, but Skilly put the books to work. See, if we let these animals loose they will rape all the women, burn down the ranch and then start killing each other. That makes them just criminals who the RSMP will hang. This must be a political thing, not a bandit raid."

The Mayan frowned and pushed back his broad-brimmed leather hat to scratch his bald scalp. "But the RSMP will hang them anyway," he said reasonably.

"If all share the crime, then none will talk for a while at least," she said patiently. "They will themselves kill any who would. They will say that we did it, that they were helpless before our guns, but among themselves they will know. They will feel they must support us, because they are as guilty as we, and they fear our spies among them."

She made a throwing gesture. "Many will run before the police come. Some the RSMP will catch and hang; these will be martyrs for our cause. Others will scatter to rancheros who ask no questions of a man willing to work. They will talk in secret in the bunkhouses, and all those who hate their masters will dream of doing as was done here—perhaps some will. The haciendados will hear as well, by rumor; they will fear their workers, and be twice as hard on them, which will turn more to us. You see?"

The man stood, frowning in concentration. He was far from stupid, simply not very used to abstract thought. She slapped him on the shoulder as he nodded agreement. The screams had died to a broken sobbing. Skida cast a critical eye at the tables. Unlikely that the haciendados women would survive; best to have the rancher and all of his supporters shot just as the guerrillas left, though.

"Two-knife, you will take the first Group and any recruits we get from here back to Base One," she said. "All the Group leaders are to make for their drop camps and lie low until I return. Work the new ones hard, but do not kill more than is necessary. McMillan may begin their instruction."

Two-knife snorted; Skida nodded agreement; the Liberation Party theorist was something of a bore, but necessary. She found his cranky neo-Marxism even more ridiculous than the religion the nuns had taught her, but it was a lie with power.

"You would do well to learn his words also," she said. "I must attend a conference of regional leaders. The kings are bringing in help from off-planet. Mercenaries."
And we will have help as well, but that is a secret even from you for a while,
she thought.

Skida frowned thoughtfully down the rutted dirt road that lead away from the ranch house; it joined a gravel track down toward the Eurotas. Her mind threw a map over the night; the Torrey estate was there, older and larger than this and too formidable to attack as yet. Then came the switchback down into the valley of the upper Eurotas. The guerrillas had a Group there, about the size of a platoon, to serve as a blocking force, and then as her cover for the trip to town.

"And I might as well leave now," she added. "Adios. Meet me in the usual place in three weeks."

 
The CoDominium emerged almost by accident as Earth's first world government; many of the consequences were unplanned and unanticipated.
One of the most notable was the emergence of a far less competitive world society. The founding powers of the CoDominium had an effective monopoly on military power, and an absolute monopoly on space-based weapons. After a series of crises convinced the United States and the Soviet Union to work together, smaller states could no longer play the Great Powers off against each other. Maintaining that power monopoly became a goal in itself.
An early result was CoDominium Intelligence suppression of research; first military and then all technology began to stagnate. Likewise, private corporations could no longer escape the power of one state by moving; instead, the worldwide regulations imposed by the Alliance, later the Grand Senate, came more and more to favor established economic interests with lobbying power. In turn, the Grand Senators and their clients accumulated increasing wealth based on patronage and politically allocated contracts. Earth of the 21st century saw unprecedented economic concentration in the hands of a dwindling number of oligarchs.
Political-social stasis also settled on the rest of the world. The CoDominium allowed no international wars after the final Arab-Israeli conflict of 2009; hence, regimes no longer needed to win the support of their populations against outside enemies. Revolt against a government supported by the CoDominium was impossible; even guerrilla war was futile without external arms supplies and sanctuaries. At best, developed states became junior partners. In what was once known as the "Third World" utterly corrupt gangster regimes became the norm (for 20th-century analogies see
Haiti, Liberia, Romania),
presiding over despair and famine. Only the mass deportations of BuReloc, combined with the release of viral contraceptives and the distribution of tranquilizing agents such as borloi, maintain the present situation. . . .
[
This article was removed from the 2nd edition by order of CoDominium Intelligence and its author was last seen in a group of involuntary colonists embarking for Fulson's World.
]

 

"Soft duty, you lucky bastards."

The words had come from a unit of the First Battalion, trudging in from night patrol past the waiting ranks of the Fifth. It was only an hour past dawn, and already hot enough to make the camouflage paint run in sweat-streaks down the soldiers' faces; the Fifth Battalion were lounging on their personal kits, fresh from the showers and in walking-out khakis, ready for the ground-effect trucks to take them to the shuttle docks. The sun was a yellow-brown glare through the ever-present haze of Tanith's atmosphere. Some of the other remarks were more personal and pointed.

Battalion Sergeant Sergio Guiterrez looked up from his kit and grinned as he jerked one of the hotter-tempered new troopers back; a local kid from a jungle village, with a log-sized chip on his shoulder.

"Cool it, trooper, unless you want to spend the first month on Sparta doing punishment detail," he said genially. "And Purdy," he continued, pointing to the recruit's rifle, "if I
ever
see you let your weapon fall in the dirt like that again, you will
suffer. ¿Comprende?
"

The recruit looked down. His New Aberdeen 7mm semi-automatic had slipped off the lumpy surface of his duffel bag and was lying on the hard-packed dirt of the parade square. Appalled, he hesitated for an instant before scooping it up.

"Sss . . . sorry, Battalion Sergeant," he began, bracing to attention. "I, ah, I was—"

"Is that an
excuse
I'm hearing, Private Purdy?"

"Oh,
no,
Battalion Sergeant."

"Good. Present arms for inspection."

Flick-click-snick.
The trooper swung the rifle up, extracted the magazine and held the weapon extended across his palms with the bolt locked open.

The noncom ran a finger over the surface of the bolt head. "See this?" he said, rubbing forefinger and thumb together. "Gun oil picks up dust, and that erodes the working parts. Clean it."

Good kid,
he thought, watching the earnest black face.
Plenty of brains, and Mother of God, but he can move through bush.
Purdy was one of several brothers and cousins from a jungle settlement here on Tanith, born to time-expired convicts who'd moved out into the bush to start on their own. They'd all been posted to the Scouts, and would be useful on Sparta.

"Battalion Sergeant?"

Guiterrez turned and saluted. "Ma'am?" he said.

It
did
feel odd to be saluting a redheaded chit only just turned eighteen, but he did it willingly enough. Cornet Ursula Gordon might not have saved the Legion's ass, exactly, but the story was that she
had
furnished the information that let them fulfill their contract with the Governor. What was for certain was that the Legion had bought her contract of indenture from the Hilton Hotel.
Entertainer.
Guiterrez snorted. It had been pretty clear what kind of entertainment she'd provided. Not that she'd had any choice in the matter. They might call it indentured service to repay the Hilton's costs for her education, but it was slavery right enough.