Storm Force: Book Three of the Last Legion Series (6 page)

“Nossir, they’re not. But I’m to watch for social misfits, keep track of how many people go in and out, report anything suspicious.”

“You like your job?”

The thickset man looked around, was reassured by Yoshitaro’s smile.

“It’s all right, sir.”

“You seem to have a little bit of an accent.”

“Yessir, I mean, I guess so, sir. I’m from Kura. If you don’t mind me being bold, sir, my accent’s no worse’n yours.”

Yoshitaro’s bodyguards frowned, then blanked their faces, seeing Njangu’s grin. “Kura, hmm. I haven’t been there yet, but I hear it’s mostly country. Farms and jungles.”

“Yessir.”

“Must’ve been a change, coming to a planet that’s got as many cities as Larix does.”

“Yessir, it was.”

“Ever want to go back?”

The man looked horrified. “To
Kura?
Gods no, sir. Begging your pardon.”

“Why? Is life that hard there?”

“Nossir. It’s not at all like Larix. Small villages, and not many cities. Big families so everybody knows everybody else, and tries to help if there’s any problems. But …”

“Go on, man,” Yoshitaro said.

“For one thing, Kura’s haunted.”

“Come on! By what?”

“Sorry, sir,” the man said. “Didn’t mean to say that, even if it’s what … what everybody believes. I know it’s not really true, the Womblies are long gone, and prob’ly they never were.”

Yoshitaro wanted to ask what the hell a Wombly was, but decided it might be better to find out privately.

“The reason I don’t want to go back, sir,” the man went on, “is Larix is where everything is, and if you can make it here, especially here in Agur, you know you’re the best, sir.”

• • •

“You’re a block warden?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman said, clearly impressed by being talked to by such a high-ranking
Leiter
. “Been one for six, seven years.”

“What happened to the person you replaced?”

“Dunno, sir. Heard he didn’t pay close enough attention to what people said.”

“But you do.”

“Sure do, sir. I don’t mean to boast, sir, but I think it’s people like me who keep Protector Redruth, bless his name, safe, especially from the Cumbrian infiltrators.”

“There’s no question about that,” Njangu said.

• • •

“So these reports come in from the block wardens to you, then?” Njangu asked.

“Yessir,” the thin man said. He pointed around his spotless cubicle. “Notice, there’s no paperwork left undone here. I read the reports, and report on up to the next level within the day, generally within a few hours.

“Then, if my supervisor tells me somebody needs talking to or … or worse, I go out with the watch and help them pick him up, if that’s what’s been ordered. I make sure everybody else in the block knows what happens, too, and give the block warden who first reported the misfit to me a reward.”

• • •

“All these district reports are collated,” the brisk man, “then an abstract is made, which goes directly to …” He broke off.

“You can use the word,” Njangu said.

“To the Protector’s intelligence service, and they make estimates from them.”

“Suppose there’s been twice as many complaints of, I guess you’d call it social misbehavior. Sorry, but I’m still learning your terminology. What happens then?” Njangu asked.

“Then the entire district is punished, by cutting supplemental rations or even refusing permission for them to spend their summer leaves at recreational areas.

“Sometimes we even reduce their sports-viewing or -attendance privileges. This is a particularly important district, as I’m sure you’re aware, with our shipyards working at full speed, so we keep a very close watch on trends.”

“ ‘Kay,” Yoshitaro said. “Now, suppose a district has less than normal complaints?”

“Possibly minor benefits are increased,” the bureaucrat said. “Or, more likely, a congratulatory message from Protector Redruth will be ‘cast on their vids. We keep several varieties on record.”

Son of a bitch
, Yoshitaro thought.
These bastards all seem to like narking each other off, and playing pissant tyrant, level by level It’s like a disease, and every goddamned one of them’s running a frigging fever
.

• • •

“Several of the people I’ve interviewed mentioned Cumbrian infiltrators,” Njangu asked Celidon. They were in Celidon’s apartments, as spare as his shipboard compartment.

Celidon smiled. “What about them?”

“To the best of my knowledge, the Cumbrians didn’t start infiltrating Larix until recently,” Yoshitaro said. “Where did these spies I never heard of come from?”

“Protector Redruth has an uncanny ability to define and sniff out moles from another system,” Celidon said. “He’s been discovering Cumbrian spy rings for about two or three years now.

“Before that, we were woefully troubled with anarchists from Confederate worlds spreading their poison. Fortunately, the Protector discovered and wiped them all out.”

“I think I see,” Yoshitaro said.

“Traitors tend to appear when Protector Redruth is developing an interest in a certain area, so it’s only natural that the prospective enemy does inimical things, thus proving the Protector’s concerns to be justified.”

“And obviously,” Njangu said, “you’re quite certain the Protector doesn’t have these rooms wired.”

“I assume nothing,” Celidon said. “Being a dedicated servant of the Protector’s, I have nothing to fear.”

• • •

“Oh dear,” the blonde whispered. “Not again?”

“You want me to stop, Enide?”

“Oh no. I’m just … worn-out keeping up with you. I’m not even twenty and you’re, what, almost thirty?”

“A bit older, m’love.”

“You don’t
ever
seem to get tired.”

“It’s my clean living, and sanctity.”

Enide giggled. “My foot seems to have worked loose. Would you tie it up again?”

Yoshitaro hoped Enide was just being stupid, and not trying pillow talk to get Yoshitaro to slip on his cover story. He’d rather deal with a dumb agent than dumb control. The last thing he wanted was getting his fingernails pulled out from some misunderstanding.

“Should I use the belt again?”

“Yes, please.”

• • •

“Of course I like sports,” Njangu lied to one of his bodyguards, whom he’d dubbed Goon Alpha. “What sort do you play here on Larix?”

“Well,” the big man said, “now it’s fall, an’ so we play Challenge. That’s like old-timey army games, with blunted spears, and bows and arrows, and fencing and things like that.”

“Which I like,” Goon Beta said. “I did real well in the barefist division, back when I was a gosling.”

“You want to fight, join the army,” the first bodyguard said. “That ain’t my sport. It’s bigger on Kura, where all those bastards do is chase each other around the hills with clubs. Anyway, after Challenge’ll come Rattes.”

That was a team game played inside stadiums, with long netted hurlers and a ball with a variable center of gravity.

“Not bad,” Goon Beta said. “Considering it’s winter. But in spring, we get harnhuns. I like that.”

“It’s pretty good,” the first guard allowed. “Get a man running, bunch of people go after him. They catch him … it’s all up for his ass.”

Harnhuns set district against district, town against town, until a final champion survived.

“Best of all’s mobbal, when summer comes,” Alpha said, and Beta nodded vigorously. “I was pretty good at that, almost good enough to be a pro. Whole planet stops for the finals.”

It took several hours to explain the rules to Njangu, or its lack of them. It was played with a ball, outdoors. At a district or suburb level, it’d be played in a local park, with goals at each end. The number of people on a side could be set by agreement, or played by as many as wanted. The object was to move a ball past a goal, using any means possible short, Njangu learned, of knives or nuclear devices.

At a more organized level, professional teams from cities, then provinces, then worlds, played. There were frequent riots when favorites lost, or umpires made “bad” rulings, riots that sometimes required the army.

Njangu made another mental note:
If people aren’t allowed any political say, and the boot’s kept firmly against their neck, let them work it out with sports. Make the sports violent, and make the games a good testing ground for potential soldiers
.

He was starting to admire Redruth’s cleverness. Redruth or, more likely, his predecessor question mark predecessors.

Njangu tried finding out more about the history of the system. There was almost nothing, other than that the original colonists of the two systems had been fleeing something or someone when they arrived, some hundreds of years ago. How they’d built up Larix so quickly wasn’t recorded. And the four or five … the records weren’t certain … men or women who’d preceded Redruth weren’t given much in the way of space, either.

One file in the
Planetary Encyclopedia
did give him something:

“Well, humpty, humpty, humpty, and aren’t you the little tattler,” he muttered, and probed a little further into other areas, without a great deal of success.

The next day, Njangu got a call from Celidon’s adjutant, who said Celidon “suggested he find other areas of inquiry that’d be more profitable.”

So history was decidedly off-limits, even to a
Leiter
.

• • •

The ululation of sirens woke Njangu from a happy dream of visiting one of his bank vaults. He was fully alert, but had trained himself years ago to appear to wake blearily, slowly. Karig, the fourth of his companions, was already on her feet, pulling on a robe.

“Come on! We’ve got to go down to the shelter!”

“F’what?”

“Maybe it’s a drill, but maybe the Cumbrians are attacking! Come on! The block warden takes roll on things like this.”

Njangu slid into a pair of pants, shirt, bathroom slippers.

Attacking Cumbrians, huh? Let’s hope
.

Indeed, an officious man was bustling about the building’s basement, checking off names. Yoshitaro sat in a corner, surrounded by companions, staff, and bodyguards. Everyone was beginning to relax when, dimly, came the distant roar of missiles launching, and then an explosion.

Pyder whimpered. “They’re really here.”

Another explosion came, then silence for three hours. Finally the all-clear siren shrilled, and they were allowed out of the shelter.

Njangu, not sleepy at all, went up to his roof garden and saw searchlights still sweeping the night. He wondered what the hell had actually happened, and hoped it was part of the Force’s plan. He thought of waking up one or another of his companions, but decided he had paperwork that was more important.

An hour later, Kerman came to his office. “Sir. The Protector requires your attendance at once.”

Not good
.

Yoshitaro dressed, thought wistfully of taking a weapon, remembered Celidon’s warning, and was at the palace within the hour.

Redruth and Celidon were waiting. Celidon wore his usual expression of cold amusement, Redruth’s lips were pursed tightly.

“I am not pleased with you, Yohns,” he began, without preamble.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Njangu said. “Might I ask?”

“You told me a penetration raid was going to be mounted by Cumbre.”

“That was what set off the alarms?”

“It was,” Redruth said. “However, you said only a single attack would be made.”

“There were at least two ships,” Celidon said. “One came from N-space in the location you’d told us to watch, but another used the same nav point as their earlier attempt. We’re grateful that the Protector, in his wisdom, had all standard nav points within the system monitored.”

Njangu kept his face blank. Their sensors were better than the Force had thought, and they were more paranoid as well.

“What happened?” he asked. “I heard missiles being launched.”

“Pah,” Celidon said. “Pure panic. The capital’s defense
Leiter
panicked, shot at shadows, and has been disciplined for his stupidity. What actually happened was the first attacker, the
only
one you’d warned us of, was quickly destroyed, far out in space.”

As we hoped would happen, when we set this up back on Cumbre
, Njangu thought. He also noted the emphasized “only.”

“The second ship evaded us for a time,” Redruth broke in, “and made for Prime, much as the last Cumbrian ship had. I don’t know whether that first ship was a decoy, and the sabotage team you warned us about was aboard the second ship or not, but that’s my assumption.

“We attacked, lost contact, regained it just before the ship went back into hyperspace. We were unable to put a tracer on the ship, but assume it returned to Cumbre.”

Njangu relaxed a little.

“This is the second occasion the Cumbrians have bothered me,” Redruth said. “They can rest assured that this time there’ll be a response they shall not like at all. I do not need to consult your expertise on the system to know
that
.

“The reason I summoned you is to make you aware I allow no error from my servants. You warned us of one attack, not the second. A job partially completed is the same as one not begun.