The Price of Peace (6 page)

"Imagine I could find it. Where are all the officers? They having their own fun?" "The locals put on a part) for them at a community center. Several other community centers got shindigs going for the kids, too. Look for the one with the fancy red-and-blue doormen. It's somewhere over there." He shook his hand in a general southeasterly direction. Pa led Ruth off that way. They passed shops, restaurants, hotels, and homes. They located two large centers sporting dances. One had something to do with a religious group, the other was for some kind of Earth animal with four legs and horns bigger than any cow Ruth had ever seen, but all she actually saw were people having a good time. They were doubling back when they spotted the place with the fancy doormen. They'd missed it the first time when they walked past the back of it.

Pa headed for the front door, Ruth right behind him, but, unlike the other places that were wide open, here the doormen were keeping people out. "Just a second," Pa bristled. "I may be a mud farmer, but I got just as much right to party in there as any city boy."

"I don't care if you're God himself," growled an older marine, gold chevrons covering most of his sleeves. "Nobody's coming in or out of this building until we find our lieutenant."

Pa, who'd looked like he was about to shove past two guys twice his size, even if they did have guns with long knives jutting from their barrels, backed up fast. "Daughter, never mess with armed men when they think somebody's done wrong to one of their own. Especially when a sergeant is pissed about what might have been done to his officer."

They slipped back a ways. Not so far they couldn't see and hear what was going on, but far enough that no one would mistake them for trying to cross the line. Several minutes later a diminutive woman in a long skirt and uniform coat, three gold stripes prominently displayed on each shoulder, came to a scowling halt at the front door. Several city men, full of self-importance, followed on her footsteps, arguing that they and their people had every right to leave. She ignored them the way Ruth did flies around the pigpen. "Sergeant," she said in a voice hardly louder than a whisper.

Immediately, the tall marine with all the gold on his sleeves was in front of her. "Yes ma'am," he said, standing as tall and straight as a barn door. The chatter died.

"Do you have anything to report on the lieutenant?"

"No ma'am. We've gone through this building from top to bottom, stem to stern. No sign of him. Short of taking it apart brick by brick, I don't think we will." The sergeant sounded quite ready to do the demolition job—with his bare hands.

The woman stared out into the street, right through Ruth. Her face was calm, a jarring difference from the excited men around her. Only the tightness around her eyes told Ruth that something was going on behind the face. Something that made Ruth shiver. "Captain
Umboto
," one of the city fellows interrupted the quiet. "Crew are all the time jumping ship out here. They see a nice leg, a well-filled sweater, and suddenly their starship doesn't look so appealing. Ask Mr.
Withwaterson
. One of the crewmen on the ship that brought him missed the last crew call. He's somewhere out on the farm stations, raising corn and kids. There's nothing criminal behind your man disappearing. I saw a number of our young girls measuring him for husband size. And he wasn't ignoring the looks his fancy suit got."

The Navy woman's eyes narrowed. She whirled on the speaker. "Lieutenant
Tordon
is a marine. Always was. Always will be. His kind do not jump ship. They do not leave their shipmates in the lurch."

A short, balding young man raised an eyebrow. "Navy's been pushing early outs. Sure you won't get back to base to find he's already turned in his bonus application and been processed out?"

The woman slowly turned on the speaker. "Mr.
Withwaterson
, I don't expect your kind to understand duty, honor, service. Don't talk about what you don’t know. Sergeant."

"Yes ma'am."

"Recall all liberty parties. Mr.
Shezgo
." She turned back to the one who thought the lieutenant had taken off with some girl. The fellow stepped back from the heat in the look she gave him. "My officer was drinking water, so there is no reason to believe he is drunk. He told me he would be right back, so the fact that he isn't means to me that he is not free to do so. I want him found. You say your folks are nice and informal. Fine. You've got until ten o'clock your time to have Lieutenant
Tordon
call me and explain his absence. If I do not hear from him by ten hundred hours tomorrow, I will be in your office and we will begin doing it the Navy way." She turned away. "Sergeant."

"Recall is being sounded." From the landing field outside town, a klaxon went off. "Shore Patrol is deputizing all petty officers to enforce the recall. It will take two hours for the launches to shuttle all liberty parties back to the ship."

"Do it. Gentlemen, good night. Officers, follow me."

Several other uniformed men and women had been waiting in the background. They filtered through the city folks like they were not there and quickly joined their captain. In a moment, they formed a solid block behind her, all in step. Just looking at them, Ruth felt... intimidated. Before Ruth could even touch the feelings storming around her head, her stomach, marines filed out of the building. They didn't pass through the city people; the city folks kind of levitated out of the marines' path. The sergeant divided them into teams of five or six and sent them trotting in different directions. Pa watched them go with a tight smile on his face. "You can bitch all you want about the
mickey
mouse in the military, but when the boss man,
er
, woman, gives the word, things do happen fast and efficient."

"Pa, did you like your time in the army?"
Mordy
had gone to the army, and not come back. Was that life better than what she had offered him?

"No way. Been there, done that, dodged the Unity goons when they were hanging guys for not putting on their uniform. Not interested. That doesn't mean I don't respect those who really know how to do it. Let's head out toward the spaceport. I wonder if all their
kids'll
make muster."

Ruth followed. The spacers gathered at Twenty-third and Main. Ruth watched groups arrive and others form up to be carried out to the landing field on flatbed trucks. After an hour, Pa edged toward the chief they'd talked to earlier. "You missing any of your kids?"

"Too early to tell," the chief answered, but the worry lines were deep around his eyes. "Why you asking?"

"We're from the farm stations up north. Some of our people have gone missing lately. In some cases, stations have been burned and dead bodies left behind. Wondered if you might be having problems like that."

"We better not be taking any of my kids off this planet in body bags," he growled. "Listen, maybe we got the same problem. Some of us may be back tomorrow. I'll tell the first lieutenant what you told me. Our captain may want to talk to you."

"I think I'd like to talk with her, too," Pa answered, touching his right hand to his forehead in a loose imitation of what the sergeant had done.

"Nice to see an old hand," the chief answered, and gave the same loose wave back. "Okay, Ruth, let's get bedded down for the night." Pa turned and started a fast walk back toward their inn, his arms swinging at his sides. He moved just like the marines and navy people did when they had something to do. Ruth remembered Pa moving that way when she was a kid. Now his hands were usually in his pockets and he moved a lot slower.

"Pa, uniform or no, you look like you're in the army again." Pa laughed, but he didn't slow down.

Ruth was physically exhausted and mentally wrung out by the time they got back to the hotel. She headed for her room and the light was out in minutes. Still, sleep eluded her. What had she done with her life? Brother was two years younger. Yet he had a wife and two darling kids and was ready to start his own station. She'd married an off-
worlder
like her Ma and had nothing. How many times had Pa softly whispered that all off-
worlders
are not the same? The ones she'd seen tonight were nothing like
Mordy
. The young spacers were lame and the marines hard, not at all like the laughing young man she'd fallen in love with. But would the marines be looking for a new job every six months, the spacers rushing off to join the Unity Army at the first word of a draft?
Mordy
was ... the man she'd followed from station to station, always ready with a joke, always fast with his fists, and needing a new job all too soon. And there were the dark demands from him, the ones that started with "A real woman would . .." He'd taken her
nos
with a laugh or a sneer ... and walked out of her life without her ever really knowing who he was. Or who she'd become around him. Ruth hugged the pillow, but the pain was too old for tears to help. She drifted off. A hissing brought her awake when it was still dark. Groggy, she lifted her head. A man was holding an aerosol bottle to her face. She tried to cry out, but couldn't breathe. Dropping into blackness, she heard the man snarl, "This ought to keep her
menfolk
out of our hair."

Three

THE AGONY OF waking the next morning reminded Trouble there was someone he wanted to hurt—badly. Keeping his eyes closed, he did a quick inventory. Everything was there, but his arms were tied and he couldn't feel his hands. His nose was on line; someone had lost their lunch. That stink was mixed with the scent of earth and growing things. He inched his eyes open.

He lay on bare ground beneath trees of some sort along with several dozen other people. Four wore whites; the rest looked civilian. As he struggled to sit up in the predawn light, his company looked pretty helpless.

"Thought you might be first up, soldier boy," came from behind him. A burly man in dirty jeans and a Unity shirt rolled Trouble over. The marine tried to kick him, and got a kick in his kidneys for the effort. "You just lie there, or the next kick will knock your head off." Trouble struggled to work his hands loose while the other man reached under the marine's dress blouse and cinched something around his waist. The guy's fingernails needed trimming; Trouble's stomach and back got raked liberally as a narrow plastic cord was pulled tight around him. "There," the ex-Unity thug grinned. "You cause me any more trouble, you'll wish you hadn't."

"When's chow?" Trouble muttered.

"Soon enough." The fellow kicked Trouble again, pulled another belt from the sack at his waist and started fumbling with the sleeping woman next to the lieutenant. She was the one who'd emptied her stomach. A local, her clothes were workmanlike slacks and a plaid flannel shirt. The thug yanked the shirttails out, liberally copping feels, and attached a belt. The thin plastic strand cut into her belly, but it was the four cylinders equally spaced around the band that made a tough marine like Trouble swallow hard. Animal control pods. One was enough to tame a bull. Four could kill a man. Trouble's belt had six.

The thug worked his way around the supine bodies on the forest floor. The men he kicked; the women he felt up. Most were too drugged to notice. One of the spacers, a third-class petty officer, looked awake enough to object, but too groggy to know where he was. Trouble coughed, caught his eye, and gave him a quick shake of the head. The man submitted sullenly. The thug must have noticed; he gave the spacer a solid kick as he left him. The petty officer saw it coming and rolled away.

By the time the tough had worked his way around to the young woman on Trouble's right, she was fully awake. As he pawed her clothes, she pitched away from his touch. "Well, maybe I'll just have to strip you, girlie." The scumbag grinned and reached for the fly on her pants. The woman, curled up in a fetal ball, shot her legs out, catching the thug full in the front. He managed to keep the family jewels safe as he pitched over backward.

As the thug sprawled out beside Trouble, the marine gritted his teeth. He didn't want to do this; knights in shining armor trying to save damsels in distress were way dated. Now was the time to wait for these idiots to make a mistake. But the woman's scream of rage, the man's yowl—Trouble could not lie there and watch what came next. Pushing off, he rolled toward the tough, scissoring his legs around the guy's neck. "You aren't doing anything the young woman doesn't want."

"
Lemme
go," the thug pawed at Trouble's legs. The lieutenant locked his ankles together and got ready to ride this fellow out.

Sudden pain laced Trouble's belly; his breath fled as he fought to keep from blacking out. If this scumbag had the regulator for the control pods, even a marine was dead.

"Let him go, soldier boy." A new voice came from behind Trouble. "Let him go or I'll up the pain."

"Will you keep him off the girl?" Trouble was damned if he wouldn't negotiate something out of his situation.

'"Girl, you seen the belts Clem's been putting on everyone. Pull one out of his bag and put it on." The girl approached them gingerly. Despite her tied hands, she got a belt out of Clem's sack. Putting it on was another thing.

"Let me help." The petty officer was on his feet. Between the two of them, they managed the belt.

"Come here."

The girl went to the voice. The marine ignored her; Clem was getting boisterous.

"Lets make that a tad tighter" came from behind him. Then, "Okay, soldier boy, turn Clem loose." Trouble took a deep breath, then started rolling. As expected, Clem fumbled his way to his feet and started trying to kick the marine.

"Clem, get out of here."

"But, boss ..." The man hardly slowed in his one-legged chase of Trouble. "Clem. Go get some grub. Now. Or you'll be wearing one of those belts."

Clem made one more kick, missed, and stomped away. Trouble found his back to a tree, so he struggled into a sitting position facing the voice. The man was slim, medium height, and held himself tight as a whip. "Much obliged," Trouble nodded.

The man called boss eyed the marine for a second more, then roved the entire group, his hand coming up to display a small red box. "Listen up, folks. It's time we got the new employee orientation over. Welcome to 'Day's Work, Inc' As our newest hires, we want you to understand just where you fit in the organization chart." He pressed the black button on the box. Pain shot through Trouble's gut. Not as bad as the last time, but plenty bad. A woman screamed; other folks whimpered.

"The good news is I'll be carrying this little motivational tool for the rest of this trip. The bad news is you get too close to me or wander too far off and it don't like it. It quits sending the 'Good Employee Reward signal.' If your belts
ain't
getting that message, they're
gonna
start giving you a motivational session. Soldier boy, you want to come here?"

"Not really," Trouble said as he got to his feet and slowly approached the boss. At ten feet his pods sent pain through him. He inched forward. The agony grew.

"Like that?" "No, sir."

"Think you could get any closer?" "No, sir."

"Now start backing up. Get a move on."

Trouble moved. At fifty feet the tingling sensation was back; he halted.

"Boy, I took you for tougher than that." The empty smile vanished from the man's face. "Keep going," he growled.

"Just thought you'd made your point, sir." Trouble used his best boyish grin, but started backing again.

"One of the lessons I strongly encourage new employees to learn," the boss went on matter-of-factly as Trouble backed up and the pain grew, "is you don't want to come to management's attention. Not all bosses will be as kind-hearted as I am. Why, I've known some labor consultants who'd make a new employee who'd cause trouble like that there soldier boy keep right on walking until he keeled over from the pain. It bad, boy?"

Trouble had no intention of trying to out-macho this guy. The pain in his abdomen was past bad to agony. But, hunched over, he still was backing up. "It's got my attention, sir. Real good."

"Nice boy. Now, I could start walking away." And the boss took a step back. "In a few seconds you all would see just how fast a man can die from a bellyache."

The pain level shot up. Trouble risked a step forward.

"See. The man is
educatable
. He don't want to leave my company. And I don't want to miss delivering a full levy of new workers. So, come on back, soldier boy, and the rest of you get on your feet. We got to get moving."

The petty officer and a woman spacer headed for Trouble. He stumbled toward them as fast as he could to save them the pain he knew was growing in their guts. "You okay, sir?" the man asked, taking Trouble's arm and putting it around his shoulder. The woman took the other. They half carried Trouble as they rejoined the milling group.

"Take my word for it. You want to stay where he wants you." "We putting up with this shit?" the petty officer growled.

"Folks with shit for brains make mistakes. Let's see where they goof off, spacer. Don't blow our chances before then. I'm Lieutenant
Tordon
, but I go by Trouble."

"Third Class Petty Officer
Jagowski
, sir, Spacer First Yu." The woman on the other side of Trouble ducked her head. "
Romez
," was a red-haired and freckled fellow. "And
Makingana
, but we call her Mac." The last was a tall, rail-thin woman whose dark skin shone where the sunlight caught it, but who could have disappeared into the shadows without a trace.

"What do we do, sir?"
Romez
asked.

"Any of you got a laser cannon in your boot?" The four spacers glanced at their shoes. "If not, we do exactly what the man says. Let them relax, go easy. They'll make their mistake and we'll be ready for it." The marine stepped away from his two supporters ... and his knees almost caved in. "And get me a stick or something to lean on."

It was the woman Trouble had helped who tossed him a sturdy walking stick. Raven-haired and olive complexioned as seemed to be the local norm, she stepped around rocks and roots with the confidence of someone used to taking care of herself. Still, her left hand had a nervous way of flicking to the pods hidden under her shirt. "I can take care of myself," she threw at him along with the stick.

"Yeah. I could see you were about to take that slob apart."

"Maybe I would have."

"They would have killed you before you could."

"Funny talk coming from someone in a fancy uniform."

Trouble stepped closer to the woman, lowering his voice. "They would have killed you. and none of us would have been any closer to freedom. Probably farther. If we're going to get out of this mess, we'll do it by a plan, and we'll do it together."

Their eyes locked, Trouble stared into obsidian black orbs seething with a rage he could not account for. The woman whirled and stomped away. "Off-world bossy," she tossed in her wake.

"Civilians," the petty officer breathed in answer. "What's got into her?" Yu asked.

"I have no idea," Trouble said, not for the first time where a woman was concerned. "Bossy" rolled around in his skull for a moment, mixed with the background material he'd picked up and the experience he'd had with the locals at
Izzy's
elbow.

"Crew, I don't think these folks take well to being told what to do." He glanced around at a bedraggled bunch clumped together in various groups, and edging toward the boss with the dumb look of cows in a zoo. "Let's see what we can do about helping these folks without pissing off any more of them."

The spacers broke up, hunting up more walking sticks for those in most need. It turned out that the young woman was doing the same. Between shouts from the boss and three other toughs like Clem, folks got moving. The buzzing in their bellies made sure of that as the boss mounted a mule and headed out. A couple of people had bad reactions to the drugs that had been used to capture them. Spacers stepped in to help. Trouble found himself on one side of an older woman who seemed to be the worst case just as his female nemesis took her other arm. "They call me Trouble," he said.

"I can see why," the young woman said across the older one. "I'm Ruth, from the farm stations." She glanced around. "Only farmer here."

"Not too many spacers either. I like the way you're helping. Maybe if we work together, we can get through this."

"Yeah," Ruth sighed. "Think there is any help for us?"

Trouble glanced around; he saw bedraggled people, thugs, and trees. Nothing too hopeful. "Somebody's
gonna
come looking for us. The Navy looks after its own."

"The Navy looks after its own, Mr.
Shezgo
." Izzy rested both hands firmly on the city manager's desk and locked eyes with him. "I'm missing a marine officer and four spacers. I want them back. Now."

The young city manager sat forward in his chair, eyes solid on Izzy ... and gave not an inch. "As I told you, lots of off-
worlders
take a liking to our planet and its gentler, friendlier pace. I came here for a vacation after college and never left. Same thing probably happened to your folks. Adults make their own decisions. Sometimes, they suddenly swap one decision for another."

This conversation could go on for hours; Izzy cut it off. "Has anyone seen my lieutenant? That uniform does catch the eye." She glanced at the marine sergeant at her side. By means and methods known only to noncoms, the man was once again in immaculate dress blues. Izzy had asked for this uniform. If necessary, she'd put him on
vid
or whatever passed for mass communications around here.

"I agree, ma'am" were the first words from the city manager that Izzy liked this morning. "I've had my Public Safety people working on it. Risa Powers is the safety lead this year, Zylon Plovdic is her assistant. They've been up most of the night looking for your missing people. I don't think your folks want to be found."

Zylon was a tall blonde that Izzy gladly would have taken on for a security guard. Risa was even smaller than
Izzy
; how she'd make out in a barroom brawl was very open to question. But the question wasn't a fight this morning. It was finding her people. Izzy turned her attention full on Risa. "What have you tried?"

Without missing a beat, Risa launched into her report. Izzy liked subordinates who did that. "I've had their pictures on all the video feeds and sent personal mailings to the city's business community. I've got one hundred percent acknowledgments . . . and one hundred percent negatives. Lots of people saw your marine patrols. Nobody saw a lone marine." The city manager tapped his computer and messages began to flash on its ancient flat screen. "They're all here, if you want to review them."