The Price of Peace (9 page)

"What have we got real-time?" Quickly the map was overlaid with a picture. Roads became a string of lights. Most buildings disappeared into darkness. The farm stations speckled their part of the map. Izzy zoomed the map onto the hills to the west. Tiny dots blinked. "What's in the back-country?"

"Nothing but a few campfires. Most are herb and plant hunters. Original flora has some interesting hydrocarbon chains. Brings a good price from the pharmaceutical corps. Some are survey teams. Several Earth corporations got contracts to survey for minerals, both here and in the system."

Tired as she was, Izzy had the energy to frown at that. "A bunch of Luddites like these signed on for mining? What are they
gonna
have, a kinder, gentler strip mine?"

"I don't think the locals much like the contracts. Some Unity types signed them just before the war. But the Earth-side suits are holding the present government to the contracts."

Izzy ordered the screen to zoom to each of the fires. Stan called up a database they'd acquired from the locals. "They keep good tabs on everyone backcountry."

"Isn't that a violation of somebody's privacy?"

"Seems that where search and rescue is concerned, folks are a bit more understanding. People are kind of scarce out this far. They don't want anyone dying if they can help it." Izzy leaned back, her eyes losing their focus as camp after camp flashed by. What was wrong with this picture? People were few and far between on the rim. Yet, where she came from, folks were crammed into slums by the millions. Governments tried forced immigration, but shipping all those bodies was awfully expensive considering that few survived the first six months pioneering a planet. And folks like her sister Lora couldn't be moved with explosives. In the war, Earth and her seven sisters had built most of the hardware. The other forty developed planets drafted most of the people who did the fighting. Funny how people and things ended up being distributed. God, I'm tired. "Stop the scan. Go back." Izzy sat up, leaning over there-playing scenes. Most camps had one fire. A second fire was usually a ways away from the first, as if somebody wanted her or his or their own part of the night. But...

There, that one. What is it?"

Stan glanced at the camp, three fires forming a triangle, and read the database. "A survey party. Left Hurtford City five days ago."

Izzy eyed it. "Hasn't got very far."

Stan did the measurement. "Not far at all."

Izzy rubbed her eyes, tried to banish the exhaustion that was blocking memories. "Read something about a triangle once. Can't remember now. Stan, tomorrow morning have Trouble's gunny sergeant review these. Also, I want a marine detachment sent down to recover the beacons and anything else they can find in the dump that looks suspicious. Make sure they're heavily armed, and tell them to take no guff from the locals." Stan's eyebrows were up. "But not to start anything. Okay?"

"Yes, ma'am. Now, why don't you get some sleep? Not much either of us can do for a while." Izzy added two more notations to her to-do list as she glided to her night cabin just off her desk. She closed her door, less for privacy than to shut out the damn blinking lights from her ignored in-basket. A warm shower drained enough of her exhaustion to let her slip quickly to sleep without worrying too much about what kind of night Trouble was having.

Joe
Edris
fumed, and kept his hand in the air, though the muscles of his arm were knotted painfully and it would do him no good.
Seddik
had been good to his word. Joe had gotten the first words that night. But the moderator had dutifully followed tradition. Any newly raised hand got recognized before someone who'd already spoken. Old
Seddik
must have used a database to track who talked and how long. If Joe heard once more about the failed drainage project, he'd explode. The rains had been heavy last year; no amount of project planning could have prevented that. And it had nothing to do with someone kidnapping Ruth. As more and more people yammered on, Joe waved his hand and sat on his thumbs.

His opening statement had gotten through to a few of the younger people. Still, the older folks couldn't seem to get it through their heads that the last month had changed everything. They may have
outsat
the Unity yahoos, but now somebody was coming after them where they lived.

Two hours into the
talkathon
, Joe gave up on being recognized a third time. As he stomped for the back of the hall and a glass of punch, others joined him. They took over a corner to talk among themselves.

"We got to protect the stations, or we're
gonna
be burned out one by one" was the concern first and foremost in their minds.

"What about Ruth?" Joe's question drew blank stares. These people had some ideas how they might protect their loved ones and life's works. They had no idea how to find one woman somewhere on this vast planet. Joe had seen it before; people concentrating on what they could do something about and turning their backs on what only overwhelmed them. He'd done it himself. Now, it was his daughter no one could help.

About the sixth time his "But what about Ruth?" was ignored.
Bibi
locked onto his elbow and hauled him out of the circle.

"You read the letter. You and Seth left town like they told you. We are doing what we can for Ruth. If we do nothing with the navy people, she will be returned." "You can't believe that." Joe shook his head, incredulous.

"Why not? They gain nothing by breaking their word." And it hit Joseph
Edris
just how strange these people were he'd chosen to live among. No, not strange, just wonderfully rational. It was stupid to harm a woman if the farm stations did what they were told. Therefore, the kidnappers would not. Joe had been one of the few who'd expected the local Unity bunch to be worse than they had been. He'd seen, growing up, what passed for rationality on other planets. That was why he'd chosen Hurtford Corner. Now,
Bibi
and Seth were putting their faith that people were rational on the line for Ruth.

For a moment, Joe wanted to believe too. Slowly, he shook his head. "The raiders at the
Abdoes
place didn't act rational." He watched the color drain from her face, as if he'd hit her. "
Bibi
, something crazy and mindless and evil is out there stalking us. We've got to fight it every way we can."

"Even after twenty-five years with me, you still say that first, with so little to go on. You say I don't understand what's happening. I say when we do, we'll know better what to do. What fills you with anger and hatred and makes you ready to jump off into something you have no idea about? Joseph, you can't risk our daughter's life on just.. . just guesses."

If he could not even convince his wife, how could he persuade the whole community? His daughter's life hung in the balance, and his words carried no more weight than a feather.
Bibi
returned to the circle of folks planning how they might protect themselves but still work their fields. After a long purgatory of frustration, Joe rejoined them. Here at least was something he could do. An hour later,
Jethro
Hakiem
raised his hand.
Jethro
, a man whose quiet Joe had come to realize came not for a lack of anything to say, but a need to carefully order the myriad of thoughts in his mind, had said nothing that evening. Seth immediately recognized him. Slowly, methodically, he outlined the plan that had been developed in the corner.

All the stations nearest the hills should be abandoned. The larger stations would provide temporary shelter for the smaller ones. Work would be done in teams, always three or four rigs together, going from one field to the next. Each occupied station would keep a twenty-four-hour watch. Fire support teams would be on quick reaction alert.
Dov
Do-
bruja
would turn his electronic shop into a sensor factory. He expected to have enough listening posts grown by next month to cover the entire front range. "We do what we've always done. Stick together. We can turn aside this threat to our way of life."

There were nods, even a few quiet cheers. Some of the younger couples were reluctant to abandon their stations, but fathers and married sons, mothers and grown daughters worked out those problems.
Bibi
had taken in four young couples, one wife heavy with their firstborn. They trailed her truck in the dark as she carefully led them back to the station. On the drive back, Joe sat across the seat from her, his gut ripped in two. He wanted to trust the way he'd lived the last twenty-five years. But he'd grown up on
LornaDo
. He'd marched in her army.

He knew the senseless purposeless-
ness
of evil. He trembled for his daughter.

Four

RUTH DIDN'T SO much wake up the next morning as give up hope of any more rest. She must have slept some during the night. She recalled shivering. Next thing she remembered she was huddled close to the woman on her front, and the marine was just as tightly crowded along her back, his arm warm against the length of her side. It felt good. When she came fuzzy awake to a graying sky, every muscle in her body aching and shivering, it seemed time to get up. Still, she didn't want to move.

"You awake?" came a low question from behind her. "I guess so," she answered.

"I'm
gonna
try getting the fire going again. You mind me taking away the warmth to your back?"

"I guess I'll get up and help."

Ruth hunted along the edges of the camp for more wood while the marine stirred the embers for some glow of warmth. A few pine cones helped restart it. Trouble also restarted the

boss's fire, keeping his distance to avoid a jab of pain in the gut. "No need having them any grumpier than they have to be," he said with a wry smile.

Ruth would just as soon have let them freeze.

As she helped the off-
worlder
, Ruth studied him. He was a strange man. Very strange. Everyone had done what he told them to do last night; not one of the city folks had thrown the word "Bossy" at him. And city folks were the least likely to let anyone tell them what to do. At least, that was what they said on the stations. The spacers had followed him without question. Maybe that was what started the rest? Ruth doubted it. You only had to look at the man. When he said do it, you wanted to do it.

Of course, it was something you knew needed doing.

So why hadn't he ordered them to grab rocks and smash these guys' brains out? Ruth shivered at the thought. She'd used an ax to kill chickens, knives to slaughter hogs. Killing people was something she'd never thought of until the
Abdoes
place got burned. If the marine said bash out someone's brains, could I?

He hadn't. Maybe he was smarter than she. Did he plan to just take it? Watching him move around the camp, going from one clump of cold, hurting people to another, he didn't look like someone passively waiting for whatever the boss wanted.

"Shall I ask the boss for some food?" she asked the marine. "I'll do it," Trouble assured her.

"No," Ruth said, "you stuck your neck out yesterday. I'll take the risk this morning." He did not stop her as she strode toward the boss's campfire. About twenty feet from his bedroll, she stopped. "We could use some grub," she said.

The boss rolled over, yawned mightily, stretched slowly, then looked around the camp. "You're up mighty early. In a hurry or something?" That got a laugh from his cronies. "Clem, get them something to eat. This time, one per. Don't want to lug all that food if we don't have to, now do we?"

"Yeah, boss."

Ruth's ration box didn't warm up, even a little bit. Trouble shared his coffee with her. His came out too hot. They mixed theirs together and got two lukewarm cups. "No wonder Unity lost the war, fighting on cold coffee." The marine shook his head.

They had barely finished before the boss was mounting his mule.

Showered and uniformed, Izzy had breakfast served in her cabin with the XO, Chips, and the Gunny. This allowed her to get her key players together early without having to invite the sergeant to breakfast in the wardroom. She doubted her officers would mind, but to a marine gunny, such things were NOT DONE.

Between pancakes, sausage, and hash browns, she covered the high points of her plan for the day. "Chips, how soon can you get me into the farmers' net?"

Dark eyes gleaming, he said, "Oh-nine-hundred soon enough?"

"Perfect. I've got a few words to tell them. Stan, I want to talk to the chief of the Shore Patrol before then. I need his best recollection of that talk he had with the local."

"I'll have him up here by oh-eight-hundred."

"Gunny, you glance at the camps we mapped last night?" "Yes, ma'am. Interesting. How sure are we of the database?" "As reliable as any of the stuff from Hurtford Corner."

"That good," he grunted.

"See anything interesting about one of them?" Izzy had spent her entire shower trying to remember what it was about a triangle of fires. It still eluded her.

"You mean the one with three fires in a triangle?" the Gunny asked. She nodded. The old marine shook his close-cropped head. "Don't know, ma'am. Years ago, before we left Earth, when we were just trying to get our wings, three fires in a triangle used to be a distress signal. Don't know how many people remember that. What with recall beacons in your wrist unit and ID card, not many people bother learning the old survival skills."

"Think Trouble did?"

"He's a pretty savvy young officer. But it was twenty years ago that I had time to read old oxygen-based survival school handbooks. Don't know if he has. Not part of the regular training he'd get. Ancient history."

Izzy chased a last bit of pancake through cooling syrup. "When somebody takes away all your modern tools, ancient history may be all you've got to live by Chips, see if there's any way to track those ground teams during the day. I want a thorough scan of campfires tonight, pronto."

"Yes
ma'am"s
answered her.

"Gunny, I want you to lead a team
dirtside
this afternoon. Bring me back the beacons for our missing personnel. Don't start anything, but I want all hands back at the end of the day."

"No problem, ma'am."

"Pa, we just got a message you better see," came
Slim's
nervous voice over the radio in the cabin of the tractor.

"What is it?" Joe asked his younger son.

"Pa, you better just come in."
Slim's
young voice cracked under the stress ... or pain. "Ma don't think you need to see it. But Pa, it's the Navy woman asking about missing folks."

Joe dropped the harrow and gunned for the station. There were five tractors in this work party. Four would have to do. "Slim, I'll be there in ten minutes."

"I'm asking you, the working people of Hurtford Corner, to help me." The face of the

dark-skinned woman filled the screen, her hair a thin down on her skull. Joe studied her, tried to measure her through the flat tube. Can I trust you with my daughter's life?

"I'm told that some of you started life in other places and chose Hurtford Corner. It's a beautiful planet, and you've made a pleasant way of life here. But I think five of my people are being held here against their will. If I'm wrong, all I want is a quick call from them, and I'll process their discharge papers. There'll probably be an exit bonus in it for them. But I haven't gotten any such request. In that silence, I'm left worried that they are not gone of their own free will.

"One of you talked with my Shore Patrol chief. He said you had people disappearing too. I think your problem and mine are the same. You like to work together to solve things. That's my way, too. I'm sending a launch down. We've located the IDs of our missing crew members. We're not going to leave their papers lying around any more than we're willing to leave them. If you won't talk to us on the net, come talk to us at the launch."

The woman's words stopped. Hands clasped in front of her, she stared hard into the camera. "Please help me."

The naked need in those words shook Joe. He'd known army officers. "Help me" was not in their vocabulary. For this woman, commanding a fifty-thousand-ton cruiser high above his head, asking for help must have taken a lot. Joe turned, hunting in his pocket for the truck keys.

Bibi
stood in the door to the net room, a baby from one of the young couples in her arms. "Please, don't do it, Joseph."

Two women, one a stranger, one his wife, each pleading with him for opposite reasons. Who was right? Ruth's life hung on his choice.

"I don't know when I'll be back," he said as he brushed by.

Gunny
Griz
exited the launch first, eyes scanning the tarmac and the green, waving crops beyond. His right hand rested on his holstered pistol. The skipper didn't want any trouble, but she didn't want any more missing troopers either. The dress uniforms were gone; green battle dress, body armor, and locked and loaded weapons were the uniform today. Gunny reached the bottom step and turned. Chief Maximilian, Chips' best ground sensor man, was hot on his heels, eyes locked on his board.

Concentrating too much on his board, the chief missed a step. Gunny grabbed him before he landed flat on his face. "Any targets?" Gunny asked as he steadied him. "Nothing in front. Maybe something on the other side." Gunny pulled the chief aside as Corporal
Hetec
led first squad out of the
lander
at a trot. "No bandits to starboard. May be one to port," he advised the young marine as he went by. The corporal passed the word as he deployed his squad for perimeter defense. Max ducked under the
lander's
cooling nose to focus his sweep on the far side.

"Yeah. Heartbeat went up when he got a look at the marines. We got a watcher, Gunny." "Armed?"

"Not picking up anything magnetic or dense. Let me check visuals." The launch had swept the landing area as it came in. The chief replayed the video, now using the human heart located on his electromagnetic monitor to zoom the picture to ... "Yeah, there's our man. Lying low. No visible weapons." The screen changed again, switching to infrared. "He walked over from that single-lane track. Yep, there's a truck. Tire marks head off to the north, but the sun's warmed the road too much for me to backtrack him too far."

"Shall I collect him?" Corporal
Hetec
was back at Gunny's elbow.

"Nope, let's let him stew for a while." Second and third squads were rigging the light transports, three of them, though two could carry all twenty men of the two squads. The captain wanted redundancy; Gunny liked that in an officer. He also had two sensor specialists, Chief Max and a second class petty officer. Gunny had planned to take the chief with him to the dump. With a live one here, he changed his mind. "Chief, Corporal, maintain this position. Whoever that is may be someone the skipper wants to talk to. Then again, he could be a sniper." Gunny fixed his gaze on the young noncom. "We are not losing any more people to homesteading. We are not lifting anyone out in a body bag. Chief, you keep an eye on our visitor. First sign of hostility, you call in the marines. Otherwise, Corporal, you let that joker play out any game he wants. Understood?"

"Yes, Gunny." "Chief?"

"No problem. I got him dialed in. He so much as wants to scratch, I'll know it before his fingers do."

Ruth stumbled on a tree root. Trouble caught her before she ended up facedown in the moss and leaves. His arms felt good around her, even in the oppressive noon heat. The humidity sapped her strength, and the welts from bug bites were starting to itch like mad. Since she could do nothing about them, she kept silent, keeping her misery to herself.

"Thank you," she smiled at the marine for the catch.

"Glad to. We got to look out for each other. Doesn't look like there'll be a stop for lunch." Hunger was a close fifth on Ruth's lists of pains, the boss having gotten ahead of them enough that the pain in her gut made it hard to notice she was hungry. Ruth eyed the trail. They were skirting a thicket. Thorns reached out from low shrubs. People had edged away from them. But red berries dangled beside the barbs, and winged things that passed for insects here were nibbling at them. "We can eat those," she pointed.

"You sure?" Trouble wasn't persuaded.

"When I was little, Ma and Pa used to go fungus hunting, to help them put extra payments down on the station. Brother and I went along, but we weren't much help. Ma showed me things to snack on. The red ones are okay. The blue ones aren't ripe yet. They're bitter and give you the runs."

Trouble edged off the trail to pluck a small pod of the red fruit. He tasted one tiny red bulb. "Sweet" was all he said.

"I used to love them," Ruth said, plucking a handful.

Trouble still didn't look happy. "We ought to go easy on these. These might not be the same berries you remembered. How old were you?"

"Five or six. What's the matter, you don't trust me?" Ruth
scarfed
down the entire handful of berries and collected two more. Others followed her lead, and quickly the thicket was stripped of fruit. Trouble shrugged. The buzzing of their guts demanded they hustle to catch up with the boss.

The next stream crossing offered more food. "Ma called them red potatoes, though they sure aren't from Earth. The fungus grows near them." And sure enough, Ruth spotted the slim white stalks that the fungus shot up. "See? That's worth money."

While she used her walking stick to pry up a potato, Trouble was using his to gingerly probe around the fungus. "How far does that go down?"

"Maybe thirty centimeters."

He bent down, scrambled around in the dirt for a moment, then stood up, an ugly

whitish-brown growth the size of a large watermelon in his hands. "Hey, boss," he shouted. The boss turned his mule in its tracks, matching looks of puzzlement on the faces of man and animal. The marine got about as close as he could, maybe five meters, then stopped. "You say I owe you. Here's something on my account. Worth a bundle. You got people tramping along out here. You ever look at the gold mine you're walking through?"