War World X: Takeover (19 page)

“But I doubt if her settlements can absorb all those raw transportees, either,” Van Damm sighed. “If Hell’s-A-Comin’ can’t take them, we’ll have to get them out to Reynolds’, Dover’s and Anaconda’s camps as fast as possible. Even so, Castell City will become a hellhole no matter what we do.”

“If we can just keep that pot from boiling over…”

“Had you heard? Kennicott Mining has given land grants to its various managers, so as to make them officially citizens of Haven. I do not like what this portends.”

“Why are they willing to take the jobs?” Brodski asked.

“So that they can become the new rulers, the ‘upright citizens’ who will become the mayors and governors when CoDo takes over.” Van Damm glowered at his glass. “The companies are setting up their own secondary ruling class—who will, of course, have the use of the CD Marines to keep their positions safe.”

“Hmm.” Brodski gave him a keen look. “Are you in any particular danger, Vanny?”

“Not so far. I was careful to have no further contact with Sanchez before he left; I did my best to let him think I died in the ’bombing’. Still, I do not doubt that the next ship will bring another CoDo agent, seeking trouble to stir. Best I be here, not in Hell’s-A-Comin’, when he arrives.”

“Your old friend, Cole?” Brodski asked.

Van Damm shrugged. “If Cole made it back to Earth, I’m sure he got a not-so-gentle reaming. Besides, not enough time for a return trip to End-of-the Line, which is one of the nicer things they call Haven.”

“So, what’s ta be done?” Himself interjected. “We’ll dig more caves, train more miners ta farm an’ work the factories, see what we can do about absorbin’ more transportees, but what else?”

Van Damm thought for a long moment. “All I can think of is to make more ships like the
Queen
, and arm them well. And… if you can do it quietly, kill as many of the pirates as you can.”

The third warning came from Wilgar, who returned from a morning’s rambling to beg Brodski for the loan of some trowels. Brodski, making a good guess, steered him into the storeroom. He noticed the boy’s surprise at not seeing the radio there.

“I moved it to the…spare room,” Brodski explained. “Three trowels are the most I can give you right now. Didn’t Old Castell let you back into the enclave?”

“In, yes.” Wilgar shrugged. “I just had to…make my own way out.”

“I see.”

Brodski opened a crate on a bottom shelf and pulled out three hand-trowels, recently made at Heinrick’s shop. “How many are willing to come with you?”

“None!” The boy’s face crumpled as he struggled with tears. “Papa had some kind of fit, and he’s been getting crazier ever since. He doesn’t want anyone leaving the enclave and he’s even leaning on our farmers to come stay in the enclave. It’s like he’s trying to lock everybody up in a storm cellar, except there’s no storm.”

“There’s one coming, but this isn’t the way to deal with it.” Brodski heaved a sigh, and handed over the trowels. “Wilgar, if you can, warn those outlying farmers to get clothes that don’t look like Harmony robes, and tell them to set aside seed and tools they can carry quickly. When CoDo comes, they may have to get away from Castell in a hurry.”

Wilgar looked up, eyes wide. “You think it’ll get that bad?”

“It’ll get bad, son.” Brodski chewed his lip for a moment. “And, Wilgar, get hold of your grandpa’s book.”

“But I don’t know where it is,” replied Wilgar. “My Papa keeps it hidden.”

“Find it and get that book to safety. You’re going to need it.”

“Me?” Wilgar whispered.

“You. You’re the Last Castell and after the dust settles that will be worth something. You’ll be needed then. Your grandpa was a smart man, and by rights his wisdom should descend to you.”

“I…see.” Wilgar thoughtfully stuffed the trowels in his robe and wandered out of the storeroom.

Brodski watched him go, then went to a stack of shelves by the wall and pulled on it. The stack swung forward, revealing a hidden doorway. Brodski went through it, pulling the shelf-disguised door shut behind him. He picked his way carefully down the narrow lightless passage until he came out in a wide underground room, lighted by a solar panel. A narrow pipe coming down from the ceiling brought in a steady breeze, the creak of the windmill far above, and two narrow cables. One cable snaked over to the solar panel; the other attached to the radio on a table directly under the pipe. Brodski pulled out a chair, sat down at the table and turned on the radio.

A moment’s fiddling brought the sound of static and a woman’s voice saying only: “Yes?”

“Jane,” Brodski sighed into his microphone, “Old Castell’s gone off the deep end, and there’ll be no saving the Harmonies. He’s trying to lock everybody up in the enclave and ignore the rest of the world.”

“Damn,” Jane sighed in return. “Well, the deal was good while it lasted. What’ll happen to the rest of the city? It’s as wide open and helpless as Poland was before the German troops, and the Russians, and everybody else.”

“Next load of transportees will make it a hellhole, and our only hope is to move them out as fast as we can.”

“Hmm. If your team can pick out a thousand good ones, we can settle them up here—but it’ll have to be done quietly.”

“A thousand for you, five thousand for Hell’s-A-Comin’, maybe another three thousand for the other companies… We just might make it. That still won’t save the Harmonies.”

“I guess nothing will.” Jane paused for a long moment. “Can you save those outlying farms?”

“Maybe, if they’ll listen to…my, uh, agent.”

“We’ll keep trading with them, then, but we may as well cutoff trade with the enclave. If Old Castell won’t keep up his end of the bargain, there’s no point keeping up ours.”

“Keep goods coming into Docktown, though.” Brodski paused to think. “Jane, is there any way we could start overland trade? Once the CoDominium takes over, you know they’ll be watching the river.”

“We’re working on it.” He could hear her smile through the radio. “Benny and Jeff have a design for a steam-powered truck. If Himself can start manufacturing them….”

“He’ll need the tools to make the tools. How fast can you get him the specs?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a few T-weeks, maybe more. How’s he doing on the next ship?”

“He says he’ll have it ready, crewed and armed by the time the shuttles arrive. Cross fingers.”

“Fingers, toes and everything else. We’re getting braced for the arrival here.” Brodski automatically glanced upward. “We’re doing everything we can, but it won’t be pretty.”

“I could almost feel sorry for Old Castell.”

“So could I, if he hadn’t brought it on himself.”

The beginning of the end came when Sam-The-Ham Kilroy got the first message that the Kennicott ship was entering orbit above Haven. He relayed the word as fast as he could: to Janesfort, to Hell’s-A-Comin’, and to everyone he could think of in Castell City. After that he duly informed the company offices for Kennicott, Reynolds, Dover and Anaconda.

By the time the first shuttle landed at Splashdown Island, the
Black Bitch
,
Queen Grainne
,
Princess Maeve
and the new
Finn MacCool
were waiting just off the island to take on cargo and passengers. Just outside the last buildings of Castell City, passenger shuttles from the mining companies landed and lined up. Signs sprouted everywhere along Docktown, pointing to “Jobs And Housing Here.” Smaller signs, marked with the hand-painted logo of the 26th CD Marines, pointed to “Starman’s Inn”, “Harp’s Sergeant”, “Heinrick’s”, and “Clinic”.

Owen Van Damm, watching through binoculars from discreet concealment on top of the main warehouse, took careful notes. The first shuttle, naturally, unloaded a contingent of CoDo Marines. The
Black Bitch
and the
Princess Maeve
duly took them to the Old Dock and let them off near the sign pointing to Harp’s Sergeant. The unloaded shuttle took off, and another promptly took its place.

The next shuttle unloaded a lot of large Marine-guarded crates. Weaponry, Van Damm guessed, making a note. The
Queen Grainne
and
Finn MacCool
took them to the new Castell Dock, from which—Van Damm saw—they did not proceed to a warehouse but waited expectantly. Again, the shuttle took off and was quickly replaced.

Then came the transportees, shuttle after shuttle full of them. The riverboats hurried back and forth, loaded until they rode low in the water, but couldn’t keep up with the demand. It was dim-dark before the last shuttle unloaded and left, and full-dark before the river boats deposited the last transportees on land. The shuttles from the mining companies filled early, pulled up their signs and departed. Himself, visible by torchlight, stood up on a stump and urged remaining transportees aboard the riverboats which then pulled out and headed down river toward Hell’s-A-Comin. There were still thousands of transportees left milling about on the docks with no idea what to do or where to go.

By the light of his hand torch Van Damm stared bleakly at his notepad. Yes, as bad as he’d feared: a full ten thousand transportees, all dumped on Castell City. Maybe three thousand had gone off on the mining company shuttles. Maybe another thousand were headed for Hell’s-A-Comin’. At top speed, the riverboats couldn’t return for another two T-weeks; by then the abandoned transportees would have grown desperate and started making trouble.

Oh, and who was that strolling along the docks, studying the bewildered crowd and peering at the local fishing boats, as if he had plans for them. He’s familiar….

Hell, it’s Simon Shawley! One of BuIntel’s Off-World Operation Officers.
Shawley was sent out when things were getting dicey. If he was here, there were probably two or three other agents around.

Van Damm turned off his flashlight and flattened himself on the warehouse roof, swearing in three different languages. If Shawley was here, it could only mean that he no longer trusted his various agents to overthrow Castell and meant to do the job in person.

This is the end of the Harmonies.

And another ship would come, doubtless bringing more transportees, in six months.

…And they’ll concentrate on Castell City.

For a long moment Van Damm seriously considered cutting out and running upriver to Janesfort, taking up his old homestead and being a farmer for the rest of his life. It took a long moment to banish the temptation and start considering what he could do to help Jane’s alliance now and save what could be saved of Castell City.

2057 A.D., Cat’s Eye Orbit

Maxwell Cole sighed when he heard his name called out over the space yacht’s intercom. Throughout his thirty years of service in the CoDominium Bureau of Intelligence, Cole had visited over twenty different worlds, not counting Earth, Luna Base and Ceres; some multiple times. A few he’d enjoyed, like Tabletop, New Washington and Sparta; others he’d hated, like Folsom’s World and Tanith. But even the worst of them were better than Haven, his own personal hellhole.

On the other hand, this was the first time he’d traveled by space yacht with luxury accommodations.
I could get used to this
, he decided.
It sure beats the hell out of that Kenny Co ore carrier I was forced to take on my previous visit.

“Maxwell Cole please report to the penthouse,” the intercom repeated.

Ah, the master calls
, Cole thought. He had traveled aboard a lot of different space craft, but never one with a penthouse!

He punched a button, replying, “Tell Taxpayer Bronson I’m on my way.” He put down his tumbler of Scotch and rose to his feet. His tunic and trousers were tolerably presentable, not that this was a royal audience. He was a BuIntel agent, not a Dover toady, but orders were orders. Wainwright had said to follow Bronson’s orders, but “use your own discretion,” so he knew he was going to be walking a tightrope over this assignment. If anything went wrong, he was the fall guy; the upside was that for once he had as many CoDo credits as he needed and military backup.

The space yacht’s corridors were better appointed than the best New York hotels, not that he had much familiarity with them. Not a lowly and expendable feet-on-the-ground agent like himself. After that last little fracas they called the Janesfort War, he wasn’t likely to come out of this situation with anything much more than his basic pension. Regardless, he’d have to do the job, otherwise he’d either be abandoned on Haven or forced to spend the rest of his life condemned to a Welfare Island back on Earth. Not much payback for thirty years of faithful service to his CoDo overlords.