War World X: Takeover (22 page)

Kev held his tongue for a few moments. The man knew much, perhaps more than reasonably possible for a newlie. Kev caught and ignored a look of panic from Bren, who moved quietly through curtains into another room, leaving them to business.

Cole said, “It’s nothing violent or in any way harmful or, uh, discordant. The miners want places to put aside some of their ores, that’s all. They need secure places, and the only property left more or less alone on this planet are the Harmony farms and compounds.”

Kev raised a hand. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, seeking harmony, seeking larger chorus. He said, eyes still shut, “Ores mined belong not to miners, but to their employers, Kennicott and others.”

“True, but it’s in the interest of the entire planet to help preserve the ore. You see, much of it never reaches its rightful owners. Much of it is pirated. And I’ve been sent here to, well, engineer the capture of those pirates, to stop the intercessions of our lawful trade. And I was instructed by Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson himself to include the Harmonies in any plans.”

“You are an agent of secrecy.” Kev said this as both quotation and statement, then added, “Or of chaos.”

“Nothing but peaceful help is required, First Deacon Malcolm. If you agree, simply spread the word that Harmonies are to, what would you call it, harmonize with the few miners who might contact them. All your people need do is accept receipt of a percentage of the ores normally shipped down the Xanadu River and taken off-world by splashship. We’re keeping aside this percentage because it off-sets the ores stolen by the pirates and that means, once we capture them, we’ll be able to resume full trade and make up back-log all the quicker. Everyone benefits, by the way; in honor of your help, contributions to Harmony coffers would increase, I am told, amazingly.”

“What’s the real game?” Kev asked. His well-modulated Harmony tone slid away, revealing a harder, harsher voice.

Surprised, Cole sat back and made a show of taking a twist of tobacco from his pocket and chewing it thoughtfully before answering. “Can’t tell you,” he said, his own speech automatically becoming terse.

“Render unto Caesar,” Kev muttered. Louder he said, “You mentioned a Bronson.”

“Thomas Erhenfeld Bronson, yes. He’s on Tanith, I believe. Grand tour and all that. He’s one of the family gophers, a scion but he’s going for more than they realize, I think. And the man has skills and guts to match his ambition, if I’m any judge. Met him a few times.”

“And now you work for him.”

“Tangentially, perhaps. In point of fact, so do you, if you want to put things in those terms.”

Kev grimaced. “Would he…” His voice trailed off, he sought for words this time, not harmony. They came. “Would he become aware, specifically, of the Harmony role in such matters?”

“If you want him to, he’ll know your name as well as he knows mine,” Cole said, coughing, then spitting tobacco juice into the fire. He ignored Kev’s look of distaste and spat again, then said, “Offers to play with the big boys don’t come very often. Repeat offers are rarer still.”

Kev nodded, then stood. “How soon must you know?”

“As soon as possible, First Deacon,” Cole said. “And I’d like a word with the Reverend, if he’s—”

“I don’t think that’ll be possible.” He placed a hand on the stranger’s shoulder. “Or necessary,” he added, as they sank to their knees to crawl back outside.

“Ah,” Cole said, standing and refastening his collar and cuffs. He looked once more at the Harmonies dipping the young animals. “I see.” He smiled once more at Kev, then shook the startled Harmony Deacon’s hand.

“Have you a place to stay?” Kev asked. He glanced toward the acolyte’s lodge, where another pallet could always be found.

“Many,” Cole said, winking. “Alas, a secret agent is a busy man.”

Kev neither smiled nor otherwise acknowledged the jest. He walked him to the city gate and discovered a padlock, then signaled for an acolyte to open it. As Cole trudged back into Castell City, Kev asked, “Where’s Wilgar?”

“He went into your house, just after you and your guest,” the acolyte answered. “Didn’t you see him?”

Kev said nothing, but he was thinking that the real question was whether or not Wilgar had seen or heard, the conversation which had just ended. Not for the first time had the child’s precocity created a potential problem. On instinct, Kev turned his steps toward the Reverend Castell’s house, hoping he’d find him still alone with his Gordian knots and obsessions.

Instead, he found the Reverend talking animatedly with his long-dead father, or so it seemed. And there, in the corner, taking it all in, sat Wilgar, a half-smile on his lips, eyes staring in fascination.

As he walked away from his first encounter with the Haven Harmonies, Cole laughed again, this time needing no cough to cover his delight at having so easily found the First Deacon’s apparent weak spot. So the young man had political ambitions, did he? All the better.

He walked past entreaties from destitute drunks and brazen whores, ignored threats from bullies, and made it through Cambiston into Docktown proper before the two miners caught up with him.

Decking shifted underfoot. Cole paused, then shoved an elbow back and up. It connected with a man’s chin, dropped quickly to guard the throat. The man staggered back, while his companion lunged forward, onto Cole’s left arm.

Cole went with the inertia, falling and curling into a ball. The miner rolled over him and off the dock. The splash and subsequent thrashing gave Cole a grin.

He rose and glanced at the other opponent. “Well?” he asked.

“You’re the one,” the guy said, spitting blood. He stuck out a hand. “I’m Forbs. Strippers.”

“Make bigger holes,” Cole said, completing the contact code. “Why didn’t you assholes say something?”

“Gotta have some kind of fun,” Forbs said. He walked over to the dock’s edge and glanced down. “Hey Jenks, it ain’t new-Eye yet, how come you’re taking a bath?”

Cole let the two laugh, then punched Forbs in the kidney and grabbed the back of his collar. “Your friend’s going to have a bathing partner in about half a second if you don’t start telling me things I want to know.”

“What, what?” The miner waved his arms as the tips of his toes danced on the edge of the dock.

“Guy could freeze to death,” Cole said. “How come you missed the rendezvous?”

“Couldn’t help it. Aw, come on, please?”

Cole backed the man away from the edge, mostly to give his own arm a rest. He trained his taser at the man’s neck and said, “How much help can I get on short notice?”

“Depends on for what,” the miner Forbs said. He stood sullen, shoulders hunched.

Cole explained as much of his plan as Forbs needed to know, then said, “Get him out of the water and into a bar, let him dry off. I’ll expect you at the next rendezvous on time, and if you’re not, you’d better be dead. That’s the only excuse I can tolerate right now.”

“We’ll be there,” Forbs said, grunting as his sopping companion used his arm as a ladder rung.

Cole, meanwhile, walked on. He passed along a dock, then gave a password and was permitted onto the deck of a small houseboat. He walked across it, over the gunwale, onto the deck of the next boat, and so on, until he stood far offshore. A floating village of houseboats housed many of Cambiston’s and Docktown’s dregs, not to mention refugees and refuse from Castell City proper. Living catch-as-catch-can lives, most of the floating folks crouched ever-ready to snatch, to grab. All Cole had to do was offer them profit of one kind or another, and this he did.

Using promises, he talked a rat’s nest of tide-born scum into becoming rag-tag pirates, at least for a time. “And remember,” Cole kept saying. “Miners aren’t to be harmed unless absolutely necessary.”

The boat-people started the hours-long task of unlashing each boat from adjacent vessels. Slowly, from the outer edges, the boat-village dispersed, some drifting down the Xanadu and Alf Rivers, others pulling or motoring up the Jordan.

Cole stepped boat-to-boat ashore. He then went on to his next task, pausing only to grab a quick bowl of heartfruit chili, washed down with foamy, yeasty beer.

“He speaks with spirits,” Wilgar said, gazing up at Kev’s face as Bren placed another blanket over the boy.

Kev neither nodded nor shook his head. His face showed only exhaustion. “Sleep now, and we’ll seek harmony in such matters later.” The boy smiled and closed his eyes, and soon Bren and Kev retired to their room. As he lay down, Kev sighed. Bren reached over and touched him, but he rolled away. She sighed.

A clamor at their door snapped Kev to his feet. He raced through the house, which was illuminated by only a few lamps, well-trimmed wicks turned low. The fire pit smoldered, coals glowing beneath a layer of ash.

On his knees, Kev moved into the tunnel and knocked down the thigh-thick chunk of wood which braced the door, itself several fingers thick and reinforced with costly black iron.

The Reverend Castell thrust his face at Kev and said, “We must consult at once.”

Kev nodded, then followed the Reverend Castell from his house. He shivered at once. He walked barefoot through a thin layer of snow to the Castell house. Crawling back to warmth soothed Kev, and he stretched out on a pallet of muskylope hides. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

The Reverend Castell, his white robes glowing almost as brightly as the white streaks in his long hair in the fire pits crackling light, said, “So soon my song unravels.”

“But we sing harmony in more numbers than ev—”

“We are few,” Castell, spat. “We huddle, oppressed as never on Earth. We cower as CoDo Marines march by like strutting conquerors, we quail from strip-miners who rape this planet worse than ever they raped old Earth. Peace is ours to offer, but no one wants peace, and yes, yes, we seek harmony in all things, but must we seek to join a song of utter discord? And now I learn that secret plans are afoot, conspiracies perhaps in the midst of our own communal symphony. Shall this Haven, our home, be lost to us, even before my son can take my place? Will my son have a place to take? Is Harmony at an end?”

Kev sat with gaze lowered. He waited, and when the silence grew past the rhetorical, said, “Harmony is more than a legacy, and Haven more than a refuge for us. There are many new forces on Haven, some of them less evident than others. Some of them cannot be met by your son, no matter his natural state of grace.”

Glancing up at the older man, he rubbed his hands. “
Your new role is protector of the Harmonies
, you said to me. It seems ages ago. Two Beads for every acolyte, and even that wasn’t enough. We cut poles, built the palisade. We strive to remain self-sufficient.” Here Kev frowned, his hands moving against volition to the secular, city-minted coins in his pocket; money, too, was coming to Haven.

After swallowing hard, Kev continued, still not looking at the Reverend Castell. “You said,
‘
Our church needs a buffer, and the Deaks and Beads shall provide it.’ You told me, ‘Deaks decide strategy, making sure they harmonize, while Beads deploy tactics, to guarantee compliance among Chosen and Pledged both.’ And so I’ve done, but Reverend, we must change, or—”

“Change what? Our song? Our search for Universal Harmony?”

“Never those,” Kev said, voice constricted. He took a breath, and for the first time dared look the older man in the eye. “It’s exactly that search which dictates compromise. What you’ve characterized as conspiracy is, in fact, simple negotiation. Even as your father did, back on Earth, I’m seeking to render under Caesar that which is his, so that we may retain what is ours.” Kev opened his mouth to say more, then closed his eyes and sighed and shut his mouth. He slumped, bone tired.

The Reverend Castell walked to the altar, hidden now by the man-sized tangle of knots suspended between the walls on single ropes. He touched the thing, and his prophet’s scorn softened to an expression of indulgence. “You’ve always carried the taint of a warrior,” he said. “You do, rather than simply be.”

Kev hissed, impatient. “Simply being doesn’t help. We’re not trees. And remember what happens to every forest man encounters.”