War World X: Takeover (37 page)

“And now?” Barbarossa asked.

“No mercy,” replied Tawfiq. “These dogs will probably not even be missed by their wives. Make sure the bodies are buried deeply.” He turned and stepped out of the capsule, as knives flashed, and the floor ran red with blood. Abdullah stared silently at Barbarossa, who wiped a bloody knife clean on the robes of his victim, a broad smile on his face. Abdullah trusted Tawfiq’s intentions, but he wondered if the protective services, the drug and alcohol sales, the prostitution, would simply continue under new management.

One day, when Abdullah was away on errands for the Mahdi, a man rode into what had become known as Capsule Town, astride one horse and leading another, obviously a traveler, equipped lightly, but for a long journey. He was an infidel, but he rode into the camp of strangers with great confidence. Abdullah saw him pause a few times to question people, and when one pointed at Abdullah, he stopped to wait for the man.

The stranger was tall and lean and dressed in plain, dusty brown trousers and shirt, with high riding boots. He had a leather harness on, which except for its material, was similar to the belt and suspenders combination that CoDominium soldiers wore. From it hung an automatic pistol in a cross-draw holster, a large knife, canteen and a variety of pouches. A rifle was balanced across his saddle bow, an old fashioned bolt-action model, but well maintained, and ready for quick use. His hat was a broad brimmed brown felt, similar to those many of the infidels wore, but with its front brim pinned up.

The face revealed by this was weather-beaten, but young. The stranger had black hair and blue eyes, with a straggly attempt at a goatee making him look younger instead of older.

He reined in his horse, raised a right hand in greeting, and said, “Mornin’. They tell me you speak English.”

“Yes,” said Abdullah. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” the young man answered, “to get right to the point, I’m a scout, and I happen to be lookin’ for work, and wonderin’ if you folks might need my service. M’name is Patrick, Patrick Flynn.”

“My name is Abdullah Hassan. Good day to you. Have you eaten?”

Patrick grinned, shedding any pretense of reserve, “Not yet today and I’m feelin’ peckish. You know where we can get some food?”

Abdullah smiled back. The young man’s name and something about his accent, made him think back to Irish friends he had back in Boston, a lost lifetime ago. “Follow me,” he said.

They went to an inn made of adobe blocks and ordered breakfast. Abdullah usually settled for a piece of bread and a cup of coffee, but Patrick looked hungry, so he ordered rice, mutton, bread, cheese and coffee for both of them. Abdullah had used English to argue with CoDominium soldiers, government officials and mining leaders for so long, he had forgotten what a pleasure it was to use his native language for casual conversation. And Patrick seemed to have saved up a surplus of conversation in his lonely journeys.

Patrick spoke about his childhood as an orphan in Castell City, his mother having died during the year-long journey from Earth. He had ended up in an orphanage, under the care of the Church of Harmony monks who oversaw not only the orphanage, but also the training of newly arrived transportees.

He hadn’t fit in well there, and always seemed to be getting into fights. One of the monks, Brother Miller, had taken a liking to him, and had arranged for him to be apprenticed to an old friend of his, Sam; a noted explorer, wilderness guide and hunter who lived in a small village in the hills north of Castell City. Sam’s wife, Moira, ran a pub in the village, kind of a combination restaurant, bar and music hall. Sam and Moira had met in Castell City, and moved out of town just in time to miss the troubled years that started when the CoDominium governor set up shop. In fact, some of their friends ended up following them out of the city, including Brother Miller, who became the teacher at the village’s school.

Patrick said Moira was Irish and loved to talk about the Emerald Isle, while Sam wouldn’t talk about his life on Earth, only saying that he came to Haven for a fresh start. Even though they were starting a family of their own, they treated Patrick like a son. And starting when he was sixteen, Sam had started bringing him on his journeys, training him as a guide and scout. His wandering had taken him through the passes north of Lake Eden, and into the plains beyond, land he was eager to explore. He told Abdullah he would like it back home, the folks were all very friendly.

Patrick also mentioned that he was a baseball pitcher in his home town.

“They play baseball on Haven?” exclaimed Abdullah.

“Sure do,” Patrick answered, “It’s our favorite sport. People all through the hills come from miles around to see town teams compete against each other. The year before I lit out on my own, our team went to Castell, and we placed second in the World Series, playin’ against teams from all up and down the valley. There are only six teams on all of Haven, but some of those players are top notch. I was our pitcher in the final championship game and gave up two runs, which was one more than I should have, and decided that would be the end of my baseball career.”

Abdullah told Patrick about his own days playing baseball in Eastern Massachusetts, traveling from high school to high school in the springtime. He spoke of games in Fenway Park, seeing the best baseball players on any world. Abdullah found himself able to tell his whole story for the first time since leaving Earth: he spoke of his father, the Harvard professor, and his lofty goals for himself and his son; his mother, warm and friendly, but unable to muster the courage to say anything that might contradict her husband. He spoke of Boston, the excitement of city life, the challenges of school at MIT.

Patrick was amazed by all of this. So Abdullah took the luster off life on Earth, also describing the tensions between Taxpayers and Citizens, the erosion of liberties as the bureaucracy of the CoDominium encroached on the old United States government. He described running away to see the world, being swept up by the mutiny and into the Mahdi’s movement.

“You sure have had an interestin’ life,” said Patrick.

“As have you,” Abdullah answered. “Now, what kind of work are you interested in?”

“Well, I figured you folks, bein’ new to the planet and all, would want someone to show you around, help you get the lay of the land. The CoDominium troops use a lot of local scouts, but my family has never had much use for those folks. And the mining companies have work, but they just make my skin crawl. I don’t know much about you Arab folks, but I figure that anyone who doesn’t get along with the mining companies and the Marines is okay in my book.”

Abdullah said, “You found the right person. The Mahdi has been talking about sending out parties to explore the area around the lake and it sounds like the work would be right down your alley.”

Abdullah’s new friend was hired by Tawfiq and became a frequent visitor to both Medina and Eureka. He would often lead small parties of the Faithful out on horseback to explore the lands about them, returning after a few weeks eager for a good meal and friendship. He tended to avoid the company of what many thought were “his own kind,” which drew comments from the Faithful. When Abdullah mentioned that to him, Patrick said, “If you knew a bit more about this planet, you would know that most people don’t think of the mining companies, nor the Marines, as their own people.”

He did sometimes take Abdullah into Eureka to a small pub that he enjoyed. There, a group of musicians played, not professionals just local people who played for the love of it. Patrick was dating a woman who played fiddle there and often sat in, playing his tin whistle. He found out that Abdullah had played some guitar in the past and, from somewhere, he obtained a small mandolin for him and taught him to play a few of the tunes. This brought Abdullah some acceptance among the townspeople who frequented the pub. The music had made him, in some small way, one of their own.

Tawfiq encouraged this. While many of his followers could not pass freely in Eureka, Abdullah, with his perfect American English and non-Arab looks, could move about with much less notice. He was encouraged to remain clean-shaven and wear trousers and a shirt instead of the traditional robes so many others of the Faithful wore. There were many blacks among the enlisted ranks of the CoDominium Marines and Abdullah struck up acquaintances with some of them. As always, the Mahdi was looking for intelligence and information that he could use to his advantage.

One day, Abdullah was walking past a field where CoDominium troops were playing a scratch baseball game. They had convinced a couple of Arab boys to come to bat, and then mocked them as they swung and missed, their robes tangling about them as they did so. Abdullah barked at the boys in Arabic and told them to come with him. The taunts at their backs continued as Abdullah lectured them about maintaining their dignity. The boys protested saying that they were just having fun, so he told them some of the things the soldiers had been saying about them in English.

The incident left Abdullah with an idea that he brought to Tawfiq. He spoke to him about forming a baseball team. “Let’s show the infidels a thing or two by beating them at their own game,” he said.

Tawfiq laughed, and dismissed the idea.

English lessons continued for Tawfiq, his lieutenants and others of the Faithful, whose work put them in contact with the infidels. Leaders among those who worked in the mines were chief among his students. They wanted to know what the supervisors were really saying about the mines, especially safety issues. DMD cared less about safety than profits and were constantly putting the miners at risk, and then blaming them for any problems that would result.

And there were still English lessons for the women as well. Many of the women just learned a little, and moved on, but the advanced class still held A’isha and Faryal. This class was still Abdullah’s favorite, a special time in each day.

After one class, however, A’isha paused to speak to him. “You like my daughter,” she said, without preamble.

Abdullah was caught off-guard. “Yes, I do.”

“It shows. Too much. I like you, but do not overstep your bounds. She is a wonderful girl, but she is also the daughter of the Mahdi. Remember the stories of clashes between the descendents of the Prophet, blessed be his name, and think about what being with such a woman means.”

She turned and walked away, leaving Abdullah gaping like a fish and wondering what had just occurred.

Days turned into weeks, and then months. Abdullah began to feel less out of breath. He wasn’t struggling constantly to get enough of the thin air into his lungs. He began to get used to the odd cycle of days and nights on Haven, which repeated over the two hundred and sixty hours that made up a local week. Because it was almost impossible for people to adapt to Haven’s odd patterns of light and dark, this was arbitrarily divided into eleven days that fell just short of being twenty-four hours long. So each day was different, and not divided into repeating periods of light and dark. Some days were “brightdays,” with the sun up for hours. Some days were “dimdays,” when only the gas giant planet, Cat’s Eye, was above the horizon. And twice during the H-week were “truenights,” a period where nothing but the stars appeared in the sky, nights that were piercingly cold on the hills and steppes surrounding their towns..

Every three or four T-months, the cry rang throughout the towns of Medina and Eureka, “Incoming!” This signaled the fact that splashships were arriving, amphibious craft that landed on Dire Lake, holding supplies and human cargo destined for the mouth of the river. They would pull up to the docks and off would stream a parade of transportees, mostly Muslim, who were herded to tents for processing. In return they would be loaded with ore for the trip back to the ore carriers in low orbit above Haven.

In warehouses lining the docks sat the gallium that had been mined and processed in the hills at the head of the Dire River. The cargo came down the river on rafts made from the wood of egg and steelwood trees. Upon arrival, the cargo was offloaded, and the wood was brought to sawmills to become building material for the ever-expanding towns. Along with each raft of hafnium came a crew of broken men, men who had washed out at the mines and had twisted backs and broken bones, or had lost fingers and limbs in mining accidents. The mining company blamed this on the men and their carelessness, calling them un-trainable. The survivors told a different story of lax safety procedures, sketchy preparations and outdated or makeshift equipment.