War World X: Takeover (6 page)

“Second, don’t antagonize the Marines in any way; that means not leaning on the bars, bordellos or anything else they find amusing. Just smile and ignore them.

“Third, send out more beadles and deacons to throw the real troublemakers out of town. I can help you identify those, and so can other friends of mine. Warn the settlers not to take them in. If they can’t reach Hell’s-A-Comin’ let them make boats and move out onto the river.

“Fourth, make some well-disguised escape tunnels. There’s always the possibility that you’ll need them. Mark paths not only to your own outlying farms but to settlers’ farms as well, and make sure to keep the good will of those settlers.

“Fifth—”

Charles Castell listened attentively, but his face grew bleaker and older with every word.

Wilgar listened even more intently, eyes wide in fascination.

Kennicott Camp One, or Kenny-Camp as it was more commonly called, had a company dock, a company office-building, company sheds, company housing and a company store, and everything else was a jerrybuilt slum. The open-pit hafnium mine lay a quarter-mile back from the river, a shameless eyesore with the machines always busy in it: diggers, belts and pumps constantly serviced by the indentured “wage-slaves.” Beside it lay the huge artificial mountain of the mine-tailings, being worked by ragged free miners. Beyond it, in the bare hills above the forest, were the numerous man-made caves of the shimmer stone prospectors.

Van Damm frowned at the scene as Makhno made the
Celia
fast at the dock, then turned to DeCastro. “I hope you can make a living from company scrip,” he said. “It is plain that there is little else here but barter.”

“I will happily deal in whatever my customers can pay,” said DeCastro with a smile, as he watched his personnel pull the barge close to the dock. “Besides, the minerals which the company machines cast off can include surprising riches. Do you see that rather shabby assayer’s office there?” He pointed. “I have it on good authority that respectable amounts of gold, silver and copper have come through its doors.”

“To say nothing of crude iron,” Van Damm murmured, fixing the location firmly in his memory.

“They have their own smelter,” added Makhno, giving Van Damm a significant glance. “We’ll be dropping in there, soon.”

“Please,
senores
, assist my companions to unload the barge while I go to seek suitable lodgings for my enterprise.” DeCastro hauled himself up onto the dock, automatically patting the filled holster on his hip and cast a calculating look around the near buildings.

“I’ll come with you,” said Van Damm, climbing up on the dock beside him. “This does not look like a town where it is safe for a man to walk alone.”

“Very well,” shrugged DeCastro, looking away.

Makhno, watching as the two of them strolled down the dock, judged that Vanny was safe on his own, then turned his attention to unloading the raft and barge. DeCastro’s hirelings, he noted—even the women—worked as if they were used to it. By the time Van Damm and DeCastro returned, dragging a handcart, everything was unloaded on the dock and the personnel of the former Golden Parrot were sitting on the assorted crates passing a canteen around.

“Found a good spot, did you?” asked Makhno, eyeing the handcart.

“Most excellent.” DeCastro snapped his fingers at his hirelings, who got up and began loading the crates on the handcart. “These hills are honeycombed with man-made caves, and I’ve obtained a small one for an excellent price.”

“For free, to be exact.” Van Damm smiled briefly. “Nobody was using it. The place seems to have a bad reputation.”

“We shall change that.” DeCastro smiled. “Come,
mi compadres
: let us load and move quickly. Chaco, you stay here and wait with the second load. Inez, bring the ladies and personal gear. Move! Move!”

It took half an hour for the personnel of the Golden Parrot to fill the handcart and move out. Chaco sat on a crate in the barge and pulled out the canteen again. Assorted passersby glanced at the barge, glanced at Makhno on the raft, and kept walking.

“I see that the people here know you,” Van Damm commented. “Tell me, where and how do you exchange Jane’s goods for metals? That assayer’s office was careful to deal only in mineral goods, not…ah, Euph-leaf.”

“For that, we go a little further downstream, to Hell’s-a-Comin’, inhabited mostly by shimmer stone miners.” Makhno automatically glanced around for anyone listening. “We go to a dugout called The Irish Bar, and ask for Himself.”

“Who?”

“Irish Himself. His bar is the local food shop and watering hole, but the serious business is conducted in his storeroom. That’s the local pawnshop, barter-house and bank. It’s also the information center. We do the exchange there.”

“I see. And this is unknown to the Company?”

“Totally. If anyone from Kenny-Camp asks why we go on down river, we say we’re making deliveries to prospectors, that’s all.” Makhno looked around again. “Vanny, this cave that DeCastro picked: is it dug into a ridge that comes down to the river? And is it really close to the riverbank?”

“Yes. Why?”

Makhno heaved a profound sigh. “Traitors’ Cave,” he said. “The bastard is setting up shop in Traitors’ Cave, and I wish him joy of it.”

“I take it this has something to do with that first miners’ strike, the one that was broken up by the CoDo Marines, yes?”

“Oh yes. Everybody who lives long in Hell’s-A-Comin’ knows the story, and I’ll tell it to you once we’re back on the water. Suffice it to say that if DeCastro’s looking for info to sell, or trouble to cause, he couldn’t have picked a worse spot.”

“So what’m I supposed to do with this place, Brodski?” Heinrick whined, looking around at the emptied half-dugout that had formerly been known as the Golden Parrot. “I can’t run it as a bar, or even a restaurant, not with you already monopolizing the trade. I dunno what Van Damm expected.”

“True, Docktown doesn’t need another bar and grill,” Brodski purred, leaning back on the split-log bench against the wall. “But there’s plenty else that it needs. An exchange-shop, for instance, or a drugstore, or a repair-shop. Think you could handle any of those?”

A series of emotions played across Heinrick’s face in quick order, finally settling on a canny look. “Repairs, maybe. I got…some tools for that.”

Brodski smiled, remembering that oversize and clanking duffel bag that Heinrick had brought with him. “Very good. And since a lot of your customers will be dealing in barter, you can’t help but run an exchange shop on the side. Hmm, you know anything about repairing—or making—radios?”

“Simple ones, sure.” Heinrick shrugged. “You just have to find a frequency that’ll work here in the valley, what with all the interference from Cat’s Eye.”

“I think we’ve got that,” Brodski grinned. “Talk to Sam-the-Ham Kilroy, just a few doors west. By the way, you know how to make saws that’ll cut stone, or steel?”

“Yeah, I think I can manage that. Why?”

“Well, you ever hear of a tree called an ironwood, back on Earth?”

“Think so. …Uh, its wood was supposed to be so hard that you needed a…metal saw to cut it. You mean, there’s a tree like that around here?”

“Even tougher. It’s called a steelwood, for good reason. A very useful critter, if only you have the means to saw it.”

“I see!” Heinrick’s face lit up—then abruptly fell again. “But what’ll we do for power? Plutonium batteries last a long while, but you get only so much power out of ’em.”

Brodski let his gaze wander to the ceiling. “I believe the miners at Hell’s-A-Comin’ have dug up something like coal, and there’s always wood along the forest. There are ways to work with steam.”

“Steam?”

“And if we can set up a water-wheel, there’s always the river itself.”

“And in exchange for all this foine leaf and upriver brandy,” Himself said, peering narrowly at Makhno, “Yous be wantin’ what, this time?”

“Brass or good iron,” said Makhno. “I know you can swap for it at Kenny-Camp.”

“Then why din’cha swap for it there yerself?” Irish leaned forward on the plank table. “Yah know we got nothin’ down here but local produce an’ the occasional shimmer stone.”

“I’d rather the assayer’s office didn’t know all my business.” Makhno grinned back. “They’ve got too many company men peeping over their shoulders.”

Himself smiled broadly, showing crooked teeth. “An’ they just might take it into their heads to put an end to the euph-leaf trade, startin’ with yerself, eh?”

“Something like that,” Makhno agreed.

Irish leaned back, exuding confidence. “Well now, it just so happens that we’ve got a wee blacksmith’s shop, an’ a few pigs o’ copper an’ tin, and summat more o’ fine-smelted iron. We was hopin’ ta make it inta minin’ tools, but for such foine brandy, not ta mention the leaf, I do think we can dicker.”

“Coal,” Van Damm put in. “We know there’s plenty of carbon on the planet, or the forests wouldn’t exist. But where can we get usable amounts of it?”

Himself laughed and slapped the table. “From the black-stump tree, o’ course! What did yah think it made its black core from? Eh, I suppose yah had ta be a miner ta notice. Ah, but for big loads o’ that, ye’ll have ta bring us more than just euph an’ brandy.”

“I think we can come up with something,” Makhno grinned, “And in larger loads, too.”

As Van Damm watched, the two of them leaned close over the table and settled in for some serious dickering.
Chains of trade routes,
he considered.
Stronger than steel…

He wondered idly if he could stir up the kind of trouble Max Cole wanted by setting the free miners against the company’s slaves, but then decided it wouldn’t work. The company “indentured laborers” would desert in a red-hot minute if they knew there was some way they could survive outside the company’s town….

And right there, a beautiful idea blossomed.

When Max Cole heard that there was a coded special message for him coming up from the planet, he practically ran to the radio room to get his transcript, and actually did run back to his cabin to decode it. Yes, of course it was from Van Damm, and high time, too. The ship was due to leave in another two hours.