Halfling Moon (7 page)

Yeah, change was difficult. Certainly
Rollie'd never helped, always managing to take an advantage when
something new did happen, from taking the newer bed when Mom left
to pulling a muscle right at the time Grampa was setting work
schedules so it ended up Rollie on perpetual light-duty, it
seemed.

Started down that thought road Yulie rolled on, right up to
Rollie helping him choose a nettle-vined hideaway for one of his
few forays into hunting oversized feral Cachura pigs -- apparently
one of Rollie's least successful jokes on account of Grampa finding
out about it -- and for that matter, for taking such an interest in
his attempts to talk to the twins hanging around the small farm
market near the inner tollbooth to Ira Gabriel's blocks that
Rollie'd made it a threesome, leaving Yulie out of the mix entire,
claiming of course that he'd been misunderstood. And once he'd
made
that
connection . . .

Yah, that's how it was, often enough, Rollie
doing what he wanted and when, and now this, right out of Grampa's
dreams, traders coming here, big traders. Ships coming, lots of
ships. That was the change he'd been told, that the new big Boss,
Boss Conrad, was building the port up in part so he could bring in
the trade. And Rollie, he'd missed this good thing, pushing too
hard too soon. The road was open, now. Not so much of tariff at
each tollbooth, not so much hassle.

Yulie shivered again and heard a distant
complaint. It was likely the gray one. Some cats told time better
than he did. Yes, he was late, and some people around here kept
schedules, even if he didn't.

But he should. The strangers might be back
tomorrow, and besides, he needed to walk down to Melina Sherton's
and see if somebody would talk to him, assuming he could get that
far. He had tubers and late greens and cabbages that needed to go
to market, some way, and the folks down at the Boss Sherton's
stands understood that sometimes it took him awhile to get a
conversation going.

* * *

The news wasn't good, and it didn't come
until he was at Prime. Pat Rin was unfond of the Terran habits
which broke meals, though often as not here on Surebleak, necessity
was Necessity.

Cheever's nod pre-spoke a problem, and
though he needed no permission to sit at the evening's communal
table he seemed unsure…and then decisive, making his way directly
to the Boss.

Low voice, a touch of hand-talk -- a glance
to make sure his large person was between the room and his
words.

"The plot's tended, and the door's locked.
We called, but it was getting late, and Sherton's people were a
little unsure, on account of the guy's some strange, they say. Like
you figured, Sherton wants the thing cured proper beforehand, and
so does Boss Ira.

No use spooking him or annoying a good
neighbor. The road itself -- the thing is, I don't know how stuff
is going to fit together there, but it looks like a straight shot
from the tollbooth to the ditch. Road goes right there."

Pat Rin looked away, not angered, but
frustrated. On his left Natesa asked, "The door locked? How locked
-- could they have been inside?"

The big man shrugged, palms up.

"Wouldn't think so, catwise. Couple or three
right there, wanting us to let 'em in, kinda sleek. Some out cats
was around while we searched -- pretty much ignored us, but the
ones at the door, I'd say they were wanting someone to let 'em to
supper." He shrugged again, looked to the Boss.

"Should I have forced the door? Didn't seem
neighborly."

Pat Rin waved the hand-talk
Negative Negative
Negative
with a touch of impatience.

"Surely not, Mr. McFarland. I may already
have an aggrieved party on my hands; it clearly wouldn't do to give
him any other advantages in negotiation."

"My take, too." Cheever glanced meaningfully
toward his place at the table . . .

"Tomorrow, it should be done, even if it means I go out
myself.
The Passage
is in orbit and soon enough the logistics of the
landings will be organized. If need be, you can fly surveillance
for us."

Cheever cleared his throat, hard.

"There's more?"

"Boss, if you go, take somebody with you.
He's supposed to be a real fine rifle shot. Real fine. Boss Ira
says that, anyhow. Boss Melina says he's doing better now. Hasn't
fired on people for a couple, four years, far as anyone knows."

Pat Rin nodded.

"Would I could say the same, Pilot. Thank
you for your information."

* * *

Farming was like that, day comes after the night, sometimes
it rains and sometimes it don't. This time of the year favored
rain, so Yulie was just as glad to be up early, almost on schedule,
the gray cat having forgotten to wake. Just as well, a few extra
minutes was good, and he'd been a little tense anyway, when he came
in, and the single glass he allowed himself did help . . . but he'd
been a few minutes late getting to bed. The little
Blair Road
Booster
news-sheet yesterday's visitors left him was a curiosity --
he mostly didn't take any of the radio feeds, and now this: talk
about a clinic going to full-time, all day, all night, all the
time, and something that made him laugh -- an image of road sign
they called a stop sign that drivers were supposed to pay attention
to even if there weren't a tollbooth and a gunman behind
it.

But there was more interesting news: a new
bakery, and a new school, and a meeting of the Bosses about a
general safety patrol to take care of the road. And an events
listing, which looked like so many times and days and things going
on that it couldn't be his Surebleak.

He'd gone to sleep with a twitch of irony.
That safety patrol was good from the port all the way out to the
third Blair road intersection. But the road, the big road, it came
all the way out to him. Was he gonna end up with more
cat-hunters?

That germ of an idea had brought nightmares
to wake him up -- flashbacks, Rollie'd call them -- ten of the cats
from the greens field, laid out neat in a row, mostly shot, like
they was food, laying on a bag. The sight of them made him throw
up. Then he'd heard another shot and gone back to the house.

He'd always liked to shoot -- it relaxed him
immensely. This time though, he'd brought out the rounds Grampa
called Military Tops and loaded up, and walked calm as could be
back past the dead cats, and found another one, along with some of
the skulk rats it had taken, and so then he went to hunt mode.

Wasn't much to hunt, really: six of them, a couple with
pistols, stupid about moving. He was going to try to stop them,
that was his idea, but he come on them when two were sighting on a
hunter-cat at work, and there, clear as could be, was
his
shot.

Five of them were dead where they fell; the
sixth tried to pull a hideaway on him, way too late.

He'd gone back to the house with the dead
cats, planning to bury them, and roused Rollie -- who'd been late
getting back from a jaunt to The Easiery -- and told him he'd got
himself some bad varmints, and Rollie'd better look, which Rollie
did.

Eventually a couple of city-types claiming
kin and friend came looking, and Rollie'd pointed out the signs
about no hunting and told them there'd been a hunting accident that
got out of hand, told them the farm didn't have any food animals no
how.

Rollie'd already sold the intruder's guns to
Boss Ira, anyhow, and wasn't much to show them, and that had been
that, except of course Yulie'd spent every day for a year walking
that route, back and forth, counting the cats, and some nights took
the rifle out, waiting for people. Nobody else came, and eventually
he'd learned to sleep again.

And so he'd got up, last night, and walked
out to the disguised grow-house. He talked to a couple of the cats
who guarded the coffee plants there in the cavern, told them he was
sorry for not doing better by them. If they didn't say nothing
back, at least they listened to his apology; then he slept well and
woke up sharp, and ready to work.

The morning wake-up being what it was, he was standing at
the window watching the gray horizon verging on pink, his coffee
just warming his hands, gray cat leaning companionably against the
back of his legs, when this
thing
appeared in the sky, dusty bright in the
coming sunlight, unscheduled.

No meteor. No spaceship he knew of. Not even
a Korval spaceship, big as Grampa had made them sound -- this thing
looked like it had craters on it…and then it was out of sight.

He stood there for some time, feeling the gray cat against
the back of his legs. He sighed, wondering if that hadn't been in
the events columns there in the
Blair Road Booster.

This time he was waiting for it, and since
the world had turned under the orbit, caught it in just above mid
horizon, and he stopped tossing the cabbages to stare.

It wasn't a ship, and it
was
cratered, but it wasn't a big thing by any
means, "big" being a relative term when it came to objects in
space, even in nearspace. Yulie'd heard of constructs that might be
that size, but not constructs of rock; whatever it was, it was not
the size of a tidal satellite, by any means.

Still, he was hardly an expert, having only
the hand-me-down lessons from Grampa, and the optics scope. The sky
was brilliant though, and blue, and it was still visible, with
Triga and Toppa not yet risen to confuse with odd shadows. Not that
Surebleak's two tidal moons were all that bright, but they both
were capable of casting some light and when they were in sync were
quite a spectacular sight, especially when they were in conjunction
with Chuck-Honey.

Yulie checked the chronometer, almost doubting. Right.
It
was
orbiting, and it wasn't high at all. Something that size
could make a heck of a hole if it was on the way down. A heck of a
hole.

He felt the panic gnawing experimentally at
his vision, but no! There, an aircraft, flying low over Melina
Sherton's land, or maybe over Ira's back farms. Almost noiseless,
it banked, headed his way -- he thought to run, but the thing
banked away, obviously interested in the growing little block-town
Melina and Ira'd been working on, just in case the fools in the
city actually did themselves in. Interested? Hah -- it might be it
was landing somewhere over that way.

Yulie threw the striped orange cabbage from
his hand to the crate, willing to call the thing full. That ought
to do it. Five full crates -- time to get things moving. No time to
be worried about aircraft, and --

He twisted, catching a glimpse of some low
clouds coming from the northwest, which could portend a rainy
morning on the morrow, perhaps even a snowy tomorrow night.

The moon-thing was out of sight now, but he
was going to watch for it. Meanwhile, it was time to go if he was
going to hit Boss Sherton's farmer's market before the last of the
day-buyers left.

The walk was doing Yulie good, even if the
plane had come by for one more pass before disappearing for good.
He knew it was too soon for the return of the new moon, but
scanning the sky was helping him keep the world in perspective as
he trod the down slope toward the farmers market. His backpack held
six cabbages -- one each for the two local bosses, and one each for
the tollbooth crews to share. The other two were promise-proofs for
the farmers who might come to help, knowing good food when they saw
it.

The slope got steeper, and then the road
went through a short valley, still tending downhill, with rocky
hills acting as a kind of weather break and demarcation for the
land below.

Originally, of course, that natural wall the
valley pierced made for good siting for the test dig that had
become World's End, and for the company's first management zone.
Once the dig got going Management was inclined to prefer the
portside bar and restaurants and then -- and then the company had
gone slowly into decline as the commercial timonium need drove the
independents, and later the big boys, to follow the joint trail of
creation and destruction that was the legacy of Chuck-Honey's rapid
path through the regional space.

Somewhere Chuck, or Honey, or the pair
together, had swarmed upon a stony-cored brown-dwarf remnant of the
same monster cloud that had formed Surebleak and its system, and
that dwarf's bounty lay in the metals and transuranics -- and the
encounter, sundering the dwarf, created a rogue field of rocks and
high grade ore, loosely trailing behind. Asteroids and comets and
potential moons, the rocks now transited interstellar space. Lucky
ships could come up with lumps of near pure timonium, or gold, or
lead. Hardworking ships and companies could mine instead the broken
chunks, needing no excavation equipment to speak of, no investment
in people and governments and law --

The company stuck with appurtenances --
excavators and law clerks and straw-bosses and crewship pilots and
-- it had contracts and plans and goals enough to get it through a
couple financial ripples, but in the end it was easiest to sell the
company to a shell corporation and merge that with another and drag
what funds there were in transit out -- and then abandon to the
tender mercies of the jackals of interstellar finance the remains.
The people stuck onworld belonged there after all -- who needed
dirt-miners in a good clean space-rock roundup?

Grampa -- Grampa had been owed big-time when
the company was going to dust, and he'd fought for what was owed
him for the ship he'd bought, fought for his plans to retire to a
nice planet somewhere with lots of water and lots of willing ladies
. . . and filed liens and lawsuits.