Rebellion (13 page)

Cool heads would have to prevail, or else there'd be a slaughter.

"Daniel. Come." Kasuf beckoned him over to kneel by the dead man's body. The old man gently probed. "He is broken from the fall and his flesh is torn, but I see no effects of the strangers' weapons on him."

Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. The messenger who'd arrived, a miner named Azar, had reported several conflicting stories on how Zaid had fallen. At least now one of the most damning versions had been disproved. As Kasuf announced his findings to the crowd, Daniel noticed a small knot of men rubbing themselves with sand to remove the blood clinging to their arms and torsos. "We helped bring Zaid up from the pit," one of them, a brawny young fellow, told Daniel in decent English.

Noting the teacher's surprise, the young man explained, "I was learning the strangers's tongue from ... those." He gestured to the UMC battle line. "Now, no more." They had to get this settled, and quickly. Daniel spotted plumes of dust coming their way from the base camp. With reinforcements, who knows what the UMC people might do? He raised his voice. "We need to speak with those who saw what happened to Zaid before he went into the pit." Daniel was surprised at the authority in his voice. "Not those who heard things, or think they saw. We need men who were on the line to go down, or who were in the tent of rest." It took precious moments to separate the wheat from the chaff, but at last Kasuf and his associate Elders had eyewitnesses to Zaid's last minutes.

Armed at last with an accurate story, Daniel headed for what appeared to be the UMC man in charge, a supervisor in white shirt and khaki pants.

The guy looked like a gorilla who had undergone a body shave and a blond hair-dye job. Daniel hoped that looks were deceiving. "You," the supervisor said, "you're that Jackson guy. You speak the local lingo.

Certainly better than Underwood here." He gestured to an obvious academic type cringing behind the battle line. "I came to see what the problem was," Daniel said. The Vanilla Gorilla scowled. "The problem is that these Abbadabbas are taking one guy's accident and making it an excuse to screw around. So if you'd just tell them to get back to work-" "We'll have to wait on that," Daniel interrupted. "The Elders-that's the local government around here-are questioning eyewitnesses. And from what I'm hearing, they're saying that one of your guards roughed Zaid up." The supervisor glanced for a moment at one of the gray-clad men, then said pugnaciously, "Well, who the hell are you going to listen to? Us or a bunch of savages?" "Those savages, as you call them, welcomed me to this world and saved my life." Daniel couldn't keep the anger out of his voice. "What have you and UMC done for me lately?" He returned to Kasuf, who was worriedly conferring with his fellow Elders. "We can keep the men from attacking these warriors,"

Kasuf began. "Which is just as well. Their weapons would slaughter the miners," Daniel told him. "But we must have justice," Kasuf insisted.

"The warrior who beat Zaid and the overseer who allowed the beating must be punished." "They're not even admitting that their people touched Zaid," Daniel reported. "But I think I know who did it, and if we can keep things from getting out of hand here-" His voice faded as he saw truckloads of Army soldiers and marines rolling up. Inspiration struck.

"Right now we have to get our people out of here without getting them shot. We have to do it nonviolently." "Nonviolently?" Kasuf echoed.

"Just follow my lead," Daniel said, turning to the crowd. "In my world, we have ways of showing those who run things the errors of their ways.

If you would make this mine safe, if you would have it run better, you must withdraw your work!" "Right!" Azar shouted, catching on quickly.

"How much ore could the strangers dig out without us?" "So throw down your tools! Leave the pit right now!" Daniel cried, carried on by his own oratory. The earth seemed to rattle with the sound of tools being abandoned to drop to the earth. "What the hell is he telling them?"

Daniel heard the Vanilla Gorilla mutter behind him. "I don't know, but at least he's disarmed the bastards," one of the guards answered. The people of Nagada needed something quicker to squeeze UMC than a STRIKE.

Daniel was suddenly struck by a memory from his college days. A protest

... "Friends!" he cried. "The strangers come to the city to buy their food, don't they?" "Yes, they do!" shouted the crowd. "Well from now on, no one in the city must sell them food," Daniel shouted. "If anyone does, no one must buy or sell with them. This is a very powerful weapon from my world. It's called the boycott!" "BOIK-ODD," the enthusiastic miners took up the cry, mangling the pronunciation. "BOIKODD!

BOIK-ODD!" "Take the word to the city! We'll march now!" Daniel led the miners past the line of gunmen stretched before the rest tent, away from the arriving troops. "BOIK-ODD!" his enthusiastic new followers chanted. At least I stopped them all from getting shot, Daniel thought.

Then he remembered what the great college protest had been over. The students had boycotted the cafeteria, trying to get better food. Daniel also remembered that the protest had been a complete failure. Except for the fact that Froot Loops had been added to the cafeteria breakfast.

Walter Draven was not in a forgiving frame of mind. He had been enjoying a lobbyist's luncheon in one of the finest Washington restaurants when his office called him with the new emergency. He refused to eat airline food, and landed in Colorado hungry. Stepping through the StarGate, he found UMC's Abydos operation under a local boycott and with no food at all. "Dam-nation!" he exploded at Eugene Lockwood. "How could things have gone so badly in so short a space of time?" The site man looked on the verge of peeing his pants. "We've had growing problems from a variety of different sources," he began. "But-"

"Oh, I know the next line," Draven sourly assured him. "But it's not your fault. Where are the geniuses responsible for the incident?"

Lockwood got on his radio. A moment later, Morris and Sullivan, the supervisor and the guard, marched into the office. Draven noticed that both had shaved and apparently spiffed up as much as possible, given the frontier conditions on Abydos. "I want to hear what happened," Draven told them, "from the horse's mouth, so to speak." At least from one end of the horse, Draven thought, taking in Morris's almost simian features.

The pair exchanged a glance. So. They'd decided to collaborate on telling their story. But the report they gave seemed reasonably straightforward-as did the defense Morris offered. "I was only carrying out company policy," the supervisor said. "As of that date, no workers were to be allowed into the rest tent unless they had proof of making five round trips carrying ore. This Zaid guy didn't have a chit. So we made him go back to the line." "Nice try, Morris," Draven told him. "The Eichmann defense-'I was only following orders." But the witnesses say that Zaid had been complaining he felt unwell. Shouldn't that have changed your mind?" "Sir Morris faltered to a stop, looking now at Lockwood, who of course was perfectly willing to let his subordinate hang in the wind. "We thought he was faking-malingering. If we let him in, we'd have to let anyone in who complained about the heat. And, well he rubbed his arms in the almost arctic comfort of the office trailer"it's brutal out there. Our translator couldn't stand the suns-he'd gotten under the shade of the tent. Both the Army guys and our own people were out in the sun, but they were drinking from canteens."

"So you were upholding a company policy you yourself could not have lived with," Dravan finished. "And you," he demanded, turning to Sullivan, "I'm told you struck the dead man-twice." "I broke the guy's hold on Mr. Underwoodthe translator," Sullivan specified. "This Zaid guy grabbed his hand. I made him let go. If he really was sick, I didn't want him spreading germs. Besides, the guy looked as if he already had fleas." "You've described one alleged blow," Draven said, shifting well into prosecutorial mode. "What about the other?" "That was more a move-along kind of thing," Sullivan explained. "Mr. Morris told him to go. So did Underwood, the translator. Me, too. When the wog didn't move, I gave him, well ... a poke, like." "With the butt of your rifle, apparently in the solar plexus," Draven amplified. "So, we have a man who seemed to be suffering from heat stroke having the wind knocked out of him. Then he was ordered to climb down eleven floors'worth of ladder." The engineer shook his head in disgust. "What a surprise that he wound up on the express route down." He raked the pair with glaring eyes. "It's too bad neither of you came up through the mining business," Draven finally- said. "If you had, I'd have you, Morris, drilling blast holes in the lousiest mine in Zambia. And you, Sullivan, would be right beside him, setting charges with the most chancy, deteriorated, volatile blasting compounds I could find." The troubleshooter jammed his hands in his pockets. "But then, you're used to playing around with volatile mixtures, aren't you? These people were virtually slaves less than a year ago. They were working for somebody whom they considered a god." He glared again at Morris and Sullivan.

"Maybe that makes them sound primitive to you. But if you'd been working for a god and told him where to get off, how much crap would you take from a mere man? Even a man with an assault rifle?" The pair was silent. Draven's lips twisted. "But you pushed this new policy like good corporate minions. Didn't you see that was like juggling nitroglycerine? You're very lucky, damn you-lucky your stupidity didn't result in things blowing up in your face. Instead, you've apparently caused the first STRIKE in the eight-thousand-year history of Abydos.

Congratulations." Lockwood spoke up. "It was that damned Jackson's fault. He's been a thorn in our side ever since I arrived here." "I was wondering when we'd get around to the 'outside agitators' plea," Draven said. "Frankly, Dr. Jackson was a pain in my ass when I arrived here.

That's why I wanted him marginalized which apparently didn't happen."

For a long moment Draven surveyed the THREE men. "Besides, Jackson did you a favor, though you don't realize it. He managed to get the miners away without bloodshed. If they'd tried to storm your line, there'd be a hundred dead tonight instead of one." His comment took another moment to sink in, so Draven pressed a little harder. "And you, Lockwood, would be inside the Army compound walls, watching this lovely office burn." He flung himself into a chair. "I guess my next stop is the city, to see if I can sweet-talk those

Elders. I'd prefer not to go outt on an empty stomach. So, Lockwood, you might make yourself useful and order something-" "Ah," Lockwood said quietly. "What?" Draven demanded. "When Jackson led the miners off, he was already organizing a boycott against us. For supplies as well as labor. We, ah, haven't been able to get any food from the natives. And with all the traffic through the StarGate to bring the military reinforcements in-" Draven had seen the military build-up, the men and machinery still waiting to get to Abydos. He himself had transited the StarGate at the end of a marching infantry platoon. "Perfect," the troubleshooter muttered, rising from his chair. "Just bloody perfect."

"Mister Draven?" Lockwood asked as the troubleshooter left the office.

"Where are you going?" "Change in plans. I'm going to see the local military commander before I see your friends in the city. I've got to see how far he'll back us. "And maybe," Draven added, "I'll get something to eat." General Francis Keogh was a disappointment. Oh, he looked every inch the model of a military man, even in the bustle of making the command tent his instead of Jack O'Neil's. A cot had been moved in so the general could catnap if necessary while conducting operations. O'Neil had seemingly never needed that. The Marine colonel had impressed Draven as more of a machine than a man-a machine that would keep going until it broke down or blew up. Keogh was all too human, Draven decided. It showed in the touches he was adding to the tent-a regimental flag, a photo of a younger Keogh shaking hands with the president-two incumbents had held the Oval Office since. It especially showed in the ring that gleamed on the general's right hand.

Certain men went to West Point and emerged superlative officers. Others attended the academy and came out convinced they were God's gift to the military-whether they were or not. An officer who took along his battle flags and West Point class ring for a million light-years probably fell into category number two. That didn't mean the general was stupid, however. Stupid officers didn't get chosen by General West for sensitive postings. O'Neil, for instance, had been nobody's fool. But O'Neil had been the commando type, flexible in his approach to tactics and life. Draven sensed a rigidity in Keogh. Lockwood had complained about O'Neil, and West had obliged by sending Keogh-a by-the-book type who would be more likely to view the natives as potential threat than O'Neil, who had fought beside the Abydans. Frankly, Keogh was an administrator, a bean counter of battle, the military equivalent of Eugene Lockwood. They'd have deserved each other, but for the crisis caused by the cessation of ore flowing from the mine. Back on Earth, research facilities were already screaming for their rations of this magic quartz stuff. If politics began entering the equation, unraveling the curtain of secrecy West had placed over the StarGate, the result would be a scandal worse than Iran-Contra. A political general like Keogh had to sense the powder keg he was sitting on. But even as Draven introduced himself, he could see there'd be no help forthcoming. "My orders are clear," Keogh said. "I'm supposed to protect the StarGate and defend American interests here on Abydos." "Well, this STRIKE is imperiling those American interests you're supposed to defend," Draven snapped. "And I don't merely mean UMC, although I work for the company.

This mineral we're mining has strategic purposes. Important research is going on-but now it's hampered by a lack of supply." He decided on the patriotic pitch. "Are you going to let a bunch of towel-head primitives hold up the military research of the United States of -America?" "My orders say nothing about compelling the natives to go out and work for you," Keogh demurred. "As I understand it, forced labor is what caused the last rebellion here. With paramilitary groups arising in the population, surely the last thing you want is to foment trouble." "I hope to negotiate a settlement," Draven said smoothly. "But my negotiating position will be much stronger if I know I can depend on your support. This entire project is of special interest to General West. Failure will look bad on all our records." "I have my orders,"