They Also Serve (28 page)

"Not even for ten thousand pounds of copper?"

"Not even for ten thousand pounds of copper less Mr. Mumford's commission," Ray answered with the force of a Guard assault brigade commander in negotiations.

Vicky eyed the document for a moment longer. "Sign it, Mumford," she finally said. "I'll have my blimp pick it up."

"We have a blimp leaving for Refuge in an hour," Mary said. "I'll have it drop the mule off at Richland."

"At my compound. I'm sure you know where that is," Vicky said with acid dripping.

"I imagine we can find it on a map," Mary answered.

Mr. Mumford passed Mary the signed bill of sale. The chief sent a copy to Vicky. Everyone looked surprisingly happy. "I think we are done," Ray suggested.

"And past done. You've wasted enough of my time." Vicky slapped her computer off, but the hologram did not go away.

"I thought you might want to see what happens next," said Lek's voice from the commlink.

"Yes," Vicky crowed. "Those idiots are even stupider than Mumford. Giving me a mule when they'd already pounded that ninny into nothing. They knew he had zip, and they're giving me the technology to run this planet for the next hundred years. Not a brain cell among them." She stood. "How long does it take a blimp to get here from those star creeps' base?" she shouted.

"Enough, Lek. Cut it," Ray ordered. The holo vanished.

Across the table, Mr. Mumford trembled, stripped of any dignity he might ever have had. "She knew she was sending me here with nothing," he choked.

"Worse than nothing." Mary said. "Guards, dismissed." The armed guard quickly marched out, leaving the room somehow larger. "What Miss Vicky does not yet know, but will find out soon enough, is that she has traded nothing for nothing. Chief, show Mr. Mumford the bill of lading for the delivery of the mules."

Barber already had it in hand. Mumford read it, then looked up blankly. "I don't understand."

"Jerry, this was a voyage of exploration. We ordered standard mules to save money, but had them delivered minus the solar cell and fuel cells so we could install heavy-duty ones. That's what Vicky wanted, our solar and fuel cell technology. We stripped seventeen yesterday and put its gear on a blimp. Vicky's getting a wagon that needs a dog team to pull it."

"Oh, no. I can't take that to her," he breathed, seeming to collapse into himself where he sat.

"We don't expect you to. Need a job? We've got plenty."

"Please."

"Chief, would you take Mr. Mumford over to Personnel and have them see where he can fit into our team? By the way, Mr. Mumford, here is a credit chit for five hundred pounds of copper. I believe that is your percentage from the base lease."

"Yes, it is. But—"

Mary smiled. "Unlike some, we're fair in our business dealings, Mr. Mumford. We get more repeat business that way."

"I imagine you do," he said, taking the chit. He looked at it, then at Mary. "What is this worth?"

"Not much at the moment, but hold on to it. We expect values to change considerably in the next few months."

Only after the door closed on their erstwhile landlord did Ray turn to Mary. "I'd say you've had a very good morning."

"The best, Colonel." Kat was out of her seat doing a cute victory dance. The priest looked up and smiled quietly.

"Want to walk over to the hospital?" Ray offered all three.

Mary glanced at her office and the pile of work waiting. "Thank goodness for Chief Barber and delegation, or no work would ever get done around here. What you got on your mind?"

Ray explained his latest visit from the Dean of Sociology as they walked. "They can turn us off like a light switch?" Mary asked. Ray nodded. The padre made the sign of the cross. "Bitch of it is, we probably can't lay a finger on them. Damn, I feel naked and helpless," Mary frowned.

"Maybe we aren't," Ray said. "Your nanos stripped one of the Teacher's nodes. What would happen if that vanishing box took out three or four in a few seconds?"

"I lost ten percent of my nanos, sir, and we don't have the vanishing box. Then again, we got three search efforts chasing that damn box. Our odds got to be getting better."

They found Lek sending data. "What I can't understand," Kat asked, "is why we have so little data from the north side? No media, little news. Why are they so cut off?"

The padre chuckled. "The folks that spread out from Refuge went like with like. Those going north were the most cantankerous, hardheaded bunch that ever walked a planet. Maybe almost as bad as the Puritans that provided the early European settlers to Earth's North America. Now, consider the ones that couldn't stand the ones that couldn't stand the likes of me."

"Evolution in action," Kat tossed back.

"Right. We don't much care for them, and they don't much care about anyone else. If we don't hear from them regularly, most people are only too happy."

"But no newspapers, net?" Ray asked.

"Tools of the devil, trying to seduce their children," the priest shrugged. "Not all of them, but the farther north from Refuge, the more they credit the devil's power, and the weaker their God seems to be. They view every foreign influence as just teaching their children to rebel against the Lord. As if youth can't come up with enough rebellions on their own.

"Our young men who went north to work in Mark Sterling's aluminum smelter had plenty of trouble to start with, but twelve, eighteen months ago, it got even worse," the padre said.

While he and Kat sorted data, Ray composed a message the captain of
Second Chance
would not read until after he jumped out. "Captain Abeeb, this is Colonel Ray Longknife speaking to you in the capacity of Wardhaven Minister of Science and Technology and Humanity's Ambassador to Santa Maria. This planet is under interdict and quarantine. Allow no one to land here.

"The people of this planet share it with an artificial intelligence several million years old. Built by those who built the jump points to educate their young, it quite possibly has gone insane from inactivity. It is now, finally, making contact with the Santa Marians. What that contact will result in, I do not know. It may end with all of us dead. Alternately, we may end up as slaves to the machine. I have told the machine that it is within your power to shatter this planet into pieces with an asteroid bombardment. You may have to decide for yourself whether to fulfill that threat."

The padre's eyes had grown larger and larger as Ray summed up their problem so tersely.

"Matt, I have just dumped in your lap the hottest potato in human history. Next time you're in system, I may be saying all's well and come on down. Those words may be true or false. You will have to decide for yourself and all of humanity whether this planet can be trusted with space flight, or even to continue existence. I'm sending you as much data as I can now. I know it's not enough. Good luck, and God help us all."

The little priest was shaking. Mary, Kat, and Lek stared straight ahead. "You know how hard we fought to keep from rocking Wardhaven in the war," Mary finally said.

"I know," Ray nodded, "and now I'm asking Matt to do just that for me. Do you think he will?"

"You can't," the priest whispered.

"If I'm reduced to a mindless zombie," Kat said slowly, "I don't care if I'm jumping for joy, I'd rather be dead."

"Couldn't he just allow no one to land?" the priest pleaded.

Mary shook her head. "We're a spacefaring race, Padre. Give us twenty years and we'll be back in space. Another twenty and we'll be leaping from star to star. We"—she pointed at her forehead—"know how to do it. If they want us to build it, we can and will. No, Father, it's best we pass sentence ourselves. If the Teacher wins, if it takes us over like we know it can, then we've got to die. And if it kills us in the process, then, damn it, I want Matt to take this planet apart brick by brick."

"There's got to be another way," the priest whispered.

"That is what we're looking for," Ray said. "Hang around, Father. Maybe you can help us find it."

Dumbly, the poor priest nodded. "I thought you were opening doors. Now, I see, you are-"

"Father, you yourself said the north side got worse when the Teacher arrived," Mary cut in hard. The padre nodded. "And now it's down here, and people are rioting."

"I know. But death for an entire planet?"

The others had no answer for that. Lunch that noon was a quiet affair until Lek interrupted. "Colonel, somebody's taking your name in vain, and that somebody is Miss Vicky Sterling. Putting her through."

"Damn it, I know you can hear me. Probably hear every word I say near any computer. You better talk to me, you robbing, thieving scum."

"Yes, Miss Sterling," Ray cut into the diatribe.

"What do you mean, passing off that gutless wreck as worth ten thousand pounds. No factory delivered something in that condition and called it done!"

"It does if that is what we ordered," Ray answered. "We did, and that is what you ordered. We add our own equipment to meet our special requirements. You wanted it that way. You got it."

"You cheated me!" she shrieked.

"Can't cheat an honest woman. You didn't come by your ten thousand pounds of copper very honestly."

"You stole from me, and you're going to pay. I know about the thing that makes mountains vanish. I've got my people looking for it. We'll find it. Then we'll see what your precious camp is worth vanished into thin air. And if you think you can watch me all the time like some Peeping Tom, see what I can do," she said, slamming her hand against the side of her screen. The picture went blank.

"That's one way to turn off your vidphone," Ray observed.

"We can't let her get her hands on the vanishing box." Mary's words were flat, absolute.

Ray tapped his commlink. "Doc, do you have an electrocardiograph signature for Jeff Sterling?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I need to talk to him, and his phone's off. Pass it to Mary. Lek, get me Ms. San Paulo. It's time her people know what's at risk, and start pulling together."

It started to rain about midafternoon. Annie held Nikki close, trying to protect her from the rain, trying to keep her warm. Trying to lose the sick feeling growing in her stomach.

The search had gone sour somehow, and Annie didn't know why.

They had passed through seven villages now, but not changed rides since getting in the rickety wagon. At the last village, Annie's ma knew a woman. Annie had wanted to stop by, share a word with her. Instead, the old man had headed for the other side of the village and parked beside a broken-down barn. A young woman met him there. Now she was traveling with them.

Annie didn't like this at all. It was as if they were being taken somewhere rather than searching for someone. But how could that be? Annie held Nikki close, huddled against the rain, and wished Jeff were here. He'd know what to do. He'd lived in the big, complicated city where everyone you met wasn't a friend. He'd know when she should think about using the gun that weighed so heavily in the wallet at her waist. Annie let the rain fall on her, protected Nikki, and suffered as the cart jolted on its way.

Jeff waited with the horses while Old Ned talked to the couple. It was raining; he was cold and tired. He waited patiently. Ned's words from the last village shook him. "They didn't stop in with Grandma Moynihan. She's the one all Greens hereabouts look to. They talked to some new folks in town."

Old Ned returned, threw himself on his horse, and kicked it to a trot. Jeff waited until they had left the town far behind before calling to Ned. "What's happened to Annie?"

"She's in trouble, Jeff. Big trouble."

"Ms. San Paulo, don't you trust your people?"

"Trust has nothing to do with this. What would make you say that? It's just that we people in the circles are expected to handle problems. The people call us out to solve their problems, not dump them back in their lap. How can they live their lives in peace if we tell them about every little problem?"

Ray bit his lip; telling her his opinion of how well the circles had handled this problem so far would not help anything. "This is hardly a little problem. Entire cities could vanish."

"Yes, but you couldn't talk about this without bringing in your Teacher thing. Why, I hardly understand what you said. How can I expect other people to? No, Mr. Ambassador, I will alert our security people to watch for six people carrying a large box. If they see it, I will know about it immediately."

"I could go to the media," Ray said softly.

Hen snorted. 'They will not pay a bit of attention to you. They know what their viewership wants. No. They will hang up on you as fast as I'm going to. I must, you see. I have a meeting to call and contacts to make. Good day, Mr. Ambassador."

Ray swung around in his chair. Stomping around awhile would be a distinctive pleasure. Instead, he turned to the priest. "Is she right? Will the media ignore me?"

The padre nodded. "We may not be Covenanters, but we have a low threshold for gossip. Well, many of us do."

Mary did stomp halfway across the room. "I can't believe this. I've cussed out news shows and magazines for the stories they carried. But to ignore the news.
This
news!"