They Also Serve (5 page)

"You're all going to hell!" came from the far side of the shuttle. "Papist superstition is leading you straight to death and damnation!"

"Not again," the mayor groaned.

"Grandpa, don't let him yell at me," David whimpered.

"I'll take care of this," the priest said, handing his young charge to the mayor's wife. He strode quickly to where a man in a flaxen jerkin was haranguing the lounging crowd.

"Repent your sins and you may yet be saved!"

"Reverend Jonah, these good people have worked hard today. God will not begrudge them a little rest and enjoyment." The priest's gentle words carried just as well as the other's shouts. People began moving away from the two. Well, most.

Five or six made their way toward the two men of competing Gods. One of them was Big Sean, the bully Ray had paid for the use of his field. Oops. "Mary," Ray started, but Kat and Cassie were already on their feet, jogging for the gathering.

"And you priest would stop up their ears, deprive them of the true Word of God."

"No, Reverend, but I would respect their right to have a quiet evening without you or me interrupting them. Come back Sunday afternoon and we can talk to as many as want to gather under the tree behind the church."

"Sunday may be too late. The Lord is coming to judge."

"I'll tell you who's coming to judge!" Sean shouted. "It's me fist in your mouth, man, if you don't get off me land!"

"We'll have none of that, Sean." The priest interposed himself.

"I don't need any papist protection." Jonah tried to fill the same space in front of Sean the padre was stepping into. Neither got anywhere.

"Excuse me." Kat tapped the bully on his hip, about as far up as she could reach. "The ambassador has rented this field. I believe he expects us to keep the peace here."

Big Sean turned on Kat with a sneer, raised his hand to her—and was sitting on the ground a moment later with no visible explanation, and a look of utter dismay on his face.

"Thank you," Kat smiled down at him.

Cassie took the minister's arm. "Sir, the ambassador requests that you leave our facility. Our constitution requires a strict separation of church and state. Use of these grounds for religious solicitation would be a violation of our code."

"What?" the minister said in wonder.

"Thank you, sir." Cassie continued, "I know it's difficult to understand different people's ways of doing things. If you'll come with me, we can talk about that." She took the reverend by the arm and escorted him away from the shuttle. Five people went with him. The priest stood for a moment, looking after them, then hiked back to the table. Taking David from the mayor's wife, he picked the boy up, hugged him, then sat him down on the bench and told him to eat his vegetables. The boy picked up a green bean and began eating it a millimeter at a time.

"Good riddance," the mayor breathed.

Mary eyed Cassie and the minister. "I hope he doesn't have a guitar handy. She might keep going," she chuckled.

The priest shook his head. "God bless them all."

"Who are they?" Ray asked. As a young soldier, religion had been something he'd been glad to share his foxhole with. As he rose in rank and found himself with less time on his hands for empty worrying, it faded. Or maybe his questions got harder and the answers more difficult. Whatever he might think of religion, here it seemed an important part of their lives.

"The O'Donalds lost their first child last winter. She always was one for the scruples. God forgive me, but I could not answer her demand to know why God would give her a baby to love, then take it away so soon. Young Phillip seeks the face of God and cannot find it among the familiar. May God be gracious to all of them and forgive me for what I could not be."

"Father, it's not your fault," the mayor assured him. "They're just wrongheaded." Murmurs of agreement came from around the table. The priest smiled his thanks and gave David a hug. Ray doubted the padre accepted his people's absolution. More and more, he was coming to like the fellow. How could you fault a man who so clearly doted on his grand-kid?

The musicians launched into a reel. People were on their feet and into the dance without a glance for those Cassie was still walking off the field. Ray watched through the first two songs, then turned to Mary. "We've got to set up camp and unload the shuttle."

"And you'll be wanting your field back," the mayor said, standing. "I'll have the fiddler dance them into town. You'll be wanting to go up early tomorrow with me to the County Clair Circle."

"Circle," Ray echoed, wondering where he'd missed a step and how far down it was.

"Aye, you've met with the Hazel Dell Circle." The mayor made a sweeping arm gesture that might have included the entire town, or just those close by. "You'll be wanting to talk to County Clair Circle next. I suspect Jeff will be going, too. You've sat in the Great Circle of Metalworkers, haven't you?"

"When Sis was busy and Mark out of town," the man admitted.

"Then I guess I'll be going to the next circle tomorrow," Ray agreed. Was the local chain of command more honest about how it ran people in circles? He grinned to himself.

Making a stop by the keg to refresh his mug, the mayor joined the musicians. In a moment, fiddler, accordion player, and singers began a careful retreat, not missing a beat. Dancers and watchers followed in a smooth flow that cleared the tables of serving dishes with no visible effort except for one young girl who came dashing back for a forgotten bowl.

Ray's work of arranging his mission and schedule was made easier; Mary had his command hut already set up. The shuttle was cleared for a return to the ship as soon as it was empty, and Ray called Matt to report. Matt had news, too. "One of those blimps doesn't make regularly scheduled runs like the rest. It's headed your way, or was until it settled down at sunset."

Someone cleared his throat behind Ray. He turned to find Jeff standing just outside the hut, "Any idea what's up?"

"Probably my sister, Victoria, headed here to take over."

Ray considered that for a moment. "We'll see." He turned back to finish briefing Matt on the day.

"Sounds like you've got things going fine dirtside."

"Too early to tell. I've got company around still. I'll talk more later. Send down the rest of the ground team. I'll need at least one doc. A local boy here has migraines. He's the priest's grandkid, but the whole village has kind of adopted him."

"Doc on the way. Anything else?"

"Not at the moment." Ray clicked off and turned to Jeff. "So big sister is headed our way." The man nodded; Ray knew the type. He'd had plenty of experience with second
and third sons shuffled off to the army. "So what can we do for each other?"

The man entered slowly, fingering a map case. Clearly he wanted to say something. Just as clearly, he didn't know how.

Ray waited, taking none of the pressure off him. Finally Jeff snapped open his case and pulled out several large photos. As if the pictures were coated with acid, he dropped them one by one on the table in front of Ray.

"Recognize the scene?" he asked, retreating back to the door.

In the shadows outside, Ray spotted Annie, the young woman who'd introduced Jeff. Waiting for her fellow? Ray turned to the pictures. Both showed the same mountain range. One shot was minus a peak.

"Annie, Da wants help gathering up the mugs!" came as a distant shout.

"In a minute, Nikki!" Annie shouted back.

"Has she seen these pictures?" Ray asked. Jeff nodded.

"Want to come in, young woman, and tell me what you think of them? Mary, see that the beermaster gets help finding his mugs. I don't want the shuttle finding one on takeoff."

"Yes, sir." Mary whispered orders into her commlink, but showed no interest in going elsewhere at the moment.

Annie glanced at the pictures. "One o' the mountains is gone missing."

Ray fixed Jeff with a "tough colonel stare." "And you want to know why?"

"If you can mine an entire mountain just like that..." the young man started and stopped.

Ray called up the before-and-after topography maps
Second Chance
had made on its first two orbits. He rested a finger on the hole in the second one. "You'd pay a lot for that technology."

Jeff stared wide-eyed at the two maps. "Yes."

"But it would tear the hills apart," Annie broke in. "That's no way to treat the earth that feeds us."

From the dark outside the hut came the rustle of a dress. Another pair of eyes watched them. Ray suspected the shouted-at Nikki had come to see what was keeping Annie. If he wasn't careful, he'd have the entire village back here.

"That's not the way we extract minerals," Mary cut in. "I can pull all the good stuff out of a mountain without disturbing a blade of grass."

"Then..." Jeff pointed at the gap in the mountain range.

"We don't know either," Ray finished.

"But if you didn't," Annie said slowly, "and we can't, who did?" From outside the hut came the sound of running feet. Ray caught a hint of a flying dress.

Annie must have, too. "I'd better be helping Nikki and Da."

Jeff collapsed into a camp chair beside Ray. "That is the question, isn't it."

"Yes," Mary agreed. Ray nodded; his job had just gotten a whole lot harder.

"Daga. Daga," Nikki half-whispered, half-shouted at her girlfriend's window. "Daga, you can't be asleep."

"I'm not, and neither is the house with you shouting like a banshee," Daga said, massaging her temples. "What's wrong with you?"

"They know about the mountain. They know it's gone."

"Who knows?"

"Everyone," Nikki squeaked. "Jeffs got pictures from his brother's survey and one he just made, and the people from space even have a map. Daga, they know!"

"But they don't know what we know. They don't know how it happened. Nikki, you worry too much. There's no way they can tell it was us, or anything."

"But.. . but..." Nikki couldn't figure out what to say after that, but she knew there was more to it than Daga wanted.

"No buts, Nikki. Go home, go to bed. Don't say anything, and they won't know anything."

"But what are you going to do?"

"I haven't made up my mind yet."

Even in the dark, Nikki could see Daga's grin. It was wide, and like it always was with Daga, it was sure.

Caretaker studied the new ones as they slept. They were like the other new ones; already their bodies rejected this world. Their body temperatures rose as they twisted in sleep, scratching and sneezing. Just as it had three hundred years ago, Caretaker released the viruses to make the necessary adjustments. This time it would go easier on the strangers; this time the Caretaker knew where to touch these strange bodies.

Even as Caretaker worked, its own simple processes tried to extrapolate the significance of these new arrivals. These had landed close to itself, to that central core that Caretaker thought of as its very being. Did they know that? Would they help or hinder Caretaker's work? It was very difficult dealing with a species that resolutely refused to enter into any communication with the Caretaker.

Certainly the Central Font of All Knowledge would know what to do. But apparently it had gotten slow over the years, too. Its slow message had said it was coming, but had to mend many nodes between the center and a distant, minor subsystem such as Caretaker.

Caretaker would wait. In the meantime, it would do what it could. That was what the Caretaker was for.

Ray walked in a garden, his bladder painfully full. The gravel crunched under his feet, but he heard nothing else and smelled nothing at all. He rounded a hedge. An old man in dirty work clothes watered roses. His hose aimed a high, proud arc of water over the flowers. The image left Ray
desperately holding back his own need to spray.

The Gardener noticed Ray with a smile. He looked familiar; Ray remembered the old fellow who kept the flowers so tenderly outside the dining hall at the Academy. "Do what you need, fellow, I won't mind," the old one said.

Ray reached for his zipper....

And came awake before he wet the bed. Ruefully, Ray reached for his canes. Hot and sweating, he struggled up, cursing the battle wound they didn't fix.

As he did his business, he became aware of a headache. Nothing too bad; his back hurt worse. Ray ignored the pain meds Mary had laid out on the table next to a glass of water; he didn't want more water in his system. Besides, this was nothing compared to how bad it could get.

Ray gritted his teeth against the pain and waited for sleep to come

Four

A WEEK LATER, Ambassador Ray Longknife relaxed into his seat, contemplating the night. Stuffed-in far too many ways.

He'd been wined and dined from one circle to another as he moved from village to county to state and finally to Lander's Refuge. Local after local had shaken his hand, kissed his cheeks, and done their damnedest to pick his pocket-in the nicest way. Every step of the way he'd been offered undying friendship and kind words. As he got farther up, smiling officials had thrown in huge land grants, personal bribes, beautiful women, and a seat among the powerful with a growing panic that made Ray feel right at home. "Damn, humans are all the same."

"What'd you say, sir?" Mary asked from the front seat. She was driving a mule, a four-wheel, go-anywhere vehicle; its efficient solar cells and storage system made it the envy of everyone here. Mary was his aide, bodyguard, driver... and nurse as much as he let her. Ray was traveling light among the natives. So far, he did not regret it.

"Take us back to the residence," Ray said automatically, then rethought. "No. I've got to talk to Matt tonight, and I trust my room is well bugged. Take us somewhere I can have a little privacy."

"How about that beach we saw yesterday?"

Ray grinned. Their visit to the fishing fleet and North Beach had been Mary's first encounter with more water than she could drink. Water, free and playing with beach and sand and wind and sky had enthralled her. Ray suspected the woman was in love. "Do it."

"I'll head for the north end, sir. This mule can take us where these people only dream of going."

Ray settled deep into his seat. That was the problem. These people had dreams, and
Second Chance
was opening some and threatening others. Ray had known that the moment he set foot on this place it would never be the same. If Matt reconnected them
with humanity, all options were possible. But what if he didn't? That was Ray's quandary.

In his present bargaining, should he assume in a few months Matt would be back, grinning from ear to ear and tailed by six boatloads of eager entrepreneurs? Or would a smarter choice be to hold his cards and his technology close until Matt decided it was time and past time to start home-steading? At the moment, holding tight looked best. But the local powers that be were not interested in waiting for someone else to decide their fate.

People like Vicky Sterling didn't get their hands on power by waiting for others to give it. Victoria got what she had by being there first and grabbing all she could. Ray was familiar with people like Vicky. Powerful people had damn near gotten him killed in their last war. This brought Ray up short. Was all this the fearful ruminations of a spooked veteran who just wanted to be a husband and a dad? "What do you think about the last few days?" he asked Mary.

"Some pretty nice folks," Mary answered, then quickly added, "and a few not so nice. Would be fun working with them, living here. Don't get me wrong, Colonel, I appreciate this job, and I'll ramble around the stars as long as you want me, but settling down here sure is attractive. These folks could use some cheap metals. I know Vicky Sterling's type. Worked for her on the asteroid mines. She loves being the only show in town. Thinks she shits gold. I'd love to take a brand-new rod of hot gold and stick it up her ... well, you know."

"I know," Ray smiled.

"Ah, Colonel, you invite anyone back to the Residency for a nightcap?"

"Not that I recall."

"Well, we got a tail."

"Damn! People never change. Lose 'em, Mary."

"Oh, boy," she laughed. They still weren't to the beach road; Refuge was a big city. The turn to the beach was ten blocks away when Mary did a hard right, gunned the mule, and did a series of zigzags that took them across the beach road but kept them parallel to it. Ray hoped she knew what she was doing.

"The sky eyes surveyed this burg and downloaded a city map to my inertial system." Mary answered Ray's unasked question. "Bet I know this town better than most of the folks raised here."

Ray didn't doubt that. They zipped down a street lined with small shops and warehouses. When they ran out of town, Mary' did a quick zig to get them back on the beach road. Ray edged around in his seat; no lights behind. There still weren't any when the road took a slow turn to follow higher ground through tidal marshes. "Boy, did I lose 'em," Mary chortled.

This left Ray wondering which factions they had eluded and what they were up to. He shrugged off the unanswerable.

A gentle breeze came from offshore, laden with smells of salt and damp and coastal grasses. They turned north, off the road and away from the inlet that sheltered the fishing fleet and soon came to the end of the dirt track a hundred meters short of the sand dunes. Ray braced himself, protecting his back as Mary took the rig into a narrow wash, gunning the mule through soft sand. Wheels spun wildly, but kept enough traction to
swing them onto the wide stretch of sand between the dunes and the distant ocean. Mary steered for the hard, damp sand that the retreating tide had left. Two moons were just rising, casting sparking diamonds on the gentle sea swells from beach to horizon.

Relaxing again into the seat, Ray took several deep breaths as Mary cruised north, away from civilization as it named itself here. His mind ordered his thoughts for his call to Matt.

The captain was eager to be away. There were several theories of how they might find their way home; the only proof of the pudding was going out and nibbling at it. Was Ray ready to declare his tiny downside command fit to stand on its own two feet?

Mary eased the mule to a halt, midway between waves and dune. "We're far enough up the coast to miss any search our trailer is doing. Besides, we'll see them coming." Ray nodded. "Mind if I take a walk, sir?" Mary's eyes were fixed on the lapping waves, mesmerized by them.

"Take care. You don't know where the drop-off is out there. You can't swim, and I sure can't come in after you."

"Don't worry, sir. Space ain't killed me in twenty years. A little bit of water ain't gonna get me now."

"That's not a little bit."

"Yes, sir." Mary got out and started a slow, pensive walk to the ocean. She wore a dress, a gift from Henrietta San Paulo, the Chair of the Great Circle of Lander's Refuge. Made of cotton so fine and tightly woven it might as well have been silk, Mary had spun around in delight, a girl-woman in her first formal. Then she'd lifted it far higher than their relationship on Wardhaven would have allowed to show him her sidearm. The asteroid mines had taught Mary none of the modesty and delicacy that Wardhaven inculcated in its women. Then, Rita had been Wardhaven's most instructed of debutantes .. . and gone on to skipper an attack transport. And her courtship of Ray had been far from delicate. Ray suspected few men ever understood women.

"God, I miss you, wife." Sighing, Ray tapped his comm unit. "Communications, Longknife here. The captain available?"

"He's expecting you, sir. Wait one, please."

Mary had about reached the water. The dress came up and over her head to flutter down on the sand. Her body was in moon shadow; he could not tell if she'd worn anything more. The male part of Ray's mind decided she hadn't; it made the view more enticing. Her silhouette was trim and sleek, no bulge for a bra, panties ... or sidearm. A glance in the front showed automatic and holster on the seat. Ray reached for it, checked the safety, then set it down beside him. Mary reached the water; she stooped to touch the lapping waves. Ray wished for about the millionth time that Rita was here. Or, more correctly, he was there.

"Ray, how are things?" the captain asked.

"I'm surviving down among the natives. And you?"

"Nothing's changed. We've completed the planet survey. Enough irregularities to keep the scanning team happy, but nothing to raise a red flag. Some interesting electromagnetic anomalies. We sent the database down. An interesting planet."

"Full of interesting people," Ray added dryly.

"Want to tell me about them?"

"You know, Matt, I always thought if you marooned three hundred hard-headed, rational people on a planet, you'd have a hard-headed, rational population when you got done."

"Gosh, Ray, I never knew you were such a dreamer."

'Take the Covenanters up north, those dozen or so medium-size towns that Kat couldn't figure out why they were in such a crazy pattern. Blame it on the Bible."

"Somebody brought that book!"

"It was in their database. More about that database in a minute. Anyway, during the worst of the times after landing, some folks found religion. Later, after things got better, their kids decided the rest were all going to hell and moved off to keep their 'purity.'"

"Let me guess," Matt broke in. "They couldn't agree among themselves on how to read the book, so ..."

"You got it—split and split again. Most of them want to just ignore us. Hope we'll go away. But one of them, the guy I met the first night down here, thinks we're the Antichrist and wants us destroyed."

"I guess you stay to the south side of south continent."

"Not that easy. There're almost eight million people here. Most Covenanters may be up north, but they got churches in Lander's Refuge. They're not the worst problems. Refuge and New Haven split over something the original captain did early on. I've got six different versions of what that was, and none agree. But there's a pro-captain and an anti-captain faction to this day, and a big chunk of the antis moved south to New Haven about two hundred years ago. Now, if one says it's day, the other insists it's night. I think the pro faction is a bit more in favor of exploiting the planet's resources, but I can't swear to that."

"Sounds like fun."

"Yeah," Ray answered. Mary was up to her knees now, meeting each wave as it came in with a jump and a happy giggle. Ray had never seen Mary as anything but a hard-driving marine officer. This was a whole new side of her.

For a moment, the question flitted across his mind.
How many sides are there to the people I'm dealing with?
He'd have to remember that. "The farmers we started with are interesting. You meet a girl with flaming red hair, a diction straight out of Joyce, and a name like Nulia Anne Moira Chang. Tells you why her brogue is a bit off."

"Chang?"

"Don't ask me how the Irish took over and the Chinese didn't. Such history is oral, and I don't trust it. There's even a legend that St. Patrick showed them how to plant potatoes."

"Sounds like a nuthouse. Sure you'll be okay while I duck in and out of system? Once we've got acceleration on, it'll take me a while to get down here." Matt had his work cut
out for him, too. Speaking of.

"Matt, I'm trying to get my hands on the log of the old
Santa Maria,
but no luck yet. Refuge, New Haven, Richland, that's the Sterlings' mining town, Vicky owns it lock, stock, and barrel, and even some of the Covenant towns had copies of the original database. But original media last only so long. First- and second-generation local manufacturing wasn't all that good, so the data got corrupted. Ship's log was low priority, so it got cut to save space. Vicky claims she's got a complete copy, but she's only handing out vague samples. Wants mining equipment and technology before she'll share the good stuff."

"How's that going over with the rest?"

"Poorly. The Sterlings have had these people by the short hairs for two hundred years. A lot of people would like them taken down a peg."

"You going to do that?"

"I'd like to stay on everybody's good side."

"Never had much success at that myself," Matt chuckled.

"Probably a bit late in life for me to be trying it, too. How you coming with those survival canisters?"

"Last two go dirtside tomorrow morning. Have you seen what's in them?"

"I approved everything Andy and Elie recommended. Didn't expect to be using them. Glad for them now."

"Yeah. Make sure you open the right one. They sent you everything from a chip fabricator to a bomb factory."

"Andy wanted all the bases covered."

"I'm leaving you a shuttle. I'll be in system every few days. A week at the longest."

"I'll try not to holler wolf. Could you drop that shuttle down here tomorrow at the blimp base? Say, tenish. I don't want to beg a ride back to my base on anyone's blimp."

"And it'll show these folks the power they're dealing with."

"Something like that.

"Good by me. I'll see you when I see you. Out."

Ray leaned back in his seat. The moons were above Mary. The luminous waves rose and fell, casting dim light on her. Ray could see the joy on her face. He could see everything else, too. "Oh, Rita, I miss you."

"You lost them!" Victoria Sterling shrieked. She had deigned to receive her security chief in her gilded coach and four. Grandpa Jason had included six horse embryos in his personal effects. The Landers who squirreled away survival gear among their private goods made it big here. The kids of those who brought trinkets were her servants. "That mule has lights all over." Victoria very much wanted her lab to take it apart and see what made it tick.

"Yes, ma'am," he said softly, trying to soothe.