CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Kostas Matsugae watched the line of stooped figures carrying in the sacks of barleyrice. These Mardukans were the first females, outside their mahouts' families, the company had seen since Q'Nkok, and they were clearly being used for this task because they were both nonthreatening and of subnormal intelligence. They were also thin as rails.

The valet nodded and looked around as the last sack of grain was carried in. The area where the food supplies were being piled was out of sight of the Mardukan guards stationed outside the visitors' quarters, and he quickly opened up a pot and gestured to the Mardukans.

"This is stew with some barleyrice in it." He gestured to a stack of small bowls. "You can each have a bowl. Only one, please."

After the almost pathetically grateful females had left, he looked up and noticed Julian watching him from the doorway. The alcove to one side of the entrance was technically a guard room, but since there were nothing but guards in the building, it had been converted to storage.

"Do you have a problem with my charity, Sergeant?" Matsugae picked up one of the sacks and headed for the doorway; it was time to start work on dinner.

"No." The Marine plucked the twenty-kilo sack easily from the slight valet's grip and tossed it over his own shoulder. "Charity seems to be in short supply in this town. Nothing wrong with changing that."

"This is the most detestable town it has ever been my displeasure to visit," Matsugae said. He shook his head and grimaced. "It defies belief."

"Well," the sergeant said with a grim smile, "it's bad—I'll grant that. But it's not the worst in the galaxy. You ever read anything about Saint `recovery worlds'?"

"Not much," the valet admitted. "Rather, I've heard of them, but I don't really `know' about them. On the other hand, I believe the overall concept that the Saints espouse has some justice. Many planets have been damaged beyond recovery by overzealous terraforming and unchecked mining. That doesn't make me a SaintSymp," he added hastily.

"Didn't think you were. You couldn't have made it past the loyalty tests if you were. Or, at least, I hope you couldn't have. But have you ever read any reports about `recovery worlds'? Unbiased ones?"

"No," Matsugae replied as they reached the kitchen area. A blaze had already been started in the large fireplace at one end of the guard room, and a pot hung from a swing arm, ready to be put into the fire. The room was amazingly hot, like an entrance to Hell, and Matsugae started gathering the ingredients of the evening meal. "Should I have?"

"Maybe." The sergeant set the bag of grain on the floor. "You know the theory?"

"They're former colonized planets that the Saints are trying to return to `pristine' condition," the valet said as he began measuring ingredients into the pot. "They're trying to erase any evidence of terrestrial life on them." He smiled and gestured at the pot. "It's stew and barleyrice tonight, for a change."

Julian snorted, but didn't smile.

"That's the theory, all right," he agreed. "But how are they actually doing it? How are they `unterraforming' those worlds? And what worlds are they? And where are the colonists who lived on them?"

"Why the questions, Sergeant?" Matsugae asked. "Should I assume that you know the answers, whereas I don't?"

"Yeah." Julian gave a mildly angry nod. "I know the answers. Okay. How are they `unterraforming' the planets? They started with the colonists. Dirt poor farmers, mostly—none of these are worlds that produce anything the Saints give a damn about. That's why they're willing to drop them. So they have these people rounded up and put to work undoing the `damage' that a couple of generations have done to the planets. Since they were farmers and terraformers—or the descendants of farmers and terraformers, anyway—before they were picked up, they were, de facto, guilty of `ecological mismanagement.' "

"But . . . ?" the valet began in a puzzled tone.

"Hang on." The sergeant held up a hand. "I think I'll answer your question in a bit. Anyway, they put them to work `reversing' the process. Mostly with hand tools, `to minimize the impact.' And since humans, just by their excretions, if nothing else, tend to change the environment around them, the `Saints' have to make sure that any fresh damage is minimized. Which they do by reducing the food supplies of the workers to under one thousand calories per day."

"But that's—"

"About half the minimum necessary to sustain life?" the sergeant said with a vicious smile. "Really? Gee."

"Are you saying that they're starving their own colonists to death?" Matsugae asked in a disbelieving tone. "That's hard to believe. Where's the Human Rights Commission report?"

"These are planets near the center of the Saints own empire," Julian pointed out. "HRC teams aren't let anywhere near the recovery planets. According to the Saints, they're completely abandoned and quarantined, so what interest could the HRC possibly have in them? Besides," he added bitterly, "they worked their way through the colonists years ago."

"My God, you're serious," the valet said quietly. He accepted the help of the obviously angry NCO to fill the pot with water and swung it over the fire. "That's insane!"

" `Insane' describes the Saints to a `T,' " Julian snarled. "Of course, the job is never really `complete,' " he added with a ghastly smile.

"Oh?" Matsugae said warily.

"Sure. I mean, there's always some damned humanocentric weed cropping up somewhere on these pristine beauties," the sergeant said lightly. "That's why they still have to send humans down there to root them out."

"And where do they get those humans?"

"Well, first there's political prisoners," Julian said, ticking off the groups on his fingers. "Then there are other `environmental enemies,' such as smokers. And there are general prisoners that are just going to be a bother to keep around. Last, but most certainly not least, there are nationals from other political systems that have, in the opinion of the Saint higher-ups, no utility," he finished with a snarl.

"Like?" Matsugae asked even more warily.

"Raider insertion teams, for starters," the Marine said bitterly. "We've lost three in the last year, and all we get out of the Saints is `we have no knowledge of them.' "

"Oh."

"The hell of it is, that there are all these rumors that NavInt knows where they are." The NCO sat down on one of the tri-legged tables and hung his head. "If they'd just tell us, we'd go in in an instant. Shit, we've put Raider teams on the planets and documented what's going on—that's how we lost our people in the first frigging place! I know we could get at least some of them out!"

"So these are rumors? That makes sense. I can't believe that sort of thing is going on in this day and age."

"Oh, get a fucking grip, Kostas!" Julian snapped. "I've seen the damned pictures from Calypso, and they look like one of the internment camps from the Dagger Years! A bunch of skeletons wandering around with wooden tools and digging at dandelions, for God's sake!"

The valet regarded him calmly.

"I believe that you believe this to be true. Would you mind if I tried to corroborate it?"

"Not at all," the NCO sighed. "Ask any of the senior Marines. Hell, ask O'Casey when we get her back. I'm sure she's up to speed on it. But the point is that, bad as this place is, humans do ten times worse to each other every day."

Poertena watched the Mardukans carefully. He'd long since stopped regretting his "cheating" demonstration. There wasn't much point in regret, since he couldn't put the genie back into the bottle whatever he did, but it turned out that four arms made for hellacious cardsharps.

He'd first noticed the problem shortly after his brief demonstration to his cronies on the march from Voitan. Suddenly, where he'd been winning fairly consistently at poker, he started losing. Since his play hadn't changed, it meant that his companions' play must have gotten better, but it wasn't until Cranla fumbled a transfer that he twigged to what was going on.

Even though the Mardukans' "false-hands" were relatively clumsy, it was easy enough for them to palm one or two critical cards, and then it was a simple matter of switching them off. He caught them once on the basis of an ace that was covered in slime; Denat, the tricky bastard, had figured out that he could embed a card in the mucous on his arm and even show that his "hands were empty."

So now, they played spades. There were still ways to cheat, but with all fifty-two cards in play, it was trickier. Which wasn't much consolation at the moment, he thought, as Tratan dropped an ace onto the current trick and cut the Pinopan's king.

"Be calm, Poertena," the big Mardukan snorted. "Next you'll think these brainless females are giving us tips!" He gestured at the nearest one, who was slowly shuffling along in a squat, sweeping the floor with nothing more than a handful of barleyrice straw while she crooned and murmured tunelessly to herself.

A group of the simpleminded peasant women had been sent in the previous day to clean and had stayed. Not surprisingly; they were treated better among the humans than anywhere else in the city. But in the short time they'd been there, while the company waited for word on what the king intended, the inoffensive little creatures had faded into the background.

Poertena looked up at Tratan's gesture, and snorted.

"I don't t'ink so," he said.

The small, retiring Mardukan noted their regard and ducked her head, raising the volume of her croon slightly, and Poertena grunted a laugh and started to look back at his cards, then paused as his toot's translation program started to cycle. The system had tried to react to his unconscious desire to listen to the words of the song and detected that it was in an unknown dialect. He started to disengage the translation protocol's furious cycling, but decided to let it finish the run when the first phrase to pop out was "stupid man."

He hid a chuckle and picked at the program. The tiny female, very little more than normal human height, was apparently cursing the three Mardukan tribesmen.

"O, most stupid of men, am I not singing in
your language?
"Look at me, just a glance is all I ask.
"I dare not call attention, for there may be
spies among my fellows.
"But I am the only one who knows your language,
"You stupid, foolish, gutless, idiotic men.
"Will you not listen to me that your prince
might live?"

Poertena wasn't quite certain how he managed to keep a straight face as he shifted from humor to panic, but he was a long-experienced negotiator, and that experience wasn't limited to legal goods and services. Individuals had made clandestine contact with him in public places before, and as soon as he realized the song was an attempt to do just that, he probed the translation program.

The problem was that the female was not using language of The People. Nor was she using the dialect of Q'Nkok, which was very similar. Instead, she was using a third dialect which was significantly different, and between those differences and the fact that she was trying to avoid calling anyone else's attention to herself, the three tribesmen had been totally oblivious to her.

"The problem is you language, O silly female," Poertena said. The translator, noting who the target of the statement was, automatically used the odd dialect. "They do no' speak it. So, who is tee foolish one, I ask you?"

"Ah," she sang. "I had wondered how any three boys could be so stupid. It is the language of the city you have passed through, a city restored." The song was almost atonal and, sung in a whisper, it could have been a lullaby in an unknown language. No threat. Despite that, the contact shifted to a completely wordless hum as another female passed through carrying a tray of food. She let the other female draw out of earshot, then glanced up discreetly while she continued her aimless sweeping.

"Move it or lose it," Cranla said, thumping on the table, and Poertena jerked out of his reverie and threw a card without even looking at it.

"Hey, partner," Denat began with a snarl, "what—"

"No, no, no table talk," Tratan chuckled as he covered the king with a spade. "Gotcha."

"Su', su'," Poertena said quietly. "We jus' stopped playing anyway. We gonna continue to throw cards until t'is hand is done, then we done."

"Hey, it's not that bad . . ." Cranla started to say.

"I jus' got word t'at there's a problem," Poertena lied. "So, me, I'm not really pay attention to tee game. We need to stop. Soon."

"I can quit," Tratan said. There was half a hand left, but he flashed his cards. "We just throw them down, tot up the score like it's real, and deal a hand of poker. And pretend to play until you have to move." He looked casually around for any immediate threats. "We need to get our spears?"

"What?" Cranla said. "I don't—"

"Shut up," Denat said mildly. "Just do it."

"Oh." The young Mardukan finally caught the drift and tossed his cards into the middle of the table with a shrug. "Not a great hand, anyway."

"Yeah," Tratan said. "I think it was a lousy hand we were just dealt."

"Okay, Lady," Poertena said. "What you message?" He deliberately kept his eyes on the table and addressed the apparent nonsense syllables to Tratan.

"I think I caught a bit of that," the tribesman said in return, glancing involuntarily at the female and then down at the table. "So it wasn't one of your mystical radio communications?"

"There is one who needs to talk to your leaders," the female sang, dusting the walls beside the table now. "One who must meet with your leaders."

"T'at will be hard," Poertena said, but he glanced up at Cord's nephews. "Cranla, go get tee Sergeant Major?"

"Okay," the Mardukan said, using the actual Standard, and got up and trotted towards the stairs.

"I will meet you near the fireplace downstairs, in a little while," the female sang, sweeping her way towards the door. "In the time a candle takes to burn a finger's breadth."

Poertena thought about it but decided against trying to get her to stay put. She was obviously working to a game plan, and if the humans wanted to use it, they had to have some idea what it was.

"All right," he answered, picking up the poker hand. "A half-hour." He glanced at his cards and grimaced. "A full house on deal. Jus' my luck."

"Not really," Tratan said soothingly. "I just didn't want you to be distracted trying to decide what to draw."