CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Keene found Sariena in one of the partly completed work areas in the Laboratory block, where the planetary scientists had been in the process of moving into from the Surya. The next phase of their program involved adding a hangar at the base to accommodate ground-launched probes for detailed mapping of the Raphta peninsula to supplement the longer-range surveys being directed from orbit. They were carrying on according to the original plan but in a mechanical kind of way, with the enthusiasm gone, as if unsure anymore what the point was of any of it.

Adreya Laelye had approached Zeigler, claiming that her capacity as SOE’s senior representative gave her the authority to speak on behalf of the rest of the base. Probably she felt an obligation to show some such responsibility, since officially Zeigler himself had been next in the mission’s line of command after Gallian. Zeigler, however, had been unimpressed, stating that he would deal with a representative of his own choosing at such time as it suited him to do so. Keene had expected something like that and had confided as much to Sariena. But both of them had agreed that Adreya should be allowed her chance to try. The outcome had left Sariena feeling all the more despondent.

“It isn’t just confusion over this setback we have right now,” she told Keene. “But suddenly it seems as if”—she waved an arm, as if searching for words in the air—”everything we’ve been working for could be in danger. It’s going to be the way it always was, all over again, isn’t it? Nations and then empires built on crushed human spirit. Tacitus said it over two thousand years ago, didn’t he: ‘To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a desert and call it peace.’ “

Keene looked at her in surprise. “Did he? You know, it never ceases to amaze me how much Kronians know about Earth.”

“What makes people that way? Can it be something about the planet, do you think?”

“Oh, I’d say more a question of being conditioned there.”

“Not something inherent in human nature—permanent, unchangeable?”

“Then why not the Kronians too? Aren’t they human?”

Sariena shook her head, not wanting to pursue it. “Just now, I don’t know what to think.”

Owen Erskine crouched in the cover of a trench leading into a pit at the rear of the Lab block, where concrete was due to be poured for a foundation. He had come down from the Varuna to help set up the ground-based probe maintenance hangar intended for the base. But since then a new priority was demanding attention, and nobody else seemed to be doing much about it. Landen Keene, whom Heeland had introduced in the probe bay up in the ship, had struck him as the kind of person who might take the lead in standing up to somebody like Zeigler, but his crew were continuing to provide power for the base as if nothing had happened. There was a rumor going around that Adreya Laelye from SOE had gone in to see Zeigler with some kind of demands that morning and been thrown out. Others had done a lot of talking but not much else. It seemed that everyone was paralyzed after the Gallian shooting. Well, things like that had always happened, always would, and life was the art of working around them. Someone would just have to make the first move in shaking them out of it.

The two guards were posted together as had been the pattern since yesterday, at the base of the crane behind the stores buildings, from where they could watch the rear area of the base. The location also meant that they were screened from most of the other directions where activity was going on. From time to time, one of them would patrol to the far end of the stores complex, check past the corner toward the workshops and the power installations, and retrace his steps. The moment Erskine had chosen was the next time one of them was halfway along the route, out of sight from the rest of the base.

Dru, a one-time Turkish landscaper, was in position by a stack of pipe sections, hidden from the guards but in view from the trench where Erskine was. Ida, also Terran-Kronian, was up on a work platform in the scaffolding behind the crane, securing lighting cables, again in sight of Erskine and waiting for his signal. The two Kronians who had agreed to join them were concealed among crates stacked behind the storage buildings. Kronians were no different from anyone else in having what it took, Erskine was convinced. All it needed was for someone to show them how. With a couple of weapons in their hands, it would be that much easier to acquire more. Then the rest of the base would get the message and follow suit, and the whole thing would be over by the afternoon. Erskine hadn’t come all the way home to be pushed around by a bunch of jerks like this.

The guards exchanged a few words, and then one of them detached to commence another slow amble along the familiar line. Somehow, just from the way he moved, Erskine could tell he was Terran. Erskine touched a button on his compad twice. Three answering flashes on the “channel” light told him the two Kronians waiting in that direction were ready. He signaled to Dru, who raised a hand in response, and Ida, who touched her nose. Erskine watched until the guard was almost at the point he had marked, then made a “go” motion in the air with his hand.

Ida emitted a cry and tumbled from the platform to a plank forming part of a walkway from a ladder a few feet below. The guard by the crane turned toward the sound, and simultaneously Erskine and Dru emerged from cover. It was only a matter of a few yards; a quick, silent rush was all it needed… .

But something—either Ida’s fall wasn’t convincing enough, or maybe the way her gaze was directed—made the guard look back. It was like one of those moments when a person is about to have a car accident and can see everything happening in slow motion, but finds themselves powerless to intervene; or a dream where running seems to be through jello and doesn’t consume any distance. The guard’s gun was coming up, and Erskine was still too far away. The plank walkway should have enabled Ida to arrive quickly too, but she had barely picked herself up. Seeing the situation, she hurled a wrench in desperation but it clanged harmlessly off part of the crane base as the guard fired. Erskine found himself reeling, folding out of control like a boxer whose legs have gone, then his head thudded into the ground as he fell heavily and drunkenly. He knew he had been hit in the stomach, but for the moment he felt nothing and was only aware in a detached kind of way of Dru staggering backward as the guard fired again. Another shot sounded in the direction the patrolling guard had gone. Erskine rolled over to look along the rear of the stores building and saw one of the Kronians kneeling, clutching his chest, the other standing a yard or two back with his hands raised, the guard covering him. Running footsteps were already approaching. The voice of the guard who was closer came, directed at Ida. “Drop everything you are carrying. Now come down from there, very slowly.”

Erskine let his head fall back in the mud. Yes, the whole thing was over. And well before the afternoon.

“ . . . as soon as Shayle figures something out,” Keene told Sariena. “The idea is to get access to a channel up to the Varuna. Then, hopefully, we’ll find a way from there.”

Sariena went quiet, thinking over what he had said. “Valcroix and those others with him aren’t going to get here in the Eskimo,” she replied finally. “Which means they’ll have to transfer to something faster.”

“Another reason for taking over the Aztec,” Keene said.

Sariena looked uncertain. “So what does it do? Coast while the Eskimo catches up? Or would it be quicker if they went back to meet it?”

“I’m not sure. You’re the orbital specialist.”

“And you’re the propulsion engineer.”

They were both tired. Keene showed his hands. “Either way, the sooner for them, the better. So we need to do something fast. The more I think about it, the more it seems it has to be too late already.”

Sariena smiled thinly. “That doesn’t sound like you, Lan. But you’ll try anyway, right?”

“Damn right.”

After another pause, Sariena added, “Although, if it’s true, it means that Aztec won’t be getting here so soon. So Zeigler can’t be counting on it for reinforcements anytime soon. Why did he make his move when he did? It means he has to hold out that much longer. Why wouldn’t he have waited?” She raised her eyebrows. Keene could only shake his head. “Could he be expecting to strengthen himself in some other way?” Sariena asked.

“What other way is there?”

“Maybe there are more Pragmatists here than have shown themselves yet.”

That was a thought. “Maybe… which could make loose talk very dangerous,” he mused.

“That was my point.”

The door from the lab area burst open to admit Charlie Hu with bustle and haste, which was unusual. Voices were babbling somewhere behind him. “There’s been some shooting!” he said. “Behind the stores.”

“Anybody hurt?” Sariena asked as they followed him back out.

“I don’t know yet.”

“It was only a matter of time,” Keene muttered.

They came out of the building behind a gaggle of figures who had stopped in the face of several guards brandishing guns. “Back inside,” one was yelling. “Everybody back inside.”

“What’s happened?” Charlie Hu asked one of the construction people.

“Some guys got shot trying to rush the guards.”

“Oh no. Anyone killed?”

“We’re not sure.”

“I saw Ida being led away,” a Kronian girl said. “She looked as if she was all right, though.”

“Not Ida,” Sariena groaned. They had been friends on the Surya. 

Keene was shaking his head. “Never mind how it works in movies. You don’t go for guys who have guns and nervous fingers. It’s not the way.”

One of the guards looked up from talking into a compad. “Is Maria Sanchez, the medic, here? She’s needed.”

“I think she’s back in the dorms somewhere,” somebody answered. The guard relayed the information.

”Everybody, back inside,” the one who had spoken before ordered again.

Kurt Zeigler returned from the lower level of the OpCom dome to the office on the floor above where he had installed himself. Kelm, who had left an occupying force aboard the Surya and come back down to Serengeti during the night, accompanied him. The Kronian woman and one of the two Kronian men were unharmed. The other Kronian was shot in the legs and would recover, as would the former Terran who had been wounded in the stomach. The second ex-Terran, shot twice in the chest, was in serious condition. “I want a portable cabin set up behind OpCom as a secure medical facility and detention building, another for guard quarters, and the perimeter extended around them,” Zeigler said. “Also, we need elevated watchtowers. Give me a plan by eighteen hundred tonight for a minimum number and recommended sites. Fast and basic. We can start work on them under arc lamps tonight. Also, put out a general order, effective immediately, that until further notice gatherings of more than five persons are prohibited unless express approval is obtained. And a curfew, effective twenty-two hundred to six hundred.”

“I’ll see to it,” Kelm said.

Zeigler sat down at his desk to scan the low-priority reports listed on his screen. “So it seems that Kronians can have some fighting spirit too,” he observed. “Could it mean that some of them might turn around yet, and see things our way, do you think? We could use some volunteers.”

“I can’t say,” Kelm replied, trying to be tactful. “It’s all so unprecedented. Anything could happen.”

News from the Trojan was that the maneuver to boost Eskimo onward toward its rendezvous point had been executed successfully, and everything was on schedule. A message from Eskimo, however, had strongly questioned Zeigler’s decision to act now, far sooner than had been planned. But the plan hadn’t taken any account of the opportunity to strengthen Zeigler’s force from an unexpected source with natural killers. The recruits might be rough raw material, but they were the kind that, with discipline and training, fanatical followers are shaped from. To do something about it, however, he would first have to be in control. So he had gambled that by risking the short term, during which potential opposition would be confused and in disarray, his grip would be firmer in the long run, when they’d had a chance to organize.

“How are Rakki and the other two doing?” he asked Kelm.

“Just sitting, waiting it out. At least they’re smart enough to know when they don’t have much choice,” Kelm said.

The three natives who had been at the base yesterday when the Gallian incident occurred were still being detained, the main reason being simply that there had been more urgent things to take care of than taking them home. But it also saved Zeigler the trouble of having to go out to Joburg himself to put his deal to them. Keene’s timing in bringing them here couldn’t have been better.

“Then maybe it’s about time we had a talk with them,” Zeigler said.

“Shall I have them brought here?” Kelm asked.

Zeigler thought for a second. “No. We’ll go over there,” he replied. “And use that translator of ours who’s been studying the tapes. We need to get her up to speed. Obviously the South African can’t be involved in this.”