Return to Camerein

by Rick Shelley

  “You see what I mean,” William said. He carefully tore the paper into several pieces, then took a match from his pocket and set fire to the shreds, holding them by one end until the flame nearly touched his fingers. He dropped the remnants in the soil of a potted plant on the end table and stirred the ashes about to destroy the evidence more completely. Using the end of a pen, he mixed those ashes into the soil.

  “I believe I do, sir,” Ian said, slowly. If the histories he had read were correct, and there was some slight doubt about current “knowledge” of that era, Shepard had been the first colony world settled from Earth—before the discovery of a workable Q-space drive. Shepard’s first colonists had made the trip over seventy years in a generation ship, with only a handful of the people who had left Earth surviving until their children and grandchildren reached the new world. Shepard had been under the control of the Federation from the beginning.

  “That might indeed make a difference,” Ian said while the prince thoroughly erased the message from the chip.

  “You might see to distributing the other messages here to the proper recipients, Ian,” William said after he had finished. The erasure was complete. There was no possible way that anyone could ever reconstruct the message—even if it might make sense to them if they succeeded.

  The news Colonel Tritesse brought when he returned thirty minutes later was not particularly a surprise.

  “His Excellency, the Secretary of State for the Confederation of Human Worlds, regrets that he must ask for a slightly longer pause in the negotiations. He has informed the General that he needs to send a message rocket to Union and wait for a reply before he can continue.”

  15

  (X-DAY PLUS 4)

  Time had not lessened the conversation value of the crashed shuttle and the pilot who had almost survived for the denizens of the Commonwealth Excelsior. It was the first real news they had had in seven years. They would make the most of it. Some of the people who had been excluded from the original trek to the crash site talked about going to see it for themselves. The talk, as well as the inner hopes of all of the residents of the hotel, traveled quickly from the subject of the crash to the possibility that there were other Commonwealth people close at hand.

  “For all we know,” one common thread went, “the Commonwealth might already be back on Camerein, fighting for the main population centers on the other continent. They might even have won that fight by now. If so, they’re sure to come for us.”

  The veranda had become a much more popular area, and a few guests who had rarely ventured out of doors in years even took to promenading around the grounds surrounding the hotel to gaze at the sky, to look and listen for any further omen of approaching salvation. After dark, when leaving the hotel did carry some slight risk of predators, people stood at the windows of darkened rooms to look out into the night sky.

  Radio receivers were on constantly, set to scan the likely frequencies for any transmissions they might overhear, even if those transmissions were coded and impossible to decipher.

  Four days of hearing and seeing nothing out of the ordinary had taken only the brightest edge off the hopes of the seventeen people at the Excelsior.

  “It is mildly frustrating,” Prince George admitted to Vepper Holford as they made their way down to the dining salon for their evening meal. “Such a tantalizing tease and then nothing, absolutely nothing. A wisp to build a world of hopes on.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vepper said. More mercurial in temperament than his usually phlegmatic demeanor suggested, his emotional ups and downs had been extreme since seeing the dying pilot and the dead men around him. Vepper had trained from childhood for a life at court, and he had decades of experience at suppressing his personal opinions and feelings. “I might suggest that it has been more than ‘mildly frustrating’ for most of the people here.”

  “One would have thought that someone would have come to investigate that smashup straightaway,” George said, pausing in the reception area. There was no one else about. The others, those who were coming, were already in the dining room. “If not the Commonwealth to look for survivors and to ascertain the fate of the rest, then the Federation, wondering what our chaps were doing on the planet.”

  “Yes, sir, that’s what I thought as well. I think that is what makes it so distressing. No one has bothered to come.”

  “The fact that we have been so isolated, half a world from everyone else on Camerein, has been both our salvation and our damnation these seven years. One can hardly expect it all to change overnight.”

  Vepper didn’t bother to acknowledge that. He waited forthe prince to finish inspecting himself in the mirror, then followed George into the dining room.

  Everyone else was already present, those who would show at all, even Mai McDonough. For the first two days of her enforced sobriety, she had been a wounded tigress, making life particularly miserable for her husband and Shadda and generally miserable for everyone else. Her tantrums had since waned but not disappeared. The intervening silences were welcome.

  Overall, mealtimes had become more sociable than they had been in years. Especially at lunch and dinner, nearly everyone generally gathered in the dining hall, even the three employees. The latter would report on the lack of any news from the radios. The talk would move from there in predictable directions that hardly varied from meal to meal. Who had watched the skies when? They had seen and heard nothing. But soon? Perhaps. There was more hope than there had been in years. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps they would wake in the morning to find that their exile was over, or nearly over. Perhaps. Maybe. With a little luck.

  During supper, Shadda sat where he generally did, at the table nearest the kitchen, with his back to the wall so that he could watch the entire dining room and respond instantly should someone want his services. Even more than Vepper, Shadda’s calm exterior belied the maelstrom inside. His emotional highs were possibly a little higher than they had been before the appearance of the shuttle, but his lows were also far more extreme. His headache had been constant since burying the pilot. Knowing that there could be no serious physical genesis to the pain did little to help Shadda. He had long known that his problems were not physical. The blinding headaches, the times when he was scarcely in control of himself, were all attacks by his mind on itself, beyond the power of medical nanobugs to diagnose or cure.

  The chance of rescue was not an unadulterated hope for Shadda. It cut to the core of his ambivalent feelings about the years of exile. He had a place, a position, some measureof importance for as long as the isolation lasted, more permanence than he had ever known. But at a cost that continued to rise.

  The Caffres were sitting quietly together. Henri was content. Marie had become more sedate, almost tranquil, since the trip to the crash site. Her tirades against The Windsor and everything else had lost much of their usual force and duration. That made life much easier for her husband. Marie had even admitted that The Windsor had acquitted himself well on that expedition. It had pained her to compliment the epitome of aristocracy, even out of his hearing.

  Even Jeige McDonough seemed content this evening. He kept a watchful eye on his wife, but he was satisfied that she was not finding any alcohol to drink, except perhaps the occasional drop that someone else left of a cocktail. It was not enough to allow her to resume her drunken habits. She had not reconciled herself to the situation, or forgiven her husband—or anyone else in the hotel—for forcing her to remain sober. On the rare occasions that she spoke to Jeige, it was to curse him. She had moved out of their room into one of the many vacant rooms in the hotel, as far from her husband as it was possible to get without moving to one of the outbuildings, or into a tent in the jungle.

  She also continued to sit as far from her husband as the dining room permitted, and she always sat with her back to him, a pointed reminder of her displeasure. Sober now, she did not miss the fact that it was her husband who had the sympathies of the rest of her “prisonmates” (as she thought of the
m, when she bothered to think about them at all). The others welcomed her silence. Only Shadda made the slightest attempt to placate her, and Mai rebuffed his every approach. He was the one who had programmed the drink machines not to serve alcohol to her.

  Prince George was especially pleased with the music Shadda had chosen to accompany this meal. It was one of his personal favorites, Beethoven’s Seventh Piano Concerto

  (the “Galactic”) by Angus Duncan. The Duncan Expansions on Beethoven, a body of work nearly as extensive as Beethoven’s own, had been written in the twenty years just before Arthur Charles Windsor, younger brother of the King of England, left Earth to found the Second Commonwealth. There were seven symphonies, a dozen concertos for piano, violin, or cello, chamber music, sonatas, and scores for several movies in “The Expansions” (as they were still known). Those works were perennial favorites in the Second Commonwealth, particularly among the generations of Windsors. Angus Duncan had left Earth with Prince Arthur, forsaking a career of considerable moment to share in Arthur’s dream. There was a statue of Duncan in front of the Royal Symphony Hall in Westminster.

  George was a competent, though not brilliant, pianist. He had learned the solo piano music of both Beethoven and Duncan during his youth and had, by fits and starts, continued playing in private over the years. He had long held a fancy of someday performing the piano concertos with a full symphony orchestra. Concern for the dignity of the family had always kept that as nothing more than a fancy, though.

  If I’d had the good fortune to be stranded here with a symphony orchestra, George thought in the brief pause between the second and third movements of the concerto, then I could have done it for fair, with no one to complain of the impropriety.

  Just after the final movement started, George finished his dessert and leaned back to enjoy his traditional glass of port. That was when he saw the two strangers standing in the doorway.

  “Your Highness, I’m Captain David Spencer, 2nd Regiment of Royal Marines. His Majesty sent me to collect you and your, ah, companions here.” The helmet visor was raised, but it cast a shadow over his face, disguising the Marine’s expression.

  The next minutes were too chaotic for anyone to adequately describe them in detail afterward. The confusion of voices was so intense as to defy description. Everyone had questions—dozens, hundreds of questions. More than a few cheeks showed the tracks of tears. Mai McDonough even forgot her snit long enough to join the movement to flock around the Marine captain. Marie Caffre stood so quickly that she had to sit back down immediately, lightheaded, afraid that she was about to faint.

  At first, Prince George remained motionless, one hand reaching for his wineglass, the other resting on the edge of the table. Even The Windsor felt blood draining from his face. But his moment of shock was brief, and mostly well concealed. If his hand trembled a bit as he picked up the glass of port and took a sip, no one, except perhaps the captain, noticed. The others were all too busy staring at their rescuers and talking.

  The prince set his wineglass back on the table, then stood.

  “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Captain Spencer,” George said, and there was nothing out of the ordinary about his voice. He was once more in full control of himself.

  “I know that you must have a ton of questions, sir,” David said. “And I know that everyone else has, but I must ask that you let me ask my questions first. A matter of security, sir,” he said, addressing the prince directly.

  “Naturally, Captain. What do you need to know?” The others quieted down, though there was still impatience—among other things—on every face.

  “Have you seen any Feddies around here, especially in the last few days?”

  “You mean since your shuttle crashed?”

  “Yes, sir. You know about that?”

  “A few of us went to see if there were any survivors. One of the pilots was still alive when we reached the wreckage. We were unable to keep him alive until we got back here, though. There were no survivors, I am afraid.”

  David closed his eyes briefly. “I expected that there werenone, sir. We had two shuttles and lost them both, with a quarter of my men.”

  “I am sorry, Captain. Now, you have other questions?”

  “You’ve already answered the most urgent. I fear that Feddies will be showing up, perhaps at any second. There are not enough of us to put up a credible defense of this establishment, sir, and I am charged by His Majesty—personally—to insure your safety, and that of the others here. How many are there altogether?”

  “Seventeen in all,” Prince George said. “From what you just said, am I to infer that you plan to remove us from this hotel?”

  “Yes, sir, as quickly as possible. We’re just a small commando detachment sent in for this mission. There are more Marines due to land tomorrow, to take this world back from the Feddies, but they’ll be on the other continent. We’ll need to move off into the jungle until we’re able to contact one of the incoming ships to send landers down to ferry everyone up and out of here. Until then, sir, we’re on our own.”

  “You wish us to leave now, at night?” George asked.

  “Yes, sir. As I said, as soon as possible. I assume that the hotel’s food replicators are still functioning?”

  The prince made a gesture around at the tables. “Indeed.”

  “Then if something in the way of compact field rations can be prepared quickly …”

  “Master Lorenqui!” George boomed, turning to gesture Shadda closer. “Can you and your assistants take care of that?”

  “Of course, sir. But is it really necessary that we abandon the Excelsior to crawl around in the bush? After all, we have been quite safe here these seven years. I don’t see how one more night can change that.”

  David did not wait to see if the prince would respond to that. “The Feddies know that we are on the world, on this continent. They intercepted us as we arrived, and we’ve skirmished with several patrols since we’ve been on theground. They are actively looking for us, and they must be wondering what a small armed detachment is doing on this continent. This is the only habitation for hundreds of miles. It’s a bloody miracle you aren’t already up to your necks in Feddies now. How quickly can you put together field packs for the seventeen of you, enough to last several days?”

  “We were equipped to serve three hundred meals an hour. Not all of the replicator bins are loaded, but in an hour the three of us should be able to supply the amounts you suggest. We’ll start straightaway.” Shadda gestured impatiently as he started away from the group. His assistants, Dacen and Zolsci, followed reluctantly, both looking back over their shoulders, loath to miss whatever else the Marine captain might say.

  “Sir, and the rest of you, I would advise that you very quickly assemble small kits of clothing and anything you absolutely cannot leave behind. And put on clothing that is practical for the jungle. The sooner we get away from this hotel, the better our chances are of evading Federation soldiers. And while you’re packing, please remember that whatever you pack you’ll have to carry yourselves, along with the food. My men are already loaded down with full combat kit.”

  No one went rushing out of the dining room. Most remained exactly where they had been, still staring at David.

  “The Feddies are as like to simply blow this hotel up from the air and not bother with landing and conducting a search, and maybe having someone fight back,” David said, turning through a circle. When he was facing the prince again, he said, “Sir?”

  George nodded. “Yes, you are quite right. It is that time, people,” he said, raising his voice. “These Marines are charged with keeping us safe, but we are all going to have to put ourselves under their orders and do what we’re told until the danger is past. All of us.” He emphasized the last three words to indicate that he did not exclude himself.

  “If you would accompany me while I pack, Captain?”

  George asked, as the first few of the exiles started to move—reluctant
ly—toward the dining room’s exit.

  “Of course, sir. I don’t think I should let you out of my sight just now,” David said. “A moment, sir, while I make a few arrangements?”

  After the prince nodded, David went over to the arched doorway where Alfie was still standing. “Get the squad posted inside, around the perimeter. Send one man out to tell Hopewell and Naughton what’s going on, then come back in. Stand by out in the reception area to coordinate things until we get back down.”

  Alfie nodded and left.

  “Might I ask just how large a force you have, Captain?” Prince George asked as they climbed the stairs.

  “Fifty-seven, myself included, sir. We’ve lost nineteen men getting here, including the wounded Marines who were on that shuttle you found. They were being flown back up to our ship for treatment. The ship seems to be gone as well. We’ve had no contact with her since the first day.”

  Vepper was right behind his master and the Marine. His room was next to the prince’s, connecting. He had not said a word since the first two minutes after seeing the Marines, but he had listened intently. Halfway up the stairs, Vepper had to pause and take a couple of deep breaths. Without realizing what he was doing, he had been holding his breath—and trying to rush up a flight of stairs at the same time. He was thoroughly winded.

  When they reached the passageway on their floor, Vepper started to pass the others, saying, “I’ll get your things packed quickly, Your Highness.”

  “See to your own kit, Vepper,” George said. “I think I can do for myself.”

  Holford stopped abruptly, as if he had run into a brick wall. “Very well, sir, but I can …”

  “No, just pack what you’ll need. You’re not my footman.”

  Inside his room, with the connecting door to Vepper’s room open, Prince George moved with quick efficiency topack four changes of clothing and one extra pair of boots. He also changed into something more appropriate than the light-colored trousers and jacket he had worn to dinner. He continued the conversation with Spencer the entire time.