by Tom Kratman
As much as she liked running, it hurt to keep up any sort of momentum for very long, even if she crossed her arms. And how well can anyone be expected to run with her arms across her chest?
Back on Earth there might have been a chance to do something about the stupid things that had sprouted from her chest, but here . . . Not that it was all bad here, or at least hadn’t been until Kotek Annan and his thugs had decided that young Balboan women and boys made desirable slaves.
Maybe one day she’d look back and laugh at the irony of it all. Had one Robert Nyere, UN bureaucrat and maricón, not suggested that “something can be worked out” to her father—that something being Mitzi herself in lieu of taking their ancestral land for redistribution—they might have never been “transported” to Terra Nova in the first place. She wasn’t supposed to know that it was Nyere’s death—it wasn’t murder to defend the life or freedom or safety or chastity of one’s child—that had landed them here. Even at thirteen, men had found her sexy. Well, the assets on her chest at least. And those assets had only grown in the years since. Not that there’d been anyone to appreciate them. That was the downside to being el jefe’s daughter.
By the time Mitzi made it to the beach, Hecate, the largest of Terra Nova’s three moons, bathed the cove in silver light, giving everything a ghostly cast.
Even the jungle canopy—so green it had hurt her eyes when they’d first landed here—looked gray.
The ship—a caravel, she was sure now—had anchored in the cove, its sails stowed. A dinghy sat on the beach, rocking slowly with the paltry tide, almost in time with the sway of the black palms.
Two unarmed gringos—those light of skin, eyes, and, frequently, hair—knelt on the sand, their fingers laced behind their heads. Sweat stained the fine, if wrinkled, fabric of their shirts. Beads of moisture pooled to run down their faces, and tensing muscles strained with the rigid postures. They sported short hair darkened by perspiration.
Even in Hecate’s light, one was still identifiable as blond. The other had dark hair like her own.
These weren’t the big, strong men with red cloths around their heads that had come to Cochea with their curved knives, their tanks, and the reek of never-washed bodies. These men were little more than boys, clean-shaven and soft under their unusual clothes. She’d seen such well-made clothing before, in the big cities. The kind of stuff rich and leisurely UN personnel—or transportees who’d sold their souls—wore to be comfortable in the unforgiving heat and humidity of the Balboa Colony.
Mitzi’s mother, Helen, had mounted her escopeta, and had it squarely aimed at the leader’s head. Rather, it was aimed squarely at the young man who was at the front. Whether or not he was the leader appeared to be in question. They didn’t seem to notice Mitzi as she trudged across the beach, kicking sand in her wake. Two cholo boys—Felix, aged ten, and Rafael, who had just turned eleven—both still too young to join the fighting men in the jungle, stood off to her right, bows drawn and arrows nocked. Their loincloth-clad grandfathers covered the kneeling men from the other side.
Would the gringos be so scared if they’d known that the muzzle loaders the old men had on them were probably loaded with too-wet powder? Or that her mother’s shotgun likely held her last two shells? At least the boys were good with their arrows, as a number of wild turkeys and other tasty birds could attest.
“We’re here to help,” Golden Boy said.
“Sure you are,” her mother said, leading with the escopeta. “We’ve heard that before.”
Golden Boy stared into the double barrels. Whatever he was about to say caught in his throat.
“Mostly from those who say they come to do good,” her mother continued, her voice full of menace. “Somehow they’re the only ones who come out doing well, and it’s by helping themselves.”
For an overlong moment, only the sound of pounding surf, stirring wind, and the occasional hoot of a distant monkey could be heard.
“Ma’am,” the tall, dark-haired gringo said. “We’re from Desperation Bay. The Lansing Colony. Let me show you.” His hand drifted from behind his head.
Her mother took a step back, placing herself out of Golden Boy’s reach, and swung the escopeta toward Tall and Dark. His hand shot right back, lacing itself tight.
Without taking her gaze off him, her mother said, “Mitzi. Check the boat.”
Mitzi circled wide, keeping her distance. She caught her mother’s gaze as she crossed into the surf. And I thought Mom was scary when she was pissed at me.
Froth and a frond of Terra Novan seaweed tugged at Mitzi’s feet as she pushed an oar aside and cautiously leaned over to get a better look. A single wooden crate rested within.
“The crate’s not locked,” Tall and Dark said. “I can—”
“Shut up, Juan,” Golden Boy said.
Mitzi grabbed the hull and vaulted into the boat, landing with a thud that barely rocked it. Two metal latches held the crate’s lid in place. She popped them both and lifted.
The scent of gun oil billowed upward, overpowering the saltiness of the sea, the stench of fear, the earthiness of the jungle. Six bolt action rifles—honest-to-God-as-far-as-she-could-tell modern arms—rested on carved wooden supports. With trembling hands she touched one. Small boxes lined the crate. She pulled one up and fumbled it open.
Ammunition. Thousands of rounds by the look of it.
A treasure trove. Life. Freedom. Liberty.
“We have more,” Juan said. “Dozens of crates. A thousand rounds for each rifle.” Eager blue eyes and the hint of a smile sent a wave of heat right into her face. She said a quick prayer, thanking God not just for the crate and its contents, but for masking her blush with Hecate’s silver light.
“Mitzi, what is it?”
“Umm, Mom, you’re going to want to see this for yourself.”
“So, that’s your mom,” Juan said, stealing a sideways glance at the girl the Cocheans called Mitzi.
The answer was patently obvious. Tall and shapely, both women looked like they’d been cut from the same exquisite material by a master artist. That artist should’ve been around here somewhere, on his knees, playing Pygmalion driven insane, trying to decide which Galatea was the loveliest.
Joe Putnam elbowed him in the ribs and Juan almost lost his grip on the rope. They had lashed two crates together and were dragging them across the beach. One hundred and thirty eight steps away—he’d made the trip often enough to know the number very well—a cavern was tucked into the cliffs and the Cochean rebels had decided it was the best place to stow their treasure.
Joe, the oldest of their group, had set himself up as spokesman and his ill-chosen words had doomed their first contact with the rebels. They should’ve anticipated a less than friendly welcome given the rumors that had convinced Lansing Colony’s leader, Elder Oliver Rogers, to send them here in the first place. If half the stories about the rape and dismemberment of pre-pubescent children were true, Juan wouldn’t trust strangers either.
Even so, the rifles and ammunition hadn’t gone to greasing the skids as much as he’d expected. These people didn’t give their trust easily. That had to mean something. Maybe even something good.
Inside the cavern, Juan helped Joe lift one crate atop the stack already there, both of them straining under Mitzi’s watchful gaze. She cradled one of the rifles they’d brought. Again, Juan silently questioned the decision to come ashore unarmed. He swiped his sweat-soaked brow and slapped Joe encouragingly on the back as they headed for the cave mouth.
They passed the other two members of their team, Carr and his half-brother Letham. Both were Elder Rogers’ adopted kids, survivors of the wintery hell that had given their home the moniker of Starvation Bay. The Rogers had stayed aboard the Carcharodon to mind the cargo and make sure the hired crew didn’t panic and turn tail. Joe had chosen the Rogers brothers because of their level-headedness. At least that decision had borne out.
Carr and Letham gripped the handle of a crate with bo
th hands, their faces dark with exertion, arms and legs straining, moving with that awkward somewhat sideways shuffle while one of the Cochean kids covered them. The skinny, loin-clothed kid had some awful—and recent—scarring on his back. Juan averted his gaze and sought something nice to look at.
“Mitzi’s a German nickname, you know,” Juan said. “Is that short for Maria or something?”
She graced him with the barest hint of a smile. “How could it be short for Maria?”
“Oh, right. Five letters for five letters. Not short for something then?”
Mitzi stepped through a pool of light cast by a torch set in the sand to mark the makeshift path. She had taken her hat off, letting it hang down her back. A chin strap circled an elegant neck sparkling with a thin sheen of dewy girl-sweat.
Those cheekbones. Those eyes. Those . . . Wow. He cleared his throat. “Miriam? Marianne?”
“Alvarez!” Joe said, “shut it already.”
Mitzi’s smile widened, but just for an instant. A shout drew her attention towards the sea.
The old Indios had unloaded their oversized backpacks and piled them just outside the surf’s reach. The dinghy was still beached, a few steps away. Set against the sea, the waiting crewman was in shadow, barely a silhouette, but obviously set to shove off as soon as he got the signal.
“You should go back home,” Mitzi’s mother said, her voice hard. At least she wasn’t pointing that double-barreled monstrosity at them anymore.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that,” Joe said. “We swore an oath to deliver these arms to Belisario Carrera, and we won’t be leaving until we’ve done that. Like I said, we’re here to h—”
Juan stomped Joe’s foot. It gave way in the soft sand, but it was enough to shut him up. Smart as a whip, Joe had no common sense. It was obvious to anyone with even a meager ounce of that precious substance that these people had been “helped” right off Earth and that they saw “help” as either thinly disguised meddling, at best, or as a prelude to ruin, at worst.
“Ma’am,” Juan said, “if you don’t stop the UN here in Balboa, it won’t be long before they come to Lansing Colony, to Desperation Bay, to our homes. We’d rather help you stop them here and now. So, you see . . . ”
Was that a tremor in her hands? If so, it was fleeting. As fleeting as the start of the smile he thought he saw.
One of the elders spoke to her in Spanish. Her slightly less suspicious gaze remained on Juan and his friends. The old man fell silent and took a step back. Not a woman prone to hasty decisions, she seemed to be considering his words.
She issued a series of commands, the word “gringos” the only one that Juan recognized. Despite his name, Juan spoke no Spanish. His family, like most of the Lansing Colony’s transplants, hailed from English-speaking North America.
While missionary work had been the trademark of their faith since the early nineteenth century, the Gag Treaty had ended their proselytizing. Joe, the Rogers kids, and Juan had been chosen for this mission because they were young, strong, and single, not for their linguistic or diplomatic skills.
“Tell the ship to leave,” she said.
Joe grabbed a handkerchief from his back pocket and waved it in a wide arc five times. The man by the dinghy shoved off like his life depended on it.
“You’ll stay here for the night,” Mitzi’s mother said as Carr, Letham, and the boy guarding them returned. She issued a few terse orders in Spanish and headed for the jungle without so much as a backward glance, taking that double-barreled monstrosity with her.
“Grab your gear,” Mitzi said, encouraging them with a nod of her all too pretty chin. A chin topped by the nicest set of lips.
Juan looked away. Oh, look, sand. Lots and lots of sand.
He followed Joe’s lead. They grabbed their gear and with nothing but the most careful, slow motions of the cowed and non-threatening, built a fire inside the shelter of the cave mouth. Once the fire burned steadily, they laid out their bedrolls and broke out some of their supplies while the Cocheans watched. The old men were mere shadows outside the firelight’s edge. The younger of the boys had disappeared.
Juan, sitting cross-legged atop his bedroll, held his canteen out toward the scarred boy. “Thirsty?”
The boy shook his head and blinked with the eyes of an old soul hardened by things too horrible to be spoken.
Juan took a careful sip and offered the canteen again. The boy retreated into shadow.
“Rafael doesn’t like gringos,” Mitzi said. She grabbed the canteen and took a long, hard swallow.
“His back. Gringos did that?” Juan asked.
She nodded and returned the canteen, flashing an ample bosom hiding inside a man’s shirt. Not too well hidden, though. His mouth snapped shut. He prepared an apology, but Mitzi’s attention was, thankfully, drawn by the flapping of wings overhead.
He followed her gaze, but couldn’t make anything out. Desperate for something to do—lest he be tempted to gawk and reveal the baser side of his nature that seemed to rear its head whenever she was close—he reached for his backpack. She stepped back, one hand bracing the strap cutting diagonally across her chest like she was about to swing the rifle forward.
“Let me see what’s in the bag,” she said, her softness turning to steel. Her rifle remained behind her back. “All of you.”
In unison, three sets of judging eyes were leveled at him. Carefully, they dumped their packs. Protein bars, extra socks and underwear, and compact versions of their sacred texts tumbled into piles, along with odds and ends. A harmonica. Folding pocket knives. A sparker for starting fires. Pens and fishing lures, bug repellent and never-used first-aid kits.
Mitzi picked up Joe’s knife and flicked it open. She studied the blade and closed it with a snap. Staring, she apparently took his measure and then handed the knife back. He pocketed it and mumbled his thanks. She used her foot to nudge more of their things around, then nodded to each boy in turn. They took it as permission to repack.
Would Mitzi’s mother have been so trusting? Or maybe he and his friends just didn’t come across as a threat. Was that good or not?
By the time Mitzi got to Juan, she looked positively relaxed as she nudged his books aside. A family picture slipped out. She knelt and picked up the photograph by its scalloped edges.
“Your family?” Mitzi asked, casting him a long, puzzled look.
He nodded, pointing at the uniformed man standing in the center. “My father. He’s our sheriff.”
“Mother?” She pointed at one of his father’s wives.
“No, my mother died some years before this was taken.”
“And this one? Sister?” Again with that skeptical look.
“Kelly. Dad’s number three wife.” He proudly rattled off the names and ages of the bevy of siblings, introducing her to his family tree. As far as families went, his wasn’t all that large, but her eyes kept going wider and wider, so he trailed off, pride fading to uneasiness.
“Three wives. Does that mean two men have to go without?”
He laughed at the innocent question. His friends chuckled, but a moment later returned to pretending not to overhear.
“No, not really. More of the women survived, that’s all. It seemed . . . natural. The best way to handle things. Until things even out anyway.” His gaze sought the ground again.
“Is that why you are here?” No longer innocent or curious, her voice had a hard edge to it. “For women?”
“No, no. We’re not like the Earthers.” He bit his lip. She’d probably been born on Earth. Elder Rogers and most of their colony had been too. “I mean those from Earth who’d set up Ciudad Balboa, the compound that Belisario Carrera attacked last year. The peacekeeping force the OAU and the UN sent—”
“I know what you mean.” She pushed up from the ground and thrust the picture back at him. Her steps rang with vitriol as she walked off.
“Nice going, Romeo,” Joe said.
Mitzi used a sharpened stick
to stab the coals. Sparks flew skyward, caught in the updraft.
Felix had finally returned from a nearby river with a water skin almost as big as he was. She’d been worried about sending him anywhere near the jungle. Even armed with a rifle, his size made him a tempting target for the moonbats. What they really needed were more shotguns, like the one her mother had. Scatterguns made mincemeat out of the nocturnal predators, the two-foot-long moonbats also called antaniae.
When a campus of antaniae attacked, picking them off one at a time with rifle or arrow was a better way to go than not fighting back at all, but not by much. In the end you were still painfully, lingeringly, dead. And with only Hecate’s miserly light to guide Felix and provide some protection, he’d been either lucky or careful or both. But they’d needed fresh water, and would need even more in the morning when Mother returned with a mule train and such women, children or elderly as could make the trip.
While Felix had been getting water, old Palala had netted several fish. They were now simmering inside giant eucalemon fronds, tied with string vines. She stabbed the coals again, almost dislodging the frond-wrapped morsels. Fish oil dripped and splattered onto the coals, sending up a hissing waft of lemon and eucalyptus.
The gringos were gathered together, praying to “Heavenly Father,” thanking Him for blessing their voyage, their mission, and asking for His forgiveness. Whatever sins did these clean, soft-looking young men attribute to themselves?
Still, she’d never seen the maricones pray. At least not the ones giving the orders. Some of their troops sometimes did. Mostly before Father shot or hanged them.
There was a sincerity about these young men that bothered her. No one from a place called Desperation Bay should be so trusting. To come unarmed. To insist on staying.
There was a war on. Had they not heard? And they’d come to help the losing side. Even the “peacekeeping” maricones would shed their “enlightened” pacifist views for the crime of arms smuggling. These unfortunate young men would never make it to their tribunals. They were too old for the slave markets. If they didn’t “suicide” they’d likely get shot while trying to “escape.”