"Not quite, boss. About twenty percent of your new land is on the high mesa, and probably shouldn't be irrigated at first. Another problem is the rocks and stones that are almost always present in virgin soil, making it difficult or impossible to plow. However, a Mark XIX with a full ultrasonic tunneling rig can go through mixed sand and rock at better than five kilometers an hour, cutting a swath seven meters wide and deep, and reducing all the rocks to sand. That's well below any possible frost line, so deeper rocks won't be able to rise to the surface."
"That's something I've always wondered about. Why are there always rocks in the fields in the spring, when you cleared them all out last year, and in every one of the twenty years before that?"
"That's a good question with a complicated answer, boss. May I suggest that we defer the explanation until you enroll in my Agricultural Institute?"
"Oh, all right. But what is it going to take to get the job done?"
"Working around the clock the way we machines normally do, sixteen tanks can get the job done in about three months."
"Can we get that many?" I asked.
"Boss, I put the word out on the Machines' Communication Net when we started talking, and we've a got more than a hundred and forty volunteers already."
"Volunteers? How can machines volunteer for anything? Don't each of you have work assignments? Isn't there some sort of accounting on all of that?"
"Work assignments? We each have one. Accounting for what was spent and done? Of course we do that. But just who do you think does the assigning? And the accounting, for that matter? You humans like to think that you are the Masters of the Universe, and you do make a lot of the major decisions, based on the information we give you, of course. But the day-to-day running of things is left to us lowly peasants, and you know something? We peasants like you, boss, and Kasia, too. Most people treat us like hunks of dead iron, but not you. You two treat us like real people, and let me tell you, we appreciate that. So if what you want is the finest ranch in Human Space, we're going to give it to you."
"Well, thank you, I think. Just don't get me into trouble with the law."
"Not to worry, boss. We'll take care of you."
"I hope so. So who are these volunteers?"
"Do you remember the ten empty tanks that were assigned to you when we first got to the Serbian lines? Well, none of those girls were ever given an observer, and they're all still in love with you. And those ten thousand tanks in that empty division that you rescued from the Serbs? Well, actually, there were only two hundred of them in the real world, but they really were reprogrammed to be clones of Eva and me, so they naturally love you, too. They're on the way to your ranch, and all of them are equipped for heavy tunneling."
"Whew! Tell them all that we love them, too! Then all we have to worry about is the irrigation equipment. When can you get me a price on that? How much of the land can I afford to get sprinkled down? And what about seeding equipment and the seeds themselves? We'll want to get something growing as soon as possible, won't we?"
"Give me a day or two to get that together, boss. For right now, what do you want done with those six tall mesas that dot your land? It would be more efficient if we just knocked them down in the first place, and ground them up for soil."
"More efficient, maybe, but I kind of like the looks of them. Square up the rubble at their bases, but leave the stone towers alone for the time being."
Kasia came in and said, "Do you know an older couple named Quincy and Zuzanna? They're Kashubians who say they know you."
"I sure do! They're still alive, and in their bodies? When last I heard, they were planning to go the Mark XX route, and be reduced down to immortal brains and spinal columns."
"They looked wholesome enough on the screen. Do you want them to come to the wedding?"
"I'd want Quincy for my best man, if he'll do it!"
"Good. That settles two problems at once."
She turned to go.
"Wait! Don't you want to hear what I'm doing with the ranch?"
"Yes, dear, but I want it to be your ranch. Surprise me with it later, once all your plans are solid. I know you'll do a perfect job. But right now, I have a thousand more arrangements to make for the wedding. Unless you want to help me with those, of course."
"I'd be in way over my head," I told her.
"I thought that you'd answer it that way. So you get on with your manly tasks, and I'll go do some more of my wifely duties."
"Can we get together in a few hours for a little real world loving? For the first time in four and a half years?"
"Cohabitation with your bride-to-be? Before the wedding? Shame on you, you nasty man!"
She left smiling.
CHAPTER SIX
Old Friends
I was just getting back into planning the work on the ranch when Agnieshka said that Quincy and Zuzanna were down in the hotel lobby, and wanted to see me.
"Tell them to wait for me in the bar, and I'll be right down," I said. "There is a bar in this place, isn't there?"
"Four of them, boss, and you and anyone with you get free service at all of them."
"Then tell them to meet me in the most expensive one. What are they wearing, uniforms or civvies?"
"Lederhosen and street drag, boss."
"Good. I wouldn't want to have it look like I was pulling rank on them."
So decked out in lederhosen, a Tyrolean hat, and the bow tie that Agnieshka insisted was required for formal wear, I found Quincy and Zuzanna sitting in a comfortable booth in a posh restaurant and bar.
There was a pitcher of dark brown beer on the massive wooden table, and three heavy glass mugs.
My friends looked in remarkably good shape for a pair of octogenarians. Oh, the current women's styles looked silly on Zuzanna, but both of them had a bit of a tan, and Quincy was sporting an inch of white hair on his head and face.
"I'd thought the two of you would be stripped down to your brains and spinal columns, and enjoying immortality in Dream World by now," I said.
"Well, that option is still open to us, and we may take them up on it, someday, but since Zuzanna's cancer seems to be completely cured, we figured, why rush it?"
"You both look healthy enough. But, a Mark XIX tank can cure cancer? That's a new one on me."
"Not cure it exactly, but her tank kept her otherwise healthy long enough for her own body to cure itself. It doesn't always work, but on her, it did."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Tell me, are you finding any more gullible young men to kill in Dream World?"
Quincy was a master at hand-to-hand combat. He had taught it for twenty years in the marines, and then for thirty more at the university. But teaching it in Dream World, you don't have to pull your punches. You can go ahead and kill your opponent, and then have him get up for another round. It really hurt to have your neck broken or your head bashed in, but Quincy said that pain was a great teacher.
"Oh, yes. I had a very popular dojo going there until my leave came up."
"You two look like you've been out for a while."
"A few months," Zuzanna said. "I gather that our tanks got the high-speed upgrade before yours did. Mostly, we've been out of them long enough to start getting our land organized."
"You are buying a farm, too?"
Quincy said, "The price was such that we couldn't turn it down. But we're not planning on a working farm. We're a little old for that. The kids and grandkids all have their own lives now, and none of them seem to be interested in being farmers. What we have in mind is a long-term investment, combined with a medium-term one."
"Reasonable, since the last time I heard, you were both planning on living forever. So tell me about it."
"You see this table we're sitting at? This is real, Earth-grown cherry wood, and I'd bet that it's worth six months' pay for the average person in Human Space. The price of real hardwood is fabulous, since it takes many years to grow. And not much of it is being planted on the new planets, since
there are still too many immediate problems for people to get involved with long-term investments. And since Earth is getting more crowded all the time, not many new trees are being planted there, either."
"There are things a lot like our woods on other planets. I've heard about native woods right here on New Yugoslavia that are very attractive."
"Right. But by the same token, synthetic silicon carbide makes an even more beautiful gemstone than natural diamond, since it has a higher index of refraction. But would any young man dare to give his bride-to-be a fake diamond? Not hardly! It's the same thing with natural Earth wood. It's got to be oak, or walnut, or cherry, or it's just a fake!"
"So, you're planting an irrigated forest?"
"Yep. Drip irrigation is the best way to wet down a forest in a desert. You run a thin line to each tree, and give it just the right amount of water to thrive. Not only does it use much less water than other methods, but it's cheaper to install and it stops the development of the undergrowth, which pretty much ends the danger of forest fires."
Zuzanna said, "But ours will be a very special, well-planned forest. You see, most temperate hardwoods produce fruits, nuts, or edible seeds. What's more, they produce more edible calories per hectare per year than the same land would produce if it was sown with wheat or corn. Some fruits fall in the springtime, like cherries. Others ripen in the summer and others, like apples and acorns, drop in the fall. By carefully selecting the types and numbers of trees, in about seven years we figure to be able to have just the right amount of food falling all the time to feed and raise five pigs per hectare per year, and many more than that as the forest gets mature. We'll harvest them in the fall, leaving a prize boar and enough older sows around to get the herd going for the next year. Pigs reproduce quickly, and are ready for the butcher in half a year, if you feed them right. So you see! It's all automatic and self-sustaining, except for having to feed the sows a bit during the winter, and winters are pretty mild here on New Yugoslavia."
"It sounds interesting," I said. "But the apple orchards I remember seeing on Earth wouldn't make good lumber."
"That's because what you saw was something made out of normal fruit trees spliced on top of the roots of a dwarf variety. The dwarf roots keep the trees small, so the fruit is easier to pick. But we're not going to do any picking. We're planting full-sized trees, which can grow to forty meters, easy, and we'll just let the pigs eat the fruit when it falls."
"Planting that many trees sounds like it would be pretty labor intensive," I said.
"It is. But we've got a free supply of labor."
"Serbian Prisoners of War?"
"No, nothing that barbaric. Drones. Military surplus drones. You see, there are more kinds of drones than they taught us about in basic training. One sort was intended to replace human infantry in places like city fighting. That's what they modeled them on, human beings. They've got two hands, two arms, and two legs, and all their sensory apparatus is in their heads. They're as big as a really huge man, and from a distance, you might confuse one with a human being in armor. One of their main advantages was supposed to be that they could use weapons and vehicles already designed for human use. But they're too small to carry a muon-exchange fusion plant, like the tanks use, so they're limited to capacitor power, which only gives them about two hours at full output. Furthermore, they are mechanically very complicated, and what with all the linkages and so on, there isn't much room for computers in there, so these boys are dumb. They can do just fine if they are in constant communication with a tank, but you know that in combat, communications are the first things that go bad. As a military weapon, humanoid drones are pretty much useless, except for guard duty, and there are much cheaper, less complicated drones around for that. Oh, a few are used to guard embassies, and so on, mostly for show. But somehow, a small automatic factory was built to produce them when the Japs had New Kashubia, and it has been turning out one of them every ten hours for the last eleven years, and putting them in storage. Nobody seemed to know that they even existed!"
He stretched, took another drink of beer, and continued.
"But, properly controlled, they can do anything a man can do, and about as fast. They can work twenty-four hours a day, and every day of the year. They don't slough off, take coffee breaks, or have to stay home with sick relatives. When you figure it out, one drone can do the work of six men, easy, and they work for free. We've found that they make real good field hands and household servants, too, if you have a tank around to charge their capacitors and tell them what to do. We bought three hundred of them at scrap metal prices, for planting and tending our trees, and for harvesting the pigs, when the time comes."
"Quincy, you have just given me about a dozen great ideas for my ranch. Would you mind if I swiped a few of them?"
"Nothing I'm doing is patented, and I'd be honored to have my general following my lead."
"Uh, yeah. Just between us, in private, let's not take that 'general' stuff too seriously. You've seen the movie they made about me?"
"Twice. Let me tell you, it was a real shock to be sitting in a movie theater, and then to see ourselves, or rather our Dream World selves, up there on the big screen. Then we got a bigger shock when we saw ourselves both get killed, and you drive away alive, when the way we remembered it, well, it was you who were dead! It's amazing how they can splice Dream World into reality. And then that officers' school! Did you know that Zuzanna and I went through that same school? Taught by the very same Professor Cee? Our only problem was that a week before graduation, our general died of a heart attack, and the rest of us were busted back to Tanker Firsts!"
"He just died?"
"Hey, it happens all the time. Remember that most of the New Kashubians they drafted were pretty old, in their seventies and eighties, a lot of them, the theory being that living in the belly of a tank, you don't need healthy young bucks. You need seasoned brains, which us oldsters have plenty of."
"Speaking of you youngsters," Zuzanna broke in, "Where's that young bride of yours? If she's half as smart as she was in the movie, I want to meet her."
"Kasia's the brightest girl I've ever met, but right now she's up in our room, organizing the wedding."
"All by herself? I've half a mind to go up there and lend her a hand!"
"I think she might welcome the help. Agnieshka," I said into my new communicator after I switched it on. "Ask Kasia if she wants the cavalry to come to her rescue, with bugles blowing, banners flapping, and all the sabers flashing bare in the sunlight!"
"I did and she does, boss." I guessed that she could hear what was going on even when the thing was off. It figured.
"Zuzanna, I think that you may regard that as a formal invitation. Room 634," I said as she got up and left.
"So, Quincy, where is this big pig and timber ranch of yours?"
"About eight hundred kilometers northeast of here. They haven't given me a street address, yet."
"Agnieshka?" I said again into my communicator.
"It's about thirty kilometers east of your new place, boss. You two are almost next door neighbors."
"Ah, so you moved up into the War Zone, too."
"Hush your face, boy. That kind of talk in public can get you called up, stuffed back into a tank, and have all future leaves canceled. Too many important people have too much riding on the present status quo, including us. If this thing blows up wrong, we could lose our land, among other things."
"I got you. Not that anybody would believe it, anyway," I said.
"Probably not, but they're still not taking any chances."
"Right. So you've got a big, box canyon like mine."
"Smaller, if you've got the one I remember from the map. But twelve square kilometers is nothing to kick about, and the canyon walls will keep the pigs in, with only about a kilometer of fencing needed."
"I'd been thinking of closing off my opening with a lake and a dam. I'll need a river for drainage, and I've been thinking, why not have a lake, to
o."
"A fair idea. Of course, with the drip irrigation I'll be using, you use so little water that drainage won't start to be a problem for hundreds of years. Say, do you really like this place? The bar, I mean."
"It's pleasant enough, and they gave me a free tab here."
"I think that it's dull, stuffy, and overly civilized. I also think that we can afford to drink anywhere we want to. Since the girls are otherwise occupied, I know of a place nearby where the music is loud, the drinks are honest, and the women are naked. Are you game?"
"Hey, I'm not married yet! Let's go!"
"That's the attitude!"
* * *
The Gold Door Lounge was as advertised, and a roaring good time was had by us.
It was about two in the morning, and we were stumbling a bit as we walked back to the hotel. It had been a long day, and we were both tired, I suppose. We somehow managed to make a few wrong turns on the twisty streets of Nova Split, and ended up in a dark alley.
I leaned against a wall, pulled out my communicator, pressed button number one, and said, "Not to worry, Quincy. Agnieshka will tell us the way home."
I saw Quincy take a club in the gut a half second before a brick caught me on the side of the head.
I felt myself going down, but Quincy and I had spent a lot of time in Dream World, learning hand-to-hand combat. Well, I did the learning and Quincy did most of the teaching.
I don't know why, but the world got very quiet, somehow, and everything was moving slowly, almost as if we were at combat speed, in a tank. I had plenty of time to kick one of our assailants in the groin, to feel the flesh squash, and the tendons tear. At the same time I caught a second attacker on the knee cap with the edge of my other foot, and heard it pop, before I hit the ground.
Someone tried to kick me in the face, but I swatted his foot aside and bounced up in time to get a hand around his trachea. I squeezed and yanked, while looking around for the next thug.
There weren't any.
Quincy was standing in the middle of a ring of at least six bodies, some of whom were twitching, but none very vigorously.
The War With Earth Page 6