“That’s only because they know that USS is paying more. Raul, we have all but dismembered USS. When Matsudaira figures out how to read the balance sheets we have written for him, his heart will stop.”
“Scrapping the land tax and environmental clean-up will be Matsudaira’s first order of business. How much support do we have?”
“Do you want to know the truth? If this were all that he would demand, we would not have much. My fellow assemblymen do not understand. A few man-made deserts do not matter so much to them. Right now, they know that if they go along with me on environmental issues, I will be semireasonable in other matters, and they pay my price cheerfully. If I left office tomorrow, there would be other matters which would occupy their attention until the problem became too great to ignore.” Hendricka peered into the room, looking for her cat.
“Yes, she’s in here, Hendricka. Come get her out so your father and I can sleep!”
Hendricka scooped the kitten off the floor and pounced on the bed. “Oh, Mutti, isn’t she sweet? Just listen to her purr.” “Hendricka, I never listen to what people or cats say, I watch what they do, and if she scratches me again, she is going to be a pair of mittens. Raul, why are you laughing?”
“I think the only reason you let her have a cat is for the pleasure you get out of disliking the animal, which reminds me of Martial’s formula for a happy marriage.”
She poked him in the ribs, ungently. Martial had said, Sit non doctissima coniux, which means, “May my wife not be very learned.”
It struck many people as odd that they continued to live in two rooms in the Beyers home. Sanmartin often explained that living this way lessened problems with security, but it was difficult for people to take him too seriously.
Except for Hendricka’s bed, their rooms were furnished with things that Bruwer had brought from her small apartment, and the walls were bare. Sanmartin owned a pair of slacks, a suit, a sweater, several shirts, and a few personal possessions that fit inside his rucksack. Bruwer had a favored green gown she wore on state occasions and a mended kylix vase. In the intervening years, friends had given them much, but somehow never seemed to mind when their gifts ended up with people who needed them more.
Sanmartin stroked his daughter’s head. “So quickly tell us what you did yesterday, before we have to go to work.” “Tant Betje took me to preschool,” Hendricka lisped, “and we learned to count, and I told Pieter I wanted to be a soldier when I grew up.”
Raul Sanmartin turned his head so that he wouldn’t see the pain in his wife’s face.
Saturday(310)
HARJALO FOUND PAUL HENKE SITTING UNDER A FERN TREE OVER-
looking a pool masked by a sandbar that the river eddied around. The Hangman had a long composite fishing pole in one hand and a shorter switch with a line in the other.
“How is the fishing?” he asked.
Henke was in full field gear. He slipped off his mask and turned slowly to look at Harjalo. “It is acceptable. No better. The fish lack guile. Watch.”
He pulled in his line slowly, then delicately flipped his bait into a small rill close to the bank where he was sitting. He then took a switch with a short line attached to it in his free hand and whipped the water in carefully timed strokes. The local equivalent of a fish immediately struck his hook. After a brief struggle, the Hangman pulled the fish in. Haijalo was amazed at the size.
The Hangman slapped the fish under the throat to stun it, removed the hook, and slipped it back into the water. “You see?” he gestured. “They eat the spore pods from the trees. They think the sound is food falling into the water.”
“Good trick. I’ve never seen that done before.”
“The fish are not palatable, so no one tries. I did not intend to be found. How did you find me?”
Haijalo shrugged. “I spoke with a couple of cowboys who knew the river, and they told me approximately where you would be.”
“I did not realize that I was becoming predictable.”
Haijalo gestured. “Why are you wearing the mask?”
“The polarized lenses improve the contrast so that I can see the seams in the water where the fish hide. Life and death,” Henke added for no reason apparent to Haijalo. He put the mask on again and took it off. “I would like, when I die, to return as a fish.”
“Why a fish?”
“To atone, I suppose.” The Hangman placidly resumed fishing.
“Why didn’t you call and tell me you wanted a day off,” Haijalo asked gently.
“I thought I did. It must have slipped my mind. Things have been so confused. I have not been sleeping well, I think.” “Why not, Paul?” Harjalo forced himself to keep anxiety from showing in his voice.
“Sometimes I am terrified at night. I dream I see a missile coining at me, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Then I see the blood pouring out. It is not a good dream—blood frightens me, even in dreams—and sometimes it makes me afraid to go to sleep. And yet it is only in my dreams that I can be a child again, and a child isn’t afraid of blood because he thinks that it is just red water,” the Hangman responded as he continued to ply his line. There was no expression on his face.
That was when Matti Haijalo began to realize that the best armor officer he had ever known was starting to lose his mind.
Sunday(311)
GERRIT TERBLANCHE HEARD HIS TELEPHONE RING. CURSING, HE
flung his pillow at it. Then he rolled over and picked it up. “Hallo.”
“Hallo, Werewolf? Liberty!”
The engineer recognized Jopie Van Nuys’s voice on the other end. “This is Terblanche. Liberty. Do you know what time it is?”
“You should use your code name, Gerrit. What if someone is listening in?” Van Nuys chided him.
Terblanche rubbed his head. “This is my telephone. If someone is listening in, they already know who I am. What do you want at this hour? Unlike some people, I have to work tomorrow.”
Monday was December thirty-second; like many colonial planets, Suid-Afrika had extra days in its calendar to fit its rotation. Before Terblanche could hang up, Van Nuys blurted out, “Listen, Gerrit, I can do the job.”
Terblanche was instantly awake. “The big one?”
“The big one. We’ll want two stoves and half a dozen heating elements,” Van Nuys said, meaning he needed two rocket launchers and six projectiles.
Terblanche sniffed. “Are you sure you know how to light one of those?”
“Yes, I have had military training, remember?”
“All right. I’ll see what I can do. And take precautions—no one can be certain what has or hasn’t been tampered with. When and where do you want them?” Terblanche grabbed a pen and pad from the night table and cradled the telephone against his shoulder.
“I will also need a helper,” Van Nuys said, reluctant to concede that he couldn’t do everything himself.
“Who did you have in mind?” Terblanche asked.
.“Griffin.”
“Good choice. Hannes is one of the few people you don’t fight with.”
Hannes Van der Merwe, whose code name was Griffin, was quiet and did what he was told without a lot of back talk. He also had some commando training. They’d used him to spy on the Kafferboeties, so he knew how to keep his mouth shut as well. If truth be known, he was one of the few brothers that Terblanche would have trusted with a tough job.
As for Jopie Van Nuys, choirboys couldn’t make a revolution. The Volk had to use the tools available.
“Send Hannes around to see me tomorrow at my sister’s apartment. I will tell you later where to send the stoves,” Van Nuys said, and hung up the phone.
Terblanche turned off the phone and rolled over. The assassination of Admiral Horii was on.
Monday(311)
CAPTAIN CHIHARU YOSHIDA, VERESHCHAGIN’S POLITICAL OFFICER,
walked through Johannesburg until he reached a small house on Burgerstraat at precisely nine o’clock. He knocked and waited. A second or two
later, the door buzzed, and Yoshida opened it. Removing his shoes, he bowed and said, “Mr. Snyman.”
Louis Snyman was looking out a window. Acting out their ritual, he maneuvered the controls on his wheelchair to face Yoshida and nodded curtly. “Captain Yoshida.”
A former dominie, Louis Snyman had been one of the men who had organized the rebellion. If he had not been shot and paralyzed, he would have been transported by Vereshchagin with the other surviving conspirators. Ironically, Snyman’s son Jan was serving as a medic’s aide in No. 11 platoon when No. 11 put holes in his father, and young Jan had carried his father out of Krugerdorp on his back.
Yoshida had begun visiting after regenerative therapy had given Louis use of his arms and upper body, intending to recommend transporting him if he could be expected to cause trouble. The fanatically Christian minister and the indifferently
Buddhist career officer had found a curious companionship over the years.
Waving Yoshida to a seat on the sofa, Snyman snorted. “I hear that the ships brought a new director for USS. Has that lickspittle Beyers shot the man yet?”
Yoshida barely hid his smile. “No, he has not.”
“Pity, Yoshida. Pity,” Snyman wheezed. “He means no good. USS forgets nothing and learns nothing, and the only people they ever send here are idiots.” He waved a fat finger. “I know what you are thinking—you want to be polite and say nice things about this Matsudaira even if he is an idiot. But the Bible says, ‘You shall not bear false witness.’ ”
After Snyman had talked him into reading the Bible, Yoshida had quoted the Eighth Commandment—often—when Louis complained about his son Jan, recently promoted to sublieutenant, of whom he was secretly and inordinately proud, or his daughter-in-law, Natasha. Turning the tables gave Snyman a great deal of pleasure.
“I have met Matsudaira-san, and I am inclined to agree with you,” Yoshida said amiably, mildly astonished that he could find himself openly criticizing a countryman to a foreigner, even one he considered a friend. “I do not think that Matsudaira-san understands conditions here.”
“If he is like the others, he will not try. The best thing that Anton Vereshchagin ever did in his life was to shoot that man Tuge. More is the pity that Vereshchagin didn’t go to Earth and make a complete job of it.”
Snyman hated USS almost as much as he loved his God, and the one thing men could agree upon was that he hated well. It struck Yoshida veiy forcefully that what would have been hyperbole coming from another man was a simple statement of fact from Louis Snyman. To Louis, Suid-Afrika was the home God had given to his people, and USS had tried to dominate it and wreck it, which Snyman would never forgive or forget.
Changing the subject, Yoshida asked, “What did Dr. Solchava say on her last visit to you?”
“That daughter-in-law of mine told me I was not doing my exercises! I gave her what for, I promise you.” Snyman softened slightly. “Although, to be truthful, I am not sure she ever notices. Why Jan married her I will never understand. It was the same when that son of mine took me prisoner—you had better believe that I had some words for him when I got him home!”
“The marriage struck many other people as odd,” Yoshida conceded, entirely truthfully.
Sublieutenant Jan Snyman was tall, athletic, and very handsome, having grown twelve centimeters and added fifteen kilograms to his frame since joining Vereshchagin’s battalion over his father’s violent objections. His wife, Natasha Alevtinovna Solchava-Snyman, Vereshchagin’s once and again battalion surgeon, was exceedingly plain, moderately contemptuous of soldiers, and perpetually irritated by the frustration of binding up the consequences of other people’s follies. She was also twelve years older than Jan—proof, if any was needed, that love is truly blind.
Because Solchava’s rigid views on most things had caused her to transfer in and out of the battalion three times, the battalion betting line had her divorcing Jan within one year—and remarrying him within two. Jan was a popular officer, however, so No. 10 was willing to overlook his eccentricities; and marrying him had softened her enough for her to put up with her father-in-law's humors as a patient.
“I don’t know what he ever sees in her,” Snyman said wistfully.
“Such things are common. What did you ever see in your wife?”
“No, the question you should ask is what my wife ever saw in me.” Snyman turned his chair and headed for the kitchen. “You sit here for a moment. I have a bottle of beer, and since my daughter-in-law lectured me not to drink it, I can at least have the pleasure of watching you drink it for me. Oh, and did I tell you that I sent a letter to the Bruwer girl? I complained about the usual things and told her a woman’s place. She wrote me back—here, I have her letter here someplace.”
Snyman wheeled over to the sideboard and pulled open a drawer, pulling out Bruwer’s letter triumphantly. “ ‘Heer Snyman. I have received your latest missive. It is a pity that during the rebellion, neither my husband nor my grandfather found time to shoot you. In the future, please write to me on unbleached paper because it is easier to recycle. I hope that you will continue to have good health so that you can continue to bother me at regular intervals.’ ”
He slapped the letter with his free hand for emphasis. “Now that is a letter!” He added with grudging professional admiration, “A bunch of thieves, that is what they are. And your Colonel Vereshchagin is the biggest thief of the lot!”
Snyman was the last unrepentant “hero” of the rebellion, and the leaders of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement had made it known that they intended to install him as president of the “reformed” republic in the event that they took power, although they had no more intention of allowing him to exercise power than Vereshchagin did. The kindest thing Louis Snyman had to say about the ARM was that they were silly young puppies.
When Chiharu Yoshida left the house a half hour later, he was stopped by Captain Yanagita of Admiral Horii’s staff, who wanted to discuss the political situation on Suid-Afrika, and the future role in its evolution that Yoshida would play.
DRESSED IN SLACKS AND A RUMPLED SWEATER, RAUL SANMARTIN
waved to the night watchman as he and Christos Claassen walked toward a small building on the campus of the University of Suid-Afrika on the outskirts of Pretoria.
“We were not very original in choosing a name for our university,” Claassen said with a smile. “Perhaps I should suggest a change to the other trustees.”
“And get us both tarred and feathered, most likely.” Claassen gestured toward the watchman. “He knows you?” “He’s actually a student in the department of engineering, Cornelius Botha—really a nice kid. We usually chat a little, especially since I see more of this place at night than in the daytime.” Sanmartin’s frown deepened. “Most of my fellow faculty members think that he turns invisible when he puts his uniform on, which is something that the trustees might want to try doing something about one of these days.”
Claassen sighed. “If we only had fifty years.”
The Department of Suid-Afrikan Ecology occupied a small building on the fringe of the campus in keeping with its unpretentious status as a recently recognized discipline. As they entered, Sanmartin called out, “Simon! Maria! Karel! Come on out, I want you to meet someone.” He confided to Claassen, “When Simon is working, you’d have to bum the place down to get him to notice.”
Darting into the laboratory, he emerged holding Simon Beetje by the elbow and ushered him forward. Beetje was tall and extraordinarily thin. As Maria Viljoens and Karel Koekemoer joined them, Sanmartin made introductions.
“Heer Claassen, let me present Simon Beetje, who is my number two in the department, and Maria Viljoens and Karel Koekemoer, our two lecturers.” Viljoens was a short woman, chubby and outwardly cheerful. Koekemoer, younger than the others and noticeably bashful, was cultivating his first mustache, which looked like greasepaint on his lip.
A politician first and a banker last, Claassen shook hands with them. “Please ca
ll me Christos. Raul has told me a great deal about you three.”
A small amphtile poked its head around the comer and probed the air with its tongue, then it scuttled away.
“That’s Sallust, the fourth member of our permanent staif. We named the species Xenoambystoma hendricka,” Sanmartin explained. “We brought him in to study his ectoparasites, and he decided to stay. He’s shy around strangers who don’t bring him food.”
“Karel here has taught Sallust how to use a litter box, which is very little short of astounding, given amphtilian intelligence,” Beetje said, pushing the blushing Koekemoer forward for accolades.
“I didn’t believe Raul when he told me that you would be working tonight. I am astonished at such dedication,” Claassen commented.
“I keep telling them that they aren’t old enough to drink, and so far they’ve believed me.” Sanmartin jerked his head. “Christos here is on the university’s board of trustees.”
Claassen laughed. “And I am also the head of the loyal opposition, which means that I blackguard Raul and his wife on a daily basis, but when it comes to the university, we see through the same eyes. I met Raul during the rebellion— professionally, one might say—and Hanna’s grandfather was one of my dearest Mends.”
“The university has changed a little since then,” Sanmartin commented dryly.
The university’s president, nine of the twelve trustees, and an even dozen members of the faculty were either killed in the rebellion or transported for their role in launching it. Once one of the most reactionary institutions on the planet, with changes in personnel it was now one of the most progressive.
Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 02] Page 8