The Price of Peace

by Mike Moscoe

  “Would you like some marines?”

  “I’d know I could trust them, but I’m not sure how people would take to ’em. Not long ago we had Unity hoods swaggering around. I’m afraid your marines look a lot like them.”

  “I’ll follow your lead. Be careful.” Izzy paused for a moment. She was used to blowing things up; this cloak-and-dagger stuff was new to her. “If somebody’s telling you what to say, call me Izzy. That way we’ll know you’ve lost control, and we’ll add you to our list of people needing rescuing.”

  “Izzy,” he repeated. “Call me Mikhail, and you don’t have to be in trouble to use it.”

  “Take care,” she said.

  “You too,” he answered and closed out.

  “Stan,” she shouted, hitting the ship’s comm. “We got friends, but we got problems. When is it dark down there?”

  • • •

  The wood was wet, and the wind was blowing, and the damn match sputtered out only seconds after the marine struck it.

  “Looks like I’m the only one that gets a fire tonight,” the boss drawled as he handed Trouble a second match.

  Ruth didn’t know where to look. Not the boss. His grin was boiling her blood. All she wanted to do was claw his eyes out—or rip off what Mordy was so careful to protect when he knocked her around. The marine was trying to keep the boss happy. She dared not look at the boss.

  She couldn’t bear to look at Trouble. His face, his body were frozen. He was hurting inside, but too proud to let the boss see…or anyone else. Was the fire that important?

  “You really wanted us warm, didn’t you?” Ruth risked asking him. Trouble broke his stony demeanor just enough to nod, then struck the second match. The flames taunted them as they flicked to easy life. Trouble knelt by the fire, feeding it carefully as it grew. Others gathered, seeking warmth in the cooling night.

  Ruth didn’t know why, but they needed three fires tonight. Someone had to face the boss, pry a light from him for the other two fires. Who would risk it? Everyone else had kept their heads down. Only she and Trouble had dared cross the boss. How often could they challenge him before he took the pods to the limit?

  Ruth stood. “We need fires to keep us warm tonight,” she pleaded to the boss’s retreating back.

  He settled into his bedroll, his back to her, but she had no trouble hearing his answer when it came. “Soldier boy knew the rules. One match, and he could borrow my fire. Two matches, and there’s only my fire. You got a beef, take it out of his hide.”

  The three big city guys who’d been half carrying their “friend” with the bent leg grinned as they collected clubs that wouldn’t be used for firewood tonight.

  “But that won’t keep our teeth from chattering. Help get any sleep,” Ruth pointed out.

  “Your loss,” the boss shrugged inside his sleeping bag.

  Ruth’s gut twisted into a dozen knots. She was just making things worse like she had most of her life. Nobody stepped in to help. What could they do? I started it. I have to finish it.

  What handle could she use on these guys? The fungus? Trouble had tried greed to get at the boss. “If we don’t get any sleep tonight, we’ll hardly be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed tomorrow. We might walk right through a big bunch of fungus and never notice a thing. Too bad.”

  Boss didn’t roll over to face her, but he wasn’t fidgeting around in his roll searching for a comfortable place. “Clem and his guys will keep an eye out for fungus.”

  “Probably will. Wonder how much they chase down will be worth a couple hundred bucks a kilo, and how much will be poison. Think Clem can tell the local stuff from the crap that’s come in from off-world? Put some of those poisons in the same bag with the good stuff, and none of it will be worth a damn.”

  That got the boss to roll over. He eyed her the way she might a new sown field…full of weeds. “Let me guess, kid. You’re the only one what can tell money from poison?”

  Ruth glanced around. None of the city folks could. None of the spacers either. “Looks that way.”

  The boss glowered at her. “I could turn you over to Clem and his friends. ’Spect that might make you more willing to go along with us.”

  “But you’d never know if she was pointing you at poison or profits,” Trouble put in quietly.

  The boss rolled back over, away from them. “Maybe you’re all more trouble than you’re worth. Maybe I ought to just turn the trainer up full blast and watch you all curl up and die.” He seemed to settle into a comfortable place. Ruth hardly breathed.

  “Then again, I only get paid for the workers I deliver,” the boss muttered. “Light your damn fires.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Ruth answered, because she’d been raised to be polite.

  She hardly heard the “Thank you very much” that the marine officer whispered. But she heard it. And the shivers she got at his words left her warm.

  • • •

  The first nighttime pass over the mountains showed Izzy no camp with three fires—in a triangle or otherwise. She went back to her in-basket. At moments like this, routine kept her from chewing her nails…or subordinates. The next report didn’t help. It listed all the maintenance deficiencies Chips’ team had identified and went on for two hundred hard copy pages. Scrolling through it, Izzy’s eyes glazed over. “Hard to believe there’s that much wrong with this tub and we’re still breathing oxygen.” She endorsed it with a strong recommendation that the Patton get a yard period at the earliest available opportunity.

  She was well into the next report when the screen went black. Before she could cuss the equipment, Stan’s voice intervened. “Skipper, got a picture for you. Just starting our second night pass. One of those fires has sisters.”

  Izzy eyed the dark screen. Yes, there were a few sparkles. “Show me the one, Stan.” The screen zoomed, although with so much black on black it was hard to tell. There, in the middle of all that black, were three fires forming a rough triangle.

  “Stan, roust out Igor, Gunny, and our visitor. We got some planning to do.”

  FIVE

  THE SECOND NIGHT was also cold, but Ruth didn’t remember waking at all. Maybe she was just too tired to notice, or maybe it was because Trouble stayed close. Clem’s bellowing roused her. “You’ve had your beauty rest. It’s time to move.”

  They did, with groans and moans. Breakfast was again in a box. Again, the heaters didn’t raise most of the food to lukewarm. Ruth had to force it down; she wasn’t about to leave any. When the boss announced, “I’m moving out. You’d best follow,” she stuffed half her meal in her pocket.

  “Keep your eyes peeled for fungus. Remember, you owe me,” the boss reminded them.

  “I’d rather watch for a rescue party,” Ruth muttered.

  “We’ll see what we see,” Trouble whispered, not looking up.

  • • •

  “Let’s see what we can see,” Izzy said to Igor and Mr. Edris—no, now he was just Joe. Joe had been there when Igor explained the workings of the Condor to Izzy. “Don’t often get to do searches in an atmosphere where these work. Tiny thing, not much bigger than two fists, but once the descent stage cuts it loose, it unfolds a one-meter wingspan and a sensor suite you wouldn’t believe.”

  Now, the Condor circled at fifteen thousand meters. Its sensors scoured the ground; its solar panels fed the engine and sensors, and charged the fuel cells that would keep it up tonight. “Dandy little critter,” Joe grinned, echoing Igor.

  “Not until it shows me something,” Izzy growled.

  “Okay, infrared first. There’s what’s left of the three fires. No one around them now. Let’s see. Footsteps lead off to the northeast, just like I thought.” Last night, Igor had connected the two sets of fires and drawn a line through them in both directions. Back toward town, it intersected a road. When the line was extended to the northeast, things got interesting.

  Ghosts appeared on Igor’s screen. “I think we got some people here. Kind of large for a survey party. No
t many mules carrying their gear, either. In the lead is a single man on a mule. Strung out behind him are about twenty walkers. Well behind them are four men on mules leading two pack mules.”

  “Are any of them our people?” was Izzy’s one question.

  “I’ll have to drop the Condor down to five thousand meters to get an electromagnetic reading on a heart. I’ve got signatures for the lieutenant and two of the missing spacers.”

  Izzy frowned. Heart signatures were supposed to be part of every recruit’s induction, along with DNA, fingerprints, and retina scans. But with the budget cuts, recruiting centers were cutting corners. “Do it, Igor.”

  Igor took fifteen minutes to spiral his Condor down. “There’s the lieutenant. He’s got a woman walking beside him.”

  “That’s Trouble,” Izzy agreed.

  “Two of our spacers are right behind him. A man and a woman walking with them. That probably accounts for our four.”

  Izzy frowned at the screens. “If there are only five people riding, why hasn’t Trouble taken them apart?”

  “May have the answer here, ma’am. The guy in the lead is radiating signals on two different frequencies. Both are weak, but one’s just a bit stronger than the other. That’s the type of signal we get from a restraining system.” Igor quickly filled his skipper in on the latest in animal control. “You put four or six of those transmitters on a man, and you can incapacitate him in seconds. Kill him in a minute. A very long minute.”

  “Damn” was all Izzy said. She called up a map she’d put together the night before. “If they stay on the course they’ve been following, in two days they reach this lake. It looks to me like there are two other survey teams headed for the same lake. Igor, cruise over to them and check them out.”

  “It will take most of the day.”

  “Take it. I also want a fine scan of that lake. You can put a shuttle down in a lake that big, if it’s deep enough or all the snags have been removed. Next pass, I want to know everything there is to know about that puddle, including any good places to beach a boat, or a lander.”

  Igor turned to his sensor specialists. “You heard the lady. Let’s make the skipper happy.”

  “What do we do now?” Joe asked Izzy as they left the sensor team to their work.

  She grinned. “First we tell it to the marines. Then, I tell it to a very irate XO who won’t want me to do what I want to do. Too bad for him. He ain’t the boss here.”

  • • •

  Mikhail walked the streets of Hurtford City until well after dark. Part of him wanted to go home, ignore what he’d found out, and go to work like normal tomorrow. After all, that Navy woman was handling this. There was nothing he could do.

  Right! And what do I say when they haul me off?

  Which left him walking in circles, trying to figure out who he could talk to. When he’d decided to cooperate with Unity, his circle of friends had gotten a bit narrow. They’d supported his practical approach; they were all practical people. And some of them were probably kidnappers. Murderers, too, if you believed the farmer. Going to the wrong person for help would be worse than doing nothing at all. So he went to Cindy, the first girl who had befriended him on Hurtford Corner. That was about the last thing in the world anyone would expect of him.

  Unfortunately, that also included Cindy.

  “What are you doing here?” was her answer to his knock.

  “I think someone may be trying to kill me,” he said, thinking he sounded very melodramatic.

  “Four years ago, Mike, that was me.” She slammed the door.

  Mikhail risked a toe to keep the door open. “Cindy, you’re the only one I can turn to.”

  “You’re serious.” She hung on the door for a second, giving him one of her sidelong looks. He nodded. She shook her head, long brown curls flying. “Hey, this is Hurtford City. We don’t kill people. Some gal from your off-world college days finally look you up?”

  “It may be somebody from off-world, but it’s also somebody from right here. Cindy, something very strange and nasty is going on. Do you want me to explain it here in the hall, or can I come in?” She opened the door wider; he slipped in.

  She listened with the intense gaze Mikhail had found so alluring as he told her what he knew. The list of missing people had drawn a slow nod from her. “I know two of them. They aren’t the type to just vanish. We wondered.”

  “Who wondered?”

  “A few of us. Listen. The couch is yours for the night. I’ve got a spare blanket and pillow in the hall closet. I’ll be out for a while. You’ll probably be asleep when I get back. We can talk more in the morning.” And she left. Sleep was a long time coming; he had only dozed off by the time she returned. She said nothing to him, but went straight to her bedroom. Despite the fears chasing around his head, he must have slept. She greeted him in the morning with a smile, a bowl of cereal, and “I’ve got someone you should meet.”

  “I was afraid, last night, when you were gone so long, you might be coming back with, you know, someone who’d be after me.”

  She laughed. “Mike, you don’t know a thing about women. Are all off-world guys as stupid as you?”

  “Somehow, I doubt it.”

  “Hurry up and eat. We have a busy day ahead of us.”

  The busy day started with a long, circuitous walk, ending at an old house in the middle of town. “Mike, I want you to meet my grandmother, and a few of her friends.”

  • • •

  The next orbital pass told Izzy everything she needed to know. The lake was shallow, and full of snags…except for a six-by-two-kilometer stretch near the eastern shore. Right next to that prepared water landing strip was a very nice, sandy beach showing plenty of footprints.

  “I think we’ve found where your people are disappearing. Now, if those other two parties show animal-control signatures, we know who our targets are.”

  “We also should expect company soon,” Izzy’s exec put in.

  She nodded. “Somebody’s coming to collect them. No one’s in-system yet, so we can prepare a surprise for them. Stan, you put the Patton in a low orbit around the small moon, make a hole in space, and put the ship in it. You catch whoever comes to collect those folks. I want prisoners this time.”

  “That ship may well be full of folks they’ve kidnapped off other planets,” Stan pointed out softly.

  “All the more reason for you to go easy on it. Capture it, but in a gentlemanly fashion.”

  “And while I’m doing that?” the XO asked slowly.

  “I’ll take the marines dirtside and collect the rest.”

  The XO showed no surprise. “Why don’t we just collect them all up here in orbit?”

  “Stan, a lot of things can go wrong. I’m not putting all my targets in one basket. There’re three on the ground and one in space. I want them all, but I’ve got to have one of them.”

  “Can’t Gunny lead the marines?”

  “They don’t have an officer. I’ve got the only experience with ground-pounders on this boat. I’m going with them. Enough said. You want one squad of marines for boarding?”

  “I suspect you’ll need all the marines downside. We can take care of things topside.”

  “Good, Stan. Now, what’s the weather down there? I’d love a good thunderstorm to cover the lander’s noise.”

  Stan just shook his head.

  • • •

  “So you’re the young man from off-world who’s been trying to run our planet.” Green eyes sparkled up at Mikhail. Grandma Uzeg was a tiny woman. She was seated in a rocker and covered by a quilt of intricate patterns—whether of Irish or Arabic tradition, it was probably too late in human history to tell. Her smile was neither approving nor disapproving.

  “I haven’t done as well as I thought I had.” Mikhail took the small stool offered him.

  “These have been difficult times. None of the choices were easy. We here approved of all you did.” A hand, wrinkled and spotted, swept around the
circle of a dozen others, as old as or older than she was. “Like you, we hoped this day would not come. Unlike you, we feared it would. Tell us what you know.”

  Since that wasn’t much, it didn’t take Mikhail long.

  “So the Navy says calls were made to the Office of Public Safety, reporting the missing, but it was never reported to you and the Elders.” Grandmother summed it up. Mikhail just nodded.

  “Three mothers came to me about grown children gone missing.” The speaker now was an elderly man. “Their friends had done a search. I know they called Public Safety.”

  “It appears someone in Public Safety is neither public nor safe.” Grandmother leaned back thoughtfully. “I have been concerned about Zylon since she was a little girl.”

  “She spends too many hours volunteering at the same place.” The old man shook his head. “That was not what the founders had in mind.”

  “And how many hours have you, Frederick, spent at the water works? The founders wanted us free to do as we chose. Now it appears that some are choosing to use that freedom against the common freedom. Mikhail has brought us the fullness of the threat. What we do in the next few days will decide which freedom will prevail. Who, besides Zylon, has chosen unwisely?”

  “I do not trust anyone from off-planet,” the old man said.

  “Yet it is the Navy that tells us the scope of our problem, and may well save many of our children. And Mikhail is not native born. Come now, let us be more selective.” Thus the true Elders of Hurtford Corner began to divide up the population. There were those they would trust, those they would not, and those they could not decide upon. Mikhail was surprised at how few fell into that last group—and appalled by how much time he’d spent among people these Elders would not trust.

  “Now that we have our chess pieces”—Grandmother’s green eyes glistened—“how shall we play out this game? I far prefer a checkmate to a bloodbath.”

  • • •

  Izzy floated beside the guide lines leading into the liberty launch. The marines were not dressed to party. On second thought, they’re probably expecting more fun than they got at the last dance. Stan floated beside her.