The Price of Peace

by Mike Moscoe

  “Pass that along, Steve. If they drop teams on these farms, we could put together a good map of our target even if we can’t get into the central map for this shit hole.”

  “Got it. Message is three K. Ruth, you should be able to send it to a couple dozen satellites. Where’s your tractor?”

  “In the shed. Tom knows where it is.”

  The two slipped out into the night, leaving Trouble alone with Ruth. “You okay?” he asked her.

  “I’m fine. They need me. Can you imagine? They’re trying to run a farm with a bunch of fools that never even held a hoe before they got here. Not just you poor volunteers, but the guards. They know how to crack a whip or thumb a controller button, but they don’t know a thing about growing things.”

  “I remember career development trainers telling me anyone who can manage something can manage anything.” Trouble snorted. “Like they pulled Izzy out of commanding defense brigades and gave her a ship. She is managing it okay.”

  “Well, these folks aren’t. They’d never done a soil analysis. They were dumping processed sewage from the city’s system and calling that soil preparation. I demanded a soil analysis kit. They had them in the warehouse, but nobody knew how to use one, so they just sat there taking up space. This soil is weak on iron, calcium, phosphates, and a dozen other nutrients. I told them to let me spray the fields, and I’ll double the crop yield.”

  Trouble didn’t tell her what she was growing. “You aren’t wearing a collar.” He fingered his own.

  She gave him a look of wounded pride. “I’m no volunteer. I’m an employee. I get paid. Got a labor contract with a signature on it that almost looks like mine. In six years I can go home.” Suddenly she got very serious. “That worries me, Trouble. These crooks think they’ll have Hurtford Corner working just like this before my contract is up. Could they do that?”

  Trouble thought about that while Ruth put sealant on him again, something to keep nasty microbes out and his blood in. “Farms can’t afford to lose too many hands. Then there’s the problem with the mining contracts. I wouldn’t swear they couldn’t, but I’ll damn sure do what I can to see they don’t.”

  A few moments later, she finished. “You better get some sleep,” she suggested.

  He stood. She was so close. He reached for her, brought her into his arms and kissed her, first tentatively, gently. Her response was fire on his lips. He let himself sink into the kiss, and the love beneath it. His lips were bleeding again, but it didn’t matter. Ruth’s kiss cleansed him of the foulness he’d struggled to swim against that night.

  Maybe he could have had more. Maybe he should have. But he stank of Zylon sex. Ruth had only washed his back and chest. He broke from the kiss. “I’ll try to get some sleep.”

  • • •

  “What do you mean, you can’t stabilize the plasma?” Izzy wasn’t shouting. Not quite.

  “It’s a software problem,” Vu assured her. “There is nothing wrong with the engines.”

  “But we don’t leave the pier without stable plasma, do we, Lieutenant Commander?”

  “No, Captain. We do not.” The quiet man wilted under her heated gaze.

  “Surely the Patton is not the first ship to stabilize plasma,” she said, turning on the yard man.

  “Yes, ma’am. However, there are slight variations between systems. Software handles those problems. Humanity software and Unity software handled it differently.”

  “You worked on a Humanity cruiser before,” she shot back.

  “Yes, ma’am, but the chief engineer limited us to low-level maintenance.”

  “Surely you made a backup of his operating system files.”

  “We did, ma’am.”

  “Then load it.”

  “I cannot recommend that. We suspect there may have been a bomb buried somewhere in that software. The ship vanished on its first jump.”

  “Oh, shit!” Such language was not expected of a captain. However, there was a limit to how much a captain could take. The crew better know their captain was way past that. At least, that’s what Izzy told herself. She sat back in her chair, rubbed her eyes, took twenty or thirty deep breaths, then came back at the problem from another direction.

  “The Patton is not the only ship in her class. Call the nearest Navy yard for a set of the standard software.”

  “We can’t do that, ma’am.”

  Izzy shot to her feet. “And why not?”

  The yard man gulped, then started his explanation slowly. “The power control system you brought in on the Patton was near failure. We reduced it to junk by the simple process of removing it. The system we installed is similar to that we found on the Sheffield; however, it had been modified by its crew outside the standard Navy configuration. We have a call in to Pitt’s Hope, where the actual work was done. They are checking their records, but there was a war on, and people were more interested in operational warships than taking time to document how they got operational.”

  Izzy sat back down. “Chips, is there anything more we can do to support engineering?”

  “No, ma’am. They’ve got three-quarters of my analysts and code writers.”

  “And Wardhaven has sent us up almost a hundred specialists to help,” the yard man assured her. “We are doing all we can.”

  “You better, ’cause a marine’s going to come charging in here any minute. And he won’t take this nearly as nicely as I am.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  • • •

  Trouble rejoined the living when a guard whacked him on the soles of his feet well before the sun was up. Tom tossed him a breechcloth, and he pulled it on. In the weak predawn light, he gobbled down a breakfast no different from supper. Still hungry, he joined a line of men at the end of the compound taking hoes from racks. He found himself next to Tom and Steve, or maybe they collected him like a stray puppy. Anyway, he ended up assigned to work with them.

  “Is it like this every day?” Trouble asked, sweat dripping into his eyes after only five minutes of hoeing weeds.

  “Is it like this every day?” Tom repeated to Steve. “You’ve been here longer than I have.”

  “Naw.” Steve nodded his head. “Some days it’s a lot worse. I mean, it’s not hailing. There’s no hurricane blowing through. Hell, the guard stayed up all night playing poker and must have won. He just wants to find some shade to nap in, not take his losses out on us. Nope, guys, today is a good day.”

  “You leave me seeds for hope.” Trouble scowled, and swatted at a bug only slightly smaller than a destroyer. “Do these things ever leave you alone?”

  “Depends,” Steve informed him. Picking an ugly green worm from one of the drug bushes, he smashed it on his left elbow and smeared the sickening fluids along his arm. “Stinks to high heaven, but the stuff that passes for insects don’t like the smell either. The little beggars don’t really benefit from sucking your blood. Well, maybe they like the salt. But the sores they make can get infected from the shit we’re walking in. Smell or die. Which you want?”

  Trouble plucked a ugly thing from the bush next to him and put it on his arm.

  “No, don’t squash it. That’s one we eat.”

  “Eat?”

  “Not too many of them, or they’ll tear your stomach apart. But a few.”

  “Eat it.” Trouble studied the thing. It was darker than the first, and it left a trail of slime as it flowed up his arm.

  “Breakfast, you remember that pause that didn’t refresh?” Tom took over from Steve. “There’s not enough in the two meals they feed us to keep us alive. If you don’t live off the land, you don’t live.”

  “Anybody try eating the plants?” Trouble put the slug in his mouth and swallowed it fast. He choked, but got it down.

  “You don’t want to go there. Chew the leaves, and they take away your hunger; then they take away your mind and your will to live. Don’t touch the plants—and that’s not just because the whip gets applied if they catch you. Don’t start che
wing leaf until you’re ready to die.”

  “Has anybody gotten out of here?” Trouble had to ask the question. Hopefully that message would get them out. Then again, a good marine always had a fallback position.

  “I’ve been here for six months,” Steve answered. “Never saw anybody leave any way but feet first. They bury us where they’re going to put in a new field.” He paused. “We’re probably working somebody’s grave today.”

  “Who are we? How did they get us? Slave labor is stupid. Paid workers are always more productive. History shows it.” Trouble knew he was sounding like some ivory-tower professor, but damn it, it was true.

  “Some are the crews of the freighters captured by pirates. Can’t exactly turn them loose to write home. Some are ex-Unity troopers who didn’t read their new employment contract very well, though lots of them end up as guards. Some are street people they lifted off one of the developed planets like Earth, though they don’t survive too long. Some are like Tom here, a manager who knew too much and is the whispered rumor that will keep others in line. Me, I knew I was working for some bad actors, but I figured I could get my money and run. What I didn’t count on was a hostile takeover by an even worse bunch. The pirating, the slaving, all started after the war. We have some really bad hombres calling the shots now.”

  Trouble found another green bug and smeared it over his face and neck. It stank, but the insects did leave him alone. He kept on hoeing weeds. They were mostly Earth weeds, and they were growing…like weeds. “How’d you get here, Tom? Stan’s worried sick about you.”

  “He always was too damn straight to make a living,” Tom sighed. “Navy’s probably best for him. Me, I got just far enough up the ladder to know too much, and not far enough to know what was really happening. Some senator got my name and thought I knew how corporations were running Unity during the war. Hell, we weren’t running them.” He paused, picked up a slug, and ate it. “I don’t know. Maybe some people thought we were. Maybe they were. Hell, from where I sat, you couldn’t tell. Maybe we did have more contacts across the battle lines than a general or admiral would want, but, damn it, the war wasn’t going on forever. You have to position yourself for the next economic wave. That’s all we were doing.”

  “You look pretty well positioned.” Trouble gave him a toothsome grin.

  “Tell me about it. I was coming out here to run an agricultural implements line, production, distribution, sales and service. Our company was one of the thirteen that had a seat on the planetary governing council. It was a big promotion. So I left a week before my scheduled hearing appearance. Let them come out here and find me.”

  “Doubt they’d find you here.” Steve laughed bitterly.

  “Yeah, I walked off the ship to a welcoming committee of the other council members. First elevator I come to, I’m stuffed in it, drugged, and I wake up naked in the barracks.”

  “Quite a comedown” was all Trouble could think to say, punctuated with “God, it’s hot.”

  Steve eyed the sky. “Not even noon, laddie. Better get used to it.”

  Tom snorted. “Now let me talk to those senators and I’ll have a story for them. You know, with this happening, I’m starting to think the worst rumors were right. Maybe we were running Unity.”

  “We’ll just have to get you there” was Trouble’s promise.

  The guards herded them in maybe an hour before sunset. After they’d finished their slop, Tom took Trouble over to the dispensary, ostensibly to have cuts checked for infection.

  As Ruth worked on his wounds, she reported on her day. “Every time I checked in with the GPS, I sent the message. Every satellite up there must have it in its buffer. How long will it take to get where it’s going?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” Trouble shrugged, and winced as he shrugged right into Ruth’s finger. “Depends on whether Steve knows as much about the inner workings of the surveyor system as the comm system at the station.” Trouble stood in silence while Ruth finished tending to him. “How we going to get this thing back in Ms. de Sade’s jewelry box?”

  “That depends on who gets called in tonight.”

  “You in there?” came Kick’s growl from outside.

  “I am,” Tom said.

  “She wants to talk to you. She’s excited about some damn fool idea to get more work out of you guys.”

  Tom dropped the bracelet into the back of his breechcloth. “I’m always happy to talk with the boss,” he said as he swung out the door and closed it behind him.

  Ruth and Trouble both kept silent until Tom and Kick’s attempt at easy banter disappeared. “Can we really get out of here?” Ruth asked again.

  “I think so. A lot depends on that message getting to Wardhaven. And then some gutsy folks being willing to launch a major invasion on a shoestring and a hunch.”

  “Would you do it?”

  “If I knew you were down here, yes.”

  “But you’re here. Who’s out there who cares?”

  “Captain Izzy Umboto, Ruth. And she doesn’t leave until the whole crew is aboard. You can bet your life on that.”

  • • •

  The tiny 3K message on Surveyor 14 was the first to be tapped. It rode a routine report on reaction mass remaining up to Repeater 2 and then into the buffer of Satellite Maintenance. There, it hitchhiked a ride to Main Communications when a routine status check was made of the system that kept links open to the rest of human space. There, the message waited. Its next command was to attach itself to any mail going to Wardhaven. A last command would pull it off there and rush it to its final destination. There was no traffic heading for Wardhaven, so the message waited. It had no way of noticing that other copies of itself were collecting in the buffer, duplicates waiting patiently…and tying up buffer space for no reason apparent to the technicians running the system. That wasn’t unusual; packets were always being lost in transit. When it got too bad, the techs would flush the buffer. Of course messages would be lost, but what the heck, that was what backups were for.

  If Steve hadn’t been so tired last night, he might have realized Wardhaven was not a popular destination for mail from this corner of hell. He might have given the message alternate initial destinations, from which it could reroute itself to Wardhaven. He didn’t, so the messages sat, collecting as more of the Surveyors were queried, taking up more of the large, but not unlimited, buffer.

  • • •

  Sleep refused to come to Izzy. Usually, she slept like the dead, but that was before she killed several hundred people she’d sworn her oath to protect. During the day, she stayed busy. God knows, the overhaul had enough going on…and going wrong…to keep her centered. But at night the ghosts came.

  Izzy saw them. Dragged into a strange ship. Told nothing about what was happening. Heavy gees without the proper gear. Then wild maneuvering, and wilder fears. Then they were nothing, with no hint of warning. Not to know. Not to know until there was nothing to know.

  Their helplessness brought back memories of a helpless kid. The little Izzy bewildered by the slums, the bosses, the drug merchants. Someone was supposed to protect kids, but not there. There, a kid never knew where today’s shootout would be, never knew when a street game would turn deadly because somebody was shooting three blocks away and bullets don’t stop just because they’d gone past their intended targets. Joie, Angie, little Toby…how long was the list that Izzy could still remember? Once in a long while, when Momma was sober, she’d tell Izzy she had to get out. School was a way out, not the run-down building called PS-921, but a real education. Somehow Momma found a way to send her to the school with the nuns. They’d opened up a whole new world for a wide-eyed kid. She’d taken in as much as she could, not nearly enough, but as much as a kid could, holding down a part-time job and cooking for Momma when she came home.

  Izzy hiked straight from graduation to the Navy recruiter. The Navy was wonderful. They fed her. They clothed her. They had a job for her that left her wonderful hours of free
time to study. And Lieutenant Manon had given her a chance for a real education and a commission. Izzy knew she wasn’t as good as the other officers. They came from families, and had real educations. She knew what the Navy had taught her, and what she’d taught herself. They got ship duty; Izzy got the defense brigades, the last choice on the wish list.

  And when she finally got her ship—she killed a couple hundred innocent civilians. She was no better than a drug lord.

  “Come on, Trouble. Get back here. I need some new faces, grateful faces of people we’ve set free. I can’t take these faces much longer.”

  • • •

  Every day was like the last on the farms. Get up, work the fields, go to bed exhausted and hungry. Every day it rained. Trouble’s wounds healed; only one got infected. His visits to Ruth no longer lit up the day. Tom was the boss’s regular. He managed to get the bracelet back without its absence being noticed. Unfortunately, Zylon Plovdic was learning from him.

  With Ruth’s promise of doubling the crop, Zylon looked at improving the end product. Her orders were to strip the leaves off the plants and drop the stalks in the field to rot and support the next crop. That left the field hands with more work. Since only a dozen new hands had arrived, and six others had given up and died, it meant everyone had to speed up. Zylon didn’t think to increase the rations, just the work pace.

  Trouble went to bed each night wondering where the damn invasion was.

  • • •

  “Walt, the main message buffer is acting flaky. Take it down and reload it.”

  “Boss, there’s only a half hour left on the shift. You want my status report today or tomorrow? Can’t the swing or midnight shift do it?”

  “Swing’s got backups to do, and midnight’s too thin to do more than keep the shop up and running. Tomorrow morning, first thing, you reload the buffer.”

  “Will do, boss.”

  • • •

  Ruth was discovering that the reward for a job well done was getting screwed. She’d tested the soil in every field, treated them, and worked herself out of a job. These crops got no pesticide or herbicide, for reasons no one would explain to her, so there was nothing she could do with her tractor there.