by Peter Grant
"When they had established a buffer zone, they invited the Serbs and Croats to discuss peace, but their leaders would not. The islands then formed a government of planetary unity, excluding the hard-liners, and asked the Hegemony for help. Unfortunately, its wars had reduced its power so greatly that it was no longer capable of major external operations, even if it cared about us - which it did not. Radetski also faced interference from Serbian and Croatian expatriates in the rest of the settled galaxy, wanting to help their compatriots here."
"What sort of interference?" Steve asked.
"They sent 'volunteers', arms and equipment. We had no orbital security to speak of, so we had great difficulty keeping them out. Eventually we approached the United Planets for help. They agreed to recognize the Coalition of the Islands as the de facto interim government of Radetski, pending democratic elections, and invited their member worlds to contribute to a peacekeeping force."
Tomkins observed, "I guess that's how the Lancastrian Fleet got involved. Radetski's in Vesta's back yard, so to speak - close enough that if your security troubles had continued, pirates and other low-lifes might have taken advantage of the confusion and lack of security to base themselves here, and mount raids into the Commonwealth."
"Yes. We are very grateful to you. Most worlds were reluctant to commit themselves to a minor, unimportant planet like Radetski, but your Fleet immediately sent patrol craft and spacers, so we could have proper orbital and system security for the first time. I understand that the patrol ships are to be given to our government in a few years time, once we have recruited and trained our own spacers. Your Commonwealth is very generous."
"It's in their interest to help you," Steve pointed out. "If you can secure your own system, the Fleet doesn't have to keep looking over its shoulder in this direction."
Irena smiled. "It is honest of you to admit that, but frankly I do not care. No matter why your forces came, I am very glad they did! Anyway, with their external support now cut off, most of the Serb and Croat survivors realized that neither side could win. They would only destroy themselves if they continued the war. They elected new leaders who repudiated the extremists, agreed to a ceasefire, and began to work with the Coalition to form a wider planetary government. A United Planets peacekeeping force arrived a few months ago to maintain the ceasefire, patrol the demilitarized zone, begin rebuilding our infrastructure and train a unified planetary security force. Once again your Commonwealth took the lead, sending two Marine battalions and much equipment, including this hospital."
Tomkins asked, "If a ceasefire was agreed, why is fighting still going on?"
She shook her head. "Unfortunately, there are still fanatics on both sides. Their hatred and intransigence are too great to let them make peace, so they fight on as guerrillas - although 'terrorists' is a better word for them, as they mostly attack those who cannot fight back. We have established a demilitarized no-mans-land down the center of our continent, but they raid across it, seeking to inflict further misery on their enemies."
"Where are they getting their weapons and equipment?"
"They use what is left from the evil years - they stole much of it from our depots before they could be properly secured by the new government. They also work with smugglers, who bring in arms concealed among normal commercial shipments. This was a very big problem until your patrol craft arrived. They have reduced the flow, but some smuggled weapons still get through. The extremists pay for them with containers of Radetski's famous plants. Pharmaceutical companies extract valuable chemical compounds from them."
"Haven't laboratories synthesized the compounds by now?" Tomkins asked. "That would make the plants themselves unnecessary."
"I am not a biologist or chemist, but I understand they are very complex compounds, which break down quickly outside the plant. This makes them hard to produce synthetically. The plants cannot be easily grown off Radetski, either. There are symbiotic relationships with other parts of our ecosystem that are essential for their health and reproduction."
"I get it."
Steve hesitated, then asked, "You said your husband was killed. I don't want to intrude, but may I ask how he died? Was he fighting for one side or the other?"
"No. You see, there were a few communities where people of both Serbian and Croatian ancestry had learned to live together. In most cases it was because they, or an ancestor, had fallen in love with someone on the other side, and married. They could not stay in their ethnically segregated towns, so they had to move somewhere that a mixed marriage would be tolerated. Our village, just over the bluff there, is one such place.
"We grew used to rejection from the racial purists on both sides. When the war broke out, at first they were too busy hating and killing each other to bother us. Later, that changed. Several smaller communities like ours fled here and merged into a larger village, so we could work together to protect ourselves. We formed a militia to defend ourselves against both sides, arming ourselves with whatever we could obtain. Some of us produce vodka and slivovitz, and we were able to exchange them for weapons with thirsty soldiers in nearby towns. Several skirmishes took place near us, so when night fell, our hunters would creep out and steal weapons from the dead before their comrades could collect them. We obtained explosives and fuses from miners in the mountains, and used them to prepare land-mines and other devices. Most of the fighting was north of here, so we were left alone for almost five years to prepare our defenses.
"I came from a Croatian family, and fell in love with Bojan, who was from a Serbian town. We married and moved here ten years before the war began. Bojan had received military training before we met. He became one of the officers of our militia. When at last a Croatian force was detected approaching our village, he went with our militia to turn it back. They stopped them, but at a heavy cost in lives. More than half the patrol was killed or injured. My husband... " she fell silent for a moment as she swallowed heavily, "... Bojan rescued three of his men who had been wounded. As he brought the last man in, a fleeing Croatian fired blindly backwards as he ran, emptying his weapon. One of his unaimed rounds hit Bojan in the back of the head. He was killed instantly." She blinked back tears. "He was... very brave."
Steve reached across the table silently and squeezed her hand. She squeezed back gratefully, then took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. To give her time to recover, Steve and Tomkins devoted themselves to clearing their plates.
At last Steve finished his food and sat back, stretching. "Thank you for telling us all this. It's good to know more about why we're here."
Irena picked up her cup and sipped her coffee. "I am very glad you are helping us. They say the peacekeeping force will be here for five years, by which time our own unified security force should be ready to take over. It will take many more years to restore our economy and rebuild all that has been destroyed. I hope we may prove worthy of all you are doing for us."
"We'll do our best for you," Tomkins promised. He rose to his feet. "We'd better return to our cutter. The cargo should be loaded by now. Thanks for taking the time to tell us all this. It's good to hear it from a local perspective. It adds a lot more color than the official version."
"I will not say it was a pleasure to speak of it," she observed sadly. "Our memories are very painful. Still, we must face them if we are to move beyond them, and not be trapped by the same misery that caused our war in the first place. You are taking some of our worst-injured children for treatment, yes?"
"That's right," Steve agreed. "We'll be making three trips, taking about eighteen hundred of them to Vesta for treatment."
"We are very grateful to you for that. We have lost so many children... and they are our hope for the future. Thanks to you, we - and they - may yet have one."
As they flew back up to orbit, Steve observed soberly, "That last comment of Irena's floored me. Their kids are their future, yet they've lost so many, and so many more have been crippled. Can kids like that grow up to heal an e
ntire planet?"
"All we can do is give 'em the opportunity," Tomkins pointed out. "What they do with it is up to them."
"I guess you're right. I wish I could wave a magic wand or something, and fix this mess all at once. Human beings can screw up most things if they set their minds to it, can't they?"
Tomkins shrugged. "We've been doing it for millennia. I guess any of us can go either way. Face it - if you or I had been born on Radetski, and force-fed racist ideology from infancy onward, we might be among the hard-line terrorists down there today."
Steve was silent for a moment. "I hate the thought of that," he said at last.
He said as much when he reported to Bosun Cardle on his return to the ship. "It was hard to hear Irena speak of so much hatred. It may sound childish, but I'd like to do something with my life to help make this a better universe - to counteract that sort of thing."
The Bosun chuckled. "You're still young and idealistic, not a hardened old fart like me. When I was your age, I used to think like that too." He grew more serious. "If you really want to do that, don't bother looking too far ahead. Start right now. Every single day, do your job as well as you possibly can. Learn something new. Make it a better day for someone in some way. All those things add up, you know. The people who accomplish the least are the ones who spend all their time wanting to achieve something big, but are so focused on wanting that they're no good at doing. They can't see the present for the future. Don't be like them!"
Steve nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "I won't. Those are pretty good principles."
"My father taught them to me when I was still a youngster. I've tried to put them into practice. If you do the same, I don't think you'll go far wrong."
Chapter 14: July 23rd, 2837 GSC
Two days before departure, Tomkins and Steve returned to Cabot from another delivery to the planet. They passed through the airlock into the docking bay, only to find it filled with stretchers carrying injured children, parents and guardians lugging suitcases and bundles, and nurses and medics supervising the transfer. They stood back against the bulkhead behind the duty desk, staying out of the way until all the patients had been moved.
A small girl was lying on a stretcher near Steve, and he noticed she was staring at him. Her face was disfigured by a livid, jagged red scar that stretched from her chin all the way across her left cheek until it disappeared into her hairline where her ear had once been. All that remained of it was a ragged, tattered stub. A patch covered her left eye, and her left arm was a stump above the elbow. He tried not to flinch at the sight, and smiled at her encouragingly. After a moment, she smiled shyly back at him, and held out her lone hand.
He glanced appealingly at the nurse standing by the stretcher, who'd observed the exchange. "What should I do?" he asked.
"Come closer and hold her hand," she advised. "She's a cheerful little tyke, not like some of them who are fearful of any adult stranger. You can't blame them for that, of course." She shivered. "If I'd been through what they've been through, I'd be scared too!"
Steve moved over to the stretcher, squatted to bring his head down to the girl's level, and held out his finger. She grasped it in her right hand, squeezing it tightly, and said something in a language he didn't understand. He again looked inquiringly at the nurse, who beckoned to a young man wearing brown trousers and shirt. "He's an interpreter," she explained.
The man came over and said something to the little girl, listened as she babbled a reply, then turned to Steve. "Her name's Emina. She says you look like her big brother, Arsin."
"Please tell her my name's Steve, and say 'hi' for me."
As the interpreter spoke to the girl, the nurse's face clouded. "Her brother's dead - in fact, she's lost her entire family. They were all killed by the same artillery shell that injured her. She doesn't even have anyone to travel with her. She'll undergo surgery and regeneration on Vesta, then we hope she'll be adopted. Meanwhile, we'll do our best to be a substitute family for her, poor thing."
Steve felt a hot warmth behind his eyes. "I'm an orphan myself - I lost my parents when I was five. I know from experience what she'll have to go through without a family."
"She's five, too," the nurse said softly. "Hell of a thing to happen to a kid, isn't it?"
"Oh, yeah. How many orphans are among the injured?"
"Far too many! I'd say at least half of the children on this trip have relatives other than parents traveling with them, mostly because their fathers and mothers are either dead, or too badly injured to travel without helpers of their own."
Steve recalled Bosun Cardle's advice - 'make it a better day for someone in some way'. He said slowly, "I know we were told not to visit the hospital without invitation, but... would it be OK for me to spend some time with Emina, and perhaps some of the other orphans who don't have anyone? I mean... being an orphan myself, I guess I feel somehow... involved. I know that probably sounds stupid, but - "
"No, it doesn't! Give me a call at the hospital tomorrow between fourteen and twenty-two - that's my duty shift. I'm Mary Cahill. You'll find me in Ward Seven."
"Thanks, Mary. I'm Steve Maxwell. I'll do that," he promised. "Have you got enough toys and treats and suchlike for all the kids?"
"We were given a special allotment of toys for this mission, but there aren't enough, and we don't have much in the way of edible treats. The hospital galley is going to be busy enough just cooking meals for everyone. I wish we'd been able to do something about it before coming here, but we were very rushed in our preparations, and that sort of thing isn't part of a military hospital's standard inventory. We'll have to make do with whatever candy we can buy for the kids from the hospital commissary. Unfortunately, its supplies are limited, and we don't have budget to spare for it anyway. We've already taken up a collection among ourselves."
Steve looked suddenly thoughtful. "I may be able to do something about that."
As soon as the docking bay had cleared, he headed for the galley. Higgins was preparing supper for the ship's company.
"Hey, Tom," Steve greeted him. "Got a moment?"
"For you, yeah. What's up?"
Steve explained what he'd just learned. "D'you think there's any way we - you and I - could bake stuff for the kids? I mean... they've been through hell, Tom. A cookie or a cupcake might make a lot of difference to them."
"It's a good idea, son, but I'm not sure we can. We don't have near enough cookie sheets or baking trays, and besides, we simply don't have enough supplies. Six hundred kids can go through an awful lot of cookies! There's their travel companions, too. We can't leave them out."
"If I can arrange extra supplies, and find baking utensils planetside, do you think we could do it?"
"I... I just don't know, Steve." He gestured at the equipment around them. "This is a pretty small galley. It's designed and equipped to cook meals for up to fifty crew, not bake for over a thousand! We don't have the big ovens needed to handle that sort of demand, or high-volume robotic preparation facilities like those in a big commercial kitchen. D'you have any idea how much dough has to be mixed to make that many pastries or cookies?" He thought for a moment. "Of course, if enough of the nurses volunteered to help during their off-duty time, we could move that out to the mess hall tables and do it by hand in small batches..."
"Good idea! As for the ovens, we delivered new models to a field hospital, remember? We brought back its old units, to be returned to the Fleet for refurbishing and upgrading. What if we could use some of them? I'm not sure where or how we'd install them, but we've got that second reactor now, so electrical capacity shouldn't be a problem."
"I'm not sure... oh, what the hell! If you can get all that organized, we'll find a way!"
"That's what I needed to hear. Thanks, Tom!"
His next stop was the Bosun, to whom he explained what he wanted. "If you'll help me fix it with the Captain, we can ask the Fleet depot ship whether they can let us have any supplies, and see if the people planetside can supp
ly baking trays and ingredients. I've got a month's profit share from this charter already in the bank, with more coming. I'm prepared to spend up to a month of it on this, if the skipper will agree."
Cardle blinked. "Let me get this straight. You want to spend close to twenty grand on cookies for kids? You're crazy!" Despite his words, his eyes gleamed, and a slow smile dawned on his face.
"Hey, it's my money, so I can spend it any way I like, right?"
"Yes, you can, but the brass will never go for it. You know the instructions we received - leave the kids alone! What makes you think they'll loosen those restrictions?"
Steve was silent for a moment. "I'm going to tell them what some of those kids are feeling right now. I lost my parents when I was five. I know what it's like to have a great big hole torn in your heart when you're that young. It's... I don't have the words to describe it, except that you blame yourself. You keep asking in your head, 'What did I do wrong? If I'd been better - if I’d been less naughty - would Mommy and Daddy still be alive?' You don't know any better at that age - at least, I didn't, and no-one told me different."
The Bosun looked away, blinking. For a moment Steve could have sworn he saw moisture in his eyes. He went on, "That's the only way I can describe it, Bosun. I know what those orphaned kids are going through right now. I've been there. If I - if we - can do anything at all to take away a little of their pain, bring a little light into their darkness... it's worth it."
There was a long silence, then the Bosun nodded slowly as he turned back. "I hear you, Steve. It's hard to argue with that. Tell you what. If we can get the brass to OK your plan, and if we can buy, beg, borrow or steal what you need, I'll match you credit for credit. I've had a real good trading year, so I can afford it."