They Also Serve

by Mike Moscoe

  “Inflation,” Ray nodded.

  “Right; too much money chasing too few goods. Before we had deflation, a very limited copper-based money supply and a growing population producing more and more goods. Result, the value of everything went down. Except for what Vicky made. She kept her prices up or higher. The value of the goods and services used to pay for her products decreased. She got more for the same product. She loved it.”

  Ray folded his arms. “And the farmers hated it.”

  “Cost of a village phone system went from half a year’s production to two years’ worm of work in one generation, a generation that added a million more people. Old folks remember how far a copper dollar used to stretch. Grumble to the kids. Everyone gets mad,” Jeff sighed. “Then along comes Mark’s aluminum dollar. Folks have plenty of money. Deflation stops. Sis gets the same, maybe less value for the same product. Boy, did she squawk. As much as she could, she demanded copper coin for her stuff. Yesterday I guess she made it official. You want copper products, you pay in copper coin.”

  “Seems like your brother Mark would love it. Step right in and grab Vicky’s market.”

  “He would, in another couple of years. He’s not ready yet.”

  “A preemptive strike.” Ray scowled. Economics might be economics, but he knew a war when he saw it. Still. “People are reacting awfully fast, taking to the streets and burning things when all they’ve been told is there might be problems.”

  Jeff nodded. “There’s been a lot of talk lately. Your people and what you’re going to do. Jonah’s crazies. I don’t know. Maybe this was just the straw that broke the bridge.”

  “Maybe,” Ray agreed. Or maybe there was something more? The rational part of his mind had only scorn for the very question. The part he dreamed with was none too sure.

  “Step on it, Mary.” Ray hung on and wondered what Doc was so excited about. He also wondered what they could do to help Refuge. Twenty years of soldiering had taught him to look for his opponent’s center of gravity. Ray still wasn’t sure who his opposition was, much less what was important.

  Mary followed Ray and Jeff into the hospital. The doc took one look at Ray walking in with a single cane for support, and waved him toward the scanner in Med Bay One. “What happened?” Jerry asked as Ray settled comfortably on the table.

  “You tell me, Doc, and we’ll both know.”

  “Looks like you’ve had as intriguing a day as I’ve had.”

  “Doc, you tell me your tale, then maybe I’ll tell you mine.”

  “That bad?”

  “Maybe that hard to believe,” Ray growled. “Talk to me, Doc. Make me happy.”

  “Let me get this going,” Doc said, worked his control board for a long minute, then came to stand beside Ray. “I’ve been taking blood from people all day, like a hungry vampire. Locals, first group down, latest arrivals. All have varying levels of virus in their blood. The longer down here, the more.”

  The control station for the scanner beeped happily that it was done. Doc returned to tap it, “hummed” noncommittally several times, then asked Ray, “You still need help off the table?”

  Ray swung his legs over the side, positioned his cane as a safety measure, then eased himself off. “Not bad,” Doc noted and glanced at Jeff. “Does he go everywhere you go?”

  “Jeff has just become my chief of local intelligence, mores, rumors, and other duties as assigned.” Ray frowned at the young man, raising the question with an eyebrow.

  “I’m in,” Jeff agreed.

  “The smell that just got real thick in here, Doc, is Jeff’s burning bridges,” Mary laughed.

  “Gosh, and I didn’t bring any marshmallows. Welcome to our happy bunch of campers, Jeff.” Doc offered his hand, then brightened. “Does this mean I can get a complete set of tissues and liquid samples from this man?”

  Jeff yanked his hand back.

  “Down, Doc,” Ray chuckled. “I’m your guinea pig today. What kind of rumors is your meticulous scanner handing out?”

  Doc got serious as he turned back, to his analytical readouts. “Your back has knitted almost completely in the past twenty-four hours. I suspect I surprise you in no way when I tell you it shouldn’t have happened. Wonder why?”

  Ray shrugged, not yet willing to talk about his day.

  Doc moved the scan results up to Ray’s skull. “Brain mass has expanded downward. That might take some of the pressure off your skull. Let me check something.” Three other images appeared. “Compare tumor masses against the brain’s total mass,” Doc ordered, then pointed as numbers appeared beside all four.

  “Right. You and the kids have the same mass per brain weight, to within the third decimal.”

  “Any idea what that means?” Ray asked.

  “Damned if I know.” The good doctor shrugged. He called up a dozen different skull scans. “Anybody came in here today got a brain scan. You got a cold. You got hemorrhoids. You got a skull scan,” Jerry chuckled. “Last was a bit hard to explain. Anyway, based on my incomplete random sample, you will note something interesting. These are organized by age, youngest at the top.” He let each scan run for fifteen seconds. The ones at the top showed brightly colored patterns. The ones at the bottom showed significantly less.

  “And that means?” Ray said.

  “I haven’t found a pattern to the size of the mass. Some have only a small one, others more. None has one anywhere near as large as you and the kids. However, there is a clear pattern by age. In older samples, activity is reduced. In the younger ones, that thing, whatever it is, is active as the dickens.”

  “Something is in our brains?” Jeff asked slowly.

  “Some of us. Seems to depend on how long we’ve been down here,” Jerry answered.

  “What’s this planet doing to us?” Mary breathed.

  “That is something we’d better figure out before Matt gets back,” Ray growled. “What do we do now?”

  Jerry shook his head. “I can chase after what we’ve got here,”—he waved at the lab—“but I think Mary hit the nail on the head. What is the planet doing to us? We need to know a lot more about this place. What’s its geological record? Where did it get three evolutionary tracks? Where do we fit in?”

  Ray tapped the table. “We’ve got to start drilling rock cores. Is there a geologist on the planet?” he quipped. “Your people done any anthropology, dug up old bones?” Ray asked Jeff.

  “Only geology we’ve done is for mineral surveys.” Jeff seemed pained. “This has been our home. It just is. I guess we didn’t question it much. Or maybe we just couldn’t afford to question it.” He ran down slowly. “There is Harry. He worked for Mark on his surveys. Spent a couple of weeks telling me all the different names for rocks and minerals. A bore…or so I thought at the time. Harry the Flak, we called him.”

  “And we can find this flak?” Ray urged.

  “Lives outside Richland, in an old place full of core samples that he collected when he was working with us.”

  “How far is Richland from Refuge?”

  “Couple hours’ train ride. Less if you’re driving a mule.”

  Ray nodded, tapped his commlink. “Kat, we’re about to set up a temporary base in Refuge. I want you and Jeff to make a fast run up to Richland to see if we can hire a geologist. Draw weapons with sleepy bullets.”

  “Think that will be needed?” Kat answered.

  “I hope not. I’d rather you took too much than too little.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ray stood. “Any more suggestions?” No one had any. “I better go see the chief.”

  Ray had forgotten how much fun it was to walk, just walk rather than hobble. He relished each moment of the jaunt over to the HQ as the afternoon cooled and evening came on. Mary strode along beside him, beaming from ear to ear.

  The talk with Barber went quickly. He gave a stoic sigh when Ray told him a security system for the base was his first priority and Ray needed the factories up yesterday. The chief was a
lready working on that and had come across something interesting. “Mary got a surprising mix out of that hill. There’s nothing in my manufacturing feed-stock database about so many minerals in a single batch except when you recycle electronic gear. Was that an electronic center, Colonel?”

  Ray shrugged and added another piece to his puzzle. “Chief, go through your stores to see what we can use to help Refuge.”

  Barber rewarded that order with a twisted scowl. “And ‘nothing’ is not an acceptable answer.”

  “You got it in one.”

  Ray and Mary waited for Cassie in front of the HQ as twilight deepened. It was hard to believe, among the familiar smells of a cooling summer evening, that he was halfway across the galaxy on a world doing strange things to the innermost part of him. When Cassie parked, he and Mary settled into seats and launched right in. “Mary, I want you running the base. Cassie, you ready to help the Refuge security folks update their equipment and procedures?”

  Cassie nodded. “Surveillance is what they mostly need. The communications gear will let them use what they learn. Pretty much what I helped Mary do back at the pass.”

  And Ray knew very well how good they’d been there.

  “Mary, got any thoughts?” His chief of security shook her head. “Okay, Cassie, tell me what you’d want.”

  “How many mules can you spare me?”

  “I think the chief said none. I’ll get you at least two for starters, although I may be loaning one of them for a quick trip to Richland. Weapons?” Ray went on to the next issue.

  “Usual load out of personal weapons. I’ll leave the heavy stuff behind. Maybe a few charges in case we have to blow a bridge to keep things from spreading.”

  “Personnel?”

  “I’d like two squads, mine and Tico’s plus Lek. If we’re setting up a communications and command network, I want Lek.”

  Mary was unhappy at that. “I need Lek here if anything goes bad on the manufacturing side. But I’ll loan him for a while.”

  Ray nodded agreement to both, but refused to let something just as important get lost in the rush. “Tico’s? She heads up the other street kids’ squad. Why not Dumont’s?”

  “Both squads know their jobs.” Cassie spoke slowly, seemed to weigh each word. “Maybe I want someone a bit more reluctant to shoot. It is peacekeeping you want?”

  Ray eyed Mary. She shook her head. “It’s their security service I think we have to worry about. They have no capability for lethal force. We do. I’m not sure we shouldn’t have someone like Dumont available if we need them.”

  Cassie started to say something, swallowed it, and sat back in her seat to digest it. “Okay.”

  “I’m issuing you a case of sleepy bullets,” Ray offered. “It’ll take us three seasons to grow the feedstock to make more, so we’ll have to be sparing with what we’ve got.”

  “Thanks,” Cassie said.

  Ray drummed his fingers on the seat beside him, balancing assignments against time. He tapped his commlink. “Chief, how soon can you have our spare gear loaded on the shuttle?”

  “Give me an hour. I’ll have an inventory in thirty minutes.”

  “Shoot a copy to Cassie as well.”

  “Fine. I’ve put the shuttle crew on notice for a thirty-minute launch.”

  “Good; I expect we’ll be away in an hour, two at the most. I need two mules.”

  “I’m loading you three. I can stretch the product from Mary’s work today to replace most of what I’m sending. Probably in the next week.”

  “That fast,” Ray whistled. “I’m going, too. No use being an ambassador if you sit home all the time.”

  The shuttle circled Refuge, taking pictures, feeding them to Ray and Cassie’s readers. Ray scowled and made a note to get the sky eyes back up. With the local survey done, the remotes had been put in storage to save wear and tear; Ray hadn’t expected to need them. Expectations were rapidly changing.

  “New fires,” Cassie said, circled them on her display, and stored their address for when Lek got the network up between them and the locals. Ray eyed the fires. The city below was changing from lovely to war-torn. It made his blood boil.

  “There are three blimps parked at the port,” the shuttle commander reported. “We can set down, but it’s gonna be a bit tight. Seat belt sign is lit. Cinch ’em in, boys and girls.” The shuttle bucked as full flaps were applied. Ray switched to the live feed from the shuttle cameras. An unlit greensward lay dead ahead; looming bulks swayed in the gentle wind off to the left, near the hangars. The field looked clear until the camera zoomed in. Sheep grazed placidly up and down their runway.

  “Didn’t somebody tell them we were coming?” the shuttle commander growled into a hot mike. Ray had. Some idiot hadn’t passed the word…or someone had ignored their orders. No SAMs today, but sheep could wreck a shuttle just as well.

  “Let’s see if we can send those critters elsewhere” came from the cockpit. Flaps and gear came up; the engines switched to full power.

  Five minutes later, no sheep interrupted their landing roll. “Never seen four-legged critters exceed the speed of light before. Damn near left their wool behind,” Cassie quipped.

  But she was all business as the shuttle braked to a halt. “All hands, lock and load. Dumont, deploy your squad in an armed perimeter. First Squad, let’s empty this shuttle before anyone notices it’s down.”

  Ray took a seat in the second mule, next to Lek the electronic wizard he’d been surprised to find among the marines. He’d been even more surprised to discover that Lek had never been more than a miner. With an education, the man could have been another Edison, but an education was none too easy to get out on the rim of human space. That was one thing Ray and Wardhaven intended to change—assuming he ever got back and could continue what he and Rita had started.

  As the mule went down the shuttle’s brightly lit ramp into dark, Ray’s night goggles struggled to adjust. He tapped his commlink. “Ms. San Paulo, this is Ray Longknife. I’ve got a security detachment at the blimpport. Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Hall of the Great Circle. Can you find it?”

  Lek tapped his display; a block in the center of the city glowed yellow. “Got it.”

  “No problem. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Be careful. We’ve got roving gangs. Some are looters. Others are looking for a fight—each other, security, anyone. Mr. Longknife, I don’t understand this.”

  “I never have either. But we’ll put them in their place. Longknife out.” Lek stopped beside the first mule off. Kat and Jeff were in the front seat of that one, just putting on their night vision gear. Lek hopped out and unhitched its trailer.

  “I want you to head straight for Richland,” Ray told Kat, “find this Harry, and get back here before dawn. Cassie!” Ray shouted over his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Assign Dumont to provide security for this rig.”

  “Yes, sir. Dumont, you heard the man. You’re riding shotgun for Mule One.”

  “Right.” A shadow came quickly out of the dark where he’d been making rounds, checking his squad and the perimeter they guarded. Dumont did a one-handed leap into the mule and settled with a grin into the backseat. “What you want, boss?”

  “See these people get back safely. Use whatever force necessary.”

  “A license to kill,” the kid crowed.

  “Not unless you have to,” Ray growled.

  “Yeah, sir. Kill only those you want killed, when you want ’em killed, sir. And don’t interrupt what you’re doing to ask if I got the right head ready to blow off, sir.” The kid’s face slid from unadulterated pleasure to something new. Part insolence, part pensive, part something else. For a moment Ray considered delving into that more deeply, but Kat gunned the mule, and the moment for questioning shot into the dark. What had Ray just turned loose? With a shrug, he turned back to Lek.

  “He’s always been a hard case,” the old miner commen
ted. “Where to, sir?”

  “The Hall of the Great Circle,” Ray ordered.

  It took a moment to attach a second trailer to the last mule, load the rifle teams in, and start moving. Holding their speed down, they drove up one of the wide boulevards that bisected the city. A flaming building cast flickering light over a large crowd halfway down the avenue. Lek glanced at the mule’s map display, then turned right. “Know where the public buildings are, sir? They seem to be the ones they’re burning.”

  Ray sighed his frustration at the lack of info. Ahead, another building burst into flames; Ray’s night goggles struggled to adapt to a world shared by fire and darkness. Lek braked to a halt slowly, giving the more heavily loaded rig behind him plenty of room. Which gave Ray’s eyes time to adjust. On his third sweep he spotted movement several blocks down the road they were on; a mass of people coming at them. For a moment, Ray considered charging them, guns blazing. Lek turned the rig into a side street. “Colonel, we can’t back these rigs!” Lek shouted, “We get caught in midblock by a group and we’re sludge!”

  “I hear you,” Ray snapped. His skin crawled with an itch he couldn’t scratch. He’d been in fights before; civic disturbances, too. He’d never felt like this. Ray glanced at the map; they were headed out of town and away from the blimpport. “Keep going this way for a few minutes; then we’ll try a side road. See if we can get into town that way.”

  “Any way is good by me,” Lek answered.

  “What was that all about?” Jeff asked. Kat just shook her head, eyes straight ahead on the dark road. “You know, between the boss and him,” he indicated the young man with a rifle in the back of the mule. Again, Kat said nothing.

  “Go ahead, tell him. I won’t mind,” When Kat still said nothing, the fellow leaned forward, leering face less than a foot from Jeff’s, rifle barrel even closer. “I’m the boss’s murdering dog.” Having said his piece, he lounged back into the seat, gun lolling between his legs. “She don’t like that.”

  “A lot of us don’t. We liked Guns. He was a good old guy.”