They Also Serve

by Mike Moscoe

  Jeff didn’t understand a word they were saying. Maybe he was wrong about how much the language had changed in three hundred years. Or maybe the people just had.

  “The admiral said execute the floater. I did the joke. What’s that to you?”

  Kat snapped her head around. “That bastard had no right to give you that order. It was illegal. You should have known that. You must have! Guns was right. The admiral was wrong. Why’d you kill him?”

  “You expect street scum like me to know all that? Hell, I’ve watched cops break a kid’s arms ’cause they didn’t like the way he looked at ’em. Life’s cheap, girl, if you got a gun and it’s not your own life.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

  “Maybe not for you, miss goody-goody with a college diploma, but it is for me. How many fights you been in?”

  “Sheffield was in two,” Kat answered proudly.

  “That’s not a fight,” the man spat. “Not those nice, clean things you navy pukes have where you take your ship with you and have a shower and clean sheets waiting for you when it’s over. A real fight’s where the artillery makes the ground shake under you until your gut runs water and your damn suit’s sanosystem decides it don’t have to process your shit no more ’cause it was made by the lowest bidder and a real war’s outside the contract specs. Or when your sights dial in perfect on some face they decided is the enemy and you get a really great picture of this face just before you blow it off her.

  “Shit, woman, you wouldn’t last five seconds in a real fight. But take one of us rags or rages with fifteen, eighteen years on the street, we’re perfect for it. We’re just the dogs and bitches you want to turn loose on ones you don’t like. ’Course, any other time, you got to muzzle us, chain us up. What you think that ship is? Just a kennel for the likes of me.” The man in the back seemed to have run out of words. He rode, staring silently at his rifle.

  Jeff listened, hearing the rage, the agony behind the words, understanding only a little. He wondered just how deadly the weapon in the man’s hands was, and wishing he didn’t have it.

  Kat took in a long breath, drove with both eyes on the road, both hands stiffly on the wheel, and began to talk. “That’s Dumont’s side of the story. Maybe it’s true. I was drafted fresh out of college. You understand draft?” Jeff nodded; he’d read in the ancient histories of involuntary servitude for military purposes. “Dumont and his friends came in a little less formally. They were dragged up off the streets one night and signed themselves in. Du, can you sign your name?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Couldn’t then,” he whispered.

  “I got lucky and drew ship duty. Du got infantry.”

  “Marine by-God-be-damned infantry,” came a correction from the backseat.

  “After we survived a couple of battles and thought our way home from a bad jump, we got promoted to flagship and this marine detachment assigned to us.”

  “Nobody asked us. They just told us to go, and we went.”

  “In case you hadn’t noticed, Du, that was the way it was with all of us. That’s the way it is in a war.”

  “That’s the way it is on the streets all the time. I didn’t notice a difference.” Dumont leaned forward in his seat, the rifle across his lap, apparently forgotten.

  Kat nodded but went on. “So our skipper called this meeting with all the department heads. This little corporate twirp who hasn’t been in the navy any longer than me, but somehow has gotten himself made an admiral, announced he’d figured out how to win the war in an afternoon. Slaughter about a billion people, everybody on a planet. Guns didn’t agree.” Kat glanced at Jeff, must have seen the puzzlement in his eyes.

  “Guns, what we called the chief of gunnery, the nicest grandpa of a guy you could ever hope to meet. He tells this jerk that not only is his brilliant idea stupid and illegal, but it will make the Unity folks madder than hell and they’ll fight us all the harder. Boss guy’s reaction to that is to order Du back there to off Guns. And brilliant guy that Du is, he does.”

  “It was an order.” Dumont defended himself in a dead monotone. “Besides, he said he’d make us all rich if we did what he told us.”

  “Did he?”

  “No.”

  “Did you?” Jeff asked in a whisper.

  “Did we do what?” Kat’s eyes were back on the road.

  “Kill a billion people?”

  “No,” Kat said, casting a quick glance back at Dumont.

  “No, we didn’t kill anyone. The war ended. They put the muzzle back on us dogs, and that was that.” There had to be more to the story. But neither Kat nor Dumont was talking, and Jeff couldn’t begin to construct a question that might get them talking again. They rode in silence for a very long minute.

  “Here, you take the gun.” Dumont tossed the rifle at them.

  Jeff caught it by the barrel; the stock landed on the floor of the backseat. He looked at it, terrified, trying to remember where the safety was. Kat glanced at it. “Don’t worry, Jeff. The safety’s on. It can’t fire. Du, what you doing?”

  “I’m quitting. I’ve had it. You want someone joked, you pop ‘im yourself. You the one that sicced that priest on me?”

  “No. What priest?”

  “Father Joseph. He wouldn’t leave me alone today. One of you brains tell him about me?”

  “Du, in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been full-time busy trying to figure out which end of this planet is up. Besides, I’m not Catholic. I don’t know if any middies are.” Kat slowed down. “Why? What did the preacher have to say to you?”

  “He didn’t say anything. Least, not at first. Just hung around me like I was some virgin he was horny for. No, like I had the dust and he wanted a fix. No. I don’t know. He was just there, every time I turned around.”

  “So why didn’t you tell him to get lost?” Kat asked. “Your team isn’t exactly known for putting up with anything you think is shit.”

  “I did. So he asked me what I was doing. That miner Mary had me working with was running the thumper all over that damn hill. I told the little priest we were making sounds to tell Mary what the hill looked like inside. It was kind of nice, talking to him. Next thing I know, my miner’s been called away and me and the priest are humping that thumper all over that hill. He may be short, but damn, that guy could lug. I kept on talking to him. He listened to whatever I said. So I ended up telling him about the war and all that shit and how I joked Guns and how I wish I hadn’t.” Du closed down suddenly, like Vicky did when she thought she’d given something away for free.

  Kat took them smoothly around a curve. The night stretched out ahead of them; it was damp this close to the James River. Its river barges and dams made Refuge and Richland possible.

  “What did he have to say to that?” Kat finally asked.

  “That it was never too late to start over. That life was always giving second chances. Or maybe he said God was. I don’t know.” Du snickered. “Stupid old asshole. The streets don’t give no second chances.”

  “We got a second chance,” Kat said softly. “Nobody ever came back from a sour jump. We did. Mary damn near killed Ray in the war. Did leave him crippled. They’re giving each other a second chance. There’re a lot of reasons that damn boat is named Second Chance. You could be one of them.”

  “That’s what the priest said. But look at me now. First time the damn Colonel needs somebody popped, he yanks my chain.”

  “You sure?”

  “Why else dump me here but so I can joke shit for you two?”

  “Maybe the Colonel assigned you ’cause you’re good at your job.”

  “Good at what job?” Du snorted.

  “Good at knowing what’s dangerous and making it not. Good at scaring the shit out of people and maybe saving their lives by making them go someplace else real fast. I don’t know, Du, but I feel safer with you in the backseat, and not because I figure you’ll shoot everybody we happen to see.”

  The man i
n the backseat stared off into the night, slowly rubbing his chin. “That the way you see me?” he asked finally.

  “Yes, Du. That’s you. Not just the cool dude you want all the other street rags and rages to see, but the guy I see, too. The guy who didn’t shoot the next time the admiral started shouting for you to.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t shoot then. And you were real close.”

  “Scary close, Du.”

  “Can I have my rifle back?”

  Jeff glanced at Kat; she gave him a quick nod. He handed the weapon very carefully back. “Thanks,” the man said.

  “You’re welcome,” Jeff answered. Du half smiled, half sneered at the automatic politeness. “I meant it,” Jeff added.

  They rode into the darkness. Or maybe out of it.

  Ray advanced his team slowly, holding a tight rein on their speed—and on his own frustration. Ahead, scouts ranged three blocks forward, checking each cross street before signaling them forward and hustling up the street to check the next one. It made for safe but slow going.

  “Mr. Ambassador, are you there?”

  “Yes, Ms. San Paulo.”

  “You may call me Hen if you wish.”

  “I’m Ray to my friends. Were you able to get us any help?”

  “Our security force has some electrocycles. They might scout for you. Where are you?” Ray read the closest street signs. “Oh, that far out. Let me tell them where you are.”

  Ray studied the town houses lining this block. Two, three stories high, they provided several windows for snipers, but all were closed and darkened. People slept behind them, or they were empty as their occupants roamed the streets, looking for a violent solution to a problem Ray didn’t understand and that probably eluded them, too. What had gone wrong with this planet? Was it also swallowing him?

  San Paulo came back on. “The cyclists are moving. They should meet you in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “Good. Ray out.”

  “’Bye.”

  Ray gritted his teeth, forcing down a rising anger that had no explanation. Quickly, he advised his teams to be on the lookout for their allies.

  “Slow going, but looks okay,” Lek observed beside him.

  “That’s not what’s bothering me,” Ray said, picking one from several. “Riots are only the symptom. What’s the underlying cause? The farmers seem nice. The city types had quirks but didn’t look all that bad.”

  “I’ve worked for bosses who had smiles for the visiting firemen but were hell on the miners,” Lek observed to the street ahead of them. “Kind of hard to peg an outfit when you’re on a whirlwind tour. Finally decided upper management wasn’t dumb or nasty, just uninformed and blind.”

  Ray couldn’t argue that point. Hell, Unity had talked a good line. Right up to the point they started hanging people. “God, I’d like to dig through these folks’ archives. Newspapers, media, something to get the feel of the real them,” Ray said, addressing something he could.

  Beside him, Lek grinned. “Glad you said that, sir. While I’m doing their security net, I just might find time to put in a few extra nodes. You want all their news and media?”

  “All you can poke a link into.” What had Mary and Matt said about the joys of having on staff a paranoid electronic genius with a sense of humor? This might get interesting.

  The cyclists joined up. Adding his armed scouts to the backseats of the three-wheeled get-abouts let Ray dodge two mobs early and avoid three fires. They made it to the Great Hall in a half hour, but it did nothing to calm Ray’s roiling temper.

  Jeff missed his turn in the dark, and Kat had to do a U-turn back to the road into Sterlingview. Like most of the towns within a short trolley ride of Richland, all the houses had been designed to two or three floor plans. Over the years, residents had personalized them. Two they drove by in the twisting, turning streets had recently been very personalized—by fires. Jeff couldn’t begin to guess what was going on, but something new and ugly was sweeping the world he’d grown up in.

  Harry’s place was blessedly still there, and easy for Jeff to spot. His yard was a blend of hearty earth plants and various local bushes he’d collected in his travels. Kat eased to a halt before the rambling two-story. Jeff was out before she’d brought the mule to a complete stop; he trotted up the gravel walk and took the four steps to the porch two at a time. He knocked softly.

  After a minute he rapped louder. The house was dark, as was every other house they’d driven by. Not even a porch light?

  Jeff glanced up. Streetlights were visible with his goggles; they did not burn. Jeff stepped back, checking the windows. Someone peeked out an upper one. He pointed at it, and the curtains slipped shut. Jeff went back to the door, knocked once, then began beating a slow, insistent tattoo.

  Finally the door opened a crack. “Who are you?”

  Jeff didn’t recognize the face. He pulled the night goggles up. As he opened his mouth, it dawned on him that for the first time in his life, his name might not open doors. “Hello, I’m a friend of Harry’s. I need to talk to him.”

  “Harry doesn’t need friends like you,” he heard, but the door opened wider. Harry stood behind the man at the door. He rested a restraining hand on the younger man’s hand, the one holding a baseball bat.

  “Come on in, Jeff. Who are your friends?”

  “Starfolks. Can they come in?”

  “Sure, sure.” Harry waved in his open, friendly way. Kat did something to the mule’s steering, then trotted up the walk. Du followed her, walking backward, rifle at eye level, the barrel sweeping wide, in sync with his eyes. Even if Kat hadn’t told him, Jeff would have known it now; Du scared people.

  Jeff and company slipped through the door to be pointed toward the back of the house. Using his night goggles, Jeff had no trouble following the hall back to Harry’s study. In it, a small candle burned, throwing fitful light over a collection of books and rocks. On the couch, a woman huddled, arms around two children. She gasped as Du entered the room.

  Du took it in stride. He glided to the back window and took a long look out. “Sorry, ma’am. I have that effect on people.” He turned to Kat. “Looks clear. Somebody want to update me on the situation?”

  Jeff was a veteran of too many of Vicky’s pushy binges; he knew how to push back. The quiet tone of Du’s voice left him with a uncontrollable compulsion to please the man.

  “Your sister announced layoffs yesterday morning,” the young man said. “No warning, no idea when anyone might be called back. Rumor is she’s been building up product in the warehouses to meet two or three months of demand. Now, with her wanting copper, who knows how long it will last.”

  “She also said she wouldn’t release paychecks until the end of the month,” the young woman said, “and then they’ll be short.”

  “Vicky was always the milk of human kindness,” Jeff drawled. “What did she expect people to do?”

  Harry’s mouth lifted in a bent smile. “There were buses to take protesters to Refuge, to demand the Great Circle immediately abolish aluminum coins.”

  “Did many go?” Kat asked.

  “Some,” the young man said, the baseball bat still in his hand. “I don’t think half of the buses were filled. Me, I called Dad and asked if we could move in. He said yes, so I spent the time lugging our stuff over here.”

  “Why’d you move?” Du asked.

  “I don’t know.” The man looked at his wife. “Greens say we’re making a mess of this world. Street preachers say the end is coming. People getting more and more twitchy. Our apartment complex was right next to a shopping center. Food stores, small shops, and a liquor store. It got broken into. Then the others. Somehow they started burning.”

  “You figured on trouble,” Kat said.

  Both young people nodded, eyes on their sleeping children. “It’s been coming since last year,” Harry told Jeff, “when your sister took to paying everyone in aluminum. Prices went up. Wages didn’t. There’re hungry people on those streets, so
n.”

  “And sis didn’t see this coming!”

  “Maybe she did. Maybe she thought she could aim it at something she wanted taken down. You can never tell with her.”

  “And you can never tell her anything. Less lately,” Jeff concluded. “Harry, I got some people here who need your help.”

  Kat quickly ran down their discovery of the planet’s unusual flora and fauna…and the strange impact it was having on the humans. “We really need to know this planet’s natural history. Jeff said you might be able to tell us something.”

  “I didn’t think it was like this on other planets.” The old man enjoyed his vindication for a moment. Even as he did, he was searching his bookshelf for binders, notebooks, and rock samples. “I keep a complete backup,” he said, flourishing a box of disks. “It’s yours.”

  Kat took the offered box. “We’d like you to come, too.”

  “I can’t leave my family.”

  “Dad, if anybody saw these people come here tonight, Jeff and them, maybe you’d better be gone.”

  “Harold, but what about us?” the woman asked from the couch. “The way people are…” she trailed off. The young man looked from his wife and children to his father, lips tightly pursed.

  The old man shook his head. “I can’t leave them.”

  Du frowned. “Kat, these people can’t stand against whatever is out there. Can we take them?”

  “With the automated plants up, there ought to be jobs for them. Harry, my people really need to talk to you. I’ll take the whole lot of you as a package deal.”

  Without a second word, the father lifted a child of six from the couch. The wife hoisted another of maybe three. Jeff helped Harry with a box of rocks. After snuffing out the candle, Du trailed them through the house, Kat just ahead of him, the disks in one hand. A small automatic had appeared in the other.

  Jeff pushed the front door open, then held it wide as Harry and his family went through. He followed them, leaving the door to Kat—and came to a dead halt on the porch.

  Around the mule, a crowd of thirty people milled. Several had clubs, two torches. “I told you I saw Jeffie Baby right here in our neighborhood. Come to visit his old friend, didn’t he?” That brought murmurs of agreement, and a shout that they should have burned them out with the others. The son and wife recoiled against Jeff and Harry. Kat interposed herself to Jeff’s left.