Into the Maelstrom - eARC

by David Drake

  The party stood on a rocky outcrop above a sheer drop into a black pool. Vertical cliffs of splintered rock curved around to the left to form a natural theatre. The river poured through the cliffs where it had cut a deep channel. It fell into the pool making the continuous roar of sound. A single natural tower of rock guarded the right-hand side of the waterfall. The pool in its turn emptied through a sharp V-shaped channel nearby. The land flattened down-channel and was carpeted in coniferous trees. Similar forests grew thickly on the top of the plateau from which the river originated.

  The tower leaned outwards from where water had undermined the base. Deep vertical cracks split it from top to bottom. Allenson thought that it would not be many years before it fell. When it did, the rubble would damn the river until the pool filled sufficiently to burst through. The likely result would be a tidal wave sweeping downstream to inundate the banks and low lying islands such as the community of Sark.

  He opened his mouth to ask the guide whether the Sarklanders were aware of the potential hazard but thought better of it. What could they do even if they were aware? Setting up an early warning system and building flood barriers around the village was potentially possible but he doubted they had the resources to buy in the technology. The Sarklanders would just have to take their chances like everyone else in a dangerous galaxy.

  The waterfall threw up copious amounts of spray so there was a permanent rainbow over the dark pool. Its colors danced in time to the chaotic patterns of the surging water. Waves flowed out across the pool from the fall to reflect off the steep banks, clashing in a battleground of intersecting foam.

  “How deep is it?” Allenson asked, putting his mouth close to the boatman’s ear.

  “Terrible deep, sar, and there’s a vicious undertow. Sometimes when a tree goes over the Gate it stays trapped for days. It gets pushed under at the waterfall coming up near an edge to be pulled to the fall and shoved down again.”

  Allenson nodded.

  The party sat on a carpet of dried conifer needles and lunched from the hamper. The noise was worth enduring to enjoy the view. Todd threw a pine cone into the pool to test the currents. It just disappeared into the foam. The scale of the place fooled the eye.

  “It is so very, very beautiful,” Todd said.

  “I suppose so,” Allenson replied, “and a source of near limitless free hydroelectric power. One day we’ll clear the trees and turn this place into a great production center for the Cutter Stream. Imagine the wealth this waterfall will create.”

  He nodded towards the top of the plateau.

  “A major industrial city will rise there. No doubt the factory owners will build villas on those downstream slopes.”

  “No doubt.” Todd sighed. “But it seems almost a crime to destroy such a beautiful wilderness for mere gain.”

  Allenson looked at him in puzzlement, suddenly aware that his nephew was in many ways more Brasilian than Manzanitan.

  “There’s plenty of wilderness. The Hinterlands are full of little else.”

  The guide interrupted the conversation by standing and brushing pine needles from the seat of his trousers.

  “If you’ve finished, gentlemen, we ought to be getting back.”

  Another day, another world, another hotel room—this time located in Port Trent. The trip from Sark was swift, which was just as well. They endured more long lectures from Buller on the military art interspersed with rants about unfair preferment of Brasilian chinless wonders.

  Port Trent was big, the biggest commercial port this side of the Bight except for Port Brasilia, an isolated world to the galactic south beyond the Cutter Stream. Port Brasilia’s wealth depended partly on its early discovery. Mostly its prosperity depended on vast natural reservoirs of an expensive to manufacture organic useful as a biochemical precursor to a vast array of valuable compounds. In short, Port Brasilia provided another raw material source albeit one more valuable to Brasilia than all the Cutter Stream colonies together.

  The commercial importance of Port Trent was obvious long before they arrived, flagged by the number of small craft moving up and down The Great North Road.

  Allenson chose an unpretentious hotel close to the commercial dock. It mostly catered for ships’ officers and business men. Buller selected a far grander establishment in the villa zone. Allenson could not help but wonder who would be picking up Buller’s tab this time. He reproved himself for a lack of charity.

  Allenson’s datapad pulsed with messages as soon as they phased in on the controlled approach to one of Port Trent’s frame parks. He received adverts for various products and forms of entertainment. They included women guaranteed to be friendly and welcoming to strangers, exotic but safe recreational drugs and gambling games that were impossible to lose. He set the pad’s discriminator to go through and discard the lot. That left only an invitation to the luncheon reception being held in his honor the following day.

  With Boswell’s able assistance, Allenson donned his full dress uniform for the reception. Port Trent boasted a considerable extent of properly paved streets rather than the stabilized earth more commonly found in Stream urban zones. People and goods moved around the city in fat-wheeled, battery-powered buggies. These were so commonplace that their electric whine was the sound that woke him that morning.

  The buggies, popularity also meant the main thoroughfares were choked with slowly moving traffic. Allenson was familiar with the concept of a traffic jam but the reality was an unwelcome novelty. The weather was fair and his hotel close to the Commercial Exchange building at which the reception was to be held so he elected to walk along the Front with Todd and take the sea air.

  Their uniforms marked them out and they received curious glances from others on the streets. A few insisted on shaking Allenson’s hand and declaring their support for an independent Cutter Stream or otherwise indicated approval by smiles and gestures. Most simply stared, expressions carefully neutral. Few showed overt hostility, the worst being a man who spat on the ground as they passed. Todd took a step forwards fist raised. Allenson held his nephew back while the man faded into an alley.

  A dozen or so Continuum ships floated in the deep-water harbor. Some were tied up to jetties for convenient loading or unloading of cargo while others were moored to buoys out from the shore. Small water craft plied backwards and forwards. Todd and Allenson passed one jetty that served exclusively as a dock for pleasure craft. Tiered cabins and frame pads overloaded the plushest examples. Allenson wondered how seaworthy the boats were. Maybe they were purely floating brandy-palaces.

  Some had racing lines that served no conceivable purpose other than to display their owners’ wealth. Allenson suspected that many rarely left the dockside. It was a normal business day in Port Trent so few of the boats were occupied except for servants carrying out basic maintenance.

  “A great deal of wealth to leave floating around,” Todd said, noting Allenson’s interest.

  “And I suspect a number of the owners may not entirely be supportive of our political aims,” Allenson replied ruefully.

  A large statue of Brasilia dominated the center of the harbor front. Seats surrounded the raised semi-circular platform on which it was displayed. Allenson glanced at his datapad and discovered they had time in hand so he suggested they sit.

  He contemplated the golden statue. Brasilia was the Mother of the Nation. The statue crystallized the genius, the guiding spirit, of Brasilia. She took the form of a naked woman sitting bolt upright on a world. A thin swathe of material provided her modesty. In her left hand she held an oval shield crackling with an energy field. In her right a power lance, butt down beside her foot. An ancient armored helmet tilted back on her head to show her face. Her eyes fixed the far horizon.

  The weaponry was traditional, supposedly the arms of the early knights when Brasilian civilization clawed its way out of the Dark Age. Later generations used similar devices for aristocratic hunts. The social purpose of the activity was not so much to obtain
food as to demonstrate the prowess of the user. Now such things were only seen on monuments or as stylized remnants on ceremonial costumes. There had been a brief resurgence of interest in dueling using knightly garb but the fashion soon died out.

  Todd fidgeted with the restlessness of the young and got up to look out over the harbor. Allenson had learned to rest when he could. He shut his eyes and tilted back his head to enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face.

  He must have dozed because Todd’s voice sounded a long way off.

  “Strewth, what the devil happened to her?”

  Allenson twisted around to find Todd just behind him. His nephew bent down to observe the harbor through a pair of binoculars mounted on a pedestal. There was a loud clunk.

  “Damn,” Todd fished in his pocket for a small coin. He slipped it into a slot in the pedestal eliciting another clunk. Noticing Allenson was awake, he beckoned. “Have a look at this, Uncle.”

  Allenson bent down and peered into the binoculars. The instrument was trained on a ship out in the harbor. He had to widen the lens distance and correct the focus for his eyes before he could clearly see it. The vessel had a twin hull, a most unusual configuration that maximized the surface area to volume ratio. Ship’s architects normally considered the opposite to be best practice. The color scheme was the light gray used by the Brasilian Navy. Blast damage had trashed one of the hulls. No doubt this rather than the novel design had caught Todd’s attention. Some attempt had been made to hide the wreckage with screens but a gust had blown the canvas off.

  Blast-damaged ships in peacetime were not something one expected to see in a harbor. Frame ships tended to arrive in good shape or not at all, although fortunately total losses were rare. Heavy naval warships could withstand a fair battering and make port but reports of a naval battle would have been all over the news channels by now.

  “Quite a mess, isn’t she?” asked a voice.

  Allenson straightened to find himself addressed by man in the uniform of an officer of a civilian ship’s line. The officer had short brown hair that stood vertically upwards like a startled comic character.

  “Indeed, which ship is she?”

  The officer tapped his nose.

  “Ah that’s top secret. O’Brien, I’m the purser of the Greenfields.”

  He held out his hand and Allenson took it before introducing himself and Todd.

  “I know who you are. Your pic is all over the vids. You’re the man who’s going to shake things up in the colonies,” O’Brien said cheerfully. “You’ll lose in the end, of course, but with a bit of luck you’ll give our masters a good kick up the jacksy. God knows they could do with it.”

  He gestured to the ship in the harbor.

  “None of the crew’ve been allowed ashore but our boson reckons he’s seen her before. She’s known as the Twin-Arsed Bastard for obvious reasons.”

  “I don’t suppose that’s her name on the muster roll,” Todd said.

  O’Brien laughed.

  “Her official name is the Reggie Kray, named after a famous twin from the mythology of Old Earth. She’s a research ship. Makes you wonder what they were researching.”

  He lifted a hand.

  “The passengers will be coming aboard the Greenfields soon. I for my sins have to be there to listen to their whines. Fair currents, General.”

  Allenson and Todd strode into the reception.

  “Captain General Allenson and Lieutenant Allenson,” boomed the voice of the maître dé at the door.

  Allenson had vaguely anticipated guests wearing the somber dress of the Ascetics of Trinity. The merchants of Trent danced to a different tune. Clothes shimmered in cloth weaves that polarized and refracted light. An outfit rippled through the spectrum from red to green as its occupant rotated against the angle of the light—and that was only one of the men. The ladies sported metallic streamers in silver, gold and polished bronze from their hair and arms.

  He had been concerned that he would look like a peacock in his dress uniform but he was completely upstaged. However, it was noticeable that a momentary hush fell on the hall as the guests gave him the once over. A tall man with sharp features and a thin mouth pushed through the crowd as the babble of conversation restarted. His suit was bright lemon yellow with silver piping and he wore a small pillbox hat in scarlet with silver tassels.

  The man spoke with an accent Allenson could not place.

  “General, I’m Venceray, your host.”

  Allenson knew little about the leader of the independence movement in Port Trent other than the basic details. He was rich with business interests in cross-Bight transport. Venceray guided him through the reception person by person, proffering the necessary introductions. The sea of unfamiliar names and faces flowed past Allenson leaving little trace in his memory. Not that it mattered. Conversation never got beyond social platitudes.

  “When did you come to the Stream?” Allenson asked Venceray, during a pause in the circulation.

  “I was born here. My father was a younger son of a Brasilian trading gens so he drew the short straw and became the colony representative. He married one of his servants and had me so there was nothing to return home for, if you see what I mean. We were never going to inherit. The family made it clear my mother was unacceptable. Eventually we built up our own business, which prospered. My father bought an estate inland and retired to look after it leaving me to run the family company. He’s quite the country gentleman now.”

  Venceray chuckled.

  “I see, Allenson said, and he did. Venceray’s future like his own was bound up in the Cutter Stream because they had no home to go back to. The social extreme between his Brasilian parents explained his odd way of speaking.

  “My contemporaries are at best neutral to the idea of independence. Fortunately most care little for politics. There are only a few outright Home Worlder activists but they’re making waves. I think we can keep most of Trent neutral provided we keep the Trinity radicals in check. Any suggestion of redistribution of wealth to the great unwashed to drink themselves to death on will arouse fervent opposition.”

  Allenson nodded.

  “And what are the political opinions of the, ah, great unwashed?”

  Venceray shrugged.

  “Who knows, who cares? I doubt they’ve got any opinions worth considering.”

  Allenson wondered if news from Paxton had overtaken him.

  “I suppose there is no word of the official Declaration of Independence yet?”

  Venceray shook his head.

  “Pity,” Allenson said. “It would help us to control the Home Worlder faction if we could use legal sanctions. We can’t lock people up for treason to a state that doesn’t yet exist.”

  He looked around and noticed a well-dressed couple slipping out through a side door.

  “Is it just me or has the room thinned out?”

  Venceray colored.

  “I hoped you wouldn’t notice. The ship carrying the new governor from Brasilia touched dock earlier this morning. He must be installed in Government House by now.”

  “So?” Allenson asked.

  Venceray’s lips compressed.

  “He has asked to meet the heads of the best families in Port Trent. People will want to go and pay their respects as soon as possible so as not to be thought disloyal. There is even talk of setting up a Home Worlder Militia”

  A surge of fury choked Allenson. He froze until he was sure he could maintain an outward composure.

  “The governor can meet whomsoever he chooses but you will arrest him if he tries to arm our enemies.”

  “On whose authority?” Venceray asked.

  “Mine,” Allenson replied. “You will arrest him on my authority.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Trinity

  Hawthorn came to Cambridge on the world of Trinity unannounced and in civilian clothes. He traveled on a one-man frame that had seen better days. The casual observer might be forgiven for dismissing him as another i
tinerant attracted to the war zone either as a potential combatant or profiteer. The careful observer would have noticed that the frame might be battered but was entirely serviceable and that the well-used hunting rifle slung over his shoulder was an expensive import from a master gunsmith of Brasilia. Fortunately there were no careful observers.

  Cambridge was a college town a few kilometers out of Trinity’s commercial capital, Oxford. It possessed all the refinement one associated with such lofty aspirations. It boasted a theater and a concert hall where intellectually stimulating and improving works were performed by painfully serious people. The town houses were tall three-story buildings clustered tightly together with tiny gardens given over to flowers and decorative shrubs. Once the town had been restricted to an area inside an earth berm but that era had long gone. Nevertheless, families clung to their prestigious town addresses, building upwards when they needed more room for servants’ quarters.

  College buildings rather than shops or business premises formed the focus and heart of the town. Presumably food and other goods were brought in from outlying demesnes and villages. Nothing as sordid as a bar polluted the streets of Cambridge but there were dram shops where customers could taste expensive imported booze before making a purchase.

  Hawthorn made for a dram shop called Sament’s Fine Wines and Liquors. Inside, racks of bottles in a variety of colors hunched draped in cobwebs. Web-spinning spiders were uncommon in the Stream. Hawthorn assumed the webs had been sprayed on as a marketing device. Nothing so uncouth as an actual bar brought down the tone of the establishment but tables and chairs were discreetly set out in one corner of the large carpeted room. A small open kitchen off the main room contained glasses and bottle opening devices.

  Two customers in the dark clothes of Ascetics sat smoking and tasting wine at one of the tables. From the glassy eyed stare of the one facing Hawthorn, they had “tasted” for some little time. Presumably, they were having problems making up their mind what to purchase. A man in an apron bent over their table running his finger down a catalogue. After some discussion he carefully selected a bottle from low on one of the racks. He fetched two glasses from the kitchen and set them in front of the customers. With a theatrical flourish he poured an inch of purple-dark liquid into each glass.