by John F. Carr
“You should’ve worn gloves, like I told you,” Brodski retorted, measuring out a half-bowlful of his dwindling tobacco. “Hell, you expect a lame man to go bendin’ all over that garden? My back would lock before I finished one row. Besides, who’s been doin’ the cookin’ and laundry around here?”
“I washed the dishes, last time.”
“Yeah? And who scoured the pans?”
“Scheiss! This is no proper work for a man!” Van Damm gulped the last of his stoneware-cup load, and glowered at the sky,
Brodski laughed until he ran out of wind “Whoo! Hell! What’d you think, that all those women would come over here and do the housework for us, for nothin’ but a sight of your pretty face? Get real, Vanny: we got exactly what we contracted for, and now we’re stuck with it.”
“Shh!” Van Damm whispered, looking down river.
“Shh, what?” said Brodski, warily setting down his pipe.
“Boat.” Van Damm jumped out of his hammock and sprinted for the cabin.
It took Brodski longer to get up; he was just struggling clear of the hammock when Van Damm ran back out carrying a pair of binoculars and the portable radio. He threw the radio to Brodski and peered out at the river.
“Which boat and which way?’ Brodski asked, working the radio.
“The Last Resort, right enough,” muttered Van Damm, peering low toward the river. Heading upstream, and loaded with armed men. Makhno guessed right.”
“That tears it; the war’s starting.” Brodski thumbed down a switch and winced at the chatter coming through the earpiece. “Girls, clear the lines! We’ve gotta get word down to Janesfort. The Last Resort’s heading there right now, with Jomo’s boys on it. Spread the word, warn everybody, get everyone into the fort, and be sure to tell Jane first.”
There was an instant’s pause for breath, then a wild jumble of chatter on the airwaves, most of it demands for more news. Brodski rolled his eyes heavenward, muttered something about civilians, then repeated his message slowly and carefully.
This time, only one voice answered. “This is the fort. We received your message, Señor Brodski. Can you see Jomo’s people yet?”
“Not yet. Give us ten minutes to get down to the water and we’ll call you back. Ski out.” Brodski thumbed off the switch, picked up his cane, slung the binoculars around his neck and started back into the cabin. “You get to carry the spare rations and water.”
Jomo scanned the riverbank slipping slowly past and considered where suitable farms might be hiding. Sure some of the squatters must have hidden in these thick woods; the cover, and the possible game, were too good to go to waste. He didn’t like this alien forest himself, but he could tell a good hideout when he saw one.
Hey now, what was that? It looked like a thin streak of smoke against the sky, the marker of a farmhouse’s chimney. How handy that everybody on this cold planet kept at least one heating-fire going all the time; it gave him a dead-sure way to find prey.
Jomo snapped his fingers at the pilot, then pointed a languid hand toward the riverbank.
Feinberg, having grown used to Jomo’s little ways after all these turns, sighed wordlessly and turned toward shore.
Van Damm poked his binoculars a little further through the screen of eggtree fronds, studying details of the Simbas’ equipment. He smiled sourly at the bell-mouthed stunners. “Mark 1’s…lousy guns,” he whispered. “No range, not designed for woods, good for nothing but hosing down the near scenery. Doesn’t anyone use good weapons anymore?”
“Yeah, Jane.” Brodski tapped the shotgun and the silenced rifle on Van Damm’s back. “Now let’s fade back and keep watching.”
They slipped back quietly through the woodlot. Where the wood gave way to the narrow plot of cleared land, they hurried around the lone field, back into the woods again on the field’s far side, and flattened behind an ancient half-rotted log. “Hey Vannie, you ever work for Intelligence?”
Van Damm froze for an instant, then rolled slowly to face Brodski. “What makes you ask that?”
“I did some troop training at Camp Pendleton about six years ago,” said Brodski, casually pointing his rifle in Van Damm s direction. “And we had a couple of spooks come through. I didn’t have anything to do with them, but I remember one in particular. He was an Afrikaner, and had a scar on his thumb—just like yours. I remember it because I watched his hands when he arm-wrestled with Bill Mason for the beers at the E.M. Club one night. He moved like you. That’s a real hard thing to change, you know?”
“Yeah, I forgot.” Van Damm smiled thinly. “You know, that’s how covers get blown.”
“You working for the CoDo?” Brodski wasn’t smiling.
“Yes, Fleet Intelligence.” Again, Van Damm considered, the truth was the best defense. “But I’m thinking of settling down here. I’m getting to like the place. It grows on one.”
“Van, I got on that ship one jump ahead of the cops and arranged my retirement on board. I’ll only get twenty-five years instead of thirty, but what the hell, this place is a lot looser than Earth.” His gun-muzzle lowered a little.
“I’ll tell you one thing, Ski; I am not doing anything against Jane. In fact, I was sent here to do what I could to start trouble, give the CoDo its excuse.… Nobody knew about Jane back on Earth, but she has done a very good job on her own.”
“How do y’mean? She hasn’t hurt Castell or his claim.”
“You don’t understand.” Van Damm shook his head in frustration. “CoDo wants Haven for—for, damn-it, Kennicott Metals. They have found a rich strike of hafnium here, and BuReloc’s dumping miners from Earth.… Does that suggest anything to you?”
“Where does Janey come in?”
“Farming!” Van Damm almost wrung his hands. “Aside from the Harmonies, who farms? Squatters, trying to live off the land, barely surviving—how could they feed the numbers BuReloc wants to dump here, even with synthetic food factories? People would starve. BuReloc or the CoDo wouldn’t care—Scheiss!”
“Why, Vanny, can a spook actually have a conscience?”
“Their training did not take that from me.” Van Damm looked away, automatically checking the empty field. “Jane…she makes farming successful, even for squatters. Surplus of food, not to mention the cloth, oil, paper. She can make poor squatters rich, Brodski.”
“More precisely, she’s creating an independent middle class.”
“If she succeeds…then many people will not starve, will even do well, who would starve otherwise. I have seen a famine, Brodski. I…do not wish to see it again.”
“Okay, Van, that’s good enough for me.” Brodski took position and shifted his gun muzzle toward the field. “Lets get ready; here they come.”
“Warn the others,” said Van Damm, all business again.
“They’re coming,” Brodski whispered into the radio, seeing the first of the Simbas emerge, branch-slapped and dusty, from the trees near the river. “Any last-minute changes?”
“No,” Jane’s voice whispered back. “Lie low or thin them out. Up to you.”
“Right. At our own discretion.” Brodski switched the radio off and watched, feeling Van Damm shift restlessly beside him, while the Simbas leveled their stunners and ran, howling like banshees, toward the empty cabin. “How goddamn brave of them,” he muttered. Van, you sure you got everything out?”
“Everything but the furniture.” Van Damm squirmed as the Simbas kicked open the cabin door. “Idiots! We left it unlocked. They’ll break the hinges.…”
They waited, watched, listened as Jomo’s men piled into the cabin, leaving only two men outside. Van Damm winced at the sound of shelves and benches being slammed around.
“I count a dozen,” Brodski whispered. “They must’ve left the rest to guard the boat. How many do you figure we can pick off?”
“These two now, the others later.” Van Damm shrugged. “If we wait til they come out, we can get their head honcho.”
“Then how many, total?”
“Given what we’ve seen of their training…” Van Damm scratched his chin. “Three, maybe four. Then they’ll wait awhile, come out in a big rush and shoot up the trees wherever they think we are.”
Brodski ginned, calculating. “Give ’em a little longer to find nothing, then let’s drop them when they come out.”
“Deal,” said Van Damm, casually drawing a bead on one of the outside men.
They waited until the cries and curses changed to the sound of furniture being smashed. Then the door opened again and the Simbas began filing out of the cabin. One of them snapped at the two outside men, pointed back toward the river and bellowed orders at the rest.
Bingo! thought Brodski. He shifted his rifle’s aim, pulled the trigger, and dropped the boss Simba.
For an age-long second, the others stood in a rough circle and stared, drop-jawed, while their squad-leader jerked, folded and fell.
Then Van Damm took out two men together, one behind the other, with a single throat-shot.
“Not bad,” Brodski whispered, aiming again.
At that point, the Simbas had the sense to either run back into the cabin or drop and pull up their stunners. Van Damm and Brodski got two more in the yard, though they couldn’t be sure if the shots were clean kills, while the Simbas looked wildly around them for the source of the gunfire.
The survivors in the yard started crawling toward the cabin door, firing in all directions without concern for ammo expenditure. A few shots hit close to Brodski’s and Van Damm’s hidey-hole, and they ducked. The last survivor in the yard scrambled into the cabin, and the door slammed shut.
“Think they spotted us yet?”
“Maybe,” Van Damm shrugged. “We got four kills, maybe three wounded.”
“Good,” said Brodski, slinging up his rifle. “Let’s fade.” They backed a little deeper into the wood, then slipped lateral down the length of the cleared field, almost to its end, and took positions behind thick standing trees.
“More distance here,” Van Datum grumbled. “Less visibility.”
“Harder for them to pick us out, too.” Brodski opened his pack and hauled out some homemade jerky. “We may as well relax until they get up their nerve.”
“Or they radio for help and the reinforcements come,” Van Damm grumbled, accepting one of the meat-strips.
“I somehow, doubt they’ll send the whole reserve,” Brodski considered, munching. “Gotta have enough left at the boat to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere.”
“We should wait, then.” Van Damm gnawed thoughtfully. “Let them come out, shoot at trees, get no response, mill around for awhile, then start breaking up into smaller packs.”
“Then we harass them.” Brodski rolled onto his back and pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Wake me when they come out,” he said, and promptly went to sleep.
*
*
*
“…but they hadn’t gone,” Under-chief Pucey panted on with his report. “Shot at us when we moved into the field. Same thing again: disappeared when we returned fire, waited til we started to move, then shot us up again—always from a different quarter. We pulled back to the river, and they waylaid us in the woods. If you hadn’t sent that second squad out—’’
“Of course,” said Jomo. “I heard the racket on the radio.”
“Good thing, Baas; we could’ve been pinned down there for God knows how long. Must’ve been a dozen of ’em. They’d got ahead of us, somehow, in the woods.…” No point mentioning that he and Osgood had argued over whether to keep on toward the river in the face of that relentless sniping, or fall back to the farmhouse and wait for reinforcements. The sound and sight of approaching Simbas had settled the question.
“We lost seven men, and there’s ten wounded.”
“We must take precautions. They will not catch us napping again.”
Pucey threw a glance of silent appeal to Osgood, who cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Uh, Jomo, since we don’t know how many settlers are involved, shouldn’t we, uh, get reinforcements before proceeding?”
“Reinforcements?” Jomo’s glower made the man take a step back. “Against how many dirt-farmers?” He picked up the marked satellite-map and shoved it under Osgood’s nose. “Look! How much cleared land does that show? Scarcely enough for a dozen farms, if they support no more than four adults on any of them. Squatters, with nothing but whatever weapons they could sneak aboard the ships. Now just how much resistance do you think they’re likely to put up?”
“Sir, they got seven of us.” Osgood couldn’t help sounding desperate.
“They caught you flat-footed because you weren’t prepared. You will be from now on.” Jomo sneered as he rolled up the map.
Osgood and Pucey traded bleak looks.
“No, we are not going to go back to Docktown, aborting this mission, just because a dozen farmers shot at you with a few leftover weapons. Now, I don’t suppose you managed to collect much in the way of goods?
Pucey shrugged, and solemnly held out one knapsack full of ripe cabbage tops. “That’s all we got before they started shooting,” he said.
“Janesfort, Janesfort,” Brodski whispered into his radio. “They’re coming on up the river, still keeping close to the west bank. Looks like they’ll hit the next farm in another hour, maybe hour and a half.”
“That’s ours!” wailed a male voice, somewhere in the net.
“Everybody who can, take positions at Sam MacDonald’s farm,” said Jane, calm as ever through the static. “Thin the bastards some more. But be careful, they’ll be wide-eyed and paranoid this time.”
“Going now, Brodski out.” He leaned around a tree to tap Van Damm’s shoulder. “Time to hike again, down to Sam’s for the next round.”
“…Simba bastards,” Van Damm muttered, slinging up his rifle. “We could have eaten those cabbages in another week. After all the time I spent weeding them”
“Uh huh. They could’ve torched our cabin, too,” Brodski considered. “Y’know, Vanny, I’m beginning to appreciate Jane’s point of view about citizen-soldiers.”
“One does tend to appreciate land one has worked on.”
“Right. You go stiffen the resistance, Van, while I look up the captain. “
Osgood had the dubious honor of leading the three-squad assault on the second farm, and he was determined not to make any incautious mistakes this time. He kept his radio on simultaneous transmit-and-send mode, never mind how that drained the batteries, and his stunner ready. His orders were simple: advance and spread out in a line, nobody more than three meters or less than two, keep your eyes open and shoot anything that moves.
Consequently, ten minutes after entering the deep, dark wood, his troops had shot two tree-hoppers and a red mole, and all hope of surprise was good and gone. Osgood, having nobody else to blame for this state of affairs, sighed and ordered the troops to pick up speed.
Van Damm had laid another neat surprise at the farm; once again the Simbas found nothing, no crops, livestock or people, but when they began their return they were ambushed. In the thick woods, the Simbas could find no targets. They hurried back to the boat, leaving four dead, carrying six wounded.
Jomo considered that, and ordered the expedition to proceed to the island. Foraging in the unlimited forest was just too dangerous. On the limited land of that river-island ahead, the pickings should be much safer.
At The Last Resort’s best speed, he could be there in another turn at most.
Jane, Makhno, Van Damm and Brodski were discussing strategy after supper and before turning in for the shift.
“We better make some contingency plans in case we win,” said Makhno.
“Make that when we win, Leo,” said Jane gently. “Okay, when we win. What are we going to do then? Docktown will still be in, uh, enemy hands.”
“Continue the boycott.” Jane shrugged. “We can set up our own trade-spots along the river, tell our friends.…
“That’ll be
rough on the people in Docktown.”
“Rougher on the gangsters.”
“We must kill them all, you know,” Van Damm stated.
Makhno turned to give him a long look. “I’d be interested in hearing your reasons, Owen.”
“This planet has no prison,” Van Damm explained carefully. “No police, not even any courts. That is why you have this problem in the first place. You have no protection from thugs and crooks, and that is why you must kill them.”
“How does that follow?” Jane asked, studying him.
“It follows that you cannot punish the thugs with prison, nor force them to pay just compensation, nor even exile them,” Van Damm went on. “If you drive them out into the wilds, they will band together and raid farms for subsistence. If you leave them alive in town, they will try to invade again, sooner or later. You have to kill them, the ones that take part in the raid, who know the way here and see what valuables you have.”
“We know we can’t let them get away to tell that the ‘land of women’ really exists,” Jane said levelly. “That will just make us targets again. But why should we go after the thugs left in Docktown?’’
“Likewise, to keep them from trying for you again. Also, you cannot boycott Docktown forever. Sooner or later you will need the off-world goods available only there. You cannot leave Docktown in the hands of the enemy.”
“True,” Brodski noted. “But remember, there just aren’t that many Bad Guys. The whole population of Docktown isn’t more than a thousand. There’s only a limited amount of the ‘crook’ mentality to recruit there and Jomo brought a big chunk of them on this trip. I say we should send some kind of message to, whoever Jomo left behind, see if we can’t scare them into behaving themselves.”
“Are you sure that he left anyone behind?” asked Jane. “Wouldn’t he bring his whole force to attack us here?”
“Jomo’s greedy, not stupid. He must have left some sort of garrison to hold what gains he made. I read him for wanting the whole planet. Since he can’t take the Harmonies yet with the kind of strength he has, he’s turned to finding a fort to build up his forces—or, thanks to your boycott, to hunt for food. He plans to come out and take on Castell eventually, but he needs a base first.”