by David Drake
Mark and Amy had to skip from a walk to a run to keep up with Captain Easton's course along the half-lit corridors. The tunnels of the fort were an environment as changeless as the depths of the sea. The lights never went out—unless they failed, in which case they never came on again. There was no more maintenance than the depths of the sea had, either.
Children's voices echoed, but there weren't any specifically martial sounds. The civilian port controller on Major hadn't any idea how big the ship that arrived last week had been. Each of the vessels Mark had seen when he first landed on Zenith had several hundred soldiers on board, and they'd also been carrying heavy equipment of the sort that was already stockpiled in enormous quantities on Dittersdorf.
The troops lounging in the corridor looked pretty much the same as those Mark had seen when he was here the first time. He couldn't swear they were the same people, but they looked equally scruffy and there weren't any more of them visible.
"Hey, sir, how you doing?" a man called to Easton's obvious agitation. "Don't have cabbage blight, do you?"
The laughter was general but good-natured. Easton's troops didn't hate him. That would be like hating a teddy bear.
"Now, vegetables," the captain said as he trotted along. He was too lost in dreams of expanded plantings to notice his troops or hear what they might be saying. "What sort of a selection of edible plants can you supply?"
"Anything your heart desires, Captain," Mark said soothingly. "Anything you can dream of can be in your hands in seventy-two hours."
In so big a fort, an influx of troops could be concealed far beyond the corridors connecting the garden and the Command Center. There wasn't any reason for such deception, though. Nothing Mark saw appeared to have changed from the previous visit.
And Captain Easton was the same man. It was hard to imagine circumstances in which the Alliance would reinforce this base but leave Easton in command of it.
Mark knew to hold his breath as they strode past the pump room converted to an open latrine. Amy didn't, and the smell shoved her against the far wall in midstride.
"Wonderful natural fertilizer!" Easton muttered. "Most of it well rotted into the best nitrate enrichment you could imagine! And then my troops flatly refuse to remove and spread it for me. Mutiny! If I weren't a forgiving man, I'd . . ."
"It's certainly well rotted," Amy agreed in a faint voice.
"The door's supposed to be closed, though," Easton added, pulling the panel shut. That was the first evidence Mark had seen that any aspect of the normal world could penetrate the tangle of vegetation choking Easton's mind.
When Mark stepped close to Amy in case the brown miasma had stunned her into falling, he noticed that her small belt purse whirred. Her camera was scanning through a hole in the front of the purse. Though she wasn't able to spread the triple lenses to get a direct three-dimensional image, the camera's microprocessor would be able to build complete holograms from changes in perspective the lens got jouncing down the corridor.
Always assuming that nobody noticed the camera and had Amy shot as a spy. He hadn't guessed she was going to take such a risk.
The door with the hand-printed COMMAND CENTER sign was ajar. It couldn't be fully closed, since the latch and jamb Yerby had smashed six months ago still hadn't been replaced. Instead of dithering outside as he had before, Captain Easton barged straight in.
Lieutenant Hounslow was arguing with a forty-year-old woman wearing sergeant's chevrons on the collar of her fresh-looking uniform. Both of them turned when the door opened. Hounslow seemed surprised, but the sergeant's expression remained one of angry frustration.
"Hounslow!" Easton snapped. "How many troops do you have?"
"Well, with the addition of Sergeant Papashvili's squad, sir, fifty-one effectives," Hounslow said. "I'm sorry to say that the sergeant here is questioning my task assignments, however."
He glared at Papashvili. Hounslow had been filling out another multicolored duty chart before the sergeant had come into the office. Now another thought struck him; he whisked the sheet of graph paper off his desk to hold behind his back. He seemed to be afraid Captain Easton had gone nuts and would start tearing up the items of greatest value to Hounslow.
Well, nuts in a different way from usual.
"I need them all," Easton said. "Immediately! We don't have much time—"
"Oh, heaven be praised, Captain!" Sergeant Papashvili cried. "I knew you both couldn't be completely bughouse!"
"—before the narcissus planting season here is over," Easton continued, ignoring the sergeant. "We'll need a border spaded around the outer circuit of the walls, three feet wide and I think six inches deep."
He pursed his lips and added, "Though we may have to settle for a shallower bed, given the time available. Well, see to it, Hounslow."
The lieutenant and sergeant both stared at Easton, transfixed. They regained control of their tongues and blurted simultaneously, "Are you crazy?"
Easton drew himself up stiffly. "Stand to attention when you address your commanding officer!" he ordered.
Hounslow and Papashvili clicked their heels as they obeyed. They looked like a couple being savaged by their pet goldfish.
"Sir, my duty rosters are made out for—" Hounslow began.
Easton brushed the protest aside incomplete. "Well, you'll have to change them, then," he said crisply. "This is a time-dependent project. It's going to be close, getting so many bulbs ino the ground before first frost anyway."
"Captain," Sergeant Papashvili said in a despairing moan. She looked like a sturdy, no-nonsense woman, but the week she'd spent on Dittersdorf had obviously shaken her. "For heaven's sake, sir, there's a permanent garrison of five hundred troops arriving next month and I've got the job of refurbishing living quarters for them. Not to mention temporary accommodations for up to four thousand more who might stage through here. One month!"
"Why, I'd forgotten that!" the captain said in sudden cheerfulness. "Five hundred troops! Wonderful! Why, I'll be able to develop the courtyard after all!"
"Change my charts," Hounslow repeated sepulchrally. He stared at the half-completed roster in his hand as if it were his death sentence. "I don't believe this."
I believe it, Mark thought. You've known Easton a lot longer than I have, so it shouldn't be a surprise to you either that he's around the bend.
"I wonder if we might look at the courtyard?" Mark said aloud. "To get a notion of how best to convert it into a garden."
As they flew in, he'd noticed pieces of tarpaulin-covered equipment which hadn't been there when Yerby and Mark visited earlier. If they were fighting vehicles, the raiders had to know about it.
"A Garden of Eden," Amy added, "with a man of your genius guiding the project."
"Yes, of course," Easton said absently. "Papashvili, take them up, will you? You and your engineers will be a great help on this, sergeant. A great help!"
"Oh God," the sergeant murmured. "Our help in ages past . . ."
"Ah, young man?" Easton asked in sudden concern. "Would it be possible for me to keep your catalog until you return with the initial order for narcissi? In three days, you said?"
"That's right, Captain," Mark said. "And sure, you're welcome to hold on to the catalog. I hope it'll make your days a little brighter."
"Oh, it will!" Easton said, snatching the reader from Mark's hands. "Now, let's see. At six inches between bulbs, that will be . . ."
Mark and Amy followed Papashvili out into the corridor. The sergeant walked like an unusually gloomy zombie. Behind them, Captain Easton was calculating aloud the number of bulbs he'd need.
Mark felt a twinge of guilt. This was certainly better than shooting people, but Mark really did feel as though he were being mean to a teddy bear.
35. The Better-Laid Plans
Yerby Bannock's left index finger followed the green holographic route Mark's reader projected in the caravansary's common court. He swigged from the bottle in his left hand, careful not to lift
the container high enough to block his view.
"Seems to me, lad," he said, "we're best off to land right here, slap in the middle." His finger tapped air in the courtyard. The longer path from the hatch by Captain Easton's garden was blue.
Amy's camera could project miniature images for editing, but they'd decided to transfer the chip to Mark's reader for the sake of the larger display. The whole force, now swelled to eighty men and women by transients recruited in the port, was trying to watch. It wasn't necessary that everybody be able to see, but if anybody thought he or she was being ignored there'd be hell to pay.
The raiders weren't an army: they were a gathering of extreme individualists. They'd follow Yerby, but there wasn't a soul among them who thought their leader was in any sense better than they were. Everybody had to be treated alike, at least on the face of it.
"Won't work," Dagmar explained. "The truck we got is surface-effect. It skims the ground, but it won't fly over a wall,"
"I'm not so flaming sure it'll skim any ground, neither," said Holgar Emmreich. "We're working on it, though."
"The other problem is that Sergeant Papashvili and her squad of construction engineers have built a shelter for themselves in the courtyard," Mark said. Amy adjusted the reader to show the workmanlike construction of plastic sheet-stock, nestled into one of the fort's six points. "They're likely to be alert."
"Ain't there rooms in the fort?" Yerby asked with a frown.
"None fit for human habitation, she believes," Mark said. "And she's right. According to the rosters there's supposed to be guards inside the fort, but the sergeant and her people aren't as . . ."
"Rotten," Amy said. "Captain Easton's company has been stationed on Dittersdorf too long. They've just mildewed away."
"But all these corridor junctions have emergency doors," Mayor Biber noted. "If one of them is shut, what are you going to do? You don't have any way to blast or burn through them."
A splendid though sodden figure entered the common room from outside. He wore red trousers, a dark blue tunic, and enough medals to anchor a small boat. He was Berkeley Finch, wearing the dress uniform of a Zenith Protective Association colonel.
Finch threw back his shoulders. "Thank goodness I've arrived in time!" he declaimed as if he were addressing a political rally.
"Finch!" said Mayor Biber in the tone of a man who's just found his dog on the dinner table eating the roast. "What in blazes do you think you're doing here?"
"I've just arrived from Hestia," Finch said, striding to the center of the gathering where Yerby stood with Amy and Mark. "The Assembly of Self-Governing Worlds has granted me a colonel's commission in its own armed forces and appointed me to command of the Dittersdorf expedition."
"The devil you say!" Biber blurted. "The devil!"
Finch's boots squelched. He took a recording chip from his pocket case and offered it to Amy. "Here's the commission," he said. "Really, Biber—you didn't imagine that the Assembly would overlook someone of my long experience with military affairs, did you?"
Amy didn't take the chip.
"Ah . . ." Finch said. "There wasn't time to have a new uniform made, so I'm wearing my Zenith kit still. But the Assembly commission is fully valid."
"Finch, I'm not having this!" Biber said. His voice rang from the caravansary's high dome. "You think being a war hero's going to make you president of Zenith when we've got free elections. Well, you're not hijacking this expedition! I've paid all the costs out of my own pocket. I have to stay here to guarantee return of the truck, and you're staying too!"
"Tsk!" Finch replied with a sneer of disdain. The effect would have been greater if rain weren't still dripping from his nose. "Zenith's only been a member of the Assembly of Self-Governing Worlds for ten days, and already traitors are appearing."
He looked at Yerby and added, "You understand the situation, don't you, my good man? At any rate, I'm sure your legal advisor—" A nod toward Mark. "—does."
"I understand that Greenwood hasn't joined your assembly on Hestia," Mark said. By now we probably have, but Finch can't be sure of that. He must have left Hestia before Dad and the Greenwood envoys arrived.
"Dittersdorf has sent envoys, however, Mr. Maxwell," Finch said, his expression hardening. "An operation on Assembly territory must be conducted under Assembly auspices if it's not to be judged piracy punishable by hanging rather than an act of war."
Mark wondered if the colonel was bluffing about Dittersdorf's position. Would the stockbreeders here have emerged from their blanket of rain clouds to send a delegation to Hestia? Finch was a lawyer and clever enough to try a double bluff. Mark wasn't sure the Zenith aristocrat fully understood the terms on which this power struggle might be fought by a frontiersman like Yerby Bannock, though.
"Now, lad," Yerby said with a chuckle. He stepped toward Finch, forcing the colonel to sideways or be literally overshadowed by the frontiersman's greater bulk. "We don't stand on ceremony on Greenwood. What's a little formality like that between friends?"
Finch looked surprised. Mark was surprised. He'd thought Yerby's most likely response would be to toss Finch back through the outside door. The other possibilities ranged from more violent to very violent indeed, including tossing Finch through the outside door with his torso separate from his head and limbs.
"Well, fellows," Yerby continued to the raiders, most of whom looked as dumbfounded as Mark, "you've heard Mr. Finch. He's come here with some words from a bunch of people none of us ever heard of and a pretty uniform. A real pretty uniform if it was dry, I reckon."
"I have battle dress in my luggage!" Finch said sharply. "I have six complete sets of battle dress in my luggage."
"And I reckon they're pretty too, Colonel," Yerby said as if he were praising a child's drawing. "Besides which, Mr. Finch is a military genius. A lot of you remember how he showed us that a few months ago on Greenwood."
Laughter chorused through the common room. Woodsrunners bent to explain the joke to recruits from other planets. The story didn't lose anything in the telling, and the merriment continued for some time.
"So I guess it's clear to all of you," Yerby resumed with a grin as broad as a jack-o'-lantern's. "You've got to follow Mr. Finch here." He patted Finch on the head as a final insult.
"Like hell," Dagmar Wately said. "We didn't come here with some pretty boy from Zenith."
"Yeah," Zeb Randifer agreed. "Look, if the choice is go home or go on with that dipstick leading us, I'm going home. And the ship's right outside, too!"
The chorus of agreement was loudest from the non-Greenwood recruits. They were determined to show they were part of the same team as the original Woodsrunners.
Berkeley Finch went white, then red. It was hard to tell whether his primary emotion was anger or embarrassment.
Yerby smiled gently at him and said, "Well, Colonel, it seems like it's this way. You can join the expedition I'm leading. Or you can go dig up an expedition of your own, which I wish you the best of luck for doing. Now, what'll it be?"
Finch swallowed. Amy's camera was on him, its lenses the triple eyes of fate. Finch had only one option unless he wanted to go on record as being the man who'd scuttled the independence movement because it conflicted with his personal ambition.
"Colonel Bannock," he said formally, "I would be honored if you'd let me join your expedition."
"Glad to have you, Finch," Yerby said. "And glad to have your pretty uniforms, too. Now, getting back to just what we're going to do tomorrow night . . ."
As the meeting broke up for dinner and serious drinking, Berkeley Finch bent close to Amy's ear and said, "Ms. Bannock? Might I have a word with you in private?"
"No," said Mark, "you can't. I've had experience of what it means to be caught alone by you, Finch."
Mark was jealous. He knew that, but he could legitimately claim there was a chance that Finch hoped to use Amy as a hostage to control her brother.
Finch grimaced. "Nothing like that," he muttered.
Amy nodded coolly. "I think this is as private as we need to be, Vice-Protector," she said, using the Alliance title to keep Finch ill at ease. "Nobody's listening to the three of us."
That was true. The court echoed with people calling to one another. Most of the raiders were donning rain gear to splash outside in search of food and drink more interesting than the rations they'd brought from Greenwood.
"Of course," said Finch. "I've noticed that you're very scrupulously recording events as they occur?"
Amy nodded. "Yes I am," she said. "And I have no intention of wiping any image at the request of someone who doesn't care for the way it makes him look."
"Not that," Finch said. "Not at all. But what I would like, and what I'd be willing to pay very well for, would be copies of recordings of my actions during the raid to come. Particularly images that might show me involved in—"
He looked around to see where his rival, Mayor Biber, was. Biber was talking to Yerby and the husky local who owned the truck that three of the expedition's better mechanics were trying to put in running order.
"—the sort of heroic actions that would interest voters in a political campaign on Zenith," Finch went on in a still lower voice. "In return, besides paying you, I would be very supportive of your planet's independence from Zenith. One hand washes the other, as the saying goes."
He winked.
"I'll see what can be arranged, Vice-Protector," Amy said. "No promises, but—we'll see."
It wasn't an offer a Greenwood patriot could afford to reject, Mark knew; but he hadn't trusted Finch before and now he really didn't trust the man. Listening to the Vice-Protector planning to turn a dangerous, maybe bloody, raid into political capital made Mark want to wash all over, not just his hands . . .