There Will Be War Volume III

by Jerry Pournelle

  “Curt, what will you do when you finish your sentence?” Mark asked.

  “Finished two years ago. Two Tanith, three Earth.”

  “Then why are you still here?”

  Morgan shrugged. “What else do I know how to do? I’m saving some money; one day I’ll have a place of my own.” He shifted his position and fired his carbine toward the jungle. “I swear them things get more nerve every summer. This is all I know. I can’t save enough to buy into the tax farming syndicate.”

  “Could you squeeze people that way?”

  “If I had to. Them or me. Tax collectors get rich.”

  “Sure. Jesus, there’s just no goddamn hope for anything, is there? The whole deck’s stacked.” Mark finished his beer.

  “Where isn’t it?” Morgan demanded. “You think it’s tough now, you ought to have been here before the new governor came. Place they stuck me—my sweet lord, they worked us! Charged for everything we ate or wore, and you open your mouth, it’s another month on your sentence. Enough to drive a man into the green.”

  “Uh, Curt—are there—?”

  “Don’t get ideas. I’d hate to take the dogs and come find you. Find your corpse, more likely. Yeah, there’s men out in the green. Live like rats. I’d rather be under sentence again than live like the Free Staters.”

  The thought excited Mark. A Free State! It would have to be like the places Shirley and her friends had talked about, with equality, and there’d be no tax farmers in a free society. He thought of the needs of free men. They would live hard and be poor because they were fugitives, but they would be free! He built the Free State in his imagination until it was more real than Ewigfeuer’s plantation.

  The next day the crownears were very active, and Curt Morgan brought another worker to Mark’s field. They rode up together on the big Percheron horses brought as frozen embryos from Earth and repeatedly bred for even wider feet to keep them above the eternal mud. The newcomer was a girl. Mark had seen her before, but never met her.

  “Brought you a treat,” Curt said. “This is Juanita. Juanny, if this clown gives you trouble, I’ll break him in half. Be back in an hour. Got your trumpet?”

  Mark indicated the instrument.

  “Keep it handy. Them things are restless out there. I think there’s a croc around. And pokers. Keep your eyes open.” Curt rode off toward the next field.

  Mark stood in embarrassed silence. The girl was younger than Mark, and sweaty. Her hair hung down in loose blonde strings. Her eyes had dark circles under them and her face was dirty. She was built more like a wiry boy than a girl. She was also the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

  “Hi,” Mark said. He cursed himself. Shyness went with civilization, not a prison!

  “Hi yourself. You’re in Lewis’ bunkie.”

  “Yes. I haven’t seen you before. Except at Mass.” Each month a priest of the Ecumenical Catholic Church came to the plantation. Mark had never attended his services, but he’d watch idly from a distance.

  “Usually work in the big house. Sure hot, isn’t it?”

  He agreed it was hot and was lost again. What should I say? “You’re lovely” is obvious even if I do think it’s true. “Let’s go talk to your bunkie leader” isn’t too good an idea even if it’s what I want to say. Besides, if she lives in the big house, she won’t have one. “How long do you have?”

  “Another two. When I’m eighteen. They still run the sentences on Earth time. I’m eleven, really.” There was more silence. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry–”

  “It’s okay. Most of the men jabber away like porshons. Trying to talk me into something, you know?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. But I never have. I’m a member of the church. Confirmed and everything.” She looked at him and grinned impishly. “So that makes me a dumb hymn singer, and what’s left to talk about?”

  “I remember wishing I was you,” Mark said. He laughed. “Not quite what I meant to say. I mean, I watched you at Masses. You looked happy. Like you had something to live for.”

  “Well, of course. We all have something to live for. Must have, people sure try hard to stay alive. When I get out of here, I’m going to ask the padre to let me help him. Be a nun, maybe.”

  “Don’t you want to marry?”

  “Who? A con? That’s what my mother did, and look. I got ‘apprenticed’ until I was eighteen Earth years old because I was born to convicts. No kids of mine’ll have that happen to ’em!”

  “You could marry a free man.”

  “They’re all pretty old by the time they finish. And not worth much. To themselves or anybody else. You proposin’ to me?”

  He laughed, and she laughed with him, and the afternoon was more pleasant than any he could remember since leaving Earth.

  “I was lucky,” she told him. “Old man Ewigfeuer traded for me. Place I was born on, the planter’d be selling tickets for me now.” She stared at the dirt. “I’ve seen girls they did that with. They don’t like themselves much after a while.”

  They heard the shrill trumpets in other fields. Mark scanned the jungle in front of him. Nothing moved. Juanita continued to talk. She asked him about Earth. “It’s hard to think about that place,” she said. “I hear people live all bunched up.”

  He told her about cities. “There are twenty million people in the city I came from.” He also told her of the concrete Welfare Islands at the edges of the cities.

  She shuddered. “I’d rather live on Tanith than like that. It’s a wonder all the people on Earth don’t burn it down and live in the swamps.”

  Evening came sooner than he expected. After supper he fell into an introspective mood. He hadn’t wanted a day to last for a long time. It’s silly to think this way, he told himself.

  But he was twenty years old, and there wasn’t anyone else to think about. That night he dreamed about her.

  He saw her often as the summer wore on. She had no education, and Mark began teaching her to read. He scratched letters in the ground and used some of his money to buy lurid adventure stories—the only reading matter available in the barracks.

  Juanita learned quickly. She seemed to enjoy Mark’s company and often arranged to be assigned to the same field that he was. They talked about everything: Earth, and how it wasn’t covered with swamps. He told her of blue skies, and sailing on the Pacific, and the island coves he’d explored. She thought he was making most of it up.

  Their only quarrels came when he complained of how unfair life was. She laughed at him. “I was born with a sentence,” she told him. “You lived in a fine house and had your own ’copter and a boat, and you went to school. If I’m not whinin’, why should you, Mr. Taxpayer?”

  He wanted to tell her she was unfair too, but stopped himself. Instead he told her of smog and polluted waters, and sprawling cities. “They’ve got the pollution licked, though,” he said. “And the population’s going down. What with the licensing, and BuReloc–”

  She said nothing, and Mark couldn’t finish the sentence. Juanita stared at the empty jungles. “Wish I could see a blue sky some day. I can’t even imagine that, so you must be tellin’ the truth.”

  He did not often see her in the evenings. She kept to herself or worked in the big house. Sometimes, though, she would walk with Curt Morgan or sit with him on the porch of the big house, and when she did, Mark would buy a bottle of gin and find Tappinger. It was no good being alone then.

  The old man would deliver long lectures in a dry monotone that nearly put Mark to sleep, but then he’d ask questions that upset any view of the universe that Mark had ever had.

  “You might make a passable sociologist some day,” Tappinger said. “Ah, well, they say the best university is a log with a student at one end and a professor at the other. We have that, anyway.”

  “All I seem to learn is that things are rotten. Everything’s set up wrong,” Mark said.

  Tappinger
shook his head. “There has never been a society in which someone did not think there had to be a better deal—for himself. The trick is to see that those who want a better way enough to do something about it can either rise within the system or are rendered harmless by it. Which, of course, Earth does—warriors join the Navy. Malcontents are shipped to the colonies. The cycle is closed. Drugs for the citizens, privileges for the taxpayers, peace for all provided by the Fleet—and slavery for malcontents. Or death. The colonies use up men.”

  “I guess it’s stable, then.”

  “Hardly. If Earth does not destroy herself—and from the rumors I hear, the nations are at each other’s throats despite what the Navy can do—why, they have built a pressure cooker out here that will one day destroy the old home world. Look at what we have here. Fortune hunters, adventurers, criminals, rebels—and all selected for survival abilities. The lid cannot stay on.”

  They saw Juanita and Curt Morgan walking around the big house, and Mark winced. Juanita had grown during the summer. Now, with her hair combed and in clean clothes, she was so lovely that it hurt to look at her. Taps smiled. “I see my star pupil has found another interest. Cheer up, lad, when you finish here, you will find employment. You can have your pick of convict girls. Rent them, or buy one outright.”

  “I hate slavery!”

  Taps shrugged. “As you should. Although you might be surprised what men who say that will do when given the chance. But calm yourself, I meant buy a wife, not a whore.”

  “But damn it, you don’t buy wives! Women aren’t things!”

  Tappinger smiled softly. “I tend to forget just what a blow it is to you young people. You expect everything to be as it was on Earth. Yet you are here because you were not satisfied with your world.”

  “It was rotten.”

  “Possibly. But you had to search for the rot. Here you cannot avoid it.”

  On such nights it took Mark a long time to get to sleep.

  V

  The harvest season was approaching. The borshite plants stood in full flower, dull-red splashes against brown hills and green jungles, and the fields buzzed with insects. Nature had solved the problem of propagation without inbreeding on Tanith and fifty other worlds in the same way as on Earth.

  The buzzing insects attracted insectivores, and predators chased those; close to harvest time there was little work, but the fields had to be watched constantly. Once again house and processing-shed workers joined the field hands, and Mark had many days with Juanita.

  She was slowly driving him insane. He knew she couldn’t be as naive as she pretended to be. She had to know how he felt and what he wanted to do, but she gave him no opportunities.

  Sometimes he was sure that she was teasing him. “Why don’t you ever come see me in the evenings?” she asked one day.

  “You know why. Curt is always there.”

  “Well, sure, but he don’t—doesn’t own my contract. ’Course, if you’re scared of him–”

  “You’re bloody right I’m scared of him. He could fold me up for glue. Not to mention what happens when the foreman’s mad at a con. Besides, I thought you liked him.”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “He told me he was going to marry you one day.”

  “He tells everybody that. He never told me, though.”

  Mark noted grimly that she’d stopped talking about becoming a nun.

  “Of course, Curt’s the only man who even says he’s going to—Mark, look out!”

  Mark saw a blur at the edge of his vision and whirled with his spear. Something was charging toward him. “Get behind me and run!” he shouted. “Keep me in line with it and get out of here.”

  She moved behind him and he heard her trumpet blare, but she wasn’t running. Mark had no more time to think about her. The animal was nearly a meter and a half long, built square on thick legs and splayed feet. The snout resembled an earth warthog, with four upthrusting tusks, and it had a thin tail that lashed as it ran.

  “Porker,” Juanita said softly. She was just behind him. “Sometimes they’ll charge a man. Like this. Don’t get it excited, maybe it’ll go away.”

  Mark was perfectly willing to let the thing alone. It looked as if it would weigh as much as he did. Its broad feet and small claws gave it better footing than hobnails would give a man. It circled them warily, about three meters away. Mark turned carefully to keep facing it. He held the spear pointed at its throat. “I told you to get out of here,” Mark said.

  “Sure. There’s usually two of those things.” She spoke very softly. “I’m scared to blow this trumpet again. Wish Curt would get here with his gun.” As she spoke, there were gunshots. They sounded very far away.

  “Mark,” Juanita whispered urgently. “There is another one. I’m gettin’ back to back with you.”

  “All right.” He didn’t dare look away from the beast in front of him. What did it want? It moved slowly toward him, halting just beyond the thrusting range of the spear. Then it dashed forward, screaming a sound that could never have come from an Earthly pig.

  Mark jabbed at it with his spear. It flinched from the point and ran past. Mark turned to follow it and saw the other beast advancing on Juanita. She had slipped in the mud and was down, trying frantically to get to her feet, and the porker was running toward her.

  Mark gave an animal scream of pure fury. He slid in the mud but kept his feet and charged forward, screaming again as he stabbed with the spear and felt it slip into the thick hide. The porker shoved against him, and Mark fell into the mud. He desperately held the spear, but the beast walked steadily forward. The point went through the hide on the back and came out again, the shaft sliding between skin and meat, and the impaled animal advanced inexorably up the shaft. The tusks neared his manhood. Mark heard himself whimper in fear. “I can’t hold him!” he shouted. “Run!”

  She didn’t run. She got to her feet and shoved her spear down the snarling throat, then thrust downward, forcing the head toward the mud. Mark scrambled to his feet. He looked wildly around for the other animal. It was nowhere in sight, but the pinned porker snarled horribly.

  “Mark, honey, take that spear of yours out of him while I hold him,” Juanita shouted. “I can’t hold long—quick, now.”

  Mark shook himself out of the trembling fear that paralyzed him. The tusks moved wickedly and he felt them even though they were nowhere near him, felt them tearing at his groin.

  “Please, honey,” Juanita said.

  He tugged at the spear, but it wouldn’t come free, so he thrust it forward, then ran behind the animal to pull the spear through the loose skin on the porker’s back. The shaft came through bloody. His hands slipped but he held the spear and thrust it into the animal, thrust again and again, stabbing in insane fury and shouting, “Die, die, die!”

  Morgan didn’t come for another half an hour. When he galloped up, they were standing with their arms around each other.

  Juanita moved slowly away from Mark when Morgan dismounted, but she looked possessively at him.

  “That way now?” Morgan asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “There was a herd of those things in the next field over,” Curt said. His voice was apologetic. “Killed three men and a woman. I came as quick as I could.”

  “Mark killed this one.”

  “She did. It would have had me–”

  “Hold on,” Curt said.

  “It walked right up the spear,” Mark said.

  “I’ve seen ‘em do that, all right.” Morgan seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “You two will have to stay on here for a while. We’ve lost four hands, and–”

  “We’ll be all right,” Juanita said.

  “Yeah.” Morgan went back to his mount. “Yeah, I guess you will.” He rode off quickly.

  Tradition gave Mark and Juanita the carcass, and they feasted their friends that night. Afterwards Mark and Juanita walked away from the barracks area, and they were gone for a long time.r />
  “Taps, what the hell am I going to do?” Mark demanded. They were outside, in the unexpected cool of a late summer evening. Mark had thought he would never be cool again; now it was almost harvest time. The fall and winter would be short, but Tanith was almost comfortable during those months.

  “What is the problem?”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Hardly surprising. Nor the end of the world. There are many ways to–”

  “No. She won’t even talk about it. Says it’s murder. It’s that damned padre. Goddamn church, no wonder they bring that joker around. Makes the slaves contented.”

  “That is hardly the only activity of the church, but it does have that effect. Well, what is it to you? As you have often pointed out, you have no responsibilities. And certainly you have no legal obligations in this case.”

  “That’s my kid! And she’s my—I mean, damn it, I can’t just–”

  Tappinger smiled grimly. “I remind you that conscience and a sense of ethics are expensive luxuries. But if you are determined to burden yourself with them, let us review your alternatives.

  “You can ask Ewigfeuer for permission to marry her. It is likely to be granted. The new governor has ended the mandatory so-called apprenticeship for children born to convicts. Your sentence is not all that long. When it ends, you will be free–”

  “To do what? I saw the time-expired men in Whiskeytown.”

  “There are jobs. There is a whole planetary economy to be built.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Sweat my balls off for some storekeeper. Or work like Curt Morgan, sweating cons.”

  Tappinger shrugged. “There are alternatives. Civil service. Or learn the business yourself and become a planter. There is always financing available for those who can produce.”

  “I’d still be a slaver. I want out of the system. Out of the whole damned thing!”

  Tappinger sighed and lifted the bottle to drink. He paused to say, “There are many things we all want. So what?” Then he drained the pint.