“There’s another way,” Mark said. “A way out of all this.”
Tappinger looked up quickly. “Don’t even think it! Mark, you believe the Free State to be some kind of dream world. That is what it is—a dream. In reality, there is nothing more than a gang of lawless men, living like animals off what they can steal. You cannot live without laws.”
I can damned well live without the kind of laws they have here, Mark thought. And of course they steal. Why shouldn’t they? How else can they live?
“And it is unlikely to last in any event. The governor has brought in a regiment of mercenaries to deal with the Free State.”
About what I’d expect, Mark thought. “Why not CD Marines?”
Tappinger shrugged. “Budget. There are not enough CD forces to keep the peace. The Grand Senate will not pay for policing Tanith. So the planters are squeezed again, to pay for their protection.”
And that’s fine with me, Mark thought. “Mercenaries can’t be much use. They’d rather lay around in barracks and collect their pay.” His teachers had told him that.
“Have you ever known any?”
“No, of course not. Look, Taps, I’m tired. I think I better get to bed.” He turned and left the old man. To hell with him, Mark thought. Old man, old woman, that’s what he is. Not enough guts to get away from here and strike out on his own.
Well, that’s fine for him. But I’ve got bigger things in mind.
The harvest began. The borshite pods formed and were cut, and the sticky sap collected. The sap was boiled, skimmed, boiled again until it was reduced to a tiny fraction of the bulky plants they had worked all summer to guard.
And Ewigfeuer collapsed on the steps of the big house. Morgan flew him to the Whiskeytown hospital. He came back with a young man: Ewigfeuer’s son, on leave from his administrative post in the city.
“That old bastard wants to see you outside,” Lewis said.
Mark sighed. He was tired from a long day in the fields. He was also tired of Tappinger’s eternal lectures on the horrors of the Free State. Still, the man was his only friend. Mark took his bottle and went outside.
Tappinger seized the bottle eagerly. He downed several swallows. His hands shook. “Come with me,” he whispered.
Mark followed in confusion. Taps led the way to the shadows near the big house. Juanita was there.
“Mark, honey, I’m scared.”
Tappinger took another drink. “The Ewigfeuer boy is trying to raise money,” he said. “He storms through the house complaining of all the useless people his father keeps on, and shouts that his father is ruining himself. The hospital bills are very high, it seems. And this place is heavily in debt. He has been selling contracts. One that he sold was hers. For nearly two thousand credits.”
“Sale?” Mark said stupidly. “But she has less than two years to go!”
“Yes,” Taps said. “There is only one way a planter could expect to make that much back from the purchase of a young and pretty girl.”
“God damn them,” Mark said. “All right. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No,” Tappinger said. “I’ve told you why. No, I have a better way. I can forge the old man’s signature to a permission form. You can marry Juanita. The forgery will be discovered, but by then–”
“No,” Mark said. “Do you think I’ll stay to be part of this system? A free society will need good people.”
“Mark, please,” Tappinger said. “Believe me, it is not what you think it is! How can you live in a place with no rules, you with your ideas of what is fair and what is–”
“Crap. From now on I take care of myself. And my woman and my child. We’re wasting time.” He moved toward the stables. Juanita followed.
“Mark, you do not understand,” Tappinger protested.
“Shut up. I have to find the guard.”
“He’s right behind you.” Morgan’s voice was low and quiet. “Don’t do anything funny, Mark.”
“Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been watching you for ten minutes. Did you think you could get up to the big house without being seen? You damned fool. I ought to let you go into the green and get killed. But you can’t go alone—no, you have to take Juanny with you. I thought you had more sense. We haven’t used the whipping post here for a year, but a couple of dozen might wake you up to—” Morgan started to turn as something moved behind him. Then he crumpled. Juanita hit him again with a billet of wood. Morgan fell to the ground.
“I hope he’ll be all right,” Juanita said. “When he wakes up, Taps, please tell him why we had to run off.”
“Yeah, take care of him,” Mark said. He was busily stripping the weapons belt from Morgan. Mark noted the compass and grinned.
“You’re a fool,” Tappinger said. “Men like Curt Morgan take care of themselves. It’s people like you that need help.”
Tappinger was still talking, but Mark paid no attention. He broke the lock on the stable and then opened the storage room inside. He found canteens in the harness room. There was also a plastic can of kerosene. Mark and Juanita saddled two horses. They led them out to the edge of the compound. Tappinger stood by the broken stable door.
They looked back for a second, then waved and rode into the jungle. Before they were gone, Tappinger had finished the last of Mark’s gin.
They fled southward in terror. Every sound seemed to be Morgan and a chase party following with dogs. Then there were the nameless sounds of the jungle. The horses were as frightened as they were.
In the morning they found a small clump of brown grass, a miniscule clearing of high ground. They did not dare make a fire, and they had only some biscuit and grain to eat. A Weem’s Beast charged out of the small clump of trees near the top of the clearing, and Mark shot it, wasting ammunition by firing again and again until he was certain that it was dead. Then they were too afraid to stay and had to move on.
They kept southward. Mark had overheard convicts talking about the Free State. On an arm of the sea, south, in the jungle. It was all he had to direct him. A crocodile menaced them, but they rode past, Mark holding the pistol tightly, while the beast stared at them. It wasn’t a real crocodile, of course; but it looked much like the Earthly variety. Parallel evolution, Mark thought. What shape would be better adapted to life in this jungle?
On the third day they came to a narrow inlet and followed it to the left, deeper into the jungle, the sea on their right and green hell to the left. It twisted its way along some forgotten river dried by geological shifts a long time before. Tiny streams had bored through the cliff faces on both sides and plunged a hundred meters across etched rock faces into the green froth at the bottom. Overhead the orange skies were misty with low cloud patches darting under the haze.
At dark they halted and Mark risked a fire. He shot a crownears and they roasted it. “The worst is over,” Mark said. “We’re free now. Free.”
She crept into his arms. Her face was worried but contented, and it had lines that made her seem older than Mark. “You never asked me,” she said.
He smiled. “Will you marry me?”
“Sure.”
They laughed together. The jungle seemed very close and the horses were nickering in nervous fear. Mark built up the fire. “Free,” he said. He held her tightly, and they were very happy.
VI
Mark awoke with a knife at his throat. A big, ugly man, burned dark and with scars crisscrossing his bare chest, squatted in front of them. He eyed Mark and Juanita. then grinned. “What have we got ourselves?” he said. “Couple of runaways?”
“I got everything, Art,” someone said from behind them.
“Yeah. Okay, mates, up and at ‘em. Move out, I ain’t got all day.”
Mark helped Juanita to her feet. One arm was asleep from holding her. As Mark stood, the ugly man expertly took the gun from Mark’s belt. “Who are you?” Mark asked.
“Call me Art. Sergeant to the Boss. Come on, let’s go.”
There were five others, all mounted. Art led the way through the jungle. When Mark tried to say something to Juanita, Art turned. “I’m going to tell you once. Shut up. Say another word to anybody but me, and I kill you. Say anything to me that I don’t want to hear, and I’ll cut you. Got that?”
“Yes, sir,” Mark said.
Art laughed. “Now you’ve got the idea.”
They rode on in silence.
The Free State was mostly caves in hillsides above the sea. It held over five hundred men and women. There were other encampments of escapees out in the jungles, Art said. “But we’ve got the biggest. Been pretty careful—when we raid the planters, we can usually make it look like one of the other outfits did it. Governor don’t have much army anyway. They won’t follow us here.”
Mark started to say something about the mercenaries that the governor was hiring. Then he thought better of it.
The Boss was a heavy man with long, colorless hair growing to below his shoulders. He had a handlebar mustache and staring blue eyes. He sat in the mouth of a cave on a big carved chair as if it were a throne, and he held a rifle across his knees. A big black man stood behind the chair, watching everyone, saying nothing.
“Escapees, eh?”
“Yes,” Mark said.
“Yes, Boss. Don’t forget that.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“What can you do? Can you fight?”
When Mark didn’t answer, the Boss pointed to a smaller man in the crowd that had gathered around. “Take him, Choam.”
The small man moved toward Mark. His foot lashed upward and hit Mark in the ribs. Then he moved closer. Mark tried to hit him, but the man dodged away and slapped Mark across the face. “Enough,” the Boss said. “You can’t fight. What can you do?”
“I–”
“Yeah.” He looked backward over his shoulder to the black man. “You want him, George?”
“No.”
“Right. Art, you found him. He’s yours. I’ll take the girl.”
“But you can’t!” Mark shouted.
“No!” Juanita said.
The other men looked at the Boss. They saw he was laughing. Then they all laughed. Art and two others took Mark’s arms and began to drag him away. Two more led Juanita into the cave behind the Boss.
“But this isn’t right!” Mark shouted.
There was more laughter. The Boss stood. “Maybe I’ll give her back when I’m through. Unless Art wants her. Art?”
“I got a woman.”
“Yeah.” The Boss turned toward the cave. Then he turned back to Mark and the men holding him. “Leave the kid here, Art. I’d like to talk to him. Get the girl cleaned up,” he shouted behind him. “And the rest of you get out of here.”
The others left, all but the black man who had stood behind the Boss’s throne. The black man went a few meters away and sat under a rock ledge. It looked cool in there. He took out a pipe and began stuffing it.
“Come here, kid. What’s your name?”
“Fuller,” Mark said. “Mark Fuller.”
“Come over here. Sit down.” The Boss indicated a flat rock bench just inside the cave mouth. The cave seemed to go a long way in; then it turned. There was no one in sight. Mark thought he could hear women talking. “Sit, I said. Tell me how you got here.” The Boss’s tone was conversational, almost friendly.
“I was in a student riot.” Mark strained to hear, but there were no more sounds from inside the cave.
“Student, eh. Relax, Fuller. Nobody’s hurting your girlfriend. Your concern is touching. Don’t see much of that out here. Tell me about your riot. Where was it?”
The Boss was a good listener. When Mark fell silent, the man would ask questions—probing questions, as if he were interested in Mark’s story. Sometimes he smiled.
Outside were work parties: wood details; a group incomprehensibly digging a ditch in the flinty ground out in front of the caves; women carrying water. None of them were interested in the Boss’s conversation. Instead, they seemed almost afraid to look into the cave—all but the black man, who sat in his cool niche and never seemed to look away.
Bit by bit Mark told of his arrest and sentence, and of Ewigfeuer’s plantation. The Boss nodded. “So you came looking for the Free States. And what did you expect to find?”
“Free men! Freedom, not–
“Not despotism.” There was something like kindness in the words. The Boss chuckled. “You know, Fuller, it’s remarkable how much your story is like mine. Except that I’ve always known how to fight. And how to make friends. Good friends.” He tilted his head toward the black man. “George, there, for instance. Between us there’s nothing we can’t handle. You poor fool, what the hell did you think you’d do out here? What good are you? You can’t fight, you whine about what’s right and fair, you don’t know how to take care of yourself, and you come off into the bush to find us. You knew who we were.”
“But–”
“And now you’re all broken up about your woman. I’m not going to take anything she hasn’t got plenty of. It doesn’t get used up.” He stood and shouted to one of the men in the yard. “Send Art over.”
“So you’re going to rape Juanita.” Mark looked around for a weapon, for anything. There was a rifle near the Boss’s chair. His eyes flickered toward it.
The Boss laughed. “Try it. But you won’t. Aw, hell, Fuller, you’ll be all right. Maybe you’ll even learn something. Now I’ve got a date.”
“But–” If there was something I could say, Mark thought. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why not? Because I’ll lose your valuable loyalty? Get something straight, Fuller. This is it. There’s no place left to go. Live here and learn our ways, or go jump over the cliff there. Or take off into the green and see how far you get. You think you’re pretty sharp. Maybe you are. We’ll see. Maybe you’ll learn to be some use to us. Maybe. Art, take the kid into your squad and see if he can fit in.”
“Right, Boss. Come on.” Art took Mark’s arm. “Look, if you’re going to try something, do it and get it over with. I don’t want to have to watch you all the time.”
Mark turned and followed the other man. Helpless. Damn fool, and helpless. He laughed.
“Yeah?” Art said. “What’s funny?”
“The Free State. Freedom. Free men–”
“We’re free,” Art said. “More’n the losers in Whiskeytown. Maybe one day you will be. When we think we can trust you.” He pointed to the cliff edge. The sea inlet was beyond it. “Anybody we can’t trust goes over that. The fall don’t always kill ‘em, but I never saw anybody make it to shore.”
Art found him a place in his cave. There were six other men and four women there. The others looked at Mark for a moment, then went back to whatever they had been doing. Mark sat staring at the cave floor and thought he heard, off toward the Boss’s cave, a man laughing and a girl crying. For the first time since he was twelve, Mark tried to pray.
Pray for what? he asked himself. He didn’t know. I hate them. All of them.
Just when, Mark Fuller, are you going to get some control over your life? But that doesn’t just happen. I have to do it for myself. Somehow.
A week went past. It was a meaningless existence. He cooked for the squad, gathered wood and washed dishes, and listened to the sounds of the other men and their women at night. They never left him alone.
Then crying from the Boss’s cave stopped, but he didn’t see Juanita. When he gathered wood, there were sometimes women from the Boss’s area, and he overheard them talking about what a relief it was that Chambliss—that seemed to be the Boss’s name—had a new playmate. They did not seem at all jealous of the new arrival.
Play along with them, Mark thought. Play along until—until what? What can I do? Escape? Get back to the plantation? How? And what happens then? But I won’t join them, I won’t become part of this! I won’t!
After a week they took Mark on hunting parties. He was unarmed—his job was
to carry the game. They had to walk several kilometers away from the caves. Chambliss didn’t permit hunting near the encampment.
Mark was paired with Art. The older man was neither friendly nor unfriendly; he treated Mark as a useful tool, someone to carry and do work.
“Is this all there is?” Mark asked. “Hunting, sitting around the camp, eating and–”
“–and a little screwing,” Art said. “What the hell do you want us to do? Set up farms so the governor’ll know where we are? We’re doin’ all right. Nobody tells us what to do.”
“Except the Boss.”
“Yeah. Except the Boss. But nobody hassles us. We can live for ourselves. Cheer up, kid, you’ll feel better when you get your woman back. He’ll get tired of her one of these days. Or maybe we’ll get some more when we go raiding. Only thing is, you’ll have to fight for a woman. You better do it better’n you did the other day.”
“Doesn’t she–don’t the women have anything to say about who they pair up with?” Mark asked.
“Why should they?”
On the tenth day there was an alarm. Someone thought he heard a helicopter. The Boss ordered night guards.
Mark was paired with a man named Cal. They sat among rocks at the edge of the clearing. Cal had a rifle and a knife, but Mark was unarmed. The jungle was black dark, without even stars above.
Finally the smaller man took tobacco and paper from his pocket. “Smoke?”
“Thanks. I’d like one.”
“Sure.” He rolled two cigarettes. “Maybe you’ll do, huh? Had my doubts about you when you first come. You know, it’s a wonder the Boss didn’t have you tossed over the side, the way you yelled at him like that. No woman’s worth that, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“She mean much to you?” Cal asked.
“Some.” Mark swallowed hard. His mouth tasted bitter. “’Course, they get the idea they own you, there’s not much you can do.”
Cal laughed. “Yeah. Had an old lady like that in Baltimore. Stabbed me one night for messing around with her sister. Where you from, kid?”
There Will Be War Volume III Page 37