by John Ringo
Yalena, eyes wide with interest, nodded.
“That’s my girl! Come on, let’s take you around to meet everybody.”
Kafari spent the next twenty minutes greeting various staff members, some of the exuberant children, and the daycare center’s director, a pleasant, motherly woman whose office was mostly glass, giving her a view of the main playroom.
“Hello, Mrs. Khrustinova, I’m Lana Hayes, the director of Nineveh Base Daycare Center. I’m a military mom,” she added with a warm smile, “with two boys off-world. My husband,” she faltered slightly, “my husband was killed in the war.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Hayes.”
“He died in combat, protecting the western side of Madison.” She brushed moisture from her eyes. “My sons were already in the military. When the call came, they volunteered to transfer to a Concordiat unit. They wanted to avenge their father, I think. It’s an unhappy reason to go to war, but they loved their father and losing him was such a blow to them. To all of us. My daughter is still here. That’s her, with the two- and three-year-olds.” She pointed to a young girl of about sixteen, who was playing with a group of toddlers.
“This,” she gestured toward the children beyond the glass, “is our way of staying busy, giving other folks a little peace of mind that their kids are in good hands. We average one staff member per six children, in Yalena’s age group, so there’s always close supervision of the little ones. The older children are a little more autonomous, but we still maintain a ratio of one staffer to ten children, just for safety’s sake.
“The beauty of this system, particuarly for the folks with lower incomes, is that it’s free of charge. Everyone on Jefferson has access to it. That means every child has an equal chance to a good future. We have plenty of educational programs for the children, as well as play spaces and activity centers.”
She handed Kafari a packet of brochures that enumerated the advantageous programs and equipment available at Nineveh Base Daycare Center. It was a nice facility, there was no denying that. Plenty of child-safe equipment for playing in groups or alone, activities ranging from art projects to simple scientific experiments in a classroom-lab setting. Good access to data terminals for the older kids. Up to three meals a day and healthy snacks on demand. Older children could take dance classes, participate in plays, learn music. It was, in short, a first-rate daycare program.
With a lot of overhead to maintain and a large number of staffers to pay, all provided at taxpayer expense. Kafari found herself wondering who was going to keep paying those salaries, in the coming years. The government couldn’t keep up that level of expenditure for every daycare center on Jefferson, not over the long haul. Not without charging for the services or making massive budget cuts elsewhere. And probably not without imposing new taxes, which POPPA had promised not to raise. Kafari couldn’t imagine anything stupider than believing POPPA could fund even half its agenda without raising taxes. Substantially so.
There was a surplus of stupid people on Jefferson.
Mrs. Hayes seemed to be a nice-enough person, but she also appeared to genuinely believe in the moral rightness of the arrangement, without the slightest concern for the cost. Kafari was betting that Mrs. Hayes did not come of Granger stock. People who made their living from the land realized that nothing in life was free, no matter how often someone insisted that it was.
She handed over a set of forms for Kafari to fill out, then took Yalena to meet some of the other children. The forms Kafari was required to fill out left her with a deep sense of foreboding. There were questions she was legally committed to answering, which violated every right-to-privacy statute on the books. Grimly, she filled them in. Most of the questions about Simon, she left blank or answered in terse phrases.
Place of birth: off-world.
Occupation: Bolo commander.
Annual salary: paid by Dinochrome Brigade.
Political affiliation: neutral, as mandated by treaty.
Religious preference: blank. She wasn’t even sure he had one. He certainly had never voiced it, if he did, and the subject had never come up. Grangers believed in freedom of worship and the right to do so unencumbered by another’s curiosity.
Educational level: blank. She had no idea what the educational level was for an officer of the Brigade. Did an officer’s training at the war college count as “education” or as “military service"? She knew that Simon was far more widely read than she was and held expertise in a surprising range of fields, but had no idea whether to put in “high school” or “college” or “advanced training” as an answer.
Description of employment: classified. She genuinely didn’t know most of what Simon did, while on Brigade business. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Virtually all of it was secret. Not even Abraham Lendan had known most of what her husband’s job required. He certainly wasn’t sharing information — or anything else — openly with Gifre Zeloc.
When Mrs. Hayes returned, she frowned over some of Kafari’s answers. “Your husband’s information is highly irregular.”
“So is his job,” Kafari said bluntly.
Mrs. Hayes blinked. “Well, yes, that’s true enough. Not a citizen, after all, and being an officer…” Whatever her train of thought, she didn’t finish it aloud. “That’s all right, my dear, we’ll just turn it in the way it is and if anyone raises questions, we’ll fill in the missing information later.”
Like hell, you will, Kafari thought, giving Mrs. Hayes a slightly wintery smile.
“Very well, I believe we’re all taken care of, here. You mentioned needing to leave for a new job?”
“Yes, at Port Abraham.”
“You were fortunate enough to find a job at the spaceport? What is it, you’ll be doing there?”
“I’m a psychotronic engineer.”
Mrs. Hayes’ eyes opened wide. “An engineer?” she asked in tones of flat surprise. “A psychotronic engineer?”
A wild desire to shock this saccharine woman took possession of her. “I did my practicum work on the Bolo.”
Her mouth fell open. “I see,” she said faintly. Mrs. Hayes was staring at her, had to make a heroic effort to marshal her scattered thoughts. “I see. You must understand, most of the mothers whose children come here are military wives. They don’t work, almost as a rule, or if they do, it’s doing fluffy sort of things, hair-dressing, fancy sewing, manicures. The usual.”
Kafari couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. Granted, she hadn’t spent a great deal of time with other military wives, mostly because her work at the spaceport had taken up so much of her time during the past three years. Simon was not really in the thick of the military social life, either. Partly, that was simply because he wasn’t in the same league as other officers, who felt uncomfortable around him. It was difficult to be completely at ease around a man who commanded the kind of firepower Sonny represented, did not fall into the ordinary chain of command, and was answerable solely to the president and the Brigade.
Simon received very few invitations to Nineveh Base social affairs.
She hadn’t realized, during her idyllic girlhood, that Brigade officers, the most heroic and legendary figures ever produced by a human military organization, were also its loneliest. As cliched as it was, they really were a breed of men apart, both figuratively and literally.
Mrs. Hayes, recovered enough composure to ask, “Will you be working on Ziva Two? Or the spaceport?”
“The port. I’m going back to the job I left about a month ago, to devote more time to Yalena. When the new legislation went through, I couldn’t justify sitting in the house all day when psychotronic engineers are needed so urgently. So I’m going back to work, this afternoon.”
“That’s very commendable of you, my dear. Such initiative and patriotism! I’m sure the girls on the staff will be delighted to hear that you’re doing your part to rebuild our lovely world.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hayes. If that’s everything, I’ll just say goodbye to Yalena and hea
d out to the spaceport.”
“Of course. I’ll give you a brief tour, if you have time?”
Kafari nodded. “I’d like to see the facilities,” she answered with unfeigned honesty.
It was, she had to admit, everything the brochures had promised, a first-rate center with everything spotlessly clean and new. The walls were brightly painted with educational murals. There were dress-up clothes, toys appropriate to every conceivable interest, except, Kafari noted with an inward frown, anything remotely military in nature. She found that odd, considering the circumstances. These were the children of soldiers, but there wasn’t a single toy gun, a single dress-up uniform, a single warplane or toy tank anywhere to be seen. She filed the information away for future reference, already wondering at the motivation behind that omission.
Otherwise, it was satisfactory in every way. Even the kitchen was first-rate, serving healthy snacks on demand, at no cost to the children or their parents. For the older kids, datascreens and hookups into the datanet were available for after-school study or educational computer games. “We get a fair number of school-age children,” Mrs. Hayes explained, “who come here for recreation, sports, dance classes, equipment for science projects, that sort of thing. We’re trying to serve the entire community, so parents won’t have the added burden of expensive equipment at home. That can be very hard on a single-income family living on a soldier’s pay.”
Kafari nodded. That was true enough, but she was totting up the cost in her head, again. She didn’t like the answers. Aloud, she said only, “It’s a very nice facility, Mrs. Hayes. I’m sure Yalena will enjoy her time here.”
Mrs. Hayes glowed with motherly pride. “That is quite a compliment, coming from a colonel’s wife, my dear. You really should be invited to more of our social events. I’m sure the officer’s wives would enjoy meeting you.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Hayes.”
“Not at all. Not at all, my dear. Well, let’s look up Yalena, so you can be on your way.”
She found her daughter playing with a colorful puzzle, absorbed in trying to fit the pieces together in a way that made sense. “That’s a very nice puzzle, Yalena. Do you like it here?”
Her little girl smiled. “Yes!”
“I’m glad. Mommy has to go to work, sweetheart. I’ll come back in a few hours. You can play here with the toys and the other children.” She kissed her daughter’s hair and smiled when Yalena scrambled up to give her a hug.
“Bye-bye, sweetheart. I’ll see you in a little while.”
“Bye-bye.”
Her daughter was already absorbed in the puzzle again when Kafari paused in the doorway leading to the parking lot. The director’s daughter was helping her, smiling and praising Yalena’s efforts. Well, she thought on her way to the Airdart, it could’ve been a lot worse. Given the draconian wording of the letters they had received on the subject, she’d expected to find a regimented military school with children drilled into marching lockstep, responding to orders barked by a socially correct matron in uniform, wielding a bullhorn and a bullwhip as badges of office.
It was not a comforting thought to realize things might’ve been better, in the long run, if Jefferson’s children had been herded into such places. People would’ve protested sharply, maybe enough to call a halt to the madness. As it was… Only time would tell. And that was the best Kafari could do, without running for the nearest off-world ship that docked at Ziva Two. As she lifted off, flying toward Madison and the spaceport, she couldn’t help wondering if she were making a serious mistake.
Chapter Fourteen
I
Simon fidgeted in his chair, staring out the window from his computer terminal, trying without much success to find a way out of his dilemma. The familiar sounds of Nineveh Base — the roar of vehicles, the counted cadence and slapping feet of training marches, the distant crack of rifle fire from the practice ranges — were missing. Their absence left a strange hole in the air, filled only by silence. The unaccustomed hush distracted him.
At least Nineveh had survived POPPA’s purge, which had shut down nearly every military base world-wide. Simon had tried to persuade Gifre Zeloc that deactivating ninety percent of Jefferson’s army and air forces and closing practically every military installation on Jefferson was folly. The president’s response had been scathing in the extreme.
“It’s been five and a half years since the Deng invasion. If the Deng were going to hit us again, they’d have done it by now. And don’t try to scare me with talk about a Melconian boogeyman on the other side of the Void. The Melconians don’t give a wood rat’s ass about us. If they did, they’d have been here by now. Frankly, Colonel, nobody cares a spit about us. Not even your precious Brigade. So take your protest, stuff it someplace interesting, and let me do my job. You might try doing yours, for a change, instead of drawing a fat paycheck for sitting on your ass.”
Simon had dealt with rude officials before, but Gifre Zeloc won the prize.
Simon had not been in touch with him, since. The House of Law and Senate, naturally, had agreed with the president, exhibiting a delight that was almost obscene as they passed the legislation that officially destroyed Jefferson’s military. He’d watched in cold, disapproving silence while field artillery guns by the hundreds — including the surviving mobile Hellbores General Hightower had used to defend Madison — were mothballed in armory yards scattered across Jefferson. Vast tonnages of other equipment had been cannibalized, melted down, or diverted to civilian use, leaving nothing but reserve units and Sonny to defend Jefferson if anything did go wrong.
What remained of Jefferson’s high-tech weaponry was guarded by civilian police and from what Simon could tell, based on Sonny’s taps into various security systems in weapons bunkers and ammunition stores, an appalling amount of equipment and ammunition was quietly disappearing. The money from black-market trading was doubtless falling into the pockets of officials in charge of a security force that was literally stealing the planet blind.
And every sorry-assed bit of it was driven by POPPA’s political agenda. The party was absolutely correct when it said Jefferson couldn’t afford to pay thousands of soldiers for sitting in barracks doing nothing. The policies already enacted by Vittori Santorini’s elected minions were bankrupting Jefferson’s government at a dizzying pace. The subsistence program alone couldn’t be sustained, not even if it remained at its present enrollment, which it wouldn’t do. Every new environmental regulation passed into law tightened the choke-hold on Jefferson’s failing industries. Every new round of layoffs swelled the ranks of the unemployed forced to rely on subsistence payments. It was a downward spiral that was already out of control.
Since something had to be cut to pay for it, POPPA had chosen to close the military bases and disperse thousands of soldiers and their families back into the civilian population. It looked, on the surface, like a massive savings, which was exactly what POPPA was claiming. Unfortunately, that claim was a lie. Fewer than ten percent of the soldiers cut adrift had been able to find jobs. So they’d signed up for public subsistence allowances, which were — by Simon’s calculation — costing the taxpayers twenty-eight percent more than it had cost to keep those soldiers on active military duty.
But subsistence payments were essentially invisible, wrapped into the already enormous expenditures for food and housing, while the cost of maintaining the bases and the soldiers was highly visible. Gifre Zeloc could point with pride to the millions saved by closing the bases, without ever needing to admit that the tax drain was now far worse. That kind of sleight-of-hand was POPPA’s stock in trade.
When POPPA’s upper echelons finally realized how much red ink they were bleeding — and how much more they would bleed as time marched inexorably forward — they would be forced to make cuts in the subsidy payments. And with millions of people accustomed to and dependent upon a free ride, there could be only one possible outcome.
Utter disaster.
Which
brought his thoughts inexorably to Nineveh Base and the reason for its reprieve. It was being turned into a police academy. Not just any police, either, but an elite new unit of federal officers. Five thousand of them, to be exact, drawn from the ranks of POPPA’s most loyal supporters. They would constitute a “politically safe” cadre of men and women who could be ordered to do pretty much anything and be relied upon to see that it was done. Vittori Santorini understood exactly how fanatical devotion to a cause could be harnessed and put to work.
Simon had gained access to the dossiers of the officers chosen for training, as well as the profiles of the new instructors. The first red-flag warning that had jumped out at him, setting Simon’s teeth on edge, was the family history section of those dossiers. Not one of the five thousand officers was married. Not one had children from extramarital relationships. They had no close family ties to anyone. No particular reason for loyalty to anyone or anything but POPPA and its ideology. He didn’t like the pattern that was forming. Didn’t like the training program outlined. Didn’t like the implications about POPPA’s future plans. Frankly, in fact, the whole thing scared him pissless.
More disturbing — downright chilling, in fact — was the total lack of news reports on what was happening at Nineveh Base. Whatever POPPA was up to, they were being mighty secretive about it. And he genuinely hated the fact that his wife and daughter would be sharing the base with the kind of people about to become their new neighbors.
He and Kafari had quarreled again, last night. She still refused to leave Jefferson. He could tell she was scared, as scared as he was. Any sane person would have been. The damage being wrought was so insidious, so smoothly presented, so glibly rationalized, so skillfully obscured by flashy political rallies and spectacular public entertainment, it was difficult for the average person to realize just how much manipulation was occurring, much of it artfully subtle. POPPA was conducting the seizure of power with the same skillful distraction tactics employed by really talented pickpockets. The analogy was apt, since most Jeffersonians didn’t even realize they were being robbed.