Childe Cycle - The Spirit of Dorsai Part 4

I'd be very surprised if it wasn't news of our being in orbit that brought you back here in that aircraft just now. You wouldn't have messaged ahead, telling your children and able- bodied adults to scatter and hide?"

"No," said Amanda. "I didn't; and no one here gave any such direction."

"Then maybe you'll explain why they're all gone?"

"Do you want a few hundred reasons?" Amanda said. "It's the end of summer. The men are gone. This town is just a supply and government center. Who's young and wants to hang around here all day? The younger women living in town are up visiting at the various homesteads where they've got friends and there's some social life. The babies and younger children went with their mothers. The older children are off on team exercises."

"Team exercises?"

"Military team exercises," said Amanda, bluntly and with grim humor, watching him.

"Otherwise known as 'creeping and crawling'. This is a world where the main occupation, once you're grown, is being a mercenary soldier. So this is our version of field trips. It's good exercise, the youngsters get some academic credit for it when they go back to school in a few weeks, and it's a chance for them to get away from adult supervision and move around on their own, camping out."

Dow frowned.

"No adult supervision?"

"Not a lot," said Amanda. "There's one adult-called an "Ancient", with each team, in case of emergencies; but in most cases the team makes its own decision about what kind of games it'll play with other teams in the same area, where it'll set up camp, and so forth."

"These children," Dow was still frowning, "are they armed?"

"With real weapons? They never have been."

"Are they likely to get any wild notions about doing something to our occupying forces- ".

"Commander," said Amanda, "Dorsai children don't get wild notions about military operations. Not if they expect to stay Dorsai as adults."

"I see," said Dow. He smiled slowly at her. "All the same, I think we better get them and the able-bodied adults back into town here, where we can explain to them what the situation is and what they should or shouldn't do. Also, there's a few of your other people who're conspicuous by their absence. For example, where are your medical people?"

"We've got one physician and three meds, here in Foralie District," said Amanda. "They all ride circuit most of the time. You'll find them scattered out at various homesteads, right now."

"I see," said Dow again. "Well, I think you better call them in as well, along with any other adult from the homesteads who's physically able to come."

"No," said Amanda.

He looked at her. His eyebrows raised.

"Courage, Amanda Morgan," he said, "is one thing. Stupidity, something else."

"And nonsense is nonsense wherever you find it," said Amanda. "I told you, you couldn't bully me -or anyone else you'll find in this town. And you'll need one of us who's here to deal with the people of the district for you. I can bring the youngsters back in if necessary, and with them such adults from the homesteads who don't need to stay where they are. If the medical people are free to come in, I can get them, too. But in return, I'll want some things from you."

"I don't think you're in a position to bargain."

"Of course I am," said Amanda. "Let's not play games. It's much easier for you if you can get civilian cooperation-it's much faster. Difficulty with the populace means expense, when you're carrying the cost of enough troops to nail down a planet-even as spa.r.s.ely settled a planet as this one. And you yourself said once you get Cletus you'll be taking off without another thought for the rest of us."

"That's not exactly what I said," Dow replied.

Amanda snorted.

"All right," he said, "what was it you had in mind?"

"First, get your troops out of our town unless you were thinking of billeting them in our homes, here?"

"I think you saw camp being set up just beyond the houses a street or two over."

"All right," Amanda said. "Then I want them to stay out of town unless they've got actual business here. When they do come in, they're to come in as visitors, remembering their manners. I don't want any of your officers, like that brigadier just now, trying to throw their weight around. Our people are to be free of any authority from yours, so we can get back to business as usual-and that includes putting the manufactory back into operation, immediately. I noticed you'd had the power shut off. Don't you realize we've got contracts to fill-contracts for manufactured items, so that we can trade with the rest of Dorsai for the fish, the grain and other things we have to have to live?"

"All right," said Dow. "I suppose we can agree to those things."

"I'm not finished," Amanda said, swiftly. "Also, you and all the rest of your forces are to stay put, in your encampment. I don't want you upsetting and alarming the district while I go find the teams and get people back here from the homesteads. It'll take me a week, anyway-"

"No," said Dow. "We'll be putting out patrols immediately; and I myself'll be leaving with an escort for Foralie homestead in a few hours."

"In that case-" Amanda was beginning, but this time it was Dow who cut her short.

"In that case-" his voice was level, "you'll force me to take the more difficult and time- consuming way with your people. I didn't bargain with you on any of the other things you asked for. I'm not bargaining now. Go ahead and take back your town, start up your manufactory, and round up only those you feel can come in safely. But our patrols go out as soon as we're ready to send them; and I leave, today, just as I said. Now, do we have an agreement?"

Amanda nodded, slowly.

"We have," she said. "All right, you'd better get those officers of yours back in here. I'm going to have to move to cover the district personally, even in a week. I'll go right now, but I want to hear that manufactory operating before I'm out of earshot of town. I suppose you've got Jhanis Bins closed up in his house, like everyone else."

"Whoever he is," said Dow. "He'd be under house quarantine, yes."

"All right, I'll call him," said Amanda. "But I want your General Amorine to send an officer to get him and take him safely to the manufactory, just in case some of your enlisted men may not have heard word of this agreement by that time."

"Fair enough," said Dow. He stepped to the desk and keyed the com system there.

"General, will you and your staff step back into the office, here?"

"Yes, Mr. deCastries." The voice from the wall came promptly.

Twenty minutes later, Amanda reached the air-pad in the same staff car that had brought her in from it. Under the eye of the two enlisted men on duty there, her skimmer stood waiting for her.

"Thanks," she said to the young lieutenant who had brought her in. She climbed out of the staff car, walked across the pad and got into her skimmer.

"Just a minute," called the lieutenant.

She looked back to see him standing up in his staff car. There was a shine to his forehead that told of perspiration.

"You've got a weapon there, ma'm," he said. "Just a minute. Soldier-you!" He pointed to one of the enlisted men guarding the pad. "Get that piece and bring it over to me."

"Lieutenant," said Amanda, "this is still a young planet and we had lawless people roaming around our mountains as recently as just a few years back. We all carry guns here."

"Sorry, ma'm. I have to examine it. Soldier..."

The enlisted man came over to the skimmer, pulled the pellet shotgun from the scabbard beside her and winked at her.

"Got to watch you dangerous outworlders," he said, under his breath. He glanced over the pellet gun, turned it up to squint down its barrel and chuckled, again under his breath.

He carried the weapon to the lieutenant, and said something Amanda could not catch. The lieutenant also tilted the pellet gun up to look briefly into its barrel, then handed it back "Take it to her," he ordered. He lifted his head and called across to Amanda. "Be careful with it, ma'm."

"I will be," said Amanda.

She received the rifle, powered up the skimmer and slid off through the fringe of trees around the pad.

She took her way toward the downriver side of town. As she went, the sudden throb of the engines in the manufactory erupted on her ear. She smiled, but she was suddenly conscious of the prevailing wind in her face. Sweating, she asked herself, at your age?

She turned her scorn inward. Where was all that talk of yours to deCastries about having outlived fear?

She swung through town and around by the river road past the dump. The manufactory stood, noisily operating. There was no Coalition uniform in sight outside the building and the side looking in her direction was blank of windows. She stopped her skimmer long enough to walk back into the brush and retrieve the energy handgun she had hung on the tree. Then she remounted her skimmer and headed upslope, out of town.

Her mind was racing. Dow had intimated he would head out to Foralie homestead yet this afternoon. Which meant Amanda herself would have to go directly there to get there before him. She had hoped to come in there with evening, and perhaps even stay overnight to see how Betta was doing. Now it would have to be a case of getting in and out in an hour at most. And, almost more important, either before or after she reached there, she had to reach the team which was holding the territory through which Dow and his escort would pa.s.s.

Who was Ancient for that team? So many things had happened so far this day that she had to search her memory for a moment before it came up with the name of Ramon Dye.

Good. Ramon was one of the best of the Ancients; and, aside from the fact that he was legless, strong as a bull.

Thinking deeply, she slid the skimmer along under maximum power. She was burning up a month's normal expenditure of energy in a few days, with her present spendthrift use of the vehicle; but there was a time for thriftiness and a time to spend. Of her two choices, it would have to be a decision to contact Ramon's team first, before going to Foralie.

Ramon's team would have to send runners to the other teams, since even visual signals would be too risky, with the Coalition troops at Foralie town probably loaded with the latest in surveillance equipment. The more time she could give the runners, the better.

It was a stroke of bad luck, Dow's determination to send out patrols and go so immediately to Foralie himself Bad on two counts. Patrols out meant some of the troops away from the immediate area of the town, at all times. It would have been much better to have them all concentrated there. Also, patrols out meant that sooner or later some of them would have to be taken care of by the teams-and that, while it would have to be faced if and when it came, was something not good to think about until then. There would be a heavy load thrown on the youngsters-not only to do what had to be done, but to do it with the coolheadedness and calculation of adults, without which they could not succeed, and their lives would be thrown away for nothing.

She reminded herself that up through medieval times, twelve- and fourteen-year-olds had been commonly found in armies. Ship's boys had been taken for granted in the navies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But these historical facts brought no comfort.

The children who would be going up against Earth-made weapons here would be children she had known since their birth.

But she must not allow them to guess how she felt. Their faith in their seniors, well- placed or misplaced, was something they would need to hang on to as long as possible for their own sakes.

She came at last to a mountain meadow a full meter high with fall gra.s.s. The meadow was separated by just one ridge from Foralie homestead. Amanda turned her skimmer into the shade of a clump of native softwoods on the upslope edge of the meadow, below the ridge. On the relatively open ground beneath those trees she put the vehicle down and waited.

It was all of twenty minutes before her ear picked up-not exactly a sound that should not have been there, but a sound that was misplaced in the rhythm of natural noises surrounding her. She lifted her voice.

"All right!" she called. "I'm in a hurry. Come on in!"

Heads emerged above the gra.s.stops, as close as half a dozen meters from her and as far out as halfway across the meadow. Figures stood up; tanned, slim figures in flexible shoes, twill slacks strapped tight at the ankle and long-sleeved, tight-wristed shirts, all of neutral color. One of the tallest, a girl about fifteen, put two fingers in her mouth and whistled.

A skimmer came over the ridge and hummed down toward Amanda until it sank to a stop beside her on the ground. The team members, ranging in age from eight years of age to sixteen, were already gathering around the two of them.

Amanda waited until they were all there, then nodded to the man on the other skimmer and looked around the closed arc of sun-browned faces, sun-bleached hair.

"The invaders are here, in Foralie town," she said. "Coalition first-line troops under a brigadier and staff, with Dow deCastries."

The faces looked back at her in silence. Adults would have reacted with voice and feature.

These looked at her with the same expressions they had shown before; but Amanda, knowing them all, could feel the impact of the news on them.

"Everyone's out?" the man on the other skimmer asked.

Amanda turned again to the Ancient. Perched on his skimmer the way he was, Ramon Dye might have forced a stranger to look twice before discovering that there were no legs below Ramon's hips. Strapped openly in the boot of his vehicle, behind him, were the two artificial legs he normally used in town; but out here, like the team members, he was stripped to essentials. His square, quiet face under its straight brown hair looked at her with concern.

"Everybody's out but those who're supposed to be there," said Amanda. "Except for Marte Haugsrud. She decided to stay with her grandmother."

Still, there was that utter silence from the circle effaces, although more than half a dozen of them had grown up within a few doors of Berthe. It was not that they did not feel, Amanda reminded herself; it was that by instinct, like small animals, they were dumb under the whiplash of fate.

"But we've other things to talk about," she said- and felt the emotion she had evoked in them with her news, relax under the pressure of her need for their attention. "DeCastries is taking an armed escort with him to Foralie to wait for Cletus; and he's also going to start sending out patrols, immediately."

She looked about at them all.

"I want you to get runners out to the nearest other teams-nothing but runners, mind you, those troops will be watching for any recordable signalling -and tell them to pa.s.s other runners on to spread the word. Until you get further word from me, all patrols are to be left alone; completely alone, no matter what they do. Watch them, learn everything you can about them, but stay out of sight. Pa.s.s that word on to the homesteads, as well as to the other teams."

She paused, looking around, waiting for questions. None came.

"I've made an agreement with deCastries that I'll bring all the teams and all the able adults in from the homesteads to Foralie Town, to be told the rules of the occupation. I've told him it'll take me at least a week to round everyone up. So we've got that much time, anyway."

"What if Cletus doesn't come home in a week?" asked the girl who had whistled for Ramon.

"Cross that bridge when we come to it," said Amanda. "But I think he'll be here. Whether he is or not, though, we've still got the district to defend. Word or orders from Arvid Johnson and Bill Athyer is to be trusted only if it comes through someone you trust personally-pa.s.s that along to the other teams and homesteads, too. Now, I'm going on up to Foralie to brief them on Dow's coming. Any questions or comments, so far?"

"Betta hasn't had her baby yet," said a young voice.

"Thanks for telling me," said Amanda. She searched the circle with her eyes, but she was not able to identify the one who had just spoken. "Let's stick to business for the moment, though. I've got a special job for your best infiltrator-unless one of the neighboring teams has someone better than you have. Have they?"

Several voices told her immediately that the others had not.

"Who've you got, then?"

"Lexy-" the voices answered.

An almost white-haired twelve-year old girl was pushed forward, scowling a little.

Amanda looked at her-Alexandra Andrea, from Tormai homestead. Lexy, like the others, was slim by right of youth; but a squareness of shoulder and a st.u.r.diness of frame were already evident. For no particular reason, Amanda suddenly remembered haw her awn hair, as a child, had been so blond as to be almost white.

The memory of her young self brought another concern to mind. She looked searchingly at Lexy. What she knew about Lexy included indications of a certain amount of independence and a flair for risk-taking. Even now, obviously uncomfortable at being shoved forward this way, Lexy was still broadcasting an impression of truculence and self-acknowledged ability. Character traits, Amanda thought, remembering her own childhood again, that could lead to a disregard of orders and to chance-taking.

"I need someone to go in close to the cantonments the occupation troops have set up at Foralie Town," she said aloud. "Someone who can listen, pick up information, and get back with it safely. Note -I said safely."

She locked eyes with Lexy.

"Do you take chances, Lexy?" she asked. "Can I trust you to get in and get out without taking risks?"

There was a sudden outbreak of hoots and laughter from the team.

"Send Tim with her!"

Lexy flushed. A slight boy, Lexy's age or possibly as much as a year or two younger, was pushed forward. Beside Lexy, he looked like a feather beside a rock "Timothy Royce," Amanda said, looking at him. "How good are you, Tim?"

"He's good," said Lexy. "That is, he's better than the rest of these elephants."