Human Legion: Marine Cadet Part 26

"Oh, yeah. How's that gonna look?"

"Like we're planning a rebellion," Arun replied grimly.

"Exactly."

"But isn't that what the Hardits are planning? I can understand smuggling luxury items, or the means to produce them, but what use are guns other than to fight battles?"

"My friend, your thinking is too local," said Hortez. "We don't know what goes on out there in the wider star system, out amongst all those moons and asteroids, and the fuel processing plants in orbit around the gas giants. Tranquility is a small part of the system and the rest of it is dominated by the Hardits. Maybe it's one faction fighting another for the best mining sites. Perhaps it's protection against pirates."

"Pirates!"

"Why not? If something's valuable it means it's worth stealing. Stands to reason. So long as the Hardits sling their ore packets out to their destinations I doubt the White Knights care too much about how the Hardits manage their own affairs. Whatever the guns are for, it's nothing to do with us. Don't make it into our problem, Arun."

Arun said nothing. He was a Marine cadet. If anyone was taking weapons then that was something he couldn't ignore.

He decided to say no more about it for now. If he lived through today then he would be seeing Pedro tomorrow. He'd never looked forward to their meetings before, but he couldn't wait to see the insect this time. Arun had a lot of questions.

* Chapter 35 *

Other than the occasional dot in the distance, the party didn't see any Agri workers until the squat block of the main Alabama Depot building hove into view. Three Agri-Aux in a field of barley were sheltering in the shade of a portable canopy only a hundred paces from the path.

The Agri-Aux reminded Arun of a picture he'd seen in an Earth history book in which glamorous ladies posed in voluminous skirts, wide-brimmed hats, and long sleeves with flapping cuffs topped off with leather gloves. The ancient women seemed immensely proud of a stick-like device of unknown function called a parasol. He couldn't recall the name of the historical epoch Victovian perhaps? but the ornate nature of their fashion could not hide a functional design imperative: the clothing was designed to cover and shade the skin, protecting against solar radiation.

These Earth Victovians must have lived through a period of intense solar flares or ozone layer depletion.

The bombardment of high energy particles from the sun was a constant on Tranquility, which was why the Agri-Aux dressed like those ancient Earth dwellers. Multiple layers of skirts dragged along the ground, veils hung from their wide-brimmed hats, and their gloves were partially shaded under bell-shaped sleeve cuffs. Unlike the variations of lace and patterned fabrics the ancients had worn, the Agri-Aux clothing was white shot through with a fine tracery of pink. It looked as if their clothes were connected to their blood supply, feeding a network of capillaries through the cloth.

Perhaps it was.

Humans were entrusted to use the military and other technologies provided on Tranquility, but the principles that explained how they worked were forbidden knowledge.

The four Team Beta Aux took it in turns to push the three surviving hover-trolleys in single file along the path. Madge took the lead. She called over her shoulder to Hortez, who was walking behind her, without a trolley. "What are they up to?" Madge asked him.

"How should I know?" he replied.

He looked entirely uninterested but Arun hadn't lost his curiosity. Neither had Springer, who was in front of Arun.

"Carrying out some kind of tests," she said. "Soil samples or gene tests?"

"Maybe they're checking for insects or disease," Arun suggested. Then he added: "Do Tranquility's native pests and diseases attack Earth plant species?"

No one could answer. As far as Arun was concerned, food was something born fully formed on a plate. How it got there was a mystery.

"We're not meant to be here," said Madge, vaguely as if her internal thoughts had accidentally spilled out.

Arun frowned. What had that to do with pests?

"Just look at us," she continued. "Then look at them out there in their protective gear."

"We're oversupply," said Hortez. "Why waste effort on preserving our health when they prefer us dead?"

"No, she's right," said Springer, bursting with sudden enthusiasm. "Shut your sad-mouthing, Hortez, and think a moment. Tawfiq and our Hardits don't give us suits because they're smugglers and we're their expendable mules. They won't want to leave an evidence trail by requisitioning protective gear for non-existent workers to carry out tasks that don't officially exist. I don't suppose the Hardits who manage those field workers are any more big-hearted than ours, but they must treat them better if they provide protective suits."

"Let's see," said Arun. He shouted at the Agri workers. "Hey!"

They ignored him.

Under the canopy and their veils, he couldn't see their faces but Arun sensed from the way they'd momentarily frozen that they'd heard all right.

"Leave them be," hissed Hortez. "No good will come of this."

Arun ignored his former squad leader. In a hostile new environment, gather information before committing to a strategy. That's what they'd been taught and that's what he was doing now. "I know you heard," he yelled. He parked his trolley. "I just want to know whether the Hardits look after you? Do they treat you well?"

One of the Agri-Aux stopped what she was doing and answered. "We do okay."

"Do they torture you for sport?" pressed Arun.

Hortez shook his head, dismayed.

"Put it like this," replied the Agri-woman, "we'd never trade places with you sad vecks. Not from the position we've reached. Now frakk off."

Arun lifted the handles of his trolley and was about to lean into it when he stopped abruptly. Springer had let go of her handles and was racing down the bank toward the Agri-Aux.

Her legs were short but fleet. By the time Arun and Madge started to follow, Springer was already halfway to the Agri-workers.

With Hortez bringing up the rear, they chased after their comrade.

Springer was under the canopy now, remonstrating with the Agris. After a brief, heated exchange, she punched the Aux who had replied to Arun, felling her.

Arun slowed because Springer had turned around and was cutting a way through the field back to the path.

The Agris looked shocked. They didn't follow that up with action.

Springer did.

She'd only made five steps before she turned back and flew again at the Agris. She punched one, shoved another to the ground, and kicked the Aux who was already down.

Once the Team Beta comrades had regrouped on the path, Springer explained: "I asked them about Alistair LaSalle. They murdered him. The vecks admitted it. He's dead."

When he'd first heard that Alistair LaSalle had been a.s.signed the temporary role of senior cadet commander for Charlie Company, Arun hadn't been surprised in the least. Alistair was smart, strong, and enormously popular. He lacked height and bulk. The untamable waves of his light-brown hair were permanently messy, but he wouldn't shave his head like anyone else. Somehow Alistair had taken his unpromising physique and breathed such charisma into it that he seemed to have whomever he wanted in his bunk: boys and girls. And yet he never attracted envy, never needed to bully or intimidate compet.i.tors out of the way. He made success seem so easy. Arun couldn't square the Alistair he remembered with a sorry refugee who if Springer's info was accurate had died within weeks of his transfer.

"Murder is too harsh a word," said Hortez. "They had no choice. I often ask myself whether I would do the same in their place."

"You knew!" Arun rushed at Hortez. "You frakking knew he was dead."

Arun's hands reached for Hortez's neck but Springer tripped him as he pa.s.sed.

His chin thudded into the stones and dirt of the path, filling his mouth and nose with dust. For an instant he was winded, but a Marine cadet isn't easily pushed aside. A moment later he was on his knees, ready to spring at Hortez, when Madge crashed into him, pinning him down onto the ground with her b.u.t.t on his sternum. "Calm down, McEwan," she ordered.

Arun tried to wriggle free, but couldn't. Madge was lithe but strong. He'd have to attack her to get her off him.

Frakk it! He was too angry to care. Arun threw everything he had into bucking her off. He felt her lose balance, releasing her weight. As he struggled back to his feet, she came crashing down on his shoulders, splaying his legs and making him eat dirt again.

Officially they were all demoted. Madge didn't outrank him anymore. No more playing nice. Fueled by anger, he shifted his weight, trying to prepare an elbow strike at Madge's hamstring.

"Explain yourself, Hortez," said Madge. "I can't keep a leash on this attack drone for long."

Hortez hesitated before responding: "To start with, I volunteered to come up here, risking my skin to make contact with Alistair." The fight went out of Arun when he heard that. Hortez's skin was a flaming ma.s.s of burns and sores. "I saw him a few times," Hortez continued. "I waved at him. To begin with he waved back cheerfully, his old self. After a while he didn't notice me when I pa.s.sed by. Not long after that, I stopped seeing him. I didn't know for sure he was dead."

"But it was a safe bet," growled Springer. "And those vecks out there confirmed it. Explain to the others how Alistair died."

"It comes down to this. To live and work out here you must have a shielded suit. There are only so many to go around. You can even out food rations so everyone gets an equal share. You can take turns at the most dangerous tasks. But you can't share a suit."

"Yes, you can," said Springer. "Take turns wearing it. A rota system, worked out hour by hour."

"Negative. The world doesn't work that way, Springer. Not out here. Alistair and another ex-cadet, a woman, were sent here. Everyone else was already established, already won the right to their suits. None of them would ever give that up. Alastair was fearless and he was fiercely determined. No one I'd rather have beside me in a fight. But he was a nice guy. Too nice to live."

Madge let Arun wriggle free from underneath her and return to his trolley, his anger drained into the dust. What would he do if he had to choose between dying or living in the knowledge that someone else had to free up his place? Probably, he decided, he'd fight the decision as long as possible before choosing to live.

What a choice!

The others seemed to be infested with the same thoughts because no one spoke until they reached Alabama.

* Chapter 36 *

Alabama Depot consisted of a squat building with smaller extrusions around its base. A semicircle of grain silos ringed the main buildings like teeth in a jaw. On the hardened area outside the back of the main building three trucks waited, their human drivers lazing in their cabs. An ordered swarm of Agri-Aux in their pink-laced costumes loaded plump sacks onto the trucks. These sacks had the same pink tracery as the Aux suits, presumably to afford the same protection from the sun.

Without needing to say a word, Arun's group halted about fifty paces away from the Agri-Aux and a.s.sessed their options.

"They don't look riled," said Hortez. He glared at Springer. "Despite your stunt."

"I still care, Hortez," she shot back. "I'd rather die than be like you. Faded."

"C'mon, focus!" barked Madge. "Are they a threat or not?"

"Negative," said Arun. "Even if they know about Springer throwing punches, they don't look like there's any fight to them. Besides, what are we going to do? Ram them with our trolleys?"

"Look in your crate, McEwan," said Madge. "Tell me what you see."

Madge made no sense at all, but Arun was too tired to defy her. Checking the brakes were on, he came around the side of his crudely patched-up crate to peer inside. "There's some plastic boxes. Can't see what's inside." He shifted the top layer of boxes aside. "Frakk! You told me they were hidden at the bottom of the load."

Poking out of the crate was an SA-71 Marine carbine, grip angled upward ready to be taken out and used. "I suppose I'd be wasting my breath to ask if it's loaded."

"You would," said Madge. "Got them ready while you boys were chatting away and we loaded the cargo. Didn't tell you because we didn't want to worry your dear little heads."

Arun was about to protest when Madge raised a hand, shutting him up instantly. Who was he trying to kid? Madge was in charge, formal rank be d.a.m.ned.

Madge organized them into a crude wedge formation, taking point with Arun and Springer on the flanks and Hortez who no longer had a trolley taking a position at the rear.

They activated hover mode and the wedge of trolleys advanced.

This is madness, thought Arun. How have I come to this?

From far back into his earliest childhood, Arun had taken care not to say or do anything that could be considered treasonous or disloyal. Those who didn't learn that lesson fast enough were no longer around.

Were they now so desperate that they would turn their illicit SA-71s on their fellows?

As the laden hover-trolleys breached the perimeter of the hardened loading area, Arun's fears dissipated. For starters, the idea of an attack wedge of trolleys was too ridiculous to hang on to. And far from crowding around to exact revenge for Springer's attack, the Agri-Aux shied away, as if gripped by a group delusion that if they pretended they couldn't see Arun's little unit, the newcomers would go away.

As the Agri-Aux turned to scurry away, Arun expected to see resentment of their faces. Instead, he saw shame.

Only the truck drivers high up in their cabs watched them. They must be shielded, reasoned Arun, because they wore only white vests, their heads bare.

There were three huge doors in the back of the main building, of which two were open. Madge led their wedge toward one of these open doors, a route that took them close to one of the trucks.

The driver was a fat man but powerfully built. He was in his mid-twenties or even older, which made him one of the oldest Aux Arun had seen. His face was grim set and not fearful in the slightest. He peered at their damaged wooden crates with intense interest.

Arun kept his eyes focused on the driver.

The driver stared back. When Arun drew level with his cab, the man shouted. "Hey!"

Arun let go of his trolley's handles and reached into the opening in his crate. He felt for the loaded carbine.

"I ain't seen nothing," the driver said, his voice coming from a speaker set into the cab door.

Arun's hand wrapped around the carbine's grip. The familiar shape felt comforting.

"But if I had, I might say your crates look a little busted."

Arun glanced back at the driver. He looked amused, a little contemptuous perhaps, but Arun didn't see aggression there. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip on the carbine.

"What do you mean?" Madge asked him. Arun looked her way and had no doubt what her hand was gripping.