They Also Serve: A Jump Universe Novel Part 11

But she was all business as the shuttle braked to a halt. "All hands, lock and load. Dumont, deploy your squad in an armed perimeter. First Squad, let's empty this shuttle before anyone notices it's down."

Ray took a seat in the second mule, next to Lek the electronic wizard he'd been surprised to find among the marines. He'd been even more surprised to discover that Lek had never been more than a miner. With an education, the man could have been another Edison, but an education was none too easy to get out on the rim of human s.p.a.ce. That was one thing Ray and Wardhaven intended to change-a.s.suming he ever got back and could continue what he and Rita had started.

As the mule went down the shuttle's brightly lit ramp into dark, Ray's night goggles struggled to adjust. He tapped his commlink. "Ms. San Paulo, this is Ray Longknife. I've got a security detachment at the blimpport. Where are you?"

"I'm at the Hall of the Great Circle. Can you find it?"

Lek tapped his display; a block in the center of the city glowed yellow. "Got it."

"No problem. We'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Be careful. We've got roving gangs. Some are looters. Others are looking for a fight-each other, security, anyone. Mr. Longknife, I don't understand this."

"I never have either. But we'll put them in their place. Longknife out." Lek stopped beside the first mule off. Kat and Jeff were in the front seat of that one, just putting on their night vision gear. Lek hopped out and unhitched its trailer.

"I want you to head straight for Richland," Ray told Kat, "find this Harry, and get back here before dawn. Ca.s.sie!" Ray shouted over his shoulder.

"Yes, sir."

"a.s.sign Dumont to provide security for this rig."

"Yes, sir. Dumont, you heard the man. You're riding shotgun for Mule One."

"Right." A shadow came quickly out of the dark where he'd been making rounds, checking his squad and the perimeter they guarded. Dumont did a one-handed leap into the mule and settled with a grin into the backseat. "What you want, boss?"

"See these people get back safely. Use whatever force necessary."

"A license to kill," the kid crowed.

"Not unless you have to," Ray growled.

"Yeah, sir. Kill only those you want killed, when you want 'em killed, sir. And don't interrupt what you're doing to ask if I got the right head ready to blow off, sir." The kid's face slid from unadulterated pleasure to something new. Part insolence, part pensive, part something else. For a moment Ray considered delving into that more deeply, but Kat gunned the mule, and the moment for questioning shot into the dark. What had Ray just turned loose? With a shrug, he turned back to Lek.

"He's always been a hard case," the old miner commented. "Where to, sir?"

"The Hall of the Great Circle," Ray ordered.

It took a moment to attach a second trailer to the last mule, load the rifle teams in, and start moving. Holding their speed down, they drove up one of the wide boulevards that bisected the city. A flaming building cast flickering light over a large crowd halfway down the avenue. Lek glanced at the mule's map display, then turned right. "Know where the public buildings are, sir? They seem to be the ones they're burning."

Ray sighed his frustration at the lack of info. Ahead, another building burst into flames; Ray's night goggles struggled to adapt to a world shared by fire and darkness. Lek braked to a halt slowly, giving the more heavily loaded rig behind him plenty of room. Which gave Ray's eyes time to adjust. On his third sweep he spotted movement several blocks down the road they were on; a ma.s.s of people coming at them. For a moment, Ray considered charging them, guns blazing. Lek turned the rig into a side street. "Colonel, we can't back these rigs!" Lek shouted, "We get caught in midblock by a group and we're sludge!"

"I hear you," Ray snapped. His skin crawled with an itch he couldn't scratch. He'd been in fights before; civic disturbances, too. He'd never felt like this. Ray glanced at the map; they were headed out of town and away from the blimpport. "Keep going this way for a few minutes; then we'll try a side road. See if we can get into town that way."

"Any way is good by me," Lek answered.

"What was that all about?" Jeff asked. Kat just shook her head, eyes straight ahead on the dark road. "You know, between the boss and him," he indicated the young man with a rifle in the back of the mule. Again, Kat said nothing.

"Go ahead, tell him. I won't mind," When Kat still said nothing, the fellow leaned forward, leering face less than a foot from Jeff's, rifle barrel even closer. "I'm the boss's murdering dog." Having said his piece, he lounged back into the seat, gun lolling between his legs. "She don't like that."

"A lot of us don't. We liked Guns. He was a good old guy."

Jeff didn't understand a word they were saying. Maybe he was wrong about how much the language had changed in three hundred years. Or maybe the people just had.

"The admiral said execute the floater. I did the joke. What's that to you?"

Kat snapped her head around. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d had no right to give you that order. It was illegal. You should have known that. You must have! Guns was right. The admiral was wrong. Why'd you kill him?"

"You expect street sc.u.m like me to know all that? h.e.l.l, I've watched cops break a kid's arms 'cause they didn't like the way he looked at 'em. Life's cheap, girl, if you got a gun and it's not your own life."

"It doesn't have to be like that."

"Maybe not for you, miss goody-goody with a college diploma, but it is for me. How many fights you been in?"

"Sheffield was in two," Kat answered proudly.

"That's not a fight," the man spat. "Not those nice, clean things you navy pukes have where you take your ship with you and have a shower and clean sheets waiting for you when it's over. A real fight's where the artillery makes the ground shake under you until your gut runs water and your d.a.m.n suit's sanosystem decides it don't have to process your s.h.i.t no more 'cause it was made by the lowest bidder and a real war's outside the contract specs. Or when your sights dial in perfect on some face they decided is the enemy and you get a really great picture of this face just before you blow it off her.

"s.h.i.t, woman, you wouldn't last five seconds in a real fight. But take one of us rags or rages with fifteen, eighteen years on the street, we're perfect for it. We're just the dogs and b.i.t.c.hes you want to turn loose on ones you don't like. 'Course, any other time, you got to muzzle us, chain us up. What you think that ship is? Just a kennel for the likes of me." The man in the back seemed to have run out of words. He rode, staring silently at his rifle.

Jeff listened, hearing the rage, the agony behind the words, understanding only a little. He wondered just how deadly the weapon in the man's hands was, and wishing he didn't have it.

Kat took in a long breath, drove with both eyes on the road, both hands stiffly on the wheel, and began to talk. "That's Dumont's side of the story. Maybe it's true. I was drafted fresh out of college. You understand draft?" Jeff nodded; he'd read in the ancient histories of involuntary servitude for military purposes. "Dumont and his friends came in a little less formally. They were dragged up off the streets one night and signed themselves in. Du, can you sign your name?" she called over her shoulder.

"Couldn't then," he whispered.

"I got lucky and drew ship duty. Du got infantry."

"Marine by-G.o.d-be-d.a.m.ned infantry," came a correction from the backseat.

"After we survived a couple of battles and thought our way home from a bad jump, we got promoted to flagship and this marine detachment a.s.signed to us."

"n.o.body asked us. They just told us to go, and we went."

"In case you hadn't noticed, Du, that was the way it was with all of us. That's the way it is in a war."

"That's the way it is on the streets all the time. I didn't notice a difference." Dumont leaned forward in his seat, the rifle across his lap, apparently forgotten.

Kat nodded but went on. "So our skipper called this meeting with all the department heads. This little corporate twirp who hasn't been in the navy any longer than me, but somehow has gotten himself made an admiral, announced he'd figured out how to win the war in an afternoon. Slaughter about a billion people, everybody on a planet. Guns didn't agree." Kat glanced at Jeff, must have seen the puzzlement in his eyes.

"Guns, what we called the chief of gunnery, the nicest grandpa of a guy you could ever hope to meet. He tells this jerk that not only is his brilliant idea stupid and illegal, but it will make the Unity folks madder than h.e.l.l and they'll fight us all the harder. Boss guy's reaction to that is to order Du back there to off Guns. And brilliant guy that Du is, he does."

"It was an order." Dumont defended himself in a dead monotone. "Besides, he said he'd make us all rich if we did what he told us."

"Did he?"

"No."

"Did you?" Jeff asked in a whisper.

"Did we do what?" Kat's eyes were back on the road.

"Kill a billion people?"

"No," Kat said, casting a quick glance back at Dumont.

"No, we didn't kill anyone. The war ended. They put the muzzle back on us dogs, and that was that." There had to be more to the story. But neither Kat nor Dumont was talking, and Jeff couldn't begin to construct a question that might get them talking again. They rode in silence for a very long minute.

"Here, you take the gun." Dumont tossed the rifle at them.

Jeff caught it by the barrel; the stock landed on the floor of the backseat. He looked at it, terrified, trying to remember where the safety was. Kat glanced at it. "Don't worry, Jeff. The safety's on. It can't fire. Du, what you doing?"

"I'm quitting. I've had it. You want someone joked, you pop *im yourself. You the one that sicced that priest on me?"

"No. What priest?"

"Father Joseph. He wouldn't leave me alone today. One of you brains tell him about me?"

"Du, in case you haven't noticed, I've been full-time busy trying to figure out which end of this planet is up. Besides, I'm not Catholic. I don't know if any middies are." Kat slowed down. "Why? What did the preacher have to say to you?"

"He didn't say anything. Least, not at first. Just hung around me like I was some virgin he was h.o.r.n.y for. No, like I had the dust and he wanted a fix. No. I don't know. He was just there, every time I turned around."

"So why didn't you tell him to get lost?" Kat asked. "Your team isn't exactly known for putting up with anything you think is s.h.i.t."

"I did. So he asked me what I was doing. That miner Mary had me working with was running the thumper all over that d.a.m.n hill. I told the little priest we were making sounds to tell Mary what the hill looked like inside. It was kind of nice, talking to him. Next thing I know, my miner's been called away and me and the priest are humping that thumper all over that hill. He may be short, but d.a.m.n, that guy could lug. I kept on talking to him. He listened to whatever I said. So I ended up telling him about the war and all that s.h.i.t and how I joked Guns and how I wish I hadn't." Du closed down suddenly, like Vicky did when she thought she'd given something away for free.

Kat took them smoothly around a curve. The night stretched out ahead of them; it was damp this close to the James River. Its river barges and dams made Refuge and Richland possible.

"What did he have to say to that?" Kat finally asked.

"That it was never too late to start over. That life was always giving second chances. Or maybe he said G.o.d was. I don't know." Du snickered. "Stupid old a.s.shole. The streets don't give no second chances."

"We got a second chance," Kat said softly. "n.o.body ever came back from a sour jump. We did. Mary d.a.m.n near killed Ray in the war. Did leave him crippled. They're giving each other a second chance. There're a lot of reasons that d.a.m.n boat is named Second Chance. You could be one of them."

"That's what the priest said. But look at me now. First time the d.a.m.n Colonel needs somebody popped, he yanks my chain."

"You sure?"

"Why else dump me here but so I can joke s.h.i.t for you two?"

"Maybe the Colonel a.s.signed you 'cause you're good at your job."

"Good at what job?" Du snorted.

"Good at knowing what's dangerous and making it not. Good at scaring the s.h.i.t out of people and maybe saving their lives by making them go someplace else real fast. I don't know, Du, but I feel safer with you in the backseat, and not because I figure you'll shoot everybody we happen to see."

The man in the backseat stared off into the night, slowly rubbing his chin. "That the way you see me?" he asked finally.

"Yes, Du. That's you. Not just the cool dude you want all the other street rags and rages to see, but the guy I see, too. The guy who didn't shoot the next time the admiral started shouting for you to."

"Yeah, I didn't shoot then. And you were real close."

"Scary close, Du."

"Can I have my rifle back?"

Jeff glanced at Kat; she gave him a quick nod. He handed the weapon very carefully back. "Thanks," the man said.

"You're welcome," Jeff answered. Du half smiled, half sneered at the automatic politeness. "I meant it," Jeff added.

They rode into the darkness. Or maybe out of it.

Ray advanced his team slowly, holding a tight rein on their speed-and on his own frustration. Ahead, scouts ranged three blocks forward, checking each cross street before signaling them forward and hustling up the street to check the next one. It made for safe but slow going.

"Mr. Amba.s.sador, are you there?"

"Yes, Ms. San Paulo."

"You may call me Hen if you wish."

"I'm Ray to my friends. Were you able to get us any help?"

"Our security force has some electrocycles. They might scout for you. Where are you?" Ray read the closest street signs. "Oh, that far out. Let me tell them where you are."

Ray studied the town houses lining this block. Two, three stories high, they provided several windows for snipers, but all were closed and darkened. People slept behind them, or they were empty as their occupants roamed the streets, looking for a violent solution to a problem Ray didn't understand and that probably eluded them, too. What had gone wrong with this planet? Was it also swallowing him?

San Paulo came back on. "The cyclists are moving. They should meet you in ten or fifteen minutes."

"Good. Ray out."

"'Bye."

Ray gritted his teeth, forcing down a rising anger that had no explanation. Quickly, he advised his teams to be on the lookout for their allies.

"Slow going, but looks okay," Lek observed beside him.

"That's not what's bothering me," Ray said, picking one from several. "Riots are only the symptom. What's the underlying cause? The farmers seem nice. The city types had quirks but didn't look all that bad."

"I've worked for bosses who had smiles for the visiting firemen but were h.e.l.l on the miners," Lek observed to the street ahead of them. "Kind of hard to peg an outfit when you're on a whirlwind tour. Finally decided upper management wasn't dumb or nasty, just uninformed and blind."

Ray couldn't argue that point. h.e.l.l, Unity had talked a good line. Right up to the point they started hanging people. "G.o.d, I'd like to dig through these folks' archives. Newspapers, media, something to get the feel of the real them," Ray said, addressing something he could.

Beside him, Lek grinned. "Glad you said that, sir. While I'm doing their security net, I just might find time to put in a few extra nodes. You want all their news and media?"

"All you can poke a link into." What had Mary and Matt said about the joys of having on staff a paranoid electronic genius with a sense of humor? This might get interesting.

The cyclists joined up. Adding his armed scouts to the backseats of the three-wheeled get-abouts let Ray dodge two mobs early and avoid three fires. They made it to the Great Hall in a half hour, but it did nothing to calm Ray's roiling temper.

Jeff missed his turn in the dark, and Kat had to do a U-turn back to the road into Sterlingview. Like most of the towns within a short trolley ride of Richland, all the houses had been designed to two or three floor plans. Over the years, residents had personalized them. Two they drove by in the twisting, turning streets had recently been very personalized-by fires. Jeff couldn't begin to guess what was going on, but something new and ugly was sweeping the world he'd grown up in.