They Also Serve: A Jump Universe Novel Part 32

"Charge all the market will bear," Mary growled.

"I'm certain the situation will resolve itself. Left to itself, the market always does," San Paulo insisted.

"How many people are you willing to let starve?"

"No one will starve," San Paulo said with absolute certainty.

Ray tapped the board, bringing up the weather picture. A fifth hurricane was forming behind the four headed their way. "The first storm will come ash.o.r.e just south of Refuge tomorrow. Then one every three days. There won't be a next crop."

San Paulo looked at the board, frowned at it, then shook her head. "That's impossible. Hurricanes do not behave like that. That's just another one of your computer tricks."

Ray shook his head. "Ms. San Paulo, we will continue to care for Rose. You are welcome to stay here as our guest. But if you will not cooperate with us in the problems we now have, I believe this meeting is over."

"I must serve my people, look out for their welfare," she started.

Ray cut her off. "Outside the base, but not on it. Here, the people are under my protection. They are at present organized and satisfied with that arrangement. Is that right, Father?"

The priest nodded.

"What would you expect from a priest? You feed him," one of San Paulo's staff muttered.

"I don't have time for you to poll them," the Colonel shot back. "Stay in the quarters a.s.signed you, or leave. If you won't help us, I can't afford for you to cause me trouble."

At that the Colonel stood and left; Mary led the rest out. Poor Father Joseph watched them go, glanced at San Paulo's group, then joined Mary. She held her troops for a second in the work bay. "You've got your orders. Make 'em happen."

The others left; the doc and the padre remained. "Mary, I'm worried about the Colonel and the kids," the doc started.

"My office," Mary cut him off as the first of San Paulo's cronies nosed around the door. A moment later, door closed, Mary motioned the two to chairs, then leaned against the front of her desk. "What about the Colonel and the kids?"

"I think he plans to use them in some kind of attack on the computer," the doc said. "They were with him and a stone when the Gardener died."

"I know. I saw the kids shortly after it happened," Mary answered. "He looked a lot worse than the kids."

"Right. Something had healed his back. He should have looked bad. Still, using the kids in a fight!"

"Father"-Mary turned to the grandfather of one of them-"what do you think?"

"Like so much of what is going on around here, I don't know what to think. I do know that unless we get sun, lots of it real soon, a lot of people will be very hungry. If David can somehow help..." He trailed off.

"What chance could the Colonel and a couple of kids have against that?" The doc waved toward the conference room, whether at the storms or the allied computers or fighting ones, Mary didn't need a clarification. All of them looked too much to her.

She stood; centuries of breeding brought the men to their feet. Or maybe it was the command presence of a marine officer. Mary wasn't sure, just glad of it. "We've got a day's work cut out for us. Let's take it one step at a time. Padre, will you accompany me on a walk around?"

Mary scrounged up a poncho, which on the priest dragged the ground. For the rest of the morning, they walked the base. They stopped to talk with the troops mustered on the wall, enduring wind and rain to keep an eye on the growing crowd outside. They pa.s.sed through all the living quarters, saying a kind word to worried grande dames and little children. Mary included the padre in her stops around the base's functions run by the crew of Second Chance. His heartfelt thanks to Ray's crew was probably the best morale boost she could have hoped for. Here was one of the locals, thanking the crew for what they were doing. Thanking them for the risks they were taking.

There was no way for the padre to know what Mary did. That the crew had no more choice of being here than he did. Until Matt found a way home, they were all in this together. Still, it would have been easy to build a wall between us and them. The priest helped Mary keep that wall low, toss away the stones that could have built it higher.

Early on, Jeff and Harry said their good-byes, heading out the north gate. The mule towed a trailer full of explosives, laser cutters, and batteries with three horses following it. G.o.d help them, never had a smaller David taken on a bigger Goliath.

Jeff held his rifle tight as the young marine driving zipped out the gate and gunned the mule, wagon, horses, and all out across the field, dodging first left, then right to avoid small clumps of people rushing their way. "You know, Zed," the older marine in the back drawled, "you flip that trailer over and none of us will be worrying about meeting anyone anymore."

"Lil, I'm the one driving and I ain't wrecked a heap yet."

"Before last year, you'd never wheeled a heap legal."

"When it's hot, you sure don't drive it like an old lady."

Jeff and Harry exchanged glances, neither sure exactly what was being said. Jeff strongly suspected he'd be happier not knowing. Ned just leaned back, enjoying the ride. Two hours later, they'd avoided all problems, and had the present small valley they were crossing all to themselves and a flock of six-legged things that ignored humans and vice versa. "I'm getting a message from Lek!" Jeff hollered. "Zed, could we take a break?"

"Braking!" the kid hollered, and skidded to a halt that fish-tailed the mule's rear and the trailer behind.

"Zed, I'm gonna turn those nanos loose on your head."

"Wouldn't find nothing?

"He didn't drive that way yesterday," Harry pointed out.

"Wouldn't dare; Ca.s.sie'd hauled his a.s.s off to church," Lil laughed.

"Just having some fun," the kid defended himself.

Jeff studied the map Lek fed to the mule's display. "Dancer says the two are fighting it out up the James River, with flanks seventy miles on either side," Lek told them as the screen showed a large blob of pink in front of them. Blue was on the far side. Both spread north and south of the James. "Dancer figures the Pres was outmaneuvered. He'll take the worst hits from the hurricanes unless he gets inland fast. Any places we can disrupt the Provost?"

Harry overlaid his geology data on the display, "Several rocky outcroppings close to us." He highlighted four. "Does Dancer have a preference?"

There was a short pause. "Dancer has no idea. Hit a few. He'll let us know what happens."

"Great targeting system we got here," Zed growled.

"Best we got is always great," Lil said cheerfully.

"What's that?" Zed shouted, pointing behind them.

Jeff turned, just in time to see the tarp on the trailer move. He leveled his gun. "Who's there?" he demanded.

"Just me," came a very familiar voice. The tarp raised; Annie stared at his gun. "Could you point that somewhere else?"

"Annie," Jeff safetied his rifle as Lil and Harry leaped out to help Annie. Jeff got there just in time to put his arms around her and help her over the trailer's side. She was very holdable. "d.a.m.n it, woman, what are you doing here? Can't any Mulroney woman stay where she belongs?"

"If Mulroney women had stayed home, there wouldn't be any Mulroney men on this planet," she shot back. "I heard you griping there weren't enough on this team. I have two hands."

"You should have asked," Jeff cried.

"And you'd have said no," she answered primly, looking around, taking a poll of those present, "Wouldn't he?"

"Boys what think they're in love do crazy things," Lil answered. "Let's roll."

Jeff took his seat up front, rifle handy. Annie squeezed in the back between Lil and Harry. As Zed got them moving, Jeff relented. "There's more room in front." In a flash of hiked-up skirts and revealed legs, Annie was over the seat and settling down beside Jeff in a second.

"There's plenty of room close to me," Zed pointed out, patting the seat next to him.

Jeff pulled Annie close. "Why'd you do it?" he whispered.

"I've missed you for the last month. I don't know what's going to happen next."

Jeff kissed her. Sometime later, Old Ned coughed. "Son, I don't mind keeping an eye out your side of this rig, but the girl's got to breathe." The others laughed. It was contagious. Annie and he ended up laughing, which made kissing rather difficult. He settled for holding Annie in his arms, her snuggled close to his left side, his rifle on his right. This had to be the craziest way any man had ever gone traveling.

So what? Annie was with him. No matter what happened, Annie was with him.

Nikki shivered as the blimp shook, playing mouse to a big cat of a wind. The gondola twisted, its skin showing long cracks that let in streams of water. Nikki was hungry but afraid to eat; her tummy had emptied itself violently yesterday. Today it dared her to put anything in it but water. She was miserable.

Beside Nikki, Kat unstrapped from her seat and came to kneel beside her, holding on tight to both chairs. "You okay?"

"No, this was another dumb idea." Nikki groaned.

"Yes, it was," the young woman agreed, as she rearranged Nikki's blankets to make her more comfortable. "You want something to drink?"

The blimp's engines revved, responding to the pilot's demands. They climbed higher. Kat glanced at the flight deck. "Wonder what Rhynia's trying now."

As if in reply, there was a shouted "Yes" from up forward. The blimp settled down as much as it had in the last three days and seemed to steady on course. The engines slowed to idle. In a few minutes, Rhynia came back to talk to her pa.s.sengers and the off-duty mechanics. "We had a bad time there, but I think it's over. I got a bit too far out on hurricane number one and ran into crosswinds where it and number two were thumping each other," she grinned. "No place for a self-respecting blimp."

"Will it happen again?" Nikki ventured.

"Not if I can help it." The blimp shivered. Everyone looked up at the gas bag. Nikki wondered if they were leaking hydrogen out like the gondola was leaking water in. "We're picking up speed," the pilot said, "but we're behind schedule. May take us an extra day to get to that mountain range on North Continent."

"I'll call that in," Kat said.

Ray listened to Kat's report. Part of him wanted to recall that team; he snorted at the idea. He could no more recall them than change anything he'd done with his life thus far. They would succeed or crash into the ocean with no help from him. The same with Harry and Jeff. He'd launched them into this impossible battle more on hope than expectation of victory. Mary had broken his back the last time he'd charged in with hardly a shred of intel. At least then he'd been fighting humans. Now!

Now he waited, his paltry forces in play. He had one more card to try, but that would have to wait. Wait to see what developed from the other side. Wait to see if any of his a.s.saults were even noticed by the computers.

Wait. A familiar word in any commander's vocabulary.

Wait. Ray hated it, even as he hunkered down and did it.

Mary paused for a moment on the roof of the factory building to take a deep breath. It smelled of rain and chill and mud. A hundred feet up, she had the best view of the base. To the west lay the landing strip, filling rapidly with parked wagons and carts, canvas covers over them, tarps stretched between them to add some shelter from the rain for more and more people. Little kids chased each other, splashing through puddles. Their elders stared up at the weeping sky and worried.

The factory beneath her and the shuttle hangar off in the far right distance beyond the hospital, barracks, and HQ, had the best vantage points to see what was going on around the base perimeter-and inside. She turned to Dumont. "Sergeant, I want half your squad here, the other half on the shuttle hangar."

Du measured the distance to the wall with a jaundiced eye. "A thousand meters at best. No sleepy bullets from here."

"Don't have that many left. I'm issuing what I got to the rifles leading the riot troops, and only fifty per. When they're gone, it's live ammo only."

Du answered with a low whistle. "Lots of people out there. What we gonna do with them all?"

"I sent the priest out to circulate a map of where the safe elevations are. Suggest they go elsewhere."

"Do any good?"

"Padre came back with the Bishop of Refuge, asked me to let him and his chancellery officials in," Mary sighed.

"And?"

"I let them in. I owe that little priest. If he hadn't suggested saving the turf and rolling it back over the wall, we wouldn't be patrolling it tomorrow, we'd be wading through it. Yeah, I let them in. Trying to find something for them to do, but they're about as willing to work as San Paulo and her cronies. Holy horror that they should take a turn in riot gear."

"What did you want me and my crew to do up here?"

"If someone out there with an airgun starts popping our folks, I want you to take them down. Clean, exact."

"We can do that."

"And if everything comes apart and a mob charges the wall, I want you and your sharpshooters to take down the leaders. Single shots. One round, one leader."

Dumont took that one in without a blink. "That may be harder than it sounds. A lot of folks up front may just be pa.s.sing through. Real leader may be a few rows back."

"I know. If you can spot a leader, put *im down. If not, start at the front and work your way back."

Du knelt on the building's ledge to sight his rifle along the perimeter. "They get too close, Captain, I can't get over the heads of the troops on the wall."

"I know."

"Who gives the order to start shooting?"

"I do," Mary snapped. The look Du gave her said he could do the math as well as she. "But there's a lot of wall, and it may get busy. A ruckus on the east wall, while I'm knocking heads on the west."

"So I may have to make the call," Du filled in.

"Afraid so."

"Growl," he said.

"I'm worried about Ca.s.sie. She may have lost her edge, gone gentle on us," Mary said of her oldest friend.

"The war changed us all," Du offered with the grin of an innocent kid the streets had never let him be.

"Not you and me, bucko." Mary grinned back.

"Yes, you and me, sister. Remember, this isn't war. We're supposed to be keeping the peace here, not shattering heads."

Mary looked out over the wall. Really looked from face to face, trying to see them as people, not one large milling crowd. "They are people, now. But Du, crowds don't stay people. Let them become a mob and it won't be people you'll be shooting."

Du joined her, studying the refugees. "They're hungry, cold, tired, scared. A week ago they ran trains, sold stuff, went home to dinner, and tucked their kids into bed. Now the kids are clinging to them, hungry, cold, and whining. And because they may turn into an unthinking, killing mob tonight or tomorrow night, I'll put a needle between their eyes." He turned to Mary. "Can't you make it so I don't have to?"

"The Colonel's trying. You heard him this morning. He's trying everything he knows how to do."

"Yes, I know. That's why I'll pull the trigger when I have to. We're trying for something better."

Mary rested a hand on Du's shoulder. "And we'll keep trying. I wish I could pray. I'd say every prayer I knew that the Colonel finds a way."