Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting (23 page)

“Can they work the farm a week on, a week off?” Kris asked.

“Hell no,” Granny shot back.

“So,” Kris said, “if our folks have to spend half of every two weeks back on the moon, working a shift, what you’re really talking about is eight factory types and two locals.”

“Couldn’t we just hire a lot of Ostriches to work for us?” came from someone who carefully mumbled it.

“No,” “Hell no,” and “Don’t even think of that,” came back from the colonials.

Granny Rita took it from there. “The Alwans are not our serfs. They work side by side with us. You never stand around watching them do your work. Never.”

Beside her, several Roosters had come to silently watch the humans talk. Now they were ducking their long necks and flapping their vestigial wings. “No, no,” was easy to understand.

“Okay,” Pipra said, “bad idea. So our farming needs for anyone crazy enough to think farming is a nice way to relax are likely one-eighth or less of what we were thinking. Could all our people still get the full land grant and maybe only develop one parcel for now?”

“What land grants?” Ada asked.

“I’ll talk to you about that in a bit,” Kris said.

“Yes, you will,” came from both Ada and Pipra, letting Kris know that she was now on several hot seats.

“Do you have enough to go in?” Kris asked Pipra.

“It’s a lot more complicated. We’ll have to match people into groups. It’ll be worse than your damn fraternization rules because anytime there’s a breakup, there will be land and property to divide. Hell, I wish I hadn’t even raised this idea.”

“You think there will be more folks interested in a lottery to go home?” Kris asked.

Pipra shook her head. “No. You’re right. We can die there or die here. Maybe we die a bit sooner here, but hell, we got one of those damn Longknifes looking out for us here. Back home, who will we have if the damn monsters show up in the sky? Really, I ask you that.”

Kris had no answer. She wasn’t sure where her baby would have the best chance to grow up.

Pipra and her crowd moved off, leaving Kris to face Ada’s and Granny Rita’s glowers.

“Land grants?” Ada said.

“Don’t you remember, after the last flock, I mean Assembly of Assemblies, there were Ostriches around offering land, so we could move down to their neck of the woods. Offering land grants. I don’t know how it mutated to 144 hectares.”

Kris quit talking. The blank faces eyeing her did not encourage babbling.

“Don’t you remember anything?” she added. Weakly.

“I don’t remember anyone
from
the south empowered to talk
for
the south,” Granny Rita said. “Maybe you need to talk to Jacques, but as I remember, the Ostriches aren’t any more organized than the Roosters.”

Kris turned to Jacques.

He was shaking his head. “I’m afraid I agree.”

“So we’re talking about castles in the air,” Kris said.

“Pretty much,” Ada agreed.

“Unless you know something we don’t,” Granny Rita added.

“I think I need to do my homework,” Kris said, and turned to hunt up Admiral Benson.

33

Kris
found the good admiral bent over a table, watching as one of his estimators filled in a section of the planning document. If Kris was reading it right, it was a good seven levels below where most of the others were working.

“I wonder how that will effect all the other planners,” Kris said.

“Well, they can take these numbers with them to the bank,” Benson said, “because I’ll bet my pension, what I have of it out here to hell and gone, that those numbers are within .05 percent of dead-on.”

“Good,” Kris said. “Now, please walk with me.”

“By all means,” the yard superintendent said.

Kris walked him right out of the annex to the Forward Lounge to a table in the corner. A cheerful barmaid brought two glasses before they even settled in: pale ale for the admiral, tonic water with a twist of lime for Kris.

They smiled a thank-you. As the young woman walked away, Kris said, “Nelly, raise us a wall.”

In a blink, they were in a tiny cell. “So, what’s the big secret?” Benson asked, sipping his beer.

“I’m not sure we can take that offer of southern land to any bank,” Kris said.

“What?” Benson shot back. “All my Ostriches are talking about how things will be when my yard crews set up home down where they come from.”

“They are?”

“It’s common knowledge.”

“Who says?” Kris shot back. “Who has the authority to make such an offer? Nelly, get Jacques in here, pronto.”

A minute later, Jacques and Amanda came in through a
door that was suddenly there, and just as suddenly not. The table expanded to make room for them.

“Admiral Benson, please tell Jacques what you just told me.”

When the admiral finished, Jacques winced. “It’s hard to say how the rules are made down there. With the Roosters, anyone who can put on the best display sets them. For the Ostriches, it’s chest bumps. I’m thinking that all the Ostriches we’re dealing with have seen the ‘chest bumps’ Kris gave the aliens and assume that whatever she wants, she gets.”

“And?” Kris said.

“And among the Ostriches back home, maybe it’s not so much.”

“Are you saying I may have to do some chest bumping to get the local leadership’s attention?”

“Or kick a head off,” Jacques said.

“Or get your head kicked off,” Amanda appended. With a smile.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jacques quickly added. “I think you can make this happen, but I think you’ll need to start from scratch and go from there.”

“From the looks of the planning in there,” Kris said, “how much time do I have?”

“Very little,” Amanda said.

“Okay, Jacques,” Kris said. “What connections did you have with their Assemblies of Assemblies?”

“Ah, Kris, they aren’t that sophisticated. They’re still in their hunter-gatherer phase with some crops they regularly come back to in the winter months. You’ll have to talk to a lot of different tribes and get them to, ah, I don’t know what the word is, to give you primary use of a certain range of land.”

“No concept of land ownership, huh?” Kris said.

“No more than the Roosters.”

“How are the colonials getting by with their land use?” Kris asked.

“They got the land no one wanted. And, as we well know, a Rooster can wander anywhere, even in the middle of a road.”

Kris winced. “Right.” She thought a moment. “Admiral, I need introductions to several tribes. Especially tribes where your workers think we can share land.”

“We track tribal connections among workers, both so we
can deliver them back home and to make sure we don’t have certain tribes working with others.”

“Let me guess,” Jacques said. “Some tribes have hereditary head-kicking contests.”

“Pretty much. We learned early to keep the two apart both in work details and where they sleep and eat.”

“And I missed all this?” Kris said.

“Not something to worry you about. Lord knows, you had enough on your plate.”

“I need a bigger plate,” Kris muttered.

The admiral took one last pull on his beer. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to my Alwan personnel manager.”

“Let me know when you have a contact point. I need to make this happen soonest.”

The admiral set down his beer. The wall disappeared, and he strode away quickly.

Jacques was just opening his mouth when Nelly said, “Pipra would like you back in the room. They want your opinion on how much farm gear gets charged to the colonial food account and how much counts as consumer goods for the industrial workers.”

“God in heaven save me,” Kris said.

“See, you get enough problems, and you’ll learn to pray,” Amanda said.

“But what god will listen to a Longknife’s prayers?” Kris said, standing up.

34

The
day that had started with her smiling up at Jack and expecting a very pleasant morning, only to be interrupted by rifle fire, was still going strong at 2200 hours. At least it ended with a call to Jack.

“Could you fly down south. Do the scientists have a plane going that way?”

“There’s a red-eye that leaves in an hour,” Jack told Kris. “I’ve got Sal reserving space. If I have to, I’ll toss someone off.”

“Try not to toss an Ostrich off. We might need his vote on this land use permit thing.”

“Kris, Admiral Benson wants you to talk to some of the Ostriches he’s sorted out. They’re in two different rooms to avoid fights. He really wants to get them back to work.”

“Sorry, Jack, I have another fire to put out.”

“I know, and I have a plane to catch. See you and baby tomorrow.”

“Oh, yes,” Kris said.

Next morning, two longboats loaded with Marines, Abby, Amanda and Jacques, and a dozen Ostriches were on final approach to the bird-guano mine’s landing field. Parked off on the apron waiting was a large, four engine transport. The Marine armored rigs drove off the longboats and right into the transport.

Kris took a walk across the apron to a welcoming committee made up of Jack and Commander Hanson, who now oversaw the shit farm for his crimes.

“We have a minor problem, Kris,” Jack said, still bandaged and wrapped but offering Kris a pinky finger for a hug.

“And it is?” Kris said, hugging the one finger.

“Sampson and Mugeridge began a hunger strike yesterday,” the former frigate skipper said. “I don’t know how they found out that ships were headed back to human space, but they did, and now they’re on a hunger strike unless they get a ride home.”

Kris shook her head. “Not going to happen. There may be a lottery for a few slots, but those two will not have their names in the hat.”

“I’ll pass that along to them,” Hanson said.

“Would you like to get your name in the lottery?” Jack asked.

“No, sir,” he said. “All by myself, I screwed up the best job a man can have, skipper of my own ship. It’s hard to believe I was that stupid. Anyway, no, I’m doing good work here. Truth is, I’m hoping that you might find a garbage scow you need a skipper for,” he said, nodding toward Kris. “I know I don’t deserve it, but maybe the next time you have to put a sub under the ice of that moon to shoot Hellburners at base ships, you’ll consider me.”

“That was damn near a suicide mission,” Jack pointed out.

“I doubt I’ll get a better command,” the ex-skipper admitted.

“You stay squared away, and I’ll think about that,” Kris allowed.

“Thank you, Admiral. Now, about my two problem children?”

“Tell them they’ve still got to produce their work quota. If they die, they can rest assured no one will bother to read their obit. There’s no media to carry it. Work and eat. Don’t eat, they still work.”

Hanson grinned. “My thoughts exactly.”

“The plane is loaded, Kris. We’re burning daylight,” Jack pointed out.

Two days later, Kris was back at the guano mine, waiting while a doctor qualified Jack for a shuttle ride. Commander Hanson asked her how it went.

“We got access to the land. They got rifles and ammunition. Someone took a potshot at me. Pretty much what I expected. How has Sampson been?” Kris asked him.

“Both are still not eating. We rouse them out of bed and
march them off to the digs, but they refuse to work. They just sit there, demanding to talk to you.”

“And you’d like me to talk to them.”

“No, ma’am. You asked. I’m telling you.”

“You can tell them for me that I don’t care what they do. They can work and eat or they can sit on a pile of shit and die. Their choice. But they are going to do it here. Nowhere else.”

“I’ll pass that along,” the ex-skipper said.

Kris was back on
Wasp
, had gotten in a long bath with Jack, and was halfway through a nice dinner in the wardroom before a long line of people with business caught up with her.

35

Pipra
was first to slide into the seat across from Kris. “I hear you got us some land.”

“I got some farmland, yes,” Kris allowed. “Have you sorted out who will work it and in what groups?”

“That’s been the hot topic the last couple of days. People have been dividing themselves up into eights, tens, twelves, depending on how many friends they can find willing to work with them if they didn’t have to. Interesting times we live in.”

“And who’s willing to farm with you?” Kris asked, knowing there was too much sly in her grin.

“You’d be amazed. Not all of them are guys.”

“And what kind of gear are you going to provide these start-up farmers?” Jack asked.

“Carbon-composite homes, steel farming gear, and solar-generated power,” Pipra said. “We’re knocking out the fab to make them first.”

Kris noted Amber Kitano standing in the door of the wardroom. She spotted Kris and headed for her table with only a brief stop at the coffee urn for the essentials of life.

“So, how much land will each of these farming teams have?” Kris asked Pipra. Nelly had already told Kris there wasn’t nearly enough land for each worker to claim 144 hectares.

“That depends on what happens up east of Haven,” Pipra said.

“East of Haven?”

“About the time you made it known that you were going to set up farms on South Continent, Ada mentioned some nice land on North Continent, just four or five hundred kilometers from Haven.”

Kris raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Back before we started providing folks with roads and electric rigs to drive on them,” Pipra said, seeming to enjoy spinning out this tale, “the colonials thought of spreading out. There’s a decent bit of land along a different, nice, wide river. Young Roosters had been walking in from there and asking for work and tech toys. They even offered land where they came from, but it was too far away, what with matters being where they were.”

“But nothing is where it was,” Kris said.

“Nope. They’ve got barges to carry loads down Haven’s River to the sea and then back up Big River. Overland, it’s gone from a two-month, elephant-pulled trek to a day’s drive on decent roads.”