Then there was the reception, which was held at the hotel we were living in, and took up all of the available function space. Kasia had told me that the space, the food, and the drink had all been donated by the local hotels, a favor in return for the way our wedding had filled them all to capacity for the first time in years.
The walls of the convention center were covered with wall screens as well, but this time at floor level. My lovely metal ladies were enjoying themselves, talking and flirting with the people in the crowd. Someone referred to them as wallflowers, and the name stuck. It was the first time that they had ever met large numbers of civilians, and the first time that those people had ever met them. They seemed to be equally fascinated with each other. I heard later that many of the young men in the crowd had exchanged telephone numbers with my tanks, and that many long friendships developed between them.
I looked around for the Kashubian general, the one that I thought might be Jan Sobieski, but I didn't see him on any of the wall screens.
Eva and Agnieshka stayed on the wall screen behind Kasia and me as an endless procession of people walked by. Prompted by our perfect social secretaries, we made very few social blunders. We always knew who we were talking to, when and where we had met them, if we had, and we were always prepped with some witty and appropriate remark to make.
We did it, and I think that everybody thought that we did a good job. For mine own self, by the time it was all over, I don't think that I remember a single thing that I said, or a single person that I met. I think they call it stimulus saturation.
Then there was all the usual wedding nonsense. The bouquet was thrown to the maidens of the group, Kasia's garter was removed by me to the strains of some sexy tune, and thrown out to the eligible bachelors, and a dozen similar ancient ceremonies were observed. I must have kissed her publicly a hundred times.
When it was finally over, I carried my love out of the hall, up to our suite, made love to her, after six years, at last, perfectly legally.
As I dozed off, I felt her get out of bed, put on a housecoat, and go to work in the office.
Late the next morning, while Kasia was in the bath, and the crowds were gone at last, I sat down in my office in my hotel suite.
Finally, I had some time to get back to business.
"Agnieshka, what's happening?"
Playing the ever perfect secretary, her image on the screen opened a notebook, and pretended to read from it. She seemed to be enjoying her role as an executive secretary, so I let her get away with it.
"I was finally able to locate those humanoid drones Quincy talked about, but only by contacting his tank, Marysia. Those things were officially listed as "Drone, Difficult Terrain, Obsolete." No wonder nobody noticed them. Anyway, they had almost ten thousand of them in storage in New Kashubia, and we bought them all for three hundred and eighty-six zloty each. I also ordered the next two years' production to be sent to us in monthly lots at the same price."
"What's the exchange rate, zlotys to marks?"
"It's almost par. A zloty is worth about two percent more."
"Then you just spent something like four million marks. Do I have that much?"
"Oh yes. The judge's first check cleared this morning. It was for eighty-nine million marks."
"That much? Then they must be sending us eighty-nine thousand men! Did everybody in his prison system volunteer?"
"I think that those criminals might have volunteered in much the same fashion that you did, boss."
"Huh. Well, I suppose that a tank is better than a prison cell, most of the time. Next question. Where are we going to put them all? You said that we only had about sixty-eight thousand empty tanks on the whole planet."
"Yes, sir, but we also have more than thirty thousand empty artillery pieces, which will serve equally well."
"So I was asking the wrong question again. Okay, will there be any problems installing the new men?"
"Yes, sir, there will be. It takes about a half of a man hour to install an enlistee into a tank. I can get you the machines. I can get you the extra male sanitary fittings, since many of our tanks are currently equipped for women. I can get you the floor space to do the work. What I can't get you is forty-five thousand trained human man hours, not on short notice."
"So use the drones we just bought, with some of the tanks to control them. They can do the installations and guard the prisoners until they are buttoned up. If anybody asks, tell them that our men are using a new kind of battle armor."
"Brilliant, boss. That's why we need you humans."
"I thank you, my beautiful and ever perfect lieutenant."
"Am I a lieutenant now? Did I just get promoted?"
"Well, in the old days, a general officer would rate at least a major for his personal secretary. Let's say that if I'm an acting general, then you are an acting major. Of course, there is no such rank in our army, so that means that you have to design your own uniforms," I said laughing.
"Zowie!" She said, and was suddenly dressed in a female version of the uniform of a major in the Napoleonic Polish Lancers. It was a form-fitting thing of red and white silk, with lots of gold braid and feathers, high boots, and a sword at least as gaudy as the one that came with my full dress uniform. It also had as much decotage as the law will ordinarily allow.
"Enjoy yourself," I said. "Now, what is happening with my land?"
"You own a lot more of it. The boxed canyons on either side of yours have already been sold to other veterans, but the adjacent plains area to the northeast was available, so I bought it for you. You now have a total of over six thousand square kilometers of what will be the most productive farm land in the Human Space, before we're through."
"Wow. But, you just bought it, without my permission?"
"Boss, I know you, better than any human being ever could. I knew that you would want that land. But it was being snapped up in a hurry, you were busy getting married, and if I had waited, you would have ended up with dozens of disconnected parcels scattered all over the place. I had to move quickly, so I did."
"Okay, okay. I was just asking. I suppose that that much land will take years to get under cultivation."
"You will see it all green before the end of your leave. We have six thousand tanks out there right now doing the job."
"I am amazed. And where did these six thousand volunteer tanks come from?"
"I put out the word that those who volunteered would get first choice on the new enlistees we would soon be installing, and sent the new men's records out on the machines' communication net. Some observers are better than others, and every tank knows it. The artillery can get the dregs. We tanks have been doing all the work on this planet, so we should get the privileges, too."
"So interservice rivalry raises its furry little head, "I said. "But, what about the work that those tanks would otherwise be doing?"
"So who cares if the Yugoslavian's planet-wide system gets done a few months late? They don't even know about it yet, themselves! And who ever heard of a major engineering project getting done on time. Remember Cheop's Law."
"Cheop's Law?"
" 'Everything costs more and takes longer.' The Great Pyramid of Cheops went four hundred percent over budget, and took twenty years longer than originally planned to build. The pharaoh kept changing his specifications, moving his burial chamber around. Being two months late on something this big is peanuts."
"Just don't get me sent to jail."
"You won't, not with us doing the accounting. And even if they did, they'd just put you into a tank again. Wasn't that what you said a while ago?"
"Okay. Okay. What about the irrigation equipment?"
"It's all on order, and will be delivered within the month. I got our order pushed to the front of the line by paying for it all in advance."
"What about the rest of it?"
"Forty thousand tons of soil development microbes, earthworm eggs, and so on are on order from the Planetary Ecological Council's laboratories, with delivery guaranteed. They are also selling us the seeds of a bioengineered version of rye grass, designed to build the soil in desert areas. Actually, the law requires that we buy all of our seeds through them, and you don't want to mess with those ecology boys. They come in with poisons, flame throwers and gamma ray generators if they don't like what you are doing. The trees will take a little longer. Very superior trees are being cloned for us now, over three hundred varieties of them, and will be ready for planting in two years."
"Very good. I take it that Quincy's ideas on pig farming are economically sound?"
"Yes, although our facility will be more productive than his, eventually, since we will have better trees than he has planted. He was in a bit of a hurry, and bought what he could get. We recommend that one half of your valley be dedicated to pig and hardwood production. The other half will be in dairy farming, which will be tied in with butter, yogurt, and cheese production, rather than in selling fresh milk. Prices for agricultural products are low on New Yugoslavia, and most of our products will be processed to be sold off planet."
"Just as well, I suppose, since on New Yugoslavia, we might have difficulty explaining just where all of this stuff was being produced. So the beef cattle will be moved out to the plain?"
"Yes. The most profitable method of cattle ranching is still to let the herds reproduce in a fairly natural way on the open plain, and then to bring individuals in for three months of indoor fattening before slaughter. Half of your plains area will be dedicated to a special high-protein grass, with salt licks and watering troughs available for the cows, sheep, and camels. The other half will be for agricultural production, mostly grains, for use as animal feed."
"Step back. Camels?"
"Arabs eat camels. There is a good market for camel meat on some planets."
"If you say so. We won't be producing vegetables at all?"
"Only in your kitchen garden. Most planets produce their own fresh vegetables, in greenhouses if nowhere else, and they aren't worth the cost of interstellar shipping. The New Yugoslavian market is glutted. If this market situation changes, we can always plant them out on the plains."
"And no grain sales, either?"
"We anticipate both buying and selling on the local grain markets, as our needs for animal feed fluctuate. But the highest profits will be in processed meat products."
"So it's pigs, cows, horses . . ."
"Horses, boss?"
"Yes, I'll want a stable of riding horses. Only a few dozen, and just for fun."
"Yes, sir. One stable of riding horses, coming up."
"And as I was saying before the interruption, pigs, cows, horses, sheep, camels, chickens, turkeys, and fish, the last three to be raised underground."
"Not fish. New Yugoslavia is half ocean, and the strong tidal currents caused by its large, nearby moon keep nutrients from settling to the bottom the way they do on Earth. Every square kilometer of those oceans is richer than the richest fishing grounds on your home planet. Carefully selected Earth-type aquatic creatures have completely dominated the aquatic ecology, with the result that there is a surplus of high-quality fish on the entire interstellar market. The one exception is that lobsters have not adapted to the oceans here, and nobody is sure why. We are digging the underground fishponds that you asked for, but we expect to use them exclusively for lobster production. Since lobsters are scavengers, when they are not cannibals, feeding them gives us something to do with the half of the other animals that you humans prefer not to eat."
"Like the lungs, brains, and eyeballs. I see myself becoming the Interstellar Lobster King."
"There are worse things to be, sir. Anyway, all of this has to be carefully scheduled. The grass has to be growing before we can bring in the cows. The trees have to be five years old before we bring in the pollinating bees. The cattle have to be grown before we install the slaughter houses and tanneries, and so on. Your first lobster won't go on sale for ten years."
"And not even then. I intend to eat it myself. But lobsters grow that slowly?"
"It's their exoskeletons, sir. They have to shed the old one every time they're ready to grow twenty percent larger."
"Well, good. I'll be a properly educated farmer long before my ranch is in full production. Now then, show me what your architects have come up with for my home, my mansion."
We were interrupted by the doorbell. I answered it to find a thin little fellow with thinning hair and an expensive suit standing in the doorway.
"General Derdowski, it is so pleasant to see you again. We met, of course, at your wedding reception."
At least that's what I thought he said, since he was speaking Croatian. I must have met a thousand people in that reception line, but I doubt if I remember a single one of them.
Agnieshka came to my rescue by appearing on the screen in the living room. She never forgot anything.
"Dr. Sciszinski, it's so pleasant to see you again," she said in Croatian, then switching to Kashubian she said, "Boss, you remember that Dr. Sciszinski is in charge of the Croatian Mental Health Services."
I suddenly realized that Agnieshka was talking in Kashubian and Croatian simultaneously, only it seemed to me that she was louder in Kashubian. I guessed that she was somehow beaming the sound to each of us in our own language. A neat trick, and one she hadn't done before.
"Yes, of course," I lied. "Please come in. What can I do for you, sir?"
"Well, I just had lunch downstairs with my cousin, who happens to be the Chief Justice of our Supreme Court."
These people seemed to carry nepotism about as far as it could go. Well, it was their country, not mine.
"Yes. I had the pleasure of meeting His Honor a few days ago. Won't you sit down?"