THE LOW-SLUNG STEAMER runabout was back by the main entrance to the barracks, with a Seco guarding the purple machine. He carried a weapon I’d never seen before, a short-barreled gun not long enough to be a true projectile rifle nor short enough to be a handgun.
“Riot gun,” observed Eltar quietly.
I must have looked puzzled.
“That’s what the Secos used on the crowds at Wavertown.”
“Wavertown?”
The three of us had stopped on the far side of the half-circle stone drive as we surveyed the Seco and the runabout. The security officer turned toward us, casually letting the weapon move in our direction.
“You didn’t learn about Wavertown in school?” Farren’s voice rose.
“No. What was Wavertown?”
“Wavertown was where the Secos killed two hundred miners for refusing to work the deep seams.”
“The deep seams?”
“You’re hopeless, Sammis,” sighed Farren. “Look. All the easy metal is gone. At Wavertown, there were deep seams of iron ore. You know, the stuff they make steel from? The seams were so deep that a lot of miners got sick from the heat and the fumes. Some of them died. The government said they died from drinking too much etheline. The Secos took over the mines. The miners refused to go back to the deep seams. The miners held a public meeting, and the Secos surrounded them and ordered them to the mines. The miners refused. The Secos shot them. Two hundred died, and close to a thousand were wounded.”
I shook my head. The Eastron Sympathy Revolt had been nothing like that. The southern miners had refused to support the war effort against Eastron and had sabotaged the mines so badly that they were never reopened. When the Secos had tried to stop the sabotage, the miners rose and tried to keep the troops from the mines until the destruction was complete.
“Look, Sammis. You’re gentry. Or you were. Do you think your folks
were going to tell you that they beat down freemen and miners? And what about Nepranza?”
“What about it?” I asked softly. I’d never heard about it. “That was a long time ago.”
“Nepranza was three-four years ago. What world were you in? Just because some minor lord got uppity when a few youngsters got too friendly with his daughters, the Secos murdered a dozen. Then they did have riots. The lord’s girls were fine, they said, but a lot of the town’s daughters weren’t. They were dead, or wished they were.”
I just kept shaking my head. Did they think that the newspapers would have hushed up the kind of massacre that Farren said had taken place? Or the supposed events in Nepranza? My pack felt like it weighed as much as the steamer that waited by the barracks.
“Do you really believe that drek about natural choice of the gentry?” Farren’s voice was almost a shout.
The Seco was sneering openly as Eltar grabbed Farren’s arm.
“Chill it, Farren. Sammis doesn’t honestly know. Can’t you see that?”
I wanted to slug them both—Eltar for being so damned condescending, and Farren for believing that all gentry had forked tongues and fangs. I didn’t do either. I just walked away from them.
“Still gentry at heart …”
“ … just chill it … lost both parents … made it through ConFeds …”
Just as I drew up to the runabout, careful even in my rage to keep a good distance from the dark-haired Seco with the riot gun, he swung to back to face the barracks door, and stiffened.
“Valtar? Have any of the ConFeds arrived back here?” The woman who had greeted Carlis so efficiently stood full in the torch lights, glancing past the Seco toward Eltar and Farren, who were still mumbling about me. “Are those the first?”
I tried to keep my mouth shut as I studied the woman. She had sandy-blond hair that glinted in the light, and a figure that might almost have seemed boyish, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, until I saw her even narrower waist. Despite shoulders nearly as broad as mine and short hair cut square across the back of her neck, she was clearly feminine. Her face was almost elfin, except for the set of her jaw. I liked what I saw of her figure.
She reminded me of someone, but I was in no shape to remember who.
“Trooper.” The words were directed at me.
“Yes, Colonel.” I had no idea what she might be, but she radiated authority.
At my response, she smiled, a professional smile. Even so, the smile softened her expression momentarily, made her look years younger, close to my own age, before she wiped it away. She was attractive in a familiar sort of way, but that could have been because it had been so long since I had been around any real women. “We’re a military project, Trooper, but not military. I’m Dr. Relorn.” She studied me again. “How long before the rest of the troops arrive here?”
Her scrutiny left me feeling uneasy, as if she saw right through me.
“The other road scouts, about twelve in all, are on the way back. The unloading crews will be a while yet.”
“You are?” she asked, the smile clearly gone.
“Sammis, ConFed maintenance, Doctor.”
She frowned, then let the expression drop. “The barracks are yours. There’s no power right now, but we should be able, now that you have some mechanics here, to get the standby steam generators on line within a day or two.”
I would have liked to talk more, but Farren and Eltar were sauntering up the drive, and the Seco was positively scowling. So I inclined my head. “Thank you, Doctor. We appreciate it.”
She nodded in return. “Good night.” Again, her eyes seemed to look right through me. She smiled briefly, and it seemed for a moment as she and I were alone in front of the ancient stone barracks.
Then the smile was gone, and a doctor who acted like a colonel stood there. Probably twice my age for all that she looked young when she smiled. She turned, and I shook my head.
“Did you see
that?”
Farren’s voice grated on my nerves. “She talked to you?”
Eltar was shaking his head slowly, whether at me or Farren I couldn’t tell.
“Just to say that the barracks were ours and that we’d have power once we could get the standby steam generators working.”
“Must be an old Imperial staging base,” mused Eltar.
“Not used for military, either,” I added.
“Trying to change the subject, Sammis? Hunh?”
“From what?”
“That lady you were giving the eye.”
I sighed. Farren was obnoxious. “She acted just like a ConFed colonel, except she has her professional smile down better. And she acts like this is her base, not ours.”
“Probably was …”
At that point, I didn’t really care. Looking at the colonel-doctor or whatever she was had been nice, but I didn’t see much future in it.
Besides, I was tired. My stomach hurt, and my head was close to spinning away on its own. “Let’s find some bunks and then look for the mess.”
“Good idea.”
The doctor had been right. The barracks were ours. Completely. There wasn’t a soul in the building. So we took three of the better bunks, ones with lockers built in underneath them.
The cold water was cold, and the hot water was lukewarm, indicating that something worked. I used liberal amounts of both to remove as much road dust, grime, and soot as possible. Even good steamers emitted some soot, and the ones that we had been using were in less than perfect condition.
By the time we had washed up, the rest of the road scouts had found their way into the barracks, followed by Janth and his locks for the armory.
“Let’s have those weapons, now …”
I was more than glad to get rid of the projectile rifle, just wishing that he would hurry up and finish so that we could get something to eat. I felt as white as the ancient canvas mattress cover on my bunk.
“Field mess is being set up in the dining hall below. That’s the big empty room at the back …” Janth went on, but I tuned it out, just waiting until we were dismissed to go eat.
After all, lack of food had landed me in the ConFeds, so to speak, and the ConFed organization’s single greatest benefit to me had been the halfway square meals that allowed me to rebuild and maintain my strength.
“Sammis … just waiting to eat. Again …”
I tried to keep from smiling at the comments about my appetite, but I probably looked wolflike thinking about food. That was the way I felt.
“Dismissed.”
I was second in line heading down the wide stone stairs toward the dining hall. Eltar liked to eat as much as I did. He was first. That was fine with me. Being first called too much attention to you, just like being gentry, or being an officer. Or a witch.
“Line up on the right! On the right!” Carlis’s voice was unmistakable.
There was only one place to line up—on the right. So we did, with Eltar leading us on.
“Lukewarm field slop …”
“Boiled rat guts …”
“ … tasty rodent brains …”
The cooks were used to the comments, and the one who glared at us looked no different than usual as our boots echoed on the stone flooring.
Four long dusty tables had been dragged away from a stack on one side of the hall that must have held two dozen of the massive wooden trestles. The rest loomed there in the shadows cast by the field torches used in place of broadcast power globes or hard-wired lights.
The flickering light made the old building seem ancient, but its age wasn’t my predominant concern as I shovelled a double helping onto the field tray.
…
grrrrr
… Both the light-headedness and my stomach were letting me know of my low energy state.
“You can eat that?” Farren sounded amused.
“He’s a damper, Farren.”
“ … cannibal type, you know, swamp rat eating swamp rat …”
I ignored Rarden’s low-voiced comments and took two more slices of hard bread and one of the shriveled chysts that Eltar had spurned. Food was food, and, besides, the stuff we were getting was quite edible, if not exactly a gourmet’s delight. My father had been the gourmet, not me. My mother had regarded food only as a necessity, not an end in itself.
I took the tray and sat down on one of the long benches across from Eltar. My light-headedness began to disappear with the first bite, as did the tightness in my stomach, and I forced myself to eat slowly, methodically chewing each bite.
“That good, hunnnh?”
Again, I ignored Rarden.
“That good, swamp rat?”
“Rarden!” Even I looked up at Carlis’s bellow. The subforcer was standing almost at the end of the trestle table.
Rarden blanched. “Yes, sir!”
“Show some brains. That swamp rat is twice as tough and four times as poisonous as you. He has a hide thicker than a rhinopod. But he isn’t going to let you insult him forever, and there wouldn’t be enough of you left to stuff into a mess kit. So do us both a favor and shut your trap.”
Carlis’s tone showed he didn’t think much of either one of us—except as raw troop fodder. Still, it got Rarden off my back—temporarily.
I returned near-full attention to the field rations and broke the second slab of stale bread in two, taking one bite of the rehydrated and undefined meat and one bite of the heavy bread, one bite of the meat and one bite of the bread, alternating until I finished it all. I saved the chyst until last.
Everyone was gone—except Carlis—when I stood to take the field tray back.
“Swamp rat …”
“Yes, sir?”
“Still so very polite. Swamp rat … just stay polite and listen to orders, and everything will be just fine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re so polite, swamp rat. You never do anything wrong that you can help. Why don’t I trust you?” Carlis was sitting by himself at the very end of the trestle.
“Sir?”
“I don’t trust you, swamp rat. I never will. And don’t forget it.”
“I won’t, sir.”
“I know you won’t, swamp rat.” Carlis shook his head, and looked back at his own partly eaten rations. “I know you won’t.”
Since I appeared to be dismissed, I left to go back to the corner of the barracks I had staked out for some sleep. The next morning would be the typically early ConFed dawn.