Torchship (15 page)

Yukio stood to reply. “I’m Yukio 23, Director of the
Savannah Biome Project. Why are you trespassing on TFS property?”

“This is an uninhabited planet, no one’s property until some
settlers make improvements. I’m not claiming it either. I’m just visiting. How
about you? Whose ship is that?”

Captain Schwartzenberger stood. “I’m Alois Schwartzenberger,
master of the merchant vessel
Fives Full
. We’re under charter to the
Terraforming Service. Who are you?” He sat. The thugs exchanged whispers.

“And here I was hoping you were tinkers coming to sell us
everything we’d forgotten to pack for our camping trip. Oh, well. I’m Max. The
rest of this merry band work for me.”

“Well, Max, you need to take your merry men and get off this
planet. You’re disrupting crucial scientific research,” said Yukio.

“Research? These species were analyzed down to their atoms
before the first gate was deployed. That’s the only way you’d be able to do
this.” He waved an arm at the savannah. “It’s a hobby project for you people.
Wasting resources on animals when you should be making places for people to
live like you’re supposed to.”

“We’re supposed to spread life. All of Earth’s life, not
just humans.” Yukio’s tone had become defensive. “I’m not going to let you
destroy this creation.”

Max gave a theatrical shrug. “You’re not re-creating Earth
here. All these species went extinct when the AIs became hostile. They should
stay extinct. This lovely plain will be farms someday. I’m just clearing the
way for the settlers.”

“Don’t worry about future settlers. Think about the settlers
on your own world. A single terraforming ship could edit one of Demeter’s
continents to restart the Savannah Project there. We’ll do that if you destroy
these animals. Think about it. Millions of your relatives, friends, neighbors,
all killed or driven from their homes. Leave this planet now if you want to
keep them safe.”

Schwartzenberger studied the reactions to her threat. The
thugs were poker-faced. The driver and the flunkies in the second car all
looked terrified. Max was still cheerful as he replied, “Bullshit. The ships
have the power but the TFS has never intentionally taken a human life. You
people never will. It’s just too big a conflict with your ‘ethos of life.’ Does
make for some great fiction, though. I love those shows.” The thugs burst out
laughing—not at their boss’s speech but at Yukio’s shocked expression. The
captain could see her jaw hanging down from where he sat.

For the first time in his life Alois Schwartzenberger
regretted not hosting poker games on his ship.

Max went on. “If any of you decide to emulate your late
colleagues, keep in mind that injecting me with a tranquillizer dose sized for
an adult male lion is a lethal attack. I’ll respond appropriately. And I’m
better at it than you are. Stay out of my way and play with your pets. While
they last.” He cuffed his driver on the head. The cars drove off.

Yukio closed her mouth.

***

Yukio gathered everyone between the floaters. “We need to
find something we can offer him, some compromise that will make him go away
happy.”

“We can offer him some bullets if Guo fixes my rifle,” said
Billy.

“Yeah!” Roark was thrilled at the prospect of revenge.

Bing cut him off. “If we’re going to do anything with him we
should go get a terraforming ship so we’ve got enough force to control the
situation.”

“Yes, let’s take off and get help,” added Jisi.

“We don’t have the time,” said Yukio. “By the time a
terraformer, or even a cruiser, got here we may have lost whole species.”

“Calm down, people,” soothed Captain Schwartzenberger. “We’ve
got time to consider our options. Let’s do some brainstorming. Max isn’t afraid
of the TFS going after Demeter, can we threaten him with the TFS coming here?”

The attempt to focus them on his employer’s preferred
strategy went nowhere. Guo got drawn into a side discussion on how the dome’s
equipment could be used to put a scope on the rifle. Jisi and Bing kept looking
for any excuse to get off the planet. Some of Roark’s threats were inventive
but there was no way this group could back them up. Yukio’s suggestions got
torn apart by one side or the other.

Mitchie drifted out of the group unnoticed. They’d mostly
been talking over her head anyway. She took a canteen from the back of one of
the floaters and started emptying out her pockets. Everything she wasn’t sure
she’d need went into the pile, including her pistol. A few items were tucked
carefully back in. Her handcomm was tweaked to mute the speaker before going
back on her belt. She grabbed a half-empty ration box and carried it over
between Billy and Roark.

She stood on it and yelled, “This is a waste of time!” The
parade-ground bellow silenced them all. She continued more quietly, “We’ve all
got different guesses about what Max has for resources. We’re basing plans on
those guesses. But we’re not going to agree on anything until we have some
actual data to go on. The sun’s setting. I’m short and sneaky. So I’m going to
look at their camp and tell you what they’ve got. Then we can make a plan.”

Mitchie hopped off the box and started trotting north. The
captain walked after her, pushing Billy aside. “Hang on, Mitchie, I don’t think
that’s a good idea,” he said.

“Don’t worry, sir, I know what I’m doing,” she replied over
her shoulder.

“Wait, we should have someone go with you as back-up.” That
got a headshake. “Pilot Long, get back here! That’s an order!”

“Trust me, Skipper!” Mitchie half-turned to wave at him then
picked up her pace. The captain glared after her. Once he had his face under
control he rejoined the group. No one dared say anything to him.

***

Mitchie’s voice sounded from the crew’s handcomms. “I’m
paralleling their vehicle track. It’s going to the east of those three hills.
No sign of sentries.”

Jisi dug a mapboard out of her floater. Guo had a
directional antenna for his handcomm. He quickly confirmed which hills she
meant. Bing pulled out her notebook.

***

Mitchie found the hunter’s camp in a bowl about a hundred
meters higher than the savannah. Most of the space was taken up by their ship,
a high-performance belly-lander. Some tarps hung off the left wing to make a
shelter. A dozen tents clustered next to it. Max’s tent was obvious from both
its size and the respectful distance the other tents kept from it.

She’d described the lay-out from up on the hill. The staff had
turned in early. Only Max’s tent had lights on. A pair of goons walked the
perimeter of the camp. Between snack breaks, piss breaks, and rest breaks their
schedule was hard to predict but after two laps she was sure there was just the
one pair. Their path stuck to easy terrain, sometimes wandering ten to twenty
meters from the actual camp. When they passed under her hill on the next lap
she started moving as soon as their backs were to her.

Between the dark blue utilities and the mud on her face and
hands Mitchie didn’t think she’d be noticed but movement does catch the eye.
She moved slowly to not disturb anything that might noisily roll downhill. Once
across the patrol path she tucked under some thorn bushes and waited for the
thugs to go by again.

***

Schwartzenberger was chewing on a thumbnail as he listened
to Mitchie’s reports.

“Tent seven, two males.”

We know that. We could hear them talking,
thought the
captain. The radio was at maximum volume so they could make out Mitchie’s
whispers. Her footsteps were audible, sometimes louder than the voices of the
people she was sneaking among. The captain was dreading a shout of “Hey,
someone’s out there!” He’d considered sending a couple of boys after her to
back her up. Instead he was hoping she actually was as sneaky as she said she
was.

So far she’d turned out right. And wasn’t that going to lead
to discipline problems down the line.

“Tents eight and nine, one male each.” Bing and Jisi made
quick notes. Schwartzenberger studied the sketch of the camp. Those were two of
the bigger tents. Maybe the thugs got private quarters, unlike the servants?

“Tents ten and eleven, empty.”

Those would belong to the two walking perimeter then. That
was all the tents.
I hope she isn’t crazy enough to sneak onto their damn
ship.

***

Leaving would be the hard part. Random noises were normal
enough in camp. She’d already hid from a guy going for a midnight piss. The
perimeter was supposed to be quiet. This side of camp didn’t have much brush
between the tents and the patrol path. The rain had dug a mini-gully through
there, which the path avoided. She picked a steep sided spot and waited for the
patrol to go out of sight again.

A crouching walk took her to the gully in a minute. The spot
she’d picked had a smooth layer of sand on the bottom. She stretched out,
thankful for the lack of rocks. The patrollers were coming round again. She
could hear them bickering. The younger one wanted another break. Mitchie tucked
her nose into her elbow. Covering the eyes was the hard part of hiding. She
always wanted to peek out.

Over her waist a black nose poked out of the dirt. The
critter chittered softly. Mitchie shifted away. It pulled back into its burrow
then popped out again. It growled loud enough to drown out the thugs.
Crap.
That’s going to attract attention
. She squeezed her animal repellant
bracelet.

The critter disappeared into its hole with an ear-splitting
squeal.
Shit
. More squeals followed. She turned off the bracelet but the
animal kept complaining.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s just a damn animal.”

“No shit. What’s making it act like that? Spread out,
dammit. Go around that side.”

Bullshitting time
. Mitchie put her hands on the edge
and pulled herself partly up. “Hey, I’m sorry. I was waiting for morning. Didn’t
want to wake y’all up.” She put on an awkward, nervous smile. Easy to do with a
submachine gun pointed at her face.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Get out of there!” The
older goon waggled his weapon toward a flat patch of ground.

Mitchie obediently climbed out and stood there, hands at her
shoulders, palms out. “See, those terraformers are crazy. I was scared to stay
there. So I figured what the hell, everybody needs a cook, I’d see if you guys
were hiring. Snuck out as soon as they were asleep.”

The SMG was still pointed at her. The younger goon had his
weapon slung, though. He looked much less hostile. “If you didn’t want to talk
to us until morning why are you hiding here? You could’ve been anywhere,”
demanded the older one.

“Jeez, boss, have you seen the animals running around here?
I’d be two bites for some of them. I wanted to get close enough to your camp to
be safe. Without, you know, bothering anyone with guns. Sorry to bother you.”
The SMG was lowered, safed, and slung. “So do you need a cook? If you’ve got
one I can be assistant. Or I can clean. I’m a really neat person.” Mitchie gave
the younger one a smile. She only needed to convince one of them to get into
the camp.

The fist landed squarely on her cheek. For a moment all she
felt was her teeth shifting in their sockets. She was on her side in the dirt.
Some stars were visible over the hillside. She picked a bright star to focus on
so she could hold onto consciousness. The star wiggled, danced, and went out.

***

Bing turned the volume down before the squealing animal
ruined the speakers. The thugs’ voices were muffled at first. Mitchie’s story
came across clearly. Then a thump.

Tenor-voiced goon: “What the hell did you do that for?”

Gravel voice: “Probably should’ve shot her. But we ought to
ask a few questions before we finish her.”

“C’mon, she’s harmless. Look at her.”

“Ain’t nobody harmless since guns were invented. Search her.”
Guo emptied out his pockets. “Check her for guns, you pervert.”

“Guo, what are you doing?” asked Captain Schwartzenberger.

“Going after her,” answered the mechanic.

“Running off solo like that is what got her in this mess,”
said the captain. Guo racked his pistol to put a round in the chamber. Then he
ejected the magazine, added one more cartridge, and slid it back in. “We’ll put
a plan together and all go rescue her.”

“She might not have that long.” Guo started jogging north,
left hand on the head of his hammer to keep it from banging his leg.

“Okay, this is an order, get back here!”

“I ain’t on your ship, Captain.” The mechanic headed out of
sight in the moonlight.

Schwartzenberger ground his teeth with rage. He turned to
Billy and snapped, “Well? Aren’t you going to join the mutiny?”

The deckhand held up his hands placatingly. “Skipper, if I
ever tell you to piss up a rope, it’ll be on a planet I like more than this
one.”

***

“Fine. I’ll shoot her and then you can fuck her.”

“I like them warm, you sick piece of shit.”

“Oh, she’ll be warm for a few hours.”

That was the third time Mitchie had heard them cycle through
that stage of the argument. She’d revived enough to eavesdrop after being
dropped on the floor of this tent. By the size it was the one overlooking their
vehicle trail. The inside was bare. Likely just a place for the on-duty
sentries to snack.

“Look, you can’t just kill someone on your own say-so. We
work for Max. He makes all the big decisions.”

“He’s the boss here but he’s not paying the bills. So our
job is to keep him safe. Which includes not letting him get his throat cut by
sneaky terraformers.”

“Sheesh. You are so ridiculously paranoid. We just leave her
tied up.”