Friday, November 1, 2013

The Martyr Charter.








From a thousand different backgrounds, many keeping a secret for months or even years, along a thousand different paths of enlightenment, it had finally come down to this. All of them would have the satisfaction of drawing attention to their cause and to their willingness to sacrifice for it.

It had that much going for it.

Fred closed the passenger manifest and muttered something.

“What?”

“Nicely apportioned.”

Barney snorted, having read the thing right alongside of his captain.

They had a mix of M.A.D.D. people, Right-to-Lifers, Pro-Choicers, animal-rights activists, and one or two who had steadfastly labeled themselves tourists and kept their motivations to themselves. There were quite a number of Ovaltine Party Members hoping to score some points as it was budget time again in their country. 

A small contingent of jilted lovers, with kind of a disproportionate number from Pajan, rounded out the ensemble.

The bulbous form of the Airbus 640-P for Pilgrim sat poised on the end of the runway at Brobdinak’sInternational Airport. The runway shimmered in heat haze, but the interior was cool enough.

The Pilot, Fred and his Second Officer/Copilot Barney, strictly humourous code-names but useful still, ran through the pre-take-off check-list one more time. The heavily-modified aircraft was unlike anything they had ever flown previously.

They had never seen each other before being selected for this mission, and hopefully, would never see each other again.

Yet they had grown into a strangely intimate friendship over the past few months.

With the 640-P stressed for seven golly-gees, and capable of spanning well over half a globe un-refuelled, they had spent a thousand hours in the flight simulators and hundreds of hours in real-time cockpit familiarization for this inaugural mission.

Aboard were a thousand of the faithful, each to his own persuasion, all of whom had paid a million Upottsian dollars for the privilege of this one-way flight.

“Ready.”

Fred looked over with full confidence evident in his features. That’s not to say there weren’t a few butterflies in either man’s stomach.

“Roger that.”

The copilot touched a button and spoke into his throat microphone, his features obscured by his combat helmet, flash goggles and face-mask, still hanging loose from one side as it wasn’t necessary to do it up yet. 

Not for minutes would they need it.

In the meantime, they had taken the place of a regularly scheduled flight, flight number six-seven-one, Brobdinak to Upottsia. Timing was crucial, but so far nothing had gone wrong.

“Tower, this is Pilgrim Airlines six-seven-one, requesting clearance for takeoff.”

“Roger, tower here. You have clearance for take-off. Proceed to altitude thirty-one and please do not deviate while transiting military area B-67-f-niner-smegma. Over.”

“Roger that.” Barney repeated the instructions, which were simple and familiar enough to the former airline pilots.

The men reached up and snapped on the masks.

With Fred holding the yoke, Barney began sliding the four coupled throttles and then the plane began to move…ever so slowly at first, as he stopped the throttles against the end of the gate, and then it went faster and faster until the lines, lights and markers coming up under the nose were just a blur.

The numbers on the speedometer soon cleared the safety zone, a figure calculated according to fuel load, number of passengers and their total weight, and then it was time. For this flight there was no luggage, and little in the way of disposables, just three days worth of meals and coffee for the six crew members, which included four flight officers and two stewards/bouncers. One guy had specifically asked for chocolate milk, and in fact it had been provided.

“Rotate.”

Fred pulled back on the stick, using a bit of left rudder to counteract a light crosswind, and then the big jet began to climb out, the dim shape of the city dropping away in their peripheral vision.

Barney kept an eye on the speed, angle-of-attack, engine performance and altimeter. All the radio and navigation systems were fully functional as Fred turned the yoke and the plane rolled into its first clearing turn, continuing to gain altitude all the while.

Barney glanced over, noting the sheen of sweat on the small patches of skin visible around the eyes and forehead.

“How does she handle?”

“Not bad. Pretty much the way she did in the simulator.” Actually, the controls seemed a bit heavier, but he was convinced that was just his own stress.

You could throw the ship around pretty easily in the simulator, but the price of a mistake was nil. This was different.

“Yep.” Fred turned. “God is great, my young friend.”

They were on their way and once out of Brobdinakian airspace, they would follow a Great Circle route, over the bulk of East Midwestern Eurasia and then over the vast Specific Ocean.

“Thirteen-point-one hours to first destination.” Barney checked all of his figures repeatedly, but it appeared he hadn’t missed anything.

For security reasons, if there was a problem, now was the time to turn back.

“All systems are go.”

“Thirty-one thousand…coming up. Mark.”

“Huh?” Barney looked around in confusion, but then grinned slyly. “Oh. Right.”

Fred had a small smile on his face. His young accomplice was incorrigible. Whatever the Seven Purgatories that actually meant.

Fred eased his pressure on the stick and levelled the aircraft. After a sweep of the instrument panel, he engaged the autopilot and then he could finally relax.

The men took their masks off as if by some unspoken agreement to heighten the Victorian melodramatic effect of it all.

“Ah, shit.”

“What?” The shock of adrenalin was small, the tone wasn’t all that urgent.

“Message from the Monkeyman.”

Fred grunted, albeit with a calm, neutral visage. His copilot wasn’t all that enamoured of their Fearless Leader, who, if truth be told, was more of a puppet of the corporate mullahs and conservative public opinion—the only kind there was in Brobdinak, or Upottsia either, not these days.

“Instructions?”

“We’re supposed to play it over the whole system.” This would allow passengers and crew to hear what the fellow had to say, probably something fatuous and ostensibly inspirational at the same time. “Holy crap, he’s thanking all of our sponsors.”

“Okay.”

Barney pushed the button and as the deep, sing-song, oddly nasal voice of Fearless Leader harangued them one more time, both crew settled in to try and catch some sleep. They had a long night ahead of them. The message, predictably, was a long one, and after a minute or two he turned the sound down.

He had a rough idea of what he would be saying anyways.

***

At their cruising speed of five hundred eighty-five knots, there was plenty of time for a meal and some rest, but both were in their seats, taking over from Beta Crew for the run-in to the target area.

Observing all normal flight rules, descending as if they were indeed landing at San Upottsia, when the big aircraft disappeared off radar, the well-trained Upottsian air controllers, assuming a crash in the sea, immediately declared an emergency and scrambled all available search and rescue craft to the last known point on their flight path.

If they had any inkling that the Airbus was now flying nap-of-the-earth, down to three hundred and fifty knots, and weaving its way in through the coastal mountains and then out over the desert, the reaction if anything would have been much stronger.

As it was, two pairs of fighter jets were scrambled as a precaution. The Upottsians had been taken by surprise before, but all they did was to climb and orbit in a racetrack pattern, waiting for further instructions, while ground staff tried to confirm the facts and locate the crash site.

They watched, giggling, on the radar warning sets, but their plane had been designed to absorb radar and all kinds of stuff.

Since dawn was still two hours away, and there was nothing to find, this might take some time.

The big Airbus had been designed, a one-off prototype, as a bomber, or at least that was what all of the North-Western and even the Southern-Midwestern/Eastern intelligence services thought. And it was even true and everything, but the nature of the load they carried would have surprised the most jaded and sanguine intelligence analysts. They might have figured it out all on their own, one never knew. Of course it was a question of timing and surprise. Both men had dropped hard bombs before, and Fred had once even machine-gunned a school bus full of Salivian tribes-kids, all of this earlier in their careers, but this was something just a little bit different.

By that time the Martyr Charter would be approaching the target area…at that time there was nothing that could stop or seriously interfere with the mission.

***

The aircraft streaked low over the desert, the morning sun just below the horizon but the sky lightening perceptibly. Using the terrain to mask their presence from the ever-watchful radar, jinking through valleys and scraping through the mountain passes, the golly-gee-forces were at times considerable.

In a steep, low-level turn, with the one wing pointing crazily skyward, and the other one seemingly inches from a cliff-face, Fred noted a small creak from up somewhere in the right corner of the cockpit, but with its bamboo-fibre laminate construction and considerable internal strengthening from the launch tubes, he wasn’t too worried. It was just his job to observe and make notes and so that’s what he did.

The impression of speed was magnificent, but with accurate celestial mapping, the machine knew everything that lay ahead of it, and if a little minor altitude or speed compensation was necessary, it was more than capable of doing it in good time.

A small buzzer sounded in Fred’s earphones.

“We have reached the Initial Point.” From here on in they must really keep an eye on the thing.

Fred nodded. He keyed the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please leave your seats now and enter the drop tube located directly in front of you. We have seven minutes until drop.”

The nose camera was already picking up a gleam of white far off in the distance. In all simulations, it was found that people could get into their luxuriously-padded yet easily-washable tube within two and a half minutes.

Both pilot and copilot watched the graphic display in awful suspense until all the green section lights flashed on.

The voice of the senior flight attendant came over their headphones.

“All secured. Confirm ready to drop. We are in our seats and strapped in.”

“Any problems?” Fred was concerned with this part of the mission, which was out of his control.

“Naw. Had to knock a couple on the head, but that’s about it.”

“Thank you.” Barney was feeling left out.

“All secured. Ready to drop.” Barney glanced at the chronometer and reached for the microphone button. 

“Ladies and gentleman, four and a half minutes to drop. God is watching! And thank you for flying Martyr Airways.”

They watched as the readouts on time and distance clocked downwards towards zero.

Red lights came on over the bombardier handle—there was no other way to describe it, although if things continued to go well, the drop would be fully automatic. The pilot gripped the handle firmly, just in case.

Fred marvelled at the calmness in his heart, although there was tension in his midriff, and a cold, icy feeling at the base of each kidney. He kept his left-hand fingertips lightly touching the yoke.

“I have it on visual.”

Fred sat up a little straighter, being shorter than Barney, and peered over the high dashboard.

“Ah…beautiful.” The target, Keebler Dam, was dead ahead. “If this doesn’t send a strong message to the dirty Imperialist heathen East-South-Central/Western dogs, I don’t know what will.”

“Two minutes.” It passed more quickly if you watched the numbers and forgot that your own fate was involved, Barney found.

Fred looked over quickly.

“You left out infidels.”

“Hah!” Barney spit theatrically, careful to keep it pretty dry and spotty because of all the electronics.

There was the slightest change in pitch of the background noise. Rows of yellow lights turned green.

“Drop doors open. All are green for go.”

Fred spoke without looking over. He was totally focused on the machine’s performance.

“Thank you, my friend.”

Barney nodded in a professional manner.

“Damned glad to be here, sir!”

“It don’t mean nothing.”

They loved Upottsian movies.

They grinned like idiots, and then the last thirty seconds were winding down with a strident ‘wheep-wheep-wheep’ in the headphones. Barney was thinking of saying something about just wanting to learn how to cook but thought better of it.

The plane surged upwards as a thousand pilgrims launched into heaven and found their way to fame, to forgiveness, to paradise, perhaps even to eternal bliss, for surely ignorance is a kind of bliss.

For whatever reason, they were gone.

On tactical screen one, the scene was observed by a small, pilot-less, camera-equipped aircraft, dropped immediately prior to the full passenger drop, showing a cluster of white-shrouded objects spinning and tumbling through the air…the signal was strong and clear and they were getting good pictures.

“Schmuck!” Fred looked over, a sick feeling in his guts, but what were you supposed to do?

A big gob of what looked like nothing more than strawberry jam slowly oozed down the face of the dam. 

The water at the bast of the power-house foamed red and there was gore all over both sides of the canyon, and even rolling up and over the lip of the dam. The screen went fuzzy and the picture went black.

“Nice work.”

They had just made history, and in his own case, a hundred million dollars, although the other was said to be getting somewhat less.

A beatific grin came over him.

“Let’s see that again.”

Barney’s hand obligingly reached for the controls on the recording device.

The right wing came up and the nose came down again, and then they were streaking for the Kanatski-Terra border and ultimately Humpson’s Bay and a trans-Blarctic trajectory that would bring them by a circuitous route to rendezvous with a tanker orbiting over Greeseland. With a substantially smaller load now, the speed crept up reassuringly.

From Greeseland, it would be down the Schmedlantic, around the Crape and up the Indjun Ocean, and finally home in about a day and a half. Apparently they were having noodles for dinner and Fred was really looking forward to that.

Barney looked over.

“Send data-packet?” This would include all flight and drop information, including that from their drone.

“Roger that.”

With the throttle to the stops, it looked like they would be over Kanatski-Terra before the Upottsians could figure it all out and get some fighters in the air. Surely the authorities at the dam would be screaming into their telephones by now…screaming their damn-fool heads off.

Barney had earned some unofficial recognition, at least in Fred’s eyes.

“I’ll tell you what. When we get feet wet again, I’ll let you fly it for a while.”

“Can I sit in your chair?”

Fred nodded brightly.

“Uh-huh.”

Unable to speak, eyes shiny with the suggestion of tears, all the other could do was to nod in speculative appreciation, grip Fred’s forearm strongly and bite his lip in anticipation of unforeseen eventualities.

“Thank you! I’m quite looking forward to it.”

There was still much that could go wrong. Yet Barney’s gut instinct was that they had gotten away with it so far.

END




Thursday, October 31, 2013

The Right to Offend.

"Like I give a shit what Louis Shalako thinks."












The other day I had some trouble sleeping, eventually going thirty hours without sleep.

When I finally laid down at eleven or so, with the light off, there was a kind of red vaporous mist floating and swirling around on the inside of my eyelids, like dancing cigarette smoke. 

For a while, I was worried that I really wouldn’t be able to get to sleep. All kinds of crazy thoughts went though my mind.

And I had the whopper of a story idea.

It was so good I laughed out loud, fist-punping there in bed, and thinking that for sure I had to write it up. I have a pen and paper right there on the bedside table, but the light was off and the room kind of chilly or I would have made a note of it.

The next morning I couldn’t even remember what it was. That’s frustrating, and I tried several times to regurgitate it back up out of my subconscious mind, but the next night, or sixteen hours later, it suddenly dawned on me right out of the blue. (Like a miracle.) I wrote down exactly nine key words and that afternoon I began work on it.

And it occurred to me that the story might be as offensive as all get out to a certain group of people, purely on religious grounds. Something like six hundred million of them, not all of them non-English speakers, and yet at the same time it is true that many of them live in secularized nations and some of them might have quite liberal, even tolerant views of the little idiosyncrasies of the average western writer. Most, but not all, live halfway around the world.

The trouble is with the combination of the story elements, the theme, the events that happen in the story, and the way it is presented. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a ripping good satire. It’s funny as hell in its own way and that’s what I like to do sometimes.

I have little doubt that I have the right, according to my own lights, to publish this story or otherwise do as I see fit with it. We have the right to offend one another, a thought some will find offensive! And yet they find it so useful, too.

There is also some awareness that other editors, in speculative fiction or whatever, would be hesitant or at least think twice before publishing such a story. Maybe the difference is that I don’t have a wife and three kids.

When I realized that I have indeed written and published other stories, ones that might have offended or even simply hurt the feelings or irritated other folks of and other faiths or group of faiths…easily six hundred million of them in the world too, you know.

No one ever seriously objected to Near Death Experience, although one editor told me it was ‘a political and religious hot potato,’ and eventually the story was published by Danse Macabre.

The point is that I never really worried too much about reprisals or repercussions. I never seriously worried that some Fundamentalist Christian guy would grab a shotgun and jump in a pickup truck and drive fifteen hundred miles to come and get me. Because some of them believe in reincarnation too, even though the story was about a Muslim cleric, while undergoing emergency heart surgery at the hands of a Jewish doctor. 

Right?

This forces me to confront not so much the issue of right to publish, and not even the issue of whether or not someone would strenuously object to the story.

The real question is one of my own perceptions—am I responding to a negative stereotype in terms of the average man in the street in any major city in that part of the world? What about some other part of the world?

Aren’t we all just trying to get along, and should I not just keep my mouth shut and my head down?

Surely this would always be the safest course, and the default position for many.

I’ll rephrase that in more offensive terms. Is the average Muslim mom or pop really a bloodthirsty killer with no tolerance whatsoever? I would like to think this is not true. I would like to think most have some objectivity, some sense of humour, and some sense of human dignity—even though the story in question is, on the face of it, uncomplimentary.

It is uncomplimentary to the quest for martyrdom.

And whose standards should I go by, if I could look at it from their point of view? Would it be middle-of-the-road or fundamentalist principles that should guide me? From their point of view, I mean. The point of view of the majority, I mean.

Being grabbed by the wrong band of folks, way back in the hills in the wrong part of the world, if the wrong guy knew I had written that story, there’s no telling how it might go. It’s a crap-shoot.

Some guy might laugh his head off, or he might blow mine off. A bunch of college kids at a party somewhere, that might be a whole different ball of wax. Even then there’s likely to be a very pious, very sincere, very offended, and very insecure person who might strenuously object. That’s because a good writer can make you think they are talking directly to you and you alone. Even though this blog gets hundreds of hits in a day and fifty people will read this in the first hour, probably more even.

But there is that whole question of my own perceptions, my own stereotypes, and just how realistic are those perceptions, and how realistic can that threat assessment be under those terms of reference?

Trust me, I’m not seeking martyrdom, for surely that is vanity, and not at all like surrender to the will of God, which is really more a kind of humility. I don't have that much to atone for, quite frankly. Surely one would have to despise oneself and one's life to do such a foolish thing. Because otherwise it really is vanity.

At least I took it into consideration. I asked the question and found my own answer—and I touched up the story somewhat, one that gives reasonable men of any faith an out.

That’s right ladies and gentlemen. I didn’t sensor it exactly, I rewrote it. That’s all.

I did that for a reason.

I left you an out—an excuse not to act, or even to listen. I gave you a reason not to bother.

Other than that, I sure hope y’all have a nice day.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

A Foolproof Plan for Independent Publishing.

The secret to throwing a ball is simple: the harder you throw it, the further it goes.


By the Evil Dr. Emile Schmitt-Rottluff


Louis' little company, Shalako Publishing, can’t fail. It might get more complicated, and it has become rather more work than less over time. It’s still fun, and it’s not like I have anything better to do.

At this point he can still quit, or run it into the ground by neglect, or do something stupid and get sucked down by major liabilities. Even if he got sued for libel, or the computer blew up, if he had a heart attack, or simply couldn’t pay for the internet, the books are still out there and the various platforms do sell small numbers of books.

(Louis can't see me, and please never reveal this post to him, 'cause I want him to learn it on his own and maybe finally get a little self-confidence, but we'll let him tell it in his own words.)

Even then, the books I already have published would continue to sell occasionally, and continue to make money for whoever owns those intellectual properties, for example my estate or my heirs.

As long as I’m willing to continue writing, publishing, editing, all the stuff that’s needed to keep the costs down, all the marketing and promoting, the entity will continue to grow. Over time, revenues will increase and in fact I can even predict when they will come in for example, but only insofar as it’s at the ‘current rate of sales.’ Right?

(A note for accountants: the internet cost is set down as ‘entertainment’ of a personal nature. Even then, my ‘hobby’ pays me actual cash from time to time.)

The numbers will continue to grow.

In 2010, in four months of operation, I sold four books. I gave away about twenty. Yet even this small number showed that it is indeed possible for an unknown and not particularly skilled author (and even less skilled publishing-wise) to make money by writing and selling their own books online.

At some point I realized that the more titles you have published, the less and less importance that any one has in terms of sales. But each contributes to the overall sales—and now this is the important number.

In a game, there might be two players, and let’s say the house owns the table. For every completed game, they get a small percentage of the pot. Between the two guys, there is a winner and a loser. (No doubt about that. But we’re not playing that kind of game. That’s the important thing to remember. What we are doing is not gambling.)

That’s the house advantage—they never have to play a card and they still win on every game!

So what’s their real secret? Play as many games as possible in the shortest time possible.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to beat a system, and in my opinion, any system can be defeated by using its own rules against it, then the first thing to do is to understand how it works, and how the game is played. You want to know what cards you get, and what they are worth, and all the rules and stuff.

People keep saying and wondering about Amazon ‘changing their algorithms.’ They don’t have to change those algorithms, because the algorithms change themselves, organically almost, because the number of titles keep changing, the number of readers using the store changes moment by moment. Every day, the number of people with ereaders and Kindles goes up.

Yet the total number of ereaders in the world is still a variable in an algorithm. And that’s what we’re talking about, when we say ‘Amazon changed the algorithm.’ Someone is essentially saying they went in and skewed a couple of variables in a very long and complex equation. Ladies and gentlemen, I would submit that we changed the algorithm—and if we did it once we can do it again.

What we do now is to write faster—to write more often, and to publish more often, with better skills and better books and with better covers and better marketing. Because the numbers of authors, readers, books, dollars, ereaders, and other factors just keeps increasing every day.

That’s not to say that Amazon or any other online retailer doesn’t twiddle the buttons once in a while, maybe even just to keep it fair. It’s their house after all, their table and their game, and the choice is yours whether you want to sit in or not.

Or we can get up and walk away.

But here’s a funny thing. Now we have our own ‘house advantage.’ That’s because when we play a game now, it ain’t over when it’s over. The game stays on the table—or perhaps I should say that your new title stays in the store to maybe sell a book on another day.

Another thing we can do to change our own personal algorithm: we need to try and live as long as possible. 

Keep your cool and stay out of trouble. Right?

That’s how you game an algorithm—you just keep trying to push up the values on all of your own personal little variables.

We all have our own algorithm now. And the truth shall set you free.

END

Notes: Joe Konrath, A Newbies Guide to Publishing, says ‘it’s not a zero-sum game.’

This is real short, it’s from Wiki and it’s on the ‘zero-sum mentality.’ Cool, eh?

Here’s Wiki on Algorithms. The bit on formalization is particularly apropos.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Third World, an excerpt.








Chapter One

She Sure Was Beautiful


Hank tore his eyes off Polly Morgensen and tried to contribute something to the discussion.
She sure was beautiful, though. Her chin came up and she looked his way again. He saw it in his peripheral vision.
It was like an illness with him lately.
“Drifters.” Hank had run across one or two over the years.
They were little better than the nomads, who at least had purpose, following the great herds across the unbroken steppe of Third World’s northern hemisphere. Drifters were just that. Nomads stayed clear of settlement and cultivation, knowing there was plenty of room in the world. They needed open range, good grass and water. Drifters sought many things for many reasons. They tended to gravitate to more settled areas. During harvest, when hands were short, they were more welcome in some places more than others.
“That’s what they say. They’re camping up around Marjorie’s Way.” Red glanced around, but the other shoppers in the general store ignored them. “Word is they’ve been there a while.”
Perhaps the other people had already heard the news. Hank came into town once or twice in a month, usually a Monday but other days as well.
Marjorie’s Way was a notch in the hills just over the eastern horizon, obscured by the tops of barren pines, one of the few introduced species to do well on Third World. On the other side of the hills there was a brackish marsh at the end of a small run-off that brought a few of the indigenous waterfowl in season. After that, the trail petered out into a maze of hunting camps and thin ribbons of water in a vast marsh which had never been properly explored. People thought it went clear to the Blue Mountains. It was possible.
Drifters were often desperate, fleeing the law, debt more often. Sometimes it was young people running away, or just unfortunates looking for a new home someplace else. Hank had never really thought about it, although he had done it himself more than once.
“I see.” Hank Beveridge’s homestead was four kilometres out towards the morning sunrise, in the rolling hills where the true grasslands began.
He had a small river, and had painstakingly tanked up the seeps at the base of the hill where it came down. Hank had a herd of pack, draft and riding animals which he sold in an emergency, or when all else failed. He needed them for the business, or he would have done with only one or two animals. In the off season there was always work or worry.
The men watched a girl, her name was Polly. She and her mother haggled and fussed over a bolt of good red broadcloth. It looked like they were after a few things. Winter was coming and the kids would need shirts and pants and coats for winter, or even school. Polly was a fresh-faced beauty with a hint of a blush in her cheeks, almost as if she was aware of their scrutiny. She had long, straight black hair, with fine pale skin, long curling lashes and big dark eyes looking at everything in the store with an air of serious intent. She stood up straight, and that was one of the things he liked about her. It said much. Out of politeness, Hank took off his most prized possession, a pair of spectacles framed in thin steel wire. He put them in the case to protect them, as they were irreplaceable, and stuck them in his side pocket.
Hank’s purchase wasn’t urgent, but he’d been planning it for some time. Accounts receivable were one thing, and actually collecting them was another. He waited for long months on some accounts. The whole trade was predicated on long turnaround times. When possible, he paid for things in cash, which meant he owed few people and kept what he earned. It took a little foresight, and he had some of that.
Red went on.
“So far no one’s talked to them.” He looked around, but as long as Peltham was busy, he wasn’t going to get any cartridges, which was what he had ostensibly come in for.
Red could kill a half a day in town on three or four errands. The butter and eggs were running out and he didn’t do that on his own little plot, although he did have a respectable vegetable garden. It was something he was good at, and he could at least walk away from it, for a few days at a time, to go hunting or if some kind of work came up.
He sold cabbages and other produce at the end of the year, and Hank always looked him up as turnips and such kept pretty good over the winter. Red waxed them up real good. Red called them Swedes, which was a kind of a joke in these here parts. It really didn’t mean nothing and the few Swedes around took it in good spirit.
Hank studied Polly. Women were as scarce as hen’s teeth around here and she looked to be getting close to marrying age. He thought about it from time to time, her and one or two others. He fantasized about a few other ones, married as they were and so unattainable except in a daydream…at his present age of forty or thereabouts, it was pretty much all fantasy.
Red cleared his throat.
“You’re pretty close to Marjorie’s Way.”
Hank nodded.
“It’s about two and a half kilometres from my place.” It was to the north of his homestead, the sides of the hills and banks were very steep along there.
The valleys ran all east and west.
The hollows were full of scrub and there was no easy way through, so he hardly ever went up there. It was easier to get there from town, as the northeast trail ran through from here. They might even be camped on a corner of his land. Not that it mattered, they could do little harm as the first grass fire season was over and the land was lush and surprisingly damp this year. The odds were they would move on.
Cold grey clouds had dominated the weather for weeks.
Drifters were nothing new. One heard stories of course.

***

“Gentlemen.” The beaming proprietor, Abe Peltham, having made a good sale apparently, stood at the counter beside them.
Cheerful talk came from the ladies, for spending money was always exciting, and the slamming of the front door bore this impression out. Their hard boots thumped on the shaded boardwalk and then they stepped out into a rare shaft of sunlight and started across the rutted, muddy hell that was Main Street. Hank forced his attention back to the counter again.
Putting an elbow down and settling in for a long talk, Red leaned over to inquire as to three boxes of .22 long-rifle cartridges. He always claimed to be able to hit an apple at a hundred yards with the old repeater he owned, but privately Hank doubted it. He hadn’t seen an apple in twenty-five years, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Not since leaving Earth as a boy.
It was just talk. Talk had its pleasures, its temptations, and its uses. More than anything, it was unavoidable. Hank pulled his glasses out and put them on again.
He turned to watch the women cross the street and go into another establishment. Oak River, the town’s name, was a bit misleading as there were no real oaks on the planet, although several of the taller indigenous growths bore some resemblance, at least as far as anyone remembered. Red and Abe would take a while.
The place had a population of about four hundred. There were a thousand other settlers within a twenty-kilometre radius. There were quite a number in town today, as the conversation droned on behind him.
People moved up and down the street and draft animals, critters mostly but the odd horse as well, stood at hitching rails in front of the hastily-erected and mostly unpainted buildings.
Hank, starved for company and mental stimulation, found it fascinating enough in its own way. Turning, he watched in gentle amusement as Red tried to get Peltham to throw something into the deal.
“Come on, you got to make this worth my while.”
Abe shook his head.
“You know the prices. Besides, you still me owe a little from last month.” He knew it right down to the penny of course.
Poor old Red had been enjoying a run of bad luck, just a little saying he had.
Hank snorted gently in amusement. Part of the charm of the place, he figured. Red probably knew the total tab right down the penny himself.
Red knew when he was beaten and took the shells.
“Can you put that on my bill?” With a nod and a quick grin at Hank, he scooped them up and turned and stalked out of the store.
If he had any cash at all, Hank might find him at the Stub, one of three watering holes and not the best of the bunch. If Hank could see that, so could Peltham.
“Well, don’t that just beat all.” Abe sighed deeply and lifted an eyebrow in Hank’s direction.
“It’s a pretty good bet.”
Abe’s eyebrows rose.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m thinking this will be a bumper year for the hoppers.” They teemed in the grasslands, burrowing in the earth and subsisting on the greenery. “He’ll do all right if he gets out there.”
Every seventeen years they just seemed to go nuts, or so the old-timers said.
In Hank’s opinion their legendary fecundity was to make up for a high mortality rate among the young and newborns. Brownish on top and white on the belly, they were long-haired animals with floppy wrinkled ears. He shot one when he could himself, as they made a good stew, their small size precluding roast or steaks or anything like that. They had extensive colonies scattered at set distances and moved burrows frequently. The thing was to find a fresh group that had never been hunted, a whole colony, and then you could lay in a supply of meat. Properly smoked and salted, it would fetch a good price. Red had the best recipe on the planet for jugging them, or so he said.
Red had been known to do it from time to time, but hunting was always uncertain and had costs, including ammunition.
“Well, I suppose he has to feed himself, at least long enough to be able to pay me back.” Abe bit his lip and then grinned at Hank. “What can I get you?”
Hank had been saving a set amount, month in and month out, for a full year and yet his idea might be crazy, or merely unsuccessful. He was keeping it to himself for just that reason.
Taking a deep breath, knowing that it was bound to cause a certain amount of talk, he placed his order. He could almost justify it. He kept talking as Peltham moved in and out of the back room.
One thing he’d learned was to keep as much twine on hand as possible. It was mostly used for tying bundles of bracken-bush, the pods of which were a prized commodity on the home worlds. The pods were a tart, spicy thickener in a variety of soups and sauces that for the most part he had never heard of, never partaken of, and by the sounds of things, didn’t ever want to try. The leaves were dried and crushed and added to various products in an endless industrial food production chain. Elite chefs on a hundred worlds liked using the pods with the leaves still on the branches for presentation, whatever the hell that meant.
Hank didn’t much like the taste of it himself, and never used it in his own kitchen.

***

Hank wasn’t much for worship. While he had no particular reason not to go, the fact was that he hadn’t been to worship in ten or eleven years. The last time he’d been there, a friend was getting married. Not so much a friend as a cousin, which amounted to the same thing around here. He never really saw them two anymore.
The trouble was, they’d staked out a homestead clear twelve kilometres out on the other side of town and he rarely got up that way. Last he heard, they were doing well enough though. The land was flatter up there, more open, and they were growing fifteen or twenty acres of grain.
The pews in the church were made of piss-elm, an old name for a new cultivar but no one had any other ideas.
Hank looked around for people he knew, politely nodding when he made eye contact with old lady Stern, who in spite of the name was always just a little too friendly and agreeable, laughing too much at the lamest of jokes. Maybe she was just lonely.
A name is a name, but the seat was painfully hard under his butt. It was one of several reminders of why he never came anymore. The room was hot and fliers buzzed loudly in the small windows, letting a dim light in from a sky still a milky, dull bluish colour with the moisture. The air was so thick lately that you could cut it with a knife, bite a chunk off and chew it for a while.
Maybe that was why he never came anymore. Marty, the preacher, was surely one of the most fussy, prim and proper speakers he’d ever heard. He was…he was didactic and pedantic. The old familiar words came harder now, it’s not like you heard them at all anymore. It was clunky as all hell, there was no other way to describe it. There was just a hint of the effeminate in it, although Marty was married and had eight kids, all under twelve years of age.
The thought of this man teaching schoolchildren might in some small way account for their persistent and habitual truancy. It explained a lot. The last guy, Aldwin Notherman, was a lot better but he just up and died one day in the prime of life. It seemed so sad, and his wife and two daughters had moved back to Emerald City, six hundred kilometres to the south.
“Go in God’s name, and with peace and love in your hearts, my brothers and sisters and children of God.”
The words were familiar, but the sigh of collective relief that went through the assembly, as there must have been a hundred-fifty people in there, was a sign that maybe Hank wasn’t the only one that missed poor old Aldwin.

***

“Good morning, Missus Morgensen. Good morning, Polly.”
“Good morning, Hank.” Andrea Morgensen smiled up at Hank, looking distinctly uncomfortable and out of place despite the black suit, looking a bit thin in the derriere but still serviceable, and the wet cowlick that managed to stick up and out in spite of his best effort to keep it down.
His big hands were doing minor damage to the hat he held in his hands. Lucky to have two, this was his best one although he hadn’t worn it in a while.
“Good morning, Mister Beveridge.” Polly looked bright and fresh and perhaps a little younger than her nineteen-and-a-half years.
They stood in a huddle as other worshippers came down the stairs and into the light, getting brighter now as the day wore on. Hank had been at the very back and they were four rows up on the other side, where he had an opportunity to study Polly and wonder a bit, and not just about her either. But he had to wonder at himself as well. Men were fools, or so they said. He wasn’t smiling now, though. Thoughtfully, he put his hat back on. He had never learned to really fake a smile, not when he was scared, anyways.
“With a little luck, we might see some sunshine later on.”
“Oh, that would be lovely.” Polly smiled up at him, making eye contact, but Hank just tried to stand his ground.
He was tempted to bolt and run, that was for sure.
“Hank!”
They turned.
“Hank! It’s good to see you.” Marty, his open face lighting up, beamed at him from the top of the stairs.
He was almost glad to see him, for the sheer interruption. Marty was in his late twenties, with boyish lean features and a fervent faith in his mission, which made up for a lot of failings of organization. He meant well and took an interest, which was about all that was called for in this neck of the woods.
A bit of a blush crept into Hank’s features, reddened by the outdoors enough to begin with. Marty took the stairs two at a time, possibly as relieved as anyone to be over and done with duty. The other folks were all regulars and Hank realized he probably talked their ears off most any given Sunday. Hank tugged at the brim of his hat and the ladies curtsied awkwardly, the sudden demand taking Polly by surprise by the look of it. He would think more on that later. The reverend was at his side, face wreathed in a smile. Hank was, morally at least, a long-lost brother. The reverend thought in those terms, and while Hank understood what he was talking about, usually, it was an unusually abstract way of looking at things.
“So what’s been happening?” With the wind lifting a long tuft of thin black hair, revealing a good chunk of a prematurely bald skull, Marty took a proprietary grip on Hank’s upper arm.

***

Hank lived in a cabin on a bench overlooking the river that ran through his property. Built entirely with his own hands, he had set up a small sawmill, wheel-driven by a short stretch of white water where it bunched up over a shelf of underlying limestone. Every so often someone would look him up and contract for this and that and the other thing, big beams and the like mostly, although he could cut smaller stock for the right price. The mill had paid for itself within a few years and was easy enough to maintain. It was helpful in combating boredom, and he could bring in money during the winter.
The biggest job was damming the creek, but he’d picked the spot very carefully and there were plenty of boulders available.
The pond above the mill was stocked with Terran fish including rainbow trout, which seemed to do well on Third World, and several of the pan-fish species. They were brought in on their one and only road, under the care of the drover, and hideously expensive. In a few years, they were feeding old Hank pretty regular.
There was other stuff in there, but the local water creatures rarely appealed to the taste. There were one or two plants in there that he used from time to time.
Since the growing season was just underway, and bracken was a naturally-occurring resource, Hank was at home and trying his hand at making a net. He had to take a day off once in a while.
This was something he had wanted to do for a long while.
The most abundant local species of bird-like creatures, for they could fly short distances when they wanted to, were flocking animals that from time to time he’d observed eating corn and other grain spilled by the roadside. They came out into the fields to graze, and they seemed to tolerate humans although dogs chased them and caught them sometimes.
Hank was thinking of catching some birds, with a combination of corn for bait and some non-threatening system of fencing them in, perhaps at first gradually. He didn’t even have to box them in at first, merely direct them a bit. See what they did and how they reacted over time.
He was almost sure it could be done with a minimum of help, which would of course have to be paid for or otherwise provided for. The ones he was after even laid eggs. He found a nest every so often in the long grass, and they tasted fine. In fact, if you hadn’t had the regular kind in a while, they were pretty much indistinguishable.
Otherwise, real eggs were sort of expensive, a luxury when he had them.
He had two stout poles planted in the ground. At about three metres apart they were good for making a net that was maybe a bit more than he could chew. But if it worked well, he wanted to make a really big net, or maybe a bunch of smaller ones. If he could do it, he wanted to make more than just one at a time. If they were nice and light, he could push stakes into soft ground and herd a flock just where he wanted them. They tended to run along the ground on well-defined pathways through the long grass when disturbed.
Shooting at them from afar only scattered the flocks and got you a meal or two. The birds had to get used to him just like chickens, or ducks or geese.
Hank had it worked out to some extent, but with no knowledge or experience, only trial and error could teach him the best way. He had a couple of strings of the heavy, synthetic black twine going across at a convenient working height. The two strands had long tails left on them after being tied to the poles in case it worked. Then he would be able to set up the net, tie it to things, et cetera.
Tying another end on, with the spool handled carefully to avoid dropping it and creating a real mess, he brought it up on a forty-five degree angle and tried to tie it to the upper cross line. Uniform lengths on the angles was crucial. Then he brought it down on forty-five degrees and tied it to the lower cross line.
“Only another fifty thousand knots to go.” Of course Hank had second thoughts.
Wasting twine was wasting cash money. He might as well give it a proper shot. Working more quickly now, he went up and down, up and down, until he reached the far end.
He looked up at the sun, climbing higher in the sky as the morning wore on and a welcome sight after weeks of overcast. In the last few days, the weather had been generally improving. Yet the season was well advanced and he didn’t remember anything like this in years past.
“Oh, boy.” There was still plenty of material on the spool, and he hadn’t dropped it or anything yet, so he went straight up in a vertical side-line, tied it off, and then zigzagged back the other way.
He knew it was possible. He just hadn’t done it before. The day was young and Hank had a little time on his hands.



Chapter Two

Hank’s Glasses Were Stained With Sweat


The black dot at the end of the track where it came out of the brush down by the ford eventually resolved itself into a two-wheeled cart pulled by an animal out of Stanislaus’ Livery, one of the longer-lived establishments in the vicinity. The blaze of red paint on the hind-quarter was a dead giveaway. The cart was probably from there as well.
Hank’s glasses were stained with sweat and dirty finger-marks, but as it drew closer he saw that it was a woman, and he straightened up and wondered who it could be.
Looking down at himself, he picked up his shirt and put it on, and then went into the kitchen to put on a kettle of water just as the cart came in through the gap in his split-rail fence and entered the yard.
He waved from the door at the figure inside. She dropped the reins and put her foot out tentatively as the thing had stopped right in the middle of the biggest muddy patch and the animal refused to budge another inch.
Stanislaus knew how to pick them, and it was probably better than a more flighty animal.
“Hello.”
“Hello.” Mrs. Beynholm was a widow, and had been alone for about four years.
She stood there grinning up at him, shading her eyes from the glare.
People were always smiling at Hank and he wondered why. It bothered him a little sometimes as he couldn’t account for it.
She was a buxom woman with sturdy hips, thick graying hair that had once been brown and deep blue eyes. While they were courteous about town and knew each other’s first names, they really didn’t have a lot of contact and little in common, not even very many friends in common.
“I’ve just put the tea on.”
They clumped inside.
“Oh, thank you.” She stood just inside the room, hands on her hips, and she inspected the place, finally giving a slight nod which he interpreted as approval.
It wasn’t much to look at, smaller than a typical one-bedroom apartment back home, and with none of the amenities either. The plank walls were tightly fitted and the floor was still level, which was saying something for the solidity of the site as much as his building skills.
With the shutters thrown back, and the table clean, no dirty dishes lying about, it conveyed an impression of rugged comfort. Hank had four rooms in total, with the kitchen being the best, which was on the left coming in the door. Connected by a sweeping arch supported by a massive log of white cedar to the living room on her right, it looked bigger in the broad light of day.
He could hear the water just beginning to bubble.
“So, what brings you out this way?” He was wondering if Marty had put her up to it.
She was always into things, he knew that much.
Surely it had to be something important, or more likely the most trivial of attempts.
“Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood.” She didn’t elaborate, and he desperately tried to take it at face value.
He mentally kicked himself for showing up in church last Sunday. Maybe she just wanted a donation for something, or worse, volunteers for something.
Of course! What an idiot he had been. He’d walked right into it this time.
“Oh, yes, the fields are lovely this time of year.” Hank had no idea of what to say so he turned and beckoned her to come along, and she seated herself at the table.
She was certainly well-dressed, and he was aware that he hadn’t smelled a woman up close and in a small room with him in a fair while. Other than that, it was all right. He wondered what she was looking at.
With its central core dominated by a massive hearth that went from floor to ceiling and spanned the entire inner wall, the room smelled vaguely of onions, tobacco smoke and meat, mostly fried.
“I can see why you have the bedroom right there.”
“Yeah, it’s warmer in winter.”
She nodded, still looking around.
The long front wall faced southeast so as to heat up quickly on the winter mornings when the sun made its belated appearance, and prevailing breezes in summer would sweep the air out of it from the kitchen window on the southwest side, blowing out through the setting room. Hank had a pair of windows on the east side. His bedroom was behind the setting room, and it had one small window up high on the east side as well. She took it all in as he led her past the open bedroom door in a quick tour of the place, her teacup firmly clenched in her hand. She seemed very impressed with his small office.
The man probably lived as much on the covered veranda out front, at least in season.
He opened the door to the rear of the house to allow a flow of fresh air as those kitchen shutters faced north and he rarely opened them. The pantry was there, a bit of a mistake on his part as he always used the front door. She nodded at his quick explanation. He had to lug everything in and through the kitchen, which meant a lot of sweeping.
She sat down at the table again and examined the room with care.
“You’re doing all right, Hank.”
He nodded modestly, a small grin sneaking over his face as he got out the biscuits and found a clean plate in the cupboard.
“Yeah, I guess I’m getting by.”
“What are you making? A fish net?” As he recalled, she’d been born on Earth.
His mood brightened, they could always reminisce.
“Ah…” Not exactly, but he didn’t want to go into it.
She had fifteen hectares, right in town on a kind of narrow frontage. Only two or three hectares had ever been tilled. She was a seamstress, and she had a few goats and chickens. She hired herself and her two sons out to work in the fields of others. Her husband went hunting and never showed up again. No one knew where he went or what happened to him. His name was Alvin or Alan, Hank wasn’t quite sure which. She sold cheese and butter, some of it on consignment and they scrounged along all right. Other than that, she was a face in the crowd and he didn’t know too much about her…some kind of distant cousin of Missus Morgensen, and Polly.
“You’re smart, Hank Beveridge. Everyone says that.”
“Huh?” She smiled, but of course he knew what she was getting at.
Hank had claimed and filed on twenty thousand hectares a decade before anyone else thought of any sort of permanence. They said he was mad at first, and then a few more people turned up, and once one of them innocently asked a few questions about registration, the panicked herd stampeded towards the registrar. It’s not that they didn’t build houses and farm the land, but it was thought to be inexhaustible. You could always move on if it didn’t work out. It was part of the attraction, in some ways. What he couldn’t explain to her or anyone else, really, was that he could never use or exploit more than a small fraction of it alone and by himself. A lot of folks had more reasonably filed on a few hundred hectares, and all hands contributed to the work. One or two others in the area had bigger holdings and more grandiose plans for it. They at least had a reason.
He could see that much. But Hank just liked the space. Good fences make good neighbours, but there was no need for that when the nearest house was a couple of kilometres away. Hank’s place was the end of the line, and that way he didn’t get much traffic.
As far as the bracken-pods went, that was just an excuse. You could gather them anywhere that was public property, and he had wondered a time or two why so few people did. It took minimal business savvy to gather bracken and sell it to the brokers when they came through once a year.
All a man needed was a scythe, and a wagon. That and some twine, and feed for the working critters.
Hank just liked the look of the place and wanted to keep the neighbours a little ways down the road, so to speak…some things were better left unsaid. It had a way of going around.
The visit might have been more enjoyable for Hank if only he could have figured out what brought it on. He had no idea of why she was there and she didn’t see fit to enlighten him. As things went, they had their tea, passed the time, exchanged pleasantries, and after a while, they gossiped harmlessly enough about various local personalities. She brought Hank up to date on any number of things, which was good as he had little to contribute in that line himself.
Yet for the life of him, Hank couldn’t figure out what it was about. It was that unusual to get a visitor.
She’d been alone a long time and he accepted that, the question was why him?
And why now?

***

Commander Jeff Burke of Her Majesty’s Ship Hermes stood in front of the cupola that let in a spectacular view of space and the planet below. Third World, named for its position in this system, a name which had stuck more to eliminate arguments than any other reason, had a population of over half a million. The tall, athletic Burke had held command of Hermes for four years. His thoughts congealed.
Settlement had begun seventy-five or a hundred years ago, but the original plans to export a half a billion people to the planet had quietly been shelved when the newcomers had been in place a few years and the complaints started to roll in. An inquiry had been held, and ultimately it was determined not to be anybody in particular’s fault, but pioneering was hard work and ultimately even the best-prepared settlers fell to subsistence level as people spread out and began to exploit the local environments, about which they had initially known little.
The Planetary Authority, once established, was understandably eager to perpetuate itself as bureaucracies will. Perhaps initial reports of the planet’s potential had been a little too glowing. A half a million in population was not enough to make a viable and self-sustaining economy, and with recruitment dropping off quickly it was no longer profitable to send any more colony ships.
The Commander had a problem, in that things were heating up in the Vega sector and confrontation with Them seemed imminent. The Empire and Them had been bickering for years.
Responsible for law and order in his sector, he had little jurisdiction on the surface, and yet he was also charged in recent orders with apprehending and confining known deserters from Her Majesty’s Service until such time as courts-martial could be convened and punishments doled out.
The trouble was, they had only a vague idea of where a few of them were, might be, or had last been sighted. Combing through the duty roster revealed a grand total of sixteen or seventeen non-essential personnel available for assignment to shore duties, none of whom he had a whole lot of confidence in. They were available for a reason, not unusual in the service. The only person he had to lead them was Lieutenant Shapiro, who had virtually zero experience on his own. That, in itself, represented an opportunity of sorts.
Burke had the funny feeling they would be on the ground and hard to extract in a hurry if and when the word from above came through. It was worthy of a brief smile.
Orders were orders and this one was unusually succinct. It also came from a long ways up the ladder, and good officers were long in the development.
Burke had no choice but to make a stab at it.



Chapter Three

A First Briefing


Lieutenant Newton Shapiro sat at the head of the table and surveyed the senior members of the landing party. His eyes swept the faces, all carefully neutral.
They were gathered for their first briefing and planning session. The enlisted personnel at his disposal were all the usual suspects, and were the most easily spared from the ship’s regular routine according to Commander Burke. In his words, it might even do the odd free spirit among them some good to get off the ship.
It was his first meeting with the command team.
A couple of the troops hadn’t seen planet-side in years, as they were habitually in the brig by the time the ship actually got anywhere.
As to why his own name came up at the top of that list was another question, but he was a junior officer, and while his duties as the vessel’s supply officer were not unimportant, there were others at least partly trained in his job. He could be spared, and he recognized that much.
“All right. Our deserters are last seen in the Port Complex, the usual port of call for Fleet units. Frankly, we’ve never had occasion to land anywhere else, and they have the best facilities. If a ship having problems set down elsewhere, it would cause considerable problems of logistics to set her right and lift off again. They go on shore leave. The first place they head for is a bar. It’s the usual sad story. At some point they realize they are absent without leave, and we figure the usual practice is to get as far away as possible from anything that smacks of Empire and authority.”
“They’re fugitives.” Ensign Spaulding nodded. “The punishment is harsh.”
A willowy blonde in her mid-twenties, Beth was a human resources specialist, which aboard ship meant everyone got paid. They made the contributions to their retirement or kid’s schooling. She was a grief counselor when required and helped in the infirmary with trauma victims, physical and psychological. She was in charge of all records pertaining to personnel outside of confidential medical and command security files.
“Right.” Shapiro went on. “And yet they really didn’t have a plan of action. They’re not here to emigrate and make a new life. The trouble is, they don’t have any choice but to try, otherwise they starve, kill themselves, or give themselves up.”
A few had ended up incarcerated under criminal statutes. Over the years, one or two had been apprehended that way. Sometimes people turned themselves in.
One or two over the years had done just that. They turned themselves in to the Planetary Authority, who placed them in custody and notified the Fleet. If they did it quickly enough, the punishment was the usual thing, not desertion but absent without leave. Desertion was another level of offense, and yet how would he define it? They probably just got scared. Were they actually intending to desert? Intent was part of the definition of the desertion offence. Some of them were just kids, really. As for suicide, there were no statistics.
“Over the years, fifty-seven men and women have deserted Fleet units of all types, on Third World, or failed to return after shore leave. Some of them quite recently, ah, including two of our own.”
Sober faces watched him silently.
“For all we know, some might have been murdered, been killed in accidents, or even just got sick or starved to death.”
The Fleet took full legal responsibility for people when they signed on.
That might have been what tripped the Commander into this mission. He wanted them back for whatever reason, and in disciplinary matters, he would have considerable discretion in their cases. It would be better to be caught by their own shipmates, if possible. Of course Burke’s own performance in this unwelcome duty would be closely scrutinized.
“Okay. So what do we do?”
Emerson Faber was a big, capable-looking man with ropy forearms and bulging biceps. Shapiro was glad to have him along, for he was at least weapons-trained and their newest recruits would be more of a hazard, considering how seldom they used their weapons aboard ship.
After sixteen months of garrison duty, endlessly hovering in the stable point, providing some kind of moral presence for the colony, people tended to get rusty. Most didn’t abuse shore leave, but every cruise had its killed and missing, even on the most mundane of duty. It was a hazardous profession and Shapiro was trained well enough in that regard. He had a responsibility to assess and minimize all risks.
Not very exciting, but it was his job.
“We make an appearance in the city. We troll through the bars, wearing full kit and arrayed for battle. And we tell people we’re looking for deserters.”
“And?” Dave Semanko was a communications specialist, which included linguistics and even rhetoric.
In his early thirties, he radiated competence. Perhaps the uniform, crew-cut and trim build had something to do with it. His intelligent brown eyes looked at Newton.
“Then we go to a hotel and rustle up some transport, as we have one or two tips to check out. Other than that, I figure by the time we get back to the port, people have had a chance to think on it and it’s quite possible some of them will turn themselves in.”
He was betting on word getting around—like wildfire.
“Turn themselves in?” Faber snorted and slapped his thigh.
He didn’t impress Shapiro as an idiot, but he might have been mistaken.
“Once they get out there. Once they’ve gone hungry a while, and seen the prospects. Once they see what they’re really up against, they’ll be kicking themselves all over the place for running away.”
Semanko was studying the field notes for Third World.
“It doesn’t seem so bad. A mix of indigenous and Terran flora, a few carefully selected fauna…temperate zone is extensive.” He read on. “Seventy percent of the surface is landmass, and the biggest ocean is at the southern pole. Huh.”
“Yeah. And there’s nothing down there.” Shapiro swept their eyes in an all-encompassing stare.
“Nothing?”  If Ensign Spaulding didn’t get it, the others probably weren’t either.
“Nothing. Nothing at all, ladies and gentlemen.” He gave them a moment to think about it.
“The life of a soldier is compensated for by a life of ease and sloth.” Faber surprised him with that one.
It went back a thousand years to some historian no one ever read anymore.
“Yes. And that’s just what they’re not going to get on Third World. First, the capital city is our city—and it’s only eighteen thousand people. They really can’t hide there and they know it.”
Because sooner or later, everybody discovers they need to make a living. That was another, unspoken compensation for being in the service. It was a living.
“Because they don’t have the skills or the drive.” The Ensign had nailed it. “It’s more—a lot more, than they must have bargained for.”
There were comprehending nods around the table as they looked at him and each other. There was no lack of confidence, but a little caution would have been preferable. He wondered if he was just being insecure about his own role in all of this. It was a command, though. It was an independent command…
“So what do you think?” Shapiro eyed the lean, dour figure of Jackson at the far end of the table.
“Nothing, yet. What are the people like? I mean, outside the, er…cities.” He cleared his throat and explained. “There are a lot of officials from outside, recent immigrants, temporary workers. Not everyone in town is a local.”
The city was at least used for shore leave. They had some familiarity with it. The hinterland was another story. Newton wondered most about Jackson. At his age, his rank seemed very low, as if he had hit a dead end for one reason or another. That was the truth about the service. There were only so many desirable positions available, and in peacetime manpower withered away as the brightest people sought a better life in the civilian world. So why had Jackson stayed?
But Jackson had hit the nail right on the head. Walter was extremely intelligent, but was known to hate the service. He looked like he was looking forward to the duty, unlike one or two others, at least initially. They were putting a better face on it now. Control over one’s demeanour was a necessary trait in even the most junior officers in the close-knit community that was the ship. Catching deserters wasn’t exactly what they had signed up for. Ship-board duties had their own routine, and it was a comforting one, even a lazy one at times. Faber was right—it really was a different kind of a life, but one easily gotten used to.
“That, is very difficult to say. The traders say they are pretty business-savvy and harvesting the local commodities is back-breaking work. It’s all done with the simplest of tools and implements. The communities are very small and tightly-knit. The old timers still remember their home world, and some of them are probably better educated than you or I. We’d better remember that. This is not the time to be patronizing them. Hopefully we can avoid, ah…cultural pitfalls.”
Life was simple, brutal, and short on Third World, with its limited nutrition and medical care.
It was amazing how fast a new culture would spring up. The company had brought in twenty or thirty loads of colonists, setting them down here or there as per some initial study and planning. A lot of promises had been made, and then the company was affected by a downward turn of the economy. Much of the heavier equipment and tools never made it to the planet’s surface, being sold elsewhere in the name of liquidity. The government and the company were consulting and working on the difficulties.
Again the nods. There were limits to what power and authority could do. The Empire claimed that it governed on goodwill and tried to achieve it, in all honesty. In all honesty, it failed as often as it succeeded. It’s not like the Empire didn’t care about its social mission, but funds were always tight and priorities higher elsewhere.
“All right. Let’s go over this list and see who’s who—and who’s what.” Shapiro was rewarded with a few grins and chuckles.
The enlisted men’s files were at least entertaining. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. His team would be what he made of it.
He’d read all the books.

END

Third World is available from most online bookstores. Here it is on Amazon.

Not including Core Values, (Sci-fi/horror) this is my fourth science fiction novel. I’m presently working on the third of the Maintenon Mystery Series, a series of detective novels set in Paris, France, during the 1920s and early 1930s.