Part 5 (2/2)

They pa.s.sed a wagonload of melons. A gaily dressed young couple waved cheerfully at them, then the man snapped a long whip at the team of horses that pulled their wagon. Falkenberg studied the primitive scene and said, ”It doesn't look like you've been here fifty years.”

”No.” Banners gave them a bitter look. Then he swerved to avoid a group of shapeless teenagers lounging in the dockside street. He had to swerve again to avoid the barricade of paving stones that they had masked. The car jounced wildly. Banners gunned it to lift it higher and headed for a low place in the barricade. It sc.r.a.ped as it went over the top, then he accelerated away.

Falkenberg took his hand from inside his s.h.i.+rt jacket. Behind him Calvin was inspecting a submachine gun that had appeared from the oversized barracks bag he'd brought into the car with him. When Banners said nothing about the incident, Falkenberg frowned and leaned back in his seat, listening. The Intelligence reports mentioned lawlessness, but this was as bad as a Welfare Island on Earth.

”No, we're not much industrialized,” Banners continued. ”At first there wasn't any need to develop basic industries. The mines made everyone rich, so we imported everything we needed. The farmers sold fresh produce to the miners, for enormous prices. Refuge was a service industry town. People who worked here could soon afford farm animals, and they scattered out across the plains and into the forests.”

Falkenberg nodded. ”Many of them wouldn't care for cities.”

”Precisely. They didn't want industry, they'd come here to escape it.” Banners drove in silence for a moment. ”Then some blasted CoDominium bureaucrat read the ecology reports about Hadley. The Population Control Bureau in Was.h.i.+ngton decided this was a perfect place for involuntary colonization. The s.h.i.+ps were coming here for the thorium anyway, so instead of luxuries and machinery they were ordered to carry convicts.

Hundreds of thousands of them, Colonel Falkenberg. For the last ten years there have been better than fifty thousand people a year dumped in on us.”

”And you couldn't support them all,” Falkenberg said gently.

”No, sir.” Banners' face tightened. He seemed to be fighting tears. ”G.o.d knows we try. Every erg the fusion generators can make goes into converting petroleum into basic protocarb just to feed them. But they're not like the original colonists! They don't know anything, they won't do anything! Oh, not really, of course. Some of them work. Some of our best citizens are transportees. But there are so many of the other kind.”

”Why'n't you tell 'em to work or starve?” Calvin asked bluntly. Falkenberg gave him a cold look, and the sergeant nodded slightly and sank back into his seat. ”Because the CD wouldn't let us!” Banners shouted. ”d.a.m.n it, we didn't have self-government.

The CD Bureau of Relocation people told us what to do. They ran everything ...”

”We know,” Falkenberg said gently. ”We've seen the results of Humanity League influence over BuRelock. My sergeant major wasn't asking you a question, he was ex- pressing an opinion. Nevertheless, I am surprised. I would have thought your farms could support the urban population.”

”They should be able to, sir.” Banners drove in grim silence for a long minute. ”But there's no transportation. The people are here, and most of the agricultural land is five hundred miles inland. There's arable land closer, but it isn't cleared. Our settlers wanted to get away from Refuge and BuRelock. We have a railroad, but bandit gangs keep blowing it up. We can't rely on Hadley's produce to keep Refuge alive. There are a million people on Hadley, and half of them are crammed into this one ungovernable city.'

They were approaching an enormous bowl-shaped structure attached to a ma.s.sive square stone fortress. Falkenberg studied the buildings carefully, then asked what they were.

”Our stadium,” Banners replied. There was no pride in his voice now. ”The CD built it for us. We'd rather have had a new fusion plant, but we got a stadium that can hold a hundred thousand people.”

”Built by the GLC Construction and Development Company, I presume,”

Falkenberg said.

”Yes ... how did you know?”

”I think I saw it somewhere.” He hadn't, but it was an easy guess: GLC was owned by a holding company that was in turn owned by the Bronson family. It was easy enough to understand why aid sent by the CD Grand Senate would end up used for something GLC might partic.i.p.ate in.

”We have very fine sports teams and racehorses,” Banners said bitterly. ”The building next to it is the Presidential Palace. Its architecture is quite functional.” The Palace loomed up before them, squat and ma.s.sive; it looked more fortress than capital building. The city was more thickly populated as they approached the Palace. The buildings here were mostly stone and poured concrete instead of wood. Few were more than three stories high, so that Refuge sprawled far along the sh.o.r.e. The population density increased rapidly beyond the stadium-palace complex. Banners was watchful as he drove along the wide streets, but he seemed less nervous than he had been at dockside.

Refuge was a city of contrasts. The streets were straight and wide, and there was evidently a good waste-disposal system, but the lower floors of the buildings were open shops, and the sidewalks were clogged with market stalls. Clouds of pedestrians moved through the kiosks and shops.

There was still no motor traffic and no moving ped-ways. Horse troughs and hitching posts had been constructed at frequent intervals along with starkly functional street lights and water distribution towers. The few signs of technology contrasted strongly with the general primitive air of the city.

A contingent of uniformed men thrust their way through the crowd at a street crossing. Falkenberg looked at them closely, then at Banners. ”Your troops?”

”No, sir. That's the livery of Glenn Foster's household. Officially they're unorganized reserves of the President's Guard, but they're household troops all the same.” Banners laughed bitterly. ”Sounds like something out of a history book, doesn't it? We're nearly back to feudalism, Colonel Falkenberg. Anyone rich enough keeps hired bodyguards. They have to. The criminal gangs are so strong the police don't try to catch anyone under organized protection, and the judges wouldn't punish them if they were caught.”

”And the private bodyguards become gangs in their own right, I suppose,”

Banners looked at him sharply. ”Yes, sir. Have you seen it before?”

”Yes. I've seen it before.” Banners was unable to make out the expression on Falkenberg's lips.

VI

They drove into the Presidential Palace and received the salutes of the blue uniformed troopers. Falkenberg noted the polished weapons and precise drill of the Presidential Guard. There were well-trained men on duty here, but the unit was small.

Falkenberg wondered if they could fight as well as stand guard. They were local citizens, loyal to Hadley, and would be unlike the CoDominium Marines he was accustomed to.

He was conducted through a series of rooms in the stone fortress. Each had heavy metal doors, and several were guardrooms. Falkenberg saw no signs of government ac- tivity until they had pa.s.sed through the outer layers of the enormous palace into an open courtyard, and through that to an inner building.

Here there was plenty of activity. Clerks bustled through the halls, and girls in the draped togas fas.h.i.+onable years before on Earth sat at desks in offices. Most seemed to be packing desk contents into boxes, and other people scurried through the corridors.

Some offices were empty, their desks covered with fine dust, and there were plasti- board moving boxes stacked outside them.

There were two anterooms to the President's office. President Budreau was a tall, thin man with a red pencil mustache and quick gestures. As they were ushered into the overly ornate room the President looked up from a sheaf of papers, but his eyes did not focus immediately on his visitors. His face was a mask of worry and concentration.

”Colonel John Christian Falkenberg, sir,” Lieutenant Banners said. ”And Sergeant Major Calvin.”

Budreau got to his feet. ”Pleased to see you, Falkenberg.” His expression told them differently; he looked at his visitors with faint distaste and motioned Banners out of the room. When the door closed he asked, ”How many men did you bring with you?”

”Ten, Mr. President. All we could bring aboard the carrier without arousing suspicion. We were lucky to get that many. The Grand Senate had an inspector at the loading docks to check for violation of the anti-mercenary codes. If we hadn't bribed a port official to distract him we wouldn't be here at all. Calvin and I would be on Tanith as involuntary colonists.”

”I see.” From his expression he wasn't surprised. John thought Budreau would have been more pleased if the inspector had caught them. The President tapped the desk nervously. ”Perhaps that will be enough. I understand the s.h.i.+p you came with also brought the Marines who have volunteered to settle on Hadley. They should provide the nucleus of an excellent constabulary. Good troops?”

”It was a demobilized battalion,” Falkenberg replied. ”Those are the troops the CD didn't want anymore. Could be the sc.r.a.pings of every guardhouse on twenty planets.

We'll be lucky if there's a real trooper in the lot.”

Budreau's face relaxed into its former mask of depression. Hope visibly drained from him.

”Surely you have troops of your own,” Falkenberg said.

Budreau picked up a sheaf of papers. ”It's all here. I was just looking it over when you came in.” He handed the report to Falkenberg. ”There's little encouragement in it, Colonel. I have never thought there was any military solution to Hadley's problems, and this confirms that fear. If you have only ten men plus a battalion of forced-labor Marines, the military answer isn't even worth considering.”

Budreau returned to his seat. His hands moved restlessly over the sea of papers on his desk. ”If I were you, Falkenberg, I'd get back on that Navy boat and forget Hadley.”

”Why don't you?”

”Because Hadley's my home! No rabble is going to drive me off the plantation my grandfather built with his own hands. They will not make me run out.” Budreau clasped his hands together until the knuckles were white with the strain, but when he spoke again his voice was calm. ”You have no stake here. I do.”

Falkenberg took the report from the desk and leafed through the pages before handing it to Calvin. ”We've come a long way, Mr. President. You may as well tell me what the problem is before I leave.”

Budreau nodded sourly. The red mustache twitched and he ran the back of his hand across it. ”It's simple enough. The ostensible reason you're here, the reason we gave the Colonial Office for letting us recruit a planetary constabulary, is the bandit gangs out in the hills. No one knows how many of them there are, but they are strong enough to raid farms. They also cut communications between Refuge and the countryside whenever they want to.”

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