Part 7 (2/2)
I'm experiencing life as a flower, a sheep. Why?
Ray was not surprised when the carnivores showed up.
Given a choice between being eaten as a flower and eaten as a sheep, Ray would take the flower any day. The sheep spotted the wrong smell on the wind. Its little brain wasn't geared for friend-foe identification; it settled for WRONG. Adrenaline started pumping, panic took over, and Ray took off along with every other six-legged woolly in the herd.
He didn't know where he was going; he didn't care. He just knew that he had to get as far from that wrong smell as possible. He didn't have to be faster than it, just faster than his neighbor. The military officer in Ray evaluated the data and concluded raising an army of sheep was a lost cause.
Whoever the smelly, hungry things were, they weren't dumb. Running upwind, the sheep stampeded right into the ambush before they even knew it was there. Ray took a mercifully quick blow to the head, found himself in darkness again, and got ready for another lesson in alimentary ca.n.a.ls.
Instead he was in his freshman biology cla.s.sroom back at the Academy. The gardener stood at the front of an otherwise empty cla.s.s. ”What have you learned?”
”To stay at the top of the food chain.” Ray shot back the freshman quip just as he would have years ago.
The gardener shook his head sadly. ”You are older and wiser than that. Have you learned the lesson, or must you repeat it?”
Ray felt the darkness coming for him. He had a distinct feeling this school only got harder the second time around. ”No matter what color the uniform, we all bleed red,” he said.
His father had told Ray that once. It had taken him years to understand the full impact that his enemy was human, too.
Ray came awake, grimaced at his bladder's demand, and reached for his canes. Done and back to his bed, he wondered what his next dream would be about. He placed little weight on dreams, just the subconscious mind's way of discharging electricity. He rolled over and went back to sleep.
SIX.
RAY WAS IN a very good mood when he got his first staff meeting under way at 0800 next morning. He'd breakfasted with the kids, Mary, and Kat. How anyone could stay glum around kids was a puzzle Ray didn't want to solve. They attacked breakfast with an innocent abandon that left the table a wreck, the adults exhausted, and Ray swearing he wanted only one kid so he and Rita would never be outnumbered worse than one to two.
”Think those odds are good enough?” Kat asked, trying to persuade David he didn't need five spoonsful of sugar on his cereal.
”Grandparents, I hear grandparents make great auxiliaries,” Mary put in. ”Never had any myself, but it's in all the books.”
”How about a squad of marines?” Ray suggested.
Mary shook her head, ”Not fair to the troops, sir. A good officer never sets her troops up for defeat.”
Somehow the kids learned about the day's mining project and wanted to go. Ray promised they could ”if there's transport for all of you,” which gave Mary an out. His security chief looked torn between ”No way, Jose,” and ”Whoopee.” The meal had been so absorbing that Ray was back to the HQ before he recalled the game the kids had been playing as they trooped in.
Mary had asked what kind of animal they'd like to be. Rose piped up she'd want to be a flower. Jon wanted to be a warm, woolly sheep. David had growled and made a leaping grab for Jon that left him shrieking, ”I want to be a wolf.”
Ray had commended the lad for staying at the top of the food chain. Now the words and the memory of a dream came back to haunt him.
In the staff meeting, Barber was already seated to Ray's right. Mary brought Ca.s.sie. ”If I'm promoted to minister of mining or something, she'll take security.” Doc Jerry sat next to Kat, no longer with murderous intentions toward the middie.
”Anything new concerning last night's talk, Doc?” Ray asked.
Jerry rubbed grainy, sleepless eyes. ”Nothing, nada, and zip. I'll keep hammering on it today. Don't know when I'll make a breakthrough. Don't know if I'd recognize one if it bit me.”
”You want the middies out of your hospital?”
”I don't really need all that s.p.a.ce. Besides, who knows when what they know will be something I need to know? I'll work up local patients a bit more thoroughly today, see if I can get a local baseline. See how close the kids fit or scatter from it.”
”Will you need the kids?” Mary asked.
”Probably not. You got something special for them?”
”Take them for a walk in the country.”
”Just make sure they don't leave breadcrumbs. Lets them find their way home every time. Or so I'm told.”
”Glad you're not speaking from experience, doctor,” Ray quipped. ”Looks like everyone has their day planned. Chief, I a.s.sume you have plenty to do.” Barber nodded. ”Then let's get busy doing it,” Ray said, starting to stand.
”How are you planning on spending your day?” Barber asked.
”Taking a nap. Relaxing in a nice, warm bath. Sitting at your elbow every minute of it figuring out what needs to be done.” The chief laughed at Ray's opening wish, then nodded agreement as reality thrust up its ugly head.
There was a knock at the door. ”Enter,” Barber said.
A yeoman did. ”Sir, we've got some locals here to see you.”
Jeff poked his head in. ”Annie's with me. Her folks sent her out with lunch for all and a couple of kegs of beer,” then added quickly, ”and as a kind of observer for the green side of things.” He paused, glanced over his shoulder. ”Oh, and we picked up the padre. He'd just finished Ma.s.s as we went by the church. Wanted to see his grandson.”
Ray drummed his fingers on the table. ”So the success or failure of our mining effort will have a planetwide audience.”
”Naw,” Jeff said, ”just pretty much this continent.”
Was Mary up to a PR blitz while juggling a mine? Hardly seemed fair. ”Looks like I amba.s.sador today.”
Outside, Ray found two mules and loaded trailers. Annie was in a blue plaid dress, maybe a tad more revealing than the usual local, and perched on the seat of a large, one-horse cart. From its bed came wondrously good smells. There were also two kegs of her pop's beer. Ray made a mental note to see that Mary had most of the work done before the kegs were tapped. The padre's rig was a smaller version of Annie's drawn by a s.h.a.ggy pony. Rose took one look and begged to ride with the priest. David and Jon demanded rides in a mule. Mary loaded them both in the lead one, then climbed in herself. With the kids chattering nonstop, Ray seated himself in the second mule beside Ca.s.sie. He wanted a few words with the woman who might soon be his chief of security. Twenty marines, half drawn from the old miners, the other from Dumont's squad of ex-street toughs, were the work team.
Unity intelligence had a.s.sured Ray that Earth's Society for Humanity was press-ganging the dregs into their desperate defense. That was half true; Mary's ex-miners got their draft notice with their downsizing pink slips. The street kids like Dumont woke up stoned and hung over to discover they'd signed themselves in-even those who couldn't sign their own name. Ray's mistake had been a.s.suming that they were easy sweepings.
Mary and her miner friends had been madder than h.e.l.l...and done something about it. Their last s.h.i.+ft at the mines, they walked off with anything that wasn't welded down. Ray found out too late that his proud 2nd Guard Brigade was facing a lot of stuff that wasn't in the latest Jane's All the Worlds' Weapons Systems or in their database of hostile system signatures-and which they really should have avoided.
The rest was history, a history that he and Mary and Matt wrote in blood. They'd ended that war, to the shock of some and the relief of most. Now, Ray chuckled to himself, they were working for him and he'd get a chance to see what they could do for him. ”I thought Mary'd bring more miners,” Ray said to Ca.s.sie. ”What's she doing with Dumont's kids?”
”They're in makee-learnee status. Mary promised Dumont she'd teach his kids the trade. What Mary promises, she does. This drill, each miner has a shadow. Dumont's kids learned fast in the war. Expect they'll learn even better today.”
On horseback, Jeff led them west. Mary followed, Ca.s.sie right behind. Annie and the padre's carts fell in line. Miners and trainees hopped aboard mules and trailers. The padre offered Dumont a ride. The young tough looked like he'd rather be anywhere but beside the old man of the cloth. Apparently Ray had taken the seat the kid had selected for himself. With a nasty glance Ca.s.sie's way, he took the priest's offer.
”See how the kid gets along with the priest,” Ca.s.sie muttered, one eye on the rearview, the other keeping Mary's trailer a proper distance ahead.
Ray leaned back, relaxing into the mule's jerky motion, his back already starting to ache. The morning was pretty enough, high clouds marking off an otherwise pa.s.sionately blue sky. A gentle breeze dried the sweat as fast as the sun drew it out of Ray, cooling him nicely. The hills were dotted with trees, Earth green as well as red, blue, and gray. They added a pleasant pattern for the eye and an intriguing scent to the air. Familiar and strange merging into a palette that excited and called forth hope in Ray. On a day like today, it was easy to forget someone had tried to knife him. And someone else may have tried to burn Refuge's central archives. Back to business. ”Ca.s.sie, you got any problem taking over security if I put Mary in charge of running the base and feeding the manufacturing?”
”You do what the good Lord calls you to,” the woman said.
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