Part 12 (1/2)
Harry's place was blessedly still there, and easy for Jeff to spot. His yard was a blend of hearty earth plants and various local bushes he'd collected in his travels. Kat eased to a halt before the rambling two-story. Jeff was out before she'd brought the mule to a complete stop; he trotted up the gravel walk and took the four steps to the porch two at a time. He knocked softly.
After a minute he rapped louder. The house was dark, as was every other house they'd driven by. Not even a porch light?
Jeff glanced up. Streetlights were visible with his goggles; they did not burn. Jeff stepped back, checking the windows. Someone peeked out an upper one. He pointed at it, and the curtains slipped shut. Jeff went back to the door, knocked once, then began beating a slow, insistent tattoo.
Finally the door opened a crack. ”Who are you?”
Jeff didn't recognize the face. He pulled the night goggles up. As he opened his mouth, it dawned on him that for the first time in his life, his name might not open doors. ”h.e.l.lo, I'm a friend of Harry's. I need to talk to him.”
”Harry doesn't need friends like you,” he heard, but the door opened wider. Harry stood behind the man at the door. He rested a restraining hand on the younger man's hand, the one holding a baseball bat.
”Come on in, Jeff. Who are your friends?”
”Starfolks. Can they come in?”
”Sure, sure.” Harry waved in his open, friendly way. Kat did something to the mule's steering, then trotted up the walk. Du followed her, walking backward, rifle at eye level, the barrel sweeping wide, in sync with his eyes. Even if Kat hadn't told him, Jeff would have known it now; Du scared people.
Jeff and company slipped through the door to be pointed toward the back of the house. Using his night goggles, Jeff had no trouble following the hall back to Harry's study. In it, a small candle burned, throwing fitful light over a collection of books and rocks. On the couch, a woman huddled, arms around two children. She gasped as Du entered the room.
Du took it in stride. He glided to the back window and took a long look out. ”Sorry, ma'am. I have that effect on people.” He turned to Kat. ”Looks clear. Somebody want to update me on the situation?”
Jeff was a veteran of too many of Vicky's pushy binges; he knew how to push back. The quiet tone of Du's voice left him with a uncontrollable compulsion to please the man.
”Your sister announced layoffs yesterday morning,” the young man said. ”No warning, no idea when anyone might be called back. Rumor is she's been building up product in the warehouses to meet two or three months of demand. Now, with her wanting copper, who knows how long it will last.”
”She also said she wouldn't release paychecks until the end of the month,” the young woman said, ”and then they'll be short.”
”Vicky was always the milk of human kindness,” Jeff drawled. ”What did she expect people to do?”
Harry's mouth lifted in a bent smile. ”There were buses to take protesters to Refuge, to demand the Great Circle immediately abolish aluminum coins.”
”Did many go?” Kat asked.
”Some,” the young man said, the baseball bat still in his hand. ”I don't think half of the buses were filled. Me, I called Dad and asked if we could move in. He said yes, so I spent the time lugging our stuff over here.”
”Why'd you move?” Du asked.
”I don't know.” The man looked at his wife. ”Greens say we're making a mess of this world. Street preachers say the end is coming. People getting more and more twitchy. Our apartment complex was right next to a shopping center. Food stores, small shops, and a liquor store. It got broken into. Then the others. Somehow they started burning.”
”You figured on trouble,” Kat said.
Both young people nodded, eyes on their sleeping children. ”It's been coming since last year,” Harry told Jeff, ”when your sister took to paying everyone in aluminum. Prices went up. Wages didn't. There're hungry people on those streets, son.”
”And sis didn't see this coming!”
”Maybe she did. Maybe she thought she could aim it at something she wanted taken down. You can never tell with her.”
”And you can never tell her anything. Less lately,” Jeff concluded. ”Harry, I got some people here who need your help.”
Kat quickly ran down their discovery of the planet's unusual flora and fauna...and the strange impact it was having on the humans. ”We really need to know this planet's natural history. Jeff said you might be able to tell us something.”
”I didn't think it was like this on other planets.” The old man enjoyed his vindication for a moment. Even as he did, he was searching his bookshelf for binders, notebooks, and rock samples. ”I keep a complete backup,” he said, flouris.h.i.+ng a box of disks. ”It's yours.”
Kat took the offered box. ”We'd like you to come, too.”
”I can't leave my family.”
”Dad, if anybody saw these people come here tonight, Jeff and them, maybe you'd better be gone.”
”Harold, but what about us?” the woman asked from the couch. ”The way people are...” she trailed off. The young man looked from his wife and children to his father, lips tightly pursed.
The old man shook his head. ”I can't leave them.”
Du frowned. ”Kat, these people can't stand against whatever is out there. Can we take them?”
”With the automated plants up, there ought to be jobs for them. Harry, my people really need to talk to you. I'll take the whole lot of you as a package deal.”
Without a second word, the father lifted a child of six from the couch. The wife hoisted another of maybe three. Jeff helped Harry with a box of rocks. After snuffing out the candle, Du trailed them through the house, Kat just ahead of him, the disks in one hand. A small automatic had appeared in the other.
Jeff pushed the front door open, then held it wide as Harry and his family went through. He followed them, leaving the door to Kat-and came to a dead halt on the porch.
Around the mule, a crowd of thirty people milled. Several had clubs, two torches. ”I told you I saw Jeffie Baby right here in our neighborhood. Come to visit his old friend, didn't he?” That brought murmurs of agreement, and a shout that they should have burned them out with the others. The son and wife recoiled against Jeff and Harry. Kat interposed herself to Jeff's left.
The mob started forward-and froze in midstride.
Du came around Harry, rifle held high. Du pulled the arming bolt back; it recoiled into place with a well-oiled ratcheting sound. The rifle rested easy on Du's hip. He eyed the mob; confronted by coiled death in black, the crowd stepped back.
”These people, and their home”-Du raised his chin to the house behind him-”are under my protection.” The goggled, insectoid eyes moved over the crowd as if recording their faces. ”You don't want anything to happen to it. Understand?”
Heads nodded.
”Now, if you'll move away from the truck...”
People stared at the mule, as if seeing it for the first time. Those nearest quickly took two steps back, then, once in motion, seemed to think well of the idea and kept going. In a moment the street was empty, two torches guttering out.
”I told you,” Kat said, moving toward the rig, ”you're good at what you do. Everybody into the car.”
Du glanced at Kat and nodded. ”I guess I am.” He glided from the porch to the car, like a shadow at home in the night. Opening one door, he helped Harry and his family into the backseat. A lot of humanity crammed itself into not enough s.p.a.ce.
Jeff measured the front seat and weighed the prospects of walking over to the mansion to borrow a cycle. Du shoved him into the seat, then stood between his legs, holding on to the front window. ”Move us out, Kat,” he ordered.
She did a quick U-turn, gunned the engine, and zoomed through the twisting streets at double the speed they'd come in. Here and there something moved among the bushes and trees that lined the road. Nothing got in their way.
Ray let Ca.s.sie explain how they would help Refuge; if he did any talking, he'd bite off heads. Lek was already down the hall, setting up a command post. While two s.p.a.cers installed the borrowed stuff, local technicians strung cable from where the archives still smoldered. Until recently it had served as the central hub of what pa.s.sed for a local government network. All workstations available were being moved to Lek's command post.
At a screen in front of the room Ca.s.sie launched into an examination of the techniques of crowd control used by Humanity. ”Rifles can disburse large crowds quickly,” she told the gathered leaders of Refuge, then added dryly, ”however, they have the unfortunate side effect of leaving dead bodies and angry memories in their wake. We don't want to go there.” Most nodded.
”I don't know,” came from the back. ”They burn a building down, beat up some old folks. Why be nice to them? A bullet will get their attention real quick and keep it.” Hum, maybe Ray and the rioters weren't the only ones feeling itchy.
Ms. San Paulo turned. ”Gaspier, that might solve today's problem, but it would hardly help tomorrow's. We must take the long view.”