They Also Serve: A Jump Universe Novel Part 21

"I'm sure you'll think of a lot," San Paulo said. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep. Good night, Vicky."

"We'll talk more tomorrow. They stole my property."

The screen went blank. Chief Barber rushed into Ray's office. "Our locals don't own the land they rented us!"

"Looks that way," Ray said.

"d.a.m.n, never thought to check. Can't believe I made that basic a goof."

"When everyone in town says they own it, you a.s.sume they do. I think we just hit another little local secret." Ray tapped his commlink. "Jeff."

"Yessir," came so fast the young man must have been waiting.

"Do the farmers and the city folks have a tiny disagreement about how you buy or otherwise acquire farmland?"

"Oh, d.a.m.n, is that what Vicky's up to?"

"Fill me in fast. I'm expecting another call."

"About sixty years back, the Sterlings pushed through a law making all land the property of the central circle in Refuge. Income from the sale of the land was supposed to pay for infrastructure improvements, dams, power generation, ca.n.a.ls. There was major refusal in the farmlands. They called it local nullification. For several months the farms refused to sell food. City folk finally backed off."

"So the law was repealed."

"Not exactly. That would be too embarra.s.sing. Everyone just agreed to ignore it."

"Interesting approach to law you have around here. So because Vicky bought the land we're on, we have to face one of her judges to decide who owns it?"

"Depends on whether she bought it or had Richland buy it."

"Sir"-a yeoman stuck his head in Ray's office-"an urgent call from Ms. San Paulo."

"Put her through. Jeff, I want you at the HQ as soon as you land." Ray hit his commlink, then hit it again. "Good morning, Ms. San Paulo. Didn't expect to hear from you," he said, grinning. "Rose is doing well. Her headaches seem to be gone."

"Good, but, ah, Mr. Amba.s.sador, you have made a very bad enemy in Vicky Sterling. Did you steal her archives tonight?"

"We don't have any of her archives here at the base," Ray evaded carefully.

"Good, because you're about to get a visit from one of her bailiffs." Quickly Hen filled Ray in on the call he'd watched.

"Who does own the land our local village farms?" Ray asked.

Hen shrugged and looked away. "They should," she evaded. "No one but Vicky would question that they do, but she's a law unto herself at times. I checked the public land records right after she called. This morning Richland purchased the Hazel Dell towns.h.i.+p-for expansion, they said-and has already zoned it for residential multifamily dwellings. Seems like a long commute to work."

"So we either go along with her, or we're lawbreakers. d.a.m.ned if we do, and d.a.m.ned if we don't."

"Yes."

"Do you know a lawyer we can talk to about this?"

"A law-yer?" Hen struggled with the word.

"Yes, someone who specializes in arguing the law."

"I don't think we have any."

"You don't." Ray felt suddenly very tired.

"If you and someone else have a legal problem, you take it to an elected judge and you argue it yourself."

"And if someone kills you?"

"Your family and security group argue against the killer."

Ray rubbed his temples. He was getting a headache, and the Teacher had nothing to do with this one. "You have laws, but no one pays any attention to them, and no one specializes in helping you figure out where you stand under them," he said, praying she'd correct him.

"I guess that's how it must look to you. We just haven't had much need for them."

"Sixty years ago the fanners quit delivering food because of this law." Barber's sarcasm was heavy as the night.

"But it was all straightened out."

"Is there anyone who takes an interest in these laws that everyone ignores?" Ignored until a few days ago.

"No one, really. Any old-timer can tell you about the people's history."

"Guess I'd better find one." Ray was about to hang up when Barber waved his hand. "You got something, Chief?"

"We've started giving out our credit cards," he said as if b.u.t.terflies might melt in his mouth. "The system is working nicely. Mary would hate to have someone hurt by what we're doing. I was wondering this afternoon if we shouldn't get some formal recognition of our system. Is there any chance you might have the circle formally recognize the credit cards' accounting system as legal tender, backed up by copper?"

"You're backing it with copper?" Hen's eyes were wide open, no matter what time it was.

"Yes. It's not quite the same as holding a copper coin, but we intend to make it just as reliable."

"Well, yes. When could you have me your draft language, and how soon do you want it done?"

"I worked up some already, Ms. San Paulo, and it would be nice if the circle could do this tomorrow morning."

"Before noon," Hen said, only half swallowing a smile. "Before Vicky's visitor arrives."

"The sooner we protect these fine people, the better," he said with the straightest face Ray had ever seen on a Ches.h.i.+re cat, canary in hand. The chief sent the file; Hen rung off.

Ray turned to Barber. "What did we just do?"

"You said we needed a real financial system for this place. We just took a small step toward it."

"Right." Ray tried to snarl, but too much smile was showing. "Talk to me, you old s.p.a.cer."

"Blimp's on final approach," the duty yeoman called.

"We'll talk on the drive to the field," the chief answered.

By the time Jeff stumbled into the inn, light was already coloring the east. He'd helped unload the blimp, then explained to a lot of very incredulous starfolk that just because a law was on the books didn't mean anyone paid attention to it. After all, once the community had gone through the pain and ha.s.sle of pa.s.sing a law, then nullifying it by popular rejection, who wanted to go over it again in circle? The Colonel and Mary didn't seem to grasp his point, but at least they accepted it. When he'd suggested that the old priest was probably the best local expert on social issues, Ray's eyes lit up and Jeff had been offered a ride into town.

Exhausted, but too excited to sleep, Jeff collapsed onto a chair in the Public Room. He might have dozed; it took him a while to note the lack of service. Puzzled, he wandered around the main room, found nothing, and invaded the kitchen. It was empty; the stove was cold. There was a note.

Jeff read it, then raced up the stairs to pound on his host's bedroom door. When Mrs. Mulroney finally opened it, Jeff jammed the note in her befuddled face. "I found this." Color drained from the woman as she read then held the note out to her husband. He lay in bed, still in the clothes he'd worn to get his still.

He read the note. "Oh, sweet Mother of G.o.d."

"What do they think they're doing?" Jeff demanded. "The s.p.a.cefolk and all their gear can't find the d.a.m.n vanis.h.i.+ng box. What makes them think they can?"

The two exchanged a glance. "We know some of the folks that don't agree with your sis," the man muttered.

"The ones that have the box?"

"Who knows?" the woman answered. "There are people, and there are people. And what I might have thought they'd do last month is not what I think they could do tomorrow. Annie and Nikki have been to meetings with us. They know who to talk to in the next village, and those people will pa.s.s them along."

"Maybe they can find the box," the father said. "As you pointed out, the starfolk are finding nothing."

"I've got to find Annie. I can't let her wander around the roads with things the way they are." The two shook their heads. "Tell me, or I'll make you both wish you had."

The man stepped in front of his wife. "It's not that we can't tell you. It's that you'd be a fool, chasing after them with your Sterling face. If you want to follow them, we will help, but not that way."

The words didn't often come from a Sterling's mouth, but for Annie, Jeff got his lips around them. "Help me."

"I'll get Old Ned," the man said, slipping around Jeff.

"I'll see if the girls left us anything in the kitchen," the mother added.

The longest hour of Jeff's life pa.s.sed before he rode out of Hazel Dell with Ned in the lead. In place of his warm clothes he wore hand-me-downs. A hooded rain slicker hid his face; his starman's wrist unit was off, buried in his saddlebag. The starman's rifle took the place of an air rifle in his scabbard. Ned had one more demand; he did the talking. If anyone asked, Jeff would fake a stutter and stay silent. Jeff had swallowed all Ned's demands, demands such as he never would have taken from Vicky. For Annie, Jeff would swallow three kinds of h.e.l.l.

Annie was scared. The first three villages had been easy. She knew people who knew her ma and da. No, they hadn't seen the six people, followers of the Green, whom Annie described, explaining that the ma of the youngest was very sick at home. The lie came surprisingly easy to Annie's tongue. Whether there was any real belief in the faces that nodded at her, they trusted her ma and da, so they trusted her. They arranged rides for her and Nikki south, and told them who to ask for in the next village.

With the marines suddenly too busy to send out mules to buy what they heeded, people were riding in on their own wagons and carts, taking the starfolks' card and riding home, happy they'd be the first to buy a mule, a powered plow, so many of the things the starfolk offered. That meant plenty of empty wagons going south. So why, at the fourth village, had Annie and Nikki been stuck on this worn-out, broken-down wagon whose last load had been pots of clay and mud, pots that had leaked badly? More troublesome, why were they still on it after two more villages?

"Nikki, I hope you know what you're doing."

"We've got to save Daga."

The driver, as broken down as his wagon and the old plug pulling it, glanced back at them. "I'll get ya there soon enough. Soon enough, I will."

Yesterday would have been none too soon for Annie.

ELEVEN.

RAY HAD DEFENDED a lot of base camps in his years of soldiering. Never had he planned a defense around an array of options like today's, he reflected as he drove over to the church. He got there just as the little priest was coming down the aisle, greeting each paris.h.i.+oner with a smile. He gave Ray a wide-open hug. "You're up early, man."

"No earlier than you."

"I'm just doing the Lord's work."

"I hope I am, too." Villagers filed by, young and old, men and women. Many acknowledged Ray as well as the priest. "Thank you for the work you're offering," was the general thrust of most. "We need your work," was Ray's honest answer.

"Saves our young men from having to go to the cities to find work that pays in coin," the priest reminded Ray.

"But not to pay for the land," Ray pointed out. To the priest's raised eyebrows, he explained the night's discoveries. The priest stared straight ahead for a long while.

"There's been hot blood between the city folk and the farmers almost since we first started to spread out. Cities have their needs. We farmers have ours. New Haven may talk about being for the Green, but these people grow it." The priest eyed the fields, dotted with people working.

"But if you don't grow it, city folks don't eat," Ray said.

"And if they don't make the utensils and gla.s.s and needles and fine goods, ours is a pretty plain existence. We need each other. So long as we remember that, all is well. But that's not always easy, not when Refuge needs expanded sewers or ma.s.s transit and we need a river dammed for electricity or to make room for bigger grain and potato barges."

"Every, society is a work in progress, trying to balance those tensions."

"Well, if I remember right, or the story that was told to me is true, the Sterlings tried to avoid the problem by claiming all the land around Richland. Farmers who settled there worked as tenants, no better than the workers in their mines and factories. About a hundred years ago there were riots about absentee landlords. Really, just Sterlings as landlords."

"Why didn't farmers just go around Sterling land?"

"Why doesn't anybody just walk away from a problem? If a farmer's too far from a city, his horse eats more hauling produce to market than he earns. Now we have river barges on the James and railroads out here. Not then."

"How did they solve it?"

"Now that, I don't remember. Didn't you say you'd copied much of Refuge's archives?"

"Yes. Kat can help you dig through them."

"A delightful young woman. This will be a pleasant day."

Ray had his doubts about that. He dropped the padre at the hospital/research center with. Kat. Mary caught him in front of the HQ. "Boss, young Jeff's gone AWOL." Mary handed him a note. He read it through.

"Any luck looking for our vanis.h.i.+ng box?"

"Nada, zero, and zip."

"Think these people can find it?"

"Two girls, followed by two guys. Who knows? Crazier things have happened, and this planet is the craziest I've ever visited. Asteroids. Now, there's the place for a woman. Not too much land. Not too many people. Small enough to be comfortable, big enough to have what you need. What are we doing here, sir?"

"Seemed like a great opportunity when we saw it," he reminded her. "Didn't have all that many other options."