The Price of Peace (3 page)

There was only one answer to that. "Marines always love getting their boots muddy ma'am," he said with innocent relish. The skipper gave him a wink.

"XO, lay in a course for Hurtford Corner. One and a quarter gees, if you will."

Tom Gabon stood before the full-length mirror. He adjusted his tie a smidgen. This might be the frontier, the rim of human space, but a businessman still needed to make a good first impression. This was the big promotion he'd been looking for. As senior vice president for Z&G on Riddle, he would not only manage their
planetwide
facilities and construction projects, but would also be one of the thirteen who sat on the planet's council. This sure as hell beat testifying at a senate hearing.

Besides, what could he have told them? Sure, corporations kept their lines of communication open across the battle lines of the last war. Information was money. Just because Unity and Earth couldn't talk civil to each other didn't mean business had to stop. And maybe he had heard his board of directors brag that he could turn Unity's President Urm off and on like a light switch, but hey, anyone listening with one ear in the right bars during the war knew that.

All right, maybe I do know more than a lot, but that just means I know when to keep my mouth shut and listen more than a lot of them. Tom grinned; that's how he'd found out about this opportunity. Keeping his mouth shut, and listening.

Tom glanced at his wrist unit. The station's elevators had been lifting passengers out of the Goethe for a half hour. It was time he made his appearance. As expected, four men were waiting for him as he exited the pier elevator.

"Mr. Gabon," a blue suit said with a smile. "We have a shuttle holding to take you down to Riddle. We can just make the meeting. Everyone wants to meet you." Tom had calculated that just right. He'd even remembered to include where the station was in its orbit around Riddle. Stan, his Navy puke brother, would be proud of him. Just because Tom understood how business worked didn't mean he was illiterate about how the stars and planets turned.

Tom followed his escort down the promenade, heading for more elevators. They chatted lightly about the planet's weather... hot and damp, as he'd been warned. The suit aimed Tom toward a small elevator. "I've reserved one for you."

Tom entered it; as he turned to face the door, his eye caught a gleam in the hand of the man behind him. A small cylinder with a needle. Before Tom could react, the needle was jammed in his neck.

"What the hell?" Tom got out even as his knees went weak and his eyes grayed out.

"You didn't think we'd let a snoop like you boss up one of our biggest concerns, did you?" The blue suit snorted as Tom collapsed. "But don't worry. We have work for you. Oh, will you work."

The sun ruled the blue summer sky with authority questioned only by two dust clouds showing where other tractors were at work on the rolling croplands. This was the high summer that Ruth
Edris
-Morton loved. Long, hot days full of hard work followed by cool summer nights and dreamless sleep.

Ruth reached the end of a row and carefully brought her tractor around, aligning the sprayer for the next pass. Pest control was only a minor part of the mixture this morning ... and the least expensive. The activators in the mix would turn the modified soybeans into the initial feedstock the
biocompanies
paid hard money for. Pa would have a good cash crop this year. With luck there'd be enough left over to stake Brother and Miriam to a homestead of their own, and none too soon. Slim looked about ready to bring a wife of his own home. Pa wouldn't be shorthanded, not with Ruth around. She scowled at Pa's blessing.

Ruth settled the tractor in the groove. Just to make sure, she verified it against the Global Position Satellites. Plus or minus .000 meters the GPS told her. Pa proudly said she had a farmer's eye. Yes, she knew the equipment, the crops, and the fields. Maybe if she'd spent more time with Ma, she'd have landed a better man than
Mordy
.

Then the radio squawked.

"Anybody, can you help us?" The voice was young, female, and very scared. It hit Ruth in that place women held sacred for children. For Ruth, it echoed hollow.

She grabbed for the mike, but Grandma
Seddik
, who guarded the emergency channels now that her arthritis was too bad to let her work the fields, was already talking. "What's your problem, honey?" she said, soft and warm like the quilts she made.

"Brother spotted slackers on the ridge. They had rifles. Dad and Mom are getting the guns out. Dad told me to call in."'

"Good, honey. What's your name?"

"Oh! I'm
Lizie
.
Lizie
Abdoes
." Embarrassment tinged the answer to this basic question. The girl was eight, maybe nine, and knew radio discipline. That she'd forgotten told Ruth how terrified the little one was.

"Good girl, and what did you get for your birthday this year?" Grandma
Seddik
was going straight into the security check that had become standard while the Unity bullies were around. No matter how scared a young girl like
Lizie
might be, she knew what she got for her birthday—and how to say it wrong if a gun was already pointed at her head. "A doll, a rag doll, and shoes. Boots, really."

"This is a legit distress call," Grandma snapped. "Who's in position to help?"

Ruth had been listening, even as she kept the tractor on course, spray darkening the beans, no overlap, no misses. Now she zoomed her guidance map out, and frowned. The
Abdoes
place was thirty miles away. Dots lit up as people reported their location and availability. Grandma would be getting a full readout on armament as well. Ruth was about to report her presence when someone at the house beat her to it.

"Sis, Pa wants you in fast," came on the family channel. "
Slim's
already in. Mom, Miriam, and the youngsters will hold the station." Brother, Slim, and Pa were the usual contribution from the family to the community's Quick Response Team. While she and
Mordy
had been working for the
Seddiks
,
QRTs
were the only times she'd seen family. Now, she was back on Pa's team. "On my way," Ruth answered. She detached the sprayer; in a moment she was gunning down the row, careful of the bean plants on either side of the tractor's big balloon tires. Once into a fallow field, she angled straight for home. Surrounded by barn and outbuildings, the white-painted two-story house with a new wing for Brother, Miriam, and their twins gleamed in the sun under a mat black roof of solar collectors. Pa, Brother, and Slim were waiting in the dusty yard between the house and the barn, ready to screw metal plates to the cab and vitals of the tractor. Miriam handed up Ruth's rifle, extra ammo boxes, and a basket of food. Mom held the twins, one to each hip; Tina held all three of the women's rifles. Ruth's youngest brother and sister, ten and twelve, already peered from the sandbagged lookout post atop the barn, the family's practice rifles pointed out. The kids looked scared and trying to hide it.

"Take care," Ma said, blowing Pa a quick goodbye kiss. Miriam climbed up the tractor to give Brother the same. Ruth looked away, missing someone to say goodbye to.

"We always do," Pa answered Mom, then turned. "Ruth, you drive. Boys..." His nod sent each of the men to a side view slot in the tractor's makeshift armor. He settled into the seat next to Ruth as she put the rig in gear. "Head for the
Krogers
' place," Pa told her; Ruth gunned the tractor. The armor about balanced out the lack of something dragging behind, though it made for a top-heavy drive. When they were kids, Pa listened to the net on earphones. Today, he listened through the speaker. Reports of availability rolled over Ruth. She ignored them, concentrating on getting where she was going fast. . . and safe.

Still, Ruth couldn't ignore the change. Slackers weren't supposed to be problems. They were just people who didn't want or couldn't find work. Before the war, they'd begged and sometimes stolen a few things. During the war, they'd been rounded up and put in the army—the army
Mordy
was drafted into. Now
Mordy
was still gone, and the slackers were back with guns. She'd gone home .. . and Pa sandbagged the lookout post above the barn. Ruth made it to the
Krogers
' in twenty minutes.

Close to a dozen rigs were parked haphazardly between the
Krogers
' house and outbuildings. Ruth hadn't even brought the tractor to a halt before Pa swung out the door and trotted for a clump of elders. "Stay with the rig, crew," he said without looking back. Slim was already getting out, his eyes on the
Zabossa
rig with Becky. With a sigh, Slim dropped back into his seat. Becky waved to him; Slim waved back.

Most of the crews left behind were alertly eyeing the open fields and rolling woodlands around the farm. A light smudge marred the horizon where the
Abdoes
' place was. Ruth checked her motor readouts; storage was at eighty percent. She spread the solar wings to catch some rays, then called up the latest photo of the
Abdoes
' station and the land between it and her tractor. Balancing distance against cover, she plotted the best course.

She'd just finished when Pa came back. "More are coming, but we got to get somebody there pronto. Those here are going now," He glanced at the display. "You got a route planned?"

She quickly sketched her path. He nodded. "We're lead tractor. Do it, Ruth. Boys, look sharp, lock and load."

With a hard swallow, Slim pulled back the arming bolt on his rifle, then
safetied
it. Brother did the same. Ruth folded the solar wings as she gunned the rig. As usual, Pa was leading the first reaction team. Before he emigrated, Pa had put in his time with the army on
LornaDo
. Pa usually ended up with the lead on days like this, and Ruth had been studying how he went about it since she turned sixteen. Now Pa rarely modified her approach drives for fires, floods, and slacker problems.

Ruth covered the first half of the ten-mile drive at a good clip, keeping both eyes on the road and letting Pa and the boys worry about surprises. The other tractors and trucks followed in single file behind her, allowing plenty of room for her to spring any trap they were heading into. Ruth glanced at Pa; did he want her to slow down? His eyes were straight ahead. Swallowing her growing fear, Ruth kept the throttle forward as the smoke plume grew in the sky.

At the woods this side of the
Abdoes
place, Pa called a halt. He signaled for the rifle teams to dismount and hoof it through the trees, then went forward at the head of the men and women. Ruth edged the tractor off the dirt road, hunting for a path through the trees. She didn't have to be told the road was no place for her today. She was almost through the woods when the net came alive.

"Don't look like there's nobody here. Let's close in."

Since that wasn't Pa talking, Ruth continued her cautious advance. When she finally did come up on the plowed fields, several trucks were already parked in front of the blackened house. The homestead had been built with tough local wood; it smoldered more than burned. Ruth's eyes were drawn to the front door. It had been blown in ... explosives, or some sort of rocket. Pa would know. Carefully, she drove across the field and looped around back. Damage there was limited to windows and doors blown out. No bodies, just a few dead chickens. She spotted Brother and Slim kneeling beside tracks where the cows and horses had been herded off. Around the pig and goat pen were decapitated heads, guts, and blood.

"Looks like a quick butcher job." Brother surmised.

Around front, the human casualties were already under blankets. "Who'd they kill?" Slim asked.

Becky was leaning over, her last meal splattered on the dirt. She wiped her mouth and looked up. "The kids. The little kids," she whimpered. "Why kill kids not big enough for schooling? And their pa," she added.

Slim knelt beside her. an arm around his future wife. Brother's eyes had turned toward home, and his wife and twins. Ruth knew the answer. Kids slowed you down. These slackers must be planning on moving very fast. They'd better; if this posse caught them, they were dead. Ruth called up her map again. If she was running, where would she head?

North, east, south was open farmland—no place to hide there. To the west were mountains, with heavy forest and brush for cover. Lots of places to hide, no roads, no place to take tractors. But hills had rivers and lakes. She searched. Yep, there was the General Store. Old man Sanchez traded for pelts and herbs. His place was on Lake Guadalupe, easy to reach by boat. And he had boats that could reach back into the mountains faster than people could ride. "Brother."

Both siblings looked over her shoulder as she outlined a pursuit. Brother nodded when she was done. "Let's tell Pa."

Pa was in the middle of the elders, and the elders were in the middle of an argument. Old man
Seddik
was all for going home. "We can't catch '
em
. Better we get ready for next time. Let's talk next Thursday at the dance. We got to plan."

The younger men, many friends of the dead
Abdoes
, wanted to hit the trail right now. "We got to stop these bastards. They're loaded down with the stuff they stole. We can catch them. I say chase '
em
'til hell freezes."

"And what's to keep them from bushwhacking you?" Ms.
Zabossa
cut in. That brought quiet for a moment.