Third World (4 page)

After sixteen months of garrison duty,
endlessly hovering in the stable point, providing some kind of
moral presence for the colony, people tended to get rusty. Most
didn’t abuse shore leave, but every cruise had its killed and
missing, even on the most mundane of duty. It was a hazardous
profession and Shapiro was trained well enough in that regard. He
had a responsibility to assess and minimize all risks.

Not very exciting, but it was his
job.

“
We make an appearance in
the city. We troll through the bars, wearing full kit and arrayed
for battle. And we tell people we’re looking for
deserters.”

“
And?” Dave Semanko was a
communications specialist, which included linguistics and even
rhetoric.

In his early thirties, he radiated
competence. Perhaps the uniform, crew-cut and trim build had
something to do with it. His intelligent brown eyes looked at
Newton.

“
Then we go to a hotel and
rustle up some transport, as we have one or two tips to check out.
Other than that, I figure by the time we get back to the port,
people have had a chance to think on it and it’s quite possible
some of them will turn themselves in.”

He was betting on word getting
around—like wildfire.

“
Turn themselves in?” Faber
snorted and slapped his thigh.

He didn’t impress Shapiro as an idiot,
but he might have been mistaken.

“
Once they get out there.
Once they’ve gone hungry a while, and seen the prospects. Once they
see what they’re really up against, they’ll be kicking themselves
all over the place for running away.”

Semanko was studying the field notes
for Third World.

“
It doesn’t seem so bad. A
mix of indigenous and Terran flora, a few carefully selected
fauna…temperate zone is extensive.” He read on. “Seventy percent of
the surface is landmass, and the biggest ocean is at the southern
pole. Huh.”

“
Yeah. And there’s nothing
down there.” Shapiro swept their eyes in an all-encompassing
stare.

“
Nothing?” If Ensign
Spaulding didn’t get it, the others probably weren’t
either.

“
Nothing. Nothing at all,
ladies and gentlemen.” He gave them a moment to think about
it.

“
The life of a soldier is
compensated for by a life of ease and sloth.” Faber surprised him
with that one.

It went back a thousand years to some
historian no one ever read anymore.

“
Yes. And that’s just what
they’re not going to get on Third World. First, the capital city is
our city—and it’s only eighteen thousand people. They really can’t
hide there and they know it.”

Because sooner or later, everybody
discovers they need to make a living. That was another, unspoken
compensation for being in the service. It was a living.

“
Because they don’t have the
skills or the drive.” The Ensign had nailed it. “It’s more—a lot
more, than they must have bargained for.”

There were comprehending nods around
the table as they looked at him and each other. There was no lack
of confidence, but a little caution would have been preferable. He
wondered if he was just being insecure about his own role in all of
this. It was a command, though. It was an independent
command…

“
So what do you think?”
Shapiro eyed the lean, dour figure of Jackson at the far end of the
table.

“
Nothing, yet. What are the
people like? I mean, outside the, er…cities.” He cleared his throat
and explained. “There are a lot of officials from outside, recent
immigrants, temporary workers. Not everyone in town is a
local.”

The city was at least used for shore
leave. They had some familiarity with it. The hinterland was
another story. Newton wondered most about Jackson. At his age, his
rank seemed very low, as if he had hit a dead end for one reason or
another. That was the truth about the service. There were only so
many desirable positions available, and in peacetime manpower
withered away as the brightest people sought a better life in the
civilian world. So why had Jackson stayed?

But Jackson had hit the nail right on
the head. Walter was extremely intelligent, but was known to hate
the service. He looked like he was looking forward to the duty,
unlike one or two others, at least initially. They were putting a
better face on it now. Control over one’s demeanor was a necessary
trait in even the most junior officers in the close-knit community
that was the ship. Catching deserters wasn’t exactly what they had
signed up for. Ship-board duties had their own routine, and it was
a comforting one, even a lazy one at times. Faber was right—it
really was a different kind of a life, but one easily gotten used
to.

“
That, is very difficult to
say. The traders say they are pretty business-savvy and harvesting
the local commodities is back-breaking work. It’s all done with the
simplest of tools and implements. The communities are very small
and tightly-knit. The old timers still remember their home world,
and some of them are probably better educated than you or I. We’d
better remember that. This is not the time to be patronizing them.
Hopefully we can avoid, ah…cultural pitfalls.”

Life was simple, brutal, and short on
Third World, with its limited nutrition and medical
care.

It was amazing how fast a new culture
would spring up. The company had brought in twenty or thirty loads
of colonists, setting them down here or there as per some initial
study and planning. A lot of promises had been made, and then the
company was affected by a downward turn of the economy. Much of the
heavier equipment and tools never made it to the planet’s surface,
being sold elsewhere in the name of liquidity. The government and
the company were consulting and working on the
difficulties.

Again the nods. There were
limits to what power and authority could do. The Empire claimed
that it governed on goodwill and tried to achieve it, in all
honesty. In all honesty, it failed as often as it succeeded. It’s
not like the Empire didn’t care about its
social
mission, but funds were always
tight and priorities higher elsewhere.

“
All right. Let’s go over
this list and see who’s who—and who’s what.” Shapiro was rewarded
with a few grins and chuckles.

The enlisted men’s files were at least
entertaining. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. His team
would be what he made of it.

He’d read all the books.

***

The troops filed aboard the shuttle
craft and stowed all loose equipment.

Newton surveyed the lines of people
strapping in on each side of the passenger bay but said nothing.
They muttered amongst themselves and that was okay. He clapped
Faber on the shoulder, as Faber was staying back there and Newton
made his way to the copilot’s seat. That one blazon on Newton’s
shoulder made all the difference.

Strapping himself in, he and the Ensign
began going over the long checklist before launch.

Back in the passenger bay, Faber looked
at the long line of eager young faces sitting across from him and
stifled a laugh.

“
Don’t worry, be
happy.”

One or two looked over at him and gave
him a thumbs-up or a nod. A couple looked just plain scared. Their
names were on their tunics and he ran through them in his
mind.

Benson hadn’t even been off
the ship before, not since being assigned to
Hermes
after graduating technical
school.

He just looked young and green. Benson
was armed, presumably trained for it, but his imagination was going
overboard. Maybe it was the shuttle flight that was getting to
him.

As for Freeman, he was a quiet sort who
would have kept his head down and done his job but when he had a
couple drinks he got belligerent with anyone with even a smidgeon
of power.

He was always in some sort of a scrape
or other. As to why he was unhappy, was another story as he’d been
in the service for years and had been planet-side plenty of times.
He was one of three in the party who’d actually been to Third
World.

Faber’s own shore leave was coming up
in a month or so and he was quite looking forward to it.

More than anything he wanted to sleep
in a real bed, in a real room, eat like a pig and drink like a fish
for a while. He’d spend a few bucks and get himself a whore.
Grimaldi looked over and lifted her eyebrows in bored
contempt.

Faber grinned. Grimaldi looked away,
still looking contemptuous.

The machine lurched under them and then
began moving forwards as the light outside the view-ports dimmed
and then they were weightless as space, time and thermodynamics
took them in its proper grip.

Once the Ensign had cleared the ship
and found their course, Newton thanked her.

“
I’m going to address the
troops.”

She rolled her eyes a bit and he
wondered what that was about, but she said nothing.

The Lieutenant activated his microphone
and all of their earpieces and began going over their briefing,
with a few additional reminders that were better left out of the
official record, simple brevity also being a concern. Semanko
appeared to be dozing in a quick glimpse over his
shoulder.

His eyes popped open, and then he
carefully winked.

Jackson chewed gum and stared out the
side window.

Cultural contacts between Fleet and
semi-autonomous worlds were often problematic and he was looking
for his people to be on their best behaviour.

Chapter Four

The Flight Was
Routine

The flight was routine in spite of the
butterflies in Newton’s stomach. In their earpieces they listened
in amusement as Faber, an old salt and clearly in control by sheer
force of habit and a certain cockiness, chaffed and chatted with
the troops. The few responses they heard sounded cheerful enough,
and they were all eager to get down on the ground.

Their atmospheric approach was
uneventful, although there were the usual jolts and vibration,
underlined by the unfamiliar roar of air over the body of the
craft. Faber’s voice went up a bit and it sounded like at least one
trooper was suffering motion sickness, but they soon made it down
to smoother air.

Faber’s quiet voice talked the boy
through it as Newton listened in approval.

Spaulding brought the shuttle into the
pattern like she’d done it a million times. It was a pleasure to
watch her work and Newton made a mental note to mention it in the
operational report.

She set her down on eggshells, and the
nose sank and the speed bled off by the numbers. Spaulding’s
ground-handling was totally professional, and he admired her for it
as she must have spent days in the simulator.

Newton had over a hundred such landings
in his log book, and he didn’t always do as well as she did on her
first one. He made a point of telling her that, and her cheeks
flushed with pleasure.

The shuttle craft would stay on the
ground in a secure area guarded by civilian personnel. The place
appeared to have four or five employees. There were a dozen small
aircraft of various types lined up and one small commercial plane
in front of the terminal, with a capacity of maybe thirty seats.
Its engines were running and people came out, hauling bags from
inside the dark interior of the loading dock.

Unbelievable.

He doubted if anyone on the surface had
the skill to operate a shuttle, but theft or vandalism was a
concern.

Taking a chartered bus waiting in front
of the small, white-painted concrete block terminal, the field’s
lonely windsock drooping in the background across verdant green
fields, the drive into town took about twenty minutes and then they
checked into their pre-arranged quarters.

Everyone had their own room, and to
Newton, the prices seemed oddly unreasonable but they were on Her
Majesty’s tab anyways. Everything in the ship’s own store was sold
at cost and the transportation of it was heavily subsidized by the
taxpayers. It was just culture shock.

It’s not like they ever paid room and
board. Civilian life really did have its hazards.

All of this was part of his planning
and responsibility, and the comfort of the troops was also a
consideration. With their faces wreathed in smiles and their voices
loud in the unfamiliar surroundings, he grinned and raised an
arm.

“
People.”

They simmered down quickly enough,
although one trooper gouged another in the ribs with an elbow and
got a quick swat in return.

He stared at them and they both turned
beet red in the face.

“
All right. You’ve all got
your keys. Shower up, and we’ll rendezvous in the dining room at
eighteen-hundred. You’re free until then, but stay on the premises
and stay out of trouble.”

He received nods and grins in response
as the desk clerk looked on and one or two folks came and went from
the elevators.