Strong Arm Tactics Page 5

  He wished he could explain to them that he couldn’t arrange anything. He had taken himself out of the line of succession. His middle sister Sherez, younger than he by two years, was now being groomed to take the top spot, but even she was certain that one day the old man would talk her brother into coming back. Daivid knew just as certainly that the old man couldn’t. Sherez was one of the people he had been unable to convince.

  In the card’s memory there was also a complete address file of the family and its connections across all inhabited worlds, including the people who were on the Family payroll who were deep in planetary governments. That he had also had reason to peruse, but largely for self-protection. The database also included those government workers who were on other Families’ payrolls, who were not necessarily kindly inclined toward members of the Wolfe clan. A year ago he had almost gotten sent to an ice station outpost, until he realized that the clerk posting him there was an offshoot of the Franconi Family. Daivid had stretched out his neck and gone just a little over the clerk’s head to have himself re-reassigned to the base he was supposed to have gone to in the first place. The one, he thought with a sigh, where he had been stationed before they had sent him to Treadmill.

  Finally, the last section in the card’s memory was a list. Daivid didn’t like to read through it, didn’t even like to think about it. It contained the names, images and last known addresses of people the Don would like to know the locations of, if his devoted son came across them, dead or alive. They were people who had skipped out on payments, committed some crime or outrage against the Family, or betrayed a trust that was not a prosecutable criminal offense. (Benjamin liked to let the courts do his work for him whenever possible.) His father had made it clear he didn’t want Daivid to take any action on his own. He just wanted to know where those people were. Daivid read all his own sinister implications into the old man’s breezy assurance. This section was really what made Daivid the most reluctant to use the cardbase. Nothing was free, he reflected. Even energy use led to entropy.

  He flipped the card in the air, letting it land face down on his stomach. This list of favors cost a lot of lives, dating back from before human beings broke through the atmosphere on the mother planet. He had solemnly promised his father to stick the card in a communications box once a month (“Call collect,” Benjamin had admonished him.) to update the files, and to let the family know where and how he was.

  He didn’t mind checking in with his folks. In spite of their chosen, er, professions he loved his family. He had always gotten along with his three sisters. His mother, who did not work in any of the Family businesses because she had had her own career before she had married Benjamin Wolfe, was Daivid’s favorite person in the galaxy. She was proud of his attainments, praising him when he finished OCS at the top of his class (his father had been proud, too, but he had only confided this to Daivid’s mother, never telling him so directly), sending a polished new infopad when he got his first promotion from ensign—enswine—to lieutenant jg. He loved his family, but he was making his own way along now. He had a purpose in life, probably one too big for a single lifetime, but it gave him meaning.

  And he hadn’t thought about Sesi in over a year.

  He knew he was tough enough to make it in this assignment. He was young and inexperienced, but he had inherited enough of the family willpower to lead. The Cockroaches needed a good leader, but was he the one? What if behind the polished exterior he showed the world was a block of plaster instead of chunk of ebony?

  He tapped the card, wondering if there was any spot in his quarters where he could conceal it during those times it would be awkward to have it on him, such as if he had to shower with the troopers. Although the card’s system was heavily encoded, with a heat-sensitive fingerprint switch and DNA scan as the primary triggers, he wasn’t going to try and fool himself into believing the safeguards were foolproof. The databases’ content was worth a large fortune on any black market inside the Thousand Worlds or outside. The Cockroaches had already proved they were willing to bend the rules and regard other people’s property as their own.

  He decided that for the time being he was going to have to wear the card on his chest, and keep watch for where their eyes didn’t go. Give them a few weeks to search his luggage for anything interesting or worth stealing—make that ‘trading’—and perhaps he could figure out a safe hiding place.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  Loud honking broke Wolfe out of a dream. Instantly, the visions of the victory, in which he was leading a shining army into the midst of the rebel stronghold on Pteradon, where the insurgents greeted him with open arms, and the beautiful, scantily-clad women who had been held prisoner by the outlaws showered their rescuer with their gratitude, faded from colorful spectacle to the spider-web crackle of the ancient enameled ceiling in his new quarters.

  With a gingerly forefinger he poked the control that operated the window shading, trying to discover the source of the noise. The glass cleared. S-shaped white forms bustled around on the grassy slope just outside that led down to the river that ran around two sides of the spaceport. As his eyes grew used to the faint light of false dawn he realized they were geese. The birds, originally from Terra, were frequently employed as guard animals in low-to medium-security areas. They were cheap to feed and aggressively territorial. The only downsides were that they were noisy, and their droppings made traversing the green lawns an obstacle course.

  He glanced at his chronometer. Oh four hundred hours! He groaned. That meant he’d only gotten three and a half hours of sleep. He jerked up into a sitting position, but the stabbing sensation in his head told him that fast movement was a very bad idea. New rule, he told himself, moving more gingerly toward the dribbly shower, no more matching the troops drink for drink. They were used to the effects of their white lightning. He, most assuredly, was not.

  He peered out the window for the source of the horn music. Was this a new form of reveille? No, it was Mother Nature. Just beyond the barrier fence was a broad wetland. He was being serenaded by a host of marsh hounds. They were local avians whose baying voices reminded the person who named them of howling dogs. By the look of the colony alighting on the water for a predawn breakfast, their numbers were in no danger of decimation, except perhaps by annoyed service personnel whose precious sleep was interrupted by their noise.

  He dragged himself to the bathroom to throw cold water on his face. PT started at 0500. Breakfast ran from 0700 to 0800. There ought to be plenty of time to get the barracks in order before Mason arrived for inspection at 1100. He pulled on a sleeveless tunic, light exercise pants, and absorbent-insoled running shoes. No point in showering before he got sweaty.

  Well before exercises were scheduled to begin, Wolfe ran out onto the yard, the paved area in between the barracks and the mess hall. Running a quick eye around the perimeter track in the twilight of false dawn he judged that eight laps would be a kilometer. The morning was cold and damp, a bleak contrast to the hot sunny weather prediction that had showed up on his clipboard screen. He started jogging, gradually increasing his speed until his heart beat pounded in his ears, and he felt a healthy sweat break out on his skin. The headache faded, and he began to feel optimistic about the coming day.

  The large chrono on the brow of the mess hall showed 0459 when Borden, also in a singlet, shorts and running shoes, emerged from the barracks. Behind her, in swim fins and a boiler suit, was Thielind. They jogged to the center of the exercise field and stood at attention. Their hands flew to their foreheads in salute. Wolfe joined them and threw them a jaunty salute in return.

  “Are the others on their way out?” he asked.

  “No, sir!” Thielind announced, snapping off the words like firecrackers.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Not their day for it, sir!”

  “Huh?”

  “Rest day, sir!” the thin, darkskinned man explained, still eyes-front. “Firstday, Thirdday and Fifthday, hal
f our force goes back to the main base to train at war games with the other units, and the rest of us helps patrol the spaceport. Secondday, Fourthday and Sixthday, the halves alternate. This is our day off. Sir.”

  “They don’t do PT on restdays?” Wolfe asked.

  “Nossir! It’s restday!” Thielind announced with conviction. Wolfe shrugged.

  “Well, I guess that’s reasonable. They come in for breakfast, then?”

  “Nossir! They don’t turn out until maybe ten or ten thirty on restday.”

  “That won’t do!” Wolfe said, with a frown. “The commander will be here in a few hours. I want everyone up and dressed in plenty of time.” With purpose he strode toward the barracks. Borden caught up with him.

  “I really wouldn’t do that if I were you, sir,” she said, trotting alongside him.

  “Why the hell not?” He flung open the door. It crashed against the wall. Twenty bleary faces lifted from pillows or tank, and peered at him.

  “Good morning!” he announced. “I know today’s your day off, but we’ve got an inspection later on. Breakfast at 0700! See you there!”

  He left Borden and Thielind behind and marched back to his quarters. The pathetic shower stream seemed even lighter than it had the night before. It took three times as long to soap up and scrub down. By the time he got dressed he was fully awake and feeling fit.

  By the time he arrived in the mess, he was feeling rather jaunty. The grounds were tidy, his quarters were clean, and he had a hearty appetite for breakfast.

  Borden and Thielind flanked an empty chair at the end of one of the two long tables next to the buffet servers. Borden gestured to him and pointed to the chair. He nodded, and turned his attention to the food bins.

  One thing he had to hand the Space Service: they provided excellent coffee, and the servobots knew how to prepare it so it was hot and fragrant, never burned or bitter. He took a pot and mug, placing them on his tray with meat-filled rolls, wholegrain cereals, dairy blocks, pastries, and a bunch of shiny red grapes. He took his time enjoying each selection. Borden ate like an automaton. Thielind eyed each bite suspiciously before putting it into his mouth.

  Nearly everyone in the room had availed themselves of the coffee, though he saw many a heavy head hung over the white china mugs. The three nonhumanoid troopers sat at the far end of the second table. The semicat gave Wolfe a look of slit-eyed annoyance and tore the end of a meatroll off with its pointed teeth as if dispatching prey. Boland, who had drunk plenty of home brew the night before, looked as though he could bleed to death through the eyeballs. Mose did not meet anyone’s eyes directly. Lin held her spoon limply, dozing in between bites. Only Jones seemed to be in good spirits, buttering bread and chattering to his neighbors.

  When he finished his meal, Daivid stood up and tapped on the side of his coffee mug for attention.

  “Company, the commander arrives in three hours. I want everyone to give this inspection their full attention. Get everything sparkling, and I promise you won’t regret it. Thank you. That is all. Fall out at will.”

  No one raised head, eyes, or voice to reply. Things were looking up. No one was going to give him an argument. Then he noticed the glance between his two officers.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing, sir,” Borden replied, and took another precise spoonful of cereal.

  Gradually, the troopers drifted out of the dining room, followed at last by Thielind and Borden. Alone in the hall, Daivid thought he would treat himself to just one more cup of the excellent coffee. He savored its aroma and complex, bitter taste, thinking command wasn’t as hard as he had feared it would be.

  He finished the last sip just as the wall chrono changed from 0759 to 0800. He set his tray in the hatch, where it was taken out of his hands by the robotic dishwasher. Leaving the machines to do their jobs, he strolled across the exercise yard to check on the progress of the cleanup.

  Everyone must still be suffering from mighty hangovers. Daivid could hardly hear a sound as he stepped up into the barracks. It was too quiet. Looking in the door, he realized the big room was empty. Not a bunk had been made, nor had any other efforts to make the place neat been made. The square-bodied automatic sweeper was drifting around the floor, sucking up used pows and sorting fallen cards and gathering glasses. It hummed when it sensed him, and veered around his feet. He sidestepped it and headed for the bathrooms. Could they all be in the showers? He couldn’t hear any water running.

  The bathroom, too, was empty. And filthy.

  He hurried out of the door and circled around to the junior officers’ quarters. On the threshold he stood panting. Borden, her back to him, kicked the cleanerbot.

  “Dammit, I said wipe the windows and sweep the floors, not the other way around!” The small robot paused in mid-movement waved its multiple arms at her. Fine sprays of cleaning fluid splashed her. “Gah! Stupid machine!” She lashed out with a foot again. Thielind looked up calmly from making his bed.

  “Don’t do that,” he reproved her. “It will never learn from violence. You’ve got to treat them with love, Lizzie.”

  “Dammit, don’t call me that! Sir!” She noticed Daivid and swung into a salute, regaining in an instant her stonefaced aplomb.

  “Sir!” Thielind echoed, clapping his hand to his head. It was holding what looked like a solid-gold loving cup. Sheepishly, he lowered it and put it behind his back. “What can we do for you?”

  “Where is everybody?” Wolfe demanded.

  He didn’t have to explain what he meant. The junior officers glanced at one another.

  “It’s restday, sir,” Thielind offered. “Everyone’s resting.”

  “Where are they ‘resting’?” Daivid asked, apoplectic with fury. “We’ve got an inspection soon! I’ll ream their asses. Where did they go?”

  Thielind shook his head. “Maybe a dozen places. Maybe all over.”

  “Name them, ensign,” Daivid insisted. “I’ll get a flitter. No, I’ll borrow a riot van from the brig. I’ll handcuff and haul each and every one of them if I have to!”

  “You can’t take the time, sir.” Borden shook her head. “One thing they are very good at is disappearing when they don’t want to be found. They’ll come back when they’re good and ready. We’ll help you clean. There’s plenty of time.”

  “The bots will help us,” Thielind promised. He hoisted the malfunctioning automaton and carried it with him.

  “Damn them, what were they thinking?” Daivid stormed.

  The junior officers followed him in silence, giving Daivid plenty of time to think about what he would do to the company when he found them. Keelhauling? If he could find a keel, he’d tie them all end to end and sling them underneath it until …

  “Whoo!” Thielind whistled. “Someone musta had a party in here. It looks worse than when I left, around 0300.” He put the cleanerbot on the floor and flipped open its maintenance lid. “There. It’ll work like new.”

  “Good,” said Wolfe. “Now I want you to go out and find them. Tell them that if they are not back here, clean, sober and in their dress whites by 1100 hours their asses will be grass. Is that clear?”

  “Yessir!” Thielind said. “Aye aye.” The skinny ensign scooted out of the door.

  Borden put her hands on her hips. “It’s not as bad as it looks, sir,” she said. “Between us we can get this done in an hour.”

  “Where do we start?” Wolfe asked, looking at the mess in dismay.

  “Bathroom last,” she suggested. “It’s what we’ll be clearing the rest of the mess into. Dusting first. The robots will take care of that. Then beds.”

  They turned the cleanerbots loose on the dusting and clearing up of the debris from the party, but the beds had to be done by hand. That was a longstanding service tradition. The custom of spacers, in fact members of all branches of the armed forces, straightening up their own sleeping pads was one that went back all the way to Old Earth. No matter what else, no matter what services or technolog
y were available, each man or woman or whatever had to make the bed. Wolfe thought it was a stupid throwback, but rules were rules. Until he was in a position to change them, he had to follow them. He snapped out a sheet, the harsh sound reflecting his bad mood. How dare the Cockroaches flout his order? he thought, stuffing in loose ends with a knife-sharp hand. What the hell was the matter with them?

  He was furious to realize that they held the cards on this one. He could report them. X-Ray Company would all have to face dereliction of duty punishment, but they didn’t care. They were already in the worst unit in the service. But he, he would be removed from command as being unable to hold his own with them. First impressions: if he was perceived as inept from the very beginning he would have no chance of changing that perception once it got into the minds of the brass. As badly as the people upstairs wanted him out of the regular chain of command they couldn’t leave him in charge of a band of creative screwups. Listening to them last night had convinced him they were guilty of far more than the service had been able to prove. That uncertainty was why they continued to wear the uniform. They had outmaneuvered him first time out of the gate. He had to find a way to turn that around.

  Still, there was a homey satisfaction to completing a simple task like making beds. By the third bunk he found himself falling into a rhythm, bending, shaking out the sheets, tucking in the corners.

  “This takes me all the way back to summer camp,” he said to Borden, thumping a pillow between his hands. “My dad used to send us to Parker’s Planet for eight weeks every year. It took a week’s transit to get there, and another back again. Those were good times.” Ah, those were the days, he thought, slinging the pillow against the headrail. He had a vision of those carefree summers, full of swimming, hiking, sleeping out of doors, getting bitten by a range of insects and scraping himself up by falling out of trees or off rocks, learning how to make annoying noises and how to tell even more annoying jokes, the bigger boys teaching but just as frequently picking on the younger boys. The counselors attempted to impose discipline from above, but things had a way of getting settled down in the lower echelons by themselves by means of minor torture and often cruel practical jokes. The perpetrators got away with it because to rat out a fellow camper was punishable by even more of the same. Camp and the space service had a lot in common. Simple times. Simple responsibilities. Simple relationships. Simple revenge.