Dawn For A Distant Earth, page 22
"That's done. Captain."
"Nicely," he commented with a smile.
"No . . . But we got it done. Sloppy on the trac balancing."
She pushed several stray red hairs off her forehead and squared herself in the seat.
"You leaving now?"
"Don't want to go out on station while you plow up my favorite purple clay and change it into old-fashioned dirt. Not now, anyway."
"Sure about that?"
"I'm sure."
"Have it your way. Captain." She flashed a smile. "See you in a week or so."
He nodded, then ducked down the passageway and out through the crew exit.
The other tech, Krysten, snapped a salute at him as he slipped outside and landed lightly on the packed red clay.
After returning the salute, he walked back toward the uncompleted section of the wall, paralleling the half-meter deep prints the dozer had left in the work ramp.
As he reached the spot where the fused clay wall had been left untouched, he waved again at the dozer. Glynnis had already begun to inch Dragon Two forward and toward the golden plains beyond, toward a destination out beyond the golden green of the sponge grains, out over the horizon where the line of dozers methodically extended the borders of arable land.
Even seventy meters away. Dragon Two still towered over the wall and Gerswin, seemingly taller than either as it crept eastward.
In time, Gerswin turned and walked through the opening in the wall and past the ferroplast foundation where teens were already beginning to erect the remainder of the back-up power station around the fusactor. His feet took him toward the central square of the town that had no name.
At first glance, the new town could have passed for an. updated and cleaner version of the old shambletown, with white glazed finishes over thick walls of fired bricks. But the streets, rather than narrow canyons, opened to the sky, boulevards radiating from the square. The houses, neither individual nor wall-to-wall, clustered in groups, standing in the midst of more open space than any shambletowner would have ever dreamed, although none were taller than two stories, and all possessed the thick walls. Instead of hide covers the windows had double-paned armaglass for their still small apertures.
The streets were paved with gray stone slabs cut with lasers, and stone flower boxes appeared at irregular intervals, filled with blue ice flowers and a yellow flower Gerswin did not recognize.
He passed an expanse of green turf, a park with several skeletal structures on which two children clambered. The grassy space was surrounded on three sides by clustered housing, and by the boulevard on the fourth.
One child wore a jumpsuit, the other a leather tunic over cloth trousers.
The major nodded at the mix of shambletown and Empire, but kept walking toward the central square.
The sunlight dimmed as the clouds above darkened and cut off the direct rays, and as the wind rose again. So much for the hint of a real summer.
He sniffed the air, drawing in the hint of the rain which would likely fall, rain since it was mid-summer. Only in the warmest of the supposed summer months was there little or no chance of ice rain, not that the ice rain bothered him much. "Good morning, Major." "Good morning."
Gerswin returned the greeting although he did not recognize the man who had passed him. From his dress, the man was a retired tech, one of the few who had elected to remain once their obligations had expired, despite the landspouts and the cold.
Like the shambletown, at mid-moming the central square was mostly deserted, except for the handful of older men of Imperial origin, and three younger women, all noticeably pregnant.
Gerswin surveyed the buildings, all white glazed brick except for the community hall, which boasted a stone columned front and a short belltower that reached roughly fifteen meters above the square.
The square itself consisted of a boulevard running in a rectangle around a central park two hundred meters on a side. Despite the grass, the bushes, a few flowers, and the pathways, something was missing. He looked again.
Trees! Only a handful of dwarf trees were scattered amid the statues, the pathways, and the hedge maze on the right side where two boys and three girls shrieked as they tore down the dead-end and hidden corridors.
He nodded in understanding. With the high winds, the town couldn't afford the damage of a substantial tree thrown into a building.
After sniffing at the air and discovering nothing but the smells of newness-new brick, new stone, new plastics-he glanced around the square again before beginning his walk to the right and toward the street that would lead to the landing field at the western side of the town.
His steps slowed as he passed two women who sat at opposite ends of a stone bench rising out of the too-green grass imported from New Colora, grass originally from Old Earth. "... that's him . . . one they call the Captain ..." Gerswin ignored the whispers and kept walking.
"Captain of what? He's a major."
"Some say he's the devil's Captain . . . Was a devil-kid. . . ."
"... good-looking in his own way. ..."
Gerswin kept walking and let the voices fade into the background as his steps brought him opposite the community hall.
His eyes passed over the closed endurasteel doors. Automatic portals would have taken too much energy-particularly for civilians, the Service had noted. Gerswin had agreed with the decision, but not for that reason.
He turned right, down toward the main gate and the short landing strip beyond.
A patch of green before the wall and me gate appeared as he approached-another park. The tops of the mountains behind the foothills were barely visible under the whitish gray of .the higher than normal clouds. The lower stratus layers that raced westward above the town had not reached the foothills yet, nor had the rain begun to fall, although it would.
Gerswin caught the glint of a flitter, the one coming to pick him up and increased his already quick steps.
While the town represented the future, he felt ill-at-ease on the wide streets between the low buildings. He understood why the older shambletowners had not taken the offer to move from their crowded lanes, even though the confinement of the shambletown was not for him and never had been.
Would he always feel uncomfortable in the future he was helping to build? Would the reclaimed lands seem strange after the desolate high plains of purple clay, purpled grasses, coyotes, and ice rain?
He paced onward, his face set in an expression showing neither joy nor sadness.
Chapter XLVII
Gerswin juggled the heavy, double-ended and double-bladed knife in his left hand, then balanced it on his fingertip, finally flipping it end over end into the air, where he snatched it right-handed at its mid-point.
He glanced at the targets, ignoring the figure who waited behind the wall at his back, the wall that surrounded the makeshift practice range. The last glimpse he had caught indicated that Major Vierio was still waiting, although it had only been minutes since he arrived.
Vierio's approach had been diffident, almost hesitant. When Gerswin had stopped to walk over, the other had motioned him back, saying, "Finish up. However long it takes. I'll wait."
Gerswin raised his eyebrows in puzzlement, but turned from the target and began to walk away.
Abruptly, he dived to the left, twisted in mid-air, releasing the knife, and tucked. He came out of the roll on the balls of his feet, the second knife in his left hand momentarily-before it too sped toward the target.
Dusting his hands on the legs of the old flight suit, he trotted forward to retrieve the knives. As he covered the nearly ten meters between him and the target he had chosen, he checked his accuracy.
Both knives would have penetrated the heart, had the target been a man, although the first had not gone through the plastic-shielded and stiffened foam as much as he would have liked.
He frowned as he stepped up to the target, listening, but there was no sound of movement from Vierio. He eased the first knife from the target and replaced it in the waistband sheath. The second followed.
Glancing upward at the clouds, he could see the light gray darkening in the north, a sign that the ice rain would be returning.
He sniffed, but the air remained dry, with little hint of moisture.
Reiner Vierio still sat quietly on the far side of the back stone wall, waiting patiently, although Gerswin knew he was ready to leave Old Earth for his promotion to commander and his transfer back to New Augusta in whatever obscure screen-shoving assignments detail his orders had brought.
Gerswin took a deep breath and walked to the far left end of the unofficial practice yard. Once, he had been the only one who used it, but most of the other devilkids had taken up his example and practiced with their own versions of unpowered weapons. The sling was one of the few that they all used. As if by unspoken custom, none practiced together, and anyone who might be using the range left whenever Gerswin appeared.
Improvements had appeared from time to time. While Gerswin had built the wall behind the targets and the target stands, Lerwin had added the side walls and the swinging target. Lostwin had added the rear wall and the stone bench, the one on which Vierio waited. Glynnis had provided the sandy pit and the high target.
Gerswin smiled and broke into a sprint for the right side of the yard.
Crack! Crack!
As he fired the second stone, he dove into a roll, discarding the sling and coming up with the knife, right-handed this time.
Thunk!
He surveyed the three targets. Had they been human, two would have been dead. One he had only struct in the "shoulder." That had been the second sling stone.
Retrieving the two sling stones, the sling leathers and the knife, he replaced all three in their hidden sheaths and trotted to the rear stone wall, only meters from Vierio, whom he ignored by failing to acknowledge the other's presence.
He turned to face the targets, his back nearly touching the stone wall, then began a zig-zag sprint toward the swinging target to the left of the three "standing" targets.
Crack! Crack!
He flung himself into a dive that would land him in the sand pit, bringing out the knife with his left hand and releasing it before he plowed into the heavy sand.
Thud!
After picking himself out of the sand and dusting off the cold and damply clinging grains, he shook his head.
The sling shots had been on target, but the first had merely been to get the target moving. The knife had not been accurate it had bounced off the middle standing target.
He retrieved the sling stones, the sling, and the knife. This time, when he picked up the second stone and pressed his fingers against the rounded smoothness, the stone split, as stones often did after hard and repeated use.
He tossed the fragments over the wall behind the targets, ignoring the twin clicks as they struck the rocky clay of the slope.
Vierio was still sitting on the stone bench.
Gerswin pursed his lips, exhaled deeply, and replaced the weapons. The major wasn't known for his patience.
Rather than vault the chest-high irregular wall, Gerswin walked around it.
Vierio looked up as he approached.
"Rather impressive, Gerswin."
"Like to keep in shape."
"It must help your coordination, although I doubt you need much help there. Such primitive weapons might not be much good in combat, not against lasers or stunners, but you'd probably be safe in any back alley in the Empire."
"Possibly," Gerswin answered non-committally. He smiled as he seated himself on a section of the wall where he generally faced Vierio, who, in turn, twisted toward Gerswin.
"Not primitive," added the junior major. "Unpowered. Difference there. Knife and sling are much better in-close weapons than lasers."
"I didn't come to debate weapons, but I would be interested in a less cryptic explanation of why you think so."
Gerswin shrugged.
"Close in, lasers aren't that selective. Hit innocents as well as targets. If you intend to destroy whole companies of troops, why bother with hand weapons at all? Use tacheads or particle beams and boil off the whole area. Hand weapons are designed for individuals. Otherwise, just dangerous toys to make people feel good. You can run out of charges for a laser or a stunner. Damned difficult to run out of stones, and you can use a knife over and over."
"What if you want to occupy territory or seize a specific objective?"
"You can't take it with unpowered weapons, have to question why you want to take it at all. A laser or beam fire-fight won't leave much behind. So why bother with losing troops? Vaporize it with a beam or tachead. Costs less in money and personnel."
This time Vierio was the one to shake his head.
"You're still a barbarian, Gerswin. Dangerously direct."
"Never said I wasn't. Just don't believe in wars unless it's for survival. Or freedom. Anything else is an excuse." Gerswin paused. "But you didn't come to talk about philosophies of conflict."
"No. I'm leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to talk to you before I left. Alone."
Gerswin automatically scanned the slope before nod4ing. Not certain what he could say, he waited for Vierio to go on.
"I don't like you. Not that I dislike you, because I don't. Not that I don't admire you, because I do. But I don't like you. You can be as direct as a knife, and as sharp. One way or another, if you want it done, it gets done."
Vierio gestured toward the practice yard. "Like your training. I've watched the Corpus Corps practice. You want more perfection than they do. You don't know all the techniques, but if I had to bet on the outcome of a contest between you and any one of them, I'd bet on you. When you and Lerwin practice on the mats, people watch, and they swallow. Like watching camacats.
"You're a modem barbarian warlord, Gerswin. One who knows all the technology, but who's kept touch with the need for personal example and the inspiration of personal combat.
"I don't like you, but my success as Operations officer is because of you. Because of you, I'm going to get a promotion I thought I'd lost when I was assigned here. You know that, and I know that, and Commander Manders knows that. Now, my last tour will still be a nothing, but it's a nothing with the diamonds on the collars, and that's important to me."
Vierio stood, and Gerswin slipped off the wall.
"I didn't like you when I came. Major, and that hasn't changed. But whether you're a barbarian or not, whether I like you or not, you do a damned good job, too good to be wasted.
So you're my successor, and I'm told that your promotion to major has been made permanent."
The older officer smiled a tight smile. "I wish I could be more positive personally, Gerswin, but that's the way it is."
Gerswin met the other's eyes, trying not to be too direct in his glance. "Appreciate your honesty, ser."
"Don't worry about that. Just prove I was right." Vierio nodded curtly, and turned, his heavy steps carrying him eastward toward the portals back into the base complex.
Gerswin swallowed, knowing that what Vierio had said had cost the man. Maybe he'd been too harsh in his private judgments of the major.
He looked down at the hard-packed clay, then at the empty bench.
Click! Click! Click!
The ice rain splattered against the stones of the walls and against the slabs of the bench as the wind picked up, and as the whispers of the air built into a thin wail that announced the oncoming storm.
Chapter XLVIII
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
Each step echoed, ringing off the dingy white walls between which the man walked. His deliberate steps left a track in the centimeters of ice crystals that formed a layer of pavement above the stone and clay that served as the foundation of both streets and alleys.
He crossed the main street, scarcely wider than the back way he tracked. Both were empty in the late winter afternoon.
A quick glance to his left, up toward the old square, revealed no one, nor any tracks down toward the older section of the shambletown where his steps had taken him, as they always did on his infrequent visits to the past.
So cold were the ice flakes that his feet scarcely slipped as he completed crossing the larger lane. Once past the crossing and back between two walls of the narrowing lane, he stopped, listening.
. . . crunch ...
The single step stopped.
He nodded, waiting, but his distant shadow moved not at all.
Click! Click! Click, click, click!
The ice crystals continued their faint clatter as they struck both the walls and the smoothness of the Imperial all-weather jacket.
His eyes flickered up toward the nearest window, vacant, with only a small remnant of thonging wrapped around the lashing post to show where the vanished hide covering had once been secured.
Most of the crowded-together structures on the old lane were vacant, for they had been the ones given to the younger couples, or those without status in the shambletown-those who had been the first to move to the new town.
He took another step, silently until his boot touched the crystals, and the crunch reverberated back up the lane behind him. The echoing step-crunch from his unseen shadow whispered back down the slanted lane to him.
. . . crunch ...
A tight smile creased the slender man's face, framed loosely by the jacket's unlined hood, as he resumed his journey down the crystalline lane and away from the larger cross street. With his gray trousers and the silver gray of the jacket and his light steps, had there been no sound of ice, his presence would have been silent. Then the one who followed could truly have believed that a graying ghost again stalked the old shamble-town.
Whhhrrr.
The man in silver and gray sprinted the three steps around the curve.
Crack!
Powdered white wall plaster puffed out from the impact of the sling stone and drifted downward to join the white crystals that had already covered the clay and stone of the shambletown pavement.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
This time, the man in silver timed his steps to match those of his hidden pursuer as the two seemed to float through the ice fall toward the wall of the abandoned tannery where the lane dead-ended into an even narrower cross lane.
