Warworld: The Lidless Eye (13 page)

He shook his head in the negative in response to her question. Ingrid was always asking questions, probing intentions, feelings; just the sort of things he believed were best left alone. The fact that she’d caught him in a rare moment of introspection only made him feel guilty, as if he’d been caught with another woman. That was ridiculous, since they had no ties of any sort. Ingrid was too old for him.

Well, actually, she was just a year or two older than him. And even pretty in an acceptable sort of way, if she would only use some makeup… And her eyes were attractive, especially when she flared up, which seemed to be just about every time they met. He couldn’t imagine what he’d done to offend her this time.

“Your grandfather sent me to fetch you. It’s almost dinner time.”

“Thanks,” he replied. He knew the Baron entertained the notion of a dynastic joining of the two families. Was it possible she resented his meddling as much as he did?—no, not likely. Although she didn’t seem like the matrimonial web-spinning type he had avoided for the last decade.

Not that her desires or his own would thwart the Baron’s plans. An heir was necessary if the Hamilton line was to continue. His sister Matilda already had three children, so the barony would continue, but not under the name Hamilton. To the Baron, the issue was settled; John must get married and have children. The Baron would not die happily until he was certain that the new lord would carry the Hamilton name.

Another weight to carry.

“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve got the troubles of the Empire on your shoulders. Relax. It’s a beautiful evening. Cat’s Eye is about to set.”

He watched as the sky-filling orange gas giant around which Haven was but a revolving moon began to merge into the horizon. Byers’ Star was still up and the evening was turning into Dimday. “Haven’s a harsh
world, but it has its beauty, too.”

Ingrid cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you had a poetic side.”

John shook his head. “Sheer exhaustion must be the explanation. Why, the glow of Cat’s Eye even gives your complexion a buttery hue.”

She folded her arms across her breasts, which he couldn’t help noticing. What he could see of them, through her usual heavy sweater, looked like ripe tigermelons.

“Your sweet talk won’t work on us city girls. Save it for the wenches at the White Tamerlane.”

He flinched.
How did she know about that? Damnable woman!
“At least they know how to appreciate a man.”

“Well! You’d know,” she spat back.

The late summer spell was suddenly broken.
What had he been thinking of? Had I actually considered…? No, I couldn’t have. Exhaustion, that’s the only explanation
.

“Some figure of a man you cut,” Ingrid finished, giving his midsection a pointed stare and shaking her head in disapproval. “Hope you don’t expect to fit in your armor at the next Muster. I’m going to the dining room. Come if you will—or don’t. It matters little to me.”

John looked down at his paunch, and quickly looked away again. It wasn’t his fault his metabolism had slowed down. Maybe some practice time in the tiltyard would melt some of it off. He watched the sway of Ingrid’s retreating backside for a moment, shook his head in dismay, and followed.

John suddenly realized he was starving; maybe tomorrow he’d have a talk with the cook about working out a diet. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be wise to rush into anything.

Brigadier Gary Cummings sat hunched over a pile of computer printouts, surveillance and intelligence reports, from Operatives throughout the Shangri-La Valley and outside. Other than the piles of paper, the Brigadier’s office was spartan; the only decoration on his desk was a large acrylic cube containing a gauss pistol that he’d pried from the hand of a dead Sauron Soldier he had killed on Lavaca.

Up close one could see where the dying Sauron had left his finger marks, not prints, pressed right into the durasteel grip. It was his constant reminder to never underestimate the enemy.

On the wall directly behind the Brigadier’s desk were two flags—the Empire’s, with the gold Imperial Eagle and a circle of stars, and the yellow banner of the Haven Volunteers. He purposely kept all insignia of any planetary government off the walls, especially that of the Haven World Government, with the Cat’s Eye emblem on a black background
surrounded by twelve stars. These silver stars represented the twelve city-states and towns that former King Steele had conquered and added to the country—as it was now called—of Castell.

The Imperial flag was there to remind visitors of the Brigade’s true allegiance. As the Haven Imperial Marine Reserve, the Haven Volunteers loyalty was to the Empire of Man; not to any of Haven’s ragtag governments, no matter how lofty their title or ambitions.

The report that held his attention was an intelligence memo on the breakdown of the primary petrocarb plant in Lermontovgrad. A disaster that left the Valley’s second-largest city with only two food plants, and meant that they would have no surplus to sell to Castell this winter.
Probably just as well
, he decided,
petroleum supplies are running low and there won’t be enough for anyone in a standard year or two
. And winter would be on them soon. The late-summer chill was already in the air. Cummings shivered, and not just from the cold.

The dunderheads that ran Castell were so worried about passing planetary declarations—which no one outside of Castell gave a muskylope dung about—that they had neglected their own city and its economy. Well, not for the first time. However, this spring they had sent out the Castell Guard to quell the local countryside. Other than the occasional rape or farm burning, all that this had accomplished was to force about a quarter of the area’s farmers into exile.

Aware of what that would mean this winter, Cummings had discreetly sent out his agents to purchase most of the early summer harvest with actual gold and silver coin, specie the farmers far preferred to the government’s worthless paper. The Brigade’s granaries at the fort were bursting; they would have more than enough food to get them through the long winter.

The same could not be said for Castell itself. For a city of a million-and-a-half people, they only had one remaining working petrocarb factory, which was guarded night and day. God only knew what the City Fathers would do when that too broke down. Still, one food plant alone wouldn’t guarantee enough nourishment for more than a quarter of the
city’s population. They would buy up a good amount of the fall harvest, but there would still be a large deficit. Haven’s winters were long, cold and unforgiving.

A familiar double knock at the ironwood door broke him out of his depressing analysis. “Come in.”

It was Sergeant-Major Slater, his top noncom and the man who single-handedly kept the Volunteers in tiptop shape. He had been with the Brigadier since the day he’d been promoted and transferred to command the Seventy-seventh Imperial Marine Division.

“It’s your wife, sir. She won’t leave. We thought about carrying her off, but—”

“No, you did right, Sergeant-Major,” Cummings said, shaking his head woefully. Short of abduction, which would completely sever the last bonds between them forever, there was little he could do to force Laura to leave her home. He had tried every persuasion and blandishment known to man, and a few invented right on the spot, during his last visit.

The sad part was he understood her motives completely. Laura was nearing the end of her life and wanted to leave this world she hated in the only comfortable surroundings she knew. Certainly, she would hate the hustle-bustle and confines of Fort Kursk. He thought of having Helga try and talk her mother into staying with her and Ralph, but remembered the last time he’d asked his daughter to talk some sense into her mother. Helga had left in tears, after Laura had attempted character assassination upon her beloved husband.

Frankly, the Brigadier didn’t think much of Ralph Haverstok either; he’d never pass muster in the Brigade. But he was a good husband to Helga and father to their three children. Besides, their home in the Castell suburb of Trinity wasn’t much safer than where Laura was living now.

“Sir, I left Sergeant Constantine and a squad to secure the property.”

The Brigadier nodded. Sam Constantine was one of the top sergeants in the Brigade and would give his life to see that no harm came to the Brigadier’s wife.

“How many men?”

“A squad, sir. Enough to secure the perimeter. I left them with enough assault rifles and ammunition to hold off half of the Castell Guard.”

Cummings smiled. “They could, too.” The house had purposely been built on a steep rise and the walls were quarter-inch durasteel covered with ferro-concrete foam. Any force, short of a military company, who thought they could besiege that house was in for a rude surprise. Inside that fortress those eleven men were worth a hundred times their number.

“Well done, old friend.”

The Sergeant Major looked uncomfortable, but Cummings knew that deep inside he was touched.

A vigorous knock at the door interrupted him again.

The Sergeant-Major, his pistol flap unsnapped and hand on the grip, opened the door slowly.

“Major Hendricks to report to the Brigadier, Sergeant Major.”

Slater relaxed and let the Major into the office. Hendricks was a short, broad man built like a fireplug; yet he had surprising quickness, and many of those who had mistaken his girth for slowness had paid a costly price.

“Come in, Major.”

“Brigadier, I have some urgent dispatches.”

“Can you provide a verbal summation, Major?” He pointed to his desk, covered with stacks of documents and reports.

“Of course, sir. It’s the locals. Last night, Boss Rodriguez hijacked a barge of beer and took it into Docktown for a recruiting drive.”

“I know, I was briefed last night.” With a local power vacuum, since the Deputies were too busy with planetary affairs to manage the city, a number of local bossmen and racketeers had set up shop within Castell’s borders. Rodriguez was a new one, and more ruthless than most. Anton Leung thought he had the makings of another David Steele, given that he survived and consolidated his power for another five years. Actually, the Brigadier wished him success, since keeping eyes on one big boss was
easier than keeping track and cleaning up after a dozen.

“Well, the party went on all night until they burned about half of Docktown down to the foundations. Then someone decided it was time to ‘liberate’ some of the loot from Bayside, which was only a few streets away.”

Bayside was home to most of those who had retained what wealth there was to be had in the capital these days. Several Deputies and their friends had houses there.

“The Castell City Fathers had been okay with the insurrection as long as the rioters burned their own homes. When it threatened the Deputies’ own property, they put half the police force and most of the Castell Guard into fighting the rioters.”

“Good, that will keep them from our gates.”

“True, Brigadier. But I just got a call from Deputy Speaker Sanderson and he wants you to use the Militia to stop the rioting. It seems that some of the rioters are as heavily armed as the guardsmen. Most of the police have already withdrawn.”

The Brigadier shook his head. “Of course, once again they want us to pull their chestnuts out of the fire.”

The Major looked confused.

“It’s an old Earth saying. Never seen a chestnut myself, but heard they’re some sort of edible tree seed. Old English lives on in Anglic and Americ. So what’s your recommendation, Major?”

The Major, who knew of the Brigadier’s fondness for tossing hot coals into the laps of subordinates, had obviously come prepared.

“Well, I think this so-called riot is too well organized to be the
spontaneous
outburst it’s supposed to appear to be. I believe that one of the big bossmen is using Rodriguez as a cat’s-paw to see just what he can get away with. Test the Guard and Constabulary at the same time; all for the price of a few thousand dead drunks and hard cases.

“If he’s successful, he might let it continue right into downtown Castell, or maybe aim it towards Melody. We could have a city-wide insurrection on our hands this time tomorrow.”

“Excellent briefing, Major. I agree with all of your basic assumptions. What do you suggest should be the Brigade’s response?”

“I think it would be both good local politics and a good lesson for the Bosses if we took two armored companies into Docktown and restored order. Curfew at dusk. Anyone outside after curfew will be shot without warning. All arms surrendered. All bars and taverns closed. The usual drill.”

“Well put, Major.” Cummings pulled out his keyboard, made a few quick strokes and a document appeared on the printer plate. “Here are your orders. You can take Companies Baker and Jury. It’s your baby, Major. Godspeed.”

“Thank you, sir.” He saluted, spun around and was out the door.

Sergeant-Major Slater smiled. “I can remember when that one didn’t know enough to get out of the rain.”

The Brigadier smiled back. “We’ve turned a lot of boys into good men over the years, Sergeant-Major. I believe he was one of yours.”