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it. Is your sidearm loaded?"
"Oh, come on, Louis," Deane said.
"Notice," Louis said. "See how Falkenberg has formed up the troops. Recall
that their baggage is still aboard. You may not like Falkenberg, Deane, but
you will admit that he is thorough."
"As it happens, Louis is right," I said. "Falkenberg did say something about
deserters. But he didn't think there'd be any."
"There you are," Louis said. "He takes no chances, that one."
"Except with us," Deane Knowles said.
"What do you mean by that?" Louis let the smile fade and lifted an eyebrow at
Deane.
"Oh, nothing," Deane said. "Not much Falkenberg could do about it, anyway. But
I don't suppose you chaps know what the local garrison commander asked for?"
"No, of course not," Louis said.
"How did you find out?" I asked.
"Simple. When you want to know something military, talk to the sergeants."
"Well?" Louis demanded.
Deane grinned. "Come on, we'll get too far behind. Looks as if we really will
march all the way up the hill, doesn't it? Not even transport for officers.
Shameful."
"Damn your eyes, Deane!" I said. Knowles shrugged. "Well, the Governor asked
for a full regiment and a destroyer. Instead of a regiment and a warship, he
got us. Might be interesting if he really needed a regiment, eh? Coming,
fellows?"
V
"I'VE A HEAD like a concertina, And I think I'm going to die, And I'm here in
the clink for a thunderin' drink, And blackin' the corporal's eye. ..."
"Picturesque," Louis said. "They sing well, don't they?"
"Shut up and walk," Deane told him. "It's bloody hot."
I didn't find it so bad. It was hot. No question about that, and undress blues
were never designed for route marches on hot planets. Still, it could have
been worse. We might have turned out in body armor.
There was no problem with the troops. They marched and sang like regulars,
even if half of them were recruits and the rest were guardhouse cases. If any
of them had ideas of running, they never showed them.
"With another man's cloak underneath of my head, And a beautiful view of the
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yard, It's thirty day's fine, With bread and no wine, For Drunk and Resistin'
the Guard!
Mad-drunk and Resistin' the Guard!"
"Curious," Louis said. "Half of them have never seen a guardhouse."
"I expect they'll find out soon enough," Deane said. "Lord love us, will you
look at that?"
He gestured at a row of cheap adobe houses along the riverbank. There wasn't
much doubt about what they sold. The girls were dressed for hot weather, and
they sat on the windowsills and waved at the troopers going by.
"I thought Arrarat was full of holy Joes, Louis Bonneyman said. "Well, we will
have no difficulty finding any troopers who run - not for the first night,
anyway."
The harbor area was just north of a wide river that fanned into a delta east
of the city. The road was just inland from the harbor, with the city a high
bluff to our right as we marched inland. It seemed a long way before we got to
the turnoff to the city gate.
There were facilities for servicing the space shuttle, and some riverboat
docks and warehouses, but it seemed to me there wasn't a lot of activity, and
I wondered why. As far as I
could remember, there weren't any railroads on Arrarat, nor many highways, and
I couldn't remember seeing any airfields, either.
After a kilometer of marching inland, we turned sharply right and followed
another road up the bluff. There was a rabbit warren of crumbling houses and
alleys along the bluff, then a clear area in front of the high city wall.
Militiamen in drab coveralls manned a guardhouse at the city gate. Other
militiamen patrolled the wall. Inside the gate was Harmony, another warren of
houses and shops not a lot different from those outside, but a little better
kept up.
The main road had clear area for thirty meters on each side, and beyond that
was chaos.
Market stalls, houses, tailor shops, electronics shops, a smithy with hand
bellows and forge, a shop that wound electric motors and another that sold
solar cells, a pottery with kick-wheel where a woman shaped cups from clay, a
silversmith, a scissors grinder - the variety was overwhelming, and so was the
contrast of modern and the kinds of things you might see in Frontierland.
There were anachronisms everywhere, but I was used to them. The military
services were shot through with contrasts. Part of it was the state of
development out in the colonies - many of them had no industrial base, and
some didn't want any to begin with. If you didn't bring it with you, you
wouldn't have it. There was another reason, too. CoDominium Intelligence
licensed all scientific research and tried to suppress anything that could
have military value. The U.S.-Soviet
alliance was on top and wasn't about to let any new discoveries upset the
balance. They couldn't stop everything, but they didn't have to, so long as
the Grand Senate controlled everyone's R&D
budget and could tinker with the patent laws.
We all knew it couldn't last, but we didn't want to think about that. Back on
Earth the U.S. and
Soviet governments hated each other. The only thing they hated more was the
idea that someone else - like the Chinese or Japanese or United Emirates -
would get strong enough to tell them what to do. The Fleet guards an uneasy
peace built on an uneasy alliance.
The people of Harmony came in all races and colors, and I heard a dozen
languages shouted from shop to shop. Everyone either worked outside his house
or had market stalls there. When we marched past, people stopped work and
waved at us. One old man came out of a tailor shop and took off his
broad-brimmed hat. "God bless you, soldiers!" he shouted. "We love you!"
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"Now, that's what we joined up for," Deane said. "Not to herd a bunch of
losers halfway across the Galaxy."
"Twenty parsecs isn't halfway across the Galaxy," I told him.
He made faces at me.
"I wonder why they're all so glad to see us?" Louis asked. "And they look
hungry. How does one become so thin in an agricultural paradise?"
"Incredible," Deane said. "Louis, you really must learn to pay attention to
important details.
Such as reading the station roster of the garrison here."
"And when could I have done that?" Bonneyman demanded. "Falkenberg had us
working twelve hours a day - "
"So you use the other twelve," Deane said.
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