War World X: Takeover Read online

  The brown-robed gatekeeper gave him an owlish look and said nothing, but closed the gate behind them. Wilgar led the way to the main house, then into the famed library.

  Charles Castell, sitting behind the desk, looked older and wearier than the last time Brodski had seen him, which wasn’t that many turns ago. He barely raised his eyes as Brodski paced to the front of his desk and took one of the facing chairs without waiting to be told. “Friend Brodski,” he asked, “Have you returned to teach Harmonious Defense to more of our brethren?”

  “In more ways than you expected,” Brodski replied. “Besides Aikido and Tai Chi, I’d like to teach you something of strategy, too.”

  Castell only raised a suspicious eyebrow.

  Nothing for it but to plow ahead. “Are you aware,” said Brodski, “That the CoDo government is plotting to take Haven away from you?”

  Castell blinked. “I am very much aware of it,” he said grimly, “And I confess that I have not found a Harmonious way to prevent this theft.”

  “Ultimately, you can’t.” Brodski leaned closer. “What the government wants, the government gets—so long as the only real opposition is a small bunch of folks insisting on their rights. It takes really massive numbers, all of them armed with some kind of real power, to make a government change course—which is what elections used to be about. You don’t have that kind of numbers, or anything like that kind of power.”

  “Have you nothing better to tell me?” Castell asked.

  “Yes. You can slow down the takeover. Slow it down while you gain the power to hold off the worst of their control. Are you interested?”

  Castell rattled his fingers on the desk. “I do not see a Harmonious way of gaining or using the power you describe,” he said slowly. “Can you enlighten me on this subject?”

  Brodski smiled. “First, you must extend a Harmonious unity to all the people on Haven. In other words, make everybody your allies—everybody who isn’t a CoDo agent or corporate manager. Are you willing to do that?”

  “Everybody?” Castell blinked. “Amoral settlers, and sin-loving miners, and…and….”

  “Everybody,” Brodski said firmly. “Give up your isolation or give up your world. Those are the choices you have.”

  Castell thought for a long moment, his face crumpling as if it were aging suddenly. Finally he said: “Tell me how you think this unity can be accomplished.”

  “First,” said Brodski, holding up one finger, “Get involved in the economy of Docktown. Trade directly with the settlers, the miners, and everyone else who isn’t a company man. Encourage trade: barter, or local trade-standard or any kind of money you can lay your hands on.

  “Second, don’t antagonize the Marines in any way; that means not leaning on the bars, bordellos or anything else they find amusing. Just smile and ignore them.

  “Third, send out more beadles and deacons to throw the real troublemakers out of town. I can help you identify those, and so can other friends of mine. Warn the settlers not to take them in. If they can’t reach Hell’s-A-Comin’ let them make boats and move out onto the river.

  “Fourth, make some well-disguised escape tunnels. There’s always the possibility that you’ll need them. Mark paths not only to your own outlying farms but to settlers’ farms as well, and make sure to keep the good will of those settlers.

  “Fifth—”

  Charles Castell listened attentively, but his face grew bleaker and older with every word.

  Wilgar listened even more intently, eyes wide in fascination.

  Kennicott Camp One, or Kenny-Camp as it was more commonly called, had a company dock, a company office-building, company sheds, company housing and a company store, and everything else was a jerrybuilt slum. The open-pit hafnium mine lay a quarter-mile back from the river, a shameless eyesore with the machines always busy in it: diggers, belts and pumps constantly serviced by the indentured “wage-slaves.” Beside it lay the huge artificial mountain of the mine-tailings, being worked by ragged free miners. Beyond it, in the bare hills above the forest, were the numerous man-made caves of the shimmer stone prospectors.

  Van Damm frowned at the scene as Makhno made the Celia fast at the dock, then turned to DeCastro. “I hope you can make a living from company scrip,” he said. “It is plain that there is little else here but barter.”

  “I will happily deal in whatever my customers can pay,” said DeCastro with a smile, as he watched his personnel pull the barge close to the dock. “Besides, the minerals which the company machines cast off can include surprising riches. Do you see that rather shabby assayer’s office there?” He pointed. “I have it on good authority that respectable amounts of gold, silver and copper have come through its doors.”

  “To say nothing of crude iron,” Van Damm murmured, fixing the location firmly in his memory.

  “They have their own smelter,” added Makhno, giving Van Damm a significant glance. “We’ll be dropping in there, soon.”

  “Please, senores, assist my companions to unload the barge while I go to seek suitable lodgings for my enterprise.” DeCastro hauled himself up onto the dock, automatically patting the filled holster on his hip and cast a calculating look around the near buildings.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Van Damm, climbing up on the dock beside him. “This does not look like a town where it is safe for a man to walk alone.”

  “Very well,” shrugged DeCastro, looking away.

  Makhno, watching as the two of them strolled down the dock, judged that Vanny was safe on his own, then turned his attention to unloading the raft and barge. DeCastro’s hirelings, he noted—even the women—worked as if they were used to it. By the time Van Damm and DeCastro returned, dragging a handcart, everything was unloaded on the dock and the personnel of the former Golden Parrot were sitting on the assorted crates passing a canteen around.

  “Found a good spot, did you?” asked Makhno, eyeing the handcart.

  “Most excellent.” DeCastro snapped his fingers at his hirelings, who got up and began loading the crates on the handcart. “These hills are honeycombed with man-made caves, and I’ve obtained a small one for an excellent price.”

  “For free, to be exact.” Van Damm smiled briefly. “Nobody was using it. The place seems to have a bad reputation.”

  “We shall change that.” DeCastro smiled. “Come, mi compadres: let us load and move quickly. Chaco, you stay here and wait with the second load. Inez, bring the ladies and personal gear. Move! Move!”

  It took half an hour for the personnel of the Golden Parrot to fill the handcart and move out. Chaco sat on a crate in the barge and pulled out the canteen again. Assorted passersby glanced at the barge, glanced at Makhno on the raft, and kept walking.

  “I see that the people here know you,” Van Damm commented. “Tell me, where and how do you exchange Jane’s goods for metals? That assayer’s office was careful to deal only in mineral goods, not…ah, Euph-leaf.”

  “For that, we go a little further downstream, to Hell’s-a-Comin’, inhabited mostly by shimmer stone miners.” Makhno automatically glanced around for anyone listening. “We go to a dugout called The Irish Bar, and ask for Himself.”

  “Who?”

  “Irish Himself. His bar is the local food shop and watering hole, but the serious business is conducted in his storeroom. That’s the local pawnshop, barter-house and bank. It’s also the information center. We do the exchange there.”

  “I see. And this is unknown to the Company?”

  “Totally. If anyone from Kenny-Camp asks why we go on down river, we say we’re making deliveries to prospectors, that’s all.” Makhno looked around again. “Vanny, this cave that DeCastro picked: is it dug into a ridge that comes down to the river? And is it really close to the riverbank?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Makhno heaved a profound sigh. “Traitors’ Cave,” he said. “The bastard is setting up shop in Traitors’ Cave, and I wish him joy of it.”

  “I take it this has some
thing to do with that first miners’ strike, the one that was broken up by the CoDo Marines, yes?”

  “Oh yes. Everybody who lives long in Hell’s-A-Comin’ knows the story, and I’ll tell it to you once we’re back on the water. Suffice it to say that if DeCastro’s looking for info to sell, or trouble to cause, he couldn’t have picked a worse spot.”

  “So what’m I supposed to do with this place, Brodski?” Heinrick whined, looking around at the emptied half-dugout that had formerly been known as the Golden Parrot. “I can’t run it as a bar, or even a restaurant, not with you already monopolizing the trade. I dunno what Van Damm expected.”

  “True, Docktown doesn’t need another bar and grill,” Brodski purred, leaning back on the split-log bench against the wall. “But there’s plenty else that it needs. An exchange-shop, for instance, or a drugstore, or a repair-shop. Think you could handle any of those?”

  A series of emotions played across Heinrick’s face in quick order, finally settling on a canny look. “Repairs, maybe. I got…some tools for that.”

  Brodski smiled, remembering that oversize and clanking duffel bag that Heinrick had brought with him. “Very good. And since a lot of your customers will be dealing in barter, you can’t help but run an exchange shop on the side. Hmm, you know anything about repairing—or making—radios?”

  “Simple ones, sure.” Heinrick shrugged. “You just have to find a frequency that’ll work here in the valley, what with all the interference from Cat’s Eye.”

  “I think we’ve got that,” Brodski grinned. “Talk to Sam-the-Ham Kilroy, just a few doors west. By the way, you know how to make saws that’ll cut stone, or steel?”

  “Yeah, I think I can manage that. Why?”

  “Well, you ever hear of a tree called an ironwood, back on Earth?”

  “Think so. …Uh, its wood was supposed to be so hard that you needed a…metal saw to cut it. You mean, there’s a tree like that around here?”

  “Even tougher. It’s called a steelwood, for good reason. A very useful critter, if only you have the means to saw it.”

  “I see!” Heinrick’s face lit up—then abruptly fell again. “But what’ll we do for power? Plutonium batteries last a long while, but you get only so much power out of ’em.”

  Brodski let his gaze wander to the ceiling. “I believe the miners at Hell’s-A-Comin’ have dug up something like coal, and there’s always wood along the forest. There are ways to work with steam.”

  “Steam?”

  “And if we can set up a water-wheel, there’s always the river itself.”

  “And in exchange for all this foine leaf and upriver brandy,” Himself said, peering narrowly at Makhno, “Yous be wantin’ what, this time?”

  “Brass or good iron,” said Makhno. “I know you can swap for it at Kenny-Camp.”

  “Then why din’cha swap for it there yerself?” Irish leaned forward on the plank table. “Yah know we got nothin’ down here but local produce an’ the occasional shimmer stone.”

  “I’d rather the assayer’s office didn’t know all my business.” Makhno grinned back. “They’ve got too many company men peeping over their shoulders.”

  Himself smiled broadly, showing crooked teeth. “An’ they just might take it into their heads to put an end to the euph-leaf trade, startin’ with yerself, eh?”

  “Something like that,” Makhno agreed.

  Irish leaned back, exuding confidence. “Well now, it just so happens that we’ve got a wee blacksmith’s shop, an’ a few pigs o’ copper an’ tin, and summat more o’ fine-smelted iron. We was hopin’ ta make it inta minin’ tools, but for such foine brandy, not ta mention the leaf, I do think we can dicker.”

  “Coal,” Van Damm put in. “We know there’s plenty of carbon on the planet, or the forests wouldn’t exist. But where can we get usable amounts of it?”

  Himself laughed and slapped the table. “From the black-stump tree, o’ course! What did yah think it made its black core from? Eh, I suppose yah had ta be a miner ta notice. Ah, but for big loads o’ that, ye’ll have ta bring us more than just euph an’ brandy.”

  “I think we can come up with something,” Makhno grinned, “And in larger loads, too.”

  As Van Damm watched, the two of them leaned close over the table and settled in for some serious dickering. Chains of trade routes, he considered. Stronger than steel…

  He wondered idly if he could stir up the kind of trouble Max Cole wanted by setting the free miners against the company’s slaves, but then decided it wouldn’t work. The company “indentured laborers” would desert in a red-hot minute if they knew there was some way they could survive outside the company’s town….

  And right there, a beautiful idea blossomed.

  When Max Cole heard that there was a coded special message for him coming up from the planet, he practically ran to the radio room to get his transcript, and actually did run back to his cabin to decode it. Yes, of course it was from Van Damm, and high time, too. The ship was due to leave in another two hours.

  Have a possibility, the message read. Can get miners to desert Kennicott. K/Co will then go after them and shoot up local farmers in the process. Is this the atrocity you want?

  Cole swore blisteringly, then coded a return message and carried it back to the radio room himself.

  Down on the surface, in Sam Kilroy’s establishment on the outskirts of Castell City, the message was received and then relayed to Hell’s-A-Comin’. Van Damm got the reply and took it off to the storeroom of the Irish Bar to decode.

  Hell, no! Cole’s reply read. Do nothing to make K look bad! Find something else. Stay there until you do.

  Van Damm laughed aloud, drawing Makhno’s attention, and he felt obliged to share the news. Both of them laughed uproariously, shared a pitcher of very good Janesfort beer and settled down to some serious analysis and speculation.

  Two hours later the ship left orbit and headed back toward Wayforth Station, taking Max Cole with it.

  It took a quarter of a T-year for the relocated Golden Parrot to become a successful venture. DeCastro had been obliged to buy raw grains and other seeds from the local farmers, sprout and ferment them himself before he could come up with a passable beer, and his attempts at creating whiskey or brandy had failed dismally. He had built a workable grill and made the Parrot into an acceptable restaurant, and the services of his girls were always a good draw, but for the life of him he could not start a decent drug-trade. A local product called euph-leaf was abundant and popular, but he couldn’t find the source, much less get a monopoly on it. The best he could do was extract the active ingredients with alcohol from his failed distilling projects and get a concentrated liquid form, but even that proved no real competition for the natural product. He could not even get the customers to gamble in his establishment, and that was unheard of.

  Worst of all, he hadn’t been able to contact any of the other company or CoDo agents, or even learn who they were. A bar and grill and whorehouse usually had no trouble collecting information from customers, but for some reason his clientele was remarkably close-mouthed. Some odd reticence seemed to overcome them the minute they set foot through the doorway: a strange solemnity, almost a feeling of guilt, which precluded merriment and small-talk. The relocated Golden Parrot was the gloomiest bar—and the poorest information-source—that DeCastro had ever seen and he had no idea why.

  Discreet strolls around Kenny-Camp had told him nothing except that the free prospectors viewed the indentured miners with mixed pity and contempt. Everybody hungrily awaited any out-of-town trade, the settled farmers seemed to be prospering and everyone hated Kennicott Metals.

  What he knew from his own sources was that Kennicott had long since made an uneasy truce with Anaconda and Dover, such that they all dug for different minerals, in widely separated and distant locations. Reynolds was left out in the cold, and resented it.

  Perhaps it was time to make a personal visit back to Castell City, just to see what he could
learn. His excuse would be buying some decent brandy, since he couldn’t find or make the product locally. The only difficulty lay in trading company scrip for CoDo creds, since the company’s currency-exchange always gave a miserable return and he knew well that nobody accepted company scrip outside of Hell’s-A-Comin’.

  When he heard the news that Captain Makhno was pulling up to the dock, he took the opportunity. DeCastro left explicit orders with his staff, packed up a sack full of CoDo creds and strolled down to the waterfront.

  Instead of the familiar steamboat, there sat the most outlandish ship that DeCastro had ever seen. It had three hulls, all long and narrow, the two outer ones set back from the central—and larger—hull, each carrying a raked mast with double booms and sails made of some thick unbleached cloth. The central hull also sported a paddle wheel at the stern, and the two outer hulls had what were clearly steering wheels attached to rudders hidden below the water. The hulls were joined with angled and arched wings where cargo was strapped. The whole construction was made of a pale gray wood that gleamed with some sort of lacquer. Though smaller than the old Celia, this bizarre boat—sporting the name River Dragon in what appeared to be metal letters on its bow—looked as if it could carry just as much cargo.

  And yes, there was the familiar captain making fast to the dock. Now DeCastro could see that the Dragon was towing a homemade barge loaded with what looked like blackened logs, canvas-covered pigs of metal and crates of odd fruit. In the ship itself sat three passengers, hulking miners or prospectors, two of them guarding the third. DeCastro guessed that the third man had made a good shimmer stone strike down river at Hell’s-A-Comin’ and was taking it to Castell City, rather than the assayer’s office, in hopes of getting a better price. Best leave him carefully alone, he decided.