Third World Read online

  The pond above the mill was stocked with Terran fish including rainbow trout, which seemed to do well on Third World, and several of the pan-fish species. They were brought in on their one and only road, under the care of the drover, and hideously expensive. In a few years, they were feeding old Hank pretty regular.

  There was other stuff in there, but the local water creatures rarely appealed to the taste. There were one or two plants in there that he used from time to time.

  Since the growing season was just underway, and bracken was a naturally-occurring resource, Hank was at home and trying his hand at making a net. He had to take a day off once in a while.

  This was something he had wanted to do for a long while.

  The most abundant local species of bird-like creatures, for they could fly short distances when they wanted to, were flocking animals that from time to time he’d observed eating corn and other grain spilled by the roadside. They came out into the fields to graze, and they seemed to tolerate humans although dogs chased them and caught them sometimes.

  Hank was thinking of catching some birds, with a combination of corn for bait and some non-threatening system of fencing them in, perhaps at first gradually. He didn’t even have to box them in at first, merely direct them a bit. See what they did and how they reacted over time.

  He was almost sure it could be done with a minimum of help, which would of course have to be paid for or otherwise provided for. The ones he was after even laid eggs. He found a nest every so often in the long grass, and they tasted fine. In fact, if you hadn’t had the regular kind in a while, they were pretty much indistinguishable.

  Otherwise, real eggs were sort of expensive, a luxury when he had them.

  He had two stout poles planted in the ground. At about three metres apart they were good for making a net that was maybe a bit more than he could chew. But if it worked well, he wanted to make a really big net, or maybe a bunch of smaller ones. If he could do it, he wanted to make more than just one at a time. If they were nice and light, he could push stakes into soft ground and herd a flock just where he wanted them. They tended to run along the ground on well-defined pathways through the long grass when disturbed.

  Shooting at them from afar only scattered the flocks and got you a meal or two. The birds had to get used to him just like chickens, or ducks or geese.

  Hank had it worked out to some extent, but with no knowledge or experience, only trial and error could teach him the best way. He had a couple of strings of the heavy, synthetic black twine going across at a convenient working height. The two strands had long tails left on them after being tied to the poles in case it worked. Then he would be able to set up the net, tie it to things, et cetera.

  Tying another end on, with the spool handled carefully to avoid dropping it and creating a real mess, he brought it up on a forty-five degree angle and tried to tie it to the upper cross line. Uniform lengths on the angles was crucial. Then he brought it down on forty-five degrees and tied it to the lower cross line.

  “Only another fifty thousand knots to go.” Of course Hank had second thoughts.

  Wasting twine was wasting cash money. He might as well give it a proper shot. Working more quickly now, he went up and down, up and down, until he reached the far end.

  He looked up at the sun, climbing higher in the sky as the morning wore on and a welcome sight after weeks of overcast. In the last few days, the weather had been generally improving. Yet the season was well advanced and he didn’t remember anything like this in years past.

  “Oh, boy.” There was still plenty of material on the spool, and he hadn’t dropped it or anything yet, so he went straight up in a vertical side-line, tied it off, and then zigzagged back the other way.

  He knew it was possible. He just hadn’t done it before. The day was young and Hank had a little time on his hands.

  Chapter Two

  Hank’s Glasses Were Stained With Sweat

  The black dot at the end of the track where it came out of the brush down by the ford eventually resolved itself into a two-wheeled cart pulled by an animal out of Stanislaus’ Livery, one of the longer-lived establishments in the vicinity. The blaze of red paint on the hindquarter was a dead giveaway. The cart was probably from there as well.

  Hank’s glasses were stained with sweat and dirty finger-marks, but as it drew closer he saw that it was a woman, and he straightened up and wondered who it could be.

  Looking down at himself, he picked up his shirt and put it on, and then went into the kitchen to put on a kettle of water just as the cart came in through the gap in his split-rail fence and entered the yard.

  He waved from the door at the figure inside. She dropped the reins and put her foot out tentatively as the thing had stopped right in the middle of the biggest muddy patch and the animal refused to budge another inch.

  Stanislaus knew how to pick them, and it was probably better than a more flighty animal.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.” Mrs. Beynholm was a widow, and had been alone for about four years.

  She stood there grinning up at him, shading her eyes from the glare.

  People were always smiling at Hank and he wondered why. It bothered him a little sometimes as he couldn’t account for it.

  She was a buxom woman with sturdy hips, thick graying hair that had once been brown and deep blue eyes. While they were courteous about town and knew each other’s first names, they really didn’t have a lot of contact and little in common, not even very many friends in common.

  “I’ve just put the tea on.”

  They clumped inside.

  “Oh, thank you.” She stood just inside the room, hands on her hips, and she inspected the place, finally giving a slight nod which he interpreted as approval.

  It wasn’t much to look at, smaller than a typical one-bedroom apartment back home, and with none of the amenities either. The plank walls were tightly fitted and the floor was still level, which was saying something for the solidity of the site as much as his building skills.

  With the shutters thrown back, and the table clean, no dirty dishes lying about, it conveyed an impression of rugged comfort. Hank had four rooms in total, with the kitchen being the best, which was on the left coming in the door. Connected by a sweeping arch supported by a massive log of white cedar to the living room on her right, it looked bigger in the broad light of day.

  He could hear the water just beginning to bubble.

  “So, what brings you out this way?” He was wondering if Marty had put her up to it.

  She was always into things, he knew that much.

  Surely it had to be something important, or more likely the most trivial of attempts.

  “Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood.” She didn’t elaborate, and he desperately tried to take it at face value.

  He mentally kicked himself for showing up in church last Sunday. Maybe she just wanted a donation for something, or worse, volunteers for something.

  Of course! What an idiot he had been. He’d walked right into it this time.

  “Oh, yes, the fields are lovely this time of year.” Hank had no idea of what to say so he turned and beckoned her to come along, and she seated herself at the table.

  She was certainly well-dressed, and he was aware that he hadn’t smelled a woman up close and in a small room with him in a fair while. Other than that, it was all right. He wondered what she was looking at.

  With its central core dominated by a massive hearth that went from floor to ceiling and spanned the entire inner wall, the room smelled vaguely of onions, tobacco smoke and meat, mostly fried.

  “I can see why you have the bedroom right there.”

  “Yeah, it’s warmer in winter.”

  She nodded, still looking around.

  The long front wall faced southeast so as to heat up quickly on the winter mornings when the sun made its belated appearance, and prevailing breezes in summer would sweep the air out of it from the kitchen window on the southwest sid
e, blowing out through the setting room. Hank had a pair of windows on the east side. His bedroom was behind the setting room, and it had one small window up high on the east side as well. She took it all in as he led her past the open bedroom door in a quick tour of the place, her teacup firmly clenched in her hand. She seemed very impressed with his small office.

  The man probably lived as much on the covered veranda out front, at least in season.

  He opened the door to the rear of the house to allow a flow of fresh air as those kitchen shutters faced north and he rarely opened them. The pantry was there, a bit of a mistake on his part as he always used the front door. She nodded at his quick explanation. He had to lug everything in and through the kitchen, which meant a lot of sweeping.

  She sat down at the table again and examined the room with care.

  “You’re doing all right, Hank.”

  He nodded modestly, a small grin sneaking over his face as he got out the biscuits and found a clean plate in the cupboard.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m getting by.”

  “What are you making? A fish net?” As he recalled, she’d been born on Earth.

  His mood brightened, they could always reminisce.

  “Ah…” Not exactly, but he didn’t want to go into it.

  She had fifteen hectares, right in town on a kind of narrow frontage. Only two or three hectares had ever been tilled. She was a seamstress, and she had a few goats and chickens. She hired herself and her two sons out to work in the fields of others. Her husband went hunting and never showed up again. No one knew where he went or what happened to him. His name was Alvin or Alan, Hank wasn’t quite sure which. She sold cheese and butter, some of it on consignment and they scrounged along all right. Other than that, she was a face in the crowd and he didn’t know too much about her…some kind of distant cousin of Missus Morgensen, and Polly.

  “You’re smart, Hank Beveridge. Everyone says that.”

  “Huh?” She smiled, but of course he knew what she was getting at.

  Hank had claimed and filed on twenty thousand hectares a decade before anyone else thought of any sort of permanence. They said he was mad at first, and then a few more people turned up, and once one of them innocently asked a few questions about registration, the panicked herd stampeded towards the registrar. It’s not that they didn’t build houses and farm the land, but it was thought to be inexhaustible. You could always move on if it didn’t work out. It was part of the attraction, in some ways. What he couldn’t explain to her or anyone else, really, was that he could never use or exploit more than a small fraction of it alone and by himself. A lot of folks had more reasonably filed on a few hundred hectares, and all hands contributed to the work. One or two others in the area had bigger holdings and more grandiose plans for it. They at least had a reason.

  He could see that much. But Hank just liked the space. Good fences make good neighbours, but there was no need for that when the nearest house was a couple of kilometres away. Hank’s place was the end of the line, and that way he didn’t get much traffic.

  As far as the bracken-pods went, that was just an excuse. You could gather them anywhere that was public property, and he had wondered a time or two why so few people did. It took minimal business savvy to gather bracken and sell it to the brokers when they came through once a year.

  All a man needed was a scythe, and a wagon. That and some twine, and feed for the working critters.

  Hank just liked the look of the place and wanted to keep the neighbours a little ways down the road, so to speak…some things were better left unsaid. It had a way of going around.

  The visit might have been more enjoyable for Hank if only he could have figured out what brought it on. He had no idea of why she was there and she didn’t see fit to enlighten him. As things went, they had their tea, passed the time, exchanged pleasantries, and after a while, they gossiped harmlessly enough about various local personalities. She brought Hank up to date on any number of things, which was good as he had little to contribute in that line himself.

  Yet for the life of him, Hank couldn’t figure out what it was about. It was that unusual to get a visitor.

  She’d been alone a long time and he accepted that, the question was why him?

  And why now?

  ***

  Commander Jeff Burke of Her Majesty’s Ship Hermes stood in front of the cupola that let in a spectacular view of space and the planet below. Third World, named for its position in this system, a name which had stuck more to eliminate arguments than any other reason, had a population of over half a million. The tall, athletic Burke had held command of Hermes for four years. His thoughts congealed.

  Settlement had begun seventy-five or a hundred years ago, but the original plans to export a half a billion people to the planet had quietly been shelved when the newcomers had been in place a few years and the complaints started to roll in. An inquiry had been held, and ultimately it was determined not to be anybody in particular’s fault, but pioneering was hard work and ultimately even the best-prepared settlers fell to subsistence level as people spread out and began to exploit the local environments, about which they had initially known little.

  The Planetary Authority, once established, was understandably eager to perpetuate itself as bureaucracies will. Perhaps initial reports of the planet’s potential had been a little too glowing. A half a million in population was not enough to make a viable and self-sustaining economy, and with recruitment dropping off quickly it was no longer profitable to send any more colony ships.

  The Commander had a problem, in that things were heating up in the Vega sector and confrontation with Them seemed imminent. The Empire and Them had been bickering for years.

  Responsible for law and order in his sector, he had little jurisdiction on the surface, and yet he was also charged in recent orders with apprehending and confining known deserters from Her Majesty’s Service until such time as courts-martial could be convened and punishments doled out.

  The trouble was, they had only a vague idea of where a few of them were, might be, or had last been sighted. Combing through the duty roster revealed a grand total of sixteen or seventeen non-essential personnel available for assignment to shore duties, none of whom he had a whole lot of confidence in. They were available for a reason, not unusual in the service. The only person he had to lead them was Lieutenant Shapiro, who had virtually zero experience on his own. That, in itself, represented an opportunity of sorts.

  Burke had the funny feeling they would be on the ground and hard to extract in a hurry if and when the word from above came through. It was worthy of a brief smile.

  Orders were orders and this one was unusually succinct. It also came from a long ways up the ladder, and good officers were long in the development.

  Burke had no choice but to make a stab at it.

  Chapter Three

  A First Briefing

  Lieutenant Newton Shapiro sat at the head of the table and surveyed the senior members of the landing party. His eyes swept the faces, all carefully neutral.

  They were gathered for their first briefing and planning session. The enlisted personnel at his disposal were all the usual suspects, and were the most easily spared from the ship’s regular routine according to Commander Burke. In his words, it might even do the odd free spirit among them some good to get off the ship.

  It was his first meeting with the command team.

  A couple of the troops hadn’t seen planet-side in years, as they were habitually in the brig by the time the ship actually got anywhere.

  As to why his own name came up at the top of that list was another question, but he was a junior officer, and while his duties as the vessel’s supply officer were not unimportant, there were others at least partly trained in his job. He could be spared, and he recognized that much.

  “All right. Our deserters are last seen in the Port Complex, the usual port of call for Fleet units. Frankly, we’ve never had occasion to land anywhere else, and
they have the best facilities. If a ship having problems set down elsewhere, it would cause considerable problems of logistics to set her right and lift off again. They go on shore leave. The first place they head for is a bar. It’s the usual sad story. At some point they realize they are absent without leave, and we figure the usual practice is to get as far away as possible from anything that smacks of Empire and authority.”

  “They’re fugitives.” Ensign Spaulding nodded. “The punishment is harsh.”

  A willowy blonde in her mid-twenties, Beth was a human resources specialist, which aboard ship meant everyone got paid. They made the contributions to their retirement or kid’s schooling. She was a grief counselor when required and helped in the infirmary with trauma victims, physical and psychological. She was in charge of all records pertaining to personnel outside of confidential medical and command security files.

  “Right.” Shapiro went on. “And yet they really didn’t have a plan of action. They’re not here to emigrate and make a new life. The trouble is, they don’t have any choice but to try, otherwise they starve, kill themselves, or give themselves up.”

  A few had ended up incarcerated under criminal statutes. Over the years, one or two had been apprehended that way. Sometimes people turned themselves in.

  One or two over the years had done just that. They turned themselves in to the Planetary Authority, who placed them in custody and notified the Fleet. If they did it quickly enough, the punishment was the usual thing, not desertion but absent without leave. Desertion was another level of offense, and yet how would he define it? They probably just got scared. Were they actually intending to desert? Intent was part of the definition of the desertion offence. Some of them were just kids, really. As for suicide, there were no statistics.

  “Over the years, fifty-seven men and women have deserted Fleet units of all types, on Third World, or failed to return after shore leave. Some of them quite recently, ah, including two of our own.”