Mercenary (17 page)

Emerald acted swiftly and decisively, as was her wont. That evening she brought Lieutenant Mondy in to see me. He was as represented: about forty-five, pudgy, balding, and with nervous mannerisms. There were bags under his eyes, suggesting he was chronically short of sleep. He was O3, and had been there for twenty years, a derelict who evidently had not resigned when passed over for promotion repeatedly because he had nowhere else to go. He certainly was not physically imposing. But I knew better than to judge him by appearance; Lieutenant Repro called him the best available, and my talent was rapidly confirming the internal complexity of this man.

Nevertheless, I tested him. “Show me your power.”

“You lost your family to pirates and swore to extirpate piracy from the System,” he said without hesitation. “But your resolve has been blunted by circumstance. Your sister Spirit has become the backbone of your effort to organize a truly competent and low-profile antipirate force. She hesitates at nothing to promote your interests, and that attitude has spread to your other associates, even to your wife, who is now willing to sacrifice her personal comfort on your behalf.”

He was on target so far. I felt no uncertainty in him as he spoke; his nervousness stemmed from personal concerns, not professional ability. “And?”

“You wish to capitalize on the current agricultural sector disruption,” he continued. “You hope to succeed so well in this inclement assignment of migrant laborer pacification that you will earn a promotion to full Commander. Unfortunately you are not a schemer, so may fail to exploit your opportunity properly.”

Emerald turned her head, surprised at this. “Clarify,” I said, intrigued.

“Considering the risk you are taking of being punished as a scapegoat if you fail, you should make this double or nothing. Your entire unit must be given pressing incentive to succeed. You must name a price commensurate to the challenge: a blanket promotion.”

“A what?”

“One grade for every member of your command. Private to PFC. Sergeant to SFC.” He glanced at Emerald. “Lieutenant s.g. to Lieutenant Commander.” Emerald gave a start. None of us had thought of this!

“That can be done?” I asked.

"The Navy is prepared to pay for its most challenging and risky missions, if the price is made clear at the outset. This is not by the Book, but the Book is commonly honored more in the neglect than in the letter.

Consider the challenge: About fifty farm bubbles are involved, with a thousand others watching to see the outcome, and a sizable element of the Jupiter population ready to react politically no matter which side wins. The Navy doesn't want this assignment, considering it to be a sure disaster, but cannot refuse it.

The migrant workers demand better conditions, more pay per basket picked, and a recognized union to represent their interests in the future. The owners claim they can't afford more pay without raising prices to the point where consumers will balk, and they absolutely refuse to recognize any union. So the workers have gone on strike, and hunger has caused them to riot at three bubbles. They swear to die before they return to work under the old conditions, and not all of them are bluffing. The crops are spoiling. Prices have begun an anticipatory rise on Jupiter, making the political climate volatile. This will be remembered at the next general election. It has become an extremely sensitive matter. The Navy will be instructed to end the strike within seventy-two hours, and it looks as though there will have to be martial law and summary executions of resistant migrants. About a third of the workers are of Hispanic descent, and this use of force could further complicate Jupiter politics. In sum: If this job is bungled, the current government could fall.“ He smiled grimly. ”I think a blanket promotion is not too much to ask for a quick, peaceful, amicable, and lasting settlement."

He certainly had the essentials! I had not comprehended the ramifications. “But can our unit succeed?” I asked.

“Very likely—with the proper information, strategy incentive, and nerve. You can arrange everything except the information. I can supply that.”

“Will you join us?” I asked, certain now that this was the officer we needed. A scheming genius!

“I am of course available for a price. But the ethics are uncertain.”

And I saw that he was concerned with ethics. That was an excellent sign. “This morning Emerald and I were in the third year of our term marriage,” I said. “We dissolved it by mutual consent so that she would be available for you. We were satisfied with each other, and faithful to each other, but we were not in love. It was a marriage of convenience. We deeply regret having to separate, but the need of the unit overrides our personal preferences, and we have done it. Promotions and the chance to establish our unit formally, with its full slate of officers, would make up for whatever private personal misgivings we have.” I saw Emerald nodding. She wanted, more than anything else, to be a true military strategist, and the blanket promotion would be a giant step in that direction. “If Emerald marries you, she will be true to you for the duration of that marriage, and I will find another woman. Our unit is more important than our marriage. I trust she has already shown you what she can do for you.” Again I saw her nod. Her demonstrations were impressive.

“You don't understand,” Mondy said. “I am aware of the inhuman discipline you both possess, and the hard-nosed tactic by your sister who resents your sexual captivity by another woman.” Emerald gave another start; evidently she had not told him of that. “You are making me an offer I am unable to decline, and I must compliment Lieutenant Repro on his Machiavellian perception in using my own system against me. But my awareness that Emerald would return instantly to you if she could, and that I can never have her love—”

“I never had her love,” I said.

“Nor your secretary's,” he agreed. “It becomes a matter of definition. You have more than you suppose.”

He had researched all of us intimately! “It is true that Emerald has an unkind manner of phrasing it, but—”

“Whoring for personnel,” he said. "And I have no pride in this respect; I will accept her on that basis.

Her demonstration was persuasive in more than the physical sense. A unit with such dedication to its welfare—“ He shrugged. ”I would certainly like to be part of that unit. But I am not merely an unattractive man eager for young flesh. I suffer from post-traumatic syndrome. I am not easy to live with."

“I believe that should be between the two of you,” I said. “If she believes she can handle it—”

“I can handle anything I have to,” Emerald said, though she seemed shaken by Mondy's knowledge of the situation. How had he discovered our dialogue of the morning? Emerald had shown him her power; now he was showing us his.

“I will not bore you with my South Saturn experience,” Lieutenant Mondy said. “I will just say that it continues to haunt me, after twenty years, and has ruined me as a conventional officer. I wake screaming in the night; I go on drugs sometimes by day, not from addiction but from inability to function otherwise. I am literally afraid of the dark. I am terrified of being alone, but even in company I cannot necessarily relax. I need someone to talk to, about things that are not pleasant to discuss. I need a nurse. No woman has been able to put up with me for more than a few days. I am no sweet, cuddly teddy bear; I need a woman with guts and stamina and comprehension as well as a body.”

“I can handle it,” Emerald repeated grimly.

“We offer you more than a woman,” I said. “We offer you a family. Give us what we need, and we will give you what you need. It seems a fair exchange.”

“I'll take it,” he said.

And so we got our S-2 officer. I won't say Lieutenant Mondy was easy to get along with. He did, indeed, wake screaming in the night, and on occasion I had to come and help Emerald restrain him from hurting himself or her. It was not that he was vicious, but that he suffered hallucinatory episodes of horror that caused him to flail uncontrollably. It was not feasible to put him in restraints; his reaction to that could have killed him. But he did like young flesh, and it did have a pacifying effect on him, and at age twenty-four Emerald was young enough. As he came to know and trust her, this became more effective, even during his worst spells. She had to be with him constantly, at first, day and night, literally holding his hand, speaking softly to him, sometimes literally seducing him into relaxation. She was tough, and she was showing more compassion now than I had realized she possessed, but this was a strain on her; she lost weight and sleep. But gradually she got on top of it and recovered much of her former animation. “I never knew when I was well off,” she muttered once to me, and I was deeply flattered. She was making a real sacrifice for the unit, and I wished there was more I could do for her, but our code forbade it now.

Mondy did produce for us, and we all came to respect his mind. He had an intimate understanding of the vulnerabilities of the military system, and he knew, often literally, where the bodies were buried. He came up with information about the migrant leaders that amazed me. We used that information to formulate a daring strategy.

We got the mission, of course; it was ours for the asking. And Lieutenant Mondy had no trouble transferring in immediately; the Navy didn't value trauma-ridden officers any more than it did ambitious Hispanics or blacks or addicts or whistle blowers. And, after a week's bureaucratic delay, we got our deadline exactly as Mondy had predicted: seventy-two hours from our scheduled arrival at the Agricultural Ring. That wasn't much time!

I briefed my company. Most of the top men had a pretty good notion already what was up, and they were for it. I stressed that we intended to get the migrants back to work without violence, and that we would do our best to relate to them, speaking in Spanish or whatever language made them most receptive. “But these are tough and desperate people,” I concluded. “For two weeks they have held out against the owners and the government itself. So first we shall show them our power.”

Then I turned it over to my staff for implementation. We were preparing for a battle, but not for bloodshed; we intended to convert the migrants to our side by means of a finely orchestrated campaign.

According to Lieutenant Mondy's information, rioting had gutted three bubbles, and these had already been evacuated. They were scheduled for demolition and replacement; it was easier to bring in new bubbles from Jupiter, paid for by calamity insurance, than to repair the old ones in space. We requested and received permission to use them for target practice during our mission; Mondy had known what channel to use to get immediate affirmation. But the missiles Lieutenant Commander Phist arranged for us to stock were not standard ones; they were heavy-duty planetoid busters, seldom used in the Juclip. But Emerald had specified that kind, and I concurred. We were ready to show our power.

We selected our first bubble carefully. The leader of the workers here was Hispanic and had a checkered history that we could exploit psychologically. Lieutenant Mondy had briefed me thoroughly on this; that information, plus my talent, should put the migrant in the palm of my hand. We hoped.

We closed on the bubble, landed, and hooked on well away from the migrant bus; no sense inviting early trouble. A picked squad charged in, armed with stunners and ready for action. The way was clear, and I followed with a picked squad of my own. We carried no visible arms, but my sergeant had a pacifier: an electronic device that could deprive people in the area of their free will, unless they were protected by small personal interrupters as my own troops were. I didn't want to use the pacifier, as it would not solve the long-term problem; it was merely a backup in case things went wrong.

This was a pepper bubble. The sight of its rows of green plants stirred me to nostalgia, for I had first worked as a migrant picker in a pepper bubble. This was one reason we had selected this one to start.

Still, I felt the impact. Nine years—how brief it seemed, suddenly! The subjective impression sometimes bypasses objective reality.

The workers were spread out around their ship exit, looking bedraggled and hungry. This strike was hard on them, because the bubble-owner normally provided most of the food, selling it to the local foreman. Naturally the food was the first thing cut off when the workers balked. They did have some supplies of their own but not enough for comfort. They had to have been subsisting largely on peppers for several days, which was no joy. We had brought extra food, but we said nothing of this now.

“We represent the Jupiter Navy Order-Restoring Force,” my sergeant announced in English as we approached. “We want to talk to your leader.”

A large, swarthy man in his thirties stepped out. “I'm Joshua. I'm the foreman, and I'll speak for the workers here.”

Now I spoke. “I am Lieutenant Commander Hope Hubris, in charge of this expedition. I speak for the Jupiter Navy. I have no politics; I am only here to see that you return to work before any more of the crop spoils.”

“You going to arrest us all, officer? That won't pick these peppers.”

“I don't want to arrest anyone. I just want to see this thing amicably settled.”

“Easy enough,” he said. “Just give us decent conditions and better pay and our union, and we'll be glad to work.”

“I can't promise any of that, especially not the union,” I said. “But I can help negotiate something, if you will return to work first.”

Joshua spat on the ground and turned his back. It was his typical reaction to affront, as Mondy had informed me.

I was ready. “Don't turn your back on me, gringo!” I snapped in Spanish.

The man whirled, his face abruptly charged with fury, a knife appearing in his hand. But I was already moving, and a knife was in my hand, too.

He paused, surprise tempering his anger. “You're bluffing, Navy man. You don't know how to use that thing.”

“Take my word, picker: I know how.”

“Watch it, Josh,” one of the migrants said. “Either way, you're dead. They've got power weapons.”