The Night's Dawn Trilogy (95 page)

“We’re developing their market for them,” Joshua said. “We’ll be pumping hard cash into their economy. Not much by our standards,
I admit, but to them it will buy a lot of things they need. And it will go to the people too, the colonists who are breaking
their backs to tame that world, not just the administration staff. We pay the loggers upriver in the hinterlands, the barge
captains, the timber-yard workers. Them, their families, the shops they buy stuff from. All of them will be better off. We’ll
be better off. Norfolk will be better off. It’s the whole essence of trade. Sure, banks and governments make paper money from
the deal, and we slant it in our favour, but the bottom line is that people benefit.” He realized he was staring hard at Symone,
daring her to disagree. He dropped his eyes, almost embarrassed.

Dominique gave him a soft, and for the first time, sincere kiss on his cheek. “You really did pick yourself the best, didn’t
you?” she said challengingly to Ione.

“Of course.”

“Does that answer your question?” Parris asked his lover, smiling gently at her.

“I guess it does.”

He started to use a small silver knife to peel the crisp rind from a date-sized purple fruit. Joshua recognized it as a saltplum
from Atlantis.

“I think Lalonde would be in capable hands if we left it to Joshua,” Parris said. “What sort of partnership were you looking
for?”

“Sixty-forty in your favour,” he said amicably.

“Which would cost me?”

“I was thinking of two to three million fuseodollars as an initial working fund to set up our export operation.”

“Eighty-twenty,” Dominique said.

Parris bit into the saltplum’s pink flesh, watching Joshua keenly.

“Seventy-thirty,” Joshua offered.

“Seventy-five-twenty-five.”

“I get that percentage on all Norfolk Tears carried by the Vasilkovsky Line while our mayope monopoly is in operation.”

Parris winced, and gave his daughter a small nod.

“If you provide the collateral,” she said.

“You accept my share of the mayope as collateral, priced at the Norfolk sale value.”

“Done.”

Joshua sat back and let out a long breath. It could have been a lot worse.

“You see,” Dominique said wickedly. “Brains as well as breasts.”

“And legs,” Joshua added.

She licked her lips provocatively, and took a long drink.

“We’ll get the legal office to draw up a formal contract tomorrow,” Parris said. “I can’t see any problem.”

“The first stage will be to set up an office on Lalonde and secure that mayope monopoly. The
Lady Mac
has still got to be unloaded, then she needs some maintenance work, and we’re due a grade-E CAB inspection as well thanks
to someone I met at Norfolk. Not a problem, but it takes time. I ought to be ready to leave in ten days.”

“Good,” said Parris. “I like that, Joshua. No beating around, you get straight to it.”

“So how did you make your fortune?”

Parris grinned and popped the last of the saltplum into his mouth. “Given this will hopefully develop into quite a large operation,
I’ll want to send my own representative with you to Lalonde to help set up our office. And keep an eye on this upfront money
of mine you’ll be spending.”

“Sure. Who?”

Dominique leaned over until her shoulder rubbed against Joshua’s, a hand made of steel flesh closed playfully on his upper
thigh. “Guess,” she whispered salaciously into his ear.

Durringham had become ungovernable, a city living on spent nerves, waiting for the final crushing blow to fall.

The residents knew of the invaders marching and sailing downriver, everyone had heard the horror stories of xenoc enslavement,
of torture and rape and bizarre bloodthirsty ceremonies; words distorted and swollen with every kilometre, like the river
down which they travelled. They had also heard of the Kulu Embassy evacuating its personnel in one madcap night, surely
the final confirmation—Sir Asquith wouldn’t do that unless there was no hope left. Durringham, their homes and jobs and prosperity,
was in the firing line of an unknown, unstoppable threat, and they had nowhere to run. The jungle belonged to the invaders,
the seven colonist-carrier starships orbiting impotently overhead were full, they couldn’t offer an escape route. There was
only the river and the virgin sea beyond.

The second morning after Ralph Hiltch made his dash to the relative safety of the
Ekwan
, the twenty-eight paddle-boats remaining in the frightened city’s circular harbours set off in convoy downriver. Price of
a ticket was one thousand fuseodollars per person (including a child). No destination was named: some talked about crossing
the ocean to Sarell; Amarisk’s northern extremity was mooted. It didn’t matter, leaving Durringham was the driving factor.

Given the exorbitant price the captains insisted on, and the planet’s relative poverty, it was surprising just how many people
turned up wanting passage. More than could be accommodated. Tempers and desperation rose with the brutal sun. Several ugly
scenes flared as the gangplanks were hurriedly drawn up.

Frustrated in their last chance to escape, the crowd surged towards the colonists barricaded in the transients’ dormitories
at the other end of the port. Stones were flung first, then Molotovs.

Candace Elford dispatched a squad of sheriffs and newly recruited deputies, armed with cortical jammers and laser rifles,
to quell this latest in a long line of disturbances. But they ran into a gang ransacking a retail district. The tactical street
battle which followed left eight dead, and two dozen injured. They never got to the port.

That was when Candace finally had to call up Colin Rexrew and admit that Durringham was out of control. “Most urban districts
are forming their own defence committees,” she datavised. “They’ve seen how little effect the sheriffs have against any large-scale
trouble. All the riots we’ve had these last few weeks have shown that often enough, and everyone’s heard about the
Swithland
posse. They don’t trust you and me to defend them, so they’re going to do it for themselves. There’s been a lot of food stockpiled
over the last couple of weeks. They all think they’re self-sufficient, and they’re not letting anyone over their district’s
boundary. That’s going to cause trouble, because I’m getting reports of people in the outlying villages to the east abandoning
their land and coming in looking for a refuge. Our residents aren’t letting them through. It’s a siege mentality out there.
People are waiting for Terrance Smith to come back with a conquering army, and hoping they can hold out in the meantime.”

“How far away are the invaders?”

“I’m not sure. We’re judging their progress by the way our communications with the villages fail. It’s not constant, but I’d
say their main force is no more than ten or fifteen kilometres from Durringham’s eastern districts. The majority are on foot,
which should give us two or three days’ breathing space. Of course, you and I know there are nests of them inside the city
as well. I’ve had some pretty weird stories about bogeymen and poltergeists coming in for days now.”

“What do you want to do?” Colin asked.

“Revert to guarding our strategic centres; the spaceport, this sector, possibly both hospitals. I’d like to say the port as
well, but I don’t think I’ve got the manpower. There have been several desertions this week, mostly among the new deputies.
Besides, nearly all of the boats have left now; there’s been a steady exodus of fishing craft and even some barges since the
paddle-boat convoy cast off this morning, so I can’t see a lot of point.”

“OK,” Colin said with his head in his hands. “Do it.” He glanced out of the office window at the sun-lashed rooftops. There
was no sign of any of the usual fires that had marked the city’s torment over the last weeks. “Can we hang on until Terrance
returns?”

“I don’t know. At the moment we’re so busy fighting each other that I couldn’t tell you what sort of resistance we can offer
to the invaders.”

“Yeah. That sounds like Lalonde through and through.”

Candace sat behind her big desk, watching the situation reports paint unwelcome graphics across the console displays, and
issuing orders through her staff. There were times when she wondered if anyone out there was even receiving them, let alone
obeying them.

Half of her sheriffs were deployed around the spaceport, spending the afternoon digging in, and positioning some large maser
cannons to cover the road. The rest took up position around the administration district in the city, covering the governor’s
dumper, the sheriff’s headquarters, various civic buildings, and the Confederation Navy office. Five combined teams of LDC
engineers and sheriffs went round all the remaining dumpers they could reach, powering down the fusion generators. If the
invaders wanted Durringham’s industrial base, such as it was, Rexrew was determined to thwart them. The He3 and deuterium
fuel was collected and put into storage at the spaceport. By midafternoon the city was operating on electron-matrix power
reserves alone.

That more than anything else brought home the reality of the situation to the majority. Fights and squabbles between gangs
and districts ended, those barricades which had been erected were strengthened, sentry details were finalized. Everyone headed
home, the roads fell silent. The rain which had held off all day began to slash down. Beneath its shroud of miserable low
cloud, Durringham held its breath.

Stewart Danielsson watched the rain pounding away on the office windows as the conditioner hummed away efficiently, sucking
the humidity from the air. He had made the office his home over the last week; Ward Molecular had seen a busy time of it.
Everybody in town was keen to have the ancillary circuits on their electron-matrix cells serviced, especially the smaller
units which could double as rifle power magazines at a pinch. He’d sold a lot of interface cables as well.

The business was doing fine. Darcy and Lori would be pleased when they got back. They hadn’t actually said he could sleep
over when they left him in charge, but with the way things were it was only right. Twice he’d scared off would-be burglars.

His sleeping-bag with the inflatable mattress was comfy, and the office fridge was better than the one in his lodgings; he’d
brought the microwave cooker over from the cabin out back of the warehouse. So now he had all the creature comforts. It was
turning into a nice little sojourn. Gaven Hough stayed late most nights, keeping him company. Neither of them had seen Cole
Este since the night after the first anti-Ivet riot. Stewart wasn’t much bothered by that.

Gaven opened the door in the glass partition wall and stuck his head round. “Doesn’t look like Mr. Crowther is coming to pick
up his unit now, it’s gone four.”

Stewart stretched himself, and turned the processor block off. He’d been trying to keep their work records and payments up
to date. It had always seemed so easy when Darcy was handling it. “OK, we’ll get closed up.”

“We’ll be the last in the city. There’s been no traffic outside for the last two hours. Everyone else has gone home, scared
of these invaders.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No, not really. I haven’t got anything an army would want.”

“You can stay here tonight. I don’t think it’ll be safe walking home through this town now, not with the way people are on
edge. There’s enough food.”

“Thanks. I’ll go and shut the doors.”

Stewart watched the younger man through the glass partition as he made his way past the workbenches to the warehouse’s big
doors. I ought to be worried, he thought, some of the rumours flying around town are blatantly unreal, but something is happening
upriver. He gave the warehouse a more thoughtful glance. With its mayope walls it was strong enough to withstand any casual
attempt at damage. But there were a lot of valuable tools and equipment inside, and everybody knew that. Maybe we should be
boarding the windows up. There was no such thing as an insurance industry on Lalonde, if the warehouse went so did their jobs.

He turned back to the office windows, giving them a more objective appraisal; the frames were heavy enough to nail planks
across.

Someone was walking down the muddy road outside. It was difficult to see with the way the rain was smearing the glass, but
it looked like a man dressed in a suit. A very strange suit; it was grey, with a long jacket, and there was no seal up the
front, only buttons. And he wore a black hat that looked like a fifty-centimetre column of brushed velvet. His right hand
gripped a silver-topped cane. Rain bounced off him as though his antique clothes were coated in frictionless plastic.

“Stewart!” Gaven called from somewhere in the warehouse. “Stewart, come back here.”

“No. Look at this.”

“There’s three of them in here. Stewart!”

The native panic in Gaven’s voice made him turn reluctantly from the window. He squinted through the partition wall. It was
dark in the cavernous warehouse, and Gaven had shut the wide doors. Stewart couldn’t see where he’d got to. Humanoid shapes
were moving around down by the stacks of crates; bigger than men. And it was just too gloomy to make out quite what—

The window behind him gave a loud grating moan. He whirled round. The frames groaned again as though they had been shoved
by a hurricane blast. But the rain was falling quite normally outside. It couldn’t be the wind. The man in the grey suit was
standing in the middle of the road, cane pressing into the mud, both hands resting on the silver pommel. He stared directly
at Stewart.

“Stewart!” Gaven yelled.

The window-panes cracked, fissures multiplying and interlacing. Animal reflex made Stewart spin round, his arms coming up
to protect his head.
They’re going to smash!
A two and a half metre tall yeti was standing pressed up against the glass of the partition wall. Its ochre fur was matted
and greasy, red baboon lips were peeled back to show stained fangs. He gagged at it in amazement, recoiling.