The Price of Peace (16 page)

"Gunny told me people were vouching for each other," Trouble said around a full mouth. The oatmeal was good, and his stomach had only compliments for the cook.

"In a town this small, everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Founders made a rule. What's your business is nobody's business. Folks learn to look the other way, unless people are hurt." The city manager put down his fork, his pancakes gone except for a puddle of syrup here and there. "Maybe we've been giving too many people the benefit of the doubt. Heaven knows, after the Unity folks took to the hills, we were glad to have our town back. Guess we weren't looking hard enough at how some folks celebrated their freedom. Anyway, no more fires were set after your attack, so I think you got the last of them."

Trouble glanced at his skipper; she seemed a tad less confident. "What do we do now, ma'am?"

"When the
Patton
gets back in orbit, I'll go topside to see what Stan caught. You handle things down here. Provide whatever assistance Mr.
Shezgo
needs. I noticed several of your street safety patrols carrying hunting rifles." She turned back to the city manager. "Do they know how to use them?"

He laughed. "This town's almost empty come fall. During hunting season, the brewers hardly bother to bottle anything, those still in town, that is."

Trouble and Ruth graduated to flapjacks. The others left them to the newfound hunger; only Cindy stayed behind.

"I'm full," Ruth sighed, as she stuffed another bit of pancake in nevertheless.

Trouble finished his last bite, considered ordering ham and eggs, then shook his head. "I eat another bite, and they'll have to tote me upstairs and put me to bed for the day."

"Don't you deserve a day off?" Ruth asked with a grin. Was she offering to spend it in bed with him? He wasn't sure how that kiss and her husband went together. Rested up and washed, she was beautiful.

"The skipper's shorthanded. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you got." He evaded the question and stood. "I better make a round of the guard posts."

Ruth fiddled with her fork, trying to figure out what she wanted. Truth was, she had no idea. What she wanted didn't seem to mean much. This tall, strange marine had been dragged into her life ... and now was running, not walking, out of it.
Mordy
had done the same. And yet, the two were so different. Ruth remembered the feel of Trouble's hands along her side, bringing warmth to a cold night. The way he'd grabbed Clem when she threw him off her. Then chided her for starting a fight.
Mordy
would have loved a fight.
Mordy
and Clem would have . . . No, she would not go there.
Mordy
was out of her life. Trouble ... she didn't want him gone. Well, she had nothing else to do with her day. Mr. Trouble, I'm your shadow.

"It's not fair." She put her fork down. "You come down here for some time off, and all you get is drugged, dragged all over the place, and a fight."

"Who says that's not a marine's idea of a good time?" Oh, the boyish grin he had. It made him look like a delightful, huggable kid. Except around the eyes. They stayed old.

"Well, if you can't think of anything better"—Ruth stood up to her full height—"maybe I'm
gonna
have to show you." Which got her one of Trouble's raised eyebrows; then, with a shrug, he turned for the door. Another great impression I've made.

Ruth had to jog to keep up with him. "I've got a pretty good idea what farming is like," he said, holding the door open for her. "Now I'll show you how my day goes."

"No way you know farming," she countered. "You show me marines today. Tomorrow, I'll show you a farm."

"Well, today neither of you know your way around my town," Cindy said, joining them at the door. "Your marines are scattered all over. I'm your native guide." Unselfconsciously, Cindy had introduced herself over breakfast as the city manager's ex-girlfriend. It quickly became evident, at least to Ruth, that Cindy would be glad to add Trouble to her ... no doubt.. . long list of exes. The young woman played up to him, so excited about his rescue of the hostages, so wanting to hear everything, as she batted her eyes at him. Ruth was disgusted. Trouble lapped it up. Or seemed to.

He told the story, in immense detail, and every time something important happened, Ruth got the credit for it. The first time Trouble did that, Ruth laughed. Second time, she started to detect a pattern; she kept a very straight face as Cindy's fawning smile took a turn for the puzzled.

"Didn't you do anything?"

"I was just along for a walk in the woods. Ruth here's the one who had the guts to let the jerks know the first time that we weren't theirs for the taking. She got us fires, turned their greed loose on the fungus." He turned to her. "Saved my life when she kicked away the controller. What kind of school do they send girls to out on the stations?"

Cindy started to say something, but they had come upon their first set of marines. Ruth and Cindy hung back as Trouble did his officer thing. The marine was two men in one skin. Talking to his marines, he was formal. e\en curt, speaking quickly, then listening as his troops replied just as tersely. But they all looked like kids as he promised one hell of a beer bust when things calmed down.

Trouble also didn't seem to hear the parting whisper about the lieutenant having a new girl, maybe two. Cindy grinned. Ruth found herself wondering what it would be like to be a marine's wife. Did marines even have wives? Was Trouble already married? That didn't seem to matter to Cindy. To Ruth, raised on the stations where a marriage, a family, and a farm were as close to one institution as was possible, it did very much.

She wasn't paying a lot of attention to what was going on, her mind jumbled with questions, even as she tried to recognize the woman Trouble kept making her out to be to Cindy. She wanted to take a walk by the creek, listen to the wind, figure out who she was and who this stranger walking beside her might be.

She came full attention to the now when Cindy suggested lunch with her grandmother. On the stations, you only took a guy to the
grandfolks
when you were serious. She'd heard city folks were a lot looser. Could a girl work this fast?

Trouble set a fast pace; they must have covered half of Hurtford City by noon. Cindy never ran out of brew pubs to point out. But after the third detachment, Trouble's attitude toward Cindy changed. Gunny led that team. His report included several recent tries made to recruit... more like seduce ... marines to stay. Trouble listened, his eyes looking straight through Cindy. After that, his answers to her were short and clipped. Still, he didn't change lunch plans.

Grandmother's large house was near the center of town; or rather, the town had grown up around it, then long past it. Today, it was crowded. Ruth quickly concluded Grandmother was one of the Elders that had moved so quickly to tackle the new challenge. It probably took Trouble less time; he acknowledged the city manager and several of the elected Elders.

Just leaving. They had the look of boys who'd been taken out behind the barn and talked to real good by their pa and his belt. That the tiny grandmother who presided over the dinner table could get that reaction from grown men told Ruth much.

Cindy served lunch—soup, salad, and sandwiches. But the main course was talk; Grandmother served it with questions.

"What do you think of our world?" she asked the marine.

The marine left his soup untouched to study the woman. "The land is good."

Grandmother smiled at the half answer. "And the people?" "The mixed bag I've found most places."

The old woman chuckled dryly. "Yes, no matter where people go, there we are with our wants and needs. Some people seem to have more wants than others."

"Yes, ma'am, that's why I'm a marine. A few folks need reminding of what they can reach for. And what they can't."

Grandmother leaned back in her chair, eyes closing. "That was the hope of my father, and his father when they came here. That a new world would have so much to reach for, folks would remember what belonged to others. We wanted people free to reach as far as their grasp could go. On the old worlds, people were always swatting your hand for reaching instead of letting you have what you needed. Here, in our corner of the galaxy, we turn our eyes away from the problems that freedom brought in the past, focus on the reaching, each man and woman for herself. Some activities just don't deserve notice. You know what I mean?"

"A smart officer knows what not to see and hear. But it seems to me, even on the short visit I've had here, that maybe too much was watched with a blind eye."

Grandmother's eyes came open. "Unity was not something we foresaw. We did what we had to do to satisfy folks whose stomachs were far too big. And whose eyes saw further than ours did. These mining contracts—who would have expected that what we signed here could be sold so quickly and so far?" Grandmother sighed. "I thought when we hired Mikhail that we had acquired a snake charmer. We need to open ourselves up. Not just to seekers who come to share our vision, but to those who question it as well. We need more snake charmers, like you."

"I think this is the second job offer I've gotten in the last week," the marine chuckled. "I admit yours is a lot more attractive, and I appreciate the delivery much more. Still, ma'am, I'm a marine. Born one. Raised one. I'll live one and probably die one. There're lots of guys who've been beached in the last few months. I'm sure I can get in touch with some good ones. Send them your way if you want me to."

Grandmother drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as her head shook. "We know you. We have seen your work. We'd rather trust you to be our eyes. Trust you to know what to see, what not to see. You rather than someone we don't know."

The marine just shrugged.

"Then I guess one trusted by one I trust will have to do. Your soup is getting cold. It is best eaten warm. Cindy, get this young man a fresh bowl." Lunch followed quickly after that. Fed, they were leaving Grandmother's when Trouble took Cindy's elbow. "I'm not available for recruitment."

With a shrug, she produced a map chip, located the marines on it, and took her leave. Ruth expected to be told to get lost too, but the marine never got around to it. Instead, he got her talking about the stations. "Farming can't be that good."

"Oh, but it is," she shot back, and only stopped talking during the next hour when he checked his marines. She wouldn't have kept talking, but he kept listening. Somewhere in all those words,
Mordy
came up. That did end her cascade of words.

"I thought the farmers figured out how to avoid the draft." Trouble was puzzled.

"We did. But the first orders were pretty threatening, and
Mordy
said he'd rather show up for induction than be the one they hung to impress the rest. He went with about twenty others, mostly young boys who really wanted to see what the rest of the world was like, but there he was too."

"He didn't come back?"

Ruth found herself looking for a crack in the sidewalk to fall through. It took her a long while to get the single syllable out. "No."

"No death notice?"

That "No" was easier to get out. "Did you check on him?"

"How could I?"

The marine came to a dead halt. "The records are here."

Ruth kept quiet; she knew the records had to be somewhere. Just where, she wasn't sure. But considering how bad things had been before
Mordy
left, did she really want to find him? Was she the kind of woman to go hunting for a husband who didn't want to be found? Trouble headed straight for City Hall.

Ruth followed, letting the silence stretch. Her throat was too choked up to let the words out that would have stopped this quest. She knew she could stop the marine with a simple plea. The marine would listen to her. But she couldn't say that word.

At City Hall, Trouble slid into an unoccupied workstation and quickly accessed the military records. Ruth spelled out
Mordy's
name and date of birth. In less than a minute,
Mordy's
military record on Hurtford Corner covered the screen. With a "hmm," Trouble summarized it. "Previous military training, space experienced, they shipped him off-planet two weeks after he reported in. Nothing after that."

"Nothing," Ruth echoed, tasting the finality in the marine's word. Probably just as well. But now what?

"Let me check the
Patton
. Good, it's overhead; this won't take but a minute." It didn't. "He survived the war and was discharged." Trouble sounded like he was giving her good news. "Where?"

Trouble snorted. "Doesn't say. A lot in Unity records don't match the peace treaty's requirements. Troops mustered out but no location, ships scrapped, but no record where or by whom."

"
Mordy's
alive." Ruth let the words roll around her mouth, unsure how they tasted.

"Yes," Trouble agreed, not embarrassing her with the question of why he wasn't home yet. "I could," the marine went on, "have the
Patton
search the net directories, see if we can locate him."

Ruth let that hang in the air between them, desperately wishing she knew what she wanted.
Mordy
back?
Mordy
gone from her life for good?
Mordy
the husband she'd dreamed of? How do you live your life if you don't know what you want?