Third World (5 page)

“
The Lieutenant will be
buying you all a beer.”

They cheered at that and an old fellow
sitting reading a paper in a wing-back lobby chair put his magazine
down and looked up at the group.

“…
but only one. We will do
our first patrol tonight, beginning at twenty-one-hundred hours.
Conduct yourselves accordingly.”

They were dismissed. A gaggle of
ordinary people all of a sudden, a bit of a revelation to Newton,
they picked up their heavy gunny sacks and turned. In ones and twos
they straggled off to the elevator while Newton and Faber stood
watching.

The Ensign spoke to the desk clerk,
leaning in and muttering back and forth, and Jackson looked at his
watch and then the front doors.

Catching Newton’s eye, he
pointed.

“
I think I’ll have a look
about.” He beckoned at Trooper Khan, who sighed and looked at the
other’s bags lying there beside him on the polished
terrazzo.

On Newton’s nod, Jackson went out with
a thoughtful look about him and Khan struggled towards the
elevators with a hundred and fifty kilos of gear.

***

Newton, the Ensign, Jackson and one or
two troopers were seated at the dining room table sipping ice water
and waiting for the rest to arrive.

“
The guy in a coffee shop
across the street called them the Tree Streets.”

Newton wondered at the name.

“
Tree streets?”

“
They’re all named after
trees. Pine Street, Sycamore Street, all kinds of trees. That’s one
end of town, all small, working class homes. They’re on fairly big
lots but people live by low income labour. Some of them are
self-employed. Then there’s another neighbourhood nearby with a few
small apartment buildings, all walk-ups in that area. No real
high-rises in town. That’s the local hotbed of crime, as there are
quite a few bars in the area.”

They had information on
other types of crime, endemic to virtually all known worlds, but
crime-fighting
per se
was not the focus of the mission.

There were a half a dozen villages and
populated cross-roads within a short distance of Capital
City.

The center of town had a number of
multi-story buildings, including the Royal City Hotel which they
were in.

Other than that, there were straggling
industrial developments along major thoroughfares both inside and
outside the city proper. With no premium on space, and plenty of
room to go around, colonial towns tended to spread out quickly.
There was an old joke about human beings spreading out in all
directions to take up all available space.

The true value of being on the spot was
that you could take a quick look around and new possibilities
opened up.

“
I was thinking initially of
places of entertainment, I mean from the point of view of the
deserters. But they don’t have any income, and their money would
soon run out.”

“
Yeah.” Faber was looking
all round the room and its few diners, romantic couples and several
single males, and then he turned his attention back to the
conversation.

Two more troopers, Khan and Freeman,
arrived and grabbed seats with a nod towards their end of the
table. They began talking in low tones and looking around in
interest. After ship life, the place was not just big, but
unusually dark inside, something they weren’t used to outside of
their own berths. Shipboard, it was lights-on twenty-four-seven.
Hernandez showed up and took her seat wordlessly, hair still wet
from a shower.

At last a group of crew members,
sounding for all the world like a bunch of tourists, came in and
Newton looked around for the waiters, obligingly waiting in the
wings in their long-tailed frock coats, bottle-green, and with
white linen towels hanging over one arm.

The gang was all here. The last chair
was dragged into place and they looked at him
expectantly.

So this was like
fatherhood.

Newton was the one paying all the bills
around here.

“
All right, people. Listen
up.”

They were to have nothing over fifty
credits, no alcohol other than that which the Lieutenant ordered,
(a gentle reminder of who he was,) and dinner would be concluded
within a reasonable time. The mission would begin first thing in
the morning for most, and he listed those working
tonight.

Other than that, they could order
anything they liked and the dinner would be informal.

The noise in there picked up
considerably after that. The waiters pounced.

Having studied the menu, Newton guts
rumbled at the thoughts of a salad, a real salad, with vegetables
picked only days before from a garden in actual soil and not
produced in strings under lights and growing in nutritional
fluids.

As for what else he might have, he was
leaning towards the roast beef, but on impulse decided on
country-fried chicken and all the trimmings. Looking down the table
at the young and cheerful faces, he felt a strangely fatherly glow
about them. All of them, really. Maybe a ship really was a big
family, but there was nothing quite like being on the ground. He
needed their help, if they could only give it.

So far, it wasn’t all bad. This was how
the other half lived.

***

The rationale behind the large command
component was the fact that it allowed for three separate
groups.

Each party would be in the charge of
two senior ranks.

Newton’s own patrol went
well.

Taking the four greenest troopers, and
Jackson as second, they left the lobby at nine p.m. precisely and
turned right at the sidewalk.

Adopting a simple squad-in-column
formation, they went up the main street in pairs set two metres
apart, with Newton in the lead, nodding pleasantly at pedestrians
and with the rest in listening mode. Jackson was apparently finding
the whole thing vastly entertaining going by his rude commentary.
Newton grinned and lived with it, although if anyone else chimed
in, he would squash them good.

None of these four impressed him that
way. They didn’t have that much nerve. They were scared kids with
guns and badges.

They were doing the main drag, and the
first of several bars was just up the street. Jackson brought up
the rear, sauntering along at a relaxed pace, and every so often
casually glancing to the rear as the troopers on the outside
observed the other side of the street and those on the inside
looked into shop windows and kept an eye out for alleys and
possible tripping hazards.

***

“
So you bought them a beer.
Good for you.”

“
Ah, yes, sir.”

Lieutenant Shapiro was reporting in
from the privacy of his own room.

He went on as the Commander gazed back,
seemingly pleased and asking few questions so far.

“
Tomorrow we’ll do a number
of restaurants and coffee shops. The other teams are looking for
apartment buildings, and the sort of places where someone might get
any sort of employment. After tomorrow, one more big sweep. Then we
head out of town.”

They would do a tour of nearby villages
as there was a kind of direct route between them, almost like a
ring route around a major city, with one big gap in the southeast.
No one really lived there. Going by the map, it was all marsh and
then the river delta.

It was named Capital River. Newton had
the impression Burke was suppressing a grin, but he couldn’t be
quite certain. There was television noise in the background, so
that might account for it.

“
That seems adequate. Word
will get around.”

“
As far as I can tell, the
shuttle is secure enough, or as secure as it’s going to get with
none of our own people guarding it.”

“
Yes, we’ll monitor it.
Anything else?”

“
No, sir.” He wondered if he
was missing anything, hopefully not.

“
That will be all,
Lieutenant.” The skipper’s image blanked out and Newton shut his
end down.

It was ten to twelve p.m. and time to
check on the men. He wondered where he could get a can of cold pop
around there, at this time of the night.

He needn’t have bothered.

Chapter Five

Trooper Hernandez Was Clad
in Clingy Pajamas

He came out of his door just in time to
see Trooper Hernandez, clad in clingy pajamas, white with something
in red, perhaps little red teddy bears all over them, come out of
her room and go scooting off up the hall away from him.

Newton stood bemused, as she turned and
quickly entered another room with something in her hand…it looked
like liquor.

Closing his own door, he went down
there, not quite sure which door it was, but the buzz of talk
behind the door of room 509 meant this one almost had to be
it.

He momentarily considered what to do,
and he was about to turn away when the door snapped open, another
young female trooper came out, bumped into him, and then stepped
back with a gasp and a fearful look on her face. What he saw over
her shoulder was a room full of people.

The door clicked into place behind her,
but it was a bit late for that.

“
Trooper.”

“
Sir?”

“
What’s going on in
there?”

Trooper Khan snapped a perfect salute,
straightening up with a visible gulp.

***

It was a scene reminiscent of a college
dorm party or a senior class trip Newton had once been
on.

A haze of blue smoke hung in the air.
There were bodies and faces everywhere. He wondered who was
missing, but there were near a dozen, male and female. Bottles and
cheap plastic glasses stood everywhere. The wastebasket was full of
ice. A little beer wouldn’t have been a problem and they were off
duty until oh-six-hundred the next morning. This was just a little
bit different.

They wouldn’t be in much of a shape for
their patrols, and they really should have taken it a little more
seriously.

In some ways, he couldn’t blame them.
They were off the ship, and in different circumstances he might
have overlooked it. The trouble was that it was his
mission.

It was a poor reflection on
him. The
truth
was
that he hadn’t issued orders specifically against it.

That was obviously his fault. Although
fraternization between officers and men was officially frowned
upon, they appeared to be all enlisted personnel.

He looked around, standing just inside
the door as they ignored his presence. It was a strange moment, to
see them like this. They had no idea he was in the room.

“
Where’s the controller?” He
wanted to turn the music down so he could talk to them.

“
Huh? Oh, shit!” Someone
turned the noise down and faces swung towards him in
shock.

A couple of them stood up abruptly, but
he waved them off.

“
It’s all right.” He looked
around the room. “Where are the others?”

There were shrugs and blank
looks.

“
Who else is here?” No one
answered.

The bathroom door opened and a
different smell came out in dribs and drabs.

“
Hey! What happened to the
music?”

Newton spun.

“
Mister Faber.”

The girl was in Faber’s lap, he was
seated on the toilet and she giggled and nuzzled up to his
neck.

Faber said something Newton didn’t
catch and she squeaked and clambered off of him. Thankfully she at
least still had her pajamas on or it might have gone worse for
Faber—all of them, really, especially Newton himself.

She scuttled out of the bathroom, head
down and face flaming with either indignation or embarrassment,
Newton didn’t much care which.

“
Mister Faber?”

“
Ah. Yes, sir.” Faber came
out into the room and stood at attention, a bottle of cheap whiskey
still hanging from his hand.

His tunic was open at the neck, a minor
infraction by any standards.

“
The party’s over, Mister
Faber.”

“
Yes, sir.”

“
Get this place cleaned up.
Lights out in five minutes. You are all confined to your personal
quarters until further notice unless you are on duty, in the dining
room, the pool, or transiting the hallways. Or until I say so. Is
that understood?”

There was a chorus of muted responses.
He impaled Faber with a glance, noting the wilt and the inability
to look him in the eye. On the plus side, it was a good time to
establish his authority over them and he exploited it to the
hilt.

“
Who’s missing?”