Sure, I could have used my bare hands, but why break a sweat if you don't have to?
* * *
More scary things came about from that prisoner of war issue. I got a message inquiring about it. As it required wasting a standard contact to ask, as well as using a code that would have to be scrapped, I knew they were serious.
Decoded, it read, "Can you confirm numbers of UN POWs repatriated to Earth since commencement of hostilities?"
I encoded a message back that said, "No mention of such in Earth news."
That was disturbing. We had released UN prisoners, but said prisoners had not come home triumphantly in the news.
THEORY: The UN didn't want them admitting how badly we were kicking their asses. Unlikely, or I wouldn't still be here; we would have won and I'd be home. The strategic calculations said we couldn't win under the present conditions, anyway.
THEORY: The UN didn't want its troops speaking of how well they were treated, after the crap they were still telling the masses, that we were not feeding them and keeping them in unpleasant environmental conditions. But that wasn't a huge deal. Admit that early reports were in error. Print a new Truth that everyone knew was True. Boast of how we'd "morally improved" and "acceded to decency" under their guidance. It was easy to spin it to their benefit.
THEORY: Any returned prisoners would give us an element of humanity in the news, so those troops were being held incommunicado by their own people for leverage. That wasn't reasonable. What would happen after the war? Assuming they won, the deceit would be obvious. Unless they never intended to repatriate their own people. That was silly.
Hadn't there been mention on Mtali of unreturned prisoners, whom the factions insisted they knew nothing about?
No, that wasn't a practical concept, no matter how screwed up the logic a politician might use. They couldn't assume a loss on their part. It was unthinkable. Therefore, it was unnecessary to jump through all these hoops.
Only . . . where were those released POWs?
I was being made paranoid by my environment. Because I could not think of a good reason for them not to be in the news.
* * *
I watched Earth's elections with fascination. We don't bother with them. The idea of counting noses is silly. Given the education level on Earth, it's even sillier. Those illiterati are not competent to decide an issue. Besides, if it's humiliating to be ruled, how much more degrading is it to choose your masters?
Our public comm got election ads from all the politicians. Multiple times a day. They started as mindless pap about how many billions of marks they'd taken from the taxpayers and were giving back to them as services they wouldn't need if they'd had the money in the first place. Silly, yet convincing to these sheep.
Then they got nasty. Candidate Henke alleged that Assemblywoman Julie Larson had cheated on her taxes. She alleged that he was a "muckraker" for the comment. He replied that she was "attacking" him and somehow wrong for doing so. She called him a "racist," even though they were both the same race. He called her a "gender-unification bitch."
The whole debate was amusing to me, and I'm sure to the voters, who, when this was over, would give one of these people the win, and thereby lose themselves either way.
What I was able to find about Larson was that she was on the Subcommittee on Housing Costs, while owning four condemned buildings she was waiting for the city she allegedly represented but hadn't lived in for fifteen years to seize and dispose of using its taxpayer assets. She was, in fact, delinquent on her taxes for ten years, which she blamed on caring for her ailing mother, who had died four years before the trend started. Though somehow, she was on the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on Tax Policy. (How many committees did these clowns have? I did a quick check: 4132 assemblypersons and 6000+ committees. Really.)
Eventually, she won. The week before the election, trailing in the polls, she blubbered and whined about how unfair "those people" could be, then claimed the voting programs were rigged against her. After winning, she stated that "We've sent a message that only good people belong in the assembly and the bad people can stay home." She was a very gracious winner.
And the UN wanted to bring us the "right" to participate in this stupidity. They might as well simply hold us up at gunpoint and steal all our resources.
Then I remembered they were doing exactly that.
* * *
We didn't have much luck finding useful AI weapons on the nets, though we did find a couple. It was a chase game. There are a few rebels on Earth, and some use their tech skills to create worms, virii, punches and other effects. Sadly, they are uncoordinated. Either they throw one out as a protest, or they do one as a boast of their skills. Very impressive. About as much as graffitiing a building. We planned to show them what organization could do.
Several of our people, including Kimbo, played network tag to glean useful tools. He did that from "our" apartment behind the house of Ms. Dortch, that sweet old lady. While he did that, he was on the phone to Melanie Chastain in Australia, who was watching him to see if anyone probed his operation, and Carlos Mendyk was watching Chastain from Germany, to cover her. A word would have Kimbo fleeing and the place abandoned, with no identifiable DNA for a trace.
We thought we'd hit pay dirt with a group called The Democratic Underground. They sounded like revolutionaries. It turned out instead that they were political ranters. The average IQ was around 85, the education level that of 7-year-olds, and all their technical links were garbage. They were simply trying to impress each other with bullshit. As far as their politics, everything was Earth's fault, including the expansion of the universe. Sadly, they weren't even a good political ally for us, because they were such pathetic losers.
There were no permanent sites on network weapon design, of course. What we found were sites tossed up on short notice, hinted at on newsgroups using an ever-shifting slang as code, that were deleted by the government as soon as they were found, with traces run to every system that linked. Kimbo was running through multiple cover IDs, anonymous remailers and cutouts. While we eventually put the tools he found to use, I think in hindsight it was a terrible risk and waste of time for very little real effect. Brute force applied in the right places was a hundred times more effective than any electronic attack on the decentralized nerves of the planet.
* * *
One of our worst fears finally caught up with us: Employment. We were a private corporation, so we could hire whom we wanted, right? Well, not on Earth.
All jobs had to be advertised for "fairness." All qualified applicants had to be considered. Some bureaurat noticed we hadn't posted any ads lately, and came by to investigate.
My choice of teammates paid off. With two women and Kimbo's obvious African ancestry, they simply fined us for not filling out the proper admin and left. I tossed a note to everyone else to watch for similar garbage. I'd been fortunate in choosing the right people for the job at hand, based on their ability. According to the UN, I should have hired them based on race, faith, preference and color, without being allowed to ask about their race, faith, preference or color. These rules were necessary, because people were "prejudiced." (Yes, I admit it. I prefer competence.) But these rules made it harder to fire employees who'd complain about being treated unfairly. This raised the standards to hire, thus increasing the education requirement, which increases the taxes paid for education, which means higher wages, which requires a better employee, which were all irrelevant if you were one of the 83% of the population who belonged to a minority, that the hirer was discriminating against.
Don't ask me to explain it. It had been going on for centuries. And there was no recourse against the bribery, stupidity or petty intrusiveness. There was the upper caste—those in the government in any capacity, or those rich enough to bribe them, a gray area of middle class, and those poor who had no say in anything, despite the mythical right to franchise. The bad part is that there are provisions in place that make it imp
ossible to take legal action against those government agents. A corrupt agency chief (as if they have any other type) can literally order a person arrested, raped and beaten to death, and the family can not pursue criminal or civil action against him, because to do so would "Interfere with the official's ability to perform his or her duties." But they will take your complaint and review it internally. Likely thereafter, you'll wind up dead in a ditch with three bullets in the base of the skull, having "committed suicide." And I'm not being sarcastic; that was a headline I saw the same week.
I simply gritted my teeth, apologized and filed documents as required, and yet again hoped we'd be gone soon.
Ironically, I had few financial inquiries. Because I was doing it on the cheap and not asking for loans I'd have to guarantee with personal information I didn't have, we never came to anyone's attention. They were too busy dealing with the inquiries they had to worry about those they didn't have.
Chapter 24
Deni came in from the back, looking worried. "We need to talk, boss," she said.
"Sure, what?" I replied.
"Privately," she insisted.
My eyebrows went up. Whatever it was was bothering her immensely. "My office," I said. Kimbo was in the room and looked surprised, too.
I let her lead the way, feeling a tension from her. It wasn't friendly, but it wasn't distant, either. Something felt odd, was all.
My office doubled as my bedroom. I had a single cot in the corner, my suitcase and duffel, and the rest was comm gear. There were two chairs. We didn't use them. She turned as I closed the door, paused a moment, and said, "I'm pregnant."
I felt adrenaline ripple through me. "Ohhhh, shit." It wasn't eloquent, but it summed up the situation.
I tried to come to grips with this as a flush ran through me. This was not a good thing. This was not a plot complication. This was a tactical nightmare. "What happened? Your nano expire?"
"Both our nanos failed, Ken," she said sharply. "I had help, remember?"
I understood her being upset and didn't argue the obvious. Mine had probably expired first, now that I thought about it. I said, "If I'd known you were close to deadline . . ."
"If I'd known you were close to deadline . . ." she said.
Then we were laughing. It was a huge problem, a potential disaster, but it was so ridiculous that we had to let it out.
Then we came back to reality. "So what do we do?" she asked.
The first thing we did was to tell the others. Tyler just nodded and looked thoughtful.
Kimbo exploded. "How the fuck did that happen?"
"Pretty much," I agreed.
"I'm not joking, 'boss,'" he said with an edge to his voice. "Who gave us the lectures on professionalism?"
I said, "Everyone needed to be informed. Now the question is what we do next," I said.
"The question is, what were you bloody thinking? Or were you?" he shouted.
"The question is what we do next," I insisted.
He persisted. "Goddam, man!" he said, using Earth colloquial slang. "Do you have any idea what you've done to our mission? How could you be so goddam careless?" He was scared, and I didn't blame him. This could blow our cover, and we'd all wind up dead or worse. But he was pissing me off, nevertheless.
"BECAUSE I'M A HUMAN BEING!" I roared at him. "I screwed up, okay? We both screwed up." He stepped back at the blast and sat, looking chagrinned. "Lacking a time machine," I said, "we are limited to after the event solutions. Now, what do we do next?"
Tyler spoke, and saved us from going at each other. "Is there any way to do a personnel transfer for another . . . person?" she asked.
"Not bloody likely," I said as I shook my head. "We are in a state of war, now. We'd have to find another qualified person, smuggle someone in through a third party carrier, with adequately secure ID to get them here, then have them disappear, or try to whomp up some valid ID to let us do a swap for Deni. We're looking at several months to do that."
"And we don't have several months," she noted.
Kimbo put in, "We can't get her into a hospital without an ID chip and a history, but we can probably manage an abortion here."
"No," Deni said. She didn't raise her voice at all, but I've never heard her be so firm.
"What do you mean?" Kimbo asked. "Of course we do."
"No," she said again.
"I don't believe that's your decision to make," he said.
She was out of her chair. "It sure as fuck isn't yours, pal!"
He stood too, and for a moment I was afraid there might be blows. "You aren't under orders anymore, Sergeant?" he said sarcastically.
"Enough," I said. I was obeyed. They turned to me. "Covers, please."
"Sorry," he acknowledged. We no longer worried about names, because we changed them so often. But we hadn't used rank terminology for the duration, and wouldn't. "So I guess it's your call to make, boss. What do we do?" He had trouble meeting my eyes. He avoided Deni's.
Deni said, "We continue as we are, I have the baby here if need be, and we deal with it as it happens."
There was silence for several seconds. "Why not abort, Deni?" I asked. My voice was soft. "It would be safer."
"It's my child, I'm not killing it, and there's nothing in law or reg that allows you to make that decision, Ken," she said.
Kimbo said, "That's ridiculous. He's the boss."
"And he doesn't have that authority," Deni repeated.
She was right. Under regulations, I could relieve her from imminent danger, transfer her on a medical waiver, but I had no basis to decide whether or not she carried a child to term. It was her body, the child was in an undefined legal status, but by being in that status was not subject to military orders. It was a can of worms I wasn't going to open. "She's right," I said. I didn't like it. I didn't like any of the potential outcomes of this, so I didn't try to argue for one over another.
Acceding to the inevitable, Kimbo said, "So then, for the record, what's our position?"
I dictated my decision as unit commander. "Deni continues with her duties until physically unfit. She handles the admin load here after that. The baby will be born here, barring problems. After that, we play it by ear. The mission has received a potential minor and temporary casualty, and it will be so noted in my reports. But the mission will continue."
* * *
The situation continued to degrade. More prisoners were being brought back. More troops were deploying from the UN. But I noticed there were casualties. Not that they admitted to most of them, but there were "live-fire training accidents" and "injuries from vehicle mishaps." As the UN never before had done live-fire exercises, I wasn't convinced. I think our surviving troops were making them pay the ferryman. Indicators from Grainne were that the UN troops had bad morale. I could guess how badly they'd screwed up and how unwelcome they were being made to feel. Even worse than in previous engagements, this time they'd attacked a very wealthy and happy society, and were dragging it down into the mud. It wasn't a temporary gain of assets for the "liberated," followed by economic stagnation. In this case, they'd picked the one nation that was prospering. There was nothing they could do to improve the standard of living or wealth, and it showed. So the locals were putting up a furious fight.
And those locals had centuries of experience being arrogant, self-reliant jerks, in an environment that was unpleasant to Earthies and most other star settlers. I could almost feel sorry for the invading troops. Almost.
Here on Earth, Kimbo made several trips to other elements, setting them up with assorted software and providing tools for distillation and refinement of chemicals. He installed new circuits on vehicles, so we could override the ubiquitous central control every city forced upon travelers.
We settled into a dull but reassuring routine. Of course, we still had periodic excitement, such as Bureau of Commerce inspections. We'd frantically shuffle gear around, ensure nothing incriminating was in sight, that the admin for all the space we were renting to
our cover identities was complete in every detail. The last irony we needed was for some minor detail to get us busted for unfair or questionable business practices and units opened up for inspection—units that contained deadly weapons, toxic chemicals and unauthorized weapons grade steel and ceramic.
The economy wasn't good. Allegedly, wars improve business. Perhaps things were better overall, but not for warehousing of industrial supplies and records. Our income shrank, which reduced what we could acquire for our mission. We kept at it.
One of our necessary tasks was to stock our safehouses with supplies. Any obvious military rations or commercial bulk food containers would be an indication of forethought, so we had to buy lots of the grocery store crap and decide how much and what we needed. All of us except Deni cut our food intakes; we'd been gaining bulk on the crap we were eating anyway. Deni needed the food and all the extra nutrients we could get her. Pregnant women need some body fat to cushion against the shock of delivery. Deni had very little fat and even lost weight the first six months. Kimbo assured me it was okay. So did Tyler. So did Deni. I had to take their words on it. I'd not planned on being a parent soon, and my medical training was limited to delivery and care afterwards, not to nutrition and physiology beforehand.
We had to acquire supplies for the baby, but slowly. The incident with the Bureau of Agriculture goon harassing me over purchases was still in my mind. We could occasionally buy a pack of diapers or some formula and claim it was for a "friend," but only occasionally. I wasn't sure we were going to have sufficient stocks on hand.
I also wasn't sure delivery was going to be safe, nor that any of us were getting out of here alive. The baby was really going to be a problem.
* * *