“These people have acted like they’re hiding some great secret,” John Robey noted. “They’ve acted that way from the start. You think maybe they or their ancestors came in that thing, and that after they set things up they either discovered that the ship was too damaged to ever fly again or they just wanted it hidden where you’d have to be really curious to look for it?”
“No, I doubt that,” Cromwell replied. “That’s not the ship that brought most of these people here, along with the seed, initial two-year food supplies, prefab headquarters center, even crindin. You might stuff it all in, but it would be tight. No, this ship’s more recent. From what we’ve found, probably a gunrunner to some of the independent worlds out there all paranoid about one another. I think it got chased here.”
“You mean—?”
“That, Brother John, is a raider. Sleek, fast, probably modified with all the latest getaway gear and armed with enough weaponry to take on a small fleet, although not a Navy cruiser or its equivalent. I think if we cover the whole surface of the thing we’ll find signs of a scrap, and a nasty one at that. They came up against something that was bigger and meaner than they were, or somebody just got in a lucky shot, something like that. Ambushed, most likely, when they were preparing to enter a genhole. They got in, managed some kind of maneuvers—I suspect that their captain was very good indeed—and somehow popped up here, off the charts. They were probably as surprised as we were to find an agricultural colony here. And, most likely, pretty pissed off at that, too. Can you imagine pirates suddenly having to become farmers?”
Robey thought about Gregnar, Krag, and Alon and compared them to the others. “I’m not sure they did—that is, until we showed up. Then they had to play farmer, at least long enough to lull us into a sense of, well, an odd cultural direction but nothing bizarre. But I didn’t get the sense of the people in general being scared, and you have to figure these guys would become petty tyrants pretty easy.”
“There’s a fine line between fear and resignation at a situation you can do nothing about but cope,” Cromwell noted. “They’re pretty good at it, though. They had only a week or so to get everything ready, and they couldn’t have planted all this and built all this in that time. I suspect we’re seeing how the original settlers here lived, and mostly still do live. The question is where the raider crew survivors really live, and where the intermediary things we know must be here, from some kind of educational system to records, from books to computer learning systems, must be.”
“This whole continent is underlain with caverns,” Robey pointed out. “It’s an interesting analogy for our own business, if you think of it. The power and the evil are below; the good but meek are above. The thing is, if you’re right, what now?”
“What indeed?” Cromwell echoed. While it would be morally impossible not to intercede if, say, they found masses of people being tortured and killed, that kind of thing, this was much more insidious. To act in this circumstance would bring on a lot more death and destruction of the innocents than not acting, and nobody looked beaten or starved. In fact, they didn’t even look all that unhappy, although looks could be as deceiving as these marooned pirates.
“Cromwell to Sister Morgan. Have anything yet?”
“More than enough,” Ruth Morgan reported back. “Whatever happened here was deliberate. The place was leveled, the land in the immediate region was scorched, and we think that we’ve found signs of a mass grave. There’s also a cemetery here but it’s separate, and they even ran a disruptor over the markers.”
“You heard our discussion over their ship?”
“Yes. At least these bastards can’t get off. That’s the best I can say about them.”
Cromwell’s bushy black eyebrows went up. “Tell me, everybody—put yourselves in the place of these pirates. After living here, in what is still certain to be primitive conditions by anybody’s standpoint, for years, perhaps decades, what would be the one thing central in your mind? Or, at least, one of two things?”
That one was easy. “Getting out of here,” John answered for all of them. “Without being discovered by the guys who chased you here first, of course.”
“Exactly. And who’s showed up with the only interstellar capable craft since they crashed?”
“Yeah, that’s obvious. But what kind of thing do they think they can pull? I doubt if they realize that we all have implanted comm links, let alone the level of experts and expertise we do. And they might have every reason to think we turn the other cheek in all respects.”
“Perhaps,” Cromwell responded. “Still, desperation is a major motivator. They might well think that they only have one chance in a hundred, but that the alternative is possibly zero chances in a hundred if they let us leave. No, they’ll try it. That’s what the arsenal tapping’s been about. And while they might underestimate us, they’ll be prepared for a fight. The locals might even help them, just to be rid of them. We’re certainly planting God’s seed here, but, as always, not in everybody. Not by a long shot.”
“When do you think they’ll strike, then?” Albert Salkind put in, sounding worried. Geographers were good at charting running battles, but not all that good at actually fighting them.
“The next-to-last night, I suspect,” Cromwell told them. “When they’re apt to think we’re complacent, taking security for granted because it’s been so peaceful, and with us mostly intent on reinforcing the gospel. They know that Olivet will be relocating far away after the Sunday services, so that gives us one, two, oh, three days. Saturday. They’ll make their move at some point on Saturday, and they will be extremely dangerous. They have only one real chance at this, and that means they will be as ruthless as possible. I think it’s time we had a war council with the Doc.”
Eve and John walked across the village square and out towards the distant but quite visible Mount Olivet. The sun was getting low in the sky, and soon the farmers would be coming in, the village communal kitchen would be serving a high fat, high caloric meal for them to work off the next day, and then some would head off for Olivet.
Most, of course, would not. After a few evenings the novelty had worn off, even though Doc Woodward seldom repeated anything even while always staying on message. If you didn’t keep them interested you wouldn’t keep them for the serious teaching.
Eve hadn’t known John before this assignment; there were three hundred in the Arm of Gideon and the newer members tended to spend all their time in education and training and didn’t really mix socially with the experienced officers. Still, she felt a sense of personal pride that she’d been accepted as an equal member of the team, even by the Doctor and his specialists, and certainly by John, who’d backed her up when everyone else was dismissing her suspicions as newbie paranoia. She didn’t feel that the pride was ungodly or impermissible; this was simply an affirmation by others that she’d done her job.
It wasn’t easy being a member of the Arm; you had to study enough theology to answer any question a new convert might come up and ask, and to minister to those who needed one-on-one treatment, but you also had to know a lot of general knowledge and be proficient in the skills of an investigator and first-contact specialist while also knowing all the technology that was at your disposal.