You didn’t get much sleep even on the long interstellar voyages; you were always busy, always learning, always honing skills as best you could.
The most ironic thing was that few remained active in the Arm for very long, save the senior officers who had a particular feel for it and strong leadership abilities. Many just couldn’t take the grind and dropped out and became security personnel or mission planners; some became specialists, experts in a particular field like Ruth Morgan’s anthropology or Albert Salkind’s geography. Some became ministers, both lay and ordained, to the large flock aboard the ship, while still others, often those who’d become couples while on assignments, wound up as missionaries, staying behind to grow what the Doctor planted.
Eve wasn’t sure what she would eventually do. She loved this sort of thing, as she’d always thought she would, but she did not look forward to the next prolonged period of ship travel, of endless periods in artificial ship’s time just doing the same things over and over again. And she knew that the day would be coming when that would be her fate, perhaps for years if she didn’t become one of the dropouts. These settlers could be covered continent wide in just a few more weeks; there weren’t all that many on this planet, after all.
The funny thing was, she thought she could remain here as a missionary if it was like it appeared to be, with these ramshackle farms and communal villages and smelly animals and smellier kids. There didn’t seem to be any real threats to humans here, the insects and bacteria were just off enough that they didn’t have much effect on humans, and with some medical equipment and training and a couple of medtechs this place would be one where you could settle down and possibly even live a long and productive life.
But it wasn’t as it appeared. There was a second layer here, down beneath the surface, with guns and shielded vaults and endless caverns. She would have to see these people as they really were and this life as it really was before she could decide on anything about this place. Somewhere, among these seemingly happy and hard-working farmers were men and probably women who had destroyed those villages and all who lived within them, and done so merely to prevent anyone telling what they saw or interfering with the unloading of contraband and the technology to rule.
They were out here now, waiting to act, to do something, and many weren’t even very shy about it. Gregnar had trimmed his long hair and bushy mustache and looked almost presentable as he sat there telling dirty stories to folks who were then going to march off and see if God was with them, and he seemed quite loose and friendly.
There was no good way to spy on everybody every minute, and the natives’ loose-fitting cotton clothing could conceal almost as much as the Arm’s robes actually did conceal. Still, it appeared that, if they really were going to do anything, they would be doing it with very small weapons. That wasn’t totally reassuring; small weapons could do less damage, it was true, but they could kill a lot of folks within a reasonable range.
There had to be far more raider survivors than these three, but these three were the only ones they could be certain of, so they were closely watched. Eve had Gregnar simply because the big man had shown an eye for the ladies but also seemed to underestimate them. John took Alon, who seemed relaxed but was not as outgoing as Gregnar, and an Arm supervisor named Matthew Seldon, a long-time member of Doctor Woodward’s inner circle and clearly the boss’s man on this end, took Krag, who was acting the somewhat withdrawn loner. That didn’t seem to have any real meaning, either, since Krag was usually that way.
In fact, the only thing really unusual about any of the three men’s behavior this night was that they generally were inseparable after work, the best of buddies. Now, suddenly, each of them sat with his own group (or, in Krag’s case, off by himself) and gave little attention to the other two. It wasn’t much to go on, but Eve in particular felt that it was enough to say that they were certainly up to something.
I just wish we knew how many others here are their kind, and how many more of them will be at the lecture, she thought to herself. In several weeks of living among these people, not a single one had cracked or leaked any information that couldn’t be clearly observed.
And now it was dark, save for the torches in the village and the bright light of the Olivet on the horizon. None of the three seemed in any hurry, but, finally, Gregnar finished his last ale and seemed to give a knowing glance to the other two—or was it just the watchers’ imaginations? He banged down the heavy wooden mug and then got up and started to walk out of the village, towards the distant shining lights. Eve followed, trying to be as nonchalant as she could and also look like she was just going in the same direction. John watched her with a wry smile on his face, noting to himself that she wouldn’t fool anybody. It didn’t matter; these guys certainly knew that they were being shadowed if indeed they were grounded raiders from that crashed ship.
Heck, it might even deter them from action, and, Security felt certain, if they didn’t act tonight it was unlikely that they would be able to act tomorrow. That was as good as prevention or active intervention.
Alon moved off next, never once glancing at John or any other robed people in the area, confident and secure. He walked into the darkness, and, after a few minutes, John followed, looking as relaxed as his mark. He wasn’t that worried about losing his man in the darkness; like the other two, and most of the other Arm members down there, he was wearing tiny computer-controlled infrared contact lenses that allowed him pretty good night vision when he needed it.
He wasn’t on the road ten minutes when Alon proved that he was more than a hick farmer and much the pro. The native suddenly darted off into tall grain almost like he was sneaking back to the cache, and John, losing sight of him for a moment, wandered over in that direction, thereby revealing himself.
Robey no sooner got into the tall wheat, though, when he suddenly felt something dark and wet. “Hey!” he yelled out, startled.
“Oops! Sorry! Didn’t think anybody was lurking in here,” Alon responded in an obviously pleased, almost smug tone.
The big man had sent a message to his shadow, and in the most primitive and smelly of ways.
Pulling his pants back up, Alon marched quickly out of the grain and rejoined the crowd heading towards the service.
Doctor Woodward at times could be as much the virtuoso of cussing as he could be the voice of the living God, but Robey mentally was trying to outdo the old boy, although much of it was self-directed. Don’t underestimate these bastards, he warned himself.
He began even more to wish that he knew just what sort of weapons they’d removed from that underground arsenal.
“Umph! I’m about halfway to the ship and people keep bumping into me and stepping on me,” Seldon reported through the intercom. Since the system was actually implanted, it was nearly impervious to interruption; even people standing right next to you could hear nothing. To the Arms, though, it was as clear as day.
Still, it wasn’t telepathy. You had to speak, at least softly. “You’re lucky,” John whispered back. “I just got peed on and that s.o.b. has the bladder of ten men!”
“I’m getting kind of roughed up and pushed around here, too,” Eve reported. “And they don’t seem to be running into each other.”
Soon other Arms randomly distributed through the three hundred and sixty degrees that could be used to approach Olivet started reporting their own jostling and shoving, and several were tripped up.