It is one thing to suggest a theory. There is a special terror in having those you know take it seriously and act upon it. I nod my thanks, and give in to my weariness.
"Get some rest, some food, and some exercise. We’re only at the beginning of this." Davidge looks around at the others. "I don’t see going back into suspension. If we can get that data from the quarantine force, we’re all going to be up to our ears making plans, training, sorting information, and studying." He looks around the room one last time. "Anyone else?"
The Reaper makes a fist and knocks on the table top. "Computers. We need lots of small hand-portables for on the surface. We can get started with the ship’s computers, but once we’re planetside, we’re going to have to check and cross-reference all of our information, with each station adding and updating info for each area. I can’t believe they have anything left on Amadeen that’s working and we can get our hands on."
"How many?"
Reaper glances at Kita and she frowns as she does a little calculating in her head. "Two or three hundred with extra power packs to begin. We’ll need comm portables so they can transmit and receive updates."
"Something else," interrupts Mrabet. "Components and tools for repairs and for manufacture. If we can develop the capability to make our own we’ll be able to keep up supplies and adapt the newer ones more closely to our needs without having to depend on off-planet supply."
Davidge nods. "I’ll see what the Ovjetah can do for us. Anything else?"
"Yes," answers Yora. "It seems like the Front is going to be mortally bent if we hit a human and the Mavedah is going to be equally hacked if we whack a Drac." She nods at Moss. "The captain and I used to belong to an outfit that everybody on a particular planet hated. It got pretty hairy and we weren’t even on the planet’s surface." There is a long silence then she smiles broadly and says, "Just an observation."
In four days I feel fit. At our regular meeting, Davidge asks, "How do we get down on Amadeen’s surface?"
Captain Moss dismisses the matter as no problem at all. "We’ve already recorded the orbiting stations' positions and movements relative to the planet’s surface. We have the fighter patrol schedules, and we’re getting records of the movements of the quarantine force’s own band of smugglers. What it amounts to," says Moss, "is we go in where no one is looking and quickly get down to an altitude below what they consider trying to leave Amadeen. The only thing we have to worry about then is getting pranged by a Front or a Mavedah ground-to-air missile."
There is some discussion regarding the accuracy of the quarantine force’s information on the location of such missile units when Ghazi Mrabet taps a finger on the table. "What about getting off Amadeen?"
"Off?" I ask.
He nods. "Yes. Say we make it down, get everything organized, whack the bad guys, the truce we hope for holds, and all of us aren’t dead. In other words, what if there is peace? Does anybody get off or is Amadeen quarantined until its sun goes red giant?"
I look at Davidge and the human is nibbling at the skin on the insides of his lips'. "If the truce holds, if there is peace for a year between the warring sides, the quarantine will be reviewed and becomes eligible to be relaxed to the extent of allowing trade, communications, and passenger traffic. Once a formal peace is signed, the quarantine force loses its charter. That’s when we can all leave, go to the Talman Kovah, and present our talma to the Jetai Diea. Then we can watch them reaffirm their vote and publish the Koda Nusinda, Maybe."
Yora leans back in her chair. "Maybe?"
The left side of Davidge’s mouth pulls back in a wry smile as he looks at me. "Ro, what was it that Michael Hill said to you on the ship from Draco?"
"If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan," I answer.
Davidge nods, stands, and walks toward the cockpit.
THIRTY-THREE
Three months from Amadeen. The Ovjetah reports the computers, parts, tools, and equipment we requested are waiting for us at the A’ja Cou Station in orbit around Vikaan, thirty days from Amadeen. In the intervening two months, we can work on the USE-DC Quarantine Force data. All of the information we want from the quarantine force is already at the Talman Kovah, as it is at the USE Archives on Earth, complete with weekly updates. It may only be released to parties engaged in serious research on the subject of Amadeen, which puts us at the top of the list.
We get it alclass="underline" historical overviews, government, political history, economics, currency and finance, production, trade, demography, transportation, agriculture, forestry, fishing, industry and mining, culture and education, environment, natural resources, geography, geology, and so on. There is even a vast part of the data bank devoted to sports and recreation.
My mind numbs at the wealth of information for which we have little or no use. The military and terrorism sections, however, have names of individuals and organizations, dates and places, methods of operation, individual relations and even some locations and addresses. On the Drac side, there is the Mavedah and three main splinter groups: the Tean Sindie or Children of Racehome; the Sitarmeda or Sixteenth, named for the Koda Sitarmeda in The Talman, which covers the Thousand Year War; and Thuyo Koradar or Eye of the Killer. Within and around these ungovernable organizations are numbers of much smaller uncontrollable factions and individuals with records of acting on their own without regard to any authority or organization whatsoever.
On the human side, there is the Amadeen front and four main splinter groups: Black October, for whom the political party on Earth is named; Green Fire, named that for reasons of its own, possibly an early founder; the Fives, named for the number of fingers on a human hand; and the Rose, named for slain Front Chairman Gordon Rose. They, too, have their minor factions and rugged individualists. Of the most recent seven truce attempts over the past two years, four were undermined by Black October and the remaining three by Tean Sindie.
Non-combatant groups aligned with neither side, I am surprised to see, form the majority of the population on Amadeen. Zenak Abi’s friends are just one of hundreds of such groups numbering from fifty to one island enclave numbering over a million men, women, and Dracs.
Our planned structure is thrown out and done again based on the existing organizations, factions, and individuals it will be necessary to monitor and outguess. As the information is processed, Kita and Reaper make charts showing the location and extent of influence of each organization, the location of individuals, supply dumps, weapons caches, food, clothing, and weapon production facilities, hospitals, power plants, disposition of military units, and so on. At one point, Davidge hands me a sheet of paper. "A little something I squeezed out of the name bank."
I look at it and I now have all of the names and all of the histories of my line, including the address in Gitoh where the Yazi line archives are supposed to be. Perhaps when we get to Amadeen, if we live long enough, and if we can maintain a truce, and if we can get to Gitoh, and if there is any of Gitoh left when we get there, perhaps Davidge will stand with me when I recite line and book and take on the robes of adulthood. It is still my fantasy.
One of the charts shows where fighting is actually taking place. On the holographic reader in the cockpit it is a huge blue and white globe perforated and scratched with a few glowing red dots and lines. While I am studying it, noticing that in the Southern Shorda nothing much has changed during the past year, Yora Beneres leans back in her couch, stretches, and says in a loud voice, "I think we have a path down to the surface."