Terrance Smith whistled as he sucked air through his teeth. Not good. Theres no way youd keep a colonist from his field, not on a day with weather like it has been up there. They are utterly dependent on those crops. The supervisors make it quite plain from the start, once theyre settled, they dont get any help from Durringham. They cant afford to leave the fields untended. Remember what happened in Arklow County?
Colin Rexrew gave his aide an irritable look. Dont remind me, I accessed the files when I arrived. He transferred his gaze to the screens, and the image of Qayen village. A black premonition was rising in his mind. So what are you telling me, Candace?
I know what it looks like, she said. I just cant believe it, thats all. An Ivet revolt which has successfully taken control of the Quallheim Counties, and in just four days, too.
There are over six thousand colonists spread out in those counties, Terrance Smith said. Most of them have weapons and arent afraid to use them. Against that, there are a hundred and eighty-six Ivets, unarmed and unorganized, and without any form of reliable communication. Theyre Earths junk, waster kids; if they could organize something like this they would never be here in the first place.
I know, she said. Thats why I said I dont believe it. But what else could it be? Someone from outside? Who?
Colin Rexrew frowned. Schusters been a problem before. What ... He trailed off, requesting a search through the files stored in his neural nanonics. Ah, yes; the disappearing homestead families. Do you remember, Terrance, I sent a marshal up to investigate last year. Bloody great waste of money that was.
It was a waste of money from our point of view because the marshal didnt find anything, Terrance Smith said. That in itself was unusual. Those marshals are good. Which means either it was a genuine case of some animal carrying the families away, or some unknown group was responsible, and managed to cover their tracks to such an extent it fooled both the local supervisor and the marshal. If it was an organized raid, then the perpetrators were at least the equal of our marshal.
So? Colin Rexrew asked.
So now we have another event, originating in the same county, that would be hard to explain away in terms of an Ivet revolt. Certainly the scale of the trouble argues against it being the Ivets by themselves. But an external group taking over the Quallheim Counties would fit the facts we have.
We only have a secondhand report that it was Ivets anyway, Colin Rexrew said, pondering the unwelcome idea.
It still doesnt make any sense, Candace Elford said. I concede that the facts indicate the Ivets are getting help. But what external group? And why the Quallheim Counties, for Gods sake? Theres no wealth out there; the colonists are barely self-sufficient. Theres no wealth anywhere on Lalonde, come to that.
This isnt getting us anywhere, Colin Rexrew said. Look, Ive got three river-boats scheduled to leave in two days, theyre taking six hundred fresh settlers up to Schuster County so they can start another village. Youre my security adviser, Candace, are you telling me not to send them?
I think my advice would have to be, yes; certainly at this stage. Its not as if youre short of destinations. Sending unsuspecting raw colonists into the middle of a potential revolt wouldnt look good on any of our records. Is there a nearby alternative to Schuster where you can settle them?
Willow West County on the Frenshaw tributary, Terrance Smith suggested. Its only a hundred kilometres north-west of Schuster; plenty of room for them there. Its on our current territory development list anyway.
OK, Colin Rexrew said. Get it organized with the Land Allocation Office. In the meantime, what do you intend to do about the Quallheim situation, Candace?
I want your permission to send a posse up there on the boats with the colonists. Once the colonists have been dropped off at Willow West, the boats can take them on to the Quallheim. As soon as Ive got reliable people on the ground we can establish whats really going on and restore some order.
How many do you want to send?
A hundred ought to be enough. Twenty full-time sheriffs, and the rest we can deputize. God knows, theres enough men in Durringham wholl jump at the chance of five weeks cruising the river on full pay. Id like three marshals, as well, just to be on the safe side.
Yes, all right, Colin Rexrew said. But just remember it comes out of your budget.
Itll be nearly three weeks before you can get your people up there, Terrance Smith said thoughtfully.
So? the chief sheriff asked. I cant make the boats go any faster.
No, but a lot can happen in that time. If we believe what weve seen so far, this revolt spread down the Quallheim in four days. Taking a worst case scenario, the revolt could carry on growing at the same rate, leaving your initial hundred-strong posse heavily outgunned. What I suggest is that we get the posse out there as fast as physically possible, and stop any further expansion before it gets totally out of hand. We have three VTOL aircraft at the spaceport, BK133s that our ecology research team use for survey missions. Theyre subsonic, and they only seat ten, but they could run a relay out to the mouth of the Quallheim. That way wed have your posse there in two days.
Colin Rexrew let his head rest on the back of the chair, and ran a cost comparison through his neural nanonics. Bloody expensive, he said. And one of those VTOLs is out of service anyway after last years cuts reduced the Aboriginal Fruit Classification budget. Well compromise, as always. Candace sends her sheriffs and deputies up to the Quallheim on the river-boats, and her office here in town continues to monitor the situation with the observation satellite. If this revolt, or whatever it is, looks like its spreading down out of the Quallheim Counties, well use the VTOLs to reinforce the posse before they get there.
The electrophorescent cells at the apex of Latons singular study were darkened, eradicating external stimuli so he could focus himself on the inner self. Senses crept in on his glacial mind, impressions garnered via affinity from the servitor scouts spread throughout the jungle. The results displeased him enormously. In fact they were edging him towards worry. He hadnt felt like this since the Edenist Intelligence operatives had closed in, forcing him to flee his original habitat nearly seventy years previously. At that time he had felt fury, fear, and dismay the intensity of which he had never known as an Edenist; it had made him realize how worthless that culture truly was. His rejection had been total after that.
And now something was closing in on him again. Something he neither knew nor understood; something which acted like sequestration nanonics, usurping a humans original personality and replacing it with mechanoid warrior traits. He had watched the drastically modified behaviour of Quinn Dexter and the Ivets after the incident with the lightning in the jungle. They acted like fully trained mercenary troops, and others they came into contact with soon exhibited similar traits, though a minority of those usurped acted almost normallymost puzzling. Nor did they need weapons, they acquired an ability to throw sprays of photons like a holographic projector, light which could act like a thermal-induction field, but with tremendous power and reach. Yet there was no visible physical mechanism.
Laton had felt the first overspill of pain from Camilla when the Ivets cremated her, mercifully shortened as she lost consciousness. He mourned his daughter as was proper, away in some subsidiary section of his mind, her absence from his life a sting of regret. But the important thing now was the threat he himself faced. In order to confront your enemy without fear, for fear is a bolt in the enemys quiver, you must understand your enemy. And understanding was the one thing which had not come in four solid days of supreme cerebral effort.