Ralph eased himself back in his chair and regarded the man sitting nervously on the other side of his desk. Maki Gruter tried not to shift about under the stare. He was a twenty-eight-year-old grade three manager working for the Governors Transport Office, dressed in fawn shorts and a jade shirt, his lemon-yellow cagoule hanging off the back of his chair. Like almost everyone else in Lalondes civil administration he was for sale; they universally regarded this backwoods posting as an opportunity to rip off both the LDC and the colonists. Ralph had recruited Maki Gruter two and a half years ago, a month after he himself had arrived. It wasnt so much an entrapment exercise as simply making a selection from a host of eager volunteers. There were times, Ralph reflected sagely, when he would like to see an official who wouldnt sell out for just a sniff of the ubiquitous Edenist fuseodollar. Once his duty tour on Lalonde was finished in another three years he would have to go through innumerable refresher courses. Subversion was so easy here.
In fact there were times when he questioned the whole point of the ESA mounting an operation on what was basically a jungle populated by psychological Neanderthals. But Lalonde was only twenty-two light-years from the Principality of Ombey, the Kulu Kingdoms newest dominion star system, itself only just out of stage-two development. The ruling Saldana dynasty wanted to make sure that Lalonde didnt mature along hostile lines. Ralph and his colleagues were assigned to watch the colonys political evolution, occasionally offering covert assistance to aspirants with coincident policies; money, or black data on opposing candidates, it didnt make any difference in the end. The formative years of a colonys independence set the political agenda for centuries to come, so the ESA did its best to make sure the first elected leaders were ideologically benign as regards the Kingdom. Placemen, basically.
It made sense if you took the long-term consequences into account; a few million pounds spent now as opposed to the billions any form of naval action would cost once Lalonde had a technoeconomy capable of building military starships. And God knows, Ralph thought, the Saldanas approached every problem from that anglewith their life-expectancy long term was the only term they understood.
Ralph smiled pleasantly at Maki Gruter. Anyone of any interest in this batch?
Not that I can see, the civil servant said. All Earth nationals. Usual Ivet types, waster kids dumb enough to get caught. No political exiles, or at least, none listed. Behind his head, the screen displaying the vectors of Lalondes miserly orbital traffic showed another spaceplane docking with the vast colonist-carrier starship.
Fine. Ill have it checked, of course, Ralph said expectantly.
Oh, right. Maki Gruters mouth twitched in a half-embarrassed grin. He pulled out a processor block and datavised the files over.
Ralph observed the information flood into his neural nanonics, assigning it to spare storage cells. Tracer programs ran through the fifty-five hundred names, comparing them to his primary list, the most troublesome of Earths political agitators known to the ESA. There was no match-up. Later he would datavise the files into a processor block, running a comparison with the huge catalogue of recidivist names, facial images, and in some cases DNA prints which the ESA had trawled from right across the Confederation.
He glanced out through the window again to see a group of the new arrivals slogging along the mushy road which led down the side of the square of grass and straggly roses which passed for the embassy gardens. The rain had arrived, drenching them in seconds. Women, children, and men with their hair beaten down, jump suits clinging to their bodies like a dark, crinkled, lizard hide, all looking thoroughly wretched. There might have been tears on their faces, but he couldnt tell with the rain. And they still had another three kilometres to go before they reached the transients dormitories down by the river.
Christ, look at them, he murmured. And theyre supposed to be this planets hope for the future. They cant even organize a walk from the spaceport properly, none of them thought to take waterproofs.
Have you ever been to Earth? Maki Gruter asked.
Ralph turned away from the window, surprised by the younger mans question. Maki was normally keen to simply collect the money and run. No.
I have. That planet is one giant hive queen for misbegottens. Our noble past. Compared to that, what this planet offers in the way of a future doesnt look so bad.
Yeah, maybe. Ralph opened a drawer and took out his Jovian Bank credit disk.
Theres someone else going upriver with this batch of colonists, Maki said. My office had to arrange a berth for him, thats how I know.
Ralph stopped in the act of authorizing the usual three-hundred-fuseodollar payment. Whos that?
A marshal from the Sheriffs Office. Dont know his name, but hes being sent up to Schuster County to scout round.
Ralph listened to Maki Gruter explain about the missing homestead families, his mind running over the implications. Somebody in the Governors Office must consider it important, he thought, there were only five marshals on the planet: combat specialists with nanonic-boosted metabolisms, and well armed. Colony Governors deployed them to sort out severe problems, like bandits and potential revolts, problems that had to be eliminated fast.
Another of Ralphs briefs was to watch for pirate activity in the Lalonde system. Prosperous Kulu with its large merchant fleet was engaged in a constant battle with mercenary vessels. Undisciplined, under-policed colony planets with woefully deficient communications were an ideal market for stolen cargoes, and most of the immigrants were at least bright enough to bring a credit disk primed with fuseodollars. The contraband was invariably sold deep in the hinterlands, where dreams soured within weeks when it became clear just how tough it was to survive outside the enclosed comfort of an arcology, and nobody was going to question where sophisticated power hardware and medical packages came from.
Perhaps those families had questioned the source of their windfall?
Thanks for telling me, he said, and upped the payment to five hundred fuseodollars.
Maki Gruter smiled in gratitude as his credit disk registered the financial bonus. My pleasure.
Jenny Harris came in a minute after the transport manager left. A thirty-year-old ESA lieutenant, on her second off-world mission. She had a flat face, her nose slightly crooked, with short dark ginger hair, and a slim figure which belied her strength. Ralph had found her a competent officer in the two years shed been on Lalonde, if a little bit too rigorous in applying agency procedure to every situation.
She listened attentively as Ralph repeated what Maki Gruter had told him.
I havent heard any word on unexplained hardware appearing upriver, she said. Just the usual black-market activity, selling off the gear which the spaceport crews lift from new colonists.
What assets have we got up in the Schuster area?
Few, she said reluctantly. We mainly rely on our contacts in the Sheriffs Office for reports on contraband, and the boat crews fill in a bit more of the picture. Communication is the problem, naturally. We can give our upriver assets communication blocks, but the Confederation Navy satellites would spot any transmissions even if they were prime encrypted.
OK, Ralph nodded. It was an old argument, urgency against exposure risk. At this stage of its development nothing on Lalonde was considered urgent. Do we have anyone going upriver?
Jenny Harris paused as her neural nanonics reviewed schedules. Yes. Captain Lambourne is due to take a new colonist group upriver in a couple of days, theyre settling land just past Schuster itself. Shes a good courier, I use her to collect reports from our in situ assets.