The men exchanged glances that said, “Yep, we figured as much,” dark glances that appreciated the confirmation of their own take on the situation, even as those glances slid inevitably to the womenfolk and children at the other tables. Simon’s glance rested on Kafari, radiant as she talked with her mother and aunts and cousins, and felt a chill touch his own heart. He was no stranger to that kind of fear, but for once in his life, he was in the midst of others who felt exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons — and for exactly the same people, as well. It was a kind of belonging new to him, a bittersweet feeling that lessened his loneliness while giving him even more people to worry about defending — and to hurt for, if things turned bad, again.
Zak Camar, whose eyes reflected the pain of losing two sons, broke the dark and ugly silence. “We got more to worry about than just the satellites and the weather. No sense hiding from a truth, just because it smells like a dead jaglitch rotting in the sun. Taxes are up, too high by a long shot, to pay for all the rebuilding. We have more than a million people out of work. And we’ve got more companies going belly up, every day. A business can’t make payroll if it can’t manufacture or obtain raw materials or sell what’s sitting in its warehouses.”
Balthazar Soteris added in a harsh voice, “And a worker laid off and scraping by on government subsistence can’t afford what we’ll have to charge for the crops in those fields, come the harvest.” He nodded toward the Soteris fields, green and lovely beyond the supper tables and dance floor. “Not if we hope to have enough money to plant again next year and put more acreage into terraforming. The government’s already depleted almost a quarter of the food reserves in the emergency system, reserves it took several years to build. We can’t feed the whole population of this planet indefinitely on the reserves. We have to terraform more acreage, particularly in the southern hemisphere, where the growing season’s timed to put fresh produce on the tables during winter up here.”
Zak added quietly, “We’re short on agricultural labor, too. If we don’t start sending some of those unemployed factory workers into the fields…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to, since every man at this large table knew exactly what would happen if there weren’t enough workers to plant and harvest. Mechanical harvesters were fine, if you had them, but the Deng had blown most of them to slag. Simon eyed the heavily laden tables and wondered how many folks would be tightening their belts this winter. He was abruptly very glad his bride was related to farmers. Unless the government was forced into the drastic move of confiscating private food stores for redistribution, at least his wife and their children wouldn’t run the risk of severe rationing that the unemployed townsfolk could well face.
Simon knew enough about the history of Russia, back on Old Terra, to understand with brutal clarity — sharpened by his own long experience of war — just what could happen to a society in which there weren’t enough people on hand to plant and harvest. Even at the vast remove of centuries and many, many light-years, the old stories handed down from generation to generation about needing prescriptions from physicians to obtain meat for children, or eating wallpaper paste to hold off starvation, had the power to clench Simon’s gut muscles.
“If they get hungry enough,” one of the younger men said, “they can always enlist in the Concordiat defense forces and help us meet our treaty obligations.”
“Huh,” Zak muttered. “Not likely. There’s already a whole passel of folk grumbling about sending troops off-world to support the war effort.”
Simon was only too aware of the situation. By treaty, a Concordiat-allied world was entitled to defense. It was also obligated, under reciprocity agreements, to provide troops and/or munitions and materiel if the Concordiat found itself embroiled in a war that threatened multiple worlds. Between the mess along the Deng border and the utter disaster unfolding along a broad arc of humanity’s border with Melconian space, nearly forty human colonies had already been swept into the fighting. A whole lot of that fighting was brutal enough, Jefferson’s invasion paled by comparison.
The Concordiat was invoking reciprocity agreements on every world in the Sector, including Jefferson, Mali, and Vishnu. He suspected Mali’s obligations would be met by providing raw materials needed to carry out the war effort, but Vishnu and Jefferson were relatively mineral poor, which meant their likeliest treaty export would be soldiers and technicians. Vishnu could contribute food, but Jefferson couldn’t afford to ship any of its produce, grains, or Terran meat off-world. There were a lot of grumbles on the datanet and the streets, and Jefferson’s Assembly — Senate and House of Law — hadn’t even voted, yet, on whether or not to honor the treaty. If they refused to honor it…
Simon’s supper turned leaden in his belly. He’d be called off-world, for sure. And that would leave Kafari torn between her marriage and her family. He couldn’t imagine that she’d be very happy sitting in some officer’s quarters at Sector Command, talking to other home-bound spouses to pass the time while waiting for word as to whether or not he’d been killed in combat, yet. It wouldn’t be much easier, doing the same thing from home, surrounded by family but unable to see him between missions, simply because Jefferson was so difficult to reach from the current battle fronts, leaving too little time to travel all the way out here and back again.
One of the younger men, a good-looking kid about nineteen or so, who could easily have posed for a sculpture of Hylas, broke through Simon’s grim reflections.
“If the Senate and House of Law tell us to go, I’ll be on the first troop ship out. The bastards can’t threaten Jefferson again if we drive ’em back into their own space, tails tucked under.” He frowned, then, and glanced at Simon. “Do Deng have tails, sir? I was trapped in our barn, when it collapsed. Never even got to see any of the brutes.”
Simon very carefully did not smile. “No, the Deng don’t have tails. But the Melconians do.”
He brightened. “Good. We’ll shoot ’em off, sure enough.”
Several of the young men his age nodded vigorously, clearly ready to volunteer at a moment’s notice. At Simon’s elbow, Zak Camar was nodding, as well, but there was pain far back in his dark eyes. These kids were so young… They were the same age Simon had been, when he’d left his smouldering homeworld on a Concordiat naval cruiser, headed for the war college at Sector HQ.
Like the boy Simon had been, they, too, had seen war unleashed in their own backyards, so they weren’t rushing in blind or indulging a penchant for bravado, which so many other young men had indulged over the millennia humanity had been fighting wars. These kids knew exactly what it meant to pick up modern battlefield weaponry and go out onto the pointy end of combat to fry enemy soldiers — or die trying. Somehow, the fact that they knew made the pain of their going worse. Much worse. When Simon glanced at Balthazar Soteris, he realized the old man had seen and understood exactly what thoughts had just been rattling around in Simon’s head. The respect that came into Balthazar’s eyes was one of the biggest compliments Simon had ever been paid.
When Balthazar spoke, he changed the subject, asking yet another silent question. “Kafari going to finish that degree of hers?”
“Yes, sir, she is. I’ll be paying the rest of her expenses,” he added, in answer to the unspoken question, “so the Educational Surety Act funds she’s been using can go to someone else who needs them. She’s already qualified for work as a psychotronic technician, but we talked it over and she’s decided to go for a full engineering degree. Her professors on Vishnu have agreed to let her complete the degree work from here.” He grinned, then. “Part of the engineering program requirement is working on a live psychotronic system, class seven or higher. Sonny volunteered to serve as her practicum device. He thinks rather highly of her.”