“You hitched a ride?” Gamecock asks Coyle.
“Not hardly, sir,” Coyle says. “We saw them heading our way, took residence behind some rocks, and offered up a pigeon. No way of guessing their intentions. To our delight, they stopped.”
“For little ol’ me,” Ceniza says. She grins, thrusts out a leg, mocks pulling up a skirt. Objectively, I assess that she might be the shapeliest of our sisters.
“As soon as they saw Ash—Corporal Ceniza—they screeched to a halt and came out mad as hornets, weapons drawn,” Coyle says. “A bunch of gallant males surrounded her, and the boss man blessed her out—I think. Accused her of violating Muskie neutrality.”
“Some sort of dispute with the condo association,” Ceniza says. “Assholes were going to strip me on the Red.” Her mates seem prepared to get angry all over again. They close in on the Voors, palming sidearms—but Captain Coyle raises a hand. The Voors bead sweat and glare.
“We popped out from hiding, desert fashion,” Coyle continues. “They wisely decided not to go up against Sergeant de Guzman.” Coyle returns to the gunny the strong-field suppressor, also known as a lawnmower. De Guzman, had she been so ordered, could have cut the Voor buggies into sausage slices with a few sweeps.
The eldest Voor, the one Coyle calls the boss man, raises his bound wrists. He’s a small, skeletal guy with a high pale forehead, a fringe of wayward gray hair, a small, sharp nose, and a thin-lipped, white-stubbled face. “Talk, we talk, Colonel,” he says to Gamecock, fellow male, trying to appear conciliatory if not actively friendly. His black eyes shine like aggies. “We need to talk what is happening.”
“I’ll listen in a moment,” Gamecock says. “For now,” and he looks hard at me, “I need to catch up on every little thing that’s happened in the last hour.” He turns to Captain Coyle. “And the last few days.”
“Yes, sir,” Coyle says. “The Voors appear to have something to add to that conversation.”
“That we do, and damned essential!” the old Voor says.
Teal does not look happy, but there’s little she can do. She’s now effectively reduced to the same status as the Voors, until we find time to sit and share and get things straightened out.
Until we understand what the hell this Drifter station is, and what’s going on around it, and what it implies both for the settlers and for our little war.
IN HEAVEN AS IT IS ON EARTH
In the early years of Mars colonies, idealism and pioneer spirit drew “investors” with promises of a new and better life under the hurtling moons of Mars, never closer than tens of millions of miles from Earth, often much farther. That appealed to an intriguing subset of humanity that held, even within that narrow purpose, many different opinions about life.
The first pioneers on Mars were packed into small, chemical fuel spaceships, up to twenty at a time, without benefit of Cosmoline sleep, to suffer in high-tech discomfort the months-long journey.
When they arrived—if they arrived, for as many as half died during those first voyages—they found supply and construction vessels at their landing sites, ready to be arranged into those famous white hamster mazes, while primitive versions of our fountains swept the air and soil of Mars for the ingredients essential to life.
High adventure.
Bravery and creativity and passion were essential to the success of those early settlements. Remarkably, nine out of ten of the new settlers survived the first few years, thanks to the genius and foresight of a small slate of terrestrial entrepreneurs, most of whom never made it to Mars.
They were too old. Age was the single greatest factor in casualty rates during transit. Men and women over forty were ten times more likely to sicken and die. Some said it was physical frailty; as I look back on those voyages through the lens of my own experience, I am more inclined to believe it was a fatal pining for Earth’s basic luxuries—wide-open spaces, blue skies and clouds and rain, clumped dirt, clean, fresh air, the mineral tang of good water—that drove older travelers into decline.
So many pioneers had been convinced that a heaven of simulated reality would make up for all that was lacking on Mars. It did not. They should have studied the examples of pioneer families on the Great Plains, hunkering in the murky shadows of sod huts, the ladies—away from home and friends and society—driven to spooning laudanum while the men hunted or plowed hard, rocky fields, turning grim and leather-faced as weather and natives challenged, their children seemed to run wild as animals, and the last reserves of sanity dwindled.
Some dreamers believed that Mars could be terraformed—remade in Earth’s image. Barring that long possibility, they imagined great domed frontier towns with outlaws and sheriffs and saloons, or their high-tech equivalents. One such dome was erected, inflatable, a thousand meters wide. It lasted six months before being destroyed by a double calamity of meteor strike and high wind. No others were built, but the concept will likely return if Mars ever finds peace.
But what I’m really working up to is an explanation for what the hell Voortrekkers and their ilk were doing on Mars.
People who build utopias need places to put their nowheres. The groups that followed the first waves of settlers to Mars were filled to overflowing with grumble. Not a few felt constrained by Earthly trends that discouraged bigotry and patriarchal dominance and denied power to those who espoused biblical or economic purities. People seeking to build personal empires hid behind these idealists, then rose up to take advantage of their lapses, their unmet necessities… by imposing order and discipline, which utopias typically lack and desperately need, especially when conditions get harsh and death looms.
Once these pragmatists were in power, all over the Earth hard-core malcontents took subscriptions for specialized settlements and shipped dozens or even hundreds of chosen ones—prepackaged and compatible seedling societies—to Mars.
And so we now face Voortrekkers, not the actual Forward Explorers of South African and Rhodesian history, but a group of dedicated reenactors that espoused many of those ancient hard-core attitudes.
No blacks, no wogs—hard ways for hard living.
Latter-day patriarchs running roughshod over history.
KAZAK AND MICHELIN have joined us in the southern garage. DJ is tending to the general.
Being outnumbered has done nothing to subdue the old Voor, who is already stepping up his rhetoric. His name is Paul de Groot. He’s been on Mars for thirty-two years. “Listen up!” he shouts. We fall silent as his shrill voice rings across the hangar.
“Bit of a stinker, sir,” Captain Coyle mutters to Gamecock.
“We are Trekboers! You’ve commanded my wagons, you’ll know our names and where we stand!” De Groot makes a point of walking around his men, tapping their heads—a reach for some, as he is the shortest—and naming them. “This is Jan, this is Hendrik, this is Johannes, that is Shaun,” and on down the list. The broad-shouldered brute I saw from the overlook is named Rafe. He has a quiet stealth that concerns me. Pent-up, strong, like a coiled snake. I wonder if he and the stinker are father and son. For all I know, they might all be his sons.
The Voors settle to parade rest. Teal looks even more miserable.
“Understood, sir,” Gamecock says, breaking in just as Captain Coyle is about to lay down her share. The captain is not impressed by any of the Voors. “We’re willing to come to an accommodation, providing it’s mutually beneficial. We need information—”