"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. . . ."
The song echoed through the ship, along gray corridors stained with the greasy handprints of the thousands who had traveled in her before; through the stench of the thousands aboard, and the remembered smells of previous shiploads of convicts.
Peter Owensford looked up from the steel desk that hung from the wall of his tiny stateroom. The men weren't singing very well, but they sang from their hearts. There was a faint buzzing from a loose rivet vibrating to a strong bass voice. Owensford nodded to himself. The singer was Allan Roach, onetime professional wrestler, and Peter had marked him for promotion to noncom once they reached Santiago.
The trip from Earth to Thurstone takes three months in a Bureau of Relocation transport ship, and it had been wasted time for all of them. It was obvious to Peter that the CoDominium authorities aboard the ship knew that they were volunteers for the war. Why else would ninety-seven men voluntarily ship out for Santiago? It didn't matter, though. Political Officer Stromand was afraid of a trap. Stromand was always suspecting traps.
In all the three months Peter Owensford had held only a dozen classes. He'd found an empty compartment near the garbage disposal and assembled the men there; but Stromand had caught them. There had been a scene, with Stromand insisting that Peter call him "Commissar" and the men address him as "Sir." Instead, Peter addressed him as "Mister" and the men made it come out like "Comics-star." Stromand had been livid, and he'd stopped Peter's classes.
Now Peter had ninety-six men who knew nothing of war. They were educated men. He had students, workers, idealists; but it might have been better if they'd all been zapouts with a long history of juvenile gangsterism.
He went back to his papers, jotting notes on what must be done when they landed. At least he'd have some time to train them before they got into combat.
He'd need it.
Thurstone is usually described as a hot, dry copy of Earth and Peter found no reason to dispute that. The CoDominium Island is legally part of Earth, but Thurstone is twenty parsecs away, and travelers go through customs. Peter's ragged group packed away whatever military equipment they had brought privately, and dressed in the knee breeches and tunics popular with businessmen in New York. Peter found himself just behind Allan Roach in the line to debark.
Allan was laughing.
"What's the joke?" Peter asked.
Roach turned and gestured at the men behind him. All ninety-six scattered through the first two hundred passengers leaving the BuRelock ship, and they were all dressed identically. "Humanity League decided to save money," Roach said. "What do you reckon the CD makes of our comic-opera army?"
Whatever the CoDominium inspectors thought, they did nothing, hardly glancing inside the baggage, and the volunteers were hustled out of the CD building to the docks. A small Russian in baggy pants sidled up to them.
"Freedom," he said. He had a thick accent.
"No passaran!" Commissar Stromand answered.
"I have tickets for you," the Russian said. "You will go on the boat." He pointed to an excursion ship with peeling paint and faded gilt handrails.
"Man, he looks like he's lettin' go his last credit," Allan Roach muttered to Owensford.
Peter nodded. "At that, I'd rather pay for the tickets than ride the boat. Must have been built when Thurstone was first settled."
Roach shrugged and lifted his bags. Then, as an afterthought, he lifted Peter's as well.
"You don't have to carry my goddamn baggage," Peter protested.
"That's why I'm doing it, Lieutenant. I wouldn't carry Stromand's." They went aboard the boat and stood at the rails to stare at Thurstone's bright skies. The volunteers were the only passengers, and the ship left the dock to lumber across shallow seas. It was less than fifty kilometers to the mainland, and before the men really believed they were out of space and onto a planet again, they were in Free Santiago.
They marched through the streets. People cheered, but a lot of volunteers had come through these streets and they didn't cheer very loud. Owensford's men were no good at marching and they had no weapons; so Stromand ordered them to sing war songs.
They didn't know very many songs, so they always sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. It said everything they were feeling, anyway.
The ragged group straggled to the local parish church. Someone had broken the cross and spire off the building, and turned the altar into a lecture desk. It was nearly dark by the time Owensford's troops were bedded down in the pews.
"Lieutenant?"
Allan Roach and another volunteer stood in front of him. "Yes?"
"Some of the men don't like bein' in here, lieutenant. We got church members in the outfit."
"I see. What do you expect me to do about it?" Peter asked. "This is where we were sent." And why didn't someone meet us instead of having a kid hand me a note down at the docks? But it wouldn't do to upset the men.
"We could bed down outside," Roach suggested.
"Nonsense. Superstitious garbage." The strident, bookish voice came from behind him, but Peter didn't need to look around. "Free men have no need for that kind of belief. Tell me who is disturbed."
Allan Roach set his lips tightly together.
"I insist," Stromand demanded. "Those men need education, and I will provide it. We cannot have superstition within our company."
"Superstition be damned," Peter said. "It's dark and gloomy and uncomfortable in here. If the men want to sleep outside, let them."
"No."
"I remind you that I am in command here." Peter's voice was rising despite his effort to control it. He was twenty-three standard years old, while Stromand was forty, and this was Peter's first command. He knew this was an important issue, and the men were all listening.
"I remind you that political education is totally up to me," Stromand said. "It is good indoctrination for the men to stay in here."
"Crap." Peter stood abruptly. "All right, everybody outside. Camp in the churchyard. Roach, set up a night guard around the camp."
"Yes, sir!" Allan Roach grinned.
Commissar Stromand watched his men melt away. A few minutes later he followed them outside.
They were awakened by an officer in synthileather trousers and tunic. He wore no badges of rank, but it was obvious to Peter that the man was a professional soldier. Someday, Peter thought, I'll look like that. The thought was cheering.
"Who's in charge here?"
Stromand and Owensford answered simultaneously. The officer looked at them for a moment, then turned to Peter. "Name?"
"Lieutenant Peter Owensford."
"Lieutenant. And why might you be a lieutenant?"
"I'm a graduate of West Point, sir. And your rank?"
"Captain, sonny. Captain Anselm Barton, at your service, God help you. The lot of you have been posted to the Twelfth Brigade, second battalion, of which battalion I have the misfortune to be adjutant. Any more questions?" He glared at Peter and the commissar. Before either of them could answer there was a roar and the wind whipped red dust around them. A moment later a fleet of ground-effects trucks rounded the corner and stopped in front of the church.
"Okay," Barton shouted. "Into the trucks. You, too, Mister Comics-Star. Lieutenant, you ride in the cab with me. Come on, come on, we haven't all day. Can't you get them to hop it, Owensford?"
No two of the trucks were alike. One Mercedes stood out proudly from the lesser breeds, and Barton went to it. After a moment Stromand took the unoccupied seat in the cab of the second truck, an old Fiat. Despite the early hour, the sun was hot and bright, and it was good to get inside.
The Mercedes ran smoothly, but had to halt frequently while the drivers worked on the other trucks. The Fiat could only get ten centimeters above the road. Peter noted the ruts in the dirt track.
"Sure," Barton said. "We've got wheeled transport. Lots of it. Animal-drawn wagons too. Tracked railroads. How much do you know about this place?"
"Not very much," Peter admitted.
"At least you know that," Barton said. He gunned the engine to get the Mercedes over a deeply pitted section of the road and the convoy climbed up onto a ridge. Peter could look back and see the tiny port town, with its almost empty streets, and the blowing red dust.
"See that ridge over there?" Barton asked. He pointed to a thin blue line beyond the far lip of the saucer on the other side of the ridge. The air was so clear that Peter could see for sixty kilometers or more. Distances were hard to judge.
"Yes, sir."
"That's it. Dons territory beyond that line."
"We're not going straight there, are we? The men need training."
"You might as well be going to the lines, for all the training they'll get. They teach you anything at the Point?"
"I learned something, I think." Peter didn't know what to answer. The Point had been "humanized" and he knew he hadn't had the military instruction that graduates had once received. "What I was taught, and a lot from books."
"We'll see." Barton took a plastic toothpick out of one pocket and stuck it into his mouth. Later, Peter would learn that many men developed that habit. "No hay tobacco" was a common notice on stores in Santiago. The first time he saw it, Allan Roach said that if they made their tobacco out of hay he didn't want any. "Long out of the Point?" Barton asked.
"Class of '77."
"Just out. U.S. Army didn't want you?"
"That's pretty personal," Peter said. The toothpick danced across smiling lips. Peter stared out at the rivers of dust blowing around them. "There's a new rule now. You have to opt for CoDominium in your junior year. I did. But they didn't have any room for me in the CD service."
Barton grunted. "And the U.S. Army doesn't want any commie-coddling officers who'd take the CD over their own country."
"That's about it."
They drove on in silence. Barton hummed something under his breath, a tune that Peter thought he would recognize if only Barton would make it loud enough to hear. Then he caught a murmured refrain. "Let's hope he brings our godson up, to don the Armay blue . . ."
Barton looked around at his passenger and grinned. "How many lights in Cullem Hall, Mister Dumbjohn?"
"Three hundred and forty lights, sir," Peter answered automatically. He looked for the ring, but Barton wore none. "What was your class, sir?"
"Sixty-two. Okay, so the U.S. didn't want you, and the CD's disbanding regiments. There's other outfits. Falkenberg's recruiting. . . ."
"I'm not a mercenary," Peter said stiffly.
"Oh, Lord. So you're here to help the downtrodden masses throw off the yoke of oppression. I might have known."
"But of course I'm here to fight slavery! Everyone knows about Santiago."
"Everyone knows about other places, too." The toothpick danced again. "Okay, you're a liberator of suffering humanity. God knows, anything makes a man feel better out here is okay. But to help me feel better, remember that you're a professional officer."
"I won't forget." They drove over another ridge. The valley beyond was no different from the one behind them, and there was another ridge at its end.
"What do you think those people out there want?" Barton said.
"Freedom."
"Maybe to be left alone. Maybe they'd be happy if we all went away."
"They'd be slaves. Somebody's got to help them—" Peter caught himself. There was no point to this, and he was sure Barton was laughing at him.
Instead, the older man's expression softened from his usual sardonic grin to a wry smile. "Nothing to be ashamed of, Pete. Most of us read those books about knighthood. We wouldn't be in the services if we didn't have that streak in us. But remember, you get over most of that or you won't last."
"Maybe without something like that I wouldn't want to last."
"Suit yourself. Just don't let it break your heart."
"If you feel that way about everything, why are you here? Why aren't you in one of the mercenary outfits?"
"Commissars ask that kind of question," Barton said. He gunned the motor viciously and the Mercedes screamed forward.
It was late afternoon when they got to Tarazona. The town was an architectural hodgepodge, as if a dozen amateurs had designed it. The church, now a hospital, was Elizabeth III modern; the post office was American Gothic; and most of the houses were white stucco. The volunteers unloaded at a plasteel barracks that was a bad copy of the quad at West Point. It had sally ports, phony portcullis and all, and plastic medieval shields decorated the cornices.
Inside there was trash in the corridors and blood on the floors. Peter set the men to cleaning up.
"About that blood," Captain Barton said. "Your men seem interested."
"First blood some of 'em have seen," Peter told him. Barton was still watching him closely. "All right. For me, too."
Barton nodded. "Two stories about that blood. The Dons had a garrison here. They made a stand when the Revolutionaries took the town. Some say the Dons slaughtered their prisoners here. Others say when the Republic took the barracks, our troops slaughtered the garrison."
Peter looked across the dusty courtyard and beyond the hills where the fighting was. It seemed a long way off. There was no sound, and the afternoon sun was unbearably hot. "Which do you think is true?"
"Both." Barton turned away toward the town. Then he stopped for a moment. "I'll be in the bistro after dinner. Join me if you get a chance." He walked on, his feet kicking up little clouds of dust that blew across the road.
Peter stood a long time in the courtyard, staring across fields that stretched fifty kilometers to the hills. The soil was red, and a hot wind blew dust into every crevice and hollow. The country seemed far too barren to be a focal point in the struggle for freedom in the known galaxy.
Thurstone had been colonized early in the CoDominium period, but the planet was too poor to attract wealthy corporations. The third Thurstone expedition was financed by the Carlist branch of the Spanish monarchy, and eventually Carlos XII and a group of supporters—malcontents, like most voluntary colonists—founded Santiago.
Some of the Santiago colonists were protesting the Bourbon restoration in Spain. Others were unhappy with John XXVI's reunification of Christendom. Others still protested the cruel fates, unhappy love affairs, nagging wives, and impossible gambling debts. The Carlists got the smallest and poorest of Thurstone's three continents, but they did well enough with it.
For thirty years Santiago received only voluntary immigrants from Spanish Catholic cultures. The Carlists were careful who they let in, and there was plenty of good land for everyone. The Kingdom of St. James had little modern technology, and no one was very rich, but few were very poor either.
Eventually the Population Control Commission designated Thurstone as a recipient planet, and the Bureau of Relocation began moving people there. All three governments on Thurstone protested, but unlike Xanadu or Danube, Thurstone had never developed a navy; a single frigate from the CoDominium Fleet convinced them they had no choice.
BuRelock ships carried two million involuntary colonists to Thurstone. Convicts, welfare frauds, criminals, revolutionaries, rioters, street gangsters, men who'd offended a BuRelock clerk, men with the wrong color eyes, and those who were just plain unlucky; all of them bundled into unsanitary transport ships and hustled away from Earth. The other nations on Thurstone had friends in BuRelock and money to pay for favors; Santiago got the bulk of the new immigrants.
The Carlists tried. They provided transportation to unclaimed lands for all who wanted it and most who did not. The original Santiago settlers had fled from industry and had built very little; and now, suddenly, they were swamped with city dwellers from a different culture who had no thought of the land and less love for it.
In less than a decade the capital grew from a sleepy town to a sprawling heap of shacks. The Carlists demolished the worst of the shacks. Others appeared on the other side of town. New cities grew from small towns.
When industries appeared in the new cities, the original settlers revolted. They had fled from industrialized life, and wanted no more of it. A king was deposed and an infant prince placed on his father's throne. The Cortes took government into its own hands, and enslaved everyone who did not pay his own way.
It was not called slavery, but "indebtedness for welfare service"; but debts were inheritable and transferable. Debts could be bought and sold on speculation, and everyone had to work them off.
In a generation half the population was in debt. In another the slaves outnumbered the free men. Finally the slaves revolted, and overnight Santiago became a cause celebre.
In the CoDominium Grand Senate, the U.S., with a nudge from the other governments on Thurstone and the corporations who bought agricultural products from Santiago, supported the Carlists, but not strongly. The Soviet senators supported the Republic, but not strongly. The CD Navy was ordered to quarantine the war area.
The fleet had few ships to spare for that task. The Navy grounded all military air and spacecraft in Santiago, and prohibited the import of any kind of heavy weapons. Otherwise Santiago was left alone.
It was never difficult for the Humanity League to send volunteers to Santiago as long as they brought no weapons. Because the volunteers had no experience, the League also searched for trained officers to lead them.
The League rejected mercenaries, of course.