That was a thought. “Maybe . . . which could make loose talk very dangerous,” he mused.
“That was my point.”
The door from the lab area burst open to admit Charlie Hu with bustle and haste, which was unusual. Voices were babbling somewhere behind him. “There’s been some shooting!” he said. “Behind the stores.”
“Anybody hurt?” Sariena asked as they followed him back out.
“I don’t know yet.”
“It was only a matter of time,” Keene muttered.
They came out of the building behind a gaggle of figures who had stopped in the face of several guards brandishing guns. “Back inside,” one was yelling. “Everybody back inside.”
“What’s happened?” Charlie Hu asked one of the construction people.
“Some guys got shot trying to rush the guards.”
“Oh no. Anyone killed?”
“We’re not sure.”
“I saw Ida being led away,” a Kronian girl said. “She looked as if she was all right, though.”
“Not Ida,” Sariena groaned. They had been friends on the Surya.
Keene was shaking his head. “Never mind how it works in movies. You don’t go for guys who have guns and nervous fingers. It’s not the way.”
One of the guards looked up from talking into a compad. “Is Maria Sanchez, the medic, here? She’s needed.”
“I think she’s back in the dorms somewhere,” somebody answered. The guard relayed the information.
“Everybody, back inside,” the one who had spoken before ordered again.
* * *
Kurt Zeigler returned from the lower level of the OpCom dome to the office on the floor above where he had installed himself. Kelm, who had left an occupying force aboard the Surya and come back down to Serengeti during the night, accompanied him. The Kronian woman and one of the two Kronian men were unharmed. The other Kronian was shot in the legs and would recover, as would the former Terran who had been wounded in the stomach. The second ex-Terran, shot twice in the chest, was in serious condition. “I want a portable cabin set up behind OpCom as a secure medical facility and detention building, another for guard quarters, and the perimeter extended around them,” Zeigler said. “Also, we need elevated watchtowers. Give me a plan by eighteen hundred tonight for a minimum number and recommended sites. Fast and basic. We can start work on them under arc lamps tonight. Also, put out a general order, effective immediately, that until further notice gatherings of more than five persons are prohibited unless express approval is obtained. And a curfew, effective twenty-two hundred to six hundred.”
“I’ll see to it,” Kelm said.
Zeigler sat down at his desk to scan the low-priority reports listed on his screen. “So it seems that Kronians can have some fighting spirit too,” he observed. “Could it mean that some of them might turn around yet, and see things our way, do you think? We could use some volunteers.”
“I can’t say,” Kelm replied, trying to be tactful. “It’s all so unprecedented. Anything could happen.”
News from the Trojan was that the maneuver to boost Eskimo onward toward its rendezvous point had been executed successfully, and everything was on schedule. A message from Eskimo, however, had strongly questioned Zeigler’s decision to act now, far sooner than had been planned. But the plan hadn’t taken any account of the opportunity to strengthen Zeigler’s force from an unexpected source with natural killers. The recruits might be rough raw material, but they were the kind that, with discipline and training, fanatical followers are shaped from. To do something about it, however, he would first have to be in control. So he had gambled that by risking the short term, during which potential opposition would be confused and in disarray, his grip would be firmer in the long run, when they’d had a chance to organize.
“How are Rakki and the other two doing?” he asked Kelm.
“Just sitting, waiting it out. At least they’re smart enough to know when they don’t have much choice,” Kelm said.
The three natives who had been at the base yesterday when the Gallian incident occurred were still being detained, the main reason being simply that there had been more urgent things to take care of than taking them home. But it also saved Zeigler the trouble of having to go out to Joburg himself to put his deal to them. Keene’s timing in bringing them here couldn’t have been better.