The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“They’re opening the gangway,” Falkenberg said. “Sergeant Major.”

“Sir!”

“Column of fours in company order, please.”

“Sir.” Ogilvie began shouting orders. The troops marched down the gangway and onto the concrete pier below. I went out onto the gangway to watch.

It was hot outside and within minutes I was sweating. The sun seemed red-orange, and very bright. After the smells of the troopship, with men confined with too little water for adequate washing, the planetary smells were a relief. Arrarat had a peculiar odor, slightly sweet, like flowers, with an undertone of wet vegetation. All that was mixed with the stronger smells of a salt sea and the harbor.

There were few buildings down at sea level. The city wall stood high above the harbor at the top of its bluff. Down on the level strip just above the sea were piers and warehouses, but the streets were wide and there were large spaces between buildings.

My first alien world. It didn’t seem all that strange. I looked for something exotic, like sea creatures, or strange plants, but there weren’t any visible from the gangway. I told myself all that would come later.

There was one larger structure at sea level. It was two stories high, with no windows facing us. It had big gates in the center of the wall facing the ship, with a guard tower at each of its corners. It looked like a prison, and I knew that was what it had to be, but there seemed no point in that. The whole planet was a prison.

* * *

There was a squad of local militiamen on the pier. They wore drab coveralls, which made quite a contrast to the blue and scarlet undress of the CoDominium Marines marching down the pier. Falkenberg talked with the locals for a moment, and then Sergeant Major Ogilvie shouted orders, and the Marines formed up in a double line that stretched up the dock to the aft gangway. The line went from the gangway to the big gates in the prison building. Ogilvie shouted more orders, and the Marines fixed bayonets.

They did it well. You’d never have known most of them were recruits. Even in the cramped quarters of the troop carrier, Falkenberg had drilled them into a smart-looking unit. The cost had been high. There were twenty-eight suicides among the recruits, and another hundred had been washed out and sent back among the convicts. They told us at the Academy that the only way to make a good Marine is to work him in training until he can have some pride in surviving it, and God knows Falkenberg must have believed that. It had seemed reasonable enough back in the lecture theater at Luna Base.

One morning we had four suicides, and one had been an old Line regular, not a recruit at all. I’d been duty officer when the troops found the body. It had been cut down from where he’d hanged himself to a light fixture, and the rope was missing. I tried to find the rope and even paraded all the men in that compartment, but nobody was saying anything.

Later Sergeant Major Ogilvie came to me in confidence. “You’ll never find the rope, Lieutenant,” he said. “It’s cut up in a dozen pieces by now. That man had won the military medal. The rope he hanged himself with? That’s lucky, sir. They’ll keep the pieces.”

All of which convinced me I had a lot to learn about Line Marines.

The forward companionway opened, and the convicts came out. Officially they were all convicts, or families of transportees who had voluntarily accompanied a convict; but when we’d gone recruiting in the prison section of the ship, we found a number of prisoners who’d never been convicted of anything at all. They’d been scooped up in one of Bureau of Relocation’s periodic sweeps and put on the involuntary colonist list.

The prisoners were ragged and unwashed. Most wore BuRelock coveralls. Some carried pathetically small bundles, everything they owned. They milled around in confusion in the bright sunlight until ship’s petty officers screamed at them and they shuffled down the gangway and along the pier. They tended to huddle together, shrinking away from the bayonets of the lines of troops on either side. Eventually they were herded through the big square gates of the prison building. I wondered what would happen to them in there.

There were more men than women, but there were plenty of women and girls. There were also far more children than I liked to see in that condition. I didn’t like this. I hadn’t joined the CoDominium Armed Services for this kind of duty.

“Heavy price, isn’t it?” a voice said behind me. It was Deane Knowles. He’d been a classmate at the Academy. He was a short chap, not much above the minimum height for a commission, and had features so fine that he was almost pretty. I had reason to know that women liked him, and Deane liked them. He should have graduated second in the class, but he’d accumulated so many demerits for sneaking off bounds to see his girlfriends that he was dropped twenty-five places in class rank, which was why I outranked him and would until one of us was promoted above the other. I figured he’d make captain before I did.

“Heavy price for what?” I asked.

“For clean air and lower population and all the other goodies they have back on Earth. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it.”

“But what choices do we have?” I asked.

“None. Zero. Nothing else to do. Ship out the surplus and let ’em make their own way somewhere. In the long run it’s not only all to the good, it’s all there is; but the run doesn’t look so long when you’re watching the results. Look out. Here comes Louis.”

Louis Bonneyman, another classmate, joined us. Louis had finished a genuine twenty-fourth in class rank. He was part French-Canadian, although he’d been raised in the U.S. most of his life. Louis was a fanatic CD loyalist and didn’t like to hear any of us question CD policy, although, like the rest of us in the service, it didn’t really matter what the policies were. “No politics in the Fleet” was beaten into our heads at the Academy, and later the instructors made it clear that what that really translated to was: “The Fleet is Our Fatherland.” We could question anything the Grand Senate did—as long as we stood by our comrades and obeyed orders.

We stood there watching as the colonists were herded into the prison building. It took nearly an hour to get all two thousand of them inside. Finally the gates were closed. Ogilvie gave more orders and the Marines scabbarded their bayonets, then formed into a column of eight and marched down the road.

“Well, fellow musketeers,” I said, “here we go. We’re to follow up the hill, and there’s apparently no transport.”

“What about my ordnance?” Deane asked.

I shrugged. “Apparently arrangements will be made. In any event, it’s John Christian Falkenberg’s problem. Ours not to reason why—”

“Ours but to watch for deserters,” Louis Bonneyman said. “And we’d best get at it. Is your sidearm loaded?”

“Oh, come on, Louis,” Deane said.

“Notice,” Louis said. “See how Falkenberg has formed up the troops. Recall that their baggage is still aboard. You may not like Falkenberg, Deane, but you will admit that he is thorough.”

“As it happens, Louis is right,” I said. “Falkenberg did say something about deserters. But he didn’t think there’d be any.”

“There you are,” Louis said. “He takes no chances, that one.”

“Except with us,” Deane Knowles said.

“What do you mean by that?” Louis let the smile fade and lifted an eyebrow at Deane.

“Oh, nothing,” Deane said. “Not much Falkenberg could do about it, anyway. But I don’t suppose you chaps know what the local garrison commander asked for?”

“No, of course not,” Louis said.

“How did you find out?” I asked.

“Simple. When you want to know something military, talk to the sergeants.”

“Well?” Louis demanded.

Deane grinned. “Come on, we’ll get too far behind. Looks as if we really will march all the way up the hill, doesn’t it? Not even transport for officers. Shameful.”

“Damn your eyes, Deane!” I said.

Knowles shrugged. “Well, the Governor asked for a full regiment and a destroyer. Instead of a regiment and a warship, he got us. Might be interesting if he really needed a regiment, eh? Coming, fellows?”

V

“I’ve a head like a concertina,

And I think I’m going to die,

And I’m here in the clink for a thunderin’ drink,

And blackin’ the corporal’s eye. . . .”

“Picturesque,” Louis said. “They sing well, don’t they?”

“Shut up and walk,” Deane told him. “It’s bloody hot.”

I didn’t find it so bad. It was hot. No question about that, and undress blues were never designed for route marches on hot planets. Still, it could have been worse. We might have turned out in body armor.