There were large areas where the police went only in squads or not at all, and maintenance crews had to be protected or they couldn’t enter. For now the CoDominium Marines escorted George’s men, but what would it be like when the Marines were gone?
George sat in the paneled study and watched lengthening shadows in the groves outside. They made dancing patterns through the trees and across neatly clipped lawns. The outside walls spoiled the view of Raceway Channel below, and Hamner cursed them.
Why must we have walls? Walls and a dozen armed men to patrol them. I can remember when I sat in this room with my father, I was no more than six, and we could watch boats in the Channel. And later, we had such big dreams for Hadley. Grandfather telling why he had left Earth, and what we could do here. Freedom and plenty. We had a paradise, and Lord, Lord, what have we done with it?
He worked for an hour, but accomplished little. There weren’t any solutions, only chains of problems that led back into a circle. Solve one and all would fall into place, but none were soluble without the others. And yet, if we had a few years, he thought. A few years, but we aren’t going to get them.
In a few years the farms will support the urban population if we can move people out to the agricultural interior and get them working—but they won’t leave Refuge, and we can’t make them do it.
If we could, though. If the city’s population could be thinned, the power we divert to food manufacture can be used to build a transport net. Then we can get more to live in the interior, and we can get more food into the city. We could make enough things to keep country life pleasant, and people will want to leave Refuge. But there’s no way to the first step. The people don’t want to move and the Freedom Party promises they won’t have to.
George shook his head. Can Falkenberg’s army make them leave? If he gets enough soldiers can he forcibly evacuate part of the city? Hamner shuddered at the thought. There would be resistance, slaughter, civil war. Hadley’s independence can’t be built on a foundation of blood. No.
His other problems were similar. The government was bandaging Hadley’s wounds, but no more. Treating symptoms because there was never enough control over events to treat causes.
He picked up a report on the fusion generators. They needed spare parts, and he wondered how long even this crazy standoff would last. He couldn’t really expect more than a few years even if everything went well. A few years, and then famine because the transport net couldn’t be built fast enough. And when the generators failed, the city’s food supplies would be gone, sanitation services crippled . . . famine and plague. Were those horsemen better than conquest and war?
He thought of his interview with the Freedom Party leaders. They didn’t care about the generators because they were sure that Earth wouldn’t allow famines on Hadley. They thought Hadley could use her own helplessness as a weapon to extract payments from the CoDominium.
George cursed under his breath. They were wrong. Earth didn’t care, and Hadley was too far away to interest anyone. But even if they were right they were selling Hadley’s independence, and for what? Didn’t real independence mean anything to them?
Laura came in with a pack of shouting children.
“Already time for bed?” he asked. The four-year-old picked up his pocket calculator and sat on his lap, punching buttons and watching the numbers and lights flash.
George kissed them all and sent them out, wondering as he did what kind of future they had.
I should get out of politics, he told himself. I’m not doing any good, and I’ll get Laura and the kids finished along with me. But what happens if we let go? What future will they have then?
“You look worried.” Laura was back after putting the children to bed. “It’s only a few days—”
“Yeah.”
“And what really happens then?” she asked. “Not the promises we keep hearing. What really happens when the CD leaves? It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?”
He pulled her to him, feeling her warmth, and tried to draw comfort from her nearness. She huddled against him for a moment, then pulled away.
“George, shouldn’t we take what we can and go east? We wouldn’t have much, but you’d be alive.”
“It won’t be that bad,” he told her. He tried to chuckle, as if she’d made a joke, but the sound was hollow. She didn’t laugh with him.
“There’ll be time for that later,” he told her. “If things don’t work. But it should be all right at first. We’ve got a planetary constabulary. It should be enough to protect the government—but I’m moving all of you into the palace in a couple of days.”
“The army,” she said with plenty of contempt. “Some army, Georgie. Bradford’s volunteers who’d kill you—and don’t think he wouldn’t like to see you dead, either. And those Marines! You said yourself they were the scum of space.”
“I said it. I wonder if I believe it. There’s something strange happening here, Laura. Something I don’t understand.”
She sat on the couch near his desk and curled her legs under herself. He’d always liked that pose. She looked up, her eyes wide with interest. She never looked at anyone else that way.
“I went to see Major Karantov today,” George said. “Thought I’d presume on an old friend to get a little information about this man Falkenberg. Boris wasn’t in his office, but one of the junior lieutenants, fellow named Kleist—”
“I’ve met him,” Laura said. “Nice boy. A little young.”
“Yes. Anyway, we got into a conversation about what happens after independence. We discussed street fighting, and the mob riots, you know, and I said I wished we had some reliable Marines instead of the demobilized outfit they were leaving here. He looked funny and asked just what did I want, the Grand Admiral’s Guard?”
“That’s strange.”
“Yes, and when Boris came in and I asked what Kleist meant, Boris said the kid was new and didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“And you think he did?” Laura asked. “Boris wouldn’t lie to you. Stop that!” she added hastily. “You have an appointment.”
“It can wait.”
“With only a couple of dozen cars on this whole planet and one of them coming for you, you will not keep it waiting while you make love to your wife, George Hamner!” Her eyes flashed, but not with anger. “Besides, I want to know what Boris told you.” She danced away from him, and he went back to the desk.
“It’s not just that,” George said. “I’ve been thinking about it. Those troops don’t look like misfits to me. Off duty they drink, and they’ve got the field hands locking their wives and daughters up, but you know, come morning they’re out on that drill field. And Falkenberg doesn’t strike me as the type who’d put up with undisciplined men.”
“But—”
He nodded. “But it doesn’t make sense. And there’s the matter of the officers. He’s got too many, and they’re not from Hadley. That’s why I’m going out there tonight, without Bradford.”
“Have you asked Ernie about it?”
“Sure. He says he’s got some Party loyalists training as officers. I’m a little slow, Laura, but I’m not that stupid. I may not notice everything, but if there were fifty Progressives with military experience I’d know. Bradford is lying, and why?”
Laura looked thoughtful and pulled her lower lip in a gesture that Hamner hardly noticed now, although he’d kidded her about it before they were married. “He lies for practice,” she said. “But his wife has been talking about independence, and she let something slip about when Ernie would be President she’d make some changes.”
“Well, Ernie expects to succeed Budreau.”
“No,” Laura said. “She acted like it would be soon. Very soon.”
George Hamner shook his massive head. “He hasn’t the guts for a coup,” he said firmly. “And the technicians would walk out in a second. They can’t stand him and he knows it.”
“Ernest Bradford has never recognized any limitations,” Laura said. “He really believes he can make anyone like him if he’ll just put out the effort. No matter how many times he’s kicked a man, he thinks a few smiles and apologies will fix it. But what did Boris tell you about Falkenberg?”
“Said he was as good as we can get. A top Marine commander, started as a Navy man and went over to Marines because he couldn’t get fast enough promotions in the Navy.”
“An ambitious man. How ambitious?”
“Don’t know.”
“Is he married?”
“I gather he once was, but not for a long time. I got the scoop on the court martial. There weren’t any slots open for promotion. But when a review board passed Falkenberg over for a promotion that the admiral couldn’t have given him in the first place, Falkenberg made such a fuss about it that he was dismissed for insubordination.”