The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“Mark, honey, I’m scared.”

Tappinger took another drink. “The Ewigfeuer boy is trying to raise money,” he said. “He storms through the house complaining of all the useless people his father keeps on, and shouts that his father is ruining himself. The hospital bills are very high, it seems. And this place is heavily in debt. He has been selling contracts. He sold hers. For nearly two thousand credits.”

“Sold?” Mark said stupidly. “But she has less than two years to go!”

“Yes,” Taps said. “There is only one way a planter could expect to make that much back from the purchase of a young and pretty girl.”

“God damn them,” Mark said. “All right. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“No,” Tappinger said. “I’ve told you why. No, I have a better way. I can forge the old man’s signature to a permission form. You can marry Juanita. The forgery will be discovered, but by then—”

“No,” Mark said. “Do you think I’ll stay to be part of this system? A free society will need good people.”

“Mark, please,” Tappinger said. “Believe me, it is not what you think it is! How can you live in a place with no rules, you with your ideas of what is fair and what is—

“Crap. From now on, I take care of myself. And my woman and my child. We’re wasting time.” He moved toward the stables. Juanita followed.

“Mark, you do not understand,” Tappinger protested.

“Shut up. I have to find the guard.”

“He’s right behind you.” Morgan’s voice was low and grim. “Don’t do anything funny, Mark.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I’ve been watching you for ten minutes. Did you think you could get up to the big house without being seen? You damned fool. I ought to let you go into the green and get killed. But you can’t go alone—no, you have to take Juanny with you. I thought you had more sense. We haven’t used the whipping post here for a year, but a couple of dozen might wake you up to—” Morgan started to turn as something moved behind him. Then he crumpled. Juanita hit him again with a billet of wood. Morgan fell to the ground.

“I hope he’ll be all right,” Juanita said. “When he wakes up, Taps, please tell him why we had to run off.”

“Yeah, take care of him,” Mark said. He was busy stripping the weapons belt from Morgan. Mark noted the compass and grinned.

“You’re a fool,” Tappinger said. “Men like Curt Morgan take care of themselves. It’s people like you that need help.”

Tappinger was still talking, but Mark paid no attention. He broke the lock on the stable and then opened the storage room inside. He found canteens in the harness room. There was also a plastic can of kerosene. Mark and Juanita saddled two horses. They led them out to the edge of the compound. Tappinger stood by the broken stable door.

They looked back for a second, then waved and rode into the jungle. Before they were gone, Tappinger had finished the last of Mark’s gin.

* * *

They fled southward. Every sound seemed to be Morgan and a chase party following with dogs. Then there were the nameless sounds of the jungle. The horses were as frightened as they were.

In the morning they found a small clump of brown grass, a minuscule clearing of high ground. They did not dare make a fire, and they had only some biscuit and grain to eat. A Weem’s Beast charged out of a small clump of trees near the top of the clearing, and Mark shot it, wasting ammunition by firing again and again until he was certain that it was dead. They then were too afraid to stay and had to move on.

They kept moving southward. Mark had overheard convicts talking about the Free State. On an arm of the sea, south, in the jungle. It was all he had to direct him. A crocodile menaced them, but they rode past, Mark holding the pistol tightly, while the beast stared at them. It wasn’t a real crocodile, of course; but it looked much like the Earthly variety. Parallel evolution, Mark thought. What shape would be better adapted to life in this jungle?

On the eighth day they came to a narrow inlet and followed it to the left, deeper into the jungle, the sea on their right and green hell to the left. It twisted its way along a forgotten river dried by geological shifts a long time before. Tiny streams had bored through the cliff faces on both sides, and plunged thirty meters across etched rock faces into the green froth at the bottom. They were the highest cliffs Mark had seen in his limited travels on Tanith.

At dark on the second day after they found the inlet Mark risked a fire. He shot a crownears and they roasted it. “The worst is over,” Mark said. “We’re free now. Free.”

She crept into his arms. Her face was worried but contented, and it had lines that made her seem older than Mark. “You never asked me,” she said.

He smiled. “Will you marry me?”

“Sure.”

They laughed together. The jungle seemed very close and the horses were nickering in nervous fear. Mark built up the fire. “Free,” he said. He held her tightly, and they were very happy.

VIII

Lysander set down his fork and turned to his hostess. Ann Hollis Chang looked much more elegant here in the dining room of the governor’s private apartments than she had when Lysander had seen her in the governor’s office. Her silver grey hair was down in loose waves and held by a bright blue jeweled comb, and her gown was simply cut but clung in ways that flattered her somewhat bony figure. Still there was much of the senior bureaucrat about her. She was attentive to the guests at her end of the table, but she was also thoroughly aware of everything Governor Blaine said at the far end. She had mentioned earlier that her husband was a senior chemist with the Lederle company, and never came to government functions, official or not.

Lysander smiled. “Madame Chang, this roast is excellent.”

“Thank you. But the real thanks should go to Mrs. Reilly.”

“Oh?” He turned to his right. “Indeed?”

“Not really.” Alma Reilly was a small woman, expensively dressed, but her hands were square and competent. Lysander guessed that she was in her mid-forties, a few years younger than her husband. The Reillys had been chemical engineers but were now planters. They held one of the largest and most productive stations. Alma Reilly’s gown was sequined and she wore a large opal brooch, but her only ring was a plain gold band. “Actually, our foreman shot the porker three days ago, and we knew the dinner was coming up, and I knew the governor likes marinated porker so—” She laughed. “I know I talk too much.”

“No, please go on,” Lysander assured her. “Is there much wild game here?”

“More than we like,” Alma said. “Henry—our son—had a fight with a Weem’s beast last week and he’s still in the hospital.”

“Oh—”

“Nothing the regenners can’t handle, but Henry’s furious. He loves riding, and he won’t be able to compete this year at all.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I take it you’ve had no trouble with the rebels, then?”

Alma Reilly glanced nervously up and down the table. “Trouble? We’d hardly have trouble with them, Your Highness. Most of them are our friends.”

“Oh. But clearly you’re not with them.” He looked significantly at Colonel John Christian Falkenberg, who was seated near Governor Blaine at the head of the table.

“No, we’ve sent our crop in. Chris and I are agreed, Carleton Blaine is the best thing that has happened to Tanith since we got here. But it’s not simple. Some of the reforms have been very hard on our friends.” She looked across the table at Ursula Gordon. “Not that Governor Blaine wasn’t right about many things, you understand. But it’s very hard. There’s precious little profit to be made on Tanith.”

At the mention of profits, Dr. Phon Nol looked up from his plate and nodded. “Little enough before, and now we must make a further investment in—militia,” he said. “More than worth the money once the escapees and pirates are killed, but I must say that Colonel Falkenberg’s services are more expensive than I had hoped.”

Captain Jesus Alana smiled thinly. “I appreciate your difficulties, Dr. Nol, but you of all people on Tanith must understand the economics. Without munitions we’d be useless, and we have to import most of our supplies and just about all our equipment.”

“I understand, I sympathize,” Nol said. “But permit me not to care much for the expenses.”

Both Captains Alana, Jesus and Catherine, laughed at that. “Permit us to dislike them just as much,” Catherine said. “I can’t imagine the colonel is much happier than you.” She looked at Ursula on her right. “That’s a very nice gown. From Harrod’s?”