The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

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.

XIII

Peter Owensford sat in the pleasant cool of the Santiago evening at a scarred table that might have been oak, but wasn’t. Captain Ace Barton brought a pitcher of dark red wine and joined him.

“I thought they’d put me in the technical corps,” Peter said.

“Speak Mandarin?” Peter looked up in surprise. Barton grinned. “The Republicans hired Xanadu techs. What with the quarantine we don’t have much high tech equipment. Plenty of Chinese for what little we’ve got.”

“So I’m infantry.”

Barton shrugged. “You fight, Pete. Just like me. They’ll give you a company. The ones you brought in, and maybe another hundred recruits. All yours. You’ll get Stromand for political officer, too.”

Peter grimaced. “What use is he?”

Barton made a show of looking around. “Careful.” His grin stayed, but his voice was serious. “Political officers are a lot more popular with the high command than we are. Don’t forget that.”

“From what I’ve seen the high command isn’t very competent. . . .”

“Jesus,” Barton said. “Look, Pete, they can have you shot for talking like that. This isn’t a merc outfit under the Mercenary Code, you know. This is a patriotic war, and you’d better not forget it.”

Peter stared at the packed clay floor. He’d sat at this table every night for a week now, and he was beginning to understand Barton’s cynicism. “There’s not enough body armor for my men. The ones I’ve got. You say they’ll give me more men?”

“New group coming in tomorrow. No officer with them. Sure, they’ll put ’em with you. Where else? Troops have to be trained.”

“Trained!” Peter snorted. “We have enough Nemourlon to make armor for about half the troops, but I’m the only one in the company who knows how to do it. We’ve got no weapons, no optics, no communications—”

“Yeah, things are tough all over,” Barton poured another glass of wine. “What’d you expect in a non-industrial society quarantined by the CD?”

Peter slumped back into the hard wooden chair. “Yeah, I know. But—I can’t even train them on what we do have. Whenever I get the men assembled, Stromand starts making speeches.”

Barton smiled. “International Brigade Commander Cermak thinks the American troops have lousy morale. Obviously, the way to fix that is to make speeches.”

“Their morale is lousy because they don’t know how to fight.”

“Another of Cermak’s solutions to the morale problem is to shoot defeatists,” Barton said softly. “I’ve warned you, kid.”

“The only damn thing my men have learned in the last week is how to sing and which red-light houses are safe.”

“More’n some do. Have another drink.”

“Thanks.” Peter nodded in resignation. “That’s not bad wine.”

“Right. Pretty good, but not good enough to export,” Barton said. “Whole goddamn country’s that way, you know. Pretty good, but not quite good enough.”