A contingent of uniformed men thrust their way through the crowd at a street crossing. Falkenberg looked at them closely, then at Banners. “Your troops?”
“No, sir. That’s the livery of Glenn Foster’s household. Officially they’re unorganized reserves of the President’s Guard, but they’re household troops all the same.” Banners laughed bitterly. “Sounds like something out of a history book, doesn’t it? We’re nearly back to feudalism, Colonel Falkenberg. Anyone rich enough keeps hired bodyguards. They have to. The criminal gangs are so strong the police don’t try to catch anyone under organized protection, and the judges wouldn’t punish them if they were caught.”
“And the private bodyguards become gangs in their own right, I suppose.”
Banners looked at him sharply. “Yes, sir. Have you seen it before?”
“Yes. I’ve seen it before.” Banners was unable to make out the expression on Falkenberg’s lips.
VI
They drove into the Presidential Palace and received the salutes of the blue uniformed troopers. Falkenberg noted the polished weapons and precise drill of the Presidential Guard. There were well-trained men on duty here, but the unit was small. Falkenberg wondered if they could fight as well as stand guard. They were local citizens, loyal to Hadley, and would be unlike the CoDominium Marines he was accustomed to.
He was conducted through a series of rooms in the stone fortress. Each had heavy metal doors, and several were guardrooms. Falkenberg saw no signs of government activity until they had passed through the outer layers of the enormous palace into an open courtyard, and through that to an inner building.
Here there was plenty of activity. Clerks bustled through the halls, and girls in the draped togas fashionable years before on Earth sat at desks in offices. Most seemed to be packing desk contents into boxes, and other people scurried through the corridors. Some offices were empty, their desks covered with fine dust, and there were plastiboard moving boxes stacked outside them.
There were two anterooms to the President’s office. President Budreau was a tall, thin man with a red pencil mustache and quick gestures. As they were ushered into the overly ornate room the President looked up from a sheaf of papers, but his eyes did not focus immediately on his visitors. His face was a mask of worry and concentration.
“Colonel John Christian Falkenberg, sir,” Lieutenant Banners said. “And Sergeant Major Calvin.”
Budreau got to his feet. “Pleased to see you, Falkenberg.” His expression told them differently; he looked at his visitors with faint distaste and motioned Banners out of the room. When the door closed he asked, “How many men did you bring with you?”
“Ten, Mr. President. All we could bring aboard the carrier without arousing suspicion. We were lucky to get that many. The Grand Senate had an inspector at the loading docks to check for violation of the anti-mercenary codes. If we hadn’t bribed a port official to distract him we wouldn’t be here at all. Calvin and I would be on Tanith as involuntary colonists.”
“I see.” From his expression he wasn’t surprised. John thought Budreau would have been more pleased if the inspector had caught them. The President tapped the desk nervously. “Perhaps that will be enough. I understand the ship you came with also brought the Marines who have volunteered to settle on Hadley. They should provide the nucleus of an excellent constabulary. Good troops?”
“It was a demobilized battalion,” Falkenberg replied. “Those are the troops the CD didn’t want anymore. Could be the scrapings of every guardhouse on twenty planets. We’ll be lucky if there’s a real trooper in the lot.”
Budreau’s face relaxed into its former mask of depression. Hope visibly drained from him.
“Surely you have troops of your own,” Falkenberg said.
Budreau picked up a sheaf of papers. “It’s all here. I was just looking it over when you came in.” He handed the report to Falkenberg. “There’s little encouragement in it, Colonel. I have never thought there was any military solution to Hadley’s problems, and this confirms that fear. If you have only ten men plus a battalion of forced-labor Marines, the military answer isn’t even worth considering.”
Budreau returned to his seat. His hands moved restlessly over the sea of papers on his desk. “If I were you, Falkenberg, I’d get back on that Navy boat and forget Hadley.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because Hadley’s my home! No rabble is going to drive me off the plantation my grandfather built with his own hands. They will not make me run out.” Budreau clasped his hands together until the knuckles were white with the strain, but when he spoke again his voice was calm. “You have no stake here. I do.”
Falkenberg took the report from the desk and leafed through the pages before handing it to Calvin. “We’ve come a long way, Mr. President. You may as well tell me what the problem is before I leave.”
Budreau nodded sourly. The red mustache twitched and he ran the back of his hand across it. “It’s simple enough. The ostensible reason you’re here, the reason we gave the Colonial Office for letting us recruit a planetary constabulary, is the bandit gangs out in the hills. No one knows how many of them there are, but they are strong enough to raid farms. They also cut communications between Refuge and the countryside whenever they want to.”
“Yes.” Falkenberg stood in front of the desk because he hadn’t been invited to sit. If that bothered him it did not show. “Guerrilla gangsters have no real chance if they’ve no political base.”
Budreau nodded. “But, as I am sure Vice President Bradford told you, they are not the real problem.” The President’s voice was strong, but there was a querulous note in it, as if he was accustomed to having his conclusions argued against and was waiting for Falkenberg to begin. “Actually, we could live with the bandits, but they get political support from the Freedom Party. My Progressive Party is larger than the Freedom Party, but the Progressives are scattered all over the planet. The FP is concentrated right here in Refuge, and they have God knows how many voters and about forty thousand loyalists they can concentrate whenever they want to stage a riot.”
“Do you have riots very often?” John asked.
“Too often. There’s not much to control them with. I have three hundred men in the Presidential Guard, but they’re CD recruited and trained like young Banners. They’re not much use at riot control, and they’re loyal to the job, not to me, anyway. The FP’s got men inside the guard.”
“So we can scratch the President’s Guard when it comes to controlling the Freedom Party,” John observed.
“Yes.” Budreau smiled without amusement. “Then there’s my police force. My police were all commanded by CD officers who are pulling out. My administrative staff was recruited and trained by BuRelock, and all the competent people have been recalled to Earth.”
“I can see that would create a problem.”
“Problem? It’s impossible,” Budreau said. “There’s nobody left with skill enough to govern, but I’ve got the job and everybody else wants it. I might be able to scrape up a thousand Progressive partisans and another fifteen thousand party workers who would fight for us in a pinch, but they have no training. How can they face the FP’s forty thousand?”
“You seriously believe the Freedom Party will revolt?”
“As soon as the CD’s out, you can count on it. They’ve demanded a new constitutional convention to assemble just after the CoDominium Governor leaves. If we don’t give them the convention they’ll rebel and carry a lot of undecided with them. After all, what’s unreasonable about a convention when the colonial governor has gone?”
“I see.”
“And if we do give them the convention they want, they’ll drag things out until there’s nobody left in it but their people. My Party is composed of working voters. How can they stay on day after day? The FR’s unemployed will sit it out until they can throw the Progressives out of office. Once they get in they’ll ruin the planet. Under the circumstances I don’t see what a military man can do for us, but Vice President Bradford insisted that we hire you.”
“Perhaps we can think of something,” Falkenberg said smoothly. “I’ve no experience in administration as such, but Hadley is not unique. I take it the Progressive Party is mostly old settlers?”
“Yes and no. The Progressive Party wants to industrialize Hadley, and some of our farm families oppose that. But we want to do it slowly. We’ll close most of the mines and take out only as much thorium as we have to sell to get the basic industrial equipment. I want to keep the rest for our own fusion generators, because we’ll need it later.
“We want to develop agriculture and transport, and cut the basic citizen ration so that we’ll have the fusion power available for our new industries. I want to close out convenience and consumer manufacturing and keep it closed until we can afford it.” Budreau’s voice rose and his eyes shone; it was easier to see why he had become popular. He believed in his cause.