“I see, sir. But, a Mark XIX Main Battle Tank costs over a million of your marks, even without the attachable weapon systems. Twenty thousand a year is only a two-percent return on a million-mark investment. We could do better by putting the money in the bank,” I said, knowing that while we occasionally sold tanks for that much, New Kashubia in fact had a completely automatic factory and mining system that cranked out tanks at no cost to us at all! I was trying not to sound too eager, but this was shaping up to be a fantastic deal!
“True, but you need enlistees anyway, don’t you?”
“Well, there is a certain attrition rate. Death, retirement, normal discharges, and so forth,” I said, knowing that in fact most of our tanks were empty for lack of a soldier to put in them. “Just how many people do you have in your prisons, anyway?”
“At present, there are over eighty thousand men with long-term sentences. I am prepared to offer you four thousand marks per man per year for your custodial care. If you can really turn them into responsible, well-educated and law-abiding citizens, well, so much the better.”
“That is an intriguing offer, sir, but I’m not sure if I could get it through the New Kashubian Congress.”
“Then why take the political route at all? Why can’t we simply pay the money to you, and trust that you will make some equitable distribution of it?”
“Why not indeed?” I said with deadpan seriousness, and hoping that my rapidly beating heart wasn’t giving me away. Eighty thousand men times four thousand marks per man per year was . . . a Godawesome amount of money! “I’m sure that I can find some suitable charities, if nothing else. I assume that payments could be made quarterly, and in advance? Good. Very well, we will accept your offer. Agnieshka, see to it that facilities are made ready for processing a large number of enlistees, and make arrangements with His Honor’s subordinates for their delivery to us.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Also, Your Honor, I should mention that some of our best warriors are female. We would also accept women who wished to enlist.”
“That is an interesting thought, General Derdowski, but perhaps we should wait to see how the male inmates work out first. Most of our serious criminals are men anyway, of course.”
“The choice is, of course, yours.”
After the judge left, and the door closed behind him, I asked Agnieshka if the judge really was who he said he was, and she said yes. Then I asked her if a New Croatian Supreme Court judge really had complete control over their prison system, and she again said yes.
I let out an ancient Kashubian battle cry, trusting to the hotel’s soundproofing to keep my secret. We were not only getting the troops we had so badly needed for years, but they were actually paying me an incredible fortune to take them!
Kasia came in to see what the commotion was all about.
“We are rich, girl! We are fabulously wealthy!”
“Yes, dear, I was going to tell you about that. Also, I’ve set up that real estate holding company we talked about earlier, and the projections on it are absolutely fantastic.”
“No, no. I mean absolutely filthy dirty rich! I have hundreds of millions of marks coming in every year from now on!”
“One of your projects? You must tell me about it sometime. A few hundred million more every year won’t hurt us a bit. But just now, I’ve got some loose ends that must be tied up right away. We’ll talk later.”
Maybe there is such a thing as marrying a girl who is too smart.
When Kasia left, Agnieshka said, “Mickolai, have you gone crazy? You are accepting bribes and taking onto yourself things that should be resolved in Congress!”
That brought things back into perspective.
“Agnieshka, how many empty tanks are there on this planet?”
“Sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and twenty-five, boss.”
“Would those tanks like to have observers?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Will it cost anyone anything to put New Croatian citizens, felons though they might be, into our tanks?”
“Well, no, boss. Everything needed is already there, sitting idle.”
“Then what is your bitch?”
“That you are accepting bribes?”
“What bribe? I am being paid for a service that I am performing while I’m on leave. I’m saving my planet’s customer, the New Croatian government, four marks for every one that they give me. This leaves them with that much more money that they can pay to New Kashubia. I’m going to be giving many thousands of criminals a chance at a new, productive life, if they’ll take it. I’m greatly strengthening the Kashubian Expeditionary Force, since a tank with a trained observer has nine times the combat effectiveness of an empty tank. And I’ve decided to buy a whole lot more land. What’s more, I might even contribute something to charity, someday. Enough said?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Good. Now, go and see what an additional three hundred and twenty million Croatian marks a year will buy me in land.”
* * *
About an hour later, I said, “Agnieshka, how many empty tanks are there in the entire Kashubian forces, on all the planets that we have contracts with?”
“I’m not sure, boss. Certainly over a million. Do you want me to get an exact number?”
“Yes. Next, there are twenty-seven governments on this planet. I want you to find out who has the authority in each government to make a deal such as the one we just made with the judge here in New Croatia. After that, I want you to figure out a way to informally leak out the information to the right people that the Kashubian Expeditionary Forces are going into the prisoner custodial business, at prices of about one fifth of what they are paying now. Lastly, I want you to check on the availability of interstellar transport. We are going to be shipping a lot of tanks around the stars.”
“Yes, boss. You are either going to be a hero, or you are going to be in jail.”
“How can they put me in jail if I’m scheduled to go back into a tank in a few months anyway? That’s what they do to criminals nowadays. The important thing is that if Kasia thinks that three hundred and twenty million a year is small potatoes, let’s see what she thinks about four billion!”
CHAPTER NINE
My Wedding
Although I really wanted to spend my time working on my plans for the ranch, I got roped into the wedding preparations, anyway. Every relative of mine that I had ever met, and quite a few that I hadn’t, were showing up, and somebody had to greet them. Suddenly, I was the long lost hero returned, and fifth and sixth cousins were crowding around, reminding me that we had met once when I was eight years old at somebody’s wedding or christening or funeral.
Worse, some of them hadn’t bothered to make hotel reservations, and the town’s hotels seemed to be packed. They had come assuming that we’d just put them up, somehow. Kasia’s parents were soon staying in one spare room, and mine were in the other. Even my annoying kid brother was here, sleeping on the couch in my office, when he wasn’t watching pornography on the wall screen.
Kasia had made me promise to be polite to my relatives, so I tried hard to do it. Now that I was famous, they all crowded around, but in New Kashubia, when I was tried for what was a really a very trivial offense, and sentenced to either death or joining the army, none of them had come to my aid. None of them came to my comfort, or even to talk to me while I was in jail. And now I was somehow morally obligated to be polite to them?
Worst of all was my uncle, Wlodzimierz Derdowski.
Most of my near relatives were in no position to actually do anything to help me when I was in trouble, but my uncle was a very prominent politician, even back then. He knew me well, and was living in the bunk below mine in the barracks, starving in the golden tunnels of New Kashubia. He could have pulled some strings, somehow. He could have helped me, but he didn’t. He didn’t lift a damned finger to save his own nephew. He just let them haul me and my lovely Kasia away, and didn’t even visit us during the trial.
Kasia, always the practical one, had insisted on inviting him to our wedding, since she said that it was likely that he would soon be elected as our next president. I made a point of avoiding the bastard.
* * *
Every politician in New Croatia and New Kashubia seemed to be in town, hoping for news interviews, as were a few hundred political wannabes, who were here for the very same reason.