Patriots

23. More Company

The Zeniths would get clean enough in the jet from the firehose, but hot water in the Spiker's shower room sucked the fatigue from Mark's muscles as well as sluicing the mud away. He was stretching, wondering what could be a greater luxury, when a draft from the door opening made the mist swirl. Mark peered from the spray.

"Mr. Maxwell?" Blaney called. "There's a fellow here wants to see you when you're free. A gentleman, I shouldn't be surprised."

Mark shut off the taps. "What's he want?" he asked, taking the borrowed towel from a sheltered niche. Under the towel were the canvas work clothes he'd borrowed also. He wasn't sure he'd ever believe the coveralls that went through The Goo were clean enough to wear again.

"Wouldn't say, sir," Blaney said, helping Mark on with the pull-over shirt. "Got in this morning from Dittersdorf. When he saw you come in, he said he'd wait till you cleaned up. He figured you'd want that."

"He was right," Mark muttered. It couldn't be somebody from Zenith intending to kidnap him, could it? Surely not here at the Spiker!

The local boots were soft and almost shapeless. Mark cinched them to his legs with the external straps and strode with Blaney into the barracks-style bunkroom to see who was waiting for him.

His father was waiting for him.

Lucius put a finger to his lips and said "No names just now!" before Mark could blurt a greeting. "Let's take a walk, shall we?"

He gave Blaney a nod of bland approval. Down the hallway somebody overset a tray with a crash. A man and a woman began to shout recriminations at one another. Blaney shook his head regretfully and scurried off to take charge.

"Yeah, I guess we ought to," Mark agreed. He followed his father toward the back door. Lucius wore loose-fitting battle dress that had been used hard in the past. It gave Mark the general impression of being gray, but in the sunlight he could see that it was really a mix of many tiny dots of color from violet to deep red.

As well as being practical, the garment was a perfect disguise. No casually met Greenwood settler would connect this figure with Attorney Maxwell of Quelhagen. It was typical of Lucius to wear something absolutely appropriate. Mark only wondered where his father had found it.

"I wasn't expecting you," he said. Boy, he was repeating everything since he came to Greenwood.

Lucius shrugged. "I had a question that only you could answer," he said. "It wasn't one I thought I could entrust to anybody else to carry, so I-" He smiled, a tight expression to cover embarrassment with humor. "-took the excuse to visit you in your new environment."

They were at the back of the tavern, overlooking the river. From here the view was beautiful. If you got closer to the edge of the bluff, you could see the moraine of garbage and slaughterhouse waste. The recycling plant hadn't been delivered yet, and Mark hadn't figured quite how to deal with the accumulation from previous years either.

"I believe," Lucius said, fixing Mark with his eyes, "that the Alliance Protectorate Office is going to suggest a compromise: that all Hestia grants held by actual settlers be confirmed, but that Hestia grants in the hands of nonresident investors become void. I suspect that the Zenith syndicate will be smart enough to accept the offer." He grinned coldly. "Certainly I would advise them to accept it if they were my clients. I need to know what your feelings about the offer are, Mark."

Mark's face remained blank. The question didn't matter. What worried him was why his father had asked him. He couldn't imagine a reason.

"Ah," Mark said. There were two dirigibles and dozens of flyers in the sky, more than you'd usually see airborne at one time. Settlers were pouring toward the Spiker from distant tracts, either too late to join the defense or just interested in the spectacle of victory.

Mark met his father's gaze again. "Dad," he said, "I can't speak for Greenwood. I don't have any idea what the people want. There's probably as many notions as there are settlers. It's that sort of place."

He cleared his throat and added diffidently, "Besides, it's the investors who're really paying your costs, isn't it? Surely they wouldn't agree to that."

"If I wanted to know what the whole citizenry of Greenwood wished," Lucius said, each syllable snapping out like a trap shutting, "I suppose I'd hold a referendum. I cannot imagine bothering to do so, since they've put Yerby Bannock in charge. If they're wise, they'll do whatever he says and like it."

Mark stiffened to attention. "Father-" he said.

"As for the investors who may ethically be considered my clients, Mark," Lucius continued with the same cold passion, "I assure you that if it becomes impossible for me to meet both my personal and my professional obligations, I will resign the latter without a qualm. I was a man before I became a lawyer. Now-" His tone softened minutely. "-will you please answer the original question?"

"Yes, sir," Mark said. "Sir, I stand with Greenwood. With the planet, I mean. I hope with the people too, but I can't say about that."

He coughed and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His skin smelled of the harsh soap with which he'd scrubbed off The Goo.

"Dad," Mark went en, "if the Zeniths win-and that's winning-they'll bring in preformed cities, hundreds of thousands of people. Settlers like that aren't really immigrants, they're people Earth governments have exiled to get them off the welfare rolls. They'll swamp the planet and turn it into a garbage dump. I don't want that."

Lucius' grin had a cruel edge. "Do you think Elector Daniels heads a syndicate of altruists, then?" he asked.

"No," said Mark. "No, they're the same sort of people as the Zeniths, I know that. But Biber and Finch own the Zenith government."

He slapped the wall of the Spiker. "The Greenwood Assembly's going to meet right here in ten days' time," he said. "That's everybody on the planet who wants to come. They're going to pass a minimum requirement of owning two thousand square miles for anybody who stays on the planet for more than thirty days!"

"Clever," Lucius said. "Did you come up with the idea?"

Mark grinned. "Yeah, I sort of did," he admitted. "Daniels' lot can't say a word about it."

Lucius nodded. "So far as the Alliance is concerned, Greenwood remains under Zenith administration," he said. "But you know that."

He chuckled. "And we can let the evil of the day be sufficient unto it," he added. "Well, Elector Daniels will be pleased, and I'm rather pleased to be able to continue taking his money in good conscience. That's all the business I had to transact here."

"Ah, Dad?" Mark said. "I guess you'll be here a few days."

Lucius nodded.

"Let me introduce you to some people, then," Mark said. "Even the ones you've met are a lot different here than when you saw them on Zenith."

"Except," Lucius said, "for Yerby Bannock, I suspect. Yes, I'd like that."

He linked his arm with Mark's. They walked through the tavern to the celebration on the other side.