Shining Steel

Chapter Seventeen

“And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn forever."-Jeremiah 17:4

After sending a message to Dawes that he needed time to consider her offer, John spent most of the next two days resting and thinking, while his few remaining followers were out in the streets and markets trying unsuccessfully to recruit new men, and making contact with their fellows, now no longer spies for an army but merely a band of saboteurs. It was the morning of the third day when John was certain of his decision; he tracked down Miriam. She worked days as a chambermaid and evenings as a waitress, rarely leaving the inn, so finding her was not difficult.

After a few stiff formalities, John said, “You told me that you knew some of the Earthers pretty well."

She looked at him warily before replying, “Mostly just one, really."

“The one who showed you those tapes."

“Yes."

“What sort of a man is he?"

“How do you mean that?"

“Well, showing you the tapes-that wasn't something he was expected to do, was it? Did his superiors approve?"

“I don't know; I didn't think about it. Why? What does it matter?"

“I want to talk to an Earther, that's all-a reasonable one, who won't turn down a proposition before he hears it."

“You want to hire a spy?"

“No, not really-just someone who will do one or two things for me, nothing dangerous."

“Kwam? might do something like that, I don't know."

“Kwam??"

“That's his name."

“I don't like these pagan Earther names; they don't mean anything. It makes them hard to remember."

“His name is Kwam? Montez; he says he's from a place called Australia, back on Earth."

“I never heard of it."

“Neither did I,” Miriam admitted. “This proposition you want to make-you're still trying to drive away the Earthers, aren't you?"

“I might be,” John said.

“Are you?"

“Yes,” he admitted.

“That's what I thought-you don't give up easily. I don't know if Kwam? will help you-he's not really dishonest, he's just… well, playful. He is a Heavener, a real Heavener, not a stockholder like Tuesday; he wants them to stay on Godsworld."

“I just want him to listen to my offer. I'm not trying to hurt anybody. I won't ask him to damage anything."

She looked at him carefully. They were in one of the unoccupied rooms, where she had been replacing the bedsheets. “What are you up to?"

“Nothing that will hurt you. Just introduce me to this Kwam?, that's all. I can do you a favor in exchange, or pay you a little, if you like."

“Are you going to ask him to get you something? Steal something?"

John shook his head. “Don't ask me a lot of questions.” She was uncomfortably close to what he had in mind. He had not expected her to figure anything out, or even to try. He hadn't thought her capable of thinking like that.

“Are you planning to buy Earther weapons and meet the Heaveners on even terms?"

That was not exactly what he had had in mind, but he could understand how Miriam might have come up with such an idea. For his own part, he had dismissed the idea a few weeks earlier; open warfare with Earth weapons on both sides would be far too destructive. Half of Godsworld might perish in the crossfire.

“No,” he said. “I don't want to fight the Heaveners openly any more; they can do too much damage."

After another moment's hesitation, Miriam gave in. “All right,” she said, “I'll take you to see Kwam?."

“Good,” John replied. “Where and when can I meet this mysterious person?"

“I'll take you there, right now."

“Now?” John was startled and made no attempt to hide it.

“Yes, now; tell your friends you'll be back later."

“I don't…” he began.

“Come now or forget it, Captain!” she interrupted.

He gave in. “I'm coming,” he said.

After a detour to the market to tell David and Thaddeus, who were currently stationed there, that an urgent errand had come up, John followed as Miriam led the way at a brisk pace directly toward the Corporate Headquarters. She marched in through the open door without hesitation, turned left, and proceeded along one of the door-lined corridors. A right into another corridor, then a left, and she began counting doors. At the fifth she turned and tapped on a panel in the wall beside it.

The door slid aside; she stepped inside, John entering close on her heels.

He froze the moment he was inside. Despite minor rearrangement, he recognized the room; he had been here before.

The door had closed behind him. He was trapped. He reached for Miriam's arm, but before he could grab it an unfamiliar voice called, “Oh, it's you, Miriam! What are you doing here? Who's that with you?"

He turned, as Miriam said, “Hello, Kwam?; this is John Mercy-of-Christ. He wants to talk to you."

John could not locate the voice's origin.

“I'll be right down,” Kwam? said.

Miriam gestured at the cushions heaped on all sides. “We might as well be comfortable.” She sat down, the cushions rising to meet her in an unsettling, almost lascivious manner.

John remained standing. “I know this room,” he said. “This is where Tuesday…"

“Oh, I know that! But Tuesday left weeks ago; she's not even on Godsworld any more. Kwam? says she went on to a planet called Hellenbeck Five; I don't know much about it, but I guess it's a little like Godsworld, with Earthers just recently moving in. There are a lot of worlds out there, not just Earth and Godsworld."

“I know that,” John said, still uneasy.

“Stop worrying! Kwam? will be here in a minute. We picked this room as a meeting place because nobody uses it much-probably nobody uses it at all since the stockholders left. When your men killed that one over in Withered Fig there were three or four stockholders around, but they all left on the next ship-you scared them."

“Well, it's nice to know we accomplished something,” John said sarcastically. “If nobody uses this room, how did Kwam? know we were here?"

“Because,” Miriam said patiently, “the machines keep track of everything, everywhere, and we told the machines that whenever anyone came in here they should tell Kwam?."

“Oh.” Before he could say anything else the door slid open, and Kwam? Montez stepped into the room.

“So you're John Mercy-of-Christ,” he said. “I'm pleased to meet you.” He held out a hand.

John took it as briefly as he politely could.

Kwam? Montez was small for an Earther, about average by Godsworlder standards, a few inches shorter than John's five foot ten and a good many pounds lighter. His hair was black and curly, his skin dusky, and his smile broad and gleaming with big white teeth. “What brings you here?” he asked.

“Miriam told me a few things about you, and I wanted to talk with you about the corporation. Did you know they offered me a job?"

Kwam? nodded politely. “I had heard something about that,” he said.

Miriam did not take John's news so calmly. Although she managed not to interrupt, she was plainly thunderstruck.

“They did. I told them I needed time to think about it. I'd like to talk to you, if you aren't busy."

“Oh, I set my own hours; what did you want to ask?"

“Well-could we go somewhere else? They record everything that happens here, don't they?"

“Yes, of course they do; you'll have to get used to that if you're going to work for us."

“I suppose I will, but right now I'm not used to it. Could we go somewhere else, where I can talk freely?"

“All right; lead the way. Hiring isn't exactly my regular job, but I'm here.” He waved, and the door to the corridor slid open.

John breathed more easily when they were out of the cushioned room, and by the time they had reached his room at the now-familiar inn he was feeling relaxed and sure of himself. “Mr. Mawn-Tess,” he said, “thank you for coming. Sit down.” He indicated the bed; the room had no chairs.

Kwam? sat down.

“Ms. Humble, you don't need to stay,” John added.

Miriam, standing by the door, did not move. After a moment John shrugged. “Suit yourself. Mr. Mawn-Tess, how did the New Bechtel-Rand Corporation wind up here on Godsworld in the first place?"

“We came in starships, like the one next to the headquarters…"

“No, no, that's not what I mean. I mean how is it that Bechtel-Rand came to Godsworld and nobody else? What about the Earth government? Or other corporations? Or religions seeking converts?"

“Oh, I see what you're asking. Bechtel-Rand won the development contract when Godsworld was rediscovered. I'm not sure if the Godsworld job was a bid, a lottery, or rotation, but when they let the contract we got it."

“When who let what contract?"

“When the Colonial Redevelopment Authority gave out the right to develop Godsworld."

“How does that work?"

“Well, the CRA is in charge of everything concerning the old sleepership colonies, both vol and shangman…"

“What?"

“The CRA-the Colonial Redevelopment Authority-controls everything about the colonies founded by the United Nation, back before FTL was developed…"

“Eftial?"

“Faster-than-light."

“Go on."

“Right. There are a lot of colonies-the United Nation got rid of anyone who made trouble by shipping them off quick-frozen. Some were founded by volunteers, like Godsworld-people who wanted a world of their own-and others were founded by prisoners or just people off the streets who happened to get caught, who didn't want to go. The volunteers are called ‘vol', and the others are called ‘shangman'-I'm not sure where the word came from. Anyway, it doesn't matter which they are, the CRA controls them all."

“All right, I understand that-but then, why is Bechtel-Rand here, instead of the CRA?"

“The CRA doesn't develop planets itself; that's not their job. They're just a branch of the Interstellar Confederacy overgovernment in charge of making sure that everyone plays by the rules. One of those rules is that lost colonies need to be handled carefully and treated with respect; nobody wants to start an interstellar war. So when a colony is found, the way Godsworld was, the CRA assesses the situation and chooses one developer who is allowed to move in slowly and establish contact between the colony and Earth. They're supposed to pick the developer best suited to handle each particular situation, but sometimes nobody can decide which company that is, so they hold a lottery, or if there are one or two companies that would do equally well, whichever one didn't get the job last time gets a turn. I don't know how they decided about Godsworld, but they gave it to Bechtel-Rand."

“Why only one?"

“Because if there were two, they would compete with each other, and that could be dangerous for the colonists. Keeping one corporation in line isn't that hard, but when there are two competing in the same market it's almost impossible, and the CRA doesn't want to try. Besides, why confuse the colonists with two developers, or three? On some worlds the developers are practically gods-and if a tribe thinks one developing corporation is the gods, then the other one must be demons. You can get some nasty little wars that way."

John nodded. The explanation made good sense, and was in line with some of his own guesswork.

“Does that one corporation keep the contract forever?"

“Oh, no, of course not! Eventually the colony reaches the point where it can handle modern civilization, and allow in other corporations, or even build corporations of its own. There are a dozen colonies that were never handled by a single developer, and a few others that outgrew it. After all, FTL was invented by one of the colonies in the first place-Achernar IV, the home of the Interstellar Confederacy. They weren't going to stand for giving one company from Earth a monopoly!"

John did not entirely follow this, but did not let that distract him; he latched onto the point that concerned him. “How do they know when a planet is ready to let other corporations in?"

“Oh, that's easy-when the people of the planet invite other corporations, they're free to come. The CRA only chooses the company that can land without an invitation. The colonists own their own planets, though, so they have the final word about who comes and goes. I suppose they could even refuse to let the CRA's developer land at all-but that's never happened, so far as I know."

“You mean that if another corporation received an invitation from someone on Godsworld, they could move in tomorrow?"

“Worried about someone competing with you if you work for Bechtel-Rand, huh? Well, it's not quite that simple. First off, it would take more than a day for a message to reach Earth and a ship to come here. Second, the invitation has to come from someone who has the authority to issue it-the ship has to have a place to land. An innkeeper can't just invite in another company because he wants a better price on his liquor; you can't land a starship in a stableyard."

“I suppose not.” John looked at Kwam? thoughtfully. “How big an area do you need to land a starship?"

“Oh, a dozen hectares or so."

“What's a hectare?"

Kwam? snorted. “I think Godsworld must be the only planet in the entire galaxy where people don't use the metric system! Why your ancestors decided to use the ancient American system I will never understand!"

“They were Americans,” John said stiffly. Insulting the Founders was not something he could take lightly.

“Yes, I know, but even then America had been using metrics for a century or so!"

John had not been aware of that, but refused to be distracted. “What's a hectare?” he repeated.

“It's… it's… I don't know your units well enough. You could land a starship in a square about a thousand feet on a side, I think."

“A thousand-foot square? That would be twenty or thirty acres. That's not that much."

“It's enough."

“If I had a hundred acres of land somewhere, then, I could invite another Earth corporation to land there and trade with me and the rest of Godsworld?"

“Well, yes, I suppose you could-if you had some way of getting a message to them."

“Ah! That, Mr. Mawn-Tess, is why I wanted to talk to you where the machines couldn't hear us. Ms. Humble tells me you don't mind bending rules a little-would you consider delivering a message to the ITD Corporation for me?"

“What?"

“You heard me."

“Are you crazy? I'd lose my job! Why would you want to do that?"

“Mr. Mawn-Tess, I don't like the New Bechtel-Rand Corporation; I don't like the way they do business. I don't think they deserve to be the only corporation on Godsworld, and I want to invite in another one to take part of the planet away from them. If you won't help me, I can find someone else who will-and if you do help me, I would think that the ITD Corporation might be grateful enough to give you a job if you lose your position with Bechtel-Rand."

“They might, at that.” Kwam? looked at him thoughtfully. “They just might-and there could be a nice bonus in it, too."

“You see?"

“I'd need your word that you'd demand they hire me and keep me hired-after all, you'd be issuing the invitation, so you'd be the one with some say."

“I'd be glad to do that, Mr. Mawn-Tess."

“You'll need that landing site-thirty heckus, or whatever you said, of flat, clear ground."

“Acres-thirty acres. That won't be a problem."

“In that case, Captain Mercy-of-Christ, you've got a deal.” He stuck out his hand. This time John's shake was more enthusiastic.