Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) Page 9

  The commander quickly went on. “It seems that the Mining Co-op managers we met with this evening are interested in doing that here on Presov.”

  “And that’s a problem for me how?” Vicky said.

  “The management cartel has just hit the shift coming off work at midnight with a fifty percent cut in the going rate for crystal delivered to the mine head, Your Grace. They’ve also doubled the price of food in the cafeteria,” the commander said.

  “That must be nice for somebody,” Vicky observed, still not sure of the problem.

  “Assuming there isn’t rioting and destruction in the mines,” the commander said.

  “We made our deal with the managers. Of what concern is that to us?” Vicky asked.

  “The Navy likes to say it pays a living wage to the workers on our colonies. At double the prices for food but half the pay for production, I’m not sure that’s a survivable wage, much less livable.”

  Vicky began to see the problem. “So what’s the use of us opening trade routes again if the mine managers clog them up on the ground? And if the workers aren’t paid enough to buy the ranchers’ beef from St. Petersburg, what does that do to the ranchers’ markets?”

  Vicky sighed. “We could be going through all of this only to have it collapse at our feet, again.”

  “I wonder who makes all the money under this scheme?” the commander asked no one. But it was a good question.

  Vicky glanced at the clock. “It seems a bit late for us to go play twenty questions with the Mine Managers Co-op. Frank, do you think the workers are awake at this hour?”

  “They did send us this message.”

  “Can you land a shuttle down there?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Land a shuttle without our being met by our friendly mine-co-op security thugs?”

  “The communication workers’ union did manage to get this message up here without interception or interruption.”

  “Tell them to start warming up a shuttle and make sure we can talk to whomever we want to talk to. I’ll be dressed in fifteen minutes.”

  “I will have the shuttle ready to drop then, Your Grace.”

  CHAPTER 24

  FIFTEEN minutes later, Vicky met the commander at her door, only to find Captain Inez Tarrago of the First Rangers as well as another captain of Greenfeld Marines present.

  Vicky eyed the collection. “Did you skip anyone?” she asked the commander.

  He made a point of appearing to think for a moment. “I might have missed a few. Do you plan to have the union folks in for dinner? Should I rouse the cooks?”

  Ignoring his humor, they quick-marched for the drop bay. Two bosuns had a longboat ready to go. It was brimming with Rangers and Marines before Vicky got there.

  Vicky settled herself into a seat and gave the commander a grin. “Gee, I think this is my first drop mission with Marines. I’ll have to write Kris Longknife all about it.”

  “Assuming you survive.”

  “She always does,” Vicky pointed out, optimistically.

  “You’re not her,” the commander countered.

  The two captains of infantry eyed them uneasily.

  “Are you two married?” Inez asked.

  “No!” Vicky spat.

  “No offense intended, Your Grace. It’s just that you two seem to enjoy arguing enough to be married,” the Marine captain provided, right on the downbeat.

  Before Vicky could manage a comeback, the shuttle dropped free, and the bosun hit the brakes hard.

  A few Rangers looked a bit alarmed, but the Marines seemed to take it in stride. A few glares from their NCOs settled the Rangers without a word spoken.

  “Where are we landing?” Vicky asked.

  “There’s a small strip outside the main mining town. The chief bosun at the controls assures me they can land short of the cow pasture at either end.”

  “And someone will be waiting to talk to us?”

  “That’s the latest rumor coming in on this secret side net.”

  Vicky found braking was throwing her sideways against the commander. He reached over and cinched her in tighter. He might or might not have copped a feel while doing it.

  Vicky ignored the matter.

  Besides, she kind of liked the feel of his strong hands.

  I made a resolution, she reminded herself.

  And why should this be the first one you don’t break? didn’t have an easy answer.

  On the ground, the commander held Vicky in her seat while the Rangers and Marines deployed, in that order.

  “Is there a problem?” Vicky demanded.

  “None so far,” the commander reported.

  When he decided it was safe for her, he let her unbuckle her harness and march determinedly from the longboat.

  The scene that greeted her was interesting. She stood in a valley between rugged, yellow ridges. The uplands were stark rock, bare of all but a few smudges of lichen and moss. The lower levels of the ridges, however, had some kind of low trees and brush covering them. Vicky could make out pigs and goats roaming the forbidding landscape.

  The valley floor showed bare and yellow in places. However, years of human waste had turned most of it to brown soil covered with growing crops or grass, with sheep and small cows roaming it.

  Vicky sniffed. She was surprised, knowing the mixture of sewage, rock, and dust that went into this soil, at the fresh, growing scent that filled her lungs. We humans go where we will and bring the smell of Earth with us.

  That was all the time she had for philosophy. A klick away from the lander, with a lot of armed troops in between, huddled several dozen civilians. No doubt, these were the people she’d come to meet. As she got closer, she could make out details. They were a mixed lot, young and old. Men and women. The one thing they shared was their clothes.

  They were durable, well-worn, and visibly patched.

  As Vicky strode toward them, an old man and a young woman came forward.

  Vicky greeted them with, “I am Her Imperial Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria of Greenfeld. Call me Vicky,” and offered her hand.

  The old man stepped forward and shook it.

  “You was supposed to kiss it,” someone shouted from the crowd behind.

  “Either is acceptable. I kind of prefer shaking,” Vicky said. Actually, she loved to have her hand kissed. Guys usually took the chance to do nice things with their thumbs to her palms.

  You’re a businesswoman this morning. Stay focused, some other self scolded.

  “Why all the guns and stuff?” came, again, from the mob.

  “She’s the Grand Duchess, you doofus. Her new stepmom wants her dead. Don’t you follow anything on net?” a woman’s voice answered.

  “So that bit of palace intrigue has made it out even to here,” Vicky muttered.

  “We may be out here, but we aren’t totally in the dark about news from the bigger sphere,” the young woman said, dropping something that might have passed for a curtsy at the palace.

  From a cute three-year-old.

  “If you’ll come this way, Your Grace,” the man said, and pointed toward a dimly lit hall of crude construction.

  The Marines closed in on Vicky. The Rangers began to disperse under whispered orders from their officers and NCOs. Her commander’s frown lines stayed deep. He might have talked Vicky into this little visit, but he didn’t look all that happy about it.

  The hall was made of thin plywood held up by rough-hewn two-by-fours. Mud bricks provided some insulation and protection to the outside. Windows had plywood shutters. It must get rough out here in the winter. Around the hall were plenty of buildings a lot smaller and with more mud bricks and less wood. Vicky would never have thought people could live like this.

  There was a long wooden table down the center of the buil
ding. Its plywood was dinted and dinged, with undetermined stains and the occasional carved word. Benches lined both sides of the table. A single rough-worked chair stood at the head of the table.

  Vicky was directed to it.

  Once she was settled, with her commander and a Marine captain standing at her back, there was a long round of introductions.

  The old man was Gus. He spoke for the Guild of Independent Prospectors. The woman was Molly. She spoke for the Tinkers Group.

  Vicky lost track of the introductions after that. COMPUTER, RECORD ALL THIS AND BE READY TO GIVE ME A NAME IF I NEED IT.

  YES, YOUR GRACE.

  The room fell silent after the last name. That pause stretched and folded into a nice bow, so Vicky tossed out her first question.

  “Who are you people? I thought everyone worked for the mines. Tinkers? Independent Prospectors? How do you fit into the big picture?”

  “Think of us as the mice hiding in the walls,” Molly said.

  “Not all of us,” Gus said with a cough. “Some of us are independent contractors to the co-op. Others, well, we’re the people that don’t exist on the record.”

  “Excuse me,” Vicky said, “but I don’t understand matters any better now than when I asked that question.”

  Molly glanced at Gus, then said, “Most of the crystal that is taken out of Presov comes from the hard rock mines. The companies drill deep underground, find a vein, and extract the huge crystals that industry needs. Us, or the independent prospectors, go out and find crystal veins on the surface. Others pan for it. The smaller, water-polished crystals are used for art or musical instruments.”

  “I think I understand what you’re getting at. But what’s a tinker?” Vicky asked.

  “I guess you’d call us craftsmen, but we kind of prefer tinkers. We get a lot of tinker’s damns from the prospectors,” Molly said with a lovely smile. “We’re the people with the fast fingers and good eyes that keep a prospector’s gear working long after the co-op would have scrapped it. Hell, much of what they use, they take from the co-op’s scrap heap and have to pay a sweet price for it, I’ll tell you.”

  “Is there much scrap these days?” the commander asked.

  “Damn little,” Molly said. “And they want an arm and a leg for it. Half our group have been hired by the co-op of late. Even their mechanics and machinists can’t keep the crap they’ve got up and running.”

  “So you live off the table scraps of the co-op,” the commander said.

  “Pretty much. You get banged up and hurt in the mines too bad to work for the co-op, you likely get a job with us. You complete your contract with the co-op, you take the ride home or use the ticket as a grubstake to go prospecting for yourself.”

  “Where do you get your food? Supplies? Where do you sell your crystal?” Vicky asked.

  The commander rested an affirming hand on Vicky’s shoulder. A quick squeeze, and it was gone.

  He likes me, some little girl in a swirly dress cheered.

  He likes what I’m saying, the desperate Grand Duchess shot back.

  It’s good to have another human being affirm me, Vicky concluded, then concentrated on the answer to her question.

  “If you’re desperate for money, you sell to the co-op. You take what they pay and pay their prices for what you need,” Gus said.

  “If you’re not desperate,” Molly said, “you hold out, swap among us, and see what you can get when the ship comes.”

  “The tax ship?” Vicky asked.

  “Of late, that’s about all it’s been, but before, it brought supplies. Most went straight to the co-op, but the captain and crew knew we were here. They’d bring along their own bit of trading stock. Dry goods, spare parts, and gear. We’d trade with them. We sold our crystal for a bit more than the co-op paid. Some stuff fetched quite a bit more. They gave us a decent price for what we needed.”

  “When someone needed a major item, they might give the captain something on consignment. He’d get his take from what he sold it as, and we’d get what we needed such as a new buggy or a small dredge.”

  “We bought our own reactor once when Abby brought that big hunk of black back from wherever she found it,” came from down the table.

  “You trade for all your food?” Vicky asked.

  “We grow our own rice and oats,” also came from down the table. “We’ve got our own hydroponic truck gardens. Some you can even raise out in the open if we get a bit of rain and decent weather.”

  “How’s the co-op taken to that?” the commander asked.

  “Lately, they been confiscating any food they can get their hands on,” Molly said.

  Vicky let the quiet grow around that statement as she thought. Getting this expedition off to a late start was looking more and more like some laughing god’s idea of providence.

  “We added a small freighter to our fleet at the last minute,” she began, describing the tramp that had brought Kit, Kat, Maggie, and Mr. Smith out to her. “It is one of the few still making the rounds out here. When the skipper heard what we were up to, he asked to tag along. He had to throw together a cargo quickly. It’s mostly stuff on consignment. Some of it is luxury stuff. Fine wines. Coffee. Chocolate, both in confections and in the raw.”

  Vicky could hear mouths salivating.

  “But most of his cargo was a consignment of dry goods and canned goods along with some small motors and spare parts.”

  “That’s what we need,” Molly said.

  “He may have to take your crystal on consignment,” Vicky pointed out.

  “So long as he delivers some of that food and parts for us to use now, I’ll risk the trade,” Gus said.

  Vicky made the call to the Doctor Zoot’s skipper.

  “I got a drop ship I can use to get a couple of containers’ worth of stuff down there in the next two hours,” Captain Spee announced. “I’ll need help getting more of my stuff down.”

  “I’ll arrange for the Crocodile to loan you a few LCIs,” Vicky offered.

  “That would be good.”

  A nod to the commander, and he was on his commlink, making it happen.

  CHAPTER 25

  AS the sun came up, Vicky was out on the tiny apron of the hardly larger runway. At her elbow, Captain Spee watched as locals examined samples of his cargo: bulging sacks of rice, corn, and wheat; cans of meat and fish, vegetables and fruit-juice concentrates. A lot of people were eyeing them hungrily.

  But it was the crates of spare parts that were the center of interest.

  Several locals had gone over the stock of parts, under the close watch of a half dozen merchant sailors who had dropped down with their captain. Now the skipper asked to see samples of the crystal they had available for trade.

  “It’s not much to look at,” Gus said.

  “That’s why I hired a crystal mechanic on St. Petersburg when I heard where the next leg of this trip would take me.”

  A tiny civilian stepped forward, a huge pair of goggles on his forehead. He reached almost reverently for the first offered crystal with long, thin fingers. Then he pulled the goggles down to cover his eyes and did some sort of adjustment to the side of them that changed their color. Only then did he lift the crystal to the early rays of the sun.

  “This is a good piece,” he muttered half to himself. “All the sharp edges have been smoothed. Note the way they’ve been evenly worn down,” he said to no one in particular. “Flutists will pay a high price for this. Forty to fifty thousand marks.”

  The captain was quick to step on that. “From which I’ll have to subtract fees for transport and profits for at least three middlemen. Twenty thousand is the most I can offer.”

  “One middleman should get it to a fine musician, and he will pay at least forty thousand for it. Maybe more,” Gus said. “We do follow the market out here. We’d be giving it
away at thirty-five thousand.”

  Vicky wondered if every scrap of crystal would have its own dickering and failed to suppress a yawn.

  “There are five large vehicles coming up the road from Emerald City, fast,” Captain Torrago reported on net.

  “Who’s in them?” the commander asked.

  “Hard to tell. Windows look thick and darkened.”

  “Mine-security people?” Vicky asked.

  “No doubt. Surprised it took them this long. What do you want, Your Grace?”

  “Peace and quiet,” she muttered. “Captain, can one of your Rangers stop them?”

  “Stop them how? Stand in the road and maybe get run over, or should I try putting a bullet in their tires or radiator?”

  “I don’t want to damage stuff they can’t replace,” Vicky said. “Try having someone stand in the road friendly-like.”

  Two minutes later, the Ranger captain reported. “They damn near ran her down, Your Grace. Is it time to shoot the tires?”

  “Let’s try something short of that before we do,” Vicky admitted.

  “I can put five Rangers in the road armed with guns lowered.”

  “Try that. If they blow by them . . .” Vicky paused and weighed what she was about to say. “If they blow by them, shoot out the tires.”

  “Roger that. Make one more attempt to stop them, with guns showing. If they run them down, this time we shoot out the tires.”

  “Affirmative,” Vicky said.

  “Your Grace?” came from the Marine captain beside her.

  “Yes.”

  “There are Marines out covering the approach road with the Rangers.”

  “Inez, wait one on that last order. Are there Imperial Marines with you?”

  “We got a couple.”

  “You got my Gunny,” the Marine captain pointed out.

  “Yes, I do believe I’ve got one big, mean mountain of an NCO out here in Marine combat dress.”