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That, however, would have to wait until she returned aboard Gauntlet. For now, she had other things to consider, and whatever the captain's reasons for assigning her to her present task, it was her responsibility to discharge it successfully.
"Five minutes to touchdown, Ms. Hearns," the flight engineer told her, and she nodded.
"Thank you, Chief Palmer," she said, and glanced over her shoulder at Platoon Sergeant Gutierrez. Gutierrez was a San Martino. Quite a few San Martinos had enlisted in the Star Kingdom's military since the planet's a
He was also the next best thing to two meters in height and must have weighed somewhere around two hundred kilos, all of it the solid bone and muscle only to be expected from someone born and bred to the heavy gravity of San Martin. Standing next to him in the boat bay, Abigail had felt as if she were five years old again, and his weathered, competent appearance had only emphasized the feeling.
But if he made her feel like a child, his was also a reassuring—one might almost say fearsome—presence. She felt reasonably confident that the pacifistic Fellowship of the Elect was unlikely to attempt to ambush and assassinate her landing party. But after considering all the possibilities, Commander Watson had decided to send not one, but two squads of Marines down with her, and Major Hill, the CO of Gauntlet's Marine detachment, had picked the first and second squads of Sergeant Gutierrez's platoon. Abigail felt moderately ridiculous as the lowly midshipwoman escorted and guarded by no less than twenty-seven armed-to-the-teeth Marines, but she supposed she should take it as a compliment. Apparently, even if the exec had decided to whack her over the head for her sullen attitude, Commander Watson still wanted her back in one piece.
She chuckled quietly at the thought, then looked back out the viewport as the pi
Her aerial view had already made it painfully clear that the "city" of Zion wasn't much more than a not-so-large town of single and double-story wooden and stone buildings. From the air, it had appeared that the very oldest portions of the settlement had ceramacrete streets, but the rest of the streets were either paved in cobblestones or simple dirt, like the "landing pad." She'd seen cobblestones enough in the Old Town sections of Owens, but not dirt, and the sight—like that of the landing pad—emphasized just how primitive and poverty stricken Refuge really was.
She drew a deep breath, unbuckled, and climbed out of her seat while Sergeant Gutierrez got his Marines organized. One six-man fire team headed down the ramp and took up positions around the pi
A trio of men stepped out of the neatly painted, thatched-roofed stone cottage which, judging from the aerials and satellite communication array sitting in front of it, was probably the settlement's com center as well as the "control room" for what there was of the landing field. She studied them carefully, if as unobtrusively as she could, as she followed Gutierrez himself down the landing ramp.
The greeting party had timed things pretty well, she thought, because they reached the foot of the ramp almost simultaneously with her.
"I am called Tobias," the oldest-looking of the bearded, brown and gray-robed threesome said. There was a certain watchful wariness in the set of his shoulders and the stiffness of his spine, but he smiled and inclined his head in greeting. "I greet you in all the names of God, and in accordance with His Word, I welcome you to Refuge and offer you His Peace in the spirit of godly Love."
"Thank you," Abigail replied gravely, even as somewhere inside she winced at how someone like Arpad Grigovakis would have responded to that greeting. "I am Midshipwoman Hearns, of Her Manticoran Majesty's Ship Gauntlet."
"Indeed?" Tobias cocked his head, then glanced at Sergeant Gutierrez and back at Abigail. "We are not precisely familiar with the Manticoran military here on Refuge, Mistress Hearns. But as a single small, lightly populated planet, we are—understandably, I think—cautious about unexpected contacts with outsiders. Particularly with unexpected warships. As such, I took the precaution of consulting our library about the Star Kingdom of Manticore when your ship first contacted us. Our records are somewhat out of date, but I notice that your uniform doesn't match the imagery in the file."
He gazed at her expectantly, and she smiled back at him. Sharp as a tack, this one. And it looks like the Captain was right about how wary these people might feel, she admitted, and nodded in acknowledgment of Tobias' point.
"You're correct, Sir," she said, and waved one hand in a small gesture at her sky-blue tunic and dark-blue trousers. "I'm currently serving aboard Gauntlet while completing my midshipwoman's cruise, but I'm not Manticoran, myself. I'm from Grayson, in the Yeltsin's Star System. We're allied with the Star Kingdom, and I've been attending the Royal Navy's academy at Saganami Island."
"Ah, I see," Tobias murmured, and nodded in apparent satisfaction. "I've heard of Grayson," he continued, "although I can scarcely claim that I'm at all familiar with your home world, Mistress Hearns."
He gazed at her speculatively, and she wondered what, precisely, he'd heard about Grayson. Whatever it was, it seemed to reassure him, at least to some extent, and his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.
"Your captain's message said that you're visiting us as part of an investigation into possible acts of piracy," he said, after moment. "I'm afraid I'm not quite clear on exactly how he believes we can help you. We are a peaceful people, and as I'm sure is apparent to you, we keep much to ourselves."
"We understand that, Sir," Abigail assured him. "We—"
"Please," Tobias interrupted gently. "Call me Brother Tobias. I am no man's master or superior."
"Of course . . . Brother Tobias," Abigail said. "But, as I was saying, my Captain is simply following up the known movements of ships which we know were operating in this area and which subsequently disappeared. One of them was the Erewhonese destroyer Star Warrior, which called here some months ago. Another was the transport Windhover."
"Oh, yes, Windhover," Tobias murmured sadly, and he and his two companions signed themselves with a complicated gesture. Then he shook himself.
"I don't know that we have any information that can help you, Mistress Hearns. What we do know, however, we will willingly share with you and with your captain. As I said, we of the Fellowship of the Elect are a peaceful people who have renounced the ways of violence in all of its forms in accordance with His Word. Yet the blood of our murdered brothers and sisters cries out to us, as must the blood of any of God's children. Anything we can tell you which may aid in preventing additional, equally terrible crimes, we certainly will."