Patriots

"'Tain't polite to carry a gun into another fellow's place unasked," Desiree Ba

She seized the gun. The man holding it resisted. Desiree kneed him between the legs. "That's the spirit, Desiree!" another woman shouted drunkenly.

Desiree tossed the gun into the vehicle and eyed the other guards. They quickly obeyed the unspoken demand.

A fussy-looking official got out of the front of the limousine while two men and a woman of obvious wealth were handed from the back by the uniformed servants. The official said-to Yerby; when Yerby was present, he was the focus of most attention, "my principals have come to meet with Mr. Yerby Ba

"If your principals can't speak for themselves, they came a danged long way for nothing, didn't they?" Yerby said. The official wore a little round-brimmed hat. Yerby tweaked it down over the man's eyes and turned to the wealthy folk. "You lot are from Quelhagen, I hear. Who are you?"

The trio looked nonplussed. One of the guards started forward. A Greenwood put a hand on the guard's shoulder, swung him around, and offered him a jar with six ounces of raw whiskey.

"Madame, gentlemen," Mark said with a crisp nod, "you'll appreciate that Quelhagen caste distinctions are out of place on Greenwood." He smiled. He could hear his father in his mind, forming the words that Mark only had to speak. "Furthermore, you realize that you've intruded uninvited on a man's home and at the very least owe him a prompt explanation."

"I'm Elector Daniels," said the man who appeared to be in his late fifties. "This is Ms. Macey-"

The woman bobbed her head in formal politeness. The Macey family's various branches accounted for up to ten percent of Quelhagen's net planetary worth.

"-and Mr. Holperin." Holperin was a little older than Daniels. He had a nose like a knife blade and steel-hard eyes. "We landed two days ago at Wanker's Doodle and came to here to meet Mr. Ba

"They couldn't have come from the Doodle in no more time than that!" a Greenwood said in amazement. Wanker's Doodle was the community four hundred miles to the northwest of the Spiker. It was the only other port on Greenwood with both a full-sized magnetic mass and an automated ground-control transponder for hands-off landings.

Mark knew that aircars like these could have made the run in an hour and a bit if the drivers pushed, as they surely had. The trio must have brought the vehicles with them. The cost would be enormous, but it bought the Quelhagens a mobility unmatched by anybody else on the planet.

"Well, you met me," Yerby said. He stuck his thumbs under his waistband and stood with his arms akimbo. He wasn't exactly being hostile, but he wanted the outsiders to be very clear of his superior status.

Mark glanced at the crowd around him. He'd only been on Greenwood a few days, but he didn't feel like an outsider. To the local people he was Yerby Ba

These folk from Quelhagen must have thought they'd just arrived in Hell's waiting room, though. The Greenwoods were rough men mixed with a few women who could only told apart by their lack of beards. All of them had been drinking; most were drunk by Quelhagen standards, and a fair number of those closest were armed. The locals were dressed crudely (or outlandishly, which was even worse to the muted taste of Quelhagen aristocrats), and the overhead lighting threw harsh shadows across their faces.

The official whose job was to arrange protocol hadn't spoken since Yerby pulled his cap down. "Can we go somewhere private?" Ms. Macey said doubtfully. She looked as if she would have dived back into the car if she'd thought there was a chance of escaping from the compound.

"Madame, sirs," Mark said. "You're in no danger, I assure you. You're just an interesting exhibit, is all."

"Yerby," said Amy decisively, "why don't we take our guests into the house? They'd probably like something other than whiskey to drink after their journey."

"Hmpf!" Yerby snorted. "Nothing wrong with my whiskey. But sure, you folks come in the parlor with us."

He turned to the crowd in general and bellowed, "Boys, make sure the rest of our guests see what Greenwood hospitality's like. I don't want nobody sober enough to stand come dawn."

The locally hand-crafted furnishings in most rooms of the Ba

The parlor alone was furnished entirely with off-planet material. No two pieces were of the same style. Most of the furniture was badly copied from Terran antiques. On three of the four walls hung holoprints of fantasy castles. Yerby was so proud of the parlor's imported splendor that there was no possibility that he would bring his foreign guests anywhere else.

Yerby probably didn't notice the way the visitors blinked as they walked into the parlor, but Mark did. He cringed in embarrassment for an instant before he realized that neither he nor anybody else in the room had a right to sneer at Yerby Ba

Yerby opened an extruded-plastic reproduction of a Queen A

"Actually, we had refreshments on the flight from Wanker's Doodle," Elector Daniels said. "If you're Mr. Yerby Ba

"I'm him," Yerby said. He took a glass for himself, picked a bottle of Chartreuse-apparently for the color-and poured. "That's my sister Amy-she's part owner here, so don't just take her for a girl-"

Amy and Ms. Macey both stiffened as though they'd been goosed by broomsticks.

Yerby didn't notice. He seemed surprised at how thick the liqueur was. "And the lad's Mark Maxwell, my legal advisor. He's a Quelhagen like you are."

Dr. Jesilind opened the door from the hallway and peered at the gathering. He'd just decided the room was safe to enter when Amy deliberately slammed and locked the panel. Yerby raised an eyebrow, but he didn't comment on his sister's action.

"Would that be Mark Lucius-son Maxwell?" Mr. Holperin asked. "Pardon me for a personal question."

Mark bowed. "That's correct, sir," he said. "Perhaps you're acquainted with my father?"

"He was representing the other party in a contract dispute," Holperin said with a wintry smile. "A most excellent attorney, your father. He cost me a great deal of money."

He bowed to Mark in turn.

"Money's what we're here about," Daniels said, taking charge of the discussion, "We represent the investment group that owns Greenwood. The undeveloped portion of Greenwood, that is."

"You're the owners of the base grants issued by Protector Greenwood?" Mark clarified. He wasn't any sort of legal advisor, but he could translate Daniels's language into terms Yerby understood.

"Yes, we bought the undivided tracts over a number of years," Daniels agreed. "The value of the investment should have risen sharply now that Greenwood is ripe for large-scale immigration. Recent Zenith agitation clouds our title, however."

The investors have gotten the grants dirt cheap because of those Zenith claims. To make the profits they intended, they'd have to convince would-be settlers that Hestia grants were valid.

"I don't see what that's got to do with me," Yerby said. "You need to take it up with Zenith, right?"

"We will indeed be exercising all our legal remedies, Mr. Ba