Patriots

Amy's smile became wintry. "She said something like that," she said. "I said that wasn't acceptable in a civilized society."

She cleared her throat and glared. "Which Greenwood is."

Yerby started to throw the empty bottle over the side of the gondola. Mark raised a hand in reminder. "Oh, right," the frontiersman said. He stuck the empty inside his shirt. "Hard to remember this stuff, though."

The Brother Jacques was already winching itself onto the magnetic mass. Captain Krause was easy to identify because of his white coat with six inches of gold braid on the wrists. He stood just outside the Spiker in a group of Woodsru

Desiree landed more forcefully than usual, giving the Zeniths a solid thump before she was done with them. Captain Krause strode toward the dirigible, waving his hat and shouting, "Yerby, you know I'm always willing to do you a favor, but this, this is a whole cargo! You must pay me!"

Yerby stepped briskly to the ground. Mark stumbled as he followed; he wondered if he should have tried another swig of that liquor, since it seemed to have worked wonders for Yerby. Amy steadied him, smiling again even though touching Mark muddied her hand.

"Where's Biber?" Yerby shouted cheerfully as if he were calling a dog. "Here, Mayor-Mayor-Mayor! Ah, there you are."

Mayor Biber was covered, head to toe, with half-dried muck. He'd managed to blow his nostrils and mouth open; his eyes glared furiously out from deep mud caves.

"I demand you provide us with showers and clean clothes this instant, you pirate!" he cried, showering chunks of dirt. The other Zeniths edged away from him.

"Oh, I don't figure we'll do that," Yerby said mildly. "You folk were so determined to take our land that it'd be right u

"I demand!" Biber screamed.

Settlers began to laugh. Mark noticed from the corner of his eye that Amy was recording the scene.

"The question," Yerby said, as if the Mayor hadn't spoken, "is whether you pay your folks' passage back to Dittersdorf or I do."

"There's no way you can make me pay anything, you bandit!" the mayor said. "Any payment will be extorted by force! My bank will refuse any such demand if it's presented."

"Not a bit of it," Yerby said. "Amy, dear, you're getting all this?"

She nodded from behind the camera.

"What I'm saying is that I will pay the passage for every single one of your people to Dittersdorf myself," Yerby said. "Because I'm a friend to the distressed. It's just yours I won't pay. And you won't be held a prisoner if you don't want to pay, neither. I'll return you to your own ship this instant."

Biber's mouth opened, closed, and stayed closed for a moment.

"That's a damned good idea," a woman said. She was one of the prisoners. "A damned good idea!" There was a general rumble of agreement among the Zeniths close enough to hear.

"I'll pay," Biber squeaked.

"One more thing, Yerby," Mark said. "Our guests should be stripped and hosed off right here before they board."

Yerby planted his fists on his hipbones. "I like 'em the way they are," he said truculently.

Mark gri

Yerby guffawed and hugged Mark. "See how smart the little fellow is?" he called to the laughing crowd.

"And while that's going on," Mark added, "I'm going to the tavern and taking a proper shower!"

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 co

"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 gri

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."