Patriots

"Very well," Candace continued. "You realize, I'm sure, that the above discussion applies only to settlers in good faith. Speculators who bought up large tracts on grants which they knew to be invalid have no rights under any agreement we reach here."

"What's he mean?" Dagmar said to Mark. "I'm no speculator!"

"Ms. Wately's tract is of twenty-five hundred square miles," Mark said to Candace instead of answering Dagmar directly. "That's a typical holding for Greenwood."

"That's absurd," said Finch. He looked from Mark to the counselor. "That's absolutely absurd! You can't call a tract that large a homestead."

"Are we to understand that you'll disallow Ms. Wately's holdings, then?" Mark said. He fully intended to blow off any possible deal, but he couldn't afford to have it look that way. "In effect, to disallow all the present holdings, despite lip service to the contrary?"

"Large homesteads are normal on undeveloped worlds," Candace said coolly. "Mr. Finch, we're discussing a planet, not a tract in the middle of New Paris. I think we can allow holdings of up to the stated figure-" His face rotated to Mark. "-so long as they're undivided tracts held by resident individuals. Yes?"

"Please continue," Mark said. He was acting the part of a cautious negotiator who wasn't willing to commit to anything until he was sure the whole deal was on the table.

Candace nodded in grudging approval. "And there will be an indemnity from criminal and civil prosecution for actions taken by parties on both sides during the past, shall we say, six months," he said. "I think that covers the relevant points. Do you require further clarification, Mr. Maxwell?"

"If we were to agree to the offered arrangement," Mark said, "we'd be signing on behalf of the Greenwood Council, an elective body."

"Nothing of the sort," Candace said, flatly but without anger. The counselor had obviously expected this ploy and would have been disappointed if Mark hadn't tried it. "You'll be signing as representatives chosen ad hoc by Greenwood settlers to negotiate the planet's return to peaceful authority. For this matter only."

He smiled coldly at Mark. "No permanent citizens' body is legal without the express agreement of the relevant Alliance authorities. Without attempting to predict the future, I would judge it very doubtful that Protector Giscard or his vicar will form such a body on Greenwood, given the problems that have arisen-" Candace looked at Vice-Protector Finch. "-on Zenith and elsewhere, when local councils attempt to usurp power properly wielded by the Alliance alone."

Finch's eyes narrowed; Biber's expression hardened. Candace meant powers like the allocation of taxes raised from the citizens of the "protected" planet, Mark knew. Finch and Biber were both Zenith patriots… but as with Ms. Macey the night before, the most important question for them at the moment was their chance for a profit. They held their tongues.

"We can accept that," Biber said. "It seems to me that crimes are crimes and shouldn't be papered over in a land deal, but I can live with it."

He looked at Finch. Finch nodded curtly, unwilling to give his rival the courtesy of verbal agreement.

"Look," Dagmar said to Mark. "What's he saying about my land? And Ba

"You'll still own that land," Mark said. "You'll even be able to buy more if you're ready to pay these gentlemen's price."

He nodded across the table toward Biber and Finch, feeling the corners of his mouth spread in a slight grin. "But there'll be no way you can prevent them from putting a modular city down on any tract they own, even if that's right next to your property."

Candace nodded cool agreement. His bony fingers were crossed in front of him on the table. The Zenith investors were trying not to stare, but their faces showed a focused intensity. Colonel Wordsworth merely glowered at the whole gathering.

"But it won't be on my tract?" Dagmar said. "That's what you're saying, right?"

"Yes," said Mark. "That's what I'm saying."

"Well," said Dagmar, "I got no problem with that. I never asked to run somebody else's business. I just want them to keep their nose out of mine. That's pretty much how everybody feels. That's why we took up land on a place like Greenwood, I guess."

She looked from the investors to Candace. "So?" she said. "There's something we sign or what?"

The people who settled a new world-the survivors, at least-were folk who thought in terms of the immediate future. They didn't have time to worry about crowding and pollution that would come ten years down the road unless they took preventative measures now. Getting through the next winter was too pressing a problem.

"I think," said Mark, "that we'll sleep on the matter overnight, madame and gentlemen."

The investors' expressions hardened, but Candace allowed himself a bare smile. The counselor would have been horrified had the Greenwood contingent accepted the offer so quickly, even though that was the result he and Protector Giscard wanted.

Dagmar Wately looked in question at Mark but didn't speak. Mark continued, "If the parties are of the same mind tomorrow, then perhaps we can meet again to discuss the wording of the agreement."

What right had Mark Maxwell to put his judgment over that of folks like Dagmar Wately? He and Amy and maybe Yerby might be the only people on Greenwood who wouldn't welcome this compromise. Most of the settlers would willingly trade their planet's future for what they had now in their hands.

Maybe Mark had no right at all. But the Woodsru

Candace nodded approval. "Shall we say the same time and place, then?" he asked with a lifted eyebrow.

Mark got up from his chair and looked out the window. Crowds were gathering at many points in the park and streets below, but they didn't have the edgy violence of the mob the night before.

Colonel Wordsworth walked to the window beside him. "What in the name of heaven is going on?" she snarled. She turned and moved for the door at a pace just short of ru

"I'm going with her," Mark muttered to Dagmar.

In fact they all followed Wordsworth as fast as they could, Candace included. Under the present conditions on Zenith, any unusual event could be the fuse that ignited real trouble.

The colonel was still in the lead when the group reached the bronze-and-glass street doors. She barged through and skidded to a surprised halt outside.

A platoon of Alliance troops ma

"Let me see that!" Wordsworth said to the nearest group. The sergeant in the middle snapped to attention, startled by the colonel's sudden arrival. He handed over a thimble-sized cube. When its sides were squeezed, it projected a moving hologram for thirty seconds.

"Here," called a woman wearing the silver-winged uniform of a New Paris delivery service. She tossed a handful of the projection cubes over the sandbag barricade to Wordsworth and the negotiators.

Mark picked up a cube with the rest of them, mostly to check the resolution. It was clever of Ms. Macey to hire a local service to distribute them…

He squeezed the cube. Heinrich Biber, stark naked except for a coating of mud, twitched miserably in the jet of the firehose washing him clean. His face was readily identifiable to anyone who'd seen the Mayor before. So, Mark suspected, were the Mayor's other attributes.