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P?ts wanted to rise up and brain Mladenov with the trowel he held now in a clenched fist. Only two things held him back. First, though Mladenov was short, he was hard and strong, and likely carried a trowel of his own. And second, even if P?ts did stretch him dead and bleeding on the ground, that would be just the start of internecine strife in Talli
But the Russians-! P?ts clenched his teeth, tore a weed out of the ground, ripped it to pieces, and threw the pieces aside. The Russians drank too much; the first thing they'd done after the BuReloc trucks chugged back toward Shangri-La Valley was build themselves a still. They worked too little; they weren't used to the idea that they had to keep busy even if no one was watching. On Haven, if you didn't keep busy, you starved.
Worst of all, they were Russians, members of one of the CoDominium's two leading states. Even if they were politically crazy Russians, they still found more sympathy in Shangri-La Valley than any Estonian could hope for. P?ts and his fellows had had to beggar themselves with the bribes they needed to bring a handful of ancient bolt-action hunting rifles to Talli
That gave him a third reason for leaving Iosef Mladenov alone. If the Estonians and Russians aid go at it, he was afraid his people would lose. But oh, P?ts longed for the days when Talli
As if to underscore his worry, another Russian came padding down the path in soft felt valenki. The fellow cheerfully whistled Prokofiev as he walked. He too paused when he spied P?ts stooped in his plot. "Is that you, Anton Avgustovich?" he asked. His voice was light and young. P?ts recognized it at once.
"Da, Sergei Dmitrovich, it's me," he said resignedly. Here was a friendly Russian. All things considered, he preferred the surly Mladenov.
"How are you this fine day, sir?" Sergei Izvekov went on.
"I am well," P?ts said.
"And your charming daughter Ana, she is also well, I hope?"
She is well," P?ts agreed. Ana was his young daughter-more to the point, his unmarried daughter. Izvekov had been sniffing around her for the better part of a T-year. P?ts had not been able to discourage him this side of a thrashing. One of these days, it might come to that.
Perhaps finally taking a hint from P?ts' string of short answers, Izvekov went on his way. The Estonian returned to weeding. In the darkness, he did not see that one of the plants he was pulling up was a fireweed sprout. The acid in the leaves burned his fingers. He swore, foully. Between Russians and fireweed, his mood was black.
He hardly brightened when his son-in-law, Konstantin Laidoner, at last came to help him. "Took you long enough," he growled. Even having his own language in his mouth again hardly gave him pleasure.
"I am sorry, father of my wife," Laidoner answered. "I did not want to leave right after I woke. Sarah felt unwell. I think she is pregnant, father of my wife."
P?ts' mouth fell open. Sarah, pregnant? His Sarah, who had been born on the hellish flight out from Earth aboard the Red October, whom he had held in one hand as if she were a potato, whose dirty linens he had changed, whose ski
In his heart now came fear. This was a valley, though by Earthly standards the equivalent of highland country. She could deliver safely, if everything went well. If things went not so well, the nearest real doctor with real instruments was thousands of kilometers away. Would the CoDominium fly such a doctor to Sarah's aid? Even imagining that set scornful laughter echoing in his mind.
As was his way, he covered fear with gruffness. "Get down here and weed with me, Konstantin. If she is pregnant, she'll need all the turnips we can coax from the ground."
They worked together until the little plot was free of native plants. Then they got up and trudged out to their field to do the same thing. The barley and rye looked to be doing well; for some reason, the oats were having trouble. No doubt an agronomist could have solved the problem in a few days, but if no obstetrician would come from Shangri-La Valley to care for a woman, what were the odds of anyone flying out to check on some plants? If people outside the main valley couldn't make it on their own, that was their lookout, as far as what passed for a central government was concerned.
"Now what?" Laidoner asked after they had finished weeding and doing what they could for the ailing oats (which mostly consisted of making sure they had enough water and manure).
"Gather the eggs, unless one of the women has seen to the hens by now. Slop the pigs. Churn the butter. Check the cheeses, to see how they're doing. Jaak says he'll make some new boots for us when one of those sheep's-milk wheels is ripe. Always something to do, youngling, always something to do. I remember back on Earth when I was your age, not long before they shipped me out. I'd sit around in a tavern for hours on end, drinking beer and telling lies to friends as idle as I was."
Konstantin had headed back to Talli
A couple of Russians came down the road toward Laidoner. One of them carried a hoe on his shoulder, as if it were a rifle: the Russians were on their way out to cultivate too, then. Instead of making way for Konstantin, they blocked his path. "Let me by, please," he said.
"Let me by, please," the one with the hoe echoed, mockingly mimicking his accent. "If it weren't for troublemakers like you, Estonian scum, the rodina never would have had to suck up to the Americans to make the CoDominium. And they never would have shipped us to this Christless place for speaking the plain truth that Russia should be Russian. Grab him, Gleb; let's pound some respect into his stupid, ugly face."
Laidoner sprang to one side, but the Russian called Gleb grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground. The fellow with the hoe stood over them, waiting for a clear chance to swing it.
P?ts plucked a knife from his boot and ran toward the fight. He blindsided the Russian with the hoe. The Russian hit the ground like a sack of flour. P?ts sprang onto him, jerked up his chin by the beard, set the edge of the knife against his windpipe. "Get away from my son-in-law," he snarled at Gleb, "or I'll let all the air out of your friend here." To emphasize what he said, he let the Knife dig in a couple of millimeters. The Russian he was sitting on wailed.
Gleb rolled off Konstantin, who got shakily to his feet. "You cut my brother, Estonian louse," Gleb said, "and we have war in this valley."
"That didn't worry you when you thought you had the drop on one of us," P?ts retorted. All the same, Gleb's words gave him pause. He did not want war with the Russians. He did not want to live with them, either, but no help for that now. Reluctantly, he got off the fellow he had tackled. He kicked him in the ribs, about half as hard as he wanted to. The Russian took it like a man, which only a
"We'll go," Gleb said. "This time. Come on, Boris, let's get you on your feet."
After a couple of tries, Boris managed to stand. Even so, he walked with a list, as if he'd sprung a leak on one side. Gleb picked up the hoe. He looked back at P?ts, who stayed in a knife-fighter's crouch. The two Russians turned and went on down the path. Snatches of Boris' words floated back: "-castrate that bastard-think he broke one of my ribs-"