5
Alberto Esteban Berlino was an imposing figure. Seven feet, three inches tall, he had to duck to get through the passenger door of the shuttle. But it was not his height so much as his hair styling that caught the attention of the members of the official welcoming delegation—which included the General and the three colonels who had been tapped as contract committee for the Elysians. Berlino’s hair, dyed an impossibly bright yellow, came down to his shoulders in three distinct sections—over each shoulder and several inches below the base of his neck in back. Those tresses were stiff with some sort of styling spray. On top, the hair was curled up into an outlandish pompadour that added another two inches to his already considerable height. His hair had been stiffened so much that there was not the slightest hint of movement, even though there was a fifteen-mile-per-hour breeze blowing. His clothing was almost as startling to Dirigenters, a one-piece, form-fitting jumpsuit—mostly a reddish plum color with luminous blue accents, vertical stripes of almost random width and separation—that extended from his neck to his toes. The outfit seemed a bit … thin for the season. The temperature was below forty degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind made it seem far chillier.
Berlino paused near the top of the ramp and scanned as much of the port as he could see. A man and a woman waited behind him, the woman unable to get out of the shuttle until the other two started moving down the ramp. The General and the rest of the welcoming contingent moved closer to the bottom of the ramp as soon as the Elysian chancellor resumed his descent. Berlino was a foot taller than the tallest of the Dirigenters present.
Berlino timed his descent carefully. The band playing music for the ceremony ended a song when he was a single step from the ground. Jules Lecroix, the General, made the welcoming remarks, as he had a number of times before. There was no real “set” speech, but there was little variation between one arrival and another. Those standing with him listened more for the end than for content. The chancellor replied with equal platitudes, somewhat more flowery.
Introductions came next. The man with Berlino was Thomas Beoch, Elysium’s minister for external affairs. The woman was Flora Chiou, treasurer. In appearance both seemed subdued, even plain, compared to the flamboyant coif and bright dress of the delegation’s leader, as if they wanted to be careful not to upstage him. Neither said anything other than polite responses to the introductions.
No one seemed upset at the brevity of the welcoming ceremony. The official parties moved to limousines that took them across Dirigent City to the DMC’s main base and Corps headquarters. The visitors would stay in guest suites in the north wing. Berlino rode with the General. Berlino’s companions followed in the second floater, with Colonel Ruiz. Lon and Colonel Hayley were in the third vehicle.
“Quite a dandy, the Elysian chancellor,” Hayley said as the convoy cleared the aerospace port. “I was afraid I was going to bust out laughing there when he first came out of the shuttle, and that would have been … embarrassing. And I know I heard a few sniggers from the spectators.”
Lon chuckled. “If someone stuck a big round ball on the end of his nose he’d make a fine clown. He’s no buffoon, though. The man is a physicist, apparently one of the best on Elysium. And we’re going to be facing him a lot over the next few days.”
“If he represents high fashion on Elysium, I’m damned glad I don’t live there,” Hayley said, shaking his head. “What a nightmare! The clothes were bad enough, but that hairdo. He must have three pounds of glue holding that concoction together. I may have to suck lemons to keep a straight face.”
“No one ever promised us that soldiering would be easy, Bob. Maybe he won’t be so … extreme when we get down to business,” Lon said. “Especially now that he’s had a chance to see that fashion is a lot different here.”
“Once he realizes that we’re just poor country bumpkins with hay in our ears and pig shit on our boots?” Bob Hayley asked.
“Whatever. Just hope that it’s not the normal regalia of his office, something Elysium’s laws force him to wear.”
“We’ve had people attend their university,” Hayley said. “And we maintain diplomatic and industrial contacts with Elysium; have to, with the kind of research they do. I don’t recall seeing anything that bizarre in our files. I’ve been back through the lot in the last three days.”
“So have I,” Lon said.
There was a short meeting at DMC headquarters shortly after the convoy arrived. The General and the three members of the contract committee met with Chancellor Berlino and his two senior companions. There were several other Elysians in the delegation, but they were aides and technical support people—staff members whose contributions to the mission would come later.
“Basically, this is our situation,” Chancellor Berlino said once the meeting started. He had not changed out of the bright jumpsuit or … eased his hairstyle, but he had put a somewhat more subdued mauve tabard over the bright clothing. “For some years now, a series of representatives from Union have been pressuring us to ‘acknowledge the sovereignty’ of their Confederation of Human Worlds. That would entail paying taxes to Union, and it would also—and more significantly—mean giving them unacceptable levels of control over the direction and products of our research programs. I don’t just mean first option on new technology. They insist on the right to totally control distribution, who we could sell to and when.
“We have refused, repeatedly and with a certain, ah, intensity, especially in the last year. Union’s diplomats urge us to accept their ‘protection’ against any threats, internal or external, and warn that we might be opening ourselves to conquest or raiding from other powers.
“Nine months ago we did experience two rather minor raids, causing minimal destruction and resulting in the loss of some defensive assets. We were unable to determine the identity of the raiders, but we have little doubt that the raids were commissioned if not conducted by Union. They, of course, deny any connection to those events and tell us ‘I told you so’ and renew their arguments that we should concede their sovereignty and save ourselves from any further armed depredations.
“We have continued to refuse. Then, four weeks ago, we were invaded by a large contingent of mercenaries from New Sparta, and more of them landed just hours before my ship left the system. Had they known I was aboard and my destination, I don’t doubt that they would have attempted to intercept the ship to prevent my, ah, escape. We have confirmed their identity but not who hired them, though we assume their orders and pay come from CHW headquarters on Union, though perhaps with one extra … step between them. By this time, I assume that our government has received Union’s latest protestations of innocence along with another, ah, sales pitch for joining their empire so that they could come to our assistance.
“We prefer to retain our independence. It is important, and not merely as an abstraction. I assume Dirigent’s independence is similarly important to it. We both need to be seen as operating freely, without hands tied by external allegiances. Were we to submit to the Confederation or—on the other hand—apply for membership in the Second Commonwealth, we would give up much of what independence means for us. We would lose our undisputed neutrality, which would impact on our university and our research and development industry. Joining the Commonwealth would be less onerous than accepting the over-lordship of the Confederation, but would not satisfy anyone on Elysium. And joining the Second Commonwealth would be the only way we could obtain military assistance from them. We would accept that, as the lesser of two evils, only if it were the only way to avoid falling under the dominion of Union and its idea of the Confederation. So I came here.”
“Can you give us a rough idea of the assets that New Sparta has sent against Elysium—men and ships?” the General asked.
“The last assessment I had before our ship made its first jump into Q-space, New Sparta had landed about thirty-five hundred soldiers. There were five troop transport ships overhead, two smaller transports, and one heavily armed weapons platform that also carried at least a dozen aerospace fighters. Obviously, I cannot report on anything that happened after we entered Q-space the first time.”
“What defensive assets does Elysium have?”
This time Berlino hesitated. “You must understand, we have never felt the need to maintain a massive defensive capability. We have relied primarily on our diplomatic corps. Our neutral status has always been observed, if not officially recognized, by Earth, Union, Buckingham, and the few other worlds prosperous enough and populous enough to pose a serious threat. We have dealt with Dirigent, New Sparta, and most of the other worlds that are the primary sources of mercenaries. Our position has allowed us considerable freedom because of the counterbalancing interests of our various clients. Our independence has been important to a lot of different worlds.” He paused for a few seconds, but it was clear that he had not finished.
“Elysium has maintained a planetary militia for more than two centuries, a small active force and a much larger reserve, but we have never had universal training or a requirement for every young Elysian to, ah, participate. In part, the militia served as an adjunct to the university, allowing us to offer military training to students from other colony worlds who could then go home and establish home defensive systems. Over most of the last hundred years we have maintained additional defense assets, heavy weapons systems, but more as, shall we say, marketing displays for our munitions and research and development industries—evidence of the variety and capabilities of our products. That means more breadth than depth. We don’t have a lot of any particular system. Defensive missile systems, artillery, aerospace fighters, and two ships that are capable of operating as weapons platforms in space. Most of these advanced systems are capable of being operated with minimal human staff.”
How did they stand up against real-life enemies? Lon wondered when Berlino paused again.
“When faced with a massive attack, the results were mixed,” the Elysian chancellor said, as if he had heard Lon’s thought. “The systems themselves appear to have performed admirably, but none of the defenses were fully staffed at the time, and delays and confusion in human control limited their effectiveness. Our ground installations destroyed three shuttles carrying invading troops, and two of their aerospace fighters. But neither our ground- or space-based systems were able to destroy or seriously damage any of the New Spartan ships, and we lost one of our two ships in the initial assault, and the other was damaged so severely that it had to, ah, leave the area to effect repairs and had not returned as of the time my vessel jumped to Q-space.”
“How many ground troops did Elysium have under arms at the time of the attack?” the General asked.
“Approximately four thousand men were on active duty, of whom perhaps eighty percent could be called battle-ready. The rest would be support personnel and the cadre needed to train the militia’s standing reserve. Those reserves were being called to duty but were not yet organized and had not been put through the two weeks’ refresher training called for in our strategic planning,” Berlino said. “Our training system can handle fifteen hundred at a time, which means it would take two months to fully mobilize our reserves and have them ready to face an enemy.”
“So, assuming that has continued on schedule since your departure, there would be about fifteen hundred of those reserves processed and trained by this time?” the General said.
“Approximately that,” Berlino conceded. “We obviously never foresaw a situation in which we might need the entire reserve so … quickly. And with enemy troops on the ground, the speed with which we can mobilize might be, ah, seriously compromised.”
And men pulled out of civilian jobs and put up against a professional army with only two weeks of training can’t be counted on to be worth a hell of a lot, Lon thought. Confusion, heavy casualties, and rapidly deteriorating morale. They might be more of a liability than an asset.
“The situation is most distressing,” Berlino continued, “and our government decided that the fastest and most efficient method of dealing with it is to bring in professional soldiers in sufficient number to deal with the threat and minimize the damage to our infrastructure and people. I do, of course, have full authority to negotiate a contract.”
“We’ll have our technical people go over your requirements in detail,” the General said, “but—in a preliminary way—just what assets do you estimate you will require from us?”
“Since I have no way of knowing if New Sparta has put additional forces in-system, we feel it necessary to bring in a force sufficient to deal with those we know about and those who might well have been sent in as reinforcements—say, eight thousand men plus the space assets to deal with their capital ships and aerospace fighters. I believe that would work out to two of your regiments. You do have that many men available for a contract at present, do you not?”
“Two full regiments of infantry, support troops—including armor and artillery, transports, and probably two weapons-platform ships. This looks as if it will be the largest contract the Corps has had in a decade or more,” Lon said while he and Sara were dressing for the state dinner that evening. “If it goes through the way it looks.” He shrugged. “This early, that’s not completely certain, but, altogether, it could mean more than ten thousand men for a minimum of three months, with possible extensions.”
Sara stopped what she was doing and turned toward Lon. “This could be a bad one, couldn’t it?” she asked. “You’ll be facing mercenaries from New Sparta, troops every bit as professional and well trained as our men are.” Two regiments: She knew that meant that Lon’s regiment would be included, and since it was the entire unit, he would be going along.
“It could be,” Lon conceded with a reluctant nod. “On the other hand, it might not be. The one thing we know we won’t face is irrational fanaticism. Professionals aren’t going to go into action with a ‘do or die, fight till the last man drops’ mentality. If we go in with clearly superior numbers, establish a solid perimeter on the ground, and stymie their forces in orbit, it could all be over in a relatively short period of time. Once the commander of the New Spartan force sees that he’s in a no-win situation, he will look for a way to end the conflict as quickly as possible, just as we would.”
Sara sat on the edge of the bed. “What I really dislike about this is that it will be the first time that you and Junior are both off on the same contract.”
Lon sat next to her and took both of her hands in his.
“I know,” he said very softly. “But you have to figure that it’s unlikely that the situation will ever come up again. By the time 7th Regiment gets back to the top of the rota for regimental contracts, I’ll probably be in Bascombe East tending bar at the Winking Eye, and Junior may well have had his fill of military life and be working a civilian job, or continuing his education. He might even want to take an advanced degree on Elysium.” He continued to hold her hands. When she didn’t reply, he added, “I suppose there’s even a fairly good chance this will be my last off-world contract, even if I spend another five or six years in the Corps. Jobs large enough to require a full colonel in command just don’t come along that often.”
They sat together in silence for another minute before Sara pulled her hands free and stood. “We’d better get busy or we’ll be late to the General’s dinner,” she said.
“I know this is going to be bad timing for you,” Lon said a moment later. “I wish I wasn’t going to miss any of the next months, while you’re pregnant, but at least I’ll be here when the baby is born, and through the holidays.”
“I hope so,” Sara said, too softly for Lon to hear.
The state dinner at Corps headquarters was purely social, with no talk of the pending contract or Elysium’s difficulties. The commanders of all fourteen regiments were present with their wives, along with a few senior officers from the headquarters staff and ancillary branches of the DMC, as well as the mayor of Dirigent City and his wife and a few other civilian notables. There were toasts and short speeches. There was music. The food was the finest that the chefs at Corps headquarters could provide, almost everything grown or raised naturally, not fabricated by a nanotech replicator.
Chancellor Berlino dressed less flamboyantly, in light blue, but his hairdo remained exaggerated. He and his companions received as much attention as they could handle during the cocktail hour before dinner and in the in formal mingling that continued after the meal and speeches had been concluded.
Lon and Sara got home shortly after eleven o’clock that night. “I hope that hair doesn’t start a new fashion among the women here,” Sara said. “It looks as if it would be uncomfortable, at least to sleep in.”
“It won’t be a fashion in the Corps,” Lon said. He ran his fingers through his own hair. He didn’t keep his as short as many in the Corps did, but he knew he would need two years to let his hair get long enough for the sort of arrangement the Elysian chancellor wore … and that would never happen.
“I think the mayor’s wife might try it,” Sara said. “The way she stared at it.”
“Bessie Macklin?” Lon laughed. “She’s a hundred years old if she’s a day.”
“Don’t tell her that. She’d slap your face.” They both laughed. “Bessie’s kind of nice, in a way,” Sara said. “A little pompous sometimes, but usually quite friendly.”
“She has a great-grandson in the Corps,” Lon said. “And a daughter who’s younger than Junior.”
“Not younger, six months older,” Sara corrected. “Six children, nine grandchildren, and twenty-six greatgrandchildren. I think she talked about every one of them this evening.” Sara put her hands over her face to hold in a laugh. “I think Chancellor Berlino was about ready to pull that plastered hair out by the roots before he was able to get away from her.”
“That would have been a sight to remember,” Lon said. “I think if he bent his hair hard it would break off in huge chunks.”
There was no weekend off for Lon. The contract committee met with the three Elysian politicians twice Saturday and once Sunday. Support staff on both sides were in almost continuous session through the weekend. Chancellor Berlino was in a hurry. Between open negotiating sessions, Lon spent most of his time either in conference with Colonels Ruiz and Hayley or reading the voluminous documentation and evaluations being assembled by the Corps’ Contracts Division. Saturday evening, it was nearly midnight before Lon got home.
Sara was waiting up for him.
“How soon?” she asked after a quick hug and kiss.
“Very,” he said, knowing what the question referred to. “We could have a contract ready for signatures as early as Monday morning and ship out Thursday or Friday. Berlino is extremely worried about the situation on Elysium, and he is conceding virtually every bargaining clause in short order.”
They went to the kitchen. Lon sat at the table. Sara fixed him a drink and set it in front of him before she sat. Lon closed his eyes as he drank down half the scotch and water.
“I talked with Junior this evening,” Lon said as he set the glass back down. “He’s got OD duty at 1st Battalion tonight. I told him not to make any plans for the next few months but to keep it quiet until he heard the official word.”
“What did he say?” Sara asked.
“‘Does Mom know yet?’” Lon said, not meeting her look. “I told him you had a pretty good idea something was coming up but that we didn’t have anything plascrete yet.”
“There’s no chance this will fall through?”
Lon shook his head. “I don’t think so. The Elysians came prepared with enough gold, platinum, and transfer credits to hire twice the force we’re talking about. The transfer credits are drawn on Buckingham banks with the guarantee of the Second Commonwealth. They’ve also brought diversion orders for other materials we don’t produce on Dirigent—shipments that will come here instead of to Elysium.”
“It sounds as if they’re desperate,” Sara said. Lon nodded. “Could it be that Berlino knows the situation is much worse than he’s admitted to?”
A weak smile flickered across Lon’s face. “That’s the sort of thing we expect on any contract, but my own guess is that his evaluation was closer than most, as of the time he left Elysian space. And he hasn’t tried to hide the fact that he expects to learn that the situation has gotten worse since he left.”
“What happens if you get there and find that the war is over, that Elysium has been conquered and occupied?”
“We evaluate the situation. If it appears that we have an edge on the New Spartans in men and matériel, we go in and start the work of liberating Elysium. If it appears that we are outnumbered, we wait for additional manpower from Dirigent—a third regiment and one or two additional battle cruisers.” He paused. “It’s been something like sixty years since the last time the Corps mounted a three-regiment contract, and there’s never been one larger than that.”
At 1023 hours, Monday, January 8, A.D. 2830, the contract between Elysium and Dirigent was signed in the chamber of the Council of Regiments, five minutes after that body voted to accept the terms that the contract committee had negotiated. The largest deployment of Corps personnel in twelve years would begin seventy-five hours later.