Into the Maelstrom - eARC Read online

  “Lieutenant, please take these gentleman to the best restaurant in town at my expense and make a careful note of the issues they wish to raise. Then reschedule our meeting at a time convenient to them. They are to have absolute priority.”

  The last comment was a polite fiction. He was either free or he wasn’t but it was politic to smooth ruffled feathers and he did dislike rudeness. He waited until Todd took the bankers from the building and then walked over to the door.

  “Hello, Allenson,” the blond man said.

  “You bastard, Hawthorn,” Allenson replied. “Where the hell have you been? I thought you were dead.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Old Times and

  New Beginnings

  Allenson toyed with his lunch. He regretted choosing a dish that turned out to be bacon wrapped around some sort of spiced herbal stuffing. Hawthorn eagerly cut his double-sized steak into large chunks. He pushed them greedily into his mouth, swallowing each morsel before it was properly chewed.

  They chose to patronize a modest chophouse some way from the Assembly Hall and the prying eyes of other delegates. Allenson studied his friend. Hawthorn had filled out but looked solid rather than fat.

  He waited until the man satisfied his immediate hunger before starting a conversation. He wasn’t sure what to say. He and Hawthorn had once been as close as brothers having grown up together and fighting side by side in the Terran War. But the man had disappeared decades ago after becoming more and more withdrawn. Hawthorn had always been something of a loner who needed time on his own but he never vanished for more than a few weeks.

  “You were ravenous,” Allenson said, embarrassed at the banality of the comment but unable to do better.

  Hawthorn grinned and paused, waving a chunk of meat on his fork for emphasis.

  “If you’d nothing between your teeth for two days but a tart’s tongue then you’d be pretty hungry as well.”

  Allenson couldn’t help but smile back despite his disapproval. He knew other gentlemen would consider him a prude because of his opinion on the use of prostitutes. And what consenting adults chose to do in their private life was hardly his business. Hawthorn had the gift of drawing Allenson out of his shell. He had missed that intimacy. He realized for the first time in a sudden burst of self-awareness how much Destry’s emigration had affected him. Allenson was a man with many acquaintances but few friends.

  “You never answered my question back at the Assembly Hall. Where the hell have you been?”

  Hawthorn chewed and swallowed before replying.

  “Oh, on some mud ball way out in the Hinterland running a one-man trading station. You won’t have heard of it. There was no way of sending a message home and I guess I had nothing to say. I tried to contact you when I got in this morning but the Nortanians had you all incommunicado in your meeting.”

  “They are understandably worried about security. No doubt they half expect or maybe hope that the meeting will come to nothing. In that case they don’t want to be left holding the political baby if Brasilia finds out and demands explanations.”

  Hawthorn laughed and shook his head before cutting off another generous piece of steak and consuming it.

  “What’s so funny?” Allenson asked, slightly nettled.

  Hawthorn wiped his lips on his napkin.

  “It’s the naivety of you gentlemen that always astonishes me. You are like children compared to the political nous of the average parlor maid.”

  “And you aren’t a gentleman?” Allenson asked rhetorically.

  “I suppose so,” Hawthorn conceded, “by birth at least but I consort with low folk and it must have rubbed off or perhaps I just have a nasty mind.”

  He laid down his utensils.

  “I would bet you any odds that the head of Brasilian intelligence will have half a dozen independent transcripts of what was discussed this morning before the Paxton clerks have finished drafting the minutes. Terran Security will have copies a month later. At least three of your delegates will be Brasilian double agents. Another three will sell you out simply as insurance in case your plot fails.”

  “That could help our case,” Allenson said. “Once Brasilia sees that we are serious it may bring them to serious negotiations. War’s to no one’s benefit so, logically, compromise is in all our interests.”

  “There’s going to be a war,” Hawthorn said with the air of a man stating the sheer bleeding obvious.

  Allenson attempted to protest but Hawthorn held up a hand to check him.

  “When have human beings ever chosen the sensible and logical course simply because it is in their interests? Something will go wrong or some hotheaded fool will start shooting on some imagined point of principle—”

  Here Hawthorn’s lips curled displaying what he felt about those who stood on points of principle.

  “—and the fight will be on. When war starts it takes on a life all of its own. Who precisely did Old Earth’s Biowars benefit, pray tell? They destroyed civilization and damn near caused human extinction but did that stop the ancients fighting them? Did it hell!”

  There was a break in the conversation while Hawthorn polished off his meal. Allenson pushed his food around the plate some more. Hawthorn was always unsettlingly frank with his friends. He had a habit of telling truths people did not always want to hear.

  “Why did you leave the Stream?” Allenson asked, carefully keeping his tone flat and unemotional to disguise the hurt. “You took off without so much as a goodbye and I thought we were close friends. I thought you could confide in me.”

  “We were—are—close friends, you, me and Destry,” Hawthorn replied. “That’s why I had to leave.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Destry had his societal commitments and you were building the estate and a career but after the end of the Terran Wars I had no purpose. My drinking got worse and the scrapes I got into became more embarrassing.”

  He shrugged.

  “It wouldn’t have ended well.”

  “If you think I or Destry would abandon a friend simply because he caused us embarrassment then you didn’t know us at all,” Allenson said hotly.

  “Of course you wouldn’t abandon me. That’s the point,” Hawthorn replied. “Don’t you see? That’s why I had to leave before I did your reputations real harm by association. I had to go somewhere far away where you couldn’t find me and talk me into coming back.”

  There was another pause while Allenson digested that information. Actually looked at in a certain way it made a sort of sense.

  Hawthorn turned the conversation away from himself.

  “So tell me about your life while I’ve been gone. I guess you and Trina are still married?”

  Allenson smiled.

  “One of my more successful decisions.”

  “Then I suppose you have raised a brood of young Allensons. I know you always wanted children.”

  Allenson lowered his head but there was no avoiding the issue.

  “No, we haven’t children.”

  “But Trina is fertile. As I recall she already has—”

  Hawthorn firmly shut his mouth before continuing.

  “Sorry, living in the back of beyond has eroded my manners.”

  Allenson lifted his head and looked his friend in the eye.

  “You recall there was always a puzzle about where my brother Todd had come into contact with the bioweapon residues that eventually killed him.”

  “Yes,” Hawthorn said sharply.

  “I believe the mystery is solved. It wasn’t Todd who was exposed to molecular damage but our father or even someone farther back in our shared heritage.”

  There was a deadly silence. Allenson forced himself to smile.

  “Don’t look so concerned. There’s no evidence that the problem will manifest itself in me as a wasting disease like in Todd. In my case the effect is more subtle.”

  “I’m sorry,” Hawthorn said.

  “No matter, what can’t be
cured and all that, so tell me why’ve you returned now?”

  Hawthorn seized gratefully on the change of subject.

  “Because there’s going to be another war and you being a damned fool man of principle will be in it up to your neck. Someone has to protect your back while you strike noble poses.”

  “Indeed.” Allenson laughed.

  Now it was Hawthorn’s turn to reveal private matters.

  “Actually I’m still drinking heavily but not so much that a course of genosurgery can’t fix any issues. And I reckon that the drinking will take care of itself with some activity to occupy my time more meaningful than measuring out cloth for clan chief’s wives.”

  “You are still a major in the Manzanita militia reserves,” Allenson said.

  “Am I?” asked Hawthorn, surprised.

  “Yes, it’s an unpaid commission. However, there will undoubtedly be a rapid expansion of the military. We’d better put you back on the active list and bump you up to colonel so you have some clout over the new boys.”

  Allenson took out his datapad and made a note. He had taken to making “to do” lists as he got older and his responsibilities multiplied like cockroaches in a bakery. Life was so much simpler when he and Hawthorn were young.

  A waitress came and took their order for plum brandy and cafay. Both eschewed pudding. Allenson generally found them too rich and sleep-inducing at luncheon. Hawthorn had already eaten enough for two.

  “There was talk of setting up an elite regiment of Hinterland men on one-man frames to act as an independent fire brigade,” Allenson said, when the waitress served the drinks and left them alone. “The commander’s commission would be at colonel rank. I could swing it for you if you like?”

  Hawthorn poured some brandy into his cafay and stirred the mixture while he thought about it.

  “You know I think I might pass on that offer. Colonel isn’t really a combat role is it? From what I remember it’s nine tenths office work and one tenth detailing other people to go off and do the difficult stuff and get killed.”

  “True.”

  “Which isn’t really me, is it?”

  “I guess not,” Allenson replied. “But I already have an aide, young Todd.”

  Hawthorn held his hand out palm down three feet above the ground to indicate a child.

  “What, Todd Allenson, your nephew but he’s just—”

  “You’ve been away a long time,” Allenson said gently.

  “Todd Junior, well, well, who’d have thought it,” Hawthorn said. “I’ve another role in mind. You’ll no doubt be commissioned as captain general of the colonial army—”

  “Probably not,” Allenson interrupted. “Colonel Buller sees himself in that position.”

  “Who the hell’s Buller?” Hawthorn asked.

  “Regular professional Brasilian soldier with some experience of senior command. He emigrated from the Home Worlds to the Stream after you left.”

  Hawthorn snorted. “Never heard of him. As I said, you’ll undoubtedly be appointed captain general and you’re going to need a security service.”

  “A security service?” Allenson asked, astonished. “Whatever for?”

  “To run a bodyguard unit. How long do you think before it occurs to your enemies that it’d be to their advantage if you had an unfortunate but very terminal accident?”

  “Oh come on, no individual is that important.”

  Hawthorn ignored him.

  “You’ll also need a special unit to plug leaks of sensitive information and to run an intelligence network to find out what your opponents are up to. When I speak of opponents I don’t just mean the enemy. You know where you are with the enemy. They’re just trying to kill you. It’s the smiling bastards standing behind you that present an unknown threat. ”

  “I suppose so,” Allenson replied, a little stunned. He hadn’t given such affairs any consideration, but it was clear that Hawthorn had devoted considerable thought to the matter.

  “The head of your security force needs to possess certain key abilities.”

  Hawthorn counted them off on his fingers.

  “Firstly total loyalty to you personally without independent political ambitions, secondly the balls to tell you what you don’t want to hear and not tell you what you don’t need to know, and thirdly and most importantly, enough common sense to distinguish between the two. A cynical nasty mind that sees the worst in everyone coupled with the personality of a ruthless bastard who’ll do what needs to be done wouldn’t hurt either.”

  Allenson opened and closed his mouth like a pet fish waiting to be fed while Hawthorn continued remorselessly.

  “If you know of anyone else who possesses these qualities to a greater degree than myself then I’ll gladly step aside. Otherwise I shall consider myself appointed.”

  And that was that.

  The afternoon session in the Assembly Hall was if anything even more balls-achingly tedious than the morning’s. Much time was given to pointless discussions about what form a Streamer army might take.

  “I see no need to repeat the mistakes of the past,” asserted Horntide, a sallow-faced Ascetic with an irritatingly pedantic manner. “The army should be an expression of the people and as such must conform to the sacred principles of the people. Accordingly it must consist of volunteers who choose where and for how long they wish to serve and under which officers they are willing to serve.”

  “Quite so and all soldiers should’ve an equal say about how campaigns are conducted, possibly through a system of referenda,” said another Ascetic whose name Allenson hadn’t caught.

  A murmur of disquiet went around the Hall.

  “Are you people bloody mad!” Buller exclaimed. “You propose to take on Brasilian regulars with a poxy debating society? Grow up, you idiots. An army fights because its troops are more scared of their officers and NCOs than they are of the enemy. Soldiers have to obey without question, go where they’re sent, do what their told, and kill whomsoever they’re told.”

  Buller jabbed a finger at Horntide, who shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “All else is bollocks and if you think I’m going to be humiliated by taking command of a load of bolshy barrack room lawyers who run at the first bit of bloodletting then you can think again. Give me a professional army that can win or get used to forelock touching every time some minor Brasilian popinjay wafts past. You may want to die at the end of a Brasilian rope but I don’t.”

  At that Buller stormed to the door. A commissioner tried to explain that the Hall was in lockdown. Buller pushed the flunky roughly aside with a decidedly unnecessary comment about his mother’s sexual habits. He unlocked the door himself and stormed out without bothering to shut it behind him.

  Obviously there were limits to Buller’s support for egalitarianism. There was a stunned silence in the hall as the more politically radical delegates digested an unwelcome force feed of reality.

  “I thought the point of the exercise was to free ourselves from Brasilian control,” said a gentleman from the Lower Stream. “Not to try to create some sort of utopia for the proles. I don’t know much about running an army but I do know how to run a plantation and it ain’t done by letting the staff vote on whether they wish to work or not.”

  Allenson could feel the unity of purpose of the meeting slipping way as reality punctured various cherished illusions.

  “If I may make a comment,” he said, carrying on without waiting for permission. “Colonel Buller is essentially right that an army must be a trained and disciplined organization or it risks falling into armed anarchy. Enthusiasm is no substitute for professionalism.”

  Allenson paused to let that fact seep in before continuing in a more conciliatory vein.

  “However, I sympathize with Delegate Horntide in that a professional army must be under political control. A Streamer army must serve the people of the colonies and reflect their aspirations. I see no advantage in replacing our masters in Brasilia with a local military dictato
rship. Accordingly the army commanders, especially the captain general, should be carefully selected.”

  No one had anything more useful to add, which didn’t stop them adding it. Discussion diverted into uniform design and who would get the lucrative contract to supply said garments.

  Allenson took the opportunity to tune out and consider his lunch meeting. Hawthorn wasn’t the hard young man he had tramped the Hinterland with but then, neither was Allenson—and neither would be much use to the Cutter Stream now if they were.

  Hawthorn was undoubtedly right, though. Allenson would likely be appointed to some sort of senior commission in the new army. Not the captain general of course, that was just Hawthorn’s loyalty to a friend talking, but some position of responsibility nonetheless. He would need intelligence and that would involve civilian spies as well as military scouts. Dealing with spies was always a tricky proposition. His spymaster would have to be completely discreet and financially trustworthy. He would control sizable unattributable funds needed for bribery and the like.

  Hawthorn had spent the last decade keeping his own council in the back of beyond so was unlikely to become indiscreet now. He had never cared enough for money to bother stealing any. Indeed, he rarely got around to spending the modest investment income he had inherited.

  Allenson made some notes on his datapad. Hawthorn would need a security pass to attend the rest of the meeting as an observer so he could get a feel for the main players. Allenson thought long and hard about what else Colonel Hawthorn would need to perform his duties as Head of Security.

  The meeting dragged out to a desultory close without coming to a decision. Buller had rattled many of the political radicals and they in turn unnerved the plantation owners. The scale of the undertaking and the risks involved percolated into all concerned. The delegates were inevitably a hotbed of cold feet. Allenson wasn’t entirely unhappy at the turn of events as such matters had to be faced. It might as well be sooner rather than later.

  Todd met him by the door and held out a sealed envelope.

  “From Sar Stainman, leader of the Heilbron delegation,” Todd said.

  Allenson was intrigued. Sealed envelopes were the stuff of romance novels. He slit it open with his thumb nail and read the enclosed single sheet. Then he folded it and placed it carefully in a jacket pocket.