“Ghastly looking place,” Andrew commented. “Do you know that there are people who believe that Earth will end up looking like this one day?”
I stared at him. “No,” I said, in surprise. It seemed impossible. “Why do they think that?”
He smiled, darkly. “The atmosphere is growing more and more polluted,” he said. “This kills the vegetable life, which makes it harder to replenish the oxygen and even causes humans to develop illnesses. The icecaps are melting which pushes salt water further inland, killing more farmland. Worst of all, the corporations that have paid the UN vast bribes to avoid the environmental regulations have been having disasters as their overworked equipment starts to break down. The entire planet is dying and we killed it.”
I said nothing. I’d heard that there were problems, but nothing on such a scale. I wasn’t even sure if anything could be done about it. The regulations already existed, but if they were being avoided on such a scale… how could anything be done about it? I wondered, vaguely, if the Captain’s family knew, if they were trying to do something about it, but there was no way to know. It was taboo even to suggest that something might be wrong on Earth.
The shuttle buckled slightly as it fell into the atmosphere, streams of superheated air surrounding it as it raced down towards the ground. I could see the mighty storms making their way across the desert, giant darker patches of moving sand that overwhelmed anything puny humans could do to counter them. The files had suggested, from the reports of a handful of anthropologists who’d gone among the tribesmen, that they’d started to worship their planet. It was no wonder. A sandstorm on the wrong place would be utterly lethal.
“I’ve got the garrison’s beacon now,” the pilot said, from his position. “We should be landing at the landing pad in thirty minutes,”
I leaned forward as the shuttle shook under the impact of a gust of wind. If I’d been out there without any protection at all, it would have sent me flying through the air, perhaps even killed me. A moment later, we broke through into clear air again and we could see the mining camp below us. It was an ugly mixture of glinting buildings and dust, flying into the air from the open mine. I suspected that the locals would regard it as blasphemy. What else could it be on a living planet?
“There’s the garrison,” the pilot added. “We’ve coming into land now.”
“It doesn’t look very secure,” I commented, as the buildings came into view. “Andrew?”
“No, it doesn’t,” Andrew agreed, slowly. “They told me that they used weather-control equipment to try to keep the dust storms away from the mines, but it only worked half the time, if that.”
I looked at him. That hadn’t been in my files, either of them. “It’s not commonly advertised,” Andrew added, seeing my look. “They used to use it on Earth to get better weather for farming. After a few years, they discovered that it only caused more havoc later on and banned it — too late. Botany, on the other hand, doesn’t have an environment to fuck up any further.”
A moment later, the shuttles came down to land and I saw the Governor and his men.
I took one look and knew that we weren’t going to get on.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The position of Planetary Governor tended to vary wildly in importance. Some of them, particularly on worlds like Terra Nova, had vast powers and control of the UN Garrison to back up their decisions. Others, such as the Governor appointed to Heinlein before the invasion, had very limited powers and had to contend with local governments that resented dictation from Earth. The posts naturally became key magnets for greedy or corrupt men and the rewards were often great indeed. Those who prospered even found that the UN regarded them as experts on the planet in question and were consulted on all issues involving the planet.
“Welcomes to Camp Sand,” the Governor said. He had a voice that reminded me of a gang-member, a mixture of overwhelming power and confidence, underlain by the awareness that he didn’t control everything. I disliked him on sight. “I am Governor Rollins.”
“Lieutenant Walker,” I said, shaking his hand. It was soft and flabby. The man himself was grossly overweight. I didn’t understand how he managed it on a place where foodstuffs were always rare, but it was possible that some supply transport had dropped off thousands of MREs for the Garrison. “We’ve brought the…”
“Yes, yes, I can see that,” the Governor cut me off, impatiently. “Captain, I trust that your sergeants can allow Captain Ridley to lead your men to the barracks?”
“Of course,” Andrew said, a tight note of anger barely concealed in his voice. I understood exactly what he was thinking. This overweight governor held his men in contempt? “Sergeant Pascell; please see to it.”
We shared a glance as Captain Ridley led the soldiers away towards the barracks, which we could see in the distance. The entire garrison wasn’t even fenced in, or encircled by walls, and even to my untrained eyes, it looked like a recipe for disaster. The Captain had looked surprisingly well-dressed; in fact, he’d looked too well-dressed. He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d been chasing tribesmen away from the mining equipment. I heard a noise in the distance and caught sight of a sandy-coloured beast, being led by the nose towards a watering plant. I couldn’t help myself. I stared. I’d never seen anything like it before.
“It’s called a Camel,” Rollins explained. I caught a glimpse of the man he’d once been underneath and smiled to myself. His enthusiasm was almost touching. “They were originally used by desert nomad tribes on Earth as they travelled the deserts, mainly because they didn’t need to drink as much water and could eat things that no human could eat. Back when they landed the garrison here, the first Governor ordered a few hundred of them shipped in and handled most of them out to the nearest tribes. They bred them and there are now thousands of the beasts wandering the planet.”
He paused. “Anyway, if you’ll accompany me…”
I didn’t see anything to change my first opinion of the garrison. It was little more than a collection of prefabricated buildings that had been dropped onto the planet from orbit and then carefully embedded in the soil. Most planets would have broken them up as they built new homes and offices from local materials, but Botany’s governors hadn’t bothered. It wasn’t as if there was much to build from on Botany, apart from sand or stone. If there were other raw minerals on the planet, it would require too much effort to get at them.
He led us through a small office, staffed by a handful of girls who looked nervously at Andrew when they saw his uniform. There was no way to be sure, but I would have guessed that they’d been recruited from the planet’s tribes and taught typing and other skills, along with…ah, servicing the needs of the UN staff and soldiers. They would probably never be allowed to return to their tribes, even if they were wanted back. It was quite possible that the Governor had traded the tribes useful supplies in exchange for their services. God alone knew what would have become of them otherwise.
“Of course,” the Governor said, when I asked. “I only take in girls born on this planet and doomed, otherwise, to be little more than mothers, daughters and wives.” I remembered Muna and grimaced. Had that been something of the same? “They’re taught useful skills here, but even so, most of them never go home. We tried to teach medicine to a handful in hopes they would serve as a goodwill gesture to the tribes, but they were rejected when they were returned. We don’t know why.”