I frowned. “Surely you could set up a home for them elsewhere,” I said. “Couldn’t you even send them off-planet?”
“The only people allowed to leave the planet are people who came here, to the garrison,” Rollins said. He shrugged. “The convicts are not permitted to leave, nor are any of the tribes. The sociologists say that their tribal culture is a civilisation that must not be contaminated by us and…hell, I think that if they didn’t sometimes sell their girls to us, they’d still die anyway. The largest tribe we’ve encountered has been only around one hundred strong.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” he added. “They’re barbarians.”
“You never tried to recruit them for the mines?” I asked. “Can’t they be taught how to mine?”
“They don’t want to learn,” Rollins said. He seemed to be becoming irritated, so I decided not to press him any further. “They believe that staying in one place too long is bad luck and so they stay away from the miners. The miners have their own brothel of girls taken from the tribes, but they haven’t had any other contact, as far as we know. The tribesmen do steal some items from us, mainly metals and other items they can’t get for themselves, but otherwise…little contact”
Andrew frowned as we entered a massive dining room. “If that’s the case,” he said, “why did you request a reinforcing unit for the garrison?”
“We do have some contact,” Rollins admitted. “The tribes…well, they don’t take some things very calmly. If someone commits an offence against the tribe, they boot him out and leave him to live or die as the planet pleases. They worship the planet, you see, and if the man survives more than a year, they take him back — if he wants to go back. The sociologists sometimes pick up an outcast — male or female — and ask them questions. One of them said that his tribe had been invited to join others in an attack on the garrison itself.”
“I see,” Andrew said, doubtfully. “And has such an attack materialised?”
The Governor shook his head. “We sometimes get light raids,” he said. “They’re never a serious problem and we can drive them away with ease. The tribes don’t have a formal government so sometimes we have to kick them a little to teach them not to mess with us. There’s never been an all-out attack. Even if they won, the tribe that took the Garrison would be brutally wounded.”
Andrew nodded. “Do they fight amongst themselves?”
“Sometimes,” Rollins said. “It’s really challenges and counter-challenges than actual warfare. Their society argues against it. The winner would still be badly weakened.”
He waved for us to sit down as the remainder of his staff came in. I couldn’t believe the dining room. It was on a primitive planet, yet it was as luxurious as an Admirals-only reception bar back on Earth. His staff didn’t look very impressive either and they all blurred into one after I’d been introduced to a few faces. Some were little more than people who’d annoyed the wrong person and been sent to Botany, others were proper engineers, or sociologists. Their chatter was meaningless to me. Some talks about their miners and their complaints, others talked about their researchers into the tribal society developing just outside their door. I was starting to see why the Captain had volunteered me for the job. The thought of being fawned over by the Governor and his lackeys was nauseating.
The first course was served by tribal girls in scanty outfits, barely practical for anywhere outside Luna City. I took a moment to study them, trying to place their original origins, but their parents had clearly been born to a mixed partnership. They had dark skin — the sunlight beating down on the planet had seen to that — and soft brown eyes. They also looked thoroughly terrified and one looked as if she had been beaten. I felt a flicker of anger that I was quick to subdue. How dare the Governor abuse his position like that? I watched helplessly as the girls served, sometimes being groped or fondled by the staff, and wondered how long it would be before the Governor was poisoned. There had to be a plant that could serve as a source of poison somewhere on the planet.
“Eat,” Rollins said. I didn’t want to eat anything, but there was little choice. The meat tasted strange to my tongue, but it was surprisingly good. “This is the one meat that we’ve been able to raise on this damned planet.”
Camel, I realised. The beast I’d seen hadn’t looked very appetizing, but perhaps it tasted better than it had looked. I’d never ridden a horse before, let alone a camel, but I could see the attractions for the tribesmen. They probably regarded them as wonderful creatures.
“Tell me something,” I said, as I finished the plate. “Are you going to be introducing other animals to Botany?”
“Perhaps,” Rollins said. He grinned at one of his people, a sour-faced woman who looked like she’d been slapped too often as a child. “Debbie there is doing an Impact Analysis Report on introducing other forms of desert life, but there’s just so much paperwork to do. In fact, I don’t know why…”
He broke off as an explosion and a series of shots echoed out in the distance. “What the hell was that?”
Andrew’s terminal pinged. “Sir, we’ve got multiple hostiles coming in from the north,” one of his sergeants said. “Captain Ridley is dead, I repeat, dead. They’ve somehow hit the first barracks and most of the on-planet soldiers are dead.”
“The hell?” Rollins asked. “Captain, I demand that you see to the defences…”
“Yes, sir,” Andrew said, tightly. He jumped to his feet. A moment later, I was on my feet and with him, drawing the pistol I’d worn at my belt. The laser pistol might not have looked as impressive as the Infantry rifles, but it could kill. “You’re staying here.”
“No, I’m coming,” I said, firmly. “Governor, I suggest you get your people under cover.”
A wave of hot air hit us in the face as we ran out of the building, towards the sound of shooting. A towering wall of fire had enveloped one of the buildings and the disgusting scent of burning flesh was in the air. I winced, remembering it from Terra Nova, and followed Andrew. A moment later, he threw himself to the ground and I followed, just as bullets crackled over our heads.
“Stay down,” Andrew hissed. I saw a man wearing some kind of tunic pointing a very obvious weapon at us. We fired at the same time and the man staggered backwards and collapsed, half of his head blown off. “Take his weapon, now!”
The sound of shooting from the barracks only grew louder as I crawled over to the dead tribesman. He had the same skin colour as the serving girls, but he was almost completely covered in hair, with more muscles than I’d seen on anyone else, even a Marine. I wouldn’t have wanted to trade punches with him. I recovered the weapon — it looked like a simple rifle, but well outside their capability to build — his ammunition pouch and his knife, before searching his tunic roughly. He had nothing apart from his weapons and clothing.
“Come on,” Andrew hissed, and I followed him towards the defences. As we reached the corner, he held up a hand to stop me and whistled a tune into the air, twice. It was a moment before it came echoing back and he turned the corner. A second passed and then he waved me onwards as well. “Sergeant, report!”
“A major attack from the north, sir,” the Sergeant said. Here, the sound of shooting was growing louder. I could see the Infantrymen spread out on the ground, lying flat and shooting with short precise bursts, or taking up firing positions in the second barracks. The first was now a burned-out shell. Whatever they’d built it of hadn’t been fireproof, which still raised the obvious question. How did they get a bomb inside the barracks? I remembered the serving girls and had my answer.