Suki touched the side of my face, brushing aside the matted hair. “I didn’t know they’d do this to you,” she said, softly. “I just thought that they wanted to talk to you without the President anywhere nearby.”
I frowned in puzzlement, before realising that she meant Frida. The President himself might recover in the following months, but somehow I doubted he’d be happy with the war, or even the new farms. It was the only solution that could save the planet from internal collapse and civil war — but we’d ended up with the civil war anyway. If nothing else, Suki’s betrayal had brought that home to me. Anyone could be an enemy.
“Why?” I asked, finally, remembering long hot nights in my quarters. I felt a hot flush that faded against the overwhelming pain spreading through my head. “Why did you join them?”
Suki’s eyes were very sad. “My mother was one of the lucky ones who married a farmer when she was dumped on the planet,” she said, softly. “She never fell into prostitution or any of the other fates that could happen to a young girl without family or protection. She didn’t know what she was getting into when she married my father, but it was better than the alternative. I ended up working for the resistance as a spy and… well, after the UN left I just carried on. I was ordered to meet up with you and you know the rest.”
“Then why don’t you tell them that we don’t want to fight this out to the bitter end either?” Muna demanded. “For Allah’s sake, child; we’re setting up the new farms to avoid having to crush and enslave the farmers. Instead of trying to come to terms, you’re just ensuring that the war will last longer and the death toll will be much higher.”
“I told them everything that you told me,” Suki said, as she put down the water and picked up a ration bar. Her fingernails opened it as she spoke directly to me. “They wanted to set up this meeting and… I didn’t know that it would go so badly.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Muna said. Oddly, I believed Suki. The Freedom League was very good at manipulating people. “Congratulations. Do you know how many of your people are going to get killed because of you?”
I tuned them out again, thinking as hard as I could. The woman — the Freedom League bitch — had mentioned a ship. They couldn’t have kept a ship in orbit without the William Tell detecting them and insisting on searching the starship, but they might have been able to slip a starship in and out of the system if they timed it perfectly. The Fleet destroyer couldn’t pick up a starship that came out of a wormhole on the other side of the system and unless it changed course radically, the Freedom League could get us up to the ship without being detected. It would be risky…
A swearword formed in my mind as I realised that it wasn’t quite as risky as I had assumed. They didn’t need active sensors; all they needed was a set of telescopes on the surface of the planet and a degree of luck. They could watch the destroyer without setting off any kind of alert and easily warn their starship if it changed course suddenly. It was simple, low-tech, and almost unbeatable. I’d have to warn Fleet… assuming, of course, that I got out of this alive.
I pushed my concern about hidden ears out of my mind and looked over at Suki. “You can’t trust the Freedom League,” I said, hoping that she’d believe me. “They’re not interested in anything, but beating Fleet. They regard you all as expendable towards that end. They threw your career away just to get at us; what do you think they’d do to get at Fleet?”
Suki looked downcast for a moment, but recovered swiftly. “Should we trust the government, which includes people who hate farmers and want to tax them out of existence, or a group that cannot actually impose itself on us?”
I shook my head slowly. The hell of it was that she had a point. The farmers had no reason to trust Svergie’s Government, even if the Progressives lost power altogether in the wake of the riot the farmers had started to get at us. Somehow, I doubted it; the real cause of the riot would be suppressed, or blamed on Frida’s political enemies. Why should the farmers trust them? The Freedom League might be composed of bastards — and they didn’t think of themselves as bastards; terrorist groups never did — but they couldn’t invade the planet. They could only gain influence and use it to worm their way towards power.
“No,” Suki said, as she held the ration bar to my mouth and allowed me to nibble at it slowly. My teeth felt weird and loose — the slaps had probably loosened a few teeth — but I was able to eat a little. My stomach heaved again and I coughed desperately, trying to prevent myself from retching. “What choice do we have?”
“I shouldn’t worry about the political debates,” a new voice said. I looked over to see the Heinlein woman as she came back into the room. “One way or another, you’re not getting out of this alive.”
The food had given me a little strength back and I managed to glare at her. “That’s true, isn’t it?” I asked, as calmly as I could. “You don’t really care what happens to the farmers or the miners as long as your aims are met.”
“The farmers meeting their aims meets our aims,” she said, calmly. “Why did you come to this planet?”
“That’s a matter of public record,” Suki said, surprised. “They were hired by the corrupt government to enforce their will on those who defied them.”
“I was asking him,” the woman said, calmly. “Well, mercenary; why are you here?”
I said nothing. “I wouldn’t try to hide anything,” the woman continued, dryly. “You may be immune to interrogation drugs, but we can keep hurting you until you are definitely willing to tell us everything. Why are you here on this planet?”
It took me a moment to remember the words, but I finally managed to launch into the fifth verse of the Grand Old Duke of York. It was officially banned in the UNPF, but everyone knew the words; the first original verse and the hundreds of others that various soldiers had added over the years. The Grand Old Duke had everything from a thousand whores to a pecker the size of Jupiter. It had always surprised me that the UNPF hadn’t tried to actually enforce the ban, but it was possible that a rare dose of common sense had prevailed and the song had been quietly ignored.
“Shut up,” the woman snapped, irritated. “We’ll leave you alone to think about it, shall we? Suki, come!”
She marched out, slamming the door behind them, and I couldn’t help it. I dissolved into laughter and tired to sing the sixth verse, but it was impossible through the giggles. Muna wasn’t any help; she’d started in the space force and didn’t know that particular song. The humour faded fast. Sooner or later, the woman would return with her goons and start working on us in earnest. Once that happened… how long could I hold out? How long would they respect the farmer’s injunction to leave Muna alone? Somehow, I doubted that it would be very long.
I looked over at Muna and saw the pain in her eyes. She knew, as well as I did, that if they came back without the farmer, she would probably be tortured as well. “Don’t worry,” she said, finally. “I’ve been though worse in my time.”
An hour passed slowly — at least, it felt like an hour. Without a timepiece of any kind, there was no way to know just how long it had been since we had been captured and my time sense was unreliable. If I hadn’t been knocked out… I shook my head, despite the pain. There was no point in worrying over what might have been, if only things had been different. I silently tried to test the strength of my bonds, but they held firm, despite my probing. The chair itself was strong enough that tipping it over wouldn’t break it — besides, that only worked in the movies anyway. I considered it anyway, but even if I did manage to break the chair, what next? I was secured so tightly that escape was impossible.