"Ah, Messa-ah, saltpeter and rosauroid hides, mostly; wine, grain, dried fruit, wool, ironware, slaves-but mostly nitre and hides."
Aha. Raj felt his ears prickle. There were only two really good sources of saltpeter west of the Colony. One was in crusts in some soils of Diva County, part of the Civil Government. . and the other was in caves on the desert fringe of the Southern Territories. Back before the Squadron took them, that had been one of the district's main sources of tax revenue, a government monopoly. Doubtless something of that sort now, too; Southern Territories saltpeter was exported to powder mills all over the Midworld Sea, even to East Residence, since it was cheaper than the domestic product. And rosauroids came from the central rocky hills just south of Port Murchison; their hides had high concentrations of silica, and were much in demand for factories, as power belting for transmission from steam engine drive shafts.
Anyone who dealt widely in those products would know a lot about the Squadron. He could tell the Squadron a great deal, too; and would, if he was thinking straight. A Civil Government administration in the Southern Territories would make the saltpeter a monopoly again, as sure as Tzetzas stole.
"Hadolfo. . Messer Reggiri has been kind enough to invite me and Messer Berg to dinner at his country place," Suzette said. Her slim fingers rested on Raj's forearm. "Do say yes, my dear. We'll need an escort of course, but it's quite safe and only a few kilometers away."
"By all means," Raj grated. "I'm afraid I can't come, far too busy, but by all means. ." Berg glowed, preening before his old friend. "Kaltin!" the General called.
"Messer Raj?" the younger officer said.
I wish they wouldn't keep calling me that, Raj thought, gritting his teeth against the need to lash out "Do me a favor, would you, and take. . oh, a company, and M'lewis, and escort Messa Whitehall and Administrator Berg to this gentleman's manor? They'll be staying for dinner-and I'm sure you'll be welcome as well?"
Reggiri nodded without even taking his eyes off Suzette.
"I'd be glad to," Gruder lied coldly.
"And now if you'll excuse me:-my dear, make my apologies to our guests-I have a great deal to do." At least I inflicted M'lewis on him, Raj thought vindictively. He tossed back the slyowtz. M'lewis had the morals of a dactosauroid and the effrontery of a dockside rat. .
* * *
The camp had settled into late-night routine by the time Raj was finished with the last of the personnel reports. Damn, this is like being a mayor of a city, he thought. Worse; most County capitals in the Civil Government had fewer people than the twenty-thousand-odd concentrated here. He was working in his tent; if the men slept under canvas so would he. And I used to be able to know the names of every man I commanded, he continued, pouring himself another glass of slyowtz and lighting a cigarette. Now I'm damned lucky if I can remember the officers and a few hundred more.
He took the glass and leaned on the tentpole, looking down the main avenue of the camp. There was little traffic, it was quiet enough to hear the laplaplap of waves down by the beach. Most of the troops were sleeping as men did after a hard day's work, glad enough of a hot meal and solid dry ground with room to stretch out. The camp had already taken on the universal smell of an army on the move: sweat and dogshit and greased iron and woodsmoke. Both moons were out and full, low on the horizon, silvering the sea and giving enough light to read by even without the coal-oil lantern hanging from the roof behind him. He took a long drag on the tobacco, holding it until it bit the lungs in a peculiar pleasure-pain, then blew it out at the moons.
The Canonical Handbook said that the True Earth had only one moon, smaller than either Miniluna or Maxiluna. . there were whole schools of theology which debated whether that was literal, revealed Truth or mere allegory, like the Personal Computer that was supposed to watch over every soul, or the wars in heaven between the angels of the Apple of Knowledge and the Ibemmeraphim. Or whether this had once been the True Earth and so had only one moon, later split into two at the Fall, although that was dangerously close to the Spirit of This Earth heresy.
"I know," he murmured, taking another mouthful of the plum brandy. It burned, like white fire along his gullet, and he exhaled with a hard sshhha. "I've seen the True Earth and the Single Moon. I have a personal angel, access to all the wisdom of the Spirit's Mind."
"Sir?" The guard officer was a figure in shadow.
"Nothing, son. As you were."
exercise more care, Center said coldly in the back of his mind.
Quiet, he replied. "We all have our Operating Code, try and edit it as we will." You too, I suppose.
Faintly he heard the sound of a challenge and response from the main gate, and the squeal as the spike-studded logs were pulled aside. The muffled thumping of paws sounded down the deserted alleyways; another challenge came from a roving internal patrol, close enough to be separated into words.
"Who goes?"
"Escort party a' th' 7th Descott, returnin'," he heard.
"Advance and be recognized. . Pass, friend."
But there were too few, far less than the company that had gone out. Eight men, a squad, and a ninth on a big shambling Chow. Administrator Mihwel Berg, sliding off with a sulky look on his face as he stalked into the puddle of yellow lamplight outside Raj's tent. His own was nearby, here in officer country.
"Messer Berg," Raj said. "Where are the others?"
Berg's thin face looked as if he had bitten into a lemon, and bloodshot eyes blinked behind his glasses. "Back there. With my friend Messer Reggiri. Your wife decided it was too late for anyone to come back, but I made it well enough." The bureaucrat glared at him like a rabbit turning on a hunting sauroid. "What do you propose to do about it?"
"Do?" Raj said. "Finish this bottle. Come on in, half drunk is only half done."
* * *
The remaining hundred and fifteen men of the escort company came into camp an hour after the dawn service. Most of the troops were at drill or fatigues, but there were enough left in the 7th's billet area to groan and whistle their envy at the escorts. The men were riding their usual dogs, mostly Descotter farmbreds, but each was leading two or three others on checkreins. The led dogs were Ridgebacks, a short-muzzled, long-legged breed easily distinguished by the odd upright curl of hair along the spine that gave the breed its name. These were pedigree animals, clean-limbed, bitches and geldings of two or three years and broken to the saddle; the breed was famous for its endurance in hot weather, and each animal was worth a year's pay for a cavalry trooper, possibly more. Their pack-saddles held coils of sausage, flagons of wine and boxes of cigarettes, sacks of Zanjian kave beans and cured hams from the Stalwart territories.
Gruder, M'lewis, and the company commander, Tejan M'brust, had extra dogs as well. They were also each accompanied by a woman on a palfrey-dog. The girls-none of them looked over seventeen-wore the collars that Brigade law required of slaves, but theirs were of thin chased silver. They carried light parasols to shade their complexions, necessary since two were blondes and one a redhead, and any of them would have fetched five hundred gold FedCreds in East Residence; not to mention their clothes and jewelry, and the twin suitcases each had on a packdog.
The officers reined in in front of the command tent and saluted; all of them were stone-faced, and Gruder did not meet Raj's eyes.