"They don't seem to have much transport," Louis remarked.
"Unless you count those." Deane pointed to a watering trough where five horses were tied. There were also two camels and an animal that looked like a clumsy combination of camel, moose, and mule, with big, splayed feet and silly antlers.
That had to be an alien beast, the first life form I was certain was native to this planet. I wondered what they called it.
There was almost no motor transport. A few pickup trucks and one old ground-effects car with no top; everything else was animal transport. There were wagons and men on horseback; two women dressed in coveralls were mounted on mules.
Bonneyman shook his head. "Looks as if they stirred up a brew from the American Wild West, Medieval Paris and threw in scenes from the Arabian Nights."
We all laughed, but Louis wasn't far wrong.
Arrarat was discovered soon after the first private exploration ships went out from Earth. It was an inhabitable planet, and although there are a number of those in the regions near Earth, they aren't all that common. A survey team was sent to find out what riches could be taken.
There weren't any. Earth crops would grow, and men could live on the planet, but no one was going to invest money in agriculture. Shipping foodstuffs through interstellar space is a simple way of going bankrupt unless there are nearby markets with valuable minerals and no agriculture. This planet had no nearby market at all.
The American Express Company owned settlement rights through discovery. AmEx sold the planet to a combine of churches. The World Federation of Churches named it Arrarat and advertised it as "a place of refuge for the unwanted of Earth." The federation began to raise money for its development, and since this was before the Bureau of Relocation began involuntary colonies, it was successful. Charity, tithes, government grants all helped, and then the church groups hit on the idea of a lottery. Winners and their families received free transportation to Arrarat; and there were plenty of people willing to trade Earth for a place where there was free land, plenty to eat, hard work, no government harassment and no pollution. The World Federation of Churches sold tens of millions of one-credit lottery tickets. They soon had enough money to charter ships and send people out.
There was plenty of room for colonists, even though the inhabitable portion of Arrarat is comparatively small. The planet's mean temperature is higher than Earth's, and the regions near the equator are far too hot for men to live in. It is too cold at the poles. The southern hemisphere is nearly all water. Even so, there is plenty of land in the north temperate zone. The delta area where Harmony was founded was chosen as the best of the lot. It's climate resembled the Mediterranean region of Earth. Rainfall was erratic, but the colony thrived.
The churches had very little money, but the planet didn't need heavy industry. Animals were shipped instead of tractors, on the theory that horses and oxen can make other horses and oxen, but tractors make only oil refineries and smog. Industry wasn't wanted; Arrarat was to be a place where each man could prune his own vineyard and sit in the shade of his fig tree. Some on the Church Federation governing board actively hated industrial technology and none loved it; and there was no need anyway. The planet could easily support far more than the half to three quarters of a million people the churches sent out as colonists.
Then disaster struck. A survey ship found thorium and other valuable metals in the asteroid belt of Arrarat's system. It wasn't a disaster for everyone, of course. American Express was happy enough, and so was Kennicott Metals after they bought mining rights; but for the church groups it was disaster enough. The miners came, and with them came trouble. The only convenient place for the miners to go for recreation was Arrarat, and the kinds of establishments asteroid miners like weren't what the Church Federation had in mind. The "Holy Joes" and the "Goddams" shouted at each other and petitioned the Grand Senate for help, while the madams and gamblers and distillers set up for business.
That wasn't the worst of it. The Church Federation petition to the CoDominium Grand Senate ended up in the CD bureaucracy, and an official in Bureau of Corrections noticed that a lot of empty ships were going from Earth to Arrarat. They came back full of refined thorium, but they went out deadhead… and BuCorrect had plenty of prisoners they didn't know what to do with. It cost money to keep them. Why not, BuCorrect reasoned, send the prisoners to Arrarat and turn them loose? Earth would be free of them. It was humane. Better yet, the churches could hardly object to setting captives free.
The BuCorrect official got a promotion, and Arrarat got over half a million criminals and convicts, most of whom had never lived outside a city. They knew nothing of farming, and they drifted to Harmony where they tried to live as best they could. The result was predictable. Harmony soon had the highest crime rate in the history of man.
The situation was intolerable for Kennicott Metals.
Miners wouldn't work without planet leave, but they didn't dare go to Harmony. Their union demanded that someone do something, and Kennicott appealed to the Grand Senate. A regiment of CoDominium marines was sent to Arrarat. They couldn't stay long; but they didn't have to. They built walls around the city of Harmony and, for good measure, built the town of Garrison adjacent to it. Then the marines put all the convicts outside the walls.
It wasn't intended to be a permanent solution. A CoDominium governor was appointed, over the objections of the World Federation of Churches. The Colonial Bureau made preparations to send a government team of judges and police and technicians and industrial development specialists so that Arrarat could support the streams of people BuCorrect had sent. Before they arrived Kennicott found an even more valuable source of thorium in a system nearer to Earth, the Arrarat mines were put into reserve, and there was no longer any reason for the CoDominium Grand Senate to be interested in Arrarat. The marine garrison pulled out, leaving a cadre to help train colonial militia to defend the walls of Harmony-Garrison.
"What are you so moody about?" Deane asked.
"Just remembering what was in the briefing they gave us. You aren't the only one who studies up," I said.
"And what have you concluded?"
"Not a lot. I wonder how the people here like living in a prison? It's got to be that way, convicts outside and citizens inside. Marvellous."
"Perhaps they have a city jail," Louis suggested. "That would be a prison within a prison."
"Fun-ny," Deane said.
We walked along in silence, listening to the tramp of the boots ahead of us, until we came to another wall. There were guards at that gate, too. We passed into the smaller city of Garrison.
"And why couldn't they have had transportation for officers?" Louis Bonneyman asked. "There are trucks here."
There weren't many, but there were more than in Harmony. Most of the vehicles were surplus military ground-effects troop carriers. There were also more wagons.
"March or die, Louis. March or die." Deane grinned.
Louis said something under his breath. "March or Die" was a slogan of the old French Foreign Legion, and the Line marines were direct descendants of the legion, with a lot of its traditions. Bonneyman couldn't stand the idea that he wasn't living up to the service's standards.
Commands rattled down the ranks of the marching men. "Look like marines, damn you!" Ogilvie shouted.
"Falkenberg's showing off," Deane said.