Fleet of the Damned (Sten #4). Allan Cole

fact that his constant snorting was turning his nose bright red.

      “Sounds great to me,” the hardware man said. “Government give you any trouble in the licensing?”

      Mahoney snorted a particularly snotty blast. “Licenses? Government? What kind of fool you think I am? Clot, dealt with the damned government all my life. Do everything they can to wreck a farm, if you let them.”

      There were angry mutters of agreement from the gathered farmers.

      “Besides, I only got maybe thirty years or more in me. Time I got through those licensing butt bungs, I’d be long dead.”

      The logic was ancient and irrefutable.

      “What about shipping? They givin’ you any trouble about that?”

      “Well, I ain’t shippin’ just yet. Right now, I’m gettin’ to know people, show off my plants. Why? You think I’ll have any trouble in these parts?”

      The hardware man exploded. “Clottin’ right! I got orders stacked all over the place. Cash orders. And with all this business of the Tahn going on, I’m about ready to go broke.”

      He went into a long litany of complaints, which were added to and spiced up by comments from a slowly growing crowd with Mahoney at its center.

      They told him about the sneaky, lazy Tahn, about the attacks on their property and their counterattacks. They told him about an economy that was almost paralyzed, and about incompetent cops and worse than incompetent Imperial garrison troops.

      They went on about their suspicions: mysterious lights over Tahn enclaves, probable stockpiling of weapons, and professional Tahn troops slipping in to reinforce their filthy brethren.

      The Imperial settlers, of course, were blameless. They had tried so hard to bear up under the burden. Everyone in the bar had made a personal sacrifice, hadn’t he? Why, they had even dipped deep into their bank accounts to buy weapons to protect their farms and Imperial property.

      Through it all, Mahoney allowed his face to become grimmer and grimmer in agreement. He rarely interrupted, except to snort or to buy another round of drinks.

      By the time the night was over, he could have filled an entire fiche with his report.

      He was also beginning to realize that the situation with the Mercury Corps was even worse than he had told the Emperor. The intelligence he was getting was at complete odds with what the Emperor had been hearing. In the Fringe Worlds, the corps had been pierced, corrupted, and broken. It was enough to put a good Irishman off drink.

      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      “… SO THEN WE told this Imperial piece of drakh to put his back taxes where the star don’t shine and get the clot out of our county.”

      The big Tahn woman howled with laughter at Mahoney’s story and pounded him on the back.

      “Only way to deal with them,” she said. She gave a huge beery belch and peered out into the night. “Turn here.”

      Mahoney did as directed, and soon he was topping a rise. Just before them was the glow of the Tahn communal farm that his companion was headwoman of. Mahoney had met her at a local watering hole. Frehda was a big middle-aged woman who had spent most of her years managing the fortunes of a large Tahn enclave. Over vast quantities of beer, chased by a dozen bottles of his cider, they had become fast friends.

      Mahoney had readily accepted her invitation to spend a few days at her enclave “to see how we do things in these parts.” She assured him it would be an education. Mahoney had other reasons to believe her; little prickles of rumor and bar talk had led him in this direction.

      Even at night the enclave was impressive. As they approached, Mahoney could see many large steel barracks surrounded by what seemed to be a fairly sophisticated security system and nasty razor-wire fencing. As he approached the gated main entrance, the figures of two heavily armed Tahn farmers loomed out.

      Frehda shouted a few friendly obscenities at them by way of greeting.

      “Who’s the fella, boss?” one of them wanted to know.

      “Salesman pal,” Frehda said. “Good man. Drink anybody ’cept maybe me under the table.”

      There were chuckles at this. Mahoney gathered that alcohol consumption was just one of many things Frehda was noted for. He had secretly used up nearly half of his ready supply of sobriety pills during the evening to keep even vaguely straight.

      “I’ll put him up at my place,” Frehda went on. “Maybe one of you can give him a look-see around in the ayem.”

      “Anything in particular you wanna see, mister?” one of the Tahn asked. Mahoney caught an undertone of suspicion. Frehda might be the boss lady, but she was way too drunk for someone to take her at her word on a stranger.

      “Got any pigs?” he asked.

      “’Course we got pigs. What do you think we are, sharecroppers?”

      Mahoney snorted. “No,” he said. “Just that I got a soft spot for pigs. Been studying all my life. I could write volumes on pigs.”

      “He can talk them, too,” Frehda said. “Just about wore my ear out till I got him drunk enough to go on to somethin’ else.”

      The two Tahn guards relaxed. They chuckled among themselves and waved the gravcar through.

      * * * *

      Mahoney came awake to blinding sunlight piercing the barred windows of his room, and loud, barked shouts. His head was thumping from last night’s excess—he hadn’t been able to get away from bending elbows with Frehda for hours.

      There were more shouts. They had a peculiar quality to them. Like commands? Giving an automatic snort that burned his delicate nose membranes, Mahoney got out of his cot and started dressing. Let us see, Ian, what we can see.

      Mahoney blinked out of Frehda’s portion of the barracks. And the first thing he noted surprised even him. Several men were putting twenty or more teenage Tahn through what seemed to be a very militarylike obstacle course. Ho, ho, Mahoney, me lad. Ho, clotting ho.

      He wandered over by one of the men and watched the kids go at it. Whenever any of them slowed or got tangled in an obstacle, there were immediate shouts of derision from the adults.

      “Whatcha got here, friend?”

      The man looked at him. “Oh, you the salesman guy staying with Frehda, right?”

      Mahoney snorted an affirmative.

      “To answer your question, mister, we’re just givin’ the kids a little physical training. Whittle off some of the baby fat.”

      Riiight, Mahoney thought.

      “Good idea,” Mahoney said. “Kids these days are lazy little devils. Gotta keep the boot up.”

      He looked over at a coiled barbed-wire fence that a large farm boy was vaulting over.

      “What’s that contraption?” he asked.

      “Oh, that’s a hedgehog. About the same size as all the fencing around here.”

      Mahoney had to grab himself by the throat to keep from reacting in some obvious way. So, you call it a hedgehog, do you, mate? Mahoney knew that the man standing next to him was no poor Tahn farmhand. He was a professional soldier sent out by the Tahn military to train young meat for the slaughter to come.

      “Must be hell on the britches,” Mahoney joked, rubbing an imaginary sore spot on his behind.

      The man thought this was pretty funny. “Least you can sew up pants,” he said.

      * * * *

      Mahoney spent the next two days lazily touring the farm—which was well off even by Imperial settler standards—making casual talk and casual friends and wolfing down the enormous meals the communal farm kitchen shoveled out.