The man accompanying him was as recognizable to the locals as Cole was a stranger. His name was Jomo and he was a thug. He inspired fear and the kind of respect born of it. He was tall and broad and scarred and of mixed parentage, the result of the usual problems one found in the Transvaal. He watched the boat as it moved towards shore and, like Cole, was dressed warmly. They didn't speak but stood patiently as the cargo was unloaded.
Cole identified himself and signed the receipt, and the Black Bitch, reeking of the alcohol she used for fuel, turned back to the shuttle for another load. A motion from Jomo, and his crew-not dockworkers-began hauling the crates onto handcarts and trundling them towards the rough jumble of buildings known as Docktown. Somehow it already had the undefinable aura of "slum" that most port communities seemed to acquire.
Jomo and Cole slowly followed the handcarts toward a largish, for Haven, building dug into a low bank with a freshly painted sign proclaiming it to be the SIMBA BAR. They trailed the crates inside after the unloading. Another motion from Jomo, and the pair were left alone in the main room of the establishment.
"I hope the shipment is as I require," said Jomo, with carefully elaborate politeness.
"Better than you could imagine," Cole replied, just as carefully. "You asked for arms to enhance your-ah . . . 'business' and I have done better than you asked. Look." He produced an odd tool from under his coat and pried open the nearest crate. "The latest CoDominium combat weapon: the Sonic Stunner. Forty of them."
"A weapon that stuns? It does not kill?"
"You should find it most effective for your purposes, Mister Jomo. No damage to the subjects, and they awake in an hour or so with nothing but a headache."
Jomo lifted the bell-mouthed weapon.
"Yes, these will do well . . . . After all, a live captive can always be made dead at a later date, but the reverse of that cannot be accomplished."
Cole smiled, and shrugged. "This is the method of loading and the manual for maintenance. Simple enough, as you see."
Jomo smiled in turn, not prettily.
His purring whistle brought a man from the back room, carrying a small box that had once contained boots. At Jomo's gesture, the man put the box on the table and stood attentively to the side.
In a single quick motion, Jomo lifted the weapon and fired.
The sound of the stunner was only moderately loud. The target crumpled in his tracks.
Jomo went to him, bent over and cruelly pinched the right earlobe. There was no reaction.
"Yes." Jomo grinned widely. "These will do well indeed."
"Ahhh, Mister Jomo, my remuneration?"
Jomo handed him the boot box. A brief inspection proved that it was full of CoDominium and Trade credits, a small fortune.
"Would you enlighten me as to how you acquire such tools?" Jomo nudged, studying the stunners.
"Such things are possible, if one knows just whom to blackmail or bribe . . . ." Cole shrugged again. "And as long as they're not found on Earth, or a planet under CoDominium control, they're quite safe to own."
Jomo nodded, put down the stunner and opened the manual.
"I must go now," Cole reminded him, "as I wish to ride the shuttle back to the ship. The sooner I'm out of this icebox, the better. I'll send down the rest of the ammunition with the next load. As it stands, you only have twenty rounds."
"I have no choice but to trust you in this matter," Jomo admitted. "But without the weapons the ammunition is useless. Also the converse. It is nice to do business with a professional."
They turned to the door and together walked back to the dock. Before boarding the zodiac, Cole stopped and turned to Jomo.
"You'll need this," he said, handing Jomo the very special tool. "You can't open the other crates without it. The security devices would ruin the control chips if you tried any other method."
Neither of them noticed that the zodiac captain, although turned away and occupied with unloading cargo, was close enough to hear.
They did not shake hands on parting.
Jomo mused on how much easier this would make the takeover of Docktown, the outlying farms, eventually Castell City and the rest of the planet. Jomo considered himself a man of great plans.
Owen Van Damm was watching quietly while his immediate boss Maxwell Cole hung up his off-ship over-clothes and readied himself for the briefing. He felt that he was like that, layer on layer, persona under persona, and at the center? I don't know anymore. I know that I am unhappy with Earth, and the government. The Fleet is a home, but I know too much to go back to being a Fleet Officer.
"Here's the situation, Owen . . . . Jomo has the weapons and appears willing to use them . . . . He didn't press too much on where they came from and was willing to pay cash . . . . I imagine that we have the majority of hard cash on the planet. That means a serious retreat into barter, as Charles Castell doesn't seem to want money of any kind here. He might be a hell of a leader, but his knowledge of economics is primitive.
"With the breakdown of the economy it shouldn't be hard to nudge Jomo into a full takeover . . . . I'm afraid that the religious gambit is out . . . . They are still pacifists. Kennicott has an agent in place, and another from Reynolds Offworld is present. The Reynolds man is in Jomo's gang; the Kennicott rep runs a bar and whorehouse called the Golden Parrot. His name's DeCastro. Your job will be to provide some resistance to Jomo . . . . Make it bloody enough so it will hit the off-planet news."
Van Damm considered the options. "You mean put a bunch of farmers and religious nuts in a position to be slaughtered?"
"Exactly. You handle this one well, and I'll recommend you for a job on Luna in charge of the Haven desk . . . . It will be small, but will require a man with on-planet experience.
"Especially in light of the planned mining operations and BuReloc's policies.
"It will mean a promotion for you."
"So this whole thing is a setup for making a planetary prison mine for BuReloc and the mining companies?"
"Yes, and you have ninety days to pull it off. The captain of this ship can hold only that long, no longer. Kennicott can't afford to have a ship waiting and empty longer than that, so get to it."
Owen took that as a dismissal, and started to leave. Another thought made him pause in mid-step.
"Mister Cole? What if I don't pull it off?"
"If I don't get a report on the start of an uprising inside of ninety days, then you will stay here until you do it. Good luck."
"Thank you, Mister Cole"
Owen Van Damm considered that there was no choice here. In fact, field agent on Haven could be a better deal than assistant to some bureaucrat on Luna.
Kennicott, Reynolds and BuReloc . . . and probably a couple of big politicians behind it all.
There were greater dreams than Jomo's out among the stars.
Captain Makhno steered the Black Bitch back to the waiting shuttle, considered what he'd seen, and kept his own counsel. There was much to see here, and much to think about.
He eyed the last passenger he took ashore with the same sharp eye he'd turned on all the others. This one had the stamp of toughness about him, but not the sort Makhno was used to seeing: not the obvious bluster of the bully or the cold disinterest of the cop, but more the quiet confidence of someone who could use violence quite competently when needed. There had been another like that on the last ship, six months ago, but that one had been older, and talkative. He walked with a cane and was now in Castell City somewhere.
That one, unlike most of the voluntary settlers, was full of questions about the planet, the town, what kind of work there was to be found and where, the availability of lodgings, and the rest.
This one was silent. He was in his thirties perhaps, and he stood about 170 cm. tall, shaven of jaw and head with gray eyes and a scar on his left cheek. He was well muscled and seemed fit. He had a familiarity with small craft, and helped casting off from the shuttle and the docking.
The duffel bag he carried had an insignia freshly painted over, but looked to be that of the CoDo Marines.