David Drake: Patriots

"Deputy Maxwell?" a uniformed officer shouted from the hatch down to the Command Center. "There's a question about the initial division of the captured equipment. General Carswell would like your input."

"In a moment!" Lucius replied in a voice that showered echoes from the multiple interior angles of the fort. Mildly he added to Mark and Yerby, "Everyone in the delegation is from a different planet. We'll have to bring our ships in at minor ports on the worlds where the Alliance is trying to enforce their embargo. That's going to be difficult enough, and one might wish that general success would be the first priority of each member. I'm afraid that lies beyond the realm of real-world politics. I'd best go."

"I'll come down in a little bit, Dad," Mark said. "I'd like to think."

"Do," Lucius said. He nodded and strode away.

"Did I ever tell you I met your old man twenty-odd years ago?" Yerby said, his eyes on the elder Maxwell. "Saw him, I mean. I was just a little nipper."

Mark stared at the frontiersman. "No," he said, "you didn't."

"He was a major, then," Yerby said. "Had a battalion of Quelhagen commandos in the Proxy War. I heard they'd been the ones who took Dittersdorf Base from the Easterns the first time, but I didn't see that with my own eyes."

"That can't be true!" Mark said. He realized he'd shouted. More quietly he went on, "Dad's always said soldiering was no fit life except for fools and butchers, Yerby."

Yerby nodded, then turned to look Mark in the eyes. "Did you ever ask him why he was so sure of that, lad?" he said.

"My God," Mark said softly.

"Guess I'll check things inside myself," Yerby said. The corona discharge of the incoming starship was beginning to blanket the ground beneath with its crackle. Raising his voice slightly, Yerby went on, "You know, it won't take more than maybe a year to get a real government working on Greenwood. Earth's a big place. This rebellion's going to last plenty long enough for you to have a chance to go soldiering no matter what you do right now."

The big frontiersman sauntered across the courtyard, his thumbs hooked in his belt. He was whistling "Lillibullero." Amy had come up from the command center and was walking toward Mark.

"Well, I'll be," Mark said.

He started thinking about the challenge of governing a society of individuals as cantankerous as the settlers of Greenwood.