Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [151]
"Exactly the kind Chairman Wenceslas wants."
Daniel would agree to every suggestion, every order, to protect himself. "We need to do more than just escape, Estarra. Basil has already gotten away with outrageous things. If he is left unchecked, who knows . . . The human race itself might break apart, destroyed by enemies from both the outside and within. I can't allow that to happen."
She kissed him, then spoke aloud, not caring if anyone overheard. "Then you are a true King after all."
89
DAVLIN LOTZE
What an odd lot we are," Davlin Lotze muttered to himself.
Though many groups had been thrown together on the Klikiss world of Llaro, the colony functioned remarkably well. The Crenna refugees were happy to have any new home after the death of their sun. Two survivors from a massacred colony, a young girl and an old man, had no place else to go. The Roamers, prisoners of war in everything but name, longed to return to their clans, and the soldiers in the EDF garrison wanted to go back to Earth. Recently, in the wake of the Soldier compy uprising, the EDF had withdrawn most of Llaro's military contingent, leaving the remaining babysitter-soldiers more isolated than ever.
Meanwhile, Davlin did his best to stay unnoticed, or at least unremarked upon. There was a chance, albeit a slim one, that he could actually live out his life in peace without having to return to Hansa service.
"What did you say your name was again?" Roberto Clarin wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then bent back to his shoveling. The potbellied Roamer wasn't put off by hard work; none of the Roamers were, as far as Davlin could tell.
"Alexander Nemo." It was the alias he had chosen.
Clarin cocked his eyebrows. "Nemo? Like in that Jules Verne novel?"
"The word is Latin for ‘no one.' Apparently one of my ancestors had low self-esteem and took a new name when he moved away from Earth."
"Maybe he had something to hide." Clarin chuckled. "The same could be said of a lot of our clans. Sooner or later, though, it catches up with you."
The two men excavated an irrigation ditch that would connect fast-flowing springs from the alien cliff cities to the fertilized flatlands where crops flourished under the lavender skies. Overhead, a pair of EDF Remoras practiced aerial maneuvers, circling on what they called "patrols."
"The way they waste fuel, we're not going to have a drop left if we ever need it for anything," Clarin grumbled. "Damned Eddies. I hate 'em all."
Davlin wasn't so sure military proficiency maneuvers were a waste of fuel. Even before the compy revolt, Davlin had known something sinister was afoot in the Spiral Arm. He believed Orli Covitz's story about the robot battleships that had destroyed Corribus. Now that the Hansa had withdrawn most of Llaro's EDF troops, the remaining soldiers were from the bottom of the barrel; Davlin hoped they would be capable of mounting a competent defense if circumstances demanded it. Otherwise, he would have to do it himself.
Through subtle intel, Davlin had learned how many commandos had died in the massacre at the compy factory on Earth. Fellow silver berets. He himself had been one of them before becoming a "specialist in obscure details." Now, with his additional experience and training, he could pull off things that even the best silver berets couldn't manage.
Clarin shaded his eyes and looked up in the sky as the Remoras circled back toward the garrison barracks by the transportal. "I don't know which is more dangerous--having them bored and flying around with a bunch of armed weapons, or down here helping us out. They'd probably muck up even a standard civil engineering project, our crops would fail, and we'd all starve during the first winter season."
"It's not as bad as all that," Davlin said. "A lot of us here are experts