Vernor Vinge - Realtime 02 - The Ungoverned.pdf

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THE UNGOVERNED
Vernor Vinge
Al's Protection Racket operated out of Manhattan, Kansas. Despite the name, it was a small,
insurance-oriented police service with about twenty thousand customers, all within one hundred
kilometers of the main shop. But apparently "Al" was some kind of humorist: His ads had a gangster motif
with his cops dressed like twentieth century hoodlums. Wil Brierson guessed that it was all part of the
nostalgia thing. Even the Michigan State Police - Wil's outfit- capitalized on the public's feeling of trust for
old names, old traditions.
Even so, there's something more dignified about a company with a name like "Michigan State Police,"
thought Brierson as he brought his flier down on the pad next to Al's HQ. He stepped out of the cockpit
into an eerie morning silence: It was close to sunrise, yet the sky remained dark, the air humid.
Thunderheads march around half the horizon. A constant flicker of lightning chased back and forth within
those clouds, yet there was not the faintest sound of thunder. He had seen a tornado killer on his way in,
a lone eagle in the far sky. The weather was almost as ominous as the plea East Lansing HQ had
received from Al's just four hours earlier.
A spindly figure came bouncing out of the shadows. "Am I glad to seeyou! The name's Alvin Swensen .
I'm the proprietor." He shook Wil's hand enthusiastically. "I was afraid you might wait till the front passed
though." Swensen was dressed in baggy pants and a padded jacket that would have made Frank Nitti
proud. The local police chief urged the other officer up the steps. No one else was outside; the place
seemed just as deserted as one might expect a rural police station early on a weekday morning. Where
was the emergency?
Inside, a clerk (cop?) dressed very much like Al sat before a comm console. Swensen grinned at the
other. "It's the MSP, all right. They're really coming, Jim. They're really coming! . . . Just come down the
hall, Lieutenant. I got my office back there. We should clear out real soon, but for the moment I thinkit's
safe."
Wilnodded, more puzzled than informed. At the far en: of the hall, light spilled from a half-open door.
The frosted glass surface was stenciled with the words `Big AI'. A faint smell of mildew hung over the
aging carpet andthe woo , floor beneath settled perceptibly under Wil's ninety kilo tread. Brierson almost
smiled: maybe Al wasn't so crazy. The gangster motif excused absolutely slovenly maintenanceFew
customers would trust a normal police organization that kept its buildings like this.
Big Al urged Brierson into the light and waved him to an overstuffed chair. Though tall and angular,
Swensen lookermore like a school teacher than a cop - or a gangster. Hi reddish-blond hair stood out
raggedly from his head, a though he had been pulling at it, or had just been wakenedFrom the man's
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fidgety pacing about the room, Wil guesses the first possibility more likely. Swensen seemed about at the
end of his rope, and Wil's arrival was some kind of reprieve. He glanced at Wil's name plate and his grin
spread even further. "W W Brierson . I've heard of you. I knew the Michigan State Police wouldn't let
me down; they've sent their best."
Wilsmiled in return, hoping his embarrassment didn't show. Part of his present fame was a company
hype that h, had come to loathe. "Thank you, uh, Big Al. We feel a special obligation to small police
companies that serve no-right-to bear-arms customers. But you're going to have to tellm( more. Why so
secretive?"
A1 waved his hands. "I'm afraid of blabbermouths. :: couldn't take a chance on the enemy learning I was
bringing you into it until you were on the scene and in action."
Strange that he says "enemy," and not "crooks" or "bastards" o; "hustlers. ""Buteven a large gang might
be scared off know ing-"
"Look, I'm not talking about some punk gang. I'm talking about the Republic of New Mexico.Invading.
Us." He dropped into his chair and continued more calmly. It was almost as if passing the information on
had taken the burden: off himself. "You're shocked?"
Briersonnodded dumbly.
"Me too.Or I would have been up till a month ago. The Republic has always had plenty of internal
troubles. And even though they claim all lands south of the Arkansas River, they have no settlements
within hundreds of kilometers of here. Even now I think this is a bit of adventurism that can be squelched
by an application of point force." He glanced at his watch. "Look, no matter how important speed is,
we've got to do some coordinating. How many attack patrols are coming in after you?"
He saw the look on Brierson's face. "What?Only one? Damn. Well I suppose it's my fault, being secret
like, but-"
Wilcleared his throat. "Big Al, there's only me. I'm the only agent MSP sent."
The other's face seemed to collapse, the relief changing to despair, then to a weak rage."G-God d-damn
you to hell, Brierson . I may lose everything I've built here, and the people who trusted me may lose
everything they own. But I swear I'm going to sue your Michigan State Police into oblivion. Fifteen years
I've paid youguys premiums and never a claim. And now when I need max firepower, they send me one
asshole with a ten- millimeterpopgun."
Briersonstood, his nearly two-meter bulk towering over the other. He reached out a bear-like hand to
Al's shoulder. The gesture was a strange cross between reassurance and intimidation. Wil's voice was
soft but steady, "The Michigan State Police hasn't let you down, Mr. Swensen . You paid for protection
against wholesale violence - and we intend to provide that protection. MSP has neverdefaulted on a
contract." His grip on Alvin Swensen's shoulder tightened with these last words. The two eyed each other
for a moment. Then Big Al nodded weakly, and the other sat down.
"You're right. I'm sorry. . . . I'm paying for the results, not the methods. But I know what we're up
against . . . and I'm damned scared."
"And that's one reason why I'm here, Al: To find out exactly what we're up against before we jump in
with our guns blazing and our pants down. What are you expecting?"
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AI leaned back in the softly creaking chair. He looked out through the window into the dark silence of
the morning and for a moment seemed to relax. However improbably, someone else was going to take
on his problems. "They started about three years ago. It seemed innocent enough and it was certainly
legal . . . ." Though the Republic of New Mexico claimed the lands from the Colorado on the west to the
Mississippi on the east, and north to the Arkansas, in f. most of their settlements were along the Gulf
Coast and P;.Grande.For most of a century, Oklahoma and northern Texas had been uninhabited. The
'border' along the Arkansas sas River had been of no real concern to the Republic which had plenty of
problems with its Water Wars on the Colorado - and of even less concern to the farmers at t
southernedge of the ungoverned lands. During the last ten years, immigration from the Republic toward
the more prosperous north had been steadily increasing. Few of the southerners stayed in the Manhattan
area: most jobs were further north. But during these last three years, wealth, New Mexicans had moved
into the area, men willing to pa almost any price for farmland.
"It's clear now that these people were stooges for the Republic government. They paid more money than
the could reasonably recoup from farming-and the purchase started right after the election of their latest
president. You know - Hastings whatever his name is. Anyway, it made pleasant boom time for a lot of
us. If some wealthy New Mexicans wanted isolated estates in the ungoverned land that was certainly
their business. All the wealth in New Mexico couldn't buy one tenth of Kansas, anyway." At first the
settlers had been model neighbors . They even signed u; with Al's Protection Racket and Midwest
Jurisprudence.Bt as the months passed, it became obvious that they were neither farmers nor leisured
rich. As near as the locals could figure it, they were some kind of labor contractors.An tin ending stream
of trucks brought raggedly dressed men am women from the cities of the south: Galveston, Corpus
Christi, even from the capital, Albuquerque. These folk were housed in barracks the owners had built on
the farmsAnyone could see -looking in from above - that the newcomers spent long hours working in the
fields.
Those farms produced on a scale that surprised the locals - and though it was still not clear that it was a
profitable operation, there was a ripple of interest in the Grange journals; might manual labor hold an
economic edge over the automatic equipment rentals? Soon the workers were hiring out to local farmers.
"Those people work harder than any reasonable person, and they work dirt cheap. Every night, their
contract bosses would truck'em back to the barracks, so our farmers had scarcely more overhead than
they would with automatics. Overall, the NMs underbid the equipment rental people by five percent or
so."
Wilbegan to see where all this was leading. Someone in the Republic seemed to understand Midwest
Jurisprudence. "Hmm, you know, AI, if I were one of those laborers, I wouldn't hang around in farm
country. There are labor services up north that can get an apprentice butler more money than some
rookie cops make. Rich people will always want servants, and nowadays the pay is tremendous."
Big Al nodded. "We've got rich folks, too. When they saw what these newcomers would work for, they
started drooling. And that's when things began to get sticky." At first the NM laborers could scarcely
understand what they were being offered. They insisted that they were required to work when and where
they were told. A few, a very few at first, took the job offers. "They were really scared, those first ones.
Over and over, they wanted assurances that they would be allowed to return to their families at the end
of the work day. They seemed to think the deal was some kidnap plot rather than an offer of
employment. Then it was like an explosion: they couldn't wait to drop the farm jobs. They wanted to
bring their families with them."
"And that's when your new neighbors closed up the camps?"
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"You got it, pal. They won't let the families out. And we know they are confiscating the money the
workers bring in."
"Did they claim their people were on long-term contracts?"
"Hell, no.It may be legal under justice Inc, but indentured servitude isn't under Midwest- and that's who
they signed with. I see now even that was deliberate.
"It finally hit the fan yesterday. The Red Cross flew a guy out from Topeka with a writ from a Midwest
judge: He was to enter each of the settlements and explain to those poor folks how they stood with the
law. I went along with a couple of my boys. They refused to let us in and punched out the Red Cross
fellow when he got insistent. Their chief thug- fellow named Strong - gave me a signed policy
cancellation, and told me that from now on they would handle all their own police and justice needs. We
were then escorted off the property - at gunpoint."
"So they've gone armadillo. That's no problem. But the workers are still presumptively customers of
yours?"
"Not just presumptively. Before this blew up, a lot of them had signed individual contracts with me and
Midwest. The whole thing is a setup, but I'm stuck."
Wilnodded."Right. You're only choice was to call in someone with firepower, namely my company."
Big Al leaned forward, his indignation retreating before fear."Of course. But there's more, Lieutenant.
Those workers - those slaves -were part of the trap that was set for us. But most of them are brave,
honest people. They know what's happening, and they aren't any happier about it than I am. Last night,
after we got our butts kicked, three of them escaped. They walked fifteen kilometers into Manhattan to
see me, to beg me not to intervene.To beg me not to honor the contract.
"And they told me why: For a hundred kilometer stretch of their truck ride up here, they weren't allowed
to see the country they were going through. But they heard plenty. And one of them managed to work a
peep hole in the side of the truck. He saw armored vehicles and attack aircraft under heavy camouflage
just south of the Arkansas. The damn New Mexicans have taken part of their Texas garrison force and
holed it up less than ten minutes flying time from Manhattan. And they're ready to move."
It was possible. The Water Wars with Aztlan had been winding down these last few years. The New
Mexicans should have equipment reserves, even counting what they neededto keepthe Gulf Coast cities
in line. Wil got up and walkedtothe window. Dawn was lighting the sky above the far cloud banks. There
was green in the rolling land that stretched away from the police post. Suddenly he felt very exposed
here: death could come out of that sky with precious little warning. W W Brierson was no student of
history, but he was an old-time movie freak, and he had seen plenty of war stories. Assuming the
aggressor hadtosatisfy some kind of public or world opinion, there hadtobe a provocation, an excuse for
the massive violence that would masquerade as self-defense. The New Mexicans had cleverly created a
situation in which Wil Brierson -or someone like him - would be contractually obligated to use force
against their settlements.
"So.If we hold off on enforcement, how long do you think the invasion would be postponed?" It hurt to
suggest bending a contract like that, but there was precedent: in hostage cases you often used time as a
weapon.
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"It wouldn't slow 'em up a second. One way or another they're moving on us. I figure if we don't do
anything, they'll use my `raid' yesterday as their excuse. The only thing I can see is for MSP to put
everything it can spare on the line when those bastards come across. That sort of massive resistance
might be enough to scare 'em back."
Briersonturned from the window to look at Big Al. He understood now the shaking fear in the other. It
had taken guts for the other to wait here through the night. But now it was W. W. Brierson's baby.
"Okay, Big Al. With your permission, I'll take charge."
"You got it, Lieutenant!" Al was out of his chair, a smile splitting his face.
Wilwas already starting for the door. "The first thing to do is get away from this particular ground zero.
How many in the building?"
`Just two besides me."
"Round 'em up and bring them to the front room. If you have any firearms, bring them, too."
Wilwas pulling his comm equipment out of the gunship when the other three came out the front door of
AI's HQ and started toward him. He waved them back. "If they play as rough as you think, they'll grab
for air superiority first thing. What kind of ground vehicles do you have?"
"Couple of cars.A dozen motorbikes.Jim, open up the garage." The zoot -suited trooper hustled off. Wil
looked with some curiosity at the person remaining with Al. This individual couldn't be more than fourteen
years old. She (?) was weighted down with five boxes, some with makeshift carrying straps,others even
less portable.Most looked like communications gear. The kid was grinning from ear to ear. Al said, "
Kikivan Steen, Lieutenant. She's a wargame fanatic - for once it may be worth something."
"Hi, ME."
"Pleased to meetcha , Lieutenant."She half-lifted one of the suitcase-size boxes, as though to wave. Even
with all the gear, she seemed to vibrate with excitement.
"We have to decide where to go, and how to get there. The bikes might be best, Al. They're small
enough to="
"Nah.It was Kiki . "Really, Lieutenant, they're almost as easy to spot as a farm wagon. And we don't
have to go far. 1 checked a couple minutes ago, and no enemy aircraft are up. We've got at least five
minutes."
He glanced at Al, who nodded. "Okay, the car it is."
The girl's grin widened and she waddled off at high speed toward the garage. "She's really a good kid,
Lieutenant.Divorced though. She spends most of what I pay her on that wargame equipment. Six months
ago she started talking about strange things down south. When no one would listen, she shut up. Thank
God she's here now. All night she's been watching the south. We'll know the second they jump off."
"You have some hidey-hole already set, Al?"
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