Mutineer

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kris felt like an unregistered voter on election day as she gulped down her breakfast at Oh Dark Early next morning. Boxed rations were handed out to all for lunch, even those not going out, which Kris discovered was less than a dozen, even counting Spens and the three still in sick bay from Kris's first drive in the country. The Colonel was stripping the HQ for the day.

Kris hurried off to the warehouse to resolve any last minute glitches, of which there were few, and to wave good-bye to just about everyone she knew on the planet. Even Courtney had a convoy; Tommy, with local cooks, would see to chow for tonight.

The yard empty, Kris checked in with Jeb. Her lead foreman assured her he and his civilians would get the drop ships hauled out of the bay, their cargos transferred to the warehouses, and shipments made up for tomorrow's deliveries. Kris glanced up into the worst rain she'd seen since landing and told him to keep his crews safe. ''That's what I got the rifle crew for.'' Quaker he might be, but he was not averse to having armed men and women walking the warehouse perimeter.

As Kris headed back to the HQ, she noted that she had a tail, the same two women who had come back with Ester last night. They didn't follow her through the gate, which had one lone Navy guard today, but joined the half-dozen gun-toting civilians walking the HQ's perimeter fence.

Kris checked in at sick bay; Doc and one corpsman had the wounded well in hand. As she wandered the halls of the HQ, Kris heard the echoes of her footsteps; the place was totally closed down. At the end of the hall, radio static drew her attention. The radio section had even been drafted into the food convoys, but their gear still monitored the net. One was on the main net; she could listen to any of the convoys. That only made her feel more left behind. She had Nelly turn that one down and put a watch on alert words like Mayday, fire, and ambush.

The other radio was monitoring civilian channels. With a flick of her wrist, Kris sent it on a scan. It went up the band, hit on a line of static, and hung there. Kris hit Scan again, and it did a long search before hitting on another band of static. Kris settled into the duty chair, put her feet up, and tapped the Scan button at regular intervals as the radio's search hung up on something. It took a couple of minutes before she realized it was hanging on about the same frequency every time. She sat up, hit Scan, and watched as the search went up the band, hit the top, then began at the bottom before settling at the same spot.

She did it again and got the same results.

''Would you like me to isolate the signal from all the noise?'' Nelly asked.

''Is there a signal in that static?''

''Yes.''

''Do it.''

The speakers went silent, then gave out a loud burst of static. ''Sorry,'' Nelly said as it cut off. Then the static came back, low this time. Kris thought she spotted words among the crackling: ''Flu,'' ''flood,'' ''starvation.'' Then again, floods and starvation were the expected around here. Finally Nelly hit on the right algorithm, and the message came in weak but clear:

''You've got to help us. We haven't asked for anything before, but we're at the end of our rope. Can anyone hear us?''

Kris grabbed the radio mike. ''This is Ensign Longknife. You are coming through weak but clear,'' she shouted. ''Repeat your message.'' She keyed off and waited. The static was there. Only static. ''Nelly,'' Kris demanded.

''No signal.''

Kris leaned back in her chair and counted slowly to ten. At ten, she changed her mind and headed for one hundred. If she talked, she'd override an incoming message. As Kris started to despair of ever hearing from them again, the radio came to life. ''Batteries are about dead, but I'm going to keep repeating this as long as I can. This is the Anderson Ranch up the north fork of the South Willie. We've got an outbreak of Grearson fever. Two deaths so far. A dozen or so are showing signs. We burned the bodies to keep this stuff out of the groundwater. We're sick, we're hungry, and now the river's rising. We can't make it up the canyon wall. If you know what's good for you, you better come help us, cause if we die from this stuff and the water takes our bodies, this crud will be all over Olympia.''

''Nelly, what's Grearson fever?''

''Flulike symptoms, it resides in the body like typhoid, causing the carrier no discomfort until their resistance falls below a certain level. It has a fifty percent death rate for adults who are not treated, higher for children and the elderly. First discovered on Grearson—''

''Enough. Does our warehouse have any vaccine against it?''

''Yes. Approximately a thousand units.''

Kris squeezed her eyes closed. A thousand would be a drop in the bucket for Port Athens alone. ''Nelly, show me where the Anderson Ranch is.'' Being the north fork of a south river meant it must be way up in the hills. It was that, and then some.

''Update river information with latest photography.''

Up north, the river grew out of its banks and close to canyon walls. ''This photography is a week old. We have had continuous cloud cover since then,'' Nelly told her. They'd also had continuous rain. If it was bad last week, it was worse now.

Kris was on her feet. At the door she remembered she ought to call this in to the Colonel. But he was headed south, and the problem was up north. She pulled two blank flimsies from a stack next to the radios, scrawled a quick note telling where she was going and why, left one in the radio room and the other on the Colonel's desk as she raced down to sick bay. ''We got a breakout of Grearson fever about forty miles up the river on a place about to be flooded.'' she announced.

The doc had his feet up on his desk, reading a medical journal. ''Oh shit,'' he said, feet slamming to the floor. ''That would be ten times worse than the typhoid last month. There hasn't been an outbreak of Grearson in thirty years.''

''Well, we have one now. Who's coming with me?'' Kris asked.

''Hendrixson still might be bleeding,'' the corpsman said. ''I guess that means I go.'' He started filling a bag.

''If they're coming down with Grearson, Danny, there's going to be all kinds of opportunistic diseases,'' the doc sighed and started adding to the corpsman's load.

''Meet me at the boat dock at the warehouse. I'll pick up the vaccine,'' Kris said as she started double-timing for the exit. ''How many people live in that valley?'' Kris asked Nelly.

''Two hundred thirty-seven.''

''We'll take two hundred and fifty doses of vaccine. Get someone at the warehouse to start hunting for them.''

''I have located them. I will have Jeb get them.''

''Ensign Lien,'' Kris called over the net, ''what you up to?''

''My neck in busted truck parts,'' Tommy answered.

''Meet me at the warehouse gate. We have a problem.''

''And hadn't I better bring my rifle?'' He sighed.

Kris picked up her armed escort as she double-timed out the gate. She ignored them as they trotted along a couple of dozen meters behind her. Jeb met her in an electric cart, three small boxes of medical supplies on its flatbed. ''That's three hundred units, but unless I'm reading it wrong, it expired last month.''

Kris hopped on the cart. ''Boat dock,'' she ordered, then tapped her commlink for sick bay. ''Doc, our Grearson fever vaccine expired last month. Can we use it?''

''Damn!'' was followed by a pause. ''It might do. Maybe use a bit more than normal. Damn, I can't believe I'm saying this.''

''We have three hundred doses for two hundred and fifty people. You might want to start making some new stuff.''

''No way we can manufacture enough if it gets in the water.''

''Understood, Doc, we've got to keep it out of the river.'' Now, if only the river would keep out of the ranch.

The crane truck was gone, along with two of the boat rigs. Kris headed for the boxed boat closest to the water and tapped the small keypad awake. Instructions appeared on a tiny screen. After reading through several windows, Kris punched 6 on the controls. As promised, that produced a river dory/motorized. Ten meters long, two wide, it had a high prow, flat bottom, and a control station amidships with a wheel on one side of a square pillar, the keypad and screen on the other. Kris studied what she'd done and decided it looked good. Jeb interrupted a dozen men stacking sandbags along the seawall against the rising bay long enough for them to heave the boat into the water, just a few centimeters below the concrete wall. Jeb divided his work crew, half going back to raising the seawall, half dispatched to the warehouse for supplies.

''Who's going?'' Jeb asked.

''Me, a corpsman will be along in a minute, Tommy. I need some men, people who know the river.''

''Ester said you weren't supposed to leave town.''

''I'm not supposed to make a truck run. This is different.''

''Only if you're a sprout like you, young woman. Keep this up, and you're going to get yourself killed.''

''Lot of people trying. So far, nobody's succeeded.''

''So you're pushing your luck.''

''Load the boat, old-timer.''

''I'll load the boat. Mick, you been bitching about loafing around town. You shag your freckles over to the Andrea Doria and tell Addie we want Jose. This lady's going to ride the river, and she's gonna need the best river runner we got.''

''You bet, Pops,'' said a young man of maybe eighteen as he took off running.

''I'll throw in Olaf, that big bear of a guy over there. You're going into canyon country, so you may need a bit of climbing before you're done. Nabil, Akuba, I need you over here.'' Two tall, thin men, one dark, the other darker, started jogging toward them.

The corpsman arrived, along with Tommy. He looked around, as if expecting to see smoke rising through the rain. ''What's happening?'' he asked Kris. She explained. For emphasis, the corpsman started giving shots to everyone tagged for the trip. ''Kris, you're supposed to stay here,'' was Tom's reaction when she finished.

''Already told her,'' Jeb drawled. ''Girl don't listen, so save your breath.'' Jeb was studying the boat; it drew about ten centimeters now as boxes of food and medical supplies were loaded. ''I'll let Jose have the last say about your load. Some weight might help. Too much, and I don't need to tell you the river is a killer these days. You ever been on water?''

''My folks own a boat. I've sailed a lake on Wardhaven.''

''This ain't going to be anything like that.''

''I didn't figure it would be.''

Jose arrived with Mick not far behind him. The brown-skinned man of maybe thirty eyed the craft, hopped aboard, studied it some more, then ordered, ''Lash everything down. The river, she's going to be a bitch, and I don't need no more trouble than she's gonna give me. Mick, you get me some paddles and poles.'' Again, freckles was off a-running.

The men loading the boat had brought plenty of rope; they began lashing it around the cargo liberally. Jose picked up the three small, flat boxes of vaccine. ''These why we're doing this stupid thing?''

''Yes,'' Kris said. ''You understand what happens if we don't get this vaccine upriver.''

''People die, and when the river takes them, we all die. You think I'd be doing a thing this stupid for any other reason? Jeb, get everyone a life vest. And get three packs. We'll have Navy here wear the medicine.''

Kris didn't like being reduced to a pack animal. She opened her mouth, but Jose cut her off before she got a word out. ''Listen, woman, I am the captain of this boat. If I was up there''—he pointed at the gray sky—''and wanted to stay alive in your space, maybe I'd listen to you. Maybe, if you sounded like you knew what you were doing. Down here, Jose knows everything there is to know about this river. You want to get this stuff to those people, you listen to Jose. You do what he tells you and you just may live.''

The river man eyed the inlet in front of them with a scowl on his face. ''The bay, she bad, with snags and stumps and eddies that will spin you around. The river, she going to be a whole lot worse. But I think, maybe, Jose can get you up there.''

''Maybe,'' Kris said.

''Jose's maybe is a lot better than the dead you'd be without me, girl.''

''Do it his way, spacer. Otherwise, I don't send my people out,'' Jeb added.

''I wasn't arguing. You think it's best we wear the medicine?'' she asked Jeb.

''You go in the water, you'll float, and the guys will do their best to fish you out. Those boxes go in and they'll sink. I guess we could try to do something about that, but I think Jose just did.''

''Looks that way,'' Kris had to agree.

Ten minutes later, supplies loaded, they pulled away from the dock. ''I should be back before the Colonel is, but if I'm not, tell him where I am,'' Kris hollered at Jeb.

''Why don't you use that thing on your wrist to tell him yourself?''

''He's got his job cut out for him today. Why worry him?''

''Right. What else should I expect from a Longknife?'' Kris shrugged that off, then started bailing. In the time since she'd unfolded the boat, there'd been over a centimeter of rain. It now sloshed around the bottom of the boat; anyone not busy, bailed.

''You know that luck of the little people we've been talking about?'' Tommy said from where he bailed across from Kris. ''Well, I just saw them waving from the pier. Even they don't have enough luck for this blasted river.''

''Tommy, we've got to get this upriver,'' Kris said, pointing a thumb at the pack on her back.

''Someone has to get it upriver. Nobody's died and left you the job. Me, I'm starting to wonder how much of the Longknife stuff in the history books is there because somebody just didn't know how to let somebody else do their job.'' Kris didn't have an answer for Tommy.

Jose quickly brought the boat up to full speed, about twelve knots. It handled the waves on the bay well, breasting each swell with a cloud of spray that ended mostly back in the water, only some in the boat. Things were fine right up until they hit a snag with a thud and a bump and a sudden falloff in speed, even as the engine raced.

''Damn sinker,'' Jose growled as he brought the boat around and idled the engine. Off to their left, just a few centimeters below a wave trough, a log, maybe a quarter of a meter in diameter and spiked from shorn-off tree limbs, spun from their contact. Jose pulled something the size of a stylus from his shirt pocket, extended it into a meter-long pole, waited until the log settled down to a stable rocking motion, then hurled it at the log. It stuck, a red flare igniting at its high end. In a moment, Kris's boat captain was on the radio.

''Addie, I got a sinker out here near the landing run. It's marked. You better come get it.''

''Spotted your flare already,'' a woman's voice came back. ''We're under way. You in trouble?''

''Maybe. I think we dinged our prop. I may need a tow.''

''Can do two as well as one.''

Kris was not ready to go back. She dropped her bailing bucket and headed for the control station. ''You think you can do better?'' Jose said, his face a mixture of macho defiance and rank embarrassment.

''Maybe I can,'' Kris said, punching the keypad opposite the wheel. The small view screen came to life. ''On the Typhoon, my job is controlling what the liquid metal does in battle. There's got to be a way to make this metal repair itself.''

''You think so?''

''Don't know until I've tried.'' The view screen was small, and the keypad just numeric; Kris found herself keying through a complex series of option screens, diving deeper and deeper into some kind of tree. It didn't help that the screens had been written by someone for whom English was a very foreign language.

''You aren't going to dump us in the water, are you?'' Tom asked. Kris took the question for serious, particularly after the nods his comment got from long Nabil and big Olaf.

''I'll try not to, but you might want to tighten your life vests. Never can tell what a spacer will do, out on deep water.''

''Very funny.'' Tom didn't laugh. ''She gets it wrong in space, we're breathing vacuum,'' he pointed out. But Olaf gave his vest harness a good pull, and Nabil eyed the waves around them dolefully. Kris found something that claimed to be propulsion repair, located her dory, then Water Screw, which she took for prop, and hit Repair. The screen blinked, then went blank.

''Did that fix it?'' Jose asked.

''Try it,'' Kris answered, not at all sure.

Jose eased the throttle up; the boat took on way. ''Feels right,'' he said. ''Yeah! Think you can take the dents out of the bow?'' He pointed forward where the metal was pushed in.

''I'll try…when we're on dry land,'' Kris agreed. That got a laugh from captain and crew. Jose brought the boat up to something less than its full speed, posted two lookouts with long poles forward, and ordered the rest back to bailing. He motioned Kris to the command station.

''You have a map of the bay?'' Kris pulled out her reader, brought up the latest picture of the sprawling inlet, then overlaid a map from pre-disaster. ''Will that help?''

''Yeah. There's a swamp over there with three rivers feeding in and a dozen ways out. Now they're all just one big mess. We could be quite a ways up the wrong one before we knew it.''

Kris tapped the Global Positioning Satellite button, and a plus appeared on the screen.

''You have one of those, too. I had to hock mine.''

''This will work,'' Kris assured him, gave him the unit, and went back to bailing. She didn't have to ask when they hit the river. Even with Jose putting the engine back to full power, they slowed down. Bare tree trunks stood starkly out of the water, marking where the shore had been. Even after this planet dried out, it would need a lot to recover.

Kris stood, stretched her back, and turned to Jose. ''Will we stay to the center of the river?''

''Not if we want to get there before next week. Current out there is a good six, maybe eight knots. We stay away from that. Course, hitting trees is very bad. Nabil, Akuba up front, keep your eyes open. We don't want to wrap the woman's boat around a tree or rock.'' The rain picked that moment to get thicker, and visibility dropped to hardly a boat length. Jose cut back on the throttle a little, and their headway fell to almost nothing.

Progress was slow as the lookouts on the bow poled them away from rocks, shrubs, the odd building, and tree after tree. Kris glanced a few times at the main channel, but there was no going there. Maybe it had once been as placid as her lake back home. Now the water fought itself, roiling up, then crashing down in a shower of white water. Water gone mad with the power to turn trees to matchsticks and rocks to gravel. As dangerous as it was along the flooded bank, the main stream was suicide.

Progress upriver was slow, punctuated with terror. Poling them off a tree, a stray current grabbed them, sending them downriver sideways and slamming them into a rock they'd just passed so carefully. Even big Olaf needed help pushing off. All hands applied poles, oars, and hands to the rock, only to unbalance the boat. Water poured in over the dented gunwale.

''Navy to port, the other side, left,'' Jose yelled as Tom went right. Kris fought her way hand over hand up the cargo lashings to hang as far over the left side as she dared, raising the bent but unpierced right side. Nabil and Akuba pushed the boat's nose off, and Jose let the current carry them downstream a hundred meters while he made sure all was well before putting the engine back in gear and renewing the fight with the wild river.

Kris glanced at her watch; they'd be doing good to make the Anderson Ranch before dark at this rate. She considered calling the Colonel but dropped the idea. She was committed; he could hang her for mutiny or insubordination later. There was little he could do now. Kris concentrated on riding the river.

The rain came down in sheets. Tommy suggested they look for pillowcases to match. Mick answered he was ready for bed, with or without sheets. Which raised the question from Olaf as to who would share a bed with whom. Tired and wet, they could still laugh. If she had to ride a river gone mad, this was the crew to do it with.

As hours went by, Kris grew wet and cold. Her muscles ached in places she hadn't known she had. She couldn't just ride this boat but had to work every moment to keep from being bashed against the liquid metal sides or slammed into the crates of food, maybe shattering the glass vials of vaccine. So Kris stayed on her feet, stooping over to bail, flexing her knees as the boat rose up to slap her or dropped out from underneath her. This was nothing like the cruise she and Tommy shared on the Oasis. Would she ever want to be on a body of water bigger than a Jacuzzi again?

''That's the Harmosa place,'' Jose called to Kris, pointing at a rooftop between them and the roiling river. ''Andersons are next, about three miles farther upriver. Everything is going fine.''

As the captain said that, they rounded a bend in the river. Out of nowhere, an eddy from the main channel caught them. Jose held on to the wheel with both hands, his legs wrapped around the wheel post, fighting the swirling current. The boat whirled as it rose and fell; the worst bucking they'd had all day. Tommy lost his hold and was half overboard before Kris got a hand on his belt. The next pitch and drop would have thrown them both over the side if Mick hadn't gotten a hand on them, his feet entwined in the cargo lashings. Finally, Olaf managed to make his way across the cargo. He grabbed Tommy and Kris by their packs with his big paws and tossed them into the bottom of the boat like they were kittens.

Kris lay on her belly for a long minute, gasping for breath, letting the rain pour down on her, the sloshing water soak into her. She had really gotten herself and Tommy into a mess this time. It was almost over. Just a bit more, she told herself as she struggled to her feet, both hands wrapped around cargo lashings and a leg through a third to boot.

''Thanks, Kris,'' Tommy said.

''Thanks to all of you,'' Kris added peering at each of her crew through the gathering darkness.

''We thank you.'' Jose laughed. ''Think of the stories we will tell when we get back.'' Olaf and Mick seemed to like that. Nabil just shook his head. Akuba never looked up from his place on the bow, looking for snags.

Now it was getting seriously dark. A glance at her wrist told Kris this was a lot earlier than it should have been. Part of the gloom was the incessant downpour. But they were also in the shadows of the cliffs rising a good 300 meters high on the south side of the gorge the river ran through. ''There's rapids three, four miles past the Anderson place,'' Jose called to all hands. ''Let's keep our eyes open, crew. We'll be in a mess if we go too far.''

Kris tried a call on net and got only static. ''Nelly, do a radio search. Call anyone on net.''

Nelly reported a null search. ''Their batteries may be dead,'' Kris told Jose and the crew. ''Silence means nothing,'' she assured them. Why didn't it reassure her?

Now Nabil and Akuba on the bow brought out handheld lights. The rain seemed to slacken; in the growing gloom it could easily have been more a wish than reality. Still, they were a good hundred meters off when Nabil's beam settled on the waterlogged wreckage of a multistory building. Jose throttled back, and they approached it carefully. The top floor had been burned; a few of the larger timbers showed black above the water. Where the river's water lapped along the top floor, two skulls eyed them through empty sockets.

''Mother of God.'' Jose crossed himself and steered away.

''They said they'd burned the dead,'' Kris said. ''I guess that was where.''

''That's the old house, where the Andersons started fifty years ago. The main place should be over there,'' Jose said, pointing off to the left. Slowly, the boat headed in that direction. The rain came back; they almost rammed the first flooded outbuilding before they saw it. Water was halfway up its low walls. ''That's a cattle barn. Start looking for a fence,'' Jose ordered. Kris decided it was time to call home.

''Colonel Hancock, this is Ensign Longknife.'' Only static. Kris repeated herself with the same results. ''Nelly?''

''I estimate we are in the shadow of the cliffs,'' Nelly said. ''I cannot get a line of sight on the communications satellite from where we are.''

''In this dark, I am not taking us out where the current can get us,'' Jose said before Kris could say a word.

''I wasn't going to ask,'' Kris assured him.

''We're at the fence,'' Mick called from the bow.

Jose steered right. ''I think there's a gate somewhere around here. I'm cutting the engine. Get ready to pole.'' They found a hole in the fence before they found any gate. Once through, Jose headed into the dark. The lights picked up more flooded buildings. The boat bumped against things hidden in the water; again, Jose cut the motor, and they poled. When the next break in the rain gave them a good look around, they were in the middle of the farmyard. Houses, barns, other outbuildings surrounded them, all flooded. No lights showed.

''They've got to be around here somewhere,'' Kris frowned.

Jose frowned, too. ''There's a couple of hay barns, closer to the cliffs. One or two houses there, too.'' He pointed to the right, and they poled in that direction. Once past the last barn, and the fence that began at its edge, the current picked up, and the poling got harder. Jose reached to start the motor.

''Wait a second,'' Kris called. ''You hear that?'' The sound of rain and the river made it hard to hear anything. But as the silence stretched and the crew held its collective breath, the dull roar became more insistent.

''The falls.'' Jose sighed. ''It must be real bad to make that much noise. But we aren't going to get anywhere against this current by poling.'' He flipped the engine on, but kept his speed very slow. The land they passed over must have been rolling at better times. Here and there a few bedraggled cows stood on small islands or wallowed in mud up to their utters. They passed a tiny herd that must have taken shelter on a lower island. As miserable as the cows appeared, they must have been the pampered survivors, some optimist's hope that he could save enough to start a new herd when the rains stopped. Now the water was up to the shoulders of this remnant; they lowed pitifully as the helpless humans passed them.

''There's not going to be anything left of us,'' Nabil muttered to Akuba.

''There's something up ahead. Looks like a fire,'' Olaf shouted from his station on the bow. Jose cut the engine. It took them a while to separate out the sounds of the rain and roar of the river, but there are few things sweeter than the sound of a human voice. Olaf cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted in his booming baritone, ''Ahoy the ranch.''

On the third shout he got an answer. ''What bloody ranch? And who are you? I got a rifle.''

''Jose,'' their captain shouted back, ''with a boat full of medicine and food. You want me to land or keep going?''

''We can probably find you a place to tie up for the night, if you got the rope.''

''I got the rope. You got a tree?''

''Nope, but if you got food, I'll hold the bleeding rope all night.'' Six figures slowly materialized out of the mist. One held up a hand, and Olaf tossed him a rope. The six pulled with a will, and the boat glided up to a muddy landing.

''God, man, are we glad to see you. There any more boats?''

''Only this one. Where is everyone?'' Kris asked as she stepped over the side into mud up to her ankles.

''Some left before it got too bad. Some are sleeping cheek to jowl under what roofs we have. Some are out here, worrying. You heard our message?''

''We know about the Grearson fever. I got a corpsman here with the vaccine.'' Kris pointed at the medic as he clambered out of the boat, his two stuffed bags showing a Red Cross/Red Crescent/Red Star. Kris held out her hand to the man who'd been doing the talking. ''I'm Ensign Kris Longknife of the Society of Humanity Navy at your service.''

From somewhere in the fog Kris heard, ''We got a bloody Longknife all the hell and gone out here?'' but the handshake and smile that greeted her was friendly. ''Glad for anything you got,'' said a man with graying hair, wearing clothes that hung on him like there'd been a lot more to cover a year ago. ''I'm Sam Anderson. My pa started this ranch.'' He glanced around into the foggy dark as if seeing all there was and once had been. ''I guess I'll end it. Listen, how many can you get out on this boat? We got a couple of dozen sick, plus our old and kids. I figure before morning we're gonna have to start climbing the cliff. It would be nice to get the weakest out by boat.''

''How many do you have?'' Kris asked, getting back into the now-empty hull.

''Minus the three that died today, ninety-eight. Why?''

''Because this boat is a bit different from the average. What you see isn't necessarily what you get.'' Kris got the screen up and went through the original list. ''There's an option here for a river scow/motorized. Good for ferrying trucks up to ten thousand kilos. A hundred and ten people ought to fit. Fifteen meters by six meters. Thirty centimeters of free clearance at full load. Jose, you willing to take that out on the river?''

''Tomorrow. Not in the dark.''

''I'll do the conversion now just in case the river gets too high tonight.''

''Good idea,'' Sam said as Kris punched the conversion option. Even in the dark, the metal walls around Kris took on a gleaming appearance. The high prow began to settle, the sides rolled away as the boat widened from three meters to six.

Then the entire structure of the boat collapsed onto the ground. For a second, Kris thought this was just part of the process, but then flat sections of metal began to break up, mingle with the raindrops, and settle to the bottom of puddles. Kris grabbed a handful of control pillar as it began to come apart. Quickly, she stooped and scooped up a mixture of mud and liquid metal from a puddle with her other hand. In her palms, the metal formed globules like liquid mercury.

''What the hell?'' Kris gasped, along with similar expletives from those around her. She controlled the temptation to hurl the liquid metal on the ground. ''Quick, someone, get two of those vaccine bottles out of my pack. Empty the vaccine. I've got to store this crud.''

''But waste vaccine?'' Tommy asked, even as he got Kris's pack open.

''We've got vaccine for three hundred and only a hundred here. But I am going to know what just happened.''

''If we live that long,'' Sam added sourly.

Kris and Tommy got the samples of their boat into bottles and capped them. One had quite a bit of mud in with the metal. Well, that was Olympia for you. Kris looked around for another sample, but in just the time it took to do that, all evidence that a river dory had ever been here was gone.

''Let's get the supplies out of the rain,'' Sam drawled. ''If we're going to drown before morning, we might as well do it on a full stomach.''

''I never took you for an optimist, Sam,'' Jose said.

''A year of gray skies, dead cows, crop failure, and cabin fever, then this fever, would make even you throw in the towel.''

''Maybe. You heard the man, let's get some food up to these folks. Hungry people don't make good decisions, and the water is rising.'' The boat crew loaded up what they had, helped by a dozen ranch hands that were there or materialized out of the rain and fog. The new arrivals were quiet. The ranchers seemed to return to an interrupted conversation.

''I say we build some rafts. We still got two houses left. Tear down their walls and use ‘em to float downriver.''

''They're wood and plaster walls, Ted. They'd never last an hour on the river. Besides, out there is no place for anything less than a full boat. What you say to that, Jose?''

''It's bad out there. I wouldn't say you couldn't make it. Who knows, miracles happen.''

''I'm not trusting my Candi's life to no miracle. I say we climb the cliffs. We used to do that when we was young.''

''Yeah. I got all the way up to the top when I was ten.'' ''When was the last time you tried to climb a fence, Bill?'' That ended that part of the conversation with a snort.

''Besides, we all climbed up Lucky's Trail. Water's eight feet deep between here and there,'' Sam pointed out.

''All we got left is Lover's Leap, and nobody's climbed that one.''

''Where is it?'' Akuba asked quietly.

''Right behind us,'' Sam said.

Akuba aimed his light beam. Through the rain and mist Kris could just make out a rocky face with an occasional stunted tree. Muddy water ran down it. The light flicked out. ''Bitch of a climb,'' came from Nabil.

''We got some rope. You got any?'' Akuba asked.

''Some.''

They reached two structures. One was a small cow barn. Four cows, rain streaming off them, looked morosely at the shelter they'd been evicted from. The other was an even smaller one-room house. ''Honeymooners stayed here their first year, if they wanted.'' Sam supplied the answer before Kris asked. ''Let's see if we can get some food warming before we wake anyone up.''

Maybe two dozen were asleep on the floor, mostly young or elderly folks. Three women lay in the one bed, sheened with fevered sweat, while two others tried to comfort them. The medic headed that way while Kris followed Sam to the kitchen area and began heating standard field rations. The smell of coffee brought people in. They quietly got what they could, then disappeared back out into the rain.

Once things were moving along, Sam tapped Kris on the elbow. ''We need to talk.''

Kris followed him to the kitchen table. Sam, Karen, his wife, and a big fellow who introduced himself as Brandon and tried to crush Kris's hand, took three of the chairs, leaving the fourth for Kris.

''So, what do we do?'' Brandon asked.

Kris paused, waiting for Sam or his wife to say something, but they were all looking at her. ''My medic is taking care of your Grearson cases as best as he can. In a few minutes he'll start giving inoculations to all of you. After that…'' Kris left that hanging.

''After that, we die,'' Brandon snapped.

''No,'' Karen insisted.

''Yes we do,'' Brandon shot back. Around the room others stood against the wall or settled onto the floor. Everyone awake in the house was watching the four at the table, waiting to see what their fate would be. ''Face it,'' Brandon said, turning to face the listeners more than those at the table. ''The water's been rising an inch or two an hour. By dawn, it's gonna be in here up to your ankles. There ain't no cavalry coming to the rescue. The damn Navy's already here, and you can see she's in the same mess we are. That was a really cute trick making the boat go away, even for a Longknife.''

''As you said, I'm in the same boat, or lack of it, that you are,'' Kris put in. ''But I'm not going to be dead come morning.''

Brandon snorted derisively. ''There a helicopter gonna come and take you away, baby cakes. Didn't anyone tell you? With all the acid in our rain, they sold all the airplanes and other nice toys off world. Has your Navy brought some back?''

''No,'' Kris said, unwilling to lie to any of the people watching her. She looked around at them, hoping to see in their eyes that they were counting on her, no matter how heavy the burden, to get them out of this mess. What she saw was blank hopelessness, as if they already saw themselves dead. Kris gulped; these people weren't looking to her for hope, only that last bit of approval so they could quit.

''So, here we are in the twenty-fourth century, and we got nothing but our own two hands to save us, and little sister, we've worked ours to the bone, and we ain't saved ourselves. If we're gonna die, I say we take this whole mud ball with us.''

That absurd statement didn't even elicit a shuffling of feet among the onlookers. Kris glanced at Sam and Karen. They were looking at the table, eyes as dead as the drowned cows Kris had pushed off from the boat on the way up here. How could anyone become so hopeless? Helpless?

''Why shouldn't we take this planet down with us?'' Brandon continued. ''They didn't do anything for us. And you all know about the offer Sam's got. Does little Miss Longknife know? Maybe your grandpa made Sam the offer.''

''I know little about my Grandfather Alex's business. In case you missed it, I'm a boot ensign in the Navy and up a muddy river at the moment without a paddle.'' Come on folks, laugh, smile, show some emotions.

The people around Kris just stared at the floor.

''Sam's been offered a penny on the dollar for this place, Navy. What do you say to that? When all this is over, we're gonna be just a bunch of wage slaves like the factory-workers back on Earth. I sure as hell don't want to live that way.''

So that was it. Kris swallowed hard; they'd worked all their lives, and now they were losing it. They'd worked under the open sky, and now that sky was falling on them. They'd asked for nothing, got nothing, and now all guys like Brandon had was a mad to hold on to as the river rose. And the fever now gave Brandon someone to aim his mad at. Kris slowly turned in her chair, studying the people standing along the walls, slumped onto the floor. They were beat, at the end of their hope, and waiting for it to end. Okay, Ensign Longknife, how you going to make them want to fight for what's left of their lives? Talk about a leadership challenge.

''You want to die?'' Kris asked a woman who made eye contact with her for a moment. The woman flinched and dropped her eyes back to the floor.

''Is that it?'' Kris said to a man standing along the wall. ''You just want to lie down in the mud and let the river take you?''

He shrugged. A baby, only a few months old, let out a cry. Her mother rocked her gently, then offered a breast to nurse.

''You ready to drown that baby?'' Kris asked, hard and unwavering.

''No,'' the mother answered, tears in her eyes.

''Well you better get ready, because that's what this guy is talking about.'' Kris stood. ''Okay, you've got it bad, probably a lot worse than anyone else in human space right now.'' She turned slowly in her place, staring hard at each face as she passed it by, demanding that they look at her, listen to her.

''When Sam's dad came here fifty years back, there were lots of corporations ready to stake him …for half ownership, for real control over him. He held out, got a loan…and paid it back. I bet he paid it back early,'' she guessed. Apparently right because she got a proud nod from Sam, a scowl from Brandon.

''Well, I got news for you. There's a lot of banks around that still lend money that way. Sure they don't send people out to train wrecks to hunt for folks so down they'll sign anything. They don't have to. But when this mess is over, and the sun comes out, they'll be there for you.''

''You gonna loan us the money, Longknife?'' Brandon spat.

''Brandon, your hearing's gone bad. Didn't I just say I'm Navy?'' Kris pointed at the gold bar on her collar. ''Navy doesn't make loans. We're here to get as many of you out of this mess alive as we can. But Brandon, you aren't thinking very straight, either. You want to get Grearson fever into the water supply and kill everyone on this mud ball. Folks, think this one through with me.'' Kris continued her slow turn.

Eyes were up now. She had their attention.

''You let Grearson into the river, and it's going to poison Port Athens. Folks are sick and hungry down there. They're going to start dying. A lot of them will be people like me, who came here to help. That the thanks you want to give us?''

A few heads shook. Finally, they were reacting.

''Everybody south of Athens is starving. We're shipping them food just as fast as we can. And if the fever is in our water, that means we'll be taking them fever, too. Grearson normally kills half the people who get it. Figure you, your wife get it, one of you dies. Your son, your daughter get it, one of them dies. But folks are starving. They're already sick. Three out of four are going to die. Your family gets it, maybe you'll be the one who lives. Maybe just your daughter, Who's going to take care of a six-year-old orphan kid? There are worse ways to die than the fever.''

Eyes that had stared back at her empty now showed emotions, fear, terror, anger. Yeah, she had their attention.

''But you want to know the really sick part of this whole idea of Brandon's? After Grearson's wiped out just about every living soul on Olympia, there's still going to be empty houses, tractors, barns. There's still going to be farms that dead people worked all their lives to build. They'll be bought up, for a penny on the dollar. And when the corporations send out their hired hands to make money for them, up in orbit.'' Kris waved a thumb at the ceiling, ''before they land, they'll give them a shot like the one my medic wants to give you, and it won't matter that Grearson's in the water supply here. The vaccine will keep them healthy so they can work their life away for that corporation. Ain't that funny,'' Kris sneered.

Nobody laughed.

Taking his cue, the medic pulled his shot gun from his bag, put a vial of vaccine in it, dialed up the amount, checked it against the one lantern burning in the house and looked around. ''Who wants a shot?''

The woman with the baby shed her coat and offered her bare shoulder. The medic placed the gun against her skin; it went off with a small click. She pulled the child's diaper down to offer its rump. There was a second click. Sam had his coat off, Karen, too. A line began to form.

Kris turned to Sam. ''I've got two climbers ready to go up Lover's Leap. How much rope do you have?''

''Plenty.''

Kris looked around the room. ''Who wants to help my people climb that hill?''