Grace searched the crowd for people she knew. “Where’s Glen? Where’s the new mayor of Lothran?” No one knew until a man, covered on one side with a thick spray of blood, looked up from where he had been emptying his stomach.

“They’re gone. They were standing next to me, and then they were gone.” Grace nodded—those two had pulled off the Maid in the Mist drill. She glanced around and found that about half the towns that had sugared the motor pool would need new mayors. A coincidence? Grace doubted that. The DropShip might not have been talking to Alkalurops, but someone down here had been keeping them up on what was happening. Hanson? Maybe. She spotted the mercs leaving by a different door. Hanson glanced her way, made eye contact, then broke it quickly.

Grace stood, wondering how she’d get back to town now that Glen wasn’t there to drive. “How do I tell his wife? His kids?” she murmured. Suddenly, getting back to town seemed a minor problem.

“Major Hanson, sir,” Arthur St. George, the XO, said with a nervous laugh, “any rumors you might have heard that I wanted your job. Believe me, they are exaggerated.”

“Stow it,” L. J. shot back through clenched teeth.

The rest of the walk to the command van was quiet, and at the cadence L. J. set. He waited until they were moving, Topkick driving, before he let another word out.

“In case any of you missed that, our client just splattered the mayors from the two towns with the missing patrols and about half of the mayors from towns where our vehicles were sabotaged. That is either an amazing coincidence or evidence that our client has sources on this planet reporting to him.” He eyed each of his subordinates. Each met his stare. “We will assume the source is civilian. However, I am feeling less and less trust for anyone from this stinking hole.”

Does that include a redhead?

“Our client wants us out of town, and wants our quarters for his …associates.” L. J. would not call them either police or a force. Maybe against helpless civilians they’d be dangerous.

“Adjutant, see that all our troops, equipment, supplies and anything else with letterhead, a property number or anything that could be traced to us is on a truck out of here before sunset.”

“Everything?” Eddie squeaked at the workload.

“Everything. We will not leave behind so much as a scrap of paper that could be dropped at a crime scene to connect us to it. You understand me?”

“I think so, sir.”

“XO, drop your sense of humor in the next trash can. Our troops will need all the steadying we can give them. That leaves no room for jokes. I want you to…” L. J. called up a map of the area around Allabad. The capital, Little London, Lothran, Banya and two others were taken. He looked for a good place to center his command. If trouble came from anywhere? There was Falkirk, way up that lovely valley. If he centered his troops on that threat axis…

“Art, get to Dublin Town. Call ahead and tell the lieutenant to prepare to receive the command and support company.”

“And a big chunk of three battalions?” the XO asked.

That brought L. J. up short. Taking three battalions back to where he’d led out one had sounded great. But the vehicles with sugared fuel tanks had been under guard, and someone had to lead those patrols into whatever black hole they disappeared into.

“Eddie, message to all detached commands. Effective immediately all local enlistments are canceled.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. This planet isn’t nearly as pacified as it’s tried to look. And with a client running this place like his private madhouse, it’s going to be a lot less pacified this time next week. Anyone remember reading the histories of mercs used as covering force for power-crazy clients?”

Nobody had.

“Not likely to be posted in a Regimental Hall of Honors.” The van was approaching his HQ… his former HQ. “All right, boys and girls. We are about to face leadership challenges the likes of which you never dreamed. And that’s just among our own. What the locals throw at us will match nothing you’ve ever studied. ‘O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful,”’ he recited, an ancient soldiers’ prayer.

11

Allabad, Alkalurops

Prefecture IX, The Republic of the Sphere

9 August 3134; local summer

Dazed with shock, Grace talked with the mayors and Guild Masters in Allabad. They reached a consensus: they would keep their heads down and see how things developed before doing anything. Grace hoped that Betsy would contact her that night, but there was no knock at the window and Ben was emphatic that they not hunt for her.

“You could not find her if she did not want finding, and she would not like the attention you would bring as you failed.”

So Grace kept talking to people. Angus was outraged. “Killing those mayors was cold-blooded murder. Mark my words, we are in a land without laws. And this lawyer does not want to live in such a land.”

The next morning the coroner’s office called. “You wouldn’t be headed north by way of Little London, would you?”

“I guess I could,” Grace said.

“I have Glen Harriman’s body—what I can piece together of it. Could you take him home or do I just ship him?”

“I’ll take Glen back to his wife.”

Wilson’s new 4x4 served well as a hearse, but the stop was more than just a good deed. Little London was mad. When Grace brought their mayor’s casket to his widow, she walked into an impassioned argument over which street poles to hang the captured mercs from. That they would hang was already settled. Ben reddened and was opening his mouth when Grace stepped in.

“Did any of these mercs kill anyone?”

“Well, no.”

“Have any of the mercs done anything since they arrived in Little London that made you want to kill them?”

“No, but—”

“No buts. Glen led you. He kept this place safe and the mercs decent to you. The son of a bitch who killed him is back there in Allabad, not here. What kind of songs do you think they’ll sing about the Maid in the Mist if we string them up?”

“But what do we do with them? There’s a story going round that the mercs are pulling out and those Black and Reds will take over Little London. We can’t hold the mercs here.”

“Send them to Falkirk. We’ll keep them locked up tight.”

So Ben drove a small van north with ten prisoners, and Grace made a quick detour to Lothran to collect ten more. She was back at Falkirk and eating breakfast after her first good night’s sleep in a week when Chato and Jobe knocked on her door.

“Have you heard the latest news?” Jobe asked.

“I was enjoying a quiet cup of coffee and figuring how to pay my taxes,” Grace said, pointing at her ’puter and its sad proof that owning a mine conferred no income unless it was worked.

Chato turned on the kitchen vid as Jobe poured coffee. A familiar business reporter was talking to Robert Carey, eldest son and scion of one of the first families to settle on Alkalurops. “I had my tax money in hand,” he said, waving cash. “But as the tax collector pulled up, another guy jogged up and made an offer to buy my family’s home, mines, ranch—everything. It was a good offer, but I can’t sell out my family. This land is ours. So as he’s leaving, he gives his offer to the tax man, and that’s the bill I get. Not what my inheritance was taxed at but this new price, ten times higher. I can’t pay that.”

“So what now?” the reporter asked.

“I have twenty-four hours to come up with the money or get off the land. But I can’t sell! Not with a thirty percent sales tax! I couldn’t raise the money even if I tried.”

“So you’ll be moving?”