I was just getting back into planning the work on the ranch when Agnieshka said that Quincy and Zuzanna were down in the hotel lobby, and wanted to see me.
"Tell them to wait for me in the bar, and I'll be right down," I said. "There is a bar in this place, isn't there?"
"Four of them, boss, and you and anyone with you get free service at all of them."
"Then tell them to meet me in the most expensive one. What are they wearing, uniforms or civvies?"
"Lederhosen and street drag, boss."
"Good. I wouldn't want to have it look like I was pulling rank on them."
So decked out in lederhosen, a Tyrolean hat, and the bow tie that Agnieshka insisted was required for formal wear, I found Quincy and Zuzanna sitting in a comfortable booth in a posh restaurant and bar.
There was a pitcher of dark brown beer on the massive wooden table, and three heavy glass mugs.
My friends looked in remarkably good shape for a pair of octogenarians. Oh, the current women's styles looked silly on Zuzanna, but both of them had a bit of a tan, and Quincy was sporting an inch of white hair on his head and face.
"I'd thought the two of you would be stripped down to your brains and spinal columns, and enjoying immortality in Dream World by now," I said.
"Well, that option is still open to us, and we may take them up on it, someday, but since Zuzanna's cancer seems to be completely cured, we figured, why rush it?"
"You both look healthy enough. But, a Mark XIX tank can cure cancer? That's a new one on me."
"Not cure it exactly, but her tank kept her otherwise healthy long enough for her own body to cure itself. It doesn't always work, but on her, it did."
"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Tell me, are you finding any more gullible young men to kill in Dream World?"
Quincy was a master at hand-to-hand combat. He had taught it for twenty years in the marines, and then for thirty more at the university. But teaching it in Dream World, you don't have to pull your punches. You can go ahead and kill your opponent, and then have him get up for another round. It really hurt to have your neck broken or your head bashed in, but Quincy said that pain was a great teacher.
"Oh, yes. I had a very popular dojo going there until my leave came up."
"You two look like you've been out for a while."
"A few months," Zuzanna said. "I gather that our tanks got the high speed upgrade before yours did. Mostly, we've been out of them long enough to start getting our land organized."
"You are buying a farm, too?"
Quincy said, "The price was such that we couldn't turn it down. But we're not planning on a working farm. We're a little old for that. The kids and grandkids all have their own lives now, and none of them seem to be interested in being farmers. What we have in mind is a long-term investment, combined with a medium-term one."
"Reasonable, since the last time I heard, you were both planning on living forever. So tell me about it."
"You see this table we're sitting at? This is real, Earth-grown cherry wood, and I'd bet that it's worth six month's pay for the average person in Human Space. The price of real hardwood is fabulous, since it takes many years to grow. And not much of it is being planted on the new planets, since there are still too many immediate problems for people to get involved with long-term investments. And since Earth is getting more crowded all the time, not many new trees are being planted there, either."
"There are things a lot like our woods on other planets. I've heard about native woods right here on New Yugoslavia that are very attractive."
"Right. But by the same token, synthetic silicon carbide makes an even more beautiful gemstone than natural diamond, since it has a higher index of refraction. But would any young man dare to give his bride-to-be a fake diamond? Not hardly! It's the same thing with natural Earth wood. It's got to be oak, or walnut, or cherry, or it's just a fake!"
"So, you're planting an irrigated forest?"
"Yep. Drip irrigation is the best way to wet down a forest in a desert. You run a thin line to each tree, and give it just the right amount of water to thrive. Not only does it use much less water than other methods, but it's cheaper to install and it stops the development of the undergrowth, which pretty much ends the danger of forest fires."
Zuzanna said, "But ours will be a very special, well-planned forest. You see, most temperate hardwoods produce fruits, nuts, or edible seeds. What's more, they produce more edible calories per hectare per year than the same land would produce if it was sown with wheat or corn. Some fruits fall in the springtime, like cherries. Others ripen in the summer and others, like apples and acorns, drop in the fall. By carefully selecting the types and numbers of trees, in about seven years we figure to be able to have just the right amount of food falling all the time to feed and raise five pigs per hectare per year, and many more than that as the forest gets mature. We'll harvest them in the fall, leaving a prize boar and enough older sows around to get the herd going for the next year. Pigs reproduce quickly, and are ready for the butcher in half a year, if you feed them right. So you see! It's all automatic and self-sustaining, except for having to feed the sows a bit during the winter, and winters are pretty mild here on New Yugoslavia."
"It sounds interesting," I said. "But the apple orchards I remember seeing on Earth wouldn't make good lumber."
"That's because what you saw was something made out of normal fruit trees spliced on top of the roots of a dwarf variety. The dwarf roots keep the trees small, so the fruit is easier to pick. But we're not going to do any picking. We're planting full sized trees, which can grow to forty meters, easy, and we'll just let the pigs eat the fruit when it falls."
"Planting that many trees sounds like it would be pretty labor intensive," I said.
"It is. But we've got a free supply of labor."
"Serbian Prisoners of War?"
"No, nothing that barbaric. Drones. Military surplus drones. You see, there are more kinds of drones than they taught us about in basic training. One sort was intended to replace human infantry in places like city fighting. That's what they modeled them on, human beings. They've got two hands, two arms, and two legs, and all their sensory apparatus is in their heads. They're as big as a really huge man, and from a distance, you might confuse one with a human being in armor. One of their main advantages was supposed to be that they could use weapons and vehicles already designed for human use. But they're too small to carry a muon-exchange fusion plant, like the tanks use, so they're limited to capacitor power, which only gives them about two hours at full output. Furthermore, they are mechanically very complicated, and what with all the linkages and so on, there isn't much room for computers in there, so these boys are dumb. They can do just fine if they are in constant communication with a tank, but you know that in combat, communications are the first things that go bad. As a military weapon, humanoid drones are pretty much useless, except for guard duty, and there are much cheaper, less complicated drones around for that. Oh, a few are used to guard embassies, and so on, mostly for show. But somehow, a small automatic factory was built to produce them when the Japs had New Kashubia, and it has been turning out one of them every ten hours for the last eleven years, and putting them in storage. Nobody seemed to know that they even existed!"
He stretched, took another drink of beer, and continued.
"But, properly controlled, they can do anything a man can do, and about as fast. They can work twenty-four hours a day, and every day of the year. They don't slough off, take coffee breaks, or have to stay home with sick relatives. When you figure it out, one drone can do the work of six men, easy, and they work for free. We've found that they make real good field hands and household servants, too, if you have a tank around to charge their capacitors and tell them what to do. We bought three hundred of them at scrap metal prices, for planting and tending our trees, and for harvesting the pigs, when the time comes."
"Quincy, you have just given me about a dozen great ideas for my ranch. Would you mind if I swiped a few of them?"
"Nothing I'm doing is patented, and I'd be honored to have my general following my lead."
"Uh, yeah. Just between us, in private, let's not take that 'general' stuff too seriously. You've seen the movie they made about me?"
"Twice. Let me tell you, it was a real shock to be sitting in a movie theater, and then to see ourselves, or rather our Dream World selves, up there on the big screen. Then we got a bigger shock when we saw ourselves both get killed, and you drive away alive, when the way we remembered it, well, it was you who were dead! It's amazing how they can splice Dream World into reality. And then that officers' school! Did you know that Zuzanna and I went through that same school? Taught by the very same Professor Cee? Our only problem was that a week before graduation, our general died of a heart attack, and the rest of us were busted back to Tanker Firsts!"
"He just died?"
"Hey, it happens all the time. Remember that most of the New Kashubians they drafted were pretty old, in their seventies and eighties, a lot of them, the theory being that living in the belly of a tank, you don't need healthy young bucks. You need seasoned brains, which us oldsters have plenty of."
"Speaking of you youngsters," Zuzanna broke in, "Where's that young bride of yours? If she's half as smart as she was in the movie, I want to meet her."
"Kasia's the brightest girl I've ever met, but right now she's up in our room, organizing the wedding."
"All by herself? I've half a mind to go up there and lend her a hand!"
"I think she might welcome the help. Agnieshka," I said into my new communicator after I switched it on. "Ask Kasia if she wants the cavalry to come to her rescue, with bugles blowing, banners flapping, and all the sabers flashing bare in the sunlight!"
"I did and she does, boss." I guessed that she could hear what was going on even when the thing was off. It figured.
"Zuzanna, I think that you may regard that as a formal invitation. Room 634," I said as she got up and left.
"So, Quincy, where is this big pig and timber ranch of yours?"
"About eight hundred kilometers northeast of here. They haven't given me a street address, yet."
"Agnieshka?" I said again into my communicator.
"It's about thirty kilometers east of your new place, boss. You two are almost next door neighbors."
"Ah, so you moved up into the War Zone, too."
"Hush your face, boy. That kind of talk in public can get you called up, stuffed back into a tank, and have all future leaves canceled. Too many important people have too much riding on the present status quo, including us. If this thing blows up wrong, we could lose our land, among other things."
"I got you. Not that anybody would believe it, anyway," I said.
"Probably not, but they're still not taking any chances."
"Right. So you've got a big, box canyon like mine."
"Smaller, if you've got the one I remember from the map. But twelve square kilometers is nothing to kick about, and the canyon walls will keep the pigs in, with only about a kilometer of fencing needed."
"I'd been thinking of closing off my opening with a lake and a dam. I'll need a river for drainage, and I've been thinking, why not have a lake, too."
"A fair idea. Of course, with the drip irrigation I'll be using, you use so little water that drainage won't start to be a problem for hundreds of years. Say, do you really like this place? The bar, I mean."
"It's pleasant enough, and they gave me a free tab here."
"I think that it's dull, stuffy, and overly civilized. I also think that we can afford to drink anywhere we want to. Since the girls are otherwise occupied, I know of a place nearby where the music is loud, the drinks are honest, and the women are naked. Are you game?"
"Hey, I'm not married yet! Let's go!"
"That's the attitude!"
The Gold Door Lounge was as advertised, and a roaring good time was had by us.
It was about two in the morning, and we were stumbling a bit as we walked back to the hotel. It had been a long day, and we were both tired, I suppose. We somehow managed to make a few wrong turns on the twisty streets of Nova Split, and ended up in a dark alley.
I leaned against a wall, pulled out my communicator, pressed button number one, and said, "Not to worry, Quincy. Agnieshka will tell us the way home."
I saw Quincy take a club in the gut a half second before a brick caught me on the side of the head.
I felt myself going down, but Quincy and I had spent a lot of time in Dream World, learning hand-to-hand combat. Well, I did the learning and Quincy did most of the teaching.
I don't know why, but the world got very quiet, somehow, and everything was moving slowly, almost as if we were at combat speed, in a tank. I had plenty of time to kick one of our assailants in the groin, to feel the flesh squash, and the tendons tear. At the same time I caught a second attacker on the knee cap with the edge of my other foot, and heard it pop, before I hit the ground.
Someone tried to kick me in the face, but I swatted his foot aside and bounced up in time to get a hand around his trachea. I squeezed and yanked, while looking around for the next thug.
There weren't any.
Quincy was standing in the middle of a ring of at least six bodies, some of whom were twitching, but none very vigorously.
"Not bad, youngster, but that last one was a bit of overkill, don't you think?"
I realized that I was still holding the man in the air by his throat. Surprised, I let him go. He fell, convulsing, to the ground. "I guess I wasn't thinking at all. But now, well, now I think they all had it coming."
"You are doubtless correct, my general, but at the moment perhaps a bit of tracheotomy is in order."
I got the shakes about then, and leaned against a wall, watching Quincy. He opened a small pen knife, and without taking the time to sterilize anything, he punched a vertical cut in the man's throat, low, and just to the right of center. He twisted the blade sideways, and I could hear the air being sucked into my assailant's lungs. Then he got out a ball point pen, unscrewed it with one hand, dumped the workings out on the ground, and pushed the barrel of the pen into the hole while removing his knife.
"Now, you hold this thing just so," he said to his patient. "If it comes out, you will suffocate, and you will die."
I don't know if the guy spoke any Kashubian, but he nodded his head "Yes!"
Quincy said to me, "There's no point in killing anyone now that it's over, and I, for one, would like to find out just what this was all about."
About a dozen uniformed police arrived at that point, followed by two ambulances.
"General Derdowski? We got a call from a woman named Agnieshka who said that you needed help, but I see that you have matters well in hand," a police lieutenant said in passable Kashubian.
Quincy said, "Nonetheless, we thank you for coming so quickly. We'll see to it that your superiors hear of your prompt and professional behavior. But just now, I think that a few more ambulances might be in order."
"They have been sent for. But I think that it would be wise if the two of you came along to the clinic, just to be on the safe side."
"We will, soon. But that one and that one should be hospitalized immediately," Quincy said, pointing them out, and not referring at all to the guy who was breathing through a ball point pen.
"Yes, sir," he said, waving the ambulance crews over to the two men indicated. "Would it be convenient if someone dropped by your hotel rooms tomorrow, to get your statements, and for you to prefer charges against these hooligans?"
"That would be good," I said, thinking that a foreigner who beats up a bunch of locals usually doesn't get this sort of polite treatment from the police. Being a general and a famous war hero sure helps, sometimes.