I can’t believe that anyone with the technology to cross interstellar space would then be reduced to using wooden boats to get about on a planet.

Human settlers do.darcy projected an ironic moue.

Yes, colonists who can’t afford anything better, but a military conquest force?

Point taken. But there’s an awful lot about this situation we don’t understand. For a start, why invade Lalonde?

True. But to return to the immediate, if we’ve already penetrated the incursion front, do we need to go on?

I don’t know. We need information.

We have an asset in the next village. I suggest we stop there and see what he knows.

Good idea. And Solanki will have to be informed about the aberrant river traffic.

Lori left Darcy to feed the furnace hopper and made her way back to the space in the cabin they shared. She pulled her backpack from under the cot and retrieved the palm-sized slate-grey communication block from among her clothes. It took a couple of seconds for the Confederation Navy’s ELINT satellite to lock on to the scrambled channel. Kelven Solanki’s tired-looking face appeared on the front of the slim rectangular unit.

“We may have a problem,” she said.

“One more won’t make any difference.”

“This one might. We believe the presence Laton warned us of is spreading itself downriver on the boats. In other words, it can’t be confined by the posse.”

“Bloody hell. Candace Elford decided last night that Kristo County has also been taken over, that’s halfway down the Zamjan from the mouth of the Quallheim. And after reviewing the satellite images, I have to concur. She’s reinforcing the posse by BK133. They have a new landing point, Ozark, in Mayhew County, fifty kilometres short of Kristo. The BK133s are lifting in men and weapons right now. The Swithland should reach them early tomorrow, they can’t be far ahead of you.”

“We’re approaching Oconto village right now.”

“About thirty kilometres, then. What are you going to do?”

“We haven’t decided yet. We’ll need to go ashore whatever the outcome.”

“Well, be careful, this is turning out to be even bigger than my worst-case scenarios.”

“We don’t intend to jeopardize ourselves.”

“Good. Your message flek was dispatched to your embassy on Avon, along with mine to the First Admiral, and one from Ralph Hiltch to his embassy. Rexrew sent one to the LDC office as well.”

“Thank you. Let’s hope the Confederation Navy responds swiftly.”

“Yes. I think you should know, Hiltch and I have dispatched a combined scout team upriver. If you want to wait in Oconto for them to arrive, you’re more than welcome to join them. They’re making good time, I estimate they should be with you in a couple of days at the most. And my marines are carrying a fair amount of fire-power.”

“We’ll retain it as an option. Though Darcy and I don’t believe fire-power is going to be an overwhelming factor in this case. Judging by what we gleaned from Laton, and what we’ve observed on the paddle-boats, it appears wide-scale sequestration is playing a major part in the invasion.”

“Dear Christ!”

She smiled at his expletive. Why did Adamists always appeal to their deities? It wasn’t something she understood. If there was an omnipotent god, why did he make life so full of pain? “You might find a prudent course of action is to review river traffic out of the affected areas over the last ten days.”

“Are you saying they’ve already reached Durringham?”

“It is more than likely, I’m afraid. We are almost at Kristo, and we’re travelling against the current on a decidedly third-rate boat.”

“I see what you mean, if they left Aberdale right at the start they could have been here a week ago.”

“Theoretically, yes.”

“All right, thanks for the warning. I’ll pull some people in and start analysing the boats that have come down out of the Zamjan. Hell, this is just what the city needs on top of everything else.”

“How are things in Durringham?”

“None too good, actually. Everyone’s starting to hoard food, so prices are going through the roof. Candace Elford is deputizing young men left, right, and centre. There’s a lot of unrest among the residents about what’s happening upriver. She’s afraid it’s going to spiral out of control. Then on Wednesday the transient colonists decided to hold a peaceful rally outside the Governor’s dumper demanding new gear to replace what was stolen, and extra land in compensation for the upset. I could see it from my window. Rexrew refused to talk to them. Too scared they’d lynch him, I should think. It was that sort of mood. Things got a bit rough, and they clashed with the sheriffs. Quite a lot of casualties on both sides. Some idiot let a sayce loose. The power cables from the dumper’s fusion generator were torn down. So there was no electricity in the precinct for two days, and of course that includes the main hospital. Guess what happened to its back-up power supply.”

“It failed?”

“Yeah. Someone had been flogging off the electron-matrix crystals to use in power bikes. There was only about twenty per cent capacity left.”

“Sounds like there’s not much to choose between your position and mine.”

Kelven Solanki gave her a measured stare. “Oh, I think there is.”

Oconto was a typical Lalonde village: a roughly square clearing shorn straight into the jungle, with the official Land Allocation Office marker as its pivot; cabins with trim vegetable gardens clustered at the nucleus, while broader fields made up the periphery. The normally black mayope planks of the buildings were turning a lighter grey from years of exposure to the sun and heat and rain, hardening and cracking, like driftwood on a tropical shore. Pigs squealed in their pens, while cows munched contentedly at their silage in circular stockades. A line of over thirty goats were tethered to stakes around the border of the jungle, chomping away at the creepers which edged in towards the fields.

The village had done well for itself during the three years since its founding. The communal buildings like the hall and church were well maintained; the council had organized the construction of a low, earth-covered lodge to smoke fish in. Major paths were scattered with wood flakes to stem the mud. There was even a football pitch marked out. Three jetties stuck out of the gently sloped bank into the Zamjan’s insipid water; two of them responsible for mooring the village’s small number of fishing boats.

When the Coogan nosed up to the main central jetty Darcy and Lori were relieved to see a considerable number of people working the fields. Oconto hadn’t succumbed yet. Several shouts went up as the trader boat was spotted. Men came running, all of them carrying guns.

It took a quarter of an hour to convince the nervous reception committee that they posed no threat, and for a few minutes at the start Darcy thought they were going to be shot out of hand. Len and Gail Buchannan were well known (though not terribly popular), which acted in their favour. The Coogan was travelling upriver, heading towards the rebel counties, not bringing people down from them. And finally, Lori and Darcy themselves, with their synthetic fabric clothes and expensive hardware units, were accepted as some kind of official team. With what mandate was never asked.

“You gotta understand, people round here are getting mighty trigger happy since last Tuesday,” Geoffrey Tunnard said. He was Oconto’s acting leader, a lean fifty-year-old with curly white hair, wearing much-patched colourless dungarees. Now he was satisfied the Coogan wasn’t bringing revolution and destruction, and his laser rifle was slung over his beefy shoulder again, he was happy to talk.

“What happened last Tuesday?” Darcy asked.