"You there, Steve?"

Stephen Westman, of the Buffalo Valley Westmans, grimaced and shoved his hat back on his head. It was of a style which had once been called a "Stetson" on humanity's homeworld, and a decorative band of hammered silver and amethyst winked as he shook his head in exasperation. There was such a thing as operational security, but so far most of his people seemed to have trouble remembering that.

At least I managed to get my hands on commercial market Solly crypto software. The Manties can probably break it once they get here in force, but as long as we're only up against our own locally produced crap, we should be okay.

"Freedom Three, this is Freedom One ," he said into his own com in a patiently pointed tone. "Yes, I'm here."

"Aw, hell, Ste-I mean, Freedom One." Jeff Hollister sounded sheepish. "Sorry 'bout that. I forgot."

"Forget about it... this time," Westman said. "What is it?"

"Those fellows you wanted us to keep an eye on? They're headed up the Schuyler. Looks like they figure to put down for the night somewhere around Big Rock Dome."

"They do, do they?" Westman pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Why, that's mighty interesting, Freedom Three."

"Thought you might think so." Hollister's tone was satisfied.

"Thanks for passing it along," Westman said. "I'll see you around."

"Later," Hollister agreed laconically, and cut the circuit.

Westman folded up his own com and shoved it back into his pocket while he considered the information.

He was a tallish man, a shade under a hundred and eighty-eight centimeters in height, with broad, powerful shoulders. He was also strikingly handsome, with sun-bleached blond hair, blue eyes, and a bronzed face first-generation prolong kept reasonably young, but which sixty-one T-years of experience, weather, and humor had etched with crow's-feet. At the moment that face wore a thoughtful expression.

Well, he mused, it's about time I get this show on the road, if I'm really serious. And I am.

He considered for a moment or two longer, standing in the dappled shade of the Terran aspens which had been introduced to Montana over three T-centuries before. He listened to the rustle of wind in the golden leaves and looked up, checking the sun's position out of automatic habit as deep as instinct. Then he nodded in decision, turned, and walked through what appeared to be a solid wall of stone into a large cavern.

Like the crypto software he'd purchased for his people's communicators, the holo generator which produced the illusion of solid stone was of Solarian manufacture. It galled Westman to use Solly technology, given the fact that the Solarian League and the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Office of Frontier Security had been The Enemy much longer than the Manties. But he was a practical man, and he wasn't about to handicap himself or his followers by using anything but the best hardware available.

Besides, there's something... appropriate about using Solly equipment against another fucking bunch of carrioncat outsiders. And those bastards on Rembrandt are even worse. If that son of a bitch Van Dort thinks he's going to waltz Montana off and fuck us over again, he's in for a painful surprise.

"Luis!" he called as he walked deeper into the cavern. Much of it was natural, but he and his people had enlarged it considerably. The New Swan Range was lousy with iron ore, and enough of that still made the best natural concealment available. He didn't really like putting so many eggs in a single basket, even one this well hidden, but he hadn't had a lot of choice when he first decided to go underground-literally. Hopefully, if things went the way he planned, he'd be able to expand into an entire network of satellite bases that would lessen his vulnerability by spreading out his assets and his organization.

"Luis!" he called again, and this time, there was an answer.

"Yes, Boss?" Luis Palacios called back as he came clattering up the poured concrete steps from the lower level of caverns.

Palacios had been Westman's foreman-effectively, the field manager for a ranching and farming empire which had netted profits on the order of ninety million Solarian credits a year-just as he'd been for Westman's father. He was lean, dark, and almost a full centimeter taller even than Westman, and the left side of his face carried three deep scars as a legacy from one of Montana's nearcougars. He was also the one man on Montana-or, for that matter, in the entire Talbott Cluster-whom Westman trusted without reservation or qualification.

"Jeff Hollister just called in," Westman told him now. "Those Manty surveyors and that jackass Haven are headed up the Schuyler to Big Rock. What say you and I and some of the boys go extend a proper Montana welcome?"

"Why, I think that'd be right neighborly of us, Boss," Palacios said with a grin. "Just how warmly do you figure to welcome them?"

"Well, I don't see any reason to get carried away," Westman replied. "This'll be our first party, after all."

"Understood." Palacios nodded. "You want me to pick the boys?"

"Go ahead," Westman agreed. "Be sure to include at least three of the ones we're considering for cell leaders, though."

"No sweat, Boss. Bennington, Travers, and Ciraki are all on call."

"Good!" Westman smiled in approval. "Tell them I figure to drop in on our off-world guests tomorrow morning, but we've got a ways to go. So I want to move out within the next four or five hours."

Oscar Johansen checked his GPS display with a certain sense of satisfaction. He'd been pleased to discover that Montana at least had a comprehensive network of navigation satellites. He could have asked HMS Ericsson or Volcano -the support ships the RMN had stationed here-to provide him with the same data, but he really preferred working with the existing local infrastructure... whenever he could.

You never knew what you were going to find on a planet in the Verge. Some of them were little better than prespace Old Earth, while others were even further advanced than Grayson had been before it signed on to the Manticoran Alliance. Montana fell somewhere between the two extremes. It was too dirt-poor to afford a really solid tech base, but it had made innovative use of what it could afford. Its navigation satellites were a case in point. They were at least a couple of centuries out of date by Manticoran standards, but they did the job just fine. And they also pulled double duty as weather satellites, air traffic control radar arrays, law enforcement surveillance platforms, and traffic control points for any freighters which called here.

And there's no reason why the place has to be so poor, he thought as he tagged the GPS coordinates to the electronic map in his memo board. The beef they raise here would command top prices back home, and with the Lynx Terminus, they can ship it fresh direct to Beowulf or even Old Earth. He shook his head, thinking of the astronomical prices Montanan beef or nearbuffalo could bring on the mother world. And there are dozens of other opportunities for anyone with just a little bit of startup capital.

Which, after all, was the reason Johansen was here. The Alexander Government had made it clear that Her Majesty had no intention of allowing her new subjects in Talbott to be turfed out of the development of their own star systems by sharp Manticoran operators. The government had announced it would carry out its own surveys of the Cluster, in conjunction with local governments, to confirm all existing titles of ownership. Those titles would be fully protected, and to ensure local participation in any development projects, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had announced that, for its first ten T-years of operation, any new startup endeavor in the Cluster would enjoy a reduction in taxation equal to the percentage of ownership held by citizens of the Cluster. After ten T-years, the tax break would reduce by five percent per T-year for another ten T-years, then terminate completely in the twenty-first T-year. Given where the Star Kingdom's wartime tax rates stood, that provision alone was guaranteed to ensure the massive representation of local interests.

Johansen looked up at the sun blazing in a wash of crimson and gold coals on the western horizon. Montana's primary-also called Montana-was a bit cooler than Manticore-A. And Montana was almost one full light-minute farther from its primary than the capital planet of the Star Kingdom was from Manticore-A, too. With evening coming on rapidly, that coolness was especially noticeable, and he looked over to where the expedition was pitching its tents for the night. They were going up with the efficiency of well-organized practice, and his eyes strayed to the rippling, steel-colored sheet of water rushing over the rocks and gravel of the Schuyler River. Local trees, interspersed with Terran oak and aspen, grew right down to the riverbank, casting their shadows over the crystal-clear water, and temptation stirred. There had to be some deep pools out there, he thought, and he'd already encountered the planet's nearbass.

It's usually a good idea to maintain a certain separation between the chief and his Indians, he thought with a lurking smile, so I probably shouldn't disturb them now that they've gotten into the swing of things over there. And if I get busy fast enough, I might even hook enough fish to give us a little variety for dinner. Even if I don't, I can always claim that was what I was trying to do!

He headed for his personal air car and his tackle box.

The sun rose slowly over the eastern rampart of the Schuyler River Valley. Light frost glittered on the higher slopes to the north, and long fingers of shadow-crisp and cool in the mountain morning-reached out across the sleeping surveyors' camp.

Stephen Westman watched the sun edging higher, then checked his chrono. It was time, and he rose from his seat on the fallen tree trunk, lifted his pulse rifle from where it had leaned against the trunk beside him, and started down the slope.

Oscar Johansen rolled over and stretched luxuriantly. His wife had always been perplexed by the way his sleeping habits flip-flopped whenever he was in the field. At home, he was a night owl, staying up until all hours and sleeping as late as he could get away with. But in the field, he loved the early hours of sunrise. There was something special, almost holy, about those still, clear, crystalline minutes while sunlight flowed slowly, slowly back into a world. Every planet habitable by man had its analogues of birds, and Johansen had never yet been on a world where one of them hadn't greeted the dawn. The songs or calls might vary wildly, but there was always that first, single note in the orchestra. That moment when the first singer roused, tested its voice, and then sounded the flourish that formalized the ending of night and the beginning of yet another day.