Free Exile-and Glory by Jerry Pournelle Page A

been planning for months. With me out of the country it will succeed."
    Adams chuckled. "I wonder if Ifnoka's going to be surprised when he finds out somebody's broken the transmitter he brought with him . . . ."
    "And the telephone's out, too," Courtney said. She was sure it was.
    "Somebody's been jamming the whole Station," Jeff Franklin reported. "Strangest thing . . ."
    "But we can get a signal through for our friends," Adams said. "Of course your instructions for distributing the weapons will upset the army. I'd suggest you ask your Minister of Trade to arrest the top Ifnoka people before they cause trouble, right?"
    "And your price? Merely closing the borders?" Tsandi asked.
    "Yeah, for the guns. But if you want Nuclear General and our combine to invest in Rondidi, you'll have to show enough political stability to convince the others. You heard the meeting."
    "So that's why I was there," Tsandi mused. "You make a persuasive case."
    Courtney held her breath. It was von Alten as much as Bill, she thought. Profits—Tsandi could understand that motive easily, but he distrusted altruism.
    The door burst open. Ifnoka hurried in, his robes askew, a perplexed technician behind him. "What have you done?" he demanded.
    Before Adams could answer, Tsandi stood. He looked at Ifnoka with contempt. "What they are doing, Henry Carter, is what you have demanded but never wanted." He pointed through the window to the huge reactors, the tractors, and water pumps. The faint hum of turbines came even to this sound-proofed room. "They are giving power to the people!"
     
     

Enforcer
    Grey water crashed over the bows, throwing spray droplets high in the air, where they were caught by the screaming wind and whipped down the ship's length. The tug plunged into the trough of the wave, seeming to stand on her bows, then leveled off and began the climb up the next wave. That one broke across the deck with a crashing shudder felt in every compartment. Another wave advanced inexorably from the west. There was always another wave.
    "The 'Screaming Fifties,' " Captain Jellicic announced to no one in particular. "Christ pity a seaman."
    His companion didn't answer, possibly because he hadn't heard him. He was inches shorter than the captain, a round man, overweight, but his face was angular and craggy, the jaw set. Michael Alden wore earphones, and he was listening intently. The ship pitched again, and a rogue wave caught her to roll her over until it seemed the bridge would go under water. Alden looked up in excitement. "Hold her steady, Captain! He's found something!"
    "Here?" The captain curled his lip. "Bloody lot of good it'd do if you hit a strike here, Alden. 'Tis the worst place in the world!" He waved expansively at the grey waters. The sun was invisible above dark, brooding clouds that filled the skies from horizon to horizon. To the west a line of dark waves approached in a stately march, endless waves with curling white tops. Wind screamed unceasingly through the tug's rigging until the sound became part of the universe itself.
    "Come right a touch," said Alden.
    Jellicic scowled, but barked orders to the helmsman. The ship moved across the face of a wave, presenting the angle of the bow to the white water on its top, and more sea broke across her decks. Spray crashed like hail against the bridge windows.
    "Steady," Alden said. He lifted a microphone. "Position fix. As good as you can get it. This looks like it."
    Microwave antennae on the mast made tiny movements. High-frequency signals winged upward, where they made contact with a navigation satellite, and information flashed downward. Again. And again.
    Captain Jellicic released a collapsing chart table hinged against the bulkhead. When it folded down, it nearly filled the bridge. He bent over it, scowling, and took a small instrument from a rack in the space the table had covered. He moved that about on the map, and his scowl darkened. He straightened to speak to Alden, but the