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  This day he was coming in with a boat loaded to the gunnels with giant groupers and snappers. Unfortunately, the thought of what that meant was disheartening. Every month the price was going down for all the fish, even the best cuts. And the official trade company paid in warbucks instead of pre-war dollars or, best of all, FedCreds. The warbuck was deliberately inflationary, so the cost of everything went up nearly as fast as the price of fish went down. It should have been the other way, but it wasn’t.

  He suspected, hell, all the fishermen suspected, that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. But without any way to communicate with the mainland except mail or driving, nothing seemed to be happening. He had finally used up his hoard of gas tickets and gone to Miami to complain. After two days of getting shuffled from one department to the next at the Marine Fisheries offices he had to get back. If he wasn’t fishing he’d find himself on the shore.

  And he was better off than most of the fishermen. His boat was free and clear and one of the larger ones still operating. Two of the guys working for him had lost their boats to the repo companies after they couldn’t make the payments. He couldn’t pay his crew much — hell most everybody got paid in fish or supplies — but it was something. The communities had pulled together so nobody starved and everybody had a little something extra. But nobody, not even he or Harry, had much.

  What was going to happen when the invasion finally came was another question. But that was a worry for another day. For today there was gutting a bumper haul of fish that would just put him more in the hole for gas.

  He made the cut ahead of the tide race and finally saw something to smile about. John Samuels had made harbor, which was the first bright spot he’d seen in a month of Sundays.

  They called Samuels “Honest John” as a joke. The free trader ran a sixty-foot sloop that carried small cargoes from Miami to Cuba and back. He stopped at all the islands, buying delicacies “on the left” and trading at prices lower than the “official” black marketers. He and the other traders were practically the only source of tobacco and alcohol in the islands.

  The trader was sitting on the dock of the harbor office with Harry and the “visitor” from Fleet Strike. The little fireplug probably was an actual Fleet officer; his casual demonstration of Galactic technology the night before had been impressive. Before everything went south they had watched the video from Barwhon and Diess. Fighting the aliens was going to be hell. He didn’t envy the frowning little bastard his job.

  The visitor seemed to have mended his fences with Harry. As the boat took the final turn to the dock the sound of their laughter was clear over the quiet chugging of the diesel. He killed the engines and drifted into the dock; every bit of fuel was worth saving. As Harry and Honest John caught his tossed lines the visitor flicked the butt of a cigar into the waters. Unless Bob was mistaken it was one of John’s prized Havana Panatellas. The Fleet guy was making friends fast.

  “How’s the fishing?” John asked, taking the boat captain’s hand as he jumped ashore.

  “Oh, it was a hell of a haul,” Bob answered bitterly. “For what it’s gonna fetch.”

  “Smile, Bob,” Harry said with a grin of his own. “We just got a new set of buyers and suppliers.”

  The fisherman looked from one grinning face to the other in puzzlement. “You want to explain that?”

  “FBI agents just performed raids on your suppliers’ and buyers’ offices along with the offices of the Miami Rationing Board and the Marine Fisheries Board,” the visitor answered for them.

  “Why the hell would they do that?” he asked in surprise. “And how did we find out so fast?”

  “Well,” answered the visitor, with a slight smile violating his habitual frown, “they are required to perform an investigation at the registered request of a Galactic Enforcement Officer. All Fleet officers are also law officers. A second request from the office of the Continental Army Commander just got them moving faster than you can say ‘posse comitatus.’ ”

  “That black thing around his wrist is a communicator,” Harry added with a laugh. “The FBI has already called him back. They said it was the best black market bust they’ve made since the start of the emergency. It’s gonna make national news.”

  “Things are gonna be screwed up for a while still, man,” Honest John cautioned. “They’re gonna have to find a replacement that ain’t part of the Cubano Mafia that’s been controlling it.” He shook his head. “Ain’t gonna be easy. The Cubanos have gotten used to having their way in South Florida. One raid ain’t gonna stop it.”

  “Cooperate,” said the Fleet officer. “The assets of the companies have been seized. Ask the FBI to turn them over pending the completion of the investigation. They don’t need the trucks to prosecute the perps. And you can probably get them permanently as the ‘victims.’ Get some materials and convert the old Piggly Wiggly to a warehouse so you don’t have to base in Miami.”

  “That takes electricity,” said Bob, with his own shake of a head. “Which is something we ain’t got. We can’t afford the diesel to run a generator that big. Even if we’re in a co-op with the whole Keys.”

  “Ah, well, as to that,” said the visitor, with a real grin while John and Harry just laughed.

  “What?” asked the captain, as the crew started to unload. The four of them joined in as tub after tub of prime grouper and snapper were unloaded. He looked at Harry again, waiting for him to go on. “What’s so funny?” he asked again, heaving a hundred-pound tub to the Fleet Strike officer. The heavyset dwarf caught it like it was a feather and slid it across the dock. He was even stronger than he looked.

  “Mike had a little present with him,” said Harry with a grin.

  “It’s not a present,” said the visitor, seriously. “It isn’t even a loan. One of the things I was doing on my vacation was finding places to plant energy caches. We’re seeding the coastal plains with power sources to recharge suit units that get caught behind the lines. When I was on Diess it was a pain in the ass trying to find power. So I came down with three antimatter generators. They’ve got a finite amount of power, but it’s enough to run a small city for a year, so…” He shrugged and smiled again.

  “Damn,” said the boat captain, tossing him another tub. “Thanks.”

  “Well, the priority is any unit that needs it,” Mike said severely. “And, technically, you’re not supposed to tie into it. But since you don’t have a power grid, it’s not like the whole Keys are going to be hooked up to it.” He shrugged again and frowned. “As screwed up as it is down here, it seems the least I could do for you. Just don’t overuse it. It’s like a really big battery and once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

  “Well, thanks anyway,” said Harry, stacking the last tub on the dock. The three hands were already loading up dollies to carry the fish to the icehouse for cleaning. “This means we don’t have to waste fuel for generation so the boats can stay out longer. Hell, we’ve got a satellite dish, so we can hook up a TV in the pub and even get real news.”

  “Getting news again will be great,” said Bob, with a smile. “Hell, before you know it we might even have telephones again!” He laughed. “And then it’s faxes…”

  “… and cell phones…” laughed Harry. The electronic impedimentia they had all grown up with was as distant as buggy whips these days.

  “Well, enjoy it as long as you can,” said Mike grimly. “The first serious invasion will hammer the satellites. And there goes your reception again.”

  “Yeah,” said Bob, “that’s true. But it’s a hell of a long time since we got any news but radio. I got a question to ask on that, if you don’t mind.”

  “Shoot,” said Mike, but there was a hint of wariness.

  “You said you were on Diess, right?”

  “Right.”

  “There was this guy that won the Medal. They said he got blown up in a nuclear explosion and lived. What really happened?”

  * * *

  Sharon squealed and spun around in
the water as Herman goosed her.

  Karen laughed in return and slapped the dolphin on the flank as it went by. “You have to watch that one. There’s a reason we named him Herman Hesse.”

  The three of them had been dragged off to a tidal pool by the dolphins. Here, on the Florida Bay side of the island, they had been swimming with the big cetaceans most of the day. Cally had stayed firmly attached to Shirlie, who at less than five hundred pounds was the lightest of the four. The other three were males: Herman, who had more or less attached himself to Sharon, Charlie Brown and Ted. Ted had left for a few hours in the midafternoon, but the others had stuck with them.

  The day had not been for pure fun. The pool was home to a vast collection of the sorts of rare marine organisms that could be traded for luxury goods. Seven species of anemones, several more types of urchins, two types of lobster and various other items had been gathered. Sharon watched Cally as she rode the small dolphin to the bottom of the pool. There, in about fifteen feet of water, the eight-year-old let go and began plucking at the reef. A sponge, a spider crab and an anemone found their way into her mesh bag before she began to claw for the surface and air.

  “This has been great,” said Sharon, finning slightly and spinning in place to keep Herman in sight, “but I’m getting worn out.”

  Karen smiled. “A little different than what you usually do, huh?”

  “A bit,” Sharon admitted. She could see the dolphin trying to get into position behind her.

  “What do you do?” Karen asked. Most of the conversation of the day had been taken up by the tasks that they had been learning.

  Karen had prepared well. The dolphins had taken turns toting the three humans and an inflatable boat full of the necessities of the expedition. She had packed a light lunch of cold lobster salad and some cut fruits along with plenty of fresh water. Sharon had been careful to wear a T-shirt and to insist that Cally wear one as well. The hot South Florida sun would still have burned their legs badly, but Sharon kept Cally well covered with sunscreen. In Sharon’s case, the same nannites that scoured Fleet bodies for radiation damage would make short work of the sunburn.

  Sharon watched Cally line up for another run at the bottom. She was too worn out to even think about making another try, but the energetic youngster seemed as fresh as when they started. “I’m an XO on a frigate,” she answered, watching the quick hands snag a passing shovel-nose lobster. Although they were less plentiful than the more common spiny lobsters, they were prized by the oriental community as an aphrodisiac and fetched a high price among the free traders.

  “What’s that mean? I mean, what do you do?” asked Karen, interested. She had never met a person who had been off-planet.

  Sharon suddenly found herself unable to explain. How could she explain the constant strain of wondering which critical system would fail next? When the hull would suddenly breach? How the ship, and herself, would perform when they were finally in combat?

  She paused a moment and smiled faintly. “Mostly I wait for the air to run out.”

  Karen was a kind and empathetic woman. And she recognized that not only was the answer correct, it was also as much as she could expect to get for the time being. She nodded in agreement instead. “We ought to be getting back.” She suited action to words, tossing her nearly full mesh bag into the cooler in the inflatable. She pulled a harness out and winked. “If you waggle your hips do you think you can lure Herman over?”

  * * *

  Mike took another pull on the bottle of beer and a puff from the cigar. The sky was slowly darkening, the famous purple of the Caribbean drifting up from the east as they kept watch over the westward opening. The girls had been gone most of the day and it was about time they turned back up.

  “If this isn’t paradise,” he opined to the trader, “it’s within the limits of tolerance.”

  “It is close,” Honest John admitted. “In a lot of ways, life’s gotten better. Slower at least.”

  “Down here,” Mike pointed out. “It hasn’t been slow for me.”

  John nodded in agreement. “The margin sure as hell has gotten thinner, though. It used to be there was, I dunno, flex in the system. These days it’s sink or swim. Sometimes literally.”

  “So, how is the Coast Guard these days?” Mike asked with a laugh.

  John laughed in return. “Not bad. They keep the pirates in check, at least. But a lot of them have gotten transferred to ‘more vital’ tasks. So, SAR is spotty.” He pronounced the acronym for Search and Rescue “Sahr.” It was a military way of phrasing it that caused Mike to cock his head.

  “Have you lost many boats?” Mike asked.

  “A few. There’s two problems. Some of the boats have gone to pirates. Or that’s the way it looks. Boats just disappear in calm seas. And the free traders are in a constant low-grade war with the Mariellitos bastards who think they control the trade down here.” The trader frowned and looked over towards his ship as if to ensure it was still intact.

  “Have you been having much trouble?” Mike asked.

  The trader snorted, gave a grim smile and shook his head. “Not… anymore.” He seemed disinclined to explain the reference.

  “The other problem is a lot of the boats, their GPS and Loran is giving out; they’re at sea more than the systems are designed to handle. And most of the traders aren’t real sailors, guys who know how to navigate by the wind and the stars. So if they lose their GPS, they get lost: really lost. There was one was just making the crossing from Los Pinos to Key West. The crossing’s maybe two hundred miles. Stupid fucker ended up near Bermuda. Dismasted, out of water, half mad. How in the hell anyone could completely miss the Bahamas I’ll never know.” The tall captain took another toke on the joint he held. “Nobody could get that stoned. Hell of it is, he wants to go back to sea.”

  Mike chuckled grimly. He had his own massive list of screwups that he could detail, starting with the Diess Expeditionary Force. But the situation in the Keys was something of a whole different order.

  “I don’t understand how it could get this way,” said Mike, gesturing around with the beer bottle. “Where the hell is everybody? I can understand the tourists, but where’s the retirees?” The whole state of Florida was filled with retirees. Some of them were recalled military, admittedly. But that had to be a small percentage. Where were the rest?

  “It happened slowly,” Honest John admitted. “Not just here but all over Florida. First, the tourists started trickling off. Then, most of the people who could hold a hammer or run a press without cutting their fingers off went up north to get jobs. The Fisheries Board reinstituted net fishing for the Florida waters about then and there was a small rush to get into that. But when people found out how hard it was most of them moved away too. Then all the young guys got sucked off by the Army.”

  He smiled and took a big toke. “I was getting recalled my-own-self,” he said with a chuckle. “But not only is free trader a ‘vital war production position’ — and didn’t that take some squeeze to a certain congressman — but I convinced the in-process board it would be a waste of perfectly good rehab just to get a drugged-out Petty Officer Three.” He grinned again.

  “Anyway, before we knew it the entire population of the Keys was below twenty thousand, most of them retirees. The nursing homes and ‘managed care’ retirement centers started having problems with taking care of their old folks. Some of ’em died cause there just wasn’t anybody on duty.

  “Then when Hurricane Eloise came through, they took it as an excuse to evacuate all the retirees that were not ‘fully capable of self-care.’ Down here in the Keys, anyway.

  “That meant the only people left, other than in Key West, were the fishermen and their families. There’s a federal law that Florida Power had to deliver down here. But after Eloise, they got an ‘indefinite suspension’ because there was a shortage of parts, or so they said. That was last year.

  “So that,” the ship captain finished, “is how it got so totally scre
wed up down here. An’ that’s the truth.”

  The trader took another toke on his joint and a pull on the glass of Georgia branch water Mike had supplied. He worked his mouth for a moment. “Cotton mouth. Haven’t talked this much in a coon’s age.

  Mike nodded and took a contemplative puff on the cigar. Papa O’Neal’s branch water was awfully smooth. He doubted that the trader had any idea what proof he was knocking back like water. It was eventually going to catch up with him. “Just one thing I don’t understand,” he mused. “Where’d they put them? The retirees I mean.”

  “Some of ’em got mixed into the groups up the peninsula. Lots of ’em went to the big underground cities they’re building,” said John. He took a last puff on the joint and spun the butt into the water. “One nice thing about this war. Not only has it driven the cost of Mary Jane down, the coasties don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re carrying.”

  “That’s crazy,” Mike argued, thinking about the first part of the statement.

  “Why?” asked John with a laugh. “They’ve got a real war to worry about. They don’t have to worry about the ‘War on Drugs.’ ”

  “No,” said Mike with a touch of impatience. “I was talking about the Sub-Urbs. The work on them is hardly complete. I don’t see them being able to take tens of thousands of geriatric invalids! Who the hell is going to care for them there?”

  “Search me,” said Honest John, putting words into action as he patted his pockets. “Damn,” he muttered, swaying to his feet. “I gotta go back to the ship an’ get some more weed.” He took one step forward and fell in the water. He came up spluttering and looked around. “Where’s those damn dolphins when you need them?” he said blearily.