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Another bored MP didn t even bother to listen to Mike s full story before
swiping Rourke s card through the reader and, being informed that Mike was a
local, let him in.
Swallow parked the jeep at the feet of the Goliath.
Let me talk to the ref . . . evacuees alone, Mike said.
Sir, I am still responsible for your safety, Swallow responded.
So watch from a safe distance. People aren t going to open up too well when
one of the Confederacy s own is standing there in full kit.
Swallow s face clouded, and Mike added, Of course, anything I get will go
through your people before it gets transmitted. That seemed to reassure her
enough to keep her near the jeep while Mike went out to soak up the local
color.
The evacuee station was only a few days old, but its facilities were already
stressed. It appeared to have been built and supplied for maybe a hundred
families, and it currently housed five hundred. Already the overflow of the
population was being bundled into square-bodied buses for transportation to
other, farther sites. Trash was piling up around the fringes, and there were
lines at the water buffaloes for purified water.
The evacuees themselves were just getting over the shock of being
dispossessed. Most had been rousted from their homes and managed to take only
what they could lay their hands on. As a result, unneeded and sentimental
items were being abandoned or traded away for food and warm bedding.
Now, at rest for the first time in days, the evacuees had time to take stock
of their situation, and assign blame.
Unsurprisingly, the Confederacy came in for most of the blame. After all, they
were the only ones on hand, with their Goliath walkers and combat-suited
marines a very visible presence. The Protoss, on the other hand, were a rumor,
the only proof of them reports from the Confederacy itself. Mar Sara had been
on the other side of the sun, so its people missed much of the light show that
had destroyed their sister planet.
Mike cataloged the evacuees plight and listened to the complaints. There were
stories of separations and of valuables left behind, reports of farms and
homes commandeered by the Confederate forces, and all manner of complaints,
major and minor, against the military forces that had replaced all the
civilian authorities. The local magistrate had become a refugee himself,
leading one pack of refugees to another concentration point. No one was
willing to stand up to the Confederates, but the refugees were angry enough to
complain to a reporter about it.
Yet under the complaints and bluff talk, there was noticeable and definite
fear. There was fear of the
Confederate forces, natch, but also fear that arose from the realization that
suddenly mankind was no longer alone. The Mar Sarans had seen the reports of
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the destruction of Chau Sara, and they were afraid that it would happen here.
There was a lot of anxiousness in the camp, and a great desire to be
someplace anyplace else.
And there was something else there as well, Mike discovered as he moved among
the uprooted populace. The sudden knowledge of the Protoss was followed by a
wave of mysterious sightings. Lights were reported in the sky, and
strange-looking creatures on the ground. Cattle were found slain and
mutilated. Add to that the blanket admission that the Confederacy was
definitely herding the populace out of certain areas, as if they knew
something they weren t telling people.
The stories of aliens and undiscovered xenomorphs on the ground came up again
and again. No one had actually seen them, of course. It was always a friend of
a friend of a relative in another camp who saw
them, or at least heard of them. The stories were more along the lines of
bug-eyed monsters than creatures in shining ships, but then, if someone had
seen the Protoss ships, the military would be all over the report in minutes.
After about two hours (and the last of Rourke s cigarettes), Mike padded back
to the jeep. Lieutenant
Swallow was as he had left her, alert, standing next to the driver s side.
We have enough, he said. Thanks for the chance to get out here. We can go.
Swallow didn t move. Instead she was staring at something.
Lieutenant Swallow?
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