me. I think, maybe, I can help you now.' Yes, I can help you… and I can help me… now.
Parilla positively beamed. 'Ah! Wonderful. How?'
Hennessey had already thought about it enough. He had spent days thinking about it. 'I will collect a small staff, house them somewhere out of the way, and put them to work on some of the things I mentioned before. While I am doing that, you need to be setting up the government to knuckle under for rearmament. You can do this?'
Parilla thought about it for a moment. 'I can do some of it.'
'Well… that's a start. Perhaps some propaganda can do the rest. In any case, soon the Federated States will need an ally; an ally that doesn't blanch when the body bags start coming home. If a way can be found to hasten that day, so much the better.'
Parilla pointed a finger at Hennessey. 'Could you do that kind of preparation for rebuilding a Balboa Defense Corps that really mattered outside of Balboa? Really?'
Hennessey didn't hesitate at all. 'Yes. Really. Only… let's not call it the BDC. Too politically correct for my tastes. Also too much of an image marred by defeat. As a matter of fact, I think we should partially detach the force from Balboa. Your government is very sensitive to world opinion and very fond of the Tauran Union, the World League, and the UEPF.'
' La Armada,' Parilla suggested.
'Maybe that. But maybe not, either. The people who legislated away the name while leaving a shadow of the reality are plainly people more interested in image than facts. Call it an army openly and they'll be more likely to resist.'
Parilla pushed Hennessey's objections aside for the time being. 'Patricio tell me, what would you do specifically? Wait. Let me fire up my slate to write with.'
'No,' Hennessey said. 'If it's electronic it can be tapped. At this point let's stick to old fashioned.'
Terra Nova's levels of technology were approximately those of very early twenty-first century Earth. Like that place and that time, too, the levels were very unevenly distributed across the planet. Uhuru, outside of the Republic of Northern Uhuru, for example, was little advanced in some places above the neolithic level.
Even in those areas-the Federated States and Secordia, Yamato, the Tauran Union-which enjoyed the highest levels of technology available, there were some differences from the world of Man's birth in its twenty-first century after the birth of Christ.
Terra Nova had no truly and completely peaceful use of space. The Global Locating System put up by the Federated States had some peaceful uses, true, and it had been permitted by the UEPF because of those presumptive peaceful uses. But it was there, the Feds had paid for it, for its use in war. As much could be said for the communications satellites that circled the planet.
The major use of space, however, was manifest in the extensive system of systems set up by the Federated States of Columbia to engage and destroy the UEPF if the latter ever again had the temerity to try to dictate terms to the former. And that sat unused but threatening.
Medical technology was somewhat less, in particular with regards to epidemiology and infectious diseases, generally. They had their diseases there, of course, but most of those Man had brought with him to the new world he already had considerable resistance to. The planet itself had none of importance.
Given its sad history of war and massacre, however, the planet's medicos were quite capable of dealing with trauma.
Militarily, the planet was on a rough par with twenty-first century Old Earth, as well, much to the delight of medical interns who wanted the practice.
In electronics Terra Nova was perhaps a bit further behind, being at the level of Old Earth just before the close of its twentieth entury. For example, small personal computers were common, but somewhat slower, larger and heavier than might have been expected based on the level of military technology. Personal computers and mobile communication devices-cell phones-small enough to surgically insert were still the stuff of dreams and fantasies there.
One area where Terra Nova was far ahead of where one might have expected was in hacking. This, perhaps driven by the endemic warfare, was very advanced. Indeed, it was so advanced that no one was safe, ever. It was so advanced that the Globalnet, the equivalent of Old Earth's Internet, was far less well developed. Hacking on Terra Nova could be said to have retarded every other aspect of information technology.
It was suspected, in some circles, that the UEPF was responsible for much of the hacking.
Hennessey swiveled in his office chair and took from the top of his cluttered desk a pen and notebook, which he handed to Parilla. The older man considered this, considered the subject matter, considered the effects of what they were about to discuss on those who might object, and decided that using his electronic slate might be a bad idea after all. He took the pen and notebook.
Moments later, notebook in hand, a beaming Parilla prepared to take down Hennessey's thoughts.
Hennessey pulled a pack of cigarettes from a breast pocket. He took one paper tube out and stroked a match to light it. With smoke curling about his head in an infernal halo, he began, 'I have friends who were once good soldiers in the Federated States Army… some other armies, too, but who despite being good soldiers-very good, actually-never made any great success of things. In some cases this was precisely because they were superior soldiers. They have left the service early or have retired. I would hire some of them to come here to do the staff work.'
Half turning his head away, Parilla focused one eye on Hennessey. 'Could you trust them to be discreet?'
'They are my friends. Yes, I would trust them.' The ones I will pick? Oh, yes.
Parilla asked, 'How much would this cost?'
Hennessey didn't need quick calculations. Those were long since made. 'For the first year a fair figure might be about one point eight million FSD'-Federated States Drachma, also legal tender in Balboa and much of the rest of the planet-'not more than two point two million; plus perhaps a lump sum of about four million to start up. The annual figure could go as high as three million or even four but I really don't think it will cost that much, not before we start to recruit and expand.'
Parilla took a deep breath before telling Hennessey, 'Patricio, I would like you to take charge of this project, to make all possible preparations for Balboa to have its own armed force again, in truth as well as in name. Will you do it?'
'I'm sure I can't afford the whole thing on my own. My uncle's estate is tied up for now. I have an income, and it's comfortable, but it wouldn't pay for anything like this, not even with the insurance from my family.' But what I have, this project has.
Parilla answered, 'You won't have to. I never thought you should.' He shrugged his shoulders and looked heavenward in mock shame. 'We do have certain sources of funds…not always aboveboard but also not often traceable.' Parilla's hands spread in helplessness at the wickedness of mankind. 'Pina wasn't, sad to say, the only ruler of the country ever to have a foreign bank account. I can have a reasonable down payment on the start up amount-say, FSD 450,000-tomorrow. The rest will take a couple of weeks. As for greater amounts for actually recreating a force? Well, Pina took two hundred and seventy- five million a year in unofficial taxes from the Cristobal Free Trade Zone. Most went to line his pockets; his and his cronies. But we could raise probably four hundred million per year now without hurting trade overmuch. And we are not that poor a country. Our gross domestic product runs nearly twelve billion. A couple of hundred million more could be squeezed out of government revenues. That's not small change. That all assumes, of course, that the government can be made to see reason.'
Even while thinking, I don't want the government to pay for it. I want to pay for it, to maintain control of it, and to use it to destroy my enemies, Hennessey nodded agreement. 'Then I will go back to the Federated States in two days to begin.'
Saulterstown, Shelby, FSC, 5/8/459 AC
Military installations bred military towns. Saulterstown, right outside of and dominated by Fort William Bowen, was typical, from 'Sarge's Used Auto' to 'Post Pawn Shop.' Typically also, the military town was full of ex- soldiers. Hennessey had come here to find and recruit one in particular.
He knew couldn't make his plan work alone, that he would need help. So he had drawn up several lists of people that had worked with or for him over the years who might be available. Most of these he eliminated as unsuitable. Forty-nine remained. He stood now outside a firearms store owned by one of them. It looked depressed.
