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image. Adobe walls surrounded scores of hump-backed bunkers. Most of those boasted obsolete but effective detection antennae. There were barracks for several hundred soldiers, and a dozen armed floaters.
    My companion said, “I usually put down here. One company. It patrols more area than France on Old Earth. Six regular soldiers. The Captain, a Lieutenant, and four sergeants. The rest are locals. Serve three months a year and chase cows the rest. Or dig turnips. They bring their families if they have them.”
    “I was wondering about the kids.” It was the most unmilitary installation I’d ever seen. Looked like a way station three years into a Volkerwanderung. It would’ve given Marine sergeants apoplexy.
    The Captain wasted little time on us. He spoke with the courier briefly. The courier opened that huge case and passed over a kilo canister. The Captain handed him some greasy Conmarks. They were old bills, pre-war pink instead of today’s lilac gray. The courier shoved them inside his tunic, grinned at me, and went outside.
    “Coffee,” he explained. And, “A man has to make hay while the sun shines. A local proverb.”
    My glimpse inside the case had shown me maybe forty more canisters.
    It was an old, old game with Fleet couriers. The brass knew about it. Only their pets received courier assignment. Sometimes there were kickbacks. My companion didn’t look like a man whose business was that big.
    “I see.”
    “Sometimes tobacco, too. They don’t raise it here. And chocolate, when I can make the contacts back home.”
    “You should’ve loaded the boat.” I didn’t resent his running luxuries. Guess I’m a laissez-faire capitalist at heart.
    He grinned. “I did. Can’t deal with the Captain, though. After a while one of the sergeants will notice that nobody has patrolled that part of the plain lately. He’ll make the sweep himself, just to keep his hand in. And I’ll find a bale of Con-marks when I get back.” He hoisted his case. “This’s for special people. I sell it practically at cost.”
    “Conmarks ought to be drying up out here.”
    “They’re getting harder to come by. I’m not the only courier on the Canaan run.” He brightened. “But, shit. There had to be billions floating around before the war. It’ll come out. Just got to keep refusing military scrip.”
    “I wish you luck, my friend.” I was thinking of a few items in my own luggage, meant to sweeten the contacts I hoped to make.
    The sub-Lieutenant kicked a floater. “Looks as good as any of them. Throw your stuff in and let’s go.”
    We had to cross two-thirds of a continent. A quarter of the way round Canaan’s southern hemisphere. I slept twice. We stopped for fuel several times. The sub-Lieutenant kept the floater screaming all the time he was at the controls. My turns, I kept it down to a sedate 250 kph.
    He wakened me once to show me a city. “They called it Mecklenburg. After some city on Old Earth. Population a hundred thousand. Biggest town for a thousand klicks.”
    Mecklenburg lay in ruins. Threads of campfire smoke drifted up. “Old folks with deep roots, I guess. They wouldn’t pull out. They’re safe now. Nothing left to blast.” He kicked the floater into motion.
    Later, he asked, “What’s the name of that town where you want off?”
    “Kent.”
    He punched up something on the floater’s little info screen. “It’s still there. Must not be much.”
    “I don’t know. Never been there.”
    “Well, it can’t be shit, that close to T-ville and still standing. Hell, you’d think they’d take it out just for spite.”
    “The way our boys do?”
    “I guess.” He sounded sour. “This war is a big pain in the ass.”
    That was the one time I didn’t like my companion. He didn’t say that the way the grunts and spikes do. He was pissed because the war had disturbed his social life.
    I said nothing. The attitude is common among those who see little or no combat. He viewed the brush coming in