"What's going on?" he asked. "The System States Alliance to business again?"
Karski laughed. "Oh, that's the Colonel's idea. Green and black were his colors in the War, and he's in command of the regiment."
"Regiment? You need a whole regiment?" Conn asked.
"Well, it's two companies, each about the size of a regular army platoon, but we have to call it a regiment so he can keep his old Rebel Army rank."
"We could use a regiment, Conn," Tom Brangwyn said seriously. "You have no idea how bad things have gotten. Over on the east coast, the outlaws are looting whole towns. About four months ago, they sacked Waterville; burned the whole town and killed close to a hundred people. That was Blackie Perales' gang."
"Who is this Blackie Perales? I heard the name mentioned in connection with the Harriet Barne."
"Blackie Perales is anybody the Planetary Government can't catch, which means practically any outlaw," Fred Karski said.
"No, Fred; there is a Blackie Perales," Tom Brangwyn said. "He used to be a planter, down in the south. The banks foreclosed on him when he couldn't pay his notes, and he turned outlaw. That's the way it's going, all around. Every time a planter loses his plantation or a farmer loses his farm, or a mechanic loses his job, he turns outlaw. Take Tramptown, here. We used to plant nothing but melons. Then, when the sale for wine and brandy dropped, the melon-planters began cutting their melon crops and raising produce, instead of buying it from up north, and turning land into pasture for cattle. The people we used to buy foodstuffs from couldn't sell all they raised, and that threw a lot of farmhands out of work. So they got the idea there was work here, and they came flocking in, and when they couldn't get jobs, they just stayed in Tramptown, stealing anything they could. We don't even try to police Tramptown any more; we just see to it they don't come up here."
"Well, where do these outlaws and pirates who are looting whole towns come from?"
"Down in the Badlands, mostly. None of them have been bothering us, since we organized the Home Guard. They tried to, a couple of times, at first. There may have been a few survivors; they spread it around that Gordon Valley wasn't any outlaws' health resort."