The City Who Fought

by S. M. Stirling

  For this I thank you, Simeon, Amos said, hoping that no one, especially the Observer, would hear him grind his teeth.

  “Your planet got pretty well razed to subsoil,” the commodore said. “‘S going to take help to restart,” and he, in turn, gave the MM official a quelling look, smiling at Amos as if to say “they mean well but they’re heavy-handed.”

  “We had to put up a transmitter,” and he shrugged as if such a facility was a mere nothing, “and the engineers put up a temp at the space field—which is littered with a lot of hulls, some of which could well be refitted for whatever lunar mining would put you back on-line there.”

  A transmitter and space facility? Re-usable hulls for the craft the Kolnari had fused. Amos began to feel less despondent, though half of him resisted.

  “Humanitarian aid will be sufficient to see your people through the on-coming winter,” Agrum went on, “using whatever shelters your culture prefers . . .”

  “We cannot land alter-culturals on Bethel, of course,” Fusto half-interrupted, “but orbital staff is not considered by Central Worlds Authority to compromise indigenous integrity . . .”

  “If you wish, you may request additional colonials of your own persuasion . . .” from Nilsdotter.

  Amos turned from one speaker to the other, half dazed.

  “Give the kid a break,” Simeon said suddenly. “Why don’t you let him read the reports so he knows what you’re talking about, huh?”

  “Of course,” said SPRIM.

  “Our intention, I assure you, Station Simeon,” MM said defensively.

  “Then let it be so,” Admiral Questar-Benn said, smiling encouragingly at Amos as she handed him several disk files and led him to another room where he could digest the information in private.

  “Not over until it’s over,” the Admiral remarked to the commodore as they watched the sometimes contentious delegation leave their quarters.

  “And it’s never over,” Tellin-Makie replied, pouring them both snifters of brandy in the flag quarters. “I didn’t have the heart to remind them that those aren’t the only bunch of Kolnari running around loose.”

  “And if you leave a pair, they breed up again,” she said wearily. “They know that. Which is the reason I suspect we’ll have Simeon and the others on the rolls in a couple of years. The Kolnari will be a menace as long as two of them are left alive.”

  “The Psych people swear they can be rehabilitated.”

  “Rehabilitated to E equals M and C squared,” she said, taking a sip. “Dam‘ cockroaches.” Another sigh. “Maybe this little atrocity will get us some resources.”

  “For a while, until the general public become inured to these particular atrocities,” Tellin-Makie said, “then we can go back to peeing on bonfires. It’s not as if they were the only serious problem, either.”

  “Would that it were so. Would that it were so, my friend.”

  She looked at the screen, which showed an exterior view of SSS-900-C. Repair servos and suited figures were already working on some of the more urgent damage, though it would be a generation before the devastation was fully repaired. She made a mental note to have Engineering help out while the task force was on station here.

  “All in all, though, I’m glad we don’t have their problems, poor heroic sods,” she said.

  “Amen.”

  “Yes, yes,” Joseph said eagerly when Amos finished telling him of the help promised by SPRIM and MM, up to and including a Brain Planetary manager to replace Guiyon. “We must return as quickly as possible.”

  “Yes, you and Rachel must.”

  “Rachel and I?” Joseph repeated, staring in sudden alarm at Amos.

  “Yes, because there is much to organize on the ground before we may accept the beneficence . . .”

  “But it is you, Amos ben Sierra Nuevo, who must return!” Joseph’s face was stricken. “It is your duty. Our world is but a lake of mourning. They need you. They need a hero—and their Prophet.”

  Amos paced, hands behind his back, clenching and unclenching, up and down the floor of his room in Simeon’s quarters.

  “They need a hero, granted, Joseph,” he said, stopping in front of his friend, “but if I am a hero, then so are you!”

  “Me?” Joseph laughed. “I am your henchman. Your right hand, and proud to be so. Your friend, and prouder still of that. But you are the prophet, the hero, the one the people follow.”

  Amos took him by the shoulders. “You are my brother, as truly as if the same mother bore us.”

  Joseph blinked as Amos drew him into the double cheek-touch of close kin to emphasize his words. “And it is you who will return while I deal with these infidels and make certain that what charity they would foist on us will not weaken our people but allow them to become strong in such ways that no other scavenger can ever catch us unawares.” Who saves the saved from the savior? he thought.

  “And I . . . I wonder,” Amos went on aloud. “I wonder if it is good, that the new leader is of the old Prophet’s line—may God smile on him! Too many generations have the people followed the old families.” He winced. “And followed them to ruin.”

  “You would lead us to greatness!” Joseph said forcefully. The more so if you doubted yourself less, he added to himself. “You have shown your strengths as a self-thinker, a defender of his planet, a guileful strategist . . .”

  “History does not show many battle-leaders who had the same talent for being peace-leaders!”

  “But you are of a peaceful nature until roused to defend what you hold dear,” Joseph said, “even as you have seen your duty now to protect us against those who wish to protect us!” Joseph turned sternly grim now. “It is the blind face of Channa that hides your way.”

  Amos looked so fiercely at him that Joseph turned his face away, his shoulders sagging in acknowledgement.

  “I also cannot abandon these here to whom we, for our very lives, owe a debt of gratitude. If, in this one instance, duty and honor are both served, let me serve it.” Amos sighed deeply, torn between love and duty. “Are Simeon, Joat and Channa to be merely a chapter of my life because fourteen generations ago the Prophet fathered my many-times great grandfather? We saw on Bethel what comes of that.”

  “Yes, Amos, in all truth we did. And you are right to wish to be indebted to all,” and Joseph laid a subtle emphasis on the word, “the stationers even though the need for your special role is now over.”

  “Yes, that is over. In its place, I must assume several roles and do each well in all honor.” Then he gave the younger man a sudden smile, the son that had always drawn the required response from any recipient. “And I give Rachel the chance to restore honor to her name.”

  Joseph gave him a sudden stare as fierce as the one Amos had given him. “What do you mean?”

  “She was, after all, trained as an infosystems administrator. It is her duty to assist you in calling our people from their hiding places, to organize the reports that I must receive to know what is most needed. With you two side by side—that is what you wish, is it not, Joseph? Rachel by your side?”

  The younger man laughed and blushed, which seemed to embarrass him more.

  “You know it is what I wish but, Amos, do not blame her for what she did.”

  “I do not,” Amos lied stoutly, “but she will need to redeem herself in her own eyes!”

  “Ah, yes,” said Joseph with a sigh. “She is anxious to do that. She talks to me about it,” he went on in a softer voice. “She talks of you but she also talks of you to me.”

  “Then go to her, Joseph my brother, my friend. If you insist on making me wear the mantle of a leader, then I have issued an order to you. But think also of what I have told you, brother hero. You return to Bethel as my brother and my equal, not my retainer—not even first among my retainers. The time for those petty protocols is past.”

  “I go,” Joseph said. He turned on the threshold. “And you, too, have earned a little happiness, I think. God willing, may y
ou find it!”

  Channa had insisted on returning to her brawn’s quarters, pointing out that there was nothing else Chaundra or his staff could do for her in sickbay.

  “I’ll be much better off there,” she told him, “because I know my way around. Simeon can remind me where I put things so I can find what I need. Only time will make a difference now.”

  Once Simeon had angled the chair float beside her satin-draped bed, she lay down, not seeing, not speaking, absorbing the most recent events. Not that she wasn’t overwhelmingly relieved that Seld had been granted a reprieve. But there were so many decisions to be made, hanging in the air, over her head, where she could feel them, even if she couldn’t see them. She could feel a trickle down her cheek and, with a gesture she hoped masked the real reason, she blotted the cheek on the gray satin cover.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Because Simeon had picked exactly the appropriate light tone, she gave him a wan smile though she wondered how he had noticed such a small thing as a tear.

  “I’ve none to sell,” she said, “just bits and pieces floating around. Like, Happy endings suck the galactic muffin. It’s enough to give you a headache.”

  “D’you have one?” Instant concern colored his voice.

  “No, no,” she said, shaking her head on the pillow.

  “Look, Channa, you will be all right,” he said in the firm tone one uses when one is hoping against hope one’s statement is correct.

  She nodded once sharply, minding her temper and her manners. “Yes, I’m sure I will.” Her voice was tight.

  “I’ve scanned every report I could find on this kind of temporary blindness, Channa,” he went, infusing his voice with confidence. I’d give anything to be able to hold you in arms and comfort you but all I’ve got is voice contact. Talk to me, Channa. “Worse scenario and you’ll still see—through my sensors. Remember that, Channa. And I see real good and wherever I need to!”

  She had stiffened and cut through his opening words in a rather shrill voice. “Simeon, spare me the . . . Could you do that for me?”

  “Sure,” he said, both surprised and testy. “But surely you knew that. You’ve been using my senses for the last two weeks!”

  Her jaw dropped and then a tremulous smile crossed her lips. “So I have, haven’t I?” she said in a broken voice. After a moment’s silence, she added in a contrite voice, “I owe you, and everyone else an apology, for acting like a self-pitying wuss!”

  “Well, after all, you’ve had quite an adjustment to make.”

  “But I didn’t have to snarl at you.”

  “Oh, that? I wouldn’t know how to answer smartly if you didn’t. Don’t break that habit, Channa-mine.”

  Her smile was stronger. “Then I certainly won’t.”

  “Because you like the challenge, don’t you? And, by and large, I’m good company.”

  “And so modest.”

  “So witty and intelligent,” he reminded her.

  “And so handsome.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Oh yes,” she said, “I especially like your dueling scar, that’s a nice touch.”

  “Thank you,” he said, gratified. “You’re the first person who’s ever mentioned it. I’ve been waiting for years for someone to ask about it. Sometimes people think it’s dirt on the projector lens.”

  She grinned. “It goes well with the baseball cap.”

  He paused a moment, unsure, “Um . . .”

  “No, really,” she assured him, “That projection’s a perfect portrait of your personality. It’s not based on a chromosomal extrapolation, is it?”

  “Naw,” he said, putting a grin in his voice. “It’s me as I want to be. I’d have hated it if an extrap of me came out with a receding chin and a big nose, so I never tried to find out. I’m Simeon, the self-created!”

  “Wise,” she agreed, “very wise.”

  The door opened and Amos stood on the threshold. “Channa!” he cried out in a passionate voice.

  She sat bolt upright on the bed, her lips parted in surprise. “I thought you’d left.”

  He rushed to her side and drew her into his arms. “How can I leave you like this?” he said, stroking her hair.

  Simeon cursed under his breath. Leave it to Amos to undo all his hard work. Just when I’ve got her cheered up and back to something near her normal—for her—frame of mind.

  Channa put up a hand, found Amos’ face and leaned forward to kiss him, smiling because she had caught the corner of his mouth and was working her way into a position that satisfied her.

  When the long kiss ended, Amos said with a sigh, “You want me!”

  No, you ass! She wants a double malt and a ticket to “Death in the Twenty-first.” Would that I had hands, Oh Amos ben Sierra Nueva, to clout you up alongside the head with.

  Channa didn’t answer but held her head as though looking at Amos through her bandages. Amos smiled at her, the smile of a man who believes he can accomplish anything, a smile that proclaimed the bearer to be the recipient of a miracle.

  “I came to ask you to come with me,” he said, laughing.

  “You did?” she said in a dreamy tone. They kissed again, more deeply. Channa burrowed deeper into his embrace, sighing like someone relieved of a pain they did not know they suffered.

  “I love you, Channa,” he said.

  “I love you, Simeon,” she murmured,

  Amos stiffened. Channa raised her blind face to his and whispered huskily again. “I love you.”

  He released her and moved back. She hesitated and turned her head from side to side. “Amos? What is it? Is someone here?”

  “Yes,” he said stiffly, “someone who comes between us.”

  Puzzled, Channa reached out blindly with one hand, the other resting on Amos’s chest. “There’s no one here but us. What are you talking about?”

  “Simeon,” he said the name with a hiss. “For whom you have just declared your love.”

  Her face altered abruptly from joy to chagrin. “I . . . I . . .” she began in confusion.

  “A gentleman of the Sierra Nueva does not intrude. I am in the way,” Amos said, flinging off her hands and jumping to his feet. “I will leave you alone together.” And he was gone.

  Channa swung her legs from the bed and lunged after him. She moved with unexpected speed and before Simeon could warn her, she crashed into the wall, just beside the door. Weeping, she stepped to the right point and the door opened for her.

  “Amos! Wait!” she shouted and this time Simeon opened the outside door but she paused on the threshold to get her bearings and heard, all too clearly, the elevator’s closing.

  “Amos! Don’t go!” she cried, and heard it engage. She stood leaning her head against the metal, sobbing gently, tears soaking the adhesive synthetic of her bandages.

  Inside the descending lift, Amos leaned his head against the wall, Channa’s desperate voice echoing in his mind. Almost, but not quite louder than her whisper—“I love you, Simeon.”

  “Where do think you’re going?” Simeon asked him.

  He straightened and gritted his teeth. “To the docks,” he said crisply. “I must return to Bethel!”

  Simeon gave a dramatic sigh. “And who’s to go between Bethel and SPRIM and MM? Who saves the saved from the savior?”

  Amos was aghast at hearing his own thoughts come back at him from Simeon.

  “Someone has to handle them,” Simeon continued.

  “Rachel can. She’s a trained infosystems spe . . .”

  “Rachel!” Simeon roared in surprise. “She wouldn’t know how to handle them. They’d twist her up into little knots. Not that she isn’t twisted right now.”

  “They say they cannot interfere . . .”

  “They say, they say,” Simeon chanted back at him. “Use your wits, Amos, and don’t suggest Joseph. He’s the guy you need on the planet, coaxing your people out of whatever lairs they’ve hidden in. No, you’re the only one who
can be johnny-on-the-spot here!”

  “What I do now is my business,” Amos said in a snarling tone. “You have no right to interfere either . . .” Only then did Amos notice that the elevator had stopped moving. He crossed his arms. “So, do you mean to hold me prisoner here until Joseph, Rachel and the others have left?”

  “Emotionally you’ve been a prisoner since you got here. Why do think I went to so much trouble to get SPRIM and MM involved with Bethel?”

  “You did. But the Admiral and the Commodore . . .”

  “Listened to what I had to tell them, which is more than you ever do. You’ve got to be here . . .”

  Outrage, indignation, disgust and fury raced unchecked across Amos’ face. “So? You admit it.”

  “Huh?”

  “You admit that you only wish to make of me a sex toy,” Amos cried passionately, “a surrogate for yourself with Channa!”

  “I what?” Simeon’s voice reverberated in the confines of the small chamber. “You are bughouse! Which is probably why it’s such an interesting idea,” he added in a reasonable, half-amused tone, “but you said it, I didn’t. However, it’s not on my behalf you’ve got to be here. It’s Channa’s. She really is in love with you, Amos. Can’t you get that through your arrogant to-the-manor-born head?”

  “Loves me? Loves me? Then why does she embrace me and say, I love you, Simeon?”

  “And, of course, she hasn’t been calling you Simeon-Amos for the past intense two weeks, has she?”

  “Banchut!” Amos smacked his forehead with the flat of his palm, his expression one of utter dismay.

  “It sure wasn’t me, or my holo, or even the shell of me she was kissing just now! Cut her a little slack. She’s been blinded, dammit! She’s scared, she’s exhausted, she’s under pressure. Don’t cut the heart out of her for a slip of the lip!”

  “A slip?”

  “A slip! You ego-centric rag-head selfish bastard!”

  “But you love her, too!” Amos brandished his fist, glaring about him to find a target for his frustration and wrath.

  “Yes, I love her. Just as much as you do. No, probably a lot more. And yes, she’s in love with me a little, and I treasure that. But I can’t touch her, Amos. I can’t hold her no matter how much I would like to. What are you worrying about?”