Priam's Lens

by Chalker, Jack L

  “Kat—you have to come with us,” Harker said as gently as possible.

  She trembled a bit, then looked up at him. “They’re just children, Gene! Little girls! What have these bastards done to our children?”

  “Come on! From the sound of things, we have at least one more wounded. Hamille, thank you. Are you all right?”

  “Some punctures. They will heal,” the creature responded. “Tasted terrible, too.”

  Back at the old roadbed, they found Colonel N’Gana tending to his sergeant Mogutu did not look very good. He didn’t look good at all.

  Socolov kept trying to get control with deep breaths and finally managed it. “The larger wounds need cover,” she managed. “We don’t have major bandages, or a portable surgical kit that works, so we’ll have to make do with what’s here.”

  “The skin’s almost flayed in areas,” N’Gana noted. “What can we use that could cover them all and allow healing without infection or bleeding?”

  “Mud,” she answered. “We have plenty of it. Gene, come on—you can be both bodyguard and mud carrier. We have to get a lot of it from the river, preferably just inside the waterline. We want it thick, goopy, and organic. Come on! I’ll show you how!”

  It probably looked awful, but they could barely see. Both the wounded men were placed in a sheltered area underneath the remains of the roadworks. If they were lucky, the night’s storms wouldn’t wash away the mud packs.

  “You really think that’s going to work?” Harker asked her.

  “No, but it’s all we have and it’s a traditional treatment. We have no idea how much damage was done internally or how much blood was lost or whether or not those things were also poisonous, but if we’re lucky it can work. It’s an ancient remedy.” She sighed. “Now you know why I’m along!”

  “I doubt if this was anticipated, but I’m still glad you’re here,” he told her.

  It was pitch dark, and there was the rumbling of thunder and the flash of lightning not far away.

  He sat there next to her and for the first time put his arm around her and gave her a hug. “You did good, kid. From the very start.”

  “I brought them on us,” she retorted.

  “No, they were stalking us from the start, I think. We forced their hand. I think they were going to wait until dark, or maybe even until the storm, and then jump us. When you consider their single-minded homicidal maniac approach and if you saw the eyes you’d know they can probably see okay in the dark, at least in starlight or moonlight. No, I think you saved all our lives.”

  “But not deliberately,” she replied, unwilling to grant him a point.

  “That’s the way it is in a war or any operation. What’s intended isn’t the point. The only things that count are success and the objective. At least we know one thing now that the whole Confederacy didn’t know before.”

  “Huh? What?”

  “The Titans know we’re here. They know us, maybe all too well. You don’t evolve like that in under a hundred years, and you sure don’t see that kind of consistency in mutation. I didn’t really have much time to study them, but I swear those two were twins. Identical twins. There’s only one way you can get that kind of change in a short time—they were bred. Bred to be just what we saw. Genetically reengineered and, when they had what they wanted, probably cloned.”

  “But why? Why would they do it?”

  He shrugged. “We still know nothing about them, and we may never understand all their motivations. Still, I can think of some practical reasons. Surely they know that some humans survived and still survive in tribal groups. If you wanted to keep the population down and ensure only the strongest survive, that’s one good way to do it.”

  “But why not just wipe every survivor out? They could do it in a moment and you know it.”

  “True, but I don’t think they want to. Why? Again, if we understood them maybe we could find a way to at least hurt them. Maybe we’re good lab animals, or maybe pets. It might be as simple and cold-blooded as that. Sheer sport. Or it might be that they want a sampling of only the strongest and best for their own use. Whatever the reason, I don’t know any way of asking them and getting an intelligent answer.”

  The rains came at that point, making it useless to keep talking. She didn’t really feel like talking anymore, either. For the first time on the trip she needed something more from Harker, and she made it perfectly clear to him in the rain.

  • • •

  “You were right about the cloning,” Kat Socolov told Harker in the morning, after they had examined the remains of the fight. “I looked at the pattern on the big toe of both of them and it’s identical. So is just about everything else I could find. I also examined them as much as I could. I wish we had a medical doctor along or could get these two to an autopsy room. Neither of them have any grinders at all. All canines. And the tongues are smooth and extremely long. The whole mouth structure suggests that they can eat only meat. Ten to one they can only digest meat. They’re not only bred to be killers, they have to kill.”

  He said nothing to that, but he did have a wider concern. “I wonder if anybody here is still human? That’s only one variety, I suspect, but what about the others? They preyed on somebody. Were the prey bred, too? This is getting more complicated than we figured.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. There’s so much we just don’t understand of all this.” She came over close to him and said in a lower, softer voice, “Thank you for last night.” He smiled and shrugged. “Anytime.”

  “I don’t want you to take it any way but one, though. I—I just needed it. It was pretty strange, really. It happened once after I heard that my father died, but that was the only other time. It’s a strange reaction.”

  “It’s a human reaction,” he assured her. “It’s nothing to feel guilty about. It’s just a part of being human. This is greater stress than even I ever thought I’d be under, and I always thought I was a gutsy type of guy. I can even see it getting to N’Gana, and I always thought of him as an organic machine.”

  Again they said nothing for a bit, then she asked, “That woman Marine you talked about. Bambi something or other?”

  “Yeah? What about her?”

  “You ever do it with her?”

  He thought that an odd question, but he answered it anyway. “No, of course not.”

  “She doesn’t like men?”

  “Oh, I think she likes men all too much. And almost anybody and anything else when off-duty. No, she’s an enlisted soldier. Officers and enlisted may have respect for one another, or contempt, but they don’t get personal. There’s good reasons for that. Nobody can sleep their way up the chain of command, nobody can use sex to force someone else to do what they don’t want to do, and, on a different level, you don’t want to have a personal relationship if you can help it with anybody you might have to order into possible or probable death.” He sighed. “I wish I had her here, though. She was damned good at her job.”

  Even though it was a part of his life, it was hard to think that he was separated from her and his old shipmates by almost three years, even though it had been only a matter of weeks to him. The realization made their isolation on Helena seem even more acute.

  They walked over to check on the two wounded men. Father Chicanis was actually recovering rather well. He was in considerable pain, but nothing major had been damaged that could not be repaired. He was certainly functional. The same could not be said for Mogutu, whose abdomen had been penetrated by those barbed claws. Under normal battle conditions, he would already have undergone surgery and been put in a tank, recovering perfectly, but these weren’t normal conditions. They had nothing with which to diagnose his wounds, and no physician to do anything about them anyway. All they had was some powerful painkillers and sterilizers, and precious little of those.

  “It is a mercy that he remains unconscious,” the priest commented. “Feeling my arm, just thinking about what he must feel with those wounds is chilling. There has t
o be a great deal of internal bleeding. Those poor creatures were designed for quick killing; they hadn’t the strength or sheer power for a real fight. They pounce and by their ferocity and those claws and teeth they became killing machines. What a terrible life they must have had. I hope that God gives them the peace and joy they were denied here.”

  Colonel N’Gana was taking Mogutu’s condition hard, but he was the consummate professional. “Father Chicanis here insisted on going back out to the little terrors and giving them last rites,” he said, shaking his head in wonder.

  “You disapprove, Colonel? You do not believe in such things?” The priest knew the answers before he asked the questions.

  “They were animals. I don’t risk anything to pray over dead vicious animals, no. And, frankly, I’m not certain what I believe in any more. At least, that’s partially true. I don’t know if there’s a God, Father, and I’m not certain I’d like a God who could create a universe so full of misery. I never could quite accept your idea of God, anyway. It never made any sense. If such a God were wholly good and the epitome of perfection, why does everybody keep rebelling against Him? Such a God is also the father of evil.” He looked down at the unconscious Mogutu. “Now, evil is something I believe in. I’ve seen it, heard it, smelled it, fought it. Most people haven’t believed in evil for a thousand years or more. Everybody’s misguided or misunderstood. You think of those things as victims. Perhaps, but they did not evolve, even unnaturally, from a state of grace, Father. They were designed as instruments of evil.”

  Father Chicanis sighed. “I am sorry you feel that way, Colonel. To me—well, the basic genes that were used to create them could have been from my own family. I do not believe that a creation of evil who has no choice can be held to a moral standard they cannot comprehend. That is the key difference between the devil and his minions and those poor creatures. The devil and his followers chose their path. A god of love is not a god of rigid order and discipline, a dictator creating sycophants. Worship, love, all that is of value is meaningless if it is not freely given. And if it is to be freely given, then the option not to give it, to reject it, must be present. No, Colonel. Those who choose evil define it. That is the key.”

  N’Gana shook his head sadly. “And in the meantime, in your universe, creatures of evil kill men of good and all’s right with the cosmos.” He paused a moment. “We must leave him to die, you know. Or kill him out of mercy lest he awaken and die in agony.”

  The priest looked stricken. “Colonel! We can’t just abandon him! What were we just talking about? I’ll not accept a choice like that!”

  “Then you can stay with him if you like. We cannot bring him. I’m not sure how we’re going to get across this river yet, but we must do it and do it today. We’re sitting ducks here and the stakes are too high. The remains of Sparta are just over there, and beyond them the hills, and then Ephesus. Ephesus has what we are here to get, but it is also one anchor base of the Titans. The sergeant understood, as I did, that the mission was the only thing that mattered. He’s a liability to that mission now, and he can be of no help to anyone. The best we can do to honor his gallantry is to complete the mission. Still, I will not leave him here to die in agony. He deserves better than that. So, either one of us stays or he is mercifully sent to his reward, whatever and wherever that is. I’d rather not spare anyone, and I can’t spare the others, but the choice is yours.”

  The priest sighed. “I cannot morally sanction such an action, yet I understand your position. I will stay. It is probably for the best anyway, as I can’t possibly swim with this arm. If he dies, I shall give him last rites and a Christian burial and then I will try and find what remains of my people to restore God’s mercy to them. If he lives, we shall go together.”

  N’Gana shrugged. “Suit yourself. But be aware that Sergeant Mogutu was never a Christian. At best we might call him a lapsed Moslem.”

  “Colonel—it is the same God.”

  “I suppose it is at that. Very well. We’ll leave what we can here for you, but that’s precious little.” He stood, looking down at his longtime companion, and for a moment there was a slight quiver in the lip, a stray trace of emotion in a man who considered it a weakness. He then stood erect, saluted the unconscious sergeant, and walked away toward the others.

  “Come, then! We have a river to cross!” he announced.

  Neither Harker nor Kat Socolov liked leaving the two behind, but there was little that could be done and, as N’Gana said, it was the mission that mattered. All of them were expendable if those codes could be broadcast.

  Now they stood by the riverbank looking out and trying to guess a possible route.

  “It’s a young river,” the anthropologist noted. “In fact, I’d say it hasn’t been here for very long at all. Possibly it’s another that’s shifted its course, but it’s clear that very little has been dug out. You can see where some trees and even bushes poke out of the water.”

  “Yes, but how deep is it?” N’Gana asked rhetorically. “If the tall grass was typical in height, so if we see the top fifteen centimeters of grass then we can assume the river is no more than two, maybe two and a half meters deep in that area.”

  “Shallower, I think,” Harker said, looking out at the expanse. “Lots of mud bars, whole areas of minor silt buildup, and even some rises that are original and still above water. Our big problem, I think, won’t be the depth but rather that it’s so damned muddy we can’t see what we’re walking on.”

  N’Gana nodded. “Let’s walk up a bit. There seems to be more of the original slope still—”

  His voice trailed off, and his hand instinctively went to the gun barrel truncheon around his waist. The others made similar moves as they saw what the colonel had suddenly spotted.

  “I didn’t hear anything at all,” Harker whispered. “Where in hell did they come from?”

  “They’re not like those others,” the anthropologist noted. “They look like kids. Kids out of some text on ancient human origins, but kids.”

  The two girls and a boy presented a bizarre sight. Burned a deep leathery brown by the sun, with long, stringy hair and wearing only ornaments of stone and bone, they nonetheless showed scars of a harsh and violent life. What was most striking was that their bodies bore elaborate mosaiclike tattoos that seemed designed to eventually cover them. The boy had the most, up both legs and on his stomach and back as well.

  “Hello!” the boy called to them, apparently unafraid. “What Family are you from? We have been searching for someone for many days!”

  The speech was oddly accented, with certain differences in tone, pronunciation, and emphasis, but it was clearly based on the Standard tongue the others all knew and understood. If anything, it was more familiar than they had expected.

  “We are from different families,” Socolov responded, trying to sound calm and friendly. “But we are here working for and representing a family called Karas.”

  All three of the natives looked astonished. “That is impossible!” the boy said at last. “We are of the Karas Family, and we know everyone in it!”

  The anthropologist thought for a moment. Clearly “family” to them was synonymous with “tribe.” Just how much did they know of their past?

  “We are not of the family that stayed and survived,” she told him. “We are of the ones who left the world before it was conquered.”

  The boy was thunderstruck. “You are from—up there?”

  She smiled and nodded.

  And then he said, in a tone of wonderment that made them all feel a true sense of what had been lost here, “We did not believe you would ever come back for us.”

  NINETEEN

  The Desolation at Sparta

  A day that was to have been spent in struggling against a river instead was spent in a long session of mutual discovery and information exchange.

  Of course, the experience of the three young people—indeed, their whole view of the cosmos—was quite skewed, but the newcome
rs had been on Helena and discovered some of its ugly surprises. Now they discovered more, but the mere existence of these kids also meant the discovery of hope.

  Father Chicanis, who had thought himself entirely alone only hours before, now tried to discover from the locals some sense of family connection, some familiar name in the genealogy. The problem, of course, was that the old family structure had broken down before the trio was born. For them, relationship to the community was far more important than relationship to parents or more distant ancestors.

  Chicanis was also upset with their view of Christian theology, even though they said they had been led by a priest.

  “Father Alex kept saying it was wrong to live the way we were,” Littlefeet told him, “but Mother Paulista and the rest said it was the only way to make sure we survived. I dunno which of ’em was right. I don’t even know if any of ’em are left alive now. If they are, they’re trapped on the other side of that new river.”

  Harker was most startled that the trio had seemed to have no fear of them. “People do not harm other people,” Spotty responded matter-of-factly. “Families must all help each other or we all die.”

  Father Chicanis found them fascinating. “In an existence where normal human beings are suspended in a kind of basic loop, where possessions mean nothing and there is a permanence only of companionship, the only things of value left seem to be spiritual values. It almost makes one think that, in a sense, the continent of Eden is closer to the original than one might think.”

  “The original Eden didn’t have genetically engineered killers stalking around,” Colonel N’Gana noted.

  The young people were fascinated by N’Gana; they’d never seen anyone of African ancestry, which indicated that Helena’s cosmopolitan nature hadn’t survived. Even more astonishing to them was Hamille, of course; they couldn’t keep their eyes off the alien creature, who seemed not at all interested in them.