Battleground

by Terry A. Adams

  “What?” said Kwek, or so it came out of the translator.

  “The earliest written records that human beings left were engraved in media like rock or baked clay,” Arch explained—patiently, because Hanna had taught her students that it often took some time to get contiguous human and alien frames of reference to overlap. “Later records might survive on parchment or some other form of organic material. In some cases the content, taken in context with other data, allows dating to a particular year, or even to a particular day. Other times, we can only come up with an estimate.”

  He was open, as instructed, to anything he could pick up from Kwek without touching her thoughts in any way she might perceive. He was getting an odd mix now: curiosity, confusion, and oddest of all, a sense of comprehension accompanied by—fear. But it did not seem to be Arch she feared.

  She said, “You must state a year.”

  Arch said thoughtfully, “All right. Let me see your records for the year one.”

  “There are none,” Kwek said. With relief; she was on surer ground. The reply did not surprise Arch.

  He said, “This is the year of the four thousand six hundred and twenty-sixth summer, according to transmissions we retrieved in our approach. Do I have that right?”

  “That is correct.”

  “So you are compiling records for year four thousand six hundred and twenty-six.”

  He looked at her expectantly.

  “Yes.”

  “And you have records from the year four thousand six hundred and twenty-five, counting down.”

  “Yes.”

  “How far—no, what is the lowest numbered year?”

  “Four thousand three hundred and one,” Kwek said immediately.

  Arch couldn’t take the statement literally. He said, “But that’s only a little over three hundred summers ago.”

  “Yes. We also have records for the years four thousand three hundred two and three hundred three, four thousand three hundred twenty-one, a portion of four thousand three hundred twenty-two—”

  She went on until Arch stopped her. There were huge gaps. He let it go and groped for another question.

  “What are the years numbered from?” he said. “How do you know which year was year one? Did something happen in that year?”

  “Creation,” Kwek said.

  “Creation?”

  “Yes,” Kwek said.

  “Creation of what?”

  “Everything. The world, Soldiers, the universe, everything. At least, we call it year one. The fact is that the counting is not certain. I think. I know my predecessor miscounted, so maybe her predecessor did, and maybe his did.”

  Arch was focused on that astonishing statement about the year one. He said, “You can’t believe that. What about the fossil record? What about astrophysics? You must have astrophysics!” He hesitated; the translator had made a no referent noise for fossil. “Wait—” he said. Frames of reference, he reminded himself.

  “Do you mean,” he said—he had started to say you can’t mean—“that everything that now exists came into existence all at once, all at the same time, in the year one?”

  “Yes,” Kwek said again. The answer was unequivocal. But there was an edge of doubt. A lonely doubt; an unhappy one.

  I must be missing something, Arch thought.

  “Do all Soldiers believe as you do?”

  “Yes. It is the truth,” Kwek said. Miserably. Then she added, “There are some who believe otherwise. They go to That Place.”

  Arch, thinking a historian’s thoughts about histories of orthodoxy, thought she meant hell. To be sure, he said, “Just where is That Place?”

  Then, to his astonishment, Kwek turned to the computer bank and spoke a series of instructions. A map of the hemisphere appeared, and Kwek put a finger on ocean. Arch had a wild vision of a sort of watery anti-inferno.

  “It’s underwater?” he said.

  “No. We do not put it on maps because it does not matter.”

  Then Arch remembered. There was land where Kwek pointed. He had studied maps of Battleground intensively, anticipating that geography would play a significant role in the treasury of knowledge he expected to ransack. The land in question was not a single body and none of its units were large; humans had classified it as an archipelago.

  “Does it have a number?” he asked; for Battleground designated landmasses and groupings of masses not by name but by number.

  “No,” said Kwek. “It is just That Place.”

  Then she looked quickly over her shoulder. He couldn’t read the alien face, but there was no mistaking the emotions pouring from her: longing and grief.

  “I wish I could go there,” she said.

  The recording better come out right, Arch thought. Maybe Hanna could make some sense of this.

  “Why do you want to go there?” he asked.

  “Because I doubt,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Thoughts come that I never had before, I ask myself questions I did not think of before. Why is history empty of so many years? Why would Abundant God attempt to deceive us by creating bones of animals that did not ever exist? Why have we never decisively defeated the Demon, why has nothing changed in all the summers of my life, why do some Commanders go away and never return though it is secretly said they survive?”

  Arch thought: I am out of my depth.

  He said, “Do you think you could get permission to visit our ship? Observe our techniques, look at our records—”

  Any excuse to get her there, where others could help him sort it out.

  “I do not think so. No one else has gone.”

  “I don’t think anyone has been invited yet. Kwoort,” he said, inspired. “We’ll ask Kwoort if you can go. You know Kwoort?”

  “Why, yes. He is ranked next to the Holy Man.”

  “We can get his authorization, I’m sure. I think. Will you come?”

  Kwek said, “Yes. And afterward, maybe I will go to That Place, and not return here.”

  But Kwoort—when Hanna was roused from deep sleep to call him—denied permission. He did not even do it in person; it was Prookt who conveyed the refusal to Hanna. And shortly thereafter, an alarmed and disbelieving Arch was escorted to a room much like the one where Hanna had been a quasi-hostage—only this one had a lock on the outside.

  • • •

  He knew something was wrong as soon as the two Soldiers came for him, and knew before they reached the room that they meant to lock him in. He managed to go into it calmly and silently, and then he screamed in thought, H’ANA!!!

  She had just left Communications, puzzled by Kwoort’s action but longing to return to the dark relief of sleep—until that shout of panic made every tired muscle jerk. She lost her balance, grabbed at air, and found herself on the floor, weak with Arch’s fear.

  She knew a lot about fear.

  Her hands were clenched. She was alone in the corridor and grateful for it; no one would distract her. She relaxed her hands deliberately, all at once and then finger by finger. She fed the sensations to Arch in a steady stream, felt the adrenaline rush begin to ebb in both of them.

  That’s good, Arch. That’s good. Now a deep breath. Good. Another one. Let it out slowly . . .

  Jameson used to guide her this way when he waked her from blood-soaked nightmares.

  Again. Again . . .

  Better, Arch thought.

  Show me what happened.

  Not much, on the face of it: two Soldiers, a locked room.

  Did they take your com unit? Images, not words.

  No . . . Not a word either: relief and hope.

  Use it. Report to me as if I didn’t already know, as if you were true-human.

  She was on her feet, running back to Communications, when he made the audible report, sounding calm enough now. She
had already alerted Metra by the time she got there.

  “All personnel on the surface will be evacuated at once. And I will contact Commissioner Vickery,” Metra said from Command, and Hanna said, “You do that, but try for Starr Jameson first,” which Metra did not take kindly. Hanna shrugged; Vickery might have surfaced, but nobody was going to pay any attention to him. Her priority was Kwoort.

  But Kwoort would not talk to her. All her efforts got her were low-level Soldiers, who kept repeating, as she called again and again from Communications, that Kwoort Commander would be notified of her attempt to reach him.

  “I want to go down there,” she told Metra, and Metra said, “No.”

  “Then I’ll touch him telepathically.”

  “No.”

  “He’s not responding! How else am I supposed to find what he’s up to?”

  “Later. When evacuation is complete.”

  Half an hour passed, Hanna touching Arch at intervals. Nothing’s happened, he said each time. Endeavor’s shuttles left and returned in flashes of light. A few specialists dragged their feet. Metra talked to those herself, the message unequivocal: Move now. Or you’ll be stunned and carried. The last of them—the physiologists, the most stubborn, who had gone with Joseph—were finally retrieved. Hanna did not like Metra any better, but the captain’s command in evacuating personnel was faultless. The whole exercise had taken just under forty minutes.

  Then Arch said, tense but no longer afraid: I’m free—they’re letting me go—

  —thank God. Use the com unit again.

  Metra was suddenly at her shoulder, angry and impatient. She had tried to reach Vickery, impotent though he might be, with no better result than Hanna had gotten from Kwoort. Vickery’s staff had referred her to Jameson. Jameson had referred her back to Hanna.

  “They’re letting Arch go,” Hanna told her.

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me—wait, this is him.”

  Voice now: “H’ana? I was wrong. I’m told there was a misunderstanding. The Soldiers escorting me were supposed to take both of us, the record-keeper and me, to a rendezvous point, so we can go back to Endeavor together. The captain can send a shuttle as soon as she’s ready.”

  That is not true. Prookt said Kwoort’s decision was definite.

  Arch: And the Soldiers were clear about their orders, that was no mistake—

  Metra had cleared nonessential personnel from Communications. She would have liked to clear Hanna, too, but functioning as liaison with Kwoort’s proxies made her essential. Hanna had shut out telepathic communication with her team, all except Arch now back on Endeavor; their anxiety for Arch was too distracting. Metra had not hesitated to alert the trailing, almost-forgotten warship, but she had refused to allow Hanna to communicate with Jameson.

  But finally light flashed at the module where she slumped, and the familiar voice said her name. Clearly the prohibition did not work both ways; Metra had not dared to deny Jameson. He said, “An update, please. It took some time to reach you through your captain. She’s been very busy, of course.”

  She could not tell if he thought the delay had been deliberate. The dry tone told her nothing.

  “How—” she began, and stopped. This conversation was not private. How the hell am I supposed to function if I can’t talk to you, was what she had started to say. Before she could think of a way to put it differently another light flashed.

  “Kwoort,” she said. “Finally. Listen!”

  Kwoort said her name, too, that strange Haknt, sounding like a threat as it hung between them. There was no video. “Kwoort Commander,” she acknowledged, and hesitated, reaching for diplomacy, before she went on. “I’m told there has been a misunderstanding.”

  “There was. I corrected the situation immediately. Your Commander has informed us the remaining not-Soldier and our record-keeper will be removed momentarily. It appears all the other not-Soldiers have gone away. It was not necessary.”

  The translator allowed no nuance that might carry emotion, but she knew Kwoort well enough to touch his mind without effort. The hell with getting Metra’s permission, she thought, and did it, the barest, lightest touch. She sensed him strain to feel anything like it, too, and knew then what had set him off: somehow he had discovered the real nature of the “surveillance system” he had suspected. She could not tell where the conviction came from and could not try to look for it without the shield of trance. He was so rigid with anticipation that he might even interpret a stray thought of his own as an intrusion.

  But she did not have to probe further to see that he was furious. His orders had been countermanded by the Holy Man, and he was not used to it.

  She said slowly, “I believe you acted properly. Disagreement between Soldiers and not-Soldiers would not be desirable.”

  She would let him work that out for himself. Battleground was in no position to fight an interspecies war. As, perhaps, the Holy Man had realized, and insisted on backing off.

  Kwoort said, “A Holy Man has agreed to meet with Gergtk.”

  He meant Gabriel. Hanna said immediately, “I will accompany him. He is under my command.”

  “Very well,” Kwoort said. He named the location, the same as before, and a time three hours away.

  “Starr?” she said when Kwoort was gone. “Did you hear? There was more that he didn’t say. He found out about telepathy somehow.”

  “But he won’t say so openly.”

  “Not yet. He’s on guard, though.”

  “What was Harm doing there alone?” Jameson said, and Hanna winced. Arch should have gone as part of a team.

  “I made a mistake,” she said, plain truth. In the endless bombardment of detail, exhausted, she had simply missed the violation.

  But the deep, calm voice that had stayed her through many bad nights only said, “Talk to the record-keeper Harm is bringing to Endeavor. Do it soon. Kwoort might demand her return at any time.”

  “Of course. But I need to find out more about what’s going on inside his head first. If Metra will allow it.”

  “I’ll make sure she does. Or Andrella will. Andrella had to intervene before I could talk to you.”

  Hanna made a face. “There are advantages to being commissioner,” she said.

  “It won’t be long. Endit,” he said.

  • • •

  Back to her quarters and back into trance, but not for long.

  Still rumbling with anger, arguing orders. He is not without ego, and a big one, too!—flashes like this from Starr sometimes, when he talked about Vickery . . .

  “...had no suspicion of secrets when I was on their world, though perhaps they had them; we know these do! This Warrior they took to their craft—you know her cast of thought, I had already brought her to your attention, and now you allow her to go to them—we must bring her back, tell them to go away, tell them if they do not we will fight them—!”

  “—oh, hell,” said Hanna, scrambling to her feet, calling out for a connection to Metra.

  Bella said, “What?” at her side and Metra said, “What!” from the air.

  “We need to distract Kwoort and we need to do it now. He’s insane—”

  She stopped, hearing herself, thinking she had used the word too lightly. She amended it: “He’s in a rage and working up to aggression—where’s Gabriel? When’s this meeting we’re supposed to have with the Holy Man? Contact Kwoort and tell him we’re ready!”

  Chapter XI

  “I’M NOT READY,” SAID GABRIEL and Hanna said, “For God’s sake, Gabriel, what do you have to do to get ready? Pray?”

  “For one thing,” he said stiffly.

  “Don’t you pray all the time, or something?”

  “Ideally, just being is prayer,” Gabriel said, “but I’ve only had glimpses of what that’s like.”

  “
I do not have any idea what you’re talking about,” said Hanna.

  I don’t suppose you would, Gabriel thought, and simultaneously wondered if she had read the thought and wished he was too kind to have thought it. She didn’t seem to have noticed; she was walking purposefully ahead of him toward a starboard docking bay, her light slippers making no sound. She had put on something gauzy and pale blue which clung to her admirably, and when she glanced around, the blue of her eyes was vividly dark by comparison. She stopped abruptly, turned around and stared at him. He had hovered in her presence every chance he could get, watching the expert at work, watching with awe, and she had been too busy and too tired to pay attention to him. Sometimes she noticed him and looked puzzled. He was puzzled too—mostly because everyone around her seemed to see her as invulnerable, and he knew she was not. All that fierce attention was focused on him now like a lance of light, and he was the one who felt vulnerable.

  She said, “This is not the time to be thinking of me as a woman.”

  There didn’t seem to be any reply to that. She frowned. Exquisitely, Gabriel thought, and then, rather desperately, Adolescent crush, that’s all it is, just an adolescent crush!

  “Maybe it is,” said Hanna, eradicating his hope that she was going to stay out of his thoughts. “Try to cure yourself of it, all right? I wish it was raw sexual desire, I can deal with that!”

  “How?” said Gabriel, and immediately regretted asking.

  “You wouldn’t like it. Anyway, I’m not interested. I have all I want—”

  She stopped short. Gabriel said, “Another lie?”

  “All right. Not all I want.” She glanced over her shoulder, toward the waiting pod. She clearly didn’t want to take time to explain, but he saw her make up her mind to do it. “What I want is what I had with Mickey’s father. But it’s so rare that nobody where I come from expects ever to have it. I certainly didn’t. And I will never have it again. It almost never happens, and it never happens twice.

  “But for now, just for now, I have Starr. I respect him and I’m grateful to him and most of the time I like him and he makes love beautifully. Quite possessively, usually, but that’s very exciting in a perverted sort of way,” she said, and Gabriel winced at the cruel crudity of it. “Now you know what I want and what I have. What I am.”