Battleground
Page 35
It shimmers and disorients. Shadowy halls open at angles, water-walled.
There is nothing but water and dim silence and moving light and shades of blue.
Soldiers—some of them, this one—lived under the sea once. She had not known that.
Not Soldiers, this one said. He had already been ancient when he came here. Those who made us. They say.
Who says?
There is a flicker of curiosity, so mild it is barely a trace. And no answer, but another question.
Who . . . ?
I am not a Soldier.
Then you are. One of those.
Those. Misty and ancient and vague. Does he remember, or does he only remember a story? A whisper? She cannot think of an adequate response. She can only show an image of stars, shimmering across black space.
They said.
Who?
They said.
Star-shimmer dissolves in water-shimmer.
That is what his mind is doing, too: dissolving.
So is Hanna’s.
All that blue, trembling water, so peaceful. The other consciousness, so blurred, draws her in. It takes effort to rouse herself.
How many summers do you have?
She has not spoken aloud. But it is as if her voice echoes through blue spaces and turns to silver.
The only answer is blankness.
Her frustration nudges No One; he answers with irritation. And a little surprise: the surprise is at himself, finding that he is capable of feeling irritated. But nothing in this wordless exchange seems strange to him.
She repeats: How many summers?
Finally he answers: More than I can remember. Too many. They say.
• • •
WAKE UP.
That jolted No One—and Hanna, too; she stirred, feeling a cramped muscle in her thigh. She had said it to No One but Bella had said it to her first. It didn’t seem that any time had passed.
You haven’t moved for an hour. You’re overdue.
Hanna tried to turn her attention to No One again.
Captain wants you back.
A little longer.
She said now. Conference scheduled. New orders.
Just a little.
Something’s strange there—
You’re telling me?
He’s sick—
Not sick, I’d know—
Or drugged.
Hanna opened her eyes. Yes, maybe drugged. It had felt like a kind of unfocused trance. She felt it again, there on the other side of the wall.
Just a little.
She touched No One again, careful not to fall into that fuzzy cloud.
Are you drugged?
A slow affirmative bubbled out of the cloud.
Why?
Peace before dying.
Are you ill?
Peace before burning.
It was hard to get him to pay attention. She persisted.
H’ana, you must—
Just a little.
Pieces. She pushed and got pieces. Age, rage, disruption. Execution. Ceremonial cremation. Between the rage and the death, this time of being rendered harmless. The bits from his memory floated out of the cloud barely tinged with emotion.
H’ana!
She pulled away reluctantly from the cloud. She had to use her hands on earth and wall to get to her feet; she was stiff, and for a moment dizzy. Pieces of her own memories intruded, moments of contentment: Mickey sleeping on her lap as a tiny baby. Half-waking in the night, snuggling close to Jameson’s warmth. A long-ago instant in a shadowy hall in Koroth, in her House, when she knew exactly who she was and that she belonged somewhere entirely—
Crying was inadvisable when nightsight membranes were in place.
One more question.
You are drugged. How was it you cried out in thought in the night?
She didn’t expect an answer, but she got one. It was in pieces, too, and she did not put them together until she was back on the path to the pod. There was one day when the drug had not been given, the Soldier responsible for administering it distracted and forgetful, because the not-Soldiers had come.
• • •
“You’re going to Wektt,” Metra said.
They were alone. Given Metra’s adamancy about keeping telepaths out of Wektt, Hanna could understand why she did not want her officers to hear this conversation.
“When?” said Hanna, not inclined to waste words.
“Around oh-one-hundred hours, Standard time. Full morning at Wektt.”
Hanna tried again to get her mind around Battleground’s attenuated day length. Wektt and Rowtt lay at approximately the same longitude, but in different hemispheres, with Wektt much closer to a pole than Rowtt. It would be the same time of day, or close to it, but there would be a seasonal difference. Early spring in Wektt?
“Do they know we’re coming?”
“Of course. Communications made the contact a short time ago. It was much easier than it was with Rowtt. The Holy Man at Wektt already knows all about us.”
“What do you mean, all? That there’s a spacecraft in orbit, or what?”
“Who we are, what we look like. You were asked for by name, and the monk, too.”
“What? How?”
“Their Holy Man knows you personally,” Metra said, and Hanna said, “How could he?” and Metra said, “It’s Kwoort.”
And Metra actually smiled.
PART FIVE
WEKTT
Chapter I
THERE IS RAIN ALL THE TIME. When it is not snow. When it is not snow mixing with rain.
Sometimes what falls is slush before it reaches the ground. And sometimes it freezes there and sometimes it does not.
I am told the weather is very good. For this time of year, before the summer, before the thaw. They say this is the thaw before the thaw, and after that it rains. When it does not snow.
I always thought, when I looked at the maps, that Wektt was at the end of the world. That was correct.
I have Quokatk’s robes to put on, but I delay. I will go while there are still things to be learned from Quokatk I said, but Tlorr delayed and she delayed, I should have come last summer, no, many summers sooner than that, before Quokatk began to rave, and now he raves, like Kwler. Like Kwler, he requires Soldiers to bathe him, requires Soldiers to feed him. Except when he eats everything they bring to him in an instant, cramming it into his mouth, and screaming until more is brought. And then he has to be bathed again, and he does not always want to be bathed. It is that way with Kwler. It is not that way with Tlorr, but it will become that way. It will become that way with me.
I do not like the robes. They are the same as the ones worn by Tlorr, but they are also the same as the ones worn by Kwler. I looked at Tlorr with my past-eyes and thought that to become Tlorr would not be so bad, to become Tlorr as she is now. She is more careless now, it is true. But in most things she still listens to Abundant God. Holds to her duty, maintains the balance: Some crèches to move aboveground, to be destroyed at the proper times, and the disarming of Tvakst is projected so that it may be attacked from the ground, likewise the disarming of Prokskt. I, here, will order the attacks. The High Commander here is named Kakrekt. She is supposed to see that the orders are carried out, as I did for Tlorr and before that Tlorr for Kwler. But Kakrekt does not want to obey all my orders. Quokatk has been insane too long, Kakrekt has been more than Commander but refused to become Holy Man, what shall I do about Kakrekt?
I am remembering well today. I remember where I hid some more pages but now it is too late, I cannot return to get them, I have only the ones I carried with me when I left. I must start all over and try to remember what I wrote, and remember to keep with me what I write because if I hide the new pages and write down the place where I
hide them, I will forget where I have written down the hiding place, because I will have to hide that too.
• • •
Absolutely not, she had said, but she wasn’t going to get away with it.
The conference, almost as soon as she returned, was well attended: Metra and Cochran and Corcoran, who seemed permanently attached to her, never to be unglued, and another Endeavor officer besides; Hanna and Gabriel sat as far away from them as possible. Arch and Bella, Kit Mortan and Cinnamon Padrick, Joseph and Dema and Benj Parker. Pirin Zey was there, and Communications staff, and two of the political science team, and even the climatologist. Adair Evanomen and Zanté were there as images from Earth. Hanna recognized the room behind Evanomen, part of the suite Jameson had used as director of Contact. Zanté was at Admin too, already in the commissioner’s suite, reclaiming Jameson’s old territory for him. The transition was moving fast.
And Jameson was there, of course, in all three large dimensions. Hanna had not seen his face since she told him she meant to leave him. He did not look at her at first, which left her free to look at him, which she kept deciding not to do, but she kept doing it anyway, her eyes on him again and again. He was at a desk somewhere in Arrenswood, contriving to appear both relaxed and alert. Hanna knew the look. Holo made him look real enough to touch.
It was a good thing he was not real. Touching him would be a bad idea. Thinking about him would be just as bad, so she tried hard not to think, and voices went by her in disjointed scraps.
“...a simple, peaceful contact with Wektt’s Holy Man or his designee.” That was Evanomen. “That was what we meant to do with Rowtt, of course. Kwoort shot that all to hell. And here’s Kwoort again. How the hell did he get there?”
Into a brief silence, he added, “I mean that literally.”
“The flight we observed, presumably,” Metra said shortly.
“Well, whatever the mechanism, there’s no explanation of why he’s there. The other Outsiders—” it was the generic term for sentient aliens “—are peaceful, overall, but they know who an enemy is. How does Rowtt’s top Commander end up being Wektt’s Holy Man overnight?”
“Rowtt’s Demon,” said Jameson. “Wektt’s Holy Man is Rowtt’s Demon. Are such exchanges customary? It does not seem to be treason. It’s inexplicable by our standards. We still have not taken this society’s measure.”
Hanna decided to ignore the deep, familiar voice. Too easy to remember how it sounded in the dark, in the night. She tuned out again.
“...capability for interstellar travel, for interstellar war,” Metra said, and Jameson said, “Absolutely.”
“And of course maybe the most valuable commodity we’ve ever run across,” Evanomen said, which Hanna half-heard. She had only begun to wonder what he meant when he said, “The potential for increasing human life spans even further—and A.S. doesn’t work equally well for everybody, you know. Some research here—who knows? Might be nothing there humans can use, but we’ve got to find out.”
Hanna lifted her head at that. Jameson looked directly into her eyes.
“Find out once and for all whether their star-going poses a threat, or if they can even still do it,” he said. “Hanna, that’s first. And talk to Kwoort about possible trade. We might give quite a lot for research subjects. Preferably alive and willing.”
She felt the ghost at her shoulder. But the ghost said nothing. Even the ghost was stunned.
She had not even imagined, how could she not have thought of it?—that whatever allowed Soldiers to live for a millennium might be studied and adapted to humans. This was why the contact with Battleground could not be terminated and dropped forever. So simple; so enormous.
Hanna did not say anything and did not move. She could not. People expected her to nod, at least. She did not nod. She was caught up in Jameson’s eyes, green today, sometimes gray as a clouded sea. But she felt a wisp of greedy curiosity from Metra. The breach between Hanna and Jameson was open knowledge here as well as on Heartworld, a consequence of the Parting Observance. Silence would be read as insult. She would not do that to Jameson.
She said with an effort, “Sorry, I was thinking. We didn’t take advantage of the time we had with Kwek. There were questions she could have answered that we just didn’t ask.”
Jameson did nod. “Can you spare a few minutes when we’re done here?” he said.
“Of course,” she said. Dreading a private conversation. Longing for it.
• • •
The others drifted out slowly. Hanna waited, looking absently at a reader that showed the anonymous healer’s words. She had looked them up again after seeing Metra, and now carried them with her as if the being called to her across the years. The last person left and the door silently closed itself. She finally looked up.
Jameson came to the edge of the holo field and stood looking at her. He said, “You could come closer, you know.”
The holographic projections had been set up for one-way transmission. Hanna would only be an image to him, a small figure in a room that seemed large with everybody gone. She got up and went closer, though.
“How is Mickey?” she said.
“He’s in good health and very happy. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about him. About what will happen when you get back. What do you intend to do? Exactly, I mean? Where do you mean to live?”
“I don’t know. Lady Koroth has some contacts on Earth besides me. If you would call her? She could get someone to help find a place near Admin for Mickey and me. And if Thera could stay with us for a while—?”
She did not like asking for the favors. But she did not have a choice.
“And I was thinking,” she said, not taking her eyes from his face, “that I wouldn’t go very far away from your home. So that Mickey could see you sometimes. Would you do that?”
Because favors for Mickey’s sake were different.
“With pleasure. He’s a delight, Hanna. I’m sorry you’ve had to miss these months with him.”
“Me, too.” She had to look away then. What she had missed was irretrievable. She forced the tears back. Some things did not bear thinking of. And a new fear seized her, full-grown in an instant.
“Sit,” he said. “Try to be comfortable. Try to relax.”
She hardly heard him, but she tried. She sat in one of the comfortable chairs, as close as she could get to the holo field, but she was on the edge of the seat, every muscle tense.
“I can’t just come and take him,” she said. “He doesn’t even know me. He only knows you. It will take time. I want him to want to be with me—”
The new fear was unstoppable.
“And how can he?” she said. “He’s happy where he is, you just said so. He won’t want to leave you. He won’t want to be with me.”
She clasped her hands to her mouth as if she could force the terrible words back into it. She was certain she had lost her son. The months apart had taken him away from her and she would never get him back.
Jameson reached a hand toward her, let it fall. He could not touch her. She saw her sadness mirrored in his face.
“Please,” he said, “don’t think that. I’ve told him you’ll be back and that I hope it will be soon. He has a calendar that he puts things in to tell you about. Images of the pets playing, words he’s learned, stories about what he does, lists of things he loves. Yes, he tells stories, little ones; he’s absorbing language fast. I hope to see him often. I’m glad you want that too.”
“Yes, I do,” said Hanna, and bent over with the effort not to cry.
When she looked up again, she saw the oddest expression on his face.
“What?” she said, faltering.
“You could always change your mind,” he said. “I’d like that.”
“About—what?”
“Leaving.”
“Oh—oh. I have to,” s
he said simply.
“Why? Can’t we compromise?”
“No,” Hanna said. She got up slowly. The words that came out next came of their own accord and should have been said long ago, but something inside her tore apart with each one. “You’re too strong. You have to be strong. You won’t let yourself be anything else. I’ve leaned on your strength with such gratitude—it’s so ungrateful even to say this! I’m still leaning, depending on you for amnesty someday, trusting you to care for Mickey, depending on you to protect me from Metra’s mistakes. Am I so weak?—I feel weak, I’ve let myself feel that way because you’re so strong. The kind of power you have now, the kind you had already and what you’ve gotten back again—how could anyone not feel weak beside you? I can’t let you keep being my strength. I don’t even know if I have any of my own, any more. I can’t keep on like that.”
Then she stopped, because she had said everything important.
That strange expression was back. After a minute he said, “You’re a difficult woman to love.”
Her breath stopped. It was anger that stopped it, a bright flare of outrage.
“You,” she said. “You’re the most manipulative human being I’ve ever known. I’ve never heard you say that word—except to disclaim it! Love! What are you doing? Raising the stakes? I’m not playing!”
She started away, then, almost running.
“Stop it!” he said, and almost roared: “Stop running away from me!”
She did stop, but at safe distance—as if they really were in the same room, as if the light-years did not separate them. She was still for a minute. Then she said, “You’ve got to try A.S. again soon, don’t you. You don’t dare wait for results from here, even if I can get you those volunteers. You won’t do it immediately, not until your position on the Commission is unassailable. But soon.”
“I can’t wait much longer,” he said. “It’s been too long.”
“You always go to Heartworld for that. Take me with you.”
“I can’t,” he said automatically. There was a hesitation first; but she only remembered that later.