Battleground

by Terry A. Adams

  But then again. And on the other hand . . .

  • • •

  She was taken back to where Gabriel waited without seeing anything. A horror of gray spaces was sinking into her bones. She looked at her hands and those looked gray, too. The blue stone in the ring was the only color in her life and she looked at it often, falling into blue for minutes at a time. It had become more active lately, as if it knew she needed to see the sky in it.

  Gabriel sat on the floor, meditating. It was what he did instead of snoop in alien thoughts. His eyes opened when she came in and he started to smile, saw her face, and stopped.

  She threw herself on the bed facedown; she did not want him to look at her.

  All she had to do was nothing. She could even leave Wektt now, insist on it to Kwoort, insist that Metra back it up with force if needed. Say to Jameson Wait a year until Kwoort falls, because she had seen, while Kakrekt described its effects, that the poison was long-acting. She would not have to tell anyone else the truth; she could say he already showed the signs, naturally. As, in fact, he did. Kakrekt proposed only to speed up the process.

  Well, and murder him.

  Gabriel said her name—he might have said it several times—and simultaneously she heard it like a tickle in her mind: H’ana.

  She kept her face down and ignored Gabriel. The nudge to her thoughts could not be ignored. Not Bella this time, but Arch.

  Captain says it’s time for a report. Why’ve you been out of touch?

  Reflexively, she curled her consciousness into a tight ball, as small as she could make it. Her muscles tightened, too, and she felt Arch react.

  Concern! Alarm!—he might as well have been beating on the outside of her head like a drum.

  Stop it!

  She felt the answer as BANG! BANG! BANG!

  And flipped over in a flurry of temper. Gabriel, hypersensitive, advanced on her; she shot a warning finger at him and he froze at her expression.

  What are you hiding?

  Only corruption, Arch, she thought wearily, put him off while she sat up and pointed that finger at Gabriel again, making him back off. His eyes were wide.

  She lay back down and closed hers. She could not close out Arch’s clamoring—she wished Dema had been the nearest telepath when the captain decided to demand a report, or Bella or Joseph—anyone but Arch!

  Ten minutes, she pleaded. Then Dema or Bella. Not you.

  Arch was gone, with a lighthearted pretense of being offended. She opened her eyes and there was Gabriel. “What is it?” he said. “What did Kwoort say?”

  “Nothing. It was Kakrekt, not Kwoort. It’s not important.”

  She rolled off the platform and went to the door, which, of course, did her no good. Rock pressed on her like a presence, and the wall screen yammered propaganda. She would do anything to get out of here, anything. I could get Kakrekt to give me a weapon and kill Kwoort myself. Metra would approve. The Commission would approve. It would be our secret. And Kakrekt would give us all we want and I could get OUT of here.

  Gabriel had turned to watch her and she met his clear eyes. He would not approve. Nor would her D’neerans.

  Back to the bed. She could not hold still, she wanted her face to stay invisible: she threw an arm over her eyes. It did not stop her perception of Gabriel’s worry. She removed the arm and turned her head to look at him.

  “I wish you knew how to stop projecting,” she said.

  He said nothing. He knew the signs of secrecy and guilt when he saw them.

  “Just what do you think I’m not telling you?” she said.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “You’ve done something you knew you shouldn’t. Or left undone something you knew you should have done.”

  She continued to look at him. The sounds from the wallscreen, the whistles and murmurs and clicks, seemed very loud. He said, suddenly certain, “Or have you not yet done the thing, or left it undone? Have you not yet decided? Is that what weighs on you?”

  She said slowly, “I don’t think it will make a difference, in the long run, to what happens. No difference to anyone but me.”

  She would not say any more about it. She had to concentrate on blocking this thing from her telepaths. She put the arm back over her eyes and lay without moving.

  • • •

  She could not make love any more, with this secret between them, and she could not tell Gabriel why. She slept, when she could, as much as she could. She was not used to such appalling amounts of sleep and woke with headaches. Time meant nothing. It means nothing when there is no sun to rise and set, when there is not, at least, a clock to measure seconds and hours. The wallscreen’s endless flicker included, at one corner, a marker for time as it was counted on Battleground, but since Hanna had not bothered learning to read native script, she did not understand it.

  In Standard chronology, however, it became the month of July.

  Chapter X

  JULY 1: Mickey Kristofik Bassanio was developing a concept of time. Day followed night followed day followed night. An “hour” was a long time. So was “a minute,” when he wanted something. Months were beyond him, so far. “Summer” apparently described absolute joy: rolling down hills on cushions of emerald grass until he was dizzy, brilliant flower colors, sunlight so loud it boomed, intoxicating smells of leaves. He begged to stay up late and got to do it as soon as Starr (which came out “Tarr”) and Thera (“Tera”) understood that he wanted to watch the sky change until at dusk it was the same color as Mama’s eyes. (“Mama” came out always, clearly and from the very start, “Mama.”)

  • • •

  7th Siege of Twetsk: It is remarkable how much better I remember, now that I am here! It has become warmer and often I walk in a near valley where the clouds fall close, and today in the valley I remembered what the not-Soldier female said, of wishing Soldiers to go back to her world. I went back and summoned her and the male and said I will send them if you will show me how your weapons work. She said you have destroyed the one you took from me but if you allow me to talk to my Commander I will ask for another. I must talk to her soon, our supplies are gone, if you mean to keep us here we must get more. I said but you eat. She said I do not think your food nourishes us well. I think we are becoming ill. I must talk to my Commander.

  Then I said, only if you think she will give us many of the weapons and send not-Soldiers to teach us how to use them.

  I do not know what she might have said but the male immediately said no, he said it very loudly! And then he said their Commander would not endanger other not-Soldiers by sending them here where they might be made captive.

  I said you are not captives, you will not be here long, only until we have discussed all we need to discuss, such as the weapons. The female said, I also am ordered to continue discussions, and then she said she would like to walk in the clouds in the mountains with me and I said no. And I remember all of this by the will of Abundant God.

  • • •

  July 4: What do you mean, make the captain contact Kwoort? I can’t make her do anything!

  Hanna conceded the point. She did not share Joseph’s alarm at the idea of demanding something from Hope Metra, but it was not likely to gain anything.

  Besides, said Joseph, you can talk to us. Why should Metra talk to Kwoort?

  I would like him, thought Hanna, to be reminded we’re not alone and forgotten. And we need food. What’s in this stuff they eat? We’re eating it, it comes out looking just like it looked going in! I don’t think we’re absorbing any nutrients at all!

  I’ll find out . . .

  But I really want Metra to insist on talking to us. To insist on that assurance we’re still alive.

  But she knows, because we know, he said, meaning the telepaths.

  Kwoort doesn’t know she knows. I told him Metra won’t let me communicate with her
this way and he seems to think that taking our com units has cut us off completely. It might be good to keep him thinking that.

  I’ll ask Metra to contact him, then. But what if she won’t?

  Then I’ll soon think we’re forgotten . . .

  • • •

  July 6: Jameson had gotten reaccustomed to the trappings of office, and sometimes he wondered why he had ever missed them. He could do without the implant, for example. He could do without anything that required his presence in the official Commission chamber, too. Every time he walked into it he thought: The builders were insane.

  It was really very high, immensely high, so that the upper reaches melted into shadows and even, at the very top, into darkness out of reach of all light. It dwarfed, incongruously, the small group of immensely powerful people who were at the bottom of that well, in the brightest of light, on a dais along one small arc of the circular hall. The materials acknowledged no debt to the past. The meeting place constructed for the earliest Commissions had been more human in scale and ornate, embellished with reminders of human history, reminders indeed of prehistory; when not in use the chamber had served as a museum. It still stood, its only function now to reflect the past. But the designers of the current structure, working four centuries ago, had not thought the past a proper subject for contemplation. The white wall—one could not say “walls” when a chamber was circular—was not even the natural marble of earlier times, but a synthetic whose reflectivity increased incrementally from the top of the dome to the floor below, so that at the lowest level it dazzled. It was meant to dazzle, literally—meant to induce a daze in lesser beings who approached the commissioners when they sat in formal session.

  Lilifair, Co-op, wanted the disbandment, possibly by force, of a nearby settlement where God-sanctioned practices horrified even the locals, whose standards were fairly loose.

  Approved. Fleet task force to be dispatched.

  Almost over, Jameson thought. I had forgotten what a gift a really short session is.

  The newish colony of Hostem, barely hanging on, wanted assistance. They wanted some of—a lot of—the servos that saturated Earth. They could not pay for them, but this just made their demands louder.

  Denied.

  There would be plenty of time, today at least, to play with Mickey.

  Such a loss to me if—no, when—his mother returns.

  Willow’s own Coordinating League, unable to reach consensus, wanted the Commission to take responsibility for deciding on the semi-sentience, or lack thereof, of a native species, thus deciding if it should be protected or left to the mercy of an expanding human population. Andrella had finally gotten the belated controversy forced to Commission level; she was all for protection.

  Protection is recommended.

  And time later to see Catalyna. Why not? Since Hanna says never again. Honey hair, honey eyes, honey all over, I suspect, and her mouth as delectable—worth pursuing, this one. Worth pretending to believe a few lies . . .

  And once more the issue that preoccupied all of them: Colony One. An old controversy coming to a head: How strictly should escape into alternate, virtual realities be regulated? The attrition of citizens addicted to the practice was the dark byproduct of a huge industry. Figures on loss of productive lives fell inside acceptable limits elsewhere, but Colony One’s rate was alarming. Worse, a major city was on the edge of revolt at a proposed tightening of restrictions, and others were voicing support. Riot was imminent, Karin Weisz’s position at risk.

  Further discussion required.

  Large matters and small, on and between the five Polity worlds and many others besides.

  Endeavor was not on the agenda.

  • • •

  July 10: Gabriel poked at the slab of something on his plate and thought about steak. There was also a pile of shredded something and a heap of mashed something. It was all the same color. It all tasted alike to the human tongue. It was all at room temperature. Perhaps it was supposed to be eaten hot, and cooled as it was carried to the out-of-the-way billet where he and Hanna were lodged. Or perhaps not. It was hard to tell.

  Hanna was not there, but her platter would wait for her. Kakrekt had summoned her.

  He wondered if they were plotting something. No, he was pretty sure they were.

  He returned his attention to the food. He remembered Hanna remarking on ideological differences between the Soldiers who stayed in Rowtt and Wektt and those who fled to That Place, assigning them to stages of intellectual development. But maybe it had nothing to do with that. Nakeekt had talked of spices and varied foods, so maybe the exiles’ motives were simpler: the food was better in the isles of That Place.

  • • •

  July 13: The telepaths had taught themselves to talk out loud when true-humans were around. This was changing. Deep down they had never completely trusted Carl and Glory, because deep down they had never trusted any true-humans (though they kept forgetting that when it came to Gabriel).

  Now they didn’t even trust Hanna.

  The silent four-way conversations swelled in number and filled up with homesickness.

  Does she know . . .

  ...what she is doing . . .

  ...this hiding . . . ?

  Is it even important?

  It must be, it’s that wall, that impenetrable thing . . .

  Maybe (lighter) it’s just that she’s sleeping with Gabriel . . .

  Oh, she doesn’t hide that!

  Something, though . . .

  ...and there’s all these . . .

  ...true-humans so-called . . .

  ...so that we hide, too . . .

  ...we don’t want . . .

  ...true-humans . . .

  ...to know . . .

  • • •

  July 14: Hanna walked through a meadow sweet with the symphony of a long, cool spring. Every blade of grass was unmarred green. It wasn’t a large meadow, and all around it thick, old trees spread new leaves. On the edge, smaller trees floated in clouds of white and pink and red. She knew that beyond the trees ran a clear stream fringed with bluebells. She did not have to leave the place. She would never leave.

  Gabriel woke her. She was summoned.

  Once more the interminable cart-ride through the caverns of spice-scent, though this time it was night and quieter, fewer cars and Soldiers on foot, no clamor of training. At the end of it, the prospect of another interminable conversation with Kakrekt.

  Kakrekt had almost given over What can your scientists (translating as investigators) do? Now she asked How will your investigators do these things? Hanna could answer only with generalities, she was no archaeologist, no seer into the past. All the while she would think Just give me your scrawny body, any Soldier’s body, for research. And all the while she would think We’ll send no scientists to work here for weeks, for months, where any moment they might be blown up!

  But Kakrekt surprised her this time.

  When Hanna came in Kakrekt threw something soft at her and said, “Put this on.”

  It was a coat, heavier than any Hanna was used to and much too big for her. But she put it on eagerly, because Kakrekt meant to take her outside.

  The dream of spring had lingered; it went away with a deep wrench of loss when they stepped into Wektt’s early spring, which felt just like winter. She took a grateful breath anyway, glanced up, and was transfixed. For once the sky was clear and the Milky Way blazed across it. A glow over the peaks to her left suggested a near moonrise, but it did not diminish the glory of stars.

  Kakrekt had personally driven her through many hallways and brought her to a door that was probably little used, since it opened on nothing but a barely discernible path that straggled off across the hillside. Kakrekt started off at a fast pace that Hanna could not keep up. She had long since adapted to the altitude, but she and Gabriel bot
h were perceptibly losing strength, and she soon called to Kakrekt to slow down.

  “This is far enough, I hope,” Kakrekt said; she stood and looked back the way they had come. They had gone around an outcropping of rock and nothing of the complex was visible, only brown grasses flattened by frost.

  “Far enough for what?” said Hanna.

  “Far enough that no one will hear.”

  Still Kakrekt looked back, head up as if sniffing the air, though the respiratory tubes showed no unusual movement. Hanna caught herself thinking that and shook her head; there was no evidence that the organs housed Soldiers’ sense of smell.

  There was a puff of cold wind. Hanna pulled her hands into the too-long sleeves of the coat. Her hair blew into her face. It felt stiff. It was past waist-length now, dried and dull from the harsh liquid Soldiers used for personal cleansing, and the only comb she had was her fingers. If she had access to a mirror and looked at her face she would probably see a gray cast to her brown skin.

  I am becoming gray, she thought in a moment’s panic, I will fade into this place and never get away, and stilled the thought.

  “I can’t get the poison,” Kakrekt said almost dreamily, looking at the sky. “No one here has heard of it.”

  “Then how do you know there is such a thing?” Hanna asked practically.

  “I heard of it from Quokatk; it was how he became Holy Man, he used it on the one who came before him. But he is too mad now to ask, mad without poison, only with age. And all the others are too young. Except the new Holy Man himself; maybe he knew of it in Rowtt.”

  Hanna could think of nothing to say to that, and there was silence. Her feet, in the light shoes she preferred and had worn to the surface, were noticeably cold.

  Kakrekt said, “This thing called speaking to the mind . . . It is more complex than that.”

  She looked at Hanna, and Hanna saw that Kakrekt’s past-eyes had opened. This was important, then. Hanna did not answer, waiting.

  “It is also,” Kakrekt continued, “listening to the mind, as you listened to mine. The Holy Man believes it will be useful for spying.”