Battleground

by Terry A. Adams

  • • •

  Spyeyes circled the pods, and Metra watched what they saw.

  The second pod was at rest beside the first, identical, the two a pair of solid workhorses for tasks needing little equipment and one or two crew. Wektt had made no visible response to the landing. It was now one Standard hour after Wektt’s dawn, the supply drop undertaken in full daylight for a reason, to show Kwoort the humans hid nothing. Metra thought it surprising Kwoort’s Soldiers hadn’t tried to take the first one apart. Or maybe not so surprising, since just the attempt to dissect Bassanio’s sidearm had killed a Soldier. The pod looked dingy after a month and a half on the surface without upkeep. Overhaul as soon as it returns, Metra thought. That would be very soon, if Kwoort refused the supplies. Because the next plan was all-out rescue, and retrieving the pod from this moronic society would be part of it.

  She had watched for an hour, standing, arms folded. She did not move; she was a monumental statue. The crew was not so much afraid of her as in awe of her, and here was another reason. Her brain was not idle, though; she registered every detail of every square meter of the terrain. And she noticed that Bella Qu’e’n, who would not even have been in the command center if Metra had had her way, stood nearby—and didn’t move either. A bright bead on Qu’e’n’s collar was a direct conduit to Adair Evanomen, but there was nothing for her to say.

  After exactly an hour Metra gave the order to trigger the hatch and have the servo show itself. It appeared at the hatch and started down the ramp.

  Servo and pod went up in a blinding fireball. Metra barely blinked at that, but finally moved, shock overriding control, when the first pod, the one that had faithfully served Hanna, went up in flames too, and snowmelt flooded melting rock and the spyeyes recorded gouts of steam before shock waves hit them and they went blind and were hurled far away.

  • • •

  Hanna dragged herself up from sleep, not at first certain what had waked her. She lay for a while with eyes closed. She hoped always now for dreams of summer: flowers, leaves, sky, sun, colors so saturated they appeared elemental, the colors of childhood remembered.

  She had dreamed of something gray instead. She did not try to remember it.

  She did not sense the telepaths seeking her, and she did not seek them, though their silence seemed odd. Perhaps they had no more to say just now than she did.

  Slowly she realized the background noise of the video screen was not the only Soldier voice in the room. But she did not know until she opened her eyes that Kakrekt had come in, and was conversing—calmly, it seemed—with Kwek.

  The translator lay on the floor where she had dropped it. She sat up, moving with leaden slowness, and picked it up and put it on.

  “So you are awake at last,” Kakrekt said. “It seems you do nothing but sleep! No Soldier would be allowed to be so lazy!”

  There was something different about her expression. Hanna felt an edge of anxiety in her that might have accounted for it. Next to Hanna Gabriel stirred, and she glanced at him. There was more color in his face, and she thought with relief that he would be all right until supplies arrived.

  “It is time for the Warrior Kwek to mate,” Kakrekt said. “I did not notice when she arrived. I will conduct her to a breeding ground for that purpose momentarily. Perhaps you wish to observe.”

  Hanna bit back what she wanted to say with some difficulty. We could have observed at any time, instead you have kept us—

  Hidden. And Hanna suddenly understood that Kakrekt wanted to hide them further, far away, and the “breeding ground” was very far away indeed.

  She thought uneasily that Kakrekt had come in the first place to see to moving the humans; that recognizing Kwek was in breeding mode had only prompted the choice of destination, perhaps different from the one originally intended. She did not know whether to be alarmed at that or not. At least it would solve the problem of getting past the Soldier at the door.

  Gabriel was as awake now as he was going to get. He sat up and she put an arm around his shoulders.

  “Can you do this?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said, but his movements were slow and painful, his weakness apparent.

  One meal tab left. But more coming.

  • • •

  Not again. Never again. How does she get herself into these things?—conveniently overlooking his part in getting her into them.

  At least she was not presumed or feared dead this time. She was only—

  “Trapped there to starve to death?” Andrella Murphy suggested.

  “Absolutely not. We’ll blast a way in and get her out.”

  “Not the best idea you’ve ever had! We’re committed to nonaggression toward any sovereign species, and that’s what they are—”

  “Who’s decided that? They’re not a sovereign species till we say they are.”

  “We’re going to say that. How could we not? We can’t use violence except under clearly defined circumstances.”

  Jameson knew quite well what the circumstances were. Imminent war, threat of invasion, clear and immediate danger toward humanity as a whole . . . that last was the “wiggle room” clause, but even that didn’t apply here. He looked around at the others’ faces, aware that he had been running his hands through his hair and it must be standing on end. That if any other commissioner had held onto a smidgen of belief in Jameson’s ability to think calmly about Hanna, it was gone now. But none of them had believed it anyhow.

  Adair Evanomen was part of this conference; he had interrupted today’s conclave as soon as he got Bella Qu’e’n’s spluttered report. The move to get relief to Hanna and Gabriel had gone disastrously wrong, provoking Kwoort to violence for the first time, and Jameson could not keep the situation to himself. They were not in formal session. No two commissioners were even in the same physical location, some not even in the Commission complex; they were banks of faces to each other, which Jameson thought was bad enough, considering what his must show. He asked Evanomen, “What has Hanna said about their destruction of the pods?”

  “She doesn’t know about it,” Evanomen said.

  “How could she not? Bella saw it happen. If she knows all the telepaths must know.”

  “All but Hanna. They held off telling her, and now she’s otherwise occupied . . .”

  • • •

  The D’neerans’ first impulse had been to tell Hanna at once. Wake her up. Make her do something. Make her tell us what to do!

  Bella had put a halt to that just before a communal shout would have roused Hanna.

  She needs the rest, needs the strength. What can she do?

  You just don’t want to be the one who tells her!

  That, too.

  And when Hanna said they were on the move and said Can you track the com unit Kwek’s got on, Bella just said Acknowledged in a flash of pure surface thought so fast that Hanna picked up nothing more. Bella might have been proud of herself if she hadn’t felt a little ashamed.

  • • •

  Back through the interminable maze, with long ramps and endless tunnels tending more to one direction, as best as Hanna could tell, than any other—though there were intervals of turns and more turns, on Kakrekt’s orders, that Hanna suspected were meant to disorient the humans, as if they were not already confused enough. After a while she tried to estimate the vehicle’s speed to determine how far they had gone. This machine was faster than the others that had carried her, and it was larger, too, more bus than cart, perhaps meant for work crews. The two humans, Kwek, and Kakrekt, a driver and the Soldier who had guarded the door, did not come close to filling it up. But it slowed when it passed groups of Soldiers and put on bursts of speed when the corridors were empty, and finally she gave up the effort. At least she knew they weren’t going deeper underground. In fact the trend was certainly upward; but they must be moving farther
and farther out from the center, to the most distant reaches of Wektt.

  • • •

  Endeavor tracked the com unit. It was evident that the group was moving slowly toward the surface. At the same time, if inexplicable detours were discounted, it was headed in an almost straight line through honeycombed mountains toward a series of surface plateaus and passes. No one could guess how many centuries had gone into excavating these warrens and making them usable. Probably no one in Wektt could either.

  “Find out exactly what’s around them,” Metra said to Bella. “Get Bassanio to give you descriptions. Living quarters? Armories?”

  Bella hesitated. She was not going to be able to shield all her anxiety from Hanna in extended communication. After a minute she said so.

  Metra, surprisingly, seemed to understand. She said, “She’ll have to know about the supplies soon.”

  “I’d rather have a solution to offer when I tell her. Can’t I wait a little longer?”

  “No, and I don’t want the aliens’ attention drawn to that com unit. Bassanio has to get it back from Kwek. Until she does it’s up to you. Can’t you hide what’s happened to the pods? Can’t all of you shield yourselves to some extent?”

  “Yes,” Bella said reluctantly. “She’ll know I’m hiding something, though, and she could dig it out if she wants to, because I can’t shield like she can. But that wouldn’t be polite. She probably wouldn’t do it right away.”

  Bassanio? Polite? Metra thought so clearly she might as well have shouted, and Bella scowled, even as she reached for Hanna. She was sick of true-humans. Trying to soothe their fears, respond to their reality, without letting them know you saw the truth of them when they tried to hide it—how could H’ana stand it for years at a time?

  And how did she stand—

  What? came Hanna’s blurred answer.

  This. Now . . . It was Bella’s only response for a moment. Hovering on the edge of Hanna’s perception felt so strange it took a minute to adjust. She saw dimly lit passages and shadowy figures, heard a clicking sound the vehicle made, and indecipherable utterances from beings outside the translator’s range. She absorbed Hanna’s knowledge that she was going into something no human had ever seen—

  Yes, breeding chambers. Maybe the heart of the mystery . . .

  But the thought, which ought to have been eager, was sluggish. For the first time Bella perceived the real depth of Hanna’s weariness; probably Hanna was not even aware of it herself. Imprisonment and malnutrition and gray days following one another without demarcation—would she ever get over it?

  Bella. I’ve gotten over worse.

  But Hanna said it without optimism. She was grim.

  Bella drew a deep breath. It was shaky.

  What’s around you? The captain wants to know.

  Walls. Walls and more walls.

  What’s behind them, she means.

  Why?

  Because we might have to come get you.

  If you have to, but—people could get hurt. Ours and Soldiers. Could we get out on our own? Where’s the pod relative to where we are now—?

  And that was that. Bella couldn’t stop her spontaneous reaction, and Hanna saw just what Bella did not want her to see: the escape she hoped for gone up in flames, along with the precious supplies.

  • • •

  A long minute went by. Then Hanna said softly, “Translator off.” Yours too, Gabriel.

  He didn’t stir; the vehicle’s motion had sent him back to sleep.

  She patted his cheek gently and felt the dry slack skin; spoke the code again to deactivate the translator he wore. “Gabriel. Gabriel, listen . . .” His eyes opened and drowsily he turned his head, brushing her fingers with chapped lips.

  Kakrekt had not been paying attention to them, but now she looked around. Hanna said quickly, “We have to get to the surface if we can. The pod’s been destroyed, and the supplies. We have to get into position to be picked up.”

  Kakrekt said something, meaningless clicks, and Hanna said, “Listen, listen, stay with me, whatever happens, don’t lose sight of me.”

  He nodded, slowly comprehending, and she fished in her pocket and brought out the last meal tab. “Can you swallow this without water? Take it. Please try.”

  He looked at it and she saw the fate of the supplies sinking in. She felt no surprise in him, as if he had gone beyond surprise. Kakrekt was speaking again, louder now. Gabriel said hoarsely, “It’s the last one. You take it.”

  “I’m holding up better than you are. Don’t try to be gallant. Quickly!”

  In a minute Kakrekt would get up and demand to know what they were saying. Hanna said swiftly, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Bella said something about—it could be armed rescue, I think, but we’d be at risk if they do. Best to avoid it. But be ready for anything.”

  Now Kakrekt was beside them and Hanna reactivated the translator and heard Kakrekt say, “What are you talking about? You must have no secrets!”

  Hanna watched Gabriel anxiously. The big tablet did not want to go down.

  “Answer me!”

  A twinge of pain crossed his face, but he turned his head and nodded. Hanna nodded back, relieved, and finally looked at Kakrekt. “Very well,” she said calmly.

  She did not say any more while the endless ride went on. She only took Gabriel’s hand and held on.

  • • •

  “Another sixty meters up and we could guide them where they need to go,” Metra said. “I’ll show you.”

  Two more faces had joined the conference, Metra necessarily, Bella at Jameson’s insistence. Both of them were looking down at a three-dimensional map of Wektt’s subsurface. Presently it appeared, vertically oriented, over Jameson’s huge desk. At first it was blurred and wobbled a bit. When it sharpened he was surprised. He must have expected something that looked organic: curved passages like blood vessels, chambers like organs—though he could not imagine where that fancy had come from, unless something in him suggested Battleground was trying to swallow Hanna whole. Instead most of the map was straight lines and right angles, a series of rigid grids. He heard Peter Struzik complain that he could not see it and said absently, “Come here, then,” and ignored the rest of the protests. Commissioners would turn up or not, as they chose. He did not hear Andrella Murphy’s voice. She was probably already on the way to his rooms.

  “The red dot is the com unit,” Metra said. “We can pick up its signal, but we don’t quite have the capability to map what’s around it at that depth while the coordinates keep changing. The open area that appears to surround it is actually two to three levels above its real location. We think the levels above that area look like this—” The configuration changed and then changed again, and again, and once more. “Accuracy improves with each level we go higher. And finally—”

  One more change. “This is the level closest to the surface. If they can get to the upper levels we can direct them to passages leading in any direction. Actually getting to them physically—”

  Metra looked up.

  “We’ve no heavy machinery, no explosives. We have nineteen remaining servos that could dig down to them in one to four hours, depending on what level we have to reach and the geology of the site. The Admiral Wu has heavy-duty laser generators that can be calibrated to pinpoint accuracy. Those could do it in minutes.”

  “The Wu was ordered to proceed as soon as the pods were destroyed,” Jameson said. “Its ETA is twenty hours. Much too long.”

  “They’re a moving target. Starting to dig now would only alert the population and cause tremendous damage. We’d have to fight our way to them, and they might be killed before we get there. We should wait till they’re stationary, wherever they end up, if that’s at all possible.”

  She turned at Bella’s murmur and said, “What?”

  “I said, t
hey’ve just moved up another level.”

  “Good. The closer to the surface the better.”

  “Maybe,” said Bella hopefully, “that’s where they’re taking her.”

  “There is another possibility,” Metra said. “There are shafts to the surface. Some of them are sheer verticals, others rise at an angle. They’re probably for ventilation, but they should be accessible. There might even be ladders in place in the verticals.”

  Jameson said, “If you were obsessed with potential invaders, would you leave ladders handy? I wouldn’t count on it. And I’d question whether either of them has the strength left to climb.”

  “Alternatively, if we can guide them to a shaft we should be able to pull them out,” Metra said. “Depending on the resistance we meet.”

  “Pull them out alive, I hope.”

  “They’re getting out alive. I won’t settle for less,” Metra said, and for the first time Jameson almost liked her.

  • • •

  Hanna saw Kakrekt’s attention sharpen, apparently at nothing. She heard Kakrekt whisper, apparently to nobody, and focused her own awareness. She had forgotten the small devices Soldiers used as communicators; Kakrekt had one tucked into her ear, invisible under an inner fold, and had just gotten bad news. Hanna waited to hear about it, but Kakrekt did not even look at her. She asked outright, finally: “Kakrekt Commander, is something wrong?”

  Kakrekt looked at her, debating an answer. Finally she said, “The Holy Man is displeased that you are not in your quarters.”

  Hanna said, because it seemed important though she was not sure why, “Does he know where we are?”

  “No,” Kakrekt said. “No one knows where we are going.” Good, Hanna thought, but then Kakrekt said, “Not yet. But there are Soldiers who will tell him which way we have passed, and he may deduce our destination.”

  Bad, Hanna thought, because she understood now that Kakrekt did not only want to hide them from other humans; she thought they would be safer hidden away from Kwoort.

  • • •

  Another ramp, up again. Bella said Hanna had to seek out the thoughts of more Soldiers. Hanna didn’t want to. She had begun to fade in and out, and think in scraps. Perhaps if she had not given the last meal tab to Gabriel . . . but he had needed it so badly . . .