by Tom Kratman
It was easy, baby, when I first began. Then it was all abstract; I didn't have to think. And I was too full of hate to feel much else.
I wish it were over. But it never will be, will it? Not in my lifetime.
He stopped thinking for a while, feeling the cool night air, seeing the twinkling stars, and conscious of the pistol strapped to his chest.
That would be the easy way, wouldn't it. And I'd like to; I really would. But I can't do that either. I owe it to you and the babies to continue the fight. And I owe it to my men not to abandon them.
I owe it to Lourdes, too, her and the new baby. And . . .
Sada materialized next to the supply pallet. "Ruqaya says it's time, Patricio."
Sitting up, Carrera tossed the cigarette. It would never do to bring fire inside a place where pure oxygen flowed. He stood and turned to follow Sada to the maternity ward. At the door, a nurse helped him into a hospital gown. Sada stayed outside as Carrera entered.
The look on Lourdes' face was one of pure excruciation. Standing in the adobe field hospital, wearing the hospital gown to cover his battle dress, Carrera took her hand. He felt every contraction and spasm right along with her. Though Sada was not allowed into the delivery room, his wife, Ruqaya, held Lourdes' other hand, stroked her damp hair and forehead and whispered words of encouragement to her.
Carrera had tried to send Lourdes back. In this one particular, though, her will had been iron.
"My mother bore four children with never a doctor in attendance," she'd said. "My grandmother had eight and all in her own bed, on her own and my grandfather's farm. Without even electricity. I'm no wilting flower, either. I am your woman. My place is with you and I WILL NOT GO!"
It was a surprising show of resistance from such a normally serene and cooperative person. He'd known he was not going to win that fight. Instead, bowing to the inevitable, he'd flown in an obstetrician from Balboa. At some level he'd felt a certain guilt about that; using his position for special consideration for his own family.
Am I becoming like the Balboans, placing family first? Am I becoming like the Islamics? Certainly Adnan and Ruqaya, Fernandez and Jimenez, and—so far as I can tell—each and every one of the troops, approved. I must think on this . . . later.
To his own question he'd had no answer or, in any event, not one that satisfied. He'd sent the doctor out, always under heavy guard, to deliver babies all over the BZOR to try to give the appearance of having brought specialist medical aid for the mission and not for his own sake or that of his new wife.
And in that, too, it seems I am becoming more like my enemies. Do I care so much about appearances? I never did before.
And that was another thing. A few days before he'd had one of his horrible nightmares. This one was different, though. Linda had been there, as usual, along with Julio, Lambie and Milagro. But so had Lourdes and the baby.
It was the picnic nightmare, again, only with the oddity that Lourdes and Linda, both, were his wives and seemed quite content with that situation. It was positively Islamic and even worse than usual when all six screamed and turned to rotten meat, then crumbling bones, before his eyes.
His reveries were interrupted by a loud, piercing, wailing scream from Lourdes and a painful squeeze of his hand. Her head was up off her pillow, bobbing as she gasped for air. In a few moments of hard struggle it was over. Lourdes' head returned to her pillow. She still gasped and—Carrera had no doubt—was still in agony. Compared to agony of actual delivery, though, what she felt now was probably small beans. Indeed, by comparison it was likely pure relief. He could see that on the smile that shone through her tears.
Carrera heard a slap and then one very, very affronted wail. He was distantly aware of the flash of a scalpel and of the baby being passed to Ruqaya.
"Behold, Patricio," Ruqaya said, flicking a miniature penis with an index finger, "you have a son."
Before placing the child at Lourdes' breast, Ruqaya held the boy's tiny ear to her mouth and whispered, "La illaha illa Allah; Muhammadan rasulu Allah." There is no God but God; Muhammad is the prophet of God.
Carrera let it be. On the other hand, What religion should the boy be raised in? I'm a Catholic, if a bad one. Lourdes is Baptist, and a good one. But, who knows; maybe Ruqaya has a point.
Nah.
He looked at the boy again, now nuzzled into his mother, and felt something he had not felt in a very long time. It wasn't love; he loved Lourdes and had for a lot longer than he'd been willing to admit it. If she was not Linda, she was still the finest—and based on her just concluded delivery one of the toughest and bravest—human beings on the planet.
No . . . it's not love that I feel anew. It's . . . it's . . . He struggled with the concept before realizing, It's a sense of future, of having a continuing place in the march of Man. I lost it when Linda and the children were killed. Lourdes has just given it back to me.
With his right palm stroking Lourdes' hair he bent over her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I love you, Lourdes," he said. "In all this world I love you and our child above all. You, and he, have given me my future back."
And for that future I will fight.
Carrera rested his head upon hers and lay that way for several minutes. At length, he became aware of a hubbub of sorts coming from outside the field hospital.
Sada stuck his head in the door. "Patricio, there are over a thousand soldiers outside, maybe two thousand, including mine, and they want to see the baby."
Looking at Lourdes, Carrera saw her smile again and head nod, weakly. "Show them, Patricio," she said.
The doctor shrugged and said, "I think it's safe enough. There are some stairs down the hallway that lead to the roof. You can use those."
"Show them, Patricio," Ruqaya agreed.
Gingerly, for he had not held a newborn in a very long time, Carrera took the still naked child from Lourdes' breast and placed it on his own shoulder, one hand under the baby's head. The baby—they'd already agreed he would be named Hamilcar Xavier Adnan Carrera- Nuñez—took it pretty well, not crying but peering curiously at the out-of-focus, barely perceived world around him.
Lots different from my last digs, thought little Hamilcar. Might be fun. And there's so much more room to grow here.
Still cradling the baby, Carrera gave Lourdes another warm and gentle look. Then he left the delivery room and walked to the stairs, Sada and Ruqaya following. These they ascended. At the top of the stairs they emerged onto the roof, itself surrounded by a low adobe wall built in the Arab fashion. Stars shone down on the roof, as did Hecate and Bellona. There was a murmuring sound, as if coming from thousands of throats. The sound was gentle and quiet, though, as if, also, those making it were reluctant to disturb the new mother.
New mother or not, the murmur arose to a roar when the legionaries of el Cid and the askaris of Sada's brigade saw Carrera's head, then shoulders, and then the baby.
To the roar of the men was added a round of mass applause. Good job, Legate. Fine work, Lourdes. Welcome to the legion, little one.
Carrera placed one hand, then the other, under Hamilcar's arms and gently lifted him overhead, to display to the troops. The applause and the cheering grew louder still, which seemed not to bother the baby one bit.
Behold my son, Carrera thought. Behold: I have a future. And for that future I will fight.
Carrera looked up at the sky once again, looked at the stars, and wondered which of them were ships of the UEPF.
On the horizon, Eris was just beginning to rise anew.
III
Robinson sat on the observation deck of Spirit of Peace watching as Eris rose and Hecate prepared to plunge behind the planet. In his hand he held hard copies of dispatches from the Consensus on Earth.
The future is black, he thought. Everything is going black. I should nuke Terra Nova now, while I can.
It wasn't just the situation in Sumer that had Robinson's mood down in the pits. The dispatches from home were at least as depressing: riot
s in Rome—the caliph had been torn limb from limb by a mob. Raiders from the reversions—those areas on Old Earth that the Consensus lacked the means or will to keep civilized—had struck civilization in three places; just west of the Dahlonega Glacier, along the edge of the Arabian reversion area, and at the mines in central Africa. The Consensus itself was split, with some advocating further pullbacks from the reversions and others—notably the druids and neopagans—demanding an increase in the strength of the security forces to roll back the reverted areas.
So they're compromising by ordering me to send back half my security force. How the hell am I supposed to even guard Atlantis Base with half my troops, such as they are, gone? What will be next; ordering me to send back half the fleet to nuke the reversions into submission?
Oh, Holy Annan, what am I to do?
Robinson placed his elbows on his thighs, rested his head in his hands, and tried desperately to think.
All right, my best way of guarding Atlantis Base is probably bluff. I think I can keep the locals from sensing half my force is gone by ordering the remainder to be more aggressive about their patrols and enforcing the exclusion zone to surface shipping and air transport even more rigorously than we do. That will help . . . for a while, anyway.
Robinson's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of elevator doors whooshing open, then closed, and soft footsteps on the deck behind him. He recognized the footsteps.
"Hello, Marguerite," he said, raising his head from his hands but staring out the large rectangular viewport rather than turning to see her.
"High Admiral," Peace's captain answered, with an unseen nod. She knew what was troubling him; she'd seen the dispatches from Earth before he had and she knew that Sumer was, from the Earth's and Robinson's point of view, a failure.
She gracefully took a seat on the padded bench next to Robinson. There she remained, quietly, allowing him to continue to think undisturbed.
Robinson broke the line of silence by saying, "It's odd, isn't it? That, outside of Europe, it is the first areas of home to come under real Consensus control that were also the first to revert? That, outside of Europe, it is the areas that came in last that provide the core and the strength to our system?"
Wallenstein shrugged. She tried not to think about that, nor about what it implied for the system as a whole.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Send them the troops, I suppose. Though I'm sorely tempted to recruit some mercenaries like that Carrera bastard and ship them to help the Consensus with its problems."
"Martin, you can't! If the locals ever saw what home was like—"
"I know that," he answered. "I wasn't serious when I said it. Send back thousands of local mercenaries who are not only willing to but actually know how to fight? Abomination! They'd destroy our system of governance even faster than the reverters would. And we could never control them."
Wallenstein breathed a small sigh of relief. "So you will send the troops back. How will we keep Atlantis Base secured?"
"The same way we keep the FSC from blowing us from the sky— bluff."
"And if we're discovered? If someone calls our bluff?"
"Marguerite . . . I don't know."
"The longer it takes to win down below, the more likely it is our bluff will be called," the captain observed.
Robinson sighed, himself. "That much I do know. I think we're going to have to help Mustafa and the TU to destroy the FSC more directly than I've been willing to. There's only so much time, after all."
Wallenstein nodded. The two went silent then, as the orbits of Bellona and Eris carried the moons to close juncture. After long minutes she stood and walked to a panel to the right of the transparent view screen. There she pressed a button. From either side doors began slowly and silently to close on the scene. She walked and stood in front of the high admiral of the fleet.
"Come, Martin. Let's go to bed. Tomorrow we can begin to plan. Pashtia, do you think?"
"Yes," he said, rising and taking her hand. "They've won too much already. In Pashtia we will break them, because we must."
To be continued.
WARNING: Read further at your own risk.
Afterword
This is becoming a habit, you know, and probably not a good one. But you had some questions, you said? Something about Kosmos, on our world known as "Tranzis," torture, and the prospect of becoming what you fight.
I'll try to answer . . . and to be brief . . . something I have signally failed to do with this book and fully expect to fail in future volumes, of which there may be as many as eight. Pull up a chair. Scotch? Iced or neat? The cigars are in the humidor over there. Try one of those Magnum Force #42s. They're just excellent.
I had cause, recently, to do some research on the definition of insanity. One I found, and that I almost agreed with, said that "Insanity consists of doing everything the same and expecting a different result." I say "almost" because there is a corollary to that: "Insanity also consists of doing everything differently and expecting the same result."
This is perhaps the only real difference between a current day Marxist and a current day Transnational Progressive, or Tranzi. The Marxist expects a different result from doing everything important the same, as if there is any freedom that doesn't include economic freedom, as if there is any path to socialism that will not be paved with bodies, as if socialism has ever managed to create anything beyond corpses, poverty and oppression . . . oh, and lots of pieces of third-rate military equipment and a new entrenched upper class backed by a ruthless secret police and outrageous propaganda, too, of course.
The Tranzi, on the other hand, expects to maintain and expand modern, enlightened, prosperous, liberal society while opening up the borders that shelter that society to unlimited numbers of the least assimilable and most reactionary, most traditional and hidebound, least economically productive cultures on the face of the Earth. This wouldn't be so bad, or so insane, did they not at the same time insist that nothing be done to even try to assimilate the immigrants from those cultures to modern, enlightened, liberal values. (Do you suppose there were pro-Vandal, pro-Hun and pro-Goth immigration public interest groups in ancient Rome? Societies usually rot from the inside out so it does seem likely.)
The Tranzi also insists on enlightening the rest of the world, but rejects any and every means that might actually work.
This, friend, is the other kind of insanity.
Of course, that first definition is not the only interesting quote that has an amusing corollary. For example, it has been said more than once that you should choose enemies wisely, because you are going to become just or, at least, much like them. The corollary to this is that your enemies are also going to become very like you.
In human conflict this really is and always has been everywhere apparent: Hannibal adopts Roman arms and something like the manipular legion for his forces. Sparta and Rome, landpowers to begin, face Athens and Carthage, seapowers, and both Rome and Sparta build enormous and effective fleets. German tank designers adopt Russian tank design philosophies. Russians become operationally deft. British and American troops are plagued with Indian irregular tactics and techniques during the French and Indian War and so adopt light infantry and riflemen. The Soviet Union provides free meals to school children and we begin to as well. (And then there are those, all over the world, who hate the United States and express that hatred regularly and virulently. One wonders why they never contemplate what it will be like when we begin to really hate them. They should be afraid, very afraid.)
It's partly propaganda driven but partly also driven by the act and process of learning from those who have most to teach us, by harming us, our enemies.
If I could speak now to our enemies, I would say: Do you kill innocent civilians for shock value? So will we learn to do, in time. Do you torture and murder prisoners? So will we. Are you composed of religious fanatics? Well, since humanistic secularism seems ill-suited to deal
with you, don't be surprised if we turn to our churches and temples to find the strength to defeat and destroy you. Do you randomly kill our loved ones to send us a message? Don't be surprised, then, when we begin to target your families, specifically, to send the message that our loved ones are not stationery.
This seems lost on the current enemy but, then, he's insane. It's very sad. Yes, it's very sad for us, too.
In any case, that, friend, is some of what I've tried to illustrate in this book. Do I like torture? No. It's a nasty technique that dirties everything it touches. No sane man who engages in it is likely to ever be quite right in his head and heart again, for he will have seen man at his lowest and joined him there. No sane man ought want to engage in it. No society that uses it to any great extent is likely to feel moral again for quite some time.
This, however, is not the same thing as saying it never works, as any number of either very stupid or very dishonest people have tried to claim.
(Do I like reprising against civilians who happen to share blood and culture with specific enemies? No. I don't particularly like reprising against, in effect, wounded in hospitals that an enemy is using for ammo dumps, either. The latter, however, is clearly necessary sometimes and, when your enemy is socially organized not as formal military units but around ties of blood, the former may well be unavoidable if the enemy is to be deterred from certain kinds of conduct. Or beaten, for that matter.)
Stupid and dishonest . . . it's sometimes hard to tell the difference, isn't it? What's one to make of a politician, one who has experienced torture personally, to all appearances a decent and brave man, who can say in one breath that (I'm probably paraphrasing, here), "People will say anything under torture," and in the next say, "Torture doesn't work"? He's either dishonestly pandering to the crowd (Am I being redundant by saying "politician" and "dishonestly pandering to the crowd"? I suppose I am.) or he's too dumb to realize that, if torture's that bad, and with a modicum of ability to spot-check for truth, the victim of torture will also tell the truth rather than risk more torture. One has to wonder about the fitness for high office of such a man. I mean, really? It's being neither cleverly dishonest nor honestly stupid. I'd prefer he say, "Even though torture works, we would prefer to be destroyed or enslaved than violate our principles and use it."
