Planetfall

by L. E. Howel

  It was her cheerful goodness that had done it. He had hated her for it, but she wouldn’t give up. That persistent sunshine had broken through into his dank soul and let all the light in. Even now, if she would just say the right words, he knew he would be helpless. She would know everything.

  “Why can’t you accept my thanks? You and Carlos both saved my life. I would be dead without you. I only wish he could be here too; you both were so brave.”

  “DeSante was brave,” Birch muttered stiffly, “he did what he didn’t have to do. He should have stayed with the others. I’m your commanding officer; I did what I had to do. I am sorry he was lost. He is the one you should admire.”

  “You’re right, I do admire him, but I admire you too. I can’t understand why you always seem so unwilling to accept the good in yourself. You like to blame every good thing you’ve done on duty or honor. Why can’t you just accept that you are good and that you have been brave?”

  Karla was a wily one, Birch thought to himself. She appeared to have found his one weak spot and even now seemed to be prizing at the lid of his innermost thoughts. It was that word again, ‘brave’, ‘brave’, ‘brave’. She kept hammering it into his head like nails and he couldn’t stand to hear it again.

  “Oh, shut-up,” he stormed. “Just shut-up you stupid little girl! I’m not brave. If I was I wouldn’t even be here. And I don’t even know the first thing about duty or honor. I just do the same as everybody else, whatever it takes to survive.

  “I saved you because I could. At least I thought I could. I could handle that, but I can’t handle you. Get out of my head! Get out of my business! Get out of my past! It’s all dead. They’re all dead. Never again, I don’t want to go there again! Leave it alone. Leave me alone.” He flung the covers aside and walked out into the storm. After a moment’s silence she followed him.

  “What’s the matter?” Karla’s voice was soft. “How can I help?” Birch’s back was to her. He said nothing, but stood looking into the tempest. The hail had thinned and the smaller pellets stung his skin as they fell onto his face. Finally he turned to her.

  “Nothing can help anymore,” he responded sadly. She hardly recognized his voice, stripped as it was of its customary authority. “The past,” he mumbled, “is a place you can never visit. Oh, you can imagine you’re there. You can even go back to the places, but you can never go back to it. You should know that. Your precious town was gone wasn’t it? It was a broken shell of itself, and nothing you could do would put it back together again.

  “Sometimes,” he growled, “the past is just like a useless weight hanging around your neck. It drowns you.”

  “That’s true,” Karla put a hand on his stiff back, “if you let it. Sometimes you just have to let go of the weight or it will drag you down. I’ve had to do it. I’m still fighting it now, but the fact that I could walk through Goodland proved that I can make it. I was sad, but I accepted the way things are. I have made peace with my own memories. You have to do the same.”

  “Well, that’s just fine,” Birch snapped, “but maybe your memories are a lot easier to make peace with. What have you got to be sorry about? That your parents didn’t understand you? That’s hardly a lot to feel guilty about, you didn’t do anything wrong, so what’s the problem? My memories are a lot harder to deal with than anything you’ve got.”

  “Then let them go.”

  Birch turned to look at Karla. “I want too. I’ve let everything else go, but that’s my one punishment, the memories remain. You call me brave, but my memories call me coward. They live to remind me in every waking moment of what I really am.

  “If ever I do anything right or good, my memories are there to remind me that I am a fake- a sham- a non-hero! If I stand up today I know that if only things got hard enough I would run tomorrow. Perhaps the mission has proved that true. I’ve run back to earth and see what it’s gotten us.”

  “No,” Karla’s voice was firm, even indignant. “You did what was best for all of us, despite what the others said. It was a brave decision you made, to stand up and do what was right, despite orders. You saved our lives.”

  Birch’s hands went to his head. “There you go with that word again. Stop it! It’s going through my head like electricity! I’m not brave. Let me tell you how brave I am, I came on this mission because of fear. I was a coward. I was far less brave walking onto that ship and being blasted out into the universe than I would have been if I had just stayed home and loved my wife.”

  “You left a wife behind? That’s hard.”

  “No, it was easy. You don’t know all of it.

  “When I was a teenager my uncle died. He had one of those wasting cancers that took months to kill him. We would go up and visit him every week or two. For months we’d go, and he’d be weaker and thinner every time. It was like I could see the life being sucked out of him. The last time we went before he died my mom took some pictures, the last memories of her brother. You want to know the stupid thing? Something went wrong with the camera. The battery died or something and she fiddled with it, trying to get it working, but she couldn’t.

  “When we got home she looked through the pictures, and there it was. The last picture on the card, what was supposed to be his last picture, was messed up because she’d pushed the button on the couch, trying to fix it. Instead of his last picture she took a picture of the cushions. It might almost be funny but there were times when I caught her looking at that picture of cushions and crying over it. Sorrow makes us fools.”

  “I knew then that I couldn’t handle that kind of thing. I could see my uncle’s family pulling together for the last hard moments, and in the end they were all gathered about his bed as he breathed his last. But I was glad to leave. Every week it was like stepping into a living mausoleum. The place was cold and dead. We spoke in hushed voices and thought of delicate things to say to him, things that didn’t mention the future. Every week I was so glad that I was the one leaving that place, not staying behind, not dabbing his forehead, not helping.

  “Maybe you suspect what I’m going to tell you next, but it did happen to me. I faced that situation again with Sarah, but this time it was my own family, my wife. I was to be the one at the bedside. Others would come and visit, others would sympathize, and above all, others would be glad when they could leave my house. Looking down that dark, narrow tunnel I couldn’t take it. I left.”

  “You left?”

  “I left. I didn’t even pack or anything. I went out the front door, and I never came back. I can remember almost every step I took to the car. It seemed that they should have been marked in blood, for it felt like murder I did that day. I would erase them if I could, but they have left an indelible mark. Everywhere I go they follow me. I’ve been half way across the universe and still they follow me.

  “And here we are, back on earth again, but I can never go back home.”

  “You see now, lieutenant, that I wasn’t brave to join this mission; it was just what I needed, a chance to run. I signed up the very next day. By the time the Agency found out the situation, the condition of my wife, the publicity for Hypnos III was in full swing and they didn’t want to look bad. They covered it up, and so I got my chance to run, to run as far as our technology could allow. Funny thing though, I’ve found you can run from a lot of things, but you never can outrun yourself. Now, no matter how busy I am, or what I do, or where I go, those footsteps follow me. Sometimes, in my mind, I can hear them still, echoing the truth of what I really am. So, lieutenant, don’t call me ‘brave’. But of course you won’t, now that you know what I really am.”

  He sighed wearily. “It’s strange. It hurts more now than if I’d just stayed. I ran to escape the pain, but now it’s worse! Now there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s dead; they’re all dead, aren’t they? But I can’t mourn them. I don’t deserve that because I ran away. I’ve never been able to cry for Sarah, and I think that hurts the most. It’s a pain right in here that no surgeon could ever
remove.” He gestured to his chest before letting his hands fall limply to his side.

  Karla was silent. The hail had turned to a rain that was drenching them both, but neither of them moved. Raindrops streamed down their damp faces, but still they didn’t move. Finally Karla raised a hand and wiped the water away from Birch’s eyes.

  “We better get out of the wet,” she whispered softly. Birch nodded.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  They heard them coming before they saw them. The splashing clump of horse’s hooves on the muddy ground sounded distantly. Karla and Birch turned suddenly and in the darkness of the night could just make out a large band of riders urging their horses on at great speed. Instinctively Birch knew that these were no friends.

  “Get down,” he hissed as he dropped to the ground. Karla did the same and they lay there, hoping they hadn’t been seen. No other hope remained. They couldn’t defend themselves against such a great number. All they could do was rely on this single wish as they hid among the tall grass.

  The ground was wet. A steady drizzle still fell from the sky and their already wet clothes seemed to soak up the moisture as they lay, clinging to the earth. They had given up on their blanket tent. It had deteriorated to a sodden lump, and they had started walking eastward again. They had wrung their coverings as best they could and slung them over the top of their backpacks. Their heavy weight and dripping dampness was no comfort now, but they would need them again later.

  Fearfully they watched the riders, looking for any indication that they had been seen, any change of direction or sudden movement that would show that they were now their new target. Nothing happened. For now, at least, it seemed they had escaped detection.

  Birch moved slowly through the long grass, trying to get a better look at the men as they passed. His gun was drawn, ready for conflict, but he went unnoticed as the horses whipped through the weeds and on toward the south. There was a long line of them, a huge column of wild eyed, wide nostrilled beasts, both man and animal. The Ares and their horses were like one wild entity, thrashing and flailing with all their might to reach their goal. The horses’ mouths foamed and their skin was wet with perspiration. Their riders, grim faced and snarling, were whipping their mounts mercilessly. They thundered by at an incredible gallop, with hooves thudding hard against the soft mud and sending up little clumps of grass and dirt behind them as they scuffed through the countryside. The tall grass hid Birch and Karla well, but these riders seemed too preoccupied with their journey to have noticed much around them anyway.

  “I’d hate to be where they’re going,” Birch muttered thoughtfully. “I wonder what they’re after in such a hurry.”

  “Here come some more,” Karla pointed to a second group riding up over the horizon. Their band seemed wilder and more furious than the last. Birch shook his head.

  “Something big must be happening and it looks like it has to be close by or those horses will never make it at the pace they’re running. Once they pass we better make a dash for the east and see if we can escape the net. I have a feeling it’s going to get pretty hot around here very quickly.”

  ***

  The trucks started up again. They had spent some hours waiting, but now, finally, the weather had cleared enough for them to continue. As he looked out the window Edwards could see the rain falling still from the dark, leaden sky. It was dark, but they wouldn’t be making camp tonight. Their orders were clear: run! Don’t stop for anything, just run!

  As Edwards watched the raindrops made little streams and chased each other down the window to the bottom. Identical droplets, all fighting, pushing, merging against the glass, until they had all rolled off and disappeared. They would all be gone until the next rain, and then they would do it all over again. Sometimes nature could amaze you.

  From near to distant, Edwards’ eyes changed focus as he tried to look into darkness. He saw something on the horizon that stopped the breath in his mouth. A movement! A great, dark mass rising and falling in the distance, like some mighty leviathan with thousands of writhing limbs. It was swarming toward them. Quickly he picked up his radio.

  “Linkhorn,” he shouted into the transmitter, “attack coming in from the north!”

  ***

  Birch had been waiting for the steady stream of gray riders and horses to dry up. It almost seemed that they never would, for they continued by in hundreds, perhaps even thousands by the time the last stragglers had passed. It was going to be a mighty battle, wherever they were going. He hoped that whoever they were after would be able to defend themselves. He doubted it; he remembered what Edwards had said about them only taking on enemies they knew they could defeat.

  Finally, after the last of them had disappeared to the south, they prepared to go. Both he and Karla were exhausted but neither trusted this gloomy landscape. They wanted to move on.

  It was as they were starting to move away that Birch saw it, a single rider, a straggler no doubt trying to catch up with the others.

  “Look,” Birch whispered to Karla as he pointed to the horseman approaching in the distance. “We’d get back east a lot quicker if we had a horse. It would sure beat walking.”

  “Great idea,” Karla answered, “how are you going to get it though.”

  “Watch,” he pulled his rifle from the side of his backpack.

  “No,” Karla held his arm, “you can’t do that. You can’t shoot a man as he rides by. Defending yourself is one thing, but that’s cold blood.”

  “Cold blood?” Birch pulled his arm from Karla and clicked the safety off the rifle.

  “What do you think they’re all riding over there for, a church picnic perhaps? No, they’re sending out a huge force to swamp and destroy some poor outnumber souls, you can be sure of that. Well I’m about to even the odds, at least by one. It’s just the same as they’d do for me.”

  “No,” Karla persisted, “don’t sell your standards for theirs. It’s always a bad trade. Keep your own or you’ve kept nothing at all. Haven’t you already got enough blood on your conscience?”

  Birch spun violently around and shoved Karla down to the ground, leveling the gun at her for a moment before his flaming eyes cooled and he turned to look again at the approaching rider.

  “Don’t ever use what I said against me,” he spat. “You should know how cold I can be. I’m lost. Didn’t I tell you I couldn’t even cry for those I loved, I’m not going to cry for this guy who I don’t even know. He is my enemy and I will do what I need to win here.”

  “I doubt you’ll ever win,” Karla’s voice was faint and Birch’s attention was focused on the approaching rider, “because I don’t think you know who your enemy really is.”

  ‘Crack, crack’, the rifle shot twice in quick succession. The rider fell to the ground, but the horse was spooked by the sound and reared up before galloping on toward the south. Birch threw down the rifle and chased after the animal. It stopped a few hundred yards away and lay down, but when he approached it his heart sank. Blood. Somehow he must have hit the dumb beast at the same time as its Ares rider. Now it was useless, dead. He started back toward Karla. She was bending over the fallen Ares.

  “Good shot,” she commented dryly, “you got them both.”

  Birch shrugged. “Just lucky I guess. Let’s move on.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  When the order came through it astonished Edwards. He asked for confirmation, and as Linkhorn’s voice crackled again over the speaker it was clear that things were going to be very different from his expectations. They were going to break rank. Usual practice was to stick together and form whatever barricade they could against the Ares, pioneer fashion. Sometimes it worked. It was usually most effective in the small scale attacks of the past. Even with larger offensives, it seemed to Edwards to be the best option. It had helped to save them in the mountains. Not this time though. They had been told to flee, scatter as quickly as they could in all directions.

  Perhaps it was the scale of the attack that had ins
pired this decision, the fear that they were dead either way, and that at least running would make them a moving target. Whatever the reason, the convoy split apart as a great, dark mass of horses and riders hurtled toward them, swarming over the land in full battle array like black beetles. No barricade could have stopped them. These were not the groundlings of the mountain battle. These were the Death Riders, the scourge of the plains and as fearless as they were frenzied. They would not scare so easily. Perhaps running was their only option.

  What was incredible, again, was their numbers. Like all Ares groups they had always fought on the small scale, little bands of riders picking off small convoys and using their speed to escape across the plains. Now, like the rest of the world, they had gone mad. Their numbers were incredible, Edwards had never even suspected that this many could exist, but here they were, and all ranged against them. Indeed, they must run, run fast.

  Still they came. They seemed to fill the horizon like a dark cloud that swiftly covered the earth around them. Edwards swerved his truck toward the east and accelerated as quickly as he could. Behind them red lights flashed and boomed as the missile launcher shot a barrage into the advancing throng. Fierce explosions blistered up sending clumps of Ares and their horses into the air in a shower of dirt and debris. It didn’t make any difference. The hole that they left was quickly filled with more riders chasing after them. The missiles shot again and again, but with the same result. Whatever breaches they made quickly disappeared as more and more attackers poured through.

  The missile launcher moved slowly away. The other trucks scattered more quickly in as many directions as they could. There were two choices, use the truck’s weaponry to attack the advancing enemy, or run and hide in the darkness. Then, perhaps, in the gloom of night they might yet escape, if only they ran quickly enough. He knew it was hopeless; the Ares lived in the dark, but it seemed a better chance than standing up to fight against such numbers. They would run silently with their tail between their legs, giving themselves the faint hope of fighting another day.