by John Scalzi
After Coral, the CDF gave me a series of cushy assignments, beginning with a stint touring the colonies as the CDF's latest hero, showing the colonists how The Colonial Defense Forces Are Fighting For YOU! I got to sit in a lot of parades and judge a lot of cooking contests. After a few months of that I was ready to do something else, although it was finally nice to be able to visit a planet or two and not have to kill everyone who was there.
After my PR stint, the CDF had me ride herd on new recruit transport ships. I was the guy who got to stand in front of a thousand old people in new bodies and tell them to have fun, and then a week later tell them that in ten years, three-quarters of them would be dead. This tour of duty was almost unbearably bittersweet. I'd go into the dining hall on the transport ship and see groups of new friends coalescing and bonding, the way I did with Harry and Jesse, Alan and Maggie, Tom and Susan. I wondered how many of them would make it. I hoped all of them would. I knew that most of them wouldn't. After a few months of this I asked for a different assignment. Nobody said anything about it. It wasn't the sort of assignment that anyone wanted to do for a very long time.
Eventually I asked to go back into combat. It's not that I like combat, although I'm strangely good at it. It's just that in this life, I am a soldier. It was what I agreed to be and to do. I intended to give it up one day, but until then, I wanted to be on the line. I was given a company and assigned to the Taos. It's where I am now. It's a good ship. I command good soldiers. In this life, you can't ask for much more than that.
Never seeing Jane again is rather less dramatic. After all, there's not much to not seeing someone. Jane took the first shuttle up to the Amarillo; the ship's doctor there took one look at her Special Forces designation and wheeled her into the corner of the medical bay, to remain in stasis until they returned to Phoenix and she could be worked on by Special Forces medical technicians. I eventually made it back to Phoenix on the Bakersfield. By that time Jane was deep in the bowels of the Special Forces medical wing and unreachable by a mere mortal such as myself, even if I was a newly minted hero.
Shortly thereafter I was decorated, promoted and made to begin my barnstorming tour of the colonies. I eventually received word from Major Crick that Jane had recuperated and was reassigned, along with most of the surviving crew of the Sparrowhawk, to a new ship called the Kite. Beyond that, it did no good to try to send Jane a message. The Special Forces were the Special Forces. They were the Ghost Brigades. You're not supposed to know where they're going or what they're doing or even that they're there in front of your own face.
I know they're there, however. Whenever Special Forces soldiers see me, they ping me with their BrainPals—short little bursts of emotional information, signifying respect. I am the only real-born to have served in Special Forces, however briefly; I rescued one of their own and I snatched mission success out of the jaws of partial mission failure. I ping back, acknowledging the salute, but otherwise I outwardly say nothing to give them away. Special Forces prefer it that way. I haven't seen Jane again on Phoenix or elsewhere.
But I've heard from her. Shortly after I was assigned to the Taos, Asshole informed me I had a message waiting from an anonymous sender. This was new; I had never received an anonymous message via BrainPal before. I opened it. I saw a picture of a field of grain, a farmhouse in the distance and a sunrise. It could have been a sunset, but that's not the feeling that I got. It took me a second to realize the picture was supposed to be a postcard. Then I heard her voice, a voice that I knew all my life from two different women.
You once asked me where Special Forces go when we retire, and I told you that I didn't know — she sent. But I do know. We have a place where we can go, if we like, and learn how to be human for the first time. When it's time, I think I'm going to go. I think I want you to join me. You don't have to come. But if you want to, you can. You're one of us, you know.
I paused the message for a minute, and started it up again, when I was ready.
Part of me was once someone you loved — she sent. I think that part of me wants to be loved by you again, and wants me to love you as well. I can't be her. I can just be me. But I think you could love me if you wanted to. I want you to. Come to me when you can. I'll be here.
That was it.
I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it without regret, because I knew that what she was was not contained in that hole in the ground. I entered a new life and found her again, in a woman who was entirely her own person. When this life is done, I'll turn away from it without regret as well, because I know she waits for me, in another, different life.
I haven't seen her again, but I know I will. Soon. Soon enough.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel's path to publication was filled with excitement and surprises, and along the way so many people provided help and/or encouragement that it's hard to know where to begin.
But let's begin with the people who had a hand in putting together the book you have in your hands right this instant. First and foremost, thanks to Patrick Nielsen Hayden for buying the thing and then judiciously providing the edits. Thanks also to Teresa Nielsen Hayden for her inestimable good work, sense, advice and conversation. Donato Giancola provided the hardcover cover art, which is far cooler than I could have hoped for. He rocks, as does Irene Gallo, who I hope is by now a Beach Boys fan. Thanks also to John Harris for the cover art on the paperback editions. Everyone else at Tor: All my thanks, and I promise to learn your names by the next book.
Early on several people offered their services as "beta testers," and I offered a space in the acknowledgments in return. Stupid me, I lost the full list (it's been a couple of years), but some of the people who provided feedback include (in no particular order) Erin Rourke, Mary Anne Glazar, Christopher McCullough, Steve Adams, Alison Becker, Lynette Millett, James Koncz, Tiffany Caron and Jeffrey Brown. There were at least this many whom I've forgotten, and whose names I can't find in my E-mail archives. I beg their forgiveness, thank them for their efforts and promise that I'll keep better records next time. I swear.
I am indebted to the following science fiction/fantasy writers and editors for their help and/or friendship, with the hope of returning both favors: Cory Doctorow, Robert Charles Wilson, Ken MacLeod, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfeld, Charlie Stross, Naomi Kritzer, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Susan Marie Groppi, and most particularly Nick Sagan, whose family name I appropriated in the novel (a tribute to his father), and who in addition to becoming a good friend is a valued member of the Nick and John Mutual Ass-Kicking Society. Much success to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg, who now has the task of convincing people to publish this book in all sorts of different languages.
Thanks to friends and family who helped keep me from going insane. In no particular order: Deven Desai, Kevin Stampfl, Daniel Mainz, Shara Zoll, Natasha Kordus, Stephanie Lynn, Karen Meisner, Stephen Bennett, Cian Chang, Christy Gaitten, John Anderson, Rick McGinnis, Joe Rybicki, Karen and Bob Basye, Ted Rall, Shelley Skinner, Eric Zorn, Pamela Ribon (you're up!), Mykal Burns, Bill Dickson and Regan Avery. A tip of the hat to Whatever readers and By The Way readers, who have had to suffer through me blogging about the publishing experience. A kiss and love to Kristine and Athena Scalzi, who had to live through it all. Mom, Heather, Bob, Gale, Karen, Dora, Mike, Brenda, Richard, all the nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts and uncles (there's a lot). I'm forgetting people, obviously, but I don't want to overstay my welcome.
Finally: Thank you, Robert A. Heinlein, for debts that have (since these acknowledgments are placed in the back of the book) become obvious.
JOHN SCALZI
June 2004
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