Dogs of War

by David Drake

  It was carnival, but neither Ilene nor Scott wore masks. Their faces were masks enough, and both had been trained to reserve, though in different ways. Scott's hard mouth kept its tight grimness even when he smiled. And Ilene's smiles came so often that they were meaningless.

  Through her, Scott was able to understand more of the undersea life than he had ever done before. She was for him a catalyst. A tacit understanding grew between them, not needing words. Both realized that, in the course of progress, they would eventually the out. Mankind tolerated them because that was necessary for a little time. Each responded differently. Scott served Mars; he served actively; and the girl, who was passive, was attracted by the antithesis.

  Scott's drunkenness struck physically deep. He did not show it. His stiff silver-brown hair was not disarranged, and his hard, burned face was impassive as ever. But when his brown eyes met Ilene's green ones a spark of—something––met between them.

  Color and light and sound. They began to form a pattern now, were not quite meaningless to Scott. They were, long past midnight, sitting in an Olympus, which was a private cosmos. The walls of the room in which they were seemed nonexistent. The gusty tides of gray, faintly luminous clouds seemed to drive chaotically past them, and, dimly, they could hear the muffled screaming of an artificial wind. They had the isolation of the gods.

  And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep—That was, of course, the theory of the Olympus rooms. No one existed, no world existed, outside of the chamber; values automatically shifted, and inhibitions seemed absurd.

  Scott relaxed on a translucent cushion like a cloud. Beside him, Ilene lifted the bit of a happy-gas tube to his nostrils. He shook his head.

  “Not now, Ilene.”

  She let the tube slide back into its reel. “Nor I. Too much of anything is unsatisfactory, Brian. There should always be something untasted, some anticipation left—You have that. I haven't.”

  “How?”

  “Pleasures—well, there's a limit. There's a limit to human endurance. And eventually I build up a resistance psychically, as I do physically, to everything. With you, there's always the last adventure. You never know when death will come. You can't plan. Plans are dull; it's the unexpected that's important.”

  Scott shook his head slightly. “Death isn't important either. It's an automatic cancellation of values. Or, rather—” He hesitated, seeking words. “In this life you can plan, you can work out values, because they're all based on certain conditions. On—let's say—arithmetic. Death is a change to a different plane of conditions, quite unknown. Arithmetical rules don't apply as such to geometry.”

  “You think death has its rules?”

  “It may be a lack of rules, Ilene. One lives realizing that life is subject to death; civilization is based on that. That's why civilization concentrates on the race instead of the individual. Social self-preservation.”

  She looked at him gravely. “I didn't think a Free Companion could theorize that way.”

  Scott closed his eyes, relaxing. “The Keeps know nothing about Free Companions. They don't want to. We're men. Intelligent men. Our technicians are as great as the scientists under the Domes.”

  “But they work for war.”

  “War's necessary,” Scott said. “Now, anyway.”

  “How did you get into it? Should I ask?”

  He laughed a little at that. “Oh, I've no dark secrets in my past. I'm not a runaway murderer. One—drifts. I was born in Australia Keep. My father was a tech, but my grandfather had been a soldier. I guess it was in my blood. I tried various trades and professions. Meaningless. I wanted something that … hell, I don't know. Something, maybe, that needs all of a man. Fighting does. It's like a religion. Those cultists—Men of the New Judgment—they're fanatics, but you can see that their religion is the only thing that matters to them.”

  “Bearded, dirty men with twisted minds, though.”

  “It happens to be a religion based on false premises. There are others, appealing to different types. But religion was too passive for me, in these days.”

  Ilene examined his harsh face. “You'd have preferred the church militant—the Knights of Malta, fighting Saracens.”

  “I suppose. I had no values. Anyhow, I'm a fighter.”

  “Just how important is it to you? The Free Companions?”

  Scott opened his eyes and grinned at the girl. He looked unexpectedly boyish.

  “Damn little, really. It has emotional appeal. Intellectually, I know that it's a huge fake. Always has been. As absurd as the Men of the New Judgment. Fighting's doomed. So we've no real purpose. I suppose most of us know there's no future for the Free Companions. In a few hundred yeans—well!”

  “And still you go on. Why? It isn't money.”

  “No. There is a… a drunkenness to it. The ancient Norsemen had their berserker madness. We have something similar. To a Dooneman, his group is father, mother, child, and God Almighty. He fights the other Free Companions when he's paid to do so, but he doesn't hate the others. They serve the same toppling idol. And it is toppling, Ilene. Each battle we win or lose brings us closer to the end. We fight to protect the culture that eventually will wipe us out. The Keeps—when they finally unify, will they need a military arm? I can see the trend. If war was an essential part of civilization, each Keep would maintain its own military. But they shut us out—a necessary evil. If they would end war now!” Scott's fist unconsciously clenched “So many men would find happier places in Venus—undersea. But as long as the Free Companions exist, there'll be new recruits.”

  Ilene sipped her cocktail, watching the gray chaos of clouds flow like a tide around them. In the dimly luminous light Scott's face seemed like dark stone, flecks of brightness showing in his eyes. She touched his hand gently.

  “You're a soldier, Brian. You wouldn't change.”

  His laugh was intensely bitter. “Like hell I wouldn't, Mistress Ilene Kane! Do you think fighting's just pulling a trigger? I'm a military strategist. That took ten years. Harder cramming than I'd have had in a Keep Tech-Institute. I have to know everything about war from trajectories to mass psychology. This is the greatest science the System has ever known, and the most useless. Because war will the in a few centuries at most. Ilene—you've never seen a Free Company's fort. It's science, marvelous science, aimed at military ends only. We have our psych-specialists. We have our engineers, who plan everything from ordnance to the frictional quotient on flitterboats. We have the foundries and mills. Each fortress is a city made for war, as the Keeps are made for social progress.”

  “As complicated as that?”

  “Beautifully complicated and beautifully useless. There are so many of us who realize that. Oh, we fight—it's a poison. We worship the Company—that is an emotional poison. But we live only during wartime. It's an incomplete life. Men in the Keeps have full lives; they have their work, and their relaxations are geared to fit them. We don't fit.”

  “Not all the undersea races,” Ilene said. “There's always the fringe that doesn't fit. At least you have a raison d’ être. You're a soldier. I can't make a lifework out of pleasure. But there's nothing else for me.”

  Scott's fingers tightened on hers. “You're the product of a civilization, at least. I'm left out.”

  “With you, Brian, it might be better. For a while. I don't think it would last for long.”

  “It might.”

  “You think so now. It's quite a horrible thing, feeling yourself a shadow.”

  “I know.”

  “I want you, Brian,” Ilene said, turning to face him. “I want you to come to Montana Keep and stay here. Until our experiment fails. I think it'll fail presently. But, perhaps, not for some time. I need your strength. I can show you how to get the most out of this sort of life—how to enter into it. I True hedonism. You can give me—companionship perhaps. For me the companionship of hedonists who know nothing else isn't enough.”

  Scott
was silent. Ilene watched him for a while.

  “Is war so important?” she asked at last.

  “No,” he said, “it isn't at all. It's a balloon. And it's empty, I know that. Honor of the regiment!” Scott laughed. “I'm not hesitating, really. I've been shut out for a long time. A social unit shouldn't be founded on an obviously doomed fallacy. Men and women are important nothing else, I suppose.”

  “Men and women—or the race?”

  “Not the race,” he said with abrupt violence. “Damn the race! It's done nothing for me. I can fit myself into a new life. Not necessarily hedonism. I'm an expert in several lines; I have to be. I can find work in Montana Keep.”

  “If you like. I've never tried. I'm more of a fatalist I suppose. But… what about it Brian?”

  Her eyes were almost luminous, like shining emeralds, in the ghostly light.

  “Yes,” Scott said. “I'll come back. To stay.”

  Ilene said, “Come back? Why not stay now?”

  “Because I'm a complete fool, I guess. I'm a key man, and Cine Rhys needs me just now.”

  “Is it Rhys or the Company?”

  Scott smiled crookedly. “Not the Company. It's just a job I have to do. When I think how many years I've been slaving, pretending absurdities were important, knowing that I was bowing to a straw dummy— No! I want your life—the sort of life I didn't know could exist in the Keeps. I'll be back, Ilene. It's something more important than love.

  Separately we're halves. Together we may be a complete whole.”

  She didn't answer. Her eyes were steady on Scott's. He kissed her.

  Before morning bell he was back in the apartment. Jeana had already packed the necessary light equipment. She was asleep, her dark hair cascading over the pillow, and Scott did not waken her. Quietly he shaved, showered, and dressed. A heavy, waiting silence seemed to fill the city like a cup brimmed with stillness.

  As he emerged from the bathroom, buttoning his tunic, he saw the table had been let down and two places set at it. Jeana came in, wearing a cool morning frock. She set cups down and poured coffee.

  “Morning, soldier,” she said. “You've time for this, haven't you?”

  “Uh-huh.” Scott kissed her, a bit hesitantly. Up till this moment, the breaking with Jeana had seemed easy enough. She would raise no objections. That was the chief reason for free-marriage. However—

  She was sitting in the relaxer, sweeting the coffee, opening a fresh celopack of cigarettes. “Hung over?”

  “No. I vitamized. Feel pretty good.” Most bars had a vitamizing chamber to nullify the effects of too much stimulant. Scott was, in fact, feeling fresh and keenly alert. He was wondering how to broach the subject of Ilene to Jeana.

  She saved him the trouble.

  “If it's a girl, Brian, just take it easy. No use doing anything till this war's over. How long will it take?”

  “Oh, not long. A week at most. One battle may settle it, you know. The girl—”

  “She's not a Keep girl.”

  “Yes.”

  Jeana looked up, startled. “You're crazy.”

  “I started to tell you,” Scott said impatiently. “It isn't just—her. I'm sick of the Doones. I'm going to quit.”

  “Hm-m-m. Like that?”

  “Like that.”

  Jeana shook her head. “Keep women aren't tough.”

  “They don't need to be. Their men aren't soldiers.”

  “Have it your own way. I'll wait till you get back. Maybe I've got a hunch. You see, Brian, we've been together for five years. We fit. Not because of anything like philosophy or psychology—it's a lot more personal. It's just us. As man and woman, we get along comfortably. There's love, too. Those close emotional feelings are more important, really, than the long view. You can get excited about futures, but you can't live them.”

  Scott shrugged. “Could be I'm starting to forget about futures. Concentrating on Brian Scott.”

  “More coffee… there. Well, for five years now I've gone with you from Keep to Keep, waiting every time you went off to war, wondering if you'd come back, knowing, that I was just a part of your life, but—I sometimes thought—the most important part. Soldiering's seventy-five percent. I'm the other quarter. I think you need that quarter—you need the whole thing, in that proportion, actually. You could find another woman, but she'd have to be willing to take twenty-five percent.”

  Scott didn't answer. Jeana blew smoke through her nostrils.

  “O.K., Brian. I'll wait.”

  “It isn't the girl so much. She happens to fit into the pattern of what I want You—”

  “I'd never be able to fit that pattern,” Jeana said softly “The Free Companions need women who are willing to be soldiers’ wives. Free-wives, if you like. Chiefly it's a matter of not being too demanding. But there are other things. No, Brian. Even if you wanted that, I couldn't make myself over into one of the Keep people. It wouldn't be me. I wouldn't respect myself, living a life that'd be false to me; and you wouldn't like me that way either. I couldn't and wouldn't change. I'll have to stay as I am. A soldier's wife. As long as you're a Dooneman, you'll need me. But if you change—” She didn't finish.

  Scott lit a cigarette, scowling. “It's hard to know, exactly.”

  “I may not understand you, but I don't ask questions and I don't try to change you. As long as you want that, you can have it from me. I've nothing else to offer you. It's enough for a Free Companion. It's not enough—or too much—for a Keep-dweller.”

  “I'll miss you,” he said.

  “That'll depend, too. I'll miss you.” Under the table her fingers writhed together, but her face did not change. “It's getting late. Here, let me check your chronometer.” Jeana leaned across the table, lifted Scott's wrist, and compared his watch with the central-time clock on the wall. “O.K. On your way, soldier.”

  Scott stood up, tightening his belt. He bent to kiss Jeana, and, though she began to turn her face away, after a moment she raised her lips to his.

  They didn't speak. Scott went out quickly, and the girl sat motionless, the cigarette smoldering out unheeded between her fingers. Somehow it did not matter so much, now, that Brian was leaving her for another woman and another life. As always, the one thing of real importance was that he was going into danger.

  Guard him from harm, she thought, not knowing that she was praying. Guard him from harm!

  And now there would be silence, and waiting. That, at least, had not changed. Her eyes turned to the clock.

  Already the minutes were longer.

  III

  ‘E's the kind of a giddy harumfrodite—soldier an ‘sailor too!

  —Kipling

  Commander Bienne was superintending the embarkation of the last Doonemen when Scott arrived at headquarters. He saluted the captain briskly, apparently untired by his night's work of handling the transportation routine.

  “All checked, sir.”

  Scott nodded. “Good. Is Cine Rhys here?”

  “He just arrived.” Bienne nodded toward a door-curtain. As Scott moved away, the other followed.

  “What's up, commander?”

  Bienne pitched his voice low. “Branson's laid up with endemic fever.” He forgot to say “sir.” “He was to handle the left wing of the fleet. I'd appreciate that job.”

  “I'll see if I can do it.”

  Bienne's lips tightened, but he said nothing more. He turned back to his men, and Scott went on into the cinc's office. Rhys was at the telaudio. He looked up, his eyes narrowed.

  “Morning, Captain. I've just heard from Mendez.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “He's still holding out for a fifty percent cut on the korium ransom from Virginia Keep. You'll have to see him. Try and get the Mob for less than fifty if you can. Telaudio me from Mendez's fort.”

  “Check, sir.”

  “Another thing. Branson's in sick bay.”

  “I heard that. If I may suggest Commander Bienne to take his place at left-wing
command—”

  But Cine Rhys raised his hand. “Not this time. We can't afford individualism. The commander tried to play a lone hand in the last war. You know we can't risk it till he's back in line—thinking of the Doones instead of Fredric Bienne.”

  “He's a good man, sir. A fine strategist.”

  “But not yet a good integrating factor. Perhaps next time. Put Commander Geer on the left wing. Keep Bienne with you. He needs discipline. And—take a flitterboat to Mendez.”

  “Not a plane?”

  “One of the technicians just finished a new tight-beam camouflager for communications. I'm having it installed immediately on all our planes and gliders. Use the boat; it isn't far to the Mob's fort—that long peninsula on the coast of Southern Hell.”

  Even on the charts that continent was named Hell—for obvious reasons. Heat was only one of them. And, even with the best equipment, a party exploring the jungle there would soon find itself suffering the tortures of the damned. On the land of Venus, flora and fauna combined diabolically to make the place uninhabitable to Earthmen. Many of the plants even exhaled poisonous gases. Only the protected coastal forts of the Free Companies could exist—and that was because they were forts.

  Cine Rhys frowned at Scott “We'll use H-plan 7 if we can get the Mob. Otherwise we'll have to fall back on another outfit, and I don't want to do that. The Helldivers have too many subs, and we haven't enough detectors. So do your damndest.”