Space Soldiers

by Jack Dann

  She touched me, making me look down. Breasts against me now, flattening out just so. Hand on my chest, fingers splayed. Face . . . ineffable. Isn’t that what we say when we see . . . well. Still nothing in her eyes.

  I shook my head slowly, trying to turn away, to reach for the meals that neither of us needed.

  Familiar.

  That’s all.

  Familiar comfort.

  She said, “Please.”

  The utter desperation.

  I know what it is to be a broken tool, thrown away, discarded as useless.

  So you do what you have to do then, like any good soldier.

  The filters and locks released and went down in proper sequence.

  ###

  The most beautiful thing in the world is a woman’s face while you make love to her.

  Your hands do what they do, like robot hands belonging to another, working a body glimpsed from the corner of one eye, all dark shadow and faraway depth. Some other world. Some other place. Some other time.

  All you can see is eyes full of fire, a face made taut and wonderful by the familiar tides of desire.

  Sunrise.

  But no sun.

  Stemshine blossoming overhead, familiar golden bar melting out of the black depths of interstellar night, filling the world with light.

  The valley outside the tent was the same, come morning. Same warm wind, same winding stream, same ersatz mechanical man looking out at it through indestructible eyes.

  Except some part of him knows he’s not a machine, not made to be anything in particular, not made at all.

  “Come home with me.”

  That’s all she said as we stood together, watching stemlight wash over the nameless world. Come home with me, soldier.

  I wonder who thought up those lines for her to say?

  Imagination conjured a programmer for me, some small fat man with greasy skin, a tangle of filthy gray hair, hunched over an antique keyboard, typing away with sweaty palms.

  How could a man like that imagine such a woman’s face, tell it how to look, what to reflect, back into the eyes of the watcher?

  Some historical drama no doubt, seen as a child and forgotten into the depths of subconscious memory, becoming its own archetype.

  A silent nod.

  Tent folding itself up with a word, crawling into the backpack.

  Then we were away, walking through the ruin of the world.

  As if it were the only world, and we the only ones in it.

  Walking by the glittery stream with its rush of dark water.

  Listening to the soft howl of wind, bending through the tops of swaying old trees.

  Loblolly pines. I remember that’s what they’re called.

  In time, I realized Deseret was skipping by my side, laughing, looking at me.

  Not quite singing.

  Maybe just in her heart.

  Or whatever you want to call the thing that rests inside a living machine.

  We rested together on a beach beside a depthless blue ocean beneath a colorless noonday sky, though neither of us needed rest, would ever need to rest.

  Tireless, like the machines of myth.

  In time, we walked on, skirting a dank, dark green forest, tall, gaunt trees that seemed to exude a pale gray mist, gray mist filling the spaces between, hiding the depths of the forest. Walked across the foothills of some nameless, blocky mountains, broken blue stone veined with bright silver, mountains perhaps no more than some industrial residue, waiting for a recycling crew that would never come again.

  Stood together on a hillside, holding hands like children, looking down on another small valley, more secluded than the other, holding just the tiniest of streams. There was a lot of messy-looking shrubbery, thorn bushes, clearings here and there, a little sandy beach, a few tents in the shadow of a scrubby old apple tree, green apples hanging from its branches like Christmas tree ornaments.

  And beside the tree, buried in regolith to its axles, treads broken and gone . . .

  I whispered, “Main battle tank. Standard ARM Corporation Model 56, body-style IIa.” As I watched, its turret seemed to shift in my direction. Seemed to, but there was only a soft, stuttering whine of broken gears, a distant, chattery whir. The turret settled, stuck in place, but the periscope sensor lifted and slowly turned to look.

  Deseret whispered, “His name is Thomas.”

  ###

  Sunset sky, deep indigo overhead, striated with the barest hint of lilac . . . the stemshine hung far beyond the blue, like a dim cloud of slag, on the edge of fiery oblivion. In two great, arching bands to either side, stars were appearing as the darkness deepened.

  Strange, strange new world for such a tired old universe.

  Empires beyond the stars that destroyed us all, yet survived themselves.

  Nothing of the old, gray widow-maker.

  No widows left behind.

  No lost children.

  Nothing left but their broken old toys.

  Deseret and her two friends, Holly and Melina were their names, lived together in a little valley, in the shadow of Thomas the Main Battle Tank, living on because they had nothing better to do, keeping, they said, out of the silvergirls’ way.

  Someday, they said, the world will be made whole again by the silvergirls’ labor.

  What place in it for us, then? they whispered, one by one. Maybe none, was the chorused answer.

  I made them dinner on my little campstove, scanning their joy, freely given, like memories of sunlight, long ago fled, sat by the open flap of the tent with Deseret at my side . . .

  The other two were watching, I could see, holding themselves rigid, in neutral slate, holding their pheromones in. Honor among machines, not striving for each other’s position? What humans were ever so honest, ever so honorable as that?

  Behind us in the gathering darkness, Thomas stirred in his grave, a rustle of mostly dead engine parts, a whisper of jammed gears rubbing softly together, a pattering shower of corrosion.

  Overhead, a pattern of lights sailed the sky, coming between us and the stars. Balloonsailers. No running lights, of course, just the pale fire of engine exhaust. If I listened, I could hear the rumble of combustion.

  I pictured myself firing on them again, from the summit of my cold, snowy mountain, and found I could no longer remember why I came. Oh, I know the reason. Remember it all too well. But the reason’s gone, along with that cold ache . . . too many old machines, too many broken tools with that same old ache inside.

  Deseret leaned close, rubbing her soft head against my shoulder, rubbing on skin proof against any degree of vacuum and cold, flesh that could withstand . . .

  She whispered, “Drop your shields?”

  Take off that too-human flesh. Expose that warm, soft underbelly . . . When I did, she let me sample what was inside Holly and Melina, flooding me with their need.

  Too human

  No. A human wouldn’t care.

  They’re just machines, after all.

  Things made for us, not we for them.

  “Ashe?”

  I took a deep breath, held it for a long moment, let it go.

  Felt something flood out of me, some unknown fear.

  “All right.”

  You do what you have to do, if you are who you are.

  ###

  Midnight, and the stars arced overhead in two dense bands, striping the sky between swathes of black. Somewhere up there, the stemshine hung, visible light output suspended. If I wanted to look, I could see the infrared, night-warmth radiated to the grounds below. If I wanted to look, I could see other lands, faraway lands, hanging overhead beyond the sky. If I wanted to look, there would be my tall, cold mountain, pennon of snow still trailing in the wind like a motionless flag. If I wanted to.

  Wind whispering endlessly in the trees.

  As if this were a natural world, wind driven by the chaotic heat engines of climate, by the rolling twist of coriolis force.

  Fans. Somewhe
re here, underground, there are fans.

  I could picture them, great blades turning, slowly, slowly, casting long shadows down the ductwork.

  Maybe once there were children here. Bold children who would sneak into the ductwork, walk deep underground, come to see the slow fans turn, filling their world with wind. Maybe they took silvergirls along for company.

  A whisper from the darkness.

  I walked toward it.

  “Hello, soldier,” it said, voice sounding as though called forth from the dust.

  “Hello, Thomas, old comrade.”

  “Have we met?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Brief pause, then, “No. Of course not.”

  We know each other well, battle tank and infantryman. I could remember marching in his shadow, time and time again. He could remember me swarming round him in countless, stickman shadows, daring the fire.

  We’ve been together forever.

  He said, “Why’d you come, soldier?”

  I shrugged, knowing he’d see. “It . . . seemed like the place for me to . . .” What? What do I want to say?

  Thomas, voice so very warm then, whispered, “I understand.”

  Do you? Of course you do. I reached out and put my hand on one crumpled fender, feeling the way whiskers had sprung from the composite, breaking, popping up out of half-melted osmiridium matrix. Once upon a time, there’d been coherent light reflex armor mounted here. Taken away, some long time ago.

  I pictured the armorers walking away, carrying their salvage, leaving him here to die. Did they understand it would take so long? Did they care?

  Evidently not.

  He said, “I’d leave, if I could.”

  There was a cold hand on my heart. “I understand.”

  He said, “I knew you would, soldier. I knew I could count on you.”

  I laid my head on his fender, breathing in the scent of old machine.

  He said, “I saw you on the mountain, soldier. I was afraid you wouldn’t wait for me.”

  “Sorry. I . . .” I remembered myself upon the cold mountain, alone with the whispering spider and my poor paralyzed hands. One little tug, that’s all it would’ve taken, but I . . . I said, “The balloonsailers knew.”

  He said, “They always do. They’ve been waiting as long as any one of us.”

  Any one of us.

  Then, he said, “I was hoping the silvergirls would wait, but they haven’t. I’m sorry, soldier.”

  When I turned my senses on and looked skyward, there they were, circling round and round like witches on their broomsticks, coming for me, I suppose. Coming for us.

  It was the moment in which they would secure their future.

  I wish I knew what was in their minds. Wish I had known. A brief moment of explanation, that’s all. This is so unnecessary.

  As are all such moments.

  Too late.

  Thomas’s turret groaned and his guns tilted skyward. “Get the allomorphs away, soldier. I’ll hold them off.”

  His guns went pom-pom, stuttering so loud, brilliant streaks of violet leaping skyward.

  My tent exploded in a gout of orange flame, a compact mushroom cloud.

  I got to the backpack, surrounded by molten fragments, small red flames guttering on the ground, got it open, felt myself grow suddenly vast and terrible, summoning all-too-human fire in the service of my all-too-human name.

  Looked skyward, reaching out for them.

  When it ended, there was nothing left but smoke, bits of dying flame. And the voice of Thomas the Main Battle Tank, punched into pieces by the silvergirls’ fire, whispering, “Soldier . . .” Ever so softly, “Please, soldier. I’ve been such a good machine. Please don’t let me down . . .”

  I looked at him for just a moment, featureless in the darkness, molten metal sizzling in pools on the red-hot ground. Nodded slowly, knowing he might still be able to see.

  You do what you have to do then.

  If you’re a good soldier.

  ###

  I buried what little of Holly I could find, buried her among the smoldering fragments of Thomas the Main Battle Tank, pushing his parts together in the crater my gun left behind. No need for a marker. Not here.

  Maybe the silvergirls will come someday, clean up this mess, dispose of what’s useless, recycle the rest into shiny new machines. No matter that they’ll be gone then. I’ll remember who they were.

  There was enough left of Melina I knew she could be saved, given the resources of any decent machine shop, so I bundled up the pieces and put them away in my backpack, rolling them up in magic canvas one by one, imagining each bit stirred, ever so slightly, at my touch.

  Deseret?

  Evidently, she’d managed to get out of the tent just before the silvergirls struck, had been running away from the blast. From some angles, she looked like a sleeping child, eyes closed, face quiet and sweet. I found her foot quite easily, lodged at the base of a broken tree. Looked for her arm a little while before giving it up.

  I know a man can make her a new arm she’ll never know is not the same.

  I dropped my shields and awoke her with a scan, watched her eyes of glass open and look at me.

  Strange how, with no armor between us, they don’t seem empty anymore.

  Whispered: “Soldier . . .”

  “I’m here.”

  She said, “My friends . . . all my friends . . .”

  I said, “Sleep now, Deseret. Sleep and dream. When you awaken, I’ll still be here.”

  The eyes closed.

  Face in repose.

  Something almost like a smile there.

  Smile of a child who trusts you’ll keep your given word.

  When she was put away, I shouldered the backpack and went on my way, back across broken old landscape, all the way to the end-cap mountains.

  I climbed the red cliffs as the stemshine blossomed to life, throwing my shadow before me on meaningless crags, no more than the artifice of some maker’s hand, infinitely less than the splendor of a wild world, made by no hand at all, the imagining of some insensate mind.

  Stood for a long time, then looking out into the blue mist of the silvergirls’ world, at broad, rolling, ruin-filled plains, rivers, seas, ranges of dark-shadowed hills, my own special mountain with its white spray of snow.

  Broke the gun between my hands and threw it away, down into the world for the silvergirls to find. Turned away and went out the lock, out to where the faraway stars rolled and rolled, unaffected by foolish deeds, senseless pride, useless fear.

  Stood for a while, watching them turn, marveling at how little it’s taken to bring me here. What did I think I was going to accomplish? Nothing, I suppose. And nothing left now but to open the datawarren connector and summon a ride.

  You do what you have to do.

  Because, sometimes, all that’s left is life.

  LEGACIES

  Tom Purdom

  Tom Purdom made his first sale in 1957, to Fantastic Universe, and has subsequently sold to Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Star, and most of the major magazines and anthologies. In recent years, he’s become a frequent contributor to Asimov’s Science Fiction. He is the author of one of the most unfairly forgotten SF novels of the sixties, the powerful and still timely Reduction in Arms, about the difficulties of disarmament in the face of the mad proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as such novels as I Want the Stars, Tree Lord of Imeten, Five Against Arlane, and The Barons of Behavior. Purdom lives with his family in Philadelphia, where he reviews classical music concerts for a local newspaper, and is at work on several new novels.

  In the fascinating story that follows, he gives us a subtle, bittersweet, and moving examination of the special problems and challenges that growing up in a career military family can bestow—even in a high-tech future, where wars are fought in deep space.

  ###

  Deni Wei-Kolin was asleep in the childcare center at Hammarskjold Station when the fift
een assault vehicles began their kamikaze run into Rinaswandi Base. Rinaswandi was in the asteroid belt, about a third of the way around the sun from the Earth-Moon system, so it would be a good twenty-five minutes before a signal carrying news of the attack reached Hammarskjold and the other man-made satellites that orbited Earth and Luna. The signal would actually reach Hammarskjold a full second later than it reached some of the other habitats, in fact. Hammarskjold was the off-Earth military headquarters of the UN Secretariat and it had been placed in a lunar orbit, for the kind of accidental political reasons that usually decide such matters. Given the positions of the Earth and the Moon at the time the signal started its journey, the message from Rinaswandi actually had to zap past Earth before a big antenna sucked it into Hammarskjold’s electronic systems.

  Deni’s mother, Gunnery Sergeant Wei, got the news a bit earlier than most of the fifteen billion people who currently inhabited the solar system. The military personnel stationed in Rinaswandi Base had been under siege for seventeen days when the attack began. For twelve hours out of every twenty-four, Deni’s mother had been plugged into the Rinaswandi defense system, ready to respond the moment the alert signal pinged into her ear and the injector built into her combat suit shot a personalized dose of stimulant/tranquilizer into her thigh.

  All around Sergeant Wei, people were beginning to stir. There were twenty of them crammed into the command module—a place that was only supposed to provide working space for six—and you couldn’t shift your weight without disturbing someone. Half of them were merely observers— support people and administrative wallahs. Gunnery Sergeant Wei could hear little whispers and murmurs as they caught glimpses of the symbols moving across the screens in front of the combat specialists.