Recoil

by David Sherman

  “I’m sure they don’t, sir. But they know there’s a threat and it’s only natural nobody’ll send their first-line units to our task force. It’s the old army game, sir.”

  Aguinaldo regarded his chief of staff, Major General Pradesh Cumberland. At least, Aguinaldo reflected, he’d been able to get the best people for his command staff, and Cumberland was one of those. His frustration was with the member worlds who, in response to President Chang-Sturdevant’s urgent directive requesting they furnish his task force with good troops, had been reneging, finding dozens of excuses not to send the troops or, like Lannoy, sending fifth-rate units. How could he possibly take on the Skinks with troops like the Seventh Independent Military Police Battalion?

  “Well, Pradesh,” he sighed, “we can probably use a good group of MPs when we deploy. We’ll need them to attend to such things as population control in urban areas and so on. If the Skinks attack at more than one location, we can break the battalion into companies and send them with the combat forces. But I don’t think we’ll have much of a POW mission for them; even during the campaign on Kingdom, we never captured one of the Skinks. As usual, goddammit, the Marines will have to lead the way. How’re the training teams progressing?”

  “Just fine, sir. They’ve spread out to the selected member worlds and are doing an excellent job apprising their governments of the nature of the Skink threat. That may be one reason some of these people are less than enthusiastic about parting with their best troops. That might have been a mistake, sir.”

  “We had to do it. But dammit, we’ve only asked for selected units, and sparing them wouldn’t have diminished anyone’s combat power, and it’d have added to ours so when the time comes we can respond with a powerful, highly motivated, well-trained force.” He was silent for a moment. “Well, we still can and we will. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Once the units arrive we’ll do a top-to-bottom inspection—arms, equipment, personnel, training, combat experience, everything. I’ve drawn up a list of very capable officers to conduct those inspections and, if necessary, take command of the units. I’ve put out a call for those personnel and they’re on the way here right now. For those units that measure up on their own, we’ll put them into training immediately. For those that don’t, we’ll reorganize them, give them new commanders if that’s necessary, or break them up and farm them out to capable units if it isn’t. And if all else fails, send them home. Meanwhile, I’ll keep the president informed and maybe she can put pressure on the politicos.”

  “Sir, what it’s going to take will probably be a full-scale Skink invasion somewhere. That should get everyone’s attention mighty fast.”

  Aguinaldo scratched his chin. “You’re probably right, Pradesh, let’s just hope their first port of call isn’t Earth.”

  “Well, sir, wherever they hit us, let’s hope that when they do, we’re ready for them.”

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  THREE

  The House of Pain, Undisclosed Location

  He screamed and screamed, “Mumeeeee! Mumeeeeeee!” but the pain and terror only intensified.

  The Brattle Home, New Salem, Kingdom

  “ ‘And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem.’ ” Hannah Brattle smiled, put a marker between the pages of her Bible, and closed it. “And on that note, it’s about time for lunch,” she informed the three boys.

  “More? More, Mumee?” Moses begged.

  Hannah smiled at the boy, for she had come to think of him as human, and laid a hand on his head, stroking it gently. Moses loved it when she did that. He turned his strangely convex face up at her and smiled. It was the smile of an idiot, full of vacant pleasure. Moses loved to be stroked and he loved the sound of Hannah’s voice, but she doubted he understood much of what she read to him. Hannah sighed. Joab and Samuel, her two sons, no doubt they would soon be soldiers in the Army of Christ, but poor little Moses—she shook her head sadly—he would never live up to the name she had given him.

  “I’ve read the entire Gospel according to Mark this morning, Moses. I’m an old lady, my voice needs a rest. And my stomach tells me it’s time to eat! Afterward you boys can go on down to the river if you want and see if you can find another Moses.” Joab and Samuel had found Moses as a baby at the water’s edge and brought him home with them. They wanted to call him “Jedo,” because that was what they thought he had told them when asked if he had a name, but Hannah had quickly dubbed him “Moses” because he had been found abandoned among the bulrushes, and the name had stuck.

  “Awrrrright!” Samuel chortled. “Down to the river, Moses!”

  “Oh, good! Good!” Moses began to pirouette on his stubby legs. Any suggestion of play, especially play involving water, excited Moses because once in the water he was totally in his element. Then the webbing between his fingers and the toes on his large feet extended, helping to propel him through the water like a fish.

  Zechariah Brattle, the nominal leader of the New Salem community, Hannah’s second husband and stepfather to her boys, had returned to New Salem a few days after Hannah had agreed to let the boys keep Moses. “We have a big problem,” he told his family as they sat in their living room one evening. He gestured at Moses who crouched on a blanket spread out on the floor, uttering contented noises, munching cookies Hannah had baked that morning.

  “Why, father?” Samuel asked, apprehension in his voice. He glanced at his older brother for reassurance.

  “Father, Jedo’s harmless,” Joab protested. “He can’t possibly be one of them!”

  “No doubt about it, son, he is one of them,” Zechariah answered. “I’ve seen them up close, and believe me, he’s a devil, or a Skink, that’s what the Marines call them. Oh, he’s not full grown yet, boys, but make no mistake about it, he is one of those creatures.”

  “Father,” Hannah interjected, “he’s been with us for days now. He is no different in his manner than these boys of mine were at his age. I think he’s just another of God’s creatures. You aren’t suggesting we turn him over to the government, are you? That we abandon him? I think he was given to us for a purpose, Zechariah, and if we reject him before we know what that purpose is, we’re defying God’s will.”

  Zechariah snorted. “Funny, how whenever someone wants to do something really foolish they claim they’re only obeying God’s will.”

  “Zechariah!” Hannah stamped a foot on the floor, a habit she had when angry.

  “All right! All right! I’m sorry I said that.” Zechariah sighed and wearily passed a hand across his face. “All this government business up in Haven has, well, secularized me a bit, I guess. But you should hear the excuses some of these sects up there give for not cooperating with perfectly reasonable government reforms! Let me ask you this: What do the others here think of this Moses?”

  At first nobody answered. “Well, they haven’t been around much,” Hannah finally admitted, “except for the black woman and her family.” She meant Judith Maynard, her husband, Spencer, and their boy, Chisi.

  “The rest are wary of him, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, I guess so, Zechariah. Nobody’s said anything because this is your house and nobody’s going to go directly against you or your family; everyone respects you too much for that.”

  “Father?” It was Samuel. “Jedo already can speak a few words.”

  “I doubt that, son. You just think those grunts and mumbles mean something. It’s like people who believe in ghosts; they see them everywhere.” He smiled and playfully swatted the boy’s head. “Okay, here’s what we’ll have to do. I don’t have to return to Haven for a few days, but before I go we’re going to settle the issue of this creature. Tomorrow I’m calling the entire congregation together and we’re going to let everyone s
peak his piece about this thing here. If the majority votes to keep him among us then so be it. Otherwise I take him back to Haven with me and we turn him over to the government. You know perfectly well we’ve never been able to capture one of these things alive or dead. What he can tell us in captivity about his species will be invaluable when and if the big ones ever come back. We can’t in all justice withhold that information from humanity.”

  “His name is Jedo,” Joab said sullenly. He did not like the way his stepfather kept referring to Jedo as a “thing.”

  “Well, we ought to call him ‘Moses,’ because you found him down by the river,” Hannah said, and from that moment on the name had stuck.

  Meeting House, New Salem, Kingdom

  As was the custom with the City of God sect, each member of the community had a voice in deciding what to do with Moses. Samuel Sewall, the eldest member of the sect and, next to Zechariah Brattle himself, the most highly respected, moderated the debate.

  Samuel and Joab Brattle were the first to speak, telling how they’d found Moses abandoned by the stream and how they had come to think of him as their little companion—not quite a brother, not quite a pet. They testified to his gentle, harmless, playful nature and urged the congregation to let him stay with their family. But because of their impressionable ages, their testimony was largely ignored by the assembled adults. Many felt giving him the name of Moses amounted to blasphemy.

  Thereafter the arguments ranged widely as speakers referred to biblical texts to support their points while the rest of the congregation furiously turned the pages of their own books to follow along or to find other scriptural evidence to support new arguments. Most of the congregation was against keeping Moses in New Salem. The people had not forgotten that the Skinks had ruthlessly killed their friends and neighbors, almost destroyed the City of God, and, as one of them pointed out, to forgive them for that would be like forgiving Satan himself. That Moses had had no part in that massacre was considered moot; he was clearly one of them.

  But it was Zechariah himself who pointed out that at the time of the massacre the survivors had agreed it was the just punishment of God because radical members of the sect had attempted an act of war against the Confederation of Human Worlds. To escape the anticipated retribution for that act, the sect had fled to the wilderness where it suffered the anger of the Lord. He reminded them of their belief that they had been spared for a reason, and of the long trek through the wilderness that had brought them to New Salem, and a new beginning. “We believed that was God’s Plan for us. Now that you are living in prosperity and peace,” he reminded them sternly, “do not forget where you came from and do not project your own sins or those of his fathers upon this creature.”

  Moses sat quietly at Hannah Brattle’s side, sometimes a bewildered expression flitting across his strange face as he tried to follow the speakers. It was clear he understood that the discussions concerned him, but otherwise he had no idea his fate hinged on the outcome.

  Finally Emwanna Haramu, baptized Judith after she married Spencer Maynard, spoke. “I come to you with my son, Chisi, as refugees. Kingdomite soldiers, they kill my people, the Pilipili Magna,” she reminded them. “You taken us in and you showing us de Way and with God’s grace I marry good Christian man and find new life and new hoping is to us among you given. We too, Chisi, me, we wander in the desert many days, like Children of Israel long, long ago, and de Lord, he show us de way here.” Tears ran down her cheeks as she spoke but her voice did not waver, and although her Standard English was not yet perfect, what she said was clear to everyone. “Now I listen to all the talkings and you making me sad, ’cause the peoples of the City of God youselfs has lost the Way.”

  Several people protested these words loudly. “Silence!” old Samuel Sewall demanded. “It is her turn to speak and you shall all listen.” He nodded at Judith to continue.

  “Devils not kill my people, mens do, mens, mens like we, mens with souls, mens who turn from de Way, dem mens, I forgive dem fo’ dere sin and I pray that God forgive dem! I ignorant woman, I no can hardly read the Book yet, but I ask you why cannot our Father give souls to creatures He wishes? This little one? He no devil now! Mebbe like mens, like us, he get in de wrong way, he grow up devil! Sure. Can happen. But now? No, no! Now he with us and now we mus’ save his little soul.”

  Judith sat down. No one spoke for a long time. Then old Samuel Sewall cleared his throat. “We have had great argument here today,” he began, “and I am now, by this little woman, reminded of some lines by an old poet, not of our faith but exceedingly wise:

  “ ‘Myself when young did eagerly frequent

  Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument

  About it and about: but evermore

  Came out by the same door where in I went.’

  “Friends, there is one here who has not yet said her piece.” Samuel turned to Hannah Brattle and nodded that she should speak.

  Hannah stood and, holding Moses by his little hand, said, “I vote we keep him among us.”

  Moses looked up at Hannah, smiled, and in a tiny but clearly audible voice that was heard by all said, “Mumee, I love you!”

  Zechariah Brattle’s Office, Interstellar City, Kingdom

  And it came to pass that in the days immediately following the precipitous flight of the Skinks after their defeat by the Confederation forces on the world known as Kingdom, that Madam President Chang-Sturdevant decreed teams of specialists should be sent to that place to find out as much from survivors of the war as they could about the enemy aliens. This began even before Task Force Aguinaldo was formed. And so there came to Haven Dr. Joseph Gobels, who went down to New Salem, where Moses dwelt.

  Dr. Gobels and his assistant, Dr. Pensy Fogel, whom Gobels kept calling “Fogy,” sat impatiently in Zechariah Brattle’s office, regarding the old puritan with evident distaste. To the offworld scientists he was a bureaucrat, worse, an old zealot, and was standing in their way. As an ambitious exobiologist, Dr. Gobels sensed a terrific scientific breakthrough if the rumors he’d heard about New Salem’s newest resident were true.

  “Do you, or do you not”—Gobels emphasized each word carefully, as if talking to a child—“have one of those things in captivity? Mr. Braggle.”

  “Brattle, Doctor, my name is Brattle.” For his part, Zechariah regarded the two scientists with deep suspicion. The few hairs on Gobels’s head stood erect with tension and he drummed fat little fingers nervously on the arms of his chair, leaning forward aggressively as he spoke. A thin sheen of perspiration covered his upper lip and saliva flecked his lips. His teeth were small and pointy, like Moses’s. His assistant, who had said very little, sat quietly, his fingers steepled beneath his chin, his gaze fixed balefully on Zechariah as if trying telepathically to be more cooperative.

  “Well?”

  Zechariah knew he should lie to these men, deny Moses’s existence, but the president had decreed full cooperation with their researches, which she and everyone else believed were in the best interests of humanity. He knew better than these men the threat the Skinks represented. He could not in conscience tell that lie.

  “He is not in captivity. He is living peacefully among us as one of our own and he has taken to our ways.”

  Dr. Joseph Gobels’s heart raced at the admission. Here it was! A live Skink! Oh, glory, he thought, a Nobel in my hands! “Then”—he glanced triumphantly at his assistant—“we shall proceed to New Salaam, Mr. Braggle! At once.” And he half rose out of his chair.

  “New Salem, it’s New Salem, Doctor. What will you do with him if we give him to you?”

  “Ah, ah, well.” Gobels had not expected this question. He gestured vaguely with a hand. “Nothing much, nothing much, I assure you, my dear fellow! Uh, we’ll perform some tests and studies, of course. Isn’t that right, Fogy?” He turned to his assistant, who nodded vigorously. “But nothing too intrusive, I assure you.” He shrugged. “Fluids will have to be analyzed, you know, just like when y
ou have a physical, Mr. Braggle, nothing more serious than that.” He grinned nervously.

  Zechariah did not trust the man. But duty was duty and he felt duty bound to render Moses unto Caesar. “You aren’t going to keep him caged up, like some animal, are you, Doctor?”

  “Oh, no, no, Mr. Braggle, certainly not!” He laughed, a nervous, high-pitched giggle, like a small child denying he’d been in the cookie jar.

  “Where will you take him to perform these experiments?”

  “Oh, not ‘experiments,’ I assure you! Tests, examinations, studies. Ah, but to answer your question, we’ll take him to our headquarters at Universal Labs in Fargo, back on Earth.”

  “And will you return him to us when you’re done, Dr. Gobels?”

  “Well, it may be a while,” Gobels answered cautiously, “but yes, indubitably, indubitably.” The way he pronounced that word sounded to Zechariah like a fart in a bathtub.

  “And so, we shall be on our way now, and thank you for your cooperation.” Gobels rose as if to go.

  “Not so fast. I’m going with you.”

  “Well”—Gobels grinned nervously—“that won’t be necessary! Not at all! Why . . . why . . . you have”—he gestured about Zechariah’s Spartan office—“your duties here, my good man. You cannot possibly spare the time,” he added, hopefully, desperately.

  “I’ll be the judge of that, Doctor. I’m going with you because New Salem—not ‘Salaam,’ goddammit, and don’t you freaking forget it—is my home, and the boy lives with my family.”

  A lot of Charlie Bass had rubbed off on Zechariah Brattle.

  CHAPTER

  * * *

  FOUR

  The Snoop ’n Poop, Havelock, Near Camp Howard, Marine Corps Base Camp Basilone, Halfway

  Thirdday evening was normally a quiet time on the streets of Havelock, one of the liberty towns outside Camp Basilone, because the Marines who were the main patrons of its bars, restaurants, and other establishments had duty early the next morning. It was more so at the Snoop ’n Poop, which catered more to the Marines of Fourth Force Recon Company than to other Marines, and the Force Recon Marines who weren’t deployed were often on training missions somewhere on Camp Basilone during the week. But this night, the Snoop ’n Poop was busier than usual for a weeknight. One hundred and twenty members of Fourth Force Recon Company had recently returned from the war on Ravenette, and Lieutenant General Indrus, the commanding general of Fourth Fleet Marines, had given them two weeks’ leave following their mandated debriefings and psych evaluations.