Orphan Brigade

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “Dr. Yost Kletterman. I’ve spent the last two days looking for behavioral specialists who disappeared in the last ­couple of years, and he’s a prominent name in the field. His last published work was eighteen months ago, and he’s listed as being on sabbatical.”

  A string quartet was playing somewhere in the wide balcony that circled the room. The restaurant’s color scheme was bright gold and rich red, and the cream of the capital city had turned out in all their finery. Data was a lucrative business, and Brodan openness lent itself to displays of wealth. Ayliss herself had chosen a backless silver gown that hugged her curves and looked good next to Selkirk’s green.

  “This Dr. Kletterman sounds like someone who might just be involved in something he shouldn’t be. Any luck finding him?”

  “Of course not. If he’s doing what we think he’s doing, someone’s buried him under many layers of cover stories and security classifications.”

  “I thought you said scientists don’t follow security protocols.”

  “They don’t. Which is why ­people like your father send them to the war zone and have their communications completely severed. Very thorough ­people, the folks who work for your father.” Harlec gave a dark look at Selkirk.

  “Don’t I know it.” Ayliss smiled broadly before taking Lee’s hand. His head jerked toward her just a hair, and she was surprised to have startled him.

  “Sorry.” He raised the hand to his lips, briefly, before returning his eyes to the rest of the room. “Not used to sitting down with you.”

  “No reason to be nervous, young man. This is Broda. No one’s planning an attack.” Harlec waved his arm, and a jacketed waiter moved toward them. “Anyone watching is most likely wondering why Olech Mortas’s daughter is sitting with me.”

  Selkirk gave Harlec a smile that Ayliss recognized as something he practiced in the mirror, a look of idiotic acceptance Lee reserved for very senior ­people with whom he completely disagreed. She quickly spoke up.

  “So, Dev. Where does this leave us?”

  “Having dinner.” Harlec briefly conferred with the waiter, ordered for the three of them without asking permission, then continued. “I’m not stumped, in case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t wondering at all. I have faith in you.”

  “As you should. One of the big advantages of living here is that when I’ve determined that the answer is not in the existing data, I can often turn to others to find that data, sometimes even to create it. I’m not the only denizen of this planet who came here because of an ideological disagreement with the authorities elsewhere.”

  “And who are these other criminals?”

  “Oh, they’re not so much criminals as persons of intellect who, unlike me, would rather not come into direct contact with you. But they did share some of their thoughts, based on their own research.”

  “Someone else was looking for this Kletterman?”

  “Don’t be silly. I wouldn’t take them down the same dead end I’d already investigated. No, I asked if they’d encountered anything that might sound similar to your theory about Command dabbling in behavioral modification.”

  “And they had.”

  “In a manner of speaking. I was intentionally vague, to avoid biasing the results, and it had a serendipitous effect in that they haven’t seen anything involving human behavior.”

  “I do hope you’re not going to tell me you’re surprised that Command is studying the enemy.”

  “Nothing Command does surprises me. But this is important: there is a small group of linguistic experts who have been trying to decode the Sim language for many years. They’re not the first, and I understand this has been an ongoing project in the Force since the start of the war, but this is a private collaboration. Their hope is to open a dialogue with the Sims, with the intention of negotiating a peace. As you can imagine, ­people like your father probably wouldn’t like that at all.

  “So they’re staying very much in the shadows. It’s been enormously harmful to their research, but they’ve assembled a surprising amount of knowledge from casual interviews with returned veterans and nonmilitary contractors. Funny thing about the war zone—­Command’s information monopoly ends as soon as somebody gets home.”

  “I’m not seeing how this connects to what we’re doing.” Selkirk spoke lightly, his eyes momentarily halted on Harlec’s face.

  “Oh, is it we now? Well, I suppose one does have to join in on the battles of one’s romantic interest. Even if one probably doesn’t understand a word of it.”

  Ayliss’s hand tightened on Lee’s, and Harlec gave an airy grin when the security man subsided.

  “To continue. The Sim language—­or languages, that’s how little we understand of this—­consists of birdlike sounds that we humans have difficulty discerning, much less imitating. However, the Sims do have a written form of communication. It may be nothing more complicated than a basic symbology, or it may be more complex than that.

  “Captured Sim equipment was a good start, basically matching up a symbol to an item’s function. For example, the symbols for an On and Off switch.” Harlec turned to Selkirk. “Still with us?”

  “Don’t be like that, Dev.”

  “Sorry. I was a teacher for many years and sometimes went too fast for some of my students. To resume, the linguists’ research recently revealed something interesting. A number of years ago, during a prolonged campaign for control of a particularly arid Hab planet, the Sims attempted to poison our troops by leaving caches of tainted water in the path of advancing Force units.

  “In addition to the Sim symbol for water, these containers had a previously unknown marking that, based on the results, is believed to indicate poison. You see, the Sims leaving the contaminated water behind didn’t want to take the chance of ignorant comrades finding and drinking it. It seems that the evil enemy has a heart after all.

  “More recently, several small supply dumps captured by our troops yielded crates of Sim emergency rations bearing the same symbol, the one for poison.”

  “But that makes no sense. Humans can’t eat Sim food. For us it is poison. So why contaminate their own rations?” Ayliss’s blue eyes became unfocused as she tried to sort through the puzzle.

  “Because they’re not trying to poison humans.” Selkirk’s face had grown hard, and his eyes burned into Harlec’s.

  The scientist displayed amused wonderment. “Remarkable. I may have misjudged you. Or perhaps not . . . ­people in your line of work do develop a kind of low animal cunning, so I’m not surprised you understood this so readily.”

  “Finish the story.”

  “Your boyfriend is right. The only target for such a trick would have to be of Sim physiology.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. No Sim POW has lasted more than a few days in human captivity, even when they were fed with their own rations.”

  “It seems that the enemy believes someone, somewhere, has gotten around that.”

  “And are they right?”

  “Yes.” For the first time, Harlec looked at the ­people seated closest to them. Placing a hand on Ayliss’s shoulder, he leaned forward and whispered directly into her ear. “And you’d be so very surprised to know where they are.”

  “Absolutely not. You do not go anywhere without me and the detail. And you have to be out of your mind to trust that little bastard Harlec. Secret gang of linguists my ass.”

  Back in their rooms, Selkirk stood with his arms folded across his chest. Harlec had arranged for Ayliss to meet the ­people who believed they’d discovered an ongoing Sim prisoner-­of-­war camp, but the group was so fearful of her father that they’d agreed to meet Ayliss and Ayliss alone. She’d agreed before Selkirk could stop her, and an emissary was due to arrive at any moment.

  “Don’t you see this is the only way? I go by myself, or I don’t go at all.”<
br />
  “So don’t go at all. I don’t trust that Harlec, never have, and even if he believes this fairy tale, what does that mean? Guy stares at a screen all day long.”

  “He’s plugged in with all sorts of ­people who hate my father. He got chased off Earth—­why would he be lying?”

  “I already said it. Maybe Harlec’s dumb enough to believe this story, but it doesn’t mean we have to be. We don’t even know who these supposed conspirators are, and you’re wrong to think that your fight with your father puts you in both camps and keeps you safe. Powerful ­people get snatched all the time, and it usually happens when they ditch their security.”

  Her eyes were damp when Ayliss walked up and placed her palms flat against his chest. She’d already changed into a set of dark travel clothes and boots, but Selkirk still wore the suit from dinner. She tilted her head to one side, stopping the tear that had almost rolled out.

  “I know there’s a risk. But everything is falling into place. Don’t you see that? The camp we’re talking about is on this side of the CHOP line. Well on this side. That breaks so many laws, and is so unacceptable, that there is no way anyone connected to this could escape punishment if it was made public. I’ve wanted this for so long, and you’re going to deny it to me?”

  “I’m trying to protect you.” His arms unfolded, and he pulled her close. “This is what I do. No one in my position would let you do this.”

  “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it was like, being pushed aside the way Jan and I were. We were raised by strangers while Olech was partying on the Bounce. A lot of ­people said my father changed when my mother died, but I don’t believe that. I think he finally showed who he actually was—­a cold, selfish bastard only out for himself who never wanted us. He was my father, for God’s sake, and he’s going to pay for what he did.”

  “Look. If this POW cage really does exist, we can find it some other way. Why rush like this? Why take the chance?”

  The door buzzer sounded, and she looked up at him in pained resolution. “I have to.”

  Ayliss broke away and activated the door. It was dark outside, and at first all she could see was the outline of a large man. He quickly stepped across the threshold, and the outline resolved into the form of Python, her longtime conduit to illicit information. Ayliss’s face must have registered surprise, because Python glanced at Selkirk and then gave her a broad smile.

  “Oh come on. You didn’t think I was just a drug dealer, did you?”

  The armored mover was a big vehicle on bulletproof tires, and it rolled up next to a shuttle when they reached the spacedrome. Python was ready for her consternation at seeing that her trip to meet the linguists would involve an interplanetary craft.

  “It’s up to you.” He switched off the engine and sat back. Python’s hair was tied up behind his head, and he’d recently clipped his beard. His normally rough attire had been elevated a notch, but he was still Python. “We aren’t going to meet anyone here, because they weren’t willing to meet with you at all. To be honest, this bunch is pretty chicken. We had a long talk, and they suggested that I just take you to see the camp itself.”

  “I’m not understanding this. You mean you know where it is?”

  “Of course. I was there when they delivered the first batch.”

  “And just how did that happen?”

  “Have you heard the rumor about me serving in the war? It’s true. I got stuck on an island on this one Hab, right in the middle of a gigantic fight. It was me, what was left of my company, and a bunch of Sims. Both sides had wounded, no way off the island, and there was only one water source. So we declared a truce using made-­up sign language. Didn’t come near each other, the Sims were very clear about that, and we rotated using the water.

  “After a week we realized we’d been forgotten. So we kept up the truce, spent some time waving at each other every day, then Command caught up with us. They weren’t happy with what was going on, so they killed all the Sims and locked me and the other guys up. We did a ­couple of years, then they released us when our enlistments ended. All sorts of vile threats to keep our mouths shut, but who would have believed us anyway? Saying it’s actually possible to coexist with the evil aggressor.

  “A few months later they called me in and offered me some money if I’d talk with this Dr. Kletterman—­not a bad guy, by the way, I’ve gotten to know him pretty well—­and some others. They were shocked that the Sims on that island hadn’t died, with so many of us humans nearby. Apparently keeping our distance was the key.

  “From talking to me, Kletterman figured it was possible to transport captured Sims if they kept them isolated before, during, and after the trip. They wanted to reproduce the island on a captured Hab, but stock it only with Sims and observe their behavior.” He gave a short laugh. “They call it the Ant Farm. Long-­range surveillance, the Doc and his ­people watch everything the ants do.

  “I guess whatever kills the Sims in captivity is human-­related, because these ones are thriving. Right now they’re growing their own food, but at first the Doc had to drop captured rations on them every now and then. They know they’re prisoners, but they’ve got no contact with anybody and can’t even see the mainland. The Doc and his gang seem to think they’re learning a lot about them.”

  “You’ve got access to this place?”

  “They call me out there every now and then, to compare notes about what happened on that other island. The Doc likes me a lot, and because this is a hush-­hush Force operation, they’re not allowed normal communications with anybody. Everything goes through a series of buffers, so if I showed up there with Olech Mortas’s daughter, they’d accept it without question. And it’s not a long trip. They’re on Echo.”

  Echo was a tiny Hab close to Broda. Completely missed during the early decades of mankind’s expansion across the stars, it had been declared off-­limits so that its ecology could be studied. Except for a few scientific stations, the planet was untouched by humans.

  “They’ve got living Sims all the way back here?” Ayliss could hardly control her excitement. The only thing that truly frightened the populations of the settled worlds was the idea that the Sims would find them. The conflict could rage on for generations as long as it stayed in the war zone, but anything that might tip the enemy off—­such as bringing prisoners anywhere near the human planets—­would cause a firestorm.

  “Yeah. And they don’t seem to think it’s a big deal, either. I guess that’s what happens when you have all that power—­anything goes.”

  “I know all about that.” She pursed her lips. “Why would you want to show me this? Why help me?”

  “I’ve been watching you dig around for a long time now, Ayliss. I had to know you meant it, that you weren’t a plant.” Python looked at the shuttle. “What they did to me and my buddies was wrong. What they did to those Sims on that island was wrong. And what they’re doing on Echo, that’s wrong too. I’ve had enough of what’s wrong.”

  He stopped talking, and didn’t turn to look at her again. Ayliss regarded the waiting spacecraft, but had already made up her mind.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Come on, greenies, you gotta do it better than that!” Berland called out in a weary voice, the sound echoing in the metal chamber. The platoon had been granted the use of an empty storage bay on the huge transport, and was practicing battle drills.

  “Listen: the Sims we’re facing have been cut off for a long time. There aren’t that many of them left, but they know the terrain, and they’d just love to get a bunch of newbies to chase them straight into an ambush.

  “That’s why we’re practicing not chasing them into an ambush. I’ve done this mission enough times to know it’s not going to make any difference if we kill a few of them or never see any of them at all. We want to avoid what happened to the last Orphan company that
was out there—­”

  “An entire squad got blown to shit when they chased the Sammies past a hollow tree that was filled with explosives and scrap metal.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Dak. I was trying not to tell our new men that story.”

  “We already know that one, Sergeant Berland.” Even with the body armor, goggles, helmet, and weapon, the new man volunteering the information looked like a child. “And the one where they poured fuel on the grass and burned up that entire platoon—­”

  “Stop. Just stop.” Berland removed his helmet and goggles. “There is no way to set fire to anything in that jungle. Even if you poured fuel on it. And we’ve never lost a platoon on this mission.

  “Here’s how it’s going to go: the Sims try to shoot down the resupply drones when they come in, which means they converge on whichever site is getting its monthly delivery. Our company will be inserted in the jungle while the drones are in the air, zipping all over the place to confuse the Sims about which ones are full and which ones are empty.

  “Second and Third Platoons will circle around the site on its east and west sides, and if the plan works, Sir Samuel will try to escape by going south, where we’ll be waiting. The veterans have been on this mission before, so we know that’s not going to work. The bush is so thick, and the Sims know the terrain so well, that there is no way they’re gonna do what we want.

  “So after they slip by our block position, we’re gonna have to pick up all our stuff, including all the water we’re gonna need because the local goop is so nasty, and we’re gonna take a few long walks through the jungle. If the Sammies don’t feel like playing, we’re not even going to see them, but if they do feel sporty we’re gonna get ambushed. So let’s go back to the start line and try this again. Remember: You see something, hear something, or get shot at by something, drop to the ground. Then move up just enough to create a base of fire and don’t go anywhere until you’re told to do so.”