The Far Side

by Wylie, Gina Marie

  She heard two loud barks, certainly from Ezra’s rifle. Then a series of short bursts of sounds -- Ezra firing multi-shot bursts. She looked over at Chaba -- someone she shared only a few words with. Chaba grinned at her, then bowed, waving the crossbow. She was holding it over her head, sort of like Rocky holding his arms up in the movie.

  For a long time, nothing happened. There was no more shooting that she could hear, but she wasn’t confident enough to get up to move closer to Andie. She saw a dozen of Captain Dumi’s men cross the ground around the base of the hill in front of her, drawing no fire.

  Another half hour passed, and it was full dark. Chaba had come and sat a few feet away from Kris, looking around, pleased with herself.

  A while later she heard a clatter of stones, and a familiar voice called out, “It’s Ezra!”

  “Kris!” she said, happier than she could ever remember being.

  He flashed a light in her direction and made for her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, they never got close.”

  “Kris, Andie got zinged.”

  Her heart lurched.

  “Not much, not bad, no big. She didn’t want you to freak.”

  “Do I look like I’m freaking?”

  “No, but how close are you?”

  “Tell me again that she’s fine.”

  “She’s fine, Kris, even by Melek’s standards. It was a minor flesh wound, little more than a scratch. She’s been afraid you’d figure out she was hurt and go crazy.”

  “Do I look crazy?” Kris said reasonably.

  “No, but I have to keep telling you how well she is.”

  Kris laughed. “Well, there’s that.”

  Andie wasn’t in extremis; in fact, it took a bit before Kris found that Andie was favoring one leg. On the other hand, the hillside in front of Andie had a mixed bag of bodies, some shot from in front and others from behind.

  “We heard the firing a while ago and headed this way,” Ezra told Kris. “We hauled some serious ass. I thought you guys were toast!”

  “They came in slow, probing,” Andie told him. “The probes were expensive, and the first, half-hearted rush was even more so. They tried a second rush, but that’s when you guys hit them from behind.” Andie turned to Kris. “Three good men got killed, Kris.”

  Ezra was the one who spoke up. “It happens, Andie. Omelets and eggs.”

  “Yeah, well, they weren’t omelets, Ezra. They were guys who thought we were going to keep them safe.”

  Collum put his hand on Andie’s shoulder and said some words, and Kris was proud that her friend didn’t shrug his hand off. Ezra wasn’t very helpful though.

  “I’d say he’s talking about omelets and eggs, Andie, except he’s talking about the glory of dying for your duty and honor.”

  Andie looked at him. “I’m not stupid, Ezra. I know they didn’t die for me. They died for what they considered their duty.”

  Ezra translated what Andie said, and that statement brought a heated response from Melek.

  “He says, he understands. It is never good to order men to their deaths -- either at your hands, or at their own. I think he is almost Lockean in his philosophy, Andie. Duty, he says, is freeing slaves. Honor is freeing slaves, and today, he says, you and Kris made for a lot of dead slave owners.”

  Chapter 16 :: The Catch of the Day

  Oliver Boyle put a lid on his temper and spoke evenly. “So, the President won’t see either myself or my wife. Would he be willing to talk to either or both of us on the phone?”

  The President’s Chief of Staff was as polite and firm as ever. “There wouldn’t be any reason to, Mr. Boyle. It’s unfortunate, but your daughter and her friends were careless. We are not going to risk the entire human race for three people.”

  “And by now you’ve seen the articles linking massive donations from the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and the Russians -- in short, every member of the oil patch -- to him and the senior members of Congress. He’s upsetting the electorate, sir. They wonder if it’s money buying his assistance. I’ll repeat once again: NASA has protocols for people who travel to other worlds. We are more than willing to undergo those -- if we can return safely with Kris, Andie, and Ezra.

  “The President can’t seriously expect us to believe if it’s okay with them, it’s not okay with him. You know your man’s poll ratings have fallen thirty points in three weeks. Another week and he’ll be less popular than Bush or Clinton were, and a week after that, less popular than Nixon.”

  “He’s a leader, not the follower of polls. This is non-negotiable and you’re wasting both of our time.”

  “You remember how successful you were with your attempt to muzzle us? Do you remember the nine to zero ruling from the Supreme Court? At a certain point, Congress is going to realize that a 10% approval rating, which is where they are at now, can go all the way to functional zero -- and then it won’t matter how much money pours into their campaign coffers from oil and utility companies.

  “The cat’s out the bag! Wake up and pay attention! If you don’t get ahead of the curve here, history is going to roll over your guy. Going from a 67% percent approval rating at the start of the year to 37% now means there are still thirty-some odd points yet to drop.”

  “You are wasting my time.”

  “Then, I’ll stop wasting it. We are announcing today that starting Monday of next week, we will call for a national strike. We’ll ask people to close every business, close every road, and block every government building except police, fire, and the military, until further notice.”

  “That’s treason!”

  “Since when is a general strike treason? I don’t think the President’s supporters are going to like hearing that! You do realize that this conversation is streaming live on the Internet, don’t you? You don’t suppose people in this country are ignorant that this is the Fourth of July weekend and just what that means?”

  “This is sedition!”

  “You throw those words around like King George the Third, and we all know he was the reason we no longer speak English English in these parts. You can’t put your political opponents in jail, and you can’t tell them not to talk to the people of this country. They didn’t stand for it the last time, and they won’t stand for it again. The threat of a general strike forced the President’s hand before, and it will again.”

  “The violence will be on your head!”

  “No it won’t, because we’re printing up the non-violence primers that were used during the civil rights movement, and everyone is going to take a pledge not to fight, not to react, no matter what the intimidation. The pictures of your goons beating on women and children will be on every newscast for as long as it takes you to realize that the President is the servant of the people -- not their master.”

  “You would risk the life of every man, woman and child on the planet, just to save your daughter?”

  “God, sir, put us here on this globe and gave us life. He also numbered our days. We all are going to die -- this isn’t a surprise to anyone with a brain. We are given choices as we live -- to do the right thing or the wrong thing. Lately we’ve gotten a little confused about right and wrong, but people understand the fundamental truth: that if we start down this road, eventually human life won’t be worth living. If we are all disposable, if a single human life isn’t worth risking to save, then what’s the purpose of living in the first place?

  “It is worth it and the people know it, and it’s why you’re going to lose. No doubt three years from now, the President will have a huge nest egg saved up from the billions of dollars he’s pocketing from the interests who have no desire to see cheap fusion available to the rest of us. But surely he’s seen the stories of people lighting up small towns with machines of Andie Schulz’s design.”

  Oliver Boyle laughed nastily. “Why, it’s so simple, a caveman can do it!”

  “I’ve heard enough, Mr. Boyle. If you attempt to foment a general strike, you’ll be arrested again. Keep speak
ing sedition, keep acting in a treasonous fashion, you’ll find yourself on death row.”

  Oliver’s laugh grew nastier. “Alas, political corruption hasn’t been a capital offense, but at a certain point, as good King George learned, the people do get tired of tyranny and oppression, and write something like the Declaration of Independence, and then they go to war to make manifest those thoughts of freedom and liberty.”

  There was a click and a dial tone on the line, and Oliver Boyle grinned. Yeah, it was risky to beard the lion in its den, but it wasn’t very safe to mess with a father whose daughter was missing either.

  Helen came over to him and hugged him. “It’s hard to imagine what’s happened, Ollie. We thought we were living in a democracy, the land of liberty, the cradle of freedom. Instead, they’ve removed the covers and we can see now the levers of power and oppression, nakedly, for what they are.”

  “We’ve acquiesced quietly for too long, to too much,” he said, nodding in agreement. “But, sometimes, we need a reality check. We’re doing everything we can to keep this peaceful, but people like Kurt Sandusky and Jacob Lawson aren’t the peaceful sort.”

  “I’ve been liberal all my life. I wish I could blame this on the conservatives.”

  “There’s enough blame to go around for everyone. Politicians of every stripe have been whittling away at our freedoms, expanding the scope of laws, twisting them in ways they were never intended. And we watched placidly, nodding in agreement. The war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on terrorism -- one war after another.

  “A hundred and fifty years ago we went to war to preserve the union. The South told us they were fighting for states rights, we told them we were fighting to free the slaves. I have a feeling, that all but the most ardent Unionists would take one look at what we’ve got now, and start working to secede from the Union themselves.”

  He smiled gently at his wife. “I believe in the people of this country, Helen. I believe they can see clearly now that what’s happened isn’t anything they wanted or intended. I’m sure if enough people hold up their hands and say, ‘No more!’ things will change. Probably not in the way I expect, but more like the spirit of days gone by.

  “And somewhere in there, we can go fetch our daughter back.”

  “Linda says she can do it?”

  “Yes. No one knew about Andie drilling the template holes in the foundation slab to mark the location of the fusor, and the slab is still there. They are under the impression that the fire killed off any bacteria and other critters that might be around, and while it’s still considered a biohazard site, the public outcry has prevented them from going any further. To be sure, Linda had a couple of people make very careful measurements of the surrounding area. Even if something were to happen to the slab now, she could still build another fusor in the exact spot as before.

  “Kurt won’t speak about it, but I’m pretty sure he’s built one and tried it out himself, using Andie’s notes that Linda had. At some point, things are going to crack, and we’ll have our chance.”

  “I’m scared, Oliver -- it’s taking so much time.”

  “Andie and Kris are survivors, Helen. Ezra is a professional survivor. We will get them back, I swear it.” He chuckled. “Though I have to move heaven and earth, remove a sitting president, a sitting vice president, and half of the Congress of the United States to get the job done.”

  She smiled slightly. “Do you think you’ll be done in time for dinner?”

  * * *

  “Where’s Ezra?” Kris asked Andie as they sat on the windswept hillside where not so long ago so many had bled and died.

  “He’s policing his brass, or at least that’s what he said. He’s fired off nearly a hundred rounds now, and he figures that they can beat the cartridges into more arrow caps.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Kris agreed. She waved at where Captain Dumi, Melek, and Collum were clustered together, talking intently. “It’s pretty clear that they want to pursue the survivors.”

  “Yeah, probably at first light. They have eight men dead and another half dozen wounded. That’s nearly a quarter of them, but they think they killed something like two thirds of the Tengri.”

  “And no prisoners,” Kris said sadly.

  “No, no prisoners,” Andie agreed. “That’s how it’s been, and I don’t see either side doing anything any different. Melek and Collum want to free slaves and kill Tengri. The Tengri want to kill anyone who resists them and enslave the rest. I don’t see that changing.”

  “The crossbows did well?” Kris asked.

  “Yeah, but wow! Do they ever shoot a lot of arrows! One battle and between the six crossbows, we shot off a third of quarrels! Still, the Tengri had no idea how to fight against them. They’d form up to attack, and we would kill or wound some, and they’d react by pulling back further. Then, having so far to go, they bled a lot running forward. Our soldiers are wizards with crossbows, because Ezra was right... it’s a bitch trying to hit someone who is moving. But they adjusted to the quickness of the bolts and just mowed them down.

  “The Tengri muskets make a lot of noise and more smoke. They can’t hit anything they aim at except by accident. Crossbows shoot faster and straighter. It’s a good thing you convinced Ezra to leave the crossbows here and take regular bows with them.

  “What do you think about the Arvalans going south?” Kris asked the question most on her mind.

  “I’m pretty sure that the Tengri won’t try to pull a fast one again, making us think that they’d given up. We’ll get eight men with us, I imagine, and the crossbows. We should be in good shape, and better if Ezra can cap a few more arrows for the crossbows.”

  “About thirty-five to go south?”

  “Yeah, Ezra will have to be careful, because they pretty much have to be hoping for a successful ambush to even things back up. I hope the messengers they sent north are luckier than the first two.”

  Andie finished her MRE and looked around. “And of course, I keep wondering just how messed up the weather is on this planet. That Big Moon has to be screwing with it big time. I’d say these people don’t have a lot to worry about concerning ice ages. Oceans this size must buffer the entire planet’s temperature -- or for that matter, they won’t have to worry about global warming... I tried to get Melek to talk about ice or snow and he’s never heard of frozen water.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, he says the temperature is pretty even the year around. I’m beginning to think that the oceans here are huge, and they are acting as a giant buffer for temperature changes.”

  “Did you ask him about seasons?”

  “He hasn’t a clue what I’m talking about. They have rainy periods now and then, but it sounds like they are more or less random. He says it rains more further north, but he wasn’t specific -- or if he was, I didn’t have a clue what he was saying.”

  “You’re making progress learning the language?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been talking to Rari about Chaba. He was lucky in the fight. The Tengri never made it to the top of the hill, where he was supposed to guard her, so when Chaba went where I was, he came down and helped. Now he’s disappointed that they want him to stick with Chaba, teaching her the language.”

  Kris giggled. “Considering the way the two of them look at each other, I’m pretty sure he’s not that disappointed.”

  Andie smiled thinly. “Probably not.” She looked at Kris. “I don’t want to be critical about someone who has never known anything better, but she’s content to be watched out for, to have someone bring her her meals, even if she has to help prepare them. She does a million odd jobs around the camp, and the men don’t realize that she’s not thanking them for rescuing her -- she thinks it’s expected of her.”

  “A slave mentality?” Kris asked, appalled. “She didn’t act that way during the attack -- she kept cocking a spare crossbow for me and handing it to me.”

  “Yeah. I know it’s stupid and it’s not the same
, but I can’t help thinking that being married had a bigger impact on women back home than I ever imagined. Sure, I can do whatever I want, and I suppose from what I’ve read in history, other women were able to break loose from the mold, but for most of them, their husbands provided for them and their children, and she supplied sex and housework.

  “Christ, I can’t imagine how many thousands of years that must have gone on back on Earth! The Arvalans seem to have followed a similar path as we did, but the Tengri are a lot like Muslims.”

  “Things are better now,” Kris told her friend.

  “I wonder. Chaba is obviously more comfortable having someone looking after her than she is being independent. How many hundreds of years can you live like that and not have it affect your psyche? Did we really do ourselves the favor we thought we did when we ‘liberated’ women?”

  “I think so,” Kris replied positively. “I know my mother thinks so.”

  “Yeah. But happiness is a warm blanket, too. I’m not exactly ancient at the moment, but I have noticed one or two things in my life -- like different strokes for different folks.”

  “That’s true.”

  “All my life, I’ve thought most of my peers were brain-dead stupid, stuck in low gear without a hope of ever making an impact on the world. Me? I wanted to rock the house! I wanted everyone in the world to know my name.

  “And now three people who I had no grief with are dead at my side -- and there’s something like twenty Tengri that we killed. I tell you Kris, in just a matter of a few hours, I have become the world’s biggest fan of laissez-faire and ‘whatever floats your boat.’”

  “Andie, we didn’t go for them. They came after us.”

  She looked at Kris, her head cocked to one side. “Kris, do you know what the corollary to my idea of laissez-faire is?”

  “No,” Kris said wearily, “but I’m sure you’ll educate me.”