by Ian Douglas
Jeff looked up from his own PAD, where he’d been studying the Chinese ship in detail. “Question, sir?”
“Go ahead, Major.”
“Why would Beijing be so hot about space now? They’re still recovering from their war.”
And it had been a nasty war, at that. Greater China had split into North and South after their civil war earlier in the century, with Tibet going her own and independent way. North China had fought on the European side during the UN War, mostly in the hope of settling old claims to parts of Siberia and Russia’s East Maritime Provinces, while Canton had sat the war out as a watchful neutral. Stopped cold at Vladivostok, she’d refused to sign the Treaty of London, but she’d also pulled her forces back behind the Amur. Within fifteen years, North China had invaded the south. The fighting had been vicious and fratricidal, including chemical and biological weaponry, though no nukes, thank God. The war had lasted twelve years and cost an estimated one and a quarter billion lives and uncounted trillions of yuan in damage. Since most of the fighting had been fought with Maoist guerrilla tactics, there’d been relatively few major battles in all that time, but vast parts of the South, especially, had been completely wrecked, and several major cities, including both Shanghai and the South China capital of Kuangchou, were now uninhabitable ruins.
General Altman considered Jeff’s question for a moment. “A good question, son. There are two answers, really. The first is that a fight with outsiders will make the job of politically unifying the country easier. The people are always willing to tighten their belts and endure privation if they’re faced with an outsiders-versus-us crisis.”
“Ah, xenophobia,” Mark said from his side of the table. “The glue that binds us together…against ‘them.’”
“The second is more critical to Beijing’s leaders, though,” Altman went on. “They’re afraid we’re going to grab all the juicy e-tech for ourselves.”
E-tech, originally “ET-tech” or “altech,” was the term now applied to the new technologies flowing to Earth from the alien ruins on Mars and the Moon. New materials, new manufacturing processes, a hint that nanotechnology might be possible after all, the possibility of new power sources…the practical benefits were only just beginning to emerge from the xenoarcheological digs.
“So…just like the UN War,” Jeff said. He glanced at Mark. That fighting, precipitated by a UN attempt to stop the United States and Russia from opening the ancient alien ruins on Mars, had led directly to Garroway’s March and the Battle of Cydonia.
“In simplistic terms, yes,” Altman’s senior aide, a lieutenant colonel named Montoya, said. “What we’ve found on Europa might well prove to be the key to all of the other ET discoveries we’ve made. Something is down there beneath the ice and still operating, possibly after half a million years. It may help us make sense out of everything we’ve learned—about ancient humans living on Mars, the An enslavement, the Hunters of the Dawn, all of it. And the promise of new technologies, my God! Most of what we’ve been able to recover so far have been bits and pieces and scraps. Some of the stuff from the underground complex in Cydonia is still operating, of course, but we haven’t figured out how to read the Builders’ records yet. And the An base we found at Tsiolkovsky is still almost a complete mystery. It’s going to take decades, maybe centuries, to learn the languages well enough to know what we’re looking at. Unless, of course, the Singer can give us some clues.”
“The Chinese are facing their own version of the GenevaReport,” Altman added. “Like us, they’re counting on technology to hold the Long Night at bay long enough to get their feet under them. E-tech might give them a shortcut, might even solve all their problems, if they can crack the language and engineering problems.”
The UN had used the Geneva Report’s infamous computer projections to justify their attempt to bring the U.S. and Russia to heel in ’40…and to grab the Martian e-tech. The report had predicted a complete breakdown of civilization by the year 2050 if all of the world’s nearly 10 billion people were not immediately brought under a single, unified system for distributing food energy and the world’s limited resources.
There were those who pointed out that the Geneva Report had, in fact, come true. The wholesale slaughter in China over the past twelve years might be just the proverbial beginning of the end.
The United States and her closest allies, Russia and Japan, had been counting on new materials processing, new industries, whole new technologies from the xenoarcheological digs to render the Geneva Report moot. It might still happen…if civilization could be held together just a little longer.
“The damnable part of it is,” Mark said, “they’re not doing anything to help themselves by trying to stop us on Europa. Dog in the manger, you know?”
“Maybe they don’t like depending on us and the Japanese for handouts,” Jeff suggested.
“It probably does come down to a question of control,” Altman said. “The military regime in Beijing has been on shaky ground ever since the end of communism and their Second Civil War. They can’t afford to let the people have unrestricted access to the new technologies, not without risking falling out of power. They need to be seen as the saviors of China, and they need to control how fast the e-tech comes in—which is probably a lot faster than we’ve been able to provide it ourselves. The IES doesn’t like releasing their findings prematurely.”
The Institute for Exoarchaeological Studies—the foundation in New Chicago coordinating e-tech research—was notorious for its cautious advance into unknown territory ranging from advanced materials processing to nanotechnology to faster-than-light communications.
Considering the fact that many of the e-tech findings were of a scope and power guaranteed to utterly transform all of human civilization into something quite new, Jeff had always felt that that caution was more than justified. No one had any idea what lay around the corner in the near future; there were bound to be surprises, and some of them might be unpleasant ones.
“Regardless of the political pros and cons,” Altman continued, “our interests on Europa must be protected. If the Chinese are planning on intervening there, it’s up to us to stop them. Washington is cutting the orders now. One-MSEF’s deployment has been moved up by five weeks. The Roosevelt will boost on September 29. And you will be ready.”
Jeff looked up, startled. “Sir, that’s two weeks!”
“Do you have a problem with that, Marine?”
“The scheduled boost was in seven weeks. The men are still in their training cycle—”
“They should be ready to go, anytime, anywhere. That’s what the Corps is all about.”
Jeff wanted to say that training and equipping a Marine Space Expeditionary Force to the frozen wastes of Europa was a bit different from hitting the beach in Borneo or Iran or Cuba or any other LZ on Earth. Instead, he said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
“They should be familiarized with the Mark II armor by now.”
“Yes, sir. They won’t have time for training with it on the Moon, though.”
“You’ll have to hope that Earthside practice is enough. We’re going to want to start shuttling them up to the Franklin D. Roosevelt as soon as possible.”
Practice on Earth, with one G and a full atmosphere of pressure, could not possibly replace training with the new suits in vacuum and Luna’s one sixth G. Again, though, he knew better than to argue. Marines learned how to carry on. Improvise! Adapt! Overcome! No matter what.
“You’ve had a chance to evaluate the Manta.”
“Today was my first day, General. It looks like a beautiful craft. I don’t know yet how well it’ll serve as a transport on Europa.”
“Frankly, Major, that’s not your job. Mr. Garroway here will make sure the Manta is up to Corps specs. You just have to have your people ready to board ship and boost.”
“Yes, sir.”
“In one week. With boost a week after that.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Good man.”
Altman seemed to relax a bit. “I know it’s asking a lot of you and your people, Major. And…in the long run, we don’t even know if you’ll be needed up there. But we have to be ready, just in case.”
“We’ll be ready, General. It’ll be tight, but we’ll be ready.”
“You were selected for this command, Major, because we know you can deliver the goods. Not because your grandfather is a former Commandant. Not because of political connections. You have consistently demonstrated superior skills, training, and knowledge throughout your Marine career, and especially since you were selected for the Marine Space Force. We know we can count on you.”
“Thank you, General. That means a lot, coming from you. I’ll do my best.”
But later that night, as he rode the hypersonic transport from Nassau to Los Angeles, he thought about General Altman’s pep talk and wondered if he could deliver.
Major Jeffrey Warhurst was a peacetime Marine. Although the United States had been involved in several nasty little skirmishes around the globe since the end of the UN War in ’42 and the breakup of the old UN, he had never been in combat. His family’s heritage of service in the Corps had not yet been seriously tested. Packing two companies of the 1st Marine Space Expeditionary Force up in an A-M drive transport and shipping them off to a place as implacably hostile as Europa with him second in command under Colonel Norden could be an easy way to lose almost three hundred men—even without the possibility of a shooting war with China. Quite frankly, he wondered if he had what it took to take on a job this size.
A hundred kilometers above the northern Gulf of Mexico, Jeff broke out his PAD and opened it up. He would have to talk this one over with Chesty.
TWO
18 SEPTEMBER 2067
Mr. Virtuality
Lompoc, California
1750 hours
The sign above the place on Highway One, just outside of Vandenberg Air Force Base, read “Nude Girls! Girls! Girls!” and Corporal George Leckie had to admit that they did deliver. He and his buddy Tony were stretched back on piles of oriental cushions, naked, completely surrounded by nude women. He had seven attending to his needs alone, each and every one of them paying full and sensuous attention to them.
The room was decorated with appallingly bad taste in something that possibly resembled an adolescent boy’s idea of what a Near Eastern harem might look like. One woman cradled his head on her lap, her more than generous breasts undulating with her movements just above his face; another offered a bunch of green grapes; three more ran their hands up and down his torso while a sixth massaged his feet and the seventh slowly kissed her way up the inside of his right thigh toward his groin, the tantalizing touch of her lips making him gasp and shudder.
“Oooh,” the one with the grapes said. “You’re so big, Lucky! I don’t know if there are enough of us to take proper care of you!”
“S’all right, Becka,” he replied, grinning. “Just take improper care of me. It’s getting a bit crowded in here, and I wouldn’t want any of you to feel left out!” She placed one grape in his mouth and he savored its cool, wet flavor. There was a faint alcoholic bite to it…one of the gene-tailored varieties of fruit that included a drop of brandy in their chemical makeup. He’d been hitting the tequila and beer pretty heavily before coming to this back room, and the grapes were adding to the pleasant buzz.
The best part was knowing there’d be no problems with performance, and no hangover later.
He raised his head slightly, turning to see what Tony was doing. He couldn’t see the other Marine at the moment, but a crowd of blondes—Tony really liked blondes—was huddled together on the cushion pile a few meters away, and the way one of them was sitting upright in the middle of the group, back arched and mouth agape as she bobbed happily up and down told him that Tony was already getting into the scene in a serious way. “Hey, Tone!” he called. “Howzit goin’ over there?”
“Every…thing…uh!…go…for…uh!…launch…” the other Marine called back.
“Was I right? Huh? Is this a great place or ain’t it? I…ohhh!…” The woman between his legs had reached a particularly and exquisitely sensitive spot, and one of the women working on his torso had joined her. For the next few moments, Lucky George could say very little coherent at all.
He was hoping to get off seven times tonight, once with each of them. Theoretically it was possible, but sheer exhaustion had overcome him each time he’d tried it in the past. But tonight he was feeling pretty good, and maybe…
“Leckie!”
The voice boomed from the pink and purple curtains draping the harem chamber’s vaulted ceiling, echoing as though from speakers with the volume cranked up high.
It was a voice he recognized. “Oh, shit….”
“Leckie! This is God speaking! Liberty’s been canceled for all hands.”
“Aw, Sergeant Major! Have a heart, will ya? We just got here!”
“Now, Leckie. Come out of there before I crawl in and pull your plug myself!”
And that conjured visions Lucky didn’t even want to try imagining.
“Hey, Lucky?” Tony called. “Did Sergeant Major Kaminski just—”
“Yes, goddamn it, he did.” He sighed. “Sorry, girls.”
“Aw! You have to leave so soon?”
“Safeword ‘bail-out,’” he said. Instantly, the boudoir, the grapes, the naked women, all faded out into the purple-charged blackness one sees with closed eyes. A moment later, he blinked, and he was staring at the inside of a grungy-looking metal sphere just barely roomy enough to hold a synthleather-padded couch.
A quarter of the sphere’s shell, to his left, was missing, a large, circular hatch. Sergeant Major Frank Kaminski was standing there in his khakis, fists on hips as he glared belligerently into the virtuality capsule. “So sorry to interrupt your pleasant dreams, Mister Leckie,” Kaminski said. “But your presence is required back at the squad bay!”
Lucky sat up and swung his legs out of the sphere. He was wearing nothing but a terry cloth wrap and a number of skin attachments connected to slender feed cables, gently adhering to five places on his scalp, and on his chest, wrists, back of the neck, and groin.
The wrap was to keep him from making a mess on the couch. The cold, sticky spot he felt against his skin on the inside told him it had already served its purpose, even though he hadn’t been inside for very long. “Jeez, Sergeant Major!” he complained, starting to pull off the skin connectors. “It couldn’t have waited another couple of hours?”
“No, it damned well couldn’t!” He turned to glare at the half-naked man crawling out of the virtuality sphere next to Lucky’s. “And you, Tonelli! Get your ass in gear! Both of you!”
Mamasan Koharu, the manager of the Virtuality, all prim and proper in a conservative woman’s business suit, held out a hot, warm towel with a slight bow and a smile. “You have good time, yes?”
“I want a refund, Mamasan! We paid you one hundred dollars each for four hours! That was the deal, see? We ain’t been inside there thirty minutes!”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, no! No refund! Cost same, you thirty minute, you four hour!”
“No! I want my money back!”
“It cost same! Still must program computer!” She pointed at the couch. “Still must clean you cum off equipment! Cost same!”
He snatched the towel from her. “Christ, what a gyp!” He tossed the terrycloth wrap on the floor and began toweling off his legs. “I got rights! You can’t rip us off this way. I’ll get some of my buddies together an’—”
“Corporal Leckie!” Kaminski snapped.
“Yeah?”
“Put a cap on it. Get your clothes on, both of you, and muster with me at the entrance. You’ve got ten minutes. Move it!”
Lucky entertained the notion of arguing for all of perhaps two seconds. It wasn’t right, getting taken for a ride that way! He and Tone had spent twenty minutes in the virtual bar with the tequila and beer, and had only just gotten down to the
good stuff deeper in. Damn it! He’d wanted to go with all seven women! Man oh man, what a barracks story that would have made! While his physical body had—um—responded almost at once to the sensations he’d been experiencing inside the sphere, the interactive AI program running through his brain should have easily let him experience seven orgasms in a row in his head.
And now they were dragging him back to base, out a hundred dollars and nothing to show for it but a wet crotch and a semen-soaked wrap!
Yeah…he thought about arguing. But there was something about Sergeant Major Kaminski’s bearing—not to mention the pressed-and-tailored perfection of his khakis and that incredible splash of colored ribbons on his shirt—that made even a veteran griper like Lucky Leckie think twice, then back down. It didn’t help that Kaminski was in full uniform while he was stark naked.
The real problem was that Kaminski was a lifer. Those campaign ribbons—for Mars and Garroway’s March and Cydonia, for Luna, Picard and Tsiolkovsky, for Vera Cruz and Cape Town and Havana, not to mention the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with cluster, the Purple Heart, Expert Rifleman—together they created a truly formidable barrier no mere corporal with nothing but a National Defense Ribbon and an SMEU qualification badge could stand against.
Hell, Kaminski would drop-kick him clear back to V-burg if he even tried.
“Aye, aye, Sergeant Major,” he said. Tossing the wet towel on the floor, he turned and followed Tone into the locker room, where they’d left their clothes. Koharu, who’d modestly turned away at his nudity, was already fastidiously scrubbing at his couch with a disinfectant spray.
Hell, he thought, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen naked men before. Everyone knew you could get real girls at Mamasan’s, not just the computer-programmed ones. He’d even tried them a time or two, and they’d been okay. It was just that the fantasies made possible in the virtual reality spheres were so much better than anything any flesh-and-blood whore could possibly conjure for you. Especially with the newer equipment that let you experience full, all-body sensation without having to have surgically implanted jacks, gimmicks that had never been all that popular except with the most passionately devoted computer jocks. Better than the real thing.
