Exile

by Al Sarrantonio

  The queen, completely humorless in such matters, and who had been contemplating a similar gesture, said, "That was the other matter I came to speak with you about."

  "Ah . . ." Wrath-Pei said.

  Kamath Clan strode forward and lay her thick hands on Wrath-Pei's knees. The chair rocked slightly down, its gyros whinning, bringing it instantly back to level.

  Kamath Clan looked into Wrath-Pei's amused eyes.

  The queen said, "It has been some time since I took a mate—but I have not forgotten."

  With a smooth motion she began to undo the fasteners of Wrath-Pei's lower garment; her eyes never leaving Wrath-Pei's smiling face.

  Her wrist was caught in Wrath-Pci's viselike fingers, which held it fast.

  "I was thinking," Wrath-Pei said, his voice filled with the same constant amusement as his eyes, "more along the lines of what I asked you earlier. About your son."

  Chapter 25

  "It doesn't make sense."

  From his outpost set into the side of Sacajawea Patera, in what had been planned as a tourist haven with one of the most stunning views on all of Venus but which now served as a command center for what had so far been a phantom war, Targon Ramir tried once more to make sense of a senseless situation.

  He felt helpless, and almost foolish. Actually, more than anything, he felt that he didn't belong here. Not only was he not a military leader—but he felt divorced from his area of true usefulness. Back in Tellus Station, he was an engineer with his hands on the controls. Here, he was a tourist with a pair of binoculars, playing war.

  He had to admit that Jean Sneaden had been right to choose this place for reconnaissance. If the Martian attack came—if—then this was the place on Venus to monitor the situation. The Sacajawea Center was nothing more than a giant room with a view. But what a view. Like an eagle's nest, the center, known appropriately as the Piton, jutted outward nearly a hundred feet and was tapped into the extinct volcano only four hundred feet down from the summit. The effect was like hanging in midair. One actually had to crane one's neck to catch any glimpse of the peak itself—there were other stations on the patera for mountain sightseeing—and if one had any sense of vertigo at all, it would emerge here. Large sections of the floor were of quartz glass, giving an unrestricted view of the floor of the patera, a rocky glaze of sparse vegetation, and a lazy ribbon of blue river, seven thousand feet below. Now and again a crane would glide by, below one's feet and above a thin finger of cloud.

  And the view to either side, and straight ahead, was more than magnificent. A mostly clear horizon dotted with paradise in the making. There was no other place on Venus where so much of the progress that had been made could be seen at once. Lake Clotho Tessera, the widest waterway as yet, was a blue glint to the east; at its shores was the budding community of Lakshmi Planum, where a few hun- dred early colonists augmented a worker's colony which would someday blossom to tens of thousands. Even now, in the midst of crisis, some defiant soul was plying the shoreline in a sailboat, its bright red sail a promise of possible summers to come.

  It was when looking at things like this that Targon Ramir most understood Carter Frolich's descent into madness. To think that all this could be pushed back a hundred years, two hundred years.

  Other communities were spread like benevolent rashes in the middle distance; and close by, almost in the shadow of the volcano, stood Frolich, larger even than Tellus Station, whose citizens had insisted on the name over Carter's violent objections. It was destined to be the planet's largest city, a true metropolis, and already was the center of finance and trade on Venus, as well as the home of a dozen transplanted industries from Earth and as many more from Mars.

  With his binoculars, Targon traced the empty streets, the abandoned construction sights; a swirl of dust resolved itself in the instrument's autofocus into a lone little girl, gliding back and forth on a swing set in her flat backyard, empty beside its new house save for a single tree and the toy itself. Back and forth.

  She looked so lonely.

  Targon moved the binoculars to the perimeter of Frolich and studied the near battalion of security forces and batteries of raser cannon, their thin barrels like a row of ancient cigarettes, pointed at the blue sky.

  Pointed at what?

  What war?

  This was what disturbed Targon most—not knowing. Though he could give a signal from the room behind him and destroy every feeder station on the planet, he had no idea if and when—or why—he would have to give that order. The fact that there was only one feeder station visible to him—and that one far off, at the base of another volcano, Sif Mons—made him nervous, but he knew well enough that if he gave the command, the sky would instantly be filled with the brown ugly stains of their destruction. There were no more personnel near any of the stations, and even Tellus itself had been abandoned save for a skeleton crew to monitor the system. They would be safe from the initial blast in their underground bunker—though they would have to abandon the site within a day to avoid residual exposure.

  But why would he have to give that order?

  The fact was, there were no Martian troops in orbit around Venus. No Martian Marine transports had popped into nearby space, and all intelligence indicated that there were no troops en route. In fact, the most maddening bit of espionage, both electronic and human, that resided in Targon Ramjr's Screen indicated with certainty that the Martian Marines on their home planet were currently at stand-down, and many of them were on furlough.

  This was insane

  And yet Venus had now been ringed by the Martians with a string of flat metal satellites: too thin to hold troops; too restricted to hold full-scale plasma weapons, which would not get through Venus' shields, anyway; too large to hold raser cannon, which would be ineffective from that orbit.

  What was Prime Cornelian up to?

  And nothing Targon Ramir's own advisers had been able to come up with was of any help. Were the satellites communications blackeners, old nuclear weapons set to go off simultaneously and form an electromagnetic blanket around the planet, destroying communications? Was this just the first step in Cornelian's invasion? In any event, all defensive units had been given individual instructions in the event of some such an occurrence. But there were no radiation sensor readings from the flat packages, and while it made some sense for Cornelian to destroy Venusian communications, it made not very much, since Cornelian would then hamper his own communications on landing.

  Were they decoys? Some sort of new weapon?

  That was what made Targon go cold and why all the feeder stations had been kept on highest alert since the first flat box had zipped into orbit five days before. That and the fact that apparently Prime Cornelian himself was in orbit along with the orbiters, while all his troops stayed back on Mars, playing cards and on drinking binges.

  It just made no sense.

  "Have we heard from every station?" Targon said to Jean Sneaden; he realized that he had been staring at the little girl on the swing while his thoughts wandered.

  "Yes," Sneaden said. The red-haired young man held the same preoccupied, worried look he had held for days.

  "I should speak with Colonel Hexon myself." Sneaden nodded and turned to activate the Screen which dominated the center of the room.

  And to think they should be serving stems of beer and handing out tourist leaflets here, Targon thought.

  Hexon's face filled the screen. He wore his new uniform, and position, well. Former head of Venus security, he was a born military man. Some men were like that, Targon knew; as he had been born to lay his hands on machines, so had Boran Hexon been created to fight. That Hexon had had the misfortune (for him) to be born on Earth as Sarat Shar was bringing peace to Afrasia was his bad luck; he had been one of the first to volunteer for duty on Venus, and over the years had steadily marched his way up the ranks to head Targon's security team. He was sober and tenacious, a rule reader, a prig—just the kind of man for the present situation.

 
"Sir," Hexon said, bowing curtly and unsmiling.

  Targon was about to chastise Hexon for his use of the word sir, but under the circumstances he thought better of it. He was wearier of correcting people than he was of the use of the word; and, whether he liked it or not, he was in charge.

  "Colonel," Targon said in greeting.

  Hexon's uniform looked freshly pressed, the creases as sharp as his eyes. He was not a tall man but appeared tall, and his close-cropped hair made his head look like an ancient bullet.

  "Everything's as ready as we can make it, sir," Hexon said, anticipating Targon's question.

  "Thank you. I ... hate to be single-minded about this, Hexon—but do you have any idea what those orbiters contain?"

  "Electronics, and nothing more. There's a lens system, approximately two meters wide, in the base of each one, but that may be to capture reflected light for power. My guess is still that Cornelian is in the early stages of his invasion and that these orbiters are nothing more than communications devices." Hexon's face showed the slightest sour grin. "Anyhow, he's not answering any of our queries—or your ultimatum to leave Venus orbit."

  "Not that we could do anything to back that up," Targon said, mostly to himself.

  "It was a necessity," Hexon said immediately, and humorlessly. "He knows it, and we know it. Conventions one four eight of the Four World Treaty called for it."

  "They also call for Prime Cornelian to remove his orbiters and himself from Venusian space immediately," Targon replied dryly.

  Still without humor, Hexon nodded. "And he'll pay for it."

  To himself, Targon said, We'll see.

  To Hexon, he said, "Carry on, Colonel."

  "We'll do that, sir. And may I say that I'm proud to have this opportunity to serve."

  "Thank you, Colonel," Targon said.

  With a snapping salute, Hexon was gone from the Screen.

  Targon turned to Sneaden, who was hovering nearby. The man looked ready to break apart at the seams.

  "Have you slept, Jean?" Targon said, putting an arm around the young man's shoulder.

  "Not for a while."

  "Why don't you get some rest now? If anything happens I promise to wake you."

  "I'd . . . rather stay awake," Sneaden said. Ramir was touched by the young man's gesture.

  "All right," Targon said, "then why don't the two of us get some coffee?"

  As they approached the coffee server, the room exploded in light.

  For a moment Targon thought there had been an attack on the outpost or that Sacajawea Patera, which enfolded them like a cupped hand, had somehow become active again. He braced for a physical sensation, but it was only his eyes that had been affected. Immediately, then, he thought of a power surge; the room was filled with blinding light emanating from the copious banks of Screens trained on Prime Cornelian's orbiters and the areas of land directly below them.

  "What in hell is happening?" Targon snapped. But in a moment he saw for himself.

  The world outside the Piton was filled with thin rods of brilliant light piercing the sky, stretching from the atmosphere to the ground. Targon quickly followed one upward and saw no end; it looked like a physical thing, a luminous, sharp line, tracing into the highest clouds.

  Through the din around him, Targon turned to Sneaden and shouted, "Are they the same as those three energy bursts we monitored a week ago—the ones from the middle of Lake Aurelia?"

  Sneaden glanced at a monitor and looked back, puzzled. "They're different. These shouldn't have gotten in past our shields."

  A cold feeling gripped Targon. "Could they be some sort of elevator system—a physical phenomenon?"

  But even as Sneaden was answering in the negative, the brilliance subsided. The gleaming light rods disappeared as quickly as they had come.

  There was a momentary rush of relief throughout the command post—but almost immediately a Screen monitor announced with alarm, "Mr. Ramir, sir, you'd better come see this!"

  This plaintive call was followed by ten others.

  Targon moved to the nearest screen and saw what looked like a mass of blobs on the ground, made of light, formed into neat rows.

  "Where is this—where am I looking?" Ramir snapped.

  The monitor said, "Lavinia Station, sir. From two kilometers up."

  "Move in on it!"

  "Yes, Sir."

  Instantly the picture zoomed closer to the ground. There was the Lavinia feeder station, and there to one side of it, in a clearing where a second station had been planned, were ranks and ranks of lights, seemingly man-sized.

  "Can you get any closer?"

  "Yes, sir. Zoom."

  The picture zoomed in, onto the roof of the station.

  "Move it out into the clearing, dammit!" Targon snapped.

  The Screen moved over the clearing.

  Targon Ramir held his breath; around him, there were gasps.

  The man-lights were soldiers—booted, uniformed, light-shrouded soldiers.

  "Are they human?" Ramir said loudly.

  From another monitor came, "No, sir! They're . energy-based."

  "My God," Targon said.

  He stepped back, his mind racing, and took in information from the other Screens around him. There were light-soldiers everywhere—in Aurelia, in Lakshmi Planum, in Clotho Tessera, Sif Mons, in the streets of Frolich itself.

  Ramir thought fleetingly of that little girl on her swing.

  He strode to the window and looked out. There, far below at the base of Sacajawea, were a formation of light points making their way toward the base camp.

  Targon spun around and ordered, "Blow the feeder stations!"

  There was a freeze of movement.

  "Did you hear me? I said blow them!"

  For every man and woman at every terminal, it was the death sentence for Venus they had been dreading to hear.

  Sneaden, white-faced, was suddenly beside Ramir.

  "Targon, we have to talk about this."

  Ramir's face was livid. "There's no time to talk about it! We have to blow them now or we won't be able to!"

  "Those soldiers are not human; they may be only decoys. Or a scare tactic."

  "We have to act now!"

  Sneaden took a deep, shuddering breath. "Targon, I'm afraid I'm going to have to relieve you of command."

  Targon Ramir stood immobile, uncomprehending; he was still thinking of the sequence of events he had set in motion: the plasma tubes would be blown, and then there would be a planned exodus from the planet. He would leave Cornelian with the ruins of his own ambition and send him back to Mars empty-handed.

  And Venus would be safe, healing her wounds, for a hundred years or more.

  Targon barely registered the two guards who now flanked him; neither did he feel the solid sound of the security device activated over his wrists, which had been pulled together in front of him.

  He shouted, "This is the only chance we'll have!" Breathing heavily, his eyes focused on Sneaden, who stood with bowed head before him, and on the others in the room, who stood momentarily oblivious to the chaos on their Screens and would not meet his eyes.

  "What you're doing is madness!"

  Jean Sneaden said quietly, "We can't give up what we've done here."

  "I've explained all this to you a hundred times!"

  "We took a vote," Sneaden explained, "and decided it was better to fight for Venus than to damage it."

  "You're wrong!"

  Targon studied the room, looking for a pair of eyes that would meet his own, that would contradict what this foolish young man with red hair was saying. He suddenly felt like weeping.

  "Then you'll lose everything," he added.

  "We don't think so. We believe Hexon can hold off anything Prime Cornelian can throw at us. We'll fight in the streets if we have to. We'll fight hand to hand if we have to. But this is our home and we won't destroy it."

  Wearily, Ramir said, "Is Carter Frolich behind this?"

  Jean l
ooked hurt. "This is something we decided on our own, Targon. Frolich is . . . mentally disturbed."

  It was the slightest relief to know that they had done what they had done out of conviction and not because they had fallen into Frolich's demented web.

  "God help you all," Targon said, suddenly empty.

  A kind of peace came over him, knowing that it was out of his hands. He looked for a chair, found one, and sat down. He felt suddenly old, like a tightly wound spring suddenly snapped. Wearily, he looked up at Jean Sneaden and gave the young man a slight smile. He realized suddenly how much Sneaden reminded him of himself forty years ago.

  He was so tired, now.

  "I understand, Jean," he said quietly. "I understand what you've done. You're wrong, but at least you believe in what you're doing."

  Sneaden took another deep breath, as if a great weight had been lifted from his own shoulders, and said, "Thank you, Targon."

  "Don't thank me for anything," Targon said. Suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep, and dream. Perhaps dreams would be better than what he saw on the nearest Screen.

  He pointed the view out to Sneaden. A swarm of light-soldiers was occupying the Tellus Station, setting up defenses around its perimeter. A group was on the catwalks around the plasma detonators; by now they would have begun to disarm them.

  He glanced at the Screen beside it, which displayed a short battle at one of the outer defenses of Frolich City. A strict line of light-soldiers advanced on a raser cannon battery. The battery opened fire. The raser fire went right through the advancing soldiers, who overran the battery without losing their step-march. Suddenly there were three quick flashes of light. Three light-soldiers disappeared from the precise line, appearing a moment later behind the lines, where they caught up to the defenders, who were now attempting to retreat.

  There was a blur of motion—then the three light-soldiers were back in formation. The entire line marched over the now bisected bodies of the defenders, which still twitched on the ground, leaking blood.

  Targon Ramir's tired eyes met Jean Sneaden's suddenly frightened ones.

  Targon said, "What you should be most worried about, Jean, is who let those things get through your shields."