Orphan's Triumph

by Robert Buettner

  “Come with Archie, Jason.”

  “What?”

  “Beat feet also. Archie and Jason will immerse together.”

  It doesn’t take an orphan long to learn that he wants to be part of a family.

  “You don’t understand, Archie. How long is the journey?”

  “If Archie knew all of the journey, Archie would not wish to go.”

  Ha-ha. I think.

  Archie said, “Approximately two hundred thousand jumps.”

  “No, Archie.”

  “No?” Jeeb’s translator lacked ability to impart inflection, beyond a question, but I heard a sob in the word.

  “Archie, I can’t. I’m too fragile. My identity will die long before two hundred thousand jumps.” Then more words tumbled from my lips. “But it sounds great. Really.” If Archie couldn’t tell a lie, he certainly couldn’t recognize a white one when he heard it.

  “Jason would die?”

  I nodded as if Archie could see me. “Jason would die. Jason does not want to die.”

  The timer winked down to three minutes.

  “Then Archie must go alone. Jason, Archie also does not want to die.”

  SEVENTY-SEVEN

  I SAT HERE, tiny, somewhere in some galaxy. I was on my own, obliged to decide the fate of two races, with nothing but the lessons of an accidental soldier’s life to guide me.

  I hadn’t realized it until this moment, but suddenly, lonely Archie and I were both, in our own way, orphans. Decades before, I had been the first modern human to encounter this being. Today, one way or the other, I would be the last.

  A soldier in a life visits both poles of mankind’s nature. I had seen men enslave other men on Bren and make war incessantly to no purpose. But I had also seen men like Bassin sacrifice to change that for the better. On Tressel, I had seen men commit unspeakable atrocities. But I had seen men like Audace Planck sacrifice everything to change that for the better.

  Did all our arrogant cruelty, not just to ourselves but to the world around us, disqualify us from the survival sweepstakes? If Archie were lying, would he be doing this universe a favor by wiping us out?

  But what about Archie? The simplicity of voice and outlook that rendered him as charming as a transgalactic sock puppet was just a product of an obsolete translation algorithm. Did it change the reality of what he had done? Without remorse, he had slaughtered and enslaved the only other intelligent race in his universe.

  The choice became simple. End the imperfect life of one race to preserve the imperfect life of another? Or risk that both could survive, and become better?

  I took a deep breath, popped the seal on my helmet, and stripped off my armor until I could get at the abort remote in my pocket. By the time my fingers closed around the remote, blackness clouded the edges of my vision. I reached for my helmet to try to draw a breath. The timer display numbers read fifteen seconds.

  Fourteen.

  I fumbled with the remote, then fell forward onto the only other intelligent species in the universe as consciousness vanished.

  I closed my eyes.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  I SAID, “I don’t want you to die, Archie. I’m tired of making things die. I’m tired of man making things die.”

  “Wander? You’re awake?”

  I stared at the ceiling, then at the Space Force lieutenant commander who stood alongside the bed in which I lay. I rasped, “Where the hell am I?”

  “In the commander’s cabin aboard the JFK.”

  I rubbed my hand beneath me and felt cool synlon. “What happened?”

  “We were hoping you would tell us. We recovered you from a derelict Firewitch, seventy-two hours ago. You disappeared through a jump eight days before that in a Scorpion.”

  I rubbed my eyes and sipped water from a plasti he handed me. “Thanks. God, I get tired of waking up in strange beds. Who’re you?”

  “Lieutenant Commander Maxim Shaloub.”

  He ran his hand through black hair, what military barbering left of it, that curled like steel wool. I eyed his collar brass. “Judge Advocate General’s Corps?”

  “I feel morally obliged, though I’m not legally so obliged, to tell you that this interview is being holo’ed.”

  “Why?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you were serving as an officer who disobeyed standing orders or you were a civilian stowaway who misappropriated government property. Your status remains unresolved.”

  I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Whatever. If you think I’m gonna tell you what happened, the problem is I don’t know half of it.”

  He pointed behind me, to the top of my bedframe. Jeeb perched there, diagnostics purring. “Wouldn’t your mechanical have recorded something?”

  “You tell me. Your techs have had seventy-two hours to download it.”

  He smiled. “Don’t think they haven’t tried. You’ve evidently programmed it with a secure download algorithm. Which of itself raises questions about what you have to hide.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. “Jeeb. Rewind. Spill the beans.”

  Jeeb didn’t move. I added, “Please.”

  Jeeb whirred, then the flap in his carapace that covered his download port opened.

  Shaloub frowned. “Oh.”

  Jeeb spilled the beans, as requested.

  According to his records, as I collapsed, I aborted Silver Bullet’s detonation, with all of four seconds to spare.

  The attending Slugs loaded me and Jeeb into a Fire-witch, which stood off from Planet Archie, while he lit off his Cavorite express. Jeeb’s holo couldn’t do justice to the spectacle of an entire planet accelerated from its orbit by the most powerful engine ever conceived, at least in this universe.

  When Archie left on his orphan’s journey, his Fire-witch shot back through the jump with Jeeb and me. Then it did what Archie’s detached instrumentalities had always done when cut off from his direction. It just drifted. The last thing on the recording was Archie’s mechanical voice. “Archie does not want Jason to die, either.”

  The JAG prosecutor stepped back and leaned against the cabin’s desk. “We won the war. You won it.”

  “No. Both sides won. We’re alive. The Pseudocephalopod is alive. Still want to court-martial me for desertion? Or try me for treason?”

  He blinked. “It’s not up to me.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’ve been through this kind of thing before. By the time we get home, the politicians will pin medals on you and me and everybody involved and claim credit for the result.”

  He crossed his arms and shrugged. “Probably. But it’s not up to them, either. We’re fourteen months from Mousetrap. The vessel captain is the law out here. As a matter of law, you’re more likely to get summarily executed than get a medal.”

  Medals. I stared at the ceiling’s blank whiteness trying to remember all the heroes of this war that had consumed my life, trying to remember all their sacrifices. A lump swelled in my throat. There were too many, and the remembrance too painful. There would be time.

  Finally, I sighed. I cocked my head at the JAG officer.

  “You said this is the JFK. The JFK isn’t scheduled to enter service for two years, even from now.”

  He rubbed new paint that covered old on the bulkhead. “This isn’t the new JFK. This is the original John Fitzgerald Kennedy. They demothballed her two years ago. Maximum effort and all. She’s so old that we move between jumps on antimatter bottles. We fell so far behind the fleet that we were authorized to turn back, but the skipper wouldn’t. Still, we got here too late.”

  I smiled at him. “Not from where I’m lying.”

  He managed a thin smile. “There are a lot of people aboard who would say that. Because the skipper didn’t turn back, we were able to pick up survivors from a half-dozen ships. We have people hot-bunking in the companionways. A Colonel Hibble sends his regards, by the way. He’s splitting bunk time with Admiral Duffy. The brig’s alrea
dy converted to a dormitory, so the skipper opted to confine you here, surprisingly.”

  “Why surprisingly?”

  The prosecutor shook his head. “Because there’s no pricklier commander in the fleet. They say the skipper actually had to beg for this rust bucket and runs it tight so nobody can take it away.” He rolled his eyes. “Don’t expect leniency from Admiral Ozawa.”

  Capitol City Statesman

  The Clear Voice of Roth’s World

  Harvest 16th, 2116 Standard

  Herd on the Street

  Today the Rancher’s Club of Roth’s teams with the Historical Society to welcome guest speakers from the Inworlds. At the speakers’ request, the club has been opened to the public, and the buffet will be provided with the speakers’ compliments. There are ’goon ribs and there are the Rancher’s ’goon ribs, so arrive early!

  Mr. Jason Wander is a true-born Earthling, and one of the last surviving veterans of the Slug War. So is his lovely wife, the former Mimi Ozawa, also true-born, who will speak, too.

  Your Social Editor caught up with the Wanders yesterday, while they rode the Stepper out to see Ruby Falls. That view never gets old!

  The Wanders are, Mrs. Wander says, “About sixty years old, subjective.” But, because of near-light travel dilation, they are “a bit older, standard.” On the Wanders’ wedding day, the entire Human Union was just fourteen worlds, Mrs. Wander says!!

  Perhaps, but your Editor should look so good! Mrs. Wander says they have visited one hundred forty-four worlds, counting Roth’s. They have no plans to stop traveling.

  The couple married late, so they never had The Blessing. But, Mrs. Wander points out, on some worlds the problem is too many children. The War orphaned Mr. Wander, but he says that his life has taught him that all the people of the Human Union are his family. And the Wanders travel with Jeeb, a lap-sized Mechanical as old as they are, which “we spoil like our own child.”

  Both Wanders will tell about their experiences in the Slug War, which Mr. Wander says were “average.”

  But he says the true reason they speak on the outworlds is so no one ever forgets the sacrifices, made by so many soldiers, that saved two races and brought peace to the galaxy.

  It sounds like a good story.

  Acknowledgments

  Books, they say, are marriages. Of ink to paper, of author to material, and of reader to story. Orphan’s Triumph is for some of us an anniversary and for others a spring wedding.

  So, my thanks. To something old (child-bride appearances notwithstanding), senior editor Devi Pillai and agent Winifred Golden, both present at the creation, and Alex Lencicki and Jennifer Flax, veterans of the reissued series. To something new, my U.K. editor Bella Pagan and marketing executive Darren Turpin. To something borrowed, the U.K. ’s gift to Orbit U.S., publishing director Tim Holman. And something blue, Calvin Chu, who outdid himself with Triumph’s icy, cerulean cover. And to everyone else at Orbit for their great work.

  And, as always, to Mary Beth for anniversaries past and better ones to come.

  Robert Buettner

  Born July 7 long ago on Manhattan Island, Robert grew up in Cleveland and eventually slid west to Colorado. When he's not writing, Robert runs marathons, climbs mountains, snowboards and scubas.

  ***

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