“Their faith,” suggested Trystin. “If they die in a holy war or whatever it is, they go to paradise.”
“No real human could swallow that. No, they’re aliens. They just look human.” Quentar laughed again. “Wish I were a pilot. Then I could scorch a whole lot of them. Keep’em from killing real people.” His eyes half glazed at a message or some line input, and he added in a disinterested tone, his consciousness half elsewhere, “You need some rest.”
“Yeah.” Trystin nodded and walked down to the shower, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. A shower and sleep, those were what he really wanted—and not to think about alien-acting revs. Or Quentar’s wanting to kill anything that moved. Just a shower and sleep.
6
In the gray light before dawn, the troop carrier was even grayer than the morning, the thermoshield plastic that covered the composite armor blending into the western horizon. The beetle-shaped carrier bore twin forward-slanted antennae composed of Sasaki cannon. On each side of the bulge that held the fully automated guns was a single rapid-launch rocket tube. Under the guns were the cockpit portals—dark armaglass irises that looked like blind eyes.
Trystin watched as the carrier slowed outside the station, putting its fans on bypass and settling down. He closed his helmet. The suit still smelled like a weight room, despite his quick efforts to clean it out that morning before redonning it. He stepped through the outer portal from East Red Two, walking quickly toward the armored carrier, aware that Natsugi had dropped the shields behind him as soon as he was clear. With each step, his boots sank ankledeep in the powdery soil.
The carrier’s armored side door swung down as he crossed the reddish ground that continued to vibrate under even the idling of the carrier’s engines. As he put his foot on the textured plates that backed the door and served as a ramp, his implant linked with the carrier’s order circuit.
“Lieutenant Desoll?”
“Stet.”
“Major Juraki. Settle in for the ride, Lieutenant. I’d like to have you act as an observer once we’re inbound to your station.”
A trooper in a full-armor suit gestured toward a seat opposite the door.
“I’d be happy to.” As Trystin answered the carrier commander, he took the vacant seat and strapped in, then slipped the seat’s tube into his suit’s oxygen plug. “Appreciate the ride.”
“Our pleasure.”
The armored door eased up into place; the fans hummed; and the carrier swept back westward along the shuttle trail, leaving a trail of fine red dust. The air-cushion shuttle didn’t have any problems sinking into the soil, but it did leave a lot of dust. It could only carry about a third of its rated capacity, given the thinner Maran atmosphere, and the abrasion on the fans was murder.
Trystin glanced up at the monitor, which showed the shuttle track in front of the carrier, and then closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept that well, not with dreams of exploding revs, and consoles and systems that didn’t work. He’d even dreamed of revs turning into scaly aliens. He snorted. Quentar and his alien fixation—the revs didn’t have to be aliens, not physical ones. Their blind faith made them alien enough. He pursed his lips. Quentar’s cheerful admission of living to kill revs bothered him, but he couldn’t say why he felt that Quentar was carrying it too far. After all, the revs had proved they were certainly out to kill him. He shook his head, recalling the fanaticism of the rev officer.
When he shifted his weight on the hard seat, his hip throbbed. It was still sore and promised to turn vivid shades of blue and yellow.
The carrier was far smoother than the scooter had been, and Trystin slipped into a doze, ignoring the faint hissing of the oxygen forced into his suit and the occasional clicks of the CO2 cartridge system.
“Approaching East Red Three …”
Trystin sat up with a jolt and blinked. Had he slept that long? He wanted to rub his eyes, but the involuntary motion brought his gauntlet against his helmet. He yawned and straightened in the seat.
The sweep trooper beside Trystin thumped his companion on the shoulder and pointed at the single screen in the troop area, focused on East Red Three.
The pinkish light of early morning illuminated black holes in at least a dozen spots in the station’s composite armor on the south side. The maintenance entry was a jagged dark cutout. Chunks of armor lay at the foot of the station walls and even meters away. Scattered between the fragments of armor were the dark figures of dead revs.
Trystin tried to count the bodies, but lost track at over a dozen.
“Desoll?” buzzed through his implant. “How does it look?”
“Looks the same as when I left. The shielding on the revvie suits seems to have worn off, though. I didn’t recall that many bodies.”
“Maybe we’ll see how dead they are.”
“Don’t aim at a nearby body. Some are booby-trapped with organic HE.”
“Organic HE? You got to be kidding.”
“I wish I were. Take my word or check with RESCOM.”
Trystin could feel the slightest jerk as the Sasakis let go.
A huge gout of flame erupted from a dead figure, and chunks of metal—weapons, respirator paks—clunked against the carrier’s plates.
“See what you mean.” Major Juraki’s voice was dry through the implant. “We’ll do a turn around the station—but all sensors indicate it’s dead.”
While the carrier slowed, it completed a full circle of the station before coming to a halt opposite the south side. Most of the damage had been there—where the entry portals were. The rest was on the east side, near the sensor conduits, at the level of the rocket launch and gattling portals, and around the armaglass port of the control center on the second level. The station’s armor on the north and west sides was untouched. So were the reclamation towers. The shields still covered the power turbine fans.
Trystin frowned. The damage indicated that the revvie attack had been directed at all the defense installations. But that made a sort of sense, since once the defense systems were knocked out, nothing could stop the revs from destroying the rest of the station.
“Sweep team, stand by for reoccupation.”
“Lieutenant Desoll”—that came through on the implant level—“stand back and let them sweep the place. We’ll need you to identify what happened. After they’re clear, come on up through the middle door.”
The carrier eased to a halt and a full squad of the armored troops swept down the ramp and into the station. They moved quickly, if not on reflex boost.
When the armored door swung up again, Trystin unplugged from the oxygen line, going back to his suit supply, and stepped through the narrow hatch and climbed the three steps to the control deck.
The major, sitting in the left seat, motioned to the jump seat that folded down between his seat and the gunner’s console. The gunner, wearing black armor, remained focused on his consoles. Trystin pulled down the jump seat and plugged into the auxiliary air jack.
“So far, so good.” The major’s voice was detachedsounding through the implant, as if his attention were elsewhere. “Just dead revs.”
“My tech is wrapped up in sheeting on the tech table,” Trystin added. “It was all I could do.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
Trystin waited, shifting his eyes between the screens and the armaglass portals. Both showed the same scene—flat—tened soil, fragments of composite armor, and the battered station walls. Beyond the station, he could glimpse the reclamation towers and the badlands. Two troopers were carting rev bodies to the carrier’s rear cargo bay and stacking them. The revvie weapons went into the front bay.
“Station’s clean, Lieutenant,” announced the major. “Tech team’s coming in, and they should have you back on-line before long.”
“I hope so.”
“Until the next attack. Damned revs. Wish we could just clean them out. Galaxy’d be a better place. But no … politicians in Cambria say that a big war would do us
all in. This isn’t? Every year, they send more troids, and every year the messes are worse.” The major’s hand pointed toward the station. “They’re after real estate. What they all need is to buy the farm. You notice how they leave the reclamation stuff alone?”
“I’d noticed.”
“They want us to do the hard work, and then, when the planet’s set, they’ll be ready to take it over. Hell … we’ve done enough here that without any more work, the air’ll be breathable in another generation or so. Damned skimmers.”
The implant circuit went dead, and Trystin waited.
“Tech shuttles are on your track. Only be a few minutes.”
Again, the circuit went blank, and Trystin felt shut out as the major began to recall his team, and as the cargo-bay doors were closed and sealed, and the troopers reboarded the carrier.
Even before the carrier was reloaded, the three gray tech shuttles settled onto their braced fan skirts outside the station’s vehicle door, and a handful of techs scurried into the dead station.
The last of the revs’ weapons went into the carrier’s forward bay, and the cargo-bay doors closed.
“Tech team confirms that the station will be up in a couple of stans. They’d like your input on priorities.”
“I’d better be going.” Trystin stood.
“We’re off to the western perimeter. There’s another crew of revs down, and reports that they brought some sort of EDI/radar-transparent carrier with them.” The major shook his head. “Seems like there’s always something new.”
Trystin unplugged and headed down the three steps. “I appreciate the transport and help.”
“That’s what we’re here for. You station guards are stretched pretty thin for all your fancy hardware.” The helmet bobbed in a nod. “Luck, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks.” Trystin stepped back onto the red and brown soil outside East Red Three.
7
“ … there being a god, that god must be worshiped. Worship means raising the god above the individual, and liturgies often make the point that the individual is less than nothing compared to the deity If this be done, then, when the god is invoked, the individual has so little worth that he or she may be sacrificed for the needs of the god … .
“And who speaks for the god? If all people do, then no one does, and there is no god. If the people accept a priesthood, or the equivalent, then those priests exercise whatever power that god’s believers grant that god over them, and that elite may cause an individual to be worth less, to be exiled, or even to die or be killed. Yet such powers do not come from a deity.
“In modern history and science, never has there been a verified occasion of a god appearing or demonstrating the powers ascribed throughout history to deities. Always, there is a prophet who speaks for the god. Why cannot the god speak? If a god is omnipotent, then the god can speak. If he cannot, then that god is not omnipotent. Often, the prophets say that a god will only speak to the chosen, the worthy.
“Should a people accept a god who is either too powerless to speak, or too devious or too skeptical to appear? Or a god who will only accept those who swallow a faith laid out by a prophet who merely claims that deity exists—without proof? Yet people have done so, and have granted enormous powers to those who speak for god.
“More ironically, as technologies have advanced, men and women have gained powers once ascribed to deities, yet deistic faiths always claim greater powers for their deities and appear to seek equally great controls over their followers, over those followers’ finances, and at times even over their sexual habits and private lives … and many people have accepted such controls, even with enthusiasm … .”
The Eco- Tech Dialogues
Prologue
8
The perimeter station still smelled, not only of ammonia and weedgrass, but of oil, hot plastic, and burned insulation. Trystin coughed and wiped his nose. His eyes burned at the corners, and his hip remained sore from the bruise he’d gotten half falling down the emergency ladder.
He swallowed the last of the Sustain and cleared his throat. Then, for the second time, he called up the message that had been waiting for him when the station had come back on-line.
“Glad to hear you made it. Also glad it was you and not me. Ulteena.”
Short and uncuddly, but nice to know that someone paid attention, even if he’d never met Lieutenant Ulteena Freyer. But a message wasn’t enough. He needed to talk to someone, preferably someone female and sympathetic.
With a slow breath, he linked into the audio pubnet and tried Ezildya. She’d been out of her office earlier.
“Fernaldoi.”
“Ezildya, this is Trystin. I’ll be in Klyseen on sevenday afternoon … .”
“And the wandering Service officer wants a warm and willing companion? With so little notice?”
“The Service officer is the one who had six squads of revs tear down his station a few days ago. I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with survival.” He tried to keep his tone light.
“That was your station we had to cannibalize everything to put back together?”
“It wasn’t that bad—just armor and more armor and about thirty percent of the main system console.”
“Oh … you were number four. We didn’t have that much left … .”
“Sorry I called.”
“Trystin … it’s been a long eightday.”
“I know you had a long eightday. Me—I had a wonderful time. I really enjoyed going fifty kays in armor on a scooter with no comm, almost as much as I enjoyed having my tech killed and my station blown open.”
There was a long silence.
“I am sorry, Trystin. Was it that bad?”
“If you’re free on sevenday, I’ll give you the details.” As he talked, he flicked across the screens again, trying to ensure that he wasn’t missing anything. There wasn’t a flat prohibition on his using the pubnet, but it wasn’t something he should drag out, either.
“I could take off a little early. Say seventeen hundred?”
“At your place?”
“That would be best.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you then. I’ve got to go.”
“You on-line?”
“Of course.”
“Trystin …” There was a sigh. “I’ll see you sevenday.”
Ezildya’s sigh confirmed her displeasure at his calling on duty, but Trystin was tired of the unspoken restrictions of duty. He was more than a little tired of all the unspoken constraints that seemed to fill life—don’t question this; don’t ask about that—especially if you were a Service officer on a perimeter line.
After his own sigh, Trystin ran through everything again—screens, maintenance, power, and station-keeping. Nothing had changed, and even the trend-analysis screens didn’t show anything, although the cloud buildups over the eastern badlands’ hills registered heavier than usual. The perimeter lines were clear, and the turners, some kays south, continued to turn and process soil for creeper seeding. The turbine fans were generating forty percent of the load, and the organonutrient levels were down to twelve percent.
Trystin flicked off another reminder to supply, but all he got was the programmed acknowledgment.
“Lieutenant Desoll, ser?” The voice was that of Hisin, Ryla’s replacement.
“Yes?” Trystin asked, half wondering if Hisin’s rapid replacement of poor dead Ryla signified that Service personnel were as expendable as revvie missionaries. He pushed the thought away.
“I’m going to have to go off-line. The damned turners for the precrackers have jammed up. That means taking the scooter out.”
Trystin zeroed in on the lower left screen, the satellite plot. There! “I make them about eight kays south and about a kay inside the line. Is that where you have them?”
“Yes, ser. Be a good stan’fore I’m back, and that’s without trouble.”
“Check in if it’s going to take longer, and take scooter one. The comm’s shot on number two.”
“The one they brought back from East Red Two, ser? It looks to be in better shape than number one, especially the tanks.”
“That’s the way it looks, Hisin. That’s why I used it. That’s also how I found out the comm was shot.” Trystin shook his head. He’d totally forgotten to tell the tech about the faulty comm. “That’s my fault. I didn’t report it—I couldn’t because the net was down, and I forgot to log it once we got things back together.”
“Stet, ser. Once I get the turners working, if I can, I’ll look into it. I appreciate the information. I’d hate to get out there with no comm.”
“I didn’t much care for it, either.”
“You actually neutralized six squads of revs, ser?”
“I didn’t count. Cleanup squad told me I got a few. A lot of it was luck. I couldn’t sense much with their new insulated suits.”
“Bastards.”
“Yeah.”
“Going off-line, ser.”
“Stet.”
Trystin checked the entire maintenance line, code by code and signal by signal. While all the major systems were functioning, a number of less critical areas were still awaiting maintenance action. The lower rear inside door to Block A was still jammed, and the replacement door to cell three in Block B still hadn’t come in. Neither could be replaced without a new frame, and both doors and frames were back-ordered out of Klyseen central depot with no estimated delivery date. Surely a door frame, even a heavy-duty sector control station door frame, couldn’t be that hard to fabricate? Could it?
He shook his head. While the tech team had been effective in restoring armor, station integrity, and weapons systems, internal items not necessary for the operation and defense of the station had a lower priority, and supplies were low after PerCon had been forced to rebuild nearly totally the three stations on the western perimeter.
His hip was still sore, and somehow itched. He started to massage it gently, then stopped. The massage just reminded him more of the soreness.
The Parafaith War Page 6
