by Kent, Steven
I liked Sarah Doctorow the moment I saw her, but the romance did not last. She moved around the room like a human whirlwind, kissing her husband on the cheek, shaking my hand, then pecking Ava on the cheek and giving her a hug.
She turned to me, and said, “General Harris, you must be famished. I understand being shot takes a lot out of you.” And then, without pausing to breathe, she turned to Ava, and said, “Ava darling, why don’t you come help me in the kitchen? You can tell me all about that awful assassination.” And just like that, Ava and Mrs. Doctorow vanished around the corner.
“Watch this,” Doctorow whispered, then he cupped his hands like an actor pretending to yell, and called, “Can I help in the kitchen?”
The offer earned him a giggle from Ava and a belly laugh from Sarah. Ava said something about Doctorow being a good husband, to which Sarah replied, “Don’t you believe it for a moment, sweetie.”
“I had a word with Lieutenant Mars. He says a planetwide mediaLink will be up in the next week or two. We should be able to contact every city on Terraneau.”
Mars was the top dog in the Corps of Engineers. He commanded the crews that built Outer Bliss and refurbished Fort Sebastian. I was not aware of how far he had gotten with the mediaLink. I was not keen on the idea of Doctorow sending flights around the planet.
“Do you have working media stations?” I asked, making a mental note to contact Mars as soon as I got back to the fleet. I would tell him to slow it down on the media equipment.
“No, but we should be able to throw something together. Perhaps you have some broadcast equipment you could loan us,” Doctorow said.
“I’m sure we can find something,” I told Doctorow, knowing full well that we did have equipment we could give him and that I would not give it to him. Maybe I was cut out for politics after all.
“Would you like a drink?” Doctorow had a large wet bar stocked with enough bottles to run an officers’ club for a night. He might have been a big drinker, but I had the feeling the booze was here for his political friends and rivals.
“Got any juice?” I asked.
“Powdered milk and powdered juice,” Doctorow said. “Fresh food is still in short supply.”
“I’ll make it simple,” I said. “Give me whatever you’re drinking.”
He poured me a tumbler, and I took it without looking to see what it was.
We went out to the patio and sat in the languid night air. Doctorow’s house sat on a ridge overlooking Norristown. From the back porch, I could look out into the heart of the city, with its newly lit populated areas and its unlit badlands. In the center of everything, the three skyscrapers stood like sparkling columns.
“They have the elevators working in the dorms,” Doctorow said, tracing the line of my sight.
“Does that mean people are living on the upper floors now?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? It’s hotter than blazes up there. We haven’t got the air-conditioning running yet.”
I tried my drink. It was a liqueur, something that tasted a lot like coffee. I did not like it.
We sat on some metal furniture and stared out across town for several seconds. Finally, Doctorow broke the silence. “There’s a nasty rumor going around these days that you are planning to start a war with the Unified Authority, General,” he said. “Is that what Freeman meant by ‘breaking the rules’?”
I thought about playing innocent or just plain denying everything, but there was too much to hide. “Something like that,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “Care to share how you heard about it?”
“It doesn’t matter how I heard it.”
“It may not matter to you,” I said. “To me, it’s a breach of security . . . a bad one.”
“Do you plan on involving my planet in your war?”
“The war has already begun, but I didn’t start it,” I said. “The Unified Authority is phasing clones and obsolete fleets out of its military. They didn’t send us here to free Terraneau, they sent us here for target practice.”
Doctorow whistled. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.” He thought about what I had said, and finally asked, “What happened? I mean, clones . . . they were the heart of the military.”
“A couple of generals blamed clones for all of the losses against the aliens.”
“There was always deep-seated prejudice among the officers I knew. I won’t say it made sense, but it was always there . . . always there,” Doctorow said.
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
“What did your friend mean when he said you broke the rules?”
“We captured three of their self-broadcasting ships.”
“Were those ships attacking you?”
“The Navy was using them to bring clones in and ship natural-borns back to Earth.”
“So, they came on a peaceful mission,” Doctorow said.
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“You fired on those ships?” Doctorow asked.
“Hell, we had to do something, or we would all be trapped right now. We hijacked . . . commandeered three self-broadcasting battleships. Now, maybe we will be able to defend ourselves.”
“Have they asked for their ships back?”
I nodded.
“Are you going to return them?”
“I can’t imagine why I would,” I said.
“It sounds to me like you’ve started yourself a war.”
“To us, it’s a war. We’re fighting for our survival. To them, it’s a military exercise,” I said.
“Just make sure you keep your war off my planet,” Doctorow said, all of his former good humor missing from his voice.
“That’s why we wanted the self-broadcasting ships. We want to take the fight to them.”
“What do you think they’ll call your war back on Earth? The Clone Rebellion? The Clone Uprising?” Doctorow finished his drink and placed the glass on the little table by his seat.
“I prefer the Enlisted Man’s War,” I said. “My men tend to keel over when they hear they’re clones.”
“I don’t want you pulling my planet into your war,” Doctorow said.
“We have a five-hundred-ship fleet orbiting this planet. The Earth Fleet is down to somewhere in the neighborhood of forty self-broadcasting ships.”
“Forty ships that you know about,” Doctorow corrected.
I went on as if I had not heard him. “We have a blockade around your planet. You and your people are safe.”
Doctorow heard this and laughed. “Safe? Your friend with the rifle not only managed to run your blockade, he knew how to find you and put a bullet in your chest.”
“Simunition,” I said.
“What?”
“He used simunition, not a live round.”
“You’re missing my point, Harris. You weren’t even able to protect yourself. You’re in over your head. That’s my point.” Doctorow had raised his voice so that he nearly shouted the words.
Sarah came out to the patio. “How are you boys getting on?” she asked, pretending she had not heard us.
“It appears General Harris here has plunged us into another war,” Doctorow snapped.
“Well, that’s fine then,” Sarah said, the smile never faltering from her face. I wondered if she even heard him. “Now, you boys come in before our dinner gets cold.”
The Doctorows’ dining room was a long and narrow rectangle with a small table surrounded by large empty spaces on either end. When I mentioned this to Ava, she laughed and said that the table could be extended to fill the room.
“The first time I came here, Sarah hosted a dinner party for twenty guests,” Ava said. “We all sat at the same table.” Ava sat to my right. Ellery sat across the table, glaring at me.
The Doctorows ate like people living in a war zone. Sarah had worked wonders with rice and beans and canned meats, but I got better food on the Kamehameha.
Ava and Sarah talked about movies. They chatted like sisters, Sarah asking questions about stars and Ava
dishing up insider gossip that might well have been old news three years ago. Not that it mattered to Sarah—her planet had been cut off from movies and movie stars since the day the Mogats destroyed the Broadcast Network.
Doctorow and I traded a few questions, but we mostly listened in on the women. When we spoke, we talked about galactic wars; Ava and Sarah chatted about movie stars and gossip. Their conversation was more interesting than ours.
When Ava and Sarah finally hit a lull in their conversation, I commented that watching them converse, I would have guessed that they had known each other their entire lives, they might even have been sisters.
“We’re new-old friends,” Sarah explained. “We have Ava up to the house every weekend.”
“Really?”
“Well, sure. You asked El to look after her,” Sarah said.
“I appreciate it,” I said, not sure what else to say.
“We’ve loved having her. I did not know what to expect when El first told me about Ava, her being a movie star and all,” Sarah said. “A war hero and a movie star—my goodness, you two are going to be the life of the party wherever you go.”
Ava smiled and gave my hand a squeeze.
We ate and chatted amiably, then Sarah changed the tenor of the evening. “You know, Wayson . . . Is it all right if I call you Wayson? General Harris just sounds so full of starch.”
Ava chipped in, “I call him Harris.”
“Wayson is fine,” I said.
“You really are a hero. You saved the planet. I mean, I heard all about you chasing away the aliens with so very few men—absolutely amazing, like a miracle or something.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed.
She gushed on about my heroism, but then she said, “Who are you going to war with now?”
“He declared war on the Unified Authority,” Doctorow said.
“But we are part of the Unified Authority,” Sarah said, clearly confused.
“On Earth,” Doctorow said.
“Oh, on Earth,” Sarah said. She sounded impressed. “You better keep the fighting away from Terraneau.”
“We’ll keep you safe,” I said, thinking that Doctorow must have rehearsed the entire night with his wife.
“See, now, Wayson, you’re not listening to me. I have no doubt you will keep us safe, but that is not what I am telling you. What I am trying to say is that given a choice, the people on this planet are surely going to support Earth over a bunch of clones.”
Sarah smiled and passed me the beans, apparently unaware that I might object to her antisynthetic comments.
“But Earth abandoned Terraneau,” Ava said. “They had a fleet of ships circling your planet for four years without ever sending anyone to rescue you.”
“We told them not to. El, didn’t you tell them to leave us alone.” She said this as a statement, not a question. “You told them not to come, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, dear,” Doctorow said. “I think we are all glad that General Harris decided not to listen.”
“Well, of course we are,” Sarah admitted, “but that does not mean we would pick clones over humans if it comes to a war. You understand that, don’t you, Wayson?”
“Yes,” I said. I understood her perfectly.
“God, I hate that woman,” Ava said, as we walked through her front door. I had expected Doctorow to move her in with the girls in the dormitory, but that never happened. She never spent so much as a night in that building.
“I thought you two were old friends,” I said.
“Honey, where I come from, she would not be allowed on the sidewalk without a leash and a muzzle!” Ava said. “I could never be friends with that two-faced, antisynthetic bitch. Do you know what she said behind my back? When she found out her husband wanted to put me in the girls’ dorm, she told her friends they should set me up in a convenience store and call it a ‘home for wayward clones.’ ”
“How about Doctorow?” I asked. “Is he any better?”
“I don’t know how he puts up with her. They’re completely different. He’s a nice man, and he’s honest, and . . .”
“She’s honest, too,” I said.
“Honestly antisynthetic. Was it always like this for you, Harris? Did people always treat you like that? I don’t think anyone knew I was a clone when I first got here. They knew who I was, you know, they’d seen my movies, but then Sarah started telling everyone I was a clone. She’s like a one-woman mediaLink. God, I hate her.”
“Do you think she speaks for the rest of the planet?” I asked, knowing that in Ava’s experience, Norristown was the rest of the planet. “Who’s got more clout, Ellery or Sarah?”
“If it comes down to a fight between Sarah and Ellery, my money is on Ellery,” Ava said. But I got the feeling she had told me whom she wanted to win, not who she thought would take the title.
I looked around the house. The living room was all done up in bright colors and glass tile. The home probably came furnished, just move in and put your name on the shingle, with a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy when it came to the previous owners. There was a bright square above the fireplace where someone might once have hung a family portrait.
“Did Doctorow give you this house?” I asked.
“I pay the rent by teaching drama classes up at the dorms,” Ava said, brightening up.
“Should I be worried about the other teachers?”
“Other guys? Wayson Harris is worried about other guys?” Ava laughed. She led me into the kitchen, where she picked out two mugs and made us coffee. “Ellery warned everyone about you. Between Sarah advertising that I am a clone and Ellery scaring the guys off, it gets pretty lonely around here.
“How about you?” she asked. “Any other women I need to know about?” She spoke more softly and came close. I put my hands on her waist and brought her toward me. We hugged, and I swung her gently back and forth. A few moments passed before we kissed. Somewhere in her breath, I tasted a trace of the imitation bacon Sarah Doctorow used to flavor her beans, but mostly Ava’s breath just smelled like Ava. She kissed me, rubbed her body against mine, and giggled. “Wayson Harris worried about other guys.” She laughed and pressed her face against my chest.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought about Freeman and his warning, and I knew that I should call the incident in to Warshaw, but Ava wrapped her right leg around my left thigh, and she reached up and kissed my neck. She kissed me on the lips, and her taste lingered. I did not forget about Freeman, but the run-in just did not seem all that important at the moment. I would be back on the Kamehameha by lunch.
“You know what you said about my never forcing you?” I asked.
“You’re not going to need to now,” she said.
Sometimes things just work that way.
We went to bed and made love. When we were done, we held each other in the darkness. I felt cool fingers with skin as soft as flower petals probing the wound on my chest. Once she had finished examining my chest, Ava moved her hands to my face, where she ran her fingers along my eyebrow. This touched off a strange kind of search. She felt my thighs, my arms, and my neck. She finished by going over my back, stopping on a spot below the shoulder blade on my left side.
“Find anything interesting?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered, in a voice as soft and sensuous as the feel of her skin against mine. “This is the worst one.” She meant my worst scar. I had three inch-wide stripes across that part of my back.
“How did you get these?” she asked.
“Somebody scratched me,” I said.
“Scratched you?” she asked, unable to hide her giggle. “Somebody scratched you? Poor baby.”
I did not tell her he was a Navy SEAL clone genetically developed to have daggerlike fingers. Instead, I just said, “Yeah, poor me.”
“Ted told me you were the toughest man in the Marines,” Ava said.
“Nice of him,” I said.
“Have you ever been s
hot?” she asked.
“Besides today?” I asked.
“Today doesn’t count. You said he used blanks.”
“He used simmies. They’re not blanks. Blanks just make noise.”
“I mean shot with bullets?”
“No, I have never been shot,” I admitted.
“Really?” She seemed surprised. I wanted to tell her that being shot in real life was nothing like being shot in the movies. On the battlefield, you got it in the gut or the head and you died. Maybe you got shot in the arm or the leg, and the limb never worked right again. In the movies, heroes get shot and still manage to save the day. In real war, Marines get shot and never fully recover.
“Have you ever been stabbed?” she asked.
“I got scratched real bad,” I said. The SEAL who put those scars on my back had dug so deep that he cut through muscle and damaged organs, but I felt no desire to tell her that. This conversation irritated me.
“You were in all of those big battles, and you never got shot? You know what, Harris? I think Ted was wrong about you,” she said. She probably wanted to sound playful, this being an after-sex conversation. To me, though, she sounded childish. “I don’t think you’re the toughest man in the Marines. I think you’re the luckiest.”
There was just enough light in the room for me to see her hair, her face, her breasts. There was not a man in the Corps who would have disagreed with her about my luck at that moment, not even Ted Mooreland.
I fell asleep after that. I did not remember my dream when I woke up; but whatever I dreamed, it left me feeling small, worried . . . unlucky.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Knowing that I needed to report my run-in with Freeman as soon as possible, I woke up early the next morning and flew back to Outer Bliss. I had one final interrogation to conduct.
