Infinity Wars

by Jonathan Strahan

  Now and then, the war on New Earth got hot. I dreamed I was in one of the hot spots, wading through a marsh. No moon, of course. The planet had nothing except a few captured asteroids, visible as moving points of light. Low clouds hid these and the stars. No problem for me. I had my night vision on. I could see the robots ahead of me, tall and spidery, picking their way through the reeds. Drones flew overhead, tilting back and forth to avoid branches. My unit was on either side. I noticed that Singh was alive, which he hadn’t been the last time I’d seen him. Lopez, too. I’d seen her sprayed across the landscape. A nice guy, not looking good at the end.

  Something was pulling my rifle barrel down. I looked and saw Whiskers clinging to the barrel with all four feet. A voice said, Dream. Not good. Wake.

  I was going to argue, but one of the robots stepped on a land mine, and everything blew up.

  That woke me. Whiskers was on my chest, her nose poking at my face. Bad dream.

  Yeah. I was covered with sweat. I got up and took a shower. It was close enough to morning so I made coffee, another import from Earth. Funny the things the army thought were worth shipping. Of course, we might not fight without coffee. But why the damn fish-shaped crackers?

  Good, Whiskers said.

  Well, yes.

  The day went as usual. Whiskers found four mines in a harmless looking bean field. In the evening I went back to the bar, Whiskers on my shoulder. Marin was there. I got a beer and sat down next to her. Whiskers sat on the bar top and chewed on her stalk of celery.

  I can’t repeat what we said. Mostly I’ve forgotten the conversation, except for a feeling of discomfort from Whiskers. I was going to have to file a report on the woman. She needed more help than she was getting, and her modifications meant she was valuable to the army.

  I do remember one bit of conversation. She’d been somewhere in the robot, wading across a wide, brown river. Deep in places, but not too deep for her robot. In the middle, where the main current ran, disks floated on the surface, going downstream with the current. They were a meter or more across with raised edges, bronze brown with streaks and spots of green. I knew these plants, though I had never seen them. The green was chlorophyll, and the disks photosynthesized. But tendrils hung down below them. These captured aquatic bugs and ate them. So the disks were carnivorous plants or photosynthetic animals. Take your pick.

  The river reminded Marin of the Mississippi. I didn’t remember any carnivorous floating disks in Huck Finn.

  I liked the woman. She was young and good looking and less crazy than a lot of people I had met. She had a sense of humor, though I don’t remember any of her jokes. While she drank, she wasn’t getting seriously drunk. The only problem was the sense of unease coming from Whiskers.

  I was lonely. Most of the people in the town were civilians: scientists and farmers, the people who ran the 3-D printing plant, the people who did maintenance and repair. They were good folk, who had gotten good educations back home on Earth. They had a good abstract understanding of war. They knew about PTSD. They sympathized. But I was still an outsider, though they were grateful for my work and for Whiskers.

  I liked talking to Marin, so I stalled on sending a report. Maybe I should trust the docs treating her. They would intervene if her condition looked serious. Was it my business that war made people strange?

  I was in the habit of going to that particular bar. For one thing, they let Whiskers in. And Marin kept coming. I learned more about her family and the farming co-op. Turned out she could not stand her brother, the one who bought into the co-op, and she was angry that her parents had favored him. Why should he get the safe life on Earth? Why did she have to come here?

  What bothered me about her was her anger. What I liked was her youth, her warm skin, almond eyes and lips that would have been lovely if they hadn’t been so often pressed together.

  Of course, we ended up at my apartment in my narrow, one-person bed, though it took a number of weeks, during which the barkeep kept looking at me funny. I ignored them.

  I had never made love to someone covered with mesh before. Weird. The area between her legs was open and available, which made sense. She needed to pee and defecate. The rest was covered with mesh, except her head. The mesh kept changing when I touched it, sometimes soft like silk, then suddenly rigid. Imagine sex with a person whose surface is never the same. Though it stayed rigid along her back, support for her damaged spine. Even her breasts were mesh-covered, the nipples often squashed. I made do with what I could reach.

  She came. I came. We lay together, her mesh—soft and cool, at the moment – against my bare skin. I could sense Whiskers, huddled in a corner, deeply upset.

  Bad. Bad. Crazy.

  Shut up, I told the rat.

  Bad, Whiskers repeated.

  It became regular: meeting at the bar, coming back to my place and making love while Whiskers sulked. Marin never stayed the night. Instead she went home to her apartment by the hospital. She didn’t like the rat, she told me.

  The war must have heated up, because I was finding more mines. Correction, Whiskers was finding them, light-footing over the soil between the rows of human plants in the fields outside Leestown, stopping and sniffing and saying. Yes.

  Marin began coming out to the fields with me, standing with me at a field’s edge or walking along the edge. She recognized the maize, a plant that needed a lot of water, but was—she said—in many ways the best of all the grains. Native Americans in Mexico had made it a god, way back when. A young god, she told me. A beautiful young man. Of course, they sacrificed people to their gods. We only a sacrificed to our god of war.

  I made a polite sound, since I had no opinion about the gods of ancient Mexico. Though I did check online and found images of the Mexican maize god. Lovely, and the ancient Mexicans did sacrifice to him.

  It takes some sort of jerk to make love with someone who should be reported to armed forces medical. I was pretty sure Marin’s problem was mental. Anger and depression would be my diagnosis. Whiskers agreed. She knew the smell.

  What was I going to do? Turn her in to armed forces mental health, who probably already knew we had a relationship? The barkeep’s sweetheart worked at the hospital. Once anything gets in a hospital it spreads. I wasn’t a medical worker formally, but I ought to hold to their code of ethics. No sex with clients. If I turned Marin in, I would be having a conversation with my supervisor.

  I could hope that Marin was called back to active duty. Or keep having sex with her, and pretend I didn’t know she was sick. Or cut her off, though that might cause its own problems.

  One day she told me the stem cells weren’t working. Her spine wasn’t healing.

  “Is that a deal?” I asked. “You have the mesh.”

  “That will go if I leave the armed forces.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can they fix the problem?”

  “Maybe. The stem cells have formed a tumor. That has to go. Then they might try again.”

  I had nothing to say.

  A few days later I was at a field. Whiskers was there, of course. So was Marin. We stood at the field’s edge, a short distance between us, watching Whiskers run.

  All at once Marin was in the field, walking toward the center. I was slow off the mark and couldn’t reach her before she was too far in. No way I was going to risk the mines. I called Whiskers and she turned, running through the corn toward Marin. God knows what she—or I—thought she could do, being a fraction of Marin’s weight. Marin stepped on a mine, and it blew. The rat had almost reached her. The explosion put Whiskers into the air, tumbling over the corn. I couldn’t see where she landed, but I could see Marin, down on the alien soil. I walked into the field, following Marin’s footsteps, knowing that path made me safe.

  She was lying on her back. Most of her clothing was gone, blown away. The mesh was still there, netting her dark body with silver. I figured it had protected her, but I didn’t know how much.
Not entirely. One foot was gone, most likely the one she’d used to step on the mine. Blood poured from the stump. I took off my belt, knelt and used the belt to make a tourniquet, then wrapped my jacket around the stump. Then I called emergency services and gave my location. “I need search and rescue right now.”

  Blood came out of Marin’s mouth. I tried to find a pulse, but couldn’t through the mesh. There might be internal injuries. She didn’t look alive. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, and I was worried about Whiskers. I hesitated, then moved through the corn toward the place the rat must have landed, hoping I didn’t step on a mine.

  Whiskers was there, lying on the dark soil—uninjured as far as I could tell, but unconscious. Maybe it was a mistake to pick her up, but I did and retraced my path, her small body hugged against me. I stopped at the field’s edge, one finger pressed into Whiskers’ throat. I thought I could feel a pulse, faint and uneven.

  Jesus God, I didn’t want to lose her. I was shaking so badly that I couldn’t stand any longer. I folded down onto my knees. Be okay, I told Whiskers. Be okay.

  S&R arrived.

  I climbed onto shaky legs, still holding Whiskers in my arms. “There’s a human in the field. If you follow the footsteps you can get to her safely. But right now I want you to take me to the hospital.”

  “Are you injured?”

  I thought of saying no, then decided it would be smarter to say yes. The S&R van took me and Whiskers. A second van raced past us toward the field, as we turned onto the main street. That would take care of Marin.

  I climbed out at Receiving and said, “I’m okay. But the rat needs attention.”

  “For God’s sake,” Receiving said, “this is a hospital. We don’t treat animals.”

  I forgot to mention I usually carried a handgun, a comforting weight against my thigh. I thought of pulling it, then decided no.

  “There is no vet in town,” I said. “You need to treat this rat. She’s genetically modified. The armed forces will want to keep her alive.”

  Receiving frowned and hesitated, then found a doc. I stayed with him, while he examined Whiskers. “You understand I am not an expert on animals.”

  “This is a mammal from Earth, a close relative, part of our evolutionary line. Do what you can.”

  He ran Whiskers through a scan. “No broken bones. The organs look okay. I’m not seeing any internal bleeding.”

  Around that time I heard Whiskers in my mind. A thread of a voice. What?

  You took a hit from a mine, Buddy. This is the hospital.

  Whiskers sniffed, taking in the hospital smell, the doctor, my fear, then asked, How is Marin?

  I looked at the doc. “How is my human companion?”

  He paused, listening to his comm. “I’m sorry. The trauma was too severe. She died.”

  “I figured as much,” I said.

  The doc looked at me funny. Was I supposed to show more grief? Marin hadn’t been a friend, only a lover. I touched Whiskers’ side gently. You did the best you could, Buddy. You couldn’t have saved her.

  Didn’t like her.

  I know, Bud.

  That was that.

  There was a vet two towns over. I took Whiskers, hitching a ride, and she was checked a second time. The vet said there might be some problems due to concussion. That caused most of the trouble with human soldiers. Time would tell.

  I thank him, paid and got a receipt. The armed forces ought to pay.

  Then I went home, had a few beers, went to bed and had nightmares. I was with my unit, and Marin was there as well, walking beside me, then stepping on her mine. This time she wasn’t wearing the silver mesh, and she blew apart, making as big as mess as Lopez had. Jesus, I was covered with blood.

  I woke, shaking and sweaty. Whiskers said, Bad dream.

  Yeah. After that I couldn’t sleep.

  I touched base with my supervisor the next day. Marin had seemed fine to me, I told him. Whiskers hadn’t reported any problems. Maybe I made a mistake in getting involved with her, but she really did seem okay. My supervisor told me to be more careful in the future. I said I would.

  Should I have felt more for Marin? Maybe. But I didn’t. I could say that the war effed me up, and I no longer had normal reactions. But I knew what was right. I shouldn’t have gotten in bed with someone who was obviously vulnerable, especially since Whiskers had disapproved.

  I didn’t say any of this to my supervisor. Instead Whiskers and I went back to finding mines.

  The war heated up. I found more mines. Robot tanks lumbered through Leesville. Once I saw a kaiju-mech robot pushing its way through the forest, knocking down trees. A heck of a sight, even at a distance. Marin had been right. War involved psychology, and the kaiju-mech bots were scary, even when they were ours.

  After it was gone, I went out into the forest, following the forest road—it was safe—and found the robot’s footprints, deep depressions in the yellow moss, already full of water. The moss must be bleeding into the depressions. I could look into the nearest pond, which was full of swimming bugs. How had they gotten there so quickly? Life went on, and I really wished I could be a xenobiologist.

  Hacking became more frequent. Our local systems went down, then back up, then down again. The FTL ships came less often, though none of us knew exactly what that meant. According to the ship’s crews, everything was fine back home, even though the ships no longer brought new people, only supplies. Why? Because people could tell us what was happening on Earth? Rumors said the war had spread back home, or else the governments had decided FTL was too expensive and the planet not worth fighting over.

  Finally the FTL ships stopped coming. No explanation. They simply weren’t appearing in orbit. This was true for both sides. No fish-shaped crackers. No coffee. No tea. No chocolate. Nothing except what we could grow or print on this planet. The local plant made crackers, but they weren’t as good.

  Whiskers complained.

  Can’t help you, Bud.

  Of course we sent messages back to Earth, asking what the hell was going on. If all went well, we’d get an answer in 80 years. Or the ships would come back. Who could say?

  The war slowed after that. The hacking mostly stopped, but the drones kept coming in. Once they were activated, they would keep doing their job, with no way of calling them back. I guess you could say they—and we—were like the local organisms. Most were segmented, and a lot were a meter long. A little creepy, like huge centipedes. They could give you a nasty bite.

  If you found one and chopped off the head, it would keep moving. Its sensory organs were all the in head, so it could no longer see, hear, taste. It blundered around on its many legs, until another bug found it and ate it. Nothing ate us here. We and the drones kept blundering, going through the motions.

  Whiskers said I smelled funny.

  Anxiety? Depression? I asked. These were the usual problem.

  Not sick. Funny.

  One morning I woke up with cramps. I got up and discovered my sleeping shorts were drenched with blood. So were the bed sheets. Of course I called the clinic. I don’t like blood. It reminds me of my dreams: Marin lying in the maize field, Lopez and Singh. The clinic sent a van, with a tech who couldn’t let me take Whiskers. I left her crouched in a corner of the living room, looking terrified.

  It’s okay, Buddy.

  Afraid. So are you.

  Which was true.

  A nurse at the clinic examined me. A big guy with skin as black as midnight. He must have rotated in from another town. I didn’t recognize him or his accent. Caribbean maybe. There were islands in the Caribbean that were still above water.

  After he was done with the examination, he said, “What we have here is menstrual discharge.”

  “What?” I said. My voice sounded loud.

  “Your hormone implant has failed. You are having a period.”

  “I am thirty-effing-two.”

  “Late for a first period, but that’s what you are having.”
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br />   “Then put in another implant. I really don’t like this.”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t. The hormone transplants come—or came —from Earth. We can’t make them here. We have a limited number left, but they are reserved for soldiers on active duty. You are not.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” I asked.

  “What women have always done,” he said. “Insert a tampon—I can print some out for you—and take ibuprofen.”

  My crotch felt as if something bigger than Whiskers was trying to chew its way in or out. There was blood caked on my legs. I wanted to shout at the nurse, but I didn’t. What could he do? If he didn’t have the implants, then he didn’t. I was not going to demand something that was needed by soldiers on active duty.

  He printed out the tampons with instructions and gave me a bottle of ibuprofen. I went to a bathroom, read the instructions and inserted a tampon—God, this was a crude way to solve a common problem, then took two ibuprofen and went home in a cab.

  Whiskers was still crouched in her corner. I picked her up and cuddled her. Nothing serious, Bud. I’m okay.

  Pain

  It will go away.

  Wrong, Whiskers said.

  Not a sickness, I replied. A hormone change. I think that’s what you smelled. I’m going to have to do a wash.

  Yes, said Whiskers

  I stripped the bed and put the sheets in a bag, ready for a trip to the communal laundry, then took a shower and changed into new clothes. The chewing in my crotch had moderated some.

  Sometime in all this I realized that we were really on our own. The FTL ships might never return.

  The community radio was on, playing Wagner: ‘The Flying Dutchman’ overture. I lay down, feeling miserable. Whiskers climbed onto the bed and huddled at my side.

  Of course the cramps ended, and I went back to checking fields for mines.

  WE CAN’T RUIN this planet. There are too few of us, even with our technology. If the ships don’t come back, our technology will begin to break down, and our war will wind down to nothing. The question is, will it happen while we still have a chance of survival here? It would be easier to stay alive if we joined forces. People are beginning to talk about peace.