Orion o-1

by Ben Bova

  The brutes’ trail led straight into the woods, and I began to think about what might be waiting for us in the shadows of that forest.

  “That’s a fine spot for an ambush,” I said.

  Adena nodded agreement. “But as you say, we have weapons that outdistance theirs. If they’re foolish enough to attack, they’ll be doing us a favor.”

  “They’ll throw more animals at us. There must be wolves and other predators living in that forest.”

  Adena asked, “What do you think we should do?”

  “Circle the forest. If they’re in there waiting for us, we can make them come out in the open.”

  “And if they’re not, we’ll lose half a day’s march on them. Perhaps more.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “We mustn’t let them get away.”

  “If we go straight into those woods, we’ll be ambushed and probably killed.”

  “That doesn’t matter…”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t matter to you,” I said, “or even to me. But what about them?” I cocked my head to indicate the other soldiers. “They may not have as many lives as you or I. Death for them is very real, and very permanent.”

  Her eyes looked troubled. “I had forgotten that.”

  “If we’ve got to kill the enemy down to the last man, at least let’s try to preserve the lives of our own people.”

  “But you don’t understand, Orion.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, keeping my voice low but putting as much strength into it as I could muster. “You’ve taken these men and women out of their own time, torn them away from their homes and families and flung them into this distant age of cold and ice to do Ormazd’s bidding…”

  “To do what must be done,” she insisted. “To save the human race from extinction.”

  “Whatever the reason, they deserve a chance to get through this alive. They shouldn’t be thrown away like a handful of pawns.”

  “But that’s exactly what they are,” Adena said. “Don’t you see? They are pawns. They were created to be pawns.”

  “They’re human beings, with lives of their own that are precious to them, families, friends…”

  “No, Orion, you are wrong. You don’t understand.” Adena’s face was sad, her eyes searching mine.

  “Then tell me, explain it to me.”

  For long moments she said nothing, as we trudged through the snow, each step bringing us closer to the looming, brooding dark forest.

  “I’m afraid,” she said at last. “If I tell you the entire truth, you will hate me.”

  “Hate you?” I felt shocked. “How can I hate you? I’ve gone through death three times to find you, to be with you.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Orion, we are all pieces in a game. We all play our assigned roles.”

  “And the gameplayer is Ormazd,” I said.

  “No. It’s not that simple. Ormazd plays his role, just as I do. And you.” She hesitated, then added, almost in a whisper, “And these… pawns, who march with us.”

  “You’re not a pawn,” I said.

  “Neither are you,” she said, with a sad, resigned smile. “You are a knight. I am a bishop, perhaps.”

  “A queen.”

  “Not that powerful.”

  “My queen,” I insisted. Then I realized, “And Ormazd is the king. If he is killed…”

  “We all die. Permanently. The game ends.”

  “So that’s what it’s all about.”

  “Yes.”

  “And these men and women with us?”

  “As I said, they are pawns. They were made for this task, and no other.” She looked weary, miserable. “You spoke of their being wrenched out of their own time, separated from their friends and families. Orion, they have no families! No friends. They know of no other time except this. They were created by Ormazd precisely for this task of exterminating Ahriman’s people. For this task, and none other.”

  It was as if I had known this all along. The truth did not surprise me. Instead, I felt a terrible hollowness within me, an emptiness as deep as the pit of hell.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at them, marching along through the frigid Ice Age afternoon without a complaint, following Adena’s orders, each step bringing them closer to death — either their own or their enemy’s. And they did not seem to care which.

  Lissa smiled at me. She was toting a heavy sack of grenades and other explosive devices on her back. I thought back to her lighthearted eagerness just before the battle in the cave. To the killing frenzy of Dal’s clan that night they were attacked. To the grim efficiency of the Mongols as they wiped out the armies of Bela the Hungarian. Even to the crowd of demonstrators in front of the fusion laboratory in Michigan, so quick to violence.

  “Yes,” Adena said, as if she could read my thoughts. “Violence has been programmed into them.”

  “They are machines, then? Robots?”

  With a single small shake of her head she answered, “They are flesh and blood, just as you yourself are. But they were created by Ormazd and their minds were programmed for this task of killing.”

  “Just as I was,” I realized.

  “Now you know the truth,” she whispered, her gray eyes filled with sorrow.

  “I was created by Ormazd to kill Ahriman, and for no other reason.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s why I couldn’t remember my past, back in the twentieth century. I had none. I am a puppet, and, Ormazd pulls the strings.”

  The hollowness I felt inside me grew to engulf the universe. I was a machine! We were all machines, made of organic molecules and DNA, of bone and nerve, but machines nonetheless, programmed to do Ormazd’s bidding: puppets, marionettes, remotely controlled killers.

  “Orion.” Vaguely I heard Adena’s voice calling me, summoning me back to this instant in time, this place on the vast chess board that Ormazd controlled.

  “Orion,” she said again. “You were made to serve Ormazd, but you have grown beyond the purpose for which he created you.”

  “Have I?” My voice sounded utterly weary, defeated, even to my own ears. “Then why am I here, if it isn’t to twitch whenever Ormazd pulls my strings?”

  Adena’s beautiful face eased into a smile. “Why, I thought you were here to find me. That’s what you told me.”

  “Now you’re teasing me.”

  “Not at all.” She grew serious again. “You were created for a single purpose, true enough. But even from the first you acted on your own. You are a human being, Orion. As fully human as Socrates or Einstein or Ogotai Khan.”

  “How can I be?”

  “You are,” she said. “How could I love you, if you were not?”

  I stared at her for long moments as we trudged steadily through the snow toward the gloomy forest. Its huge conifers reared before us like the battlements of a fortress.

  “You do love me,” I said.

  “Enough to make myself human,” Adena answered. “Enough to share in your life, your fate, your death.”

  “I love you. I’ve loved you through a hundred thousand years, through death and resurrection.”

  She nodded happily, her eyes suddenly misty.

  “But we must face death again, mustn’t we?” I said.

  “Yes, but we’ll face it together.”

  “And these others?”

  She grew somber again. “Orion, they are pawns. They have no past. They know nothing but how to fight.”

  “Even pawns have a right to survive,” I said.

  “Our task is to exterminate Ahriman and his kind. There is no other goal for us, no other path. If we fail in that, we die forever, Orion. Oblivion for us all.”

  I knew she was telling the truth; yet I could not accept it.

  Adena halted abruptly and grasped me by the shoulders. The others stopped a respectful few paces behind us.

  “Orion, if you love me, you must be willing to sacrifice these pawns,” she whispered fiercely.

  I g
azed into her gray eyes for what seemed like an eternity. With an effort I turned my face away, toward the looming dark forest that awaited us, and then back to the men and women who followed us. They stood at rest, shouldering their weapons, waiting for the next command.

  “I don’t want them to die,” Adena said, her voice low, almost pleading with me. “It may not be necessary for them to die. But if we delay, Ahriman and his band will get away.”

  “If we march straight into those trees, we will be ambushed.”

  “That doesn’t mean that we will all be killed. Our weapons are far superior to theirs.”

  “While they last.”

  “We’ve got to be willing to make the sacrifice,” Adena insisted. “You risk your own life, and mine. Why draw the line at theirs?”

  “Because they don’t understand what’s at stake.”

  Adena turned away from me and glanced up at the lowering sun. Already the trees were throwing long shadows toward us, like fingers reaching for our throats.

  “Check your weapons,” she called to the handful of troops. “We’re moving into the forest. The brutes will probably spring an ambush in there. Be on the alert.”

  They nodded and began checking their guns and power units. Within a minute we were all marching forward again, without a protest or even an instant’s hesitation from any of them. If anything, they looked glad to be coming to grips with the enemy.

  There was nothing I could do. Nothing I should do, I kept telling myself, except move forward and find Ahriman. But deep inside my mind a voice was telling me that there was more to the world, far more, than hunting and killing.

  It made no difference. Adena was right, we were all players in a cosmic game, and we all had our roles to fulfill. I stayed at her side, pistol in my hand, and peered into the shadowy hollows between the trees as the forest swallowed up our meager little band of warriors.

  Birds called back and forth among those dark trees. Small furry animals chittered at us and scrampered up to the higher branches, as if they knew that danger surrounded us. The sunlight was mottled and weak. It grew colder the deeper into the woods we tramped, cold and still as death.

  The ground beneath the thickly clustered trees was barely touched by the snow that had drifted so thickly out in the open, but we could still see the trail that the brutes had left. as clearly as if they had deliberately laid it down for us to follow.

  A squirrel, the biggest and reddest squirrel I had ever seen, jabbered angrily at us as we neared the tree on which it was standing; all four paws gripped the bark of the pine’s huge bole. When it saw that we would not turn away, it raced up the tree trunk toward the safety of a lair high up in its branches.

  I saw a shadowy form move up in those branches, something as big as a man.

  I reached out and touched Adena’s arm. “They’re up in the trees,” I whispered.

  She barely had time to look up before they attacked. Mountain lions leaped out of those branches, their saber fangs huge and glittering white. Adena had no time even to shout an order, but the troops automatically formed a circle as they shot the beasts in midair. One snarling, spitting cat landed in our midst and I blasted his skull open with a burst from my pistol.

  “Wolves!” somebody yelled.

  They came loping through the trees, eyes gleaming balefully as they charged at us. We gunned them down by the dozens.

  I searched the trees as we fought the howling, roaring, bloodthirsty beasts. The saber-toothed cats lay dead in our midst, and the bodies of wolves ringed our tiny defensive perimeter. But I was looking for Ahriman and his kind. They were up there in the trees, I knew, waiting for the moment when our weapons ran out of power. Already four of our troopers had dropped their rifles and were using pistols, which were powered by the suits’ power packs.

  I called to Lissa. “Let me have some grenades!” She was scanning the trees, too, looking for more cats to kill. The wolves were skulking out in the deepening shadows for the moment, working up the fury for another attack. We could see their eyes glittering in the darkness.

  “What kind?” Lissa called back, cheerful as ever. “Concussion, fragmentation, gas…”

  “Concussion,” I answered.

  She rolled four of them to me, shouting instructions on how to set the fuse’s time delay. I picked one up, turned the timer to five seconds, then reared back and threw it high into the trees in front of me.

  The blast was much smaller than I had expected, but a shower of snow and shattered branches rained down us. Adena looked up sharply.

  “What are you…”

  I silenced her with an upraised hand. A howl of pain echoed through the trees; it was not an animal’s howl either.

  “They’re up there!” Adena realized.

  As I picked up another grenade, the brutes launched their real attack, swinging out of the concealing branches of the trees on long, thin ropes and slashing at us with those crystal spears of theirs. We fired at them as they fell upon us, but they were wearing glittering crystal armor that splashed our laser beams harmlessly away. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the two troopers who still had rifles in their hands were the first to be swarmed under by the brutes. I fired at them but my pistol’s beam could not penetrate their armor.

  Their electrostatic spears, though, were deadly effective. Both our riflemen were cut down in showers of blue sparks, and the beasts turned to charge at the rest of us.

  Lissa threw herself at four of them, grenades in each hand. Twin explosions tore all of them apart and knocked the rest of us down. Groggily, I clambered to my knees, threw my useless pistol into the face of the nearest brute and kicked the legs out from under him. I grabbed his spear and jammed it into his neck, where his crystal armor did not protect him. He screeched and died in a blast of electrical agony.

  Adena was on one knee, coolly shooting one of the brutes through the head as two others rushed at her. She turned slightly and shot at one of them, who raised his armored forearm over his face to deflect her shot. Her pistol went dead.

  I leaped at the two brutes, knocking them both away from her.

  They snarled at me, spears raised in their hands. I parried the first thrust that the nearer one made, then rammed the butt of the spear into the head of the other. Someone’s pistol blast took the head off the first one as I killed the second with the spear’s electrical bolt.

  Suddenly the fighting was over. Four of our people lay dead at our feet, and seven of the brutes.

  “One got away,” Adena said.

  “Ahriman.” I knew.

  “We must find him. We mustn’t let him escape.”

  “I’ll go after him,” I said.

  “No,” Adena countered. “We all will.”

  CHAPTER 40

  For two days we followed Ahriman’s trail southward, until another storm darkened the skies and began to pelt us with grainy snow driven by a fierce, howling wind.

  I led Adena’s little band back to the relative shelter of the pine forest as quickly as I could. Our suit packs were running out of power, one by one. We had only a handful of food capsules remaining. If we’d stayed in the raging blizzard, we would have starved and frozen.

  I showed them how to make a lean-to shelter from the pine boughs and how to make a fire. We used the last ergs of energy in the pistols to cut the tree limbs for the shelter and to start the campfire. When the last power pack finally was exhausted, our little troop was suddenly plunged into the Stone Age. None of the equipment they had with them would work anymore. We had to make do with what we could take from the land itself.

  The storm moved off after three hungry days, and we started back toward the cave where we had left Kedar and the other wounded. Adena let me become the leader, and I remembered from my time with Dal’s clan how to make primitive spears and how to find small game hidden in the snow. We did not starve, although we were a ragged, hungry, lean and very cold straggle of soldiers by the time we got back to the cave.

  Fo
r the next several days we were all busy every waking moment. I showed them how to survive in the wilderness, how to start a fire by the friction of rubbing two sticks against each other, how to flush out the hares and squirrels that lived unseen in the snow-covered fields, how to skin and cook them over the open fire.

  And at night, while the others slept, I stood watch — alone with my thoughts.

  The shock of the battles and their aftermath was wearing away. I began to feel what had registered on my conscious mind, but not yet penetrated to my inner self. I saw Lissa’s goodhearted grin as she handled her deadly cargo of explosives, as innocent as a child when she spoke of them and what they could do. And I saw the exultant look on her face, eyes wide and mouth agape with a scream of triumph, as she rushed the enemy with those live grenades in her hands.

  I stared up at the stars, glittering coldly in this Ice Age night, and began to realize that Ormazd never intended that these soldiers would survive their battle. They were put here to defeat Ahriman’s people, to annihilate them, and once that task was done, they were meant to self-destruct, to die here in the cold darkness, their purpose accomplished, their value reduced to zero.

  “Ormazd,” I muttered to the silent, grave stars, “wherever you are, whoever you are, I offer you this vow: I will find Ahriman for you, and I will kill him if I can. But, in exchange, I am going to take these people to a place where there is no snow, where they can survive and live like decent human beings. And I will do that first, before I seek out Ahriman.”

  “You bargain with your creator?”

  I turned to see Adena smiling at me. “I can’t leave these people here to die,” I said. “Can you?”

  “If it’s necessary,” she said.

  “But it’s not. We can take them south, to a land they can live in. I can show them how to survive.”