Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty

by Jean Johnson

  “She’s still moving!” Estradille shouted, both in her headset and aloud. “I think she survived!”

  “Well, we won’t if I don’t get us out of here, pronto! Time to bounce, meioas! Hang on!”

  Curling her hand over the same ridge that had injured her, Ia clung to the top of the van as it swayed and picked up speed, angling away from the valley and its flooded, churning debris. If she’d had the energy to spare, if she’d gotten Estes’ spare e-clip, she would have healed her broken rib. Instead, she would have to wait for the medics back at their makeshift base camp to get around to fixing the bone later tonight.

  It would be painful, but she would endure. Ia focused on clinging and breathing, letting go of the cold, cold waters of her own timestream. She had survived. This time.

  That was all that mattered.

  So much for sleeping.

  Gripping the side of her cot, Ia rolled herself onto her elbow, then carefully levered her body upright. Bending over to reach her footgear had her biting her lower lip in the effort to contain her grunt. It escaped as a hiss, one thankfully quiet enough to avoid waking the others sharing the tent serving as their temporary shelter. A last few drops of rain from the passing storm still pattered on the plexi roof, and the sides rustled, flapping in the night breeze. The noises covered the soft hisses she made as she tugged on socks and laced up her boots.

  Ia hadn’t bothered to remove the clean, dry Browns she had donned after seeing the medical staff sent down from the orbiting Liu Ji. Her cracked rib had been declared a “nonemergency,” whereupon she had been wrapped with rib-tape and given an injection of bone-setting medicines right next to the break. They then told her to go sleep it off and perform light duties at best for the next two or three days until the tenderness healed.

  None of that precluded the rolling waters of time, however. Nor her need to channel them. Identifying her portable writing station and her rain slicker by touch, Ia took them with her out of the dark tent, wrapping herself in the latter and protecting the former under its folds. The makeshift camp, cobbled together with equipment and food from the Liu Ji and goods salvaged from the colony’s flooded emergency supplies, was currently lit by two things: the chemsticks tied to the guy ropes at the corners of each tent, and the static crackle of the tall force field fence erected around the perimeter, flashing like miniature lightning whenever a particularly large raindrop skidded across the field’s otherwise unseen surface.

  The members of the 3rd Platoon patrolling that perimeter in their half- and full-mech did have lights mounted on their shoulder sockets. But those were aimed mostly outward, looking for the planet’s various local predators, large, dinosaur-like beasts, which had been forced to seek out the same patch of high ground for safety. The camp itself was mostly dark and quiet, everyone hiding inside a tent, bundled up in thankfully dry blankets. Except for her, and her upcoming problem.

  One of the tents along the western perimeter was little more than a makeshift awning with two tarps for sides. They blocked the prevailing wind, which wasn’t strong, but was still damp and cold all the same. Someone had taped chemsticks to the poles, and set up some folding chairs and a couple of plexi tables. The tables were littered with random items, a soggy doll, a plexi toolkit, a muddy towel, and other odds and ends salvaged from the flood, but Ia didn’t need the space. Instead, she pulled two of the chairs into facing each other, seated herself in one, and put her feet in the other, propping the writing board on her lap.

  Flipping up the screen protecting the keys, she laid her fingers over the machine, but didn’t press down. After three months of practice, she was getting better at electrokinetically typing. Not that she was going to print anything right now, but she could at least store a few more prophecies for later. If she could peer through the fog cloaking most of the waters around her, that was.

  She stared at the faintly glowing keys, at the document blank and ready on the screen. Funny, how everything on the timeplains is so much clearer from a distance, yet so many parts become blurry, close up . . .

  Her rare sense of humor quirked her mouth into a smile, after a moment. Maybe Time is farsighted, and just needs an eye-correction?

  Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to do that, yet. She didn’t even know if there was some sort of psychic optometrist who could make it easier for her to peer at the future. A probabilities specialist, she knew about, and could tap into. It was one of her side-lives, the ones she could’ve led in an alternate reality, the kind where she knew who her father was and had only one mother. Difficult to reach, but not impossible.

  Thankfully, tonight’s mist wasn’t all-encompassing. Focusing her thoughts on her homeworld, on the futures of her people, Ia was able to submerge herself in those streams and find the key points to write about, to direct long after the point where she personally would be dead. Because of the fluid nature of time, she couldn’t write things out logically, sequentially.

  Start at point A and write prophecies for B, C, D, and E, onward through Z? Not possible. Something that easy would be lovely, but time flowed like a river, one with individual streams that tangled together like the aftermath of a hundred hyperactive kittens let loose in a yarn shop. Another mental image that made her want to smile, even as it made her want to frown. Letting out a heavy sigh, Ia dipped into Sanctuary’s most probable futures, letting the words form and scroll silently up the screen.

  Somewhere between the ceasing of the rain and the twists of the twenty-sixth century, Ia jerked her head up, instincts twinging with fear. Slapping her writing pad half-shut, pinching her thumb in the process, she scrambled to her feet, grunting out a rib-twinging, “Sir!”

  Lieutenant Ferrar nodded at her, barely visible in the fading glow of the chemsticks taped to the awning poles. The mist obscuring the local timestreams hadn’t given her any warning. Heart thumping, she studied him, wondering what, exactly, would happen in the next half hour. She knew something significant would happen here and now, involving him, but not what.

  “At Ease, Corporal. I came to talk to you about what the mayor’s planning for tomorrow,” he stated. “That was her younger son you saved, the one bitten by the dinoid.”

  “Planned, sir?” Ia asked. She knew what would happen if she navigated this moment in time just right . . . but how to navigate it, she had no clue.

  “An award ceremony, for you and some of the others. You were all big heroes today. Sit down,” he added, nodding at the chair behind her.

  Nodding, Ia turned to reach for the armrest. She couldn’t sit quickly with her ribs still sore, and needed—Ferrar leaned over and snatched the portable workstation out from under her arm. Shocked, Ia grabbed for it, but her injury made her slow, and his grip was strong. For a moment, they tugged. The narrowing of his eyes warned her what would happen if she kept resisting. The ruination of her military career. Ia let go; she didn’t have to be a precog to see that much.

  Not that she could see much. The fog had descended in full, obscuring everything around her. Heart in her throat, she watched him lift the writing pad. If it hadn’t been for the fog clouding this moment, she would have seen him snatch her pad in advance, and switched the display to something far more innocent, such as her homework for her correspondence degree. But it was too late for that. Ferrar waggled the pad at her in admonition.

  “You know, your teammate has told me this is your one quirk. That you’re constantly writing something, but that you haven’t said what it is. And, like clockwork for the last three plus months . . . you have been shipping locked storage boxes stuffed full of your writings. Some back to your homeworld . . . but others to the Afaso Order. I can only conclude you’re sending them reports of some kind.” He pried open the lid, balancing the device on his palm, shifting his gaze from hers to the screen. “I don’t know what sort of spying you’re doing for either of them, particularly since the Afaso have never shown interest in the military, but . . .”

  In the dark of the night, any elect
rokinetic changes she might have made would have been seen, opening up the risk of this exact same problem: the revelation of her psychic abilities. In the faint green glow of the chemlights, she could see the puzzled frown furrowing his dark brow. He stared at the screen, looked up at her, then looked back at the screen, tabbing through her most recent efforts with a few flicks of his thumbs. Realizing she was holding her breath, Ia forced herself to take slow, steady breaths. Being uncovered at this point in her career was a very, very bad thing.

  She couldn’t even take him onto the timeplains with her and show him what his actions were jeopardizing; that would screw things up even further. Some people could be converted to her personal religion. Most, however, couldn’t handle it. Not discreetly enough. Ferrar would be one of the ones wanting to do too much, to help too much.

  Ia wouldn’t be able to stop him. Right now, she had no reputation, no power, and no control . . . except for one saving grace. Maybe. If she could get him to listen.

  “Bloody Mary.” The shaken whisper was not meant to be her nickname. It was an exclamation, for all there was hardly any sound behind it. Ferrar looked up at her again. “These are . . . Unless this is a story you’re writing, this is . . .” Before she could seize on that option, he shook his head. “This is no story. Either you’re delusional or . . . But the detail! The accuracy—what the hell is going on here, Corporal?”

  “Keep your voice down, soldier,” Ia murmured, shifting closer. Her cold words, as if she were his superior, shocked him. Using that shock, she plucked the writing station from his hand. “I see I’ll need to figure out how to encrypt all of this.” Snapping it shut, she gestured at the chair she had used for resting her boots, shadowed silence between them. “I suggest you sit and listen, instead of standing there and shouting at me.”

  “You don’t give me orders, Corporal. You don’t have the authority!” Ferrar growled, grabbing for her workstation again.

  This time, she was prepared. This time, Ia was faster, catching his hand in her empty palm with a slap. The move strained her tender side painfully, but she didn’t flinch. “Two words, Lieutenant. They give me all the authority I need in this matter. Just two words.” Hefting the closed device, she tipped her head at it. “Given what you just read on this, I’m surprised you didn’t remember that little legality.”

  He frowned at her, tugging his hand free. “What two words? Not even a ‘Sorry, sir’ could get you out of the deep shakk you just dove yourself into. I have every right to bust you—”

  “Vladistad,” Ia warned him, lifting her forefinger. Then her middle as well. “Salut. Now, sit. Sir.”

  He glared at her, and didn’t move. Didn’t speak, but didn’t move. Ia backed up a step, feeling the edge of her own chair brushing against the backs of her knees.

  “In case you don’t remember, sir, I am referencing Johns and Mishka versus the United Nations. It was the single most important ruling regarding the legal rights of verifiable precognitives,” she reminded him quietly. The plexi tarps sheltering them rattled with a renewed spate of rain and wind. “Giorgi Mishka was a crucial testimonial witness in an international effort to bring down a certain Russian cultist-cum-mafioso named Mikulo ‘The Impaler’ Vladinski, the Terror of Vladistad. A city which had been founded by his family line, and ruled with a cruel fist.

  “Mishka refused to testify,” Ia continued. “He did so citing that, as a precog, he could foresee something terrible happening if he did. Everyone laughed him off. Nobody believed in real psychic abilities back then. His government put pressure on him to testify anyway, even though he steadfastly refused.”

  “I remember that case from my history classes. He testified anyway,” Ferrar pointed out. “Just as he was ordered to.”

  “Not until he cut a deal that would get himself and his family out of town on a certain night, three weeks later,” Ia countered. “Not until after he put his sealed prophecies into a time-locked vault. Only then did he testify, stating for the record that he was being coerced to tell what he knew . . . and stating to the prosecution, on the record, ‘You force me to do this. You are demanding that I do this, against my will. This blood is on your hands. Not mine. You will have to make amends for what you are about to do.’

  “The prosecution thought that he meant the blood of Vladinski’s execution,” Ia reminded her commander, holding his gaze. “Three weeks later, not more than fifteen minutes after Mishka and his family flew out of the region in secrecy . . . and just five minutes after Vladinski died at midnight in the maximum detention facilities just outside the city where his trial and execution were held . . . Vladinski’s followers broadcast a message to the world. Two words, Lieutenant.

  “With those two words, they detonated a nuclear bomb that slaughtered over one million six hundred thousand people, both from the initial blast and from the firestorms and radioactive fallout. Hundreds of thousands more burned, irradiated, injured. An entire region laid to waste, with radiation that lingers even to this day . . . all because of just two words.

  “‘Vladistad. Salut.’ ”

  A trickle of rain ran off the sagging edge of the awning over their heads, splattering onto the soggy ground. Ia held Ferrar’s gaze, mindful of the passing of time.

  “When the time lock ended on the sealed vault, they opened it up and read what Giorgi Mishka had written. That prophecy said, ‘I would have kept my secrets to the end of time, knowing that the words you forced out of my mouth would lead to so many dead. But you would not stop. This is what you have done to the world, because you would not believe that my testimony would be far worse than what The Impaler had done. Now. You have about five seconds from the end of this note before the doors to this bank open and a lawyer arrives. He and I are suing all of you for my right to keep silent, in the future. Mr. Johns and I have almost two million clients to represent, because you wouldn’t let me stay silent. Their blood is on your hands because of what you demanded, in your ignorance and disbelief, and it cries out for amends.’

  “As I said, Lieutenant, I have just two words. Vladistad,” Ia repeated quietly, easing herself down into the folding chair behind her. She tucked the writing station into the inner pocket of her slicker. “I suggest you sit down, and listen, before you salut.”

  He studied her a long, long second, then sat. And waited.

  Ia glanced at the chrono on her wrist unit. “I have . . . just over five minutes before I have to move and go do something important. I will tell you this only once, Lieutenant. I am not here for fame, glory, medals, or honor. If anyone else thinks I have earned them, that’s fine. They can hand me whatever they want tomorrow, I don’t care. I am not a glory-hog, and I am not a real-estater. Medals and coffins do not interest me. I am here to do one thing, and one thing only. Save lives.”

  “Is that what today’s showboating was all about? Saving lives?” Ferrar asked her quietly. “Surfing the crest of a flood wave? The infrared sensors on the weather satellites we dropped into orbit picked up what you were doing down in that valley, you know.”

  “No, actually, I didn’t know,” Ia retorted lightly. “It wasn’t important, so I didn’t bother to look it up.” Even in the gloom, she could see the dubious look he gave her. “Never mind. Everything I know is on a need-to-know basis only . . . and you don’t need to know. Vladistad.”

  Ferrar leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “That’s not good enough, soldier. You are a wild card in my Company, and I—”

  “—Have no need to know what I know. You interfere, you blow up a hell of a lot more than one old Russian town. Do you know what future Giorgi Mishka saw after serving those papers, sir?” Ia asked her superior. “He saw the whole damn planet so outraged at what Vladinski’s followers did to ‘avenge’ their leader’s death . . . they united to track down the monsters responsible.” She pointed out at the darkness beyond them, at the sleeping colonists and soldiers, the patrolling bodies, the force field keeping them safe. “Johns and Mishka vs. the Un
ited Nations, the single most powerful legal case dealing with the rights for precogs to keep their mouths shut. If a precognitive decides it is best to say silent, they have that right.

  “That single decision, to allow the disaster to happen, was a drop in the flood of events that followed. Those events led to the unification of Earth’s multiple governments under one leadership. Which led to the old United Earth government becoming the United Terran Planets when we colonized the other planets in our own star system, which led to our being a single voice and a single power when we first met up with the rest of the sentient races out there . . . which led to us being strong enough to enter the first Salik War, and win it. Which led to the Blockade, which led to the mess of the Clearly-Standing, which led to this moment in time. All of which were events that unfolded, not over days or weeks, or even decades, but centuries.

  “Mishka certainly could not have foreseen all of that. In fact, what little he did see was too little, too late. He just saw that the fractured governments of Old Earth would unite to go after the monsters responsible for the mess caused by what he was being forced to do . . . and which he himself said he would rather have died than reveal if not forced to do so. I’ll remind you, he didn’t know before the fact that the world would be a slightly better place . . . and he died with the deaths and sufferings of two million people on his conscience.”

  A glance at her chrono showed her time was up. Pushing herself upright with a grunt, Ia gestured at the force field fence several meters away.

  “You can come with me, or you can stay . . . but if you say one word to your superiors about me, one word to the Special Forces, or worse, the PsiLeague . . . the damage you do will make Vladistad look like a drop in the floodwaters I faced today. The flood that I faced, and survived. You would not survive, if you tried to interfere. Out of respect for you, I tell you these things, so that you will live. The rest . . . you don’t need to know.”