CHOP Line

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “This is what I’m used to. Did I tell you the Orphans had been on three back-to-back missions when I got chewed?”

  “More than once. It’s starting to sound like whining.”

  “Well get used to it.” He winked at her. “When the troops aren’t around, I bitch a lot.”

  “Somehow I doubt that.” She drank from the mug, glancing back inside. “No contact from our friend during the night. Think it packed up and went home?”

  “No such luck. It’s gone to a lot of trouble, arranging this.” Mortas reflected on his own comment. “This is the second time that thing has conspired to bring me here.”

  “Must like you.”

  “Must have a new plan. And that means we won’t hear from it until it’s good and ready.”

  “It makes no sense for you to walk.” Varick spoke from the driver’s seat while Mortas slid out of the mover. “I can drive you right up to it. It’s not like you’re sneaking up on them.”

  Mortas gave a light laugh before adjusting his torso armor. There had been no word from the alien, and during dinner he’d announced his intention to visit the site where the Whisperers had interred Gorman and Cranther. One of the drones was flying overhead, scanning the ground, its imagery visible inside their goggles and on the mover’s dashboard. In orbit, the Ajax was monitoring the territory outside the drone’s range.

  “It’s a personal thing. When we were marooned here, we walked ungodly distances, mostly at night. It wouldn’t feel right to just ride up to them.”

  “Well let me bring you a little closer. A half-mile hump isn’t going to do that leg of yours any good.”

  “Honestly, I think this is just what I need.” Jander unclipped his Scorpion rifle from the rack, checking to see that it was ready to fire. “Keep an eye on the scan. Something tells me the alien isn’t far away.”

  “It hasn’t answered our calls. Who knows where that thing might be?”

  “Exactly.” Mortas waved at her, and started walking. The air was warm and the stars were out, bathing the flat terrain in a bluish light. He moved slowly, hampered by the brace but in no particular hurry. He heard the mover drive off in the direction of a low finger of ground they’d spotted on the way. As soon as the hum of the motor died out, he was surrounded by memories.

  The dirt underfoot was mixed with clumps of short grass and creeping weeds. Rocks broke the surface at intervals, and a light breeze played across his cheeks. He and Erica had opted not to wear helmets, and so the wind played with his short hair. Sliding the lenses of his goggles up so that he was looking out through the frames with a naked eye, Jander saw again the glowing minerals that frosted much of the open ground.

  The stars provided plenty of light, and he soon picked out the small hill that was his destination. The Whisperers had selected the distant location because of the colony’s expected growth, and Mortas was grateful for the solitude. A set of wings flapped lightly over his head, and he remembered that the initial absence of birds and animals had perplexed him and the other maroons in their earliest walks. They’d had no way of knowing that a disastrous battle had chased away the wildlife, or that a Sim colony had been planted on what they’d believed to be an uninhabited planet.

  His injured leg started to complain as he covered the last hundred yards, and Mortas took comfort in the sensation. So many miles he’d walked on this planet, starving, footsore, uncertain, with almost no gear at all. Tonight his belly was full, his feet were toughened by many months in the walking infantry, and he could whistle up a ride whenever he wished. He was connected to amazing technology in the form of a Force cruiser in orbit, an aerobot watching over him, the goggles strapped to his head, and the ear bud and throat mike that connected him to Varick. He was also armed, and the months of fighting had made the rifle seem like a natural extension of his body.

  His instincts from that time of privation returned, and Mortas stopped without meaning to do so. He slid the goggles back down, sharpening the view of the low hill to see what had raised his suspicions. The grass on either side of the rise was taller, and it grew thicker behind it. That told him that the river was back there, and now he heard the ripples and wondered if they came from the normal current or the dreaded snakes. They couldn’t leave the water for more than a few seconds, but Jander looked around warily while taking the last few steps.

  A path had been cut through the grass going up, making the climb easier. The top of the hillock was flat, and he saw starlight reflected off of the twisting waterway twenty yards beyond. It reminded him of another piece of high ground, where the four of them had observed the first sign of civilization they’d encountered in their trek. A temporary bridge erected by the Sims.

  For a moment he saw Cranther and Gorman again, stretched out on their stomachs and looking at the enemy span. Then they resolved into two door-sized rectangles of dark stone almost flush with the ground, side by side and a yard apart. Words had been etched in them with a fine hand, and he read the first one aloud.

  “Tel Cranther. Friend of Roan Gorman.” There was nothing else, no reference to Cranther’s youth, his involuntary service with the Human Defense Force, his many acts of bravery, or his sacrifice. Mortas nodded his head in approval, and then looked at the other stone.

  “Roan Gorman. Friend of Tel Cranther.”

  Tears appeared in his eyes, and he pulled the goggles up and off. He hung them on a canteen, and then lowered himself to the dirt between the two graves. Extending the brace in front of him, he rested the rifle across his lap and turned off his throat mike.

  “Hi guys. I feel a little silly, talking to you like this. I don’t know if you’re even here,” he whispered, stopping to listen to the wind and the water. “God I hope you’re not here.”

  Mortas laughed out loud, the stress of the war easing a bit, and imagined the two other men laughing with him. “Walking in, I was thinking about when we all met. Corporal, you had no use for any of us. And Gorman, I hope you didn’t notice, but I had no use for either you or Trent. I mean, the thing that was pretending to be Trent. I misjudged you, and you proved me wrong on the very first night. On your own, you tracked the stars and figured out what planet this is.

  “You gutted out every step we walked, with all those blisters from those ridiculous shipboard boots. And then you plotted the course that would take us to Glory Main, even though you knew you’d never get there.” He wiped at an eye with the back of his sleeve. “Most important, you stayed true to yourself no matter what happened. You never harmed anyone, and you took the same risks as the rest of us. Maybe more.”

  The wind ruffled his hair as if in response, and Mortas reached a hand out to the stone bearing Cranther’s name. “I covered you up with rocks, far enough from the creek so that those snake things couldn’t get to you. You saved my life twice that night, once by pulling me out of the fight in the ravine, and then when you killed that crazy major. I fed his body to the snakes, to distract them while I gathered the rocks. I think you would have liked that.”

  Jander cleared his throat, studying the rifle across his legs.

  “You were right about me, Tel. I pretended differently, but I really did want that platoon. I got it, too, and they’re a lot like you. Tough sonsabitches, don’t trust Command even a bit, crazy senses of humor. You simply cannot break them. Here’s another way they’re like you: without them, I would have died a long time ago.”

  His leg gave a twinge from inside the brace, and he shifted it around. “Bet you’re wondering what happened to me. Funny story. After surviving the snakes here, I almost got eaten by a wolf the size of a horse.”

  “Jan,” Varick hissed in his ear. “You’ve got something approaching. Coming from the north, looks human.”

  The words shook him back into awareness, and he quickly donned his goggles. The imagery showed the white dot of his own body heat, and for a moment he stopped to consider the absence of the dots to his right and left. Roughly five hundred yards out in the flat, another
heat blob was coming straight for him.

  “I guess we know who that is, don’t we?” He glanced at the two silent slabs, remembering how much he’d once relied on the advice of the men beneath them. “So how about it? What should I do here? Gorman, I think you’d tell me to give this thing a chance. Corporal, I know you’d tell me to trap it in another decon tube and torch it.”

  “Want me to come out there? If this thing can actually do mind control, you don’t want to be alone.” He heard Varick start up the mover, and turned his mike on.

  “I’ve been alone with it before.” Mortas struggled to his feet. The visitor was three hundred yards away. “It asked for me by name, so let’s give it what it wants. At least at first.”

  “Got it. Don’t turn your mike off again.”

  His goggles picked out the approaching figure, and long before it resolved into a human form he knew what it would look like. Mortas recognized the athletic walk and the easy swing of its shoulders, and then it was coming up the slope through the grass.

  It stopped two yards away, expressionless. Amelia Trent’s reddish-brown hair hung almost to its shoulders, and even using night vision Mortas knew that her eyes were a striking blue. She was dressed in the same olive flight suit she’d worn as a maroon, although this one wasn’t the bloodstained rag discarded at Glory Main. It was like looking at a memory.

  “Hello, Jan.” The thing gave him a crooked smile, and then extended open palms toward the plots on his left and right. “Look at us. We’re all here again.”

  “No we’re not. Cranther and Gorman are both dead. They died because of you. And I would gun you down right here, right now, if I thought it would actually kill you.”

  “I remember that.” The alien pointed at the front of Mortas’s armor, where Cranther’s fighting knife was secured. They were sitting in the dirt on the plain, having left the gravesite at Jander’s insistence. When Varick joined them, the alien had greeted her as a stranger.

  “I’ve carried it ever since he died.” Mortas watched the Amelia-thing for a reaction. It shouldn’t know that he’d lost both blades while a Force prisoner, or that Varick had sent the longer one to him later. The lie seemed to have no effect.

  “The war’s changed you. You’re very different.”

  “You’re not. You’re as deceitful as ever.”

  “I’m here to prove that I can function as an intermediary between humanity and the race you call the Sims. Ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer it.”

  “You should know we’re recording this, both audio and visual.” Erica tapped her goggles. “With these.”

  “The Sims asked me to contact you, to negotiate a possible truce. It’s important that you believe me, so record anything you like.”

  “We’ve got quite a few questions. For example—”

  “Talk bird to us,” Mortas interrupted. “Let’s start with proof you actually can communicate with them.”

  The alien gave him an appraising look, and then opened its mouth. Both of the veterans gave a start when the long series of warbles and chirps came forth. The Amelia-thing went on for a few seconds, pleased by their discomfort.

  “Heard those sounds way too many times,” Varick said to Mortas, who gave a brief nod. “You really can talk to them?”

  “Of course. My people are researchers. We’ve been observing the Sims for years. We infiltrated them as a matter of habit, to learn more about their race. Once we felt we understood them, we revealed ourselves. That’s why we were allied against you.”

  “Were? You’re not pals anymore?”

  “My experience on this planet, with Jander and the others, provided my people with a surprising revelation. According to the Sims, you humans are a violent, narrow-minded race bent on eradicating them. In the many decades of this war, my people saw nothing to suggest they were wrong.” It looked at Mortas with warmth. “Until I met you and Cranther and Gorman.”

  “Wonderful story.” Jander spoke in a monotone.

  “You mentioned your people. Who are you? What are you?” Varick asked softly.

  “My race has a name, and every member has a name as well. Unfortunately, you’d never be able to pronounce any of them.”

  “Try us.”

  “You know, your Command incinerated the only one of us who ever came under their control. You’ll have to forgive me if I limit your knowledge of my people.”

  “Elder Paul said you claimed to have some kind of mental link with the other creatures like you,” Mortas commented. “That true?”

  “Of course. How else would I know everything that happened to the Amelia Trent you encountered?”

  “Video clips of that thing getting roasted have been disseminated all over the war zone. I was interrogated many times, and those transcripts have been leaked as well. A race of researchers—” Jander gave a brief laugh “—wouldn’t have much trouble piecing together what happened. Especially with the entire Sim race collecting intelligence for them.

  “You know what I think? You’re just another lump of clay made out to look like Amelia Trent, fed just enough information to pass itself off as an oracle of peace.”

  “All right. Let me offer a few items that probably aren’t part of those records. When we first met, you dismissed me as a shipboard headshrinker. You found me annoying, and you were afraid I was going to give Cranther an excuse to run off on us.”

  “All of that’s in the reports.”

  The alien turned to Varick. “Would it be too much to ask for you to stop recording, just for a few minutes?”

  “Not at all.” Erica slid her goggles up over her head, turning them off, while Jander did the same. “Go ahead.”

  The alien looked at Mortas. “Did you tell them about Major Shalley, Jander?”

  He shifted his injured leg, and cast a doubtful glance at Varick. “No.”

  “I wouldn’t imagine so. You tried to split us off from his little command as soon as you met him. That’s desertion under Force regulations.”

  “He was insane. And he was going to use us as cannon fodder.”

  “Oh, I fully agree. But now we’ve established that I know something you’ve never told anyone. That we encountered some of the survivors from the assault on the Sim colony, shortly before the Sims finished them off. Cranther warned you not to mention that, if you got out of here alive. Seems you took his advice.”

  “All right.” Much of the heat had dropped from Mortas’s voice. “Looks like you can tell the truth, when you want. So finish what you were going to say, but spare me the bullshit. You were about to tell us that what happened here changed your opinion of humanity.”

  “Not completely. Your species’ behavior in this war indicates a propensity for excessive brutality, stupid infighting, and blind greed. Cranther’s stories about his forced conscription, the abuse he suffered in training, and his routine mistreatment by Command all reflected everything we’d come to expect. But it was the unexpected that opened my eyes.

  “Our little group was never supposed to wander the way we did. We were supposed to see Sim shuttles in the air, which would cause Cranther to lead us to the spacedrome so we could steal one of them. But the assault on the colony destroyed the Sims’ aircraft, making it appear that we were on a barren planet. That set us off on the search for water, which led us through a series of trials. As soon as we surmounted one obstacle, a worse one rose up. But instead of fragmenting the group, those complications brought us closer together.”

  It stopped speaking, and turned to Varick. “He’s not accepting any of this, but it’s the truth. If it weren’t, why would I even be here? The one prolonged encounter between our races showed my people that you aren’t as bad as the Sims believe.”

  The alien looked at Jander. “You earned your race the benefit of the doubt. And that is why my people want to see the fighting end.”

  “I come from a political family. They’re experts in manipulation, and here you’re trying child psychology on me.”

/>   “Just a moment,” Erica broke in. “You said your people want to see the fighting end. What about the Sims? They feel the same way?”

  “With some prodding from us, yes. That’s one reason why we didn’t reestablish contact until now. The Sims have a loose command structure, so convincing them to discuss a truce took time.”

  Mortas felt a sliver of his animosity vanish, but only because the answer to a very old question appeared to be at hand. That mystery had shaped much of his life.

  “What’s making the Sims?”

  Varick registered surprise, and then expectation. “Do you know? Where are they coming from? Where did they come from?”

  The Amelia-thing smiled with lips that were pressed shut. “Who’s making the Sims? Something. Some force, some power, some race. We haven’t encountered them, so we don’t know who or what they are. And neither do the Sims.”

  “The Sims don’t know where they come from.” The anger had returned to Jander’s voice. “Bullshit. I knew this was a waste of time, and that proves it.”

  “It’s the truth. They have no idea of their actual origins because they have no link to them.” The alien stared him back down into a sitting position. “When a Sim becomes conscious for the first time, it’s aboard ship, in a sleep tube very similar to the ones you use. The entire ship’s complement is awakened at the same time, a sort of mass birth if you will, except they’re all aged between eighteen and twenty. Fully formed physically, able to converse fluently, each trained for a specific job. A great deal of information has been instilled in their minds prior to this first awakening.

  “They understand why they’re essentially being born in space, that there are many more like them, and that they are in a desperate survival situation. All of these things were implanted, grown, or fed into their brains when they were created and while they slept. So when they awake, they’re not confused at all. It all makes sense to them.”