"That's a compellingly homocentric view of the universe, soldier."
Henrikson nodded. "Yes, sir. I'm sorry ... I've had people tell me that men are just accidents in the scheme of things. I don't think so ... Why ... Because we're men. We stand for something, goddammit. We've got values and order and ... hell ... purpose to bring to what amounts to a lot of godless space."
"Indeed. Indeed! That kind of feeling would be a wonderful rabble-rouser ... I mean, that would go a long way to heal the wounded spirit of humanity!"
"I know, sir. I know." Henrikson nodded gravely. "And that's why I'm here."
"Excellent. Well, you know, Corporal, I think we're going to have lots of time to discuss pertinent applications of that philosophy while we're on our mission. In the meantime, I think I'd like to take a little time to compose myself before the blast-off of this shuttle. You know ... for meditation ... a little cat nap, perhaps ..."
Henrikson looked over at Grant. "Ah. Yes, you do look a little tired. How thoughtless of me. Please, close your eyes. Relax. Snooze. I have my own inner warrior's form of meditation. We shall meditate together."
With that, the corporal's eyes trained onto the front of his couch, and focused.
Well, so much for that. Rest and meditation was even valuable to big boy here. He should have tried that tactic before.
Oh, well. He knew he'd have someone of interest to talk to on the mission. He just wished now he'd brought along one of his PR men to jot all these golden thoughts down.
Grant let his heavy eyelids close.
He found peace for perhaps thirty seconds, before he heard the clamor of feet boarding the boat, closets opening, packs being stored, voices jabbering among one another.
"... look, chum. I'm telling you, that was the way it was ... the music was the soul of the beats! The hot, cool black music of the streets, man. That's where the streaming ice lava of the poetry came from to begin with!" The voice was annoyingly adenoidal and high-pitched.
"Look, Jastrow! I make one single comment the other day that I enjoyed reading the old free verse of the twentieth century ... and you think I'm talking about the beat poets! I'm talking about a number of writers, including William Carlos Williams ..."
Grant cracked his weary eyelids.
Couple of privates in fatigues and caps. White boy, black boy. White boy was the one carping on the literary and music themes. Unfortunate, but he could tune them out.
"Williams! But Williams was John the Baptist to Allen Ginsberg!"
"Sorry. Never heard of him."
" 'Howl'? You read twentieth-century free verse, and you've never read 'Howl'?"
"Well, come to think of it ... Perhaps I have ... but I still don't see the connection between free verse poetry and jazz."
"Sheesh. Not just jazz, budz. Be-bop! Here, let me show you."
The conversation had become detached, as though Grant were listening to it through a tin-can telephone as he drifted into exhausted sleep.
Blaaaaat ... !
High-pitched, running hell-for-leather up some spidery octave.
Bleeet ... BLEEEEET ... !
The sounds were fingernails and Grant's brain had turned to chalkboard.
He jumped up, awake and disoriented. He hit his head on a low overhang and flopped back onto the couch.
Honk ... honk HONNKKKKK!
He looked over. Sitting on the edge of a grav-couch was a black man wearing glasses and a grimace. His hands were over his ears. Opposite him was another bespectacled guy with a pocket-protector face. His thin lips were clamped on the mouthpiece of a big baritone saxophone.
Both had boot-camp bodies, but faces innocent of the heart of war.
Blat ... blat ... Blat!
"Can't you hear it, Ellis?" he said, unclamping. "I have seen the finest minds of my generation—"
The natural force that was Corporal Henrikson reared up like a vengeful statue. "You guys want to give the rest of us in here some peace?"
His muscular hovering said it all. The salt-and-pepper twins blinked, flinching back.
"Gee—sorry, Corporal."
"Just playing a little Bird, man."
Henrikson stood rock-hard. "Well, I'm clipping your wings! This is not a place for that thing. Now over your head ... maybe."
Ellis looked as though he agreed, but Jastrow got a hurt-little-boy expression on his face as he put his musical instrument away in its case.
"I could use a few Z's anyway, Jazz," said Ellis.
"Yeah. Maybe you're right. We'll continue this conversation later, though, huh?"
"Whatever." The man sounded resigned.
Henrikson bent over Grant. "You okay, sir?"
"Sure. My ears are still ringing and I'm wide awake. But I'm okay."
"We got a good fifteen before formal boarding, so maybe you should use them."
"I'll try, Corporal. Believe me, I'll try."
Henrikson shot one more warning look at the newly arrived duo and then resumed his grav-couch. Grant found Ellis and Jastrow peering at him curiously, obviously wondering who he was.
Grant could feel it even through his closed eyelids.
"Name's Grant. The reason you're on this mission," he said. "Mind if we meet formally later? I'm trying to get a little rest."
"Oh!"
"Oh, sure, sir. Sorry."
"Yeah. Right. We'll be real quiet." Whisper. "Sheesh. That's Daniel Grant, man! And you had to squeal that sax in his ear."
"How could I know? I didn't even see him!"
The whispers died into uneasy silence and once again Grant found himself slipping into an uneasy coma.
Which ended all too soon.
He'd been having a dream about his parents, and he hated to dream about his parents, so it was just as well. Still, it was all a little annoying.
The clump-clump of steps didn't wake him. He barely heard it: background noise.
The shifting of bags, the snap of storage cases. No problem.
However, when a body fell directly onto him—that woke him up.
"Ooophhh!" he said.
"Gahhh. Oh, dear ... damned floor! All these knobs and braces. Sorry!"
That the person was prominently female mitigated the hurt and shock somewhat, and not just because of the softer bits. She looked good and she smelled good, even in fatigues. She was a busty brunette with hair about as long as the Marines would let you wear it if you weren't male, and rich dark eyes that now looked thoroughly repentant.
"That's all right," said Grant, flashing on the immediate lady smile. "I was hoping to get some rest before takeoff, but these things happen."
She pushed herself off of him with ease and a great deal more grace than she'd shown in tripping onto him. "I do better in faux grav, for some reason. And null grav? I'm a swan." She shrugged. "I'm just a space babe, that's all there is to it, and I'll be glad to lift off this—" She batted those splendid doe eyes. "Say. Haven't I seen you ... My God! You're Daniel Grant, the big tycoon! I've seen you on the vids!"
"That's me."
"You look awfu—I mean, I guess you could use some rest." She hobbled over to an empty grav-couch, and Grant, despite his weariness, was unable to take his attention off her delightfully swiveling hips. She turned. "I'd heard you were somewhere behind this mission. I didn't think I'd get to really meet you though!"
"Well, get used to it, Private," said Henrikson. "He's coming along with us for the voyage."
"No kidding! Well, isn't that ... Isn't that news." She swiveled back over, unconsciously smoothing her hair, and gave him her hand and a markedly breathier delivery. "My name is Edie Mahone. Private First Class—but I'm still young, and I really think I have quite a bright future with the Colonial Marines."
Grant felt a little nonplussed and couldn't help automatically turning on the charm—and wondering at the same time what this particular woman was doing in the Marines ... and on this mission in particular. As he studied her though, he got an impression of strength beneath the
apparent ditziness. The oh-gosh business was just an act. Beneath it, Grant could tell, was strength, and it turned him on. It challenged him.
"You have an interest in xeno development then?" said Grant.
"The bugs? Oh, no." She shook her head, shuddered. "Hate 'em. But then, who doesn't? I can see your question coming. What's a nice girl doing in a place like this?" She shrugged. "I'm just a space natural, I guess, Mr. Grant. I wasn't fooling you ... And on top of that, I'm a tactical weapons specialist."
"Weapons specialist?"
"Yes, sir. Top scores." A mischievous playfulness shaded her voice.
"I'm just glad you weren't carrying any grenades when you fell over me."
"Hmmm? Oh, yes ... yes, of course. Mr. Grant, I really am sorry, and it's such a surprise ... maybe this mission isn't going to be such a grim business after all."
"I certainly hope not. Now, Private Mahone—I hope you'll come to my cabin sometime for drinks and we'll have a nice long chat. In the meantime, my sanity could really use a little rest before it gets rattled by takeoff."
"Of course. Of course, Mr. Grant ... sir. I'll just hop into a couch over here and leave you alone ... And ..." She did a double take. "Drinks? Did you say drinks with a tycoon! Of course, Mr. Grant. I'd love to! I'm a regular media hound and I watch you all the time. I even bought that unauthorized paperback about you—is it true that your wife divorced you when she found you in your marriage bed with four naked women?"
Grant chuckled mischievously. "And a parrot. Don't forget the parrot, Private Mahone."
He was pleased the legend lingered.
The starstruck private shook her head and rapturously wandered back to her couch. Was it an act? He didn't know. And he didn't care.
Drinks with an attractive private who would probably be disappointed if he didn't make a pass at her. After that tragic debacle last night, he was hardly in the mood for romance right now. But weeks into a space cruise with a bunch of scientists and hardened soldiers? The dominant Grant hormones would doubtless trot themselves out into quest-and-conquer mode. A willing female partner with the requisite assets was something that cheered him immensely.
Now, though, to sleep for just a brief sweet moment.
Grant let his head flop down into the cushion, gratified at the silence that the cabin had cloaked itself in. Respectful silence.
This wasn't so bad, shipping out on a boat heading light-years away from Earth with a bunch of scientists and marines. It was his mission, after all ... And he seemed to be getting the appropriate obeisance from his people.
This was good. This was very good. A kind of calm descended upon Daniel Grant. His knotted muscles unwound, and a sense of control of his environment began to knit itself around him. Yes, yes, perhaps it would work out for the best that he was coming along to supervise, to oversee ... no, to control. The boys in the office knew well enough how he ran things by now. They could do exactly what he would do, whatever the situation. He didn't have to be around. Instead, he should be doing exactly what he was doing. Heading for parts unknown, spreading his influence, his dominion.
Daniel Grant ... a great man, destined for the stars.
The cadences of his self-congratulations lullabyed him into that blessed relaxed land just short of slumber, where not even his mother was waiting to natter at him.
Ah ... !
Sweet, gentle peace ...
WOOOOOOONK!
WOONNNNNNNK!
The Klaxon rang like hell's own trumpet.
"That's the fire alarm!" cried Jastrow.
"Shit! Something's wrong with the shuttle. We gotta get out of here, Mr. Grant!"
"Please," murmured Grant. "Just let me lie here awhile. I'll die if need be. Just let me sleep."
"No can do, Mr. G!"
Grant felt himself being pulled up out of the couch, and physically carried down the ramp.
The cooler air outside was like a slap across the chops. He blinked, felt himself being jounced ...
And then suddenly stop still.
"Let me down!" he demanded.
"Do what the man says, turkey! Now!"
Henrikson dropped him onto hard sheetcrete.
"Ow!" Groggily he scrambled up to his feet ...
And found himself staring into the bores of 10mm blasters.
Connected to those blasters were Colonel Alex Kozlowski and a group of marines, travel sacks at their bags.
"Belay arms," said Kozlowski, striding up to them, arms on hips. If we were a group of bugs, you dopes would be bug food now! Emergencies demand emergency measures!" A toothpick stuck out from the side of her mouth. She worked it all the way to the other side of a scowl. "Isn't that right, soldiers!"
The marines, who somewhere in the midst of all this had managed to effect uncomfortable poses of attention, immediately responded.
"Yes, sir!"
Kozlowski worked the toothpick.
"Besides, I haven't assigned seats yet, have I?"
"No, sir!"
Kozlowski walked over to Grant, and stooped down beside him. "Welcome to your mission, Mr. Grant ..." She spat the toothpick.
It stuck into the loose fabric of his pants.
"Welcome to my command."
Grant sighed and closed his eyes again.
This sheetcrete was actually rather comfortable ...
9
Darkness.
Darkness and dreams.
Dream logic tangled in its own shreds and chips of reality and magic.
For six weeks, Daniel Grant dreamed or didn't dream, but in the overpowering darkness, the dreams were all he knew.
Moebius strips of dreams. Jump cuts. Swirls of victory and laughter and glory.
The depths of the past, into secret and overpowering fears.
Mostly, though, it seemed a short sleep, for the dreams were only brief releases of hypersleep to allow brain function and REM.
In the glass-case cubicle, embedded like a fly in amber, when the mechanism and gas mix slowly began to gently pry him from his slumber, Daniel Grant only vaguely sensed the springing of the lock mechanism of his case. He clung to his dreams, clung to the darkness, a sleeper drunk on sleep.
"Mr. Grant?"
A gentle female voice. Whose? It was sweet and kind and understanding. The kind of voice his ex-wife used to use, in their early love, when he gave himself only to her.
She seemed very real now, very much a part of reality in this darkness.
"Daniel?"
Martha. He'd been dating a lot back then, back in the halcyon days of Neo-Pharm, when he'd first bought it and was working on the beginnings of his empire. She was a model his ad company had hired for commercials. He'd swooped down and never come back up ... not for a long time, anyway. Still, to this day, he was not sure why there had been others, years down the road. Old bad habits? Part of the life-style he'd loved? Pure stoking of an overblown ego?
He wasn't sure, and he wasn't troubled about it.
Except for moments like these, upon waking, when he doubted himself, when he felt vulnerable.
"It's time to wake up, Mr. Grant."
Wake up? Where was he?
"We've got a lot to do."
That voice. It certainly wasn't Martha's. He realized that now.
"So hop to it."
It was a hard voice now, a voice used to being obeyed.
Grant realized that he was cold. He felt quite naked. Shivering, he raised himself.
He pried open his eyes.
Peripherally, he saw the overhanging cables and cold metal of the hypersleep chamber.
In front of him, crouching, was a good eight feet worth of talons, bony notched spars and open, angry jaws.
An alien!
He screamed.
He cringed.
Then he scrabbled back, instinctively throwing up his arms in a helpless gesture to protect him from this, the deadliest creature in the known universe.
Even as he squirmed, trying to grapple over the side of
his hypersleep cubicle, what shreds of his rational mind that still operated realized something.
The thing wasn't moving.
It was just hovering there, a few feet away.
And come to think of it, couldn't he barely see a bulkhead through the murky black of its articulated body?
A shudder, a zwip! of light passed through it.
It wasn't real ... It was a ...
From the left a woman in khaki fatigues stepped, holding a modular control unit.
Colonel Kozlowski.
The beast before him was just a hologram.
"Thought you might need to get your juices flowing." She tapped a control, and moved the hologram away. "Welcome to the U.S.S. Razzia, Phase II."
"God damn you, Colonel!"
She raised a dark eyebrow. "You want to be a part of the gang, don't you, Grant? Just consider this a very mild hazing. You're a member of the fraternity now!"
He wasn't groggy at all. The adrenaline had managed to kick weeks worth of sleepdirt out of his head. Still, his heart was racing and he was damned angry.
And, what with only a pair of briefs between himself and nakedness, damned near naked!
He hopped out of his cubicle, one of ten spiraled around a central control and supply center. All the duraplas casings were lifted now, like translucent insect wings.
They had obviously let him snooze awhile longer than normal. All the other cubicles were empty.
"Why am I the last to wake?" he said, getting up and out of the thing, steadying himself on the side.
"You seemed real tired when we left, Grant. We all thought you could use a little extra sleep."
"How far are we from our destination?"
"The gravitonic engines are cut off. We've got to use regular impulse engines to cruise among planets. We'll be in orbit around the Hiveworld in four days." She smiled. "Are you ready for some action, Mr. Grant?"
"It would appear I've already gotten some, Colonel."
"What. From Black Fang here?" She smiled. "Just a training hologram. No reason to be embarrassed. Some younger recruits have soiled their skivvies because of Black Fang. Looks like you pretty much did okay."
Grant snorted. "You have quite a warped sense of humor, Kozlowski. I guess we're going to have to talk about that, and some other things in a few hours. Right now, I'd like to get some pants on."
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