A Few Good Men

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  I took the copilot chair, but it was largely ornamental, because I cringed at each sound and had a hard time keeping my mind clear. But Nat’s hands flew deftly on the controls, just as he’d done when broom fighting, and he brought us down to within sight of Olympus Seacity.

  I could see it on the visor, tall amid the blue waters. And then I realized those waters were so full of air-sea transports as to look black.

  Which was when the ship suddenly shuddered and a loud thud echoed under us. Before I even had time to blink, Nat had said, “Shit.” He’d unbuckled himself and was diving, full body, out of the control chair.

  He unstrapped me too, somehow, and took me along in his dive, an arm hooked around my middle. Just in time for the control chair to erupt into flames.

  We’d dressed in a way that worked for brooming and I picked myself off the floor, to find that Simon and Zen were clutching brooms. And I went into my fast mode, diving for the closet where we’d stashed the brooms. Mine was the only one left. I grabbed it, then dove ahead of the others, to slam the emergency trap door on the floor open, by kicking the lock to release it, then stomping the door open.

  Nat was the first one through on his broom, quickly followed by myself. By that time, smoke followed us, and as Nat signaled, away from the debris, as fast as possible, I saw he was signaling to three of us.

  But we’d no more escaped the falling debris of the air-to-space, which sank into the sea like a torch in a bathtub, than I saw Nat signal, Lucius, we’re going to have to swim to approach. Those are enemy transports. At that point, I stopped tracking where Zen and Simon had gone.

  And the War’s Desolation

  Have you ever wondered what kind of madman dives into a house on fire, or crawls into a collapsed mine to save those caught within? Look no further. His name is Nat Remy, and you’ll probably read about him in the history books as Nathaniel Greene Remy. Oh, I’ll probably be mentioned too, but I’m not that kind of idiot. If I’d been alone, I’d have flown my broom very far away from there and then come back, in a week or whenever the fighting calmed down, to bind wounds or do what I could.

  Because as we flew our brooms near the seacity two things became clear: surrounded didn’t begin to describe what was happening to my homeland. There were rings of vehicles around the island, vehicles parked in the plazas. There were explosions and smoke, and from the color of some of it, it wasn’t just smoke but the kind of poisonous gases that incapacitate or kill everything in its wake.

  It was clear as day that the other Good Men had decided to make an example of Olympus. My mind and my heart seized, thinking of everyone on the island, but most of all of Nat’s family which had become, in a way, my own family in those last few weeks, at least as far as my looking after them, and they after me.

  But what could two men, just two men do on the occasion? Nothing, right?

  Fortunately, I never managed to say that. Because Nat seemed to guess my thoughts, and, flying alongside me said, We have to save the children, Lucius. They’ll be alone in the house. His fingers flicked on, in their leather gloves, relentless, No way we can get in this way, but we can swim and get near the tunnel to your house. It will be occupied, but we can fight through it.

  So, the kind of madman who will do this is also the kind of madman who will, without a second thought, fight through the most occupied part of the isle on the way to another, less occupied part. Fortunately I had a better idea, and I flicked at him, No, follow me. I have a way into the garden.

  I expected . . . not quite an argument, demurring. There was none. He signaled. Lead.

  It involved dropping into the sea like a stone, still, and swimming around, past all the easy harbors, where ships were anchored, and to a beach around the side, so narrow that there was barely space to put your toes on.

  We had to swim beneath troop transports. Without the oxygen masks, we’d have been unable to breathe by the time we arrived. As was, we were at the limit of the oxygen concentrators, and we’d brought no bottles, but we made it.

  Nat emerged first, since he must be part fish. As he balanced on the tiny ledge, he gave me a hand to climb up to it, then he removed his mask. “How do we get anywhere from here?” he asked. He looked up. “It must be a good fifty feet. Oh.” The “oh” was because he’d seen them.

  Years before our arrest, desperate for a way into the garden that could not be tracked by my father’s guards, Ben and I had hollowed holes in the dimatough—by force of burner—and into those we’d forced tiny, transparent dimatough pegs. I could see how, in a situation like what we found ourselves in, it was a foolhardy risk, but we’d never thought of that, and to be honest, unless you knew what you were looking for, or, like Nat, you were looking straight up, you’d never see those pegs.

  Climbing still wasn’t easy. Some of the pegs were missing, but, more importantly, they were set for my height or Ben’s, neither of which fit Nat. He managed it nonetheless, keeping pace just beneath me. We didn’t have ropes, which worried me, but we had our brooms, in case we fell. And from a certain level up, they’d even be effective.

  The greater danger was that the people below could pick us off the wall. There was nothing for it but to be like a fly on a wall. Fortunately, our suits were dark, and the wall was black. It was possible to see us, but unless you knew who we were, it was unlikely you’d pick us off. Surely, one would think we were invaders?

  We made it all the way over the wall of my garden. And into a pitched firefight. I cannot and will not attempt to describe what I saw. There were . . . several burner fights going on at once. Several trees and bushes were ablaze. I recognized some of Sam’s and Betsy’s assistants, and I tried to take out their opponents, when I could identify them.

  Which was easier said than done, as Nat had—ignoring the firefights, and several times coming close to running through a tree that had become a bonfire—taken off at speed through the garden, headed for Remy house.

  Even with my fast-speed, I fell behind a few times, as I took time to kill someone or other. When I took out Royce’s opponent, Royce must have recognized us, because he took off after Nat, also. Well, Royce was many brands of annoying, but he was no traitor, so I let him run with us, across the garden and over the wall, to the broad street that divided my house from Nat’s.

  This is a little harder to describe. People had barricaded themselves behind flyers. Other people were flying brooms. Burner fire crisscrossed in the street and since none of the people on the street were in uniform, the militia from our side was, and the several attackers wore all sorts of different uniforms, all you could say was that it was very hard to tell friend from foe at a glance. The only safe thing was that if it looked like a uniform and it wasn’t sky blue you should burn. But even that wasn’t safe, since as I tried to shoot the enemy, I realized the snappy red uniforms were those of Simon’s militia, and I didn’t even know on whose side they were, since he was obviously not in control of his own guard.

  I found out afterward they were on both, adding to the mess of an extremely messy battle.

  I have no idea how we made it across the street, or through the gates of Remy House. The gates—clear dimatough—were blasted open and charred by an explosion. My heart fell to the vicinity of my feet and stayed there. I was thinking of little Debra. I’d read to her . . . just four days ago. She looked forward to my reading and waited for me, every night. I thought of James, who looked as Nat must have at fourteen, with longish, awkwardly cut hair, and a problematic complexion, but tall and limber, and full of fighting spirit, and no more knowing what to do with it than a puppy knows how to defend his pack from wolves. And Patrick, ten, who looked as much like Ben as Abigail had, and who was as eager for stories as Debra, though less willing to show it. And Tom, who favored his father and, at five, was just learning to read.

  Nat was running up the steps . . . and into pitched battle.

  Burner fire was everywhere. We dropped to the ground, instinctively, and I heard Royce drop beh
ind me, but it wasn’t until I looked from the floor that I realized this entire fight was James, who stood in front . . . of a wall. Was it just a wall? Why was he defending a wall? And holding off fifteen of the Good Men’s best, in their dimatough-scale clothing, and their regulation burners. There were dead men all around, so he was doing a good job of it. But why?

  There was no time to ask. I started burning men, from the back, careful not to aim where if I missed it might hit James. Royce and Nat joined in. Then Zen and Simon who came in running, helped. The men turned around. They burned at us. We burned back. A burner ray singed the top of my hair, and someone else took out the bastard.

  Suddenly, from pitched battle we went to standing, five of us amid a pile of corpses. And James was collapsed against the door.

  “James, hold on!” Nat yelled. He stepped unheeding over dead bodies to his brother’s side. I noticed there was a dark wet patch on James’s leg. Only one wound? Surely he could afford to lose a leg? It could be regened.

  “James,” Nat looked up at us. “Royce, for the love of heaven, call a medical transport.” Then, without waiting, he said, “Why didn’t you go in with them?”

  James looked up at Nat, his eyes unfocused. I was now very near and could see and smell that the patch on his leg was blood. And I could see it bubbling out. Surely that wasn’t right? Behind me, Royce was talking earnestly into some sort of link.

  “They saw the kids go in,” he said. “They saw them go in. They knew where the safe room was. They could have blasted through. I had to defend them.”

  Then he gave an odd sort of hiccup and sagged even as Nat was trying to lift him. At that moment, Royce said, “They’re here,” and a shadow obscured the doorway. Nat ran with James all the way in to the medical transport. But James died before they could take off. A burner cut had opened his femoral artery. He’d been hit before we arrived and remained at his post until we relieved him. Possibly by will power alone.

  Nat opened the safe room and got the other children out. And two days later we had a family ceremony in which we wished James Madison Remy’s spirit godspeed to a world where he could live as a free man. He had died as one.

  Dearly Bought

  Royce explained to us—before Sam and Betsy got back to the house, and long before the fighting was done with over the island—that we were actually winning. In fact, the attack on Remy house was the last stand of desperate invaders, trying to secure hostages for their retreat.

  Because we’d freed the communications, when the Good Men attacked Olympus, we could call for help, not just to our allies but to Usaians and men of good will everywhere. Only half the transports were enemy, and the fight for the island, though bloody, was a victory. James hadn’t died in vain.

  The war was nowhere near over.

  But after that communications on Earth were free. The first broadcast, in which I addressed the people of the Earth at large and told them what had happened and what our struggle had been in Olympus, together with the fact that now any private citizen could address any other number of other private citizens by text or voice and not be traced started a ball rolling that the Good Men simply couldn’t stop. They still had the power, the armies, the Secret Services, but we were gaining. We weren’t isolated anymore.

  And the news that eventually leaked out—Betsy told me it wasn’t her doing, but I was never sure I believed her—that the Good Men were actually Mules, turned the battle of public opinion our way, though because of my visibility, my presence, and the fact that I am clearly not one of the old ones, I’m hoping most of the sons of Good Men will be spared.

  Are Good Men shunned because of our blood? Perhaps, but it won’t last. There is a war to be fought, a revolution turning ugly over in Liberte, and everything is in too much turmoil for anyone to worry too much about some artificial genetic markers, and the inability to reproduce with normal females. The Earth, held artificially under the same overarching and corrupt regime for years, is taking several paths to liberty and people are too busy with surviving and rebuilding to care too much that my genes were assembled in a lab. In fact, of all the surviving Good Men or ex-Good Men I am probably the one in best shape, as I am the image of the revolution. Or at least the Usaian part of the revolution.

  At any rate, getting access to the energy shipments of Circum, as we now control access to the powerpods—even if the Good Men have managed to get sources of it going, enough to hold on against us, one can’t help but think the war has turned. And having new recruits pour into our ranks, fresh as new paint and raw as steak though they are, doesn’t hurt either.

  After we cleaned Olympus, cremated our dead and bound our wounds, Nat went back to the war, and I went back to my work, and I won’t say there weren’t many days of perusing casualty lists ahead, but Nat was never on them. Somehow, through the next few months, he came through fire and hell alive and relatively intact. He says that, like Tom Sawyer in the book of ancient writer Mark Twain, he was born to hang and short of that nothing can kill him.

  I’m sure the Good Men would gladly have hanged him, if they’d known, so I’ll be grateful they didn’t.

  Oh, one other thing, which I’m not sure I should mention, as it has very little to do with the revolution and is purely personal, is that three nights after he came back from the Massacre of Broken River, Nat gave me a bracelet. It was a simple silver arc, open on the end, so it was adjustable. It had a stylized engraving of a tree with an ax resting against it. On the back it had my name, and underneath, Free Man, and the date I had joined the Usaians and the Sons of Liberty.

  “I had it made,” he said. “I had one made for myself, after the raid, and when I was ordering I thought you might want one too, and at any rate I owe you my life.”

  The ax and the tree were drawn by Nat and were supposed to symbolize George Washington, or something. I treasured it because Nat gave it to me, but later on, after they were noticed, a lot of people made up a whole story about it.

  It appears that with my being the public face of the revolution, at least in broadcasts, and the whole thing being perceived as starting from my escaping Never-Never, a lot of the more fervent and prophecy-inclined Usaians have decided I am the foretold George who would come to restart the wheels of freedom.

  It is no use at all telling them that my name was spelled Lucius and that none of my supposed ancestors had even been named anything with a G. And it is no use telling them I had done nothing except exist to start this pebble rolling. All they do is shake their heads and make some pronouncement about the mysterious ways of God.

  I mention this because the bracelet is taken as corroboration of this ridiculous idea, and Nat finds himself greatly amused by it, though once he told me, “Has it ever occurred to you that you wouldn’t know if you were him?” I suppose he’s gotten a little loopy. It must be all the responsibility.

  The Point Turns

  I’ve been struggling to know how to finish this account. I’ve been told that my view of the war is important, since many people still think I was instrumental in starting the whole thing. I’ve been told that this might provide clues on how to avoid future tyrannies, how to create a revolution if needed, how to turn revolution gone wrong to revolution done right. I don’t think so. Looking back at this, it all seems intensely personal and particular and I don’t see how anyone can use it.

  At any rate, after the raid on Circum Terra and the battle for Olympus, Nat went back to war, in command of a larger force than ever. He was in Herrera’s private staff by then, Herrera’s inner circle, who, like Wellington with his trusted men, he called his family. I didn’t find out Nat’s rank for sure till the next time he visited, and I don’t know when the promotion happened.

  As for me, I went back to making broadcasts and propaganda, but this time seriously and not just trading on my image. I found that as well as the super speed trick, superhuman memory and correlating ability had been engineered into my ancestor. Or, at least, Doctor Dias told me so. So I used it.
I studied all the revolutions, including the French, and I started tailoring broadcasts and arranging things to bring people to our cause. Somewhere along the line I found that I was in charge and that Betsy was working for me. Fortunately her devotion to the cause allowed her to ignore the personal demotion. If it was a demotion. Like her son, that woman can always make sure what she wants happens, and the rest is only incidental.

  And Athena Sinistra came back to Earth yet again, and then there was all the mess with the juveniles of my kind. But none of that is mine to tell, and as for how I turned public opinion in my favor, I’ll eventually write about it. When the war is over. If the war is ever over.

  And so, because this has turned into an intensely personal account, I’ll finish with an intensely personal moment.

  It was the next time Nat came home, after the raid on Circum. We’d just captured Sea York, in the first indisputable victory for our side, and he got sent home for real rest and recreation. He hadn’t even gone to his parents’ house but came directly to the palace, where he found me presiding over a staff of ten people, each of whom did their best to help me and mostly succeeded in driving me insane.

  He waited at the door to the office, which I kept meaning to have refurnished, but which still looked like my father’s, because it was a war and resources were scarce and I’d been divesting my attics of accumulated stuff to furnish other, more important offices than mine. After a while one of my secretaries, a timid young man from Liberte, had ventured to tell me that General Remy and “a big shaggy dog” were waiting for me. Yes, Nat had Goldie with him. And I managed not to make a spectacle of myself right there in the hall, because it had been almost a year since I’d seen Nat and every time I see him, truly see him, is a moment of wonder and joy that I haven’t missed his name in the casualty lists. As for Goldie, he leapt at me, put paws on my shoulders and forgot all the proper behavior Nat had taught him.