by B. V. Larson
“Take a walk, Centurion.”
Without another word, Graves turned on his heel and headed back toward the shimmering lake and the scattered campfires. Men were toasting up rock-fish and dousing the meat with alkaline solutions to leech out the toxins.
“We can’t just leave them alone, McGill,” Tribune Drusus told me. “The Empire will blame us for whatever these people do once they’ve been discovered—and they will be discovered when the Galactics come to pick us up. We had to report the attack upon our vessel to regional command. When the Galactics return, they’ll come in force.”
“The Battlefleet?” I asked in awe.
Drusus nodded. “Perhaps not right away, but a violation of this magnitude can’t be ignored. They’ll have to come and expunge all disobedient life from these worlds. The cephalopods are as good as dead even if they don’t know it. Knowing what’s coming, our mission has changed. Instead of worrying about putting down a possible rival, I’m here to ensure that Earth isn’t going to be somehow blamed for what’s happened here.”
“I understand that, sir. Maybe if we took our time and talked to the colonists gently, we could win their trust over a period of—”
“Hours,” Drusus finished for me. “That’s how long we have. The Galactics have military-grade warp drives. They might be far from here, but we can’t take that chance. Really, we should pulverize these warrens with an immediate bombardment, but I’ve decided to give them one last chance.”
“Hours? But the Galactics aren’t likely to come that fast. They’ll probably take months to arrive.”
“Yes, but then again, they might not. It is imperative that we have this situation resolved before they arrive.”
“You’re willing to kill an entire population of your own people just because the Battlefleet might be nearby? May I remind you, sir, that these people don’t have revival machines? Every one of them we kill will be permed.”
“I know that. But I also know the Galactics are as heartless as the stars themselves. The threat they represent forces my hand. I have to protect Legion and I have to protect Earth.”
“Can I ask one more question, Tribune? Why me?”
“Because you at least managed to talk to them for a while before they became violent. I think it was the adaptation of removing your armor that saved you. Can you explain that choice to me?”
I thought about it. “Yes sir. I didn’t want to look threatening, so I stripped down to look more like one of them. They seem to fear armored men. They said something about me having ‘littermates’, and they doubted I was even human at first. I didn’t know what to make of it.”
“Strange. Maybe they’ve developed superstitious beliefs. They’ve been cut off from Earth for quite a while, and they’ve obviously diverged from the rest of us culturally.”
“Am I to understand that I’m the last attempt we’re making at diplomatic contact?”
“Yes.”
I mulled that one over for a second. I didn’t like the situation at all. I’d never considered myself to be good at diplomacy—except possibly when it came to getting myself laid. Other than that, I’d always failed miserably at negotiating anything. Most people found me abrasive and difficult to deal with. Maybe that was the real reason they were sending me—I was expected to fail.
I didn’t see any way out of my situation. The colonists were slated for death, and I had to do what I could to help them. The poor bastards probably had no idea what an Earth legion could do to them.
“I understand, sir,” I said at last. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know that you will.”
The tribune left then, vanishing into the dark. Most soldiers wore identifying lights around the camp at night and used lamps to see, but not Drusus. He walked like a ghost among the rest of us.
An hour later I found myself picking my way through loose gravel toward the hulking boulders in the dark. I shed my armor and left my cannon at the base of the first big rock I came to. I then went on with only a shoulder-lamp and my sidearm. Going completely unarmed would probably have been best, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that. I’d already decided that if that rat-faced guy Stott showed up with his crossbow I was going to kill him if at all possible, diplomacy be damned.
For a while, I felt like I was grunting and climbing among the boulders alone. But I knew that this time there were buzzers nearby. There were insects on Dust World—plenty of them—but our buzzers sounded different from the native species. Their black polymer wings made a tiny clicking noise that I found distinctive.
The legion techs were watching me. Natasha herself was probably playing the vid feed inside her helmet.
Feeling a little self-conscious, I came to the area where Gorman had bought the proverbial farm. I stepped carefully from there on, staying on top of the widest, flattest rocks and avoiding loose dirt.
I heard another kind of click about a hundred meters farther in. It was a sound that made my skin crawl. It was the sound of a crossbow string being drawn back and loaded with deadly bolt.
Halting, I put my hands over my head.
“I’m here to talk,” I said loudly.
“You people don’t learn, do you?” asked a female voice.
“Della?”
She stayed quiet for a second, then I heard a soft thudding of feet as she circled around me. She was almost invisible in the rocks. I tried not to flinch, and I almost managed it as she brought the tip of her weapon under my chin.
She reached out and turned my shoulder lamp upward to shine upon my face. She gasped.
“You are a littermate!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t believe they could do this! I didn’t want to believe!”
“Hold on,” I said, sensing that she was about to shoot me. “Can you at least tell me what a littermate is? I don’t have a clue.”
“Pretense of ignorance will fool no one. I’ve patrolled these stones since I was little. I know them better than anyone alive. You can’t fool a scout. I’m surprised you would even try.”
I sensed she was proud of her accomplishments and her title. I filed that information away, trying to think fast. I had no desire to be revived twice in a single day. It would make Harris far too happy.
“Look,” I said. “I’m no littermate—if you mean I’m some kind of clone. If I was a clone, how would I know your name? You killed me last time, remember? How would I know that?”
She circled and I sensed indecision. “You made a mistake coming back here, whatever you are. Abominations will always die in Happy Valley.”
“Happy Valley?”
“That’s our name for this place—as if it matters to you.”
“Look, Della, I just came back for one thing. Give it to me, and I’ll go.”
She didn’t speak for a moment. “What is it you want?”
“My knife,” I said. “Remember? My dad gave it to me. I told you I’d come back for it.”
-16-
I stood with my hands on my head. I wasn’t even looking at the girl that stepped around me like a bobcat circling a rabbit hole. I didn’t dare.
“You can’t have your knife,” she said. “It isn’t possible that such a valuable thing is yours. You’ve stolen it. Taken it from our ship, perhaps.”
“Your ship? Where is it?”
She moved, and the tip of her crossbow bolt came up to touch my neck. I pulled away fractionally, but she pressed it closer. I knew the tip of the bolt was made of nanites that twisted and churned in a locked pose, wanting to break their formation as a sharp point and transform into a swarm that would dig through my flesh.
“I’m no child,” she said. “You will get no information from me. Not even if you were the one with the bolt at my throat.”
“I’m not here to spy on you,” I said trying to sound as nonchalant as I could.
“Then why do you come here?” she asked a moment later, almost sounding exasperated. “Why do you torment me at my patrol spot? Why not attack or ignore us? Always bef
ore, your kind has done exactly the same thing. You march from your ships, you line up, and you hunt for game. Nothing else. Why talk now?”
I glanced at her not knowing what she was talking about. She still seemed to think I was someone else. I wondered if there might be another group of colonists that preyed on these people. That would explain a lot.
“I’m talking because I’m trying to save you,” I told her. “There’s a great threat, and you don’t have long to live if you don’t listen.”
She laughed. She shook her long, fine hair, and I felt it brush my arms.
“I’m the one who holds your life in my hands.”
I shook my head. “You can’t kill me. Not really. I’ll come back. Again and again.”
“How do you do that?”
“We have a machine aboard our ship. It has the power to rebuild our bodies after we die. Our cells are copied, our minds too, and we live again.”
Della moved in front of me and her head cocked to one side. I could tell she was intrigued.
“Your lies are complex and bizarre. Let’s pretend I believe you have the power of a god. Why does a god care about me?”
“My name is James McGill,” I said. “I’m a specialist, a weaponeer to be precise, in an organization called Legion Varus. I’m part of Earth’s space-going military. I know who you are. All of your people are descendants of colonists from Earth. A lost people who—”
Della grabbed me by the ear then. I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had done that. I think it must have been my grandma after I’d painted her cat with some varnish I’d found out in her barn. Being dragged by the ear hadn’t felt good as a kid, and it didn’t feel good now.
I was pulled along by her, stumbling over the rocks. She kept her crossbow aimed at me, and I had to admit, it made me nervous. One slip of her finger would send that bolt right through me. Even if she just bumped the point into my flesh, the nanites might go crazy at the taste of blood and worm their way into my organs to feed.
Della dragged me to a spot I thought looked familiar. I eyed the place, and I recognized the wide dark stain on the flattest part of the rock.
“You know what that is?” she asked.
“My blood?”
“Your life was spilled out and taken from you.”
“Where’s the body?” I asked.
She looked at me with narrowed eyes. “You want to see it? Why? Are you a sorcerer who will bring it back to life? If so, I’ll kill you both again, and I’ll use your own knife to chop up the pieces.”
“Won’t matter,” I said. “I’ll come back anyway.”
Puffing with anger, she dragged me again. I knew I could take her this time. She was getting a little careless. I’d never shown her any of my moves, and I knew if I could push away the crossbow I’d be able to throw her off her feet. She couldn’t weigh more than half what I did. With any luck, I’d put her down before she could react. It would be a risk, but I was becoming annoyed with her attitude.
I felt my body tense up, my mind planning my moves. But I had to stop myself. This was supposed to be a diplomatic mission. I had to put up with her nonsense to win her trust. Tripping her onto her face and sitting on her would be satisfying, but it wasn’t going to win me the Nobel Peace Prize.
We finally halted. Together, we stared at a corpse that lay face down on a large, flat rock. He was a tall guy with blonde hair and a hole in his back. A great deal of blood had leaked out of the body, and the clothes had largely been stripped away.
My skin crawled to see myself dead at my own feet. I’d never had that experience before. I’d died several times, but I’d never had to bury myself. For the mental health of our troops, it was a general rule that legionnaires were excused from dealing with their own dead bodies if at all possible.
“That was me,” I said. “It’s weird to see myself lying there. I’ve never looked at my own corpse before.”
Della watched me.
“You don’t mourn?” she said. “You don’t pray?”
I shook my head. “We only do that when we’ve been permed. When we’ve died somehow and can’t be returned to life.”
“How many times can you come back from death?”
I shrugged. “How many times can you make a new crossbow bolt out of nanites?”
She narrowed her eyes and looked at the tip of her bolt. “Until we run out of nanites, or our fletchers die, or our lathes no longer work.”
I nodded. “It’s the same with us.”
Della reached down between her breasts and into her tunic. She fished around in there, and I got the feeling she had a pocket inside to stash objects. I tried not to be obvious as I stared at her tanned breasts, revealed in flashes, but she didn’t seem to mind or even be aware of my scrutiny.
She pulled her hand back out and held my knife in her palm, still in its sheath. She handed it to me.
“No one has ever gone through so much to retrieve something so small,” she said. “You’ve earned this—before you are slain again.”
I took the knife. “Thanks. As I said, my dad gave it to me back home.”
“Home,” she said slowly. “You still claim to come from Earth?”
“Yes. From Georgia, North America Sector, to be exact.”
“You profane Earth with your lies. You come from a brood-mother. You are artificial, bred by the cephalopods in vats. We know these things to be true. Whatever your real purpose is, know that you have failed, creature.”
Bred in vats? I found this idea confusing, but I didn’t have time to mull over it now. I’m not an intuitive man, but I sensed that things weren’t going my way. She was thinking about killing me again.
“Look,” I said, “why don’t you just come down the hill to the lakeshore? Talk to my commanders. We won’t harm you. We want peace with your people because you are our people. We want you to rejoin your own species.”
“You might even believe what you say is true,” she said, almost wistfully. “And in truth, I find myself attracted to your mind and body. You’re not like the other men I’ve known. But you’ll not lure me away from my post. The idea is absurd.”
I sighed. “Then I’ve failed. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen next. Heavy weapons will be brought up. They’ll have explosives and maybe gas. Drones will be sent in and men in armor. You’ll all die here, and hiding in your tunnels won’t save you.”
“You threaten us? After all this talk of peace?”
Her weapon, which had strayed a fraction off target, now began to move back toward my neck. I decided to act. There wasn’t going to be another chance. I slammed the crossbow away.
We struggled for an instant, and she bit my shoulder. I reached down and pressed her finger on the trigger of the crossbow. The bolt fired off into the sky, hissing.
A quick sweep of my leg under her ankles brought her down. She looked up at me, stunned. I leaned forward.
“You’ll kill me now,” she said, “proving your words were all lies. Why did you bother to try to fool me?”
“I wasn’t lying, and I’m not going to kill you. I’m your last chance for life, in fact. Come with me, and we’ll talk further.”
A blade appeared in her hand. The metal edge had a black, wet look to it that I recognized from the tip of her bolts. I sprang away.
She scrambled to her feet and fled, crying out for her comrades. I looked after her, but knew I couldn’t chase her down. There were too many mantraps, and her friends were sure to kill me the second they saw me pursuing her.
“Della!” I shouted. “I’m sorry! Run out into the desert when the bombs come. Maybe they’ll miss some of you!”
I turned then, and ran downhill the way I’d come. Rocks shifted and slid from under my boots, and any second I expected to be consumed by a patch of innocent-looking gravel to die screeching in the dark like Gorman.
* * *
“Command isn’t easy, McGill,” Graves told me. “It’s best that you learn that right now.”
>
I didn’t even look at him. I didn’t care about his subtle hints at promotion. I didn’t want a promotion. I wanted the colonists in this little green valley to survive to see another morning.
“In light of your recent actions,” Graves said. “I’m not sending you in on the mop-up mission. You’re to report back to the lifter under Leeson’s command. Keep that ship safe for me. All our supplies are aboard her.”
I scoffed. I knew I was being shunted aside. I wondered what kind of whining Harris and Leeson had done to get out of attacking the rock pile themselves. Probably, they feared going in there to clean the place out. Bombs and plasma grenades could only do so much. We didn’t have a single heavy artillery piece from the arsenal. We’d left the big stuff on Corvus, and it was certain we’d be down to poking around in tunnels up-close and personal by the end of this disgusting mission.
“Permission to head to the lifter, sir,” I asked.
“Get to your platoon and tell Leeson to move out. And one more thing, McGill.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Quit moping like someone ran over your puppy. This is our job. Legion Varus never gets the easy missions.”
“I’ve got that clear in my head now, sir.”
“See that you stay on target. Dismissed.”
I trudged away, not even having the heart to grumble. I found Carlos—or rather, he found me.
“You nailed her, didn’t you?” he asked, studying me.
“What are you talking about?”
“The wild chick with the crossbow, who else?”
I didn’t say anything for a second, keeping a poker face. I knew this would set him off.
“I knew it!” Carlos exclaimed, extending an accusing finger. “I could see it in your eyes! These colonist chicks are cut off from real men. They’ve got to be hot for it. I knew it the minute I heard about this place.”
“So why aren’t you up there in those rocks making your play?” I asked him. “Go up there naked, they like that best.”
Carlos didn’t seem to be listening. He shook his head and chided himself.
“This just proves it,” he said. “My problem is I don’t act on my hunches as fast and as naturally as you do. I’m not ninety-percent animal. I’ll be the first to admit it—and I think that’s my greatest character flaw. I salute you, McGill. For a farm boy, you have all the right moves with the ladies.”
