by B. V. Larson
The Investigator was back inside his labs. He wasn’t in a good mood. As I approached, I heard him throw out an assistant. He poked his head out, glowering, but then he saw me. His expression changed to a look of curiosity.
“The schemer,” he said. “The runner, the fornicator. What do you want here? You’re like a ghost that haunts my world.”
“Sorry about that, sir,” I said. “I had to come. I had to warn you. Uh—did you say fornicator?”
“Yes. My daughter brags of little else. She’s determined to have your child, you know.”
“Uh…” I was honestly at a loss for words. He had to be talking about Della. Why hadn’t someone—anyone—told me she was his daughter?
The Investigator walked out of his lab and cocked his head, staring into my face. It was a disconcerting behavior pattern, and I realized now that I’d seen it before. Della had done that more than once. I’d thought it was a cultural oddity unique to the colonists. Now, I suspected it was a family trait.
“Warn me about what, runner?”
“Sir…” I began, and I told him the whole thing. I tried to put a good face on it. I tried to explain that the universe was a harsh, cold place and my people weren’t any more heartless than the next band of interstellar mercenaries—but I wasn’t even buying it myself.
The Investigator seemed to be taking it all in with a remarkable lack of concern. But then I got to the part about how Legion Varus planned to kill the colonists.
“Did you say they want to blow up my ship?” the Investigator boomed suddenly.
“Yes, sir. The whole valley. It won’t be long now. You have to pull your people out of this cave. You need to run somewhere—up to the surface, maybe. You have escape tunnels that lead up to the polar deserts, don’t you?”
The Investigator stared at me with distant eyes. To me he looked at least half-mad, but I’m not the best judge of other people’s state of mind.
His hand lashed out and grabbed up my shirt. The smart-cloth squirmed and writhed in protest, trying to smooth itself out again.
“No one is blowing up my ship!” he boomed.
Then he pushed past me and ran off, shouting. An alarm went off soon thereafter that sounded like a ship’s klaxon going off. People in on the lower decks began moving quickly after that.
I stumbled after the Investigator, not knowing what to think. The people I saw weren’t grabbing up kids and belongings and making a run for it—quite the opposite. They were gathering weapons, painting their faces black and applying fresh nanites to their bolts and swords.
Finding the Investigator, I walked up to him and got his attention.
“Sir,” I said. “What’s going on? You have to get out of here.”
“No, traitor. No, thing that crawls in the dark. No mercenary Earthmen are going to blow up my ship. We’re going to take possession of her, as I should have from the very beginning.”
“But sir, the legionnaires—”
He grabbed onto my arm with surprising strength. I saw that light in his eyes again, and I was pretty sure now that it was the cold, clear light of madness.
“We’re not running,” he told me with absolute certainty. “We’re attacking. Flee if you want to, but don’t interfere.”
He left me standing there and rushed off with a growing mass of men and women behind him. I remembered then that these people who’d been left here in the darkness were the rats who liked to fight. All the others had long since been enslaved. Only the hardest hearts among the children of Earth’s lost exiles still survived.
Even if it did all make a certain kind of sense, I was left wondering as I trotted after the swelling army about just what these people thought they were going to do with an alien ship…
Following the colonists, I had to admit I felt more than a little sick inside. I’d come here to save them after all, to warn them. Instead, I’d apparently kick-started the war I’d previously hoped to postpone in the end. The truce was over between my people and theirs, that much was clear.
As we marched, we came upon two teams of legionnaires. I felt sorry for both groups. The first was a trio of heavy troops in armor who’d no doubt been sent here to hunt me down. They went down hard in a storm of fire with nanites eating away their eyes and throats. I made sure I touched my tapper to theirs so the death would be recorded. They could be revived once I told the camp about it.
The next group was even more shocked. They were techs, and they’d already dropped their equipment and begun running. No doubt their buzzers had seen the colonist army on the march.
The techs didn’t make it very far. I’d thought I’d become pretty good at navigating the tunnels, but watching the colonists I realized I was a clumsy surface-dweller. They seemed to know every stalactite and spur of limestone. They vaulted over obstacles with ease and ran full-tilt until they brought down the fleeing techs in a brief, furious action.
Following, I touched my tapper to each one in turn, shaking my head. At least I could make sure they wouldn’t be permed.
A shadow watched me work as the rest of the colonist throng pressed ahead. A voice spoke, and I was surprised to realize I knew its owner.
“What kind of death rite is that?” Della asked softly.
I looked up, startled. She was standing over me, her long legs exposed and dusty.
“Exactly that,” I said, “a gesture of respect for our dead. I’m wishing them well in their next lives.”
She turned her head the other way and didn’t say anything for a moment as I touched the last of the dead techs with my tapper.
“I chose poorly,” she said. “I thought you were a great warrior—but now you’ve embarrassed me. If your seed quickens within me, I shall cut it out.”
This statement got my attention. I straightened. “I was only trying to help,” I said. “If you’re pregnant, don’t blame the kid for the sins of his father.”
“His? Are you so sure I’ll bear a son?”
I chuckled. “I don’t know anything about that. But I came here to warn your people.”
“You’re a traitor to your own kind, an embarrassment.”
I stepped closer to her, and her knife appeared in her hand. I ignored it.
“Look, we’re all the same people. That’s why I’m here. Our real enemies aren’t human—and believe me they outnumber us a billion to one. We don’t need to fight amongst ourselves. We can’t afford to. The way we bicker and kill one another—that’s the embarrassment.”
I pushed past her and didn’t look back. I heard soft footsteps after a few minutes, but she didn’t say anything.
I had to hand it to the colonists. They had serious balls. These people didn’t know they couldn’t win this fight. They didn’t seem to care. They were all about their feelings.
Wondering about them, I figured they’d been changed somewhat by their circumstances. They’d come out here as a sophisticated group: Educated, trained and intelligent. But years of travel and a harsh life on Dust World had changed them. They’d become almost tribal—one might even say savage.
When darkness fell, they boiled out of the same hole we’d originally used to get close to the ship. They managed to creep on their bellies to within a few meters of the bunkers before they were spotted.
Glaring lights flared brightly, and bolts began to snap and sizzle. The front line of colonists fell, but the rest charged in closer. The colonists were too numerous, too close. They shot down the troops in Turov’s makeshift bunkers and slid into the firing slits. A brief struggle inside ended with the colonists victorious.
“Damn, damn, damn,” I said, staring and grimacing. “This is all wrong!”
I turned toward the distant camp. There had to be a patrol out here, something. Someone I could talk to. Things were spiraling out of control.
She was fast and almost silent. I hardly knew she was there until she slipped her nanite-blade into my back and shoved it deeply into my organs.
Gasping, I fell on my face
, rolled over and clawed for my sidearm—but she already had it in her hand.
“Della,” I gasped.
She bent and kissed me in the dark. I felt searing agony and cool lips at the same time.
“You can switch sides again,” she said. “You’ve chosen to go back, so I’ve helped you on your way.”
And then that evil little witch shot me in the face with my own damned pistol.
-34-
“Catch him! Don’t let him roll off the frigging gurney, Charley. He’s a big one.”
Groaning and curling up into a wet, slimy ball, I howled in remorse and anger. I couldn’t recall having felt so betrayed by one of my murderers before.
“What a bitch,” I breathed, trying to get air. I felt like I was drowning in thick fluids. I coughed and retched.
“Come on, McGill,” the bio said, slapping me twice with a hard hand. “Get up and off my table. This isn’t your first rodeo.”
I got unsteadily to my feet. “Anne?”
“What is it, Specialist?” she demanded, checking my eyes with a blinding light.
Why the hell did they always do that?
“Charley,” she barked over her shoulder. “Recharge the calcium. I’m getting a one-point low read on bone-density.”
“On it, Specialist,” said a haggard-looking orderly. He rolled a dolly around to the far side of the revival machine, and I heard the glugging sound of liquids loading into the back of it.
“The smell of this place…” I said as the world became more steady and distinct. “How can you stand it, Anne? So sour…like piss and vinegar mixed with bacon grease.”
“It beats being on the line,” she said, then her voice softened for a second. “It’s not always this bad—it only gets like this during a pitched battle. Most of the time, we bio-types have nothing to do. How’d you die, James?”
“My new girlfriend knifed me in the back.”
This brought chuckles from everyone present. I dragged on some sticky clothing. Then I remembered to check my tapper, and I did a U-turn.
“Anne,” I said. “There are a lot of recorded deaths in my tapper from the tunnels.”
“So? Report them to central. They’ll be put in the queue with the rest.”
I hesitated. “I’m disconnected from central. Can’t I just give you their IDs directly?”
She came to me, frowning. The machine behind her was churning out a fresh body, and I tried not to look at it.
When Anne came close, she touched her tapper to mine; and the information was passed.
“You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” she said.
“Just see that these people get revived, okay?”
“Will do.”
I hesitated. Anne Grant had helped me to live again on more than one occasion when I shouldn’t have. She’d presided over my birth many times more than my own mother.
“Anne? Do you know anything about the attack on the ship?” I asked her.
“Yes, well…just what’s on the feed. Those crazy colonists broke in and holed up inside. They closed all the ramps up tight. Turov is royally pissed. She’d massing up troops to retake the hatches.”
“Damn. Can’t anyone get along on this planet?”
Anne stepped close and looked up at me. “I saw something about you on the feed too, James,” she whispered. “They’re looking for you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m a legion favorite. Can you forget to report my revival for a few minutes? Maybe mark me down as a recycle?”
“All right. You’ve got thirty minutes. Make them count.” She squeezed my hand, gave me a worried, searching look and then disappeared back into the revival chamber.
After gearing up in armor and finding a new heavy weapon, I walked all the way out of the camp and back toward the ship. This wasn’t anything unusual, fortunately. Plenty of people had been killed tonight, and the processing was expected to go on for hours. Walking in twos and threes, we were to report back to the ship as soon as we could to help with the new assault.
I caught up with a man I recognized as I came close to the ship. He loomed in the darkness like an artificial mountain: A hulking mass of metal from the stars.
“Carlos?” I asked.
He wheeled around in surprise. “McGill? You frigger, I hate you so much. Can’t you just die and stay dead?”
“That’s not in the cards, my man,” I said, and I clasped arms with him.
Carlos suddenly turned serious and lowered his voice. “Might not be so easy to waltz home this time. The Primus really has her cute, tight little butt in a knot.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “It’s all a big misunderstanding. It’s my fault, really. I was led off by a colonist…but this time, she killed me.”
Carlos stared at me for a second. Then he grinned. “You’re so full of shit! Your eyes should be as brown as mine. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah…can you help me out?”
“I’ll try to play along. But I’m not getting permed for you. I’m not getting permed for anyone.”
That was Carlos in a nutshell. He’d die for you—but not permanently. His loyalty had its limits.
It was almost dawn when we reached the ship. The day was clear, and it became oppressively hot as soon as the sunlight slanted down hitting the high walls of the valley a kilometer or two above our heads.
I quietly rejoined my unit, which had gathered around Graves. I stood at the back. None of the officers seemed to notice immediately. With a set of steel armor on, one man in 3rd Unit looked a lot like the next.
I’d yet to dare turning on my tapper because everyone would know where I was the moment I did.
“Okay, troops,” Graves said. “This is going to be rough. We’ve got less than an hour to take this ship. Gear up lightly. Just marching all the way up to the bridge will take half that time.”
Carlos’ hand went up. I could have shot him. He was standing right next to me, and the first thing he had to go and do was call attention to himself.
“What is it, Ortiz?” Graves said.
“Sir, we can’t possibly sweep the whole ship in that amount of time. This thing is huge, sir!”
“Yeah, I know. But we’ve got a time constraint, and we’re going to meet it. Hopefully, the rebels will meet us in battle, lose and have the sense to surrender. I don’t have to—” he broke off then and stared right at me. “Good God! Is that you, McGill?”
“Sir, yes sir. Reporting back from revival, ready and geared as—”
“Get up here, you crazy bastard!”
The jig was up. I was in full bullshit-mode, but I had a feeling it wasn’t going to work unless Graves wanted it to. He was a very hard man to bamboozle.
I trotted around the gathering, while troops stared and buzzed. I ignored them all and put a serious expression on my face as I approached my superior officer.
To my chagrin, Harris appeared, trotting alongside me. He had a grin on his face that was predatory.
“I told you I was gonna get you, McGill,” he said. “I told you.”
“Good to see you too, Vet.”
When we reached Centurion Graves, Harris had his sidearm out. He flipped off the safety and kept grinning. “With your permission, sir!” he shouted.
Graves frowned at him. “This isn’t Christmas, Harris. Have some decorum.”
“My apologies, sir!” he shouted, grinning all the while.
Graves sucked in a huge breath and let it out again. “McGill, walk with me.”
Harris looked disappointed as I went for a little stroll to the base of the ramp with Graves. I didn’t say anything. I knew I really didn’t have to.
“What’s your line, McGill? Do you even have one?”
“Line sir?” I asked as innocently as I could.
I can lie, just ask anyone from my school days. I’m not a master like Carlos, but I can pull off the look and sound of an innocent man. I worked that angle now, as hard as I could.
Graves shook hi
s head. “That’s not going to fly. There’s no way you’re not getting permed without an airtight alibi. I know you don’t have that, but you’d better at least try.”
“Sir? I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about. I’d like to make a report on recent events, however.”
“You do that.”
“Well sir, it was like this: when our meeting in the tunnel was getting to the interesting part—well, I felt the urgent call of nature.”
Graves put up his hand to stop me. “Are you shitting me?”
“Uh…”
“Seriously, McGill? You ran off into the tunnels and fomented a deadly attack on your own people because you had to take a crap? That’s your story?”
“Not exactly, sir. While I was relieving myself, I was approached by a certain colonist who knew me.”
Graves stared at me. “That crazy mother? The Investigator?”
“No sir, the colonist in question is his daughter.”
Graves was frowning now. I knew that was a good sign. When you bullshit somebody and they start to believe, they always frown because they’re beginning to doubt themselves.
“His daughter?”
“Yes. Della, the scout-woman, the person I first contacted. Anyway, we discussed matters, and I was taken hostage. The enemy was angry about our taking of the ship, and they were preparing to storm it.”
More frowning from Graves. I dared to feel hope.
“You’re trying to tell me you followed some chick off into the dark and screwed her, is that it? And then what—you got lost after that?”
I hesitated. Graves made a hissing sound through with his teeth.
“You’re such a pain in the ass, McGill. Do you know that we had a lot of troops out looking for you? Also, a team with techs and buzzers were searching those tunnels? They go on forever. And you were playing footsies with the locals. Our search party never came back, and we can’t revive them without the confirmation of their deaths.”
I held up my tapper until I got his attention again. “I’ve found a solution for that, sir. I met up with the search team as I was dragged along with the colonists. They killed three heavies and several techs. I recorded their IDs and reported them to the bio people. They’ll be out and back on the line in an hour.”
