Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  As shipsmind acquired a working vocabulary, sessions had more and more been built around lists-requests for the meanings of words recorded during earlier interrogations and the prisoners' personal conversations. Words presumably chosen by shipsmind. Qonits' efforts to speak became less halting and uncertain. His main difficulty was understanding what was said to him.

  "Come in!" Yukiko called back. She and David made a point of neither being the prime spokesperson. Let the Wyzhnyny consider them equal to each other in rank.

  As always, Qonits' entrance showed what the two Terrans read as dignity without arrogance. They still didn't know whether that dignity and apparent lack of arrogance were idiosyncracies of Qonits, or shared by other ranking Wyzhnyny. But they'd come to like the chief scholar.

  "Good morning," Qonits said carefully. "I wish you feel well now."

  "We feel very well, thank you," David said, "and we wish the same to you."

  The Terrans sat on a couch. Yukiko had sketched one for Qonits, and he'd had it made. His own people had such things, and Qonits could understand that humans might have greater need for them. It must, he'd told himself, be tiresome standing on just two legs. He'd wondered at first why they didn't fall over.

  "You are welcome," Qonits replied, then paused. "I have-more questions."

  David raised an eyebrow at Yukiko; the knowledge master's delivery suggested this might be a different sort of session.

  "We are interested," Yukiko answered.

  They almost always say that, Qonits thought, and I never know why. What might they be learning from us? He wondered how long it would be before he began to actually understand these aliens. Until he did, knowing their words and sentences would be inadequate to understanding their meanings or intentions. What went on in the privacy of those round alien skulls?

  "We wonder what is the kind of your empire," he said.

  "Ah," said David, and spread his hands. "It is-an empire."

  Qonits looked at him warily. "Please tell me more about it."

  Yukiko spoke next. "It is many worlds united to permit, and provide for, the separate and mutual satisfaction of each and all worlds."

  The focus of Qonits' eyes slanted off into left field, a response the Terrans had learned to recognize: he'd gotten no real notion of what her statement meant. His fingers tapped something into the small key pad hanging from his neck. Presumably he was listening to what shipsmind made of it.

  After a few moments, his gaze returned to the two Terrans. "Thank you," he said. This session, he told himself, promises to require much work by shipsmind before I understand their answers. I wish I understood now. My subsequent questions could be more to the point.

  "And what is this empire's government?" he asked.

  It was David and Yukiko who felt uncertain now. They suspected the monitoring they were subjected to was more than visual, and they preferred to keep the Wyzhnyny guessing, uncertain. It was David who answered. "It is a commercial union, to facilitate the members buying from and selling to each other."

  As he'd spoken, he began to see where this could take him, and felt a touch of excitement. Meanwhile something was obviously going on with Qonits. Disbelief? Concept overwhelm? David tried another tack. "We call it a commonwealth." He tapped his head as he went on. "Think of it as many self-governing worlds united for their separate individual good. And also for their mutual good-their joint good, their together good."

  Qonits' eyes had lost their unfocused look. He was intent now. "Then there will be no effective defense," he said. Even in the Wyzhnyny's non-human voice, David could hear the mental wheels turning. And sense the distrust.

  "That is not correct," David said. "There will be defense." God, there'd better be! "Defense is one of the primary functions of commonwealth government. Defense, the enforcement of valid contracts, and overall record-keeping."

  Qonits' nictitating membranes slid over his eyes in a reflex the Terrans had yet to understand. "What is the kind of defense?" the Wyzhnyny asked. "What kind of things is done by that defense?"

  David wasn't thinking his way through the situation now. He was running on creative intuition, winging it. "My wife and I are not informed on defense. We are research scientists. We learn about the seas on new worlds." The nictitating membranes were back again. This will give his shipsmind something to chew on, David thought. He'll be back with a monster word list tomorrow. "We know the basic principle though," he continued. "Design the defense, or select the defense, which most damages and frustrates the enemy. Keeps them off balance."

  Qonits' long tongue licked air. David and Yukiko hadn't figured that one out yet, either. It took a long moment before the chief scholar responded, speaking very slowly, very deliberately. "Then why have we not met such defense? We have now eleven of your planets. Still no defense. Why?"

  There was no sense of challenge in the question. He simply wants to know, Yukiko thought. "We are a very numerous people," she answered. "In recent centuries-hundreds of years-we have colonized many new worlds. We are a very diverse species, with many different peoples having different wants. They go out beyond the older colonies, find new worlds and colonize them."

  The answer stopped Qonits dead in the water. It seemed to her he was about to go catatonic, whether because he couldn't grasp what she'd said, or because he could. She wished she knew what he was hearing on the earphone he wore. "And," she went on, "apparently the newer, farther colonies are being sacrificed." She turned to David. "Wouldn't you say so, dear?"

  He nodded. "It seems obvious," he answered.

  "Sacrificed," she continued, "while our fleets and armies are being concentrated or distributed, I have no idea which. Preparing to defend our core worlds, with their vast populations."

  Qonits mind was signalling overload. He bobbed a nod. "Thank you for valuable information. I now leave you, return at later time." Then he said something to his bodyguards, and they left together.

  Quanshuk had witnessed the brief interrogation via monitor, and had understood the key questions; he'd helped define them. What had mystified him were the answers, even though, like Qonits, he was plugged into the ship's growing translation program. Too much of what the prisoners said had made no sense to him, while some had been disturbing. Qonits' physical responses he'd understood well enough.

  His own tongue licked air. We must sort this out, he told himself. As quickly as possible.

  Yukiko put her arms around Annika and rocked her, feeling her snuggle in response. Poor kid, she thought, then retracted it, as if the savant might read it and be troubled by it. For you, she amended, a stupor is probably best. You don't suffer, you don't worry. It's the next best thing to sleeping through it.

  Then she decided she wasn't sure about that either. Did Annika, in her mind, revisit the events in the Cousteau?-the undoubtedly violent deaths of Ju-Li and Dennis? She leaned back to better comprehend the child. Probably not, she decided. When the Wyzhnyny gave her to us, she was deeply in coma. But since then… Yukiko shook her head. Within that stupor, there's something like serenity. "Annika," she breathed, "I wish you could tell me what goes on with you."

  David's eyes had been closed, but he hadn't been sleeping. Now they opened. "What?" he whispered.

  She whispered back. "I was talking to Annika. I told her I'd like to know what she thinks about."

  "Nothing very exciting I'll bet," he said, and closed his eyes again.

  ***

  Chang Lung-Chi sat beside the prime minister, watching Ramesh on the wall screen. Foster Peixoto had viewed either the complete or selected cubeage of almost every language session. This had been more like interrogation. He wasn't surprised at how much communication had taken place. Actually he assumed it had gone better than it had. He didn't realize how much Qonits had understood only vaguely or not at all.

  After they'd listened to the complete session a second time, Chang frowned thoughtfully. "Remarkable. Those two are playing a game with the aliens. The question is what good it
will do."

  "I have the same impression. Perhaps they have enough sense of the alien psychology to accomplish something. Hopefully we will get a better sense of it as it continues. Weintraub and Li are studying the sessions carefully. When they have gained some insights, they will share them with us."

  Chang was less optimistic. When? Or if? One can but hope, he told himself. At any rate we must monitor this closely. "And the child," he said, "the savant. Has she shown any sign of shutting down, and depriving us of this remarkable contact?"

  "None. And Bekr is optimistic now. Gavaldon has commented to her husband on how much better the child seems. Yet she continues to send. Bekr suspects the condition may be effectively permanent."

  "Good! Good! It may be that this will prove truly important." We were optimistic about Morgan the pirate, Chang reminded himself, and now he is lost to us. May he rest in the Tao. He served his species well in his weeks of spying.

  Chapter 24

  Hard Facts, Hard Decisions

  Captain Martin Mulvaney Singh had spent most of the day at Division, being briefed on a duty he hadn't expected. As a training company commander, his main role was executive; to actually train troops was someone else's function. The company's noncommissioned cadre did the hands-on training-notably the platoon sergeants-with the platoon leader a step removed. While lectures, with or without video cubes podded out from Terra, were a function of Division staff. The training schedule came from Division, too, based on a plan from far-off War House. There were open periods in which the company commander could insert whatever he thought best, but his main role was to track the progress of training and the trainees, turning the intensity up or down, and dealing with problems.

  A company commander addressed the trainees daily, at morning muster and often at other musters. This kept his presence and authority in their consciousness, and hopefully inspired them from time to time. But lectures? Lectures were delivered by Division staff.

  Except for this particular, newly conceived lecture. War House had foreseen possible troublesome effects, and wanted the company commanders to deliver it. If a CO was doing his job properly, his trainees knew and trusted him. Division concurred, and Mulvaney didn't doubt they were right. Major General Pak-he'd been promoted from brigadier-took it a step further; he wanted each platoon sergeant to talk it out afterward with his trainees. If the sergeants had been doing their job properly-and Mulvaney was confident his had-they'd have bonded with their Jerrie youths, like experienced and respected older brothers.

  Jerries were about as close to homogeneous as a human culture gets, and tended to accept authority. According to the ethnology report, the Jerrie religion was narrow, but persuasive more than restrictive. Its defining book, Contemplations on the Testaments, said that wise leaders led by example, gentle teaching, and mild admonition. And, like God, exercised "tolerance of the imperfections that are a part of being human."

  Gopal Singh would have applauded that, Mulvaney told himself.

  He got back to the company area in time for supper; his driver let him off outside the mess hall in a light but steady rain. Sixty feet away, the trainees were doing their pre-supper chin-ups before going in, callused fists gripping wet bars without a sign of slippage. Even with the enforcement of strict form, they were doing so many chins now, he'd tripled the number of bars, to keep the serving line moving.

  He watched them for a moment before entering the officers' mess. He'd developed a real fondness and respect for his trainees. This evening he would brief his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants on what tomorrow held. Meanwhile Bremer and Fossberg could take the trainees on a sixty-minute speed march with sandbags, then let them off early.

  The next day's training began with the usual run before breakfast. After six weeks they weren't grueling anymore. It was the one part of physical training that wasn't being intensified. Drag Ass Hill seemed neither so steep nor so long as it had. At the end of Week 4 their runs had been lengthened to forty of Luneburger's long minutes, and would stay at that, neither lengthening nor speeding up. Nor did they end with any more "suicide races."

  After breakfast the trainees fell out wearing fighting gear, complete with armored jackets and battle helmets. And of course with the blasters they'd been issued in Week 4. In Week 5 they'd learned to fire them, and had qualified for single-shot firing, set for soft pulses, for safety's sake. But they'd been shown what a hard pulse did to a dummy in a flak jacket. A jacket and helmet might help against shrapnel, or spent or grazing blaster pulses, but that was all.

  This morning they marched four miles, burdened not only with their gear, but with forty-pound sandbags to build strength. Then spent an hour and a half moving carefully through forest, senses alert, firing short bursts at wooden targets that popped up for two seconds from unexpected places. Fired from the hip while walking. Failure to hit your target earned gigs, which, they were told, they'd pay for on their next day off. In Week 5, on slow fire, Jael had scored "excellent." But on quick fire she'd been charged four straight gigs before she'd gotten fast enough, and a couple since when she'd missed in her haste. On this day-Fourday-she got none.

  The body armor didn't help, nor did the sandbag. But on the other hand, Esau hadn't missed yet; a number of young frontiersmen hadn't. He'd been hunting with a breech-loading single-shot rifle since boyhood, had learned marksmanship at an age when the reflexes channel readily and deeply. And New Jerusalem's version of squirrels didn't hold still longer than a second. "Shooting blasters in bursts, you can't hardly miss," he'd told Jael, "once you get the hang of it. There's no recoil nor windage, and the trajectory's flat. Durn energy pulse would travel around the world and hit you in the back, if it held together good enough."

  It wouldn't, of course, and Esau knew it. It would head into space on a tangent. Lieutenant Bremer, the company XO, had told them that. Nor did the pulses fall to earth. They simply lost integrity after a mile or so, and died-"unraveled" was how he'd put it.

  At 1100 hours the company ground out another fifteen pushups-all they were asked for, wearing flak jackets, sandbag and helmet-and headed back to camp. They had no notion of what the afternoon held for them. But there'd be something; there always was.

  Pastor Luneburger's World grew a lot of barley, so the trainees ate a lot of it as a frequent substitute for potatoes and rice. At the noon meal this day they found roast pork waiting for them, with barley, savory pork gravy, thick slices of hot, buttered whole-grain bread, crisp green beans, and a cobbler of some Luneburgian fruit. And Luneburger coffee. All with seconds if wanted.

  Afterward they had thirty minutes to recover. Most napped on their cots. Then whistles brought them out in field uniforms for muster, and afterward they had the rare experience of marching to lecture with Captain Mulvaney leading them. Arriving at the lecture shed, they pumped out the now customary thirty pushups, then filed in. Captain Mulvaney was standing in front, at the lectern. When they were seated, his big voice barked, "At ease!" and the trainee chatter cut abruptly off.

  "Men," he said, "today you're going to see something you've only heard about till now. You'll see cubeage of warbots in realistic simulated combat, coordinating with organic troops like ourselves. You'll find the warbots very interesting. After that you'll see cubeage of how they're constructed, and how they operate. You'll even see one of them interviewed." He paused, turning. "Corporal, begin the program."

  The shed lights dimmed and the wall screen lit up. The presentation resembled a full-fledged dramatic production, opening with an interior shot of forest that had not been fought through. Artillery thundered in the distance. Squads of infantry trotted through in fighting gear, blasters in hand. Along with several seven-foot warbots roughly humanoid in form, their movements as smoothly articulated as an athlete's, though a bit different. Their laminated ceramic-steel surfaces were protected by camouflage fields whose color patterns fluctuated as they strode, mimicking the immediate surroundings. It was very effective.

  A voice
-over narration accompanied the visuals. A few weeks earlier the Jerries would have had serious problems with its language, but they'd been immersed in military life, and had already learned a lot.

  Now the point of view followed close behind one of the infantry squads, till the organics reached the forest edge and began digging in. "This organic battalion," said the narrator, "has been bivouacked several miles back in the forest, hidden from aerial detection by a concealment field. Meanwhile, seek-and-engage actions have seriously reduced the capacity of both sides to launch aerial attacks."

  When Mulvaney had first seen the cube during the briefing the day before, mention of a concealment field had troubled him. The last he'd heard, back on Terra, concealment fields were only theory. But the PR was, science was as fully mobilized as industry, and who knew what might be available by the time they left for New Jerusalem.

  As far as that was concerned, who knew what weaponry the Wyzhnyny had?

  The Wyzhnyny. How, he wondered, had War House learned what they called themselves?

  The camera view cut to panoramic. Ahead of the troops lay farmland, with forest close to a mile away on the other side. A road ran across the middle of the open ground. Now, from the forest on the far side, a wave of armored personnel carriers emerged, supported by armored fighting vehicles. Behind them came another wave, and another-a whole series of them. "The enemy forces are shown in animation," the narrator was saying, "as realistically as technology can portray them."

  Mulvaney wondered how close to reality that was. They had to be almost wholly imaginary. But the production was excellent. Neither the animation nor the battle choreography could be faulted. Trashers began to rip the Wyzhnyny as soon as they appeared, but the infantry held their fire until the Wyzhnyny had crossed the road, then began to lay intense fire on them with slammers and blasters. Immediately the Wyzhnyny returned the fire, and the fight became a melee within which Mulvaney's trained eyes could see the basic drilled-in tactics and creative responses of the troops on both sides.