by Wil McCarthy
The chair came down again, but Ken had time to bring up a foot to block it, to kick it away. The chair-guy staggered aside, on the ragged edge of balance. But balance won out, and he straightened, pulled the chair back for another blow.
Ken ducked low, and drove his straightened knuckles into the man's solar plexus. Or tried to; the man was quick, turning aside, pulling in his gut so that Ken's blow barely grazed. The chair came down
On
The top of
Ken's head.
Blackness flickered for a moment, and he found himself on the floor, on hands and knees. He looked up, and saw the chair coming down yet again...
The air hummed and blurred. The walls and floor and ceiling seemed to jump, each independently of the others. There was the sound of breakage, of things falling down onto unyielding metal. A control panel seemed to lash out, to drive itself into the chair-guy's back. He fell away, and the chair fell away in a different direction.
There was a stillness. The strobelight still flashed, somewhere at the back of the room, but the alarm klaxon had fallen silent.
Ken, somehow, had managed to stay balanced on his hands and knees. He shook his head, to clear it of the buzzing aftermath of... of...
Waister attack.
He crawled forward, toward the sprawled form of the chair-guy. The man sat up, partway, and looked at Ken. He seemed to be in considerable pain. Broken ribs, perhaps. He raised a foot, feebly, to ward Ken off.
A pause, momentary. Would he surrender? No. No, his eyes were dazed but angry, defiant.
“Forgive me,” Ken whispered. He grabbed the proffered foot, twisting it, breaking it. The man opened his mouth, let go a horrible scream that bubbled up from deep in his guts. “Forgive me,” Ken said, a little louder. He crawled over the man's body, lifted him by the collar, and drove the heel of his hand into the base of the nose. There was a breaking sensation, like the cracking of a walnut. The man's head snapped to one side and was still.
“Talbott,” said a voice. Colonel Jhee's.
Ken looked up to see Marshe approaching the platform.
“Colonel,” she said, flatly. She reached through the railing, caught at the fabric of Jhee's uniform. Pulled him forward. She adjusted her grip, so that she held him by a scruff of cloth just above his breastbone.
“Think about what you're doing,” Jhee said, quickly, but with an eery almost-calm. “Think about the consequences. It's not too late to get better.”
“You have my apologies, Colonel,” Marshe said, “If not my sympathy.” She pulled him sharply toward her, so that his head connected with the railing. He grunted loudly. She pushed him backward, pulled him again.
“I surrender!” He screamed... too late. The railing made a sound like a badly-formed gong. Jhee's body slumped away, unconscious or dying or dead.
Ken looked away.
“Sipho!” Marshe shouted. “Engage the manual lock on that door and hold it. Josev! Get on these consoles and shut down our God-damn weapons. Prepare for a transmission.”
“How do I...” Sipho's voice said. “Oh, I see.”
Banging sounds, Josev setting a chair up in front of a console.
“Clodgy wee thing,” said Josev's voice. “How do you work this? Marshe, this isn't a standard panel.”
“Deal with it!” Marshe shot back.
“Uh... Let's see. Turret power... is... off. Uh. Spindle power, off. Point defenses, uh... uh... off. Projector core, off.”
“Is that everything?” Marshe asked?
“Sludge, I don't know. I think so.”
“Open all the radio channels.”
“Uh, I can't do that from here. I need to change seats.”
“Well do it! Hurry, or they may blow us up anyway!”
More banging noises.
“Um... Here? Yeah. Channels... are... open! Go ahead, Captain.”
Ken looked up toward Marshe, saw her standing straight, her back against the platform railing. She took a breath.
“#Hwhh Queens We/We yield-before-strength-do Yield-before-strength-do#” She said.
Then there was silence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Close channels,” Marshe said.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” said Josev, skeptically. “Channels closed.”
Suddenly, Ken felt sick to his stomach, sick to his heart.
“We done the right thing?” Roland Hanlin asked suddenly, as if echoing Ken's thoughts.
Marshe turned, fixed him with a bug-eyed stare.
“Have we?” He persisted. He spread his arms. “Look at this! Bodies everywhere. These our own people, Marshe. We brutally attack our own people.”
“To bring about the end of the war,” Marshe said coolly.
“We sure about that?” Roland asked.
“No,” said Sipho Yeng from his post beside the door. He sounded horrified. “I'm not sure about this at all! We've based our theories on the advice of our enemies, and on the advice of a renegade Machine Intelligence whose stated goal is the extermination of the human race! I didn't... listen to my doubts! I didn't listen! My God, people, what have we done here?”
“We've become the enemy,” Ken said, pulling himself, painfully, to a standing position. He felt like a man awakening from a dream, like a man emerging from a dark forest to find himself on familiar streets.
“Yes, we have,” said Sipho. “We've become the enemy! Literally! We are the enemies of the human race, the willing servants of our invaders!”
“Calm down,” Marshe said, raising a hand. “Take a look at the screens. Are they—”
There was a dull flash of light, a blast of low-frequency noise that slammed through Ken's innards like the blow of a fist. The door burst its hinges and flew inward, bouncing off a panel to fall, ringing, in the corner.
It had taken Sipho Yeng with it on its journey.
Black Security hardsuits swarmed into the room. There were shouted, amplified curses. Roland Hanlin, closest to the door after Sipho, stood swaying in his shoes, dazed from the blast, as a pair of Security men grabbed his arms and another leveled a rifle at his head.
Other guards stormed toward Marshe, toward Ken.
“Too late!” Marshe shouted. “You're too late! The war is over!”
The Security forces crashed over her like a wave, their black bodies grabbing, clinging, bearing her down under their weight. Ken felt himself grabbed by brutal hands that were cased in cold, unyielding gauntlets. Opaque visors crowded in before his face, as if eager to view the features of a traitor.
Josev Ranes was dragged from his chair, thrown to the floor. Hardsuits piled on top of him.
“You're too late!” Marshe shouted again.
The air went blurry again, and there was a crashing sound like lightning, close. The Control Center shook and flexed as if pounded by gigantic hammers. Sparks rained down from somewhere. Ken fell again as the floor bucked beneath him. Marshe fell, and Roland. Black hardsuits toppled like trench-ball pins.
Somebody screamed.
“Shut it!” Another somebody shouted, as the tremor subsided. “Get up! Get up!”
The floor was alive with squirming bodies. The Security guards began to rise.
“JOSEV!” Marshe howled.
“Marshe!” Josev's voice called back, muffled. “Marshe! The transmission hasn't reached them yet! Stall for time!”
“Stall for nothing!” Growled the augmented voice of a blacksuit. The guard took Marshe by the wrist, hauled her to her feet. Ken tried to rise, found himself staring down the spindle of a laser rifle.
Fuck it, he thought, getting up anyway, nudging the gun aside with his shoulder.
Guards swarmed him, grabbed him. He saw his own face, masked and goggled, reflected grotesquely in their gloss-black armor.
“Get them out of here!” Shouted one of the guards now holding Marshe.
“No!” Marshe shouted. “Wait! It's happening!”
“C
ome on, let's move.”
“Look at the holies!” Marshe insisted. “They're disengaging! Look! Look at the holies!”
“Shut up.” A Security man warned her, raising his rifle butt-forward.
“LOOK AT THE HOLIES!” She screamed.
The rifle butt drew back, then slammed forward into the side of her head. Dazed, she fell. Marshe!
On the screens, Ken could see the Waisters pulling back, pulling away. The fleetships were fast, clear of Saturn space already, powering out on a straight line away from Sol. Back to Alnilam? Back to the waist of Orion?
“Come on, you!” Said a guard, furious, jerking violently on Ken's arm.
They dragged him, unprotesting, from the room.
~~~
“It's over,” Marshe kept saying to the Security troopers. “It's over, we've ended it.”
Washed out, exhausted, Ken said nothing. Nor did Josev, nor Roland, who limped and staggered with every step. Blood stained one leg of his uniform, leaked slowly from one of his ears.
They had all been relieved of goggles and voders, of guns and flatscreens and anything else they's had with them. Now, Rifles level and ready, the guards marched them down to the brig, shoved them inside. A small space, dark and gray and unadorned. Walls and floor and ceiling of bare metal.
“It's over,” Marshe said again. Her voice was dreamy and distant. “All over.”
The steel door slammed down heavily behind them.
Wordlessly, Josev found a corner and threw himself into it. Roland leaned against a wall, slid down it until he was sitting. Smeared with gray smoke residue, brown flecks of drying blood, their faces were weary and expressionless.
“All over,” Marshe said, yet again.
Ken took her hand and led her to a corner, helped her to sit. “Try to relax,” he said, his voice a mere whisper. “We're finished now.”
“Finished,” she echoed faintly. Then she stiffened, sobbed. “Oh! They killed Shenna!”
“No,” Roland groaned. “The Dog... last I saw she was still breathing. But not Sipho.”
“Ohhh,” Marshe sobbed. She was hunched over, knees up in an almost fetal position, rocking herself in Ken's arms. Tears ran down her face, leaving trails in the grime.
“The shaking's stopped,” Josev said, after a few seconds.
“No more Waisters,” Ken said. “No more fighting.” Splattered forms of two workers, smearing the walls like crushed berries. Their Dog, wrinkled and pink, huddled screaming in the mess. “Our confrontation with newness is completed.”
Josev's lips curled back. “Oh shut that! God damn sludging Hell, haven't we had enough?”
“Leave him alone,” Said Roland.
“I've had enough,” Josev snapped. “I've bleeding well had enough.”
Ken said nothing. How much was enough? How many people, how many aliens and dolphins and machine intelligences did you have to kill before you could finally throw up your hands and quit?
Marshe's sobs died away. “Ken,” she said. “It's time to rejoin the human race.”
Albuquerque flashing and melting, taking with it everyone he cared about, everyone he knew. His part of the human race, the part he could never rejoin, except in death.
“Ken?”
He trembled. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Marshe put a hand on his arm. Warm.
“Everything's different now,” Ken said. “Is the war really over? Is it really over? God, I can't even conceive of that.”
Her hands gripped him, firmly, her face turning, centimeters from his. “You saw them leaving. You saw them.”
“Yeah.”
“It's over, Ken. It really is.”
With creaky sounds, the brig's heavy door rose again, white light spilling in behind it.
White? A minute ago, the corridors had been combat-red.
Two Security hardsuits stood in the doorway. Helmets off, tired, sweaty faces exposed. And between the two, a dog.
“Shenna!” said Marshe, rising up onto her knees.
The dog ran in, tail wagging, and crashed directly into Marshe. Together they fell back, onto Ken, pressing him back into the wall, into the corner.
“The Waisters are gone,” said one of the guards, wonderingly. “They're gone! What did you people do?”
“We ended the war,” Marshe said. She and the dog squirmed together in a heap on top of Ken.
“Sludging right, we did,” Josev said.
Marshe laughed, now, as Shenna licked her face. Then Shenna was licking Ken's face, and he was laughing a little, too.
“Are you going to let us out of here?” Marshe asked the guard.
He seemed flustered. “I... don't know! I guess... I'll go and ask somebody!”
“Yeah!” Marshe agreed. “Do that!”
Shenna was pulling out of the heap, now, struggling toward Roland and Josev. Marshe fell back a little, still laughing, her mouth brushing up against Ken's cheek.
“Oh, Ken, we did it!” She said.
“Yes,” he said, turning his face until his lips brushed hers. “I guess we did.”
Roland and Josev made sounds of happy discomfort as they were smothered in flopping, slobbering dog.
Marshe's hands grabbed the sides of Ken's head, fingers digging into his bruises, twining in his hair. She pulled him close, her lips mashing into his.
Ken returned the kiss, his tongue probing, his hands grabbing and squeezing great fistfuls of flesh. Here, in his arms, was a piece of the human race he could willingly join.
THE END
Epilogue
START TRANSMISSION
Courtmartial Docket 11/826038260/13-2
Loc: ATG-311-B (Musashi)
Defendant: Hanlin, Roland K.
High Treason
Conspiracy
(Charges Dismissed)
Status: Discharge, honorable.
Released to Ceres Mainstation.
Defendant: Jhee, Sammel
Incompetence
Supervisory Incompetence
Failure to Report Vital Intelligence
(Charges Dismissed)
Status: Discharge, honorable.
Released to Ceylon Disbursement Center, Earth.
Note: Col. T.Y Chu, ATD-068-B (Kojiro), has assumed Causative Influence for these charges. Inquiry in progress.
Defendant: Jonson, Kenneth E.
High Treason
Conspiracy
Premeditated Injurious Assault (9 cts.)
Assault Upon a Superior (9 cts.)
Unauthorized Use of Weapons (7 cts.)
(Charges Dismissed)
Status: Retained in service.
Psych counseling advised.
Defendant: NLN, Shenna
(No Charges)
Status: Not competent to stand trial.
Discharge, honorable.
Released to Ceres Mainstation.
Defendant: Ranes, Josev T.
High Treason
Conspiracy
Sabotage
(Charges Dismissed)
Status: Transferred to Political Corps, Council Station.
Defendant: Talbott, Marshe
High Treason
Conspiracy Sabotage
Premeditated Injurious Assault (12 cts.)
Assault Upon a Superior (3 cts.)
(Charges Dismissed)
Status: Retained in service.
Defendant: Yeng, Sipho
(No Charges)
Status: Deceased.
Discharge, honorable.
Released to Martian authorities for interment.
END TRANSMISSION
APPENDIX A:
The Waister Departure Song
(The WDS is among the most-studied documents in human history, and has been translated hundreds of times into Standard alone. Nonetheless, the Jonson-Talbott translation retains great utility and popularity even today. It is presented here in its original, unrevised form.)
We depart now, depart now
W
e contemplate our mistake
#
Long ago
We clung to the surface of a single planet
Like barnacles
Like barnacles
But we discovered that
the stars
Were suns like our own
Though farther away
We went to have a look
#
We were curious, back then
We were adventurous
We were industrious
We reached the stars and kept on going
leaving pieces of ourselves behind
#
Sometimes, we encountered stone age
peoples
They were funny
They were funny
Sometimes we killed them all
Sometimes they surrendered to us
And called us gods
And we departed.
Sometimes we returned and found them all
dead
It is a terrible thing
We learned
To look upon the face of God
#
Our empire took the form of a stepped-on
sphere
Very large
Very large
A hundred such empires would fill the
galaxy
And yet
There were no others
But ours
Or so we thought
#
The Stupid Ones came
And attacked us
Which seemed natural enough
Though we were surprised
They fought us hard
And long
And well
But they were like vicious animals
Not too smart
It took a long time
But
We killed them all
And
They never thought to surrender
#
How strange and tragic
It was
#
We grew cautious, then
