Terran Tomorrow

by Nancy Kress

  “Allen, hold position.… Now!”

  The Return hovered briefly and the three airmen jumped. Only three … But Jason had no time to think of that now. Kandiss would have to make what he could of surprise. The Return lifted and flew quickly back over the base to the airfield. Small figures ran toward the jets. Three men, five … Jason had no time to count them before bombs from the Return dropped and obliterated them all.

  They crossed the base again, dropping bombs as they went. Jason peered out the airlock. Christ, they had rows of Strykers … from where? He watched them all go up in smoke and flames. The explosions sounded like the end of the world. Debris leaped into the sky, almost immediately obscured by smoke.

  A surface-to-air missile whizzed by the ship, slowed, returned. Heat-seeking.

  “Lift!” Jason shouted and the Return, faster than he would have thought possible, rose higher than the missile could go. The outer airlock door closed. Jason felt O2 flow into his mask.

  “Allen, again,” Jason said. There were more buildings. This time it would be more dangerous, but it had to be done. He had no idea what weapons, brought at who-knew-what time and distance, had been stored in which buildings.

  Nor did he know under what structure the quantum computer was housed, or if it could withstand the pounding that the depot was receiving from the Return. It might be that Jason was destroying his own last, most powerful weapon, even as he destroyed the enemy.

  They dodged two more heat-seeking missiles. But when Jason finished, there was nothing left of Sierra Depot, except for the one building beyond the trees.

  “Allen, land on my command, ten degrees … now.”

  The Return set down north of the building. J Squad ran out. Half took up defensive positions; half ran toward the building. Over the tops of the trees, oily smoke and orange flames rose lurid to the dawn clouds.

  Eight of Jason’s best soldiers disappeared into the building. Jason said, “Colin?”

  “I don’t hear any gunfire. No, wait … I do now.”

  The minutes seemed like hours.

  Ten figures left the building. Two of them carried children; two had adults slung over their shoulders. Gunfire erupted from the trees.

  J Squad returned the fire, and in a hail of bullets Jason’s unit returned to the ship, which immediately lifted. He closed the airlock. Colin cried, “No…” a second before the ship took a hit and the impact rattled Jason’s teeth. “Allen, go! Stay low but go!”

  If they could …

  The Return listed, as shocking as if the ocean had suddenly rose from a calm sea to a fifty-foot tsunami. But then the ship righted itself and flew off, barely reaching a thousand feet.

  “Can you keep it flying at this height?”

  “I don’t know, sir!”

  “Try to lift.”

  “Ship won’t go any higher.”

  “Okay. Go back to base.”

  Colin said, “Open the airlock and let me listen. I can hear any machinery on the ground.”

  Jason did. It seemed to him only a slim safety, but if there were missile stations along the way and if Colin couldn’t detect them, the Return would be shot out of the sky. And this was the only way home.

  At a thousand feet up, the Return glided over desert and forest and hills, rising and falling with the terrain, just as if the ship did not have an open airlock and a huge hole in her side. Air whooshed through as in a hurricane.

  “Allen, slow down before we’re all sucked out!”

  “Sorry, sir.” The ship slowed and the wind became less than a gale. Jason watched Holbrook bend over the prone figures on the deck.

  Corporal Wharton was dead, shot as the three airmen breached the building. Kandiss had carried Wharton’s body; Rangers never left a comrade behind. Dr. Sugiyama, also carried out, was unconscious, and when Jason saw what had been done to the physicist’s face, he felt sick. One of the children, the girl, lay gasping and batting everyone away. The little boy clung to the airman who had carried him out, even as the soldier tried to pass him to someone else. The child started to scream, which set the girl screaming too.

  Holbrook, opening Sugiyama’s shirt, said tightly, “Take them away. They shouldn’t see this.”

  Christ alone knew what they’d already seen. But Jason said to Kubetschek, “Take them to another room,” even as the girl started to shriek, “Daddy! Daddy!” and the boy screamed even louder.

  When the children had been forcibly removed, Jason knelt by Sugiyama. “Doctor…”

  “He isn’t going to make it,” Holbrook said. “What they did … he will die soon.”

  “Can you revive him enough for questioning?”

  Holbrook grimaced. “No. And it will be a mercy if he stays oblivious to the pain.”

  Jason stood. Kandiss sat beside the dead airman, the Ranger’s lips moving in prayer. Wharton would be buried with military honors in the base’s expanding graveyard beside Private Sendis, the soldier who had died defending Colin’s Settlement.

  Flying low and slow, it was noon before the crippled Return reached Monterey Base. There had been no further attacks. The dead and wounded were carried inside through the carnage and debris around both domes, and Jason and a guard took the FiVee to the signal station. Before it left, Colin grabbed Jason’s sleeve.

  “What happens now?”

  “I report to HQ.” He yanked free of his brother.

  “And then…”

  “We clean up the base. Patrols check out the woods. We hunt and forage. Maybe you get to be the founding father of another quixotic settlement. Jesus, Colin!”

  “I meant what happens to you.”

  “Court-martial,” Jason said briefly, and climbed into the truck.

  CHAPTER 17

  Jane dreamed.

  A voice came to her speaking her own language, sounding as if from a great distance and yet filling the inside of her head, a voice calm and measured as oceans: “You do not choose your enemies; they choose you.”

  I want no enemies! Jane tried to cry out, but her own voice was muffled, wrapped in thick folds of flesh that clogged her throat.

  A closer voice, startled, said, “She tried to say something!”

  “No, she…”

  She what? Was Jane “she”? Who was she?

  Then voices and identity both disappeared, sinking into velvet blackness, into even deeper sleep.

  * * *

  Zack, bleary, looked up from his lab bench, where it seemed to him he’d spent days, weeks, possibly years. Claire Patel stood in the doorway. From her face, whatever news she was bringing him wasn’t good.

  “Zack, three more v-comas. Do you want to test them for the allele?”

  “No. They’ll have it.” But three more comatose people affected the allele frequency rate. “How many does that make, total?”

  “Thirty. Plus Kayla Rhinehart and Glamet^vor¡.”

  Thirty-two out of about seven hundred people: roughly 4.5 percent. “Who are the new v-comas?”

  “A kitchen worker, a soldier, and a lab tech from Dr. Sullivan’s team.”

  The lab tech was faintly surprising: Lab personnel had been exposed earlier to the star-farers than had the Settlers, yet this tech was just now lapsing into v-comas. But, then, there were always variations in innate resistance.

  He focused more sharply on Claire. He didn’t know her well; his insane hours working meant he’d barely interacted with anyone from World except Marianne. Claire was small, pretty, drooping with fatigue even though it was only around noon—wasn’t it? He’d lost track of time. He said, “Aren’t you supposed to have an Army bodyguard with you? Where is he?”

  “He’s the soldier who just went comatose.” She took a step forward, hesitated, raised a hand and let it drop, and then it all burst out of her. “I can’t do anything for them. Nothing. The nurses keep them clean and turned and hydrated. But we’re running out of nutrient solution, and then what? And there is nothing I can do for the v-comas. I can’t do anything f
or anybody else, either. The soldier brought in from the raid was dead, Sugiyama died twenty minutes ago, and the children won’t let anyone near them.”

  “A raid? What children? Wait … Frank Sugiyama the physicist?”

  “You didn’t know that Colonel Jenner attacked Sierra Depot this morning?”

  “No! I’ve been—”

  “The Army destroyed those fighter jets that New America’s been strafing us with, plus everything else at the depot, or at least that’s what Colin Jenner said. He was there. They brought back Sugiyama and his children, but Sugiyama had been tortured and his kids are traumatized beyond belief.”

  Colin Jenner? A raid? Why didn’t Zack ever know what was going on?

  Tears, silent and the more terrible for being silent, slid down Claire’s cheeks. She swiped them away. “Sorry. I just feel so … helpless.”

  “We all do.”

  Except, apparently, Jenner. Zack tried to catch up to events. “Then New America won’t be attacking the base anymore?”

  “Well, not from Sierra Depot, anyway. Zack—are you any closer to finding out anything useful about these comas?”

  “No. We—”

  A newly recruited nurse, very young, dashed into the lab. “Doctor! They need you now! The alien—the boy—”

  “Belok^?” Claire said sharply.

  “Yes! A few minutes ago, nobody was there except his sister, but then I—”

  “What is it, Josie? Is Belok^ dead?”

  “No. He woke up.”

  * * *

  A flock of birds nested on bushes just outside the new signal station. The station had been hastily dug by a bore-bot into the side of a sloping ravine. Jason, accompanied by Captain Goldman, tried not to slip on the muddy hillside on the way to the camouflaged entrance. Rain sparkled on tall weeds; at the bottom of the ravine a brook murmured. He paused briefly to scowl at the birds.

  They were sparrows. Until RSA, Jason could not have told a sparrow from a goldfinch, but everyone had learned about sparrows. Native to Eurasia, the small, plump, gray-brown house sparrows were now found on every continent except Antarctica. Some idiot had introduced them into the United States in 1852. They weighed about an ounce, liked to bathe in dust, hopped rather than walked on the ground, ate seeds and insects. House sparrows were mostly monogamous, although adultery occurred often. They laid two to seven clutches of eggs every year. They would build their domed nests almost anywhere—in bushes, under eaves, in cacti, on top of streetlights for the warmth. They liked to be near groups of humans.

  This group was settling down to roost. They chirruped to each other: orphilip orphilip orphilip. A few tucked their heads under their wings, preparing to sleep. An adorable illustration from a children’s book, deadly with unseen plague. Jason restrained himself from pulling out his sidearm and shooting them.

  Inside, this version of the signal station was small and crude, the worst one Jason had seen yet. Two muddy pallets on the floor, rations in plastic bins, three buckets of water, and the sophisticated console connected to the even more sophisticated equipment hidden somewhere in the forest outside.

  Li and DeFord saluted.

  “As you were. Lieutenant, Specialist, you are both commended for carrying out your part of Operation Flamingo perfectly.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I need a link to HQ.”

  “Yes, sir,” DeFord said, grimacing. He knew—they both knew—what was coming. Jason had chosen DeFord carefully, knowing that he needed someone here that he could trust as much as Li. A member of J Squad, DeFord was one of those men who make unlikely but excellent soldiers: short, weakly muscled, able to think outside of Army boxes, bright as hell, and fiercely loyal to Jason, who had saved his life during the Collapse.

  When he had the comm link to General Strople, he stepped back and Jason seated himself at the console. “Sir, Colonel Jason Jenner reporting a successful raid on Sierra Depot.”

  “Proceed.”

  There was no way to tell how much Strople already knew. The radar at Fort Hood would have tracked the movements of the Return. But unless there were additional comsats that Jason didn’t know about, something he would once have thought impossible but now was not so sure of, Strople didn’t know the rest of it.

  “As per your orders, sir, I made the decision to attack Sierra Depot based on my knowledge of the situation. The enemy was using the depot as a base for their newly recovered, or imported, F-35s and armored vehicles. A concerted attack on Monterey Base from both air and land led to the start of a siege. We destroyed the force surrounding the base, but our supplies are depleted and New America could have mounted a second siege from the depot. More of my troops are lapsing into comatose states, from which medical personnel can’t extract them. My intel, as per my prior report, was that Dr. Sugiyama was being held at the depot. That raised the possibility of his cooperation with the enemy in accessing the quantum computer without its self-destructing. For all these reasons, I determined on the attack, which was carried out at oh-six hours this morning. The depot has been destroyed. An airborne unit extracted Dr. Sugiyama, who has since died of injuries inflicted by torture. Also extracted were his two young children. Sugiyama was not conscious at the time of extraction and has provided no useful intel.”

  “What is the situation of the quantum computer? Is it intact?”

  “Unknown, sir.”

  “So you don’t know if it can still launch the nukes.”

  “No, sir.”

  “How did you destroy the force surrounding Monterey base?”

  “With bombs dropped from the spaceship Return.”

  “And how did you destroy everything at Sierra Depot, possibly including the quantum machinery?”

  Jason closed his eyes, opened them again. Here it came. “The same way, sir.”

  “You told me in a previous report that the spaceship was not capable of flying laterally more than a hundred miles if it was not in high orbit.”

  “I did, sir.”

  “Are you telling me, Colonel, that you deliberately lied to me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The voice fifteen hundred miles away remained calm, but Jason heard in it not only the anger he expected, but something like triumph. “Repeat that, Colonel.”

  “I falsified information supplied to Headquarters.”

  “Why?”

  Because I don’t trust you, you bastard. Something is going on at Fort Hood that looks a lot like a military coup, with you as the leader of a South American–style junta.

  “The Return is a diplomatic vessel, sir. It does not belong to us, and its use is predicated on the consent of the leader of the World expedition, Dr. Ka^graa. Turning it over to Fort Hood would have violated international law.”

  “You do not get to make that decision, Colonel. Was your second in command, Major Duncan, a part of these acts?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Was she aware of the raid before it was carried out?”

  “No, sir.” Another lie.

  “You are hereby relieved of your command, Colonel Jenner, and are under arrest for actions that may have aided and abetted the enemy.”

  A stretch to get treason out of falsifying information, but Strople could make it stick. After all, there was no one above him to dispute the charge.

  Strople added, “I wish to speak with Major Duncan.”

  “She is at the base, sir, and I am at the signal station. I thought it advisable for her to remain at base in case my FiVee was taken out by New America on my way here or back.”

  “You’re going to wish it had been, Colonel. That would be better than what’s going to happen to you now. The signal station personnel must have been involved in directing the spaceship.”

  “Information Tech Specialist David DeFord aided me. Lieutenant Li was overpowered and restrained.”

  “Where is Li now?”

  “Here, and still captive, sir.”

  “You will release him at once, and
he will arrange for me to speak to Major Duncan. Specialist DeFord is also under arrest. Who else is with you at the station? Identify yourself.”

  Goldman stepped forward. “Captain James Goldman, sir.”

  “Did you have prior knowledge of Colonel Jenner’s deceiving HQ about the capabilities of the spaceship?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did anyone else know?”

  “I have no knowledge of anyone, sir.”

  Jason said, “General, no one else knew. The decision was mine. Everyone else acted on my orders, assuming that I had received them from you.”

  “No one else was involved in this conspiracy?”

  So now it had become a conspiracy. “No, sir.”

  “Uh-huh. Captain Goldman, you will take custody of both Colonel Jenner and Specialist DeFord, relieve them of their weapons, and immediately transport them to base. There you will imprison both until further orders concerning their courts martial. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Goldman said.

  “Lieutenant Li, you will remain at the signal station. Contact your perimeter patrol at the base and arrange for me to speak to Major Duncan as soon as she can be transported to the signal station.”

  When the farce had finished, all the actors playing their parts, Jason turned from the console. Li, Goldman, DeFord. Plus Duncan, Hillson, and the perimeter soldier on duty, Laura DeSoto, a lifer who was also a member of J Squad. And, of course, Jason himself. Benjamin Franklin had famously written that two people can keep a secret as long as one of them was dead. This was seven people. He trusted every one of them.

  In the Army that Jason had joined, this cabal would not have been possible. Personnel, information, legal documents, orders all had flowed across the country—across the world—in rapid, verifiable, closely surveilled streams. But this was not the Army that Jason had joined. This was the army of nineteenth-century isolated forts, of twentieth-century cabals and juntas, of a stray and damaged spaceship, of an enemy on American soil made up of Americans with no police to stop them from seizing whatever they wished.