The Damned Trilogy

by Alan Dean Foster

  “That’s the risk. Of course, unless the reports I’ve been seeing are wrong, there seems to be risk of another kind in keeping him here.”

  “No, no.” First-of-Surgery sounded tired. “Accurate they have been. Suicide he has threatened unless he is to his people permitted to return. If sufficiently determined he was, we could not prevent it. Most frustrating truly. As an Ashregan he would not do such a thing, which would mean we could for observation retain him. But that failure would signify. It seems that for him Human to be means success for our efforts, but that we lose him. Ironic it is.”

  It was the S’van’s turn to philosophize. “Life consists of choosing between successive contradictions, surgeon.”

  “So I suppose we must let him go. But I fear to. Upon my Circle I do.”

  “You’ve done great things here, First-of. But in times of conflict pure research must give way to practical concerns.” This time there was no suggestion of humor in the S’van’s tone.

  “Truly that I realize.” The Hivistahm sucked at his drink. “But that does not mean I have to like it.”

  “The Human psychologists who have been consulted in the matter agree that to hold him against his will is dangerous,” said the field commander.

  “Human psychologists?” The surgeon sniffed. “That a contradiction in terms is. With Weave guidance they have barely begun to learn how their own bizarre behavior to quantify. Seek not enlightenment from them.” As no Humans were present the surgeon felt he could speak freely.

  An upper lip drew back and the field commander picked politely at his teeth. Nose and whiskers twitched reflexively. “Well, if it is a ploy on his part we will know soon enough. If not, then we may achieve a great deal. Even if he is eventually discovered and killed, he will hopefully have had enough time to sow some confusion among his fellow fighters.”

  “I still a bad idea think it, and will so my opinion officially register,” muttered the surgeon.

  “That’s your privilege.” The S’van smiled, aware as he did so that neither of his companions could discern it through the forest of a beard.

  They were still arguing when evening commenced to darken the cliff face.

  The battered uniform he’d been wearing when the lone Hivistahm and Lepar had surprised him on Eirrosad had been carefully preserved in its original state. Muddy and torn, it was returned to him in an airtight transparent container.

  The prostheses which restored his Ashregan appearance clung uncomfortably to his skull and fingers. To once more look in a mirror and see himself as he’d always been was unsettling, though the attending medical personnel assured him he was coping well. Head, eyes, ears, nose, and fingers looked natural enough. Unless a scarce variety of organic solvent was applied at specific locations, the prostheses could not be removed without damage to the underlying bone. On that score, they assured him, he need not worry. Though they did not possess the skills of the Amplitur, the Hivistahm and O’o’yan surgeons were in their own right extremely competent. Ranji felt that the deception would pass.

  He was instructed to say nothing to the Weave military personnel who transported him back to Eirrosad nor to the bemused strike team which had been charged with conveying him as close as possible to the spot where he’d originally been captured.

  Occasionally a Human or Massood would look up from its position on board the sled to favor the enigma in their midst with a bemused stare. The single passenger would in turn ignore them, sunk deep in contemplation as he gazed intently at the treetops slipping past below.

  His noncommunicativeness made the Human soldiers nervous and the Massood twitchier than usual. If their passenger was, as rumored, one of the dangerously modified Ashregan warriors of whom they had heard, why were they returning him alive to a contested zone? Visions of accidental homicide visited many thoughts, but weapons stayed in their holsters. The carefully chosen mixed-species strike team was nothing if not highly disciplined.

  So he intercepted no misguided shots as they lowered him to the soggy ground, reeled in their cable and confusion, and pivoted to retreat westward before the sled could be detected and targeted by an enemy missile.

  As he had seemingly so long ago, Ranji once again found himself alone among towering unfamiliar growths. Somewhere high in the canopy an arboreal creature peeped querulously, wondering if it was once more safe to emerge from its hiding place. Water dripping from broad spatulate leaves dampened him with elfin reminders of the morning’s shower.

  They had dropped him in a pleasant, peaceful, relatively dry spot. A good place to relax and think, except that he’d already done too much thinking recently. Better to concentrate on the arduous trek ahead instead of wasting energy on difficult questions he had no answers to. If he lingered, he might encounter an uninformed Weave patrol. It would be embarrassing to be captured all over again. Orienting himself, he started off in an easterly direction.

  The Eirrosadian fauna caused him more concern than unseen trigger-happy Massood/Human scouts. Once, something sinuous that crawled on eight short legs struck at him, aiming curving fangs at his knees. They ripped his pants but did not penetrate the flesh beneath. He flayed the repulsive creature with the beam of his pistol, and it curled and died.

  Over fallen trees, through rotting clumps of wood, around impenetrable clusters of vine-strangled bushes he climbed and waded, until an explosive shell made smoke, ash, and decomposing rubble of the top of a broken snag off to his right.

  Throwing himself prone, he landed in spongy muck near a smaller stump, straining to see where the fire had come from. Another shell whined through the space previously occupied by his head, shattering the trunk of a waist-thick bole behind him and sending it crashing to earth in a sonorous confusion of lianas and branches.

  Scrambling to his knees, he dashed to his left, pistol at the ready. That’s when the voice ordered him to halt, drop his weapon, put his hands atop his head, and turn. He hesitated momentarily, then complied. Whoever his attackers were, they had him outgunned.

  Hopefully they weren’t the panicky type. He could hear them chatting tensely among themselves as they approached, could sense the muzzles of their weapons aimed at his spine. Only when they were quite close did he turn slowly to reveal his face.

  When they recognized him as one of their own, their astonishment was something to behold. Startled realization quickly gave way to relief, then amazement as he identified himself.

  “Your death has been an accepted fact for some time, honored Unifer.” The soldier hastened to recover Ranji’s gun and return it to him. Another offered a food packet. It contained traditionally bland, thoroughly pureed Ashregan food, not the coarse, tough stuff Humans consumed. He dug into it gratefully, not even waiting for it to heat.

  Another member of the trio scanned the woods alertly. “This whole sector is crawling with enemy slider patrols. They are constantly probing our forward lines. Occasionally some try to sneak through on the ground; such ground as there is on this miserable planet.”

  “I saw sliders, and our own floaters,” Ranji lied. “It’s difficult for anyone riding above to see down into the canopy.”

  The third soldier agreed readily. “It’s no wonder you weren’t spotted, Unifer. I’m only glad that we found you before the enemy. I am sorry we shot at you, but you must understand we didn’t expect to encounter anything in this area but Massood and Humans. You have been some time unaccounted for.” Ranji tensed slightly until he realized that the soldier’s tone was devoid of suspicion.

  The one watching the forest spoke up. “Your special unit has been pulled back and reassigned to operations elsewhere, Unifer.” Convinced of their safety, he turned to gaze at the young officer. “How is it you’ve spent all this time wandering about in this patch of jungle?”

  “Lost my direction finder.” Ranji grunted. “Lost about everything. Got hurt and had to hide from enemy patrols. Took time to find food, build temporary shelters … I’ve been too busy just staying alive to try
working my way back.” He gestured appreciatively. “I knew that if I could just keep calm and stay clear of the enemy, my own people would rescue me eventually. I am sure there will be commendations in this for all of you.”

  That observation distracted the questioner sufficiently to interrupt what threatened to become an ominous line of thought.

  “Spent a lot of time in the hollow of a tree,” he continued inventively, seeing how enthralled they were with his tale of survival. “Kept me hidden and dry, but impossible to spot from the air by friend or enemy. I needed time for my leg to heal. Hurt my face and hands, too,” he added in a sudden flash of inspiration.

  They all touched the backs of their right hand to his. “It is good to find you alive, Unifer.”

  He could feel his indoctrination, his recently acquired Humanity, beginning to crumble in the presence of Ashregan compassion. Weren’t these his people? Hadn’t he spent his whole life among them? What was the difference between Ashregan and Homo sapiens anyway? A few genes, some slight differences in stature and appearance. It was good to again be speaking in a familiar tongue, to be eating the food of his childhood, to slip easily into the casual byplay of words and gestures he’d known all his life. He’d prepared himself to cope with familiarity, but not with warmth and affection. It weakened and unsettled him.

  Not unnaturally, his alarmed rescuers assumed his reactions were the result of his extended sojourn in the jungle. They hastened to help him back to friendly lines.

  His nervousness faded rapidly. Everyone was overjoyed to see him. No one voiced suspicion or incertitude. His tale of injury and survival was accepted verbatim, in part because there was no reason to doubt him, in part because they wanted to believe it. When there is a need for heroes and they are so inconsiderate as not to invent themselves, others take up the task for them.

  No one questioned his appearance or physical condition. Insofar as they were concerned it was a miracle he’d been found alive in any condition. When pressed for details of his experience, he relaxed and allowed his fecund imagination to take over.

  When finally he was reunited with his own unit, the response was overwhelming and utterly accepting. If he had told them he’d spent the previous weeks on Eirrosad’s major satellite collecting mineral samples they would have believed him implicitly. He received so many backhanded slaps he feared for the integrity of his prostheses.

  “Such a long time!” The naked adoration in strong Birachii’s eyes forced Ranji to turn away in embarrassment. “Notice of your death was posted officially over two months ago.”

  “It was premature,” was all he could murmur.

  They were walking the grounds of a forward firebase, concealed in the eternal jungle some distance from where Ranji had been found. It seemed that everyone recognized him and waved or shouted in passing, regular Ashregan and insectoid Crigolit troops as well as familiar members of his own unit. He forced himself to acknowledge each undeserved accolade, acutely conscious of how his miraculous return had lifted their morale.

  It was hard to keep from staring at his friends, knowing what he knew now about their birthright. Appearances, which hitherto he had paid little attention to, now aroused in him an almost morbid fascination. Cranial ridges that did not belong, eyes that now seemed unnaturally wide, fingers lengthened by the presence of extraneous bone, unusually flattened nostrils, and the absence of external ears all struck him as both alien and familiar. There was within him taking place a crisis of perception.

  His reactions were noticed, and sympathetically attributed to the understandable aftereffects of his exhausting experience.

  The more time he spent among old friends and familiar surroundings, the darker grew the shadow of doubt that had once more begun to shade his thoughts. Was what he had seen and learned beyond doubt? Had every question been adequately answered? That he was being manipulated he knew for a certainty. But by whom? By which side? By the Amplitur, by the Weave … by both?

  What was he, who was he, and where did his loyalty rationally lie? With appearances, with genes, or with friends? He had been exposed to and had been asked to accept in a very short period of time multiple revelations of mind-shattering import. This he had done. Or so he had believed. At the time.

  It was easier to live the days in languid succession, to simply exist, to be, and not constantly torment oneself pondering the greater mysteries of existence. One thing he could not escape, however. One thing there was always before his eyes. No matter how he tried to avoid it, he could never again escape the realization that his friends looked far more like Humans onto whom a few Ashregan features had been grafted than the other way around.

  When they inquired, as he knew they would, as to how he had survived for so long without supplies, he told stories of gathering edible fruits and nuts, of killing and eating small animals, of gathering rainwater in cupped leaves. He’d done everything they’d been told to do in survival training, and this had preserved him. They listened raptly, their appetite for his memories insatiable.

  Had he in the course of his odyssey encountered any of the enemy? Several, he admitted. No, not Massood or Humans. Hivistahm and Lepar. Yes, their presence in a combat zone had surprised him. More than they could know. He had dealt with them as circumstances required.

  It was during one such gathering that swift, pretty Cossinza-iiv came forward apologetically. “I have something important to tell you, Ranji.” The others tried to shush her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t keep it a secret any longer.”

  “Keep what a secret?” Ranji asked guardedly.

  “Did you know that the big advance base to our immediate rear is tomorrow to receive the newest batch of special fighters from Cossuut?”

  Ranji was openly surprised. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

  New recruits from home. New graduates. Had that much time passed since his only concern in life had been to do well in the Maze?

  “When they’re cleared to join us it will more than double our strength. The next time Command gives us a special assignment we’ll be able to hit the enemy a lot harder than we have here or on Koba.”

  “That’s great.” Ranji mustered a minimum of enthusiasm. “That’s the secret?”

  “No.” Cossinza was smiling. So were some of those behind her. “Your brother’s with them. They jumped him a level.”

  Distantly Ranji heard himself expressing his pleasure at the news. So Saguio was here, on Eirrosad. Wonderful. Thus far he’d managed to beguile other Ashregan, Crigolit, even close childhood friends. But could he fool his own brother?

  That Saguio was his brother was something Ranji did not doubt. They shared similar height and strength, the same desire and skills. Ranji was a little smarter, his younger sibling slightly taller. The resemblances outweighed any differences. He and Saguio had been fashioned from identical genetic stock. Whatever that was. It didn’t matter to Ranji whether they shared the same natural parents or not. Saguio was and always would be his brother.

  His apprehensions were overcome the next morning as soon as he caught sight of his brother stepping off the transport sled. As for Saguio, if Ranji had sported two heads it would not have lessened his pleasure at finding himself again with his elder brother.

  They spent hours catching up, reminiscing, and swapping stories. If Saguio detected a certain reticence on the part of his revered sibling to discuss their parents, he chose to ignore it.

  “I heard about what happened to you out there. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like.”

  Brother benign, truer words never fell from your lips. What would be his reaction, Ranji mused, when he finally learned the truth? Like everyone else, Saguio was convinced his brother was a hero. But that didn’t matter, because he was only a hero among the Ashregan, and he was not of them. Nor was Saguio, nor Cossinza, nor clever Soratii-eev. Or were they?

  He needed to arrive at truth: without interference from Humans, or Ashregan, or Amplitur, or anyone else. Let them skirmish
over the future of worlds or the disposition of half a galaxy. The fight for his identity concerned him nonetheless.

  When he judged the moment propitious to finally reveal what he’d learned to his friends, he realized they might very well kill him. Even Saguio might partake of the festivities. There were no armed Humans, no self-assured Hivistahm around to help him now. The balance of his life lay in his hands and no others. Whatever else he might think of his former captors, he had to admire the risk they’d taken in allowing him to return to his people. That suggested confidence … or great daring. Both were reputed to be Human characteristics.

  Before he spoke, before he put his life on the line, he had to be certain beyond any doubt. Despite what he’d told his captors prior to his departure from Omaphil, that was a destination he had yet to set eyes upon.

  Meanwhile he relaxed in the company of his brother, and reminiscences of simpler times. Of days when certainty had ruled his life, and the Purpose was always there for comfort. Now that hitherto exalted philosophy struck him as something less than grand.

  How was he to proceed when the time came to try and convince Saguio and the others that they were not Ashregan, but mere dupes of the Amplitur? He had with him no damning pictures, no reams of statistics, no means for conducting tests on querulous companions. Only his reputation and strength of character, and he knew full well those might not be enough.

  He didn’t have to do it, he knew. He was safe among those who admired and respected him. On the basis of his perceived ordeal he could claim combat fatigue and put in for a noncombat position. They would love to have him as an instructor on Cossuut. He could try to forget what he’d seen, what he’d learned, and return home to live out the remainder of his life among familiar surroundings and friends. His participation one way or the other wasn’t going to alter the course of a thousand-year-old conflict anyhow. Even if he was Human, he owed nothing to that dire and unfamiliar species.