He had no complaints.
Other simulations allowed them to tumble together down an icy mountain slope, or glide beneath the sea surrounded by choreographed piscine inhabitants. Such enviromoods served to take the participants’ minds off the battle raging for Chemadii, to which they would soon have to return.
Base Atilla was the most advanced of the three hardened bastions that the Weave expeditionary force to Chemadii had succeeded in establishing on that contested world. By coincidence it was located on the shore of the western sea, a far bleaker and less stimulating coast than the one that had been conjured up by the Hivi sensorial. The sands of the beaches that backed onto the military complex were dirty white and profligate with decaying oceanic flora, while the ambient temperature was anything but tropic.
As the thin, slightly metallic headband he wore monitored internal hormonal shifts, the sky above faded and the sand beneath him grew dull. They were lying on a utilitarian platform bed beneath a four-meter-high dome the color of fresh milk. Flattering lighting came from indirect sources. He blinked and sat up, hooking his knees with his forearms. The sensorial had concluded.
“It’s a shame that having invented something this sumptuous, the Hivis can’t enjoy the full effect themselves,” she opined.
“They get something out of it,” he replied. “It’s just that their hormones don’t rage like ours.” Memories of shimmering insects and ruby sands were already waning.
There was nothing synthetic about Naomi, however. She lay next to him, open and unself-conscious. The length of her hair was a dead giveaway that she wasn’t a combat participant. Her actual duties lay in Supply and Replenishment, a classification that provided them with a considerable source of amusement.
They lingered beneath the dome because his leave ended tomorrow. It was the first time since they’d met that they’d had more than two consecutive days together and both had intended to make the most of it. In this they had been successful.
He knew they missed him in Planning. Chemadii was one of the frontline worlds on which the Amplitur and their allies had recently been able to muster real strength. It was a place where there had not been and were not likely to be any quick, decisive victories. The enemy was deeply entrenched and had thus far given every indication of remaining so.
Which would make the triumph all the greater when the minions of the Purpose were finally thrown out, he mused. After that, after Chemadii, there would be another world, another confrontation. It was the way of the war. Perhaps the Weave would try to take another semisettlement, or even the nearby, important agricultural Segunian-dominated system of Two. He’d heard rumors. There were always rumors, to which officers were no more immune than the lower ranks.
It didn’t matter. He went where they sent him, took it one world, one battle at a time. That was how the war had gone for hundreds of years.
He felt fingers lightly caressing his lower back. His relationship with Naomi had grown into more than a diversion. He hadn’t planned it that way, but such things rarely happened according to plan. Much easier to develop a strategy for dealing with the enemy.
She was intelligent and attractive, understanding and thoughtful. Her mental net did not cast as wide as his, but that was no drawback. Oftentimes her perception exceeded his. She was much better with people, for example. She squirmed a little nearer and he felt her warmth.
“You’re planning again. We don’t have much time left. Can’t you just relax?”
“Sorry. I can’t help myself.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can.” She grinned. “You weren’t planning a little while ago. You were extemporizing like mad.”
He smiled the boyish, almost bashful smile that women seemed to find so endearing. It was the only innocent thing about him.
He was short, a little below her own height, but it hadn’t caused them any problems. Combined with his smooth, easily depilated face it gave him the appearance of someone ten years younger, though he was nearly forty. He had the build of a gymnast, slight and limber but extremely muscular. The latter was the result of fortuitous genetics and a great deal of hard work. His hazel-colored hair was cut in a short brush, a single jagged slash shaved into each side above the ear. It was a style he found both comfortable and defining.
Occasionally his appearance and stature gave him trouble, since he looked more like an orderly than a colonel. On more than one occasion he’d had to produce proof for other Humans as well as aliens attesting to his actual rank. As a child he’d hated always being mistaken for someone younger, but as he aged he’d come to appreciate the advantages and no longer cursed that particular aspect of his heritage.
Though like any Human he missed the thrill of actual combat, he’d resigned himself to working in Planning. He seemed to have a knack for spotting enemy weak points, a talent that resulted in quick promotion if not personal fulfillment. He soon came to realize that Planning was an ideal place from which to best utilize his other talent, the one none of his colleagues suspected. The one that allowed him to forcefully suggest occasional changes in tactics to even the most tentative Massood officer.
Nevan’s genes were inherited from his Cossuutian parents. He was one of the Core.
Like any normal Human, Naomi suspected nothing. His abilities had no effect on other Humans, and she never saw him at work. To her he was only Nev, her confidant and lover.
Now he had to face the possibility of her becoming rather more than that. It was something he both wanted and dreaded. Marriage outside the Core was possible, but very difficult. Keeping a great secret from friends and acquaintances was comparatively easy. Concealing it forever from a wife and life-partner was another matter entirely.
They genuinely liked one another. She was a good talker, and he liked to listen. Her enthusiasm complemented his natural reticence. They were good together.
He’d never married and had nearly reconciled himself to the likelihood that he might never do so, though the Core encouraged marriage among its members. Not outside, though. Maintaining the Core gene pool had priority over mere love.
Naomi had lost one husband to the war. There were no children, which would help in the event that …
He stopped himself, surprised at how far down a difficult path he’d already traveled.
“You look happy.” She sat up next to him.
“I am. It’s just that there’s work to do.”
She sighed. “Always working. Sometimes I’m tempted to drug you, but I’m not sure it would make any difference.”
He slid off the platform and started to dress. “I’ll keep in touch. Get back as soon as I can beg off active duty. Maybe in a couple of weeks.” He stepped into his off-duty jumpsuit.
She lay back on the bed, watching him, enjoying the play of sharply defined muscles in his back and legs. “You have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. I wish I could have it surgically removed.”
“The next couple of months are going to be critical.” He turned to face the bed, running a finger up the front of his suit to seal it. “I’ll try to arrange a private line out. We can talk.”
She stretched enticingly. “My private line’s always open to you.”
“Stop that or I’ll never get out of here. They’ll knock me down a grade if I’m late.”
“I doubt it. You’re invaluable. And not just to those dead-heads in Planning. How are we doing, anyway? Everyone sees the reports and wonders.”
“The Amplitur are fighting like hell for this world. There are so many transports on both sides arriving from Underspace that the orbital shell is getting crowded.” He looked down at himself, then back at the woman with whom he was more or less in love. “I’ve got to go, Naomi.”
“I know.” She sighed resignedly. “That club of yours.”
“We’re just touching bases before we have to get back down to business.”
“I wish you’d drop it. That would leave more time for us.”
“It’s only an occasiona
l get-together. Friends and cronies from the homeworld. Don’t you go to the Barnard’s socials?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know many of those people. I guess Cossuutians link tighter.”
“We do. It’s our background.”
“I know the history of the Restorees. A miserable business all around. But it’s over and done with. Their descendants are all normal folk. Like you.”
He forced a grin. “And all this time I thought you considered me exceptional. It’s nothing special, Naomi. Just a few hellos and some sharing of memories. There aren’t a lot of us. It’s not like an Earth or Carry-on get-together, where you can always find a few hundred people to chat with.” It was different in many other ways, he knew, but he couldn’t tell her about that. There were many things he couldn’t tell her about.
Exposure was what the members of the Core feared most, and they guarded their privacy dearly: even from loved ones who suffered from normalcy.
He could dream about a permanent relationship, though. He could fantasize having Naomi by his side forever. There were no strictures against that.
“Go on, Colonel.” Her despair was transparently and intentionally specious. “Go to your damn meeting. I know what’s really important to you.” She softened. “At least we have tonight.”
Maybe, he thought. It depended on timing … and other things over which neither he nor she had any control. He leaned over the bed and kissed her good-bye. It was awkward, but neither of them protested.
When he finally managed to pull away, she said unexpectedly, “Maybe sometime I could go to one of these soirees with you?”
He tensed slightly, hoping it didn’t show. “You’d find it boring as hell.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It would give me a chance to meet some of your friends from back home.”
“They’re just regular people. Just like you said, Cossuutians are no different from anybody else. Not since the Hivistahm and O’o’yan straightened out our ancestors’ anatomy and fixed the damage the Amplitur had done.” He strove to change the subject. “Or is there something still screwy about me?”
“Absolutely.” She laughed. “You turned out better than average.”
We all did, he mused, but neither you nor anyone else can be allowed to know that.
He couldn’t marry her. She was too perceptive, and it would be impossible to keep the secret of the Core from her forever. If that was discovered, then greater concerns would take over. It would be impossible for him to protect, to shield her from inevitable consequences. Better never to let it get that far, to stop it now before the danger to her became too great.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
She was sitting on the other side of the bed slipping into her overblouse. “You Cossuutians.”
Could anything be read into so bland a statement? Did she somehow suspect something? He prayed she did not.
If the Massood or any of the other member species that comprised the Weave suspected that certain Humans could influence their thought processes in the same fashion as did the Amplitur, the revelation could destroy the alliance. It was a great secret, one that had to be preserved at all costs. If Naomi or anyone else learned the truth, they would have to be dealt with as necessary. Nevan knew that if it came to that he would do what was necessary himself.
Paranoid fantasies, he murmured silently. She knew nothing, and he’d see to it that it stayed that way.
Half-dressed, she came around the foot of the bed to put her arms around him. “I am most reluctant, Colonel, to let you go. I hope it shows.”
“It’s not the only thing,” he responded playfully, kissing her again.
“How far from me are they sending you this time?”
“The Circassian Delta.”
“Damn. No night leaves, then?”
“’Fraid not.”
“You’ll get in touch as soon as you win the battle?”
“If we win the battle. Nothing on Chemadii is certain.”
“It seems like this world means a great deal to them.”
He stepped back. “These days everything seems to mean a great deal to them. I suppose that’s a good sign.”
She sat down on the foot of the bed and fingered her pants. “I don’t suppose the end of the war is in view?”
“The end of the war?” He found he’d never really pondered so outrageous a notion. “The Weave’s made a lot of advances since Humanity sided with them, but I don’t see any indication that the Amplitur and their alliance are falling apart.”
“I suppose not.” She shrugged. “Still, it’s a nice thought.”
Like most Humans, he’d been trained to be a soldier from the time he was old enough to press his first fire-control button. He’d never thought about an end to the war, nor to the best of his knowledge had any of his friends. But Naomi was different. It was one reason why he loved her.
Later, when acceleration pressed him into the back of a speeding, dodging courier skimmer as it raced up the coast from Base Atilla toward his field assignment, he found himself wondering if, no matter the desperation of the circumstances and the need to do so, he really could kill her. Ranji-aar could have done it, but he’d been the first; a legendary figure in Cossuutian history. Nevan knew he was no Ranji-aar. He was just an ordinary soldier with a talent for strategy.
If only we could suggest other Humans the way we can the Massood or S’van or Hivistahm, he thought as he stared out the window at the gray, alien sea. It would make one’s personal life so very much easier.
VI
The regional command module lay four-fifths submerged in the dark waters offshore from the delta. As the skimmer drew near and began to slow, a shapeseeking Crigolit concussion dart changed course to intercept. VR projectors on the skimmer went to work to confuse the incoming threat, striving to rattle its sensors. Electronically, the skimmer seemed to change into a large, low-flying waterfowl of a type common to this part of Chemadii. The biobit mappers had done their work well. The dart’s shape-recognition circuitry was forced to pause and reanalyze lest it spend itself uselessly against an example of harmless local fauna instead of the enemy.
It quickly saw through the deception, but the delay had allowed the skimmer’s own weaponry to lock on and respond. It flung a cloud of subsonic lenticular shells in the attacker’s direction. The dart took evasive action of its own, but one small shell struck near the engine and the self-contained weapon was forced to retire, wobbling back inland in the general direction of the delta.
There were no other attacks, and the skimmer arrived safely, docking with one of the subsurface ports in the module’s ventral side without further interference. Humans in rebreathing dive gear attended the arrival, one looking up from her work to wave at the skimmer’s pilot. He smiled through the foreport.
A Lepar crew would have done the work better and faster, Nevan thought as he disembarked, but like so many of the Weave’s inhabitants no Lepar could function efficiently this close to actual combat. Among all the species of the Weave, only the slow-witted amphibians and Human beings were comfortable with underwater work. While this ability only enhanced humanity’s reputation for differentness among the rest of the Weave, it rather endeared them to the slow-moving, slow-thinking Lepar.
Nevan was one of the most respected Planners on Chemadii. He had a flair for laying out the means to take enemy positions with a minimum amount of risk and casualties. Troops aware of his reputation felt better when they knew he was among those preparing the battle plans they would be required to carry out.
Field planning and strategy were directed from a crowded chamber located in the center of the floating, mobile command station. While special stabilizers kept it steady, the module could shift its position in the bay to react to changing conditions. It could not fly, like a plane or skimmer; it could not completely submerge; nor could it make much speed, but neither was it rooted to one place and therefore correspondingly vulnerable to enemy detection and attack.
> Fresh water from the delta mixed with the saline body of the ocean to create a habitat that was rich in native Chemadiian fauna. It would have been a treasure trove for avid xenologists had not the air and water been filled with agile, eager weapons of destruction looking for targets against which to expend themselves. The delta had been home to intensive if infrequent fighting for several months, with neither side as yet able to claim a strategic advantage.
Local combat forces contained a higher proportion of Human soldiers than was usual, Nevan knew. This was because of the Massood aversion to water. The delta was notably lacking in stable, solid ground of which to contest ownership, which left most of the actual fighting to Humans.
It also gave them an advantage over the equally water-shy Crigolit, who compensated by means of superior numbers and constant aerial patrolling. Now, if the Lepar could have participated, Nevan mused … but that was a ludicrous thought. A Lepar wouldn’t have brains enough to make use of a complex weapon, much less the inclination.
It was left to Humans to fight for control of the vital delta region.
There was plenty of cover for individual troops moving through the aqueous terrain. Lots of trees and bushes. But anything big, like a floating battery, was sure to be spotted and destroyed. Weave command was faced with the problem of trying to secure the area with light firepower only. It was a contradiction they had thus far been unable to solve.
Though the regionally assigned Massood were reluctant to participate in the actual fighting within the soggy deltan landscape, they had no problem staffing the module, thereby freeing up the Human contingent for combat. Nevan was discussing strategy with one other Human officer and four Massood when the first explosions shook the deck beneath them.
One of the Massood reacted with a distinctive twitch of whiskers and an accompanying observation via his translator. “Long-range sensing detonation. I recognize the vibration. It should not have made it through our defenses.”
As if in confirmation, the first explosion was soon followed by the simultaneous activation of multiple alarms. Lights flickered uncertainly. A junior officer burst into the chamber.
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