by Jack Dann
The stimulant/tranquilizer started spreading its chemical blessings through Sergeant Wei’s nervous system. The long, carefully groomed fingers of her left hand slipped into position just below the keypad she would use to direct the missiles, guns, and electronic devices under her control.
The acting commander of Rinaswandi Base, Logistics Captain Tai, was a slender young man who tended to relate to his subordinates with a lot of handclapping and mock-enthusiastic banter. Even now, when the arrows and icons on his screens represented real vehicles armed with real ammunition, the voice in Sergeant Wei’s earphones sounded like it was sending some kind of sports team into a tournament.
“Allll right, people. As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, they’re all bunched up on one side of our happy little home, in Quadrants III and IV. Apparently they’re hoping they can overwhelm whatever we’ve got on that side. Gunner Three—take the eight targets on the left in your quadrant. Gunner Four—take everything in your quadrant plus the four on the right in Quadrant Three. Gunner One, Gunner Two—be prepared to switch your attentions to the other two quadrants. But I would appreciate it—to say the least—if you would keep an eye out for anybody trying to slip in on your side while we’re looking the other way. Let’s not assume they’re as dumb as we think they are.”
In the childcare center, twenty-five light-minutes away, Sergeant Wei’s son was sleeping with his right arm draped across the stuffed animal he had been given when he was two—a hippopotamus, about half as long as he was tall, that Deni had named Ibar. Two of the children sleeping near him had parents on Rinaswandi. Six had parents on the four hydrogen-fusion torch ships that had accelerated away from Hammarskjold Station, crammed with troops and equipment, two days after Rinaswandi had come under siege.
Every day all the children in the childcare center stretched out on the big shaggy rug in the playroom and listened to a briefing. Every day, the younger ones focused their best I’m-a-good-student stares on an orbital diagram that showed the current positions of Hammarskjold Station, Rinaswandi, the four torch ships, and a place in the asteroid belt called Akara City. They all knew, as well as their young minds could grasp it, that Akara City had been ruled for five decades by a strong-willed mayor who had turned it into a bustling commercial center in which half a million people took full advantage of the raw materials available in the asteroid belt. The mayor had died, her successor had been caught in a financial scandal, and the turmoil had somehow led to a classic breakdown of social order—a breakdown that had been manipulated by an obscure married couple who had emigrated to Akara City after they had been chased out of a Zen-Random communal colony. In the last six months, according to the teachers who gave the briefing, Mr. and Mrs. Chen had done some “very bad things.” One of the bad things they had done had been killing people—about three hundred, according to the most believable news reports. They had also engaged in approximately two thousand involuntary personality modifications—but that was a crime young children sometimes had trouble understanding.
Six weeks ago, a hundred troops could have torched into Rinaswandi Base, picked up the weapons and fighting vehicles stockpiled in its vaults, and deposed Mr. and Mrs. Chen in a few hours. As usual, however, the international politicians had dithered about “sovereignty” and the exact border that defined the line between “internal” and “external” affairs. And while they dithered, Mr. and Mrs. Chen had managed to establish communications with an officer at Rinaswandi who had been greedier than his psychological profiles had indicated. The equipment stockpiled in Rinaswandi had become part of the Chens’ arsenal and the personnel stationed in Rinaswandi had crammed themselves into their command module and started watching their screens.
The teachers at the childcare center would never have told their charges the politicians had “dithered,” of course. They were officers in the Fourth International Brigade. Proper military people never say bitter things about politicians during official, approved briefings.
Nobody on Hammarskjold told Deni they felt sorry for him, either. That was another thing military people didn’t do. If anyone had given Deni a pat and a sympathetic word, however, he would have thanked them very politely and even looked a little thoughtful. For a moment, in fact, he would have thought he really did feel sad.
Deni’s mother had been stationed on Rinaswandi for two months before the siege had broken out. For most of the second month, his father, Assault Sergeant Kolin, had been trying to convince him a boy of his age shouldn’t sleep with a stuffed hippopotamus. It hadn’t been as bad as the time his father had made him stop wetting the bed. That time, Deni had been forced to endure almost six weeks of hand slappings, sarcastic baby talk, and “confinement to quarters” in a sopping bed.
Deni was seven years old. For four of those years—over half his lifetime—one of his parents had been away on some kind of military assignment. When his mother was gone, he lived with an easygoing, enjoy-it-while-you-can father whose basic indolence was punctuated by periods in which Assault Sergeant Kolin became obsessed by the belief his son needed “discipline.” When his father was away, Deni’s days were dominated by a goal-oriented mother who believed every moment of a child’s life should be as productive as she could make it. When they were both home, he frequently found himself pressing against a wall, knees doubled against his chest, while they engaged in “domestic disputes” that sometimes ended in bruised faces and even broken bones.
Deni’s day-to-day life in the childcare center had its flaws. He still had to sit through the daily message Sergeant Wei videoed from Rinaswandi, in spite of the siege. He still had to send his mother a return message in which he assured her he was practicing his flute two hours and fifteen minutes every day—the minimum a boy as talented as her son should practice, in Sergeant Wei’s opinion. He still had to spend three hours a week talking to an officer named Medical Captain Min, who kept pestering him with questions about the way he felt about different things. All in all, however, the last fifteen days of Deni’s life had been a lot pleasanter than most of the other two-week periods he could remember. Somewhere in the center of his personality, sleeping with his hippopotamus, there was a little boy who would have been quite happy if neither of his parents ever came home again.
And that, of course, was the problem.
###
Medical Captain Dorothy Min was a tall young woman with a round, pleasant face and a manner that correlated with her appearance. Deni Wei-Kolin might have liked her very much, in fact, if she had been a teacher or a childcare specialist. At 23:07 Hammarskjold time—forty-two minutes after the Rinaswandi defense system had decided it was under attack—Captain Min was sitting in front of the communications screen in her personal quarters. She was revising a statement in which she requested, for the fourth time, that she be allowed to communicate with Deni’s parents. She was staring at a paragraph in which she explained—once again—the major reason she wanted to apply a procedure that she and her colleagues usually referred to as an “esem.”
I can only repeat what I’ve already said before, the paragraph under consideration read. The death of one of Deni’s parents—especially in combat—could result in permanent, lifelong psychological damage if we do not apply the appropriate preventive measure before that happens. Fantasies about his parents’ deaths have become an important component of Deni’s emotional structure. The death of one of his parents could trigger guilt reactions no seven-year-old personality can possibly handle. It has now been fourteen days since I originally asked for permission to discuss this matter with Gunnery Sergeant Wei and Assault Sergeant Kolin. If either of his parents is killed in combat before we can provide him with the benefits of at least one session with an ego-strengthening emotional modification procedure, the prognosis for Deni’s future emotional development is about as hopeless as it can get.
Half the space on Captain Min’s screen was cluttered with paragraphs and charts she had included in the three memos she had already addressed to the commander of the Akar
a Assault Force. She should keep her memo short, her contact on the torch ships had told her, but she shouldn’t assume General Lundstrom had read her previous communications. This time, her contact had assured her, the message would bypass the general’s overprotective staff.
She touched the screen with her finger and drew an X over the now in ‘It has now been fourteen days.’ The now added a little emphasis, in her opinion, but her contact had made it clear every word counted.
A light glowed over a loudspeaker. “Captain Dorothy Min has a call from Dr. Bedakar Barian,” the communications system murmured. “Emergency Priority.”
Captain Min tapped the accept button on her keyboard. A plump, bearded face replaced the text on her screen.
“There’s a report on Trans-Solar, Dorothy—and attack on Rinaswandi. Have you seen it yet?”
Captain Min grabbed her stylus and scratched a command on the notebook lying beside her right hand. Dr. Barian’s face receded to the upper left quarter of her communications screen. A printed news bulletin started scrolling across the right half.
“I told my system to monitor the Akara crisis and alert me if it picked up any major developments,” Dr. Barian said. “Trans-Solar may not be as trustworthy as the stuff you people get through channels, but it looks like it’s a lot faster.”
Captain Min had been wearing her working uniform while she dictated. Now her hands reached down and automatically tightened the belt on her tunic. One of the purposes of military training, her father had always claimed, was the development of a military alter ego—a limited personality that could take control of your responses whenever you were confronted with realities that would have overwhelmed any normal human. The surge of emotion reached a danger point, a circuit kicked in, and the hard, clear responses of the professional officer or NCO replaced the messy turbulence of the human being cringing inside the uniform.
There were no pictures yet. All Trans-Solar had was a few messages from Rinaswandi and a statement from Mr. and Mrs. Chen claiming that the “center of international militarism” on Rinaswandi had been “effectively terminated.”
“That’s crazy,” Captain Min said. “Even for them it’s crazy.”
“It’s what they’ve been telling us they were going to do for the last seventeen days.”
“It’s still crazy. They could have pulled a quarter of our assault force away from the attack on Akara City just by maintaining a low-level threat against Rinaswandi. Now they don’t even have the threat.”
“Apparently their assessment of the situation doesn’t conform to standard military logic.”
Dr. Barian lived in Nous Avon, the smallest of the Five Cities that housed most of the human beings who inhabited the space between Earth and Luna. Captain Min had never met him in person but his face had dominated her communication screens—and her dreams—from the day he had become her mentor for her training in family therapy. She was especially familiar with the look he got on his face when he was contemplating the follies of people who wore uniforms.
Dr. Barian was, in her opinion, one of the best teachers she had ever worked with. The lectures, reading materials and learning programs he had chosen for her had always been first rate. His criticisms of her work had almost always made sense. He just happened to believe the human brain turned into sludge the moment you put a blue hat on top of it.
“You’d better call the childcare center,” Dr. Barian said. “Right away. Tell them you want Deni kept away from any contact that may give him the news—video, other children. Make it clear you’re the one who’s going to tell him—no one else.”
He lowered his head, as if he were examining some notes, then looked up again. “Then I think it’s time you and I stopped playing games, young woman. We’re both well aware that everything you’ve been saying in all your memos only proves that Deni should have been put through the complete modification procedure the day his father went riding off to war. You’re supposed to be a therapist, Dorothy—a healer. The people who wrote the laws can’t make your decisions for you.”
Captain Min stared at him. This was the first time Dr. Barian had made it absolutely clear he thought she should have applied the esem without waiting for the parents’ consent. He had been dropping hints ever since the Akara crisis had started developing, but he had never put it quite so bluntly.
“We still don’t even know if Sergeant Wei is dead, Dr. Barian. Don’t you think we should verify that before we start asking ourselves if we’ve got a right to start ignoring the law?”
“From what you’re saying, it sounds like most of the control module has been blown up. If she isn’t dead, then we’ve had a scare that should convince you we’re risking that child’s welfare—unnecessarily—every day we sit around trying to avoid the inevitable. There’s no way anyone can determine a child has received the benefits of an esem, Dorothy. If you can arrange things so you give him the news in your office, you can apply the procedure in complete privacy—without the slightest possibility anyone will know you’ve done it. If his parents give you a nice legal, properly authorized permission statement later on, you can pretend you executed the esem then.”
“I’m well aware no one will be able to prove I administered the esem without a legal authorization, Dr. Barian. You’ve pointed that out to me at least four times in the last two weeks.”
“I understand your feelings, Dorothy. You aren’t the first therapist who’s been put in a position like this. All I can tell you is that if he were my patient I would have resolved the whole issue two weeks ago. The whole idea of requiring parental consent in a situation like this is absurd. Deni’s parents are the last people in the universe who could possibly understand why he needs that kind of help.”
“Sergeant Wei would have agreed to the esem sooner or later. Every report I’ve given you for the last ten weeks contains some indication she would have given me her consent sometime in the next few months. We both know her husband would have given in sooner or later just to keep the peace, once she started working on him.”
“But she didn’t. And now she’s never going to.”
Captain Min’s screen blinked. The face of her commanding officer, Medical Colonel Pao, popped onto the lower left-hand corner.
“I have a message for you from General Lundstrom, Dorothy. Can I assume you’ve already been advised of the news regarding Rinaswandi?”
“I’ve just been looking at the report on Trans-Solar, sir. My mentor, Dr. Barian, is on the line with me now—listening in.”
“General Lundstrom apparently recorded this message only five minutes after she got the news herself. She wants to know if you still want to discuss the esem procedure with Sergeant Kolin.”
Captain Min swallowed. “Does that mean Sergeant Wei is definitely considered a casualty?”
“Are you serious?” Dr. Barian murmured. “I can’t believe you could still think anything else, Dorothy.”
“I’m afraid that has to be the assumption,” Colonel Pao said. “We’re still listening for messages from Rinaswandi, but I don’t think anybody’s very optimistic.”
“Can you advise General Lundstrom I said yes, sir? Tell them I’ll need about an hour to prepare a statement for Sergeant Kolin. The communications time lag between here and the ships is almost eleven minutes now. There’s no way I can engage in a real discussion with him.”
“Let me talk to your colonel,” Dr. Barian said.
Captain Min stared at him. She started to turn him down and reluctantly decided the combative glint in his eye was a good indication he would respond with an embarrassing flurry of argument. “Dr. Barian would like to discuss something with you, Colonel Pao.”
“Can you ask him if it’s absolutely necessary?”
Captain Min stopped for a moment and switched to the section of her brain cells that contained her ability to speak in Techno Mandarin. She had been talking to Colonel Pao in Ghurkali—the official working language of the Fourth International Brigade. Dr. Barian had
picked up a good listening knowledge of Ghurkali, but she knew he would be more comfortable speaking one of the three international languages.
“Colonel Pao wants to know if it’s absolutely necessary, Dr. Barian.”
“At this point I would say it’s about as necessary as anything I’ve ever done.”
She raised her eyebrows a fraction of a centimeter, to let Colonel Pao know she was having problems, and the colonel gave her a nod and answered in the language she had chosen. “Go ahead, Dorothy.”
She tapped the buttons that would turn the situation into a full conference call and Dr. Barian started talking as soon as Colonel Pao’s face appeared on the screen.
“Dr. Min has made three attempts to communicate with Deni Wei-Kolin’s parents, Colonel Pao. I assume you’ve read the reports she’s submitted to General Lundstrom.”
“I read every word in them before I forwarded them with my approval, Dr. Barian.”
“Then I assume you recognize the gravity of the present situation. The ego-strengthening personality modification is the treatment of choice in situations in which a child is being subjected to the strains Deni has been absorbing. It’s an absolute necessity when one of the parents who has been responsible for those strains dies prematurely. We are discussing one of the best-documented phenomena in the literature. No child Deni’s age can deal with the guilt that is going to begin eating at his sense of self-worth the moment he hears his mother is dead. His primary reaction to his mother’s death will be the creation of a cluster of unconscious guilt feelings that will distort his entire personality.”
Colonel Pao nodded politely. “I’m well aware of that, sir. Captain Min included all that information in her reports.”
“Under normal circumstances,” Dr. Barian said, “we could continue with the standard procedure Dr. Min has been following. Dr. Min would continue counseling the parents three times a week for another year. Eventually they would acquire some insight into Deni’s needs and give her permission to proceed with the modification procedure. Dr. Min asked for permission to continue the counseling sessions when the Akara crisis broke out and it was denied her on the ground that it would subject Deni’s parents to too much stress at a time when they might be forced to carry out the more violent aspects of their military duties. She then asked for permission to discuss the situation with them just once, to see if they might agree to the modification as an emergency procedure. We’ve now spent two weeks waiting for a reply. All our efforts to contact Deni’s parents have met with bureaucratic delaying tactics. And now that we’re in an emergency situation—now that the very thing we feared has happened—your general has finally seen some sense and agreed to let us ask a man who’s under extreme stress for permission to do something we should have done days ago.”