by John F. Carr
“Where will the Cossacks go now?” Cummings asked. He had to shout over the rattling of the vehicles and the roar of wind, rain and thunder.
“They’ll make their way north, to the sea,” Kettler replied. “Then follow the coastline westward. They should be able to link up with the mobile aid station we promised them in about a week.”
Cummings shrugged and sat back in his seat.
“You realize, Brigadier, that in a week their wounded will probably all have died.”
Cummings looked straight ahead. “There aren’t a lot of medicines available, Colonel. The strong will survive; the weak”—he looked out the window at the roaring downpour—“the weak will not.”
“And does that include our own volunteers, sir?” Kettler asked. He noted that the driver’s eyes flickered to the rearview mirror.
“Everybody dies, son,” Cummings said bluntly. “That’s why they were volunteers.”
Kettler didn’t speak for a long time. “That sounds like something a Sauron would say, sir.”
Cummings made a short, mirthless laugh. “That’s something every Sauron says, every day of his life, Colonel Kettler. That’s why they’ll win if we don’t fight them on their own terms.”
Kettler turned to him. “And what will we win, Brigadier? In the end?”
Cummings fixed him with a long look. “We’ll win a world without Saurons, Colonel Kettler.”
Kettler nodded and turned away thinking, I wonder…?
II
Sergei Kamov found his son, Lavrenti, dropped from his saddle and fell onto the corpse of the boy, weeping in rage and grief. Nikolai wheeled his own mount in a circle, orbiting his father and brother, watching over the casualty-strewn field of battle on all sides. Like a grim prosecutor, he was more than ready to shoot the first thing that moved.
A riderless horse galloped on by, disappearing into the darkness with an equine shriek as another lightning bolt lit the scene around them.
“Pomogite…help!”
“Who is it?” Nikolai shouted into the rain.
Dark shapes emerged from the downpour moving toward them, wounded men supported by their fellows. A Haven Volunteer in the distinctive butternut camouflage was being carried by two dismounted Cossacks. A dozen more of Nikolai’s people trailed behind.
“Look, it’s Kamov!” one cried out. The disorderly mass of people changed direction and began shambling toward them.
Nikolai intercepted them before they could reach his father. “What do you want?” he shouted harshly.
“We need Gospodin Kamov; the Headman…the Council, they are all dead. He’s the new Headman, now…What should we do?”
Nikolai looked over his shoulder to see his father standing up from Lavrenti’s body. Sergei took off the boy’s coat and draped it gently over his son’s face, then crossed over the muddy field toward them, rubbing the rain into his face briskly with both hands as he walked. Nikolai rode up to him, speaking in a low voice that could not be heard over the downpour. “Father, the Councilors are all dead…they are saying you are the new Headman.”
Sergei seemed at first not to hear him, then he nodded once as he reached the crowd of stragglers.
“Gather what horses you can,” he ordered. “Anyone who can ride, do so. Head north to the sea and wait there. Anyone who cannot ride, stay behind with a weapon and cover the retreat of the rest.”
Kamov turned to his remaining son. “Find your sister, Nikolai. If she’s a captive….”
Nikolai felt the blood drain from his face at his father’s tone, at the words he was sure must come next.
Something shifted in Sergei’s tone, and he finished, “If she’s a captive, try to let her know we will ransom her.”
Nikolai let out his breath, and whispered, “Da Papa.”
He galloped off as his father turned to the remnants of their people. The group had doubled already, with more arriving, huddling beneath cloaks against the storm.
Sergei looked at the two who were carrying the militiaman in camouflage. “What is that?”
“One of the militia volunteers, Sergei. He was wounded with us while—”
Sergei stepped forward, gripped the man by the hair and lifted his face. The eyes stared forward sightlessly.
“He’s dead.” Sergei let go of the man’s hair and turned away. “Leave him and start gathering horses.”
The crowd stood unmoving, Sergei rushed them, tore the militiaman from their grasp, throwing his body into the mud. “Go,” he added in a quiet, even tone.
III
Seeking shelter from the storm, Natalya had crawled into the wrecked yurt. She thought her ankle was probably broken, but her hands were unhurt, so of course, she had picked up another rifle along the way.
Drenched and covered with mud, she worked her way back into the wreckage which included the ruins of the Sauron fighter. The interior of the yurt was liberally coated with a bizarre mix of red-washed bones, scattered body parts and pieces of weaponry—a mix, she realized, of the anti-aircraft mount and its crew, and the moment she was past it, she was violently ill. The sound of the storm outside was not so deafening inside and she was completely sheltered from the rain.
She knew that staying this close to the metal mass of the fighter was dangerous with all the lightning flashing outside, but she was simply too tired, cold, wet and miserable to care. Lavrenti was dead and she was certain that Papa and Nikolai had died in the attack. She wished she were dead, too.
In a few days, she thought, if the Saurons do not kill me outright, they will take me back to their Citadel as breeding stock. There would be plenty of time to cry then. For now, she wiped her face, pulled a blanket toward her and tried to get warm.
The blanket was pinned in the wreckage, so she shifted her position closer to its anchor point so she could get more of it about her shoulders. As she did, Natalya saw something moving in the dim light.
She gasped when she realized that swaying in midair was an arm, covered in blood that had dried much too fast. Natalya drew closer and saw a shoulder and a torso still strapped to an acceleration couch!
The top of a helmet, glossy black, was facing her; its wearer’s head tilted forward onto his chest. The rest of the pilot’s body was hidden in the wreckage, but it was clear to her that he was securely pinned there.
The helmet moved.
Thumbing the rifle selector to full automatic, she raised the weapon to her shoulder and centered its sights on the top of the helmet.
I will look him in the eyes, she decided. Let him see that I am only a girl—then I will kill him!
Slowly the head came up against the padded headrest, the bloody eyes fixed on nothing. The Sauron, she realized, was a ruin. She blinked.
A moment later, the pilot’s gaze roved across the interior of the shelter, the blue eyes finally meeting her own. As they focused, Natalya clenched her teeth and cried out: “Do svidanya Sauroniki.”
She began to squeeze the trigger, when she heard the pilot say, “….prokrassny…”
Natalya froze. She’d often been called pretty, but never by someone she’d been about to kill.
Chapter Fifteen
The briefing room was deathly quiet, the only sound was that of the wind howling past the shutters outside. Over-Assault Leader Bohren and Cyborg Rank Sargun stood frozen at attention before him.
First Citizen Diettinger was dealing with his first political disaster as leader of the Saurons on Haven.
Eighteen dead, he considered, reading the report a third and final time. Including two Cyborgs, in exchange for fifty-two female captives, seventy head of livestock, thirty-two horses and one hundred and ninety-three enemy dead. The rest of the horse nomads having fled to the north.
Diettinger remembered without conceit an official commendation he had received for never having lost a battle while he had been in command. He also remembered having told Althene that martial values were not social ones. He wondered if perhaps his new civilian career might p
resent him with a string of achievement such as this: a bitterly ironic mirror image of his military career.
Ah, well, he concluded, as he closed the datapad cover. One cannot, after all, do everything by one’s self. Even allowing for the astonishing level of firepower the Haveners had accumulated for their ambush, the colloquial term for Bohren’s level of error was unrecordable. He looked up at Over-Assault Leader Bohren, still standing at attention, meeting his gaze. Alongside Bohren stood Cyborg Rank Sargun, staring straight ahead.
“You are reduced to the ranks, Trooper Bohren, and restricted from combat duty until further notice.”
Bohren nodded, his face frozen into a grimace.
“Cyborg Rank Sargun.” He continued.
There was no reply.
“Cyborg Rank Sargun, “ Diettinger repeated with a tone that made First Lady Althene shiver.
“Sir.”
Diettinger glanced toward Cyborg Rank Köln, then back to Sargun. “In addition to direct disobedience of standing orders, resulting in the death of two Cyborgs under your direct command, you are now exhibiting contempt of your commander by your failure to address me as First Citizen.”
He watched as a muscle in Sargun’s jaw twitched and every sense went on alert. He continued speaking: “Cyborg Rank Köln, as commander of the Cyborg ranks here on Haven, I will consider recommendations from you as to the nature to disciplinary action in the matter of Cyborg Rank Sargun.”
Köln’s reply was immediate. “Eradication, First Citizen.”
Sargun’s lips parted, while his shoulders actually slumped.
Diettinger showed no reaction at all. “Agreed. Due to the scarcity of Cyborg ranks here on Haven, sentence to be commuted to personal sterilization and behavioral retraining, effective immediately. Report to Breedmaster Caius, Ranker Sargun. Dismissed.”
Sargun’s head trembled as he left the room but still, somehow, remembering to salute first.
“Permission to speak, First Citizen,” Althene asked quietly after the door closed.
“Denied,” Diettinger said shortly. “This meeting is adjourned.”
The rest of the staff filed out, leaving Diettinger alone with Althene and, she noticed, Cyborg Rank Köln, who was standing by the window staring out at the mountains.
When the last of them had left, Althene glanced at Köln, then addressed her husband: “First Citizen.”
Distracted from some thought, his gaze flickered to meet Althene’s. “Hmm? Oh yes, Althene. What is it?”
Althene’s eyes indicated Cyborg Rank Köln, but Diettinger gave no indication that there was any problem with his presence. “I should like to discuss the situation regarding the current action. May we consider this a closed meeting?”
Köln said nothing.
Diettinger nodded, saying, “If you wish.”
Althene collected her thoughts for a few moments, then began: “The fact that a well-organized force of local militia was present with these nomads, prepared for an ambush against our attack, indicates an ominous level of cooperation among the indigenous peoples which we have not weighed into our calculations.”
“To say nothing of excellent intelligence on their part,” he added. “Perhaps even a security leak in our own organization.”
Althene swallowed. “What!?” There had never been a Sauron traitor in any operation involving homogeneous Sauron forces throughout the entire history of the Race. The concept was, quite literally, a contradiction in terms. She wondered if the catastrophe had unbalanced her husband’s mind.
“What do you think, Cyborg Rank Köln?” Diettinger called across the room.
“The possibility warrants investigation, First Citizen.”
Althene was on her feet. “Galen. What is going on?”
There was a long moment when Althene felt she really didn’t know who she was, or where. But at the end of it, Galen rose from his chair to stand beside her, holding her gaze with his own.
Cyborg Rank Köln joined them, only saying, “It is almost certainly necessary that she be told.” With courtly grace, Köln bowed to Althene and excused himself with an almost elegant, “My Lady.”
Köln returned to the window, where he stood once more motionless as the peaks of the mountains he regarded.
Diettinger turned to Althene. “I once asked a young fighter pilot what we Saurons were. As a race. Do you know what? He couldn’t tell me.”
She watched and listened. In the past weeks, she’d sensed that a strange relationship had been growing between her husband and Cyborg Rank Köln. But Galen would not speak of it; she felt that she was about to learn its nature, at last.
“He wasn’t even able to voice an opinion, Althene. Utterly convinced that he was expected to know the right answer, he was incapable of even hazarding a guess. For that young Soldier, the problem was one of training. He had been educated, programmed, completely beyond any ability to exhibit intellectual initiative.”
Diettinger went to the wall with its map of the Shangri-La Valley and environs. “What sort of answer do you think we could expect to that question, were it asked of Cyborg Rank Köln?”
Althene considered a moment. “I believe Köln would have an answer, Galen. At last, as the question applied to Cyborgs.”
“And that answer would be?”
She shrugged, at a loss for words. After more consideration, she said, “Köln would consider us the ultimate fighting men, I suppose.”
Diettinger turned to her with a smile of triumph. “Exactly. And the tragedy, at least for Cyborg Rank Köln, and all the other Cyborgs, is that he is right.”
He crossed the room and sat beside her. “What we are, Althene, as a race, we are a people dedicated to the proposition that the value of the universe descends directly from the result of man’s ability to observe it. Without man, of what use is the universe? As the only creature in his experience with the ability to intellectually apprehend existence, man is the creature whose observation of the universe establishes all concepts of value, which he then applies to his observations of the universe as tests of their validity. As we exist, and are intellectually aware of such existence, it is our nature, even our obligation, to dominate the universe which we observed, both intellectually as well as physically.”
“Galen,” she interrupted, “this is primary school indoctrination, basic philosophy as taught to every four-year-old Sauron child—”
Diettinger continued, seeming not to hear her. “So, as a man is the measure of the universe; he is obligated to achieve a state of intellectual, physical and spiritual evolution commensurate with that responsibility. That is the basic premise behind the Sauron practice of eugenics. That is also the answer to your question: ‘What are we?’ which that young fighter pilot could not answer. We are the guardians of the ongoing effort to make man worthy of his obligation—and his heritage—as master of his own destiny and the universe in which it will unfold.”
He was quiet for a few moments, waiting for some comment from Althene. When none was forthcoming, he continued, “So Cyborg Rank Köln would be right. He and the rest of his species are, indeed the ultimate fighting men. And, insofar, as mastering the chaos of war allows us, as Saurons, to master the universe, he is right.”
“But martial values are not social ones,” Althene responded.
Diettinger nodded. “What many Saurons—and virtually all human norms—have forgotten is that warfare is only a means to an end. A race such as ours, that masters war, has mastered only a small part of the fabric of human destiny. An important one to be sure, as such mastery teaches—or should teach—discipline in the face of chaos, the value of sacrifice, the wastefulness of suffering and the value of human life, human norm or Sauron. Those are all lessons to be applied to the full range of human experience. But a species which can only fight, no matter how well, has no capacity for growth.”
Understanding at last, Althene turned to Köln. “Do you agree with such an assessment, Cyborg Rank Köln?”
Köln
turned to her. “The logic is irrefutable, Lady Althene. It has been said that ‘Cyborgs only exist to fight, and they fight like nothing else in the universe.’ The second part of the phrase is pure hyperbole. The first is the more telling; it is, in fact, a pronouncement of doom.”
“And as a result you have no wish to usurp the First Citizen’s authority?”
“Of course, I do, my Lady. As does every other Cyborg. By our nature”—he glanced at the First Citizen—“we are incapable of anything else.”
Althene turned to her husband, who only nodded.
“And what would happen in such a conflict, Köln?” Diettinger asked.
“The Cyborgs would win.”
“And then?”
“We would attack the Haveners.”
“And win?”
“Every battle we fought.”
“Until?”
Althene joined in. “Until there were no more Cyborgs left.”
“Precisely, my Lady,” Köln said quietly.
“But, knowing this, why—”
Köln shook his head, and for the first time, Althene recognized the underlying emotion that suffused every Cyborg she had ever seen: Fatalism.
“War is the only thing we know, my Lady.”
“The Cyborgs are the ultimate achievement of human genetic engineering,” Diettinger explained. “The operative word in that sentence being ‘ultimate.’ They are as perfect warriors as it is humanly possible to create. But they are only the products of a few dozen generations of human ingenuity and imagination. They are no match for the continuously evolving states of existence which humanity must face as it spreads throughout the universe. They are, by definition, limited. And thus, they are an evolutionary dead-end.”
“Then, what about the preservation of the Cyborg genotype?” Althene began.
“It is, as I always have said: critical,” Diettinger answered. “Just as it is critical that we maintain a technological advantage in weaponry superior to that which is available to the indigenes here on Haven. As knowledge must be retained regarding modern combat tactics, literacy, printing, the arts—and indoor plumbing. The Cyborg population here on Haven, like that of the Soldiers, must be carefully guided, perpetuated—”