by Joe Pace
“A small matter,” dismissed Exeter. “You think I cannot make and unmake officers at my pleasure? I am prepared to reinstate you, Pearce, at the rank of Commander for the purposes of this mission. With…” his voice rose to drown out Pearce’s attempted protests, “…with promotion to Post-Captain upon your successful return.” Pearce blinked. It was tortuous, having the stuff of his dreams dangled before him, blockaded by the stuff of his nightmares.
“No,” he managed, somehow. “Please, there must be someone else.”
“There is not,” Exeter barked, his lidded eyes now bearing a tinge of disappointment. “And I was made to believe you were a sterner creature.”
“We were not there, my friend,” murmured Banks, placating, his arm sliding protectively around Pearce’s shoulder. “William,” he said, and Pearce looked up, surprised by the use of his first name, as though he were the social equal of this noble giant seated next to him. “We do not ask this lightly. But if the future of humanity cannot move you, will you consider a more…personal motivation?” He touched the pad he held, which he had used for his presentation moments before, and it illuminated again. A picture came into focus, of James.
The bastards, Pearce thought.
“His illness can be cured,” Banks said soothingly, as if he were not engaged in overt emotional blackmail. “A grateful Empire can arrange just about anything.”
****
“Lieutenant.”
The whisper in his ear was urgent, the gravelly voice familiar. His eyes opened at once, with a star-mariner’s penchant for coming swiftly from deep sleep to instant wakefulness. It was just before dawn, a time he had never truly experienced before coming to Cygnus. He had developed affection for it in the weeks since their arrival. It was quiet, among other things, and he had never known quiet, either on Earth or on board ship. The grayness that lingered ahead of the rising sun had a texture to it, a near-tangibility that did not exist in the artificial light of apartments or corridors or city streets at home, where it was either bright or dark, with no in-between.
Formlessness faded, and from the gloom came features that Pearce knew, and from them a whisper.
“Quickly. Quietly.” It was Venn Arkadas. Pearce began to ask a question, but stopped when Arkadas placed a hand over his own mouth and shook his head. He swiftly pulled on his uniform shirt and pants. Whatever was afoot, it must be grave. Arkadas wore the usual brown jacket and trousers of the intellectual caste, but beneath a voluminous black cape, and his always impeccably coiffed white hair was hanging loose about his shoulders.
Pearce found his boots, shoved his feet into them, and stared intently at him while strapping his standard-issue hand laser to his hip. This was Arkadas’ house, here on the edge of town, not too far from the promontory where the Drake encampment was. Arkadas had been Pearce’s host, and had become his friend, teaching him the tongue and folkways of the local Cygni. It was Arkadas who had explained, at length, the ongoing feuds between the intellectual, military, and religious castes that made Cygni politics unstable and volatile. I can trust him, Pearce thought.
It was then that Pearce heard the first screams.
He was on his feet, heading for the main room of the house and the front door there, when Arkadas grabbed his arm, shaking his head again, furiously. No, he mouthed, and moved instead to the rear of the room, where there was a door leading into the back alley. Pearce followed, hearing again the sound of screaming, only it was different now, no longer human. It was the sound of the karabin, the strange Cygni weapon Pearce had seen at a staged demonstration weeks before. There was no crack like the ancient guns of Earth, nor the smooth whine of the pulse rifles the Royal Machrines used. Instead, there was a hiss followed by a terrifying sound, like the cry of a bird of prey, as the firearm expelled not a projectile but a column of rushing air that struck with murderous force. The technology involved was simple, barely industrial, and deadly.
Pearce hurried along the alley with Arkadas until they reached a small plaza that looked out and up at the Drake’s base. Point Friendship, they had called it, and the name had been fitting for the month that the explorers from the United Kingdom of Earth had been ashore. Captain Baker had conducted yet another successful first contact, establishing the beginnings of a relationship, with a world rich in natural resources that had long since become scare on Earth. Wood, water, foodstuffs, minerals; Cygnus appeared abundant in all of these, and a prime prospect for a long-lasting and mutually beneficial trade partnership.
Now, less than a kilometer from the Drake’s shuttle, Pearce saw open conflict. The telltale white arcs of pulse fire lit the gray stillness of the predawn sky, and from the sounds that carried with eerie clarity, found their marks. Much nearer, the sound of booted feet striking the flat-stoned streets approached, and Pearce flattened himself against the wall of Arakadas’ house, pinning the Cygni scholar behind him in the shadows. A column of blue-jacketed Cygni soldiers ran past the mouth of the alley, curved wood-and-iron karabins on their shoulders. Pearce held his breath, counting at least twenty of them before they were gone, headed toward whatever was happening at Point Friendship. Seizing his friend by the collar, Pearce leaned in so that his mouth was scant centimeters from his ear, and hissed his question.
“What the hell is happening?”
“The clergy,” whispered Arkadas, and Pearce could see the tears that were spilling from his eyes, eyes that were the crystalline blue of so many Cygni males. “Since you arrived, their leadership has been claiming that you are only here to plunder us, that you are conquerors from the stars, and we must repel you now if we are to survive.” Pearce did not even bother to argue the inherent foolishness of the assertion. He and Arkadas had spoken too many times of the clergy’s distrust of Captain Baker. Only the military’s coalition with the intellectuals had secured the government’s welcoming attitude toward the Earthers.
“Have they seized control?” Pearce asked, urgently, and Arkadas nodded.
“The military have gone over to their side.”
Then it was no good, Pearce knew. The light garrison at the encampment would have been taken totally by surprise, and despite their technological advantage, they would be hard pressed. That, and Pearce knew he was not the only officer of the Drake ashore in town, staying with a generous host.
Captain Baker, he thought.
Pearce released Arkadas and reached for his sidearm, turning it on. He felt the warm cycling of the laser spool inside the grip, and tried to think back to his training. He had never fired it at a live soul before.
“Will you be all right?” he asked.
“Maybe.” Arkadas shrugged. “When the coalitions shift, anything is possible. Who knows what the day may bring. But I am in no immediate danger.”
“That makes one of us. Goodbye, my friend. I do not think we will meet again.”
Pearce left the alley, darting from shadow to shadow across the plaza, wishing his footsteps could be quieter. He expected each moment to be his last, to hear that awful hiss before the karabin struck, but his luck held. At one point, he turned back to catch one last glimpse of Arkadas, but the Cygni was gone. A moment later, Pearce reached the last small building at the edge of the plaza. Perhaps a hundred yards of open ground lay between him and the shuttle, and the slowly rising sun cast its new rays on a scene that would chill him forever. The shuttle sat, as it always did, in front of a small clutch of outbuildings the Drake’s crew had erected as part of the camp. A crowd of blue jackets surrounded the small ship, forming a swarming mass held at bay, as far as he could tell, by ten Machrines and a handful of able starmen.
Thank God the karabins take so long to reload their air chambers, Pearce thought, or they’d all be dead already. Arkadas had once told him that Cygni soldiers were trained to fire their karabin, taking advantage of the fear-inspiring sound as well as the deadly force, and then to engage in close combat with the short, iron-clad clubs they carried as well.
; Pearce saw a smaller cluster, a bit farther away. A tall figure was standing erect, firing with a hand laser like his own, while two Machrines methodically cleared a path ahead of them, trying to gain the encampment. It was Captain Baker, fighting her way back to her ship. Gritting his teeth, Pearce bolted toward them, and in moments was at her side.
“Good to see you, Lieutenant,” she greeted, and Pearce was struck by her casual tone, as if they had met up on a hillside picking berries. Did nothing ever faze this woman? Coolly, she sighted her weapon and fired over his shoulder. A cry told Pearce she had hit her target, and he whirled around to find that more Cygni soldiers were still coming. Without thinking, he fired as well, and at that moment the sunrise began to blaze in full, and he saw clearly as his beam caught one of the blue-jackets squarely in the chest. It was the first time he had killed anyone, but there was no time to dwell on that.
“Come on,” Baker was saying, and she pulled on Pearce’s arm. “I think we’re the last two stragglers. When we get to the shuttle we can get back to the ship, and maybe I can figure out how to negotiate a ceasefire.” She met his gaze, and for the first time, Pearce saw sadness there, and weakness. “I don’t want to kill any more of these people than we have to, Lieutenant.”
Despite her statement she fired again, killing another onrushing Cygni soldier. Together, with the two robot Machrines before them, Baker and Pearce pushed forward. Somehow, they managed to find a seam in the crowd surrounding the shuttle, and Pearce was suddenly among the ables. One of them, Arash el-Barzin, grinned at him and fired into the blue crowd.
“Welcome back, sir.” Pearce never forgot the way that smile melted off el-Barzin’s face like hot wax, becoming, in an instant, a mask of utter horror. Turning, he saw what his shipmate had seen. Captain Baker had been struck in the back by a karabin, and stumbled to one knee. One of the Machrines, Pearce thought it was one of the Alexander models, was by her side, trying to shield her from the blows that were raining down upon her, with limited success. He began to race back toward her, but el-Barzin seized his shoulder, holding him back. One of the clubs had struck her in the back of the head, and she was sprawled on the ground, unmoving. A cry ripped from his throat, but Pearce was being dragged backward, into the shuttle’s open cargo door, by el-Barzin and another crewman.
“Fall back!” el-Barzin was shouting, though he was not in command. Somewhere in his mind, Pearce realized that he was the ranking officer on the ground, but his mind was frozen, watching as the Cygni left off their clubbing of the broken and lifeless Captain Baker. Their attention had turned to the unfortunate Machrine that had tried so valiantly to rescue the captain. Pearce could see the designation-badge, dented and scraped. Alexander-457. Its arms hung loose from its shoulders, connected by sparking cables, light flickering in those white, inhuman eye slots, as the sound of metal on metal rang with each strike. In the instant before the shuttle doors closed, those eyes and that plasticene face locked onto Pearce, and he swore that he saw in them agony, pleading, and even fear.
“Bill!”
It took long minutes for Pearce to realize that he was on Earth, in his own bed, and his wife was gripping both shoulders, shaking him awake. He looked at her and tried to focus on her face as the nightmarish images of Cygnus slowly receded.
“I’m all right,” he croaked, finally. “Just a bad dream.”
“A bad dream,” Mary repeated. “About that planet.”
Pearce thought about lying to her, if only to make her feel better, but knew he couldn’t fool her. He nodded. She released her hold on him and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Mary, it was a just a dream.”
“A nightmare.”
“Fine.” He closed his eyes, exhausted. “Have it your way. A nightmare.”
“And that’s where the Minister wants you to go. Back to the place that’s given you nightmares for more than ten years. You’re soaked through with sweat, Billy.”
“They’ve been getting better.” It was the truth, sort of. Pearce didn’t have the heart to tell her that he only had the dreams when he was home, when he slept here. Somehow, illogically, the nightmares never seemed to find him on board ship, and he’d been there a lot lately.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
He left her there, next to the swamp his sweat had made, and shuffled into the bathroom. As the hot water cycled in the shower stall, he rubbed his hands over his face. It had been so vivid, so real, especially the part about the Machrine. Usually he woke filled with renewed grief about Baker’s death, guilt over his inability to save her, but this time it was the destruction of the robot he couldn’t shake. It didn’t make any sense. Machrines were programmed to serve, to fight, and if necessary, be destroyed. They had no concept of their own disposability and possessed no sense of self or identity beyond what was needed to function as part of their unit. Their programming allowed them to display what appeared to be courage, but how could there be true bravery if there was not also fear? The shower had reached the ideal temperature, and he stepped in. He knew he would be limited to the allotted five minutes, and that this meant he would get no shower in the morning, but it was worth it as the sweat and salt sluiced from his skin.
Pearce knew better than to succumb to maudlin anthropomorphizing of the robots. They were machines, not men. The roboticists of the Bailey Institute kept improving their designs, giving their creations personality, humor, and other traits that made for collegial deep-space companions, but they had not yet given them humanity. And they never could. Robotics operated under the well-known axiom of Positronic Horizon Theory, which stipulated that artificial intelligence, however sophisticated, could mimic sentience but could never truly achieve it. The Theory was well-known because it was well-publicized, in an effort to minimize any resentment or fear people might feel toward the mechanical men. Robots could never be self-aware, could never exceed their programming, and so could never be a threat to humans.
Even their usefulness was limited. They were, and could only be, Machrines. Pearce had heard once that a clever marketing consultant had suggested that name, since the robots were designed to replace human Marines as the Admiralty’s fighting corps. Machines + Marines = Machrines. They were useless as starmen, unable to reef, nor hand, nor steer. They lacked, by design and by nature, the instinct or creativity to work a ship.
Pearce knew all of that, and had served alongside Machrines with little or no reflection on the matter. They were tools, like a hydraulic jack or a sonic wrench, to be activated at need and then put away when finished. Still, the dying light in Alexander-457’s optics haunted him. His thoughts turned to Venn Arkadas. Had the scholar survived the military junta of twelve years before? How many political upheavals had there been since? Most importantly, who held power there now?
With a quiet hiss, the stream of water died away, and Pearce took a towel from the stack nearby. He had to go back. How could he not? Banks and Exeter hadn’t really given him the option to turn the job down. Tossing the now-damp towel into a basket, he pulled on a pair of shorts and turned off the bathroom light. A faint glow came from the bedroom, and he could see the outline of his wife sitting up in the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, where she hugged them like a child.
“Mary, go back to sleep,” he said, with no real conviction.
“You’re going to go.” It wasn’t a question, not really. Pearce sighed and sat at her feet, finding her eyes with his own.
“What would you have me do? Yes, I promised you I would stay. I think you can admit things have changed a bit since then.”
“I’m not angry,” she said softly, with the ghost of a smile on her lips. “And how could I ever hold you to a promise at such a cost?” She reached for his hand and took it, staring at their intertwining white fingers, gray in the shadows cast from the small bedside lamp.
“They could find someone else,” Pearce offered. “There are other star-mariners.” She shook her head.
> “No. They want you because you’re their best choice, and by no small margin. You speak the language, you’ve been there before, you have all that deep-space experience.” A laugh burst from Pearce’s throat.
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
“Well,” she replied, with a slight blush on her cheeks, “did you think all the Duchess did was show me the house?”
“Hmph,” snorted Pearce in mock indignation. “They’re using you to get to me, too, it seems.”
“Yes. And James.”
“And James.”
“That’s why it has to be you, Bill.” Mary’s eyes shone from the dark of her face in the half-light. “Not only are you the best choice for them, you’re the only chance for James.”
Save the world, and your son with it.
“Talk to him,” she continued. “He’s not a little boy anymore. And…and it might be your last chance.”
Pearce stood, squeezed Mary’s hand, and let it fall. Wordlessly, he walked down the hall to James’ room, where he paused, his hand poised over the access button next to the closed door. When did this door start being shut? He couldn’t remember. It had always been open at first, when James was an infant, and then after the diagnosis. Pearce loved his son, but realized all of a sudden that he did not really know him. He tried to convince himself that his love was real and tangible, not an abstract thing, but it was harder than he liked. When he thought of James, and he did often, he thought of him as a newborn, asleep in his crib, all promise and potential and as-yet undiagnosed with a fatal disease. Or he thought of him as a toddler, still healthy-seeming, still round-cheeked, before they grew gaunt and hollow. He never really thought, it occurred to him, of his son as a person in his own right, with thoughts and feelings and brutally truncated dreams.
What would it be like to know the limit of your years? Now James knew the truth of his condition; medicines and doctors and unremitting discomfort were not inconveniences, but his own death, steadily stalking him since before his own birth. Pearce had faced death before, on Cygnus, during stellar storms, and once during a cargo dispute that got nasty at The Exchange. He had been aware every time that he might die, but it was always only one possible outcome, and he had always known that it could be avoided if he were tough enough, smart enough, lucky enough. He had never regarded death as a certainty.