by B. V. Larson
“Please don’t play the fool any longer,” she said. “I don’t know why you bother. Does it bring you some kind of pleasure?”
“Just explain the problem, as you see it.”
She shrugged and paced. “You. You are the problem.”
Now, I can attest that any number of women had told me that. It was practically a mantra for a girlfriend of mine around about the fifth week of dating. But in this case, I was baffled by Gytha’s meaning.
Accordingly, I sat quietly until she explained it to me.
She heaved a sigh. “You can’t lose the battle,” she said. “Maybe you honestly don’t realize that. You must win—Varus must win. But at the same time, Germanica must win. It’s an impossible situation.”
“Uh…” I said. “Because I’m Earth’s leader?”
“Exactly. You really don’t understand? Are Earthers so very different? My people won’t follow a loser. They all know who you are—they’re not fooled. So, if Germanica wins, that means you must personally die in this arena along with all of Varus. The Blood World populace will have just witnessed Earth’s warlord perishing. They’ll never follow Earth after that.”
“Ah…” I said, beginning to catch on. She meant I really was the problem—or rather, the Blood Worlder perception of me was at the core of it.
I had to admit, I’d been pretty heroic over the last couple of days. If they were keen on me, watching me lose might be hard to take.
“Well then, Germanica can’t be allowed to win.”
“Precisely. Damned if you win and damned if you don’t. What I don’t understand is why you’re not fighting in Legion Germanica. Why is that?”
“Uh… history. Tradition,” I said.
She shook her head. “That’s a pathetic reason to lose a planet.”
There was clearly something about this situation I wasn’t getting. Wracking my brain, I tried to figure out how to get her to reveal it to me without revealing anything in return.
Gytha looked me over thoughtfully. “I can see this took you by surprise. I can only surmise that you planned to throw the last fight as Varus, and you didn’t understand how that would impact our viewers.”
“Right…”
“It’s all coming clear to me now,” she said. “You thought you could fool us. You thought you could hide your true identity until the very end. The Warlord of Humanity participating and losing—because you thought we were stupid. That we wouldn’t recognize you for what you so obviously are.”
“Um… thanks for the compliments.”
“None are necessary. But now at least, I think you understand our difficulties. Germanica fights for Earth. Varus fights for Rigel. Such a strange twist of fate…”
Gytha was wistful, almost dreamy. She looked quite enticing in the dying light of the sun. We’d talked so long the big orange fireball that lit this planet by day had sunk over crater’s rim.
But I wasn’t in a dreamy mood. Not at all. Something she’d said… Varus fought for Rigel?
“Rigel…” I said. “Do you know why they wouldn’t come here and fight for themselves? On the field of honor?”
She looked at me sharply. “Of course they wouldn’t. That’s not their way. They’re the opposite of Earth men. Earth hires out her best to war for others. Rigel is fantastically rich, and they believe in hiring others to fight for them.”
All of a sudden, I felt a little sick. My gut was falling away from me.
I knew my legion. I knew Earth. I knew all my masters, and how they thought.
They loved money. Big money. And when a diplomat of Earth saw money, they would do almost anything to get it instead of a war.
So that was it. Varus had sold out, not Germanica. I’d had the wrong idea all along.
And that was why Gytha had said Earth could not win this contest, that no path led from here to Blood World joining us.
If Legion Varus lost this battle I was in the midst of right now, it would mean that Legion Varus had been eliminated. As I was Varus’ hero—and supposedly the champion of all Earth—that wouldn’t sit well with Blood Worlders. They wouldn’t go along with it.
On the other hand, if Varus won this round and lost the next, then the same problem would apply. They’d have to watch me lose.
Finally, if Varus won every round to the top, it would still be a disaster, because Varus had sold out to the Rigellians—whoever the hell they were.
We’d reached an impasse. I couldn’t think of a way for Earth to win this struggle, even though it seemed that Gytha was rooting for us now.
“How about this,” I said. “Let’s end the current struggle, play it out, and we’ll see if I can figure a way out of our PR problems in the final round.”
Gytha frowned at me, not quite getting it.
“So… you want to continue fighting? It seems kind of pointless.”
“Well, you guys made up the rules. To the death, and all that.”
“Yes…” she said, looking dejected.
“Uh… you don’t have revival machines on this planet, do you?”
“No,” she said, not meeting my eye. “But you have the upper hand now. The Vulbites can’t face you without stealth—it will be no contest.”
Advancing into the pit, I took slow, careful steps. The gremlins didn’t like it. They circled around like small, bristling dogs. I didn’t care, as they had no charged needles to stick me with. They appeared to be here just to help fit the Vulbites with stealth gear.
“Gytha,” I said, “I like you, and I don’t want to see you get permed.”
She eyed me, looking up at last.
“What can be done?”
Reaching out both hands, I grasped her shoulders firmly. She looked a little shocked.
“Listen,” I said. “I know you don’t like to cheat. You have your honor to think about—but you should run out of this crater. Just do it wearing a stealth suit. The Blood Worlders will never know.”
“Are you going to harm me?” she asked, looking at my hands. “In the middle of a truce? What despicable beings you—”
“No, no,” I said. “I’m just demonstrating that I like you.”
This technique had worked before on Floramel when I’d first met her. Their kind only touched when they were considering mating or violence. I was hoping it would fluster her and get her to think outside the box.
“You assail my person, and yet council that I flee? Ah! I understand! You want sex.”
“Um…”
“I’ve been approached like this upon occasion, but never by a basic. You behave more like one of our slavers.”
I dropped my hands back to my sides. “I want you to survive the day.”
“I understand, but it can’t be. I won’t dishonor myself by slinking from the field of battle.”
I laughed, earning myself a quick frown.
“You’ve been cheating all along!” I jeered at her. “You aren’t supposed to be down here in this pit, distributing tech to these centipedes. What difference will it make if you sneak out? Even if you’d won, there wouldn’t have been any honor in it.”
She looked at the sands. It was getting dark now, and the sky had turned purple.
“Your words hurt me more than you can know. I will go—ashamed.”
“Aw now,” I said, worried I’d overdone it. I’d only wanted her to save herself. “I’m sorry if you feel shame.
Humans—basics I mean—we can be callous.”
Gytha gave me a dark look. “Then know that we, too, can be heartless.”
I believed her.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” I told her. “I’m going to walk out of here. In ten minutes, we’re clearing out the rest of the Vulbites. If you’re still standing here, well, I guess you’ve made your choice.”
After this pronouncement, I walked out of her camp. A few gremlins skittered along behind me for a time, but they soon vanished into the night.
After a long walk back to our lines, I sought out Gr
aves. He came up to me with his arms crossed and his face flattened into a grimace.
“There you are. Did you have a nice date, McGill?”
“I’ve had better,” I said. “She’s giving up, by the way.”
After I explained the situation, Graves ordered the legion to advance. I tried to slow him down, but it had been about ten minutes by then anyway. I wondered what Gytha had decided to do.
Hours of methodical fighting ensued—if you could call it fighting. It was more of an organized slaughter. We marched, burned Vulbites, and kept advancing. After a while, they didn’t even have stealth suits anymore. Maybe they’d run out.
It took until dawn bled into the skies overhead. Weary, I checked the dead.
There were no humans among them, unless you counted a handful of gremlins. Apparently, self-preservation had won out in the end.
Gytha had fled.
-50-
Dead tired, we returned to the lifter and rode up toward Nostrum in orbit. The strange planet we knew as Blood World was stretched out below us.
I tuned my tapper into the ship’s external cameras. Looking down at the planet, I figured nothing in my experience had come closer to Hell than this place.
The lifter slid around the planet, rising up and slipping back into darkness. The edge of dawn fell far away and behind our relatively small ship.
After staring down for a time at their dull city lights, strewn in patches over the globe, I realized something: most of their cities had one or more jagged holes in the middle of them.
The crater we’d been doing battle within was just one such example. We hadn’t been fighting in the wilderness—it’d been smack-dab in the middle of one of their torn-up population centers.
“Fusion bombs,” I said, looking at the evidence and yawning. “Too small for anti-matter. Must be fusion.”
“What are you talking about, McGill?” Carlos asked me.
I turned to him, mildly surprised to see him alive. Most of my unit had died down there this time around.
After explaining what I was looking at, I shared the feed. Carlos whistled.
“You’re right. So many blasted cities… No wonder the radiation levels were high—it must have happened years ago, but still…”
“What I don’t get is how living plants can grow down there in those hotspots. Wouldn’t they die?”
We were baffled by these questions until we got back to Nostrum. Once there, I looked up Kivi. She’d been revived and was back to work in the labs.
“It’s been years since those bombs were dropped on their cities,” she told me. “I’d say the hotspots have had time to cool. Hiroshima was only radioactive for a few weeks, remember.”
“Years, huh? I guess it wasn’t us who blew them up, then. Who did it?”
“We don’t know. This is the frontier—it’s pretty rough out here among these stars, past the fringe of the Empire. The Cephalopods have been in plenty of wars before they faced us.”
That reminded me of something Graves had told me long ago. I went to his office, and when he arrived, I looked at him through half-closed eyes.
“McGill?” he asked. “What are you doing here? You should be on your bunk. We’ve got another battle to fight tomorrow—one last round and this will all be over.”
Before explaining to him that we were in a bad way as far as winning the contest went, I asked him about the Blood Worlder cities.
“We’re not sure who did it,” he said. “The Blood Worlders aren’t talking—I don’t think they trust us. They’re isolated and paranoid.”
“With good reason.”
“Huh… I guess so.”
“This is what you meant, sir, isn’t it? When you told me how I shouldn’t wish for the Empire to end too soon?”
He looked at me seriously. “You remember that, do you? Your own shoe size is probably a mystery, but not that comment I made years ago?”
“The fringe of the fringe,” I said, using his desk to look at the stars and the reddish-brown planet below us. “That’s what Earth is. This place—this is past the fringe. We’re into the frontier. Where one species can war with another without any fear of repercussions.”
“That’s right. A galaxy where anything goes. Do you like it?”
I shook my head slowly. “I can’t say that I do, sir.”
“Now you know why I’ve fought for the Empire for nearly a century. I don’t like the Galactics. I don’t even like the hogs who run Earth—but this is the alternative.”
Startled, I glanced over at him at the mention of fighting for a century. Could it be? Varus had been founded in 2076… Had Graves really signed up with this legion back then? That was almost ninety long years ago. No wonder he shrugged off each revive like a bad night’s sleep.
“The good news just keeps coming, sir,” I said, then I launched into my explanation of our predicament.
At first he stared, and then he frowned. By the time I was done, he was glowering in a sour rage.
“We’ve been duped. I can’t believe it—no, that’s not true. I do believe it. We’ve got to talk to Winslade.”
“Uh… he might not be too keen on meeting up with me again.”
“I’m sure he won’t be. But this is big.”
Walking across Gold Deck to Winslade’s office, which had formerly been Deech’s office, we touched the door—but it didn’t open. We rapped politely after that—still nothing.
MPs came trotting up behind us about twenty seconds later. We slowly dropped our sidearms and raised our hands.
The moment we’d been disarmed, the door popped open. Winslade came out like a skunk out of a hole.
“Well, well, well,” he said, “to what do I owe this dishonor?”
“We won your battle for you, Winslade,” Graves said. “You owe us a moment to talk.”
“Really? Do I? I was thinking more along the lines of a stint in the stockade, or possibly a quick execution until your fates might be decided later on Earth.”
“You don’t want to do that,” Graves told him.
“You’re wrong. I very much want to do that.”
“We can’t win tomorrow,” I said. “I talked to Gytha personally.”
“I saw that via the drone cameras. I shuddered when you grabbed that poor girl. Really, you should be prosecuted for taking such liberties.”
“But you couldn’t hear what I was saying,” I pointed out. “Aren’t you a little curious? Aren’t you wondering why we came here together and gave ourselves up so easily?”
The left corner of Winslade’s mouth twitched. I’d introduced doubt into his mind, and I could tell he didn’t appreciate it.
“Tell me your latest lie, McGill,” he said in a weary tone. “I can see that it’s burning to get out of your mouth.”
“Not out here,” I said, nodding toward the unsmiling MPs. “Let’s go inside where we can talk plainly.”
Sighing, he stepped aside. A pistol was in his hand, and he waved it at us. We moved into the office and the door snicked shut.
“Don’t try anything,” he said, pointing toward his desk.
Something sleek and black squatted there. Surprised, I saw an automated turret on a tripod had been set up and activated.
“That’s a safety violation,” Graves complained.
Winslade found this amusing. “Is it really? I’ll be sure to file a report at Central when we reach home. In the meantime, I’d recommend that neither of you make any sudden movements.”
We shuffled, moving almost in slow motion as we found seats. I leaned back in my chair, and the turret twitched each time I rocked back and forth in it.
“Now, make it quick,” Winslade said. “I’m preparing to meet Armel on the field of honor.”
“We know all about that—we know that Varus is supposed to lose.”
He looked at each of us in turn. His eyes slid rapidly back and forth, until he was satisfied.
“I see,” he said. “This is disgusting. This legion h
as no security at all. Nothing is sacred. Who ratted out the plan?”
As he said this, he put his pistol down and sat behind the desk. I frowned, as I wasn’t quite understanding what was going on.
“Um…” I said, “So you’re not part of some kind of coup?”
“Not, not really. It was all a show.”
“Where’s Deech then?” Graves demanded.
He shrugged. “She’s alive and well on Armel’s ship.”
My mouth sagged low.
“What?” I demanded. “That’s impossible! I—”
“You know nothing,” he said. “Before we left Earth, Central hatched a plot to win this struggle for Blood World’s support. Two legions would enter the contest, and no matter which one won the fight, we’d be awarded the prize.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “We know about that. Why did you and Claver kill Deech?”
“That was a hasty alteration of the original plan. Once both legions began to win their battles, we realized we’d made a mistake. We couldn’t allow both to reach the final contest. By killing Deech, it was surmised Varus would lose—but we didn’t.”
“That’s right,” I said. “We won against all of y’all!”
I slapped my hand on his desk, and the turret stuttered, lighting up.
“Oh…” I said, sitting back slowly. “I forgot.”
“No, no! By all means, make more aggressive displays, McGill.”
I sat still, and the turret went back to slowly rotating and scanning the room.
“Varus was calculated to be the less effective legion,” Winslade said. “It was decided that Germanica should win in the end. Varus was only a failsafe from the beginning. So, Deech was killed and revived aboard Armel’s ship with legion Germanica.”
“You killed me, too.”
He shrugged. “You got in the way. In any case, we couldn’t just transfer her over there via a shuttle. The Blood Worlders are watching closely. Death and revival was an expedient to move Deech. By now, she’s been briefed and is doubtlessly giving them any information she can to defeat us in the final battle.”
“Such a carefully laid plan,” Graves said wistfully. “Too complex, too twisted—it was bound to go wrong in the end.”