Children No More-ARC

by Mark L. Van Name

  We stood at attention on the hot sand, staring at the rock wall less than a third of a meter in front of us as Benny talked from somewhere behind us.

  "Anger can make you stronger," he said, "but only for a short time. Your body fills with adrenaline, your breathing accelerates, your heart beats faster, and in no time at all you are spent, useless. To win, you have to fight with purpose and a plan and under control, even when circumstances change on you. Yield to your anger, and anyone who is calm has only to outlast you." I heard his makeshift cart scrape in the sand. "Turn around," he said.

  We did.

  Benny faced us from four meters away, Bob to his left and halfway between him and us. His eyes swept up and down our rank.

  My entire body ached. Even though someone—I didn't know which of the other guys it was—had choked me to brief sleep, my heart pounded, my breaths came fast and shallow, my body thrummed with twitchy excess energy, and my mouth tasted tangy and sharp. Through it all cut my anger, still there, still strong. "It wasn't fair," I said. "You didn't warn us the others would attack us. It was just supposed to be another bag drill."

  "Fair?" Benny said. "If you wanted fair, you should have been born perfect and on another planet. Do any of us look like we got a fair chance at life?" He rolled a little closer. "More to the point, do you think the soldiers we're going to attack will play fair? Or believe we're being fair in trying to knock them out and hijack their ship? Does anything about any of this strike you as fair?"

  "No," I said.

  "Excuse me!" Benny said.

  "Sir, no, sir," I said, by reflex standing straighter and looking only forward.

  "Good," he said, "because I'd hate to think your supposed healer sister left you that stupid. I mean, I've seen some stupid people before, and I've seen some stupid beliefs, but that would really be a record. That might even mean she'd lied to you, never healed you, knocked you out, had a few laughs—"

  I glared down at him. "You need to stop that," I said. "I don't care what you say about me, but Jennie is better than you, better than any of this, and you don't have the right to talk about her that way."

  "I don't have the right?" Benny said, his voice rising. "Look at me. I'm stuck on this piece-of-crap island with you defectives and idiots all because I have these—" he raised all four flippers "—instead of proper hands and feet. Meanwhile, your oh-so-perfect sister is flying around in government ships partying with rich people and laughing with them at the moron she left behind."

  I balled my fists and struggled to control myself, tried to stay quiet, but the words spilled out anyway. "You shut up! She is a good person, and she loves me. I know she does."

  He laughed. "Loves you? Like anyone could love you, a useless, big, dumb piece of human garbage so without value that she told them to toss you onto this trash heap as soon as she could grab a ride away." He stared straight at me. "She never loved you. All she ever loved was herself and the government's money and the chance to get away from the one thing holding her back: you."

  I screamed and launched myself at him, but Bob stepped in the way and the others jumped on me and I fell and still I screamed. I hit the sand, and the impact knocked some of the air out of me, and still I screamed. I could see only red and black as I reached out and tried to pull myself forward so I could make him stop, so he wouldn't keep saying those things. Even with the others holding me back, I managed to crawl forward half a meter before I sagged into the sand, unable to move, people pulling on both of my arms, my body and my legs pinned to the ground.

  My vision cleared. I blinked a few times to help myself focus.

  Benny was still over a meter away. He shook his head, rolled closer, and slapped me across the face.

  I barely felt it. It was as if that last push had pulled some plug in me and everything had drained out of me, all energy gone, all drive vanished, leaving only shakiness, a stronger bad taste in my mouth, and an overwhelming sadness.

  He slapped me again. Staring into my eyes, he said, "Do you see how easy it was for me to make you lose control?" When I didn't respond, he continued. "I didn't have to hit you. I didn't even have to be a serious threat to you. All I had to do was talk, just speak to you, and you lost control."

  "You were mean," I said, tears burning my eyes.

  He slapped me a third time, harder than before. "No tears!" he said. "Don't you give in to that weakness! Don't you ever for a second think you have that luxury. You either learn to be strong, or you will die. Period." He paused until I was looking at him again. "Yes, I was mean. I was trying to provoke you, and I succeeded. Do you think those soldiers we're going to attack will be nice to you? When we're fighting to subdue them, when we're taking our one chance to get off this island, do you think we're going to get to be nice to them? No! We will kill them if we have to, and they will do anything they can to stop us, including murdering us without hesitation or thought. If we fail, the down-blow from their jets as they take off will clear the area of our corpses."

  He rolled back, nodded, and the others got off me. When I didn't move, he said, "Fall in!"

  I stood and joined the rank.

  "Let's make sure we're all clear on what's going to happen," he said. "The guards will be armed with real weapons. We'll have sticks and rocks. They'll be better trained, without serious physical defects, and stronger than all of us except maybe Jon. We will have only two things on our side: a few moments of surprise, and a desperation they can't match, because they'll just be doing a job, while we'll be fighting for our lives. If we can't control that desperation, if we can't channel it into useful and focused energy, then we will lose, and we will die in that landing area. So don't you dare cry or lose control or do anything except harden yourself so you are tougher than the rock behind you, tougher than the metal of their guns, tougher than anything they can imagine, so tough that you can help us beat them and we can escape. Do you understand?"

  "Sir, yes, sir!" I spoke softly, but I meant it. I understood now that unless I controlled myself and focused myself and gave everything I had to this attack, unless I was willing to become harder than the men I would have to fight, unless I was willing to kill those same men, I would never see Jennie again.

  "I can't hear you!" Benny screamed.

  "Sir, yes, sir!" we screamed back.

  "I still can't hear you!"

  "Sir, yes, sir!" we screamed so loudly that my throat hurt and my body shook.

  I glanced down at Benny.

  He met my gaze and inclined his head ever so slightly, whether nodding in approval or in question I never knew.

  Chapter 19

  In the queue at the jump gate, planet Macken

  In a large display Lobo opened on his front interior wall, we watched as the ships ahead of us disappeared into the aperture. To the left we could see another of the apertures and the line of ships waiting for it. Above us and to the right sat the new one, its frame apparently complete but its interior still the odd gray of the unopened aperture. It was easy to see why so many people worshipped the gates; throughout human history, we have deified the huge forces that appear to control our lives in ways we cannot understand.

  I didn't think the gates were gods—or aspects of a god—but I also didn't care much about their origins. That they worked and allowed us to spread among the stars was more than enough for me.

  I did, though, like watching the jumps. As you came closer to an aperture, its perfect blackness would fill the view in front of you, until all you could see was that absence of light, an absence that somehow by its perfection imparted hope that on the other side might be something new and magical and wonderful. It was as if each time I jumped I had a chance to start all over, to do and be anything. Though of course I knew that was not the case, understood that my past actions and my character and all the attributes that made me what I am would still be with me after the gate instantaneously transported me across many, many light years, for a few seconds before each jump I nonetheless lived in a time of
infinite possibility.

  "Still magical, isn't it?" Gustafson said from beside me.

  "It is, Top," I said, slowly nodding my head, "it really is. I hope it always will be."

  "Even when it's taking you to battle?" Schmidt said.

  "Especially then," I said, "because in those moments before the jump anything could still happen, the fight could prove unnecessary, we could end up somewhere else, we could find out that all we have to do is sit on a beach and stare at the waves."

  "But it never works out that way," she said, "does it?"

  "No," I said, "it doesn't. I know that's not what's going to happen now. I can't help myself, though: I still hope, and I still love to jump."

  A ship from the other side finished its passage through our aperture, and the one in front of us began its slow progress to another world. For the time that it was partway through, it lived both in this space around Macken and in a part of the universe five light-years away; like all of us, it was stuck between where we were and where we were going.

  "We'll rescue those kids," Schmidt said, her voice barely audible but still strong.

  "No doubt," I said, and I meant it. The plan was solid, our team was excellent, and we had all the resources we'd need. Something would go wrong, of course, and some of us were likely to get hurt, maybe even killed, but that was always true when you went into battle, so focusing on it was wasteful and debilitating.

  What worried me was what they would do with the kids afterward, when the Tumani government found out how few had living families and how few other families wanted to take in a killer, even a young one. That wasn't my problem, though, I kept reminding myself; my job was to help free the boys. What happened after that was for Schmidt and others with reintegration training to work out.

  We were now first in line in front of the aperture; the ship from the other side was partway through.

  "No doubt at all," Gustafson said.

  "None," Schmidt echoed.

  "With no ships to fight and me on your side," Lobo said privately, "you have nothing to worry about."

  "You know better," I subvocalized.

  "Of course," Lobo said, "but senseless reassurances seemed to be the order of the day, so I thought I'd participate."

  I smiled despite myself and shook my head.

  The tail of the ship in front of us emerged from our destination and the vessel, a Xychek staff transport, turned and headed toward the jump station.

  Lobo moved forward into the perfect blackness.

  We jumped.

  Chapter 20

  Safe house, Ventura, planet Tumani

  "When can we check out the jump gear and the ships?" Schmidt said. "I want to run a final med inventory. With so many kids and most of them addicted to root, I need to make sure our supplies are in order."

  "Slight change of plans," Lim said. "The meds are coming in a second wave, along with the twenty additional counselors."

  "What?" Schmidt said. She stepped around the planning table and right next to Lim. "When were you going to tell us?"

  "You just got here!" Lim said. "You need to watch your tone and fall back, soldier."

  Schmidt stared at Lim for a few seconds, nodded slightly, said, "Sorry, sir," and joined Gustafson and me again on the other side of the table.

  "We'd rented three hangars at the cheap commercial port on the western edge of the city," Lim said. She spoke calmly and as if nothing had happened. "When the core logistics team showed up to vet the spaces, we learned the owner had leased one of our hangars to someone else." She held up her hand. "Before any of you ask, yes, we've paid for and secured the remaining two, and we have guards on both of them around the clock. The third was gone before any of us reached Tumani."

  "The gear in this place is substandard," Lobo said over my comm from one of the hangars. I was sending him live feeds of the conversation, a fact I hadn't bothered to mention; telling them would cause them to ask why I bothered sending anything to my ship, and I didn't want to explore that topic. "Only half the jump harnesses are less than two years old, and I count a dozen different models. Not exactly a military operation. Still, Lim's people appear to be doing the best they can."

  "We'll hit the hangars for the gear checks in five waves," Lim said, "so we don't draw too much attention to ourselves. We'll go three or four to a shuttle and follow different routes, so at no point should our movements compromise the mission. Once you've triple-checked and tagged your harness, lock it down. We'll do final checks during the flights in the transports, of course, but an equipment failure there means you don't jump and have to come with the second wave."

  "How bad is the gear?" I said. Asking her was the easiest way to share with Gustafson and Schmidt what Lobo had told me.

  "They'll get you down safely," Lim said, "which is what matters most. As for quality, well, some of them are top-drawer, but most will make you long for your old units. The good news is that we're all in the first wave, so we get the pick of the crop. Choose well. We leave in five."

  Our safe houses were spread among four different residence complexes that Lim assured us were standard fare for middle-income housing on Ventura. The buildings were also dives, the sorts of structures that in most cities I've visited would either have held illegal ventures or been the target of urban renewal programs. Bare, unpainted, permacrete cubes, they were sturdy and provided shelter against prying eyes and would be easy to hose down if the last residents hadn't bothered to clean on their way out, but that was about all the praise I could give them. If Ventura was indeed the nicest city on Tumani, it was easy to understand why neither coalition was particularly interested in the planet.

  We left in the first taxi, a gray quickform plastic vehicle with not much more intelligence than a washer. I listened for outgoing transmissions, Lim swept it, and it passed both checks. We ordered it to drive us on a surveillance-detection route that amounted to a long tour of the surrounding area. We learned only two things of value: No one was following us, and our quarters were indeed on par with or better than anything else we saw.

  Lim said the rich folks lived nearest the water, as is usually the case, but we didn't bother to check out their district; there was nothing there for us. The people in those houses might be paying for this war with their taxes, but if my experience is at all accurate, they weren't the ones losing children to the rebels. The poor families who lost their children would be settlers trying to reclaim forest or scratch out a farming existence or otherwise find some way to feed themselves in the hope that one day their kids—not them, they knew better than that—might be able to afford something that was only a short ride from the water.

  I shook my head against the mood coming over me. Tumani looked nothing like Pinkelponker, yet its poverty and the child soldiers reminded me so much of my home world and my time on Dump that they triggered an anger and a bitterness I suppose I'll never completely lose.

  We're here to help those kids, I reminded myself. They and their masters weren't going to appreciate our interference, so I had to keep my focus on the problems at hand and not let my own baggage slow me down.

  Lim's advance team had done a professional job. The two hangars were boring structures, the sort of huge permacrete boxes you could find in every low-end commercial port on every planet, but that was fine; we didn't want to stand out. The space was cool and still and evenly lit in a slightly bluish tone that made the white highlights on some of the rigs appear pale blue. Lobo and three other small ships blocked and, at least in Lobo's case, protected the main entrance. Portable alarms, obvious ones I could see and, I assumed, other more subtle units, monitored the perimeter, and human guards patrolled the exterior of the building.

  The harnesses sat in straight lines that the advance team had spread evenly across the hangar floor. The gear itself was as advertised, sport quality and no better, but every single rig was in working order. As I learned when I tuned into the machine frequency, they were also all chattering.

  "
Can you believe how many of us they have in here?" one said.

  "Thirty," said another, "as you'd know if you had the brains of a broiler and could count above the number of emergency pull cords."

  "I knew that," the first said, "but unlike some of us I wasn't mired in statistics. Instead, I was pondering the possibilities. Do you think these people are some sort of team? Maybe we'll get holo coverage. Wouldn't that be awesome?"

  "So what if we did?" a third said. "How often does a jumper thank his harness?"

  "Never," so many of them answered in unison that I couldn't tell how many had spoken.

  "Unless perhaps it's a custom model," said the second unit, a racing rig with an activefiber camo chute and camo polymers forming most of its structure. "Many a record has been set with harnesses built from my basic structure, so I ought to know."

  I walked over to it and said over the comm to Lobo, "What do you think of this one?"

  "It's the best unit available," he said, "though it's also one of the least entertaining of them, full of itself and obsessed with numbers and with very little sense of humor." He paused for half a second. "Of course," he said, "you knew that, because you've been listening to them."

  I shrugged. "No point in not taking advantage of all the available data," I subvocalized.

  "True," Lobo said, "which is why it's curious that you didn't simply ask me for my recommendation."

  "Force of habit," I said, "but you're right. So, do you recommend it, or are there any others I should consider?"

  "Yes," he said, "I recommend it. As I told you, it's the best one here."

  "Can you run diagnostics on it and also capture its transmissions?" I said.

  "Can you talk and walk at the same time?" Lobo said. "You know I can insert myself into a secure jump-station network. Did you honestly believe one of these little computational engines would be a problem?"