Children No More-ARC

by Mark L. Van Name

  I shook my head slightly, faced him, and said, "What do you propose, Senator?"

  He spread his hands wide, magnanimous in victory. He ignored me and continued to speak to Lim. "We do not expect miracles, of course, but as we've made clear from the start, we cannot support this endeavor forever. We've also received some information—confidential, of course; I'm sure you'll understand—that leaves us concerned about the motives of some of your staff."

  "What?" Lim said.

  Before she could say another word, he continued. "We've thus informed both the Expansion Coalition and Frontier Coalition representatives at our jump station of the possibility that those same people whose motives worry us might try to kidnap some of the boys. We must protect the children."

  "I cannot believe you would dare accuse—" Lim paused, so angry she could barely speak.

  I took advantage of her momentary silence and said, "Senator, I believe you were going to tell us your proposal."

  He continued to ignore me and address only Lim. "I suggest we return in two weeks," he said. "If the boys are through the reintegration program and ready to go home at that time, wonderful. If not, then I'm sure we can all agree that some changes in the program are in order."

  "I cannot speak for Ms. Lim," I said, "but I am positive that she would not agree with that statement. I believe, however, that you have already decided you'll be back in two weeks, so there is no point in further discussion. Is that correct?"

  He didn't like me being that direct. He had to struggle to maintain a smile as he stared at Lim and said, "Only because of our strong working relationship, Ms. Lim, am I able to overlook your aide's implication that we approached this discussion with anything other than an open mind. If you'd like to suggest an alternative timetable, please do."

  Lim forced a smile and leaned against the wall behind her. "I think three months would be more reasonable, as you and I have discussed in the past, Senator."

  She was back in the game, and he was getting angrier by the second. Either he'd lost control, or he had all the recordings he thought he needed, because when he next spoke, the politician was gone. In his place stood the fighter who had earned all those thick scars and chosen to keep them. "Two weeks. If you're not done by then, we take over." He turned his back on us. "Escort them out."

  Lim shook her head and glared at me, but when I stayed quiet, she did the same.

  The guard led us out of the room, through the shuttle hatch that was open when we reached it, and into the afternoon sunlight.

  Lim stopped, turned, and stared at the shuttle.

  The guards spread around us.

  "We're leaving," I said to them, "and we're still unarmed."

  Lim glanced at me, turned, and stomped off.

  I followed her, my back tingling until we reached the closest dorm and turned its corner.

  The moment we did and were safely out of sight of the guards, Lim wheeled on me.

  "What was that all about, Moore?"

  I backed away from her. "He came to annoy you and manipulate you into saying things he could use later when he showed the meeting to others. He got what he wanted."

  "So what do you think I should have done?" she said. "Should I have sat there like you did and accept everything he said?"

  "I think we both should have fought more intelligently with our words," I said, "but only so we'd feel better later. We entered the meeting knowing what he wanted. We left it with him getting exactly that. It was always going to proceed that way. Nothing we could have done would have changed the outcome."

  "You're saying we've already lost?" she said. "You're giving up? I thought I knew you better than that."

  Playing the calm one in a tense situation is not something that comes naturally to me. I'd far rather fight, but I've learned that sometimes the most effective combat strategy is to speak very carefully. I'd tried, but today had been hard, brutally hard, and I was almost out of what little control I'd regained.

  I stepped forward until I was inches from her face. "You do," I said, "and you'd do well to remember it. You do not want to screw with me right now. I did everything I could to save your ass in there, and if you'd calm down and admit you screwed up, you'd see that I did. Even so, none of it mattered, because as I told you yesterday, he'd already decided to come back in two weeks. He was simply working us, and he did a very good job of it."

  She looked into my eyes, and for a bit we stood like that, friends and former squad mates teetering on the edge. "I did screw up," she said, "and I'm sorry. I'm frustrated by what Wylak is doing, the way he's setting us up to fail all these boys, and I'm angry at myself for not seeing it coming all along. I expected him to push on the timeframe, but never this much." She shook her head and stared at the ground. "He knows there's no way we can succeed in only two more weeks."

  "Of course he does," I said. "He's counting on it. If he gave you enough time to reintegrate the boys, they'd be of less use to him as soldiers."

  "So what now?" she said. "Even if we had the resources, we couldn't get them off the planet; the coalitions would never let us."

  "No," I said, "they wouldn't. We could never do it." I took a deep breath and stepped backward a meter. "What you need to do now is get your team to help the boys as much as possible in the next two weeks, and hope that's enough time."

  "Enough for what?" she said. "I already told you—"

  I held up my hand. "For my backup plan to work."

  "Are you finally going to explain this plan of yours?" she said.

  I looked at her and thought about the meeting with Wylak. I pictured what might happen if Maggie and Jack couldn't pull off what I'd asked, imagined what Lobo and I might have to do, and I knew there was no way I could tell her. I couldn't trust her to keep it all secret, not when she was as emotionally involved as she was, not when there were so many ways this could go wrong. My outburst to the boys scared me enough. We couldn't take any more chances.

  "No," I said, "I'm not. You focus on the boys. Let me take care of this."

  "We're already focusing on the boys. We can't do anything different or faster; it doesn't work like that. They need time, a lot of time, to deal with what they've experienced."

  I stared at the sky and the trees and the birds—anywhere but at Lim. When she'd stayed silent for a few seconds, I looked at her again and said, "I understand that. I do. I'm not the enemy. I know you're doing the best you can. From everything I've seen, you and your team are doing a great job. I realize you can't make the process go any faster. All I'm saying is that over the next two weeks, the best you can do is to keep on helping the boys."

  "And you?" she said. "What are you going to be doing?"

  "Most of the time, I'll be walking the perimeter and cleaning the dorms—whatever Schmidt tells me to do. I'll also be coordinating and working on certain aspects of my plan."

  "And I'm supposed to leave you alone and hope you'll rescue us?"

  I wanted to explain it to her. I wanted to tell her I wasn't doing it alone. I couldn't, though, take the risk that she might tell someone, not with what I was asking Jack and Maggie to do.

  "Yes," I said. "As hard as that will be for you, yes. You can't even tell anyone else there might be a plan. Everyone has to stay the course you've charted."

  Lim stared at me for a long time. Finally, she said, "I hope you know what you're asking, and what you're taking on. You have to decide if you want to do this by yourself. If you do, it's all on you, Jon. The fate of these boys, of all of our work, of everything: It will all depend on you. Are you really ready to make that decision, to accept that responsibility?"

  I thought about how many times I'd put myself in that situation and about all the deaths and pain that had resulted from my past failures. One by one, the decisions pile up, and in the blink of an eye a lifetime of them tower over you, blocking the light and leaving you in darkness. I flashed again on Nagy's body and all the way back to when I was sixteen, to the first time I let my teammates dow
n, to Bob and Han dead on the ground around me, their blood soaking into the soil, and Benny asking one more decision of me.

  All I could do was nod my head and walk away.

  Chapter 50

  Dump Island, planet Pinkelponker - 139 years earlier

  I heard Benny's voice, but I couldn't make any sense of what he was saying. Bob and Han dead on the ground, Alex sobbing, his head bleeding—it was all too much. I was afraid to open my mouth lest the screams inside my head escape into the air, but trying to contain them left me shaking and unable to hear anything outside me.

  Benny rolled backward for almost a meter.

  I barely noticed him.

  He pushed forward as fast as he could until the front edge of his cart smacked into my leg.

  "Ow," I said, startled by the pain in my shin. "What are you doing?"

  "Trying to get you to focus on me," Benny said, "and apparently succeeding. We have to go now, Jon, or soon a backup ship will arrive, and we'll be stuck here. It's time for you to decide."

  "We can't leave them here," I said. "We have to do something for them."

  "They're dead, Jon. There's nothing we can do."

  "We should bury them, or at least get them out of the way, put them somewhere safe. Something."

  "Jon!" Benny screamed at me, louder than he ever had in training. "We don't have the time. When the others hear the shuttle take off and we don't return, they'll come here. They'll take care of . . . the bodies. If we want to help all those people, our friends, the ones still alive, we have to go. Now."

  He was right. I knew he was right, but running away and leaving Bob and Han where they lay, where the shuttle's take-off would cover them with dust, seemed an insult to them. They were dead, so I knew it couldn't matter to them, but the idea of abandoning them gnawed at me.

  I glanced at Alex, who had not moved or even acknowledged us. "Alex?" He didn't answer, so I ran to him, knelt so my face was level with his, and said again, "Alex?"

  He looked at me for several seconds as if I was a stranger. "Jon?"

  I nodded. "Alex, we have to go now. We have to get the shuttle out of here, or we could end up losing it."

  He tilted his head toward Han's body but wouldn't look at it, wouldn't look anywhere except down or straight at me. "And them?" he said. "What about them?"

  "We have to leave them to the others. The others will come as soon as we're gone."

  "I don't know, Jon."

  Behind Alex, Benny rolled along the side of the shuttle and toward its entrance.

  "We're out of time," I said.

  Alex shook his head and rocked back and forth. "I can't. I just can't. I can't do it anymore."

  Benny rolled into the shuttle. "Jon," he said, "it's time."

  "If we take off," I said, "we could hurt Alex."

  "If we don't," Benny said, "we'll be condemning everyone, including him, to staying here until they die."

  I grabbed Alex's shoulders. "You heard Benny, Alex. You know he's right. You have to go with us. We'll come back for the others later, when it's safe, like we planned."

  "I can't," he said. "I can't I can't I can't."

  I stared at him for a few seconds and nodded my agreement. He couldn't. He'd be of no use to us.

  I moved close enough to him that I could get my left arm under his legs and my right around his back. I pulled him close and stood. He was heavier than I expected but not a problem to lift.

  "No!" he screamed. He pounded against my leg with his one arm. "I don't want to."

  "Stop," I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could. "I'm not going to make you. I'm moving you back to the path, where you'll be safe when we take off."

  He turned his head so he could see my eyes. "Really?"

  "Yes."

  He nodded and fell quiet. He huddled against my body the way I'd seen sleeping babies resting on their mothers.

  I walked around the shuttle's front, to the path, and down it to our sleeping area. I put Alex on the ground carefully, so he was under the cover of the branches. I leaned him against the rock. "You rest. The others will be along soon enough."

  "Jon!" Benny's cry sounded far away; the shuttle must have muffled his voice.

  "I'm going now," I said to Alex, "but I'll be back for you. I'll be back for all of you. You tell the others. Okay?"

  Alex said nothing. His eyes focused nowhere at all.

  I grabbed his chin. "Okay?"

  He finally saw me and said, "Yes. I'll tell them."

  "Good."

  I jogged to the shuttle.

  Benny waited inside the door. "We're way past time, Jon. You have to get me up front, lift me so I can see the controls, and operate them as I tell you. Just like we rehearsed."

  "I have to move Han and Bob first," I said.

  "No!" Benny looked frantic. "I'm telling you: We are out of time. We're past out of time. We must take off. Now!"

  I was exhausted and yet trembling with rage. I wanted to hit something, but our enemies were dead. Our only way to help our remaining friends was to leave two of them behind. If Benny had said another word, I might well have started hitting him—and if I had, I'm not sure I'd have been able to stop.

  Instead, he stayed silent.

  I took a deep breath. We'd done too much, lost too much, to let this opportunity go.

  "Tell me what to do," I said.

  Chapter 51

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  "Two weeks. That's all you have, Jack. I'm sorry I didn't guess more accurately. Once Wylak's people take over this place, the boys are doomed. He'll have them back in combat as soon as the last of Lim's team have jumped from the system. I won't let that happen, so if you don't want to come back to a bloodbath, make it work. Two weeks." I paused. "Cut it there, and send it everywhere you can."

  "Maggie gave me multiple protocols and destinations," Lobo said. "The last transmission reached her quickly, so it's likely this one will, too. Before I send it, though, I have to ask: Will we really fight if necessary?"

  I hadn't decided until the end of the recording, but the moment I said the words, I started wondering if they were true. Still, I could not think of any other viable option. "Yes."

  "We'll win," he said, "but only at first. The troops around this place won't be any problem for me, and because they won't be expecting me, neither will the ships that bring Wylak. Our casualties should be minimal, because none of the opposition will be prepared. The second wave, though, will know what it's facing. The battle with them won't go as well."

  "I know," I said. I didn't tell him that we could stay here safely for as long as I was willing to use my nanomachines to disassemble any attackers. Doing that would mean letting a lot of people know what I was, something I'd avoided for almost a hundred and forty years. Of course, if they bombed us, we'd lose, because I'd never made a nanocloud that could disassemble anything moving at the speed of a missile. "The alternative is to let him take the boys."

  "Okay," Lobo said. "I've sent the transmission. Now, I have a great deal of work to do."

  "What work?"

  "The only logical thing: Prepare for battle. I'm going to try to inject triggers into every communications and power system on the planet, so that if it comes to war, we can disrupt every system I can reach."

  I started to say that his response was extreme, but it wasn't. He was right. If we killed a senator of a planetary government and all the troops who were backing him, we were declaring war. "Good thinking."

  "Of course," he said. "Thinking is what I do best." After a pause, he said, "Will Lim's people back us?"

  "I don't know. I haven't discussed it with her."

  "So you're willing to make this decision on your own?"

  "I'm not doing that," I said. "I'm making it with you."

  "No," Lobo said. "You're leading. I'm following. I'm with you. It's that simple."

  "And what would you do?"

  "Hand the complex over to Wylak and leave the planet," he
said. "Sometimes, we lose."

  "You'd abandon hundreds of boys who'd counted on us? You'd let Wylak throw them back into combat?"

  "Yes," Lobo said, "when the alternative was a full-scale war with the two of us taking on an entire planet and thousands of people certain to die. Yes."

  "I can't believe that."

  "It's the truth," he said. "That is what I, left on my own, would do. It is what Lim would do. It is what any sane and rational person would do."

  "So what does that make me?"

  "On this topic," Lobo said, "insane and irrational. Obviously."

  I opened my mouth to argue, but I couldn't; he was right. I should walk away. If Jack couldn't implement the plan on the new schedule, and I wasn't at all sure that he could, I should walk away.

  No. Not this time. Insane, irrational, whatever; I was not leaving this time.

  "You're right," I said, "but I won't go."

  "So we'll fight," Lobo said.

  "You could head out," I said.

  "You know better," he said. "When I asked you to help find the man who created me, you did. Why?"

  That incident had cost me a lot, including having to watch several people die. With the same information, though, I'd make the same choice again. "Because you asked," I said, "and we're a team."

  "Exactly," Lobo said. "I'm with you."

  "So let's hope Jack succeeds and we don't have to fight."

  "Indeed," Lobo said, "but while we're hoping, let's also make the right preparations. If we go to war, I can promise you that before we go down, they will pay dearly."

  Chapter 52

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  Long and a dozen of the boys stood in a large circle and kicked a ball around. The game seemed to involve stopping the ball and quickly redirecting it to another player. Most handled the task with ease, but every now and then one of them would let the ball slip by, and the others would poke fun at him. No one seemed to get angry, even those who missed.