Children No More-ARC

by Mark L. Van Name

  "Ready?" I said.

  Both Gustafson and Long nodded. The boys cheered.

  "Let the cutting begin!" I said.

  Over a hundred boys showed up to work the next morning. At least another hundred milled around the edges of the small deforested area and watched while pretending to be doing other things. We'd taken out quite a few trees, but the more I looked at the forest and thought about all those boys, the more I believed we needed a much, much bigger clearing.

  "What do you say we drop a lot of them today?" I said to Gustafson.

  "Definitely!" said Bony, who had taken to following me around in breaks and when we were rigging the trees to fall. "How many could we bring down at once?"

  I shrugged and looked at Gustafson.

  "We have dozens of cutting tapes," he said, "so we could create a huge pile of trunks. We might even get lucky and have some falling trees take out others."

  "Could set off all of them at once?" I said.

  "Let's do that!" Bony said. "That would be amazing!"

  Gustafson shook his head. "We could, but preparing them would be a lot of work."

  "So let's do all we can," I said.

  He shook his head again. "It could take me hours to get a large batch ready. This crowd—" he waved to take in all the boys "—doesn't look like it wants to wait."

  "That stuff is safe without the trigger, right?" I said.

  "You know it is," he said. "No trigger, no problem."

  "Let's team each counselor with a group of boys and have those groups prep the trees. All you'll have to do is inspect the work and hold the trigger."

  Gustafson smiled. "That many trees falling at once would be a beautiful thing to see."

  "So you'll do it?" Bony said.

  "Yes," he said. "I will." He scanned the area until he saw Long. "Get all the free counselors you can," he yelled, "and double-time it to me."

  Long's back stiffened by reflex at the order. For a second, it looked as if he was going to salute, but he relaxed, smiled, and said, "Will do."

  "Cutting and hauling isn't as much fun as cutting down," Bony said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and checked the darkening sky. "I am way past ready for dinner. I don't care what they make; I'm going to eat a lot of it."

  All the boys near him murmured in agreement.

  I loaded the last log the hauler in front of us could handle. It rolled off to the rear edge of the complex. We had so much wood stacked back there that some of the boys had said we could have rebuilt their villages with it.

  I straightened and looked around. All but ninety or so of the boys had shown up this morning; the news of Gustafson's mass tree-dropping had attracted a lot of the kids. Today, though, had been only hard labor: chopping and stripping and hauling, working the power saws and every other tool we had until we all ached. I'd expected to lose most of the boys as the day wore on, but only a few dozen had given up. We grown-ups stayed, and the kids stayed with us. I was amazed to see how much work over four hundred people could accomplish even with the primitive tools we had. We'd be ready to take down another large batch of trees tomorrow.

  Lim appeared at the edge of the clearing closest to the barracks.

  A moment later, the dinner call sounded.

  Kids and grown-ups alike cheered it.

  "You guys are amazing!" Gustafson yelled. He pointed at the large, flat area we'd created. "Great work!"

  I nodded and smiled. "He's right: You are amazing! Thank you! Thank you, all!"

  About half of the boys cheered themselves. The rest were already walking toward the food tents. Most stretched as they walked. All of us were stiff and sore from a long day of work.

  I headed for dinner. I was hungry enough to eat two meals.

  Bony stayed beside me. "How you eat so much and not get fat is a mystery," he said.

  "You've seen how hard I work," I said. "Nothing mysterious about it." Having a body laced with nanomachines that would never let me gain weight also didn't hurt, but I was confident that with this work regimen I was legitimately earning my calories.

  "I ate like you," he said, "and my belly would look like it was hiding a ball."

  I laughed. "I am about twice your size."

  "Yeah," he said, "but you're old."

  I laughed again. "I am that."

  As we drew near to Lim, she said, "Moore, got a minute?"

  "Sure," I said.

  Bony stopped and stared at her. "You want me to stay, Jon?" he said.

  I touched his shoulder lightly. "No need. You go on. I'll catch up to you in a few minutes. You save me some of that food?"

  He smiled. "You better move fast if you expect to eat! We have a powerfully hungry crew."

  "I will."

  Lim led me a few meters away from the stream of boys and waited until Bony was out of earshot. "You're making them so hungry we're going to run out of food earlier than we planned."

  I shrugged. "We're fine for at least a couple of months, right?"

  She nodded.

  "So that's the least of our problems. What do you really want?"

  She pointed at the clearing. "If Wylak decides to bring in his troops, they now have many more landing options than before."

  "True," I said, "but do you honestly believe getting people into here has ever been his main concern? If he wants to send soldiers, he can march them up that road, let them shoot at us from hovering ships, or do pretty much anything else they want. If he wanted them to land inside here, they would just blast the trees first—which would be dangerous for all of us."

  She sighed. "You're right. I just wish I understood what was going on."

  "I know," I said, "and I'm sorry."

  She stared at me in silence for a long time.

  I didn't look away.

  Finally, she said, "You better know what you're doing, Moore." She waved toward the boys still visible to us. "You're playing with precious lives."

  I had nothing new to say. I was making the best decisions I could with the data I had. That was all I could do.

  "Okay," she said. She forced a smile. "Let's go get some dinner before the rest of them eat it all."

  Gusts of wind whipped leaves and branches and sawdust around and onto us constantly. Storm clouds had rolled over us at mid-day, but we'd kept working. Now, though, the fog of swirling debris was so thick that I was beginning to think we'd have to stop.

  Lightning arced somewhere outside the complex. Thunder followed a few seconds later. The sky darkened.

  "Rain comes, we stop," Bony said. Though at least half of the boys had abandoned the job since the weather had turned wild, Bony had kept at it, yelling at those who left and never letting anyone near him stop. "Right?"

  "We should power down and put away the tools and haulers now," Gustafson said. He was finishing loading some logs a few meters away. "These machines are old enough that we shouldn't trust their waterproofing."

  Thunder rumbled again.

  I scanned the sky. Clouds like nighttime camo cloth covered us as far in every direction as I could see. "Yeah," I said.

  "Bring in all the gear and machines!" Gustafson yelled. "It's time to stop."

  The boys cheered. Most of the noise they made vanished in a wave of thunder.

  "You don't have much time, Jon," Lobo said over the comm. "If keeping those machines dry matters, you better get them under cover quickly."

  "Let's move!" I said. "Send everything into the sheds."

  We sent Gustafson's hauler, full load and all, back to its home at its quickest pace. The boys were now used to working with it, so they stepped out of its way before it was within its two-meter sensor range of them. Other haulers rolled after it. Boys and counselors jogged with cutters toward the equipment buildings. I ran the perimeter of the clearing looking for tools we might have missed, but the clean-up teams had been thorough, and I found nothing.

  I turned toward the center of the large area and jogged through it, doing one last check. I couldn't help b
ut smile; the boys and the counselors had done a very good job and become a decent work team in a few short days.

  All the people hauling gear came running back to the clearing.

  "Anything else?" a few of them called.

  "Not that I can see," I said. "I think we just—"

  I could barely hear my own words as another blast of thunder hit us at the same moment as the clouds pounded us with rain. It fell hard and fast and steady, pushing the airborne debris to the ground and soaking us in seconds. Dust and dirt ran down my arms and face. The rain obscured the features of anyone more than ten meters away.

  A boy laughed.

  Another joined him.

  I spotted Bony and Gustafson off to my right. Bony had turned his face to the water and was smiling and shaking his head and drinking and laughing.

  Gustafson stared at the boy as if he were crazy, but then a smile came over the man's face, too, and he laughed and tilted his head upward. He held his arms out to his sides and let the rain pelt him and laughed and laughed and laughed.

  I followed his lead and looked to the heavens. Drops hit my eyes and my mouth. After all the work, it felt so wonderfully good that I couldn't help but smile.

  I glanced around. Everywhere counselors and boys alike stood in the rain and let it wash away the dirt and the twigs and the leaves and the dust. Some laughed; some were silent. Some danced, spinning and jumping as if listening to music; others stood as still as if the water had turned them to stone. Some rolled on the ground and covered themselves in mud; others pointed at them and laughed—and then joined them.

  More boys ran into the clearing.

  A wave of adults and still more boys followed them.

  Bony walked over to me and motioned me to bend closer.

  I did.

  He blew a mouthful of water into my face and ran away laughing.

  I shook my head to clear my eyes and gave chase. In a few seconds, I pulled alongside him, but before I could grab him, he juked to the right. When I tried to make the same maneuver, I slipped and fell. I hit on my left shoulder and rolled and ended up on my back, staring at the sky, soaked and covered in mud.

  Bony ran to me. "Are you okay?"

  I cupped my hand to my ear.

  When he bent closer and opened his mouth to speak, I grabbed his arm and pulled him to the ground.

  "Got you!" I said.

  He shook his head, rolled onto his back, and laughed.

  I joined him. The storm poured on us. All around us, boys and men and women danced and stood and laughed and talked in the pounding rain. For a short time, there was nothing else in the world, no threats or danger or worries, just rain and laughter and a pure and silly happiness that filled me completely and washed away everything that was not right there with us right then.

  "Any updates?" I said to Lobo when I returned later. I tracked mud and water everywhere I went, Lobo's small cleaning bots following me like pets hoping I'd drop some food.

  "Nothing," Lobo said. "Wylak is sticking to the new schedule. All of Maggie's data drops are empty."

  "Two more days. That's all we have."

  "Yes."

  "And if we have to fight?" I said. "How long will we last?"

  "I don't know," Lobo said, "but I can tell you this: Between how deeply I've infiltrated their defense systems and how much better armed I am than their first-line ships, even if we lose, we'll do a lot of damage before we fall."

  "But we will lose," I said. "It's not an 'if;' it's a when."

  "The odds are indeed greatly against us," Lobo said. "There's always a chance they'll back down long enough to buy us more time, maybe enough time to save some of the boys."

  I shook my head at the thought of having to pick which boys to take away and which to leave. I didn't have a clue how to make that choice. I didn't know how anyone could.

  "Let's hope Jack pulls it off," I said.

  "The haulers can't handle this much mud," Gustafson said. The rain had continued throughout the night and had stopped only half an hour earlier. We stood at the edge of the giant flat space and watched as the first full haulers tried with little success to make their way across it. "They've already done better than I'd expected from such cheap gear. If we keep pushing them, though, they're going to burn out their drive trains."

  Cut logs lined the left side of the clearing. Branches and twigs and leaves coated the center, each green bit vibrant against the dark, almost black mud.

  I studied the rough dirt rectangle we'd created. The borders were far from perfectly smooth, but they definitely looked man-made and as if someone had planned them. We could do better, though.

  "Send them back," I said. "We don't need to take down any more trees. We don't even need to move any more of the logs to the back of the complex."

  "We're going to leave them there?" Gustafson said. "That's good wood. If we don't stack it, it'll rot."

  "No, we're not going to let them sit. We're going to use them."

  "For what?" he said.

  "To outline the clearing, so it has a nice, straight border."

  Gustafson stepped closer to me, studied my face for a few seconds, and said, "Are you feeling okay?"

  "I am," I said. "I really am."

  "And why are we going to build this border?"

  I smiled. "Because it'll be pretty." I closed my eyes for a few seconds and pictured it, opened them, and looked around once more. I nodded to myself. "It'll look very nice indeed."

  "And why do we care about how it looks?" he said.

  "Nice idea," Lobo said over the comm. "As an old Earth artist once said, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' A very nice touch indeed."

  Rather than try to respond to Lobo, I focused on Gustafson and said, "Because beauty is truth."

  He shook his head, chuckled, and whispered, "It's your show, Gunny—but you are going to explain this to me one day."

  I nodded. "If need be," I said, "I certainly will."

  He headed off toward a team of boys loading a hauler. "Let's stop with those machines! Gather around, everybody. We're going to do something a little different today."

  Heralds of gold and white light were announcing the dawn when I hit the clearing the next morning. The jungle soil had soaked up the rain and dried completely. The lines of logs that separated the trees from the large open space ran straight and true and transformed the area from a bald spot in the forest into a construct that people had intentionally created. I walked the perimeter and occasionally smiled and nodded in satisfaction; we'd done far better than I'd had any right to expect.

  "The boys did good work," Gustafson said from the corner ten meters ahead of me, where he stood watching me.

  "Everyone did."

  "Mostly them, though," he said.

  "Mostly them."

  "It gives you hope, doesn't it? If they can work this well together, with no fights, then they can do other things without fighting."

  "Yes, it does," I said. "I'm not competent to assess their progress, but they sure seem to me to have come a long way."

  Schmidt strolled into view behind Gustafson. "They have," she said. "They're not done, though; they need more time before we can put them into new homes."

  "Let's hope they get it," I said.

  "Now that we've congratulated ourselves on completing this project," Gustafson said, "would you mind telling us exactly what we've built and why?"

  I smiled. "There's one little problem with that request, Top."

  "What's that?" he said.

  "We're not done."

  He shook his head and chuckled. "I should have known. So now what do we have to do? Rake the dirt? Plant some flowers."

  "No," I said, "nothing as pedestrian as that." I clapped him on the back. "We're going to persuade Lim to let us throw a really big party."

  Chapter 58

  In the former rebel complex, planet Tumani

  "You're kidding me, right?" Lim said. "You decided my life wasn't stressful enough, so you tho
ught you'd start off my day with a little joke."

  "No," I said, "I'm not kidding. I want us to prepare for a party, a huge one, and I need your help to make it happen."

  "Exactly what do we have to party about?" Lim said. She stepped from behind her desk and walked so close to me that I could smell the sour residue of sleep on her breath. "You know what's going to happen in a couple of weeks when Wylak shows up. You know we're not ready. We have nothing to celebrate."

  "This has gone far enough, Gunny," Gustafson said from behind me. "It's time for you to leave."

  I ignored him and focused on Lim. "We have plenty of cause for celebration. You, all of you, have made great progress with the boys. They've spent most of the past week showing they can work together and not fight. Everyone here is on edge, which is another good reason to do something fun."

  "You're not going to tell me what this is really about, are you?" she said.

  "I am telling you: I want the boys to spend today getting the new field ready for a big party. I need your approval to make it all happen."

  She stared at me for a long time. "That's it? That's all you're going to say."

  I nodded. "I want them to spend today preparing for a party tomorrow. In fact, I want us all doing that. We should thank them for all their work, and they should thank you. I know we have educational supplies and paints and paper and spare fabric; let's put some of that stuff to a fun use. I'm picturing one side of the clearing lined with thank-you signs from the boys, and the other with similar banners from the counselors. You get the cooks to prepare a lot of extra food for lunch tomorrow, and we'll be set."

  "Why now?" she said. "Why tomorrow for the party?"

  "We finished clearing and bordering the field yesterday," I said, "so that activity is over. I don't want to lose the energy and teamwork we have, so a party seemed like a perfect way to keep it going a little longer. It'll take a day to make all the party preparations, but we can make that day be fun in its own right. That's it."

  "Is something else happening today?" she said. "Tomorrow?

  I'd known she would ask this question, so I'd rehearsed mentally so many times that the lie came out as smoothly as everything else I'd told her. "Party prep is today. The party is tomorrow—if you allow it. That's it."