I began to hurl obscenities at the cosmos. Towards any deity or deities that would listen. I damned the Professor. I damned the Queen Mother, and the mantes, and the marines, and the awful stupidity of precious lives cut short. I damned Earth. I damned the Fleet. I even damned Adanaho for being young and idealistic and coming to me as if I had some power over circumstances; enough to alter the course of history. Such idealism had gotten her killed, and all I could do was sit there, soaked and cold and clutching the captain’s lifeless hand in my own.
A slow build of tortured sobs burst out of me as I lowered my forehead to Adanaho’s chest and shook with grief. For her. For my alien friend. For the fate of two species apparently committed to annihilation.
After a few moments I heard the Queen Mother suddenly rise up, her wings unfolding and extending to maximum width. I opened my eyes and looked. Enough light was coming down into the Canyon now that I could see her clearly. She watched the sky.
Loud, thunderous, mechanized whining to my rear me told me that the drop pods had finally come. Multiple buzzing sounds told me the shock troops—their armored discs studded with a variety of lethal weapons—were on top of us.
Perhaps it was for the best. To end things in this manner.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to live to see the mantis war machine slowly grind the planets of human space to powder. Instead of a quick termination, now there would be a long, drawn out, dreadful fist fight as the Fleet contracted and toughened its defensive circle. World after world would be “cleansed” of humanity. Until at last Earth would fall under mantis crosshairs.
The final stand.
And then…humanity would join the handful of other extinct races in the mantis archives. A dead people, wiped from the face of the galaxy by a species determined to have the stars to itself.
I kept my eyes closed and held the captain’s hand tight.
The buzzing was loud now. They had to be just meters away.
A sharp hissing cut through the mechanized sound. It was a shrill, painful sound, almost like fingernails on a chalk board. I reflexively looked up to see the source, and saw the Queen Mother hovering over myself and Adanaho, her wings fluttering and beating the air ferociously. Her mouth was open as wide as possible and her tractor teeth were vibrating so quickly they were a blur. It must have taken an astounding effort for her manage the display, but it had gotten the attention of her subordinates.
Several dozen mantis soldiers surrounded us, looking unsure of what to do. Those in the front rank were recoiling at the sight of the Queen Mother, a mantis without her carriage, unchained, feral, her insect eyes adamant.
Her hiss slowly died in her throat, followed by a rapid series of clicks and clacks as she spoke to her people in their own language. I couldn’t be sure what she was saying, but their reaction was immediate. A path opened through the mass of soldiers allowing four other mantes to maneuver forward. I didn’t see weapons on their discs. In fact, their discs seemed like the Professor’s.
Were these medics?
I could only guess.
Two of them converged on the remains of the Professor. The other two on the Queen Mother herself, who settled onto her small lower legs and began to instruct the lot of them, her forelimbs waving and pointing with the distinct authority of one bred to rule.
None of them touched me. Nor the body of the captain.
The troops moved back, then began to disperse.
Securing the area, no doubt.
I slowly sat up, tears and mucus down the front of my wet uniform, and glared at the Queen Mother. She sat on the sand, her wings folded tightly and her beak shut. She glared right back, her eyes alien but her posture erect and dignified.
Eventually the medics returned with what appeared to be a small disc—a carriage without an owner. Though I guessed by size that it was only temporary, for the Queen Mother’s benefit.
She looked at me for a long while, not saying anything, and me not saying anything to her. Then she slowly climbed aboard the disc and settled into the saddle. A series of squeaking and mechanical snapping sounds told me she was being re-integrated. She shuddered once and her mouth opened in irritation, then she settled down and the disc rose off the ground.
Hovering over to myself and the body of the captain, the Queen mother announced, “Pick up your captain. There is a transport waiting for us. I have a truce to call!”
Chapter 14
Thirteen weeks later, I was in orbit around Earth.
It had taken a long time for the Queen Mother to regain full control of her forces. And longer than that to convince Fleet that the Queen Mother’s overtures of peace were sincere. Several human planets had been destroyed. Along with several mantis worlds too. For the first time, the fight had not been one-way. And though the weaponry of humanity had been more primitive, it had proven to be just as effective.
Millions were dead. Mantis and human.
Past a certain point, body count ceased to matter.
What mattered now was that the Queen Mother and her top officers were getting ready to meet with Fleet Command and its top officers with the intention of signing, not just a cease fire, but a permanent treaty of non-aggression.
My uniform had been cleaned and prepared for the occasion by my mantis aides—assigned to me by the Queen Mother herself. They’d managed to get almost all of captain Adanaho’s blood out of the fabric, save for a vague discoloring of some of the lighter piping.
The captain herself rested in a stasis casket.
The mantes had spared no effort preparing the body.
The transparent lid of the casket showed Adanaho in a flowing one-piece gown woven from traditional mantis silks. I’d told them how to go about it. They’d wanted her presented to Fleet Command with as much dignity as could be mustered—a token of their good will, and also in honor of Adanaho’s act of sacrifice in defense of the Queen Mother.
I stood staring at Adanaho’s face while our mantis shuttle maneuvered through Earth orbit in order to dock with the Fleet space station on the far side of the world. Thankfully there was gravity. Something I hoped human engineers would replicate soon.
The Queen Mother stood next to me. No disc. A small package of electronics had instead been attached to her thorax with flexible straps: a translator box and speaker grill for communications.
The mantis guards at the hatches did have discs, polished and bright. The guards themselves were rigid with respect.
“She was too young,” I said sadly, not daring to touch the captain’s casket. Adanaho looked pristine now. Immaculate. I didn’t want to disrespect what she’d accomplished by treating the casket like mere furniture. I had decided it was a kind of monument, both to the horrible bloodshed which had taken place, and to the new shoots of possibility which had sprouted amidst the ashes.
“And I am too old,” said the Queen Mother. “Age has made me cynical. I had thought the one you called Professor to be an eccentric. I humored him just long enough to achieve my own ends. And now I find my universe transformed beyond reckoning.”
“Do you miss your carriage?” I asked.
“Oh yes, all the time,” she said. “But after our recovery from the planet’s surface, it became apparent to me that there could be no going back. Not for me. Your captain was correct. Our carriages have come to define us in ways we neither understand nor suspect. It took having mine ripped away from me to make me see what we mantes have lost in the long time since we first achieved sapience.”
“And what is it you think you’re regaining?”
The Queen Mother considered my question for a moment, then she said, “Illumination.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh?”
“If I understand the human use of the term, it means an emergence into a state of deeper understanding—of the universe, of the self, of the meaning of both.”
“That’s one way to look at it,” I said. “What will you do now?”
“Once the treaty is signed and reparations
meted out, I will call the Quorum of the Select together and a new Queen Mother will be chosen.”
“You’re quitting?” I said, surprised.
“I must. Already I am an oddity among my people. They need someone who can lead them during this transition, and it cannot be me.”
“But the treaty is your idea,” I said. “What if the new Queen Mother decides to throw it away and re-start the war?”
“We do not behave so rashly, despite what you may think, Padre. It took us a long time to reach the conclusion that war must be renewed. It would take an even longer time for us to reach the conclusion that the new peace must be destroyed. There is an additional human name circulating in the Quorum now. The heroism of Captain Adanaho—for me, for the reclamation of the cease-fire—will live eternally in the memories of the mantes.”
I bowed my head, eyes closed, remembering the captain’s last words to me. They’d hit me in a place so deep I’d not even known it existed. And whether she knew it or not, the captain had bound me to this alien who now stood at my side—the matriarch of all I’d once feared.
I also remembered the Professor. The one who’d originally sought me out of curiosity, and upon whom so much had depended in the long run. That he’d died trying to protect the three of us—Adanaho, the Queen Mother, and myself—only seemed to cement the unspoken pact. Blood for blood. The life of a mantis hero for the life of a human heroine, each given freely so that there might be a future for both races.
If I had anything to say about it, the Professor’s prominence in human lore would be every bit as great as Adanaho’s was becoming among the aliens.
Aliens. I smiled slightly and shook my head. Time to get that word out of my system. The mantes had proven to be every bit as human as any woman or man I’d ever known. To include their capacity for regret, and a longing for redemption.
“And once you’re free of responsibility,” I said to the Queen Mother, “where will you go? Home?”
“No,” she said. “I will need time to properly dwell upon what has happened; what is happening. I do not yet fully comprehend what it is I am becoming without the carriage. I cannot say I am regressing, nor am I standing still. I feel as if I am pupating all over again. Only this time it’s happening inside of me. In my mind. In my…soul?”
I arched an eyebrow at her use of the word. But said nothing.
“I will need,” she continued, “a place of quiet refuge. Somewhere I can meditate. I think that’s the right human word? I feel as if I am seeing the world and everything in it for the first time, all over again. I must be free of distractions. And I will need to be in contact with someone of whom I can ask questions. Many questions.”
“There must be many planets in mantis territory suitable for this,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “Only one.”
“One?”
“Yes. It’s a sparse world. Not much to look at, really. Upon which there is a single, modest chapel.”
A tiny thrill went up my spine.
“And I expect you’ll be wanting me to go with you,” I said.
“Only if you wish it. I cannot compel you to do this thing.”
“It’s okay. I’d have gone back even if you didn’t ask. But not before I’ve had a chance to visit Earth again, and make proper goodbyes to the many people I left behind during the first war.”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
“No, Padre, thank you.”
“It’s going to be difficult,” I said. “This journey you’re proposing to take. In all the thousands of years of human history, countless men and women have walked the same path. The results have not always been good ones. There can be no guarantees. You might get frustrated. Or worse.”
“That is why I will need you, to be my guide.”
“But I’m just—”
“Padre, what did Captain Adanaho tell you? What would her spirit say if it could speak to you now?”
I looked through the lid of the casket.
“That I can’t put off the inevitable,” I said.
“Then we shall walk the path together?” the Queen Mother asked.
“Yes, I think we’ll have to.”
“Good.”
A small chime in the compartment alerted us to the fact that the mantis shuttle was on final approach for dock. I took another long look through the top of the casket, then straightened my uniform and followed the Queen Mother out into the corridor that lead to the gangway hatch.
▼ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▼
As of the publication of this book, “The Chaplain’s Legacy” is the longest piece of fiction I’ve ever sold to Analog. I was nervous that its length might take it over the edge, in terms of what either Stan Schmidt or his successor, Trevor Quachri, would allow. I was delighted when Trevor sent word that he was taking the story, and doubly delighted by the size of the check that arrived in my mail box a couple of months later.
As noted in the afterword for “The Chaplain’s Assistant”, this story forms part of an arc that I eventually novelized. Baen Books has officially picked up the novel, The Chaplain’s War, for publication in 2014, and I am supremely pleased to be seeing this story released in its expanded form. Even with 30,000 words—between the original short story and the sequel novella—there is a whole lot more “there” there, where the Chaplain’s Assistant universe is concerned. Once I got my teeth into the character of Harrison Barlow, I found I had a lot of ground to cover: who he is, where he comes from, what he went through before being stranded on Purgatory, what he went through after escaping from the nameless world where The Professor met his demise, and so forth. It was a delight being able to flesh things out to their fullest potential, and I was especially grateful to have Toni Weisskopf’s experienced editorial hand guiding me along the way.
Thus if you pick up a copy of The Chaplain’s War when it sees print, you may notice a few differences between what you’ve read here, and what you read there. I am told that fans who first read Ender’s Game in Analog have noticed the same thing. When comparing the book to its original short fiction form. Hopefully folks will forgive me for tweaking stuff or making some modifications to suit the needs of a new editor. Such is the way of the “fix up book” as Mike Resnick says they used to be called: short fiction pieces laced together at the edges to make full novels, back in the old days when almost everyone writing science fiction was writing it for the magazines first and foremost.
As has been the case often in my career, my publication journey travels a time-honored, old-fashioned path. I will admit to being somewhat proud of that. And I am proud of this story too.
***
The Hero’s Tongue: Larry Niven
I stumbled across Larry Niven in 1992.
At the B. Dalton bookstore in Cottonwood Mall, Salt Lake City, to be precise.
No, not Larry Niven the man. Larry Niven the writer.
Having just finished the first two books in W. Michael Gear’s Forbidden Borders series, I was impatient. The third book wasn’t due out for at least a year, and I wasn’t quite ready to return to my tried-and-true library of Pocketbooks Star Trek novels. So I trotted off to my favorite bookstore and idly scanned the shelves. Hoping for one or more titles to leap out at me. Kind of like a literary blind date.
At that time, Larry Niven was a name I’d only ever seen in passing: in the back pages of Omni magazine—amidst the book club selections. So when I spotted the books N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind, something in my unconscious said, “Hey, you keep seeing that guy pop up, why not give him a try?”
Little did I know that N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind were not, in fact, novels. Little did I also know that those two books would absolutely consume and regurgitate my imagination over the next four months, such that I would never look at science fiction the same ever again.
Much has been written in other places about The Great Larry Niven, most of it before I was old enough to drive. But at that particular point in my l
ife I didn’t know Larry Niven from Adam, and had absolutely no idea how much of an impact he’d had on the literary science fiction field in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. To me he was just another writer, and the stories and excerpts in N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind so thoroughly captivated me—fresh, without preconceptions, prejudices, or expectations—I went on to buy and read virtually every book Larry had ever written, or would ever write from that point forward.
Such was the level of my enjoyment of his work.
I mentioned earlier—with my piece on Allan Cole & Chris Bunch—that it’s impossible to read a million-plus words of a writer’s work, and not have that writer’s sensibilities, cadence, idioms, sense of humor, etc., rub off on you. In both large and small ways. So it is again with Larry Niven. The man I credit above all others for not only showing me a new and amazing way to tell science fiction stories—the “hard” way—but also for teaching me to love short science fiction as an art form. Because he does it so damned well.
Some writers credit Ray Bradbury or Harlan Ellison in this regard.
Me? All credit to Larry Niven! And to those two paperbacks. Which I have read and re-read so many times over the years, they’ve grown yellowed and fragile. Overused, one might say. Though in a loving and tender way.
Not long after I broke into professional science fiction myself, I met Larry Niven in person, at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California. It was my big chance to do what I’d been too afraid to do in 1993, at CONduit in Salt Lake: accost Larry and impress upon him my admiration for his work.
I thought I could keep my cool. Being a recent winner of the very contest Larry himself judged. I thought I could maintain my professional (albeit brand new!) demeanor.
I am embarrassed to say I went full fanboy. Full! Fanboy!
Thankfully, Larry was a patient chap, who suffered my exclamations with a smile. His wife too. They were gracious and kind.
I did it to them again the following year, when I brought and pressed my abused copies of N-Space and Playgrounds of the Mind into Larry’s hands, with a pen, and said, “Larry, these books are why I write short science fiction! Would you please sign them?”
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