by Kent, Steven
I came over to ask what he’d seen, but O’Doul rounded on me. His dark eyes looked rabid. He grimaced, and said, “They should have left you.”
Glancing over O’Doul’s shoulder, I saw that the body of the dead driver still lay on the floor of the vehicle. Only then did I recognize the dead man’s bloody clothing. It was the Jackal leader.
“Twelve men went to rescue you,” O’Doul snarled.
“I didn’t know,” I whispered.
“You didn’t know,” O’Doul said, shaking his head. “Doctorow, Mu . . . How many people trusted you and died today?”
“Doctorow? Doctorow is dead?” I asked, remembering that he had gone off with Thomer.
“We lost contact with Thomer’s transport,” Hollingsworth said.
My legs went weak. I felt dizzy, almost ready to collapse. Thomer disappeared? First Herrington, now Thomer.
Then I remembered the mission. Without that bomb, we would not be able to destroy the curtain. At most, the battle we had just fought would buy us three days without that bomb. I felt puny and impotent.
For a moment, I thought O’Doul would attack me. We stood there, all of his militiamen forming a ring around us, his eyes boring into mine. His breathing was loud. Instead of attacking me, he did something worse. He turned his back on me. He pulled the body out of the Jackal and carried it the way a man carries a child or a bride. He said, “This man was my brother, Muhammad.” And then he walked away.
All the thoughts of victory and invincibility vanished from my head. The words of Nietzsche abandoned me as well. I thought about Ava waiting for me in my quarters; but this time, instead of fantasizing about sex, I thought about holding her. I wondered when and if I would ever see her again.
“When did we lose contact with Thomer?” I asked. The words came slowly. I was a man ready to fall over and looking for balance wherever I could find it. “Give me an update.”
The militiamen slowly peeled away from us. I no longer mattered to them.
“Fifteen minutes ago,” Hollingsworth said.
“Before or after you set off the bombs?”
“After, right after,” Hollingsworth said.
“That might not be a problem,” I said, seeing a ray of hope. “It might even be good. It means they’re in the mines. They’re placing the nuke.”
“Wouldn’t they have called in first?”
I shook my head. “I told him to wait for the bombs to go off, then to head in.” I gave that order back when Doctorow first floated his idea about blowing up the subway tracks.
“We’re still down to eighty-one men,” Hollingsworth said.
When he first said this, I thought it sounded pretty good because I did not calculate Thomer and the seventy-five Marines he took into the mines in the equation. For one bright moment, I thought Hollingsworth meant that we had eighty-one men plus the seventy-six Marines placing the nuke in the mines. When I did the math, it didn’t add up, and I realized he meant that only five of my men had survived our brush with the aliens.
We started the mission a few hours earlier with 250 men, and at that moment I could only confirm that six were alive. Herrington, the old leatherneck son of a bitch had survived more than thirty years of service, and now he was gone.
“How about the militia?” I asked. “How many Jackals made it back home?”
Hollingsworth shook his head. “You drove the only one that made it back.”
I took a step back. We were alone now, Hollingsworth and I. We stood in a giant underground garage with the entire level to ourselves. Looking over Hollingsworth’s shoulder, I saw the torn-up, broken carcass of the Jackal I had driven in, the dead gunner still peering from the turret in the back. A thin trickle of oil leaked from the seals around the Jackal’s chassis, and three of its tires were flat.
I groaned.
If we did not bury our dead quickly, dogs, rats, and insects would find the men in those Jackals. They would gnaw at their flesh and pick at their bones. O’Doul was right about me. I had been the death of the men who trusted me.
Nietzsche was right as well. When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you. Those men had died trying to save me. I owed them a debt I could not repay.
“Just what I need, more ghosts,” I muttered to myself.
“Ghosts?” Hollingsworth asked. He looked confused.
“Ghosts,” I said. “If there is one thing Marines have, it’s ghosts. We take them everywhere we go.”
“I don’t understand,” Hollingsworth said.
“No, but you will,” I said. As a relatively new Marine who had ridden out the Avatari invasion on a battleship, Hollingsworth had little if any combat experience. He had not lost many friends.
We saw the results of the blast before we heard from the transport. I was at the airfield helping stow gear on what was likely the last of our transports. We did not need to load the transport. If Thomer succeeded in setting off his bomb, we would leave the gear on Terraneau. If he failed, we’d be stuck on the planet, gear and all. Either way, the only reason to repack was to distract ourselves.
Paying little attention to the darkness around me, I looked out of the kettle and saw my men staring into the night sky. I trotted down the ramp and stared into the beautiful blackness with its ribbons of clouds. Above the clouds, stars sparkled like diamond shards.
“They made it,” Hollingsworth said. He laughed. “Goddamn, they made it.”
My pilot had already picked up their radio signal by the time I reached the cockpit. “I’ve got them, sir,” he said. A moment later, Thomer’s voice came over the speaker.
“Thomer, report,” I said, my hands trembling around the microphone.
“We set off the nuke.”
“There’s a night sky above Norristown,” I said. “Did you take casualties?”
“No sir. We did not see any opposition.”
“That’s good news, Thomer,” I said. “That’s really good news.” I clung to the words “no opposition” as if they were a lifeline in a stormy sea.
“I’m not sure what kind of damage we did to the planet,” Thomer said. “We did a flyby, several mountains caved in after the explosion. Those mines ran several miles deeper than the ones on New Copenhagen. We never reached the bottom.”
I should have expected the mines on Terraneau to be bigger than the ones on New Copenhagen. Those mines only ran a few hundred feet deep, but the Avatari had only worked on them for a couple of weeks. Who knew how long the aliens had been burrowing on Terraneau.
“Well done, Sergeant,” I said. And then I told him about our defense of Norristown. Considering what we had accomplished, I did not paint a very glorious picture.
“They outnumbered you, sir,” Thomer said. It helped a little. I thanked him and told him we needed to report back to the Kamehameha as soon as possible.
Thomer congratulated me, then he signed off.
It only took me a minute to reach Admiral Thorne. Having seen the ion curtain disappear from the atmosphere, he had expected the call.
“Congratulations, Captain.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “How does the planet look from topside?”
“The radiation readings around the Dansforth Mountain Range are off the charts. People will be avoiding that site for the next few thousand years.” Thorne gave a perfunctory laugh.
Looking through the windshield of the transport, I watched Hollingsworth lead what was left of my men. Five Marines stood where 150 Marines had recently landed.
“What’s the damage look like?” Thorne asked.
“I lost sixty percent of my men.”
“A small price to pay to rescue a planet, Captain, but I wasn’t asking about casualties. What does Norristown look like? Are there many survivors? If you know who is in charge, tell him I want to tour the city.”
“The city is almost gone. I can’t say what the rest of the planet looks like, but Norristown is just about a bust.”
“What about Colon
el Doctorow? Did you find him?”
“Yes, sir, we found Doctorow. You want the leader of Norristown . . . he’s your man.”
“You’ll give him my message?” Thorne asked.
“Yes, sir. If it’s all right with you, sir, I’d like to stay here this evening to debrief him. He should be landing shortly. I can . . .”
“As you wish, Captain. I will need to speak with him separately.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, my curiosity turning to paranoia. What did I know about Thorne? I still trusted him, but I wondered what he wanted to tell Doctorow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The people of Norristown might not have welcomed our visit, but they were glad to be freed. The party they threw lit the horizon.
Most of my men headed into town to join in the celebration, but I stayed back to deal with my regrets and my ghosts. I wanted some time to myself.
I spent the night in a transport, sitting in the pilot’s seat. The cockpit faced east. Beyond the gates of the airfield, I saw the outskirts of Norristown. A myriad of lights marked the part of town where the locals held their celebration. I stared on past the lights to the mountains just visible on the other side of town. Beyond the mountains, the sun had already begun to rise. The sky looked like it was carved from the skin of a very ripe peach.
Romanticizing sunsets and starry skies did not fit in my nature; but after the ion curtain, I welcomed the brindle sky.
Thomer came into the cockpit and sat with me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I didn’t feel like having a good time, so I came to see you.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“It was either that, or I could have shot up some Fallzoud.”
Three or four minutes passed before we spoke again, then Thomer asked, “Do you think they’re gone for good?”
I started to answer, then took a moment to consider the question again. The sun had begun to rise. Glare shone through the windshield.
“Those sons of bitches must have a million million planets under their thumb. I think they can afford to let one or two slip away,” I said.
Thomer nodded. “A million million planets,” he repeated. “What is that, a trillion planets? You really think that many planets exist?”
“Damn it, Thomer, I’m a Marine, not an astronomer,” I said. “How the hell should I know?”
“Yeah, good point.”
After that, neither of us spoke. We sat there, staring out the windshield, glad to see a sunrise.
“Captain Harris, are you in there?” The voice came from the rear of the transport.
I walked to the door and called back, “We’re up in the cockpit.” Without waiting for an answer, I returned to the pilot’s chair and sat down.
I recognized the voice; the Right Reverend Colonel Ellery Doctorow had come to invade my privacy. Would he congratulate me for liberating his planet or berate me for killing so many of his men? I didn’t care either way.
The metal soles of his boots clanged against the floor of the kettle. I heard only one set of footfalls. At least Doctorow had come alone.
He struggled up the ladder, then he said, “Permission to come aboard.” There was irony in his voice, but the attempt at observing protocol seemed sincere just the same.
“Come on in,” I said.
“Want me to leave?” Thomer asked.
“Don’t leave on my account,” Doctorow said.
Thomer did not leave, but he abandoned the copilot’s chair so that Doctorow could sit. The Right Reverend looked out of place in that seat with his long hair and beard. He had not come empty-handed. He had brought a basket with a dozen bottles of Earth-brewed beer. Under different circumstances, he might have been able to sell those bottles for a hundred dollars apiece
“Are you thirsty, Sergeant?” he asked, offering Thomer the first beer. He offered me a bottle, then opened one for himself.
“Have I come at a good time?” Doctorow asked.
“It’s fine,” I said in a quiet voice.
“You know, Captain Harris, you had me scared when you first arrived. I thought fleet intervention would only make things worse. I was wrong.” He held out his beer in a gesture of salute.
“I spoke with Fleet Command an hour ago,” I said. “The last atmospheric readings came up completely clean. From what they can tell, the aliens are gone.”
“Yes. Admiral Thorne gave me the same report,” Doctorow said, a warm smile showing from under his beard. “A toast then, to a free planet, with afternoon skies and stars at night.”
“Afternoon skies and starry nights,” I repeated. We traded nods instead of tapping bottles, then we drank. Somehow he had chilled the beer. It tasted cold and fresh.
Thomer sipped his beer, enjoying the flavor. Doctorow downed most of his bottle in one long drink. I drank more like Thomer, enjoying the feel of the alcohol on my tongue.
“It almost doesn’t seem real,” Doctorow said. “After all those years, you chased the aliens away in a single day. Who would have known?”
“It did not go as well as I hoped,” I said. “Have you spoken to O’Doul?”
“Oh yes, Kareem,” Doctorow said. “He’s a man who understands sacrifice. You did what you had to do. He knows that.”
“Does he believe it?” I asked.
“Down deep, yes. He’ll never come out and say it; but, yes, I think that is precisely what he believes.
“So what’s next for you, Captain Harris?”
“Now we rebuild Terraneau,” I said. “We have enough engineers and equipment to have Norristown lit and self-sustaining by the end of the month. We’re all going to go hungry if we don’t start building some food stores soon.”
“A farming planet? Excellent,” Doctorow said. “Where do you intend to set up your base?” Doctorow asked.
“Fort Sebastian,” I said.
Doctorow seemed to expect that answer and shook his head. “I am not sure that will be an acceptable arrangement, Captain.”
“It’s not as if we have other options,” I said.
He put up a hand to stop me. “Admiral Thorne told me about your situation.”
“Yeah, well, I never planned on retiring in Scrotum-Crotch,” I said, forgetting myself and using the Marine-speak name for the galactic arm.
“There’s no need for vulgarity, Captain,” Doctorow said. Our eyes locked for a second, and I saw good humor and maybe a little embarrassment in his expression. “Sorry,” he said. “Force of habit from my days as a chaplain.”
I apologized as well.
“I am sure we can find a more suitable arrangement. Terraneau is a large planet, surely we can find locations other than Norristown for you to use as a military base.”
“I don’t get it. Why can’t we use Fort Sebastian?” Thomer asked.
Doctorow fixed him with a plastic smile. “It’s not the base that I would object to. It’s what happens to the town around it.”
“So you’re worried we won’t behave ourselves,” I said. “What is this, your own personal theocracy?”
When Doctorow answered that he was trying to foster a community, not a theocracy, I asked the question I had wanted to ask since we first met. “How did you become the king of Norristown anyway?”
Thomer shifted nervously as I asked this. On Fallzoud or off, he had a deep respect for authority.
“The bard of Norristown might be a better description,” Doctorow said. He pulled his third beer out of the basket and drained it. “Anyone else for another?” He had come with twelve beers. After we each took one more, only three remained.
Outside, a new day had begun.
“Will you look at that—there’s a sun in the sky over Norristown,” Doctorow said. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve seen one? It may not mean much to you . . .”
“It means a lot to me,” I said, giving Thomer a commiserating glance. “How about you, Sergeant? Does it mean anything to you?”
Tho
mer nodded. “Like swimming underwater and suddenly getting your first breath of air.”
“Yeah, right, like getting your first breath of air,” I said, impressed with Thomer’s analogy. It was too good an analogy. I would not have expected it from a Fallzoud jockey.
“Colonel Doctorow, what did you mean by the bard of Norristown?” Thomer asked.
“In a figurative sense, I am in charge because I am a singer of epic verses,” Doctorow said.
“Is that what you do?” asked Thomer. He felt comfortable around Doctorow. Clearly they had bonded during their mission to the mines.
“You seem to be the man in charge,” I said.
Doctorow told me the history that I had missed. He talked about the fall of Norristown and the deaths of over a million soldiers. After the aliens spread their ion curtain around the planet, the Army had managed to hold out for a month. During that entire time, Doctorow remained on active duty, delivering sermons to men who he believed had no souls and blessing the mass graves of men who he believed had no hope.
“It came to nothing,” Doctorow said. “Prayers, works, faith . . . nothing.”
“Sounds like you lost your faith,” I said. I did not tell him about my misplaced faith. I did not think it mattered.
“Lost my faith?” Doctorow echoed. He shook his head. “I still believe there is a God, if that is what you mean by faith. But if He is anything like I picture him, He’s not much of a shepherd.”
“If not a shepherd, then what?” I asked.
“Just a voyeur. Just a cosmic witness. A bystander who probably thinks it’s strange that we still call to Him for help when He hasn’t done anything to help any of us for thousands of years. He probably hears us calling and laughs.”
“ ‘For with the old Gods things came to an end long ago,’ ” I said, still spouting Nietzsche. “ ‘One day they laughed themselves to death.’ ”
“What was that?” Doctorow asked.
“It’s something an old philosopher said,” I said. “He said the Gods laughed themselves to death.”
“Well, now there’s some blasphemous bullshit,” Doctorow said.