“I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” the android said formally. “But it’s my duty to inform you that a life-form bearing a strong resemblance to a Ramanthian entered the valley from the west and is presently taking a nap where the house used to be.”
Margaret was up by then and pulling her clothes on. “A Ramanthian. You’re sure?”
“Yes, ma’am,” John responded gravely. “I’m sure.”
“And there’s only one of them?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the robot replied patiently. “There’s only one of them.”
“Did you tell Benson?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did,” the android confi?rmed.
“Good,” Margaret said, as she strapped a gun belt around her waist. “Go back and tell Lisa to stay with the children. I’ll be with Benson.”
The group had a pair of night-vision binoculars they had appropriated from the men who attempted to kill them immediately after they left the highway. And Benson was already using them when Margaret emerged from the mine to stand next to him. “So,” she wanted to know, “was John correct?”
“He sure as heck was,” the maintenance man answered.
“It’s weird. . . . But here, take a look for yourself.”
Margaret accepted the binos, brought them up to her eyes, and swept the area below until a greenish blob appeared. Then, after she fi?ddled with the controls, the picture came clear. There, lying on his side as if sound asleep, was a Ramanthian soldier, or aviator, if this particular bug had been aboard the ship they’d seen the previous day. “It looks like he’s asleep or dead,” the socialite commented. “Maybe they weren’t able to get a message out. Maybe he was injured, left the crash site looking for help, and couldn’t walk any farther.”
“Maybe,” Benson allowed grimly. “But regardless of what happened he’s a problem. If the chits see him, they’ll land right in our front yard. Maybe they’ll spot the mine, and maybe they won’t. But why take the chance? I say we go down and deal with him before the sun comes up.”
The plan made sense. So Margaret went to tell the others, ordered John to come along, and followed Benson down into the valley below. They were careful to step on rocks wherever possible in order to avoid creating a trail. Once in the valley, the humans circled the body, before approaching it with weapons at the ready. Margaret noticed that a faint odor of formic acid hung in the air around the Ramanthian as Benson prodded the body with his rifl?e. There was no response so Margaret decided that it was safe to move in and examine the corpse more closely. Margaret had seen Ramanthians before, and even spoke with some during prewar diplomatic functions, but never under circumstances such as these. The fi?rst thing she wanted to do was search the body for any objects or bits of information that might prove useful. Then, just to satisfy her own curiosity, Margaret was hoping to establish the cause of death. With those objectives in mind, she forced herself to grab hold of the aviator’s harness in an attempt to roll the alien over. And that was when the trooper uttered a groan. Margaret jerked her hand away as Benson raised the rifl?e. “Holy shit! The bastard is alive!”
“You know I don’t like that kind of language,” Margaret said primly. “Come on. . . . Let’s prepare the sling you were talking about.”
“But it’s alive!” Benson objected. “I should shoot it fi?rst.”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Margaret replied fi?rmly.
“Is that the way you would like them to treat us? Now, hurry up. Or would you like to have a Ramanthian patrol fi?nd us out here?”
It was that argument as much as anything that convinced Benson to take the coil of rope off his shoulder and work with John to prepare a sling. Then, once the carefully knotted rope was laid out next to the aviator, it was a simple matter to roll the alien onto it. That produced another groan, but the bug was still unconscious insofar as Margaret could tell, and that was good. Because she had nothing to offer the Ramanthian for his pain.
Margaret led the way as Benson and the android carried the aviator up the hill to the mine, where Lisa was waiting.
“We’ll take him back to one of the side galleries,” Margaret instructed, and turned to lead the way. The main shaft ran straight back into the hillside. The gradient slanted upwards, so the miners could move their fully loaded carts more easily, but the iron rails were long gone. Lights, all powered by carefully camoufl?aged solar panels, lit the way. Side tunnels, some of which had been enlarged over the years, provided rough-hewn rooms for sleeping, eating, and storage. And it was in one of the latter where a table had been placed so that the Ramanthian could be laid on his side. The same position he had been found in and the only one that would accommodate the alien’s wings. The fi?rst task, to Margaret’s mind at least, was to assess the extent of the alien’s injuries in case there was something that she or her companions could do to help. Benson wanted no part of the activity, but Lisa was willing, and having rigged some lights, the two women conducted an inch-by-inch examination of the alien’s body. And that was when they discovered that a section of the Ramanthian’s exoskeleton was not only broken, but pressing in on the aviator’s internal organs, which had most likely been damaged as a result. Margaret knew that the question of why the scout ship had crashed, and why there hadn’t been any signs of a search, would probably go unanswered. But one thing she did know was that the alien in front of her had gone down in what he no doubt saw as enemy territory, had suffered a terrible injury, and still found the courage to try and walk out. So while she hated the Ramanthians as a group, the matron couldn’t help but admire the being in front of her, as she pressed her fi?ngers against the alien’s reddish brown chitin. And that was when Margaret noticed something she thought was strange. Although she could have been wrong—
since she knew so little about bug physiology. But based on her efforts to move the Ramanthian, it seemed as though his chitin, and therefore his exoskeleton, was very thin. If true, that might have had something to do with the extent of his injuries. The problem was that Margaret had no way to know how thick normal chitin was. Still, if the aviator’s shell-like covering was especially fragile, the question was why?
The issue was academic, of course, but continued to linger in the back of Margaret’s mind, until the Ramanthian died six hours later. Benson was there, as was Lisa, when the socialite made her announcement. “We have some work to do before we can bury him,” Margaret said. “I want to take samples of his exoskeleton and major organs.”
Both of her companions were amazed. “Whatever for?”
Lisa wanted to know.
“I think the aviator was sick before the crash,” Margaret answered fi?rmly. “That’s why his exoskeleton was so fragile.”
“So what?” Benson inquired cynically. “Humans get sick; Ramanthians get sick. That’s how it is.”
“You’re probably right,” Margaret admitted. “But what if other Ramanthians are suffering from the same disease?
And what if a lot of Ramanthians were suffering from the disease? Wouldn’t our intelligence people want to know that?”
“They might,” Lisa conceded. “But how would you get in touch with them? Algeron is a long ways off.”
“I don’t know,” Margaret replied. “But we’ve got to try.”
“I think the whole discussion is a waste of time,” Benson said dismissively. “We don’t have the means to preserve tissue samples once you take them.”
“Oh, but we do!” Margaret proclaimed, with a wicked smile. “You went to some lengths to bring liquor along, as I recall—claiming that we might need it for ‘medicinal purposes.’ Well, it looks like you were correct!”
“No,” Benson said, as he looked at her aghast. “You wouldn’t!”
“Oh, but I would,” Margaret assured him. “Lisa, please fi?nd some containers. Plastic would be best. Thomas, please fetch a saw. We have work to do.”
14
Swift, blazing fl?ag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing And a fi?eld where a thousand corpses lie.
—Stephen Crane
War Is Kind
Standard year 1899
PLANET GAMMA-014, THE CLONE HEGEMONY
Having successfully led his troops and their stolen vehicles up over Tow-Tok Pass, and down onto the plain beyond, Colonel Six stood on top of a three-tiered main battle tank, and surveyed the battlefi?eld ahead. Various types of data scrolled down the right side of the viewfi?nder, including the range of each object that fell under the crosshairs, the prevalent wind direction, and the temperature—a skin-numbing twenty-six degrees.
But Six barely noticed the discomfort. His mind was on carnage spread out in front of him. Knowing that the allies would have to come down out of Tow-Tok Pass, General Oro Akoto had chosen to dig hundreds of north–south trenches intended to block access to the city of Yal-Am beyond. And, thanks to the canyon that bordered the battlefi?eld to the north, and a densely packed minefi?eld to the south, the Ramanthian had been able to keep his enemies right where he wanted them, which was bogged down a good ten miles short of their goal.
Deep ditches were connected by communication trenches that ran east and west. Carefully sited bunkers, pillboxes, and machine-gun nests were positioned to put the allies in a lethal cross fi?re whenever they attempted to advance. All of that would have been worthless in the spring, summer, or fall, when allied aircraft would have pulverized the Ramanthian army. But thanks to very bad weather, and thickets of surface-to-air missile launchers, Akoto had been able to neutralize what should have been an overwhelming advantage. Rather than wait for better weather—it appeared that General-453 was pushing ahead, relying on superior numbers to overwhelm the bugs and force entry into Yal-Am. And, judging from what Six could make out, the results had been nothing short of disastrous. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but fi?re-blackened craters, wrecked hover tanks, and thousands of unrecovered allied and Ramanthian bodies.
As the offi?cer continued to scan the war-torn landscape ahead, another chapter in the bloody confl?ict began to unfold. Thunder rolled as the artillery pieces that had been dug in along the west side of the city began to speak. That sound was followed by a freight-train rumble as the big shells passed through the atmosphere. Then came a series of concussive booms as the high-explosive rounds landed among the allied troops and threw columns of earth, snow, and raw meat high into the air.
Even as the bloody confetti fell, Six saw thousands of white-clad Ramanthians boil up out of distant trenches and surge forward. Not to be outdone, the allies fi?red their howitzers and multiple-rocket launchers. And with devastating effects, too. . . . Dozens of red-orange explosions rippled along the Ramanthian trenches, and hundreds of bugs fell, as they battled to retake the north–south trench they had been forced to vacate the previous day.
Then the allied artillery barrage stopped as thousands of Seebos, marines, and legionnaires swarmed up out of their hiding places and rushed forward. Most of the clones wore winter white and gray, but all too many of the free breeders were dressed in layered summer uniforms, or ponchos made from blankets. The darker uniforms made excellent targets, and the people who wore them began to die as boots slipped on ice, robots struggled to cut paths through a maze of razor wire, and offi?cers waved them forward. The soldiers fell in waves, their lives harvested like wheat, as the yammering machine guns cut them down. Mortar fi?re added to the madness, as men and women scrabbled through clods of falling earth to capture another few inches of bloody ground. And for what? Nothing that the Seebo could see and understand. It was a battle conceived by a conceited fool who, brother or not, was a mass murderer.
Having seen all he could stomach—Colonel Six lowered his binos. He had to stop the madness. . . . But how? Suddenly a mad, crazy idea occurred to him. A plan that shouldn’t work, but could work, given the unusual circumstances. But would Dr. Kira Kelly be willing to cooperate?
Maybe, the clone concluded, if she saw what he’d seen. The clone spoke into his lip mike. “This is Six. . . . Fetch the doctor. There’s something I want her to see.”
As the sun sank in the west, and powerful fl?ares drifted down out of a lead gray sky, both sides settled in for a night of bitterly cold weather. The darkness was punctuated by occasional cross-trench raids as the adversaries sought to claim or reclaim precious inches of frozen ground they had been denied during daylight hours. A brutal, frequently close-quarters, business that rarely produced the sort of results that General-453 and his offi?cers were looking for.
But that didn’t keep them from trying, so any number of fanciful plots were hatched as General-453 and his mostly clone staff took their usual dinner within the cozy warmth of the command bunker located underneath his infl?atable hab. The soft-sided structure was located fi?fteen miles west of Yal-Am, which put it safely beyond the reach of the biggest tubes General Akoto was willing to waste on a planet he expected to lose to the enemy.
Having consumed a hearty meal in the company of his cronies, the clone went up to his offi?ce, where it was his intention to respond to General Kobbi’s latest memo. A missive the Seebo wanted to ignore, but couldn’t, because of the way the free breeder consistently copied General Bill Booly. Still, the legionnaires were dying at a prodigious rate, and there was an excellent chance that Kobbi would take a bullet during one of his frequent trips to the front lines. I’ll give the asshole a posthumous medal, the offi?cer thought to himself, and send my condolences to General Booly!
The thought brought a thin smile to General-453’s face as he entered his offi?ce only to discover that another Seebo was waiting for him. Even though the clone soldiers looked identical except for differences in age, they could frequently tell each other apart thanks to nuances of dress, posture, and infl?ection. Not this time however, because even though they were roughly the same age, Four-fi?fty-three couldn’t remember meeting this offi?cer before. “Is there some sort of emergency, Colonel?” the general wanted to know. “Because if there isn’t, I would prefer that you see my adjutant, and make an appointment to see me.”
Colonel Six stood. Thanks to his obvious status as a Seebo, and his relatively high rank, it had been absurdly easy to fi?nd out where the general was and await his return. The renegade put the time to good use by studying the schematics on the walls, reviewing a thick stack of intelligence reports, and skimming through the correspondence stacked on one corner of the collapsible desk. “I’m afraid it is an emergency, sir,” Six assured the senior offi?cer. “But we’ll have everything under control in a moment. Isn’t that right, Lieutenant-44?”
General-453 opened his mouth to say something, but never got a chance, as Lieutenant-44 took him from behind. The senior offi?cer struggled, but couldn’t counter the combination of a full nelson, and the younger man’s strength.
“Okay,” Colonel Six said. “You can come out now.”
That was Dr. Kira Kelly’s cue to step out of General453’s washroom. “How dare you!” General-453 spluttered, and the medic crossed the room. “I’ll have you arrested! I’ll have you court-martialed! I’ll have—”
“Make him shut up,” Colonel Six said disgustedly, as Kelly knelt next to Four-fi?fty-three.
“This should do it,” the doctor said calmly, pressing the injector against one of the general’s meaty thighs. There was an audible pop as a gas cartridge forced a powerful sedative through the weave of Four-fi?fty-three’s trousers and into his bloodstream. Lieutenant-44 was there to support the older Seebo as the strength left his legs.
“Let’s put the general to bed,” Six said, moving in to help. With Four-Four supporting Four-fi?fty-three’s torso, and the others lifting his legs, the Seebo was carried into his sleeping compartment and strapped to his cot. With that accomplished, Six turned to Kelly. “Thank you, Doctor. You know what this means, don’t you?”
“No,” Kelly answered. “What does it mean? Outside of the fact that I must be crazy?”
“It means you’re one of us,” Six said meaningfully. “Because now you’re part of what amounts to a mutiny.”
Kelly remembered the view from the top of the tank, as thousands of brave men and women were sent forward into what constituted a meat grinder, and knew Six was correct. By giving the sedative, she had knowingly crossed the line from victim, to criminal, and aligned herself with a man who, if not a murderer on the scale that General-453 was, still qualifi?ed as such. Not that it mattered much, because Kelly had already lost her way, and knew it. Her resolve had weakened since leaving the note at the refueling station. Serious mistakes had been made, and there was no going back. “Yes,” Kelly agreed fatalistically. “We’re on the same side.”
“Good,” Six replied evenly. “The next part is going to be tricky. Very tricky indeed. And I need your help.”
General Mortimer Kobbi had his combat gear on, and was about to go out into the fl?are-lit trenches, when the summons arrived. “You’re sure?” the tough little legionnaire demanded, as the com tech faced him under the glare produced by the overhead strip lights. Their breaths fogged the air, a series of distant explosions sent tremors through the frozen ground, and a nearly spent bullet pinged as it fl?attened itself against one of the metal shutters.
“Yes, sir,” the corporal said steadfastly. “Generalwants to see you right away.”
“It was probably that last memo you sent,” a major named Perko said sardonically. “The fi?ring squad is ready.”
The com tech thought that was funny—but knew better than to smile. “All of the regimental commanders were invited,” the corporal put in. “The meeting is scheduled for 2100 hours.”
Kobbi waited until the enlisted man had left before turning to Perko. The major was a big man, with broad shoulders, and a long, lugubrious face. “Who knows?” the general said rhetorically. “Maybe the bastard will listen to someone other than his clone suck-ups for a change.”
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