by Tom Kratman
"Captain," Carrera greeted at he stepped over the gangplank onto the deck.
"Duque," Chu answered, with a head nod. At least he knows the proper form or address. "A cabin had been prepared below. We're past dinner but I've had the cook put a meal in your cabin." Which is my cabin, actually, but let's not go there. "If you would like a drink, there's scotch in a drawer in the desk. I can arrange a woman . . . "
"That won't be necessary; the woman, I mean. I appreciate the scotch, too, but I've bought my own. My son will stay with me. Billet the others. And then just take me to the von Mises, Captain."
33/9/469 AC, Hildegard von Mises
He looks much the worse for wear, thought Carrera, looking at the emaciated body of Mustafa ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana. On him, it's plain on the outside. With me? It's all on the inside.
Mustafa's beard, once long and flowing and rich in dignity, was shaved off. This was only fitting as he was soon to be changed into a woman. His hands were bandaged and bound. Had he not been given a robe, there would have been visible burn marks on his torso. Both of his feet looked deformed now; the guards had had to carry him into the interview room. He had his arms wrapped about his torso, holding broken ribs as if terrified of any movement. This, too, was understandable. Skevington's Daughter, among her other talents, also broke ribs. Even had none of this been so, still Mustafa would not have smiled. He'd been to the dentist once too often for that.
For all that, he's still in better mental shape than Robinson or Arbeit, Carrera thought. Those two have totally collapsed.
"You gave up everything you knew you had to give, I think, old friend," Carrera said to him. His voice was gentle, as if he were somehow detached from his surroundings, even as if he were somehow detached from life. "Still, I wonder what more you might give up."
At a nod from Carrera, the two screens, neither of them Kurosawas, sprang to life. The screen on the left showed little but a rapidly passing desert below, with the occasional camel or goat visible only as a greenish pixilation of a slightly different shade from the sand below. The other screen likewise showed a night scene, taken from above. The latter scene, however, was much more brightly lit, the features much more easily distinguished. It showed a walled compound, minaret rising above the wall, and armed guards patrolling it. The images on the screens were being recorded, as was the scene on the von Mises of Carrera chatting with Mustafa.
"Recognize it?" Carrera asked.
"Go to Hell, pig," Mustafa responded through drilled and temporarily patched teeth. One of the guards pulled the former prince of the Ikhwan to his feet but his hair. Two brutally quick punches to the kidney left the ex-terrorist sobbing on the floor.
It must take tremendous courage, courage passing that of men, to still remain defiant after all he's been through. I could admire him were circumstances otherwise.
"I really do insist that you look at the screen," Carrera said. "I don't want to have to have your eyelids sewn open." A shift of Carrera's chin caused the same guard who had kidney punched Mustafa to haul him back onto his chair, again by his hair. "Now watch. This is important . . . to you. Do you recognize the view on the right?"
Mustafa looked, this time; anything to avoid another set of blows to his already abused kidneys. The surrounding wall . . . the minaret . . . the small mosque below . . . that's my family compound in Hajar!
"Why are you showing me this?" Mustafa asked.
"You do recognize it then?"
"Yes . . . yes, of course I do. I grew up there."
"Indeed," Carrera agreed. "Did you know that nearly every child, grandchild, and great grandchild of your father is likewise growing up there? Did you know that all your brothers and cousins, all their husbands and wives, are likewise in that compound? Oh, sure . . . maybe a few distant relatives might be elsewhere. But I am pretty confident"—his tone held the very platonic essence of confidence as he said it—"that at least ninety-eight percent of your blood relatives are there in that compound. We spent . . . I spent much effort at making life impossible for them anywhere else."
Mustafa said nothing to that. He'd known that his family had been hunted like animals all over the planet. It was not much of a surprise that this vicious, filthy, crusading swine had wielded the guiding hand of murder.
Carrera lit a cigarette. He saw Mustafa's eyes widen with barely repressed desire. Why not? Isn't everyone entitled to a last cigarette? He handed the lighter and pack to one of the guards and said, "Give him one."
Mustafa took the cigarette in his bandaged and bound hands and held it to his mouth while the guard flicked the lighter for him. One it was lit, he puffed frantically, eyes closing in unaccustomed bliss.
Carrera waited patiently for Mustafa to finish the cigarette. He had time.
"You were going to use nuclear weapons on both of my homelands," Carrera said. It wasn't a question and so Mustafa didn't answer. "Did you know I've had nuclear weapons since 461? Those were small things, though. Nothing like the citybusters I captured at your base. The ones I had had other defects, too, mainly that a clever man might trace them to me and my people."
Mustafa's eyed darted to the screens. Carrera caught the movement.
"Oh, yes. One of those captured, a true citybuster, is headed toward your family compound. That's the screen on the left. It's rated at seven hundred and eighty kilotons. I am informed that we can expect one hundred percent deaths at your family compound, and anything from half a million to a million in the city of Hajar."
His face a study in horror, Mustafa shook his head in denial. "You can't . . . "
"Sure I can," Carrera said. "Moreover, why should I not? I mean, think about it. Here you are, the greatest—known—terrorist in the history of this world. You've been trying to get nukes for decades. Your chief assistant, Nur al-Deen, even insisted you had them. He quoted the price you paid, did he not? And then a nuke goes off at ground zero, right inside your family compound, a place you conceivably might have stored one. That, alone, will make your movement very unappealing to the bulk of even young, idiot, male Salafis."
"But there will be doubts, too. 'Maybe,' people will say, 'just maybe it was a deliberate attack.' Now if that attack were to be from someone identifiable, then there would be a great cry for vengeance. But when the attack seems to come from nowhere? When they can't even identify a target for vengeance? No, old friend, that will be truly effective terror. That will have no focus for revenge. That will have your people shitting themselves at the thought of retaliation and beating their sons the first time the little bastards shout 'Allahu akbar' a bit too enthusiastically. It's perfect; don't you see? And you gave me the means. That's perfect, too.
"Lastly, I think that when the King of Yithrab—whoever ends up as king, the day after tomorrow—has to spend money to rebuild his capital, he'll find he can't afford both a capital city and madrassas all over the planet."
Carrera went silent then, leaving Mustafa in torment as the clock displayed on the left hand screen ticked down.
After that long silence, with the clock down to under five minutes and Mustafa's face showing mental agony beyond agony, Carrera said, "I could change the target now, I suppose. Tell me, would you rather your family die en masse or would you prefer that I obliterate Makkah al Jedidah and the New Kaaba?"
Mustafa cringed, both inside and out. "Devil!" he spat. "Spawn of Shaitan!"
"Which really doesn't answer the question," Carrera observed, still genially. "Would you rather I obliterate your family, your entire family, or that one stone building, which includes but a single stone from the original on Old Earth, should go up in smoke? I remind you that the number of civilian dead will be about the same."
Deprivation, stress, physical torture, and now this. Mustafa felt his heart begin to crack even as it had not cracked previously. To lose my entire family . . . to destroy the sacred Kaaba? He sank; physically, as he slumped and drew in on himself, mentally, as the weight Carrera had laid upon his soul bore him He
llward.
"Destroy . . . Makkah," Mustafa forced out. "Spare . . . my . . . family."
"No."
"But . . . "
"I said I could," Carrera's genial tone changed to one of pure cruelty. "I didn't say I would. Your family dies, as you murdered mine. I would kill them anyway, if only to terrorize any in the future who might contemplate going down the road you traveled. I just wanted both God and yourself to know that your faith, your personal faith, was a fraud. I may join you in Hell, someday, Mustafa. Indeed, after this, I probably will. But at least, if I do, it won't be because I betrayed my God as you have just tried to betray yours."
Mustafa's jaw went slack, his eyes wild. As the clock on the screen wound down, he began a wordless moan. When it reached zero, and the image on the screen changed to a single enormous flash, the lesser terrorist in the cabin aboard the von Mises began a horrible keening. It was the sound of a man who has lost everything, in this world and the next.
Carrera arose to leave. "Cheer up, old man," he said. "You still have one son left. Me." To Mahamda he gave the order. "Turn him into what he despises, a woman. Then crucify him . . . her . . . it."
"And the Earthpigs?"
"Let's save them for a while and see what use we might make of them."
Bridge, UEPF Spirit of Peace
Life is looking up, Wallenstein thought, as she lounged in her command chair. Robinson is gone. I am in command here, now, so it seems very likely that I shall be raised to Class One. All in all . . .
A crewwoman at a sensing panel started back as if the panel were passing electricity through her body. "Captain, I've got a nuclear detonation on the planet's surface!"
Wallenstein's eyes grew wide in horror. Policy, long established, was that the fleet would retaliate for any nuclear weapons use . . . but that would mean nuclear war with the FSC. Oh, Annan, I don't want to die, not now, not when I'm so close to my dreams.
"Where? Who?" she demanded, lurching strait upright.
"Yithrab, Captain. City of Hajar. Devastation is near total. There must be a half million dead. Hell . . . maybe two million. As for who . . . "
"Yes?"
"Unknown. The analysis is different from any we have a record of. All I can say is it wasn't one of ours."
"Get me a line to the President of the Federated States," Wallenstein ordered. That son of a bitch, she thought. He promised he wouldn't tell the FSC that Robinson was trying to give nukes to the Ikhwan. And, so far as I can tell, he didn't. But he never said he wouldn't use one. And he just did. And I thought I was ruthless . . .
BdL Hildegard von Mises
Except for a couple of men who sat a bench near the superstructure of the ship, the small party accompanying Carrera stood in a group by its port side. In the distance, they could see Qamra approaching. A ladder had already been let over the side to allow them to climb down.
Soult and Mitchell watched Carrera as stood on the deck, while waiting for the Qamra to come alongside to pick them up. Carrera looked, to say the least, unwell. Soult worried about the "old man's" trembling hands. To Mitchell, the major concern was the glassy, mindless stare.
If the boss said it was right to nuke a major city and kill upwards of half a million people, that was enough for them. Still, though they, themselves, had no particular problem with the nuking of Hajar, perhaps it was bothering him.
Whatever he was feeling inside, though, could not be good. And then . . .
Ah, Jesus," Mitch thought, he's crying.
It was true, not some fluke of the light nor even some bits of detritus in his eyes. Trembling, staring down at the sea; tears also coursed down Carrera's face. He didn't seem to notice.
"Other side of the ship," Soult said to the other guards and seamen standing around. "Now! We'll take care of him." He looked at the boy, Hamilcar, and appended, "Stay here, son. Maybe it will help your father."
Hamilcar nodded but thought, I don't think anything much that I can do will help.
"He's just relieved that it's finally over," Mitchell insisted to the soldiers and sailors scurrying away. He called to their backs, "And if you mention a word of this to anyone, your grandchildren will have nightmares."
Both men moved in to stand close to either side. It was as well that they did; Carrera's knees buckled and he began to fall to the deck. They caught him and half carried him backwards to the bench.
"Boss? Sir? Pat?" There was no reaction, except that the tears were joined by sobs.
"What do we do, Jamey," Mitchell asked, desperately.
"Get him to a doctor? Get him home? Hell, I don't know. We've seen him in bad shape before, but this?"
"I think we'd better call the Sergeant Major."
"And my mother," Hamilcar added.
2/10/469 AC, Herrera International Airport, Ciudad Balboa
Carrera, Hamilcar, Mitchell, and Soult came in by chartered jet. The plane landed on the military side of the airport and was immediately surrounded by troops of the 1st Tercio, Principe Eugenio. Lourdes, Parilla and McNamara boarded, along with a dozen others. Inside they found Carrera stretched out on a medical litter, either asleep or comatose. Lourdes knelt before her son and hugged him tight, then turned and placed one hand against Carrera's face before bending to kiss his forehead.
"Home now, my love," she said. "Home now . . . forever."
If Carrera heard he gave no sign, but continued to stare straight up as if he were someplace else entirely.
"Doctor, what's wrong with him?" Parilla asked of the medico in attendance.
"Bare minimum, complete exhaustion," the doctor answered. "What other problems he may have will take a while to figure out and treat. A nervous breakdown is possible."
At McNamara's order, four of the men escorting picked up the litter and carried it first to the exit way, then down the long flight of debarkation steps to the tarmac below. There the litter was placed in an ambulance which drove slowly and carefully to a Legion NA-23, parked nearby.
Punta Cocoli, Isla Real
Marqueli and Jorge, and about seventy thousand others, watched the plane come in on the old military strip at the curved, northern point of the island.
The NA-23 cargo plane, in the colors of the Legion and with a picture of Jan Sobieski's Winged Hussars painted on the side, landed on the airstrip on the Isla Real, then turned and taxied to the terminal. There it stopped and lowered its ramp.
Virtually the entire population of the island—over thirty-five thousand soldiers, plus their wives and children—lined the fence at the edge of the airfield or found a spot along the road that led from there to the rest of the island.
Four of the people waiting were Jorge Mendoza, his lovely wife, Marqueli, and their two children. Another child was on the way; Marqueli's belly being impressively swollen.
Jorge's thesis was now the text for a course he taught at Signifer and Centurion Candidate Schools. The basis of the thesis and of the course was an Old Earth bit of science fiction written by a man known to Terra Novans only as RAH, a translation of which Carrera had had printed. Both thesis and course were entitled, "History and Moral Philosophy."
"This doesn't look good, Jorge," Marqueli said after the plane had lowered its rear ramp. "He can't walk . . . or isn't, anyway. They're carrying him on a litter, with my cousin walking beside. It looks like a funeral procession." The woman began to sniffle.
"It'll be okay," Mendoza said. "Old bastard is too tough to die on us . . . especially when we need him so badly now."
Carrera was carried down the ramp and placed on the back of a flatbed truck. Lourdes and Parilla had wanted another closed ambulance but the Sergeant Major had insisted, "No . . . rumors are flying everywhere. Let t'em see he's . . . basically . . . . all right . . . t'at he just needs a long rest. He would want t'at."
Marqueli wasn't the only one beginning to tear up. Jorge whispered, "He was my commander. I can't say I liked him, or that many of us did. But we did love him."
Women began to weep
as the flatbed moved away. What would happen to them and their husbands and families now? Carrera had given employment and care, had given meaning to lives. What did the future hold for them? What about the coming war? Children cried as their mothers did.
With their women and children, the men, too, began to shed tears. This was their commander, the man who had led them to victory upon victory. Would he return to them, return to continue the great war on which they had all embarked? If not, would his like ever be found again? A hard man and a harsh one they knew him to be. Did not the times themselves demand hardness and harshness?
The flatbed moved to the guarded gate to the airfield. Now they could truly see him and the weeping redoubled. Guards lining both sides of the road kept the surging crowd back. The cries grew: