"The resuscitee program is completed, as far as we are able to determine. The experimental phase of the program was completely successful. Large-scale operations were inaugurated at N'Yu-Atlanchi, with a harvest rate of approximately 6,000 S'tschai per local day. This rate would supply us with controls for salvaged casualties as rapidly as we could use them.
"Unfortunately, as you are aware, the N'Yu-Atlanchi disaster occurred before the full harvest rate had been effective very long. One of the military personnel assigned was responsible for the disaster." He looked at Captain Girard, who looked the other way.
"We can supply a sufficient force of resuscitees to outfit a full-scale assault on La Gonave in hopes of recapturing it. But there will be no further resuscitees after that. Once the present supply is expended, no more. At least, our people have not been able to achieve resuscitation without S'tschai, and we have not found S'tschai anywhere beside N'Yu-Atlanchi."
Minister Antoine-Simone looked to Captain Girard once more. The captain spoke. "M. Goncourt's assessment of the situation agrees with our own. Since our fleet's recovery from Omicron Sigma XXIVa we have set up a picket line and prevented the enemy from reinforcing their garrison on La Gonave. We believe that the tide of battle has turned and that we shall be able to invade the enemy's home world. But first we must regain our own food supply. We will use the resuscitee troops to mount a counter-invasion and retake La Gonave.
"Further, let me say that the N'Yu-Atlanchi disaster was not a disaster entirely. The Vache artifact—let me call it the Vache resonator—is being duplicated. Our fleet is being equipped with resonators and they should prove highly useful in the attack on N'Alabama. We do not wish to use them against La Gonave for obvious reasons, but if we take out some large chunks of the enemy's home planet it should do much to encourage him to make peace."
He stood in line with the others, R troops stretching to left and right in checkboarded ranks, clad in combat jeans and boots, each R trooper carrying weapons and spare charge-paks, helmeted and infra-goggled. Before each platoon stood a black NCO. Somehow, deep in his mind, there was an awareness of who and where he was, a pride in military bearing and readiness, but these were buried deep beneath a thick layer of indifference.
The NCO was facing away from the R troopers, toward a N'Haitian spacerine officer who stood farther away. The trooper heard the N'Haitian officer shout a command to the platoon NCO's. He saw his own NCO face about toward the R troopers. The NCO shouted a command. The R trooper, ego remote and tranquil, sensed a momentary delay, then felt a control cut in. His body turned ninety degrees. As it did so his eyes saw the R troopers about him do the same.
There was another command from the NCO. Again the control operated. The trooper felt his arms and legs begin to move with a rhythmic regularity as he and the rest of the unit marched forward.
There was no point in trying to override the control, whatever it was. This he had long since learned. Avoiding the hopeless struggle he was content to stay, an observer in his own body, feeling the rush of air in and out of his lungs, feeling the movement of his marching body, hearing the unison tramp of hundreds of feet, seeing the backs of the R troopers ahead of him as the control marched his body, swinging his neatly spliced arms so that the unmatched hands swung into the bottom of his field of vision with each pace—left, right, black, white, left, white, black, right, black, white . . .
More commands, turns, halt and wait, then face and march again, all at the commands of the N'Haitians, all at the control of something other than his ego, he watched and experienced but did not act.
The R troopers sat now on benches in the hold of an ill-smelling ship. On command, controls moved hands to clamp safety hooks around feet and waists. Whichever way the ship pointed, wherever the gravity of the moment dictated was up, the troopers would keep their seats.
For a seemingly long time—he had no way of measuring it—the ship remained unmoving, as did the R troopers on their benches. Their N'Haitian commanders were not to be seen. He wondered impersonally why they were on the ship, where they were to be transported and for what purpose, but then it was not really very important.
He looked through his eyes at the trooper ahead of him. His own hands were again in his field of vision, clasped near the muzzle of his weapon, black fingers and white fingers interwoven to steady the weapon against takeoff and gravitational irregularity. The back of the head his eyes were fixed upon showed white skin and longish blond hair. At the base of the skull a long and livid scar was visible. The trooper was sitting stationary, as stationary as he himself. Beyond the blond trooper he could see another and another. Each one, regardless of skin color or pattern, bore the same long scar at the base of the skull.
After unmeasured time the bench and floor beneath him seemed to shake gently. A bass rumble filled his ears and the image in his eyes jiggled before returning to normal. Again it happened. This time the rumble grew to a roar and the shaking of the bench and floor turned to a steady vibration. The bench and floor pressed upward against him for a long time, then the roaring ceased, the room became still, the floor and bench ceased to press upwards and he felt himself trying to float this way or that, held in place by the straps at his feet and waist.
He floated against the straps.
His eyes saw backs, a wall beyond, an occasional gray slab of floor or ceiling.
His ears heard ship noises, breathing, creaking.
His body felt weight, pressures, textures.
In time his body felt the spinning gravity of a gyro maneuver, then there was the rumbling and vibration again.
The NCO stepped into his field of vision and issued a command. He felt his body responding to control by loosening straps, rising, proceeding with his fellow R troopers through the narrow aisle between benches, through a port, down a corridor. On command his hand reached out to take hold of an extensile cable, hooked it into a ring on his battle pack.
On command the file of R troopers moved past a bin of oxymasks. On command his hand took one and fitted it to his face. On command the file of R troopers moved into a ready crouch. His eyes saw a space door slide back. His eyes saw that they were in night, high above land but within an atmosphere that twinkled the lights of distant stars.
On command the bodies of the R troopers moved forward, through the space door, leaping out one by one, the extensile cable playing out behind them. In his turn he leaped into the blackness. Falling, tumbling, his eyes saw far below small concentrations of city lights. As the extensile cable jerked against his battle pack his head snapped upwards and his eyes saw a distant pearl-tinted horizon, then tracked upward and saw blackness, blackness sprinkled with millions of points of light. At the edge of his field of vision his eyes caught a brief glimpse of the planet from which the ship had come.
His skin felt air shrieking past as the cable lowered the R troopers deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. Finally his ears began to hear the sounds of troopers landing—thumps, involuntary exclamations. Now a voice as some NCO landed and began issuing commands. Then footsteps and sounds of R troopers moving about under control.
With a jolt his own feet struck ground. Momentum pitched him forward into a rolling tumble. When he stopped his ears heard an NCO's commands. Then the control brought him back to his feet, raised his hand to disconnect from the extensile cable, checked out his equipment. On command his eyes found the nearest trooper, his legs walked to him and their hands checked each other's condition.
Quickly under command the platoons of R troopers formed up. His unit spread into battle formation, moved forward with others toward a nearby farming village. As they approached the village his eyes saw the glare of laser fire. He heard NCO voices issuing commands, felt his body obeying. Watching through his eyes he was distantly aware that there were heavy casualties. R troopers fell, fell, but more continued to move up from the rear. Always there seemed to be NCO voices, always the control moving hands and feet, eyes aiming, fingers firing, and again moving fo
rward.
Now they were into the village, and from somewhere he saw that there was heavy weapons fire. Houses were exploded, streets blocked, fronts of buildings ripped away. His eyes saw bright objects flashing overhead, followed by sounds of roars and whooshes followed by explosions.
Through the night they moved and fought. By dawn R troopers occupied the town. His eyes saw incredible numbers of R trooper casualties lying about. Far fewer corpses of N'Alabamian occupiers, but no live prisoners.
For days the bodies of the R troopers fought the N'Alabamian occupiers. No reinforcements came for the occupiers. R troopers came, came, fell in hideous overproportion to N'Alabamians but came, came. Finally the trooper's mind, distantly and without involvement, analyzed what his eyes and ears had observed.
La Gonave was in N'Haitian hands. N'Alabamian forces were wiped out. Perhaps, his mind speculated, a few N'Alabamians might have escaped into rural areas. For years to come, perhaps, there would be occasional skirmishes between local nigras and leftover blancs. But no matter really.
On NCO command surviving R troopers dug long trenches. Under control they dragged to them bodies of dead N'Alabamians, N'Haitians, R troopers, began filling the trenches and covering them over. When all the corpses had been attended to there remained some R troopers and some trench space.
On NCO command and under control the R troopers filed along the remaining trench space, their legs pitching their bodies into the trenches. Following R troopers covered them over. At last the trooper reached open space. On NCO command and under control he pitched his body in. As it tumbled and struck the side of the trench it twisted so that it lay at the bottom of the trench facing upward.
Distantly and without involvement he watched with his eyes as another trooper pitched in upon him, then another and another until only a few gleams of light penetrated between the piled-up R troopers. There was a gentle tap from above as still other troopers, following along behind in the line under NCO command and controlled, covered over the trench.
At last all was dark and the sounds of tumbling troopers and tamping soil moved beyond range of his ears. Distantly and without real concern the trooper's mind wondered how long it would be supplied with oxygen and blood. But no matter really.
13. The Lower Half of Hir Face
After enough nothing Ch'en-Gordon began to achieve a fullness of aware. Not any longer a pink vermiform sea-dwelling post-hominoid monstrosity, not merely a S'tscha. And not, oh absolutely not a man.
Something new.
Ch'en-Gordon could feel the clamminess and slight pressure of unpacked shallow soil, the press of other abandoned R troopers around hir torso and limbs. Se tried to open hir eyes, found them held shut by hir own arm, flung across them, perhaps reflexively, before the dirt had begun to fall.
With an effort se was able to raise hir arm sufficiently from hir eyes to open them, but was met only with utter blackness. Se strained upward with both arms, then with hir knees. Se was able to move hir four macrolimbs sufficiently to clear a small space above most of hirself, and thereafter to move hir macrolimbs at will, although for a short distance only, before encountering the dirt above.
Hir breathing was difficult but not dangerously so. Se was clearly close enough to the surface that sufficient air penetrated the loose dirt to permit breathing.
Straining once more to obtain additional free space around hir hands, se clutched the hand of another immobile R trooper, felt it respond to hir touch with a desperate grasping, tugging of its own. Ch'en-Gordon ceased hir pulling but continued to hold the hand. As if assured that se was not to be abandoned by hir new discoverer, the R trooper also abandoned hir frantic activity, but continued to grasp Ch'en-Gordon hir hand.
Ch'en-Gordon took as deep a breath as se could, then began to work hir way upward through the soft and crumbling soil. To do so se released hir grip on the hand of the other R trooper, who seemingly understood Ch'en-Gordon hir purpose. Almost immediately Ch'en-Gordon could hear the other struggling, digging along with hir.
Se used hir macroknees, pounding them again and again upward into the loose dirt, striving not merely to pack it tighter above hir and gain a little more room, but to lift it, to raise the dirt above hir, eventually to break through the surface to the free air above. Hir hands too, aided vastly by the strangely unfamiliar fingers of the macroappendages, relying on the Gordon portion of hir personality for the right neural connections and commands.
Dirt jammed beneath hir fingernails, entered and pained hir external eyes until se was forced to hold them squeezed closed against the crumbs and grains; when se gasped for air it filled hir mouth and se struggled with hir only Gordon-familiar tongue to push the dirt back out, shoving with hir tongue, blowing and spitting before most of the dirt was cleared, forming a gritty mud that plastered the lower half of hir face and neck.
Straining upward, clawing through the cold dirt, grunting and heaving with effort se managed finally to thrust one dirt-crusted hand out of the all-grasping soil. Se braced hir weight on hir other elbow, gathering hir strength for another thrust that might bring hir arm and shoulder above the ground. Instead se felt hir hand grasped, felt a powerful pull. Se pushed upward with all hir remaining strength, aiding hir unknown rescuer, felt hirself rising, the flesh all but torn from the bones of hir macrobody, then with an intensely painful wrench felt hirself rise from the mass grave of the R troopers.
Se stood in the cool night air of La Gonave, swaying slightly. The field in which se had lain was lighted to nearly daylight intensity by the brilliant glow of N'Haiti, hanging monstrously huge in the dark sky, its heavy mass threatening as if at any moment it would fall to the ground of its own moon, obliterating all that existed there, perhaps disintegrating the body of the satellite itself.
Ch'en-Gordon was shaken by the grasp of another R trooper. Hir gaze dropped to be met by that of hir fellow, who moved hir head sideways, gesturing forbiddingly at the bloated globe in the sky. Ch'en-Gordon moved hir head also, as if to give assent. The other R trooper removed hir hands from Ch'en-Gordon hir shoulders. Se pointed at the tumbled earth which rustled and heaved as hands, feet, faces, brown, black, white, poked upward.
They returned to the nearest furrow, together seizing a death-white foot that protruded from the mass grave, pulled at it until a complete patch-work corpse was exposed. They dropped the leg and the body rose, slowly and painfully, from the soil. The new figure gazed about as in wonderment, then stood staring skyward as hir eyes were captured by the giant bulk of the planet. Again the charade of shaking and gesturing was performed, and the three R troopers set about freeing comrades from their mutual tomb, their graveclothes R trooper uniforms, new but covered with the soil of La Gonave.
Those corpses which failed to move of their own power, they left.
Ch'en-Gordon looked around, seeking the faces of the patchwork troopers around hir. At last se advanced to another, one whose body was huge, a uniform, glistening, muscled black. Hir face was a mottle, the eyes a glazed blue, the hair a lank, straggling yellow, the skin a sickly white except for a masklike swath of black taking in what was left of the nose, the lower cheeks, mouth and jaw.
Ch'en-Gordon tried to speak. Se moved hir mouth, hir throat trembled, se heard hirself produce a gravelly moan.
The other R trooper made the same attempt, achieved no more success.
All around hir Ch'en-Gordon saw R troopers attempting to speak but succeeding only in uttering painful inarticulations.
Ch'en-Gordon stood with macroarms hanging at hir sides. The dual nervous system, interconnected by spiremal filaments penetrating the medulla oblongata of the larger brain, their almost monomolecular acid-chains stretching throughout the nervous system of the patchwork corpse, strained to devise some way of communicating with the other R troopers.
At last Ch'en-Gordon advanced to hir mottled fellow. Se opened hir mouth, gestured the other to do likewise. Se stepped forward, grasped the other with hir palms on the cheeks of the other, ti
lted hir head to the side using Gordon-synapses to control the movement, and clasped hir mouth onto that of the other.
Se thrust hir tongue into the mouth of the other, feeling the cold moisture therein. Within Ch'en-Gordon's tongue the millions of spiremal threads writhed, snakelike; like feeding medusae they plunged into the icy tongue of the other R trooper, growing micro-inches downward into the wet flesh, contacting spiremal nerve filaments, exchanging data, telling, learning, planning, feeling the cold breath of the two as it rasped from throat to throat.
At last se felt that se had learned and told enough. The filaments detumesced. Se drew hir mouth from that of the other R trooper, turned and shambled across the field to find others with whom to share the plan. By the time N'Haiti had passed its zenith, decades of R troopers had received the plan.
By the time N'Haiti had reached a point halfway down the sky toward the horizon of La Gonave, the R troopers were moving on the Jacmel tarmac.
By the time the Jacmel tarmac was fully alight, the brilliance of true daylight replacing the murky glare of N'Haiti, the R troop landing ship Lumumba had left behind a seared and scarred concavity.
Again, Dangerous Visions Page 105