by Pam Uphoff
"Damn it, that was that Dydit person, the spy from sixteen years ago, and the one they called the Gate Man." The sergeant spun toward the captain but he was busy checking the placement of his mobile weapons. He had both the mobile lasers out and the more traditional chemically propelled artillery. Not particularly what a sensible person would use at this range, but it probably looked impressive to the Natives.
The sergeant walked down and grabbed the attention of one of the paper pushing officers.
Jaime turned his attention to the . . . force field . . . around the Bank. He ran a hand over the slick cold surface. It was nearly frictionless.
Corporal Harbin snorted. "Relax. So they had people in camp checking out the gate. Only surprise is we actually caught them at it. Saw them," he corrected. "We'll run around a bit, then common sense will return."
His prediction was correct.
The Natives kept an eye on them and the force field stayed up. After a few hours, Jaime's squad stood down and was sent off to eat. Jaime overheard one of the tech pukes talking about it in the Mess.
"Radio frequency static has tripled and is steady at that level. The gravity fluctuations come and go. That generally means they're using their gate, or whatever they do."
Jaime bit his tongue and managed to not interrupt with a dozen questions.
The lieutenant with her rubbed his nose. "Actually, I'm wondering if they really can gate the way we thought. They may have been fooling us with some sort of invisibility all these years."
The other woman looked thoughtful. "There wasn't any sort of gravity flux when they did the 'now you see me, now you don't' game around the gate. Those came later, just before we saw all the witches again."
"They've also been associated with the Gate Man, so it's not just a feminine attribute." He caught the interested looks they were drawing from the pukes, and shrugged.
Jaime jumped in before the conversation died. "The man that collapsed, the sergeant said he was your Gate Man, and the one that carted him off was Dydit."
They both sat up at that.
"Really? Something happened to the Gate Man?" The lieutenant's name stamped on his blouse was Hamza. Arab origin, Jaime wondered if he could speak the Arabic/English/Spanish derived language of the Native's other main culture.
"Brown hair or gray?" the woman asked. "We think there are actually two of him. Or at any rate, two at the moment."
"A relay of men, keeping up the Mythos?" someone asked.
"Exactly. He's supposed to be one of their gods, so they can't have him dying now, can they?"
"Well the man had brown hair," Jaime said. "And he was back on his feet but being supported when they dropped the invisible cloak or whatever."
At that point all the intelligence people ganged up on the troops and each one had to write down all of their observations before they talked anymore, and messed with other peoples' observations.
The Ambassador—Oklahoma Johnson—was recalled for a day, then sent back, with new instructions coming every day, and sometimes just hours apart. The fourth day, the VIP gated through. Secretary Downey, sent by the President himself. Three limos and Special Service guards. The secretary spoke briefly to the ambassador, then the ambassador walked toward the demarcation line.
The camp went quiet. Normally the directional mikes would have simply recorded whatever they picked up. Today, with bets riding high, they were connected to small speakers, strategically located where the sound wouldn't get back to the people on the line.
Two secret service men strode off north of the bank and set off smoke bombs.
"Huh. Good idea. Check for invisible people." Bobby Wainwright nodded his approval, then choked and smothered a laugh as the smoke formed into can can dancers before it drifted off. Kicking.
"These people have class." Hancock said. "Gotta give them that."
Ambassador Johnson walked up to the line first, and the Native Ambassador walked out to meet him.
"No flunkies. In diplomatic speak, I think he's being rude to our Ambassador." Sergeant Johnston frowned. "He usually has at least two."
"But our guy never has flunkies. Is he being rude all the time?" Jamie studied the native ambassador's expression. Pleasant and open, of course.
"He is asserting the Earth's superior status." The sergeant crossed his arms.
"Bet that goes down well." Jamie shut up as the ambassadors met at the boundary.
"Good morning, Oklahoma. I see they've inflicted a government official on you."
Ooo. First name. So casual and equal.
"And I see you're still watching us, Benri."
So we reply with equal informality.
"But of course." The foreign Ambassador looked a bit irritated. "You are, after all, a hostile force illegally occupying a small patch of our territory. So, is this a gallivanting face trying to look important, or does this one have actual authority?"
"Straight from the President."
"Oh my, I'm so flattered! I really must see about getting some of our allies' representatives out here. Well, if I wanted to muddy the water, at any rate. Scoone has a President, the current one is a woman by the name of Hetso Biny."
How does one interpret that? Casual gossip about world leaders, equating our president to theirs?
"What sort of influence would her representative have?" Ambassador Johnson looked interested.
"Very little. They are an actual democracy, vote on everything. Bringing them in is guaranteed to increase the time required by an order of magnitude." The Native Ambassador kept chatting, but he was looking into the Camp, where the Secretary was approaching.
"Where you merely need consult with your king?"
"Unless they pray to their gods." Secretary Downey stopped beside Ambassador Johnson.
The Native gave him a meaningless diplomatic smile. "I don't think we use the term god in quite the same way you do. Our gods aren't the creators of the Universe and mankind. 'Gods' as we usually use the term are simply very, very powerful 'Magic Tech' users."
"Like those two spies of yours?" Downey sneered.
"Which two? The women who studied your system for a week, sixteen years ago? One witch, one wizard. The two men that studied your camp sixteen years ago? Both wizards. Or, if you mean the two chaps from a couple of days ago, that was Dydit, one of the aforementioned wizards, giving a tour to one of the gods."
The secretary snorted. "I'd like to meet a god."
The Native raised an eyebrow, then looked back at his building.
The Gate Man, brown haired, sauntered out on cue. He was wearing a charcoal grey suit that looked like something from a historical vid.
"Secretary Downey, I'm Wolfgang Oldham. In the local terminology, I'm a god. Don't take it too seriously, I certainly don't."
Downey looked him up and down. "We don't allow genetic engineering, after a disastrous war centuries ago."
"Yes, well, welcome to the dumping ground. We've made a home of it. Now, we came by to see if you had any detailed information about the comet you'd sell, or if you were completely ignorant of the problem, to warn you about the impending comet fall so you could remove your people. While no doubt diplomatic contact is overdue between our people, we are a bit busy, so I'll leave the diplomacy to an expert and get on with my own concerns." He nodded politely and stepped away.
"If you were on Earth, you could be shot on sight as a non-human." Downey said.
Oldham turned back. "One of the things the genetic engineers tried to accomplish was lifespan extension. They succeeded very well. I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the year two thousand ninety-five. I know all about the stripping of rights from the engineered. I have brain damage from being physically wired into Trans World Travel's gates."
He stepped across the demarcation line and into the Secretary's personal space, backing him off. "And I know that some things are worth risking one's life for."
Jaime tensed. The SS men were just standing there.
"All throu
gh human history groups of people have been dehumanized before being slaughtered. Your attempts to dehumanize us are going to be taken as an act of war if they persist. Take that message back to your leaders."
The native stared down at the secretary for a long moment. He topped the Earthman by nearly a foot. Then he shrugged and turned away. "Sorry about that Benri. There's a reason the king sent you to do the talking." The tall native glanced back at Downey. "Go away."
The Gate Man disappeared. Secretary Downey and his body guards disappeared.
Jaime took two startled steps toward the demarcation line, then spun as he spotted something out of the corner of his eye.
The secretary and the SS guards were all standing beside the limos, frozen in the same relative positions, same expressions . . . with a snap that changed. The guards whipped up their weapons, two of them grabbed the Ambassador and shoved him back into the center limo as the rest threatened the troopers as they backed and joined him. The regular troops all backed away. An outer perimeter of SS stayed out as the long minutes ticked away until the gate opened on schedule. Then the last guards piled into the end limo and all three raced back through the gate, barely missing the red flagged gyp.
Jaime shuddered at the thought of a collision in transit.
The ambassador walked up and glared at the gate. "Politicians!" He shook his head and caught the captain's eye. "With luck, that will be it for the day. Join me for lunch, Sean?"
"My place or yours, Oklahoma?"
Jaime looked back and saw that the native ambassador was walking back to the bank building. Now there's a man with a bad job.
Things got back to normal, mostly, after that. The Second Platoon's rotation back was cancelled, and the common areas got cramped with all three platoons on hand. But the gate switched to twice a week openings instead of multiple daily openings, and the Natives had double the number of witches or wizards on hand, although the force field had disappeared two days after Secretary Downey had fled the scene.
Neptunite was back. She winked at him, but didn't approach. Dammit.
Then his first—slightly extended--rotation was up. Two weeks back on Earth. Training, but within reach of restaurants, bars, movie theatres . . .
He survived another trip through the gate, and found out that the only willing women wanted cash up front and weren't half as much fun as the red headed witch. Still, better than his hand . . . The shops tended to cater to well paid company people, not soldiers, the desert around the gate was even hotter than the prairie around Gate Camp and it was actually a relief to get back across.
Mostly guarding. Then he escorted—alternate driver—some big wigs from some University down to the Science Camp. Forty miles south of the Gate Camp, they were monitoring the Oners' activity. Mainly by hacking the Oners' own satellites.
Jaime followed Captain Orobona as he drifted away from the science confab and looked over the intel on the Oners' military.
"Still training Auralians. If they survive the comet, they'll take over either Verona or the Kingdom of the West. If not both."
The man there nodded. "They've moved all the trained troops up to Fascia. They're planning something."
Jaime eyed their maps. "They're training Native troops? In what weapons?"
"Slug throwers. No lasers. Some small artillery. Enough to take down the kind of city walls they have here. They're going to start a bloody war."
Just like the Earth. So why am I trying so hard to become a citizen? Or yeah, nothing else on offer. I've lived there all my life, it's home. If they'll allow it.
On his second rotation, he was contacted by the UECIA.
"Why haven't you reported?"
"Because I was ordered to not contact you," he said, exasperated. "I'm a third of the way through until we evacuate, and I've not had much contact with the Natives. I'll take a few more risks, see if I can find out anything about their 'magic' of theirs. If you have any influence, you might consider relaxing the non-fraternization rules between troops and Natives. It'd make it a whole lot easier if I could chat a girl up in a bar or something."
The man on the other end sputtered. "I think you'd better come back in."
"I'm in the Army. That's not something I can just shrug off. Consult with the others." Jaime said. "Contact me with firm orders in six weeks." He hung up. And left his phone behind, sealed into his personal kit for storage. He packed everything else up for traveling, and got out of there before they decided to hunt him down. If the project people would just not get impatient, if they were reasonable, maybe he could finish his three year enlistment honorably, which would give him all sorts of work openings with the various gate companies, or he could re-enlist . . . he shivered as he realized he was actually thinking about a personal future. As if he was in control. I'm a nobody. Earth refuses to consider me a citizen, Purple says I wasn't born there, never set foot on their world . . . If I desert from the Army I'm really lost.
He didn't manage any rendezvous with his red headed witch, although she did drift by to tickle him, and he observed several of the wizards or mages or whatever, the men, wandering around the perimeter of the Camp, glowing.
His dreams got weirder than usual, swimming in icy glasses of fizzy blue drinks and dripping blood.
***
On his next rotation, Mr. Hubble was there to talk to him in person. Jaime was mostly frank about his only contacts. Mr. Hubble was interested in his observation of the glowing wizards and their smart ass comments.
"According to the reports I've read, no one else has seen glowing wizards nor heard any commentary. Pay attention, next time, you may be tapping into their secret communications."
"Yes, sir."
He was loaded up with little gadgets to record what he was seeing or hearing and returned to Camp Gate feeling guilty, feeling like a spy in earnest now.
It was October and the weather was ideal, clear blue skies, crisp cool nights. On the day watch, he watched a bit bemused as one of the younger wizards walked out of the building and circled it, arms out and low, spiraling out . . . the grass was lower behind him, but there was nothing in front of him to cut the grass, dammit.
"How the bloody hell do you do that?" He kept his voice low, but the young man heard.
Snickered. "Magic. Slice, and yes I can use it as a weapon, too. Quite nasty against someone who can't shield." He swept back around the building. As he approached Jaime on his next pass he smirked. "You should try it. Maybe something simple, eh?"
He held his hands out, as if holding an invisible cylinder. "Take all the power of the Light between your hands and squeeze it down, concentrate it." His hands glowed. "We call it strangling, for some odd reason. Then use it. Storing it is dangerous, it tends to get subconsciously used for things you know you shouldn't do." He waved his hands out flat and grass tips flew. "Mowing grass is highly recommended" He walked on.
Jaime lay there frozen. Then he put out his hands and strangled all the light in between them. His hands glowed, and he eyed the glow uncertainly. Magic? All it was, was light. He waved his palms over the grass. Nothing happened. Pity, it would have been cool.
The glow was still stuck to his hands, though. He shook them, but it stayed. Probably just as well, he could just see miniature fireballs flying off and starting fires in the dry grass.
And as he saw it in his mind, the glow darted off in little sparks and landed in the tall grass. He hastily beat out the smoking embers, hawking and spitting on them to be sure they were out. The glow was gone. The wizard boy snickered as he walked past again.
Jaime looked around carefully. No one seemed to have noticed his attempts to incinerate them all. This was definitely project data, not military. He winced, knowing that wasn't actually the case. Knowing that the project would never let him go, now.
He slid away from the singed spot and went to ground a bit further away. He really didn't want any more five second magic lessons.
He wondered what his recorders had shown.
"Those astronomers are sure it's going to hit. And it's big." The woman ahead of him in the chow line sounded upset. "I can't believe they won't try to divert it."
"Heh. I don't think they can." The man ahead of her shrugged. "It would take a hell of big rocket to get a bomb out to the comet, so they'd have to build launch facilities. So why waste the money when there's a good chance the Oners will either save it, or if we did, they might scoop it up afterwards."
"Crap."
Jaime glanced over his shoulder at the high voice. Danielle Packard, the sole female in his squad, looking sweet and innocent despite two years in the Army.
She shrugged. "Yeah, I know we barely know the Natives, just their guards and diplomats, but it's still shitty to just . . . they're all going to die."
Neptunite. The magic lawnmower boy. The urbane Ambassador Benri, the Gate Man who'd faced down Secretary Downey . . . all of them.
He had nightmares all night. Drowning in blue fizz.
In the morning they hitched up two of the box transporters and headed for the Science Camp. Two boxes stuffed with expensive instruments were all they were returning to Earth. The rest of the boxes were being abandoned.
At least until we come back and see if anything is left. Well, the planet, obviously. But the people? The natives and the Oners down in South America, well, we'll be back to check on them. Probably. It took two days to drive the big transporters to the site, a day to load, and two days to return. They already had the route prepared, but the heavy load precluded anything but a snail's pace.
With the transporters lined up for the next gate, they ferried the troops and science staff up from the other camp and sent them all through. The first platoon stayed on Earth when the second platoon cycled back. They shut down one mess and the third platoon ate with the officers, the diplomats and the Intel section.
"Two weeks, and then we're gone too." Captain Orobona wasn't making any effort to keep his voice down.