Hero!

by Dave Duncan

  He could not even just punch Roker on the jaw and earn a nice quick firing squad, because Roker would know what he wanted and would surely tie him up and throw him to the pepods anyway. There was no way out of this.

  “Sir, I request specific orders.”

  “Very well. Admiral Vaun, you will accompany the civilian auxiliary Quild to the vicinity of that pepod thicket for the purpose of facilitating communication with them. You will aid Professor Quild’s research in every way possible. Is that clear?”

  “Sir!”

  “And then we shall track down your missing brothers,” Roker said, leering in satisfaction. “After so many years, a family reunion should be a very touching experience for you.”

  Vaun wondered briefly if he could break that thick neck before Security stopped him. Regretfully he decided that he could not. Randoms! Wild stock! Sex and power were all they cared about.

  “Excellent!” Quild said, showing his teeth in his beard. He glanced at the pepods. “We can go a little closer before we remove our garments, Admiral. In the interests of propriety.”

  “Lead the way,” Vaun snapped.

  He trudged across the sand, following the big boy. Randoms! Lust and avarice would drive them to anything. The brethren could be ruthless—as Prior had been ruthless—but at least they committed their crimes in higher causes than mere personal greed.

  Prior had paid dearly for his.

  NOW THAT’S WHAT I call a sexy outfit!” says a teasing, I throaty voice.

  Vaun has been examining his image in the mirror above the basin. His head is as smooth as a fresh-washed Doggoth cookpot and decorated with eighty shiny silver buttons, marking the holes drilled in it. Sexy? He has no eyebrows, his eyes are red-rimmed, and his shapeless white gown ends at knees and elbows.

  He turns to face the girl in the doorway. Can it be only four weeks since he met her at Doggoth? Tall and black, and wearing medoff insignia…She still outranks him, but his commission is official now. And besides, he has other things going for him.

  “Ma’am!” he says. “The last time we met, I was even sexier.”

  “Ah!” her midnight eyes twinkle. “You have been taking my advice about spiking your booster.”

  “I had no choice. Blood tests?”

  She shakes her head, laughing. “The way you look at me is enough. Besides, rumor has it that you ball the high admiral.”

  “Krantz, no!” Vaun starts to make a smile and lets it become a yawn, leaching any trace of sincerity from his denial. It is Maeve who comes to his bed in the little hours, the fleet, sweet hours of the night while Roker sleeps, but the Frisde slander won’t do his career any harm.

  Yet he feels himself color, knowing he has indeed been looking at the black girl, wondering if her nipples are the same shade as those rich, sultry lips now spread to show snowy teeth.

  “And I don’t need to be any medical genius to know that you haven’t been getting enough sleep, Ensign.”

  “Absolutely correct, ma’am.”

  “Well, she’s gone now. We can get to business.” The medic’s bright glance is still testing the rumors about him and Frisde. Let her pry! Yes, Frisde has gone now—gone without a word of farewell, or thanks, or anger; just gone. Call for her torch and her spade-shouldered Galorian captain to fly it, and gone. Whatever the gossips say, Vaun has never been her lover.

  He was never asked.

  “Nice place you have here,” the medic says. “I’m going to enjoy this posting, brief though it may be. Ready for the mind bleed?”

  He shrugs, remembers that she outranks him, and says, “Ma’am!” But he still doesn’t use his Doggoth voice. She has noticed, and flashes him another amused glance of jet-on-amber as she turns and leads the way.

  Barefoot, he follows, and two doors down the corridor she stops and gestures. “Take the empty chair. I’ll be right back.”

  Suspicious, he goes in and blinks in the glare. The makeshift surgery is cluttered with metal, it smells of chemical and hums as if it were alive. The most obvious equipment is a pair of inclined chairs, set back to back. Through the web of wires and pipes and monitors around them, he sees that one is already occupied. He picks his way among the tangle, going to look at the other patient.

  A slim, well-knit boy, almost slight…Dice, of course. His eyes are closed and the gaunt cheeks are pale. Shins and forearms project from another of the shapeless gowns; wrists and ankles are bound in place by shiny bands. A metal bowl encloses the top of his head, sprouting a tangle of tubes and wires.

  Five years ago—three boys in a boat, drifting lazily on the sun-bright waters of the delta. Dice. Happiest days of…

  Of course, it isn’t Dice. Dice is still at large. And of course Vaun has always known that Prior looks like Dice, but the reality is enough to tie knots in his innards, and his hands have started to shake. He feels cold trickles run down his ribs. Oh, Dice! Oh, Raj! Oh, me!

  Dice, who learned to enjoy eating fish.

  Then the familiar eyes open, slowly.

  “Hello, Brother!” The smile is the same. The voice is not quite the same, and very weak.

  How dare he try to be friendly?

  “You raped my mother.”

  The smile weakens. “I prefer not to discuss it here, if you don’t mind, Vaun.”

  Of course this is a setup. There will be cameras and listeners. But Vaun at least has nothing to hide.

  “You drove her crazy!”

  Prior’s peaked face bears no expression at all now. “That was an accident.”

  “The raping wasn’t.” Vaun feels a strange rage; his blood pounds in his ears.

  “You want revenge?” Prior whispers. “Take it! Take this abomination off my head and push a finger in.”

  “In what?”

  “Pink jelly.” He seems to find Vaun’s shock amusing. “They took the top off. Then they gave me a mirror.” He forces a thin smile. “Not many people get a chance to see themselves so clearly.” A trail of spittle runs from the corner of his mouth.

  “Tell us the password, then, and maybe they’ll let me do that. It’ll be a pleasure.” Could he really push a finger into a living brain?

  “Password? Is that what they told you—password? There’s no password, Brother.”

  “We’ll see.” Vaun is annoyed to find that his anger is becoming contaminated by a sort of pity. He remembers rape, but it doesn’t help as much as he would like.

  “No password,” Prior insists. “Language.”

  “Oh.” Well, that makes sense. A whole new language? This is to be a bigger job than Vaun expected, and the thought is chilling.

  Prior’s eyes have closed, but he continues to whisper. “A world. A life. So you can pass as me. I know.”

  “You deserve this, and more!” At least Vaun can speak louder than he can.

  “I don’t mind. They’re good memories, and you’re welcome to them, Brother. Enjoy them.”

  Vaun is at a loss. He can’t find his anger now, only fear. And pity, damn it. His brother, helpless. The machinery hums. Fluids sob in the tubes.

  “I’ll try,” Vaun says. “I’ll certainly try. And I’ll use anything interesting I find in there. Your forgiving attitude is very touching. I’m just sorry I can’t share it.”

  Prior opens his eyes again and smiles weakly. “You were reared as a random; you’re a little confused still. But don’t worry—in the end you’ll never betray the Brotherhood.”

  “Oh, won’t I? I would say ‘Watch me!’ but you won’t have that pleasure.”

  “No, Brother Vaun. When the chips are down, you’ll side with your kin.” There is a chilling deathbed certainty in that quiet statement. Remembering the hidden listeners, Vaun almost panics.

  “This is war!” he shouts. “And you started it.”

  Prior’s eyelids lift partway. “Did I? Is it? Do cats and dogs wage war? Wait until you know more, Vaun. Xanacor Hive…they burned it. Burned down our brothers like vermin. Little kids…And Monad. I suppo
se they showed you that clip? I wept when they showed me. I was raised at Monad. You were conceived at Monad.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “You will. When you remember. The woods…”

  “You started this.”

  “No. Cats and dogs. It’s evolution.”

  Vaun makes a scornful noise, because he isn’t sure what words may come if he tries to speak.

  The dark eyes open wide, staring, intense. “You know about evolution? Go read up on it. Survival of the fittest. We’re the next stage, Brother. The perfection of mankind, a whole new species, Homo factus. Whatever happens to me, or you, doesn’t matter. Maybe it’ll take centuries. Doesn’t matter. The end is inevitable. The wild stock have had their day.”

  “And you’ll wipe us out, I suppose? Bury us?”

  Again Prior tries a smile. “‘Us’? Them!”

  “You think I’m one of you? Well, I never asked—”

  “No, you didn’t. But you’re still our brother.”

  Vaun wishes he could feel as confident and self-assured as the prisoner looks. How can he stay calm when he knows the awful things that are about to be done to him?

  Prior sighs. “No hard feelings, Vaun. I’m only sorry you’re on the losing side at the moment. But I understand.”

  “Oh, now that takes confidence! You sit there with no top to your head and tell me you’re doing fine, you’ve got them on the run?”

  Prior manages a faint echo of Raj’s chuckle. “Not me. I’m only one unit. I’m no more important to the Brotherhood than a single cell in your epidermis is to you, and you shed those by the million all the time. Perhaps the Brotherhood won’t win on Ult. I hope it does. But whether we win here or not, though, the wild stock will lose.”

  “We all die in the end, you mean.”

  “But a whole species doesn’t have to kill itself, Brother. I wish I had time to explain. Maybe you’ll pick up my memories on this. You know the random population on Ult?”

  “About ten billion.”

  “And it used to be over twenty. You think they’ve reduced it by choice?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Never. The wilds breed like bugs, all the time. And they exist by competition, so if one group does restrict its procreation, then another grows faster and takes its place. Didn’t Dice tell you any of this? If their numbers are down, it just means that the die-off has started. Vaun, planets wear out if they’re not looked after properly. The wild stock have just about finished this one.”

  “That’s not true! Yes, there was a lot of waste in the early days, a lot of unnecessary pollution and bad development, but the international resource councils…” Vaun stops, sensing that he is running along a predictable pipe.

  Prior sighs. “Too many people. Far too many. You know what the indefinitely sustainable population is for a planet this size?”

  “No.”

  “Nor I. But the Brotherhood would be content with a couple of hundred thousand. Cooperation, not competition…We have no insane compulsion to multiply, you see.”

  “So you’re going to rescue the globe from its inhabitants, are you? Who’s going to thank you?”

  “They’ll all die soon anyway, and take their world with them. If you can’t see your way to supporting us yet, then think of your duty to the biosphere.” Prior closes his eyes wearily, and at that moment a couple of medics come in and the conversation is over. It will have been recorded, of course.

  Vaun makes his way to the other chair and sits down. The fabric of it feels cold through his flimsy gown, and he shivers. A random would come up in goose pimples, but his skin has no vestigial hair follicles.

  Two more orderlies arrive and start fussing with the equipment around him, muttering to each other and ignoring him, treating him like just another item on the manifest. They attach things to the buttons on his scalp. But he hears someone speaking to Prior.

  “We’re going to start in on the left lateral cortex. So if you have anything else to say, you’d better say it now.”

  Prior does not answer.

  THE DREAMER IS racked by monsters, pursued by terror. He thrashes and fights, helpless in the coils of horror, and there is no escape.

  The hippocampus…now they’re going for the hippocampus. They brought him in on a cart today.

  Brought me in on a cart today.

  Two red suns and the trees are lime below a purple sky. I am Blue. I am Yellow. I am Red. I am all colors and my brothers are with me. We laugh and run and play. I am loved. I love. I am one with my brothers.

  They take me around on a cart. No need for shackles now; too much damage to the motor cortex. Poor Vaun was shouting at them. They hadn’t warned him. Typical. He really can’t have known what to expect. He cares, though, whatever he says. The expression on his face…

  Who am I?

  They’re going to dig for the amygdala today, and process another piece of the hippocampus, and the nucleus basalis in the forebrain. That’ll fix the bastard.

  No pain; it’s only jelly.

  Brown is a full grown unit. He is talking about the female gender persons that the wild stock have. I’ve seen them around Monad, of course, but I didn’t know about their special organs. This is very important to the mission. Only one of us will get to go on the Ultian mission—Tan or Rose or me. We spend so much time together that I am learning to distinguish the other two, although of course I would never be so unkind as to tell them so. Yesterday we were Green, Violet, and White, and the teacher was a Black, but the same unit, I am sure.

  There isn’t much left of him now. Not a brain in his head, one of the lab gnomes said. And laughed. I wanted to kill her, choke her slowly, but I laughed, too, because Roker is suspicious of me, shooting questions. Even Maeve asks me who I am at times.

  This unit has been very bad. I tried to poke a stick in my brother’s eye. I have to go without pants all afternoon so everyone can see the number on my butt and know that this unit may have a design fault.

  We’re going to have to go faster. The Q ship will enter parking orbit in three weeks. Not much of Prior left now. Good riddance! I can speak Galactic with Avalonian-Command pronunciation now, and jabber in his native tongue, whatever it was called…Andilian?

  Some of the memories are fading already…

  North of Monad Hive, about an hour’s flight from Zindir…

  If I can win this bout…but I think this is the unit who threw me yesterday…just a hunch, of course, but if it is, then he favors his left hand a little…and he can’t know that I was crop champion last year…

  Vaun! Vaun! It’s a nightmare, Vaun. Wake up, Vaun! Maeve’s here, love. Wake up, Vaun! It’s all over, Vaun. Prior died, Vaun. It’s all over, Vaun.

  Warm arms around him…his face buried between her breasts…

  “No name!” he sobs. “I was happy, but I had no name. How could I be happy when I had no name?”

  HOW COULD YOU tell one pepod from another? There was one good thing about the wind—it excused shivering. Quild did not seem to feel the cold at all, but then he was twice as thick as Vaun, and thatched all over. More important, he wasn’t scared spitless.

  “This is close enough for you,” he said suddenly.

  No argument there. Vaun had been forcing every reluctant step with brute willpower. The nearest pepod loomed directly ahead, seeming almost within touching distance, although that was his imagination making it seem closer man it really was. Even over the surf, he could hear its rustling complaint and the chittering noise it made on the shingle. Something out to sea was shrieking plaintively.

  His knee still ached, and the bruises on his face were throbbing. Not, likely, for long.

  Quild went on another dozen paces, and stopped, watching that big mother of a pepod flickering and writhing like a dead bush possessed.

  Vaun hugged himself, hunched against the wind, and watched also. The pepod was a big sucker, full gown, taller than he, and that meant a large privacy radius. He could never work o
ut how they moved, whether they rolled or walked. Antennae, limbs, poison spines, all seemed to flail around simultaneously—they blurred, when the brutes moved fast. Eyestalks and mandibles…nothing seemed to be attached to anything else. Pepods had no centers. Ordinary weapons were useless against them, and he was unarmed except for fingernails. Unarmed, unlegged, untorsoed, undressed, bareass. Krantz! it was cold.

  The summit of Bandor glimmered in starlight; lights danced in the woods by the parking lot. Once in a while a torch would purr overhead, as Roker’s goons brought in more unwanted guests, anyone who had been present at Arkady the previous night. There must be hundreds of them here by now, but doubtless most would enjoy a visit to the famed Valhal, provided it did not go on too long. Had the traitor herself arrived yet?

  Vaun’s teeth wanted to chatter, but who knew what that sound might convey to a pepod? A hundred meters or so back along the beach, Roker was watching with his band of bootlickers, faces indistinguishable in the faded light. Along the edge of the woods, the armed guards stood in a row like fenceposts. Vaun wondered what sort of armament they had been issued—eight of them, and at least three times that many pepods in this thicket alone. He didn’t like their chances, but he wouldn’t be around to laugh.

  “Admiral Vaun?” a girl’s voice said in his ear.

  He jumped and looked around, but there was no one there. “Yes?” he said cautiously.

  “My name is Elan; I am one of Professor Quild’s graduate students.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” No point in saying he was pleased to see her; she was invisible, elsewhere.

  “I will keep you posted on what is happening this evening, Admiral.”

  He choked down a fatuous comment about coming to join her in the control room…frivolity would just reveal how scared he was. Krantz! but he wished they would get it over with. “I’ll appreciate that.”

  “At the moment, we’re still trying to distinguish the specimen closest to you. They toss frequencies back and forth so often…” She fell silent.