The lightbodied, Adversary and Animus, became aware of the strolling couple and flitted upward, into the gathering mists of late afternoon, vanishing into the high upper airs; the pimply young man gaped; the sheep-eyed girl put a pale hand to her heaving bosom ... and went into a career of spiritism soon after, thinking she had seen ghosts. But to Adversary and Animus, her species were so insubstantial, so evanescent—they were the “ghosts.”
* * * *
Verdun, France, 1916
One hundred thousand shells had hammered the fortress of Verdun, and Holdrich Von Stang, in full emergence for several weeks now, was worried that perhaps his enemy had been prematurely killed by the bombardment. Of course, many enemies had been killed—but he was concerned for his particular enemy. His enemy who was also his best friend. Adversary.
But no, Adversary would have appeared to him in lightbody, if he'd been killed.
Von Stang collapsed the little brass telescope and put it in the pocket of his greatcoat, leaving his hand in there with it to warm the knuckles against the drizzly February morning, stamping some feeling into his feet on the planks of the railroad car. A little ways down the flatcar, enlisted men passed wooden crates of supplies, in a human chain, to two drays pulled by teams of mules; the mules snorted visibly in the cold air. The Kaiser's soldiers, gray figures in long coats and broad, dented helmets, weary from poor rest and thin rations, worked slowly but steadily on. Good soldiers. Many would be dead tomorrow. Spent like so many pennies. Sometimes he wondered...
No. Concern for the primates was irrational, mere distraction. Why had it arisen at all?
He mused on the question only distantly—a warmth was spreading through him, as he considered the battered fortress of Verdun, a quarter-mile away. He could just make out the rising columns of blue smoke, a consequence of the shelling. Reports had come in that the allies were far from destroyed; more than half of them had survived the bombardment, in deep trenches, cellars fortified by the British and French. But naturally he had warned Adversary about the shelling, with a temporary mental contact. He and Adversary had been emerged for almost a month.
Erich von Falkenhayn, the German Chief of Staff, had nearly gone along with a plan to push for domination on the Eastern Front. But that was inconvenient for Adversary and Animus, and Adversary had used psychic dominance, a remote telepathic push, to nudge Von Falkenhayn toward another plan—to “bleed France white” at the Western front, beginning with Verdun.
They had used two prongs to encourage the war, and bring these armies together on this ideal battleground; had used remote telepathic domination, along with the strategic influence of their primate embodiments.
Their primates—Colonel von Stang of the German army and the British Major, Simpson—had sometimes wondered, early on, why they had signed up to become military men; why they had applied for certain posts—as the unconscious blueprints played out in them...
“Colonel?”
Von Stang looked down at his pale orderly, shook his head in disapproval. “Your boots are muddy, Corporal Gromin,” he said, in German. He enjoyed playing his part. “You are bivouacked in the officers’ tents; you do not have the excuse of the trenches.”
“I beg your pardon sir, I thought it best I come directly with the information, and the path across the field...”
“Yes, yes-you've come to tell me an enemy patrol has slipped out of the fortress?”
Gromin looked at him in surprise. “Yes sir! You knew already!”
“Oh yes ... I anticipated something of the sort.” He chuckled, feeling the excitement rise in him at the imminence of the final confrontation between Animus and Adversary, for this particular war—finally, this time.
It was taking longer than usual, though, to fully emerge into his host body. He didn't quite feel himself yet. The exhilaration was half-suppressed. This worried Animus. He felt himself oddly over-mingled with Von Stang. Perhaps Adversary had been right, last embodiment, in that New York woods. Perhaps he needed retraining.
But he must deal with that later, after he or Adversary was “killed.” And that would happen today, in all probability. Till now, they'd sent waves of men against one another—or used psychic dominance, remote telepathic urgings, to urge the generals to order it. But the time had come for face to face Confrontation.
“Gromin—I have made a list of men to accompany us. We will go to meet this foray. They think they have gotten away from the fortress ... to escape, or to spy on us. We will prove them wrong.”
Naturally, Von Stang—Animus—had moved troops away from the southwest corner of the fortress, so that Adversary could slip out with his patrol.
Half an hour later, six men trailed behind Gromin and Von Stang as they tramped down the muddy road, rifles cold and heavy in their hands. The men had been surprised, seeing that Von Stang was going to lead the patrol himself. A colonel leading a patrol, and carrying a rifle, too, as well as a sidearm—unheard of !
The landscape about Verdun was ideal for their next confrontation; for a glorious battlefield drama. They liked to set up the field of battle carefully but make their confrontational decisions as spontaneously as possible. Perhaps, after all, he might surprise Adversary by holding back, today. This might not be their last confrontation of the war, after all. Von Stang might withdraw at the last moment—and later, might have Falkenhayn assassinated, then use psychic domination to have himself installed as Chief of Staff. They could extend the war for a number of extra years, if they chose.
Yes. He would have a good skirmish with Adversary here, but choose to withdraw before fatality ... unless things turned against him too soon.
He might get caught up in the fight; might not withdraw in time. Still, there would be another battle, if this one was fatal; there was always another, in other bodies. They had been doing this for more than two thousand revolutions of this planet around its sun, and its possibilities for war were not at all used up...
He felt the waves of exhilaration building in him as he trudged toward the approximate area of confrontation. But despite the mounting inner flame of coming combat, at some lower level he still felt obscurely troubled. Just before nesting himself within the fetus that would become Von Stang, he'd found himself caught up in a certain ennui. It was tiresome to be so coupled to embodiment. Yes, the instinct-templates in the primate brain made the combat encounters vastly more intense. Long ago, embodied in the twelve-limbed creatures of a watery planet under triple suns, Adversary and Animus had engaged in almost operatically grand combat in the undersea canyons of that world, and it had been deeply satisfying—that combination of reproductive ecstasy and brutal rending, the spurting of many torn limbs, the intricacy of leverage and strategy. But it had lacked the white-hot savagery, the violent inventiveness they'd found in the primates of this world; this “Earth.” These primates seemed a bump-up, an increase of intensity, and Adversary and Animus had continued their competition on this planet—so much more than mere games—for countless embodiments, life after life, recording all in sensory nodes for later analysis. Much later: they were of a race that commonly lived above half a million Earthly years.
But perhaps they'd remained here too long. Von Stang ... Animus ... had felt something drawing him toward an empathic overlap with the primates—quite unnatural. A subtle, external nudging. Was it psychic dominance? From what quarter?
“Sir, I see movement in the hedgerows...” Gromin said, his low voice breaking in on Animus's thoughts.
There, to the north, across a field of mown hay, booted feet could be just made out in narrow openings, between the bases of shrubs, at the bottom of the farther hedgerow. Adversary and his soldiers. The marchers seemed to be moving toward a gap in the hedgerow in the far corner of the field.
“Men, listen closely...” Animus issued his orders and his followers jogged as quietly as possible up the road to the nearer edge of the hedgerow, while “Colonel Von Stang” and Corporal Gromin hurried into the field, along the closer s
ide of the hedgerow, keeping low as they edged toward the gap. Animus was planning to have his men at the road draw fire from Adversary, then return fire, as heavily as possible; Adversary would retreat through the opening in the hedgerow, tumbling through helter skelter, to run carelessly into fire from Gromin and his Colonel.
But Adversary's side fired first—they'd flattened down and were firing through the small breaks in the hedgerow, near the roots, and bullets cracked close by “Von Stang"—one of them caught Gromin in the throat, so that he seemed to twist sideways, dropping his weapon, clutching at his gouting throat as he fell onto the sodden turf.
Too bad, he'd been a useful tool.
Animus fired at a muzzleflash, and sprinted toward the larger opening, heard gunfire from the road beyond the hedgerow—his men firing at Adversary's soldiers—and a shout from a wounded man.
He came to an old tree stump beside the hedgerow, went to one knee, reloading his rifle, hoping to pick off some of Adversary's followers—perhaps wound Adversary himself, rather than kill him—his heart pounding, blood racing, the delightful energy of low embodiment racing through his nervous system...
And then he saw the grenade. One of the new “Mills bombs” the British Army was using, with its segmented surface—but someone had thrown it about thirty feet behind his position, and he was able to shift to cover on the other side of the tree stump.
But instead of falling and exploding short, the grenade stopped in mid-air, and changed direction.
“What! That is not allowed!” he shouted, as, defying physics, the grenade flew right for him.
He turned to run from it—and the grenade changed direction again, followed him ... and exploded just over his head, quite removing it from his body.
"And I am telling you, I did not interfere with that grenade!" Adversary insisted.
They were within a small concealment sphere about a half mile over the battlefield; it looked more or less like a cloud to the primates, far below.
"You threw the grenade, did you not?" Animus demanded.
"Initially—yes. I did—I threw it to confuse you, and drive you into the open. I knew it was not going to hit you. I did not cause it to change direction! I don't even have those kinds of skills! Levitation discomposes my thinking center. Perhaps you were mistaken—"
"I am not mistaken," Animus insisted. “It changed direction in mid-air! If you didn't do it, then whom? I'm not aware of others of our kind competing on this planet. And the primates are not gifted with telekinesis. Who, then?"
"I have thought to feel another kind of interference—a tugging of mental energy, from somewhere outside:, tangling me with the primates. Perhaps a subtle psychic dominance. Who, I ask again—and why?"
"The answer must be in why. Our competition here was cut short. Someone wanted to end our participation in this war."
"Who would want to interfere with us? The primates are unaware of us! And incapable of interfering. Perhaps it's a competition vandal—there are some about, entertaining themselves. If so—they're young, with short attention spans. The competition vandal may go away if we wait long enough. There will be other wars."
"Yes. This war bears in it the seed of another war, to sprout in the same garden ... We can nurture those seeds, before nesting in new primates..."
Other wars came along, soon, but they were unavailable to Adversary and Animus—they had to nest in new fetuses, for some years, while the Chinese Civil War went on; while other conflicts raged without their help; without their participation.
But then came World War Two.
They didn't have to foment World War Two, it had a psychotic life of its own—still, they fanned its flames where they could, their embodiments not understanding why they did what they did.
But all primates, even those not occupied by alien lightbodies, were confused, usually, about why they did what they did.
* * * *
North Africa
A pale blue sky; a yellow horizon rippling with the noonday heat; a rolling, sandy plain; a scattering of fletchy little trees. All this the young lieutenant saw from the open hatch of the Panzerkampfwagen. He saw, too, the muscular cloud of brown dust rolling like a djinn across the land from the East: the American armor, its cavalry. One division of Eisenhower's army.
The young lieutenant, Otto Meterling, was directing his rumbling Panzer in the front lines of Rommel's latest attempt at feinting and flanking, but the allies were getting wise to Rommel's methods, and it appeared they were not falling into the trap.
Meterling loved being in the tank. Despite the dryness in his mouth; despite the taste of oil, the sun's heat flung in his face from the metal around him. He loved the bulk of mechanical armor all about him, a metallic extension of his will, designed to crush enemies and turn their blows aside; he loved its grinding treads, its growling engine.
Meterling coughed in a swirl of exhaust fumes, and rubbed grit from his eyes. He would need his goggles soon. How he loved it!
But he knew, somehow, that his true battle this day would not be with Eisenhower's mechanical cavalry. It would come from another direction.
Now, how do I know that? But I do know ... I know that Adversary is coming ... perhaps from the sky. Paratroopers. He is likely a paratrooper.
Adversary ... Animus.
It had been building all morning; last night there had been strange dreams, vivid dreams of many battles: of Romans in armor coming at him, while he whipped his chariot horses on in the service of his Pharoah.
And this morning he'd awakened with the taste of blood in his mouth—someone else's blood. A memory of a fight on the Iberian peninsula, fading even as he opened his eyes. He'd had to kill the man with his teeth, when his sword broke at the hilt. A thousand years earlier.
Just a dream. Or was it a memory, relived?
He watched the sky. Adversary would come from the sky.
There! An American divebomber, perhaps a “helldiver,” appearing as a rapacious dot against the sky to the northeast, taking shape, wings and fuselage gaining definition as it approached.
It is him...
Meterling was becoming Animus, his fundamental identity surging up. He laughed joyfully—to the great puzzlement of his frightened, stifled Panzer crew.
So Adversary thinks he has the edge here, coming from the sky! But Animus had prepared, there was certain ordnance for this, he did not need a direct hit on that plane if he used a flak shell. Now he understood why he'd brought the shells here—these were almost unknown to the panzers. He lowered himself excitedly into the tank, and barked the orders.
“The special shells! Load them! You wanted to know what they're for, you're about to find out, we're soon to be strafed ... and...”
He broke off, staring at the rack of shells waiting to go into the Panzer's cannon. It was difficult to see here, in the cramped, light-stabbed, dusty dimness, but the shells stood out unnaturally.
They were glowing.
They were becoming brighter, brighter ... glimmering with red, then white light, brighter and brighter, humming within.
“Get out!” he shouted, climbing up through the hatch—but it was too late. Once more, too late.
The shells exploded. The tank was consumed by a hungry fireball.
And Meterling with it.
* * * *
Drifting far over the North African desert...
"And again I ask, if it was not you—who was it?"
"I told you, Animus—some competition vandal. A child. Maybe a five-thousandish."
"With such skills? It seems improbable. I only know I was blown to smithereens before our confrontation could begin. Not to mention my crew."
"Well, yes. Not to mention them ... would be normal."
Animus ignored this dig. “Almost thirty years as that Meterling. The food alone ... unbearable."
"You were aware of his eating? You were that much engaged?"
"I know: it is strange."
"Something of the sort happened t
o me, in my American counterpart,” Adversary admitted. “A feeling of taking part in the man, more than I wanted to. I wanted to sleep and there I was, aware of his academy physics class."
"We'll wait them out. This time we'll return to the Sourceworld and fully restore. But we'll meet back here ... there is sure to be another war in this part of the world.” He gazed down at the desert. “I like this part of the planet. It has such possibilities. And think of the weapons to come!"
* * * *
Iraq, near the border with Syria, 2008
Another desert; another hot day. A US Army Humvee, armoured, equipped with machine gun, heading for the patrol along the border to try and catch the Haj sneaking across. Al Qaeda, bringing the new IED remotes, according to Intel.
Crenshaw, up on the 16 MM machine gun, had only been a corporal for a few hours. He had been a sergeant before, but he'd run afoul of a captain, when he'd started emerging as Animus, four days earlier, and somehow, in the time away from this planet he'd lost touch with military protocol. Or perhaps he'd inexplicably let Crenshaw's personal feelings linger in him—the white captain had said something racist; Crenshaw was a black man from Virginia, he was touchy, and Animus had allowed him to react to the “Get your lazy black ass back out there, Sergeant” and he'd told the Captain he was a racist cracker and, soon after, the captain had “found” unprescribed oxycontin in his locker on a “surprise inspection.” There was a lot of noise lately about addiction to oxycontin, and other meds, in the infantry, and the Captain had accused him of dealing stolen pharms, and demoted him. “Next time, you go to the stockade!”
The son of a bitch was probably providing the shit to a dealer himself—
What am I doing?Why am I still involved in Crenshaw's concerns? I'm going to fight to the death with Adversary today...
And there was Adversary, in all probability: that assault rifle poking from the low, clay-colored old building fifty yards right of the dusty road. A spurt of fire, and bullets ricocheted from the Humvee.
Asimov's SF, December 2009 Page 7