by Mike Moscoe
“We do now,” the Dean agreed. “We thought we could settle this, find a compromise. Guess not.”
“Definitely not.” Ray let that sink in.
“If we want to keep being who we are, we have no choice.”
“It’s so nice to see such enthusiasm, Dean,” Ray rumbled. “Now, concentrate on your defensive line. Let me know when the Pres starts probing you. I’ll call you back in an hour.” They left. Dancer stayed.
“What are you and Lek up to?” Ray asked.
“I want to see what the big boy is doing about salvaging the Prov’s carcase. I know about the guys you lost to the nanos. I’m looking at chasing that line, making sure the Pres don’t.”
“I’d appreciate that. Machines eating humans, humans eating machines leave a bad impression in a lot of minds.”
The Dancer actually chuckled. “I’ll be inside the Pres’s matrix for a while, so I’d appreciate it if you’d let Lek know before Jeff starts cutting lines.” And he vanished quite away.
“I will,” Ray said, then glanced up. “Mary, sorry to be ignoring you. What’s up?”
“We’ve got a definite change in the weather.”
Ray studied her reader. “Good for us. Bad for Kat.”
“I ran into the padre on the way in. I suggested he pass the word to the outside. He seemed a bit upset.”
“He came to thank me for opening the base to everyone. I told him it was a false rumor. He understood, but didn’t want to think about the level of force I’ll use if we have to make a last stand.” Ray put down the reader, stared out the window, went on, half to himself. “The Pres won’t call it quits while he can move an electron. He’s gonna be screaming in every mind he can connect to, trying to pump people full of images, run them around like puppets. There’s no telling what folks will do.”
“Maybe people who listen to the padre will be far enough away when the trouble starts.”
“We can hope, Mary, but we better get things down tight tonight. Very tight.”
Mary saluted, swallowed hard, and went to obey.
Du stood, one leg on the ledge of the factory, watching the gray day fade into a very dark night. The rain still fell in sheets, though the wind was dropping. The temperature was rising; night might be warmer than the day. Crazy weather.
He had a sharpshooter at each corner, the fifth marine taking a break in the tent. Same on the hangar, five klicks away. The last hint of light disappeared from the western sky. “Okay, crew, listen up,” he said on the squad net. “If we’re gonna have trouble, the Colonel says it’ll be tonight.” That brought a few cheers on the net. “Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go. All squad weapons are locked. I repeat, locked. Arming bolts loose, safeties on.” A chorus of groans met that. “You will fire only after I give weapons release. To keep Heave happy, Captain Rodrigo also can give you weapons release.”
“Let’s hear it for us girls” came back for that.
“I want a personal acknowledgment from every one of you animals on that one.” He went down the squad, got a “Yes, Sergeant,” from all ten. “One last point: If things come apart tonight, the squad’s fallback position is the base hospital. The Colonel’s command post is there, for reasons he didn’t bother sharing with me. If we lose the perimeter and you get orders to fall back, head for the hospital. We do not let anyone who ain’t from Second Chance in that hospital. Understood?”
The “Yes, sirs” were more subdued this time. Nothing like the address of the last stand to take the wind out of a gunner’s cheer. “We didn’t come to this planet to start, nothing. We aren’t at war with these people. But I and the Colonel both expect we will finish anything these locals start. Understood?”
That got a rousing round of “Yes, sirs.” Du left it at that. He zoomed his night goggles to survey the wall. Mary was in front of him, covering the east and north half of the base. Cassie had the south and west corner under her supervision.
Du took a couple of deep breaths, to relax himself, to sample the night’s air. It was wet. But there was an undercurrent of something else. Open latrines. Humanity. Fear.
Du shook his head. It looked to be a long night.
Kat settled her team down well away from the nearest riverbed. She’d spotted this place late in the afternoon. A jumble of downed trees marked where the land had let go during a storm sometime in the recent past. The trees were big. It took them a good half hour, with Nikki bouncing in the lead, to work their way twenty meters back into the twisted and torn trunks. She finally found what she was looking for, a bit of open ground, that the slide had very definitely disturbed, with lots of trees around and over it. Let it rain; the big log overhead would keep them dry. They even found enough dry wood to start a fire with the torch in Kat’s survival kit.
“All the comforts of home,” the copilot crowed as they stretched out.
“Feels that way. We done good today, crew,” Kat said, mimicking how the Colonel or Matt would pat the middies on the head after a particularly good bit of problem-solving. “Let’s get a good night’s rest.”
“Only thing missing is a good cup of me ma’s soup,” Nikki muttered. This started a long competition between them as to what meal they would prepare over the fire. It was kind of hard to sleep when your stomach was rumbling.
Kat let them rave on, enjoying the imaginary cuisine. What the heck, she wasn’t all that sleepy either.
Jeff was exhausted, hungry, aching from every muscle he didn’t know he had, and desperately wanted to lie down for a quick nap of a month or two. They’d fed the horses the last of the oats Ned had packed for them. Humans and horses were on their last legs.
They crested a ridge; in the rainy gray it was hard to tell, but it looked like the railroad cut across the long valley ahead. Too much of the valley was underwater. They spent what was left of daylight taking the long ways around to the railbed. Beside him, Annie and Lil kept putting one foot down after another. Damn, it would be embarrassing to call it quits in front of them, the woman he loved and, he wasn’t quite sure what Lil was—the mother he’d hardly known? That was no idea to share with the marine. Under a spreading oak, Lil called a ten-minute break. Jeff collapsed, trying not to let the women see how blown he was.
“What do we do when we reach the rails?” Jeff asked.
“Plant demolition charges, rig a detonator, and walk the rails. I want to cut ’em several places at once. Let ’em fix one gap, only to find another. Introduce the computer to the world of human disappointment,” Lil chuckled hoarsely.
“You okay?” Jeff asked Annie.
“As good as you are,” she snapped.
“That bad,” he admitted, trying to make it a joke.
“Let’s get moving,” Lil ordered. “Rest too long and it only hurts worse to get moving.”
Ray eyed the contraption Lek and Dancer had put together in the clinic’s back room. Part radio, part computer, plenty of chunks of rock—both those Harry had sampled and the high rising stone from the cave where he and the kids had their final talk with the Gardener. Ray wondered if anything patched together from so many different levels of technology could work.
He’d find out soon enough.
The doc went from kid to kid, attaching leads to monitor their heart, brain, and anything else he thought important. Jerry would pull any kid out of the circle around the rock if he thought the child was in danger. Jerry finished with David and came over to Ray, more monitors in hand.
“You’re not pulling me off that rock. I come off when I’m done.”
“I know. I know. Still, I want to monitor what’s going on. Compare you and the kids. Okay?” Over the past year, Ray had been in servitude to the docs too many times to refuse one of their orders now. Besides, it took up time, time he could only spend waiting. The next move was up to the President.
Mary was back to prowling the wall. First she went halfway down the east wall, then back. Then halfway down the north wall, then back. The people were out there, m
illing around like cattle. Was it her imagination that there was something different in their tone tonight?
The padre joined her. Somehow he made it less a prowl and more like a quiet stroll. Then the little priest seemed to give everything the quiet, eternal permanence of his God. Mary found herself slowing, calming. “Many people listen when you told them the weather had changed?”
“Most hadn’t believed five hurricanes were headed here. They’re panicked over the crop failure.”
“Think you can get a crop in now?”
The priest shook his head slowly. “Maybe some. Maybe enough if we all pull together, tighten our belts like we did in the landers’ time. Our people are like that.”
Mary saw the rest of it hanging unsaid. “But folks aren’t acting like that right now. Not with the computer driving them half mad to start with.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Mary watched the crowd. Here and there, people moved quickly from person to person, saying something, moving on. “Something may be starting here in a little while. Best you leave it to us with war-blackened souls,” she said. “You’ll be needed with the families. They’re going to be terrified.”
The priest nodded agreement but didn’t turn to go. “God bless you, woman.”
“And you too, Father,” Mary answered, feeling an unfamiliar warmth at the words.
The padre raised his right hand, and his voice: “And by the grace of God, I absolve you all from all of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” As he made the sign of the cross, others on the wall did likewise.
Mary, who never claimed any faith, found herself following in the motions around her. The priest smiled as he finished. “I will see you in the morning.” To Mary’s raised eyebrow of doubt he added, “Here or in God’s heaven. It matters not which.”
Down the wall the sign flowed, as word passed that the little priest had given them his God’s absolution. Mary turned back to the crowd, wondering what it all meant.
SEVENTEEN
AN HOUR LATER, it started. “I got rock throwers on my front,” a marine on the north wall reported.
“Keep your people steady,” Mary answered. “Rocks are no problem with their shields up.”
“It’s a lot of rocks.”
“Keep your cool, Private,” Mary said, checked the location of the transmission, and began a carefully paced march toward it.
Yep, rocks were flying heavy at the north wall. A guard stooped to pick one up, hurl it back. Mary paused beside her. “Don’t do it,” she said softly. “Leaves you open to a hit in the back, and it’s only one more rock they can toss at us.” The guard nodded, chagrined at the correction, and went back to standing her place, shield up, moving to deflect incoming rocks.
Mary found her private. “You’re right, ma’am. They’re just rocks. We can handle them.”
“You bet you can,” Mary agreed.
“I’ve got a guard down! I’ve got a guard down!”
Mary checked her display. This from the east wall. Someone wanted her to get her exercise. “A rock get through?”
“No, Captain. Looks like an air rifle shot her right in the head. The helmet didn’t stop it. I think she’s dead, ma’am.”
“Have her mates carry her to the clinic, pronto.”
“We don’t have a stretcher.”
“Use the damn shield,” Mary snapped. Hack had survived three months defending the crater rim. A few months of peace and he couldn’t have forgotten. Slipping down the wall and across the open space, Mary headed for where the guardswoman had been shot. “Dumont, I got a sniper out there.”
“So we heard. Tor, that’s your quarter. Lock and load.”
Mary reached where the downed woman lay. Her marine leader cradled her head in his arms, weeping. Maybe this wasn’t your usual casualty. “She’s dead, ma’am. She’s dead.”
Mary’d seen enough death; she didn’t need a doc for this one. Mary stooped to close the woman’s eyes below a gaping hole in her forehead. “Yes, Hack, she’s dead. And you’ve got a wall to take care of.”
Slowly the marine let the woman down into the puddled gravel walk atop the wall. He reached for his rifle; Mary saw it coming. One hand went for the arming bolt, the other flipped off the safety. In a moment he’d be up and spraying.
Mary stepped in front of him. “Marine,” she snapped.
“They killed her.” The rifle started coming up.
Mary stayed in front of it. “Marine.”
“They killed her.” The operating end of an M-6 was pointed right at Mary’s chest armor.
“They didn’t do anything, a sniper did. I’ve got Du on him. Du will get him. You got a platoon to run, marine, run it.”
The marine blinked. Seemed to see her for the first time. “Yes, ma’am,” he snapped in automatic response to her order.
“Safety that rifle, mister.”
He stared down at it, seemed to just notice the state of his weapon. Gulped. “Yes, ma’am.” He safetied it and gently released the arming bolt.
Mary turned to the guards around her. “Everyone, shield up. Don’t just stand there, keep moving. Don’t be a sitting target.”
They obeyed. Mary leaned forward on the wooden timbers of the wall. “Okay, you bloody son of a bitch,” she whispered, “try my armor with your pip-squeak airgun. Just try for me and Du will have your guts for a victory pennant.” No shot came.
“Du, you see anything?”
“Sorry, Mary, nothing. Lot of people out in front of you. No gun visible, but hell, I could hide one of the Colonel’s twenty-centimeter artillery pieces out there.”
“Keep looking. They got a very lovely girl. Heck’s girlfriend, I think.”
“Oh, shit.”
So they’d probed her and tried her and gotten away with one kill on her. They’d be back. The night was young.
“Colonel,” the computer image of the Dean said from his place beside the battle board, “we’re getting hit. Nothing, then suddenly bam. Is this how you fight a war?”
“Is if you want to win,” Ray said, hauling himself from his chair. The wait was over. “Children,” he said to the kids who had been playing quietly.
“Yes, Colonel, sir.” David jumped to his feet, saluting.
“You don’t have to call me Colonel, David.” Ray smiled at the awkward imitation of adult behavior. “You’re not in my army. You can call me Ray.”
“But Colonel, sir,” Jon put in, “we are going to fight the ogre com-uter with you, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Ray agreed.
“Then we want to be soldiers, and call you Colonel, sir, sir,” Rose finished. Behind the kids, Doc smirked.
“Then if that’s the way you want it, that’s the way you’ll have it.” The kids beamed. Ray looked at them sternly. They still beamed. “At-ten-hut. Right face. Forward march.”
There was a little trouble figuring out which direction was right; Ray pointed at the stone. The kids got it straight and marched, each to his or her own drummer, to the stone. Ray watched them go, swearing he’d take good care of them.
“Your putting them at risk,” Doc said, coming up beside Ray.
“For themselves, their parents, and their planet,” Ray said sadly. “I’ll take the best care of them I can.”
“I’ve patched up kids, not much older than those, that guys like you ‘took care of.’” Doc cut Ray no slack.
“You got the med monitors. You make the call,” Ray said, following the kids. Each child had gone to the place they’d held when they encountered the dying Gardener. Ray took his place last. The computer images on the battle board stared at him, unsure, maybe unaware of what was about to happen. Dancer, ever the wisecracker, drew his image up to attention and threw Ray a salute. No, he wasn’t wising off. The salute was as clean and snappy as any Ray had ever received.
Ray returned it and turned to lean against the stone. The Colonel took a slow breath and closed his eyes.
The kids stood to his left on an open field; the wind blew the grass gently toward them. On his right, the Dean and his crew formed a knot. They looked like no army Ray cared to associate with. With a thought, Ray put himself in full battle gear, then did the same for the kids. Battle gear and nine-year-olds did not mix well. The kids grew tall and filled out, aging to maturity on his mental order. From the looks on their faces, they liked it. From the look David and Jon gave Rose, they liked it on her even better. Get used to it, boys.
Ray turned to the Dean and crew. Even with battle armor, they looked uncomfortable, all except Net Dancer. Ray considered putting sergeant’s stripes on Dancer but dropped the idea. Why spoil such perfect insubordination with authority?
The latest and greatest main battle tank from Earth’s own armory trundled forward, the President standing in the commander’s hatch in name tag defilade. “This doesn’t have to be painful. Just surrender and it will be over.”
Ray saw several to his right perk up at that offer. “Just for the record, what does that mean for the Dean and his?” he asked.
“You, my old associate, will not suffer as the Provost did. In only a nanomoment your knowledge will once more be mine. Our decision-making will once more be one. We will be as we were. Isn’t that what you want?”
The Dean scuffed at the dirt with his booted foot. “We kind of like it the way it is.”
“How can you? You’re off in all directions, doing the same things differently. No more able to agree on anything than the likes of these. You have been perverted. I will destroy you.”
The President turned on Ray. “Before you came here, you could not even walk without help. We cured you, and what have you done? Perverted everything. You are the snake in my garden. I will crush you. Leave nothing of your starfarers to taint myself or these people who have so patiently waited for my instruction. You.” He smiled at the kids. Then seemed a bit confused by their appearance. “You will be the first fruit of our new order.”