The Apocalypse Troll

by David Weber

  "I mean that the Colonel is unique," Armbruster said, confirming Aston's grim thoughts. "An oracle to be consulted. The only female 'Thuselah' in existence—or likely to exist, this time around. And, forgive me, Colonel, there will be those who suspect you could give them much more technical information than you have. If you're lucky, they'll be very civilized about it, but they won't let you run around loose once the truth starts to penetrate."

  "Protective custody?" Aston's voice was harsh.

  "If, as I say, you're lucky," Armbruster said evenly. "Don't be too hard on them, Admiral. Remember that she represents the humanity of the future—or a species-threatening abomination, depending on your viewpoint—because she's the only person on this planet who can possibly conceive and bear Thuselah children."

  Aston's blood chilled as he recalled Ludmilla's description of how Thuselahs had been treated even when there were millions of them; how would the only Thuselah mother in existence fare?

  "That would be enough all by itself," Armbruster said quietly. "But it won't be by itself. I may be confident that we'll get a united world in the end, but it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be simple, and unless I'm very much mistaken, it won't be bloodless, either. There are enough regimes out there with leaders who'd rather fight to the death than surrender their power and authority to anyone else, and you're a career military man. What wouldn't any war department give for the ability to field and train special forces, or elite antiterrorist squads—or terrorists of their own—with the advantages the Colonel's symbiote could provide them, especially in the face of everything that's about to come down? I can think of a dozen nations right off hand who would do anything to get their hands on her. Or, failing that, on samples of her DNA. Cloning is no longer a mystery of the future, Admiral. We have it now, and the techniques will only improve, which means—"

  He shrugged, but his eyes never wavered from Aston's, and it was the admiral's turn to nod grimly.

  "And even aside from that, as I say, they'll suspect she can give them more technical information than she has," Armbruster said almost gently. "Speaking of which, Colonel, I hope you'll forgive me if I suspect the same thing."

  "Why should you, Mister President?" Ludmilla asked.

  "You've been just a bit too vague, Colonel. I think you're holding back—on the very wise premise that we're not ready for all you know."

  "Not ready yet, Mister President," she corrected gently, and he smiled.

  "So, you have been holding out on us." He chuckled. "Very, very wise of you, Colonel. But I've known quite a few military people, and no 'simple fighter jock' I ever met was quite as ignorant of theory as you are."

  "Actually," she confessed calmly, "Thuselahs have lots of time to study. I have three advanced degrees: one in microbiology and two in molecular electronics and sub-particle physics." Aston stared at her in shock, and she smiled. "You know, Mister President, I rather thought you were suspicious."

  "Damn right I was," he agreed cheerfully. "But it happens I agree with you—though I trust you will make some of that knowledge available if it becomes obvious our own R&D people have hit a brick wall?"

  "I will," she said, then paused. "But that sounds as if you think I'll have a choice."

  "I intend to see that you do," he said, suddenly very serious. "I probably shouldn't. Looked at in one way, letting you out of my grasp will probably constitute the greatest act of treason any sitting president has ever committed, because all the things I just said could be squeezed out of you by unscrupulous nations could be squeezed out of you by us, as well. But it happens that I would prefer to be able to sleep with myself at night, and given how much we owe you, that would become just a tad difficult if I didn't let you go. And," he added with a wry smile, "not giving you the chance would present difficulties of its own. Yakolev, Henderson, Stallmaier, and I are going to have a tough enough time determining how, when, and where to share access to the Troll's fighter, but at least that's only a piece of hardware—and one no one will be able to figure out for a while, anyway. If we handle it right, we can turn it into a focus for the new government we need to put together, make it into a sort of combined Rosetta Stone-Manhattan Project-Moon Race as we rally the human race's best and brightest in an effort to take it apart and learn how to reverse engineer it for our own use.

  "But if you were available, Colonel, you'd make that much more difficult. People would keep turning to you for explanations instead of figuring things out on their own. And that doesn't even consider all the fights and squabbles we'd get into over which nation should have the privilege of serving as your 'host.' After all, if I can see the advantages to grabbing you off, so can anyone else. And even if they weren't so nefarious as to want you for their own purposes, they'd sure as hell want to make sure that none of their rivals got hold of you."

  "I see." Ludmilla gazed at him calmly, then cocked her head. "Obviously, I'm pleased to hear you coming up with all those reasons you should let me go, Mr. President. But are you certain you've really thought this through? We may have killed the Troll, but as you just pointed out, the Kangas are still out there, and they will be along in less than eighty years."

  "Indeed they will," Armbruster agreed. "But we fought them to a standstill when they arrived in your own past, and that was without even knowing they were coming. This time we'll be forewarned—thanks to you—and, I feel quite certain, forearmed—thanks to Grendel's fighter. I'm sure we'll hit lots of problems in figuring out how it works, but those sorts of problems bring out the best in people and help pull them together, which is exactly what we need. So I'm confident that we will get it figured out . . . and I also hope that you'll be good enough to give us the coordinates of the Kangas' home systems before you swiftly and silently vanish away?"

  "Oh, I think you can be reasonably confident of that, Mr. President," she said with a quirky smile.

  "Well, then—there you have it!" Armbruster raised both hands shoulder high, palms uppermost, and grinned at her. "Yakolev, Henderson, Stallmaier, and I will use possession of the fighter and access to it as bait to draw the rest of the world into our coils. At the same time, we'll use our combined military strength to discourage anyone who might have thoughts of gaining control of it for themselves or simply destroying it to deprive anyone else of it. Once we've got the world headed in the right direction, we'll use the job of taking it apart and learning how it works—and how to duplicate or even improve upon it—as the challenge to get us used to working together and keep us heading in the right direction. And frankly, Colonel, I think I can convince my conscience that having you around, as well, would only interfere with my nice, neat plans. It may take me a while, but I'm pretty sure I can pull it off if I try hard enough. So if you'll be good enough to give me those coordinates on your way out . . ."

  He beamed at her, and she chuckled. Then she looked at Aston. The admiral looked back with a smile of his own, but then his expression sobered, and he turned his eyes to the President.

  "That all sounds good, Sir. It may even sound logical and reasonable . . . to us. But it's not going to sound that way to some of those other nations you've mentioned, or even to some US politicos—or big corporations, for that matter—that I can think of right off hand. So just how do we go about letting Milla fade into the woodwork?"

  "I've given that some thought," Armbruster said more seriously, "and that's one reason the official press release hasn't gone out yet. If you two want it that way, the record will show that Admiral Richard K. Aston and Captain Elizabeth Ross died of their wounds. The only people who know better are the survivors of your Company T and the MAG pilots who pulled you out. I think you can trust them to keep their mouths shut."

  "So do I," Ludmilla said softly. "Long enough for it not to matter if they don't, anyway."

  "Exactly, Colonel," Armbruster said. "In the meantime, you two will be free to fade away. If you like, I'll have Commander Morris set it up—we can trust him to hide you so deep I couldn't find yo
u. I'll provide ample funds to a blind account and see to it that no one but you and I know that he did it." He paused, then shook his head.

  "It's your choice, of course, and I could be wrong about how hunted and harried the two of you would find yourselves. But I might not be, too. So think about it, people." He smiled again, a gentler, warmer smile than many people would have believed he could produce. "Whatever you decide, you've more than earned it."

  The seventy-foot twin-masted schooner Beowulf sliced through the Pacific swell under a forest of stars. Her tall, youthful skipper had originally intended to sail the South Atlantic on their first long cruise, but the first mate had changed his mind, and they were still a week out from Hawaii as they sat together at the wheel, sipping coffee and watching the sky.

  Evelyn Horton snuggled into the curve of her husband's arm, her chestnut hair blowing on the wind to mingle with his own shoulder-length mop of dark black, and Adam Horton pressed his palm to the still tiny bulge of her abdomen. A girl, he hoped, and not just for evolutionary purposes. He'd always secretly wanted a daughter; he suspected most men did, whatever they might tell the rest of the world. But there was another reason he hoped for one in his own case, for his wife had threatened to complete Mordecai's joke by naming a boy Cain.

  Evelyn checked her watch again, then looked back up at the sky.

  "Any time now," she murmured.

  "Are you sure?" he asked softly.

  "Jared had NASA run the figures even before we caught up with the Troll," she replied. "I'm sure."

  "In that case—" he began, but she shook her head and pressed her fingers to his lips.

  "Just hold me, Dick," she whispered, and his arm tightened.

  They stared up together, and then she stiffened with a quick, convulsive gasp. High above them, the cobalt sky blossomed with light—a brilliant, flaring light, bigger than any five stars and brighter than a score of them. A light which had come from another universe to die . . . and taken fourteen months to reach their eyes.

  It glowed in the depths of space like a searing beacon—beautiful and defiant, yet somehow forlorn and lost—a glorious diadem marking the trackless graves of the men and women of TFNS Defender who had died to save an Earth not even their own. It grew and expanded as they watched, and then, as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone, snuffed by the breath of eternity, and Richard Aston felt his wife sob against his shoulder, weeping for her dead at last.

  THE END

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