Theirs Not To Reason Why: A Soldier's Duty

by Jean Johnson

  Forty-two hours, she thought, looking around at the angular buildings of the city. She wasn’t far from the spaceport; every few minutes, the bone-deep thrummm of some transport shuttle taking off could be felt, now that she was outside. Forty-two, and I’ll be living the life I need. Praying every step of the way for success. God . . . how am I going to get everything done?

  The city looked as banal as her bedroom once had, three years ago. Blissfully ignorant, most of the people around her went about their business with mindless happiness, or at least a facsimile of content. Hundreds of millions of people. Billions and trillions who didn’t know the horrors lying ahead.

  No. I don’t have time to wander. I have to prepare. Languid steps turning to purposeful strides, Ia headed up the street and turned right at the corner. She could have called for a hover cab, but physical exercise was as much preparation as anything mental. She had a lot of mental preparation left to do.

  The moment she entered the salle several minutes later, she headed straight for the water fountain. Drinking water was a must on such a hot day. Only after her thirst was satisfied did she hear the sounds of bodies hitting mats in the training rooms off to the right. Some of the monks were giving lessons. Or maybe just practicing against each other, given the lack of vocal instructions. To her left, the chapel was an island of quiet.

  What she wanted to do was retreat to the chapel and stay there, where no one could touch her. Where she had nothing to fear regarding unwanted visions of nonessential futures. What she knew she had to do was join the monks in their practices, to train her body and her mind to work together.

  A few minutes in the chapel, first. Then I’ll join them, she decided. Taking another mouthful of water, she left the fountain and headed for the domed hall. Like most Afaso chapels, it was based on the Unigalactan faith, which had sprung up after Terrans had reached out to the stars and found similar beliefs among the other races. Beliefs in some sort of divine Creator, beliefs in being good and kind toward one another, and the underlying tenets of wisdom stored and revered by each sentient race.

  Promoted as an adjunct to every faith, The Book of the Wise had been at first reluctantly examined by the leaders of various religions. Philosophers and theologians had argued and debated every point being made, but could not deny that many of the words of their own holy texts were repeated in the wisdom of other beliefs. Now the Unigalactans were everywhere, promoting peace and understanding.

  It was true that many practitioners of a specific faith tried to proselytize that theirs was the only true faith, and attempted constantly to argue that other beliefs were utterly wrong—including the chosen faith for about half the colonists who had settled on her own homeworld. In turn, the Unigalactans had always responded with the words of wisdom culled from their opponents’ very own texts, countering such arguments.

  It was very hard to maintain a religious war against people who agreed with the core tenets of one’s faith.

  Not that it doesn’t stop the Church of the One True God, back home, she acknowledged, passing the padded pews edging the room. Her goal was one of the large floor cushions arranged around the hologram slowly rotating in the center under that beautifully arched dome. The isolation of being on the backside of inhabitable space, coupled with the difficulties of lightworlders visiting such a heavy-gravitied planet make it an ideal breeding ground for fanaticism to flourish without day-to-day disruption from the saner elements of overall society.

  Sinking cross-legged onto the cushion, she didn’t look up at the rotating stars of the spiral galaxy overhead. Instead, she propped her elbows on her knees and slouched her chin into her hands. Thinking of home, I should take a look at how things are going back there.

  Closing her eyes, Ia turned her thoughts inward, then out, like a gymnast flipping around a bar. She had always been able to see glimpses of the future, and sometimes even peek into the past, but as a young child, the ability had been sporadic and rarely under her control. But once she had understood that she was seeing the future, her younger self had struggled to control her psychic abilities. She had even sought instruction, what little there was of it on her far-flung, backwater, recently settled homeworld.

  The clergy of the Witan Order—who, like the Afaso, were affiliated with the Unigalactan movement—had done their best to train her, since the Witan were one of the duly registered institutions for psychic instruction in the Alliance, as well as being a religious order. The PsiLeague was more popular, more funded, and more capable, but they hadn’t made it to Sanctuary yet, mainly because of the heavy gravity problem.

  That had been a lucky break for her; Ia had already seen what would happen to her carefully laid plans if the League found out what she could do. At least, if they found out any time soon. Being clergy, the Witan had sworn to keep her abilities a secret at her request, and they had kept their word.

  But their training had only gone so far. For most of her other abilities, yes, they could and had helped her greatly. For this . . . no one could do what she could do. Not to her extent. Her precognition had remained mostly untrained until that fate-filled morning when she was fifteen. Now, flipping her mind in and out, she climbed out of the timestream of her own life, hauling herself onto the grassy bank of existence. Willpower and concentration were all she needed now.

  The timeplains shifted under her feet, then stilled. Dropping to her knees, Ia peered into the waters of four streams. The first stream belonged to her biomother, Amelia Quentin-Jones. Ia only skimmed the surface of the water; she could have immersed herself in her mother’s future, living it as if inside her mother’s head like a silent observer, but she didn’t need to do that. Instead, she watched her mother working in the kitchen of their restaurant, cooking for the hardworking colonists who didn’t want to bother with fixing their own meals at the end of each day, struggling to carve a home for themselves on a too-heavy, slightly inhospitable world.

  She watched as the curly-haired woman smiled and chatted, serving up dishes filled with meat, vegetables, and the ubiquitous Sanctuarian topado, aqua blue and vaguely potato-like, but far more tasty. There would be some dark looks sent toward the shop, but Amelia herself wouldn’t receive them. Not in the near future, at any rate.

  Mom will be fine . . . so let’s see about Ma. Switching her attention to the next flow of life, Ia watched her mother’s wife, Aurelia Jones-Quentin, smiling with too many teeth at certain of her neighbors. Ia smiled, too, albeit with more humor. And there she goes, being polite when she doesn’t want to be polite. It’ll get her in trouble if she’s not careful. The Church’s members are slowly moving into our neighborhood, infiltrating business districts and taking over council positions. But she’s always polite. Always finds the right way to tell someone to go to hell and still be socially acceptable in language and demeanor.

  But . . . I can’t see any trouble she’ll get into in the next year. That’s good. Thorne is next. Her half-twin, as she liked to think of him. They had the same father, of course, and had even been born half an hour apart, though Thorne had been born to Aurelia and herself to Amelia. There he is . . . ah, great. Getting into a fight on the school grounds in a few days’ time. A pity he couldn’t just take the scholastic tests and graduate early like I did, but then he doesn’t have the advantages I had.

  At least this fight isn’t his fault, and I can foresee him handling it carefully, so he doesn’t hurt the other kid. And the year’s almost over. Two more local months, and he can move on to business college. Most of it on the Nets, since Sanctuary is still so small. He’ll need to know how to run a business, if he’s going to be the anchor-stone for Rabbit’s underground revolt against the Church.

  Fyfer . . . She sighed mentally as she turned her attention to her younger brother. Fyfer was still young, four years younger than Thorne and her. He was her half brother, since they shared the same mother, but not the same father. Amelia, wanting another child and having Aurelia’s permission to beget one, had dallied with
an entertainer visiting from Parker’s World, an equally new, equally heavy-gravitied colony. Fyfer had inherited his father’s dark hair, good looks, and charm. Frontman to Thorne’s bedrock support. I’d warn him about the fights he’s going to get into . . . except I can see that they’ll teach him how to use his tongue rather than his fists to get out of conflicts. Rabbit will need his charisma in the years to come.

  A shift of her knees, a sway of her body, and she leaned over the other girl’s life-stream to make sure she would be all right. Rabbit was five years older than Thorne and Ia, and already she had gotten into trouble with the law. Nothing warranting a severe punishment, but the petite girl had a habit of exploring places the government and her high-ranked, Church-fanatic parents didn’t think she should. Like the caves under the capital city, where the Space Force had dug bunkers for the brand-new settlement just a couple decades ago, back when the Terrans and the Dlmvla had briefly gone to war. Rabbit’s predilection for amateur spelunking would serve Ia well in the years to come, as would her keen insight into what was going wrong in the local government.

  Her parents were members of the Church, on Sanctuary, but Rabbit didn’t subscribe to their beliefs. It would cause conflicts in the future, but Rabbit would be well-placed to hear of the Church’s xenophobic plans toward the few non-Human settlers on the planet. Well-placed to warn them to get off-world before it was too late. Well-placed to sort out the nonbelievers from the believers when the Church decided to go to war against the other half of the planet.

  There’s that incident at the subway station she has to watch out for, but . . . yes, in the most probable time-path, she does reread my notes to her in advance, instructing her on what to do and what not to do at that moment in time. Satisfied, Ia rocked back on her heels, letting the wind of the timeplains play with her hair. I took great pains to convince them of what to do, and when to do it. The time for action isn’t now. But it will be, soon enough. I have faith they’ll be able to carry out what needs to be done to protect and preserve our world for the Future.

  It was a mantra she kept repeating to herself, to stave off her doubts. She didn’t have the energy to spare for those doubts, not when her own tasks would take up most of her time and attention. Dropping out of school and passing her scholastic tests early had given her some of the time she needed to prepare for the future. The rest of it, she would have to handle on the run.

  So. Back home, everything is fine. I guess I should go work on my battlecognition with the monks, if they’re not too busy. Unfolding her body, she rose and stretched, filling her lungs as she refilled her senses with the here and now. Thank you, Grandmaster, for believing me, and for believing in me . . . and for spreading the word to all the chapters of your Order. Without the Afaso, my goal would literally be impossible. No one else can train the Savior, and I need you to do what I myself cannot.

  Then again, when I put my mind to it, I can be pretty damn convincing. At least, to a fellow being of faith. I have a plan for convincing the Command Staff, but . . . well, they’re a tougher and far more skeptical lot. Everything she had to do, everything she needed to remember, she had to keep reminding herself about it. Too many lives could be jeopardized, if she forgot.

  Leaving the chapel, she crossed to the teaching hall, the actual “salle” of the facility, pausing only for another mouthful of water from the fountain. Despite the air-conditioned temperature keeping the interior comfortably cool, the three men and one woman sparring on the padded mats were sweating from their workout. Clad in the batik-printed tank shirts and loose trousers the Afaso Order had adopted for its humanoid members’ uniform, they whirled and struck, kicked and flipped. Dodging, ducking, grappling, and punching at each other, they didn’t stick to just one partner, but actually flung their opponents whenever possible at the other sparring pair.

  They moved quite fast, but her eyes were used to things falling at three times the gravitational pull of the Motherworld. She knew she wasn’t as good at fighting as they were, but she was fast, and she had undertaken some of their training. Originally, her instructors had been costly hologram programs and her sparring partner her slightly older brother, Thorne, but for the last month, she had been a guest of the Grandmaster of the Afaso Order and had thus gained some practical experience with real teachers. She had even sparred with these particular Afaso yesterday, while waiting for her eighteenth birthday and the opportunity to join the military as a full, legal adult.

  So when Sister Na’an threw Brother Tucker at her, Ia reacted as she had been taught. Her arms flung up to ward off his blows as he tumbled, straightened, and swung at her. Her knee shifted up to block his kick, and her heel slammed down, following the movement of his leg as he tried to protect his foot. And her body twisted under the arms that tried to flip her onto her back, locking their upper limbs together, thanks to the fingers he hooked into her blue flowered blouse.

  Even as he let go of her shirt, she grabbed the back of his trousers, lifting and flinging him back toward the tanned, Indonesia Province woman . . . only to find Brothers Charles and T!ongun leaping her way. Her grey slacks weren’t cut with the same level of give as their bright red and yellow batiks, but she managed to avoid or block most of their incoming blows. No one used their full strength, and Ia took particular care not to strike anyone hard enough to bruise; their flesh literally wasn’t as heavyworlder-dense as hers.

  It also helped that her gift didn’t trigger involuntarily. No flashes of their pasts, no glimpses of their futures, and no involuntarily dragging any of them onto the timeplains with her. She did focus just enough of her abilities on trying to accurately guess where each blow was coming next, and get her own limbs into position to dodge or block where appropriate, but keeping track of four opponents in a free-for-all melee wasn’t easy. Sweat sheened her skin and stained the air, competing with the ventilation ducts trying to keep the air fresh as well as cool.

  The scrimmage ended when Na’an slipped a blow past her defenses, smacking her fist into Ia’s jaw hard enough to spin the heavyworlder around. It wasn’t the blow, per se, so much as the gasp from the doorway that broke up their fight. The first of the afternoon’s students had arrived, a young girl with wide blue eyes. She watched them with avid curiosity as the Afaso broke apart, bowing to each other in thanks for the practice, then moved into the salle when another student poked the girl in the back, urging her to move out of the doorway.

  Na’an paused to check Ia’s chin, then patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine, meioa-e. Do you want to join us in teaching the students?”

  “I really shouldn’t. I’m only a Full Master, not a Senior Master,” Ia demurred. She didn’t add that she didn’t want to foresee the potential-possible futures of the school-aged youths now entering the room.

  “The Grandmaster said you needed to practice more against unanticipated blows,” Sister Na’an pointed out. “And there’s nothing so unexpected as the raw attacks of a young, half-trained student. You have enough control to work with children. I think it’ll do you good.”

  I don’t want to! part of her mind protested. But duty poked at her conscience. A quick probe of her near future, more instinct than inner sight, proved that nothing she did here—provided it wasn’t outlandish or unusual—would affect the timestreams adversely. Sighing, Ia nodded. “Alright. I’ll be their sparring partner. But I still don’t think I’m qualified to be a teacher. Not yet.”

  “Teachers are made, not born,” Na’an countered, clapping her on the shoulder before giving the younger woman a push toward the changing rooms. “Go change into a spare set of batiks. They’ll be more comfortable than those civilian clothes.”

  Those civilian clothes . . . For a moment, the view of the crisp, clean, uncluttered lines of the salle slowly filling with students were replaced by the shadowed, cluttered depths of a bar crammed with off-duty Service personnel. For a moment, Ia could see her reflection in the mirror on one of the walls, her long white hair cropped short,
her blue and grey clothes replaced by a bloodred dress that bared her shoulders. Laughter and the chatter of scores of soldiers sharing stories and bragging rights filled her ears, including some comment about how she herself looked in her civilian clothes, but all she could focus on were her own eyes, wide and yet shuttered with the knowledge of things she hadn’t done yet.

  Someone clapped her on the shoulder in her vision, startling her back out of it. Grounded back in the present, the younger Ia headed for the women’s locker room, blinking off her visit to the future. Most of the time, she could control such trips, but not always. Sometimes all it took was an echo of another point in time, a moment of déjà vu, to disorient her in the here and now.

  I have to get better at handling those. I literally cannot afford to be caught with my attention muddled by Time itself. This entire galaxy can’t afford to catch me with my psychic pants down. A glance at the chrono on the wall as she passed it reminded her that Time was not entirely on her side. Forty-one more hours to go. These are the last hours of my freedom, yet I don’t have enough time to truly enjoy them.

  I don’t think I ever will, from now on.

  And she didn’t dare change it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Why join the military? Well, someone has to. Armies are formed because everyday citizens aren’t trained to thwart the viciousness of hostile neighbors. They have lives of their own, growing food, manufacturing goods, selling services, doing all the things which make modern life functional, effective, and fun. Since aggression and danger are regretful facts of existence, someone needs to specialize in the training needed to protect other people. Some of that training goes into emergency services such as firefighters and medical personnel. Some go for Peacekeeper training. I went for the military because I knew I could handle it, I knew I could do it, and I knew it needed to be done.