by Ian Whates
The smart thing to do, if anyone had asked me, was for us to boogie on out of there and link with the Beta-site survivors, and see what we could do as a mobile strike force. Nobody asked me, at least nobody up top, where the orders came from. We were supposed to hold the strip, so there we stuck, berries on a branch ready for picking. I know a lot of the guys thought the same way I did, but hardly anyone mentioned it, seeing it would do no good and we’d have a lot more to bitch about later.
Slow as the Gerin were moving, we had time to set up several surprises, fill every available container with water, all that sort of thing. They ignored our flyspy, so we could tell where they were, what they had with them, estimate when they’d arrive. It was spooky … but then they didn’t need to bother shooting down our toy; they only outnumbered us maybe a hundred to one. If every one of our ambushes worked, we might cut it down to ninety to one.
Gerin ground troops might be slow to arrive, but once they were there you had no doubt about it. Just out of range of our knuckle-knockers, the column paused and set up some tubing that had to be artillery of some sort. Sure enough, we heard a sort of warbling whoosh, and then a vast whump as the first shells burst over our heads and spit shards of steel down on us. After a couple or three shots, fairly well separated, they sent up a whole tanker load, and the concussion shuddered the hills themselves.
We watched them advance through the smoke and haze of their initial barrage. They were in easy missile range, but we had to save the missiles for their air support. Everyone’s seen the news clips – that strange, undulating way they move. They may be true amphibians, but they’re clearly more at home in water or space than walking around on the ground. Not that it’s walking, really. Their weapons fire slower on automatic than ours, but they can carry two of them – an advantage of having all those extra appendages. And in close, hand-to-hand combat, their two metal-tipped tentacles are lethal.
They came closer, advancing in little bobbing runs that were similar to our own tactics, but not the same. It’s hard to explain, but watching them come I felt how alien they were – they could not have been humans in alien suits, for instance. The very fact that I had trouble picking out the logic of their movements – why they chose to go this way up a draw, and not that – emphasized the differences.
Now they were passing the first marker. Rolly tapped me on the shoulder, and I nodded. He hit the switch, and a stormcloud rolled under them, tumbling them in the explosion. Those in the first rank let off a burst, virtually unaimed; the smack of their slugs on the rocks was drowned in the roar and clatter of the explosion, and the dust of it rolled forward to hide them all. Chunks of rock splattered all around; a secondary roar had to mean that the blast had triggered a rockslide, just as we’d hoped. When the dust cleared a little, we couldn’t see any of the live ones, only a few wet messes just beyond a mound of broken stone and uprooted brush.
One of the wetears down at the far end of the trench stood up to peer out. Before anyone could yank him back, Gerin slugs took his face and the back of his head, and he toppled over. Then a storm of fire rang along the rocks nearby while we all ducked. Stupid kid should have known they wouldn’t all be dead: we’d told them and told them. Our flyspy crew concentrated on their screens; at the moment the critter was reading infrared, and the enemy fire showed clearly. Garrond gave us the coordinates; our return fire got a few more (or so the flyspy showed – we didn’t stand up to see).
But that was only the first wave. All too soon we could see the next Gerin working their way past the rockslide towards our positions. And although I’d been listening for it, I hadn’t heard an explosion from the other side of the strip. Had they been overrun, or had the Gerin failed to attempt an envelopment?
Suddenly the sky was full of light and noise: the Gerin had launched another barrage. Oddly, the weapons seemed to be intended to cause noise as much as actual damage. And they were noisy: my ears rang painfully and I saw others shaking their heads. Under cover of that noise, Gerin leaped out, hardly ten metres away. Someone to my left screamed; their slugs slammed all around us. We fired back, and saw their protective suits ripple and split, their innards gushing out to stain the ground. But there were too many, and some of them made it to us, stabbing wildly with those metal-tipped tentacles. One of them smashed into Rolly’s chest; his eyes bulged, and pink froth erupted from his mouth. I fired point-blank at that one. It collapsed with a gasping wheeze, but it was too late for Rolly.
Even in all the noise, I was aware that the Gerin themselves fought almost silently. I’d heard they had speech, of a sort – audible sounds, that is – but they didn’t yell at each other, or cry out when injured. It was almost like fighting machines. And like machines, they kept coming. Even in the dark.
It was sometime in that first night when I heard the row between the captain and the major. I don’t know when it started, maybe in private before the Gerin even got to us, but in the noise of combat, they’d both raised their voices. I was going along, checking ammo levels, making sure everyone had water, and passed them just close enough to hear.
“You can’t do that,” Major Sewell was saying. “They said, hold the strip.”
“Because it’s that bastard Ifleta’s,” said the captain. He’d figured it out too, of course; he didn’t turn stupid when he got his promotion. I should have gone on, but instead I hunkered down a little and listened. If he talked the major around, I’d need to know. “So no heavy artillery, no tactical nukes, no damage to his art collection or whatever he thinks it is. And it’s crazy … listen, the Gerin are amphibs; they even have swim tanks in their ships.”
“So? Dammit, Carl, it’s the middle of a battle, not a lecture room.”
“So they’re territorial.” I could hear the expletive he didn’t say at the end of that … Sewell was a senior officer, however dense. “It’s part of that honour stuff: where you are determines your role in the dominance hierarchy. If we move, we’re no threat; if we stay in one place they’ll attack.”
“They are attacking, in case you hadn’t noticed, Captain. We’re dug in here; if we move they can take us easily. Or were you suggesting that we just run for it?” The contempt in Sewell’s voice was audible, even through the gunfire.
The captain made one more try. I knew, from our years together, what it took for him to hold his temper at the major’s tone; the effort came through in his voice. “Sir, with all due respect, after the massacre on Duquesne, there was a study of Gerin psychology in the Military Topics Review, and that study indicated that the Gerin would choose to assault stationary, defended positions over a force in movement. Something about defending certain rock formations in the tidal zone, important for amphibians …”
“Yeah, well, what some egghead scientist thinks the slimes do and what the slimes out here in combat do is two different things. And our orders, Captain, say stand and defend this shuttle strip. It doesn’t matter a truckful of chicken shit whether the strip is Ifleta’s personal private hideaway or was built by the Gerin: I was told to defend it, and I’m going to defend it. Is that clear?”
“Sir.” I heard boots scrape on the broken rock and got myself out of there in a hurry. Another time that I’d heard more than I should have, at least more than it would be comfortable to admit. Not long after, the captain met me as I worked my way back down the line. He leaned over and said in my ear, “I know you heard that, Gunny. Keep it to yourself.”
“You got eyes in the dark?” I asked. It meant more than that; we’d used it as a code a long time ago. I didn’t think he’d choose that way, but I’d let him decide.
“No,” he said. A shell burst nearby, deafening us both for a moment; I could see, in the brief glare, his unshaken determination. “No,” he said again after we could hear. “It’s too late anyway.”
“Ifleta’s the owner?” I asked.
“Yeah. Senior counsellor – like a president – in Hamny’s Consortium, and boss of Sigma Combine. This is his little hideaway – should have been a co
lony but he got here first. What I figure is this is his price for bringing Hamny’s in free: three human-settled worlds, two of ’em industrial. Worth it, that’s one way of looking at it. Trade a couple thousand Marines for three allied planets, populations to draft, industrial plants in place, and probably a good chunk of money as well.”
I grunted, because there’s nothing to say to that kind of argument. Not in words, anyway. Then I asked, “Does the major know?”
The captain shrugged. “You heard me – I told him. I told him yesterday, when they found the house. He doesn’t care. Rich man wants the aliens out of his property, that’s just fine – treat Marines like mercs, he doesn’t give a damn, and that, Tinker, is what they call an officer and a gentleman. His father’s a retired admiral; he’s looking for stars of his own.” It was a measure of his resentment that he called me by that old nickname … the others that had used it were all dead. I wondered if he resented his own lost patrimony … the rich bottomland farm that would have been his, the wife and many children. He had been a farmer’s son, in a long line of farmers, as proud of their heritage as any admiral.
“Best watch him, Captain,” I said, certain that I would. “He’s likely to use your advice all wrong.”
“I know. He backstabbed Tio, got him shipped over to the Second with a bad rep—” He stopped suddenly, and his voice changed. “Well, Gunny, let me know how that number three post is loaded.” I took that hint, and went on; we’d talked too long as it was.
So now I knew the whole story – for one thing about Captain Carl Dietz, he never in his life made accusations without the information to back them up. He hadn’t accused me when it might have got him a lighter sentence, all those years ago. If he said it was Ifleta’s place, if he was sure that our losses bought Ifleta’s support, and three planets, then I was sure. I didn’t like it, but I believed it.
The pressure was constant. We had no time to think, no time to rest, taking only the briefest catnaps one by one, with the others alert. We knew we were inflicting heavy losses, but the Gerin kept coming. Again and again, singly and in triads and larger groups, they appeared, struggling up the hills, firing steadily until they were cut down to ooze aqua fluid on the scarred slopes. Our losses were less, but irreparable.
It was dawn again – which dawn, how many days since landing, I wasn’t at all sure. I glanced at the rising sun, irrationally angry because it hurt my eyes. What I could see of the others looked as bad as I felt: filthy, stinking, their eyes sunken in drawn faces, dirty bandages on too many wounds. The line of motionless mounds behind our position was longer, again. No time for burial, no time to drag the dead further away: they were here, with us, and they stank in their own way. We had covered their faces; that was all we could do.
Major Sewell crawled along our line, doing his best to be encouraging, but everyone was too tired and too depressed to be cheered. When he got to me, I could tell that he didn’t feel much better. One thing about him, he hadn’t been taking it easy or hiding out.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said. I just nodded. Speech took too much energy, and besides it was obvious. “There’s only one thing to do, and that’s hit ’em with a mobile unit. I’ve been in contact with the Beta-site survivors, but they don’t have a flyspy or good linkage to ours, and besides their only officer is a kid just out of OCS. The others died at the drop. They’re about four hours away now. I’m gonna take a squad, find ’em, and go after the Gerin commander.”
I still didn’t say anything. That might have made sense, before the Gerin arrived. Now it looked to me like more politics – Sewell figured to leave the captain holding an indefensible position, while he took his chance at the Gerin commander. He might get killed, but if he didn’t he’d get his medals … and staying here was going to get us all killed. Some of that must have shown in my face, because his darkened.
“Dammit, Gunny, I know what Captain Deitz said made sense, but our orders said defend this strip. The last flyspy image gave me a lock on what may be the Gerin commander’s module, and that unit from Beta-site may give me the firepower I need. Now you find me—” My mind filled in “a few good men” but he actually asked for a squad of unwounded. We had that many, barely, and I got them back to the cleft between the first and second hills just in time to see that last confrontation with the captain.
If I hadn’t known him that long, I’d have thought he didn’t care. Sewell had a good excuse, as if he needed one, for leaving the captain behind: Deitz had been hit, though that wound wouldn’t kill him. He couldn’t have moved fast for long, not without a trip through Med or some stim-tabs. But they both knew that had nothing to do with it. The captain got his orders from Sewell in terse phrases; he merely nodded in reply. Then his eyes met mine.
I’d planned to duck away once we were beyond the Gerin lines – assuming we made it that far, and since the other side of the strip hadn’t been so heavily attacked, we probably would. I had better things to do than babysit a major playing politics with the captain’s life. But the captain’s gaze had the same wide-blue-sky openness it had always had, barring a few times he was whacked out on bootleg whiskey.
“I’m glad you’ve got Gunny Vargas with you,” the captain said. “He’s got eyes in the dark.”
“If it takes us that long, we’re in trouble again,” said the major gruffly. I smiled at the captain, and followed Sewell away down the trail, thinking of the years since I’d been in that stuffy little courtroom back on that miserable backwater colony planet. The captain played fair, on the whole; he never asked for more than his due, and usually got less. If he wanted me to babysit the major, I would. It was the least I could do for him.
We lost only three on the way to meet the Beta-site survivors, and I saved the major’s life twice. The second time, the Gerin tentacle I stopped shattered my arm just as thoroughly as a bullet. The major thanked me, in the way that officers are taught to do, but the thought behind his narrow forehead was that my heroism didn’t do him a bit of good unless he could win something. The medic we had along slapped a field splint on the arm, and shot me up with something that took all the sharp edges off. That worried me, but I knew it would wear off in a few hours. I’d have time enough.
Then we walked on, and on, and damn near ran headlong into our own people. They looked a lot better than we did, not having been shot up by Gerin for several days; in fact, they looked down-right smart. The butterbar had an expression somewhere between serious and smug – he figured he’d done a better than decent job with his people, and the glance I got from his senior sergeant said the kid was OK. Sewell took over without explaining much, except that we’d been attacked and were now going to counter-attack; I was glad he didn’t go further. It could have created a problem for me.
Caedmon’s an official record, now. You’ve seen the tapes, maybe, or the famous shot of the final Gerin assault up the hills above the shuttle strip, the one that survived in someone’s personal vicam to be stripped later by Naval Intelligence after we took the hills back, and had time to retrieve personal effects. You know that our cruisers came back, launched fighters that tore the Gerin fighters out of the sky, and then more shuttles, with more troops, enough to finish the job on the surface. You know that the “gallant forces” of the first landing (yeah, I heard that speech, too) are credited with almost winning against fearful odds, even wiping out the Gerin commander and its staff, thanks to the brilliant tactic of one Marine captain, unfortunately himself a casualty of that last day of battle. You’ve seen his picture, with those summer-sky-blue eyes and that steadfast expression, a stranger to envy and fear alike.
But I know what happened to Major Sewell, who is listed simply as “killed in action”. I know how come the captain got his post-humous medals and promotion, something for his family back home to put up on their wall. I know exactly how the Gerin commander died, and who died of Gerin weapons and who of human steel. And I don’t think I have to tell you every little detail, do I? It all comes down
to politics, after all. An honest politician, as the saying goes, is the one who stays bought. I was bought a long time ago, with the only coin that buys any gypsy’s soul, and with that death (you know which death) I was freed.
ARENA
Fredric Brown
Suppose single combat might decide the fate of interstellar empires …
One of us editors still vividly remembers reading Fredric Brown’s collection of brief witty stories, Nightmares and Geezenstacks, then newly published, while hitchhiking across Germany in 1961; “Arena” has stuck in the mind for a long time too. Brown also wrote many detective stories, and solving clues is a key to the outcome of what happens in a place beyond space and time.
CARSON OPENED HIS eyes, and found himself looking upwards into a flickering blue dimness.
It was hot, and he was lying on sand, and a rock embedded in the sand was hurting his back. He rolled over to his side, off the rock, and then pushed himself up to a sitting position.
I’m crazy, he thought. Crazy – or dead – or something. The sand was blue, bright blue. And there wasn’t any such thing as bright blue sand on Earth or any of the planets. Blue sand under a blue dome that wasn’t the sky nor yet a room, but a circumscribed area – somehow he knew it was circumscribed and finite even though he couldn’t see to the top of it.
He picked up some of the sand in his hand and let it run through his fingers. It trickled down on to his bare leg. Bare?
He was stark naked, and already his body was dripping perspiration from the enervating heat, coated blue wherever sand had touched it. Elsewhere his body was white.
He thought: then this sand is really blue. If it seemed blue only because of the blue light, then I’d be blue also. But I’m white, so the sand is blue. Blue sand: there isn’t any blue sand. There isn’t any place like this place I’m in.
Sweat was running down in his eyes. It was hot, hotter than hell. Only hell – the hell of the ancients – was supposed to be red and not blue.