Analog SFF, July-August 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "For instance."

  "Well, countless windows are available in space. Unfortunately we do not have that kind of recovery system, not to mention transportation. Eighteen minutes before the window is available here at the site there is one available quite near the bottom of the Marianas Trench southwest of Guam."

  "And we don't have earplugs,” Gordon commented.

  "Among other things,” confirmed Taleghani. “A day after that a surface window opens in Gaza near the remains of the football stadium, and it's likely neither one of us would survive that."

  "You were on the same side in the war. You are Muslim, aren't you?"

  "As you phrased it, Mr. Redcliff, I am but I wear the wrong hat.” The archeologist raised a hand and patted Gordon's shoulder. “We will be fine once we return here to the site. I hope to extinguish everyone's indignation with a bit of wonder—call it showmanship. Tell me—may I call you Gordon?"

  "You're writing the checks."

  "Gordon, are you familiar with a historical figure named Squanto? He was an American aborigine who was kidnapped in 1605 by one George Weymouth, brought to England, and shown to—"

  "I know who Squanto was."

  "Good. I plan to return to our time with one of those villagers, Gordon. We're going to bring back our own Squanto. I'd like your thoughts on that."

  In English Gordon answered, “Holy crap."

  * * * *

  IIII

  Gordon found the supplies had been well thought out. The archeologist's youthful anthropology, language, and martial arts assistant, Harith Fayadh, had included Ka-Bar fighting knives, a Detz .44 magnum bolt-action hunting rifle with optical telescopic sight, an old-fashioned but very reliable S&W .38 Special revolver, and a very modern Fedders M2 shockcomb. Gordon decided to keep the Detz rather than use his own rifle. The Detz was a simple, rugged, reliable weapon. Gordon's Stryker was quicker and deadlier but relied upon sophisticated electronics. If something went wrong, the Stryker would be so much dead weight. The Detz could be repaired with just about anything from a penknife to a coin. The optical sights were rugged and removable.

  Harith had thrown out his back at the dig, the pinched nerve in his spine causing terribly painful spasms. A blessing in disguise, as Dr. Taleghani informed his cot-ridden assistant when they visited him in the tent he shared with three archeology students who were at the sorting tables. “You have all the information regarding the expedition, my boy. If something should happen to us while we're back there, we will be depending upon you to get us safely home."

  Harith nodded once brusquely, glared at Gordon, then fixed his gaze on a tent pole holding his corner of the shelter above the sand. “Please stop this juvenile sulking, Harith,” requested Dr. Taleghani as he sat on the edge of the young man's cot. “It's quite tiresome.” He patted Harith's shoulder. “Now, tell me what is troubling you so, my boy."

  "An American sniper,” he hissed, glancing at Gordon. “His only skill is murder."

  Dr. Taleghani burst out with a laugh. “What nonsense is this? Gordon is a bodyguard, and he is very good at what he does. He is also quite gifted in learning languages, which is my principal reason for finding him valuable."

  "I have black belts in karate and tae kwon do. What belt do you have?” Harith asked.

  Gordon pointed to the hand-tooled leather belt with silver buckle depicting a winking Coyote in his belt loops. “A black Hosteen Ahiga."

  Harith rolled his eyes. “Really. Eight ninety-five at your Wal-mart?"

  Gordon glanced at Dr. Taleghani. “I see I have been misinformed about Egyptian manners."

  "There is no need to have manners with a murderer,” retorted the young man. “Doctor, this man is evil. I saw his record. He murdered for the Septemberist gangsters and spawned more murderers like himself."

  With an ill-concealed expression of astonishment, Taleghani leaned back and looked at Gordon. “I apologize. I'm afraid I've not been aware of my assistant's depth of feeling about the war."

  "He's a little young to have been in it,” observed Gordon.

  "My father wasn't,” countered Harith. “Perhaps you are the one who killed him."

  "Perhaps,” acknowledged Gordon. He studied the young man for a moment then walked until he was standing on the opposite side of Harith's cot. “Where was your father killed? And when? Were you told?"

  "Tabriz. The last year of the war."

  Gordon shook his head. “That's one death I'm not responsible for, Mr. Fayadh. My unit never made it north of Malayer and I spent the last year of the war in a hospital."

  "And I am to believe you, of course,” Harith said sarcastically.

  Gordon shrugged. “I would lie if there was a point. There is no point."

  Harith closed his eyes, the muscles in his jaws flexing. “Do not tell me the war is over."

  Gordon grinned as the memory of an Iranian captain he once met touched his mind's eye. “No war is ever over, Mr. Fayadh,” he answered. After a pause he squatted, looked into the pale young man's dark eyes, and said, “When I was a boy, much younger than you, every morning in the dark before sunrise my mother would take me to the top of Bear Rock. There she would stand, cursing the gods she imagined, beating a medicine stick against the rock, demanding the sun to appear. She called the sun Glittering Man. Some believed her to be a witch, but her only goal was to bring light to the world and end evil."

  Gordon thought back to the schoolhouse and the boys and girls taunting him about his mother, the witch. He had fought back, eventually. First it was with fists. Eventually he told them he was studying to become a witch himself, and that his studies would require him to kill someone, preferably a child. In middle school he once cut off a bit of his own hair and taped it to a filing card with the name, address, relations, and habits of Lee Waters, an eighth-grader and the ringleader of the school's bullies. He allowed the card to be “lost” in the hallway between classes, and it eventually found its way to Lee Waters.

  "What is this?" demanded Lee during the next class break, his hate-filled eyes dark and small in the boy's angry face.

  Gordon turned from putting his books in his locker and glanced at the card. "That's for making medicine—you know, spells and curses. I have cards like that for everyone in school." He had gone on to describe evil-wishing magic and how he needed hair, fingernails, blood, or such from a person to bury with corpse flesh to pray them down into the dirt. Lee took the card and put it deep within his own pocket. Gordon smiled. "That's all right. I have more." The bullying ended, but the terrible isolation continued.

  "My mother called her gods Glittering Man and Blood Woman,” he said to Harith Fayadh. “I would help my mother raise Glittering Man from the night with my own curses. As the edge of the disk cut the horizon, my mother Nascha would sing her chant demanding the gods to bring down pain, death, horrible sickness, confusion, and all the punishments on the evil ones in the world. Just in case the spirits were forgetful, she would recite for them all of those evils. Mrs. Potts, the lady we bought eggs from, was evil."

  "An egg lady? Why was she evil?” asked Harith.

  Gordon pointed with his forefinger at the side of his head. “Mrs. Potts was wall-eyed. She never had it corrected and always favored looking at the world through her left eye. My mother believed that was the egg lady's evil eye."

  "What nonsense,” said the youth with unconcealed contempt.

  Gordon pointed at Harith. “You are also one of the evil ones my mother begged the gods to kill."

  "Barbarian rubbish,” protested Harith. “I am not evil. And how would she know me?"

  "You are Arab Bilagana, the child of Arabs. To my mother, that made you evil."

  "She believed Arabs to be evil because they're Arabs? Deluded woman."

  "Look at it through her eyes. Arabs caught Africans and sold them to British and American slavers. The freed descendents of those slaves joined the US Army and became cavalry soldiers on the western frontier. The Anglo Bilagana and the Zhin
i buffalo soldiers fought against my mother's relatives’ ancestors.” Gordon grinned. “So those Arabs and all of their sons, daughters, and countrymen until the end of time, according to my mother, are evil and should be exterminated."

  "And this is how you believe?” asked Harith, his expression testimony to the ridiculousness of the proposition.

  "No,” Gordon answered. He took a deep breath and let it escape from his lungs slowly, as he looked out from beneath the rolled-up edge of the small tent to the endless dunes of the sand sea. “I do not believe in evil."

  "What an astonishing thing to say. You don't believe in evil? In this world? Have you spent your life with your head beneath a rock?"

  Dr. Taleghani began to rebuke his assistant, but Gordon stopped him with a look and a slow shake of his head. He faced Harith. “I used to hate evil when I was a child living with my mother, Mr. Fayadh. I now consider such a belief a childish superstition."

  "Why should you not fly in the teeth of thousands of years of God's words?” said the young anthropologist. “Hear me, Allah. Gordon Redcliff doesn't believe in evil. Your work is done.” Harith laughed at his own joke until his spine bit a little more deeply into an inflamed nerve. When he was finished wincing he said, “So, if you don't believe in evil, Mr. Redcliff, in what do you believe?"

  Gordon closed his eyes then reopened them a moment later. “I believe in ignorance, stupidity, laziness, fear, greed, cruelty, insanity, cowardice, corruption, indifference, and disease. I don't believe you and your descendents should be exterminated unless and until they raise a hand against me or those I want to protect.” He looked back at the boy and there was a smirk on Harith's face.

  "If I might borrow a good old Yankee American expression,” Harith said in English, “so what?"

  Gordon nodded and continued in English. “I'll tell you what, kid. It is advice I got from a very wise man many years ago. He said it doesn't matter what kind of family, racial, tribal, national, political, or religious bullshit your head is filled with or how long it's been there, you can still pick your own path."

  "And now my faith is insane? What I believe is bullshit?” Harith spat back, wincing as his passion plucked the strings of his abused spine.

  "I didn't say that. I've read the Quran, however, and nowhere in it does it say that Americans are evil."

  "When it was written, there were no Americans."

  Gordon grinned widely, held up a finger, and wagged it back and forth. “Not according to my mother."

  A tiny smile fought its way through Harith's self-imposed outrage, then he nodded. “Very well. I will give your mother that one."

  Dr. Taleghani said to his assistant, “Harith, enemies are not enemies forever unless you choose to make them so."

  Harith glanced at Gordon. “Tell me, Mr. Redcliff, do you really want to go on this expedition?"

  "Very much.” Gordon faced Dr. Taleghani. “It sounds much more interesting than sifting sand or drilling holes in rocks with Dr. Hussein.” He looked back at Harith. “Your boss is quite an adventurer."

  "Possibly I'm a bit jealous of you."

  "Possibly,” agreed Gordon with a grin. “I imagine we'll bring back a wealth of images and information for you, though.” He glanced at Taleghani and the archeologist nodded back. “And something else, as well."

  Harith glanced around to make certain no one had overheard the American. Satisfied they were the only ones within earshot, he lowered his head back to his pillow and said, “Take care of our adventurer, then, Mr. Redcliff. I truly envy you what you will find.” Harith frowned as he stared at nothing for a moment then focused on Gordon's face. “You do not believe in evil. Do you not, then, believe in good?"

  "Opposing moral forces stalking me, urging me on and off some other-imposed path of righteousness like the old Goofy cartoon?” asked Gordon.

  "Goofy? I do not understand."

  "A Disney character, a cartoon dog. In this old cartoon I saw as a child, Goofy constantly has a good little Goofy on one shoulder and a bad little Goofy on the other. One Goofy is dressed like an angel, the other dressed like Satan, each little Goofy counseling big Goofy to do things good or bad according to their respective agendas. No, I don't believe in that."

  "You reduce human morality to a Goofy cartoon?"

  "No. The animators did that. I just happened to find the rendering insightful."

  "Then why are you here? I mean, in the world—in life? What is your mission?"

  "Aside from protecting your boss?” Gordon thought for a moment. “Making my way between the bombs, doing what I can do."

  "Toward what end?"

  "To find out what happens next.” As soon as he said it, Gordon knew his answer to be facile. There were a few details for Harith and Dr. Taleghani to sort out. While they sorted them, Gordon rested his gaze upon the escarpment, turned the conversation in his thoughts, prodding at the young man's question.

  Mission. Reason for being. What was the mission of Gordon Redcliff's life?

  He had taken on many missions during his life. His longest mission had been to help his mother raise the sun, kill evil, and carry her overwhelmingly insane burden of historical hatred. When she died, although he thought her insanity died with her, he'd lifted the burden to his own shoulders. That lasted, twisting his own life and outlook, until the middle of his first tour in the most recent war and the aftermath of the bloody fall of Esfahan.

  In the mountains south of the former Persian capital, Gordon and his new spotter, a twenty-three-year-old kid from Long Island named Phil Andreakos, had been temporarily detailed to keep an eye on a captured IRI army captain. Andreakos and Gordon had a solid business relationship that had racked up an impressive record of kills, but they had never become close. Watching the Iranian captain, however, was a way to structure a bit of time before being sent out on their next mission. A soldier was a soldier to Andreakos, hence he felt obligated to make the IRI captain's time with them as pleasant as possible. The three of them sat outside the intelligence officer's headquarters in the shade of a hill. Andreakos and Gordon were both sitting on empty ammo boxes. The captain was in his early thirties, his hair prematurely touched with gray at the temples, his uniform touched with the dust and wear of an infantry officer. He sat on the ground leaning against a weary-looking juniper. After a few minutes Andreakos asked the captain in Farsi if he could get him some water or something to eat.

  "Never from the hand of a Greek," spat back the captain, turning away his head. Andreakos stared back, his mouth slowly opening.

  From a Greek? he mouthed to Gordon, a big grin starting on his face. He turned to the Iranian officer. "I can get you tea, some falafel, a bagel, maybe one of the guys has a birthday cake."

  "Are you deaf as well as ignorant? Never! Never from the hand of a Greek!" The captain held out a shaking hand at the surrounding mountains. "Don't you know where you are? Have you no clue?"

  Andreakos couldn't let it be. He could understand why the Iranian captain might hate Americans, Brits, Iraqis, Israelis, Indians, Turkmen, Pakistanis, Lebanese, or Kurds. But what did he have against Greeks? Greece had even sat out the past four Middle East wars.

  "Why, pray tell?" prodded Phil.

  "Alexander!" retorted the captain, as though Phil was the most ignorant of peasants, then he spat in the dirt.

  Andreakos sat back on his ammo box. "Alexander?" he repeated. "Like, in The Great?"

  It was the funniest thing Phil had ever heard. This guy was still pissed off about a war that had happened twenty-four hundred years before either of them or their governments had been born. The captain apparently blamed Phil and all the other Long Island Macedonians for at least part of it: The murder of Darius, the destruction of the Persian Empire's golden age, the sanctity of Persian purity defiled, defiled, oh merciful Heaven, defiled by the Greeks! The horror! The horror!

  Phil couldn't get over it. He prodded the captain into reciting lists of atrocities committed by Greeks against Persians. The Ira
nian captain couldn't see through his hatred and shame long enough to notice that Phil was putting him on and having the time of his life.

  Oh, that's so horrible, Captain. I'm mortified. So ashamed. Please. Tell me more.

  It was better than television. The antics of the pair finally crumbled Gordon's unremitting poker face driving him to laughter. It was either laugh or explode. Before he could allow himself to laugh, though, Gordon had to choose that different path the way Hosteen Ahiga had said. He had to release his mother's hatred, as well as his own, and let it fall from its own weight. He had to let go of Wounded Knee, The Long Walk, Mrs. Potts's evil eye, the infected blankets, the murder of Narbona, the governor of New Mexico's Hawaiian shirts, Fort Defiance, Jay Silverheels, the disappearance of the buffalo, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Squanto, the twenty-four dollars in junk jewelry, the buffalo soldiers, Injun Orange Funny Face Drinks, the sheep killers, the Washington Redskins—crimes and evils real and imagined committed against people he never knew by people who had never existed or were long dead and gone. Then he laughed. He'd never laughed so hard in his life. He laughed so hard he was crying, which angered the IRI captain even more, which made him seem even more ridiculous. The Iranian didn't know, however, that Gordon was mostly laughing at himself—himself and at the human race. After that Gordon allowed himself to become friends with the Long Island Greek. Brothers.

  Wars end only when memory ends. Missions, though, are mercurial, assigned, and ultimately chosen. So what was the mission? What was Gordon Redcliff's purpose on the planet? Was it even necessary to have a mission beyond getting through the day without compromising oneself or falling for one of the Trickster's jokes? That seemed to be Hosteen Ahiga's purpose. Gordon was moving from one desert to the next, one conflict to the next, and for what purpose?

  When Dr. Taleghani was ready to leave, Gordon stayed behind and looked down at Harith. “I apologize for my earlier answer to your question about why I am here. I answered as I did because I didn't have the words. A stupid thing to do. Now I know the answer: to find a mission. That is my mission on this planet, Mr. Fayadh: to find a mission."