Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  "All right, soldier, what's your complaint?"

  Briefly she explained. Without answering her, he took a phone from his belt. "Provost Station, this is Ensign Adrup Gompo, 3rd Processing Company, at Station E. I have a recruit with a beef. This one needs an arbiter." He put the phone back on his belt and looked at Jael again. "Sit down, soldier. That's an order. Someone will come to take you to an arbiter. He'll fix what needs fixing."

  She stood half numb. She'd only half understood what he'd said. A runner arrived, and led her to one end of the tent, to a room walled by plastic curtains hung on wires. Inside sat a burly, middle-aged man. A placard on his desk read SGT. MAJOR NGUVA. His skin was almost black, his short salt-and-pepper hair formed tiny tight curls, and he wore a plug in one ear. There was a chair a few feet from his, but he left her standing.

  "Your name, soldier?" He asked it amiably, while aiming a microphone toward her, then watched the monitor on his terminal while she answered. Next he tapped something on his key pad, before looking back at her. "What's your complaint?"

  Again she described it. He tapped an instruction, then frowned, listening to something she couldn't hear. Now his fingers tapped a longer instruction. From a box came Esau's voice, then the corporal's who'd sworn them in, and finally her own. The sergeant major cut it off.

  "Corporal DeSoto misinformed you," he said. "He told you one thing and did something else. Your husband has been assigned to Company B, 587th Infantry Training Regiment. You have been assigned to Company G, 249th Fighting Vehicle Training Regiment."

  Her breath stopped, trapped in her lungs.

  "For whatever satisfaction it may provide you, Corporal DeSoto will be reprimanded before the recruiting staff, assigned punishment, and perhaps demoted.

  "After you have completed your basic and specialist training, which will require several months, both you and your husband will be assigned to a corps consisting of your own people. Meanwhile you will train in different camps. On the same planet, but he in an infantry center, you in a fighting vehicle center."

  Her guts shriveled.

  "Or," the sergeant major went on, "you can choose to transfer to the infantry. In that case, considering how you were misled, you and your husband can be in the same platoon and squad. But there are serious disadvantages in that."

  Again he paused, observing her relief. "You can also have your enlistments cancelled, on the grounds of Corporal DeSoto's deliberate misrepresentation. In that case you will find yourselves in a civilian labor battalion." He paused. "Perhaps on a colony world, building fortifications. If the invaders arrive there, and the fighting goes badly, an effort will be made to evacuate our fighting units, but it is difficult to imagine a situation in which labor battalions can be salvaged."

  He leaned forward, forearms on the table, his tone detached but not unfriendly. "The army is no bed of roses," he went on. "The Commonwealth is in serious danger of being overrun, and the human species eradicated. That includes you and me, small children, old people-everyone. So in the army-or in the labor battalions-the purpose of existence is not pleasure, comfort, or convenience. It is to stop the invader. Defeat him and drive him out. Bloody him so badly he will never return."

  She stared round-eyed, understanding enough to get his meaning.

  "That is what your training will be about, whether you are an armor jockey, or in your husband's infantry squad. One is about as dangerous as the other. In the infantry, however, the purely muscular exhaustion is much greater. The need for muscular strength results in female recruits being routinely assigned to fighting vehicles, but exceptions can be made." He eyed the wide-bodied, broad-handed young woman before him, clearly from a heavyworld, and wondered how many Terran men were as strong. "You will almost certainly be the only woman in your company," he went on, "and probably in your regiment. And ancient experience has shown that few young women can long stand such isolation from female companionship.

  "Meanwhile you would not be sharing your husband's bed. Private moments of any sort would be few.

  "As an armor jockey, on the other hand, the exhaustion is more of the nerves, and fighting vehicle regiments have many women."

  He leaned back slightly in his chair. "You must decide now: armored vehicle training, your husband's infantry platoon, or a labor battalion."

  Her eyes met his, and her voice, though quiet, was firm. "I want to be with my husband."

  Sergeant Major Nguva smiled. "Good," he said, getting to his feet, and held out a large black hand with a pink palm. Hesitantly she shook it. "Congratulate your husband for me," he said, "on his good fortune in having so steadfast a wife."

  Chapter 16

  Puzzles

  The two Wyzhnyny sat in the grand admiral's office, talking. "Our progress?" the chief scholar said. "It is accelerating. We exchange limited sentences now, on a growing number of subjects."

  Grand Admiral Quanshuk shu-Gorlak nodded without enthusiasm. "And what of the questions and topics I have listed?"

  "I have not broached them yet. They… "

  "None of them?!"

  The interruption was discourteous and its tone accusatory, but Chief Scholar Qonits zu-Kitku did not lower his eyes. He was the leading scholar in their mutual and extensive tribe, and in this galaxy without a gender peer. But given certain enigmas in the operating situation, he understood the grand admiral's concern. "Your Excellency," he answered, "the subjects I am able to discuss with the aliens deal with everyday experiences, largely physical. I must have a much broader vocabulary, and refine what I already have, before I can even present the questions you ask. Let alone understand any answers.

  "But each day we learn more. As you know, I now spend most of my waking time at the task." He might have added, but didn't, that he'd warned it would take time. Instead he gestured now, palms out and open. "And as I said, progress is accelerating."

  Quanshuk nodded. The chief scholar's reply had been as much lecture as answer, but his own impatience had brought it on. Qonits was exalted in more than gender, and due both courtesy and high respect. Pique, impatience, and gender prejudice were inappropriate between them.

  "Meanwhile," Qonits was saying, "the ship runs semantic correlations, and presents me with strategical areas to explore." He changed the subject. "It seems that among the aliens there are two parent genders, not one, each gender with fixed sexuality. You can imagine how such personal-incompleteness-might affect the individual, and that a mated pair might therefore bond very strongly.

  "The two larger aliens are a mated pair. The smaller one, who does not speak, seems to be a member of their kin group, and is mentally and physically defective. It was being cared for by a servant-apparently of the nanny gender-when the marines captured it. The bond between servant and child had become profound, and killing the servant traumatized the child severely."

  "Ah." This was something Admiral Quanshuk could understand. It was easy to overlook that aliens had lives and feelings of their own. It would be wise, he told himself drily, not to dwell on that.

  Prior to the invasion, Prime Minister Foster Peixoto and President Chang Lung-Chi had routinely met late in the morning, in the president's office. But seldom at lunch, which they'd agreed was a time for relaxation. Government had not been as crisis-laden and stressful, nor politics as consuming and ruthless, as they'd been a millennium earlier. Society was less overwrought. Socially and psychologically, the human species had truly evolved and advanced. Stagnated, their remote ancestors would have said. Lost their fire.

  But since the invasion, crisis and stress were endemic in government. The prime minister and president had met routinely for lunch and often for supper, specifically to talk business. Time was too precious for relaxed eating. Usually they met in Peixoto's office, and ate at an AG table guided in by an orderly.

  Chang Lung-Chi would not have changed jobs with his prime minister for anything. The demands on Peixoto's time and energy were more stringent than Chang liked to think about.

 
Meanwhile, it was Chang who'd come down with the latest new viral pneumonia, quite dangerous, and been confined to the palace infirmary for twelve days. Now Peixoto was updating him on some of the less worrisome matters of interest.

  "You may recall my giving Bekr the task of learning where the `messages' are coming from," the prime minister was saying. "He has it sorted out now. The Julie mentioned in their conversations can only be a sensitive named Ju-Li Hamilton-Gavle, the wife of a Dennis Bertrand. She is, or was, the attendant of her half sister, a preadolescent female savant named Annika Pedersen." He paused meaningfully, then finished: "Assigned on Maritimus. The people now looking after her-the Yukiko and David on the cube-are a marine biologist and an oceanographer, Yukiko Gavaldon and David MacDonald respectively. MacDonald was also chief of station on Maritimus. Apparently Hamilton-Gavle and Bertrand were killed by the aliens, and Gavaldon and MacDonald, not being trained sensitives, don't know how to control the savant. Bekr is convinced they don't know she's channeling. They think she's simply comatose."

  Thoughtfully the president ate a spoonful of cream custard. "How," he wondered aloud, "does Bekr explain a comatose savant who channels automatically? Or could it be on her own volition, at some subconscious level?"

  Frowning, the prime minister sipped thick Iranian coffee. "Bekr has said nothing about volition," he answered, "but you raise an interesting question. Each savant communicator is hypno-conditioned to react to a `psychic touch' by another communicator. Any other communicator. Or to make such a touch, directed by the savant's attendant through a hypnotically pre-installed… `switch,' Bekr calls it.

  "Judging from the date that Maritimus was captured, Annika did not channel at all for some weeks afterward. Perhaps she was too deeply comatose, and began when her level of consciousness rose to some threshold… which brings up the possibility that she may stop channeling as her level of consciousness continues to climb. I need to ask Bekr about this."

  The president raised another spoonful of custard. "Without an attendant to direct her, how is it her messages get to Ramesh, instead of to someone else?"

  "Bekr has an explanation for that. Hamilton-Gavle reported the aliens' arrival in the Maritimus System through Ramesh and Chloe. Via Annika, of course. That much we know. Then obviously the aliens caught the mission's base ship before it could escape. Presumably when they stormed it, Annika's attendant made another contact, seemingly cut short either by her death or Annika's injury before our savants here could react. Then, when Annika recovered sufficiently, the latent contact activated. Now, in the absence of an attendant able to direct her, she channels whatever is said in her presence. At least when she is sufficiently receptive; Bekr believes that within her coma she sometimes descends below functionality." Peixoto shrugged. "A sort of sleep within a sleep."

  Absently he raised a morsel of preserved pear to his mouth, to be chewed and swallowed. "I have a new savant covering Ramesh's past duties," he went on. "Bekr has set the replacement up in the Lavender Suite. Ramesh is now available only to Annika. As Chloe is at War House."

  Chang Lung-Chi nodded. "And what have we learned from this connection, besides a few words in the alien tongue? And their name: the Wyzhnyny."

  "Primarily we are gaining added insights into the aliens-learning what sort of beings they are, while they concentrate on learning our language. Which I, at least, find encouraging. War House's AI is working on theirs, but so far lacks a useful key. I'll inform you when we have a significant breakthrough.

  "MacDonald and Gabaldon don't discuss their situation. They are undoubtedly monitored and recorded, and careful of what they say to each other. Otherwise, when the aliens have an effective translation program… " Peixoto's long expressive hands gestured vague unpleasantness.

  "Bekr feels sure the MacDonalds don't realize Annika is channeling. If they suspected, they'd have informed us covertly-given us some sort of hint. I've had Burhan undertake to pass an innocuous comment through Annika, to alert the MacDonalds without attracting alien suspicion. It didn't work. Bekr believes Annika is operating as a one-way relay-them to us. Yukiko Gavaldon is clearly not a sensitive, let alone a trained attendant, so that is not really surprising."

  He paused. "In fact, as you suggested, we may lose even that one-way contact. Annika no longer has to be helped to use the sanitary facility, and she holds her own drinking cup."

  "Without disconnecting?"

  "So far."

  Hmm. Chang wondered if her present state qualified as coma. He frowned. He definitely did not want that connection lost, but there seemed nothing to be done about it.

  He changed the subject. "Has Special Projects had anything to report?"

  "No, Mr. President, they have not. Dosado has promised a preliminary report no later than Threeday. The know-how exists; it has for a very long time. The difficulty is, we know next to nothing about invader physiology. Which does not preclude following through, of course. It simply leaves the result very much in doubt."

  Chapter 17

  The Home Front

  The marchers ranged from elderly to children in arms, and wore no uniforms. They filled the boulevard from curb to curb, and the night with their drums and bagpipes. And they chanted Peace Front slogans, in every accent on Terra, some even in the tongues of ethnic forebears. Their weapons were banners, placards, and the Commonwealth flag. And though they threw up no barricades, they paralyzed traffic quite effectively, for they numbered an estimated hundred thousand. The din could be heard for more than a mile.

  The demonstration was not remotely spontaneous. It had been carefully planned, and its contingents were rather well coordinated. The great majority who marched believed sincerely that the Commonwealth and its safety lay exclusively in the hands of God. That if the invaders were received by humankind in peace and love, their alien hearts would hear God whispering. And hearing, they'd move on to regions of space unoccupied by humans. So the various peace sects and persuasions had smoked the calumet, the pipe of peace-literally smoked it-agreeing that the important thing was to end Commonwealth defense activities. That only then would God act to save humankind.

  Remarkably, the scores of thousands of marchers drew rather few spectators, and these were watched closely from police floaters. The government wanted no incidents that might cause an eruption of violence. Nor did the Peace Front, for the media were there in numbers, along the sidewalks, within the marching ranks, and in floaters keeping the legally required distance, recording with electronic eyes. Any violence would be witnessed worldwide, and video and holo cubes would be podded throughout the Core Worlds. If the marchers became violent, even in self-defense, the Peace Front would be seen as hypocritical, and so large a demonstration would itself be considered provocation.

  If spectators sparked an incident, the government would be blamed for failure to police the demonstration properly. But if government force was seen as less than highly restrained, the demonstrators next time might be twice as many.

  At length the marchers flowed onto the vast pavement of Wellesley Square, which was large enough to hold them all. Flowed onto and across it, their skirling, booming, chanting current carrying them to the force field that, activated for the event, encircled the huge capital complex-a city embedded in a city. There the current stopped, the marchers flooding to both sides to fill the square.

  Near one side, this sea of humanity contained an island-"Martyr's Hill"-a large grassy mound with steps, topped by a platform, which tonight was topped in turn by a microphone connected to Wellesley Square's sound system. Martyr's Hill was 742 years old, an enduring memorial to the demonstrators whose battle and massacre on this very square had led to a military coup, and the overthrow of the old Terran war government. Ending the long Troubles-94 years of economic warfare, embargoes, sabotage, terrorism, guerrilla actions, and now and then formal space fights between Terra, on the one hand, and her insystem colonies on the other. The mound had held various impassioned speakers over subsequent centuries, but the
re had not been so many listeners for a very long time.

  Paddy Davies was a small man, so with his companion he'd climbed a few steps up on the side of the mound, to see over the crowd. The demonstration monitors allowed it, for the two were the principal members of the coordinating committee. Paddy gestured toward the executive tower, a mile away within the Complex. "What would you bet the bean pole is watching?" He shouted it, to be heard over the din.

  "Of course he is," Jaromir Horvath shouted back. "In person, from a balcony. And Chang with him." Even shouted, his words were tinged with scorn. Horvath had founded, and at age sixty-four still led, the quasi-religious Party of the Holy Universe. An organization nominally inclusive, but politically narrow and dogmatic.

  So far as anyone knew, joy was foreign to Horvath.

  Paddy Davies was an idealist, and a mostly cheerful young man-the executive director of the People of the Glorious Creator. At age thirty-two, he could pass for twenty-five. "The People" was an ecumenical, nontheological religious umbrella beneath which various churches and sects-and any individuals who felt inclined-could merge to pursue common objectives. These days the overwhelming objective was peace. Paddy found joy in political conflict, and had many opponents but not so many enemies.

  He didn't trust Jaromir Horvath, nor did Horvath trust him, but they had smoked the calumet, and united two of the more effective activist groups on Terra into a Peace Front. Which they directed, though reckless splinter groups might force their hands.

  Together they watched Fritjof Ignatiev climb to the platform atop the mound. Ignatiev was the third leg of the Horvath-Davies-Ignatiev tripod. Horvath was all intellect and bile, a theorist and planner as bitter as Karl Marx, and with far less justification. He might convince, but he seldom inspired. While Paddy was charming and bright, but lacked charisma.

  Ignatiev, on the other hand-tall, blond, and messianically sure of himself-had a compelling charisma that worked well on crowds. He radiated power, spirituality, and certainty, and his eloquence never ceased to impress. His intelligence, however, was less than ordinary. He listened closely to more powerful minds-notably those of Jaromir Horvath and Paddy Davies-and imprinted their arguments. His grasp of those arguments was often weak, but he delivered them as gospel, and Wellesley Square this night held a sea of true believers, eager to hear.