The Goda War

by Deborah Chester

  A slight young man, wearing the brown and white surplice of a novice healer, entered with an air of deference Brock did not expect to be given to a promadi. Behind him came another healer, an older, stocky man with a silver cast to his dark hair. The cubicle suddenly seemed far too small.

  “Please do not attempt to get up,” said the healer. His voice was deep and modulated on all tones to be soothing. “I am Silves, senior healer on the staff at Clinic One. This is my best pupil.”

  Bewildered by the courtesy, Brock found himself inclining his head in a formal gesture of acknowledgment. What trickery were they attempting?

  “Your physical condition is a most fascinating one, quite a rareity, in fact, which I would like my pupil to examine. Normally this occurs only in the advanced stages of aging, and even then it is not—”

  Brock’s eyebrows knotted together in sudden understanding. Silves was referring to his damaged atrox. It was an unspeakable invasion of privacy.

  “I am not a specimen for your lecture notes!” he shouted, his vehemence startling both men. “Get out!”

  Silves made a conciliating gesture. “But surely you realize that an injury of this magnitude cannot be reversed if it is not attended to in time. To ignore the problem, to refuse treatment is—”

  “Until I ask for treatment you can not offer it. Do you think just because I am a promadi and a prisoner you are not bound by the honored rule of courtesy?”

  “But wait!” said Silves contritely, holding out his hands while the novice seemed to shrink with embarrassment. “Our first law is to heal. You do not drift in your sleep. You are not able to flick. You are crippled, perhaps needlessly. The fact that you are to undergo trial does not deny you access to treatment.”

  The healer’s voice rang with sincerity, and Brock was caught by a tide of intense longing to be whole once more. If only something could be done! He tried to detect any hint of Influence in the healer’s voice without success. By Sedkethran law any prisoner had access to treatment, just as Silves said, but to be treated meant lowering personal shields, exposing one’s innermost self to any probe. He would be vulnerable, too vulnerable.

  “No,” he said. “You may tell Magstrus Olbin that my mission is more important than my health.”

  The novice gasped, but Silves pulled up his head as though he were listening to something far away. His eyes, so alight with concern and compassion a moment ago, turned flat and dull. He blinked once and his gaze lowered to Brock’s face.

  “It is offered, then, as part of a bargain.”

  “What? A new atrox in exchange for what?”

  “Leaving Felca.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Should there be more?”

  Brock shook his head, regretfully aware of the moral questions and knowing he must not falter. He must not let personal gain or compassion for a doomed planet sway him from the larger question.

  Silves’s face creased into lines of shock and fear as though Olbin was finally telling him what Brock had come there to do. “Please,” he whispered. “What kind of monster can destroy his own world?”

  I cannot answer you! thought Brock desperately, afraid to meet that anguished gaze.

  “We have devoted our lives, our culture to peace and health,” said Silves. “We have striven to offer the entire galaxy the benefits of our research. Why do you want to put an end to the good we do? What is so twisted, so evil within you that you have lost all compassion—”

  “I am not trying to destroy the Sedkethrans. I am trying to save them. Yes, save them from their own stagnation, from their own cowardice. When the Chaimu built the godas—”

  “Error!” said the voice of Magstrus Pare, breaking in.

  Silves and his pupil exchanged startled glances and hastily departed.

  In their place appeared a tall, spare figure and one shorter and withered. Magstrus Olbin and Magstrus Pare, so faded and indistinct as they reached out from the depths of another dimension Brock could barely see them at all. But their voices, indicators of still-powerful wills and intellects, boomed out strongly.

  “Error,” said Pare again. “The Chaimu built nothing of this magnitude. We—”

  He broke off at an angry hiss from Olbin, and Brock grinned.

  “Yes, yes, sit there baring your teeth like your bloodthirsty masters all you like,” snapped Olbin. “You think you have tricked us into telling you the despicable secrets of Sedkethran pre-history, but you—”

  “Not pre-history,” interrupted Brock. “Pre-stagnation. Of course. All those legends about the fierce Sedkethran Auxiliary are true. We were a powerful military force, highly advanced, cultured, innovative. And then we built Goda Prime.”

  “A barbaric piece of conceit. A horrible weapon that should never have been created. Its very existence is a crime. And the Chaimu compounded it by copying out two more godas.” Olbin’s voice shook. “We shall never finish paying for what we did. Never!”

  “And so it was guilt and an overwrought conscience that changed us,” said Brock, feeling his way. “The Forbiddens, the severe training, the repressions. We were made to live on this barren planet, to populate it so that its disguise remained complete. We were made to deny emotion, to concentrate on our healing abilities exclusively as self-induced reparation.”

  “Yes, you impudent abomination!” Pare’s image wavered, then grew more distinct. “Yes! The council agreed to it. We had to do it! So long ago…we were young, full of our own cleverness, conceited, and appalled by what we had finally reached for. Too much, too much! It was the only way.”

  “It was not the only way,” said Brock through his teeth.

  “And now you want to undo centuries of careful training and breeding,” said Olbin. “Can you not for once put aside your petty concerns and realize that this is for the greater good of Felca?”

  “Felca is nothing but Goda Prime!” shouted Brock. “A weapon! It is not a planet. It is not our home! And my petty concerns, as you call them, are the Sedkethran people who have been cruelly oppressed by a foolish mistake and who live in chains! Chains of the mind. Chains of the soul. What right have you to commit this crime, which is far, far worse than the creation of the godas ever was?”

  “He must die, Olbin. Don’t you see that now?” said Pare furiously. “From the first, from the hour of his birth, I warned you of this, but you held out. You wanted to preserve his abilities. See where they have brought us! He reaches for the greatest Forbidden of all.”

  “You have always feared me,” said Brock slowly when Olbin remained silent. “That’s why you treated me so harshly.”

  “You were punished because you would not obey!”

  “No, because you knew I would some day come back and change everything here.” Brock turned off the suspensor and stood up, facing them as they wavered and shimmered before him, indistinct ghosts, holding back their inevitable decay by the strength of their own wills. “I serve the Held as my early ancestors did, proudly and with honor. Whether the godas should have ever been created is one matter. The fact that they were kept and not destroyed shows greater culpability. Goda Secondary is in the hands of Falmah-Al of the Imish forces. She intends to use it. She cannot be stopped unless I activate Goda Prime. If there was another way I would have used it.”

  “But you cannot undo centuries of—”

  “Can’t I? Warn the people, Olbin. Tell them to take shelter beneath the surface. The interior of the goda will be shielded sufficiently to protect all of us.”

  “No. We are irrevocably committed to peace. We abhor violence in all its forms. You will stand trial, and you will be executed for breaking our highest laws with your blasphemy and treason. And for the corruption of Healer Ellisne, who has not returned with you.”

  Brock’s head lifted proudly. “She will bear my child. Even if I cannot free any other Sedkethran from your chains, she is free. And the child will be free. Our race will return to what it was meant to be. And nothing you can do will alter that.�
��

  “You fool!”

  Olbin’s whip crackled fiercely, slamming Brock back against the wall. Lifting his hands he tried to protect his head and face as the whips snapped out again and again, mercilessly breaking across his body, jerking it back and forth until he fell dizzily, gasping and blind with pain, to his knees.

  “There will be no trial!”

  “There will be no debate!”

  “You will die!”

  “You will die!”

  The whips drove each word home, flaying him raw, leaving him numb and then shooting fresh hot pain through him. He gritted his teeth, refusing to cry out, refusing to give them the satisfaction of seeing his fear that they might kill him now on the spot. He held on as long as he could, dragging himself up after every blow, but at last the world spun into greyness and he fell thankfully into it.

  Consciousness was seeping back slowly when a muffled explosion tilted the entire world and brought him completely awake. Bits of plaster and dust rained down upon him, choking his nostrils. The floor was rough and cold beneath his cheek. He opened his eyes and found he could see out of only one. The other was gummed shut with blood. He lifted his head, but immediately gasped, freezing until the fiery agony slowly faded back to a bearable level. Then he tried again, more cautiously this time, and managed to get his hands beneath his chest. After that it was a matter of gradual levering until at last he sat upright, trembling and holding his breath. There was no movement that did not cause pain. His tunic was in tatters, streaked with blood. He wiped at his face with his sleeve until his eye was cleared, and then, when he thought he could stand without collapsing, he got slowly to his feet. Another explosion, closer this time, threw him flat beneath half the ceiling.

  Stunned, he waited until plaster stopped falling, then cautiously crawled out, stumbling and disoriented. Colonids, he thought vaguely, holding onto a wall that seemed suddenly crooked. That was the explosion dispersal pattern of Colonid drop bombs. He must warn the suprin…no.

  Coughing in the dust, Brock tried to clear the confusion in his brain. Not the suprin. The suprin was dead. He wiped his face with his sleeve, clearing the blood from his eye. This wasn’t Impryn; this was Clinic One…on…on Felca. Colonids here? He jerked upright.

  The door was locked. He beat his fists upon it in frustration, then ducked with his arms over his head as another bomb rattled the world with a deafening blast. This one was close enough to knock the breath from Brock with its concussion. One of the walls crumbled, the falling chunks bruising him worse than any beating, and the door shrieked as its metal was twisted and pocked by flying debris from the other side. As soon as things stopped falling, Brock squinted through the fog of dust and scrambled through the opening, determined to get out of there before another bomb landed square on top of him. Coughing and weaving, he staggered through the debris-strewn corridor, unsure of where he was or of how to get out. Somewhere in the distance were the cries and moans of people in pain.

  Fools! he thought savagely, climbing over a fallen section of ceiling blocking most of the corridor. Overhead, he could see straight through to a cloudy sky. Did they really think the Colonids would respect their neutrality?

  “Help! Please help!”

  The soft cry came from directly ahead. Brock squinted, trying to see through the gloom and dust, and slid, clattering loudly, down the pile of debris to the figure half buried at the bottom of it.

  “Silves.”

  The healer clutched his hand gratefully. “My leg…caught.”

  “Easy. Watch your head while I try to pull some of this away.” Brock began tugging at plaster flakes, shifting at the pile until he uncovered a splintered length of roof beam which held Silves pinned. Setting his feet, Brock strained to lift it, and felt fresh fire awaken across his back and shoulders from the whip cuts. “Pull yourself out. Quickly!”

  Silves barely managed to drag himself clear before the beam slipped from Brock’s hands and crashed down. Gasping for breath, Brock fought off a wave of dizziness and squatted beside Silves. His fingers ran along the injured leg, probing until the healer gasped.

  “Broken,” said Silves in a thin voice.

  Brock lifted an arm to wipe the blood from his face and gingerly explored the depth of the cut on his forehead. No wonder he was so light-headed. Ripping a sleeve off his tunic, he twisted the length of cloth and bound it about his head. Then he touched Silves’s shoulder.

  “Which way out?” Another explosion, not as close as the last, drowned out his words and he had to repeat the question.

  Silves pointed in the direction Brock had been going. “Closest exit. My student was with me when…”

  Brock glanced at the mound of debris and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Healer. Can you stand? Take my hand. I’ll support you.”

  “Not yet. I must rest. Must collect myself, my Disciplines.”

  “You can collect them while we’re moving. It isn’t safe to stay here.”

  “I don’t understand.” Silves looked up at him blankly.

  Brock loosed an impatient Chaimu curse. “The Colonids are bombing us—”

  “No! We have no quarrel with them! We are—”

  “Neutral?” asked Brock angrily. “Don’t be a fool. They recognize no such distinction. They have come to make you slaves. Now get up and come on!”

  “I’m too weak. I’ll slow you down.”

  Brock grabbed his arm and pulled him upright, feeling the healer drift with pain as he came to his feet. Brock put his shoulder under the healer’s arm and steadied him.

  “Now,” he said grimly. “We get out of here.”

  Outside of the building, Brock propped an ashen-faced Silves against the wall to rest and anxiously scanned the sky for Colonid attack craft. There they were, wheeling over the bay in lazy circles and then screaming in.

  “Down!” shouted Brock, grabbing Silves and throwing them both flat.

  A series of loud pops like the exaggerated sound of bones breaking paralleled the streets of Clinic One.

  Silves lifted his head in surprise. “Not bombs. What—”

  “Nust gas cylinders,” said Brock. “The bombs come from their ground crawlers. Those will be moving in as soon as the gas takes effect.”

  “Horrible! We have done nothing to them. Why should they attack us in this barbaric way?”

  “Because they are barbarians,” said Brock, pulling him up. “Come on. We’ve got to reach the magstrusi chamber.”

  They hobbled across a narrow courtyard, Brock’s heart pounding madly at being exposed in the open. Someone shouted, and two figures in brown healer’s robes came running toward them.

  “Healer Silves! You are alive! We thought everyone in that side of the complex had been killed.”

  Brock broke in before Silves could collect his breath to answer. “Have you a report on the exact extent of damage? Is it a coordinated strike at all clinics and settlements on Felca, or just here? Have the food supplies been destroyed, and is the water contaminated yet? What about planetary communications systems? Are those intact?”

  They stared at him in bewilderment. He clenched his fists, longing for a handful of good seasoned warriors under his command.

  “Answer him!” commanded Silves with a sharpness that startled them yet further. “Where are your wits?”

  “But…forgive me, Healer Silves, but he is the promadi ordered for execution.”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Silves. “The Colonids have marked us for execution. Brock is the only Held warrior we have to help us save ourselves.”

  It was Brock’s turn to stare at him in surprise. “Is it possible?” he whispered.

  “I believe in survival,” said Silves. His eyes fell from Brock’s, then met them again. “I have always believed in peace, but peace must be upheld on all sides. This—” he pointed as an attack craft screamed overhead, making them all flinch—“is unjustifed. Give your orders, Dire-lord. I will follow them.”

  “But the magstrusi h
ave forbidden—”

  “What?” demanded Brock fiercely, turning on the novices. “Have they forbidden life? Have they forbidden you survival?”

  The two youths shrank back. “Of—of course not.”

  “Then where are they? Where are the magstrusi now when you need their leadership?” Brock snorted. “Stop wasting time. The communications center is the most important. You, stay with Healer Silves. Flick him below the planet’s surface, where there is safety.”

  “But we are not allowed in the lower caves—”

  “Stop arguing. You, come with me,” said Brock. “You can show me how to find communications.”

  Briefly he set his hand on Silves’s shoulder, then he grabbed one of the boys and hustled him on across the courtyard. “Flick us there.”

  The youth goggled at him. “But you are Sedkethran.”

  “Yes, and my atrox no longer functions,” snapped Brock, ready to leave this useless guide and go on his own. “Now, will you—”

  A flat crack overhead, and the noxious stench of nust gas sent him leaping at the boy, rolling with him on the ground to avoid the yellow cloud drifting down. “Lethal gas!” he said, clamping a hand over the boy’s mouth and holding his own breath. To his intense relief, the boy asked no more questions and flicked them out of danger.

  They reappeared in a cratered street strewn with bodies and flicked again, arriving at the communications center in two more stages. The young healer pushed Brock toward the equipment and sank to the floor, pale with exhaustion. Brock sprang to check power levels. Not yet cut off. Good. He experimented with switches until he found the long-range transmitter and boosted it to maximum range and power.