When Heaven Fell

by Barton, William

  Someone calling in from the net now? A momentary pang, concern, a realization of just how little experience I really had dealing with a command circuit phone. The background traffic-static gave way to a shrill, hard beat, modulated square waves. Router traffic, I thought, from somewhere else...

  “4Y1028h via PCN router 9m12sub4Y, level 5-high.”

  “5-high, acknowledged.”

  A security code, I knew, things we were taught back in basic training, things of little use to a low-ranker. But. There could come a day when you found yourself holding the phone, even as a raw recruit, seeing your first war. And things can always go badly.

  The soft voice said, “9m12sub4Y, 10x9760h reply.”

  Well. I said, “10x9760h, standing by.”

  “9m12sub4Y requests you log in at level 5-high secure status.”

  Odd. 9m12 would be a Master node, of course, but 4Y was only a surrogate of the planetary command net. What could they be wanting with a soldier on furlough, especially on a planet flooded with three kinds of police? “10x9760h acknowledges, level 5-high log-on.”

  A brief burst of regular net-traffic noise, then, “10x9760h, level 5-high information service bulletin: Local PCN traffic secure-trace advisory.”

  Meaning I was, in effect, on active duty. “10x9760h acknowledges. 9m12sub4Y command request.”

  “10x9760h, 9m12sub4Y command null.”

  Then why the hell had it bothered with me? “10x9760h acknowledges command null.”

  The voices, all the same, one after the other:

  “9m12sub4Y at level 5-high secure status, command circuit release.”

  “4Y1028h via PCN router release” A quick, diminishing snarl of square-wave traffic.

  “3m8subKTR, local circuit log-on and status release.”

  I said, “10x9760h, suspend,” and put the phone back in my pocket. The Satanic image came back to life, eyes blazing at me, telling me of my family’s pride.

  I walked away, listening to the echoes.

  Six. Indigo, Tinged with Violet

  Nightfall. Sky darkening to indigo, tinged with violet, stars popping out here and there, first the bright ones, then the dim, until the heavens were black and spangled with thousands of shimmering pinpoints. All of Creation. The Empire of the Master Race. Always, before, they’d seemed like my stars. Not the stars of my childhood, meaningless white dots with bogeyman names, nor the stars of my post-Invasion adolescence, the stars of the Conqueror, but my stars, stars of the Empire, stars policed by human Spahis, and mighty Kkhruhhuft, and lizard-centaur Saanaae and a thousand more races. Soldiers. Comrades. Friends.

  Somewhere out there, behind those distant stars, were all my friends. Somewhere out there, Solange Corday was transporting my household, my possessions, my burdars, my things, from Boromilith, where I’d lived, between wars, between jobs, for almost five years, transporting them to faraway Karsvaao.

  Why did I come here? To see my family, all my old friends, my home, all in slave collars? Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I should just dial the phone, cancel my leave, call Solange and tell her I was on my way. Christ, I could be back in my own bed, arms around Hani’s sleek and cooperative form, in just a couple of days.

  The phone, light and wafer-thin, seemed like a lead weight in my breast pocket, pressing down cruelly on my chest. Permission. You’d have to get permission to make such an abrupt change of plan. And somewhere, at some node far up in the chain-hierarchy of the Master Race, something is interested in your being here. Something. That made the phone seem, momentarily, like my slave collar.

  But the thought of holding Hani again, lying with her, feeling her liquid heat on my loins... The thought of Solange, my friend, my comrade-at-arms, laughing with me over many a glass of dark red ale, standing by my side as we marched into battle.

  Soldiers we were. Soldiers. Not warriors. Professional soldiers. Well trained. A warrior, they say, can be ordered to go out and die for his country, for his people. A soldier can only be ordered to win. Death, for a soldier, is merely a calculated risk. A mishap to be avoided.

  Dead warriors win glory. Live soldiers win wars.

  Image of Solange Corday, genderless, raceless, faceless in her powered exoskeleton, delivering her killing fire. Then Hani, lying naked in my bed, warm, tawny skin soft and comforting.

  The door to my parents’ deck opened and closed behind me, heavy, clumsy footsteps on the poorly fastened boards, a chair dragging, then my brother Lank was sitting beside me, putting his feet up on the railing beside mine.

  “Beautiful night,” he said. “It’s usually a lot hazier than this in August. This is more like late September, early October.”

  “I remember.” Frosty, clear nights, near Christmastime, when the black post-Invasion sky seemed filled with stars that stood shoulder to shoulder with each other.

  We sat silently for another moment, then Lank sighed, turning to face me, willing me, I suppose, to look at him, eyes glinting against the darkness, reflecting the stars, the far away glimmering of household fires down in the bustee. “You’re making everyone unhappy, Athy. Want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  I grinned in the darkness. “Trying to be Father Confessor now? Want me to start with an Act of Contrition?”

  A faint gasp of breath, maybe exasperation, maybe amusement. “No, I’m afraid I’m not very good in that role, Athy. I try to get out of confession-duty whenever I can. It’s like KP.” A pause. “Just brother-to-brother, that’s all. You and me.”

  I suppose he deserved that, at least. And my sarcasm had been no more than a cheap way of getting out of it, pushing the intimacy aside. “Sure.” My turn to pause, while I considered, tried to come up with something sensible and yet not too hurtful to say. “I guess I just don’t like what I’m seeing here. Everybody seems so... I don’t know. Downtrodden.”

  “Is that so surprising? Look.” I could hear a rustle of cloth as he waved his arms in the dark, saw the faint shadows of them rising to the heavens. “Look what’s happened to us all!”

  “I suppose. I have to tell you though, I don’t like the rest of it, either. You in the priesthood, Dad the Sirkar’s Agent, Police Chief Catalano still in office, when he ought to be in prison.”

  Silence. Then he said, “There are no prisons any more, Athy. The local lockup’s just for hooligans.”

  “Even so.”

  I could see his head nodding by the movement of the eye glimmer. “All right. I know what you’re saying.” I could hear a shrug in his voice. “There was nothing else to be done. You of all people should understand that.”

  Right. The obvious accusation. “I don’t know if I can stand being here the whole time.”

  “That’d make them pretty unhappy, Athy. They’re really glad you’re back, you know. Mom. Dad. Oddny.” He laughed, “Even me, big brother!”

  “I was glad to see you all again.”

  “But you don’t want to see what we’ve become.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A final sigh, gusty, heavy enough I could smell the faint aroma of dinner on his expelled breath. Garlic and sweet Holland peppers. “Look, why don’t you go out with me tonight? Have some fun. Meet people. It’s not as bad as it looks around here. Really.”

  Maybe so, I thought, that Chapel Hilliest of phrases. Still, that was part of it. The thought of spending my weeks sitting out here, regretting having come, while scenes of war and comradeship flitted though my head. Of lying inside, looking at my old goddess, as Hani and the others whiled away their nights somewhere beyond the stars.

  Maybe Hani was grateful for the vacation. A time of a few weeks, when her breasts could rest unpalpated, her crotch dry and unexcited, night after night. I shook my head. Jesus. The things that come up unbidden. And said, “All right.” Almost as an afterthought, I took the holster off my belt and put it in my room. Took the gun and dropped it in my pocket. Then we went on our way.

  o0o

  The night seemed warm but dry as we walked along, b
ack through the bustee, up onto Airport Road and across into the darkness, heading down a path by Bolin Creek that had once been part of a town park. Lank chattered away as we walked through the night, smell of woods filling my nostrils. Talking. Nothing of consequence. Just idle talk.

  There are forests on many worlds. All of them different. All of them somehow the same. Things like trees. With things like leaves. Things that rustle on the night winds, wherever a man can walk along in his bare skin, breathing unfiltered air into his bare lungs.

  I always liked the woods. Woods everywhere, which felt and sounded so much the same, so familiar, especially at night. The smells though. Always unique. Even around Chapel Hill, each little patch of woods had its own special scent. Some sweet, some sour. Some pungent, some faint and dry, dusty.

  A sudden memory of walking through dry and dusty woods on some alien world. Where? Tarasai, my first posting. A desert world under a K5 sun. Dim red days. Hot and dry to us, though the natives, small, crablike things, found it quite humid.

  The forests were dry as well, huge stands of tall, thin, stalky, leafless trees lining the narrow, rocky defiles of carefully-maintained waterways. Lines of forest separated by stretches of hardpan desert. The forest on Tarasai was dry and dusty and smelled of something like cinnamon, a barely detectable taint in the air.

  That was where I took my first burdar walking. On the first night she was mine. A thin, frightened, Hispanic-looking girl named Marni, who’d simply been waiting in my crib, sitting in a chair by the carefully made bed, when I showed up with my gear.

  Her voice was soft, speaking not-quite-broken English with a delicate accent. An accent that immediately struck me as charming. And I knew what she was for. But all the brutality of my long training had not driven away the last of my cultural baggage. Not yet.

  I looked at her, keeping my eyes on her face whenever she was facing me. But, as I sat, going over my checklists, going over my duty rosters, as Marni made dinner for me, I stole glances at her, looking away quickly whenever she looked up. Glances at the outline of her buttocks under the stiff white cotton of her slacks. The shape of her breasts, the way they swayed as she moved. The flat slope of her lower abdomen, rounding her pubic bone, flattening out as it went between her legs, a suggestive outline under the cloth.

  As the evening wore on, Marni grew nervous. More and more upset. But she must have known the duty she’d signed up for, though she was no older than me.

  After dinner, I suggested we go for a walk, looking at the panic in her eyes. She followed me wordlessly out the door, down the path from the crib, located on a hillside with the others from my unit. I could see her looking around in the starlit darkness, at light spilling through the curtains of the other cribs. Maybe, before I’d come, she’d gotten to know the other new burdars. Maybe she was wondering what was going on behind all those lit-up curtains.

  No one else was outside, just now, walking down by the waterway, down among the slim, cinnamonny trees of Tarasai. We could hear the little crab-people scuttling around in the darkness, not far away, but could see nothing.

  After a while, I took her hand, leading her on into the night. Her hand was freezing cold, and her fingers felt stiff in mine.

  And then I stopped her. Kissed her on cold lips. Undid the fastenings of her blouse. Held her breasts in my hands. Kissed her soft nipples. Untied the waistband of her slacks and pushed them down, buried my face in her pubic hair. Tasted her with my tongue. Pushed her down on the ground then, undressed and crawled on top of her. Made love to her in the alien darkness.

  That was what I called it, to myself, that night. But Marni said nothing, just holding her legs apart for me, letting me do what I wanted, for as long as I wanted.

  We walked back to the crib, undressed again, turned out the lights, crawled into that neatly made bed, and I made love to her again, then we held each other, and went to sleep. Some time in the night, I awoke to feel her shivering delicately against my chest, could feel warm moisture on me as she cried. I tried to hold her close, to stroke her back and whisper meaningless comfort. It didn’t seem to do any good, but when we got up in the morning, Marni made me breakfast, smiled at me as I got dressed. Kissed me softly as I went off to the wars.

  o0o

  Lank and I came out of the woods quite suddenly, under that same wide and starry sky, feet crunching on cindery gravel, the horizon outlined by the black tooth-stumps of collapsed buildings. Here and there among the rubble I could see red-orange light from open fires, oddly-shaped black shadows leaping around in a complex and familiar dance.

  Lank clapped me on the shoulder, waving an arm around at it all, and said, “Ah, home away from home...”

  I stood still, looking at the dark ruins, trying to orient myself. “I remember this place, I guess. There was a shopping mall right over there...” Gesturing at some low-lying rubble.

  Lank said, “Carr Mill Mall. I remember you used to hang around there quite a bit.”

  Carr Mill had survived the Invasion. Now... “What happened to it?”

  Lank started walking away, feet crunching on the gravel, leading me toward the area of the campfires. “When they knocked down the office towers, a couple of years after you left, the Mall went down all by itself. It was pretty old.”

  We passed between a couple of crumpled and turned over compactor boxes, and the old parking lot opened up in front of me. Tents, a couple of crudely-made shacks. The campfires.

  Lank said, “Carrboro is still an unregulated native habitat. They’ll be cleaning it out one day, I suppose, moving everyone to the Chapel Hill bustee.”

  And then, this place would grow quiet and cold, kudzu vines growing over the rubble, quickly erasing the freshness of human presence. I wondered if these people liked camping out forever in the remains of an old mall parking lot. Maybe so. Maybe it let them remember the old days.

  Finally, we rounded a corner of the old mill foundation and, somewhere, I could hear the faint thudding of a diesel generator. There were steps leading down into the old basement, and a neon sign beside them, a small one, lit up in pale indigo. DAVYS, it said, “S” flickering every now and again from a weak ballast. I wondered where they’d ever find a new one for a museum antique like this.

  At the bottom of the stairs was an open doorway, blocked only by a pair of Old West-style swinging barroom doors, and the light from inside, though relatively bright, was the somewhat flickery yellow of open flame. Lank, suddenly seeming very lively indeed, pattered down the stairs, threw open the doors, and, in a surprisingly resonant baritone, sang, “It’s... only me from over the SEA...”

  From somewhere inside, a raspy voice shouted, “Ah, fuck off, asshole...”

  And Lank said, “Ah! Home sweet home!” He went in, beckoning for me to follow.

  It was a big room, a dozen meters in each direction, sawdust on the floor, among the tables, big stone fireplaces at either end of the room, cold now in the summer heat. This place would be cozy indeed, come winter. There were electric fans turning slowly on the ceiling, stirring the tepid air, the principal thing powered by the generator. The yellowish light seemed to be from hanging kerosene lanterns.

  A little bandstand at the far end of the room from the fireplace, instruments set up, a fat black bass, a couple of guitars, a drum kit. Some pudgy, middle-aged guys sitting on the edge of the stage, drinking what looked like bottles of beer. The musicians, maybe.

  There was a bar along one wall with stools, a low rail... and a trough running along the foot of the bar, water sluicing continuously down its length, flowing in through a hole in one wall, going out the other. A bar for serious beer drinkers, men, at least, who’d drink and piss without every having to get up. There were plenty of women at the bar too, but I supposed most of them were out of luck when it came to pissing in place. Or else possessed of great boldness and even greater skill. I’d known a few women like that among the Spahis.

  Lank bellied up to the bar, shoving at men who snarled a
nd pushed back, trying to maintain their space. I pushed in beside him, bumping gently with my shoulders. The next man in the row turned to me, red-eyed from drink, angry, one hand already made into a fist... And stopped. Stared at me for a moment. The ruddy color of his face seemed to drain slightly, then he muttered, “Holy shit...” and turned away, shoving hard on the next man, who happened to be a rather beefy woman. “Move down, God damn it!” She rammed him in the side with her big, blunt elbow, and giggled.

  Lank banged his hand on the bar, getting the barkeep’s attention. “Hey, fuckhead! Look whose here!”

  The man turned and walked toward us, a tall, thin, middle-aged Oriental, balding in front, straight back hair swept back, gathered into some kind of martial-arts ponytail. Lines at the corners of his eyes, deeper lines bracketing his mouth. Walking with a slight limp. In the old days, I’d’ve guessed he was a man of about sixty, maybe seventy. Now? Hell...

  He stood there, wiping his hands very carefully on a white rag, a tattered bit of terrycloth, staring at me, not at my muscular bulk, just at my face, looking right into my eyes. Finally, he said, “You sure have changed, Athol Morrison.”

  I held out my hand. “Hello, Davy. How’ve you been?” I wouldn’t want to tell him he’d changed as well. He looked like an old man now. In fact, he looked just like my finally-clear memory of his father.

  He grinned then, a sudden, sunshiny remembrance of that Davy Itakë of so long ago, and pointed, his finger long and thin, blue veins rolling on the backs of his hands, popping back and forth over the tendons. “You boys go sit at that empty table over in the corner. I’ll be right there...” He turned and shouted, “Hey, Sammy! Take over for a while!” Then, “Marsh, you old fuck, get over here!”

  I turned and could see Marsh Donovan standing away from the bar, no longer dressed up in sagoth togs, blinking our way, grinning blearily.

  We sat at the table and Davy came back, grinning, pony keg tucked under one arm, primitive implements of destruction in one hand, a bouquet of glass steins in the other. Banged them down on the table, gently deposited the keg. “Now then...” Hammer in one hand, bung starter in the other, tap and ventcap between spare fingers. WHAM. Pop. WHAM. Pop. Machine precision, with barely a hint of beerspray in the air.