“No, not yet,” Bracer said slowly. “What about the other ships?”
“They’re finished with the reaction mass for Pharsalus and ought to finish with the Cragstone’s mass about the same time as us. It’s going to take them a while longer with the cold-sleepers though, maybe an hour or so.”
“Okay. Just as soon as you’re finished with the loading, come to my—no, make that the briefing room. Meet me there.”
“Yes, sir.” There were questions on the first officer’s face, but he asked none of them.
Bracer thumbed the switch with his real hand. The image faded out.
Now what, Absolom? he asked himself. What the hell are you going to do now? You’ve got a problem, and you know it. Isn’t it time you admitted it? Out loud?
Haven’t I suffered enough? he again asked himself. Haven’t we all suffered enough?
A surge of memory and pain went through what was left of his body, a memory of what it was that had made him the way he was now, the horribly mutilated half-man that he was.
…roger!… he cried with his mind.
…yes, captain…
…i need your help…
…just ask, captain…
…dammit, roger, what am i going to do?…
…i can’t answer that for you, sir…
…you’ve got to help me…
…i can supply you information, captain, but i can’t make your decisions, you know that, there are certain limitations to my capabilities, built-in, you might say, or at least very well conditioned…
…how, roger? you were a man once… Bracer transmitted through the CEMEARS, hoping the Organic Computer could give him answers to questions yet unasked.
…that was a long time ago, captain, i don’t remember much of it. i’m not a man now. i’m a starship, my mind doesn’t function the same as yours, i don’t have the same frames of reference as you. i can’t replace you, captain, nor could you replace me. i can help you, but i can’t make your decisions for you…
…okay!… Bracer’s CEMEARS was silent for a few moments while he fought with his emotions; then he projected this question: …in the light of present circumstances, including any information that may have been relayed to you from breakaway station, what is the probability that the relief convoy from adrianopolis was destroyed by enemy activity?…
In the same formal tone, Roger’s mental projections said: …the probability that the relief convoy was attacked and destroyed by enemy warships now stands at approximately 82 per cent and rising, with…
…okay, roger, that answers my question, now, do you think that the jillies destroyed those ships?…
… of course…
Bracer paused again before putting his next question to the Organic Computer.
…roger, considering all available information, what do you consider the probability of a jillie attack on breakaway station prior to the arrival of the relief ships from earth?…
Then it was Roger’s turn to pause. There was a long, cold silence in Bracer’s mind before the “voice” of the Organic Computer replied: …captain, there’s too little data to give you an answer that would have any kind of validity…
…do the best you can…
…there are too few precedents for this type of attack, too many unknowns… Roger paused. …as i said a few moments ago, captain, you and i don’t really think in the same way; our environments are more different than you may realize, and our environments order and ordain the frames within which we do our thinking, you are a man, despite what you may presently think of yourself, and you think as a man thinks, i’m a starship, sir, for all practical purposes, and i think as a starship thinks, yet, captain, as you once observed yourself, my thoughts and yours are identical when compared with those of the extraterrestrials we call jillies. at least you and i, sir, have an ancestral identity, captain, i just can’t think as the jillies do. i can’t project—…
…roger… Bracer interrupted, …are you trying to avoid giving me a straight answer?…
…no, sir…
…then tell me, do you think the jillies are going to attack breakaway station within the next four or five weeks?…
…yes, sir, i think they probably will…
…thank you, roger… Bracer transmitted. …that’s all for now…
Bracer turned to the communicator of his desk and stabbed a button. Moments later the face of the duty communications man appeared in the tiny tank.
“Get me Captain Davins,” Bracer said.
“Yes, sir.”
The tank fogged, and for long, dragging moments during which Bracer attempted to think no thoughts at all, the tank was filled with floating abstractions. Then the tank cleared again.
Half a human face looked back at him: the right eye, part of a nose, part of a mouth; the rest was a featureless egg of plastiskin.
“You wanted to talk to me, Absolom?” asked Captain Charles Davins of the LSS Pharsalus.
“Yes, I did, Chuck. How’s everything going over there?”
“Well enough. Actually much better than I had expected when we left Adrianopolis. We’ll make it. I’m sure of that now.”
I wish I were, thought Absolom Bracer.
“Chuck, will you take a shuttle over to the Iwo in about an hour? I want to talk to you about something. Bring your first officer along.”
“Sure, we’ll be there,” Davins said. “Can you tell me what it’s about?”
“I’d rather wait until you get here.”
“Okay. See you in an hour.”
Moments later, once Davins’ image had gone from the tank, Bracer buzzed the bridge.
“Contact the Cragstone and ask Captain Medawar and her first officer to come to the Iwo and meet me in the briefing room in an hour,” he said quickly. Then, for a long, long while Captain Absolom Bracer peered into the empty, dead tank and said to himself, God help me, God help us all if I’m doing the wrong thing.
12
Damion Leto had carefully studied the skies that morning, had watched the swirling of the thin cloud layers that moved westward toward the mountains under the relentless drive of the wind, and he had watched the thinning smoke that rose from where a city had once stood near the mountains, and had thought about how that city must look now, a crater surrounded by smoldering ruins, and he wondered how much longer it would continue to burn. It had been a long while already.
As he studied the sky he had seen no birds, but he had seen a flight of League patrol ships crossing the mountains, well down within the planet’s atmosphere, probably coming back in for a rest stop for the crew at the spaceport some hundred kilometers beyond the peaks of the mountain range. The ships had not been close enough for him to see them well, though he suspected that had he seen them closely, he would have seen the scars of recent battle. The tri-D had told of a space battle that took place above Cynthia during the horn’s of the night, while it was night where Damion Leto’s Tribe lived. So the battle had been fought, and the Jillies had been driven away from Cynthia again, though a few of their missiles had reached the planet’s surface and another city had died under the mushroom cloud.
So now Damion Leto returned to the meditation hall, his mind churning fitfully within the bone-covering of his skull. Somehow there were things happening that he could not reconcile, that did not fit within his conception of Life and Universe, and he must meditate, and in meditation perhaps he would find an answer.
He entered the preparation room of the meditation hall, breathed in the heavy odors of incense, cordina and just a wisp of DBN-derivatives, and slowly removed the thin leather burnoose that was his only garment, kicked off his sandals. Hanging the burnoose upon a peg in the wall beside the entrance door, along with a number of other garments, he dipped his hands into a bowl of scented water and sprinkled it upon his naked body. Then he turned to nod to the symbols of Life that adorned the preparation room, each in its turn: the marble statue of embraced lovers, five times life-size, stretche
d out there on the floor in the center of the room, the statue that perhaps represented the very essence of what Life was; he nodded to the great red and yellow yin-yang that adorned one wall; to the great three-meter-tall ankh that towered above the Shelipkin painting of the creation of the universe; to the reproduction of the window of Bumblane Abbey from England on Earth, strikingly resembling a woman’s vulva; to a copy of the Diana of Ephesus; to another copy of Krishna and the Shepherdess; to a set of Archem tri-D’s of the human sexual organs; to a Byzantine cross; and to a tiny Buddha almost lost among the others. Then he laid his hands upon his breast, cleared his mind and slowly entered the semidarkness of the meditation hall.
Somewhere in the great, shadowed room someone was slowly, mournfully playing a stringed instrument, a guitar perhaps, Damion Leto thought, though he was not sure and decided that what the instrument was was of no importance anyway. It was the playing of it that mattered, and what came of it, to the player and to any who might listen, for that was a form of meditation.
Somewhere else in the room someone was reciting softly and Damion Leto caught these words:
“They that receive not this, failing in faith
To grasp the greater wisdom, reach not me,
Destroyer of thy foes! They sink anew
Into the realm of Flesh, where all things change!”
And in the half darkness scented by aromatic odors, he could hear heavy breathing from two sets of lungs, and the rustling of skin against skin, and dimly he could see them, the man and the woman, and what they were doing was a form of meditation too, perhaps the highest form of meditation for it was the ultimate tribute to Life and its wonders.
Damion Leto thought briefly of seeking a woman himself, but decided against it. That was not the sort of meditation he was in need of now. His meditation must be of a quieter sort. Thought and silence and carefully controlled breathing, for there were questions to be asked, and perhaps answered.
Sitting down cross-legged on the floor near the fountain, Damion Leto fixed his eyes on the bubbling water and for a while observed and studied its motions, and thought about how like Life was the ebb and flow of water, growing and swelling, then falling back, withdrawing, only to return again, ever and again. But Life was more than water, though Life was made of water, came from water—but Life could create itself anew, and water could not do that. Water must come from outside; Life came from inside. Life came bursting out of a seed or an egg or a womb into the World, and after a while, when it had reached maturity, Life repeated the cycle again, ever and again.
Then why, he asked himself, the question coming as it must come, why did Life make Death? Oh, of course, Life must become Death, that is, become dead, for that is the way of things. But, must Life make Death? He had never believed it so. All his life he had been taught that Death exists and must be accepted, but it must never be made. Yet men made Death. That was wrong. That was totality of wrongness. Men made Death out of the Life that took the form of Jillies. But, then, and this was perhaps the crux of the matter, Jillies had begun by making Death out of the Life that took the form of men. And that too was wrong. Why was it so?
Damion Leto and all the others of the Tribe had come together many times in Group Meditation, and combined their spirits together, and asked that Life cease making Death. But Life had not. Not the totality of Life. Why did it continue to make Death?
Was there an answer? If Life was Life, and all living things partook of Life, how then could they wish Death of other Life? Was that not suicide? Was that not slaughter of a part of the total Self that was Life? How could it be?
Oh, Damion Leto had read all the words, all the sayings, all the prophets, but none of them answered. When it was all boiled down to its essence, they did not know either. So, then, if all the prophets could not answer, could Damion Leto? He was no prophet.
Was there even an answer? Perhaps not. Perhaps there was even no question. Sometimes he thought that too. Perhaps questions were but illusion.
He sat and watched the bubbling water, the swirling, the rising and falling of it, and he listened to movement as bare feet crossed the floor of the meditation hall and then stopped beside him. There was silence for a while, then a soft hand rested on his shoulder and a soft voice said, “Damion Leto.” Without turning his eyes away from the fountain, he answered, “Melissa Haconi.”
“May I meditate with you?” the young woman asked, lowering herself to her knees beside him.
“My meditation does not go well,” he said.
“And why is that?”
“There are questions in my mind.”
“There are questions in all of our minds, Damion Leto.”
“None like mine.”
“All are like yours. We are all a part of Life.”
“Are we too a part of Death, Melissa Haconi?”
“We are.”
“Then, perhaps, that is why I have questions.”
“That is why we all have questions. May I meditate with you?”
“How do you wish to meditate?” he asked, still not taking his eyes from the fountain.
“In the way of a man and a woman, in the way of Life, Damion Leto.”
“Perhaps that is not good for me now.”
“Perhaps it is good for you. You have not touched a woman in a long while. I know.”
“Yes. That is true. When I am troubled…”
“Join in the meditation of Life, Damion Leto. It will ease your mind.” Her soft fingers ran along his back, down across his hips, onto his thigh. She aroused him.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the fountain and fixing them on hers. “Perhaps you are right, Melissa Haconi.” And he reached out and took her hands in his.
As she sat down beside him and drew her body close to his, she said, “Kiss me here, Damion Leto. Make me…”
Her words were broken off by a screaming sound that filled the air, that broke into the walls of the meditation hall, a sound like that of something rushing through the air at high speed.
Someone screamed, a shrill woman’s scream. “What is that?” Melissa Haconi cried.
“Missiles!” Damion Leto replied, leaping to his feet. “Jillie missiles.”
“It cannot be, not here,” Melissa Haconi said, rising with Damion Leto and wrapping her arms around his naked shoulders, pressing herself against him fiercely as if to drive away the awful, dawning reality.
“We must run,” Damion cried, tearing her away from him.
“Take me with you!” she cried.
But Damion Leto was already running, across the tiled floor of the meditation hall, out through the preparation room, out into the bright afternoon of Cynthian sunlight. Melissa Haconi was behind him, as were others, all running outside to see and know fear.
And outside they saw them, still high in the sky, the dark, blunt shapes of Jillie warships coming down into Cynthia’s atmosphere; great energy beams licked across the sky at the League patrol ships which rose from beyond the mountains to meet them.
“Life!” a man yelled. “They broke through the defenses!”
“Damion!” Melissa Haconi cried. “What does it mean?”
“Death has come to us,” Damion Leto said as light filled the sky brighter than the blazing sun, forcing him to turn his eyes away. A League patrol ship, unable to raise its screens in time within the planet’s atmosphere, had met a Jillie energy beam.
“Run!” yelled young Delinda Krael, the hall’s newest permanent meditator, holding her arms tight against her naked breasts.
“No,” Damion Leto told her, feeling a sudden courage rising within him. “Running will do us no good. There is no place to run.”
“Then what can help us?” Melissa Haconi asked. “Nothing,” he answered softly, standing naked under Cynthia’s sun, under the plunging Jillie warships. “Nothing can help us. We must make love now, Melissa Haconi. Now and forever.”
As he grabbed her hand and drew her down to
the dry earth below him, he gave the sky one last glance, and thought he saw a barrage of missiles leap from one of the Jillie warships. Then he turned to face Melissa Haconi, and buried his face against hers, joined his body with hers.
He felt only the briefest flash of heat across his back as the descending Jillie missile detected the proximity of the surface below it and detonated its nuclear warhead. Then he felt nothing, ever again.
13
For Absolom Bracer and the captains and first officers of the three starships from the Paladine the next two hours passed quickly, sometimes loudly, sometimes bitterly, but they did pass and a decision was made.
“Captain Bracer, I really don’t understand.” The image of General Crowinsky within the tank in the briefing room was frankly puzzled.
“I simply said, sir, ‘do you have any objection to my ships delaying their departure for about five weeks?’ ”
“For God’s sake, Bracer, why? You can make it to Earth in two weeks or less. Why do you want to—” Crowinsky’s voice broke off, realization began to emerge within his eyes. “My Heavenly God, captain, do you know what you’re asking for?”
“I know very well, sir,” Bracer said slowly. And he did know, he and the senior officers of the three starships; they knew far better than General Crowinsky what they were requesting. They had all experienced death at Jillie hands before.
“I have discussed this with my senior officers,” Bracer went on. “They understand the situation. There is reluctance, I admit, general, but we have reached an agreement. We know what we’re doing. We don’t like it very well, but—” like Crowinsky, Bracer let his voice trail off.
Reluctance is hardly the word, Bracer thought. I’ll probably face at least one mutiny before this is out. But I think we can survive that. We’ve got worse things to face than disaffected officers and crewmen. Things like—ourselves. “Frankly, captain,” Crowinsky was saying, “how much help could you be to us if—if the Jillies attacked again?”
We All Died at Breakaway Station Page 9