Adiamante (33 page)

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Authors: Jr. L. E. Modesitt

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I
hated the command center: buried under klicks of rock, reinforced adiamante, and energy webs, it carried the smell of age, ozone, and death. But it was the only place left with links to the remaining locials, and we needed those links in order to allocate the transport that would relocate the draffs and the few demis in each surviving receiving area to undamaged locials.
Locatio had survived, and was still whining from the Ellay receiving area. “Ecktor, we've still got those marcybs in the canyons.”
“Once you've got everything cleaned up and the survivors taken care of, go out and get them. That's what our job is.” I had less and less sympathy for whining.
“Not everyone is as strong as you are,” came a new voice over the hard netlink, one didn't recognize.
“Sorry, I don't—”
“You probably wouldn't. I'm Dynise, the temporary replacement for K'gaio. I hope it's temporary.”
“Temporary—probably for a decade.” I was sorry to hear about K'gaio. If anyone had been strong enough to survive, I would have thought it would have been her.
“Anyway,” I answered Locatio, “you're going to have to solve this one yourself. The crisis is over. Now all we have is the immediate cleanup, and after that you won't need a Coordinator.”
I broke the link. For a moment, I leaned back in the command seat and closed my eyes. Yslena: I hoped she was all right, but until the nets were rebuilt, there wasn't any real way to check, and I wasn't about to preempt the
emergency system for that—not when there was nothing I could do, one way or another.
The net buzzed.
“This is Ecktor.”
“Dynise.”
“Sorry. I didn't meant to cut you out. What can I do?”
“Actually, I was going to tell you that we've got two of the big shuttles bringing in a spare net repeater. We'll have to mount it in the open temporarily, but we'll leave the location to you.”
I knew where already. “There's a flat expanse about a quarter klick east of the buried Deseret antenna grid—the elevation there's about 3,100 meters. I can have a beacon there in a stan.”
“That will be fine. You won't get the repeater until tomorrow. Since we're sending shuttles for relocation, we can squeeze the equipment in with the food supplements for those we can't evacuate immediately.”
After Dynise broke off, I took a deep breath. We had more than enough concentrated supplies—even sophisticated medical supplies—for the receiving areas for weeks, but the sooner people picked up their lives, the better. Those who liked the Deseret area could filter back as they could—if they liked where we decided to relocate the locial center.
In the meantime, they needed to be integrated into functioning locials elsewhere. The magshuttles were efficient, but the largest ones only carried seventy-five passengers, and most were sized for fifty or less. With three-quarters of the center population of forty locials, that worked out to five hundred to eight hundred trips per locial. While there were forty-two locials whose centers were black glass, in two cases the tach-head blast force had also taken out the receiving center. We'd lost a handful of shuttles, but I was glad I'd had the majority evacuated. They were proving themselves most useful. The problem was going to
be pilot fatigue, since we'd lost a lot of pilots—more than half.
More opportunities for comptime. I offered a bitter smile to the screen that showed the blackened and steaming ruins of Parwon.
“You wanted to see him. There he is.” At the words, I turned in the swivel.
Kemra stood less than a meter away, flanked by a pale and still gaunt Lictaer. The demi restraint squad leader hadn't totally escaped the mindblazing backlash, and her eyes occasionally twitched. Lictaer would recover, as much as any of us would recover.
“Yes?”
“What are you going to do with me? Except have me trailed everywhere?” snapped Kemra. Her fingers strayed to the cryostasis flask and miniature powerpak at her hip. Because of her comments in the ruins, I'd approved that so that she could gather limited specimens of wildflowers outside beyond the exit tunnel. I'd hoped it would keep her out of trouble, but it looked as though I'd been wrong.
“Without a guard, I can't totally guarantee that some draff—or some demi not quite sane—won't try to take off your head. You are a cyb, and you're seen as the enemy—and quite a few people died.”
“You had everything evacuated, and you demis are above violence.” Her tone was cold and bitter.
“That reduced casualties, but it didn't eliminate them. We lost two receiving centers—they held 90,000 people. Forty-two locials are black glass or slag or both.”
Lictaer glared at Kemra.
“And almost a million demis died in the backlash.”
Kemra glanced from Lictaer to me and back.
“Do you know what it took to hold that defense net? I told you once, and it didn't seem to register.”
“That was your satellite, your asteroid stations.”
“They were only the nexial points and the power
sources. Every adult demi on this planet was linked into the defense system, and we lost almost half of them.”
“Why was that necessary? You save the idiotic draffs, and you let yourselves die.” Kemra looked at me, her eyes smoldering.
“It's simple enough. It dates to antiquity, and it's called the Iron Law of Responsibility. Those with great power must exercise equally great responsibility. Some people don't choose to. Probably half the draffs on Old Earth could be demis—”
“Thirty percent,” corrected Lictaer.
“Anyway, we pay for our power and responsibility. I kept telling you that, and none of you listened. I told you in the ruins. I told you in the prairie dog town. I told you on your own ship. What does it take?” I was nearly yelling when I stopped.
“So what are you doing with me?” she asked, again not really listening.
“Send you back and hope someone listens. Send back some records of a dead fleet, and hope the message penetrates.”
“Who's going to listen to dead cybs?” Kemra lashed out. “Who's going to listen to just me?”
“Who said you were the only survivor? There are several hundred marcybs and their officers running around loose. Once we take care of them, there should be a few survivors, and we'll send you all home.”
I looked at Lictaer. “Take her somewhere. If you can get her to listen, be my guest. If not, just keep her safe until we can get a ship ready.”
Lictaer nodded.
“You're impossible,” Kemra said. “You're living in a past that never was. You don't understand life. You just don't understand.”
After rubbing my forehead—I still had splitting headaches, but most demis had the same problems I did—I answered
tiredly. “No. You don't understand. You had every opportunity. You didn't want to listen or see. You struck first, and we didn't even raise a defense until after you struck. I also might add that, if you send another fleet, based on your past efforts, its appearance is a violation of the Construct. In simple terms, if the next thing we see from Gates is a fleet, we don't have to wait.”
“You're hypocrites.”
“No.” They were the hypocrites, but arguing wasn't going to change Kemra's mind, and there was no point in continuing the discussion. I nodded tiredly.
“Let's go,” said Lictaer.
“You live in your own dead world, with your own dead Morgen!” Kemra lunged at me, and her fingernails sliced at my temple.
I was tired, and Lictaer was in residual mind-shock, or it wouldn't have happened, but that didn't matter. Kemra only came up with skin, blood droplets, and hair before we restrained her.
“I hate you! I hate your smugness and certainty!”
The sourness of anger, fear, hatred, and who knew what else boiled from her, but I really didn't care at that point.
Lictaer and two others led her off, and I stared at the screen and the ruins there for a moment. Then I rubbed my neck and forehead. Sooner or later, I'd have to deal with Henslom and his troops—sooner, if they felt the way Kemra did.
The netlink buzzed for me, and I reached for the connection. I still hated the control center, but once the new relay was installed, once I took care of the loose ends like Henslom, once Kemra was on the ship with the others, then I could stop being Coordinator and get out of the center—and spend the rest of my life paying for it.
I took a deep breath.
W
hen I'd estimated two or three days before I could get things stabilized enough to go look for Henslom and his marcybs, I'd been optimistic—incredibly optimistic.
Eight days passed before we had magshuttled most of the survivors out of the holding areas and redistributed them temporarily throughout the remaining sixty-six locials.
Sixty-six locials left out of one hundred and six, and that was after we'd destroyed the entire cyb fleet and probably neutralized ninety-nine percent of its weaponry.
At least we wouldn't lack for work, not for another few decades, and not until we met another set of idiots who thought that technology meant big ships and unlimited fusion power. I just hoped that the cybs didn't try to send another fleet too soon, my brave words to Kemra notwithstanding, but building that fleet had to have cost them a lot, a whole lot.
After a week, we were down to the handfuls of demis who either had lived outside the locial or who would be the core of the reclamation. I was one of them. I liked the area, and it was solid comptime work, and no one was going to argue about where I wanted to spend years doing comptime. Besides, I had one last chore before I resigned as Coordinator—taking care of the cybs remaining in Deseret.
The rebuilt net worked, except in really low depressions or gorges, but even the complete original net had had some problems there. We'd managed to link in with the scattered demis in the area, and get a fair report on the cyb forces.
The cybs had moved away from Parwon, following the valley to the north. They'd moved upwind to higher ground, possibly to avoid residual radioactivity, although the tach-heads had been relatively clean. Parwon center was mostly black glass—between the fringe of the particle beams that had slipped under the shields, and the single tach-head that had potted the admin building—now a large and steaming crater nearly two hundred meters across. Deseret locial was going to have to be relocated, or abandoned, or something, until the area could be reclaimed—and reclamation took time: centuries, if not millennia.
The cyb forces numbered less than two hundred after blast casualties, encounters with demi families, and various local fauna. Two demi families had lost members to slugthrowers, but the casualties had been lighter than I would have expected. In a way, I suspected that the environment and the survivors would polish them off over the months, but innocents would probably be killed in the process. So we needed to do something.
Rather than indiscriminate killing, of which there had already been too much, I really just wanted to take out Henslom and his officers. Then the restraint squads could round up the marcybs with comparatively little difficulty.
Finding their general location was easy enough, and I still was Coordinator, and that meant I could commandeer a magshuttle.
We loaded on at Berkin's place. His house was fifteen klicks north of the holding areas and safely out of range of damage. His soulmate—a solid redhead—would be glad to see us leave permanently, but they'd both been most hospitable.
The magshuttle pilot was Borin. He looked at me. “Is this that same cyb majer?”
“The same Majer Henslom.”
“Too bad the Construct kept you from killing him back then.”
“If we didn't have a Construct, we'd be like him,” I said softly.
Borin looked away. It didn't take him long to carry us another thirty klicks to the northeast where he dropped the dozen of us on a hilltop downwind of the general position of the cybs. The local demis had been helping, as they could, lead the cybs toward the northeast end of the valley that held one of the larger concentrations of vorpals in Deseret.
“What are we doing?” asked Berkin as I checked the slugthrower and knives at my belt.
“In theory, this is simple,” I said. “I'm going to try to disable one of the junior officers on the flank. After that, then let's see if we can guide them close enough to the big vorpal lair. If not, take out all the officers.”
“Isn't that bending the Construct?” asked Gisel.
“They broke it. Let's go.”
We spread out, with Berkin, since he knew the area, leading half to the west. Gisel led the eastern group, and I moved out ahead of Gisel's group on the eastern flank.
“They're headed along the stream,” pulsed Berkin.
“The whole group?”
“Yes.”
I tried a nature link. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't, and sometimes it didn't help even if it did work.
First came the meleysens. Extending and concentrating gave me the sense of a low bass subsonic, and against that I could hear the
tap-thump
of the cybs' boots. At least, that was the way it felt.
Another reach and the green chewing blandness of the samburs framed the meadow to the west. That did little good, because the ruisines heard the cybs and bolted before the cybs even knew the deer had been there.
Then there was the cool black-edged probing of the
mother bear who lived above the snye beyond the meadow. I tried to reach out, to warn her, but she was shielded.
At the edge of my perceptions came in the laser hate of the vorpals, and I nodded. Henslom deserved vorpals.
I eased through the piñons and cedars, keeping out of sight, trying to track down the junior officer who held the controls of the flank marcyb squad. I recognized him—Cherle, the blocky officer who'd been on the prairie dog fiasco. He'd learned from that. All of his marcybs were fanned out in front of him.
The only sounds were those of the wind in the higher piñons, the crunch of boots on the frozen ground, and the occasional snap of a dead and dry sagebrush limb. The cold air held the scent of cybs, dried blood, and even of sweat, now that their scent-suppressants had worn off.
Cherle scanned the area in all directions, his head swiveling, his eyes intent. Because the area, like much of Deseret, consisted of open ground, sagebrush, cedars, and piñons, all irregularly spaced, it took me nearly a stan to get within a few meters.
Then I went into step-up, and crossed the few meters between us. Cherle's head jerked, and he swung the slugrifle, but I was inside it, and moving too quickly, and too angrily. For a moment, I thought I'd struck too hard, but then he shivered, and tried to break away. My fingers tightened around his neck, and I pulse-blocked, letting him slump in a heap on the hard ground beside a cedar.
“Stay,” I ordered the silent squad, overriding his own repeater, before easing back uphill after the main body. “Guard Cherle.” They stayed.
“Cherle! Report! Report! Why aren't you following? What do you mean by telling them to guard you?” Henslom's transmissions burned from his repeater. “Babbege? Can you raise Cherle?”
“That's negative, ser.”
“Friggin' demis. May get us, but I'll kill as many of the bastards as I can.”
Babbege, sensibly, did not comment.
“I'm going in,” I pulsed.
“Ser?” asked Gisel.
“I'm going to get him mad enough to chase me where I want him to go.”
“You'll do anything to avoid comptime,” noted a familiar voice across the net—Keiko's.
“I still love you, too.” With that I slipped back north and west until I could target Henslom's repeater, still a half-klick away, but that was more than close enough.
I tried to reach out, and got something else, practically at my feet—another small oval of adiamante, lying on the ground less than a meter away. Was it a remnant of the cyb fleet? One of the chunks still falling?
For some reason I didn't have time to fathom, I tucked the black oval into my jacket pocket, then edged sideways across the hill toward the small meleysen grove. There, I dropped behind the north side of a solid trunk and waited.
He was with the vanguard, as I figured he'd be. When he was at one hundred fifty meters, I rammed the signal through his own repeater. “Henslom, you're a miserable excuse for a soldier, and an even worse cyb.”
Henslom's head swiveled from side to side.
“You couldn't destroy a single demi with a whole fleet.”
Terrible in his cold anger, Henslom lifted the slugger, and I could see the flexsplints on his fingers. Then the bullets stitched through the meleysen trees like the ancient killer bees, the scent of orange raining down with the tattered leaves.
Behind the lower trunk, behind a meter of heart-solid wood, I waited, just as any demi would wait, calculating, triangulating as Henslom moved from ninety-one point three meters south southwest to eighty-one point five meters
west south west. His breath rasped through his enlarged pharynx, as his crude selfnet revved his metabolism.
“You're still a poor excuse for a soldier, Majer,” I called. “Even if you had all your fingers.”
A jay chittered in the pines beyond the meleysen grove, and the slugger flicked that way.
RRRRRRRRrrrrrrrr … .
The roar and the stream of composite left feathers, silver-blue, drifting down with pine branch fragments. Henslom moved to seventy-five point four meters south of where I was. His squad followed, dragged by the commands over his repeater.
“They'll all be in range before long,” Gisel pulsed from southeast of where I waited behind the meleysen grove, trying to ignore the sickly orangish scent that dropped around me.
“How close are they to those vorpals?”
“We're all only about half a klick.” A pause followed. “I'd rather not …”
“Take out one or two of the marcybs on your side—with a lot of blood. Then get out of there. Let the vorpals find them.”
“That's hard on the vorpals.”
“They'll survive.”
A handful of shots echoed to the south and east of me.
Then the marcybs' sluggers roared again, and pine needles carpeted the paths that Henslom's squads had blown through the pinons.
“Gisel?” I pulsed, waiting for a lagged response.
“Fine. Just being careful.”
“Get out of there.”
“Almost clear.” A pause followed. “I'm over the ridge, and I'm moving, ser. So are the vorpals.”
“Henslom, you're going to lose every last one of your marcybs, and you're going to die here on Old Earth.”
Another blast truncated a pair of piñons, and more silver-blue feathers floated down with the green needles.
Henslom turned north, until he was almost looking at the grove where I waited, his slugthrower traversing a narrow arc.
The scent of piñon drifted on the wind to me, and so did the hint of blood, a hint of blood that would travel farther downwind to the vorpals.
“Berkin? Can you wound a couple over there—without getting seen?”
“Easy.”
“Do it.”
Another few shots rang out, and Henslom's head swiveled west.
I could sense the ferity of the vorpals, and much as I would have liked to see Henslom's reaction, I slowly eased back and then east.
“Another volley, Berkin.”
“You've got it, Coordinator.”
Henslom swiveled toward the west. I slipped over a ridge line and began to run. “Draw back! Now! Regroup at the dropout point, and watch out for vorpals.”
“Stet.”
“Stet.”
We didn't have to worry. Drawn by the commotion and the scent and feel of blood, the vorpals slipped silently from their lair beyond the snye and surged downhill toward the unknowing cybs, much more willing to take on cybs than demis.
For a time, there were only the sounds of the wind and muted bootsteps on hard ground.
Then, an unwary marcyb went down with her throat slashed by the sharp incisors, even before her body could react. Two others went down before the sluggers roared again.
“Get them! Fire at will!” snapped Henslom.
Slugthrowers rumbled in panic, and marcybs went down, but not the vorpals, which dodged through the cedars and the piñons faster than the cybs' reflexes could react.
“Keep pulling back,” I ordered. “We'll wait.”
Cherle was almost awake when I got there.
I took his repeater from him, used it again to put his squad in combat sleep, and took the time to tie him up thoroughly. Then we waited.
Before too long, the pines, the cedars were silent again, except for the cold north wind and too many disgusting sounds from the vorpals. I would have liked to have seen Henslom's face, but it wasn't worth the risk.
Gisel and his squad joined me, and we hiked a circular route back to the pickup point where Borin picked up the dozen of us, six dazed marcybs, and subleader Cherle.

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