Battleground (12 page)

•   •   •

“Statu
s?”

“Their theology appears to lack moral implications because it has none.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“They go each moment with the consciousness of a godhead. It is a universal, it is, so to speak, the default, when they do not concentrate on a task or attack or defense. I have met perhaps two humans whose minds go that way. I thought them psychotic. Here it is the norm, and the norm cannot, by definition, be psychotic.”

“But moral implications?”

“In this consciousness there is no place for the importance of others' lives. They do not matter. Only what will come after, and they imagine the afterlife ecstasy is akin to what they feel in mating. Killing is encouraged. Death in battle is their expected end. I have seen no sign of conscious personal cruelty, such as human beings sometimes inflict on one another. But I have sensed no concept of universal brotherhood, either, or of spontaneous kindness.”

“How,” said the voice—always calm, but this time with a kind of astonishment—“can they possibly live?”

“I don't know. Yet.”

•   •   •

Gabrie
l Guyup stumbled through old stone corridors, half-asleep and full of apprehension. He was waked occasionally to comfort a sick child, or one prone to chronic nightmare, but this time the night-duty brother had said: “Father Abbot wants you.”

“Wha—?” said Gabriel, half a syllable all he could produce.

“Father—Abbot—wants—you.”

Oh, dear God, if a child has died . . .

He rounded the last corner and the door was before him, spilling light into the dim hallway. He slowed down when he reached it, but sick fear went before him, and the abbot took one look at his face and winced.

“What's wrong?” said the abbot, which ought to have been Gabriel's question, and Gabriel found a mug of coffee thrust into his hand. He had an accurate reputation as a heavy sleeper.

“You called for me—”

“Yes, but there's nothing to be afraid of. I know you're not afraid of me!”

“It's . . .” He looked at the chronometer on Father Abbot's wall. Alta stubbornly insisted on dividing its days into twenty-four hours, though they were not Standard hours. At the abbey it was just past two o'clock in the morning.

“It's daytime at Polity Admin, apparently. Sit down.”

Gabriel sat and sipped. His fear eased. Admin—this would have something to do with Colonial Oversight, then; though they were usually good about calling in daylight, local time.

“Are they bringing a child?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Oversight?”

“This isn't about Oversight. Definitely not.”

The abbot sat at his desk. He said, “This hobby of yours. Sentient nonhuman species.”

Gabriel drank more coffee. Maybe the conversation would make sense if he was fully awake.

“What about it, Father?”

“Maybe I should have paid more attention to it.”

“Why?” asked Gabriel, diverted. “My spiritual advisor is fully aware of my activities. I know some of my brothers disapprove, but Father Tomas believes faith is not incompatible with intellectual inquiry. So do you.”

“I do. No, I don't find anything to object to. I just don't think we realized how
good
you are at it.”

Thank you, God, for coffee,
Gabriel thought, and said, “Father, I'm completely lost.”

“Yes, no wonder. I'm sorry, I'm a little in shock. I've just been talking to the Director of Alien Relations and Contact.”

“What? Starr Jameson?”

“I suppose you know all about him. I barely recognized his name. I looked him up afterward. Have you ever talked to a stranger who was being very, very polite and charming because he knew he could squash you like a bug and knew you didn't know it? That describes our conversation.”

Gabriel, who knew exactly who Jameson was and his importance in the Polity, said, “That must have been interesting.”

“Yes. He said you've had some correspondence with his department. With Hanna ril-Koroth. I know who she is, of course—”

Because Michael Kristofik had once been a student at the abbey; because some older brothers had known him, and a few years ago had been given reason to remember.

“The director said you sent the department a schematic of core beliefs among sentient species and suggested further study is warranted.”

Gabriel forgot the hour and the oddity of the summons. He could talk aliens all night if someone was willing to listen.

“Lady Hanna didn't agree. I never actually talked to her; it wasn't a debate. She just replied that with one exception there
weren't
any substantial core beliefs, where I think belief is there but not explicit, possibly unconscious. But she didn't seem to consider the proposition valid, so I didn't try again.”

“Yes, Director Jameson told me. He wants to recruit you to join a Contact team. I wonder how he knew it was proper to start with getting my permission?”

“
Contact
wants me?” This was too much information to process. Gabriel tried—and failed; he nearly dropped the coffee. Deep fear was gone, now he was transported to high excitement, and only ingrained discipline allowed him to say something practical. “I guess I could do distance teaming, if you do allow it and I can make time for it. Or would I have to spend some time in the Polity?”

“Not the Polity. Deep space.
Endeavor Three
?” said the abbot, as if he was not sure he remembered the correct name. “I remember an
Endeavor.
I'm sure you do too. For some reason my predecessor thought it needed blessing. Do you know what
Endeavor Three
is?”

“
Endeavor Three
is a Contact vessel,” Gabriel said slowly. “According to the publicly available information, it's searching for a suspected alien presence in the direction of Orion. However, Lady Hanna is aboard. I thought, when I read she was there, that the ‘alien presence' might be more than suspected. Confirmed, in fact.”

“Really? Well, that's where they want you. I said we could spare you if you want to go.”

“But I can't just—” It would take a week to decide if he even wanted to go—but of course he couldn't, some of his charges were fragile—but if he meant to leave the abbey altogether, or maybe a leave of absence—but he hadn't even thought seriously of that, not yet—

But what came out of his mouth was: “When do they want me to start?”

“Why do you think I sent for you at this ridiculous hour?” the abbot said. “They want you yesterday. If you're going, go and pack.”

H
E IS ORDERING A COMPANY
into battle. He
will lose
nearly every fighter and will not take the objective; the balance of weaponry is decisive. If a few escape it will be by God's will. So they say. Perhaps a future Commander will be among them. The Holy Man has so ordered—

“H'ana? It's time.”

Wait.

Mark this one. Mark him well. Feel the texture of his thought, burrow deep—run the risk with this one that he might feel my presence, he is that important. Where is he? Narrow it down. Guide a visualization, not hard to do, the topography is not far from his conscious thought. A simple surface map, good enough. A continent that covers almost a hemisphere, and he is near the center. Who is he? A Commander. But what is he, so different from the rest? A High Commander.

“H'ana!”

She felt, as if from a distance, someone shake her: Carl. Bella called to her in thought:
Return.

Wait. Only wait.

•   •   •

Bella said, “She won't come out.”

Carl looked at t
he still figure, cross-legged on the floor, back straight, eyes closed. Hanna's hands rested, curved, in her lap. She didn't look like she was breathing, but she was; he knew he would see a shallow respiration if he watched long enough. Not a fold moved in her loose white tunic and trousers, nor a strand of the rather unkempt hair that streamed down her back. There had been no alarm from the remote monitor that registered her heartbeat—the faint chirps seemed shockingly far apart, but the monitor recognized them as normal for Hanna in trance.

Still, he said to Bella, “There's nothing wrong, is there?” and knew that he sounded uncertain.

“There was something, just for a second, that was different—different, but wrong? I don't know,” said Bella. He recognized the sudden sense of bewilderment as something she was projecting to him; he was well used to telepaths by now. His own mind came up with the image of a wall, something from Bella transmuted in him.

“That's not a bad referent,” Bella said. “She told us to wait—did you get that?”

“No. I don't think so. What do you mean, she said to wait? What's she doing?”

“I can't tell. That bothers me.”

They were on the floor too. Bella got up and paced as well as the small space would allow. Hanna, maybe because she was famous or maybe because of Starr Jameson, had been offered an officer's suite and refused it, giving no reason except that she did not need it. There was a bare-bones bed and an all-purpose information-communications terminal with a shelf and chair in front of it. There had been a minimalist couch, which Hanna had had taken out to provide floor space for exactly what she was doing now.

Bella said, “I did not see a single thing that she was thinking or observing. I once communicated with an Adept in trance, and it wasn't like that with him. And I never heard an Adept say they could do this. Maybe it just didn't come up . . . I talked with a Master not long ago about doing the training myself, and he said exactly how far you can go depends on the individual as much as on the training. I've heard H'ana is very good. But I never heard of a block like this. I should be able to sense
something
from her besides that order to wait.”

Carl looked from Bella's restless figure to Hanna's still one. He said, “What should we do?”

“Wait,” Bella said. “I guess.”

They waited a long time.

•   •   •

He uses no weapons himself. Gives orders. Observes a
battlefield; observes a massacre. The one he ordered. He ordered it because the Holy Man ordered him, but I think it was his idea first. There are reasons such orders are given—

•   •   •

Edward Vickery was back on Earth, but not for long, a
nd when he left again there would be no returning. He did not even know why he had come to Admin. He could have watched his position slip away from anywhere.

It was full night. He stood at the edge of his private office and looked out on the river, at water going by like an extension of the floor, apparently—though only apparently—without artifice. He did not like its proximity; he never had. He had taken over the suite just because it had been Jameson's previous domain. Somehow he had never been able to take over the respect Jameson commanded.

Someone came unheralded into the room behind him. Vickery knew who it had to be. Nobody else would walk in unannounced.

He said, “What do you want this time?”

“Video,” Starr Jameson said. He added unnecessarily, “With
Endeavor.
”

“What for?”

Vickery expected the usual detailed but succinct summary of well-considered reasons. The subtext, of course, was always the same, whatever the request: If Jameson didn't get what he wanted from his nominal superior, he would drop a word in Andrella Murphy's ear, or Peter Struzik's, and pretty soon all of them, Chu, Weisz and even al-Nimeury, would be looking at Vickery with those puzzled expressions that said
Don't you think you're being petty, Edward?

But Jameson just said, “I want to see Hanna's face when I talk to her.”

“No unnecessary risk of data spill,” Vickery said. “No special privileges.” He was pleased; the others would back him up on that!

“I don't like the way she sounds,” Jameson said. “I got a medical report on her. It says she's within normal parameters on all the standard scales, just stressed. ‘Stressed,' for Hanna, means she's forgetting to eat and sleep. We're ready to enter the system, and she has to be at optimum; if she's not, I need to know. If I ask her how bad it is, voice only, she probably won't admit it. I want her to be looking at me when I ask. Andrella knows Hanna very well; she'd understand what I mean. Mission-critical request, Edward. I won't accept a no.”

Vickery finally turned around, no longer pleased.

“Since when do D'neerans lie?” he said.

“They can't, telepathically. But they can do it with words as well as the rest of us, once they learn how.”

“Are you telling me she'd lie to
you?
”

“She won't if I'm looking in her eyes.”

“You hope,” Vickery said. “She probably got good at it when she was with what's-his-name, Kristofik, all that time.”

He felt quite happy again. The insult was multilayered and ought to hurt.

But all he saw was a subtle smile around Jameson's eyes.

“She was already good at it,” Jameson said. “Who do you think taught her in the first place? Video, Edward.”

“All right,” Vickery said unwillingly.

Jameson turned and walked out with the same sure stride he had used coming in, as if the place already belonged to him again. Out of the corner of his eye Vickery saw a light blink red. It was a personal circuit and the light meant more bad news.

He looked at it for a long time, knowing what he would hear if he responded to it, and in the end he left without answering.

•   •   •

Almost lost him. What is he
seeing?
This looks layere
d, almost. Two fields of vision, another battlefield—and another and another, how does he see them all at once? The other pair of eyes, but still! Someone thought of them. Thought of them as past-eyes. Who . . . ?

Casualty report. So many dead. He is saying, is saying—

The wounded—

His orders, his expectation—

End them? Finish them? Execute them?

On
Endeavor
, Hanna's heartbeat speeded up. Bella was anxious; she let the anxiety flow out to Carl as naturally as she would to another D'neeran.

“The last time that happened, the subject died,” he said.

“The pulse isn't spiking, though. It's just faster.”

“You still can't tell what she's—?”

He fumbled for a word. Seeing? Sensing?

“Nothing. It really is a wall.”

“Maybe one of the others—?”

“If I can't get past it, they can't.”

Done with orders. It's done. Returning to base. Something in his hand, puts it in his ear. Someone naming him—would I hear it as Kwoort? Talking to, ah, he is talking to the Holy Man! Something about balance, another battlefield, a crèche, a city underground—

Here is a, oh, what is it in Standard? A train? Gets on it. Rests. He thinks he will—

No, not sleep, I won't let him sleep. He might dream, I've seen a few dreams, they tell me nothing. Suggest. That he think of where he is—

•   •   •

At the edge of the system now, mapping details of two discrete asteroid belts, the surface of the star, the satellites of gassy giants, Battleground itself. The world's three moons, too, spying for secondary settlements; there were none.
Endeavor
shut down Ins
pace mode and traveled by conventional means, though moving fast. A comet had penetrated the system near the remotest planet's orbital apogee. If any eyes were turned outward, they were likely to be focused on that comet, as an object of current interest.
Endeavor
therefore entered at perigee.

Hope Metra read the D'neerans' reports again. Given the emerging picture, the human beings—true-humans and D'neerans alike—had become very interested in Battleground's military capabilities, especially in space. (They all called it Battleground now.) Time to talk to Lady Hanna, Metra thought. Then she remembered that Hanna had severed her official connection with D'neera's governing magistrates, and revised the name, with satisfaction, to plain Bassanio.

Metra knew her own prejudices, which were many and long-lived. She was neither blind nor ill-intentioned, and over many years had modified, even eliminated, some of them. Others she retained; she thought them reasonable. Quite a few were in play now, and she knew exactly which ones they were.

Beauty angered her, in women or in men, because beautiful people did not have to work as hard as the not-beautiful at gaining the good opinion of others.

Women who were rich men's possessions angered her because they settled for a fantasy that pandered to the worst in men (and in the women, for that matter).

D'neerans angered her on general principles, all the more because the few she had met, until now, seemed skittish around true-humans, like wary animals that would bolt at a sudden move. Admittedly, this group did not fit that pattern, with its implication of shiftiness; they had a sureness about them Metra had not previously associated with D'neerans. That angered her, too—so Hanna Bassanio, who appeared to be confidence distilled, angered her most of all.

Metra reviewed those attitudes one by one, consciously, and consciously set them aside. When she thought she was in a neutral frame of mind, she summoned Bassanio, and was told Bassanio could not come, and got furious all over again.

Endeavor
moved in, toward Battleground.

•   •   •

Kwoort: a being on a train. A fine specimen of his kind, large and strong.

There are windows on the train. Kwoort, seated, looks out one of them.

He is uneasy and does not know why. The fight was routine. The units he commanded wer
e destroyed. That was expecte
d. Fifty survivors, they will be promoted, that is good, one or two may survive to become Commanders. They fought well. They were not injured. That is how it was with Kwoort, long ago.

The train goes through agricultural country. This locality was spared by the storms last summer, surely God's work, because little is grown beneath the land of this region, construction lags and surface crops must suffice. For now the fields on either side show green with the hope of new growth. But maybe the storms will spare nothing, this summer. Ahead, in the direction the train is going, as best Kwoort can see from this perspective, black weather is moving in.

The train moves rapidly. A figure stands far off to the right, alone in a field. No vehicle is in sight, it is impossible to say how this worker (undoubtedly it is someone who works these fields) got to this position. The figure also looks toward the black sky. The train flashes by and the figure is left behind. Does the worker wonder, as Kwoort does, when it was that Abundant God inspired a Holy Man to grow foodstuffs underground? Kwoort has wondered a long time, asked the question long ago.

There was no answer; there were no records. The Holy Book says Abundant God prohibits records, that nothing matters but obedience in the day. Consequently, God sees to the destruction of the past.

Kwoort sees suddenly, without warning, a void behind him, yawning backward from his own time. There's no telling how far it extends. He has never had such a vision before, he stands up quickly, he is dizzy, is this thought, this sensation, this thing that seems imposed, almost, from outside, a sign of incipient madness? Does this happen to others on the crux, so near the final ascension?

He moves quickly along the aisle, which is close to the windows and the wall of the train, but there is nowhere, really, to go—

•   •   •

Interworld Fleet regulations permitted varying degrees of luxury in officers' quarters, proportionate to rank. Some captains' private quarters were downright sybaritic. Hope Metra's were Spartan.

There were hours to go before the first attempt at contact, and Metra had ordered a rest period for command personnel. She was asleep when the communication roused her, then awake in a split second.

“We triggered something.” Kaida Aneer's voice, excited, apprehensive. Probably more apprehensive about disturbing Metra than about whatever the something was; Aneer's second would have waked her without hesitation.

“Details,” Metra said immediately, confirming the crew's belief that the captain never slept. She was already out of bed, reaching for a uniform.