Battleground (14 page)

T
IME FRAGMENTED.

•   •   •

She slept in spite
of the urge
ncy of the situation. P
ossibly the wasted hours would have some grave import for the fate of all humanity, but probably not.
Why not enhanced sleep, save some time,
said Metra, and others, and Hanna told them she wouldn't let medics root around in her delicate telepathic brain. It was no more delicate than anybody else's, but she was wary of arousing curiosity about the anomalies she knew were there; the way she had shut out the other telepaths, the strength of that block, had already attracted too much attention. The anomalies were not likely to be noticed, in fact, in the routine production of enhanced sleep, and she knew that, too. But uncertainties were closing in from all sides. She didn't need another one distracting her.

•   •   •

“Not a trick of the Demon. The words could be a trick
but not the images they send. I have seen these creatures. I look through my past-eyes and remember.”

“Maybe the Demon was there too, and makes up these images. Maybe one of his commanders does! You could think up something like this, could you not?”

“The Demon was not there on that world and none of his commanders were there. Of those who went, only I survive. The not-Soldiers ask only for a meeting, a small party in one landing craft, their ship will remain in space.”

“Or Quokatk's mad brain has come up with some final trick. But if he is still this good they will not need you in Wektt!”

“I ask you with all my eyes to believe this is not his work. And though I saw no weapons in that place where the not-Soldiers lived, surely weapons exist. Should we not acquire them?”

•   •   •

Awake, cranky, sullenly accepting a cup of tea, feeli
ng better once it was down. “I tapped into something down there in my sleep, a dream that wasn't a dream,” she told Metra, but refused to say anything more until Jameson could hear it.

When she saw him he did not look—the holographic projection did not look—tired at all. He was probably using a stimulant himself. Undoubtedly, if he wasn't already doing it, he would. Hanna disapproved. She disapproved of all such substances, especially when he was the one using them. So he never did when she was entangled in his life. So why was he reverting now? Because he was reverting to being a commissioner? Talking of his imminent return to power he had been—for him—overexcited. Someone should tell him to calm down. She ought to be the one to tell him.

“I want to talk to you alone,” she told him, and he said, “Sorry—” and waved a hand indicating he couldn't do anything about that now. They were in a half-real-half-virtual conference room, the
Endeavor
and Admin halves jarringly mismatched. Hanna was one of six people on the
Endeavor
side, Jameson one of only four at Admin. Murphy was there, and Zanté, and a man Hanna knew only slightly but had no reason to distrust: Adair Evanomen, head of Contact's commerce division. Nobody had mentioned commerce, so what was he doing here?

There had been no reply from Battleground while Hanna slept. Jameson said, “You want to tell us about a dream?”

No, I want to tell you about it, only you,
she thought. She felt tricked. She hadn't even decided if she really wanted Jameson, but she was certainly going to lose him. To the Commission; to the Polity. Something shifted under her feet.
Bedrock slipping
, she thought, but she told them about the dream. And about its implication: that the Commander, personally, had seen New Earth.

“There was a hint of it in the first contact with him,” she said. “I didn't mention it because I wasn't certain. Now I am.”

“Because of a dream?” Metra said.

“A dream like this, from Hanna, carries some weight with me,” Jameson said, “and that judgment is based on experience. Andrella? Do you remember?”

“Oh, yes,” Murphy said. “And anyway, if it doesn't have some correlation to reality, where did she come up with that ‘past-eyes' phrase?”

“She's used it before, but the meaning isn't clear,” Jameson said.

Hanna growled.

“What?” said Murphy.

“I said, I'm here. You can ask me.”

“All right. What does it mean?”

Hanna said perversely, “I don't know. The second pair of eyes has something to do with memory, but I don't know what—yet.”

Jameson's eyes rested on her warily. Maybe he was thinking of her reputation for instability. Maybe all this holo wasn't such a good idea after all, and level, controlled voices would be better.

we were just a useful tool once
, whispered the ghost. She wanted to ask Jameson,
Am I to be a tool again?

But she couldn't say it in front of all those people. So she got up and walked out.

•   •   •

An hour later Communications reported a response, a se
nseless garble that nonetheless showed signs of striving toward a systems match, and Hanna went there quickly. She had picked Joseph and Bella to accompany her to a meeting on Battleground, and they went with her. The months of waiting had shrunk to minutes.

•   •   •

Metra and her officers and other people who were not u
sually there had come to Communications too, but Hanna's closest companion was invisible. She and the ghost watched a Communications monitor that showed just what was going out to the desert-splotched planet ahead of them: a mélange of the kinds of images Species Y did
not
transmit—families at play, physiological diagrams, works of art, landscapes and cityscapes, pictures of flora and fauna (but only cuddly fauna). The audio content was in the language Linguistics had deciphered and was

much the same as i sent before me to Zeig-Daru
, said the ghost, who seemed somewhat comforted by the acceptance the true-humans in Communications extended to Hanna.

much the same as i sent before me to Uskos
, Hanna said.

Cheers erupted from the main station in Communications, and Hanna listened.

“We've got a clear response! We've got them! We've got them!”

it says “you are guests,”
said the ghost.

it won't be that easy
, said Hanna.

it never is
, said the ghost.

T
HE MAN WHO NEVER RAISED
his voice was shou
ting.

“Missio
n protocol calls for at least three on the surface at all times, and together! At
least
three! Never one alone!
Never!
”

Light-years apart, they paced.

“You know I meant to take Joseph and Bella,” she said. “It's not my decision to go alone. The decision belongs to these beings.”

“It does
not
. That's the demand they made. The decision, in fact, Hanna, the decision whether or not to acquiesce, is
mine!
”

“And that's exactly the trouble, isn't it? I've never, ever seen you lose your temper before! I've never seen a decision do this to you! What is
wrong
with you?” Hanna yelled, realized she was yelling, and shut up.

In the silence, across the gulf, they stared at each other.

After a minute Hanna sat down. “I see,” she said.

Jameson was shaking his head. At himself, possibly. He sat down too, his control back as fast as he had lost it and locked in place. He said, “What do you see?”

“Would you amend mission protocol to send Dema or Arch alone? To send anyone but me?”

“I don't know,” he said. “The same reservations would hold.”

“But maybe not as strongly?”

She didn't mention his guilt.

He didn't mention her ghost.

She said, “None of the New Earth colonists ever felt threatened. Certainly none of them was hurt.”

“Individual lives mean nothing here, Hanna. You've had a concrete illustration of that.”

The spacious room behind him, in his personal suite at Admin, was dark. The contact teams on
Endeavor
had shifted to the Holy Man's time (or maybe the Demon's) and it was not in synch with Standard. He did look tired, now; maybe he hadn't taken up the old habits after all.

He said abruptly, “I would rather send someone else. Your own people don't let parents of young children take hazardous duty. You ought to be spared this mission on that basis alone.”

“My people aren't yours. Listen.” She sat forward, as if it would actually bring them closer together. “I've seen you torn before, between me and what's—expedient. It cannot have escaped your attention that in matters of first contact you and I are perceived as a unit. That my credibility rests on my willingness to take risks—and yours on your willingness to put me at risk.”

He said quietly, “No. It hasn't escaped my attention.”

“What do you think these important people on Heartworld will say if you send one of my students to Battleground instead of me? They will say that your most vicious critics are right about you and me. That you can't be objective where I'm concerned, that your emotions override your judgment.”

He was silent.

She said, “And I have a stake in appearances, too. If I don't prove myself of continuing value to the Polity, if I stay safely on
Endeavor
and let Bella go in my place, how long will it be before the restrictions on my freedom are softened? I hope for amnesty, and the Commission can give it to me, but not even Andrella would support it only as a favor to you. All of them have others to answer to. As will you. There will have to be justification, something to point at to prove I've earned it. This—” She fumbled for words. “I know you want to protect me. It's been a conflict for you since we met. But this time protection could harm me. It could harm both of us.”
Transcripts,
she thought suddenly, and said, “My God, how many people are hearing this?”

“None,” he said. “The appointment hasn't been confirmed, and if there were a Commission vote I couldn't cast a ballot, but in most matters I can do as I like. That includes restricting access to my communications. No one's listening, no one's recording.”

He looked at her for what seemed a long while, eyes unreadable. A subtle change came finally over his face. Resignation, Hanna thought.

He took a deep breath and said, “I'll put it on record that your request to go alone is approved.”

ROWTT

H
ANNA HAD MADE FIRST
landings on other worlds with curiosi
ty and wonder. She had done it first, on Zeig-Daru, with the conviction that she would not return alive; some years later she had done it on Uskos, with hope and (somewhat misplaced) confidence. This time wonder was elusive. She had borrowed too many Battleground eyes and seen too much that was gray. She fell through heavy cloud toward the underground complex called Rowtt and thought she saw—though of course they were not there—tendrils of fog seep into the capsule,
Endeavor
's smallest (least threatening) shuttle.

They are all special cases . . .
A whisper. Joseph's touch.
Look,
he whispered,
only look.

She broke through the clouds and slowed. Tiny, camouflaged spyeyes had scouted the site and she saw what she expected to see. This view did not excite wonder either. Expansive fields riddled with holes—impact craters, perhaps, created not by meteors but by bombs. A few wheeled vehicles in haphazard clusters. Dirt and concrete shoved into mounds that sprouted scraggly weeds, the only visible life.

The pod touched down. The hatch fell open to form a ramp, and Hanna walked down it into desolation. The air tasted of dust.

She knew she was watched. The Y beings had specified that she would be watched.

She was dressed, by design, in a coverall as tight and flexible as her skin. If the Y beings had paid attention to the anatomical images sent them, they would know she hid no weapons. She had even relinquished the unpredictable ring to Bella's keeping—but it might have been a comfort now, the jewel a piece of sky. She missed it. The ghost did not seem to have accompanied her, either.

She kept her hands open, away from her body. The translator components had been described and detailed images shown to the beings of Battleground—microscopic circuitry at the ears, sound manipulation bank tenuous as mist shadowing her mouth, held in place by a net finer than spider-silk so that huge (by comparison) human hands could handle the network; the processing module was behind one ear, subcutaneous. Communications had explained it all to the Y beings ahead of time. Several times, very carefully. Hanna agreed with Hope Metra on one thing: if you were a stranger approaching a military base, you did not want to show up with a surprise.

Soft footsteps sounded behind her. From where in this blasted field the being could have come, Hanna couldn't imagine. But this had been specified too: one individual would greet her. Low-ranking, they had said without apology. In other words, expendable.

Check.

It stopped behind her and she did not turn, but extended her arms for the specified search. Fluid hands ran over her back and sides, seeking weapons that were not there. A scent the
Report to Archives
had not mentioned drifted around her, cutting the dust smell with a blend of cinnamon and cardamom. There was a fleeting impression of sinuous motion, and now the being faced her.

It finished its examination. Check.

Then—not planned, at least by the humans on
Endeavor
—it slipped behind her and started the whole process again. Hands-on. This time the long fingers sought something specific that was not there.
Some difference in anatomy that clothing hides?
she said to Joseph, and sensed that he made a note. The touches were different now: intimate, and sensuous. And suddenly she knew what the creature was doing. This was sexual foreplay.

H'ana?!!
Joseph was shocked. Interspecies sex had not been addressed by Contact Education. Perhaps it should be.

She broke silence at last. “Why do you touch me as a mate would, host?”

It said, “We were informed that you are female, guest. I am male. Kwoort Commander instructed me to make you welcome.”

“Preparation to mate is not necessary, host. Did Kwoort Commander think it is?”

“Kwoort Commander once knew a not-Soldier female, and instructed me to welcome you as she welcomed him.”

This would convince even Metra that Kwoort Commander had been on New Earth. Evidently he was the one who had gone into the woods with Mi-o.

Mi-o
, thought Hanna,
you have a lot to answer for.

“I note the intention, host. I am prepared to meet the Commander without further welcome.”

She thought she detected some relief as he moved back. He said, “Guest, you will meet Prookt Commander. Kwoort Commander was called away to meet a hostile incursion.”

Another one?
Joseph said.
Is it heating up down there?

Hanna didn't answer. She said to the being, “I prefer not to be welcomed as one welcomes a mate.”

“Guest, I will so inform Prookt Commander.”

She followed the being to an opening in the surface of the field where a mound of dirt had swiveled away to show a metal platform. They stepped onto it and it began to descend. The hatch slid shut above them.

“Host, what is your name?”

“In my rank it is not important. I am a Soldier like all others.”

“Are we to call all of you Soldiers?”

“Yes, though females also are called Warriors.”

Confirming the linguistic interpretation. The distinction between “Soldier” and “Warrior” was subtle, one of a whistle-pitch only. Kit Mortan's people had applied the Standard tags to avoid the clumsy “male nonhuman” and “female nonhuman.”

The lift stopped and they stepped out and walked through gray concrete corridors, sealed against moisture but unpainted. The walls were bare. She was prepared for this; she had seen interior images trapped from ancient broadcasts, and identical walls through Soldiers' eyes.

(“Status?”

“We observed no art in the datastream because they make none . . .”)

Except for Kwoort Commander, and that trace of a painting on his wall. Hanna suspected he had put it there himself.

A room, the same concrete, already a weight on Hanna's shoulders. Tables and uncushioned benches of utilitarian design; a human would see nothing strange at first glance. A screen set into one wall showed moving images and text of the same kind
Endeavor
had recorded. It was silent.

The Soldier said, “Prookt Commander, the guest requires no further welcome.”

Four Soldiers were seated at the tables. None of them got up. But one said, “I am Prookt Commander. I have four hundred and fifty-four summers.”

Joseph said,
How'd you miss the greeting convention—!

I wasn't listening for words! I never heard it—

“Greetings, Prookt Commander. I am Hanna—Warrior. I have—” A moment's hesitation. She was tempted to lie. But she finished, “—thirty-six summers.”

“What is your purpose here, guest?”

“It is as our communications specified, host. First, stalemate—” there was no word for peace, this was as close as it got—“between Soldiers and not-Soldiers.”

The ears moved. Kit Mortan was still working on the rich repertoire of ear movements and facial expressions. The translator could not help her here, but—

What's that knot of—bafflement? He doesn't know how to respond!

Prookt Commander said finally, “Soldiers and not-Soldiers have stalemate. We wish to acquire weapons.”

“I cannot assist you with that, Prookt Commander.”

There was a pause she recognized as a convention, in case she had forgotten to say something. Prookt Commander had addressed the only thing that interested him. If she had nothing else to say, the interview was over.

The whole First Contact was about to be over. Good-bye, nice meeting you, see you around space-time sometime—

But so far they hadn't said no to anything. Maybe any request would do.

She said, “Not-Soldiers wish to observe Soldiers' daily lives.”

She did not say there were scientists on
Endeavor
who would kill for the chance.

“Will this help you build weapons that we might acquire?”

She started an automatic reply. Stopped. Against all reason, “no” would be exactly the wrong answer.

“It is possible, Prookt Commander. Will you instruct Soldiers to cooperate with not-Soldiers in arranging these observations?”

“Certainly, guest.”

“Also I would like to greet—” They were giving her commanders, she would take commanders, Holy Men could wait. “I would like to greet Kwoort Commander. I would like to speak of the not-Soldier female he once knew.”

She felt that Prookt Commander was mildly puzzled. But he said, “I will so inform him, guest, if he returns.”

(What is that “if
”
—no time, come back to it later.)

“I note your intention, host. I will leave now,” she added, perceiving that her immediate departure was expected. Prookt Commander had covered everything he thought necessary.

“Very well,” he said. “Survive, guest.”

And she answered, knowing she did it correctly: “Survive, host.”

•   •   •

She emer
ged from the pod into
Endeavor Three
to find champagne flowing. Her team closed around her—to keep a crowd of true-humans from swinging her onto their shoulders and carrying her around. If they did and Metra saw them they would be sorry.

“Conference,” she said, and the team escaped.

Sinking into a familiar chair, suddenly exhausted, she admitted to herself:
Not bad for a First Contact.

At her side the ghost said:
we've seen worse