Battleground (24 page)

“Not particularly,” said Hanna, whose short foray into the subject had been prompted by motherhood. She had learned, for example, that Mickey had not inherited his father's gift for music, though language—multiple languages, if he were exposed to them—would probably come easily to him.

“Surprising—since your people resulted from experiments gone wrong.”

“I would hardly say they ‘went wrong,'” Hanna said. “What have you learned about their genetics?”

“Oh, very little so far,” Cinnamon said. “There hasn't been time so far. There's just the boring anatomy. And they don't know anything about their own genetics. We're starting from scratch.”

“What do you mean, they don't know much?”

“I said, not
anything.
They haven't even done the most basic, any-child-can-do-it Mendelian experiments.”

Hanna shook her head. “Of course they have. You know about the underground agriculture? Those crops have to be hybrids from nature.”

“I doubt they're doing any hybridization now,” Cinnamon said. “Not if their research is on a level with public health science. Because they don't have any of that. They don't know the first thing about viruses—and they've got plenty. Someday,” she said, smiling at Hanna with her rosy mouth, “you're going to walk into an alien environment and find yourself the perfect host for some organism Earth never dreamed up.”

“I did,” Hanna said, “but the one that almost killed me was a mutation from a Terrestrial virus. It was Plague. What did you join this mission for, if you weren't willing to take some chances?”

“Curiosity, what else?” said Sweetie, as if she should have guessed.

“And the opportunity, when it's over and we've got time and our pay, to see the real Moon,” Cinnamon said.

All three of them looked at the pseudo-windows, where the moon was nearly all the way up. Hanna looked at it closely.

“That's not Colony One's moon,” she said. “That's Earth's.”

“Yesss,” said Pix. “The real Moon.”

Hanna pulled herself back to the subject. “Does that seem odd to you?” she said. “I mean, does such ignorance seem compatible with the complex society they have?”

“It's not complex,” said Sweetie.

“What do you mean?”

“Where do you see complexity? They are born, they mate, they fight, they die.”

“They have a religion.”

“They reproduce,” Sweet said indifferently. “Any amoeba can reproduce. I will bet you—say, a freighter of sweet fish—”

“What?” Hanna said.

“—against, oh, whatever you would like—what would you like?”

“Freedom,” Hanna said.

“You, too?” He looked at the forest again. “Is that characteristic of the products of the old experiments, I wonder? Only a hypothesis.”

“The old—?” He had lost Hanna. “What are we betting on?” she said. “I don't think I could lay my hands on a freighter of fish. But if I could bet, what would I be betting on?”

“That the religion is not complex. Of course I don't know anything about it, but what I've heard suggests that it is as boring as their anatomy.”

Hanna considered this. “I've assumed it has a complexity we haven't yet penetrated,” she said.

“Human thinking,” Sweetie said.

“Damn,” Hanna said. She, of all people, should not have to be reminded of that pitfall.

“That would not be in your reports,” she said. “What else have you left out? What did you imagine? What did you fear?”

“We fear the viruses,” said Cinnamon indistinctly; she was licking her fingers vigorously. The dishes in front of her were empty.

“We did atmospheric sampling before I went to the surface the first time. The organic molecules we found were incompatible with anything in the human body. You
are
human, aren't you?” she added, suddenly not too certain of it.

“Our DNA is indisputably human,” Sweetie said, “just as yours is. Cinnamon speaks for herself. I think it's not so much fear as horror of the emptiness the epidemics have left. Because there must have been epidemics, there must have been plagues. They are crowded together, they would not even know what caused them, and they are used to death. I think it likely the crèches we talk about are built on the bones of earlier ones, layers on layers of bones. But they deny it. They do not intend deceit, I think; they only do not remember. And there are no records. The disease we called Plague was finally contained and vaccines developed because centuries of research came before. That does not happen here. Civilization crashes and burns, they start all over, repopulate, breed and breed,
that
they remember, that they must breed—and they must breed, make no mistake. The common cycle of estrus is confined in Earthly mammals to females. Not here. We cannot see how they ever developed a civilization at all. Unless they had help. And we think that they did.”

It seemed preposterous. Hanna frowned.

Cinnamon said, “Sweetie is correct. Do you wish to see the tissue samples we brought back? There is evidence of genetic tampering at a high level of sophistication, many generations ago. I do not know if you would call it help.”

“Tampering by whom?”

“Who knows? I would look for traces, if I were you. I would bring archaeologists, now or later.” Cinnamon smiled. “You have added a preacher to your team, why not an archaeologist?”

“Gabriel's not exactly—”

Sweetie broke in: “I would ask myself, I would ask the—preacher—I would ask an archaeologist too: What kind of intelligence finds it necessary to create thinking creatures like those of this world? Why were they created? We know why the experiments were done to create telepaths. You were meant to be spies. We are not so sure about those that made our ancestors. But here,” said Sweetie, with a smile that showed sharp teeth, “we are.”

Hanna might have asked another question, but Cinnamon said placidly, “I am ready to nap now.” The great green eyes were half closed.

“I, too,” Sweetie said. He pushed away his own empty dishes, and stood and stretched. It was a full-body stretch, languorous and fluid. He was admirably muscled. “Pix?” he said.

“There iss some food left,” she said, eyeing other bowls, scarcely touched. “I will sssave it for later.”

“But not much later, knowing you,” Sweetie said.

Hanna, going out, had the distinct feeling that Sweet and Pix weren't going anywhere; that all three of them would curl up on the piled cushions of Cinnamon's room, call for a deeper night, and relax at once, as if their bones were liquid, after one last look at the real Moon.

•   •   •

T
ime to study the political scientists' impressions: Hanna went back to the auditorium and found it almost deserted, all the tired telepaths except Dema gone to bed. The report she wanted floated near the ceiling, flapping. She got the image down to eye level and steadied, with some difficulty. Jewel Guzulaitis, Nyree Olabowale, and Glenna Leatherman had written:

Political science is, at its simplest, the art of government. Our sources of information prior to direct communication with the population of Battleground were:

First, visual data extracted from the planet's datastream—

Oh, thought Hanna. They use
that
kind of language—

Second, the spoken word. Reliable transmissions for periods slightly older than the visual actually were available first, but—

Her eyes began to glaze, stimulant or no stimulant.

Finally, reports from the telepathic team led by Hanna ril-Koroth (i.e., Lady Hanna's own reports). This team was not intended to be used until physical contact was made with subject population, but Lady Hanna was utilized as an adjunct when the data described above yielded fewer results than anticipated.

The report was no more readable than Pirin Zey's, but her own name got her attention. She made a face and said, “Adjunct. Huh.”

She read on. Guzulaitis, Olabowale, and Leatherman barely referred to her own reports, commenting on their subjectivity when they did. The three had accurately assigned a governing role to the Holy Man. Not surprisingly, the only governing mechanism detected had been military in structure. The commanders, it appeared, ran Rowtt.

And commanders ran Wektt, too.

I forgot about that,
Hanna thought.

She went through the rest of the report quickly. There were, of course, two sides at war; but in her own mind, all the individuals she had touched had been Soldiers of Rowtt, because that was the first name Linguistics had identified with a location. Once contact was made, she and all the others had been immersed in Rowtt, buried in it. Wektt was only “the enemy,” championed by “the Demon.” But the people who were “the enemy” had not been clearly distinguishable by anything they had broadcast; nor could Hanna, thinking back, discern any difference between the people of Rowtt and the people of Wektt, or any other place, by what she had sensed in their thoughts or seen in their surroundings.

So what the hell was Wektt? And “That Place” had never surfaced at all before Arch talked to Kwek. Who ran That Place?

H'ana?

She turned; was this the first time Dema had called for her attention?

Distracted, sorry . . .

I think the stimulant, H'ana, it's not good for us—

I needed it.

She looked around again. Even Carl and Glory were gone now. She might as well hunt up the counteragent and get some real rest.

•   •   •

She felt it working even
before she left the night-duty medic, and scarcely noticed when he pressed another vial into her hand, “in case you need it later.” Her mind began to drift before she reached her quarters, and she did not even notice that Kwek must have been put elsewhere, because the room was empty. She was moving slowly toward the bed, as if she waded through deep water, when an inner voice finally broke through.

reports are not what we do best,
it said, and she recognized the voice of the ghost.
others can correlate,
said the ghost.
computers do it even better

then what should we be doing

talking to Kwoort. reports suggest questions. he has answers. always they have the answers to their own reality, the only answers that matter

So she was done with reports; she fell onto her bed without even getting undressed.
Their reality,
she thought, sinking, going under
. Theirs.

That meant Kwoort.

C
OME IN!
said
Hanna's door
, though she did not remember telling it to say that. She woke slowly to see Gabriel looking down at her. “Kwoort wants us,” he said.

For a minute everything was blank. His pale, strained face looked familiar but nothing came to her at the sight of it, no recognition or welcoming; the words in her ears were meaningless, neutral. She thought and felt nothing except the impossibility of moving the solid weight of herself.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, and slowly she began to wake up.

“What's Kwoort . . . what time is it?” she said, the words slurred. It was hard to move her lips.

“Standard time, I don't know . . .” He moved a hand. “Evening at Rowtt. You've only been asleep a few hours.”

“I need more,” she said, remembering, knowing now that this heaviness was the accumulation of weariness the stimulant had masked.

“I told him we'd come, but . . .”

Hanna sat up: such a simple thing, and so difficult. The light garment she had been wearing for too long clung unpleasantly to her skin.

“When does he want us?” she said.

“I said we'd meet him at the same place in, umm, a Standard hour, I guess.”

Enough time to bathe, at least.

“What does he want? Why—?” The next question seemed more pressing. “Why did he talk to you instead of me?”

“He told Communications he would talk to either of us. And you were asleep.”

“And you weren't? Gabriel, did you take any stimulant?”

“No.”

“You must be exhausted.”

“And you aren't?”

“Ah, hell . . .” She put her head back against the wall. The room was almost completely dark, with only a bare glow along one wall at the floor. It reflected faintly on Gabriel's face. He was not looking at her now.

“He was calm,” Gabriel said. “He said he's bringing the Holy Man he answers to—Tlorr, was what the name sounded like. Do you know who that is?”

“Maybe.” She got her legs over the side of the bed, two separate weights of stone. Carefully smoothed the skirt over her knees, but recognized that sitting on someone's bed in the dark and talking quietly was a familiar mode for Gabriel, with no sexual connotations, and at the moment she might have been one of the children sheltered by his abbey.

I don't know this man,
she thought,
and he's worth knowing. When there's time, when we're not being driven by Kwoort—

•   •   •

Held the ampoule close to her face, fl
icked the tab, inhaled. Gabriel held the one she had handed him and watched her silently.
Thrum. . . .

She opened her eyes, sighed with satisfaction. “Better,” she said.

He turned toward the doorway that would take them to the pod. She said, “Gabriel? Aren't you going to use it?”

“No.”

“You're so tired you won't be able to walk pretty soon!”

“I'll keep it,” he said. “If there's an emergency I'll reconsider. I don't need it yet.”

He was moving slowly and wearily. She followed him into the bay and into the pod and took her place in the pilot's seat. She went smoothly through the sequence that allowed them to leave
Endeavor
;
they descended toward the planet's night side.

“Do you have some kind of religious proscription against artificial health aids?” she said, focused by the drug, unable to let it go.

“No. Not within reason. We don't use A.S., though,” he said, meaning anti-senescence techniques, and she said slowly, “I remember that. Somebody told me that once, about your abbey. I'd forgotten. Is it hard, knowing you'll die sooner than the rest of us?”

“Hard? Yes, sometimes. Sometimes brothers leave the order just because of that. But do you know the suicide statistics among people who think they've lived too long?”

“Well, no. Is it high?”

“It starts going up at around age one hundred. At a hundred and seventy-five it's ten percent.”

“And that's high?”

“Hanna, my dear—” unconscious of those two words “—that is one in ten people. Among people under age one hundred it's less than one in five hundred thousand. And there's plenty of testimony that the ninety in a hundred in the top range only go on living because they believe their family or society or God expects it of them. They wait for death as for a welcome guest.”

“Starr wouldn't, if it worked right for him,” Hanna said sadly. “He always wants to see how things turn out. Make them turn out the way he wants, preferably.”

He caught the implication, and knew it was something he was not supposed to know, but all he said was, “And you?”

She didn't answer. D'neerans did not talk to outsiders about the dark side of their unique society, where unremitting intimacy did not depend on physical proximity. In the earliest generations so many died by their own hands that it was called the Dying Time; only now, in Hanna's lifetime, were memorials going up, and remembrance ceremonies multiplied. It still occurred, though it was rare. The deaths were grieved, but they were accepted, because not everyone born a telepath could stand it for a lifetime. Hanna understood. She had fallen deep into her own well of despair after Michael's death, and all Starr Jameson's efforts might not have been enough if it had not been for Mickey. She hoped she would never have to look into that darkness again.

The pod slipped into the upper atmosphere and Gabriel reached for her hand. “Not so fast—”

“What? Why?”

“There's no reason to hurry. You're going too fast.”

“Too fast for
what
?”

“I don't know. You're going too fast.”

“I just feel like—”

“It's the stimulant. The drug. What do you think you're going to accomplish by hurrying?”

“All right!” She threw up her hands—the pod was guiding itself anyway—and gave the decelerate order. They angled into clouds.

Gabriel was still not satisfied; Hanna felt it. Responding to something sensed, she dimmed the interior lights, until only the glow of changing readouts filled the capsule. He would have liked those off too, she thought, but he said nothing, and she glanced at him to see his eyes closed, his lips moving. He was praying. She thought:
What a strange pair we are.
Her own attention, in this space of stillness and darkness, was drawn to the dark city they were coming to. The second time she had gone there it had been night, and she knew lights rarely showed aboveground. Yet ten million Soldiers lived beneath the surface, packed into the space a city of half a million humans might occupy. They took meals in common in innumerable refectories—her own perception, confirmed by others' observations—but there seemed to be time and space for solitude, if they wanted it, and no sense of resentment at the unvarying focus on work, war, and the care of offspring. She had touched the minds of Soldiers assembled for the repetitive speeches, detected no rebellion against the ascendancy of the High Commander and the Holy Man—nor any particular hatred of the Demon, whoever that was, either.

Is it, she wondered, the absence of imagination that repels me? Most thoughts seem as gray as the spaces where they live and work. How could such a species envision exploring space?

The pod made steadily for its programmed landing place, unbuffeted, so far, by high winds. Hanna supposed Kwoort would be waiting. She reached out and tried to touch him, but—
thrummm . . .
Strange.

A prickle of apprehension. She tried again.

Thrummm . . .

The apprehension edged toward fear. It was like opening your eyes on a sunny day and seeing blackness. There was no improvement on a third attempt.

She had never experienced anything like it. She could not think of any possible cause except the stimulant, this time the full dose for her body mass. It was supposed to be safe, and she had brushed off Dema's warnings. Logic assured her the effect would probably be temporary.

Only probably—

And if the effect was cumulative—

The fear grew a little more. But she tried again and this time found Kwoort. Slowly, much more slowly than she was accustomed to, her perception sharpened. Finally the gestalt and the context were clear. Kwoort was with another being, and she recognized that one too. The Holy Man.
The
Holy Man, not the deposed, crazy one.

I shall go out to meet them.
That was Kwoort, a pulse of images.
This place will be free from attack for a time.

Glimpse of another city, a seacoast.

Concentrations there, a little longer.
Kwoort again.
Then they are to extend operations to the north. But this city is nearly recovered from the last cycle. Attacks will resume here soon.

But first, the centers northward . . . ?

The wind started when they neared the surface, and she slipped away from Kwoort's thoughts and thrust the fear down. She finished the landing fast, swooping into calmer air; instruments said hard weather was coming again. That appeared to be a constant with few lulls, and she wanted to get to ground. The pod would barely notice lightning strikes, except to record them, but it was too small to ignore the resulting turbulence and the brute force of wind. Gabriel looked at her when he heard the subtle hiss of increased acceleration. “Weather,” she said succinctly.

“Gives a new meaning to the term ‘bad climate,' doesn't it?”

She said fretfully, “Does the sun never shine here?”—thinking of the glint of light on the splashing fountain at Dwar, of old trees around Jameson's home and sunlight bright on autumn leaves, or Mickey on an ocean beach, throwing handfuls of sand with abandon in the clear, precious light.

“Sometimes,” Gabriel said.

“It's always been cloudy, at least, when I've been down here, or worse than cloudy.”

They came to rest at what the instruments said was the right place, but Hanna had to cue exterior lights before they could see the blocky building a short walk away. It was closed, the steps and terrace before it empty.

“No welcome mat,” said Gabriel.

Hanna turned off the light. She didn't want the two of them silhouetted against it when they left the pod.

“We'll take lights with us,” she said. “We'd be blind without them.”

He said, “Are you all right?” He was looking at her in the glow of the instrument panels and she saw for an instant what he saw: her face taut, eyes too bright. Then the image was gone as if a shutter had closed, gone though she had not willed it to go.

“I don't know, Gabriel. I think the stimulant is a problem. But the counteragent isn't an option. We don't have any with us . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

“I don't know. I feel, oh, walled off. Maybe I should have gone into trance instead. I couldn't now, if I needed it. Maybe I made a mistake.”

“It's not too late to go back,” he said.

“Is that what you think we should do?”

They looked at each other in silence, in the dim light. Presently Gabriel said, “I think that this is the valley of the shadow of death. But I believe we're not alone.”

For once, the reference did not have to be explained to Hanna. It had crossed so many cultures and so many centuries that even she recognized it. But she said, “I think there's only you and me. I think I'm glad we're away from the heart of the city, where Kwoort could get reinforcements in a hurry, and that he's only brought one other with him. And that the com units have been programmed so a single word will get Metra's people down here. That's what I believe . . . Do you think you could kill someone? An alien?”

“I don't know. The question,” he said wryly, “does not arise in the usual course of my life.”

“You are fortunate,” Hanna said.

“Yes, I am. But does it make you think less of me?”

She found that she could not lie to him.

“It could be inconvenient. In the circumstances.”

“Then you must find an awful lot of people inconvenient.”

“No,” said Hanna. “Most of them will never have to face the choice. But most of the true-humans I know would have no hesitation if the need arose, though any D'neeran would.”

Except me.

“And maybe I would have less than I think,” said Gabriel. “To save a child, for example—I don't think I would hesitate. And I don't think it would be a sin. But what it might do to me later—that I don't know.”

After a pause Hanna said, “I have become a violent person, I think. I hate it in the abstract—but it comes easily to my mind when there has not even been an explicit threat—when I only think there might be one.”

“Does that trouble you?”

“Not much,” she said, an unpalatable truth but still truth, and she got out of her seat and they went out into the night, Hanna reflecting that they were not, in any case, armed, and wondering if that was a mistake too.

•   •   •

The
night, at ground level, was hot and still. There was thunder not far away, a low, almost subliminal rumble that did not seem to stop and that set up a vibration in the bones. They walked toward the building, pointing narrow beams of light at the ground. Outside the beams the blackness was complete and closed around them like a wall. Hanna kept looking around anyway, as if she could see something, as if some threat might come out of the dark. And she knew that she ought to be able to tell for certain if there was a threat or if there was not, but the sense she relied on always, and most of all in times of danger, was dulled.

It shouldn't be,
she thought.
The drug didn't affect telepathic perception like this, not even a few hours ago, whatever it might do to trance. But this time I had twice as much . . .