Luna Marine (24 page)

“Screw you, Monty,” General Turner, the Army chief of staff, said pleasantly.

“However,” Warhurst continued, “I'm told we can have two LSCPs fueled and ready by 25 August. Eight days to target, at that point. We could be on 2034L by 2 September. That would, incidentally, allow time for a backup mission to be readied, just in case the first mission had to be scrubbed or met with defeat.”

“I thought the Marines never admitted defeat, General,” Severin said, grinning.

It might have been meant as a joke or jibe. Warhurst responded seriously. “Those of us planning the broad strategy always consider that possibility, Mr. Secretary. Always. To do less would be criminal negligence.”

“One last question, General Warhurst,” Harrel said. “You mentioned the possibility of combat. Of having to clear the asteroid and the vicinity of enemy forces.”

“According to our intelligence, sir, the French warship
Sagittaire
is tucked in next to the asteroid. We suspect that she's there to protect the UN investment, so to speak. If missiles are fired, if troops are deployed to stop their toy, they have people on-station with whom they can counter our move. They may also be in place to provide last-minute course adjustments, right up to the last moment.”

“A suicide mission?” Severin asked.

“No, sir,” Warhurst replied.

“In other words, they're expecting 1-SAG. They'd be ready for them.”

“Sir, in every opposed amphibious operation in the Corps' history, the enemy knew we were coming. What they won't be expecting is the ferocity of the assault.”

“Maybe,” Harrel said. “Maybe. But that ferocity isn't going to do us a damned bit of good if they laser your LSCPs out of the sky before you can deploy.”

“If you'll read the full briefing, sir, you'll see that we have anticipated that. An initial strike with low-yield nuclear weapons will blind the
Sagittaire
's sensors, and convince the enemy that we are trying to use missiles to destroy or deflect the asteroid.” He glanced around the table. “So…if there are no further questions, that concludes my report.”

“I have a question, General,” Grace Sidney said, raising her hand.

“General?”

“Your plan seems awfully…complicated. And risky. You could lose a lot of men out there.”

“There's always that risk. If we don't try, we know we'll lose a lot more here on Earth.”

“Is there a threat to Earth from radiation?”

“Negligible. The hot debris would largely be scattered on the solar wind. And we'll still be intercepting the asteroid outside the Moon's orbit.”

“Well,” Harrel said, folding his hands. “Two alternatives to put on the president's desk. That's two more than we had when this mess began. I will let you know of his decision.”

“Sir,” Warhurst said, “if I might suggest, we can begin implementing both the Marine and Aerospace Force alternatives, at least up to the point where we have to decide on one plan or the other in order to allocate the booster assets. It will save time.”

“Of course, of course. We may well have to rely on both plans, with one serving as backup for the other, as additional HLVs come on-line. You will be informed. Thank you, both of you, for your presentations.”

“Nice job, Monty,” Gray said later, as the crowd began breaking up. “I think we've got a good chance.”

Warhurst shot a hard look at the admiral as he folded up his PAD. “CJ, I don't care who takes the honors with this thing. It's not a
game
, and it's not about next year's budget. Frankly, her idea might be the better one.”

“Why is that?”

“If nothing else, she can launch sooner than we can, because of the snafu with the LSCPs. The farther away from Earth that we can intercept this thing, the better.”

“Do you really think a couple of missiles launched from near-Earth space can do the job better?”

Warhurst sighed. He felt tired, deflated. “Hell, if I knew that…” He ran a hand through his hair. “Admiral, I know what Marines can do, even against impossible odds. I know what having trained men on the site can mean to an op, as opposed to remotes or robots or surveillance cams. My honest-to-God, gut feeling is that it's better to handle this with
men
than with machines. And if you need men, the Marines are ready.”

“I think you're right, Monty. We'll just have to see if Markham agrees with you.”

Alexander Residence
Arlington Heights, Illinois
1615 hours CDT

“Someone is coming up the walk.”

Liana looked away from the E-room wall screen, startled.
Someone
?

The door's recognition software knew all of her friends, all of the neighbors or Church of the Divine Masters acquaintances who might come to call. Delivery people, postal servers, and police all wore small transponders in their clothing, like military IFF beacons, that identified them to smart doors.

So who was coming up the walkway that she didn't know?

Rising from the sofa, she walked to the front door.
“Display,” she said, placing a hand on the small flatscreen mounted there.

Her
!

Liana heard her door asking the visitor to leave her name and a message. She was tempted not to answer, to pretend she was out, even though the car in the port outside gave the lie to that deception.

What was Teri Sullivan doing here? Didn't she know that David had been arrested?

“Hello,” Teri's voice said over the door's messager. “This is Dr. Theresa Sullivan. I work with your husband at the Institute. Ms. Alexander? I need to talk to you.” A moment passed. “Please answer the door!”

Liana waited a moment more, trying to decide. Then, abruptly, she jerked the door open. “Excuse me,” she said, putting all of the ice she could into the words. “I didn't recognize you with your clothes on.”

The other woman closed her eyes, face reddening, but then she opened them again. “Please. May I come in? I need to talk to you.”

“I can't imagine about what.”

“About David.”

“The door didn't recognize you,” Liana said. She felt angry, and hurt. What was this woman doing here? What was she
thinking
? “I would have thought David would have keyed it for you. Didn't he bring you here for a fast screw on nights when I was out?”

“No, Ms. Alexander. Never.” She drew a deep breath. “Look…it's true. I have slept with David. And obviously you've seen some of my v-mail to him. I'm…I'm terribly sorry if I've offended you.”

“
Offended
me! You bitch! You were trying to take my husband!”

“Ms. Alexander,” Teri said softly, “I'm afraid you lost him long before I came on the scene.”

Liana trembled on the brink of losing her last shreds of control.
She's right, damn her. Maybe there really isn't any hope for us
. With difficulty, she drew back, took a couple of breaths, and managed to put the ice back in her words. “David is not here. I can't imagine what you and
I could possibly have to talk about. Good-bye.”

“No!” As Liana started to close the door, Teri barged forward, blocking it with her leg. “No, you don't understand! I need your help to get him out of prison!”

That stopped her. “What are you talking about?”

“Look…last week I was talking to David's lawyer. She says they're not letting anyone in to see him. She's right. I've been trying.”

Liana nodded. “They told me he was in transit, whatever that means. And they're not returning my v-calls and messages anymore.”

“Same here. I…I've been thinking about this all week. Trying to, well, trying to work up my nerve to come here and talk to you. His lawyer said that we might be able to rally some support from people David knows.”

“What, all those archeologists and scientists and things?” She shook her head. “I don't know any of them.”

“I do…what I was wondering was if we could go through his correspondents' list on your home computer. There might be others on the list who could help. Or people who know people. If you let me copy that list, I could send out a letter, asking for help. Or…you could do it from here, but I'm afraid your home connection might be monitored. I have a system that will get the messages out, no matter what.”

Liana drew herself up taller. “Maybe you don't understand, Dr. Sullivan. David's and my marriage, well…maybe you're right. Maybe it's all over. So why should I want to help him? Or you, for that matter?”

“Because it's the right thing to do? Because the damned government is trying to pull a disappearing act with one of its citizens, and can't be allowed to get away with that shit? Maybe because, even if your marriage is over, you two still loved each other once, cared for each other, and wanted what was best?” When Liana didn't answer, she added, “Look, I know you want to strangle me, and maybe him, too, but there's time for that later. The bastards are magleving David, and we've got to do something about it!”

Liana stared at the woman for a long several seconds, then finally stepped back from the door. “C'mon.”

She led the way to the E-room and sat again on the sofa. Reaching out, she tapped away at the touch-screen keyboard, closing the novel she'd been watching and bringing up David's private system. She typed in the word “Sphinx,” then navigated with swift, sure strokes on the touch screen to his correspondents' list. “There you go.”

Names and v-mail addresses scrolled up the screen…perhaps a hundred of them.

“Lots of scientists,” Teri said. She pointed. “That name, Kaminski. He's a Marine. David told me once he was exchanging a lot of mail with him.”

“I'll make a copy of the list for you.”

“Thank you.”

“Don't thank me. Just take the thing and get out of here. I don't want to see either of you, ever again.” Her mother wouldn't have approved, Liana knew, but she was changing her mind about the whole question of divorce. Some things could never be forgiven, even in the light of the Divine Masters.

SATURDAY
, 5
JULY
2042

Ramsey Residence
Greensburg, Pennsylvania
1635 hours EDT

“I just can't tell you how good it is to have you back home again!” Jack's mother was very much aflutter, now that they were back on her home turf. “I simply can't believe that you're finally home!”

Jack felt uncomfortable with the attention. “Yeah, it's really great to be back. And, uh, thanks again for coming down to see me yesterday.”

“Well, I wouldn't have missed your graduation for the world!” It had been something of a surprise. She'd taken the maglev down to Beaufort and come out to Parris Island to watch his graduation ceremony, and that, Jack knew, had been truly and act of devotion above and beyond the call of duty. They didn't have that much money to begin with…and South Carolina in July was not exactly a vacation spot anymore, with its global warming-augmented temperatures, high humidity, and enthusiastic insect population.

The graduation, fittingly enough, had been held on the Fourth of July, with one hell of a spectacular fireworks display that evening for both the graduates and the families who'd come to see them. Even the fact that the evening's festivities had been cut an hour short—the rumor that a UN arsenal ship had surfaced offshore and launched a pair
of cruise missiles at Charleston proved to be false, fortunately—had failed to curb the partylike atmosphere. Jack and his mother had taken the maglev back to Pittsburgh the next morning; by early Saturday afternoon, he was home…and
that
was a concept as alien as anything Uncle David had discovered inside the labyrinthine caverns of Cydonia.

As he stood awkwardly in the E-room, still wearing his summer service “A” khakis, trying to connect with his mother and this house that seemed suddenly so strange and small, he began to realize how much he'd changed in the past three months.

At least he hadn't slipped and lapsed into profanity, yet. Back in boot camp, he'd heard dozens of stories about guys who'd gone back home on leave, sat down to a wonderful home-cooked meal with all of the family, relatives, and friends, and turned the atmosphere to ice with an accidental “This is fucking great, Ma,” or, “Hey, would you pass the fucking potatoes, please?”

Most of the vulgar language he'd heard in boot camp, in fact, had come from the other recruits. With only a very few lapses, the DIs had been almost startlingly clean and correct in their language, which he hadn't expected at all. He still chuckled, though, at one of Knox's vulgarities, the one about recruits being so low that whale shit was like shooting stars to them. The imagery was perfect, and all the funnier now that he was no longer a recruit.

In fact, if Jack had any problem with language at all, it was breaking the automatic “this recruit believes…” or “this recruit requests…” that leaped to his lips every time he opened his mouth.

The story was told at Parris Island of one recruit, many, many years ago, who'd determined to escape the unrelenting hell of boot camp by going over the hill. There was only one way off the island, and that was the Boulevard de France, across the bridge over Archer's Creek and on through the Main Gate. The recruit had worn his PT shorts and T-shirt and stolen a bicycle, and in the dark the Marine guard at the gate had assumed he was the dependent son of someone stationed at the base. “Where
are you going this time of night, son?” the guard had asked pleasantly.

The recruit, just a few meters short of freedom, had leaped off his bike, snapped to attention, and sung out, “
Sir! This recruit requests
—” The sentry had immediately restrained him and called the recruit's platoon commander.

“So, what are your plans?” his mother asked with that characteristic perkiness he thought of as a smoke screen masking darker thoughts. She plopped down into the big lounge chair and picked up some crewel work. “Come on, sit down! Sit down! Tell me your plans! I mean, you said you had two weeks' vacation, but then where will you be going after that? Have you decided what you're going to do?”

“‘Leave,' Mom,” he said, taking a seat at the very edge of a straight-backed chair. It was going to take him a while, he knew, to break himself of always sitting or standing at attention. “Two weeks leave. And the Corps is going to be making my plans for the next few years.”

“Well, yes…to be sure, but you get to tell them what you want, don't you? I know you always talked about Space Camp—”

“Space training, Mom. And, well, I don't think that's going to happen. At least, not right away.”

“But you said your recruiter promised—”

Jack chuckled. The reality no longer burned the way it had once. “Mom, I'm a Marine. I go where the Corps needs me. There are half a million of us in the Corps, and only a few thousand ever get to go to space.” He shrugged, completely comfortable now with the knowledge. “Maybe, someday. If I qualify.” He brightened. “In the meantime, though, this rec—I mean, I have to go through the next phase of my training.”

“But…wasn't boot camp it? Your training, I mean.”

“Training never stops in the Corps, Mom. Boot camp was where they made me a Marine, yeah, but I still have one month of combat training. I mean, I've learned the basics, how to take care of my rifle, how to shoot, stuff like that. But now I have to learn small-unit tactics. Get
to crawl through the boonies with my buddies, playing war games. And after that, well, it looks like I'm shipping out as a replacement for the 5th MarDiv. And that means Siberia.”

He'd been hoping to put off discussing that particular bit of news. He found, to his considerable surprise, that he didn't mind it at all himself. Oh, there was some apprehension, of course, even outright fear, but nothing he faced in Vladivostok would be as terrifying as those first few days in Company 4239. He could handle it.

But his mother, he realized, didn't have the advantages of his training. She was still a
civilian
, and she thought in civilian terms.

“Siberia! Why in God's name would they send you to
Siberia
!”

He shrugged. “Fifth MarDiv has a commitment to help the Russians, Mom. They've been holding the Amur Line now for two years, ever since the Japanese changed sides, keeping the Chinese out. You know, if it hadn't been for Colonel Westlake's defense of Hill 229, outside of Ussuriysk, the Chinese would've broken through and taken Vlad last April! In one week, 515 Marines held off at least eleven human-wave assaults by elements of the 103rd and 140th People's Armies! General Warhurst said it was the most gallant stand by the Corps since Khe Sanh. He said—”

Jack stopped, aware that his mother was staring at him with an unhappy mix of horror and incomprehension in her eyes. At that moment, Jack realized how much he'd changed…and how different, no, how
distant
he was now from her.

“I, uh, anyway, I'll be shipping out by the end of August,” he said, the words feeling lame. “They've been doing six-month rotations, there, so I should be back by the end of February.”

“You…you'll be sure to pack lots of warm clothes,” his mother said. She looked down at her crewelwork, hands busy. “It's awfully cold in Siberia, I hear….”

He saw no point in explaining that parts of Siberia was as hot in the summer as South Carolina, that, strictly
speaking, he wouldn't even be in Siberia, but in a region designated as the Russian Far Eastern Maritime Territory.

Or that the Corps was cycling people through on six-month rotations because the war over there was such a hellish meat grinder.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” his mother said abruptly, in what was clearly a deliberate change of subject. “You probably haven't heard about your Uncle David.”

“Uncle David? What about him?” Jack had been missing his occasional e-mail exchanges with his uncle…not to mention the steady updates on new aliens from the Cave of Wonders.

“He was arrested! Tossed into jail like a, well, like a criminal! Your Aunt Liana was really upset about it. She seems to think it was her fault, but
I
know better. He got in trouble with the government, talking to spies and UN agents! You know he had all those foreigners he liked to talk with. It looks like he was still talking to them, even though a lot of them were
spies
….”

“Uncle David? I don't believe it!”

“Oh, it's true. And Liana says she doesn't think they're ever going to let him out!”

It didn't seem possible. They didn't lock people up for no reason in the United States…at least, not in the United States he'd sworn to defend three months before. What the hell was going on?

“I, uh, gotta use the head, Mom.”

“The what?”

“The bathroom.”

“Why didn't you say so? I wish you wouldn't use that slang. It's
so
hard to know what you're talking about!”

He left quickly, to escape the look in her eyes. He could tell she was really worried about Siberia.

Upstairs, after a
pro forma
use of the lavatory, he walked into his room, astonished—as he'd been a few hours ago when he'd brought his seabag in and stowed his gear—at how tiny the place seemed. How cluttered. He did still like the Marine posters, though. Especially the one with Uncle David's photo, with the space-suited Marines raising the flag against a pink-orange sky at Cydonia. God!
How could they throw him in jail? The man was an honorary Marine, for Pete's sake, a gesture not extended to many who'd not been through the hell at Parris Island. It had to be some kind of mistake.

Sitting down at his desk, he flicked on his computer, opening up his personal system. A few moments later, Sam smiled her warm and sexy smile at him from the screen. “Hello, Jack! I haven't seen you in simply…
ages
!”

“Uh…hi, Sam!” His agent had caught him by surprise. It wasn't that he'd forgotten about her, but he hadn't really had the time or the energy in boot camp to fantasize much about her, and he'd somehow gotten out of the habit. She was conservatively dressed this afternoon, in white slacks and a pullover shirt, as she lounged on her poolside patio.

“You have 227 messages waiting for you, Jack. Shall I get them for you?”

“Uh, no. Not right now.”

“I've also collected 793 articles that I think you'll be interested in seeing, articles about space exploration, about aliens, with special attention for the aliens being cataloged at the Cydonian archeological site, and about the US Marine Corps. Shall I retrieve them for you?”

“Not right now, Sam.” It seemed he had some catching up to do. “Maybe later.”

“I was wondering if you would
ever
get back!” In one smooth, languid motion, she peeled her shirt off over her blond head. Her breasts bounced entrancingly as she tossed it aside. Smiling, she reached for the elastic waist-band of her slacks. “I was getting
so
lonely!”

“Uh…hold on a moment, there, Sam. Don't get undressed.”

“Are you sure?” Her eyes twinkled at him from the screen. “It's
awfully
hot today. And
I'm
awfully hot, too….”

“I know you are. But, well, I don't have the time right now.” He paused, thinking fast. “Tell me something, Sam. Could I download you to an MD? You know, to install you on another system?”

“Of course, Jack. The microdisk would have to be able to load 2.7 terb if you wanted to capture my full range of behavior, speech patterns…as well as the personality of that
other
Sam you have stored in here with me. What other system were you thinking of?”

“My PAD, actually. A military model. I was thinking it might be kind of nice to have you with me where I'm going.”

“Ooh, that would be
nice
, Jack. You know, if you have the standard adapters, you could jack your PAD into this system, and download me directly. Or you could use your Earthnet connection to download me through your PAD's modem.”

“Well, I don't have the PAD yet.” The limited model he'd been issued in boot camp had been strictly for basic training, and he'd had to turn it back in on Thursday. “I'll be having a new one issued to me when I go back. I could load you onto it then.”

It was an intriguing thought. He would have to pare back a lot of the extras to get her to fit. Her backgrounds—the pool, her bedroom—those could be replaced by a single, simple, colored backdrop, with no detail. And her clothing. Limit her to one costume—the tight white slacks were nice—and that would save a lot of space. He could eliminate clothing entirely, of course, but he had a feeling that that would be boring after a while.

How much of Sam's personality could he save, though? Not that he had a
personal
relationship with his AI—masturbation was about as lonely and impersonal as things could get—but he had missed Sam while he was at boot camp. At his next duty station, he would have more privacy than there'd been in the recruit barracks. Best of all, he was thinking that he might be able to share Sam with some of his buddies. He was proud of the modifications he'd hacked into the original commercial AI package; Sam was so bright and responsive that it often seemed like she had a mind of her own, that she was genuinely self-aware. And that, of course, was the point.

Besides, he'd seen what military-issue AIs could do, especially with things like writing and debugging quick
field programs, and he was not impressed. In boot camp, he'd not been allowed to question the way things were done—as Gunny Knox always said, there were three ways of doing things, the right way, the wrong way, and the Marine way, and so far as the recruits had been concerned, there was
only
the Marine way.