Crucible

“Ah, the fair Alexandra approaches. Are the dogs of war howling in our ears?”

  “No. What are you doing here, Duncan? I hear there’s a brisk trade in evac posts.” She knew she was being rude; his jocularity angered her.

  “This is my assigned post and I made no effort to trade it, you enchanting shrew. Although as the bard tells us, ’There’s small choice in rotten apples.’”

  She had no time to ponder the unknown in Duncan’s character that led him to keep a duty both dangerous and tedious. “I want to talk to Jake, alone.”

  “Your wish is my command.” He ambled off, readerscreen in hand.

  Alex sat in the vacated wheelchair and shook Jake’s shoulder. “Jake, wake up. It’s Alex.”

  The old man woke instantly, staring wildly for a moment and then clearly remembering where he was. “Has it started?” His voice was thick and a little slurred, but there was no mistaking the inteligence in his eyes. He was still Jake.

  “No. The Fur ship is just sitting in high orbit. Listen, I need you to think about something, dear, and it’s important. The Fur ship happened to make orbit near one of our orbital probes. It gave us a clear picture. But when it got too close, the ship fired on it, not a laser or alpha beam or anything else we recognized. It seemed to be a sort of beam of… of glitter, a lot of little things that spread outward fast.

  “And it didn’t destroy on contact. The probe flew into the cloud and continued to send for another twelve seconds before the signal was lost. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the probe wasn’t destroyed but just the signal made to cease. We don’t know. Anyway, you’re the only one left alive from that first trip off-planet with the Furs. Do you know what that glittery beam is? Did you see anything like that, thirty-nine years ago?”

  “No,” Jake said. Alex wiped a thread of drool from his mouth. “But wait… George Fox said …”

  “The biologist? That’s right, he was with you. I remember meeting him when I was young.”

  “He died twenty years ago. Was the glittery cloud in full sunlight? Not occluded by Greentrees?”

  “Not occluded.”

  “The Furs who captured us,” Jake said slowly, “told us that we humans were supposed to destroy some sort of shield around a Vine planet. We never got that far, of course. But Beta Vine drew us a picture once and George thought it might be the shield. It showed a huge cloud of tiny dots completely surrounding the planet, with a space elevator that George thought might launch them. He theorized that the dots were spores or some microbe analogue—the Vines weren’t DNA-based, remember, and they were master biochemists, to say the least. George thought the microbe-things might be the shield. That they might eat metal or something like that.”

  “But… that would make the ship up there a Vine ship, not a Fur one! Didn’t you say that the Vines used captured Fur ships, not the other way around?”

  “That’s right. The Furs developed physics-based technology, the Vines developed biochemical tech.” Jake laid a shaky hand on her arm. “But, Alex, remember that all this was decades ago by Greentrees time. With their McAndrew Drive ships, it’s possible the whole situation up there has changed and Furs now recapture their own Vine-modified ships. Those could be Furs in orbit right now.”

  Alex nodded. She could see how the long speech had tired him, “All right. Thank you, Jake. I’ll comlink Julian.”

  “Wait… a minute.”

  “What is it, dear? Do you need something?”

  “It could not be Furs, too. It could be Vines. Don’t let Julian … we already destroyed their innocent people once and they tried to help us anyway… Karim and Lucy… infection … don’t let Julian …”

  The easy tears of the old filled his eyes. Alex wiped them away, both moved and irritated. Too many tears today.

  “If they’re Vines, Julian won’t hurt them. I’ve told him the whole Greentrees history.”

  “Good. Where are Lucy and Karim? Karim and my Lucy … if they succeeded in infecting the Furs … if… I don’t know…”

  “Just rest now, Jake.”

  “No rest. One more thing—”

  She was impatient to go outside the cave and comlink Julian, but he said gently, “What, dear?”

  “Get that idiot Duncan Martin away from me.”

  Alex sighed. Some things not even war changed.

  16

  SPACE

  Karim dozed, and woke, and dozed again. Time had ceased to matter. There was only the endless slow descent in the membrane that encased them like eggs in an alien womb.

  At first he and Lucy had been terrified, then excited. They’d tried to understand what was happening to them.

  “The bubble’s alive,” Karim said. “A thick sheet of some living molecules, maybe with clear hard carapaces joined together on one side, the outside of the bubble. Keeping the air in.” Neither he nor Lucy wore their Vine-made helmets. The helmets must have be stripped from them while they were unconscious. Without it, Karim’s head felt new and deliciously light.

  Lucy said, “But if the bubble is alive, what’s it eating?”

  “Sunlight. And my guess is that sunlight is also powering the descent. We’re not falling, Lucy. We’re descending to Greentrees; slow, controlled rate. I think the molecules in the bubble are creating and emitting gases that propel us downward. As we move through thicker atmosphere, the side of the bubble toward Greentrees will give off tiny jets of gases to prevent free fall. We’ll just float down.”

  “So we’re really going home.”

  “Yes.” He took her hand. Those small, fragile bones. Both of them were naked.

  “But, Karim, why not just send us down in a shuttle?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not go down with us in the shuttle, if the Vines really want those death flowers so much?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  They fell silent, encased in their living bubble, watching the planet turn below them. Impossibly beautiful, impossibly alive. Home.

  That had been a while ago. Impossible to tell how long, because Karim didn’t know if complete revolutions of the planet had occurred while he slept. He could only judge time by his stomach, which growled incessantly He was ravenous.

  “ It isn’t like the Vines to not provide us with food or water,” Lucy kid. “Usually they… well, you know. They took good physical care us.”

  “Yes,” Karim said. He, too, felt shame at his previous hatred of the Vines on their own planet. “But I’m not thirsty, are you?”

  “No. Just hungry.”

  “They must be keeping us hydrated somehow, Lucy. And no food argues that the trip won’t be longer than we can stand without eating.”

  “I suppose so,” she said halfheartedly.

  Karim slept again, and when he woke the bubble was drifting through cloud. He could see nothing. “We’re in the atmosphere, Lucy.” But she was still sleeping. The molecules of the bubble must be generating heat to keep them warm, as well as everything else it was doing. But why? Why not a shuttle?

  Maybe he and Lucy were scouts. After all, it might have been decades since they’d left Greentrees. For all Karim or the Vines knew, Fus might have returned to Greentrees. They might have killed or enslaved all of Mira City. But if Karim and Lucy were scouts, how would the Vines upstairs find out what they reported? Was the bubble going to ascend again?

  Maybe. And he, Lucy, and the bubble were all living things. No metal for probes to pick up, no speed to alert detection devices. They were coming in “under the radar,” as people used to say when Karim had been at school in London, UAF, another lifetime ago.

  Two lifetimes ago.

  He watched the featureless filaments of cloud slide past. Where would he and Lucy come down? The Vines who’d sent them must realize that they couldn’t survive long naked in the vast Greentrees wilderness. Humanity occupied only a tiny fraction of the planet. Surely the Vines would send their human scouts, if that’s what they were, to somewhere inhabited. M
ira City, most probably.

  But what would he and Lucy find once they arrived there?

  17 BUNKER THREE

  The Fur ship—if it was a Fur ship—upstairs continued to do nothing. Alex comlinked with Julian and told him what Jake had said about the glittering “spore” weapon possibly being able to destroy metal. Then she climbed back into the rover. Her Terran bodyguard asked no questions. She had the vague impression that this was part of Julian’s training. The soldier did not even offer his name.

  “We’re going on to Bunker Three,” she told the man. That was her designated end point for as long as the Fur ship—if it was a Fur ship—stayed in orbit. She’d have complete displays there and, thank heavens, a Threadmore. The skimpy wrap annoyed her more and more. Duncan’s Macbeth seemed to have been played in a distant past.

  Two young soldiers dead on the ground, with bow-driven lances In their hearts. Mary Pesci’s sister sobbing, weapon in hand.

  She had almost reached the bunker when Ashraf comlinked.

  “Alex. Hope of Heaven is burning.”

  “Hope of Heaven?” But it was Mira that had been fired, by dissidents. “What do you mean?”

  “A … a mob came to Hope of Heaven. I believe they’re led by relatives of those two dead kids. The Pescis and Shanabs are both large and successful families, you know. The mob is burning buildings and some of the wilder and angrier young men are beating people up.”

  Alex said sharply, “How do you know this? I have my MiraNet programming set to automatically flag and comlink me with any postings of violence on Greentrees!”

  “MiraNet is down. I only know what’s happening because one of my nephews is a soldier with Julian. He comlinked me.”

  “Why didn’t Julian—”

  “He’s busy putting the mob down, ending the violence with his own soldiers. My nephew got wounded and so he could coomlink me direct. He says Julian is— ” Alex heard Ashraf reach for careful repetition “—’directing a successful operation, with a minimum force and a maximum of persuasive strategies.’ Nobody’s be killed that my nephew knew about.”

  Alex said, “What did you mean ’MiraNet is down’?” The computer system is still working, I just got a report from Savannah at the solar array.”

  “I mean Julian took down the news part of the system. He says it was spreading untrue and inflammatory rumors. So his tech blocked it temporarily.”

  “Did you authorize that?”

  “I didn’t have to. Julian’s using his military-law powers.” Ashraf, Alex thought, didn’t sound at all dismayed by this. In fact, she detected a small note of relief.

  “Alex, do you think I should go to Hope of Heaven? I am mayor.”

  “No. I think you should stay where you are and let Julian handle it. He knows how.”

  “All right.” Now the relief was more than a trace. “Good-bye.”

  Everything major at Bunker Three was calm, proceeding as planned. Natalie Bernstein, backed by Ben Stoller, worked efficiently at the display console. Natalie had already set up a duty rotation and Ben had replenished the water supply and checked the external sensors. Alex’s Terran bodyguard, saying only, “I stay outside,” vanished into the forest.

  Now all anybody on Greentrees had to do was wait.

  Three days passed. Mira City remained empty except for Guy’s security force and that segment of humanity that insisted on ignoring reality. These holdouts went quietly about the abandoned city, causing minimal problems. Security stopped two instances of petty looting. Someone forced the door on a grocery, took several items, and left money along with a list of his purchases. Someone was arrested for kindling a bonfire in the park. Someone with a retina authorization, who nonetheless was not supposed to be in the city, fed the animals at the genetic labs.

  At the end points, too, only expected difficulties occurred. A pregnant Arab women gave birth, her doctor in attendance. A very old woman in Jake’s cave finally died. Two teenage boys got into a fight and one’s arm was broken. Someone broke into the food supply at End Point Thirty-two and ate more than his share of rations.

  The groups that had elected to travel moved steadily away from Mira City, losing themselves in the wilderness but staying in comlink touch. Young and fit, these groups were moving faster than expected, living partly off the rich land. Mostly they moved north, into the mountains and away from the subcontinent legally belonging to the Cheyenne. Their reports sounded almost exhilarated.

  Julian had managed to put down the mob at Hope of Heaven with, astonishingly, no loss of life. The rest of the dissidents in the settlement, however, were bitter about the attack. Most of them packed up and they, too, took off into the wilderness. Julian made no effort to stop them. They were for the most part young, strong, and since Wong Yat-Shing’s escape with Nan Frayne’s wild Furs, leaderless. Julian tracked them from orbit and told Alex and Ashraf that he didn’t believe they represented any further threat to Mira.

  In short, Alex thought wryly, humanity was carrying on in all its varied angers, loves, temperaments, and contradictions. The only difference was that 99 percent of Greenies were now doing these things outside of Mira, while an alien ship orbited silently overhead. A ship that might be Fur or might be Vine, and that seemed to have no interest in communicating with the planet it had presumably traveled many light-years to reach.

  Two more days passed. Still nothing happened. Natalie organized threehanded card games. Alex played a few hands and then excused herself. Cards couldn’t soothe her anxious restlessness. The Terran bodyguard—who, she finally learned, was named Captain Lewis—checked in at the bunker twice a day, impassive as rock.

  People began to drift back into Mira, despite Julian’s directives to stay out. They were tired of camping out, tired of washing in streams or not at all, and no war had materialized after all.

  “It’s a good Fur tactic,” he told Alex grimly on comlink. “Lull us into a belief there’s no real danger. People can’t stay hyperalert forever.”

  “Maybe there is no danger,” Alex said. “Those could be Vines up there, not Furs. Jake said—”

  “I know what Jake said. But he also warned that Furs could have captured Vine weapons, or that glitter beam might not have even been a weapon, or Dr. Fox’s theory could have been completely wrong.”

  “Yes,” Alex admitted. “Julian—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You miss me,” he said, his tone softening, “and I miss you. Very much, Alex.”

  It wasn’t like him to be so open. A glow of pleasure warmed her. He didn’t say anything more—she hadn’t expected him to—but the glow lingered a long time afterward, and that night on her bunker pallet she dreamed of his hard, beautiful body on top of hers. The dream was so vivid that, to her embarrassment, she woke with her hand between her legs. Her orgasm was so powerful her entire body bucked. Ben, at the monotonous displays, either didn’t notice or pretended not to. Natalie snored softly.

  War, Julian had told her once, sharpened the appetites. Apparently it was true even when the only fighting was intrahuman, not with the enemy. The thought disquieted her, and she slept no more that night.

  The next day, Julian comlinked her and Ashraf on their secure channel. “They’ve launched a shuttle.”

  Alex had been outside her bunker, clearing rocks to stave off boredom. “When?”

  “Ninety seconds ago. Present trajectory indicates possible landing site fifty miles southeast of Mira, in the Avery Mountains. Alex, alert Guy to clear Mira of as many returnees as he can, and get any dropped shields back up on infrastructure facilities. Ashraf, I’m giving you an open channel to all sector captains to explain the situaition. Emphasize that this is not a drill.” He clicked off.

  Alex raced back inside, barking information at her techs. For the next half hour she worked frantically. Her displays, enslaved to Julian’s, let her follow the shuttle’s progress. A small black dot on the graphics, it moved steadily toward Greentree
s.

  Who was in it? Why was it landing there? The Avery Mountains held nothing except research stations.

  Something teased her mind. Oh, yes, Jon McBain and his buried anaerobic microbes. She had heard nothing from McBain in months, not since Julian had replaced him, to his obvious relief, as defense minister. Either McBain’s research on both anaerobes and the microbiotic battery had fizzled, or Alex’s cold reception of the former had discouraged Jon from copying her in on his reports. He had never requested further resource allocation.

  Why land there?

  Why not? This group of aliens, Fur or Vine, would be new to Greentrees. They might want to confront a small group of humans before facing the planet’s largest aggregation of them.

  Alex’s silent Terran bodyguard had slipped back into the bunker. Julian’s tech was giving oral readings every thirty seconds. They were on audio in the bunker as a whole, while the secure channel remained in Alex’s ear. “Trajectory unchanged, shuttle at X minus thirty.”

  “Continue monitoring,” Julian said.

  “Trajectory unchanged, shuttle at X minus thirty.”

  In her ear Ashraf said, “Alex, who do you think they are?”

  “I don’t know.” Even she knew this was no time for speculation.

  “Trajectory unchanged, shuttle at X minus twenty.”

  The small black dot had moved well into the atmosphere.

  And then Julian’s calm voice, “Germanicus One, positions. Quintus One, begin run.”

  Positions? Run what?

  And who were Germanicus and Quintus? Nothing else appeared on her graphic display.

  “Julian, what’s happening? Julian?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Natalie suddenly swore, an unexpected burst of Terran profanity. “There’s a block program in effect… wait, I just learned abou this, my old teacher showed me how to … what the … there!”

  Ben gasped.

  Another graphic appeared on the display from behind Greentrees, moving with incredible speed toward the shuttle. The dot was a purple smear: a McAndrew Drive at full acceleration.

  The Beta Vine.

  Julian’s voice, still completely calm, “Germanicus One, fire EMP.”