Dimly he was aware that the subofficer for piloting was screaming at him through the flames and rush of air. “I apologize to my family, sir! I did the best I…!”
His voice was stilled by whatever also took away the light…
The ringing in his head remained when consciousness returned. A mocking, sadistic providence had left him bruised and battered but otherwise alive.
Coughing and fighting for air, he slapped three times at his harness release before it let him go. Without the straps to hold him in his seat he fell to the floor. There he rested a luxurious minute before struggling to his feet.
It was impossible to see anything through the boiling smoke. Better to make his way outside, if possible, and let his vision clear. Then he could think about helping others.
Memory guided him to an exterior door. Not surprisingly, the electronics did not respond and he had to cycle the lock manually. He fell through the resultant gap, sucking in huge lungfuls of moist, uncontaminated air.
No Crigolit or Mazvec troops saw him exit. Perhaps the command craft had come down in a relatively inaccessible area. More likely the enemy was on its way and simply had not yet reached the crash site.
Staggering toward the thickest stand of trees, he nearly tripped over the smoking body of his third-in-command. The subofficer was still alive, breathing shallowly. Caldaq dug up clumps of spongy moss and massaged the soldier with the saturated vegetation. Only when the jumpsuit had stopped smoldering did Caldaq heave the subofficer onto his shoulders and start for the woods.
As he did so a voice speaking perfect Massood ordered him to halt.
The woods were dense, dark, full of possible hiding places, and oh so near. He could not balance the moaning subofficer and draw his sidearm at the same time. As he took another step something like a sharp blade cut him in the side. Looking down he saw a tiny, steaming black hole in his uniform, just beneath the fifteenth rib. There would be a matching hole in his back.
As he stumbled onward he sought to analyze the wound with perfect objectivity. What vital organs, blood vessels, or nerves lay in the vicinity of the shot, and relationally, how long was he likely to be able to keep going? The problem was no less intriguing for the feet that it was of more than theoretical concern.
The shot did have one immediate consequence, he decided. It had stolen his feet. He felt rather than saw himself falling forward, the weight on his shoulders accelerating his descent. The subofficer let out a groan as they struck the ground together.
Having taken his feet they were now trying to steal his vision, he mused as he lay motionless on the macerated earth. He did not think he was bleeding. The weapon whose effects he had experienced was one that cauterized as it penetrated. That was not necessarily a good thing. It might mean he would die slowly.
His fingers were still functioning but not in tandem with his brain. They fumbled at his sidearm, taking an unconscionable amount of time to extract it from his belt. The hard plastic handle was comforting in his palm. Unfortunately, someone had increased the density of the compact device to that of a neutron star. No matter how hard he tried he found he could not lift it higher than his waist.
Voices reached him through the rain that was beating him to death. Sharp, clicking sounds characteristic of Crigolit. There was also a less audible nasal tone. Mazvec, perhaps. If he could only raise the damnable sidearm he might yet offer one final objection to the inexorable advance of the Purpose. But he could barely feel the weapon now, much less see it.
The voices came closer. The Crigolit tended to be excitable. If he was lucky, they might shoot him despite orders to the contrary.
They began to shout. I have been seen, he thought wearily as he fought to turn the sidearm just enough to aim the tip at his chest. I deny you a pupil if not the victory. But his traitorous fingers refused to obey. He swore at them as he passed out.
For the second time that day he awoke. It was dark and the stars of Kantaria only occasionally pierced the ever present clouds. It was raining again, a damp curtain of misery that added to his discomfort, soaking him beneath his body armor.
The subofficer he had carried into the woods was supporting him.
“Praise to the Lineage,” said the soldier. “I found only the single beam wound, Honored Commander. It is good to see you alive. No, do not try to stand alone.”
Caldaq felt strong arms beneath his own as the subofficer helped him to his feet. He swayed slightly as he studied their surroundings.
They were in a narrow side canyon. A crude shelter fashioned of branches and boughs had been erected alongside an overhanging boulder. Water ran swiftly down the middle of the narrow gorge.
“When I regained consciousness, sir, you were lying next to me. At first I thought you were dead, but your heart still beat. I brought you here.”
“The others.” Caldaq wished for better night vision.
“I do not know, sir. I heard firing when I came around and I could see flashes of light off to the west. It suggests that the enemy located the retreating column. How many of our people slipped past them I cannot guess. Perhaps that was what distracted them from searching for us.”
“Some must have made it away,” Caldaq muttered tightly. His side hurt badly, a continuous burning as if a knife had been lodged beneath his ribs and forgotten.
He did not dwell on the possible severity of his injuries. Yet another scrape with death had done nothing to alter his ambivalence toward life.
The subofficer he had rescued and who had in turn saved him harbored no such uncertainties. “The battle for this valley is over, sir. When the Crigolit have satisfied themselves of that they will move on. Then we can start toward base central. We have a chance.”
“Of course we do.” Caldaq hid his own pessimism for the benefit of his companion. The trek would be arduous even for healthy Massood. Somehow they would have to cross rugged mountains and rain-swollen rivers. He wiped water from his face and damned this wretched, ungrateful world for the thousandth time.
“I still wonder how they managed to get behind us in strength, Honored Commander.”
“Perhaps an outlying detector failed.” Much easier, Caldaq thought, to blame a military disaster on a failure of equipment rather than personnel.
Through falling rain and forest ramparts he saw motion. The subofficer would not have to worry about the difficult trek back to base central.
“They are coming,” he whispered.
His service belt lay nearby, where the subofficer had placed it. He drew his sidearm and his companion did likewise. Together they waited beneath the leaking lean-to, grateful for what little concealment it offered. There was no thought of running. It would have taken all Caldaq’s strength just to stand.
Shapes loomed in the murk; larger than a Crigolit, smaller than Molitar. Mazvec, perhaps. They advanced with tense grace, rain dripping from their field armor and opaqued visors. Their electronics were muted, so he was unable to tell how heavily armed they were.
One glanced in the direction of the lean-to. Caldaq raised his weapon and tried to aim. His vision was blurred and his arm shaky.
The armored figure turned and shouted through a voice membrane, disdaining the use of a communicator. That meant its companions must be close by. Sharp and loud, the exclamation rose above the noise of the downpour. Even in his dazed condition Caldaq recognized it immediately.
“Tyro, Ephram, get your butts over here! There’s rats in the rain!”
Exhausted, Caldaq let his arm drop, sank back against the stone which formed the rear wall of the lean-to. He was unsure of the words which had been spoken but certain of their origin.
The armored figure vaulted a fallen log and bent toward the two Massood. There was a slight click as the soldier unsealed his visor and flipped it up. Caldaq squinted as bright light was played over his face.
“Glad to see you alive, Honored Commander.” The soldier spoke in cracked Massood. Under the circumstances Caldaq forgave him his atrocio
us accent. The light swung up to the subofficer, back to Caldaq. “Just the two of you, sir?”
The subofficer explained. “We employed our field HQ as a decoy. The Crigolit were pleased to oblige.”
“Yeah. The bugs love slow-moving targets.”
They were soon joined by several other figures who formed an armored semicircle in the rain opposite the lean-to. Caldaq studied their faces beneath opened visors, flat and symmetrical within the helmets.
A red-striped medic knelt alongside. In an instant she’d set her field computer to Massood mode and was diagnosing. A Hivistahm would have made faster work of it but no Hivistahm could cope emotionally with front-line conditions. Caldaq felt something prick his side and the pain began to recede. He was immensely grateful for the relief, however temporary. A portion of his strength was returned to him.
“Sorry we got here so late, sir,” said the soldier who’d found them. He was a young male, Caldaq noted, with naked pale skin and golden hair.
“The others,” he heard himself mumbling. “The rest of the column…”
“You mean your people who were trying to get out? We showed up when they were halfway down the canyon, sir. The Amplitur and the Crigolit were waiting for them.” Caldaq’s heart sank. “But they weren’t waiting for us.” In the dim light Caldaq saw the white flash of the Human’s incisors.
“We came down on ‘em like trolls out of Tyrannia, sir. Scattered them to hell and gone. Damn but it was fine!”
Caldaq sensed the excitement in the Human’s voice, knew it was the combat rush they alone among Weave fighters experienced. He could not criticize. Those racial deficiencies had saved his life, and those of who knew how many fellow Massood.
“Can you get us out of here?”
“No problem, Honored Commander. It’s our valley now.”
Caldaq heard but did not comprehend. “The Crigolit in front of us… they were dug in, they had control of all critical positions…”
“The operative tense, sir, is past. After we came down on their intended ambush we just kept on going. Rolled ‘em up like herring. Lost some good people, too,” he added darkly. “The Crigolit, they’re hard fighters, but they think instead of reacting, if you know what I mean. They never recovered from the initial surprise of our appearance.” He stared into the darkness.
“Nice rain tonight. Reminds me of home.”
The Human medic continued to work on his side, muttering as she did so. “Small-bore beam weapon.” She glanced up at him. “You were lucky, sir. A little to the left and your spine would’ve been severed.” She smiled reassuringly at him, and he wondered anew at the Human ability to feel warmth and pleasure in the most appalling conditions.
“No permanent damage, nothing that can’t be fixed,” she was saying. “Bet it hurt like hell, though. I’d go in myself but I’d rather let the Hivi surgeons back on the coast have a go. Wish I had their technique. Never will.”
“I am grateful for your ministrations,” Caldaq told her in her own language.
Behind him the subofficer stretched out a long arm. Another of the Human soldiers clasped the long Massood fingers, then slid his hand up the arm to the elbow as greetings were exchanged. As the soldiers chatted amiably the medic peered into Caldaq’s face.
“I’ve given you something to make you sleep, sir. I’d rather you didn’t try to walk. We’ll have you out of here in a few minutes. I know how uncomfortable you must be in this rain.”
Caldaq felt consciousness beginning to blur. Not from trauma this time but from the gentle chemistry of the sedative. Peace began to spread throughout his battered body, as if he were being massaged from the inside out.
A new voice, a face gazing into his. Vaguely he noted the officer’s stripes that crisscrossed the right shoulder. “What’ve we got here?” the figure asked.
“Couple of half-drowned rats, sir,” said the soldier who’d found them. “One’s a field commander.”
“Your pardon,” mumbled a fast-fading Caldaq, “but I am not certain in this context of the use of the term ‘rat.’ ”
“Nothing personal, sir,” said the officer. “It’s your faces.”
“Humans have a tendency to nickname everything and soldiers more so than civilians. I assure you it’s in no way derogatory. Quite the contrary.”
“Since I do not know what a rat is I can hardly take offense at being compared to one.” Caldaq’s nose and whiskers twitched feebly in the rain.
The officer looked up. “It was a near thing here, a near thing. When the initial reports started coming through, my unit volunteered to take a crack at breaking your people out. Now it’s the Crigolit and the Amplitur who are running for cover. My people are helping them along, picking them off in the darkness. The Crigolit don’t do so well in the rain at night, their instrumentation notwithstanding.”
He paused and leaned close. Almost asleep, Caldaq ignored the rain that dripped off the man’s upraised visor.
“Hey, don’t I know you?”
“I do not believe so,” Caldaq murmured sleepily as the sedative began to exert itself.
The Human began to whistle softly. It was a skill they were adept at. Through the haze which had enveloped his brain Caldaq thought he recognized the melody, though it had been a long time since the jarring tones had assaulted his ears.
“What do you think?” the man asked gently. “Does it sound any better now?”
“I am glad to hear,” Caldaq replied, angry at his inability to form the consonants correctly, “that you are still making your music, William Dulac.” As he drifted into a sound, restful sleep he found himself struggling with the contradictory image his friend presented in field armor. Were the Humans commissioning composers now?
* * *
Chapter Thirty
« ^
Thereafter he dreamed. He dreamed that their sled was attacked twice on the long flight back to the coast and Weave regional headquarters. He dreamed he saw Will Dulac storming among the other soldiers, raging and bellowing orders as they fought off repeated attacks. Each jolt and roar was an individual nightmare, muted only by suspension in the medical pallet. Like the eviscerated entrails of some glassine beast, transparent tubes recycled and replenished his bodily fluids as he dreamed.
In the distance and through the mist of medication he thought he heard himself speaking.
“I thought you despised all this. I thought participation in the resistance against the Amplitur was against everything you stood for. You said always that you wanted to be civilized like the other Weave races, that you wanted more than anything else to keep your people out of the war and the fighting.”
“I did. I said all that. But I couldn’t, and finally I gave up. Gave in, rather.” Will smiled that strange Human smile. “Until I did it was tearing me apart, to the point where I couldn’t work, couldn’t compose, could hardly think.”
“What happened?” asked the disembodied voice he thought he recognized as his own.
“I was asked by a S’van to compose some Human music to accompany images which had been recorded of the fighting on Vasarih. I replied that I didn’t think I could do that, but that I would try.” He paused.
“It turned out to be the easiest, least stressful composition of my life. The music came pouring out, fully orchestrated. Hardly required any revision. I sent it to my agent and it turned into a huge hit on Earth. People still hum the principal theme.”
“I kept writing in the same vein. It was easy. I ended up with a six-movement symphony, over an hour’s worth of music. There was talk of a Pulitzer, but I don’t care about that anymore.”
“I wanted to do more in the same vein, so I thought I should get out and experience what was happening and not just sit in a room watching recordings. Be true to the work, so to speak. Write about your experiences, paint what you see, compose what you feel. So I signed up. And they kept promoting me. I didn’t ask for that. I didn’t ask for any of this. But you know what? I’m good at it. When
I was a kid my grandfather used to take me hunting in the bayous. Except for the technology this isn’t as different as I thought it would be. Because the quarry’s still not Human.”
“Organizing an attack isn’t so different from organizing a symphony. You orchestrate your forces and plan your strategy. I don’t know. It just feels right. And all the internal conflicts, the uncertainties, are gone now. My body and mind may be at war, but my soul’s at peace. Maybe that’s what being Human is all about. The debate on that is unending, you know.”
“No, I did not know,” Caldaq whispered weakly.
“That’s right. You’ve been stuck on Kantaria for quite a while, haven’t you?”
“I’m not confused anymore, old friend. I’m here to fight, and to interpret this conflict musically. The two are inseparable now. I know plenty of other artists who feel the same way. More and more are coming around to that way of thinking all the time. There’s something natural about it, something easy. Maybe it’s chemical. Something happens inside the Human system in a combat situation that makes you feel more alive, more aware, than at any other time. If you’ll tell me where Jaruselka’s stationed I’ll be sure to…”
“Dead. More than a year ago.”
Will was silent for a long time. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Here, on this world,” Caldaq was murmuring. “I could not save her. I could not do anything but watch.”
It was quiet in the room for a long while before Will spoke again. “If you wouldn’t object, I’d like to compose a little memorial piece for her. I’ll utilize Massood tonalities so the result won’t make you wince.”
Humans spoke of their dead with an enthusiasm other races reserved exclusively for the living, Caldaq knew. They painted, wrote, composed music, and sculpted death. It was a morbid racial affectation no other Weave species shared. Why write about the dead when one could write about the living? Yet mankind seemed to glory in it.
Such Human peculiarities had saved his life.
The dream passed, was followed by another. Will again, talking reassuringly.