Year's Best SF 11, page 34
The Counter-brane had less mass in it and somewhat different cosmology. Here space-time was much farther along in its acceleration, heading for the Big Rip when the expansion of the Counter-universe would tear first galaxies, then stars and planets apart, pulverizing them down into atoms.
Mina turned the translator off. First things first, and even on Counter there was such a thing as privacy.
“They’ve been sending signals a long time, then,” Ben said.
“Waiting for us to catch up to the science they once had—and now have lost.” She wondered at the abyss of time this implied. “As if we could help them…”
Ben, ever the diplomat, began, “Y’know, it’s been hours…” Even on this tenth-g world she was getting tired. The Quand lolled, Lifegiver stroking their skins—which now flushed with an induced chemical radiance, harvesting the light. She took more digitals, thinking about how to guess the reaction—
“Y’know…”
“Yeah, right, let’s go.”
Outside they prepped the lander for lift-off. Monotonously, as they had done Earthside a few thousand times, they went through the checklist. Tested the external cables. Rapped the valves to get them to open. Tried the mechanicals for freeze-up—and found two legs that would not retract. It took all of Ben’s powerful heft to unjam them.
Mina lingered at the hatch and looked back, across the idyllic plain, the beach, the sea like a pink lake. She hoped the heat of launching, carried through this frigid air, would add to the suns thin rays and…and what? Maybe help these brave beings who had sent their grav-wave plea for help?
Too bad she could not transmit Wagner’s grand Liebestod to them, something to lift spirits—but even Wiseguy could only do so much.
She lingered, gazing at the chilly wealth here, held both by scientific curiosity and by a newfound affection. Then another miracle occurred, the way they do, matter-of-factly. Sections of carbon exoskeleton popped forth from the shiny skin of two nearby Quands. Jerkily, these carbon-black leaves articulated together, joined, swelled, puffed with visible effort into one great sphere.
Inside, she knew but could not say why, the two Quands were flowing together, coupling as one being. Self-merge.
For some reason, she blinked back tears. Then she made herself follow Ben inside the lander. Back to…what? Checked and rechecked, they waited for the orbital resonance time with Venture to roll around. Each lay silent, immersed in thought. The lander went ping and pop with thermal stress.
Ben punched the firing keys. The lander rose up on its roaring tail of fire. Her eyes were dry now, and their next move was clear: Back through the portal, to Earth. Tell them of this vision, a place that tells us what is to come, eventually, in our own universe.
“Goin’ home!” Ben shouted.
“Yes!” she answered. And with us and the Quand together, maybe we can find a way to save us both. To rescue life and meaning from a universe that, in the long run, would destroy itself. Cosmological suicide.
She had come to explore, and now they were going back with a task that could shape the future of two species, two branes. Quite enough, for a mere one trip through the portal, through the looking-glass. Back to a reality that could never be the same.
Oxygen Rising
R. GARCIA Y ROBERTSON
R. Garcia y Robertson, who doesn’t own a computer, lives in Mount Vernon, Washington. His recent novels include Knight Errant (2001), Lady Robyn (2003), and White Rose (2004), a series of popular historical fantasy (timeslip) Romances, to be continued; and his 2006 novel is The Firebird, a fantastic adventure set in the imaginary land of Markovy. His stories have appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s with some regularity for the last twenty years, and are characterized by their broad range of concerns, stylistic sophistication, and attention to historical detail. Garcia has tended toward time travel or historical settings both for his fantasy and SF stories. He has published nearly fifty stories. The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures (1998) collects some of his adventure and space opera SF.
“Oxygen Rising” was published in Asimov’s. This space opera novelette takes place after an act of terrorism, and along the way, as the characters travel, covers some of the same territory that Sparhawk does in his story earlier in this book, but with a lighter touch. Garcia entertains, but there’s a kind of commentary on the side that reminds us of Robert A. Heinlein’s entertaining and instructive adventures.
Hey, human, time to earn your pay!” Curled in a feline crouch, a silver comlink clipped to his furry ear, the SuperCat flashed Derek a toothy grin. Tawny fur showed through gaps in the bioconstruct’s body armor, and his oxygen bottle had a special nosepiece to accommodate the saber-tooth upper canines, huge curved fangs whose roots ran back to the eye sockets. This deep in the highlands of Harmonia, even Homo smilodon needed bottled air. Cradling a recoilless assault cannon, the SuperCat had small use for ceremony, letting everyone call him Leo.
Derek grunted, getting paid being the least of his worries. Lying prone, sucking oxygen, he fixed his gaze on his bug’s viewfinder. He had close-cropped hair, a somewhat fit body, and a fashionably biosculpted face—if you liked your humans pretty much unaltered—just a stylish nose-job, x1-ten thousand night vision zoom lenses, and straight white teeth. His bug sat perched on a heap of shattered glass a dozen meters ahead, tight-casting to the viewfinder’s whip antenna, letting Derek see in all directions without getting out of his hole—always an advantage.
Rain fell in a weepy drizzle, turning everything gray, the ground, the clouds, and the surviving tall glass towers. Through the viewfinder, Derek saw a fairy city gone to seed, with great glass towers lying smashed on the wet greensward, broken into glistening shards by the cometary impacts. Others stood snapped in half, their shining interiors exposed to the downpour and turning green with algae. Water had been rare when the city was built, but now it was everywhere, soaking shaky foundations, making the dead city unsafe even when folks were not shooting at you. Whoever named the planet Harmonia had a horrible sense of humor.
“Make sure no one shoots me in the back,” Derek suggested, and the SuperCat just grinned, his clawed finger resting lightly on the cannon’s firing stud—if Leo blew you apart, it would not be by accident. Rising slowly, Derek stood up, alone and virtually unarmed—nothing deadly anyway, just a pair of hypo-rings, and a sleep grenade tucked behind his waistband. Printed across the front and back of his body armor in bold white letters were the words DO NOT SHOOT THIS MAN!
Twenty or so meters in front of him lay a smoldering Bug-mobile, a big one, with its gutted turret askew and the port legs missing. Forty meters beyond the squashed Bug, a bunker was dug into the base of a fallen tower, concealed by rubble and fast growing green tendrils—even Derek’s special zoom lenses could not make it out. Only deadly accurate fire had revealed its position. He took a big jolt of oxygen, gave a jaunty wave, and set out toward the bunker, his tiny bug scurrying through the low foliage behind him. Passing the smashed Bug-mobile, Derek did a swift medi-check, deciding that the two Greenies in the burned-out turret were beyond help.
(“Stop,” commanded a gruff voice on his com-link.)
He stopped, sucking oxygen, four paces beyond the smashed Bug, staring at the Gekko ghost town. “Anything you say.”
(“Are you human?” asked the voice from the bunker.)
“Hope so.” Some folks set a high bar for humanity. “Want to see my chromosomes?”
(“Are you Peace Corps?” asked the voice.)
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Derek wished he was, since then he would be peace-bonded, sacrosanct, and wired for lie-detection. “Sorry, just another civilian.”
(“Then what are you doing here?”)
Good question. What was he doing in a nameless ruined city, on a charnel-house planet with unbreathable air, where angry folks aimed heavy weapons at him? Feeling like a deranged tourist, he told the voice, “Talking to you.”
(“Why?” the voice sounded more surprised than suspicious.)
No mystery there. “They figured you would shoot a Greenie.”
(That got a good laugh from the bunker. “No shit.”)
“Rank favoritism,” Derek admitted, taking another whiff of oxygen. “I got the job just for being human, in clear violation of the Charter of Universal Rights.”
(That drew another chuckle. “Come on in then. Can’t shoot you just for being human.”)
Not yet anyway. As Derek walked toward the concealed bunker, his bug ran up the back of his boot and tucked itself into the boot top. Augmented vision picked out the recessed pressure-sealed gun ports, cleverly concealed and shielded—but he did not see the camouflaged bunker door until it opened before him, revealing a gas-tight airlock. Stepping gingerly through the recessed door, he waited while the lock cycled, then entered the damp, dark bunker, which had several inches of water on the floor. Blast shields flanked the door, and gunners lay prone in niches on either side of him, peering into their gun sights. Air inside the bunker was Earth-normal, and Derek took deep grateful breaths. Not all of the planet was as bad as the highlands outside—but damn near. (“Stay by the door,” warned the voice.)
Derek stayed, aiming not to antagonize. New to diplomacy, Derek still guessed that the voice would take time to materialize—not to seem overeager. Even trapped in a tiny bunker on a hostile planet, any sensible negotiator pretended to have something to do. Taking his own advice, Derek turned to the nearest gunner, a young athletic, brown-haired woman in a Settler militia uniform, staring into the sights of an assault-cannon, and asked her in his friendliest diplomatic voice, “Where are you from?”
“Right here,” she replied, without taking her head out of the sights.
“I mean before. Off-planet,” Derek nodded toward the heavens, hidden by layers of steel and concrete.
Withdrawing her head from the hooded sight, the woman stared suspiciously at him. She had a frank, natural face, with no trace of biosculpt, just wide intelligent green eyes and brown freckles sprinkled across her nose. “Portland, Oregon,” she replied evenly. “But I was born in Eugene.”
“Really?” Derek was impressed. “That’s on Earth?”
“Yes,” she stared at him like he was crazy. “Pacific coast of North America, in what used to be the United States.”
“Amazing.” He shook his head at the incredible distance she had come—some two hundred light years—just to end up next to him. “What is it like? In Oregon?”
“Nice, real nice,” she looked past him at the wet blank wall of the bunker, as if remembering something far away. Her Universal had a charming other-worldly quality, so quaint and old-fashioned that you could tell with your eyes closed that she wasn’t a Greenie. “Tall trees, lots of people, sweet breathable air—a lot nicer than here. Have you ever been to Earth?”
Derek shook his head. “I don’t even know anyone who has been to Earth. You are my first.” Struck by the immense distance between them, though only centimeters apart, all he could think to say was, “You’ve come a long way, good luck.”
“You too.” She stuck her head back in the sighting hood, leaving him looking at the back of her brown uniform, which had a dark sweat-stain along the spine, but was tailored to curve neatly over her rear. It felt strange to stand next to a young woman—a heavily armed one at that—who you had absolutely nothing in common with, except that she was human. Had she killed those two Greenies in the squashed Bug? Possibly, but there was no polite way to ask. He noted that the niche next to hers was vacant, blown to smithereens by a direct hit on the gun port. Greenies got lucky with that one. So did she.
Another pressure door dilated, and a big balding middle-aged man stepped out, with small alert eyes on either side of a long sharp nose. He wore the same brown militia uniform as the girl gunner from Eugene, only his had general’s stars on the shoulders—totally unneeded, since the fellow exuded authority. His voice was the one that had come over the comlink. “General William D. Pender, but you can call me Bill, everyone does.”
Everyone insystem knew Big Bill Pender—the Greenies had already condemned him in absentia, and he headed Leo’s humans-to-shoot-on-sight list. Taking the offered hand, he admitted, “Derek’s all the name I got.”
“It will do.” General Pender eyed him carefully, asking, “Where are you from, Derek?”
“Just about anywhere,” Derek shrugged. “I was born in transit, Archernar to Alpha Crucis, on the survey ship Ibn Batuta. And I guess I’ve been outbound ever since—you’re only the second person I have ever met from Earth.”
“Proud to represent the planet,” Pender beamed. “So what do you have to say?”
Derek took a deep breath. “I wish I were Peace Corps, but I’m not. I’m just here to save lives, human lives, as many as I can. You have given the Greenies a good thumping, and they no longer think they can take this place by direct assault.”
Pender chuckled, leaning back against a blast shield. “Happy to hear that.”
“Bad news is that the Greenies plan to just blast you to atoms. There is an Osiris missile in orbit with an antimatter warhead, aimed right where we are standing. I’m your last chance to get anyone out of here alive.”
Pender took the news evenly, well aware that the Greenies were losing patience. “So what’s the deal if we leave?”
“No deal, I’m afraid.” Derek didn’t try to con Pender; whatever happened next, he was talking to a dead man. “You give up your guns and come out. Greenies already have a blanket amnesty for women and kids—most women, anyway.” He did not want to get the gunner from Portland’s hopes up, since the women and kids amnesty did not apply to her. “But the best I can promise you and your troops is civilized treatment and a fair trial.”
Big Bill shook his bald head. “You’re not offering much.”
“I am not offering anything, just passing on the Greenies’ terms.” Derek knew how bad that sounded, like being a messenger boy for Photo sapiens. “Look, they could have sent a holo. Or just a warhead. I volunteered for this, and I’m here in the flesh to show I understand the seriousness of what I’m saying. Innocent human lives are at stake—including mine. That is who I speak for.”
Pender grinned. “You volunteered?”
“Sounds stupid, doesn’t it.” Derek grinned back. “I won’t lie, I’m getting triple hazard pay just for being here—but no amount of pay would drag me to ground zero if I didn’t think it was right. Send out the kids, at least.”
General Pender smiled pleasantly at him, like a veteran poker player who’d bet his limit on a busted flush, but was too much of a pro to show it. “Stay here, you deserve an answer.”
Derek watched Big Bill Pender disappear through the inner lock, then he turned to the gunner in her niche. “So, what did you do in Portland?”
“Nothing,” the woman did not take her head out of the sighting hood. “That’s why I came here—two years out of grad school, and way overqualified for any job I could hope to get. There are dance clubs in Portland where the hostesses all have advanced degrees. Colonizing the stars sounded romantic, a chance to do something with my life, like in ZPG commercials.”
Everyone makes mistakes. “Try not to judge the cosmos by Ares system,” Derek suggested, “some parts are amazingly lovely.”
Pulling her head out of the hood, the woman brushed brown hair out of green eyes and asked, “Is it part of your job to be nice to me?”
“I’m a negotiator,” Derek declared blandly, hiding behind business. “It’s my job to be nice to everyone.”
But the Portland woman was not buying. “Doesn’t your training…”
“Who said I was trained?” Derek hated to start off relationships on a lie.
That got a grin, a major accomplishment given the circumstances. “There must be something in the negotiator’s code of ethics against flirting.”
“Heavens, I hope not!” Derek returned her grin. “They couldn’t pay me enough. What’s your favorite place on Earth?”
“That’s easy, the Olympic Peninsula, it’s grand and homey at the same time; we used to camp there when I was a kid. Or maybe Paradise Island, a holo-playland off Hawaii. I went there with my boyfriend for high school graduation….” She stopped and stared hard at him, asking, “It doesn’t bother you to get personal with someone you’re negotiating over?”
“Not if she’s human.” And here was the real thing, straight from Earth, fresh and unpretentious, not at all cowed by her current disastrous position. He could easily see how humans had gotten so far.
“So, what do you think?” the Earthwoman switched subjects. “Are we getting out of this alive?”
“Hope so.” He meant it. Derek figured that Pender would let non-combatants go—but that would not do the gunner from Portland much good. Right now she had an assault-cannon and layers of steel and concrete between her and the Greenies. He was asking her to surrender her weapon, and turn herself over to folks who were driving humans off Harmonia—except for those they executed. At best, she faced a fair trial, though she wouldn’t see any Homo sapiens on her jury.
General Pender returned with the women and kids, including his wife, Charlotte, a white-haired woman in a militia colonel’s uniform—she too was condemned in absentia. Pender spoke for the group. “We took a vote—first time I ever resorted to polling the staff, but we had to be sure. Charlotte and I are staying, but you can take the kids, and anyone else who wants to go.”
“Thanks.” Derek meant to get going before anyone changed their minds. “Come on, kids, who wants to meet a real live SuperCat?” No one leaped at the chance, but with the help of some scared mothers, he herded the children to the door, picking up the smallest orphan boy to hurry things along. As the pressure lock cycled, he called to Leo, “Hey, we are coming out with mothers, kids, and non-combatants. Don’t shoot.”
(“Well done, human,” Leo sounded pleasantly surprised.)
He looked over at the Portland woman, lying in her niche, asking her, “Are you coming out?”
Mina turned the translator off. First things first, and even on Counter there was such a thing as privacy.
“They’ve been sending signals a long time, then,” Ben said.
“Waiting for us to catch up to the science they once had—and now have lost.” She wondered at the abyss of time this implied. “As if we could help them…”
Ben, ever the diplomat, began, “Y’know, it’s been hours…” Even on this tenth-g world she was getting tired. The Quand lolled, Lifegiver stroking their skins—which now flushed with an induced chemical radiance, harvesting the light. She took more digitals, thinking about how to guess the reaction—
“Y’know…”
“Yeah, right, let’s go.”
Outside they prepped the lander for lift-off. Monotonously, as they had done Earthside a few thousand times, they went through the checklist. Tested the external cables. Rapped the valves to get them to open. Tried the mechanicals for freeze-up—and found two legs that would not retract. It took all of Ben’s powerful heft to unjam them.
Mina lingered at the hatch and looked back, across the idyllic plain, the beach, the sea like a pink lake. She hoped the heat of launching, carried through this frigid air, would add to the suns thin rays and…and what? Maybe help these brave beings who had sent their grav-wave plea for help?
Too bad she could not transmit Wagner’s grand Liebestod to them, something to lift spirits—but even Wiseguy could only do so much.
She lingered, gazing at the chilly wealth here, held both by scientific curiosity and by a newfound affection. Then another miracle occurred, the way they do, matter-of-factly. Sections of carbon exoskeleton popped forth from the shiny skin of two nearby Quands. Jerkily, these carbon-black leaves articulated together, joined, swelled, puffed with visible effort into one great sphere.
Inside, she knew but could not say why, the two Quands were flowing together, coupling as one being. Self-merge.
For some reason, she blinked back tears. Then she made herself follow Ben inside the lander. Back to…what? Checked and rechecked, they waited for the orbital resonance time with Venture to roll around. Each lay silent, immersed in thought. The lander went ping and pop with thermal stress.
Ben punched the firing keys. The lander rose up on its roaring tail of fire. Her eyes were dry now, and their next move was clear: Back through the portal, to Earth. Tell them of this vision, a place that tells us what is to come, eventually, in our own universe.
“Goin’ home!” Ben shouted.
“Yes!” she answered. And with us and the Quand together, maybe we can find a way to save us both. To rescue life and meaning from a universe that, in the long run, would destroy itself. Cosmological suicide.
She had come to explore, and now they were going back with a task that could shape the future of two species, two branes. Quite enough, for a mere one trip through the portal, through the looking-glass. Back to a reality that could never be the same.
Oxygen Rising
R. GARCIA Y ROBERTSON
R. Garcia y Robertson, who doesn’t own a computer, lives in Mount Vernon, Washington. His recent novels include Knight Errant (2001), Lady Robyn (2003), and White Rose (2004), a series of popular historical fantasy (timeslip) Romances, to be continued; and his 2006 novel is The Firebird, a fantastic adventure set in the imaginary land of Markovy. His stories have appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s with some regularity for the last twenty years, and are characterized by their broad range of concerns, stylistic sophistication, and attention to historical detail. Garcia has tended toward time travel or historical settings both for his fantasy and SF stories. He has published nearly fifty stories. The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures (1998) collects some of his adventure and space opera SF.
“Oxygen Rising” was published in Asimov’s. This space opera novelette takes place after an act of terrorism, and along the way, as the characters travel, covers some of the same territory that Sparhawk does in his story earlier in this book, but with a lighter touch. Garcia entertains, but there’s a kind of commentary on the side that reminds us of Robert A. Heinlein’s entertaining and instructive adventures.
Hey, human, time to earn your pay!” Curled in a feline crouch, a silver comlink clipped to his furry ear, the SuperCat flashed Derek a toothy grin. Tawny fur showed through gaps in the bioconstruct’s body armor, and his oxygen bottle had a special nosepiece to accommodate the saber-tooth upper canines, huge curved fangs whose roots ran back to the eye sockets. This deep in the highlands of Harmonia, even Homo smilodon needed bottled air. Cradling a recoilless assault cannon, the SuperCat had small use for ceremony, letting everyone call him Leo.
Derek grunted, getting paid being the least of his worries. Lying prone, sucking oxygen, he fixed his gaze on his bug’s viewfinder. He had close-cropped hair, a somewhat fit body, and a fashionably biosculpted face—if you liked your humans pretty much unaltered—just a stylish nose-job, x1-ten thousand night vision zoom lenses, and straight white teeth. His bug sat perched on a heap of shattered glass a dozen meters ahead, tight-casting to the viewfinder’s whip antenna, letting Derek see in all directions without getting out of his hole—always an advantage.
Rain fell in a weepy drizzle, turning everything gray, the ground, the clouds, and the surviving tall glass towers. Through the viewfinder, Derek saw a fairy city gone to seed, with great glass towers lying smashed on the wet greensward, broken into glistening shards by the cometary impacts. Others stood snapped in half, their shining interiors exposed to the downpour and turning green with algae. Water had been rare when the city was built, but now it was everywhere, soaking shaky foundations, making the dead city unsafe even when folks were not shooting at you. Whoever named the planet Harmonia had a horrible sense of humor.
“Make sure no one shoots me in the back,” Derek suggested, and the SuperCat just grinned, his clawed finger resting lightly on the cannon’s firing stud—if Leo blew you apart, it would not be by accident. Rising slowly, Derek stood up, alone and virtually unarmed—nothing deadly anyway, just a pair of hypo-rings, and a sleep grenade tucked behind his waistband. Printed across the front and back of his body armor in bold white letters were the words DO NOT SHOOT THIS MAN!
Twenty or so meters in front of him lay a smoldering Bug-mobile, a big one, with its gutted turret askew and the port legs missing. Forty meters beyond the squashed Bug, a bunker was dug into the base of a fallen tower, concealed by rubble and fast growing green tendrils—even Derek’s special zoom lenses could not make it out. Only deadly accurate fire had revealed its position. He took a big jolt of oxygen, gave a jaunty wave, and set out toward the bunker, his tiny bug scurrying through the low foliage behind him. Passing the smashed Bug-mobile, Derek did a swift medi-check, deciding that the two Greenies in the burned-out turret were beyond help.
(“Stop,” commanded a gruff voice on his com-link.)
He stopped, sucking oxygen, four paces beyond the smashed Bug, staring at the Gekko ghost town. “Anything you say.”
(“Are you human?” asked the voice from the bunker.)
“Hope so.” Some folks set a high bar for humanity. “Want to see my chromosomes?”
(“Are you Peace Corps?” asked the voice.)
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” Derek wished he was, since then he would be peace-bonded, sacrosanct, and wired for lie-detection. “Sorry, just another civilian.”
(“Then what are you doing here?”)
Good question. What was he doing in a nameless ruined city, on a charnel-house planet with unbreathable air, where angry folks aimed heavy weapons at him? Feeling like a deranged tourist, he told the voice, “Talking to you.”
(“Why?” the voice sounded more surprised than suspicious.)
No mystery there. “They figured you would shoot a Greenie.”
(That got a good laugh from the bunker. “No shit.”)
“Rank favoritism,” Derek admitted, taking another whiff of oxygen. “I got the job just for being human, in clear violation of the Charter of Universal Rights.”
(That drew another chuckle. “Come on in then. Can’t shoot you just for being human.”)
Not yet anyway. As Derek walked toward the concealed bunker, his bug ran up the back of his boot and tucked itself into the boot top. Augmented vision picked out the recessed pressure-sealed gun ports, cleverly concealed and shielded—but he did not see the camouflaged bunker door until it opened before him, revealing a gas-tight airlock. Stepping gingerly through the recessed door, he waited while the lock cycled, then entered the damp, dark bunker, which had several inches of water on the floor. Blast shields flanked the door, and gunners lay prone in niches on either side of him, peering into their gun sights. Air inside the bunker was Earth-normal, and Derek took deep grateful breaths. Not all of the planet was as bad as the highlands outside—but damn near. (“Stay by the door,” warned the voice.)
Derek stayed, aiming not to antagonize. New to diplomacy, Derek still guessed that the voice would take time to materialize—not to seem overeager. Even trapped in a tiny bunker on a hostile planet, any sensible negotiator pretended to have something to do. Taking his own advice, Derek turned to the nearest gunner, a young athletic, brown-haired woman in a Settler militia uniform, staring into the sights of an assault-cannon, and asked her in his friendliest diplomatic voice, “Where are you from?”
“Right here,” she replied, without taking her head out of the sights.
“I mean before. Off-planet,” Derek nodded toward the heavens, hidden by layers of steel and concrete.
Withdrawing her head from the hooded sight, the woman stared suspiciously at him. She had a frank, natural face, with no trace of biosculpt, just wide intelligent green eyes and brown freckles sprinkled across her nose. “Portland, Oregon,” she replied evenly. “But I was born in Eugene.”
“Really?” Derek was impressed. “That’s on Earth?”
“Yes,” she stared at him like he was crazy. “Pacific coast of North America, in what used to be the United States.”
“Amazing.” He shook his head at the incredible distance she had come—some two hundred light years—just to end up next to him. “What is it like? In Oregon?”
“Nice, real nice,” she looked past him at the wet blank wall of the bunker, as if remembering something far away. Her Universal had a charming other-worldly quality, so quaint and old-fashioned that you could tell with your eyes closed that she wasn’t a Greenie. “Tall trees, lots of people, sweet breathable air—a lot nicer than here. Have you ever been to Earth?”
Derek shook his head. “I don’t even know anyone who has been to Earth. You are my first.” Struck by the immense distance between them, though only centimeters apart, all he could think to say was, “You’ve come a long way, good luck.”
“You too.” She stuck her head back in the sighting hood, leaving him looking at the back of her brown uniform, which had a dark sweat-stain along the spine, but was tailored to curve neatly over her rear. It felt strange to stand next to a young woman—a heavily armed one at that—who you had absolutely nothing in common with, except that she was human. Had she killed those two Greenies in the squashed Bug? Possibly, but there was no polite way to ask. He noted that the niche next to hers was vacant, blown to smithereens by a direct hit on the gun port. Greenies got lucky with that one. So did she.
Another pressure door dilated, and a big balding middle-aged man stepped out, with small alert eyes on either side of a long sharp nose. He wore the same brown militia uniform as the girl gunner from Eugene, only his had general’s stars on the shoulders—totally unneeded, since the fellow exuded authority. His voice was the one that had come over the comlink. “General William D. Pender, but you can call me Bill, everyone does.”
Everyone insystem knew Big Bill Pender—the Greenies had already condemned him in absentia, and he headed Leo’s humans-to-shoot-on-sight list. Taking the offered hand, he admitted, “Derek’s all the name I got.”
“It will do.” General Pender eyed him carefully, asking, “Where are you from, Derek?”
“Just about anywhere,” Derek shrugged. “I was born in transit, Archernar to Alpha Crucis, on the survey ship Ibn Batuta. And I guess I’ve been outbound ever since—you’re only the second person I have ever met from Earth.”
“Proud to represent the planet,” Pender beamed. “So what do you have to say?”
Derek took a deep breath. “I wish I were Peace Corps, but I’m not. I’m just here to save lives, human lives, as many as I can. You have given the Greenies a good thumping, and they no longer think they can take this place by direct assault.”
Pender chuckled, leaning back against a blast shield. “Happy to hear that.”
“Bad news is that the Greenies plan to just blast you to atoms. There is an Osiris missile in orbit with an antimatter warhead, aimed right where we are standing. I’m your last chance to get anyone out of here alive.”
Pender took the news evenly, well aware that the Greenies were losing patience. “So what’s the deal if we leave?”
“No deal, I’m afraid.” Derek didn’t try to con Pender; whatever happened next, he was talking to a dead man. “You give up your guns and come out. Greenies already have a blanket amnesty for women and kids—most women, anyway.” He did not want to get the gunner from Portland’s hopes up, since the women and kids amnesty did not apply to her. “But the best I can promise you and your troops is civilized treatment and a fair trial.”
Big Bill shook his bald head. “You’re not offering much.”
“I am not offering anything, just passing on the Greenies’ terms.” Derek knew how bad that sounded, like being a messenger boy for Photo sapiens. “Look, they could have sent a holo. Or just a warhead. I volunteered for this, and I’m here in the flesh to show I understand the seriousness of what I’m saying. Innocent human lives are at stake—including mine. That is who I speak for.”
Pender grinned. “You volunteered?”
“Sounds stupid, doesn’t it.” Derek grinned back. “I won’t lie, I’m getting triple hazard pay just for being here—but no amount of pay would drag me to ground zero if I didn’t think it was right. Send out the kids, at least.”
General Pender smiled pleasantly at him, like a veteran poker player who’d bet his limit on a busted flush, but was too much of a pro to show it. “Stay here, you deserve an answer.”
Derek watched Big Bill Pender disappear through the inner lock, then he turned to the gunner in her niche. “So, what did you do in Portland?”
“Nothing,” the woman did not take her head out of the sighting hood. “That’s why I came here—two years out of grad school, and way overqualified for any job I could hope to get. There are dance clubs in Portland where the hostesses all have advanced degrees. Colonizing the stars sounded romantic, a chance to do something with my life, like in ZPG commercials.”
Everyone makes mistakes. “Try not to judge the cosmos by Ares system,” Derek suggested, “some parts are amazingly lovely.”
Pulling her head out of the hood, the woman brushed brown hair out of green eyes and asked, “Is it part of your job to be nice to me?”
“I’m a negotiator,” Derek declared blandly, hiding behind business. “It’s my job to be nice to everyone.”
But the Portland woman was not buying. “Doesn’t your training…”
“Who said I was trained?” Derek hated to start off relationships on a lie.
That got a grin, a major accomplishment given the circumstances. “There must be something in the negotiator’s code of ethics against flirting.”
“Heavens, I hope not!” Derek returned her grin. “They couldn’t pay me enough. What’s your favorite place on Earth?”
“That’s easy, the Olympic Peninsula, it’s grand and homey at the same time; we used to camp there when I was a kid. Or maybe Paradise Island, a holo-playland off Hawaii. I went there with my boyfriend for high school graduation….” She stopped and stared hard at him, asking, “It doesn’t bother you to get personal with someone you’re negotiating over?”
“Not if she’s human.” And here was the real thing, straight from Earth, fresh and unpretentious, not at all cowed by her current disastrous position. He could easily see how humans had gotten so far.
“So, what do you think?” the Earthwoman switched subjects. “Are we getting out of this alive?”
“Hope so.” He meant it. Derek figured that Pender would let non-combatants go—but that would not do the gunner from Portland much good. Right now she had an assault-cannon and layers of steel and concrete between her and the Greenies. He was asking her to surrender her weapon, and turn herself over to folks who were driving humans off Harmonia—except for those they executed. At best, she faced a fair trial, though she wouldn’t see any Homo sapiens on her jury.
General Pender returned with the women and kids, including his wife, Charlotte, a white-haired woman in a militia colonel’s uniform—she too was condemned in absentia. Pender spoke for the group. “We took a vote—first time I ever resorted to polling the staff, but we had to be sure. Charlotte and I are staying, but you can take the kids, and anyone else who wants to go.”
“Thanks.” Derek meant to get going before anyone changed their minds. “Come on, kids, who wants to meet a real live SuperCat?” No one leaped at the chance, but with the help of some scared mothers, he herded the children to the door, picking up the smallest orphan boy to hurry things along. As the pressure lock cycled, he called to Leo, “Hey, we are coming out with mothers, kids, and non-combatants. Don’t shoot.”
(“Well done, human,” Leo sounded pleasantly surprised.)
He looked over at the Portland woman, lying in her niche, asking her, “Are you coming out?”
