There Will Be War Volume I, page 29
“Mary. I want a son.”
So she had given him one—and then taken him away.
Now there were letters, perhaps two in one week or one in two months according to the ship’s location. Always they were written as though addressing both, always they contained formal love to both, formal hope that both were keeping well.
But always they began, “Dear Mother.”
Never, “Dear Father.”
Revenge!
Zero hour came and went. Morcine was in a fever of excitement and preparation. Nobody knew what was happening far out in space, not even Korman. There was a time-lag due to sheer distance. Beamed signals from the fleet took many hours to come in.
The first word went straight to Korman’s desk, where he posed ready to receive it. It said the Lanians had replied with a protest and what they called an appeal to reason. In accordance with instructions the fleet commander had rejected this as unsatisfactory. The attack was on.
“They plead for reasonableness,” he growled. “That means they want us to go soft. Life isn’t made for the soft.” He threw a glance forward. “Is it?”
“No, sir,” agreed the messenger with alacrity.
“Tell Bathurst to put the tape on the air at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the other had gone he switched his midget radio and waited. It came in ten minutes, the long, rolling, grandiloquent speech he’d recorded more than a month before. It played on two themes: righteousness and strength, especially strength.
The alleged causes of the war were elucidated in detail, grimly but without ire. That lack of indignation was a telling touch because it suggested the utter inevitability of the present situation and the fact that the powerful have too much justified self-confidence to emote.
As for the causes, he listened to them with boredom. Only the strong know there is but one cause of war. All the other multitudinous reasons recorded in the history books were not real reasons at all. They were nothing but plausible pretexts. There was but one root-cause that persisted right back to the dim days of the jungle. When two monkeys want the same banana, that is war.
Of course, the broadcasting tape wisely refrained from putting the issue so bluntly and revealingly. Weak stomachs require pap. Red meat is exclusively for the strong. So the great antennae of the world network comported themselves accordingly and catered for the general dietary need.
After the broadcast had finished on a heartening note about Morcine’s overwhelming power, he leaned back in his chair and thought things over. There was no question of bombing Lani into submission from the upper reaches of its atmosphere. All its cities cowered beneath bombproof hemispherical force fields. Even if they had been wide open he would not have ordered their destruction. It is empty victory to win a few mounds of rubble.
He’d had enough of empty victories. Instinctively, his gray eyes strayed toward the bookcase on which stood the photograph he seldom noticed and then no more than absently. For years it had been there, a subconsciously-observed, taken-for-granted object like the inkpot or radiant heat panel, but less useful than either.
She wasn’t like her picture now. Come to think of it, she hadn’t been really like it then. She had given him obedience and fear before he had learned the need for these in lieu of other needs. At that time he had wanted something else that had not been forthcoming. So long as he could remember, to his very earliest years, it had never been forthcoming, not from anyone, never, never, never.
He jerked his mind back to the subject of Lani. The location of that place and the nature of its defenses determined the pattern of conquest. A ground base must be won, constantly replenished with troops, arms and all auxiliary services. From there the forces of Morcine must expand and, bit by bit, take over all unshielded territory until at last the protected cities stood alone in fateful isolation. The cities would then be permitted to sit under their shields until starved into surrender.
Acquisition of enemy territory was the essential aim. This meant that despite spacegoing vessels, force shields and all the other redoubtable gadgets of ultra-modernism, the ordinary foot soldier remained the final arbiter of victory. Machines could assault and destroy. Only men could take and hold.
Therefore this was going to be no mere five-minute war. It would run on for a few months, perhaps even a year, with spasms of old-style land-fighting as strong points were attacked and defended. There would be bombing perforce limited to road blocks, strategic junctions, enemy assembly and regrouping areas, unshielded but stubborn villages.
There would be some destruction, some casualties. But it was better that way. Real conquest comes only over real obstacles, not imaginary ones. In her hour of triumph Morcine would be feared. Korman would be feared. The feared are respected and that is proper and decent.
If one can have nothing more.
Pictorial records in full color and sound came at the end of the month. Their first showing was in the privacy of his own home to a small audience composed of himself, his wife, a group of government officials and assorted brass hats.
Unhampered by Lanian air defenses, weak from the beginning and now almost wiped out, the long black ships of Morcine dived into the constantly widening base and unloaded great quantities of supplies. Troops moved forward against tough but spasmodic opposition, a growing weight of armored and motorized equipment going with them.
The recording camera trundled across an enormous bridge with thick girders fantastically distorted and with great gaps temporarily filled in. It took them through seven battered villages which the enemy had either defended or given cause to believe they intended to defend. There were shots of crater-pocked roads, skeletal houses, a blackened barn with a swollen horse lying in a field nearby.
And an action-take of an assault on a farmhouse. A patrol, suddenly fired on, dug in and radioed back. A monster on huge, noisy tracks answered their call, rumbled laboriously to within four hundred yards of the objective, spat violently and lavishly from its front turret. A great splash of liquid fell on the farmhouse roof, burst into roaring flame. Figures ran out, seeking cover of an adjacent thicket. The sound track emitted rattling noises. The figures fell over, rolled, jerked, lay still.
The reel ended and Korman said, “I approve it for public exhibition.” Getting out of his seat, he frowned around, adding, “I have one criticism. My son has taken command of a company of infantry. He is doing a job, like any other man. Why wasn’t he featured?”
“We would not depict him except with your approval, sir,” said one.
“I not only approve—I order it. Make sure that he is shown next time. Not predominantly. Just sufficiently to let the people see for themselves that he is there, sharing the hardships and the risks.”
“Very well, sir.”
They packed up and went away. He strolled restlessly on the thick carpet in front of the electric radiator.
“Do them good to know Reed is among those present,” he insisted.
“Yes, David.” She had taken up some knitting, her needles going click-click.
“He’s my son.”
“Yes, David.”
Stopping his pacing, he chewed his bottom lip with irritation. “Can’t you say anything but that?”
She raised her eyes. “Do you wish me to?”
“Do I wish!” he echoed. His fists were tight as he resumed his movements to and fro while she returned to her needles.
What did she know of wishes?
What does anyone know?
By the end of four months the territorial grip on Lani had grown to one thousand square miles while men and guns continued to pour in. Progress had been slower than expected. There had been minor blunders at high level, a few of the unforeseeable difficulties that invariably crop up when fighting at long range, and resistance had been desperate where least expected. Nevertheless, progress was being made. Though a little postdated, the inevitable remained inevitable.
Korman came home, heard the car door snap shut at the sixth step. All was as before except that now a part of the populace insisted on assembling to cheer him indoors. The maid waited, took his things. He stumped heavily to the inner room.
“Reed is being promoted to captain.”
She did not answer.
Standing squarely before her, he demanded, “Well, aren’t you interested?”
“Of course, David.” Putting aside her book, she folded long, thin-fingered hands, looked toward the window.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“The matter?” The blond eyebrows arched as her eyes came up. “Nothing is the matter with me. Why do you ask?”
“I can tell.” His tones harshened a little. “And I can guess. You don’t like Reed being out there. You disapprove of me sending him away from you. You think of him as your son and not mine. You—”
She faced him calmly. “You’re rather tired, David. And worried.”
“I am not tired,” he denied with unnecessary loud-ness. “Neither am I worried. It is the weak who worry.”
“The weak have reason.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then you’re just plain hungry.” She took a seat at the table. “Have something to eat. It will make you feel better.”
Dissatisfied and disgruntled, he got through his evening meal. Mary was holding something back, he knew that with the sureness of one who had lived with her for half his lifetime. But he did not have to force it out of her by autocratic methods. When and only when he had finished eating she surrendered her secret voluntarily. The way in which she did it concealed the blow to come.
“There has been another letter from Reed.”
“Yes?” He fingered a glass of wine, felt soothed by food but reluctant to show it. “I know he’s happy, healthy and in one piece. If anything went wrong, I’d be the first to learn of it.”
“Don’t you want to see what he says?” She took it from a little walnut bureau, offered it to him.
He eyed it without reaching for it. “Oh, I suppose it’s all the usual chitchat about the war.”
“I think you ought to read it,” she persisted.
“Do you?” Taking it from her hand, he held it unopened, surveyed her curiously. “Why should this particular missive call for my attention? Is it any different from the others? I know without looking that it is addressed to you. Not to me. To you! Never in his life has Reed written a letter specifically to me.”
“He writes to both of us.”
“Then why can’t he start with “Dear Father and Mother’?”
“Probably it just hasn’t occurred to him that you would feel touchy about it. Besides, it’s cumbersome.”
“Nonsense!”
“Well, you might as well look at it as argue about it unread. You’ll have to know sooner or later.”
That last remark stimulated him into action. Unfolding it, he grunted as he noted the opening words, then went through ten paragraphs descriptive of war service on another planet. It was the sort of stuff every fighting man sent home. Nothing special about it. Turning the page, he perused the brief remainder. His face went taut and heightened in color.
“Better tell you I’ve become the willing slave of a Lanian girl. Found her in what little was left of the village of Bluelake, which had taken a pretty bad beating from our heavies. She was all alone and, as far as I could discover, seemed to be the sole survivor. Mom, she’s got nobody. I’m sending her home on the hospital ship Istar. The captain jibbed but dared not refuse a Korman. Please meet her for me and look after her until I get back.”
Flinging it onto the table, he swore lengthily and with vim, finishing, “The young imbecile.”
Saying nothing, Mary sat watching him, her hands clasped together.
“The eyes of a whole world are on him,” he raged. “As a public figure, as the son of his father, he is expected to be an example. And what does he do?” She remained silent.
“Becomes the easy victim of some designing little skirt who is quick to play upon his sympathies. An enemy female!”
“She must be pretty,” said Mary.
“No Lanians are pretty,” he contradicted in what came near to a shout. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“No, David, of course not.”
“Then why make such pointless remarks? One idiot in the family is enough.” He punched his right fist several times into the palm of his left hand. “At the very time when anti-Lanian sentiment is at its height I can well imagine the effect on public opinion if it became known that we were harboring a specially favored enemy alien, pampering some painted and powdered hussy who has dug her claws into Reed. I can see her mincing proudly around, one of the vanquished who became a victor by making use of a dope. Reed must be out of his mind.”
“Reed is twenty-three,” she observed.
“What of it? Are you asserting that there’s a specific age at which a man has a right to make a fool of himself?”
“David, I did not say that.”
“You implied it.” More hand-punching. “Reed has shown an unsuspected strain of weakness. It doesn’t come from me.”
“No, David, it doesn’t.”
He stared at her, seeking what lay unspoken behind that remark. It eluded him. His mind was not her mind. He could not think in her terms. Only in his own.
“I’ll bring this madness to a drastic stop. If Reed lacks strength of character, it is for me to provide it.” He found the telephone, remarked as he picked it up, “There are thousands of girls on Morcine. If Reed feels that he must have romance, he can find it at home.”
“He’s not home,” Mary mentioned. “He is far away.”
“For a few months. A mere nothing.” The phone whirred and he barked into it, “Has the Istar left Lani yet?” He held on a while, then racked the instrument and rumbled aggrievedly, “I’d have had her thrown off but it’s too late. The Istar departed soon after the mail-boat that brought his letter.” He made a face and it was not pleasant. “The girl is due here tomorrow. She’s got a nerve, a blatant impudence. It reveals her character in advance.”
Facing the big, slow-ticking clock that stood by the wall, he gazed at it as if tomorrow were due any moment. His mind was working on the problem so suddenly dumped in his lap. After a while, he spoke again.
“That scheming baggage is not going to carve herself a comfortable niche in my home, no matter what Reed thinks of her. I will not have her, see?”
“I see, David.”
“If he is weak, I am not. So when she arrives I’m going to give her the roughest hour of her life. By the time I’ve finished she’ll be more than glad of passage back to Lani on the next ship. She’ll get out in a hurry and for keeps.”
Mary remained quiet.
“But I’m not going to indulge a sordid domestic fracas in public. I won’t allow her even the satisfaction of that. I want you to meet her at the spaceport, phone me immediately she arrives, then bring her to my office. I’ll cope with her there.”
“Yes, David.”
“And don’t forget to call me beforehand. It will give me time to clear the place and insure some privacy.”
“I will remember,” she promised.
It was three-thirty in the following afternoon when the call came through. He shooed out a fleet admiral, two generals and an intelligence service director, hurried through the most urgent of his papers, cleared the desk and mentally prepared himself for the distasteful task to come.
In short time his intercom squeaked and his secretary’s voice announced, “Two people to see you, sir —Mrs. Korman and Miss Tatiana Hurst.”
“Show them in.”
He leaned backward, face suitably severe. Tatiana, he thought. An outlandish name. It was easy to visualize the sort of hoyden who owned it: a flouncy thing, aged beyond her years and with a sharp eye to the main chance. The sort who could make easy meat of someone young, inexperienced and impressionable, like Reed. Doubtless she had supreme confidence that she could butter the old man with equal effectiveness and no trouble whatsoever. Hah, that was her mistake.
The door opened and they came in and stood before him without speaking. For half a minute he studied them while his mind did sideslips, repeatedly strove to coordinate itself, and a dozen expressions came and went in his face. Finally, he rose slowly to his feet and spoke to Mary, his tones frankly bewildered.
“Well, where is she?”
“This,” informed Mary with unconcealed and inexplicable satisfaction, “is her.”
He flopped back into his chair, looked incredulously at Miss Tatiana Hurst. She had skinny legs exposed to knee height. Her clothing was much the worse for wear. Her face was a pale, hollow-cheeked oval from which a pair of enormous dark eyes gazed in a non-focusing, introspective manner as if she continually kept watch within her rather than upon things outside. One small white hand held Mary’s, the other arm was around a large and brand new teddy-bear gained from a source at which he could guess. Her age was about eight. Certainly no more than eight.
It was the eyes that got him most, terribly solemn, terribly grave and unwilling to see. There was a coldness in his stomach as he observed them. She was not blind. She could look at him all right—but she looked without really perceiving. The great dark orbs could turn toward him and register the mere essential of his being while all the time they saw only the secret places within herself. It was eerie in the extreme and more than discomforting.
Watching her, fascinated, he tried to analyze and define the peculiar quality in those optics. He had expected daring, defiance, impudence, passion, anything of which a predatory female was capable. Here, in these radically altered circumstances, one could expect childish embarrassment, self-consciousness, shyness. But she was not shy, he decided. It was something else. In the end he recognized the elusive factor as absentness. She was here yet somehow not with them. She was somewhere else, deep inside a world of her own.
Mary chipped in with a sudden “Well, David?”
He started at the sound of her voice. Some confusion still cluttered his mind because this culmination differed so greatly from his preconceptions. Mary had enjoyed half an hour in which to accommodate herself to the shock. He had not. It was still fresh and potent.
