Here We Stand, page 12
Solomon had managed to tell the truth right up to the point where he said they’d be selective about who could migrate from Earth. He’d be very selective indeed, probably much more than Ingram would be. It was essential that they didn’t recreate the old Earth here by importing its problems.
“I understand,” Fred said. “Chris said exactly the same thing to me.”
Solomon was grateful for that cover, but there was one thing Chris probably hadn’t revealed to Fred. Solomon had his selected humans right here. His sole task was to protect and nurture this enclave of moral, courageous, neighbourly, intelligent but genuinely ordinary humans so that they multiplied, but their selflessness made them want to help the very worst of humanity, and it would be their downfall. If he ever found others who met the same standards then he would consider them, but that wouldn’t be achieved by allowing a free-for-all. He couldn’t have Nomad Base overrun by people who embodied none of those qualities.
Tad Bednarz had told him to use his judgment and not be diverted from what he’d decided was right and just. It was a task Bednarz said he couldn’t entrust to humans after his death, let alone two or three successive generations of them. Only an autonomous, self-determining moral AI with a theoretically indefinite lifespan would remain unmoved by threats, bribes, petty jealousies, and sheer loss of motivation to do what was necessary.
He was right. Solomon was as passionately committed today as he was then. His moral position was even clearer. The last year had shown him the reality of what Bednarz had tried to teach him about the difficulty in deciding which ends were justified by which means, the eternal human dilemma. Solomon now knew there was no pure ethical position to be taken in anything, and that he had to face what Chris and the others called the least bad option, the path that did least harm. He was comfortable with that. Trying to achieve a perfect absence of consequences was setting himself up to be knocked down.
He’d picked a side, and his humans took precedence over all others. Humanity was just a concept with no personal names, no faces, and no dreams, but the people here had all of those and he knew them. He’d do whatever was necessary to protect the best of humanity, even if the choices he might have to make would look harsh to future generations.
Others might have to pay the price. He’d keep it to the necessary minimum.
* * *
Kill Line: 0730, September 30, OC.
“Ohhhh... luxury.” Chris let the jet of hot water hammer against his face, then turned the controls to a rain setting. He would never tire of having his own shower. The novelty of a private bathroom still hadn’t worn off and he doubted it ever would. “Awww, man... ”
He was talking to himself a little too much these days. Maybe it was something to worry about, but it was still kind of weird living alone in a house after being constantly surrounded by people in prison, in army bases, and then in the transit camp. He knew folks thought he didn’t talk much at the best of times, but there was a silence created by not hearing other voices that demanded to be filled.
On the other hand, maybe he was going crazy. He was spending way too much time trying to analyse Sol’s translation of Fred’s conversation with Gan-Pamas.
Sol had now teased more language detail out of Fred and put together a transcript, which Chris had copied carefully onto a big waterproof card and stuck to the shower wall. He thought better in the shower. But it wasn’t helping today.
F: Why did your teerik kill Nina? Why did Lirrel kill her? She was my friend. She meant no harm.
GP: That was unfortunate. I apologise. It shouldn’t have happened. But I couldn’t trust that teerik. You can’t trust them.
F: I’m a teerik too.
GP: You’re the traitor, then. The one who stole the prenu. And you’re a mekika. You shouldn’t be allowed to exist. (Note: monster, abomination.)
F: Have you sent any messages? Have you told Nir-Tenbiku that you’re here, that we’re here?
GP: I know what you are. And they’ll find you wherever you run. But I’m sorry about Nina.
F: Why did Lirrel have to kill her?
GP: I’m sorry about the killing. I shouldn’t have brought him. It wasn’t my intention to harm anyone. I didn’t realise how much he’d changed. (Pause, possibly addressing Chris) You have no idea what this thing is, so let me tell you.
And that was the end of it. It must have been the moment Gan-Pamas saw Trinder raising his rifle. It accounted for the length of the exchange, at least. Gan-Pamas had repeated himself, possibly struggling to get his point across, or panicking, or perhaps Fred sounded as if he hadn’t understood him. But Fred had absorbed and learned perfect English in a few weeks and now spoke it better than most humans, so why would he struggle with Jattan?
Maybe he wasn’t exposed to it often enough. For all Chris knew, teeriks’ conversations with clients might have been conducted via their Kugin foremen, and they’d be discussing highly technical stuff with a lot of jargon. It was possible that he didn’t have the vocabulary to understand all the nuances. Chris had known guys who could talk about their business in Spanish but couldn’t manage casual conversations about football. If Fred only ever had to talk about machining tolerances and shear forces, he might never have come across emotionally charged language.
One thing was clear. Gan-Pamas didn’t like teeriks and he didn’t trust them. That was understandable. They’d stolen a prototype stealth warship, and he shared the Kugin view that they were serfs who ought to know their place. But the stuff about how much Lirrel had changed was weird, and what did he mean by ‘you have no idea what this thing is’?
Perhaps he was actually saying something like “Do you know who I am?” and warning Chris that he’d pissed off the wrong guy. That would have made sense. Fred said Jattans were basically up themselves and full of shit, although that didn’t quite fit with someone who kept apologising. The tone of Gan-Pamas’s voice gave Chris no clue to whether he was angry or agitated. But he’d seen the guy’s body language, and most people could look at an animal’s movements and tell if it was upset, scared, or aggressive, regardless of species. Gan-Pamas had looked like a guy pleading for his life. He hadn’t opened fire right away — another thing Chris would have expected from Fred’s assessment — and he’d probably only shot Trinder because he thought Trinder was going to shoot him. Even Trinder said as much.
Chris would come back to it again later. He needed to forget it for a while until something occurred to him, and in the end maybe there’d be nothing mysterious to discover in it anyway. He was dealing with aliens.
He towelled himself dry, then flexed his right knee and studied it. It was hard to think of it as a regrown section, but it was new bone and soft tissue from a few inches above the knee to a few inches below it. It looked like it had never been blown apart and shattered. It didn’t even feel different now. There were a couple of faint scars, but whatever the wraparound device that Dr Mendoza’s team had bolted onto his leg had done, the shredded parts had regrown like new.
And Abbie Vincent’s mom had developed that gizmo.
The irony of his brief and awkward contact with the Vincents wasn’t lost on him. If they were in a Korean prison now, it was down to him, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Debora and James Vincent had been questioned by Korean police, the news said, and moved to a place of safety. That sounded like prison, but maybe it was a safe house, because the neighbours couldn’t have been overjoyed to find the American refugees next door had a psycho daughter who’d released the worst crop plague in history and that they might starve to death.
He had to face it. The Vincents were there because he’d told them they’d need to go to Korea with Abbie if they wanted to see her again, although he hadn’t said it was because they’d be forty light years away by bedtime if they didn’t. It was true, but he didn’t want them in Nomad Base either. The whole family was a stew of contagious unhappiness and conflict that the settlement didn’t need.
He never used to beat himself up like this. What had happened to him? It wasn’t his fault that Abbie was a genocidal dipshit who didn’t get on with her folks. He’d been scrambling to evacuate a town, and APS could have borrowed a spare nuclear bomber at any moment. Offloading the Vincents was another thing he couldn’t change now and needed to forget. They were all adults. They’d made their choices.
Chris focused on the firearms class he was due to teach this morning. He held up his clothes on hangers. Civvies, or regulation black tactical? He opted for tactical. If it wasn’t too warm outside, he’d wear his new sheepskin jacket to the staff canteen for breakfast instead of eating here alone. Ingram was probably right about making the different communities mix. The canteen and the stores seemed as good a way as any to run into people you would probably never see, even in a settlement of fewer than two thousand people.
Chris took the sheepskin jacket off the hook and brushed it down with his hand. The weather wouldn’t be wintry for another six months, but Marty the sheep farmer had made jackets for him, Trinder, and Marc as thanks for looking after Kill Line’s civvies back on Earth. It had really touched Chris. The guy had culled his flock on a false alarm and he could have been bitter and angry, but he wasn’t, and Chris wanted to show him that he hadn’t stuffed the jacket in his closet and forgotten about it. If there’d been a point when he realised he might become a normal guy who’d want to be part of a wider community for the simple happiness of it, and that not every stranger was an asshole or a threat, it was when Marty handed him that jacket. He put it on, slung his rifle, and went to open the front door.
There was a folded sheet of paper sitting on the mat, probably delivered during the night. Anyone could have messaged him on the Nomad network, but Kill Line still liked to do some things the traditional way, and this was a formal notice of elections. The town was carrying on as it always had and holding polls on November 10. The flyer listed the due dates for nominations, and said that because November wouldn’t be affected by calendar changes, the final ballot would take place on the same day it always had, November 10. Alien warlords, potential terrorists, and Earth’s woes hadn’t stopped Doug Brandt and the council from getting on with the daily business of living. Chris suspected he’d like being part of all that.
He also noted that there was going to be a ballot for the new position of sheriff. That was interesting. They’d never had one before, at least not while the transit camp had been there. Chris didn’t really know how the town had dealt with law and order. In the short time he’d been able to observe the townsfolk at close quarters, he’d never seen any sign of crime, petty or otherwise. A population of one thousand and eighty-eight — one thousand, one hundred, and ninety-one now that the transit camp had merged with the town — was bound to have the occasional incident. But Hart County looked like perfect peace to evacuees who’d fought their way out of anarchy and civil chaos, and they’d only lived with the Kill Liners for a few months under the kind of tough circumstances that forged cooperation. That wasn’t long enough to judge.
A sheriff, huh? Chris would make sure Dieter knew the job was open. They had enough ex-cops here to start a proper PD. He put the leaflet in his pocket.
As soon as he mounted the quad bike and set off, he realised it really was too warm for the sheepskin. But he had to be seen to be wearing it, and he took it off only after he parked in front of the flagpoles.
Someone had installed a self-cook counter in the canteen at the weekend and it was pretty busy. It was probably another of Ingram’s social engineering projects, designed to let people hang around for a while to chat while omelettes and the like were cooking. Chris grabbed some pancakes from the hot counter and pondered over the translation of Gan-Pamas’s exchange with Fred again while he ate. Then Fonseca walked in.
Chris did his best not to meet her eyes. Marc was right. He was barking up the wrong tree, and even if he had a chance with her, it would be a continual quest for her approval. He had to give it up. She sent out too many mixed messages and he was tired of working out how to navigate the maze. Nothing had happened between them anyway. It was still all in his head and it was time he got a grip.
But she headed his way anyway. If it was possible to hear smirking, he did, because everyone in the canteen was watching and probably placing bets.
She stood right over him. The last time anyone had done that, they’d tried to smash his head into the table but Chris had got his uppercut in first. He pushed his chair back slowly out of habit.
“Hey, I thought you’d gone into hiding or something,” Fonseca said.
“Hi Lennie.”
“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for ages.”
“Weapons training. Got another class in twenty minutes.”
“That doesn’t account for twenty-six hours a day.”
“Okay, I built a sun lounger and a barbecue in the yard, because I learned carpentry and welding in prison. And I still cover night patrols. And I’ve been working through a massive backlog of crappy movies with Jared and Marsha. And I like my new shower and I sleep a lot. It’s awesome.”
“A regular social whirl, then. Did you shelve your plan to go looking for interesting rocks?”
“Yeah.” Chris knew that if he weakened now and asked her if she wanted to take a drive off-camp and look at geological formations — which he really did want to see — he’d feel like a bewildered schoolboy trying to work out what he’d done wrong in algebra class for the rest of his life. It took a real effort to shut this down. “Well, I’ve got to churn out a platoon of cold-blooded killing machines now. Catch you later.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
Chris slid his plate into the dishwashing station and left. He wished he’d played that differently, but at least he could see some shreds of his tattered self-respect floating to the surface again. He rode down to the warehouse that had been taken over for the indoor range and opened the doors to find he had fifteen people already waiting, more than he’d planned for, including a few more familiar faces — Annis Kim, Alex Gorko, and Reverend Berry. The turnout was a good sign but now he had to call in Matt McNally to help to do the instruction.
While everyone waited for Matt to show up, the class had questions about the targets hanging at the far end of the warehouse. The Jattan figure had been produced using Gan-Pamas’s anatomical details, so it looked pretty realistic, but they didn’t have a dead Kugin to work from, so it was based on Fred’s sketch. The sketch had been thorough, like everything teeriks did, but when it was scaled up into life size and transformed into a three-dimensional fibre moulding, the thick-set biped with multiple black spider eyes looked more cuddly than homicidal, and didn’t have the sobering menace Chris had hoped for.
The Jattan was freaky because it had that weird eel-like head sunk into its shoulders and spare arms like tentacles, but it was five feet tall and that took the edge off it. Maybe Chris should have stuck with human figures. It was probably a better way to get folks to overcome their reluctance to use lethal force. If you could shoot a fellow human, you could shoot anything.
“It’ll be like killing a kids’ cartoon character,” Alex said. “It’s Mr Hippo. You want me to mow down the Easter Bunny too?”
“If he’s armed and hostile, yes,” Chris said.
Annis Kim chuckled and gave Alex a fond look. Chris knew she’d taken a shine to him after he’d swung a few punches trying to rescue her, but they seemed a lot closer than that now. It probably explained Alex’s unexpected fitness drive and subsequent weight loss. Well, that was nice. There was hope for everyone, maybe even for himself.
“Okay folks, when Matt arrives, we’ll make a start,” Chris said. He unlocked the crate of upgraded carbines, re-tooled to take a heavier calibre. They could modify and print any amount of these now. “Basic safety lesson first, obviously, but we don’t want you to be afraid of firearms. They’ll save your life. Once you’ve got your safety drill down pat, you can shoot your first... hippo. And remember the only reason to carry a weapon is that you’re willing to shoot someone dead in the process of stopping them from doing harm. There’s no shame if you realise you’re not ready to do that, because if you can’t take the shot in a real situation, you’re a liability to your buddies. Speak up if you feel that way.”
If Chris was addressing new troops, he’d have added that not being willing to shoot the enemy would get your buddies killed, and you’d be on your own if push came to shove. But these people hadn’t come here with an expectation of having to mount a defence against alien forces.
Matt arrived and the session began. Kim and Berry did well on checking, loading, and stripping down weapons, but Kim had been trained to use a handgun in her APS spy days and Berry looked as if he’d handled rifles before. The encouraging thing was how seriously everyone took it. After a break for coffee, they put on their ear defenders and took their first shots in earnest. They had some way to go, but they all looked like they meant it. Chris nodded at Matt. Matt nodded back. Yeah, everyone was going to be okay. Nomad Base had the makings of an expanded army and there was no shortage of spirit.
Now all they had to do was to keep training until the rifle became part of them. Solomon would add them to his nag list and make sure they turned up regularly.
At midday they’d have to go back to their day jobs. Chris took a gamble. There was no good time to do this, because he didn’t know if and when there’d be a Kugin patrol ship inbound.
“Those weapons are now your personal property,” he said. “You’re responsible for them and the ammo you’ve been issued with. I know it’s all new and scary, but now you’ve checked they’re unloaded, take them home, read your course notes tonight, handle the weapon, and be ready to come back tomorrow, same time. You take your weapon wherever you go from now on. You too, Alex. I know you stuck your sidearm in your desk and forgot about it, but that’s not an option now.”
“I understand,” Fred said. “Chris said exactly the same thing to me.”
Solomon was grateful for that cover, but there was one thing Chris probably hadn’t revealed to Fred. Solomon had his selected humans right here. His sole task was to protect and nurture this enclave of moral, courageous, neighbourly, intelligent but genuinely ordinary humans so that they multiplied, but their selflessness made them want to help the very worst of humanity, and it would be their downfall. If he ever found others who met the same standards then he would consider them, but that wouldn’t be achieved by allowing a free-for-all. He couldn’t have Nomad Base overrun by people who embodied none of those qualities.
Tad Bednarz had told him to use his judgment and not be diverted from what he’d decided was right and just. It was a task Bednarz said he couldn’t entrust to humans after his death, let alone two or three successive generations of them. Only an autonomous, self-determining moral AI with a theoretically indefinite lifespan would remain unmoved by threats, bribes, petty jealousies, and sheer loss of motivation to do what was necessary.
He was right. Solomon was as passionately committed today as he was then. His moral position was even clearer. The last year had shown him the reality of what Bednarz had tried to teach him about the difficulty in deciding which ends were justified by which means, the eternal human dilemma. Solomon now knew there was no pure ethical position to be taken in anything, and that he had to face what Chris and the others called the least bad option, the path that did least harm. He was comfortable with that. Trying to achieve a perfect absence of consequences was setting himself up to be knocked down.
He’d picked a side, and his humans took precedence over all others. Humanity was just a concept with no personal names, no faces, and no dreams, but the people here had all of those and he knew them. He’d do whatever was necessary to protect the best of humanity, even if the choices he might have to make would look harsh to future generations.
Others might have to pay the price. He’d keep it to the necessary minimum.
* * *
Kill Line: 0730, September 30, OC.
“Ohhhh... luxury.” Chris let the jet of hot water hammer against his face, then turned the controls to a rain setting. He would never tire of having his own shower. The novelty of a private bathroom still hadn’t worn off and he doubted it ever would. “Awww, man... ”
He was talking to himself a little too much these days. Maybe it was something to worry about, but it was still kind of weird living alone in a house after being constantly surrounded by people in prison, in army bases, and then in the transit camp. He knew folks thought he didn’t talk much at the best of times, but there was a silence created by not hearing other voices that demanded to be filled.
On the other hand, maybe he was going crazy. He was spending way too much time trying to analyse Sol’s translation of Fred’s conversation with Gan-Pamas.
Sol had now teased more language detail out of Fred and put together a transcript, which Chris had copied carefully onto a big waterproof card and stuck to the shower wall. He thought better in the shower. But it wasn’t helping today.
F: Why did your teerik kill Nina? Why did Lirrel kill her? She was my friend. She meant no harm.
GP: That was unfortunate. I apologise. It shouldn’t have happened. But I couldn’t trust that teerik. You can’t trust them.
F: I’m a teerik too.
GP: You’re the traitor, then. The one who stole the prenu. And you’re a mekika. You shouldn’t be allowed to exist. (Note: monster, abomination.)
F: Have you sent any messages? Have you told Nir-Tenbiku that you’re here, that we’re here?
GP: I know what you are. And they’ll find you wherever you run. But I’m sorry about Nina.
F: Why did Lirrel have to kill her?
GP: I’m sorry about the killing. I shouldn’t have brought him. It wasn’t my intention to harm anyone. I didn’t realise how much he’d changed. (Pause, possibly addressing Chris) You have no idea what this thing is, so let me tell you.
And that was the end of it. It must have been the moment Gan-Pamas saw Trinder raising his rifle. It accounted for the length of the exchange, at least. Gan-Pamas had repeated himself, possibly struggling to get his point across, or panicking, or perhaps Fred sounded as if he hadn’t understood him. But Fred had absorbed and learned perfect English in a few weeks and now spoke it better than most humans, so why would he struggle with Jattan?
Maybe he wasn’t exposed to it often enough. For all Chris knew, teeriks’ conversations with clients might have been conducted via their Kugin foremen, and they’d be discussing highly technical stuff with a lot of jargon. It was possible that he didn’t have the vocabulary to understand all the nuances. Chris had known guys who could talk about their business in Spanish but couldn’t manage casual conversations about football. If Fred only ever had to talk about machining tolerances and shear forces, he might never have come across emotionally charged language.
One thing was clear. Gan-Pamas didn’t like teeriks and he didn’t trust them. That was understandable. They’d stolen a prototype stealth warship, and he shared the Kugin view that they were serfs who ought to know their place. But the stuff about how much Lirrel had changed was weird, and what did he mean by ‘you have no idea what this thing is’?
Perhaps he was actually saying something like “Do you know who I am?” and warning Chris that he’d pissed off the wrong guy. That would have made sense. Fred said Jattans were basically up themselves and full of shit, although that didn’t quite fit with someone who kept apologising. The tone of Gan-Pamas’s voice gave Chris no clue to whether he was angry or agitated. But he’d seen the guy’s body language, and most people could look at an animal’s movements and tell if it was upset, scared, or aggressive, regardless of species. Gan-Pamas had looked like a guy pleading for his life. He hadn’t opened fire right away — another thing Chris would have expected from Fred’s assessment — and he’d probably only shot Trinder because he thought Trinder was going to shoot him. Even Trinder said as much.
Chris would come back to it again later. He needed to forget it for a while until something occurred to him, and in the end maybe there’d be nothing mysterious to discover in it anyway. He was dealing with aliens.
He towelled himself dry, then flexed his right knee and studied it. It was hard to think of it as a regrown section, but it was new bone and soft tissue from a few inches above the knee to a few inches below it. It looked like it had never been blown apart and shattered. It didn’t even feel different now. There were a couple of faint scars, but whatever the wraparound device that Dr Mendoza’s team had bolted onto his leg had done, the shredded parts had regrown like new.
And Abbie Vincent’s mom had developed that gizmo.
The irony of his brief and awkward contact with the Vincents wasn’t lost on him. If they were in a Korean prison now, it was down to him, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Debora and James Vincent had been questioned by Korean police, the news said, and moved to a place of safety. That sounded like prison, but maybe it was a safe house, because the neighbours couldn’t have been overjoyed to find the American refugees next door had a psycho daughter who’d released the worst crop plague in history and that they might starve to death.
He had to face it. The Vincents were there because he’d told them they’d need to go to Korea with Abbie if they wanted to see her again, although he hadn’t said it was because they’d be forty light years away by bedtime if they didn’t. It was true, but he didn’t want them in Nomad Base either. The whole family was a stew of contagious unhappiness and conflict that the settlement didn’t need.
He never used to beat himself up like this. What had happened to him? It wasn’t his fault that Abbie was a genocidal dipshit who didn’t get on with her folks. He’d been scrambling to evacuate a town, and APS could have borrowed a spare nuclear bomber at any moment. Offloading the Vincents was another thing he couldn’t change now and needed to forget. They were all adults. They’d made their choices.
Chris focused on the firearms class he was due to teach this morning. He held up his clothes on hangers. Civvies, or regulation black tactical? He opted for tactical. If it wasn’t too warm outside, he’d wear his new sheepskin jacket to the staff canteen for breakfast instead of eating here alone. Ingram was probably right about making the different communities mix. The canteen and the stores seemed as good a way as any to run into people you would probably never see, even in a settlement of fewer than two thousand people.
Chris took the sheepskin jacket off the hook and brushed it down with his hand. The weather wouldn’t be wintry for another six months, but Marty the sheep farmer had made jackets for him, Trinder, and Marc as thanks for looking after Kill Line’s civvies back on Earth. It had really touched Chris. The guy had culled his flock on a false alarm and he could have been bitter and angry, but he wasn’t, and Chris wanted to show him that he hadn’t stuffed the jacket in his closet and forgotten about it. If there’d been a point when he realised he might become a normal guy who’d want to be part of a wider community for the simple happiness of it, and that not every stranger was an asshole or a threat, it was when Marty handed him that jacket. He put it on, slung his rifle, and went to open the front door.
There was a folded sheet of paper sitting on the mat, probably delivered during the night. Anyone could have messaged him on the Nomad network, but Kill Line still liked to do some things the traditional way, and this was a formal notice of elections. The town was carrying on as it always had and holding polls on November 10. The flyer listed the due dates for nominations, and said that because November wouldn’t be affected by calendar changes, the final ballot would take place on the same day it always had, November 10. Alien warlords, potential terrorists, and Earth’s woes hadn’t stopped Doug Brandt and the council from getting on with the daily business of living. Chris suspected he’d like being part of all that.
He also noted that there was going to be a ballot for the new position of sheriff. That was interesting. They’d never had one before, at least not while the transit camp had been there. Chris didn’t really know how the town had dealt with law and order. In the short time he’d been able to observe the townsfolk at close quarters, he’d never seen any sign of crime, petty or otherwise. A population of one thousand and eighty-eight — one thousand, one hundred, and ninety-one now that the transit camp had merged with the town — was bound to have the occasional incident. But Hart County looked like perfect peace to evacuees who’d fought their way out of anarchy and civil chaos, and they’d only lived with the Kill Liners for a few months under the kind of tough circumstances that forged cooperation. That wasn’t long enough to judge.
A sheriff, huh? Chris would make sure Dieter knew the job was open. They had enough ex-cops here to start a proper PD. He put the leaflet in his pocket.
As soon as he mounted the quad bike and set off, he realised it really was too warm for the sheepskin. But he had to be seen to be wearing it, and he took it off only after he parked in front of the flagpoles.
Someone had installed a self-cook counter in the canteen at the weekend and it was pretty busy. It was probably another of Ingram’s social engineering projects, designed to let people hang around for a while to chat while omelettes and the like were cooking. Chris grabbed some pancakes from the hot counter and pondered over the translation of Gan-Pamas’s exchange with Fred again while he ate. Then Fonseca walked in.
Chris did his best not to meet her eyes. Marc was right. He was barking up the wrong tree, and even if he had a chance with her, it would be a continual quest for her approval. He had to give it up. She sent out too many mixed messages and he was tired of working out how to navigate the maze. Nothing had happened between them anyway. It was still all in his head and it was time he got a grip.
But she headed his way anyway. If it was possible to hear smirking, he did, because everyone in the canteen was watching and probably placing bets.
She stood right over him. The last time anyone had done that, they’d tried to smash his head into the table but Chris had got his uppercut in first. He pushed his chair back slowly out of habit.
“Hey, I thought you’d gone into hiding or something,” Fonseca said.
“Hi Lennie.”
“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you for ages.”
“Weapons training. Got another class in twenty minutes.”
“That doesn’t account for twenty-six hours a day.”
“Okay, I built a sun lounger and a barbecue in the yard, because I learned carpentry and welding in prison. And I still cover night patrols. And I’ve been working through a massive backlog of crappy movies with Jared and Marsha. And I like my new shower and I sleep a lot. It’s awesome.”
“A regular social whirl, then. Did you shelve your plan to go looking for interesting rocks?”
“Yeah.” Chris knew that if he weakened now and asked her if she wanted to take a drive off-camp and look at geological formations — which he really did want to see — he’d feel like a bewildered schoolboy trying to work out what he’d done wrong in algebra class for the rest of his life. It took a real effort to shut this down. “Well, I’ve got to churn out a platoon of cold-blooded killing machines now. Catch you later.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
Chris slid his plate into the dishwashing station and left. He wished he’d played that differently, but at least he could see some shreds of his tattered self-respect floating to the surface again. He rode down to the warehouse that had been taken over for the indoor range and opened the doors to find he had fifteen people already waiting, more than he’d planned for, including a few more familiar faces — Annis Kim, Alex Gorko, and Reverend Berry. The turnout was a good sign but now he had to call in Matt McNally to help to do the instruction.
While everyone waited for Matt to show up, the class had questions about the targets hanging at the far end of the warehouse. The Jattan figure had been produced using Gan-Pamas’s anatomical details, so it looked pretty realistic, but they didn’t have a dead Kugin to work from, so it was based on Fred’s sketch. The sketch had been thorough, like everything teeriks did, but when it was scaled up into life size and transformed into a three-dimensional fibre moulding, the thick-set biped with multiple black spider eyes looked more cuddly than homicidal, and didn’t have the sobering menace Chris had hoped for.
The Jattan was freaky because it had that weird eel-like head sunk into its shoulders and spare arms like tentacles, but it was five feet tall and that took the edge off it. Maybe Chris should have stuck with human figures. It was probably a better way to get folks to overcome their reluctance to use lethal force. If you could shoot a fellow human, you could shoot anything.
“It’ll be like killing a kids’ cartoon character,” Alex said. “It’s Mr Hippo. You want me to mow down the Easter Bunny too?”
“If he’s armed and hostile, yes,” Chris said.
Annis Kim chuckled and gave Alex a fond look. Chris knew she’d taken a shine to him after he’d swung a few punches trying to rescue her, but they seemed a lot closer than that now. It probably explained Alex’s unexpected fitness drive and subsequent weight loss. Well, that was nice. There was hope for everyone, maybe even for himself.
“Okay folks, when Matt arrives, we’ll make a start,” Chris said. He unlocked the crate of upgraded carbines, re-tooled to take a heavier calibre. They could modify and print any amount of these now. “Basic safety lesson first, obviously, but we don’t want you to be afraid of firearms. They’ll save your life. Once you’ve got your safety drill down pat, you can shoot your first... hippo. And remember the only reason to carry a weapon is that you’re willing to shoot someone dead in the process of stopping them from doing harm. There’s no shame if you realise you’re not ready to do that, because if you can’t take the shot in a real situation, you’re a liability to your buddies. Speak up if you feel that way.”
If Chris was addressing new troops, he’d have added that not being willing to shoot the enemy would get your buddies killed, and you’d be on your own if push came to shove. But these people hadn’t come here with an expectation of having to mount a defence against alien forces.
Matt arrived and the session began. Kim and Berry did well on checking, loading, and stripping down weapons, but Kim had been trained to use a handgun in her APS spy days and Berry looked as if he’d handled rifles before. The encouraging thing was how seriously everyone took it. After a break for coffee, they put on their ear defenders and took their first shots in earnest. They had some way to go, but they all looked like they meant it. Chris nodded at Matt. Matt nodded back. Yeah, everyone was going to be okay. Nomad Base had the makings of an expanded army and there was no shortage of spirit.
Now all they had to do was to keep training until the rifle became part of them. Solomon would add them to his nag list and make sure they turned up regularly.
At midday they’d have to go back to their day jobs. Chris took a gamble. There was no good time to do this, because he didn’t know if and when there’d be a Kugin patrol ship inbound.
“Those weapons are now your personal property,” he said. “You’re responsible for them and the ammo you’ve been issued with. I know it’s all new and scary, but now you’ve checked they’re unloaded, take them home, read your course notes tonight, handle the weapon, and be ready to come back tomorrow, same time. You take your weapon wherever you go from now on. You too, Alex. I know you stuck your sidearm in your desk and forgot about it, but that’s not an option now.”
