Aftershocks and
Second Thoughts
The tribe of Jilan was one of the more traditional. Among them, when some momentous event turned out poorly, the gosthodar would consult with his ranking advisors or officers, then take a strong sedative and sleep on what he'd learned. When he awoke, he'd eat a light breakfast, including a mild stimulant, then go alone to a place beneath the sky, to ponder. Preferably some high place, and always by day rather than by night. At night, Wyzhnyny were susceptible to dark moods. And at any rate it was necessary to sleep on the debrief, allowing the mind and spirit to sort things out, often in dreams.
Gosthodar Jilchuk left his new field headquarters in the limestone caves, and climbed to the ridgetop. The ridge was not particularly high-some two hundred feet local elevation-nor especially steep, but he arrived sweating, breathing hard, his haunches severely fatigued. His original home was not a heavyworld, and he was middle-aged, and disinclined to keep himself fit. At the top, he walked along the crest till he came to a promontory overlooking the countryside. A place where he could sit beneath the sky while the forest behind him kept the sun off his back. There his orderly inflated the gosthodar's field mattress-high-ranking persons were not expected to sit or lie on the hard ground-and arranged it in the shade. Then watched dutifully while his ruler adjusted it slightly.
"Can I be of further service, your lordship?" he asked.
"No, Ethkars. Depart. I'll call if I need you."
Ethkars left, picking his joyless way down through the forest, paying no heed to the esthetics around him. He had an infant in the nursery, and while parents were less given to worry than the nanny gender, it was his firstborn. And given the gravity on this world, the pregnancy had been difficult. He was glad his mate would carry the next one. Meanwhile the tribe was isolated on this world, and yesterday's slaughter had depressed morale.
On his promontory, Jilchuk gazed across a landscape of broad fields-croplands and domesticated pastures. Still surrounded by forest, but his people were making progress. Or had been before the enemy bombards visited.
Until his people had applied their civilizing touch, the settled districts had consisted of small fields and primitive dwellings, mingled with woodlands. What kind of history, what kind of culture must these humans have had to prefer such an arrangement? Clearly they were socially fragmented. Until the day before, he would not have expected such unity of action from them in battle, nor such hard-bitten dedication. Apparently this was a warrior gender he faced. His previous evaluation had been in error.
It was not a painful conclusion. Jilchuk's stoic, practical personality was well-suited to military command. And mistakes were easily made when dealing with unfamiliar life-forms. The point was not to repeat them. It had been an error-natural but an error-to depend so heavily on his warrior brigade. The first attack should have told him that. But it had so nearly succeeded! Surely the next charge…
Until he'd lost more than half his warriors: killed, missing, and disabled.
I should have used my reserves in the first attacks-let the humans expend their air and armor on them-and then sent my warriors. The humans could never have withstood them then. We'd have chewed them up. Like most two-leggers, the humans had mobility problems. Break them-make them run-and they were doomed. They simply couldn't run fast enough.
Fortunately, they too had lost more of their aircraft and armor than they could afford. They'd fought off that last attack with infantry. Best not to take too much for granted though, he told himself. They had plenty of air strength earlier. It's a good thing you moved most of your armor into caves before their bombards arrived.
In the second phase, the humans' heavy ground-support fighters had almost surely been aerospace craft. While those used later appeared to have been simply aircraft. Had the human space force pulled out already, leaving their ground forces on their own? It seemed unlikely, but… He thumbed the mike on his harness. Intelligence would know if the space force was still in the system.
Vice Admiral Carmen Apraxin-DaCosta didn't have a hilltop, nor at the moment the luxury of solitude. She sat on a chair beside her bottled savant, Melody Boo'tsa, who lay in trance. According to the records, Melody was fifteen years old, with a mental age of four. Just now she was in receiving mode, channeling the deputy chief of space operations, Admiral Kaidu Ghazan. Her vocator provided an excellent copy of Ghazan's strong baritone, his delivery, and the modest accent Apraxin had always supposed came from a childhood in a traditional community.
"Carmen," he was saying, "I appreciate your concern. But you need to leave the Jerrie system no later than Terran 31.08.15, at 2400 hours. That gives you approximately twenty-nine hours. You need to rendezvous with Soong in the fringe of Dinebikeyah at system coordinates 2700/1700/00, no later than Terran 31.11.28. He'll need you."
Apraxin considered. "The Wyzhnyny planetary defense flotilla here still hasn't poked its head out of warpspace to show us what it has in the way of firepower. And it may include remnants of the system defense force. I'd like to leave Ver Hoeven's battle group, just in case."
"What evidence do you have that it's actually needed there? That it would be more than just a source of comfort?" Before she could respond, he went on. "Judging from your brief observations of their original planetary guard force, it looks as if Kereenyaga can handle it without Ver Hoeven's help. So. How many functional remnants of their system defense force do you think might show up?"
She hesitated. "The maximum and the minimum," he added.
"The maximum would be all five of them: two cruisers and three corvettes. The minimum would be none, zero."
It took him four seconds to respond. "You may leave three cruisers and four corvettes of Admiral Ver Hoeven's group."
"Thank you, sir." She pushed on quickly. "What about the marine mother ship? In case the Jerries on the ground need the squadrons. They're short squadrons now, and anyway they'd be of no use to Soong."
This time there was a long pause. When finally Ghazan spoke again, he sounded like someone who'd about reached his limit. "Admiral," he said, "I have checked with Marshal Kulikov. He says you can leave the mother ship on one condition: her squadrons are to be used only if the troops on the ground are faced with extermination. The Jerries' primary purpose is to find out for us how the Wyzhnyny fight on the ground: weapons, tactics, psychology… all of it. And the force size Pak was given is the baseline in the study. It's not to be fooled with. If he scrubs the Wyzhnyny, great. The government may even name a Day for him. But… "
"But his people are expendable," Apraxin said matter-of-factly. "I understand."
Ghazan didn't reply immediately. You needn't have put it so bluntly, she chided herself. Finally he spoke. "That's right, Carmen. That's how it is. That's how it will be at Shakti, too. And at Terra, if it comes to that. Resources can't be wasted. Invested but not wasted."
Old Hard Head Kaidu. But he called you Carmen to soften the message. "Right, Admiral," she said. "I understand."
"Fine. Anything else, Admiral?"
"No, sir. I'll be at Dinebikeyah on time and ready."
"Very well. And I repeat-everyone here is pleased with your results. Yours and Pak's both. Ghazan out."
"Apraxin out."
She nodded at the savant's attendant, then watched while the young woman spoke the brief formula that brought the savant out of her trance. A matted photo, presumably of Melody Boo'tsa, had been neatly taped to her module. The eyes were pink, the broad white face faintly so. An albino, Apraxin thought. Albinism had become avoidable, and extremely rare. Now Melody Boo'tsa no longer had a face of any color. Just a bottled CNS, a soul, and a unique sort of mind. With the unknown energies, and access to strange dimensions, that enabled two human beings to communicate across scores of parsecs, instantaneously.
"Thank you, Melody," she said quietly, then to the savant's attendant, "and thank you, Sofi. You may not fully appreciate it, but without teams like you two, humankind would have no hope in this war. None at all."
She paused. "I have a personal question for you. I presume your briefing on Melody was much more thorough than my own, and there's something in her file that sparked my curiosity. Either she has a long compound middle name, or several middle names. Can you clarify that for me?"
Even as she asked, it seemed to her a pointless question.
"Yes, Admiral, I do know. I'm her cousin."
The comment startled Apraxin. Sofi's complexion was a rich brown. Hmh. And why not? Any racial stock can have albinos.
Sofi had paused, as if waiting for Apraxin's attention again. When she had it, she continued. "She was named Melody when she was born. But our community is quite traditional. It retains many of the old customs, including giving another name later on. One that tells something about the person."
Sofi's gaze had slid aside and downward. After a moment though, it met the admiral's again, briefly.
"It is not customary to tell it outside the community, but I will tell you. You may find it-significant to our needs."
Apraxin's eyebrows rose slightly.
"Melody didn't speak sentences until she was four. Some of her first clear sentences were about things that hadn't happened yet. But later they would. Most of the family thought they were coincidences, but her aunt-my mother-and also her father, thought they were prophecies. Because when she said them, she spoke better than usual. So Melody was given another name: Naan' voh ti' ta ka. Because she has knowledge of the future.
"It is how she came to be here. She has an uncle who teaches mineralogy at the University of Northern Arizona, and he told the chairman of the parapsychology faculty about her. So she was sent there for study, and I was sent to be with her. To take care of her. And then the war started."
Apraxin exhaled through pursed lips, and nodded slowly. "I am glad you told me, Sofi. If you ask her questions about the future, does she tell you things?"
"I have tried a few times. She never answered. When she predicted in the past, it was always-whatever it was. Not something asked about."
The admiral frowned thoughtfully. "Will you work on it with her, Sofi?"
"Yes, Admiral. You know, sir, most people think of Melody as something empty, with very little mind. But she is-in there, sir. She listens. Hears. She hears what we hear, and she hears things we don't hear. I don't think of her as mentally deficient. I think of her as Naan' voh ti' ta ka."
The admiral stepped back. "Thank you, Sofi. This could be quite important." She started to turn away.
"Admiral?"
"Yes?"
"You said that teams like Melody and myself are all that give humankind hope in this war. But without people like you, there could be no hope at all. It is the people like yourself-the fighting people-who are primary in this time."
When Apraxin left the savant's suite, she headed for the wardroom, and a snack. While thinking about Melody's supposed talent for predictions, and whether they grew out of something like Charley Gordon's vectors.
She'd wait a bit, she decided, let Melody rest, then visit her again. Meanwhile saying nothing about it to War House. Let Sofi work with her, and define the possibilities.
Smoke from Kunming's many fires hung in the air. Stinking smoke, of half-burned, retardant-soaked fabrics, charred wood, melted synthetics. And perhaps burned bodies, though that could have been the product of their poisoned moods.
An hour earlier, when it was still dark, fires could still be seen from the prime minister's balcony. Chang and Peixoto had watched together. They'd been watching, on the telly or from the balcony, since the previous day, when the first fires were reported. Had seen them grow, while the overextended fire department did its best. Sirens had ululated in every part of the city. There had even been fires within the government complex-one in the Palace of Worlds itself-despite the surrounding force shield.
The word was, most had been set in warehouses and retail stores, at least some by small teams of arsonists protected by gunmen, all masked.
Just now the two leaders were closer to arguing than they'd ever been. "We have no choice!" Chang said. "Tirades on the talk channels, demonstrations in the squares, slander and libel of ourselves and others-those could be borne. But arson and murder? They have gone too far now! Martial law is the only answer we have, for the short term!"
Peixoto's bleak eyes scanned the half of the city visible from his balcony. He thought what such a campaign of destruction could have done a thousand years earlier, when so much more was flammable. When every vehicle carried within itself a large quantity of explosively flammable liquid.
And at last report, what had happened here had happened in 137 other cities, to some degree or other. And worse, 183 assassinations and a number of assaults had been reported, mostly on military personnel.
A leak had triggered it, and when he discovered who… Peixoto shook his head. You'd have released it yourself, if the victory had been greater. Big enough to blunt the Wyzhnyny advance.
He'd never imagined the Peace Front would do something like this. What was left of the Peace Front. Probably not more than one percent of the population remained members. But of Kunming's 2.7 million, that came to 27,000. Of which perhaps a thousand had been actively involved in this night of shame.
He looked down at the much shorter president. He'd almost forgotten Chang's demand. Now he shook his head again. "I cannot agree to it. Not yet."
He sensed the almost voiced response: Then I will resign. Unvoiced because Chang Lung-Chi would never abandon him in a dilemma. Never. Instead what the president said was, "When, then?"
"I'm not sure, good friend. But it's what their council wants us to do. We both know that. And we both know why."
A rumor passed through the city later that morning: a counterdemonstration would be held that evening at Wellesley Square, to defend humanity's right to defend itself. By noon the story was on the newscasts, the talk shows; and everywhere in the city you could feel the energy growing, swelling.
It shook the Peace Front's ruling council. They'd expected a public backlash, but this…? Paddy Davies made a call, and Gunther Genovesi's luxurious limo picked them up from the roof of their building.
By nightfall, demonstrators were packed into Wellesley Square and the streets feeding into it, far outnumbering anything the Peace Front had mustered. Among them, carrying a child on his shoulders, was a very tall, strongly built man with the lantern jaw and strong cheekbones common among the Goloks of Tibet. Carrying the child had not been entirely a good idea. The boy's short legs had rubbed off some of the Golok brownness from the man's jaw and ears. But it was night, a man carrying a child was surely benign, and as long as the child remained on his shoulders, the break in his camouflage was unlikely to be noticed. Besides, the crowd's attention was on the top of Martyr's Hill, where a large bonfire lit the night. It would damage the concrete slab on top, but that could be repaired.
There was no orator, nor any martyr. Instead, at the brow of the hill stood a cheerleader, capering like a court jester. It was no longer possible to hear him, even with his hand-held bullhorn. Once he'd begun shouting, the crowd-more than half a million-had picked up his chant and drowned him out: "MAR-TIAL LAW! MAR-TIAL LAW! MAR-TIAL LAW!"
A mile away, Foster Peixoto stood on his balcony, watching and listening. From so far away it was simply an immense roar, but he knew the words. A minute earlier, before the crowd joined in, he'd been watching on the telly, on a closed police channel, and had heard the chant begin.
Rumor and security reports had prepared the president and himself, and they'd perceived both opportunity and danger. But now, facing the reality alone, Peixoto feared, truly feared, a mob psychosis. He'd never imagined this volcanic potential in the people. What might happen next? An explosion of violence? A stampede, killing scores? Hundreds…? Lynchings? The beating to death of anyone pointed out as a Fronter, whether accurately or not? And however moderate?
As usual, the response was to be Chang's. A response prepared late and hurriedly, and based on faulty assumptions. They'd expected self-appointed spokesmen to make speeches or pep talks, not this primal chant. Chang will have to rethink his speech as he gives it, Peixoto told himself. Otherwise the crowd might start to move, to act. Fists clenched, he gestured. "Now!" He spoke his urgency aloud. "Now!"
The Golok wasn't aware he'd joined in the chant. Also he'd forgotten the child on his shoulders. His body knew it was there, and subliminally allowed for its presence, but his conscious awareness had been swallowed by the flames, the man cavorting so near them, the crowd consciousness, and above all, "MAR-TIAL LAW! MAR-TIAL LAW! MAR-TIAL LAW!"
The spell had no power of its own. It was a manifestation of the half million human beings in the crowd. Overhead, police floaters kept the hovering news floaters outside the "eighty-up, eighty-out limit." But one floater moved inside the limits unmolested, and began to circle the mound not greatly above it, at about the diameter of its base. On a spar projecting beneath, a powerful light now strobed. Not painfully, but the chant began to unravel, weakening, as more and more eyes followed the light. Then the cheerleader stopped; the chant staggered and died; and a great stillness spread through the crowd.
As if suddenly aware of the heat, the cheerleader moved partway down the grassy slope, farther from the flames. And from the floater, a voice issued. Boomed! After the great chant, it did not seem so loud, but in fact it was very loud. The entire crowd could hear it. The voice was one they all knew, from numerous public addresses over the years by Chang Lung-Chi as candidate, senator, cabinet minister, and eventually president. The most trusted and admired public figure of recent decades, at least.
With the death of their chant, the crowd's minds focused on the president's words.
"Citizens and friends," he said. "We have come together here to rescue our species and our commonwealth from a dual threat. A dual threat! A powerful, ruthless invader… and our own hard-won hatred of war and violence."
For several seconds the voice stopped, but the floater continued circling, the light still strobing.
"A hatred of war, a hatred that turned into a war against ourselves. A war by the Peace Front against its own species.
"But I have not come to you to declare war against the Peace Front. My hands-all our hands-are fully occupied with saving the human species from the invader. We will capture and prosecute the criminals who set the fires and committed the murders, also those who helped them, and those who directed them. But we must not-we must not kill the spirit of peace, the spirit of pacifism within us! If it were not for human pacifism, we'd have destroyed our civilization centuries ago, with nuclear war, or biological war, or some other depravity. Centuries ago! With the survivors, if any, driven back to the caves and hovels, to the fear, and ignorance, and superstition, and famine, and brutality from which our ancestors struggled."
The circling continued, but the strobing had stopped.
"The prime minister and I have not been open with you. There are matters we've kept from you, hoping to avoid the kind of violence that happened yesterday. But tonight you have opened our eyes and our minds to your awareness. Your readiness.
"A few weeks ago our new warfleet, under Admiral Soong, fought its first real battle with the Wyzhnyny armada. The Front was correct about that, though they got the details all wrong. Our fleet was greatly outnumbered, and the fight was brief and costly-a test of ships, weapons and tactics. But the Wyzhnyny losses were much greater than ours. And our losses have been more than made up in the weeks since the battle.
"And just days ago, a small fleet under Admiral Apraxin-DaCosta arrived in the New Jerusalem System. There it destroyed a smaller Wyzhnyny fleet." Again the president paused. "Then the New Jerusalem Liberation Corps was landed on its home world, and fought-and won!-the first human ground battle against the Wyzhnyny invaders.
"These victories were far from decisive. Overall, our forces are still severely outnumbered. But they are growing, and we can now say that things look hopeful. Not favorable yet, but hopeful."
Another pause. "You came here this evening and demanded martial law. Something our species came to hate and fear centuries ago, for good reason. But now you've decided it's necessary for the survival of humankind. So under the extraordinary powers granted by parliament for the pursuit of this war, and with the agreement-the pained, grieved agreement-of Prime Minister Foster Peixoto, I herewith proclaim-martial law!"
Remarkably there were no cheers.
"We avoided it as long as we could, and will continue it no longer than necessary. If we should continue it too long, we'll depend on you to let us know. But I do not imagine it will come to that."
Again a pause. Loosely the spell still held the crowd, the spell that had grown out of their mutual, deeply felt need, but quiet now.
"And now I have a request to make of you. I want you to do something further, for yourselves, your government, and your species. Do it as honestly as you know how." Again he paused, and when he spoke once more, it was slowly, deliberately, and less loudly. "If you believe you know someone who may have been involved in the terrorism of yesterday and last night, do not undertake to punish them. Instead, notify CLUES/TERRORISM on the Ether. Someone will investigate as soon as possible.
"Now I am going home to bed. You may want to do the same."
Most of the crowd left quietly. Others hung around talking, also quietly. The tall Golok left with the child, who slept now, draped over one broad shoulder. The man said nothing to anyone, but his long face looked thoughtful.