“Do you know your way around Washington, DC?” Nester Smart asked. The way I pressed my face against the window to see every last detail should have answered his question.
The capital of the Unified Authority lay spread under a clear afternoon sky. With its rows of gleaming white marble buildings, the city simply looked perfect. This was the city I saw in the news and read about in books. “I’ve never been here before.”
Our transport began its approach, flying low over a row of skyscrapers. I saw people standing on balconies.
Off in the distance, I saw the Capitol, an immense marble building with a three-hundred-foot dome of white marble. Two miles wide and nearly three miles deep, the Capitol was the largest building on the face of the Earth. It rose twenty stories into the air, and I had no idea how deep its basements ran.
“The Capitol,” I said.
“Good, Harris. You know your landmarks,” Smart said, with a smirk.
The architect who designed the Capitol had had an eye for symbolism. If you stretched its corridors into one long line, that line would have been twenty-four thousand miles long, the circumference of the Earth. The building had 192 entrances—one for each of the Earth nations that became part of the Unified Authority. The building had 768 elevators, one for every signer of the original U.A. constitution. There were dozens of subtle touches like that. When I was growing up, every schoolboy learned the Capitol’s numerology.
I also saw the White House, a historic museum that once housed the presidents of the United States. The scholars who framed the Unified Authority replaced the executive branch with the Linear Committee. If the rumors were true, the Linear Committee sometimes conducted business in an oval-shaped office inside the White House.
A highly manicured mall with gleaming walkways and marble fountains stretched between the White House and the Capitol. Thousands of people—tourists, bureaucrats, and politicians—walked that mall. From our transport, they looked like dust mites swirling in a shaft of light.
“I can barely wait to get out and explore the city,” I said, both anxious to see the capital of the known universe and to get away from Nester Smart.
“You are going to spend a quiet evening locked away in Navy housing,” Smart said. “We cannot afford for you to show up tomorrow with a hangover.”
Our transport began its vertical descent to a landing pad. Smart slipped out of his chair and pulled his jacket off a hanger. He smoothed it with a sharp tug on the lapels. Reaching for the inside breast pocket of the coat, he pulled a business card out and wrote a note on the back of it. After giving it a quick read, he handed it to me.
“There is a driver waiting outside. He will take you to the Navy base. Show this card to the guard at the gate. Also, your promotion is now official. Befitting your war-hero status, you are now a lieutenant in the Unified Authority Marines.
“You will find your new wardrobe in the apartment. I suppose congratulations are in order, Lieutenant Harris.”
The White House had guest rooms, but I was not invited to stay in those hallowed halls. Those rooms were reserved for visiting politicians and power brokers, the kinds of people who made their living by sending clones to war. Spending the night in the barracks suited me fine.
The guards outside the Navy base were not clones. The one who inspected my identification had blond hair and green eyes. He looked over my ID, then read Smart’s note. “You’re one of the Little Man 7, right?” he asked. “I hear that you’re speaking in the House of Representatives tomorrow. Congress doesn’t usually send visitors out here.”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
“Officers’ country is straight ahead,” the guard said. “You can’t miss it.
“Captain Baxter, our base commander, left a message for you. He wants to meet with you. You’ll want to shower and change your uniform before presenting yourself. Baxter’s a stickler on uniforms.”
My driver dropped me at the barracks door. Carrying my rucksack over my shoulder, I found my room. The lock was programmed to recognize my ID card. I swiped my card through a slot, and the door slid open. It was the first time I had ever stayed in a room with a locking door. I considered that for a moment.
I had spent my life sharing barracks with dozens of other men. I heard them snore, and they heard me. We dressed in front of each other, showered together, stowed our belongings in lockers.
With the exception of my two weeks of leave in Hawaii, the “squad bay” life was the only life I knew. Now I stepped into a room with a single bed. The room had a closet, a dresser, and a bathroom. Smiling and feeling slightly ashamed, I placed my ruck down, walked around the room turning on a lamp here, dragging my finger across the desk there, and allowing water to run from a faucet. I took a shower and shaved. Nine days of travel had left my blouse badly wrinkled; but it was an enlisted man’s blouse. In the closet, I found a uniform with the small gold bar of a second lieutenant on the shoulder. I dressed as an officer and left to meet the base commander.
“May I help you?” a civilian secretary asked.
I told her that I was a guest.
“Lieutenant Harris, of course,” she said. “Please wait here.” Watching me as she stepped away from her desk, she almost tripped over one of the legs of her chair. She turned and sped into a small doorway, emerging a moment later with several officers. That kind of reception would have made me nervous except that the officers seemed so happy to meet me.
“Lieutenant Harris?” a captain in dress whites asked.
“Sir,” I said, saluting.
The entire company broke into huge, toothy smiles. “A pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant,” the captain said, saluting first, then reaching across the counter and shaking my hand. “I’m Geoffrey Baxter.” The other officers also reached across and shook my hand.
“Do you have a moment? Are you meeting with anyone this evening?”
“No,” I said.
“What?” gasped another captain. “No reception? They’re not putting you up in a stateroom? Outrageous! These politicians treat the military like dogs.”
Baxter led me into a large office, and we sat in a row of chairs. As the receptionist brought us drinks, the officers crowded around me, and more officers strayed into the room. “I’m not sure that I understand. Were you expecting me?”
“Expecting you? We’ve been waiting for you,” Baxter said. “Harris, you’re famous around here.” He looked to the other officers, who all nodded in agreement. “Your photograph is all over the mediaLink.”
“My photograph?” I asked. “How about my men?”
“They’re clones, aren’t they? Everybody knows what they look like,” an officer with a thick red mustache commented.
“Have you had dinner yet?” Baxter asked.
“I was going to ask for directions to the officers’ mess,” I said.
“No mess hall food for you. Not tonight,” another officer said. “Not for you.”
“I know you’ve just arrived, but are you up to a night out?” Baxter asked.
I smiled.
“I know a good sports bar,” the officer with the mustache said. The idea of a place with loads of booze and marginal food appealed to all of us.
Fourteen of us piled into three cars and headed toward the heart of DC.
The Capitol, an imposing sight during the day, was even more impressive at night. Bright lights illuminated its massive white walls, casting long and dramatic shadows onto its towering dome. Just behind the Capitol, the white cube of the Pentagon glowed. The Pentagon, which had been rebuilt into a perfect cube, retained its traditional name in a nod to history. Seeing the buildings from the freeway, I could not appreciate their grand size.
So many buildings and streetlights burned through the night that the sky over Washington, DC, glimmered a pale blue-white. The glow of the city could be seen from miles away. I could not see stars when I looked up, but I saw radiant neon in every direction, spinning signs, video-display billboards, bars and restaurants with facades so bright that I could shut my eyes and see the luminance through closed eyelids. I had never imagined such a place. Dance clubs, restaurants, bars, casinos, sports dens, theaters—the attractions never endled.
And the city itself seemed alive. The sidewalks were filled. Late-night crowds bustled across breezeways between buildings. We arrived at the sports bar at 1930 hours and found it so crowded that we could not get seated before 2030, did not start dinner until nearly 2130, and chased down dinner with several rounds of drinks.
The officers I was with held up at the bar better than the clones from my late platoon. Most clones got drunk on beer and avoided harder liquor, but Baxter and his band of natural-borns kept downing shots long after their speech slurred. One major drank until his legs became numb. We had to carry him to his car.
We did not get home until long after midnight. I did not get to bed until well after 0200. I’m not making excuses, but I am explaining why I did not arrive at the House of Representatives in satisfactory condition. Sleep-addled and mildly buzzed from a long night of drinking, I found myself leaning against the wall of the elevator for support as I rode up to meet Nester Smart.
The doors slid open, and the angry former interim governor of Ezer Kri snarled, “What the hell happened to you?” Dressed for bureaucratic battle, Smart wore a dark blue suit and a bright red necktie. With his massive shoulders and square frame, Smart looked elegant. But there was nothing elegant about the twisted expression on his face.
“I’m just a little tired,” I said. “I had a late night out with some officers from the base.”
“Imbecile,” he said, with chilling enunciation. “You are supposed to appear before the House in two hours, and you look like you just fell out of bed.”
“You mind keeping your voice down?” I asked as I stepped off the lift. Rubbing my forehead, I reminded myself that I was in Smart’s arena. He knew the traps and the pitfalls here.
Smart led me down “Liberty Boulevard,” a wide hallway with royal blue carpeting and a mural of seventeenth-century battle scenes painted onto a rounded ceiling. Shafts of sunlight lanced down from those windows. The air was cool, but the sunlight pouring in through the windows was warm.
“This is an amazing city,” I said. “It must be old hat for you.”
“You never get used to it, Harris,” Smart said. “That’s the intoxicating thing about life in Washington, you never get used to it.”
As we turned off to a less spectacular corridor, Smart pointed to a two-paneled door. “Do you know what that is?” Smart asked.
I shook my head.
“That, Harris, is the lion’s den. That is the chamber. Behind those doors are one thousand twenty-six congressmen. Some of them want to make you a hero. Some of them will use you to attack the military. None of them, Lieutenant, are your friends. The first rule of survival in Washington, DC, is that you have no friends. You may have allies, but you do not have friends.”
“That’s bleak,” I said. “I think I prefer military combat.”
“This is the only battlefield that matters, Lieutenant,” Smart said. “Nothing you do out there matters. Everything permanent is done in this building.”
Death is pretty permanent, I thought. I walked over to a window and peered out over the mall. It was raining outside. Twenty floors below me, I saw people with umbrellas and raincoats walking quickly to get out of the rain. Preparing to appear before the House, I felt the same pleasant rush of endorphins and adrenaline that coursed through my veins during combat. I had some idea of what to expect. Smart spent the flight from Scutum-Crux telling me horror stories, and I had every reason to believe the pompous bastard.
“Remember, Harris, these people are looking for ammunition. Answer questions as briefly as possible. You have no friends in the House of Representatives. If a congressman is friendly, it’s only because he wants to look good for the voters back home.”
The door to the chamber opened and three pages came to meet us. They were mere kids—college age…my age and possibly a few years older, but raised rich and inexperienced. They had never seen death and probably never would.
“Governor Smart,” one of the pages said. “Did you accomplish what you wanted on Ezer Kri?” Taken on face value, that seemed like a warm greeting. The words sounded interested, and the boy asking them looked friendly, but Smart must have noticed a barb in his voice. Smart nodded curtly but did not speak.
“And you must be Lieutenant Harris,” the page said as he turned toward me. He reached to shake my hand but only took my fingers in the limpest of grips. “Good of you to come, Lieutenant. Why don’t you gentlemen follow me?” He turned to lead us into the House.
“Tommy Guileman,” Smart whispered into my ear. “He’s Gordon Hughes’s top aide.”
If Smart and I had been allowed to wear combat helmets in the House of Representatives, we could have communicated over the interLink. Smart could have told me all about Guileman. He could have identified every member of the House as an ally or an enemy. Since we did not have the benefit of helmets on the floor, I needed to watch Nester Smart and study his expressions for clues.
The House of Representative chambers looked something like a church. The floor was divided into two wide sections. As the pages led us down the center aisle, several representatives patted me on the back or reached out to shake my hand.
At the far end of the floor I saw a dais. On it were two desks, one for Gordon Hughes, Speaker of the House, and one for Arnold Lund, the leader of the Loyal Opposition. I took my place at a pulpit between them and thought of Jesus Christ being crucified between two thieves. Below me, the House spread out in a vast sea of desks, politicians, and bureaucrats. Fortunately, I was not alone. Nester Smart hovered right beside me.
I had seen the chamber in hundreds of mediaLink stories, but that did not prepare me for the experience of entering it. A bundle of thirty microphones poked toward my face from the top of the podium. One clump had been bound together like a bouquet of flowers. Across the floor, three rows of mediaLink cameras lined the far wall. They reminded me of rifles in a firing squad. Later that day, I would find out that I had been speaking in a closed session. The cameras sat idle, and most of the microphones were not hot.
My wild ride was about to begin. “Members of the House of Representatives, it is my pleasure to present Lieutenant Wayson Harris of the Unified Authority Marine Corps. As you know, Lieutenant Harris is a survivor of the battle at Little Man.”
With that, the members of the House rose to their feet and applauded. It was a heady moment, both intimidating and thrilling.
“Do you have prepared remarks?” the Speaker asked.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Quite understandable,” the Speaker said in a jaunty voice. “Perhaps we should open this session to the floor. I am sure many members have questions for you.”
Hearing that, I felt my stomach sink.
“If there are no objections, I would like to open with a few questions,” the leader of the Loyal Opposition said.
“The chair recognizes Representative Arnold Lund,” Hughes said. Smart smiled. Apparently the meeting had started in friendly territory.
Above me, the minority leader sat on an elevated portion of the dais behind a wooden wall. I had to look almost straight up to see his face.
“Lieutenant, members of the House, as you know, the Republic has entered dark times in which separatist factions have challenged our government.”
Nester Smart moved toward me and leaned close enough to whisper in my ear. “He’s on our side,” Smart whispered. “He is signaling us and his allies how to play this. He will try to shield you if the questions get hostile.”
“As we all know,” Lund continued, “a landing force was sent to Little Man for peaceful purposes. More than two thousand Marines were brutally butchered…”
“I am certain that history will show that these men died bravely…” The leader of the Loyal Opposition showed no signs of slowing as his speech passed the seven-minute mark.
“Were it possible, we should erect a statue for every victim of that holocaust.” Lund waxed on and on about the innocence of our twenty-three hundred-man, highly armed landing party and the brutality of the Mogat response. He talked about the unprovoked attack on the Kamehameha and the good fortune that other ships happened to be nearby.
“Goddamn windbag” Smart whispered angrily.
“Lieutenant Wayson Harris is one of only seven men who survived that unprovoked attack,” the congressman went on. “Fellow representatives, I would personally like to thank Lieutenant Harris for his valor.”
Loud applause rang throughout the chamber, echoing fiercely around us. The shooting match was about to begin. Behind me, Hughes banged his gavel and called for order. “The floor now recognizes the junior representative from Olympus Kri.”
An old woman with crinkled salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun stood. She pushed her wire-frame spectacles up the bridge of her nose and spoke in overtly sweet tones. “Olympus Kri celebrates your safe return from Little Man, Lieutenant Harris. I am sure the battle must have been a very grueling experience. What can you tell us about the nature of the incursion on Little Man?”
“The nature?” I asked.
“What was the reason you went down to Little Man?” the congresswoman asked. She leaned forward on her desk to take weight off her feet.
“Remember, you are an ignorant foot soldier,” Smart whispered in my ear.
“Why did I go to Little Man, ma’am?” I repeated. “We went because that was where the transport dropped us off.”
The soft hum of laughter echoed through the chamber.
The congresswoman managed a weak response. “I see. Well, Lieutenant, as I understand it, there were twenty-three hundred Marines on Little Man. That sounds like quite an invasion.”
With that she stopped speaking. Perhaps she expected me to respond, but I had nothing to say. She hadn’t asked me a question. An awkward silence swelled.
“Is it?” the congresswoman finally asked.
“Excuse me?” I asked. I looked over at Smart and saw an approving smile.
“Why did you invade Little Man?” she asked.
“I was not involved in the planning of this mission, ma’am.”
“Twenty-three hundred units?” she persisted. “What reason were you given for sending so many men to the planet?”
“Ma’am, I was a sergeant. Nobody gives sergeants reasons. They just tell us what to do.”
“I see,” she said.
Nester Smart leaned over to whisper something to me, but the congresswoman stopped him. “Did you have something to add, Mr. Smart?” she asked.
“I was just advising Lieutenant Harris about the kind of information you might be looking for,” Smart said.
“From your vast store of battlefield experience, Mr. Smart?” the congresswoman quipped. There was a burst of laughter on the floor. Smart turned red but said nothing.
“Lieutenant, I am merely trying to determine why so many Marines were sent to the surface of Little Man. I am not asking for an official explanation. You are a soldier in the Unified Authority Marine Corps. Surely you have some understanding about how things are done.”
“It’s not unusual for ships to send their complement of Marines to a planet, ma’am,” I said.
“Two thousand men?” she questioned. “That sounds more like an occupying force.”
“Ma’am, twenty-three hundred men with light arms is a tiny force. We keep more men than that on most friendly planets.”
“I see,” said the congresswoman. “Lieutenant Harris, I thank you for your service to the Republic.” With that, she returned to her desk.
I recognized the next senator’s face from countless mediaLink stories. Tall, with dark skin and a beard that looked like a chocolate smudge around his mouth, this was Congressman Bill Hawkins who represented a group of small planets in the Sagittarius Arm. Except for the telltale white streaks that tinged his hair, Hawkins looked like an athletic thirty-year-old. I’d read somewhere that he was actually in his fifties.
“Lieutenant Harris, I salute you for your service to our fine Republic,” he said. He spoke slowly and in a clear, strong voice. Earth-born and raised, Hawkins had been a fighter pilot—his was the voice of one veteran speaking to another. He placed a foot on his seat and leaned forward. As he went on, however, his demeanor transformed into that of a politician.
“Lieutenant, perhaps I can assist my esteemed colleague from Olympus Kri,” he began. Around the chamber, many representatives began muttering protests.
“Perhaps my esteemed colleague has not noticed that the lieutenant has already answered her questions,” said Opposition Leader Lund.
“Certain questions remained unanswered,” Hawkins said, turning his attention on Lund.
“This is supposed to be a presentation, not a board of inquiry,” a congressman shouted from the floor.
“Order. Order!” Hughes said, banging his gavel. “Representative Hawkins has the floor.”
“And I do congratulate the lieutenant,” Hawkins said, looking over my head toward Representative Gordon Hughes. “Well done, Lieutenant Harris. But, in light of new information, certain questions must be answered.”
“What information is that?” Nester Smart broke in.
“Oh yes, Nester Smart, good of you to escort the lieutenant,” Hawkins said with a smirk. “After surviving a brutal battle on Little Man, it would be a shame if this fine Marine was lost in a dangerous place like the House of Representatives.”
Laughter and angry shouts erupted around the chamber.
“Order,” Congressman Hughes called. His booming voice stung my ears. “What new information have you acquired, Senator Hawkins?”
Hawkins reached down and pulled a combat helmet out from beneath his desk. “Do you recognize this, Lieutenant?” he asked.
“That is a combat helmet,” I said.
“Your combat helmet, Lieutenant. One of my aides retrieved it from a repair shop on the Kamehameha. It appears that its audio sensors failed during the battle.” Hawkins held the helmet so that everyone on the floor could see it. “We downloaded the data recorded in the memory chip of this helmet. The data shows that you acted most heroically, Lieutenant Harris.”
“Thank you, Senator,” I answered quietly. I knew something bad was coming, but I had no idea what it might be. My mind started racing through the entire mission. Would Hawkins accuse me of cowardice for abandoning Captain McKay? Would he call me a traitor for leading my men out of the canyon?
“Your mission, however, was about more than squatters,” Hawkins said. “Congressman Hughes, with your permission I would like to show the chamber some excerpts from Lieutenant Harris’s record.”
“This is unacceptable!” blared the minority leader. “Mr. Speaker, this is a blind-side attack.”
Hawkins’s aides jumped to their feet and shouted in protest.
“Ironic,” Hawkins said, putting up an open hand to silence his delegation. “That is the exact accusation I have against the men who planned the invasion of Little Man. We can view this record in a special committee if that is what my esteemed colleague wishes, but a committee investigation would require the testimony of all of the men who survived this attack. We would need them to verify that the records have not been altered.
“Today, we have the benefit of Lieutenant Harris’s expertise. I think we should view his record while he is here and able to comment on it. If you like, Mr. Speaker, we can put it up to a vote.”
Looking around the chamber, I could see that the majority of the people in attendance wanted to know what Hawkins had up his sleeve. Though I could not make out specific conversations, the tenor of the talk around the chamber seemed excited.
Hughes seemed to sense the excitement. “There is no need to hold a vote,” he said. “I will allow you to show your information.”
A large screen dropped from the ceiling behind the dais. By the faint glow that filled the chamber, I could tell that smaller monitors lit up on the representatives’ desks.
“Do you recognize this scene, Lieutenant?” Hawkins asked.
“Yes,” I said. I turned to Nester Smart for help, but he looked completely dumbstruck. “I was on guard duty the night before the battle.”
The ghost of First Sergeant Booth Lector came walking through the undergrowth.
“So the battle was the very next morning?” Hawkins asked.
“Yes, sir,” I said.
The video feed continued.
“What the hell did I ever do to you?” I asked from the screen.
“You were made, Harris. That’s reason enough. Just the fact that you exist was enough to get me transferred to this for-shit outfit,” said the ghost of Booth Lector.
The video feed paused.
“Who is this man?” Hawkins asked.
“Master Sergeant Booth Lector,” I said.
“I know that, Lieutenant. I can read his identifier on the screen. I am asking about his relationship with you. What did he mean when he said that he was transferred because you exist?”
As I struggled to come up with a safe answer, Hawkins said, “Why don’t you think about that question as we watch more of this video feed?”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
“You had everything to do with it. You think this is a real mission? You think we are going to capture this entire planet with twenty-three hundred Marines? Is that what you think?
“They’d forgotten about us. Saul, Marshall, me…Nobody in Washington knew that there were any Liberators left. The brass knew about Shannon, but there was nothing anybody could do about him. Klyber kept him nearby, kept a watchful eye on him. Nobody could touch Shannon with Klyber guarding him. As far as everybody knew, Shannon was the last of us.
“Then you came along, Harris—a brand-new Liberator.
“You weren’t alone, you know. Klyber made five of you. We found the others. Marshall killed one in an orphanage. I killed three of them myself. But Klyber hid you…sent you to some godforsaken shit hill where no one would find you. By the time I did locate you, you were already on the Kamehameha.”
“I…”
“Shut up, Harris. You asked what’s bothering me, now I’m going to tell you. And you, you are going to shut your rat’s ass mouth and listen or I will shoot you. I will shoot you and say that the goddamn Japanese shot you.
“The government hated Liberators. Congress wanted us dead. As far as anyone knew, we were all dead. Then you showed up. I heard about that early promotion and wanted to fly out and cap you on that shit hill planet. I would have framed Crowley, but Klyber transferred you before I could get there.
“Next thing I know, you’re running missions for that ass-hole Huang. You stupid shit! Huang was the reason we were in hiding in the first place. As soon as I heard that you met Huang, I knew we were all dead. Once he got a whiff of a Liberator, he would go right back to the Pentagon and find every last one of us.
“And here we are, trying to take over a planet with twenty-three hundred Marines. This isn’t a mission, Harris, this is a cleansing. This is the last march of the Liberators, and if they need to kill off twenty-three hundred GI clones to finish us, it all works out fine on their balance sheets. They’re expendable.
“You want to know what I have against you, Harris? You are the death of the Liberators.”
“I was a young boy during the days of the Galactic Central War, Lieutenant. I toured the devastation of both New Prague and Dallas Prime shortly after graduating OTS. Lieutenant Harris, I have seen the destruction that Liberators do. Are you a Liberator?” Hawkins asked.
I looked over at Nester Smart for advice. His eyes wide and scared, his face completely drained of blood, he took three steps back from me.
“Perhaps you have forgotten the mission of this body, Congressman.” The voice was cold, direct, and final. I recognized it at once, but turned to check. Admiral Bryce Klyber stood alone at the far end of the floor. He stood stiff and erect, his legs spread slightly wider than his shoulders and his hands clasped behind his back.
Turning to look at Klyber, Bill Hawkins fell silent. Everyone on the floor became silent. I could sense their fear.
“The mission of this body is to represent the people. When representatives take it upon themselves to exceed their mission, they endanger the institution itself,” Klyber said.
“And now, Congressman Hughes, if there are no more questions”—Klyber looked all around the floor, warning off anyone with the nerve to challenge him—“I suggest you propose a motion to recognize Lieutenant Harris’s gallant service and dismiss him.”
“I quite agree,” said Lund, the leader of the Loyal Opposition. With Admiral Klyber watching, Hughes took an open vote.
Across the floor, Bill Hawkins’s delegation exited the chamber. Ten minutes later, when Hughes tallied the vote, he noted that Hawkins abstained. The rest of the House, even the representatives from Olympus Kri, voted for my commendation.