Orphan Brigade (15 page)

As they walked, Mortas noticed a group of soldiers packing up B Company's rocket launchers for transport. He was about to ask the obvious question when Kitrick answered it without looking.

“If the rest of the brigade gets alerted while we're gone, we'll have to meet them en route. So anything we leave behind has to be ready to go—­especially the boomers.”

There was a brisk air of purpose when they entered the building, and Mortas was surprised to see so much woodland camouflage among the hurrying bodies. Every deployable member of B Company had been wearing tiger stripes for the last few hours, and the sudden discrepancy hit him like a physical blow. He was actually going in harm's way.

Seeming not to notice the heightened activity, Noonan led them up the stairs and through the operations section. Home of the battalion's chief planners, Operations was a buzz of voices talking on radios and conferring over lit map screens as they finalized the mission order. The three officers passed into a large conference room, and Mortas was relieved to see several tiger-­striped uniforms amid the throng. Most of B Company's senior NCOs were already present, and Berland gave him a reassuring nod from the back of the room.

The wall at the opposite end of the conference table was taken up with a lit display screen. It showed an overhead photo of what Mortas could only assume was one of the threatened stations on the jungle planet Verdur. Standing atop a tall, almost cylindrical mountain, it consisted of several heavily reinforced buildings surrounded by a double wall of antipersonnel fencing. On all sides the ground dropped away like a brilliant green waterfall into dense foliage.

Captain Noonan and Lieutenant Kitrick had already taken seats at the table, and Mortas was about to join them when a hand took his arm. He half expected it to be Berland, and so was surprised to see it was the battalion intelligence officer. The smiling face from the previous night was gone, and Mortas only had a second to wonder what could be wrong. Pappas spoke in a low voice.

“Jan, did you see Captain Follett last night?”

“Yes, sir. He was outside throwing up, but he said he was all right and walked away.” Remembering the supply officer's bizarre advice. “Is something wrong?”

“I'm afraid so. He's dead.”

Noonan, overhearing the quiet conversation, rose and joined them. “Drew's
dead
? What happened?”

“I should have been paying closer attention, but you know how he was. Always going on about how we were all gonna starve if the resupply got messed up, asking why couldn't we figure out a way to make captured Sim rations edible . . . it seems he was conducting an experiment.”

“Experiment? With Sim chow? It's
poison
.”

“Yeah. We found a case of it in his room. It looks like he'd been slowly adding it to some of our rations . . . and eating it.” Pappas's face was pale, and he licked his lips rapidly. “Poor stupid son of a bitch. I guess he thought we could bulk up our food with theirs, something like that. He was always so worried about everything, but I should have noticed. He was so . . . thin.”

Colonel Alden walked in just then, not smiling, and Sergeant Major Zacker called the assembled men to attention. For those moments before Alden reached his chair and told everyone to relax, the room was silent. Standing there, separated from much of the group by his uniform and now touched by the real presence of death, Mortas felt his heart thumping heavily.

 

CHAPTER FIVE

“H
ow many times do I have to say this? There is no Sim home world!”

Olech Mortas sat in one of Unity's largest safe rooms, listening to brilliant men and women argue around a doughnut-­shaped conference table. Stretching away from him on either side were a collection of doctors, scientists, and historians who collectively formed the Select Committee on the Sims. As was his habit, he sat back and let the great minds talk in an overlapping free-­for-­all.

“No Sim home world? They just burst into being in the middle of space?”

“Everyone here already agrees that the Sims were—­and are—­a manufactured opponent. A designer enemy. So no, they didn't just appear in the middle of space. But they didn't evolve, either. They were created someplace—­perhaps in many places—­which means it is a pointless exercise to keep looking for this mythical home world.”

“Didn't evolve? You're telling me they mastered spaceflight within forty to one hundred years of their creation?”

“Hold on there. Just because we're only now seeing Sims with gray hair in the war zone doesn't mean they're the oldest Sims in existence. It only means that we haven't seen any elderly Sims, which could be easily explained as a cultural unwillingness to send their elders out to fight.”

“Are you even listening to yourself? For the first twenty years of the conflict our troops never encountered a Sim who was even middle-­aged. It's only in the last two decades that we've been seeing older Sims. Which is pretty strong evidence that the Sims don't predate the war by very long.”

“Not necessarily. What if they changed their terms of military ser­vice? What if they're getting desperate, and have turned to sending out the older males?”

“Getting desperate? We're seeing larger and larger numbers of them, despite having gotten quite efficient at
killing them
in large numbers. They've got an inexhaustible supply of soldiers, most of whom are estimated to be twenty years of age. They don't
need
to be sending the elder males out, assuming they've actually got any.”

“Wait a moment, let's back up the conversation. I think we all agree a humanlike opponent that can't form any of our words, can't consume our food, and dies within days of captivity is probably a good bet to be a ‘designer enemy' as you said. Which of course means they're being manufactured by some other entity. An entity so superior to mankind that I have to ask yet again: why didn't this entity just wipe us out?”

“I'll answer you yet again: whatever is making the Sims is doing so because it
has to
. If it didn't have to, why go to all that trouble? So this entity probably lacks most of the capabilities we see in the Sims. I'd wager they're not physically large or strong—­if they have any material existence at all—­and so they needed a material, physical agent to combat us once we began to spread across the solar systems.”

“If this entity has no material form, why would it care if we got closer, or even if we moved in next door? And why is it fighting us for the Hab planets if it can survive anywhere?”

“The Sims are fighting us for the Habs, not this
alleged
creator entity.”

“I cannot believe you still think the Sims came into existence on their own. They can't reproduce, and we keep seeing more and more of them from the young end of the scale. There is only one explanation for that: somebody is making them.”

Olech cleared his throat, and the room fell silent. Folding his hands, the Chairman of the Emergency Senate rested his forearms on the table as if getting ready to pray. “I enjoy the spirited debate as much as anyone, but your latest comments reminded me of something I've told this group before.

“In the early years of the war we thought the Hab planets were the key to victory, when in fact they're only the prize that will ultimately go to the winner in this conflict. Don't confuse the prize with the key. The key gets you the prize. So let's all remember we're trying to answer the question, ‘What is the key that wins us the prize?' ”

A cold silence followed his words, and Olech sat back to indicate that he was done for the moment. It didn't take long for the debate to resume.

“The Chairman's right. The Sims may see the Habs as key to their survival, but how does that fit the goals of whatever is making the Sims? Is their plan to create a bulwark of Sim-­occupied Habs, to keep us away from them? And if so, why?”

“The Sims are far too aggressive for that to be the case. They aren't seeking to contain us. They're meant to replace us.”

“Replace us? More like exterminate us. I think whatever is making the Sims views us as an infestation, and they're responding exactly the way we would. If we couldn't get rid of an infestation any other way, we'd find or breed an organism that could enter the infestation's environment and destroy it. And we wouldn't use an organism that was going to end up being worse than the infestation. We'd pick something that we could easily eradicate once the infestation was destroyed.”

“Oh, not the Kill Switch Theory again.”

“I really wish you wouldn't call it that. But it makes sense that whatever is creating all these Sims would want some way to get rid of them once they've gotten rid of us.” Cold, clinical eyes directed at Olech. “And if we can figure out what that ‘Kill Switch' is, we might just have your key, Mr. Chairman.”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves here, making promises to the Chairman when we're dealing almost completely in hypotheses. And let's not forget that the Sims, even if completely victorious, will die out in one generation because they can't reproduce. In other words, whatever is making the Sims has no need for a ‘Kill Switch' at all. They just have to turn off the machines making the new Sims and wait a few decades.”

“That's not necessarily the case. The Sims can't communicate with us, eat our food, or come into close contact with us for prolonged periods. I say they were designed that way because their creators were concerned they might
join up
with us. And if that is the case, the creators would want a means of turning their creations
off
if they turned against them.”

“Just how would that work? A chemical? A biological agent? The Sims are spread across numerous solar systems. It would be impossible to deliver such a thing to all of them. They're not stupid, you know. They've faced diseases just like we have, and they'd figure it out pretty quickly if something was trying to finish them off that way.”

“They're not stupid, but they don't possess the ingenuity of humans. Their technology moves forward in fits and starts, and there's no explaining how it developed.”

“Our technological history is not a smooth upward line, and even if it were, remember that some human cultures never invented the wheel.”

“Just a moment. How does the evolution of their technology bear on the theory that their creators could turn them off at will?”

“Their tech keeps improving, but in weird, spotty leaps. They jump from Point A to Point D without any indication they passed through the developmental stages of Point B and Point C. Some of that could be explained by their exposure to us and captured human devices, but not all of it. Personally, I believe that whatever is making the Sims periodically provides them with the knowledge they need to stay in this fight.”

Olech's face tightened, despite his years in politics and a fine ability to hide his emotions. Fortunately, the discussion was so electric that no one seemed to notice.

“I have to agree with my colleague on that. At different times when the war was going badly for them, the enemy suddenly demonstrated new tools and techniques that put them back in the game. And there is absolutely
no way
that the opponent we've been facing for forty years could have developed this new ‘mud' munition, the one our troops encountered on Roanum. It turned solid ground into mud so thick that it almost swallowed armored vehicles, and shortly after that the dirt returned to its former state. The Sims aren't smart enough to come up with something like that, and I know that for a fact because
we
aren't smart enough.”

The silence returned, with brooding expressions and eyes directed at the table. Olech was just about to prod them when one of the scientists spoke up.

“Mr. Chairman, a few of us have heard a disquieting rumor about something else allegedly encountered on Roanum. Everyone here recognizes the heroism of your son, and the contribution your family has already made to this war. But if this committee is to be of any help at all, we need the latest and most complete information possible.

“Mr. Chairman, is there any truth to the rumor about a shape-­shifting alien?”

Olech wasn't surprised by the question, and ready with an answer.

“I can neither confirm, nor deny, those rumors.”

Eyes widened, and meaningful glances swept across the table. The phrasing of the response had significance for this group, and was always taken as an unqualified yes. The ramifications for such a being's existence were hard to fathom, but at a minimum it confirmed there was intelligent life in the universe that was not human and not Sim.

A series of hollow thumps emanated from the sealed entrance behind Olech, and the room went silent when the door opened. A staff member whispered in his ear, and the Chairman rose.

“A matter has arisen that requires my personal attention, but please continue the session without me. I'm sure you have a lot to discuss.”

“T
hanks for getting me out of there, Burke.” Olech smiled at the young staffer, who beamed with the compliment. Although Olech had found the session highly interesting, he'd arranged to be called away because of an important event he wanted to witness personally. Despite that, he seldom missed a chance to praise his subordinates, and it didn't hurt that the scuttlebutt among the youngsters would suggest he found the SCOTS meetings tedious. The cover story about the alien was not the only disinformation campaign Olech Mortas had in progress.

They walked briskly, following the curve of the circular hallway in that particular part of the Unity complex. Young ­people in the uniform of the chairman's staff passed them coming and going, and Olech greeted most of them by name. Artificial light brightened the cream-­colored corridor, flowing down from tall screens projecting images from outside the building. Every common area in the fortified complex boasted these screens, to the extent that most of the ­people who worked there at least subconsciously believed they were surrounded by windows.

The walk didn't take long, and Olech gently dismissed Burke before stepping past a sentry guarding a door set into the corridor wall. Not far from that entrance, a large set of wooden doors led into one of Unity's main briefing rooms. The side entrance gave him admittance to a much smaller space with a two-­way mirror that would allow him to watch the proceedings without interrupting them.

A row of comfortable chairs faced the wide window, and Hugh Leeger already occupied one of them. Sitting down, Olech heard Reena's voice on the speakers. He nodded at Hugh, then leaned forward to look down into the room.

Two long tables faced each other from a distance of ten yards, and microphones stood up in front of the ­people taking part in the proceedings. Reena sat at the center of the main table, her red hair done up in a bun and wearing a blue business suit with a high collar. Two other ministers sat to her right and left, but they were mostly for show, to give the impression that this was simply a fact-­finding interview.

Across from them sat a uniformed officer of the Human Defense Force, a general named Merkit. Heavyset with a florid face, his tunic displayed a surprising lack of combat decorations for a man of his station. Merkit was the officer in charge of Force personnel, and he was surrounded by members of his staff.

The rear of the room, behind the general, was taken up with several rows of seats. Sessions in this room were always recorded and usually broadcast over the Bounce, and so the chairs were filled with an assortment of Olech's staff ­people and several reporters who'd been alerted that this particular interview might be worth watching.

“—­so thank you, General Merkit, for taking us through the latest numbers related to discharged Force personnel currently taking advantage of the educational opportunities they earned while serving our race in its hour of need.

“I'd like to change the subject slightly, and divert from our prepared agenda to ask a question about a different category of Force personnel. The troops I'm interested in are approaching discharge or already past that date, but still in the war zone.”

Olech grinned when Merkit's face turned a shade redder. The officers seated closest to him immediately snatched up their handhelds and begun punching or thumbing through their prepared numbers, but Reena wasn't willing to wait for them.

“Specifically, I've been reviewing the number and disposition of the troops currently residing on Platinus.”

“Stationed, Minister.”

“Excuse me?”

“The term is ‘stationed,' Minister, not ‘residing.' Those soldiers are an important part of the work that begins on every Hab planet as soon as it is secured. This is for the benefit of—­”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was inaccurate to say they were stationed there when such a large percentage of them had already passed their discharge dates. I assumed they had elected to stay on as colonists, as is their prerogative—­Force demands permitting, of course.”

Conditions on many of the home planets were far from ideal for returning soldiers who'd completed terms of enlistment that were a minimum of seven years in duration. Many of the veterans elected to settle on the captured Hab planets in or near the war zone. Those colonization efforts had proceeded on some of the earliest conquests to the extent that loved ones and families had joined the veterans as well. It was an effective and equitable way of developing the new worlds, but the excessive number of troops on Platinus was not an example of that policy.