Semper Human (35 page)

He could still sense the ripples of probability, of
possibility
, from the Galactic Core, however. Was that real, or imagined? Or…an implanted memory?

“We might want to go back in and explore the central Galactic Core,” he told the others. “The Central Library is open for business again.”

“What?” Rame said. “What are you talking about?”

“You'll see….”

Garroway was remembering a quote, something from a late-nineteenth-century philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche who'd written a book called
Beyond Good and Evil
. He wasn't sure where he'd picked it up, but he knew it had perfect relevance for Humankind:

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

The abyss might be gazing into Humankind. What it saw there, however, along with all the faults and follies and foibles of the human species, was a singular organization, a brotherhood of warriors dedicated to honor and to one another.

The Marine Corps.

Forever vigilant.

Forever human.

Semper humanus
.

0310.2230

North America
Earth
0800 hours, GMT

The Marine Corps would continue.

There was, of course, considerable question about that continuance once the Associative Conclave understood that the Xul menace, at long last, was gone. There was no need for a Marine Corps now—neither Globe nor Anchor Marines—with peace at hand.

But the Corps had lasted for 2230 years so far, and had long ago acquired a distinct life of its own. It could not simply be turned off when it was no longer needed.

And many felt that there would
always
be a need, so long as Humankind remained human.

Marine Master Sergeant Nal il-En Shru-dech had given a lot of thought to a return to cybe-hibe. That, after all, had been one of the options. Eight and a half centuries before, Marines of the Third Division had been given the choice of disbanding, or of going into cybernetic hibernation. Many Marines, disillusioned with the culture of the day, had opted for cybe-hibe, and the chance of either serving again in the future…or of emerging one day in a more tolerant culture
willing to accept the Corps and their admittedly non-civilian way of looking at things.

The Corps faced such a decision point again, now, over 2200 years after they'd first waded ashore from small boats onto the beach at Nassau to face the guns at Fort Montagu. Many Marines had opted for the future. Captain Corcoran. Corporal Zollinger. PFC Brisard.

Nal had made a different choice…as had his current domestic partner, Cori Ryack.

Lieutenant—now
Captain
—Marek Garwe had made the same choice, as had
his
partner, Kaddy Wahrst. One good thing that had come with the reorganization of the Corps: there were no longer Anchor Marines or Globe Marines.
All
of them were the same—
Marines
.

General Trevor Garroway, of course, was now the commandant of the reorganized Corps. There'd been no question about that. Some of the men and women now in the Corps would have elected the man as
God
if that had been an option.

Garroway was here, on the speaker's gallery, together with the Associative and national dignitaries who'd actually chosen to attend this ceremony today
live
, instead of via sim.

There'd been the question, though, of what to do with those Marines who'd opted not to enter cybe-hibe for a distant and uncertain future.
This
had been the logical, perhaps the only possibility.

The color guard approached the flag staff. “Atten—
hut!
” Nal barked.

At his back, one hundred twenty Marines came to crispsnapping attention. They wore the current full-dress uniform of the Corps. The tailoring of those uniforms would have been strange to Marines at Nassau, or Tarawa, or Khe Sanh, or Enduru, but certain elements remained constant.
Eternal
.

The stiff collars that gave Marines the name
leathernecks
.

The curved ceremonial swords carried by the officers, in memory of the march to Derna.

The blood stripe—the red strip down the leg, in memory of Chapultepec.

The color guard reached the flagstaff. “Present…
harms!
”

Ceremonial rifles came to the present, and Nal rendered a hand salute. An ancient, ancient anthem played as the flag, red and white stripes, field of blue, went up the mast.

The ancient United States of America had never died, quite…but it had dwindled away, first as a piece of the North American Commonwealth, later as a member-state of the Galactic Commonwealth and, later still, of the Associative.

But it existed still—seventy-five semiautonomous states stretching from the Bering Strait to the Floridian Sea. Sadly for traditionalists like most Marines, global warming across two millennia and the Xul bombardment of 2314 had long ago submerged or scoured away many of the Corp's most sacred sites—Parris Island, Quantico, Nassau, Camp Pendleton.

But
this
area went back at least two thousand years. It was heavily forested now, a tropical rainforest close beside the ocean, but then it had been a high and barren plateau, a major Corps training and air station in the decades before Humankind had first left its world.

An odd name. Twentynine Palms.

The flag reached the top of the staff, fluttering in the stiff offshore breeze, and the anthem ended.

“Order…
harms!
”

As one, with an echoing crack, the rifles snapped back, butts to the ground.

The Corps retained its presence out among the stars, of course. The Marine Corps now had the very specific mission of guarding the Galactic Core, deep within the cloud of the Core Detonation. Scientists from a thousand cultures were out there now, investigating, experiencing the eons of history transmitted from the Encyclopedia. The Marines would make certain that all had access, that none would censor. The
free flow of information, of truth, was the single absolute for any culture that sought to avoid the Xul Solution.

But back on Earth, a grateful Associative had established a new military enclave for those who'd volunteered to come here. And…who knew? One day, the ancient United States might unfold itself again among the stars.

“Parade…
rest!
”

Trevor Garroway, Commandant of the Marine Corps, stood to deliver his speech at the formal opening of the USMC base at Twentynine Palms.

The United States Marine Corps had returned home at last.