Tropic of Creation (45 page)

I
t was an odd feeling, staring across thirty feet of grassy field at Congress Worlds soldiers, and seeing them as the enemy.

Eli stood with the two bots at his side, facing a squad of soldiers in front of a shuttle with a CW major general’s crest. Didn’t take a mastermind to figure which major general that would be. Didn’t take a genius, either, to figure they’d come looking for the Olanders. No way they would have come this far, at this much cost, for just anyone. Eli wondered how Ridenhour felt now that he knew exactly whom he
had
rescued.

In the late afternoon sun, the squad’s twenty guns winked red, announcing themselves armed to fire. It was the bots that made them nervous. Each bot held the equivalent firepower of a full platoon and was far more lethal.

“Stand them down, soldier,” an officer barked at him across the landing field.

“I can’t. They’re on automatic.” Eli hadn’t even been sure he could activate them all by himself, back where
they’d been abandoned. But army designers made sure that the “fight” command was easier to activate than “don’t fight.”

In short order, an AI specialist and a newly-minted second lieutenant moved in on the bots. As they worked to bring the Als under command, Eli struggled with his reaction to having a CW vessel here. He’d planned on having more time to prepare for a debriefing. Now they’d have the whole story, all at once, and the part they’d hear the loudest was the foundry and its war fleet.

He didn’t know what class of warship the general had come in on. Likely it was a cruiser of limited armament. Maybe he should be hoping it was a battle-class destroyer. It was an odd feeling not to know which side he was on.

Eventually he walked across that field, following the bots and the specialist, with the second lieutenant behind him; three men and two bots moving through the corridor formed by the squad. As he walked the ramp to Ridenhour’s lair, they watched him with faces as frankly ambivalent as his own must be.

Gordon T. Ridenhour was a fighting man’s general. He stood almost eye-to-eye with Eli, not as tall as his reputation, with silver hair cropped close. Brilliant and ambitious, the bantamweight general had a penchant for going for the jugular, and expected his officers to do the same. Eli didn’t have to wonder how the general would be disposed toward him, and he was not disappointed.

It was a long debriefing. At times it seemed that the presence of Ridenhour’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel Foss, was the only reason the general kept his temper. Or perhaps Ridenhour was still reeling from the news of his daughter’s death. At least Eli didn’t have to tell him that part; the general knew about Cristin from debriefing Sergeant Juric. He also knew that Sascha had been alive three days ago. It didn’t give Eli much opportunity to provide
the context for what had happened. Unfortunately, it sounded rather bad as a bald fact.

“She went below. With a reliable ahtra, sir.”

Lieutenant Colonel Foss kept a stony neutrality throughout the first minutes of the debriefing. But when Eli explained he’d had Sascha in his care and given her up again, the colonel could only stare in disbelief.

“Below?” the general asked, altogether too quietly. Eli would rather have had some fireworks than this quiet, neutral gaze. Eli had seen that look before, in the eyes of men with desperate plans—and the means and mettle to carry them out.

It took a while for Eli to explain what happened, with the general interjecting all too frequently, “Below? You sent her below?”

There was nothing for it, but to tell it straight out. He asked for permission to tell about the ahtra, and their mating practices. How was it relevant to Sascha?

Sir, if I could just tell this in the order it needs to be told
.

You won’t be wasting my time, Captain
.

No, sir. I’m sorry to report that it is relevant
.

The look on the general’s face was morphing from contempt to worry.

Eli told it in order. Pieced it together, this fact, and the next one. If you start at the beginning, then you can just pull on the thread and it keeps coming, until the end. He made himself look at the general. Sometimes he glanced at Foss, whose face had that locked-up look of someone who needs to hold a perimeter against emotion. Like horror. Or like pity. Mostly he did Ridenhour the courtesy of looking him in the face. He didn’t use the words he might have used. He wasn’t obliged to describe what he hadn’t seen. Didn’t need to. She was pregnant.

So Maret had said.

Eli saw the misbegotten hope in Ridenhour’s face. The kind of flimsy thing you held on to if you were desperate enough. That Maret lied. That Maret guessed. He let the general suggest that. He listened until the general finished.

No, sir, I don’t think she was wrong. They can smell these things. Scent is a major sense. And the vone had her DNA. It morphed into her shape, sir
.
He could have gone along with Ridenhour, held out some hope. But he gave him the respect to say the truth
.

They brought Eli a flask of water. It tasted like champagne compared to the chemically altered swamp water he’d been drinking. After weeks of mayhem, the ordered surroundings of the general’s quarters looked odd—the upholstered chairs, the spanking-clean bulkheads, the rosewood desk, the plush carpet, the straight row of medals on the general’s pressed shirt pocket. Strangest of all were the chemical smells of wood polish and disinfectant, recalling, more than the ordered cabin, his life from Before. Eli noted these things like a newcomer. As though he’d spent his life in the killing wilds and not a place much like this.

Colonel Barada, ship’s surgeon, was brought in. Eli repeated his story. He answered some questions. Most questions the surgeon put to him, he couldn’t answer.
You need to talk to Maret
, he held off saying. That part would come later. Barada, small and dark, took refuge in science, giving the general some technical explanations and theories. Not a courageous man, Barada was giving the general hope.

In the end, Eli thought the general believed
him
, not Barada. It came of leading troops in battle, believing the worst, preparing for it.

Ridenhour walked to the portal, gazing out. As the dusk deepened outside, his face reflected in the glazing, showing a worried grandfather trying not to look like one. He stood thus a long time. And everyone in that cabin waited.

When at last the general had composed himself and turned back to the group, Eli said softly, “She’ll be coming home, General.” He believed it. Against all odds, he had, hadn’t he?

“She damn well better,” Ridenhour said, the words almost out of hearing range.

They both left unsaid the matter of
when
. Congress Worlds and the ahtra were in a standoff, with young Vod Ceb Rilvinn sitting a new post. And this was a
fluxor
, no less, for the first time in millennia. As the ahtra measured dynasty, he was young and untried. Add to that, he had warships, and possibly static factions who might lean toward Nefer’s old policies.

Sascha, however, would show them a human face. To the religious, she might come trailing the glamour of ronid, but to the secular she could show what humans were—what the best of them could be. To the cynical, she would be a comforting deterrence to a CW strike against the home world. So in truth, though he didn’t say it to the general, the longer she stayed, the better.

He was sure that Ridenhour wouldn’t attack Null while Sascha was below; but the general might not sway others at Command. For that, other inducements were needed. Such as the matter of certain technologies—technologies of war, and also trade—that the ahtra were willing to put on the negotiating table. Depending on Maret. And even more, on Vod. It was a possibility, and he did bring it forward—knowing it was no answer to a daughter’s death, a granddaughter’s ruin. But more was at stake than anything either of them had to lose. He had no illusions that Ridenhour completely believed him. But surety would come only from more formal exchange with the ahtra—and for that, Ridenhour was willing to wait.

But now the general sat behind his desk with hands steepled in front of his face. “Let’s get one thing clear, Captain,” Ridenhour said. “I don’t like you. I didn’t like
you before I met you, and I sure as hell don’t like you now.”

Eli held his gaze. There was something about keeping eye contact with this man. If he let Ridenhour cow him, it would go worse for him. It was a fighter’s instinct.

Ridenhour muttered to himself. “Down
below
, is it?” The man hated to be thwarted in his military instincts; it stuck in his craw. “We can drop a few pulsar bombs down those shafts and flush the lot of them to the surface.” He looked up at Eli. “How’d they like that?”

“There are no shafts, sir.”

“Goddamn it, I know there aren’t. Do you take me for a damn fool?”

“No, sir.” You couldn’t blame the man for grasping at straws.

Irritably, Ridenhour dismissed the surgeon. When more coffee arrived, Colonel Foss poured for the three of them, and the general let an unhappy silence reign for a few moments.

Eli’s hand was shaking when he brought the cup to his lips.

“Maybe some food?” Foss suggested.

The general responded, “I’ve lost my appetite, Colonel.” At the colonel’s quick glance at Eli, Ridenhour said, “Soon. We’re almost finished.”

A rainsquall was beading up on the portal. He continued, “The fact is, Captain, it doesn’t matter whether I like you or not. It doesn’t matter one damn bit.” He tapped a finger on the rosewood desk surface. “What matters is what we decide happened here.”

“What happened, sir?” Eli asked.

Ridenhour’s face stretched into a facsimile of a smile. “Yes, the story of what happened. This slaughter of 153 soldiers. People will need to know what happened here.”

Here comes the politics, Eli judged
.

“Do you think you’re the only one branded by this little
debacle, Captain? It happened on my watch, you know. My watch. Now, we can either say that 153 ill-trained CW troops failed a test of camping out”—here he noted Eli’s expression—“of however demanding a nature, or that 153 brave men and women engaged the enemy and plugged the dam, holding back a galactic war.” He turned to Foss. “Which story do you like?”

Foss mumbled, “Plugged the dam, sir.”

“I agree. Plugged the dam.” He pointed at Foss. “Take notes, Colonel: ‘plugged the damn,’ or some such … The odd thing is, it’s the truth.” He stopped Eli from speaking. “Do you think there’s just one truth? Can you be so damn stupid?”

“I know about
versions
, General. The army’s take on things doesn’t always match the individual’s.”
Like the
Recompense,
you son of a bitch. Which
version
did you hear, General?

As though reading his mind, Ridenhour said, “I followed that investigation, Dammond.” Across the gulf of the polished desk, he did Eli the courtesy of eye contact. “I would have blown those ahtra to kingdom come, that’s a fact. No decision to leave to a Captain, though. You learn in this service, Dammond, not to see two sides of everything. That was your mistake, seeing it from the enemy’s point of view. I’ve made a career out of not second-guessing myself. I recommend it to you.” In a different tone of voice, softer, he said, “You showed great courage boarding that world ship. There would have been a medal in it for you if Suzan Tenering had managed the story better.”

It was unexpected. Eli took it at face value, this token of begrudging respect from a man who didn’t like him. He knew better than to read too much into it.

Ridenhour rose, signaling the interview over. He pulled his jacket down to firm its line, and nodded at the doorway. “Know who’s out there, Captain Dammond? Two of your survivors. Waiting in the corridor to see how much of
you is left after our chat. It doesn’t impress me, you know. Those youngsters are grateful to be alive, God knows. They credit
you
with their survival. I don’t. Sergeant Ben Juric is in quarters, smoking stogies. And I’ll put more stock in
his
appraisal, I assure you.”

“As to that, sir,” Eli said, “I recommend Sergeant Juric, Corporal Nazim, and Private Platis for the Medal of Valor.”

Ridenhour waved at Foss. “Good, good, see to that. Make it with nova, the medal with nova.” He muttered, “Add Captain Dammond to that list, just to make it a foursome.”

Eli winced. “I don’t want the medal, General.”

“I’m sure you don’t.” The general glanced at Foss. “Get this soldier his supper, Colonel.” Then, as Eli was moving to the door, the general said, “We can’t give the medal to your people if we don’t give it you.”

When Eli didn’t answer, he went on. “You’re lucky you’ll never have another promotion, Dammond. The politics are ugly at the top.”

Eli was dismissed, but then he remembered. There was one thing more. It had slipped his mind, the thing he’d kept in his fatigue pocket. He didn’t look forward to explaining how he’d gotten it. Eli groped to find the locket and chain. Found it.

When he reached out toward Ridenhour, the general put out his hand. And recognized the locket: Cristin’s.