Dogs Of War Part 16

It crashes down, sweeps his body over the muddy earth, fills his lungs with salt water. The tidal wave roars over the field, drowns a hundred flaming men, tosses their corpses in the air with thundering whitecaps.

Suddenly the water stops, flies into a million pieces, and disintegrates.

A lovely little redhead, hands drawn under her chin in tight bloodless fists. Her lips tremble, a throb of delight expands her chest. Her white throat contracts, she gulps in a breath of air. Her nose wrinkles with dreadful joy. She imagines, imagines ...

A running soldier collides with a lion. He cannot see in the darkness. His hands strike wildly at the s.h.a.ggy mane. He clubs with his rifle b.u.t.t.

A scream. His face is torn off with one blow of thick claws. A jungle roar billows in the night.

A red-eyed elephant tramples wildly through the mud, picking up men in its duck trunk, hurling them through the air, mas.h.i.+ng them under driving black columns.

Wolves bound from the darkness, spring, tear at throats. Gorillas scream and bounce in the mud, leap at falling soldiers.

A rhinoceros, leather skin glowing in the light of living torches, crashes into a burning tank, wheels, thunders into blackness, is gone.

Fangs-claws-ripping teeth-shrieks-trumpeting-roars. The sky rains snakes.

Silence. Vast brooding silence. Not a breeze, not a drip of rain, not a grumble of distant thunder. The battle is ended.

Grey morning mist rolls over the burned, the torn, the drowned, the crushed, the poisoned, the sprawling dead.

Motionless trucks-silent tanks, wisps of oily smoke still rising from their shattered hulks. Great death covering the field. Another battle in another war.

Victory-everyone is dead.

The girls stretched languidly. They extended their arms and rotated their round shoulders. Pink lips grew wide in pretty little yawns. They looked at each other and t.i.ttered in embarra.s.sment. Some of them blushed. A few looked guilty.

Then they all laughed out loud. They opened more gum-packs, drew compacts from pockets, spoke intimately with schoolgirl whispers, with late-night dormitory whispers.

Muted giggles rose up flutteringly in the warm room.

"Aren't we awful?" one of them said, powdering her pert nose.

Later they all went downstairs and had breakfast.

The first time I watched the autopsy of a murder victim, I was struck by the fact that while the staff removed the brain, they were discussing Carolina's chances in the forthcoming basketball season; and then I thought about Witch War. Witch War. This too is a part of the truth about war. This too is a part of the truth about war.

-DAD.

Transstar Raymond E. Banks The small group of Earth colonists stood on a hill, tense and expectant, as their leader advanced. He walked slowly away from the huddled mob, holding up his gun. You could hear the mother weep.

I stood at ease to one side, as was proper. I knew what would happen, because I was from Transstar. We have been taught to understand the inevitable.

The child came running out of the woods. I noted that they were not the woods of Earth, though they were brown. Nor was the gra.s.s the gra.s.s of Earth, though it was green.

The child cried, "Mother!" The leader raised his gun and shot it.

Even though I understood that the child was no longer a "him" and had become an "it" since falling into the hands of the aliens, I felt a tremor underneath my conditioning. In Transstar you are taught that the conditioning is a sheath, pliable but breakable; you do not put all faith in it.

Now the important thing was the reaction of the small group of Earth colonists.

They had seen the heartbreaking inevitable. They knew with the logic of their minds that the boy had to die. On this planet there were two races, two kinds of life: the eaber and the Earthmen. The eaber would lure a child away if they could and see to its infection, returning it to the Earth colony.

It was a good trick the first time or two, and for the love of their children three thousand lives had been lost, two starting colonies wiped out. This third colony had to succeed. I suspected that was why Transstar sent me here.

The leader turned sadly towards his colonists. A man advanced: "A burial! It is safe to bury!"

"It is not safe to bury," said the leader.

The man raised his arm. The leader hesitated and lost both his leaders.h.i.+p and his life, because the half-maddened parent shot him in the chest ...

Rackrill came to my Transstar s.h.i.+p. "You stood there," he said, eyes accusing. "You sit here now. You let the eaber do these things to us-yet you're from Transstar, representing the incredible power of the Sol system. Why?"

"Transstar was formed to handle star-sized situations," I replied. "So far this colony is meeting only the problems of a local situation."

"Local situation!" He laughed bitterly. "I'm the third mayor in three weeks."

"There'll be no more children lost to the eaber," I said.

"That's for certain sure," he said, "but Transstar might lose one of its representatives if it doesn't help us in our fight against the eaber. Our colony is sickened to watch you with your magnificent stars.h.i.+p and your empire of power, standing by while we suffer."

"I am sorry."

He raised his hands and stepped toward me, but an orange light hummed from the walls. He looked surprised. He dropped his hands.

"Now that you've properly cursed me, tell me the real reason for your visit, Mr. Mayor," I said, flicking the protective b.u.t.ton off.

He eased into his chair wearily. It was a great planet to take the starch out of the leaders.

"We had a visit from the eaber." He went on talking eagerly. The eaber had picked this planet, Point Everready, as an advance planet-city for their own culture. They would kill the Earth colony if it didn't leave. Rackrill had told them about Transstar, about me. That I represented the total war capacity of the solar system. That I was in instantaneous touch with Transstar Prime, near Mars, and that behind me stood a million s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+ps and countless prime fighting men with weapons of power and vigor that could pulverize the eaber to dust. That I was there to see that the Earth colony survived.

"This is only partly true," I said. "I am here to see whether whether an Earth colony can survive." an Earth colony can survive."

Anyway, Rackrill had gotten the eaber stirred up. They were coming to see me. Okay?

"I am Transstar," I said. "I can only observe, not interfere."

He got mad again, but there was really no more to say. He left, going from the marvelous machinery of my s.h.i.+p back to the crudeness of the village. I felt sorry for him and his people and wished I could rea.s.sure him.

I could not.

Yet somewhere back at Transstar Prime there was more than ordinary interest in Point Everready. I wondered, as every Transstar agent must, how far Transstar would go on this project. Few Transstar men have ordered Condition Prime Total Red. Condition Prime Total Red is the complete ama.s.sing and release of our total war-making capacity directed at one enemy in one place at one time. You don't get a CPTR more than once in decades; men in Transstar have served a lifetime and never directed one.

This is good, because CPTR is devastating in cost, machines, and men. It is the most jealously guarded prerogative of the Transstar system, which is in itself merely a check-and-report to keep track of all Earth colonies spread out among the stars.

I looked at my condition panel. It glowed an off-white on the neat stars.h.i.+p wall. Condition white, nothing unusual; the same color I had stared at for five years as a full agent and fifteen years before that as both a.s.sociate and a.s.sistant, learning the Transstar operation.

I thought about the dead boy, sleeping now on the gra.s.ses of Everready, as I made my daily report, p.r.i.c.king a card with three simple marks, feeding it to the transmitter which reported back to Prime. It seemed unfair, even with all my years of Transstar conditioning, that a boy would only deserve three pinp.r.i.c.ks in a daily report. The human race had not been standing behind him.

It probably would not stand behind this colony.

For that matter, though I had the safety of this rather expensive stars.h.i.+p, the human race would probably not stand behind me, me, if the eaber turned out to be tough aliens. Many an agent has died in local or regional situations. if the eaber turned out to be tough aliens. Many an agent has died in local or regional situations.

I drank a cup of tea, but the warm drink didn't help. Somehow these last years I had become more emotional. It was hard to be a Transstar agent-for, by the time you learned how, you were too knowing in the ways of s.p.a.ce to keep that prep school enthusiasm. I remembered the men who had lived and the men who had died as I drank my tea and felt sad.

Toward midnight the colonists sent scout s.h.i.+ps up, as ordered by Rackrill. They were met by an equal number of eaber scout s.h.i.+ps.

The patrol fight was dull, with drones being chopped off by both sides. Nothing decisive. The eaber were good. I wondered if they also had a Transstar somewhere back at their home planet, a totality of force that might match Condition Prime Total Red, and result in a stand-off fight. This had never happened in history. Someday we might even find somebody better than CPTR.

At that instant expansion to the stars would stop, I knew.

Whatever I thought about the eaber at long distance, I'd have a chance to learn more. A couple of them were now approaching my s.h.i.+p.

They were sentient life. They were neither monsters nor particularly Earthlike. It was this balance of like-unlike that gave me the beginnings of a shudder under my conditioning.

The reddish one advanced into my cabin. "Euben," he said. He made a motion of turning with his hands, tapered fingers spread. A surge of sickness tickled in me, rushed up to a nerve agony. I just had time to relax and let the raping power of his ray, or whatever it was, knock me out into a welcome darkness. A nonconditioned man would have screamed and writhed on the floor, fighting the overpowering darkness. I rushed with it, gave in to it.

Presently there was a gentle bird-twitter. I sat up; Euben's power turned off. He laughed down at me.

"Some Earth-power, some potency," he said, gesturing at my control panel. I had, indeed, pushed my orange safety b.u.t.ton, which should have frozen him immobile as it had Rackrill. It had no effect on him or his friend.

I tried to get up but was as weak and shaking as an old man. So I sat there.

"You are the protector to the Earthians," he said.

"No, Euben. I am merely here to observe."

"You'll observe them made extinct, Watcher," he said. "This is the perimeter of eaber. We want this planet ourselves."

"That remains to be seen," I said, finally rising stiffly and plopping into my chair. I turned off the useless orange b.u.t.ton.

Euben roamed his eyes around the s.h.i.+p. "Better than your colony has. You are special."

"I am special," I said.

"They say you represent great power," he said.

"That is true."

"We have waited a long time to see this power," said Euben. "We have exterminated two of your colonies, and have not seen it."

"If this is all of eaber, it isn't very large," I said. "This planet could hardly hold a hundred thousand."

"I said we were perimeter. Behind us, thousands of planets. Trillions of eaber. There is nothing like us in the universe."

"We've heard that before."

This time he brought up two hands, to begin his twirling. I reacted with a hypnosis block, which shunted off all my natural functions for a micro-second (with the help of the plate I was standing on). The pain was much less. He merely brought me to my knees.

"Ah, you are not totally feeble," he said. "Still I make you bow to me with the twisting of my bare hands in the air."

"Yes. But Earthmen do not greet new races with tricks and talk like two small boys bragging about how tough their older brothers are," I said. "I am not here to brag tough. I am here to observe."

"If you don't like what you observe?"

"Perhaps we will do something about it. Perhaps not."

He threw back his head and laughed. "You will die, die, die," he said. "Watch this." He nudged the other eaber who stepped forward and brought something out of his robe.

It was a boned, dehydrated human.

The thing-evidently a human survivor of an earlier colony-had the floppy, mindless manner of a puppy dog, mewling and whimpering on its long chain. Euben snapped his fingers. The former human ki-yied and scampered back under its owner's robe.

"Cute," said Euben. "De-skeletoned Earthmen bring a good price in the pet-shops of eaber, so you are not a total loss in the universe."

There came a sudden scream and convulsion from the eaber's robe. The eaber jumped back. The tragic, deboned human fell to the floor dead, spending a thin, too-bright red ebb of blood.

"Eh-how did you do that?" asked Euben, stepping back a little.

"I am Transstar," I said. "Certain things we do not permit with our life-form. I urge you not to continue this practice."

"So-" said Euben toeing at the dead man. "And he was so cute, too. Ah, well. There are more out there."

I controlled my voice and did not look down. "Can you establish your need for this planet?" I asked.

"Yes. We are eaber; that is enough anywhere in s.p.a.ce."

I stepped to a wall chart and made a gesture. "This planet also falls along our perimeter. We occupy this s.p.a.ce-so. We have well utilized the solar and alpha planet systems, and it is time that we move out once more. This planet is but one of a thousand Earth colonies moving out to new s.p.a.ce."

Euben shook his head. "What a ridiculous civilization! All s.p.a.ce in this arc is eaber. We close the door, so-"

He made a fast gesture with his hand that tore inside of me, like a hot knife, sc.r.a.ping the bottom of my lungs. I was pretty much riding on my conditioning now. I was sickened, angry with Euben and his race. But it was slightly different from dealing with an Earth neighbor you dislike. Bravery and caution! Always bravery-and caution.

"So you block us here," I said "Perhaps we will go elsewhere for a hundred or a thousand years. It's no use to fight over s.p.a.ce. There are millions of planets."

"Do you truly believe so?" smiled Euben. "Naive! The eaber do not like unknown life-forms prowling the universe. We will come to solar and alpha, as you call them, and put you on a chain like that one dead on the floor."

"We might resist that," I said.

"How?" said Euben, bringing a black box out from under his robe.

I have had my share of black boxes in my Transstar years. Before it was barely in sight, I had retreated to my all-purpose closet. He laughed, peering at me through the observation window and trying the various rays and whatnot in his weapon. Nothing much happened for a while-heat, radiation, gas, sonic vibrations, the standard stuff. Pretty soon I knew he could take me; but it would take him about three days. Fair enough.

The eaber was tough, but not unbeatable-at least on what he had shown me.

He put away his black box. I stepped through the door. Decontamination worked all right, but the heat-reducer was wheezing like an asthma victim in a grain field.