DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Part 18

Harking grimaced. "No."

"Why not?" Isis asked. "You've been here for almost three years. What's the problem?"

A diplomatic answer was probably called for, but Harking was fresh out of stock. "The same problem that's been killing almost a thousand humans a day since this d.a.m.n thing started," he told her bluntly. "Between the damper field and the Shadows, they've got about as impenetrable a planetary defense as you could ever come up with."

"Damper fields always have a whorl somewhere in them," Isis countered.

"A dead spot you can put a missile into."

Harking drew back a little. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

She snorted. "What do you think I've been doing the past four years on the line? Sitting on my hands?"

"That's top secret information," Harking said stiffly. "We can't afford to let the Sjonntae know we know about that weakness."

She sighed. "Relax. If Supreme Command didn't think I was trustworthy, they certainly wouldn't let me roam around loose this way. I was just trying to examine all the possibilities."

"Trust me, we've done that," Harking growled. "Over ana over again. We can't find the whorl from up here; and without it, we can't knock down the damping field and get into the fortress."

"What about from lower down?" she asked. "Could you send a fighter loaded with sensors in for a closer look?"Harking shook his head. "The Shadows reach all the way up to the lower stratosphere," he said. "That means the thing would have to be unmanned; and unmanned remotes are like a free lunch to Sjonntae fighters."

"Saturation bombing, then," Isis persisted. "Hit the whole damper field at once."

"Too much area," Harking told her. "Sjonntae planetary fields aren't nearly as neat and compact as the ones they wrap their warships in. This one sprawls out over about twenty thousand square kilometers, covering the outpost itself plus a huge buffer zone. Add to that the fact that a missile would have to hit within a hundred meters of the whorl to take down the field, and you can see why we can't simply rain fire and expect to get anything out of it."

"Bottom line: you can't do it from up here," Isis murmured, her face unreadable in the glow of the sunlight peeking around the edge of the planet.

"And so Lieutenant Ferrier sold you on this plan of trying it from the surface."

And there it was, exactly as Harking had predicted. "It wasn't like that at all," he snapped back at her. "Abe had thought it through, all the way down to the last detail. It was a good plan, with a good chance of succeeding. And it beat the h.e.l.l out of sitting up here watching the Sjonntae go about their daily routine and doing nothing about it."

He ran out of breath and stopped. "That's quite a speech," Isis commented. If she was offended, it didn't show in her voice. How long have you had it ready to go?"

Again Harking thought about being diplomatic. Again it didn't seem worth the trouble. "Since I heard you were coming here to investigate this," he told her candidly. "I knew you'd be all set to fork Abe onto the barbecue for this."

I'm not here to fork anyone onto anything," she said calmly. "But you have to face facts, the foremost being that the best minds in the Expansion have been wrestling with this problem tor over ten years. What made Lieutenant Ferrier think he could succeed where so many other similar ploys have failed?"

"Several reasons," Harking said. "The foremost being that Abe's family was part of the original contact team that spent five years negotiating deals between the Minkters and the Expansion. He speaks the language, looks enough like them to fit in, and has a lot of friends."

"I understand all that," Isis said. "But what did he expect to accomplish once he was down there? Any technology and weaponry he could bring would draw Shadow so quickly that he'd never get a chance to use it."

She gestured out toward the planet. "For that matter, how could he even get down there? A drop capsule would probably attract so much Shadow on its way in that he'd be dead before he hit the surface."

"He had that covered," Harking insisted. "He had everything covered. He rode a drop capsule in only to the upper atmosphere, then did the rest of the way down via hang glider and parachute. All his equipment went down in separate capsules, s.p.a.ced out so they wouldn't draw as much Shadow. And itworked-he got down okay."

"How do you know?"

"He signaled us," Harking told her. "He had a tight-beam radio with a simple speaking-tube arrangement so he could use it without having to get too close. He said he was down, that he'd made contact with the Minkters, and that he'd get back to us as soon as he located the whorl."

"Only he never did," Isis said. "Did he?"

"Not yet," Harking said firmly. "But he will."

Isis turned away from her contemplation of the universe to look up into his face. "You really think so?" she asked quietly.

Harking looked away from that gaze, his throat aching. "He'll find it," he said. "The Minkters will figure it out. And when they do, he'll get the location to us."

"How?" Isis asked. "The Sjonntae found the radio, didn't they?"

"Of course they did," Harking growled. "We all expected them to. They don't seem affected by the Shadows, for whatever reason. But Abe had other ways of communicating with us. He had mirrors, colored signal flags-a whole trunkful of nice low-tech stuff. And he knew we'd be watching. We've covered the villages, the valleys-every place he might signal from. We just have to be patient."

Isis sighed, just audibly. "It's been over a year, Mr. Harking," she reminded him quietly. "If he hasn't found a way by now . . . the Sjonntae aren't stupid, you know. They know someone came in, and they have to know why he came.

They're going to be watching the same villages and valleys as you are, trying to make sure he can't get any information back to you."

"He'll find a way," Harking insisted. "Abe knows what's at stake. He'll find a way, even if he has to write it on the gra.s.s in his own blood."

She didn't answer. But her words had already echoed the thought that had been digging at the edges of his own slipping confidence for months now.

Angrily, he shook the thought away. Abe Ferrier was the smartest, most resourceful man he'd ever known. He would find a way.

And he was still alive. He was.

"I hope he does," Isis said finally into the silence. "A lot of good men and women are dying out there on the line. We need to get hold of a Sjonntae base; and this outpost is still our best shot at doing that."

She straightened up. "It's been a long day," she said. "I'd like to return to my quarters now."

And to start composing her story? Harking felt a surge of contempt.

Probably. Reporters like Laura Isis could ladle out carefully measured servings of emotion into their stories when it was convenient. He'd seen them do it. But down deep, he knew, they were as emotionally detached as the microphones that picked up the sound of their voices. Even a war of survival was nothing personal to them. Nothing but a good opportunity for fame and glory and career advancement.The very things, he knew, that she was mentally accusing Abe Ferrier of.

First take the log out of your own eye, the old admonition echoed through his mind. But she never would. "Certainly," he managed, trying to keep his voice civil as he turned back to the door. "Follow me."

I don't know why you're surprised." Tsu commented, taking a long sip from his drink. "You knew reporters were soulless robots going in."

"Knowing and having it shoved in your face are two very different things,"

Harking countered, draining his own mug and punching for another drink. A waste of time, really; the bar was keeping track of his drinks and was steadily decreasing the amount of alcohol in each one. But maybe for once it would make a mistake, and he could actually drink enough to forget. At least for a little while.

"She covers the war every day," Tsu reminded him. "She can't get all misty-eyed over a single man who disappears over a half-forgotten planet."

Harking shook his head. "You didn't hear her, Jorm," he said. "It wasn't a matter of not caring about him. She was determined to prove he was either out for glory or a complete idiot for trying a stunt like that in the first place. All she cared about-all she cared about-was getting a good story out of him."

Tsu shrugged. "She didn't know him."

"And she's not going to, either," Harking said, pulling his drink off the conveyer as it pa.s.sed and taking a long swallow. "Not the way she's going at it."

"Well, then, maybe you should do something about that," Tsu suggested.

"Such as?"

"I don't know," Tsu said with a shrug. "Sit her down and give her his life story, maybe. Make her see him the way you did."

"The way I do," Harking growled. "Don't talk about him as if he was dead.

He's not, d.a.m.n it."

"Hey, don't take it out on me," Tsu protested. "I'm not the one you're mad at."

"You're right," Harking said, draining his cup. Suddenly, the alcohol seemed to be flowing like fire through his veins. "I'll see you later."

"Where are you going?" Tsu asked suspiciously as he stood up. "Hey, Jims, don't be getting yourself in trouble. You hear me?"

There was more along the same lines, but Harking didn't wait to hear it.

Striding from the lounge, he headed down the corridor toward officer country. If Isis thought he was going to just sit back while she maligned Abe on interstellar television, she was in for a surprise.

There was no answer when he buzzed her door. He buzzed a second and third time; and he was just about to start pounding his fist on the heavy panel when it finally slid open to reveal Laura Isis.

But it wasn't the same woman he had left barely two hours earlier. Her casual suit was gone, replaced by an old and sloppily tied robe. The bright,probing eyes were heavy with interrupted sleep.

And the neatly styled hair was now only neatly styled on the right side of her head. On the left side, where he'd thought he'd noticed something odd earlier, there was no hair at all. What was there was a crisscross pattern of angry red scars, slicing across the side of her head, cutting across her ear, and digging down along her cheek and neck.

Harking felt his mouth drop open, the alcohol-driven fire vanishing in that first stunned heartbeat. "h.e.l.lo, Ensign," Isis said quietly. "Was there something you wanted?"

He shook his head, his voice refusing to operate, his eyes unable to look away. "No," he managed at last. "No. I'm . . . I'm sorry."

She nodded, as if seeing past the words into his own, more invisible scars.

"You'd better come in," she said, stepping back out of the way. "We need to talk."

Numbly, he complied. She closed the door, then brushed past him to sit down at the fold-down desk. "From past experience," she said as she gestured him to the guest jump seat, "I know I need to explain this before we go on to anything else." She pointed at her disfigured face.

"I'm sorry," Harking said as he sat down. Vaguely, he realized that wasn't exactly the proper thing to say, but his brain was still frozen on its rail and his mouth was free-ranging. "I mean-"

"It happened at the third battle off Suzerain," she said, mercifully cutting off the babbling. "The ship I was on was. .h.i.t. Badly. We barely got away."

She lowered her eyes. "Many of the crew weren't as lucky as I was."

"It can be fixed, though," Harking said desperately. "Can't it?"

She shrugged. "So they tell me. a.s.suming the war doesn't kill us all and eliminate such trivial issues as cosmetic surgery."

"But then-" He gestured helplessly at her face.

"Why don't I go back to Earth and have it done?" she suggested.

"Well . . . yes," Harking said. "I mean, your face is famous. It's on TV all the time."

"Because it would take six months," Isis told him. "I can't afford to take that much time off. Humanity can't afford for me to take that much time off."

In spite of himself, Harking felt his lip twist. "Humanity?" he demanded without thinking. "Or your career?"

The instant the words were out of his mouth he wished he could call them back. But to his surprise, she didn't take offense. "You don't understand," she said softly. "The career itself is irrelevant. It's what I can do with that career for the war effort that's so desperately needed."

"And what is it you do, exactly?" Harking asked darkly. "Report the day's slaughter in that cool, professional way you reporters all have?"

He nodded at her face. "Or has that made things a little more personal?"

"This war has always been personal for me," Isis countered, her eyeshardening a little. "That's the problem, really. It's personal for all of us."

She gestured to him. "Especially for those of you who are actually doing the fighting."

Harking shook his head. "You've lost me."

"You take this war personally, Ensign," she said. "Like everyone else, you're tightly focused on your own little corner of it. To you, that corner is the most important thing in the entire universe."

"That's what keeps us alive," Harking growled. "Most of us don't have time for deep philosophical discussions on the issues of the day. We shoot, or we duck, or we die."

"Of course you do," Isis said. "But that's not what I meant. I'm talking about focusing in so tightly that you can't see the whole of what's happening out there."

Harking snorted. "That's the generals' job. Bottom feeders like us just do what we're told."

"Yes, that's how it traditionally works," Isis agreed. "But we can't afford to hold onto traditions like that. Not anymore." She took a deep breath. "You may not know it, out here on the edge of things, but the Expansion is losing this war."

"We're not that far off the map," Harking said stiffly. "We do get regular news feeds."

"Exactly," Isis said, giving him a tight smile. "And after you hear the news, what then? Do you discuss how the Supreme Command is doing? Speculate on how the Sjonntae can be beaten? Argue about tactics and strategies?"

"Well, sure," Harking said, frowning. "Shouldn't we?"

"Of course you should," she agreed. "That's the point. We need to tap into every resource we've got if we're going to win this thing; and that includes getting every human being working on the problem of victory. But the generals don't have time to go into depth on what's happening with each line unit or every far-flung command."

She touched her recorder, sitting by her elbow on the desk. "That's where we in the news come in. We do have the time to dig into the stories and tie events together in a real-time way that your superiors and order-lines can't possibly do. Our job is to pick up as many pieces as we can, scatter them all across the Expansion, and hope that someone will see how two or three of those pieces fit together in a way that no one's ever noticed before. Do you understand?"

Harking nodded, feeling ashamed of his earlier thoughts. "Sure," he said.

"The big picture. That's what you're feeding us: the big picture. Is that why you want me to dissect Abe and his mission for you?"

She nodded back. "Even if he failed, reporting on what he did-exactly what he did-may give someone else an idea of something new to try. Because he was right: if we're going to capture enough Sjonntae technology to study, this is the place to do it. Out here, where there's no fighting and hardly even any traffic. And where their main battle force can't get to quickly enough to interfereif we manage to crack it."

"Try no traffic at all," Harking said with a sniff. "They haven't sent a single ship in the entire three years we've been in place. It's like they're just sitting there thumbing their b.u.t.ts at us, knowing we can't do a thing to bother them."

"They are definitely arrogant SOBs," Isis agreed. "And too much arrogance can be a weakness. Let's see if we can find a way to turn that against them."

"Yeah," Harking said. "Though as someone once said, it ain't bragging if you can do it."

He stood up. "I apologize for the intrusion, Ms. Isis. And for . . . other things."